Smart Christianity / Dumb Christianity

[RCSaunders]

Interesting! I wonder what WE were doing until the first book came out!

Who is, "we?"

Well I figured as an official member of the homo sapien club you would know.

I'm not a, "member," of anything. Here's how I explained it to Gary Childress on another thread:

Being a kind of thing and being a, "member," of some group or class are not the same thing. The word, "member," is ambiguous and subject to equivocation.

The primary meaning of member is something that is a part of a whole, such as an organ of the body, or someone who belongs to a group or organization. A less common meaning is something that has a specific attribute or characteristic common to all referrents of a class or category of existents.

When someone says, "you are a member of the human race," to mean one of those organisms defined as human, it is the second less common meaning of member that is (or should be) meant. As soon as someone admits, of course, "I'm a member of the human race," in that sense, some collectivist will immediately equivocate the meaning to the more common "member of some whole called humanity or mankind."

Of course every individual human being is a "member of the human race," but only in the sense that every individual is a human being. It is not true that every individual human being is a member of the human race in the sense they are some element in some collective thing called humanity.

I am not a, "member," of any club or other collective group.

[Belinda]

Um. I think it would be very misleading to say that a god evolved in this way, or even that this one in particuar did.
There is not a more monoethnic god that the god of the Jews, since Jews do not allow non jews into their religion.
I'm assuming that you consider the jew's god as "the same" as that of Christianity and Islam. But this is actually not the case.
As these religions were born they were not born primarily from Jews converting; but a range of other peoples all over north africa and europe and beyond. With each instance of conversion, local gods were modified to fit the new messianicism. So that, for example, Odin, evolved into the Christian god, and so on. For all but a tiny percentage of the literate were aware of the fact that Jesus was a Jew(or what a jew was), most performed a syncretisation of existing beliefs, not the wholesale adpotion of a foreign god, which would have been totally anathema. And, of course, for the most part, antisemitism where present, made sure that nothing of the kind was even thinkable.
With each new colonisation of Islam and Christianity modifications of existing religions were performed by overlaying the new message. This occurred pretty much the world over through conquest, colonisation, invasion and trade.

To insist the Jahwah was multiethnic or transethnic, and that Jahwah itself evoloved is an essentialist claim that cannot really be bourn out. Gods are not things in themseves, they are just ideas. Ideas are communicated like viruses, and viruses adapt and mutate in each host, The main difference is that ideas are not limited by the viablity of DNA, but just the hopes, fears, and reason of the hosts, and no material is exchanged when you get an idea from an external source.

You mistake my basic assumption, which I presume you share. Jahweh was an idea not something with ontic existence. Of course, the ancient Jews did not know Jahweh was an idea born of human minds. Many still do believe there is an entity that inserts ideas into human minds, ideas of truth, goodness and so forth. Polytheists also believed in powers such as Venus, Neptune, and Mars that insert ideas into people's minds. Many people nowadays have not understood ideas are engendered by minds instead of external gods.

Most people still believe in absolute time and space. They don't understand these are not external truths but are relative to the observer.

It's not so much that I mistake your assumption. I reject the means you employ to describe what you mean.
When you use the phrase "My main point is Jahweh evolved into a transethnic God.", puts the ontic cart before the ideal horse. It is the ideals that are driving religon; not real gods.
Christians in no way worship Jahway, but just a modified idea of a much older concept of god which owes more to roots from Celtic, or Germanic, Olmec, Swaheli (etc) myths, than to Jewish ones; when you think about the ways in which religious ideas are spread.

No it does not put the ontic cart before the ideal horse, unless you are incapable of thinking ideas pertain to the man , not to some external gods of whatever. I know you don't think so and assumed you would interpret my choice of language to refer to relative ideas about gods not to ideas inserted by gods.

[Sculptor]

You mistake my basic assumption, which I presume you share. Jahweh was an idea not something with ontic existence. Of course, the ancient Jews did not know Jahweh was an idea born of human minds. Many still do believe there is an entity that inserts ideas into human minds, ideas of truth, goodness and so forth. Polytheists also believed in powers such as Venus, Neptune, and Mars that insert ideas into people's minds. Many people nowadays have not understood ideas are engendered by minds instead of external gods.

