Christianity

[Belinda]

Immanuel Can wrote:

It's funny: if I told you things I didn't believe, I'd be a liar. If I tell you what I do believe, I'm "preaching."

To believe The Bible simply is the word of God is a belief devoid of scepticism. Scepticism includes knowing that you know nothing.

To be innocent like a child does not mean gullible. To be innocent like a child means to try to put aside preconceptions and tenacious traditions.

[Alexis Jacobi]

I have no idea where you are getting this. It's in absolutely nothing I said.

This notion is part-and-parcel of Judaic/Christian conception. God is an absolute lord and demands a sort of obedience and respect that seems to demand that the follower be a slave, see himself as a slave. The idea of being a 'slave of Christ' is a manifestation of this. And when Christianity rolls in, imperialistically as it seemed to have done in Europe, it sets itself up (sometimes with good reason) as a superior thing coming along to subdue, order and structure the inferior thing. Also, when man is reduced so essentially to a vile, sinning creature who can only be *saved* by giving himself over to a God who is 'absolutely and purely good', a relationship of slave/ruler is established.

It is true that you have not talked about this nor of things like this! But this, I have learned, is something that I need to examine as I talk to you. You seem highly aware in some areas, and then totally unaware in others. Why is this? Well, that is a question you pose whether you realize it or not. You establish yourself as among *the absolutely righteous*. You say

"No, not me telling you this, God tells you this! (And in a very short while you will face your Maker and then, THEN you will understand the truths I speak of and rue the day you did not listen as you suffer Eternal Torture at the hand of the Most Righteous God!"

You are unaware that Christianity is a System devised by men, molded by men, for specific social, cultural and other purposes. Instead of seeing and understanding (and considering) that this is so, you are absolutely committed to all its categories of judgment. You cannot veer from any one of them apparently. This fits with the psychology of the True Believer and certainly of the religious fundamentalist. But here is the kicker: though I say this, and though in a *normal* person what is said would produce a pause, in you there is no pause.

Now you wonder why it is, or with what justice, I extrapolate from what you say to things that you may not have concretely said but which are certainly implied by your general presentation, and the reason is because I am not only talking to a singular you. I am speaking to a certain 'edifice' of belief and commitment to belief.

You talk down to people and this is a curious, yet substantial and noteworthy aspect of your shtick as I call it. Your core assumption is "I am right in all I say not because I say it but because God has said it" -- and then you quote candy-colored Scripture to back it up. When *what you do* is examined -- this is my suggestion -- what is noticed is that there is absolutely no choice offered when you present the System's demands. But this fits, naturally, with an absolutist religious system. You are then an absolute fundamentalist.

And what absolute fundamentalism demands is that one become a subservient 'slave' to it.

But what I am suggesting is that I have no desire -- I refuse to put it directly -- to play and rehearse in the theatre that you establish through your shtick which demands a surrender to the God that you present in absolute terms. You present a sort of religio-psychological whirlpool -- but this is a common feature with absolutist religions. And this is why I mention that there is a similarity to your declaration that God is Great! (infinitely superior to any man and thus a force that must be surrendered to) and the same Allāhu ʾakbar of the Islamists.

I say similar and this is not to say 'the same'.

Now with that said -- and these are allusions to truths but I do not wish them to be understood as absolute declarations about you or about fundamental Christianity -- my larger interest is not your specific position but rather the cultural situation and the world-situation that we find ourselves in today. This conversation needs and requires to be tied-back to contemporary events so that we can make sense of the portent of all of this.

I do not in any sense dismiss or reject Christianity or Christian philosophy. Quite the opposite! I am committed to exploration of it. But I do so, or to put this another way, I am determining that the way that I will undertake this exploration is not as a 'slave' but as a 'free man'. And a free man not only has the right to examine any declaration through-and-through and to take his analysis to any point necessary, but in fact should not and cannot do any other thing without violating essential sovereignty.

