Christianity

[Age]

To believe what is written in the Torah, or in another book, and how to understand what is written, a person can decide only based on his conscience, if he is not a robot or a parrot.

A person can read, and decide what God is saying. Then he can decide to hear the word of God, or to ignore it.

How do you propose one KNOWS 'the word of God' "immanuel can"?

You are so INDOCTRINATED "immanuel can" you can NOT even SEE the absurdity in your claims.

But after that, he can't say he hasn't heard it.

"Shema, Yisrael."

[Age]

...are there other Early Church sources you refer to? Who?

Well, really, one does not need any.

Here is ANOTHER EXAMPLE of when one is CHALLENGED, and they FAIL MISERABLY in being able to back up and support their CLAIMS.

There may be some such sources that say the right thing, and some that spout arrant nonsense, like the Gnostics did, for example. The important fact is whether or not the Torah and the Christian Scriptures support any belief in what a particular religious organization is saying. If they do not, then what is being suggested is not inherently Christian in any way, regardless of how long-standing it has been or how many people have claimed it.

Here is ANOTHER EXAMPLE of just HOW CLOSED and BLIND one can be.

I would assume...that you believe that Catholics are not Christians (or are only semi-Christians or partial Christians).

I would never speak about an individual Catholic.

YET, when you want to you speak about "others" as though you KNOW what the truth IS.

Only they know what they believe, and a person does not necessarily have to have perfect theology in order to be genuinely Christian. If they did, there would be no such thing as a Christian; for which of us is perfect?

But there is NO such thing as a "christian" ANYWAY. There are only human beings like "yourself" "immanuel can" who call "yourselves" "christians".

But you, nor "others", can NOT even define what a "christian" is, successfully.

However, if one refers to what the Catholic hierarchy has taught historically and teaches now, and compare it to Scripture, one sees the profound departure for oneself. And one can only conclude that if "Christian" is now taken to mean "Catholic," then it no longer means "somebody who follows the way taught by Jesus Christ Himself," and by His personally-designated followers.

LOL

And what, SUPPOSED, way was that, EXACTLY?

There is no other conclusion to which an informed and reasonable person can come, really.

LOL

Your CLOSEDNESS is BLINDING "immanuel can".

We must make of that fact the obvious, I think.

Yet I assume that you might also not favor Luther as a source.

I think we can all pause for a minute to be grateful for some of what Luther achieved, not only in terms of the emancipation of religion but also in terms of his contribution for secular freedoms as well. However, anybody who knows the whole story of Luther also knows that he was a flawed human being. Some things he said I would praise; some, I wish he had never said.

Your condescending attitude is BORING "immanuel can".

You write as though you ACTUALLY BELIEVE that you are "an informed and reasonable" person, which OBVIOUSLY you are NOT. You also write as though you ACTUALLY BELIEVE that you KNOW the whole story of things here, which OBVIOUSLY you do NOT.

But is it necessary to admire everything about a man before we can listen to anything from a man? Because if that's the standard we use, then most of the great people in history are really going to turn out to be people we have to refuse to listen to.

Here you imply that you LISTEN, which OBVIOUSLY you do NOT.

So I think we can be judicious and selective in what we approve of what a man says and does.

You say this as though you ACTUALLY BELIEVE you KNOW when a "man" says and does what is true, right, and correct, which OBVIOUSLY you do NOT.

The only one you are fooling here "immanuel can" is "your self", and maybe a couple of "others".

Who are the Protestant Christian philosophers and theologians that helped develop the 'non-denominational' position you hold to?

I would start with the canon of Scripture itself.

If a man (or woman) agrees with it, then great. But if he/she only speaks from his/her own opinions, and makes no connection to Scripture, then we are thrown back on merely our own preferences, with no authoritative source by which to judge the the varous pronouncements he or she makes.

SERIOUSLY "immanuel can" you could REALLY be this BLIND.

You are speaking like a Truly IMMATURE person here. The ONLY support you have for your views and BELIEFS here is, you KNOW that the scriptures are irrefutably true because a preacher told you they were.

When will you GROW UP, and LOOK AT and SEE things for "yourself"?

Do you read Protestant theology? Do you read any Catholic theologians/philosophers?

Yes, actually. But both are non-authoritative to me. As the Tanakh puts it, we must always turn first "to the Law and to the testimony! If they do not speak in accordance with this word, it is because they have no dawn." (Isaiah 8:20) So a theologian or philosopher is only as good as his ideas are compatible with the Word of God.

LOL

Spoken like a True child, BELIEVER, or FOLLOWER. This form of ATTEMPTING to argue I thought the world was rid of many years prior to when this was being written.

What is the 'word of God', and, what ACTUAL PROOF do you have for this?

That said, I think you're really trying to find out what some of my theological-philosophical influencers might be. And if that's right, then I'm happy to comply.

Among them would certainly be Soren Kierkegaard, John Locke, Alfred Edersheim, David Gooding, C.S. Lewis, G.K. Chesterton, Martin Buber, Carl Henry, Jacques Ellul, and paradoxically, perhaps, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jurgen Habermas, and Thomas Hardy, among other Atheist and agnostic writers. More recent influences would include Oliver O'Donovan, Craig Gay, Michael Polanyi, Lesslie Newbiggin, Nicholas Wolterstorff, Alvin Plantinga, Roger Lundin, W.L. Craig, John Lennox, Jordan Peterson, D.B. Hart...how many do you want?

Are you NOT able to work things out by "yourself"?

If yes, then like what, EXACTLY?

[Age]

Presently however, I am trying to better understand what ‘conversion’ is. I could say ‘religious conversion’ but that would seem to exclude other sorts of conversion which are just as real, though resulting in different outcomes.

I am not certain what is meant by *salvation* and I am uncertain even that those who speak of it are certain of what they mean.

Two huge questions. May I chime in?