Most people still believe in absolute time and space. They don't understand these are not external truths but are relative to the observer.

It's not so much that I mistake your assumption. I reject the means you employ to describe what you mean.
When you use the phrase "My main point is Jahweh evolved into a transethnic God.", puts the ontic cart before the ideal horse. It is the ideals that are driving religon; not real gods.
Christians in no way worship Jahway, but just a modified idea of a much older concept of god which owes more to roots from Celtic, or Germanic, Olmec, Swaheli (etc) myths, than to Jewish ones; when you think about the ways in which religious ideas are spread.

No it does not put the ontic cart before the ideal horse, unless you are incapable of thinking ideas pertain to the man , not to some external gods of whatever. I know you don't think so and assumed you would interpret my choice of language to refer to relative ideas about gods not to ideas inserted by gods.

God is nothing but an idea.
The evolution of religion insists that. If you are really taking this position then you are saying that god is much more than capricious but vauge directionless and temporary.
Is that the god you believe in?
And if you insist that the Christians are actually following Jahovah, and that it is Jahovah that has changed, then what has happened to Odin and Thor; Zeus and Thera; - did they just disappear?

The simple fact is that when christianity reached Greece it was not Jahovah that arrived, but the Greek notion of Zeus was simply accomodated to the new ideas of the Gospels.
And when the Spanish brought fire, disease and sword to South America, the surviving population were forced into modifying their own ideas of god to accomodate the Conquistadores.

[Dubious]

Who is, "we?"

Well I figured as an official member of the homo sapien club you would know.

I'm not a, "member," of anything. Here's how I explained it to Gary Childress on another thread:

Being a kind of thing and being a, "member," of some group or class are not the same thing. The word, "member," is ambiguous and subject to equivocation.

The primary meaning of member is something that is a part of a whole, such as an organ of the body, or someone who belongs to a group or organization. A less common meaning is something that has a specific attribute or characteristic common to all referrents of a class or category of existents.

When someone says, "you are a member of the human race," to mean one of those organisms defined as human, it is the second less common meaning of member that is (or should be) meant. As soon as someone admits, of course, "I'm a member of the human race," in that sense, some collectivist will immediately equivocate the meaning to the more common "member of some whole called humanity or mankind."

Of course every individual human being is a "member of the human race," but only in the sense that every individual is a human being. It is not true that every individual human being is a member of the human race in the sense they are some element in some collective thing called humanity.

I am not a, "member," of any club or other collective group.

However you like to twist it! But if you're not a member of the species Homo Sapien then WHAT are you?

[RCSaunders]

Well I figured as an official member of the homo sapien club you would know.

I'm not a, "member," of anything. Here's how I explained it to Gary Childress on another thread:

Being a kind of thing and being a, "member," of some group or class are not the same thing. The word, "member," is ambiguous and subject to equivocation.

The primary meaning of member is something that is a part of a whole, such as an organ of the body, or someone who belongs to a group or organization. A less common meaning is something that has a specific attribute or characteristic common to all referrents of a class or category of existents.

When someone says, "you are a member of the human race," to mean one of those organisms defined as human, it is the second less common meaning of member that is (or should be) meant. As soon as someone admits, of course, "I'm a member of the human race," in that sense, some collectivist will immediately equivocate the meaning to the more common "member of some whole called humanity or mankind."

Of course every individual human being is a "member of the human race," but only in the sense that every individual is a human being. It is not true that every individual human being is a member of the human race in the sense they are some element in some collective thing called humanity.

I am not a, "member," of any club or other collective group.

However you like to twist it! But if you're not a member of the species Homo Sapien then WHAT are you?

I do not know how I can answer the question more clearly than what I already said:

Of course every individual human being is a "member of the human race," but only in the sense that every individual is a human being.

I'm an individual human being.