And this is why I have mentioned, from time to time, the historical and cultural fact that when Christianity came to Northern Europe (the Germanic world) it was received by a specific, and a different, sort of man and a man with different core characteristics. I use the term Indo-European as an abbreviation for what I mean. And to the degree that the Christian ethic was agreed with, though force was also a fact, it was assented to by a free-thinking and independent man. However, this contradicts at an essential point what I have also abbreviatedly described as a Judaic ethic of 'total surrender'. Anyone with superficial familiarity with the OT Bible texts can easily recognize the tyrant and tyranny in the personality of Yahweh. So God is presented through an imago and as if this terrible personality is up there looking down with a terrible frown who will eventually charge back in the the world of human chaos and with absolute violence and absolute authority to punish the evil-doers and restore the Edenic peace.

These must be seen as tropes but of a sort that operate at a deep perceptual and also psychological core. These perceptions then determine the way in which The World (as kosmos) is related to as it is perceived. Now, I do not say that this is *wrong* and in fact what I do say is that *it is*. These are parts-and-parcels of the System of which we are a part (when Europe is considered).

I have no idea where you are getting this. It's in absolutely nothing I said.

You represent and you seek to explain and to convince that man must turn to God and be 'saved'. I do not take what is suggested non-seriously or as if the core tenets of the System have no value or are lies that must be dismissed. These are truths presented through Stories. But what I do think is that the System needs to be examined far more closely, and I give myself the right to do so and say that I am obligated to do so from a standpoint of freedom.

And this is again why I say that I personally think that the *personality* of the God that you present is best off being *seen through* and diminished. The better avenue and path is, as I see things, to break Christian admonitions down into ideas that are communicated through logos. There is a great deal of implication in carrying this out. This goes back to what I suggested long ago and which you totally and completely rejected: If Christianity is valid in our world, if it can be presented rationally, then it must operate as Universal Truths in this world as well as other worlds. That is, if we really believe that it expresses Truths that are presented by the Creator of heaven & earth & all things.

At the very least I simply desire to explain where I am going with *all this*.

[Alexis Jacobi]

I wrote: "Personally, I am pretty profoundly suspicious of those -- it is a Protestant conceit in the main, isn't it? -- that salvation occurs in one sole moment and, according to the definition, cannot be lost. I simply do not buy it."

Let's explore that: why not? What makes that seem "suspicious" to you?

The notion is, of course, central to Christianity and not just Protestantism.

When I said a 'Protestant conceit' I meant that Protestants put all their emphasis on the saving moment. Once saved, always saved. They have their logical means of explaining why they see it that way (related to Christ's sacrifice at Cavalry) and thus it is presented rationally.

What I think is suspicious, and what I cannot go along with, has to do with the way I think of sovereignty. As I said Judaism and Christianity define God in such absolute terms that man can't be anything else but 1) a slave of God or 2) a reprobate and rebel.

And this idea of 'salvation' (especially the Protestant and Evangelical variety) places emphasis on something given by God as an either-or. Either it has been given and you have it, or you have not been given it and you don't. And who mediates this? Who decides? You will say "God decides!" but I say that it is closer to the truth to say that the parameters of salvation are determined by men and mediated by men.

So again I turn back to the core question: What is salvation? It is no longer clear. It was clear that it referred to liberation from this world and quite literally. To be released from the consequences of sin was to be freed from this world and also the world of Hell.

But now we must examine the entire notion of 'salvation' from a different, and I will also say a mature perspective and point of view.

Also, it is not proper that a free man see himself as having been granted freedom from some other source or authority. A free man must refer to himself and decide for himself and inside himself Am I correctly oriented? Am I serving myself and the people around me correctly and well enough? Or am I deceiving myself about who I am and what my effect is?

These are internal decisions and they can only be decided by a competent, free individual.

So I would say that this noble and free man is better off believing that his salvation is in no sense guaranteed, as if it had been offered by a superior to an inferior.

Salvation is much better presented as something you must constantly work for. And this places all the emphasis on a noble individual making noble decisions for himself and his community.