Firstly, you should maybe decide if you want to insist that "conversion" must mean the same thing for all people, from all perspectives. And I don't think it is, or that there's any justification for thinking it's bound to be. The only way we could be predisposed to think it had to be universally the same is if we already were totally convinced that all "religions" were just different manifestations of exactly the same thing -- and that some sort of bland Humanism was the secret root of all of it.

What does "secret root of all of it" actually mean or refer to, EXACTLY?

What is the 'it' here?

Do we have reason to think that bland Humanism is the master-metanarrative, the deep truth behind all "religions"?

What does 'bland Humanism" mean or refer to, to you?

I don't see why that would be more plausible than any alternative, such as that one or more "religions" are not the same, but actually have some unique deep feature or features. But you can see what you think about that.

ALL religions come from and thus are just different manifestations of the EXACT SAME Thing. It could NOT be any other way.

ALL religions have Truths AND Faslehoods within them. And, more importantly,

ALL religions have been and are MISINTERPRETED, by 'you', human beings.

As for "salvation," you might need to pay close attention to what one is said to be "saved from" In each tradition, and also what is the agency of that "salvation," in each case. For it certainly means wildly different things in Gnostic or Eastern thought than it ever does in something like Judaism or Christianity, and quite different again from something like Islam.

LOL AGAIN, the implying that the religion you BELIEVE is true is FAR MORE RIGHT than ANY other one. You are joking here "immanuel can".

In world-denying religions, "salvation" basically means some sort of "enlightenment" or "transcendence" by which one escapes the material world through one's own elevation. That's quite a different concept from Jewish national "salvation," and nothing at all like the Christian "salvation from sin and death."

"World-denying religions" LOL You make me laugh so much "immanuel can".

What can be CLEARLY SEEN here is how all of these DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS of 'salvation' refer back to the EXACT SAME Thing.

So perhaps the problem is that the two questions above are premised on a dubious assumption: namely that "conversion" and "salvation" have to end up meaning something essentially in common in all cases.

Which they OBVIOUSLY and NATURALLY DO.

And I suggest that the first step to getting clarity regarding those words will be to rethink that gratuitious (and, I suggest, incorrect) premise.

Just my two cents on that, for what they're worth.

But 'you', "immanuel can", have ALREADY PROVEN that you do NOT YET have CLARITY regarding those words, NOR even ANY real CLARITY to do with 'christianity' AND 'religion' as well.

[Belinda]

Presently however, I am trying to better understand what ‘conversion’ is. I could say ‘religious conversion’ but that would seem to exclude other sorts of conversion which are just as real, though resulting in different outcomes.

I am not certain what is meant by *salvation* and I am uncertain even that those who speak of it are certain of what they mean.

Two huge questions. May I chime in?

Firstly, you should maybe decide if you want to insist that "conversion" must mean the same thing for all people, from all perspectives. And I don't think it is, or that there's any justification for thinking it's bound to be. The only way we could be predisposed to think it had to be universally the same is if we already were totally convinced that all "religions" were just different manifestations of exactly the same thing -- and that some sort of bland Humanism was the secret root of all of it.

What does "secret root of all of it" actually mean or refer to, EXACTLY?

What is the 'it' here?

Do we have reason to think that bland Humanism is the master-metanarrative, the deep truth behind all "religions"?

What does 'bland Humanism" mean or refer to, to you?

I don't see why that would be more plausible than any alternative, such as that one or more "religions" are not the same, but actually have some unique deep feature or features. But you can see what you think about that.

ALL religions come from and thus are just different manifestations of the EXACT SAME Thing. It could NOT be any other way.

ALL religions have Truths AND Faslehoods within them. And, more importantly,

ALL religions have been and are MISINTERPRETED, by 'you', human beings.

As for "salvation," you might need to pay close attention to what one is said to be "saved from" In each tradition, and also what is the agency of that "salvation," in each case. For it certainly means wildly different things in Gnostic or Eastern thought than it ever does in something like Judaism or Christianity, and quite different again from something like Islam.

LOL AGAIN, the implying that the religion you BELIEVE is true is FAR MORE RIGHT than ANY other one. You are joking here "immanuel can".

In world-denying religions, "salvation" basically means some sort of "enlightenment" or "transcendence" by which one escapes the material world through one's own elevation. That's quite a different concept from Jewish national "salvation," and nothing at all like the Christian "salvation from sin and death."

"World-denying religions" LOL You make me laugh so much "immanuel can".

What can be CLEARLY SEEN here is how all of these DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS of 'salvation' refer back to the EXACT SAME Thing.

So perhaps the problem is that the two questions above are premised on a dubious assumption: namely that "conversion" and "salvation" have to end up meaning something essentially in common in all cases.

Which they OBVIOUSLY and NATURALLY DO.

And I suggest that the first step to getting clarity regarding those words will be to rethink that gratuitious (and, I suggest, incorrect) premise.

Just my two cents on that, for what they're worth.

But 'you', "immanuel can", have ALREADY PROVEN that you do NOT YET have CLARITY regarding those words, NOR even ANY real CLARITY to do with 'christianity' AND 'religion' as well.

Age, the "secret root of it all" (in the context of people's many and various beliefs ) refers to the belief in "bland Humanism". I think IC suggests Alexis Jacobi is a secret Humanist.

"Bland Humanism" is what Humanism is correctly accused of. Humanists are mostly motivated by reason not reactive emotions. If you take away the fun and the emotionalism from your beliefs the beliefs do in fact become "bland".

IC is very clear in his own mind as to what he believes, although he has a devious way of explaining what he believes.

[Age]

Two huge questions. May I chime in?

Firstly, you should maybe decide if you want to insist that "conversion" must mean the same thing for all people, from all perspectives. And I don't think it is, or that there's any justification for thinking it's bound to be. The only way we could be predisposed to think it had to be universally the same is if we already were totally convinced that all "religions" were just different manifestations of exactly the same thing -- and that some sort of bland Humanism was the secret root of all of it.