[Belinda]

It's not so much that I mistake your assumption. I reject the means you employ to describe what you mean.
When you use the phrase "My main point is Jahweh evolved into a transethnic God.", puts the ontic cart before the ideal horse. It is the ideals that are driving religon; not real gods.
Christians in no way worship Jahway, but just a modified idea of a much older concept of god which owes more to roots from Celtic, or Germanic, Olmec, Swaheli (etc) myths, than to Jewish ones; when you think about the ways in which religious ideas are spread.

No it does not put the ontic cart before the ideal horse, unless you are incapable of thinking ideas pertain to the man , not to some external gods of whatever. I know you don't think so and assumed you would interpret my choice of language to refer to relative ideas about gods not to ideas inserted by gods.

God is nothing but an idea.
The evolution of religion insists that. If you are really taking this position then you are saying that god is much more than capricious but vauge directionless and temporary.
Is that the god you believe in?
And if you insist that the Christians are actually following Jahovah, and that it is Jahovah that has changed, then what has happened to Odin and Thor; Zeus and Thera; - did they just disappear?

The simple fact is that when christianity reached Greece it was not Jahovah that arrived, but the Greek notion of Zeus was simply accomodated to the new ideas of the Gospels.
And when the Spanish brought fire, disease and sword to South America, the surviving population were forced into modifying their own ideas of god to accomodate the Conquistadores.

Odin, Thor, Mars, Venus, Neptune and all have not disappeared from cultural memory, as you know. The One God and His associated ideas of justice has been generally found to be a better idea. True, some of the Greek or Roman pantheon and the One God were compatible.

We know Mithras has much in common with Christ, for instance. We also know pagan gods were assimilated by Romans when the assimilation served the purpose of prosperous governance. Syncretism of religions you have described in your reply to me.There is no necessity for any tribe to permit other tribes to adopt any of their traditional ideas including their ideas of gods: there was no need for the Jews to permit other tribes or individuals to adopt or make over their gods or God for foreign consumption. Adopting the idea of the Judeo- Christian God does not make one a Jew. To be a Jew you also have to observe peculiary Jewish rites such as dietary rites and rites of passage, and more.

Jahweh/Jehovah is the usual name we give to the tribal idea. Some, usually Xian fundamentalists, call God 'Jehovah'. I don't.

I don't "believe in" the ontic existence of god or gods. I believe ideas of space, time, beauty, truth, justice, evil, Hell, angels, ghosts, money, universities, wisdom, categories, each and every category, and so forth and so forth are all man made . Each of these ideas I have listed and all other ideas are man made ideas: they are not truths that have been inserted from an outside agent into men's minds.

[Belinda]

Jahweh was a tribal god who became capable of being adopted by other tribes.

It was the word of a god who wanted to create some 'Lebensraum' for his chosen people by any and all means. Remind you of anyone? The difference is the incredible saga and symbolism of the story. Another very important aspect which gives it an aura of numinosity and therefore authority is the King James translation made in Shakespeare's time. The translation, beautiful though it be, is as full of holes as Shakespeare's history plays. Also, the Jews didn't invent monotheism. It was a well understood concept long before Moses came along in the flesh or as a mythical figure. It just wasn't everyone's cup of tea. The O.T. was also a Declaration of Independence from the polytheistic pantheons surrounding them. This was a very effective way to 'inscribe' uniqueness upon the character of a nation striving for its own existence surrounded by far greater empires.

To maintain this story as 'God's Word' is frankly far beyond the logos of sanity. That's what makes it 'paradoxical'. But taken as a synthesis of history, saga and legend it is entirely consistent within itself and the general history of the Middle East. As with the Jesus story, it could not have been written until long after the event. Then, as always, the legend and myth aspect supervened. It was a secular saga made sacred as Tradition, certainly not so as an endorsement of god.

The OT is the 'Mein Kampf' edition of a struggling nation.

This is not at all like Mein Kampf:

Jeremiah 22:3
English Standard Version
3 Thus says the Lord: Do justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor him who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the resident alien, the fatherless, and the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place.