Who gives a damn really if someone shouts "I've been saved"'? It is too tempting when such self-declarations are made, or when they are made by Mass Man in groups, to rest on a supposed attainment that was not worked for.

Thus I suggest a core defect within the psychology of Christian conception. (But it is not that I do not understand the notion of 'salvation offered to man by Christ's sacrifice').

And I believe that the notion of 'partnership with a God' and not 'subservience to a God' is a more powerful position to take and to have.

[Immanuel Can]

I have no idea where you are getting this. It's in absolutely nothing I said.

This notion is part-and-parcel of Judaic/Christian conception.

No, it's not.

The idea of being a 'slave of Christ' is a manifestation of this.

The term is "servant," and picks up the theme of "stewardship": namely, that all things are given by God, and all of us are ultimately accountable to Him. To be a "servant of God" is a place of honour and a call to high ethics.

And that's one heck of a long way from "worm," which is what you said I had said.

So drop the hyperbole, and maybe we'll get somewhere, right?

Also, when man is reduced so essentially to a vile, sinning creature who can only be *saved* by giving himself over to a God who is 'absolutely and purely good', a relationship of slave/ruler is established.

No: the right description of that relationship -- by your own account, above -- would be "Saviour and saved," a relationship of grace and salvation, not enslavement.

You establish yourself as among *the absolutely righteous*.

This, again, I have never said, implied or believed.

Let's drop the absurd hyperbole, shall we?

You say

"No, not me telling you this, God tells you this! (And in a very short while you will face your Maker and then, THEN you will understand the truths I speak of and rue the day you did not listen as you suffer Eternal Torture at the hand of the Most Righteous God!"

Point to where I said this.

You'll find I never did...yet again. Why are you determined not to quote what I say, but rather to take it in bizarre directions and assume things I certainly never said and never would?

You are unaware that Christianity is a System devised by men

You're assuming the conclusion you want. You're not proving anything here.

You talk down to people

If I disagree with you, then is that "talking down"? That attitude would seem to make reasonable conversation quite impossible.

This conversation needs and requires to be tied-back to contemporary events so that we can make sense of the portent of all of this.

Well, that's where you'd like to take it, I know. Because that takes the personal challenge out of it, and turns it into a matter of distant academic musing rather than of personal salvation.

But think what it means that you are determined to do that. Think what it says about your priorities. It would seem to imply that you find academic distance and speculation more important than the challenge of God's explicit word, the relevant personal truth. Beware that academics can become a refuge from conviction. Keeping things theoretical prevents them from being personal.

And it can pacify and anaethetize a man's soul, even if he's on his way to a lost eternity.

These things are not academic: they call for decision.

I will undertake this exploration is not as a 'slave' but as a 'free man'. And a free man not only has the right to examine any declaration through-and-through and to take his analysis to any point necessary,

Of course. Nobody ever said otherwise.

Do you pay any attention at all to what I actually said? As I said earlier:

I have no idea where you are getting this. It's in absolutely nothing I said.

You represent and you seek to explain and to convince that man must turn to God and be 'saved'.

Certainly. What kind of a moral monster would I be, if I believed that was possible and I refused to tell you?

If Christianity is valid in our world, if it can be presented rationally, then it must operate as Universal Truths in this world as well as other worlds.

That's a bit absurd, given that so far as we know, there ARE no "other worlds."

But in point of fact, all that Christianity is are universal truths. Its claims are always true, for everybody, at all times. But like all truth claims of that kind, they also exclude things. That is, they don't just say what is true, but also thereby automatically indicate what is not true.

It is by virtue of the law of gravity that you know that things fall down. But it is also by virtue of the law of gravity that they do not fall up, or fall sideways. And it is by that law that you cannot flap your arms and fly. But nobody blames gravity for failing to be sufficiently "universal," even though it excludes all options but one.

The truth is always exclusive. And you're going to find that that's universal.