What does "secret root of all of it" actually mean or refer to, EXACTLY?

What is the 'it' here?

Do we have reason to think that bland Humanism is the master-metanarrative, the deep truth behind all "religions"?

What does 'bland Humanism" mean or refer to, to you?

I don't see why that would be more plausible than any alternative, such as that one or more "religions" are not the same, but actually have some unique deep feature or features. But you can see what you think about that.

ALL religions come from and thus are just different manifestations of the EXACT SAME Thing. It could NOT be any other way.

ALL religions have Truths AND Faslehoods within them. And, more importantly,

ALL religions have been and are MISINTERPRETED, by 'you', human beings.

As for "salvation," you might need to pay close attention to what one is said to be "saved from" In each tradition, and also what is the agency of that "salvation," in each case. For it certainly means wildly different things in Gnostic or Eastern thought than it ever does in something like Judaism or Christianity, and quite different again from something like Islam.

LOL AGAIN, the implying that the religion you BELIEVE is true is FAR MORE RIGHT than ANY other one. You are joking here "immanuel can".

In world-denying religions, "salvation" basically means some sort of "enlightenment" or "transcendence" by which one escapes the material world through one's own elevation. That's quite a different concept from Jewish national "salvation," and nothing at all like the Christian "salvation from sin and death."

"World-denying religions" LOL You make me laugh so much "immanuel can".

What can be CLEARLY SEEN here is how all of these DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS of 'salvation' refer back to the EXACT SAME Thing.

So perhaps the problem is that the two questions above are premised on a dubious assumption: namely that "conversion" and "salvation" have to end up meaning something essentially in common in all cases.

Which they OBVIOUSLY and NATURALLY DO.

And I suggest that the first step to getting clarity regarding those words will be to rethink that gratuitious (and, I suggest, incorrect) premise.

Just my two cents on that, for what they're worth.

But 'you', "immanuel can", have ALREADY PROVEN that you do NOT YET have CLARITY regarding those words, NOR even ANY real CLARITY to do with 'christianity' AND 'religion' as well.

Age, the "secret root of it all" (in the context of people's many and various beliefs ) refers to the belief in "bland Humanism". I think IC suggests Alexis Jacobi is a secret Humanist.

"Bland Humanism" is what Humanism is correctly accused of. Humanists are mostly motivated by reason not reactive emotions. If you take away the fun and the emotionalism from your beliefs the beliefs do in fact become "bland".

IC is very clear in his own mind as to what he believes, although he has a devious way of explaining what he believes.

Thank you tremendously here "belinda". Most people do not even attempt to provide clarity to my open clarifying questions. They usually prefer to just ASSUME some thing or other.

I find it amusing that human beings, which are probably the most emotional animal on earth, refer to those human beings who are least reactive to emotions as "Humanists". From what I have observed human beings are the most emotional reactive beings on the planet. To me, the word 'humanists' would refer far more to human beings who react emotionally rather than use intelligence, reason, logic, and common sense.

But each to their own, as some say.

[Belinda]

What does "secret root of all of it" actually mean or refer to, EXACTLY?

What is the 'it' here?


What does 'bland Humanism" mean or refer to, to you?



ALL religions come from and thus are just different manifestations of the EXACT SAME Thing. It could NOT be any other way.

ALL religions have Truths AND Faslehoods within them. And, more importantly,

ALL religions have been and are MISINTERPRETED, by 'you', human beings.


LOL AGAIN, the implying that the religion you BELIEVE is true is FAR MORE RIGHT than ANY other one. You are joking here "immanuel can".



"World-denying religions" LOL You make me laugh so much "immanuel can".

What can be CLEARLY SEEN here is how all of these DIFFERENT INTERPRETATIONS of 'salvation' refer back to the EXACT SAME Thing.



Which they OBVIOUSLY and NATURALLY DO.



But 'you', "immanuel can", have ALREADY PROVEN that you do NOT YET have CLARITY regarding those words, NOR even ANY real CLARITY to do with 'christianity' AND 'religion' as well.

Age, the "secret root of it all" (in the context of people's many and various beliefs ) refers to the belief in "bland Humanism". I think IC suggests Alexis Jacobi is a secret Humanist.

"Bland Humanism" is what Humanism is correctly accused of. Humanists are mostly motivated by reason not reactive emotions. If you take away the fun and the emotionalism from your beliefs the beliefs do in fact become "bland".

IC is very clear in his own mind as to what he believes, although he has a devious way of explaining what he believes.

Thank you tremendously here "belinda". Most people do not even attempt to provide clarity to my open clarifying questions. They usually prefer to just ASSUME some thing or other.

I find it amusing that human beings, which are probably the most emotional animal on earth, refer to those human beings who are least reactive to emotions as "Humanists". From what I have observed human beings are the most emotional reactive beings on the planet. To me, the word 'humanists' would refer far more to human beings who react emotionally rather than use intelligence, reason, logic, and common sense.

But each to their own, as some say.

I am a Humanist ; please note the capital letter which tells you Humanism is a belief system on a par with religious belief systems. I have met at least a hundred other Humanists, taken active part in Humanist meetings, and made friends with many Humanists . A few of these nice people are willing to concede that a church service may be Humanist in intent and outcome, and that the church service can be reasoning and affective, and yet give no credence to any supernatural state of being.

[Age]

Age, the "secret root of it all" (in the context of people's many and various beliefs ) refers to the belief in "bland Humanism". I think IC suggests Alexis Jacobi is a secret Humanist.

"Bland Humanism" is what Humanism is correctly accused of. Humanists are mostly motivated by reason not reactive emotions. If you take away the fun and the emotionalism from your beliefs the beliefs do in fact become "bland".

IC is very clear in his own mind as to what he believes, although he has a devious way of explaining what he believes.