[Sculptor]

No it does not put the ontic cart before the ideal horse, unless you are incapable of thinking ideas pertain to the man , not to some external gods of whatever. I know you don't think so and assumed you would interpret my choice of language to refer to relative ideas about gods not to ideas inserted by gods.

God is nothing but an idea.
The evolution of religion insists that. If you are really taking this position then you are saying that god is much more than capricious but vauge directionless and temporary.
Is that the god you believe in?
And if you insist that the Christians are actually following Jahovah, and that it is Jahovah that has changed, then what has happened to Odin and Thor; Zeus and Thera; - did they just disappear?

The simple fact is that when christianity reached Greece it was not Jahovah that arrived, but the Greek notion of Zeus was simply accomodated to the new ideas of the Gospels.
And when the Spanish brought fire, disease and sword to South America, the surviving population were forced into modifying their own ideas of god to accomodate the Conquistadores.

Odin, Thor, Mars, Venus, Neptune and all have not disappeared from cultural memory, as you know. The One God and His associated ideas of justice has been generally found to be a better idea. True, some of the Greek or Roman pantheon and the One God were compatible.

We know Mithras has much in common with Christ, for instance. We also know pagan gods were assimilated by Romans when the assimilation served the purpose of prosperous governance. Syncretism of religions you have described in your reply to me.There is no necessity for any tribe to permit other tribes to adopt any of their traditional ideas including their ideas of gods: there was no need for the Jews to permit other tribes or individuals to adopt or make over their gods or God for foreign consumption. Adopting the idea of the Judeo- Christian God does not make one a Jew. To be a Jew you also have to observe peculiary Jewish rites such as dietary rites and rites of passage, and more.

Jahweh/Jehovah is the usual name we give to the tribal idea. Some, usually Xian fundamentalists, call God 'Jehovah'. I don't.

I don't "believe in" the ontic existence of god or gods. I believe ideas of space, time, beauty, truth, justice, evil, Hell, angels, ghosts, money, universities, wisdom, categories, each and every category, and so forth and so forth are all man made . Each of these ideas I have listed and all other ideas are man made ideas: they are not truths that have been inserted from an outside agent into men's minds.

Right. Now I see what you are doing. You are confusing the ideas with the names attached to them.

[Sculptor]

Jahweh was a tribal god who became capable of being adopted by other tribes.

It was the word of a god who wanted to create some 'Lebensraum' for his chosen people by any and all means. Remind you of anyone? The difference is the incredible saga and symbolism of the story. Another very important aspect which gives it an aura of numinosity and therefore authority is the King James translation made in Shakespeare's time. The translation, beautiful though it be, is as full of holes as Shakespeare's history plays. Also, the Jews didn't invent monotheism. It was a well understood concept long before Moses came along in the flesh or as a mythical figure. It just wasn't everyone's cup of tea. The O.T. was also a Declaration of Independence from the polytheistic pantheons surrounding them. This was a very effective way to 'inscribe' uniqueness upon the character of a nation striving for its own existence surrounded by far greater empires.

To maintain this story as 'God's Word' is frankly far beyond the logos of sanity. That's what makes it 'paradoxical'. But taken as a synthesis of history, saga and legend it is entirely consistent within itself and the general history of the Middle East. As with the Jesus story, it could not have been written until long after the event. Then, as always, the legend and myth aspect supervened. It was a secular saga made sacred as Tradition, certainly not so as an endorsement of god.

The OT is the 'Mein Kampf' edition of a struggling nation.

This is not at all like Mein Kampf:

Jeremiah 22:3
English Standard Version
3 Thus says the Lord: Do justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor him who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the resident alien, the fatherless, and the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place.

So you can shed innocent blood in another place. maybe you can shed "non innocent" blood here too.
??

[Sculptor]

Jeremiah 22:3
English Standard Version
3 Thus says the Lord: Do justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor him who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the resident alien, the fatherless, and the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place.

12:29 And it came to pass, that at midnight the LORD smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon; and all the firstborn of cattle.