[Immanuel Can]

I wrote: "Personally, I am pretty profoundly suspicious of those -- it is a Protestant conceit in the main, isn't it? -- that salvation occurs in one sole moment and, according to the definition, cannot be lost. I simply do not buy it."

Let's explore that: why not? What makes that seem "suspicious" to you?

The notion is, of course, central to Christianity and not just Protestantism.

I would say that. But you just excluded the Catholics, among others, if you say that.

Protestants put all their emphasis on the saving moment.

They don't, actually. They only emphasize the first moment as the doorway to salvation; but none of them theologically argue that it is the totality of the experiencing of salvation. And that's a good analogy: a doorway "gets you into" something; but to live and grow, you need a whole house in which to live afterward. That's more typical of the Protestant view.

But the only important question is, "What is the Biblical view?"

Once saved, always saved. They have their logical means of explaining why they see it that way (related to Christ's sacrifice at Cavalry) and thus it is presented rationally.

Both rationally and Biblically.

What I think is suspicious, and what I cannot go along with, has to do with the way I think of sovereignty.

"Sovereignty" is a word with different meanings to different theologies. What you're talking about is Calvinism, which uses the word to argue that God is a Deterministic and autocratic entity. But their view is a minority position, and one not demonstrable based on Scripture. Instead, they do it as a kind of simple-minded deduction, as in "If God is all powerful, He must also have predetermined everything." But I hope you can see through their error...it's terribly obvious.

So again I turn back to the core question: What is salvation?

You mean, "sovereignty."

On "salvation," there is much more agreement. Even the Calvinists will tell you it's "...by grace, through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ." (Ephesians 2:8-9)

...it is not proper that a free man see himself as having been granted freedom from some other source or authority.

You're mistaking what "free" means.

It does not mean "self-created," obviously. It also cannot mean "self-sustained," or "capable of infinite options," obviously. No human being, even empirically, is any of those things. Nobody made himself, nobody sustains his own life, independent of food, clothing and oxygen, and nobody is capable of doing absolutely everything he might want or imagine. It would be silly to suppose any of those meanings, obviously.

What "free" means is "free to choose among available life options," and particularly, "free to choose one's own moral course of life and destiny." And you are free to do that. That's for sure.

A free man must refer to himself and decide for himself and inside himself Am I correctly oriented? Am I serving myself and the people around me correctly and well enough? Or am I deceiving myself about who I am and what my effect is?

That is precisely right. But that is exactly what I am encouraging you to do.

These are internal decisions and they can only be decided by a competent, free individual.

Internal? They may be made in the "internal workings" of a man, but they don't stay there. They issue in attitudes, actions, relationships and consequences. And a free man is one who chooses and then takes the consequences of his own choices -- he is not somebody who is above all consequences.

Salvation is much better presented as something you must constantly work for.

Let's see if that's true. The Bible says it's not, but let's test that theory anyway.

How much work must a man do in order to please God? We need to know that, because otherwise, we cannot possibly say that your way is "much better," than anything.

Who gives a damn really if someone shouts "I've been saved"'?

If that's what salvation was, then nobody needs care.

And I believe that the notion of 'partnership with a God' and not 'subservience to a God' is a more powerful position to take and to have.

Have you asked God if He regards you as an appropriate "partner"? Do you think a righteous God should?

If you do, you're a very confident person, or else you have an exceedingly low estimation of the character of God.

This is the old problem of intellectual pride. It is what I said before: man compares himself to other men, and preens himself on his own intellectual accuity. He impresses himself, thereby, so he thinks he must impress God. And his pride is wounded when anybody points out to him that the achievement of finding himself "better than other men" is paltry and unrealistic, and that he has failed to grasp exactly how much above him, both in intellect and in righteousness, the Supreme God of the universe actually is.

He's like a man trying to swim the Pacific, proud of himself when he considers that so many others drowned in the first two miles, and that he has swum for thirty more. But he drowns anyway: and his progress, viewed from space, is not even distinguishable from the poor paddlers who barely made it off the shore. He simply fails to consider that the gap he is proposing to swim is far too great for even the greatest person.