Thank you tremendously here "belinda". Most people do not even attempt to provide clarity to my open clarifying questions. They usually prefer to just ASSUME some thing or other.

I find it amusing that human beings, which are probably the most emotional animal on earth, refer to those human beings who are least reactive to emotions as "Humanists". From what I have observed human beings are the most emotional reactive beings on the planet. To me, the word 'humanists' would refer far more to human beings who react emotionally rather than use intelligence, reason, logic, and common sense.

But each to their own, as some say.

I am a Humanist ; please note the capital letter which tells you Humanism is a belief system on a par with religious belief systems.

Thank you. This says and explains a lot.

I have met at least a hundred other Humanists, taken active part in Humanist meetings, and made friends with many Humanists . A few of these nice people are willing to concede that a church service may be Humanist in intent and outcome, and that the church service can be reasoning and affective, and yet give no credence to any supernatural state of being.

Okay.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Two huge questions. May I chime in?

Firstly, you should maybe decide if you want to insist that "conversion" must mean the same thing for all people, from all perspectives. And I don't think it is, or that there's any justification for thinking it's bound to be. The only way we could be predisposed to think it had to be universally the same is if we already were totally convinced that all "religions" were just different manifestations of exactly the same thing -- and that some sort of bland Humanism was the secret root of all of it.

What you are saying here, what you are alluding, seems to me to be something needing clarification. That is, we need to have clarity about what we are talking about. What I myself am not talking about, or if I am only incidentally and comparatively, are the Eastern modes of religion (Vedic, Buddhist, Jain, etc.) What concerns me is *our Occidental traditions* and, as I have said, those early days of ‘the confusion of peoples’ in the first century and thereafter. However, one cannot understand that first century if one does not have some background in the previous five or six.

So, what we are really talking about, at least in my understanding, is an entire sweep of intellectual history. I say *intellectual* as a convenient term. As Nock titles his book: Conversion: The Old and the New in Religion from Alexander the Great to Augustine of Hippo. Obviously, ‘conversion’ meant a range of different things. We could profit if we made a list of what ‘conversion’ meant for those peoples we are considering. The pagan cults offered conversions. An entry into the inner dimensions of the mystery of nature and being. Philosophy also offered a conversion-process. Be it Pythagorianism or Stoicism or Cynicism. I think that we might be safe in excluding at least most of the forms of ‘conversion’ that surround us today, especially conversion to a radical political ideology, or to some type of Ecological Hysteria (or CRT-based hysterical conversion). Yet these can be looked at for the *function* they offer to people as what looks to be a substitute for a religious-conversion. Many have proposed that under political conversion and our modern climate hysteria conversion there is really a religiosity operating. We can’t leave that aside for long.

So I would not say that all ‘conversions’ are the same, and I would agree that one has to examine what are the terms of the conversion, or what are the principles that inspire it. One is being converted from what to what?

But what I do not think can be fairly said is that the ‘conversion’ offered by the Jesus Christ you define can be or should be seen as radically separate from the types of conversions that were prevalent and *operative* in the times traced by Nock in the book I referenced. The problem with your assertion, though I will acknowledge that the Prophetic Jewish school is special and unique because essentially of its focus on the social world and social relationships, is that it is based on a hierarchy of importance. That is, that the Jewish revelation is different, higher, better and in the end must dominate. That pesky notion of ‘domination’ is concerning. And as we know, or in any case as I know, Jewish and Torah-based endeavor is intensely exclusive, rigidly exclusive. It is based on the perception that everything that comes from the pagan world, the world of the *nations* that are not Judaic, are contaminations from which cleaning is required.

So at least on one level I think one has to acknowledge this imperious tendency which is part-and-parcel of Judaism and as much evident in Christianity: that all other modes of being, thinking, seeing, living and believing must be ‘conquered’ and ‘altered’. In this sense Christianity becomes destructive and also ‘leveling’.

But here is the interesting thing: in those early centuries, and between Alexander and Augustine, there was a tremendous fluidity of viewpoint. But what most impresses me is that the pagan world was a rich and, I must include this word, a very full and human world. The Jewish spirit that came to bear on it also came to bear against it and this must be seen and understood. So, and jumping forward very brusquely, it is a surety that to understand Nietzsche’s complaints and searing insights, which are relevant to our day beyond any question of doubt, one has to understand what I might refer to here as the *will to throw off a foreign imposition*. To get out from under something oppressive. But also to get out from under something untrue, unrealistic, something too domineering, something shall I say *life-stifling*.

And so, yes, I refer to the tremendous life and vivaciousness of the pagan world. But this is not ‘their world’ and the world of some ‘other’, it is our world, the world of us. And this is why of course I refer to European paideia and elevate the term in what it refers to.

If one is going to propose ‘renewal’ and ‘regeneration’ (as I do) I do not see it as necessary to eliminate the entire, and the real, field of life from the equation. Personally I acknowledge the sharply-intense Jewish-Christian focus. And though I would reject, say, the requirement that the former Christian-Catholicism be remade to accommodate a modern, bland humanism or something humanesque (as has happened after Vatican ll), with the destruction of *tradition* and a gutting of the liturgy, I do not think there is any way around opening the field to a range of different modalities simply because there are millions and millions of people who will not and do not accept Christian (or Orthodox Jewish) rigidity.

If they were to come back to something *strict* I cannot even imagine what it would be.

Do we have reason to think that bland Humanism is the master-metanarrative, the deep truth behind all "religions"? I don't see why that would be more plausible than any alternative, such as that one or more "religions" are not the same, but actually have some unique deep feature or features. But you can see what you think about that.

I think I have already spent a good deal of time thinking about this, and certainly reading on the topic. The Eastern religions of India (where they predominantly have come from) are not a good model for Occidental man — to the degree that Occidental man chooses to define himself and herself. But this is one of my points: to rediscover ourselves we have, literally, to step into ourself.