Hitler would have loved this.

God also loves to smite arse.
Deuteronomy 28
The LORD will smite thee with the botch of Egypt, and with the haemerods, and with the scab, and with the itch, whereof thou canst not be healed.

Not even Hitler thought of that one...

[Belinda]

Jeremiah 22:3
English Standard Version
3 Thus says the Lord: Do justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor him who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the resident alien, the fatherless, and the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place.

12:29 And it came to pass, that at midnight the LORD smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon; and all the firstborn of cattle.

Hitler would have loved this.

God also loves to smite arse.
Deuteronomy 28
The LORD will smite thee with the botch of Egypt, and with the haemerods, and with the scab, and with the itch, whereof thou canst not be healed.

Not even Hitler thought of that one...

I wonder if you understand how this post from you in consistent with the evolution of God.

[Sculptor]

Jeremiah 22:3
English Standard Version
3 Thus says the Lord: Do justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor him who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the resident alien, the fatherless, and the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place.

12:29 And it came to pass, that at midnight the LORD smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh that sat on his throne unto the firstborn of the captive that was in the dungeon; and all the firstborn of cattle.

Hitler would have loved this.

God also loves to smite arse.
Deuteronomy 28
The LORD will smite thee with the botch of Egypt, and with the haemerods, and with the scab, and with the itch, whereof thou canst not be healed.

Not even Hitler thought of that one...

I wonder if you understand how this post from you in consistent with the evolution of God.

I wonder is you will ever realise that god is just a bad idea, and that is it the idea of god that is mutating - like a virus.

[Dubious]

This is not at all like Mein Kampf:

Jeremiah 22:3
English Standard Version
3 Thus says the Lord: Do justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor him who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the resident alien, the fatherless, and the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place.

Yes, only if the resident alien was invited. There were a large number of resident aliens living in Germany and having a good time during Hitler's reign. God's instruction to the Jews included the total destruction of whatever lands god promised to the Chosen People including women, children and even animals. If not destruction then enslavement. Mercy was specifically not allowed by the god of the Jews who supposedly is the god of all. It was a complete scorched policy.

It's true, some of the stuff in the OT even Hitler or Himmler wouldn't have thought of.

[Belinda]

This is not at all like Mein Kampf:

Jeremiah 22:3
English Standard Version
3 Thus says the Lord: Do justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor him who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the resident alien, the fatherless, and the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place.

Yes, only if the resident alien was invited. There were a large number of resident aliens living in Germany and having a good time during Hitler's reign. God's instruction to the Jews included the total destruction of whatever lands god promised to the Chosen People including women, children and even animals. If not destruction then enslavement. Mercy was specifically not allowed by the god of the Jews who supposedly is the god of all. It was a complete scorched policy.

It's true, some of the stuff in the OT even Hitler or Himmler wouldn't have thought of.

But Jeremiah did not write God instructed all that! My point is ideas about God evolved.

[Sculptor]

This is not at all like Mein Kampf:

Jeremiah 22:3
English Standard Version
3 Thus says the Lord: Do justice and righteousness, and deliver from the hand of the oppressor him who has been robbed. And do no wrong or violence to the resident alien, the fatherless, and the widow, nor shed innocent blood in this place.

Yes, only if the resident alien was invited. There were a large number of resident aliens living in Germany and having a good time during Hitler's reign. God's instruction to the Jews included the total destruction of whatever lands god promised to the Chosen People including women, children and even animals. If not destruction then enslavement. Mercy was specifically not allowed by the god of the Jews who supposedly is the god of all. It was a complete scorched policy.

It's true, some of the stuff in the OT even Hitler or Himmler wouldn't have thought of.

But Jeremiah did not write God instructed all that! My point is ideas about God evolved.

You've still got it all completely backwards.
Humans create the god they want. Hitler was a good Catholic and had support from the Vatican.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/worl ... 79043.html

https://www.vanityfair.com/style/1999/1 ... xii-199910

God does what he is told.