But the truth is quite obvious: the best of us is nowhere near the wisdom and righteousness of God. And if we took God seriously for five minutes, we'd know it. We'd see that there can be no other realization.

[Immanuel Can]

To believe The Bible simply is the word of God is a belief devoid of scepticism.

Funny. Some of the greatest minds in history would disagree with you about that.

Scepticism includes knowing that you know nothing.

No, that's called "Nihilism." "Skepticism" means only "asking questions," or "doubting until proof is provided." To "know that you know nothing" is Nihilistic and cynical, not skeptical.

And ironically, if you can "know that you know nothing," then you actually know one thing for sure...namely, the fact that you know nothing...which is then not "nothing" but rather "one thing," ....which then means you know something...which means such a claim is self-defeatingly false.

You cannot "know that you know nothing." You can "know nothing," but if you "know" that you do, then you do"know" something.

[Alexis Jacobi]

From: Handmaid: The Power of Names in Theology and Society
By Caroline N. Mbonu

Doul-stem word in Ancient Literature [Ancient Greek: doulos; δοῦλος]

Doul-stem words represent one of many nouns used to designate a
slave during the Hellenistic-Roman period. Doulos/doulé usage in the
Septuagint (LXX) emerges from a confluence of ideas and circumstances
found in the culture of the ancient Near East from which Israel received,
in part, its cultural self-definition. A. Weiser stated that in the Hebrew
Scriptures and in Judaism, doul-stem word has a different meaning from
its Hellenistic usage, “A totally different understanding is expressed in the
OT and in Judaism: God is the absolute Lord. The individual knows that
he is dependent on God. To be chosen by God, to be able to serve him,
is not demeaning; on the contrary, it is an honor. Consequently words of
the doul-stem in the LXX are most frequently translated equivalents for
the root 'bd [servant of God] and its denominative.”

The LXX (Septuagint) renders douleuein the most common term for the service
ofGod, not just in isolated acts, but in total commitment. Other scholars
commented that in the LXX, the word doulos denotes not only slave of
human masters, but also designates the pious and the faithful, especially
prophets and rulers (cf. 2 Kgs 16:7; 2 Sam 10:19; 2 Kgs 18:24).12 Terms
such as doulos/doulē theou, signify a humble self-deprecation before a
superior, especially before God. A clear distinction exists between the
Hebrew 'ebed in ancient Israel and 'ebed among non-Jews. The Hebrew
'ebed in many respects implies a debt-slave or an indentured servant.

Doul-stem words function in manners in which even the highest
officials are doulos, slaves, before their king. American scholar Benjamin
Wright, among other biblical scholars identified the use of the term
doulos, representing “slave of God” as perhaps an idea unique to the
Jews and their scriptural traditions. The notion of doulos as slave of
God resonates with Israel's self-conception as a nation of people who
represent “servants of God,” as opposed to servants of human rulers.

So my new policy with you is I will go through these rehearsals just one time. If you get it, you get it, if not, it will be left behind. I am not making, and do not find value, in absolute binary definitions. So what I present here is an approximation; an allusion to a sense that can be discerned, understood and appreciated.

Whether the notion of 'being a slave' is softened, as it were, to being a servant; and also whether the servant/slave feels it is an honor to have been selected to have that role, nevertheless the notion, the idea, of a God who enlists man in a sort of covenantal servitude is predominant within Judaism and Christianity.

One is, more often than not, a servant of the Lord but not a partner, confidant or fellow-creator with God. And I think this distinction is relevant.

I draw attention to a distinction. It might be strongly emphasized in some situations, it might be much less emphasized, but the idea is sound in indicating a type of relationship.

Here, and I will do this just once, I refer to Job where the notion of 'man as a worm' is expressed:

Job 25:

Then answered Bildad the Shuhite, and said,
Dominion and fear are with him, he maketh peace in his high places.
Is there any number of his armies? and upon whom doth not his light arise?
How then can man be justified with God? or how can he be clean that is born of a woman?
Behold even to the moon, and it shineth not; yea, the stars are not pure in his sight.
How much less man, that is a worm? and the son of man, which is a worm?