As for "salvation," you might need to pay close attention to what one is said to be "saved from" In each tradition, and also what is the agency of that "salvation," in each case. For it certainly means wildly different things in Gnostic or Eastern thought than it ever does in something like Judaism or Christianity, and quite different again from something like Islam. In world-denying religions, "salvation" basically means some sort of "enlightenment" or "transcendence" by which one escapes the material world through one's own elevation. That's quite a different concept from Jewish national "salvation," and nothing at all like the Christian "salvation from sin and death."

What I would point to is that one can find an array of similarities and concordances in *the world* I define as that between Alexander and Augustine. It is the same world. And one can refer (as Waldo Frank does) to our matrix: Judea, Greece, Rome and the melding-pot of Alexandria. This is the ‘confusion of peoples’ and also the ‘confusion of ideas’. If you (if anyone I really mean) can define, in relation to this *world*, what one is to be saved from and saved to, it would be helpful.

So perhaps the problem is that the two questions above are premised on a dubious assumption: namely that "conversion" and "salvation" have to end up meaning something essentially in common in all cases. And I suggest that the first step to getting clarity regarding those words will be to rethink that gratuitious (and, I suggest, incorrect) premise.

I think that what I would say is that whatever conversion and salvation are, they occur to incarnated human beings living in a tangible world. They do not convert and then float up out of the matrix of life. They bring belief (value meaning relevancy and activity) down into the world they live in.

I would propose that *conversion* today, and perhaps even *salvation*, must have to do with recovery of self within a larger world, a mechanistic machine-like world, that seeks to mechanize and overwhelm the very person. How a person comes back into genuine being — now that is the relevant question it seems to me.

And again: what do conversion and salvation mean? The question still floats, smiling like the Cheshire Cat.

[owl of Minerva]

By Alexis Jacobi:

“If you can bear to read the following — it is very interesting at the least — I think it sheds some light on the question of ‘conversion’. It is from a book by AD Nock by that name: Conversion: The Old and the New in Religion from Alexander the Great to Augustine of Hippo (1933). Nock here opens discussing the conversion of Lucius which took place in the eleventh book of The Golden Ass (or The Metamorphosis) by Apuleius (written in the 2nd century).

The hero of The Metamorphosis was transformed, through his dabbling in magic (in combo with sexual improprieties) into a donkey . . . And he is saved, as it were, by the goddess Isis.”
……………………………………………………………………………

By owl of Minerva:

The goddess Isis is in no way Dionysian. She separates earth from sky and good from evil, and can conquer fate itself. The hero of The Metamorphosis lost his balance between his animal instinctive nature and his human nature and suffered the consequences. He became all animal. The goddess Isis saved him by restoring him to his human nature; thus restoring balance. She represents the balance between the Dionysian; moon and earth, and Apollo; sun and sky; between animal instinct and human reason.

The goddess culture served its age well before the god culture took over. The god culture was a better fit for the descending and the ascending arcs of The Dark Ages. Probably why Christ emphasized divine father rather than divine mother, although both are in the nature of divinity.

As far as conversion goes it likely means turning to truth and ordering life so it corresponds to reality rather than taking the egoistic route of avoidance. Salvation, taking the long view could mean, from a perspective of many lives, escaping the earthly Precession of the Equinoxes of our galaxy, whose duration differs from East to West. The West perceiving all ages as having the same duration; the East perceiving the ages as having different durations.

[Immanuel Can]

Two huge questions. May I chime in?

Firstly, you should maybe decide if you want to insist that "conversion" must mean the same thing for all people, from all perspectives. And I don't think it is, or that there's any justification for thinking it's bound to be. The only way we could be predisposed to think it had to be universally the same is if we already were totally convinced that all "religions" were just different manifestations of exactly the same thing -- and that some sort of bland Humanism was the secret root of all of it.

What you are saying here, what you are alluding, seems to me to be something needing clarification. That is, we need to have clarity about what we are talking about. What I myself am not talking about, or if I am only incidentally and comparatively, are the Eastern modes of religion (Vedic, Buddhist, Jain, etc.) What concerns me is *our Occidental traditions* and, as I have said, those early days of ‘the confusion of peoples’ in the first century and thereafter. However, one cannot understand that first century if one does not have some background in the previous five or six.

Okay, but you've got the same problem with the term "Occidental traditions." Just using that term as a collective for things as diverse as the majory monotheisms of the West presumes they must, at root, end up all to be some variation of the same thing. But that really doesn't seem apparent at all.

In what way is Jewish national "salvation" the same as Christian "salvation from sin," and the same as Islamic "submission"? Surely it's evident, even at first glance, that the concepts look very, very different, no? So we would need some very precise way of knowing that the glaring differences were actually, at the deepest level, merely superficial. And how would we know that, especially prior to all investigation of the relevant facts?

I suggest that even the launching out looking for an "Occidental" unity under those traditions is an expression of having already decided the answer to the question that one is prepared to look for and see. One is only prepared to see them all, at some deep level, as being of-a-piece...the same thing in different wrappers. And the only motive I can see for deciding to start out an investigation that way is if one is already assuming that the "Occidental traditions" are all going to end up being remote expressions of some common human enthusiasm, rather than, say, distinct paths.

So in looking for "Occidental" sameness, we've assumed our conclusion. We haven't looked at the data. We've decided what the data is going to be allowed to reveal, in advance. And that's no way to proceed on any investigation, is it?

We could profit if we made a list of what ‘conversion’ meant for those peoples we are considering.

Yes, we could. But we're best to derive our own from the data, rather than taking any presuppositional position on that. Jewish "conversion" is a communal and rabbinical thing, it seems to me. Catholic "conversion" is limited to Church membership: remember their axiom, "ex ecclesiam, nullus salus" ("outside the Church, no salvation")? But Christian "conversion" never is like either: it's individual and credal. And as I pointed out before, Islamists don't even use the term "conversion" but rather the concept "reversion." So we can't assume that all the relevant traditions even HAVE "conversions": even in those limited cases where that word appears, it's evident that the various traditions mean different things by it.

