Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Apr 17, 2022 2:29 amNo, not necessarily. Nobody's salvation depends on them subscribing to everything. What is requisite is spelled out quite specifically by Jesus Christ Himself.
And that's where faith starts...not on the fringes. The first and most important questions is always, "What do you think about the Christ?" to quote Matthew 22:42.
Here we enter into arcana. Most who read here will not be too much interested in the depths and dimensions of the Jewish and the Christian contrast of belief about Messiah. But what I want to make plain is that some part of what I am doing here is examining some of the finer points within the structure of the belief system. My question is
What happens when elements become no longer believable? and when what is not believable clangs in our ears and jangles inharmoniously with how we see and interpret the world?
That is one thing. The other is that when the Belief System is examined in detail -- this is an analytical resultant -- the pieces and the bits do not line up. Now why, as someone interested in defending Christianity, would I engage critically and seem to take a tack that is, as I often say, destructive? Well the answer is that I am doing nothing except to point out how it has come about that the Edifice has been seen to show cracks. I did not do this, this in not my endeavor, I am not responsible for it, and as I often say the ways and means through which this 'cracking' began is simply and honestly part-and-parcel of Occidental processes.
And, obviously, one of those who coalesced a discourse on
Cracking was F. Nietzsche. But he did not conjure it out of Chaos. He catalogued what had happened and then, according to my understanding, wrote emphatically on the theme of
being torn asunder.
I think that what you will do -- what you do in fact -- is to align me with these undermining trends and those who, let's say, are forced to struggle with them. And since your struggle is that of the True Christian defining True Christianity to those, like me, who can only make and who must make leaping allegorical interpretations in order, at least, to preserve a larger, important sense of meaning & value certainly ensconced within Christianity and foundational to Europe, as well as trying to defend the Christian Edifice against those dread others who are open atheists (Dubious, Iambiguous, Promethean, etc.), you resort to defensive apologetic polemics.
One of the references in the Matthew quote is to Psalm 110:
The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.
The Lord shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion: rule thou in the midst of thine enemies.
Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning: thou hast the dew of thy youth.
The Lord hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.
The Lord at thy right hand shall strike through kings in the day of his wrath.
He shall judge among the heathen, he shall fill the places with the dead bodies; he shall wound the heads over many countries.
He shall drink of the brook in the way: therefore shall he lift up the head.
It is curious, and rather stunning, to examine what has been done with some of these ideas and admonitions. So take Handel's
Dixit Dominus which recites the first lines of Psalm 110 in Latin: "The Lord said".
One of the things I have stressed, as-against you, is that to see and understand Christianity one cannot but examine the real context of Christianity: a 1,000-plus year period. We are the *outcomes* of all of this. We have been *constructed* through all of this. These elements are the building blocks of our own selves. We have to understand this. And we have to honor it and also protect it and at the same time remaining fluid in what we do with it and with our selves.
I ask "What is the alternative to defining Christianity by criteria?" And there really is no alternative. If there are no criteria, there's no substantive definition either.
Right, but what you are doing is defined as extra-intense Fundamentalism. You are a 'literalist' and your endeavor is to join one
Episteme with another
Episteme. That is, our present worldview and understanding with a former descriptive model. This leads, as I point out, to 'inelegant clanging' between two incompatible and incommensurate systems.
Now as to defining criteria I must point out to you that many many Christians have attempted what I call a
manoeuvre in relation to what 'clangs discordantly'. And this is one of the reasons why myriads Christian sects and split-offs arose and continue to arise.
Well, sell that story to modern Jews, if you can.
Well here you bring up a pretty substantial area that also requires examination. Christian Zionists have -- what is the word? -- cooperated and in a strong sense enabled Jewish Zionists in the Zionist project of 'return'. One notable accomplishment of Christian Zionism, in concert with Israeli Zionism, culminated in the transfer of the embassy to Jerusalem.
Now what this presages for religious Judaism is '
the rebuilding of the temple'. How could one even
approach the topic without considering the role of mythological, interpretive, prophetic, nationalist and modern cultural and economic issues in these relatively recent 'projects'?
I don't "reflexively" tell you anything, actually. I tell you what the Word of God tells you.
What you do with it...well, that's up to you. My job is to tell you what it says.
Except that what you cannot seem to understand, because you have defective hearing, is that I take the Christian message at another level. And this is where some part of what I am talking about dovetails with some part of what, for example, Nick is talking about. Christianity, and the practice of it, is then something internal and has to do with building the soul or building some defensive internal edifice.
But you see all these things have to brought out slowly. It takes a good deal of time and careful, progressive conversation.
Well, I'm not a JW. Nor are the JW's considered Christians.
Nevertheless what Christian believe -- that is Christian literalists -- is that the *world* as it now is will be replaced by a new & improved *world* that embodies a perfected Universe. The picture that I submitted was only to illustrate that such things are visualized, and have been visualized, over the centuries. The JW one is just, let's say, delightfully ridiculous. Did you notice the little family of skunks? God is so wonderful and His plan so comprehensive that in The World to Come skunks will not need to emit stink! Because no living creature will have any enemy. No one will eat each other. The Lion will lie with the lamb, that sort of thing.
It is The Great Reset taken to a whole other level! But what are you going to eat is my question (as a
foodie mind you). Did you see the mushrooms growing there in the foreground? I guess we could fry some up with a bit of butter and nutmeg. But that would involve killing them. Oh dear, this is getting complex. Back to other matters . . .
I have a pretty good sense already of what you want to believe "Christianity" is. It's very inclusive, cultural and nominal, and require really nothing of anybody. I just think it's way off the mark, because it has nothing to do with the Biblical definition, and nothing whatsoever to do with Christ. So that's problematic, for sure.
Oh no you have got this really wrong. How value and meaning are defined, and what this means for you and me and those who comprise a cultural and national community -- this is what is *up in the air*. My own inclination, as I have said, is to refer to the culminations of old-school Catholic theological thought on the social issues. I do indeed define a conservative social program. And along side that and those definitions I also bring in a philosophical perspective such as that of the Platonist Richard Weaver.
And this dovetails into ways-and-means that the essential features of Christian belief can be reconciled with Greek rationalism and philosophical ideation.
Yeah...not so much.