So, the notion of an extremely low thing -- a worm or a maggot -- is a common trope in Judaism and in Christianity. And when a Christian wishes to express the lowely, rotten state of man, he will use like terms to describe man.

If I may summarize Bildad’s speech: God is absolutely sovereign. There is no one like him. No sinner can be right with God. If the moon is dark by comparison, how much more is man, who is nothing more than a maggot.

Being nothing but a maggot and a worm is a classic statement of man’s depravity, and in itself, Job would not disagree with Bildad’s analysis. It is the conclusion that Job takes exception to. Man is not just an animal (as maggots eat their way through life, devoid of conscience or self-awareness). Man is not the end-product of an evolutionary chain that links him with maggots and worms.

Man was made in the image of God and lived in that pristine condition for a time in Eden. Man’s depravity is the result of his having fallen from his high position. The problem with Bildad’s theology of man’s depravity (one which is based on the fact that man is no different from the rest of creation) is that it offers no room for redemption. If man is created in God’s image, it is possible that by some divine power this image may be restored.

The Bible’s message of sin is just as dreadful as Bildad’s. In fact it is far worse. We are much more sinful than we ever imagine ourselves to be. But we are told this about ourselves, so that we do not make the fatal mistake of depending on ourselves for salvation. The Bible reveals our depravity in order to show us that there is nothing in ourselves to give us (humans) the slightest cause for encouragement. The sole ground of our hope lies in our Redeemer, Jesus Christ — the very one in whom Job expressed confidence (Job 19:25–27).

What this writer says, in essence, is what you IC say about man and man's condition.

[Alexis Jacobi]

AJ wrote: "Salvation is much better presented as something you must constantly work for.

Let's see if that's true. The Bible says it's not, but let's test that theory anyway.

How much work must a man do in order to please God? We need to know that, because otherwise, we cannot possibly say that your way is "much better," than anything.

Just the right amount and if possible a bit more.

[Alexis Jacobi]

AJ said: "This conversation needs and requires to be tied-back to contemporary events so that we can make sense of the portent of all of this."

Well, that's where you'd like to take it, I know. Because that takes the personal challenge out of it, and turns it into a matter of distant academic musing rather than of personal salvation.

But think what it means that you are determined to do that. Think what it says about your priorities. It would seem to imply that you find academic distance and speculation more important than the challenge of God's explicit word, the relevant personal truth. Beware that academics can become a refuge from conviction. Keeping things theoretical prevents them from being personal.

And it can pacify and anaethetize a man's soul, even if he's on his way to a lost eternity.

These things are not academic: they call for decision.

In fact it does not take any level of challenge out of it. But I have said numerous times that one's own, and my own, internal relationship and what I do internally & personally is not a topic for discussion on a forum like this. So I tend to leave out any sort of references to my own personal situation (and what I think about my own person spiritually or in any other related sense).

One aspect of my interest in Christianity has to do with my historical, literary, linguistic, philosophical, social and sociological concerns. And I am largely convinced that in some way, or in one way or another, *we* must recover ourselves through renovation of spiritual life. So you can see that, perhaps like Jordan Peterson who I would use as a reference-point, the core questions, the most important questions, ask of people today to examine the context in which we all live, and to think about ourselves within that context, as well as to examine the ideological currents that move powerfully around us.

So we can, and as Peterson certainly suggests, examine and think about *ideological coercion* that derives from Marxist-Lenninist ideology which has filtered into our ideational worlds. The processes of destruction and undermining I often refer to have origins. And it is not easy to come to understand that they have a root and that the root can be discovered. If we do not have the intellectual skill, the intellectual strength as well as some special will, we will not be able to see what subsumes us. We will not be able to resist. We will not be able to counter-propose and choose another direction. Proper intelligence is thus a prime focus. And if God (to use your sort of lingo) does not recognize, appreciate, value and strengthen those who do this, he is an irrational God.