...political conversion...

Here, "conversion" isn't even being used in reference to any "religion." Now you're talking about a mere ideological change-of-loyalties, not at all about what others mean by "conversion."

So I would not say that all ‘conversions’ are the same, and I would agree that one has to examine what are the terms of the conversion, or what are the principles that inspire it. One is being converted from what to what?

Exactly so.

But what I do not think can be fairly said is that the ‘conversion’ offered by the Jesus Christ you define can be or should be seen as radically separate from the types of conversions that were prevalent and *operative* in the times traced by Nock in the book I referenced.

Exactly so.

The problem with your assertion, though I will acknowledge that the Prophetic Jewish school is special and unique because essentially of its focus on the social world and social relationships, is that it is based on a hierarchy of importance. That is, that the Jewish revelation is different, higher, better and in the end must dominate.

Have I said that? I don't remember doing so. I certainly don't think it's true. As a Christian, I would have to say that the true "conversion" is Christian. And while I would also argue that the Christian is a direct derivative of Tanakh Judaism, I certainly wouldn't confuse either with modern cultural Judaism, which is its own thing.

That pesky notion of ‘domination’ is concerning.

Well, perhaps you shouldn't have used that word. I never did. But you could choose a much better one.

Why not simply say what is most obvious -- namely, that all religious traditions propose to be ways to the Divine, but that they offer very different accounts of how that goal is to be achieved?

And as we know, or in any case as I know, Jewish and Torah-based endeavor is intensely exclusive, rigidly exclusive. It is based on the perception that everything that comes from the pagan world, the world of the *nations* that are not Judaic, are contaminations from which cleaning is required. So at least on one level I think one has to acknowledge this imperious tendency which is part-and-parcel of Judaism

I do. So did Jesus Christ, actually. The racial-superiority strand of Judaism, which undeniably exists and is expressed in the classic Jew-Gentile dichotomy, is not a healthy thing. But I think it comes from a profound misunderstanding of the meaning of being "the chosen nation."

and as much evident in Christianity

No, that's clearly not so.

But here is the interesting thing: in those early centuries, and between Alexander and Augustine, there was a tremendous fluidity of viewpoint. But what most impresses me is that the pagan world was a rich and, I must include this word, a very full and human world.

I'm familiar with this supposition, but I think it's badly wrong. However, I would say that the Roman pagan world was indeed very "human," but not in many good senses of that term.

The Jewish spirit that came to bear on it also came to bear against it and this must be seen and understood. So, and jumping forward very brusquely, it is a surety that to understand Nietzsche’s complaints and searing insights, which are relevant to our day beyond any question of doubt, one has to understand what I might refer to here as the *will to throw off a foreign imposition*. To get out from under something oppressive. But also to get out from under something untrue, unrealistic, something too domineering, something shall I say *life-stifling*.

Well, far from being "beyond any question of doubt," Nietzsche was quite wrong on this point, I think. What Judeo-Christian morality does is not to stifle "life" but to deny human beings an open space in which to actualize simply any impulse they wish. It is not really "life" that is being "stifled," but mankind's propensity to viciousness, cruelty, indifference, arrogance, hatred of women and Jews, and so on, all of which are really embodied in the idea of the ubermensch who has gone "beyond good and evil."

Nietzsche's road leads to the gas chamber and the corpse kiln.

If they were to come back to something *strict* I cannot even imagine what it would be.

"Strictness" in morality, is a deceptive thing.

Strictness actually is quite compatible with some of the most vicious aspects of mankind's inner nature. Pharisees and Nazis love to moralize. The arrogant and self-satisfied love codes, rigid prescriptions, absolute declarations of duty, and so on. For it is by means of such "strictness" that a man, say, as a smug and selfish person, imperiously proves to himself that you are not as good as he. "Strictness" merely provides the grounds for such arrogance, but does not actually do anything to turn him into a genuinely good person.

And that phenomenon is surely familiar to us all, no?

More later...must run now.

[owl of Minerva]

By Alexis Jacobi:

“If you can bear to read the following — it is very interesting at the least — I think it sheds some light on the question of ‘conversion’. It is from a book by AD Nock by that name: Conversion: The Old and the New in Religion from Alexander the Great to Augustine of Hippo (1933). Nock here opens discussing the conversion of Lucius which took place in the eleventh book of The Golden Ass (or The Metamorphosis) by Apuleius (written in the 2nd century).

The hero of The Metamorphosis was transformed, through his dabbling in magic (in combo with sexual improprieties) into a donkey . . . And he is saved, as it were, by the goddess Isis.”
……………………………………………………………………………

By owl of Minerva:

The goddess Isis is in no way Dionysian. She separates earth from sky and good from evil, and can conquer fate itself. The hero of The Metamorphosis lost his balance between his animal instinctive nature and his human nature and suffered the consequences. He became all animal. The goddess Isis saved him by restoring him to his human nature; thus restoring balance. She represents the balance between the Dionysian; moon and earth, and Apollo; sun and sky; between animal instinct and human reason.

The goddess culture served its age well before the god culture took over. The god culture was a better fit for the descending and the ascending arcs of The Dark Ages. Probably why Christ emphasized divine father rather than divine mother, although both are in the nature of divinity.

[owl of Minerva]

By Immanuel Can:

“ Now, you can argue that reincarnation is real. You can argue that person X or Y has supported your view. You can argue that the Bible is wrong in what it says about the afterlife. But the one thing you can't say is that the Bible teaches reincarnation, or that any real Christian can believe in it.”

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Response by owl of Minerva:

I could quote many examples that reincarnation was believed in by the Jews, here are two: The Zohar and related literature are filled with references to reincarnation…. The Bahri, attributed to first-century sage, Nechuniah Ben Hakanah, used incarnation to address the classic question of theodicy——why bad things happen to good people and vice versa…..’This is because the (latter) righteous person did bad in a previous (life) and is now experiencing the consequences.’’’

That the concept of reincarnation was known to the Jews is evidenced in several New Testament passages, as when the “priests and Levites” ask John the Baptist, “Art thou Elijah?” and when Jesus’ disciples tell him, “Some say that thou art John the Baptist: Some Elijah; and others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.”

The Church changed the doctrine believing people would make a greater effort in their one life. If there is any evidence of that it is not apparent. Also it requires believing in hell for all eternity and that a merciful God would allow that.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Okay, but you've got the same problem with the term "Occidental traditions." Just using that term as a collective for things as diverse as the majory monotheisms of the West presumes they must, at root, end up all to be some variation of the same thing. But that really doesn't seem apparent at all.

In a sense they are variations on a theme. And the Christian religion, the Christian focus, enters in to the *theme*. For this reason I speak of Alexandria as the melding-pot for Judea, Greece and Rome. It seems to me that if one has studied our Occidental traditions, starting typically with Homer and Plato, and covering as much ground as one can, that one easily understands what *our traditions* mean. But one can definitively say that one cannot, in any sense and for any reason, avoid or dismiss the Greek world.

The idea I work with is as I have expressed it: I can easily, and also sanely, work with the Johannine notion of logos. We live in a manifest universe that is said to contain billions and billions of galaxies and that our corner of the Universe is just one *pocket* that is proposed to exist in billions or trillions or an indefinite number of other such 'pockets'. So, if we are to define an Intelligence that is Creator I am available for the project, but I do not think that God speaks with a Yiddish inflection. So in this sense though it cannot be denied that the Jewish prophets hit on something crucial -- the focus within the human world in what we generally agree is 'justice' and 'fairness' -- in a sense it is Greco-Christianity that supersedes the Torah-based Jewish focus. In this sense I do recognize supersession. Not only that but rational, logos-based Greco-Christianity is obligated to define its supersession. And indeed it did. It built a world.

In what way is Jewish national "salvation" the same as Christian "salvation from sin," and the same as Islamic "submission"? Surely it's evident, even at first glance, that the concepts look very, very different, no? So we would need some very precise way of knowing that the glaring differences were actually, at the deepest level, merely superficial. And how would we know that, especially prior to all investigation of the relevant facts?

It seems to me that we must recognize the notion of *sin* as being, at least largely, a Jewish concept. Or to put it more accurately a Jewish focus. All that I can say here is that most of Christian ideas about afterlife and a great deal more are extensions or amplifications of ideas part-and-parcel of Jewish notions.

I suggest that even the launching out looking for an "Occidental" unity under those traditions is an expression of having already decided the answer to the question that one is prepared to look for and see. One is only prepared to see them all, at some deep level, as being of-a-piece...the same thing in different wrappers. And the only motive I can see for deciding to start out an investigation that way is if one is already assuming that the "Occidental traditions" are all going to end up being remote expressions of some common human enthusiasm, rather than, say, distinct paths.

This is not quite so in my case. I have enough experience at this point to grasp and talk about *our Occidental traditions*. Not as abstractions though. As real, tangible things.

I could say (and I would be right) that we can find a certain synthesis of what I refer to in Shakespeare. It would actually be quite possible, and even smart, to build a humanism from Shakespeare. It is Harold Bloom's contention that Shakespeare gave us in so many senses our human world. So what informed Shakespeare I'd like to continue. Where will I look for *it*?

I do not think I will find it in fanatical enthusiasm of the Christian variety. I will find it in something more balanced.

So in looking for "Occidental" sameness, we've assumed our conclusion. We haven't looked at the data. We've decided what the data is going to be allowed to reveal, in advance. And that's no way to proceed on any investigation, is it?

Not in my case. It is through examination of the sources that I see of what they are composed, and it is the stuff of the composition that I have no choice but to work with. That's *in my case* anyway.

Yes, we could. But we're best to derive our own from the data, rather than taking any presuppositional position on that. Jewish "conversion" is a communal and rabbinical thing, it seems to me. Catholic "conversion" is limited to Church membership: remember their axiom, "ex ecclesiam, nullus salus" ("outside the Church, no salvation")? But Christian "conversion" never is like either: it's individual and credal. And as I pointed out before, Islamists don't even use the term "conversion" but rather the concept "reversion." So we can't assume that all the relevant traditions even HAVE "conversions": even in those limited cases where that word appears, it's evident that the various traditions mean different things by it.

Here I simply don't accept where your asserted ideas tend. It appears I am far more forgiving than you are in certain senses. I do not necessarily condemn Catholic religion for being infused with pagan amalgamations, or as being a synthesis between those ancient modes we are aware of -- Cynics, Stoics, Platonists, Mystery-school members, even the Goddess religions as The Golden Ass reveals (and he was later initiated into the mysteries of Osiris, for what its worth) -- and the imposed Judaic world.

Our world is actually composed of all these things and a great deal more. It can be looked upon as the stuff of life itself if one is fair. I think there is a great deal more to Christianity than to say that it is merely individual and credal. It is those things and much much more.

Here, "conversion" isn't even being used in reference to any "religion." Now you're talking about a mere ideological change-of-loyalties, not at all about what others mean by "conversion."

But 'religiousness' is a mode-of-being. And political conversion, and say Marxian conversion, share many traits in common with religious conversion.

Have I said that? I don't remember doing so. I certainly don't think it's true. As a Christian, I would have to say that the true "conversion" is Christian. And while I would also argue that the Christian is a direct derivative of Tanakh Judaism, I certainly wouldn't confuse either with modern cultural Judaism, which is its own thing.

You may not yourself have said it, but the *Christian argument* sometimes says it and many other things. I am not opposed to Christian conversion. My personal option is to center myself within that *conversion* which, in my case, centers around *the Catholic world*. Because it is Catholicism that most defined Europe and has most been involved in Occidental paideia.

Well, perhaps you shouldn't have used that word. I never did. But you could choose a much better one.

Why not simply say what is most obvious -- namely, that all religious traditions propose to be ways to the Divine, but that they offer very different accounts of how that goal is to be achieved?

True enough. And it is also true that any given individual will require a different sort of focus. Therefore, there are many different routes and paths. However, I do emphasis a certain essential and basic foundational ground. For that reason it is now and it will always be impossible to dismiss Christianity. Christian concerns encompass literally everything.

I do. So did Jesus Christ, actually. The racial-superiority strand of Judaism, which undeniably exists and is expressed in the classic Jew-Gentile dichotomy, is not a healthy thing. But I think it comes from a profound misunderstanding of the meaning of being "the chosen nation."

My opinion is that a path between the two poles is sensible. But this touches into notions of *identity* which are not a little contentious today.

I'm familiar with this supposition, but I think it's badly wrong. However, I would say that the Roman pagan world was indeed very "human," but not in many good senses of that term.

This is undeniable, and for that reason *the Christian cure* became necessary, and valid. But the same trends (veering away from excesses) also had been defined by 'higher paganism'.

Well, far from being "beyond any question of doubt," Nietzsche was quite wrong on this point, I think. What Judeo-Christian morality does is not to stifle "life" but to deny human beings an open space in which to actualize simply any impulse they wish. It is not really "life" that is being "stifled," but mankind's propensity to viciousness, cruelty, indifference, arrogance, hatred of women and Jews, and so on, all of which are really embodied in the idea of the ubermensch who has gone "beyond good and evil."

A somewhat conventional, but reductive, way to encapsulate it. I am not completely in accord with it but I certainly wouldn't deny aspects of it, either. But that is inevitable when confronting reductions.

Nietzsche's road leads to the gas chamber and the corpse kiln.

Well! Here we are once again. All conversational roads in their winding eventually lead to a confrontation with Adolf Hitler. I cannot take the idea seriously. I do not think it is true. But I do understand the utility of the assertion.

Strictness actually is quite compatible with some of the most vicious aspects of mankind's inner nature. Pharisees and Nazis love to moralize. The arrogant and self-satisfied love codes, rigid prescriptions, absolute declarations of duty, and so on. For it is by means of such "strictness" that a man, say, as a smug and selfish person, imperiously proves to himself that you are not as good as he. "Strictness" merely provides the grounds for such arrogance, but does not actually do anything to turn him into a genuinely good person.

When I used the word *strictness* I meant something different. More along the lines of something that opposes, or takes in hand, license and diffuse focus.

I think it certainly wise (absolutely necessary in fact) to take heed over political creeds and social movements that could mimic Nazi-like transformations of society and the very very bad things that result from that.

What turns him into a good person?! (Some quotes from Clockwork Orange):

“Oh it was gorgeousness and gorgeosity made flesh. The trombones crunched redgold under my bed, and behind my gulliver the trumpets three-wise silverflamed, and there by the door the timps rolling through my guts and out again crunched like candy thunder. Oh, it was wonder of wonders. And then, a bird of like rarest spun heavenmetal, or like silvery wine flowing in a spaceship, gravity all nonsense now, came the violin solo above all the other strings, and those strings were like a cage of silk round my bed. Then flute and oboe bored, like worms of like platinum, into the thick thick toffee gold and silver. I was in such bliss, my brothers.”

“Is it better for a man to have chosen evil than to have good imposed upon him?”

“When a man cannot choose, he ceases to be a man.”

“The important thing is moral choice. Evil has to exist along with good, in order that moral choice may operate. Life is sustained by the grinding opposition of moral entities.”

[henry quirk]

A reputable or clear source of information

What makes a source reputable, Age?

[Immanuel Can]

By Immanuel Can:

“ Now, you can argue that reincarnation is real. You can argue that person X or Y has supported your view. You can argue that the Bible is wrong in what it says about the afterlife. But the one thing you can't say is that the Bible teaches reincarnation, or that any real Christian can believe in it.”

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Response by owl of Minerva:

I could quote many examples that reincarnation was believed in by the Jews,

That would be entirely immaterial. If any believed in it, they believed contrary to Torah.

That the concept of reincarnation was known to the Jews is evidenced in several New Testament passages, as when the “priests and Levites” ask John the Baptist, “Art thou Elijah?” and when Jesus’ disciples tell him, “Some say that thou art John the Baptist: Some Elijah; and others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets.”

That wasn't reincarnation they had in mind: it was prophecy. In particular, it was Malachi 4:5 -- https://www.bibleref.com/Malachi/4/Malachi-4-5.html

The Hebrews use a figure of speech called "metonymy." When they said things like, "Moses gave us..." they meant, "The Law of Moses told us..." Or when they said, "David will reign..." they often meant "Somebody in David's lineage will reign..." The word "Israel" itself was the name of an individual man, long before it became the label for a nation. What they meant by such metonymies was "I am following Moses," or "The sons of David are the kingly line," or "I am a true son of Israel (Jacob)."

So when they speak of "Elijah" returning, they're speaking of a later prophet describe by the prophet Malachi that was prophesied to appear just before the coming of Messiah, acting in the role and attitude of an Elijah. They aren't thinking that Elijah Himself is going to be reincarnated...far less that everybody was always being reincarnated. Those ideas never occurred to them at all.

Also it requires believing in hell for all eternity and that a merciful God would allow that.

That's a different topic, though a very interesting one. However, whether or not we like the idea of Hell will not count for or against reincarnation. A belief doesn't become right just because somebody likes it better than an alternative.