To become cognizant of the battles going on around us and which have recently heated up extraordinarily, requires a special awareness. It also requires, I think, guidance. If I mention guidance I refer to proper authority, and if I refer to proper authority I therefore reference people who have done a great deal of this work (of seeing and sorting). Not the weak idiot-child, not the mental dificient, but strong, committed people who are aware of their power and have defined a base for their power.

So the fact of the matter is -- and here I refer to the wide current of ideation going on today -- that there is a great stirring-up of through in regard to these existential issues and, perhaps said in another way, of the existential crises and calamities that beset us.

None of this takes any part of the challenge out of any part of it. I regard the inner world and one's relationship to the outer world as convergent. (It is a basic Platonic predicate).

I do not regard any prediction you'd make about any person as necessarily heading for a 'lost eternity' as being true or factual. You may very well turn out, in my estimation, to be befuddled. I do understand that you really believe you have an authoritative stance though, and that this stems from your belief-organization.

I do not think the question about it (this world, worlds after & beyond) and the conversation about it is a bad conversation to have.

I see the image of hell as being part of a coercive device. Obviously, it has certainly played that role and been used to coerce. But what 'hell' is and how even the notion of 'going to Hell' should be understood and how it should be taken (interpreted) is, in my case, up in the air.

[Immanuel Can]

AJ wrote: "Salvation is much better presented as something you must constantly work for.

Let's see if that's true. The Bible says it's not, but let's test that theory anyway.

How much work must a man do in order to please God? We need to know that, because otherwise, we cannot possibly say that your way is "much better," than anything.

Just the right amount and if possible a bit more.

Be specific. Remember: this is something you and I are actually going to have to DO, if according to works-thinking, we are going to earn our relationship with God. So we need to know what we have to do. This is no place for us to become impractical or vague. Our souls depend upon us getting this right.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Be specific. Remember: this is something you and I are actually going to have to DO, if according to works-thinking, we are going to earn our relationship with God. So we need to know what we have to do. This is no place for us to become impractical or vague. Our souls depend upon us getting this right.

No it is enough to point in the direction of what I wish to refer to and accentuate.

If salvation exists, salvation has to be coherently and carefully defined. I am not closed to arriving at a definition but I am largely certain that we cannot rely on old definitions, especially those based in coercion and social-control mechanisms, and that we must examine the entire question afresh.

If eternal condemnation exists, it too has to be explained -- carefully & coherently.

It is enough to suggest that if salvation is real, that it could only be because of a combination between inner turning and outer activity and relationship. That is, if Christianity is seen as a holistic philosophy (relationship to life).

You attempt to reduce what I am saying, or to slot what I am saying, into works-thinking. You do this because your mind has been conditioned into such binaries. But I do not accept your terming.

And I am uncertain as to what any particular soul has to get right. I am not closed to considering the admonition though.

[Immanuel Can]

But I have said numerous times that one's own, and my own, internal relationship and what I do internally & personally is not a topic for discussion on a forum like this.

Okay. But the topic here is "Christianity." If Christianity requires a personal commitment, as I say it does, then either one has to speak of one's internal relationship with God, or simply fall silent to protect one's privacy. There's no other option.

I am largely convinced that in some way, or in one way or another, *we* must recover ourselves through renovation of spiritual life.

Yes, that's true.

So you can see that, perhaps like Jordan Peterson who I would use as a reference-point, the core questions, the most important questions, ask of people today to examine the context in which we all live, and to think about ourselves within that context, as well as to examine the ideological currents that move powerfully around us.

You should pay closer attention, perhaps, to where Jordan Peterson's thinking has been going lately. At one time, he was an Atheist, of course; then he became somebody who talks at the level you're talking about. But since his illness and recovery, his take on God and faith is very, very different from the detached, dry and academic kind of thing you're suggesting.

So we can, and as Peterson certainly suggests, examine and think about *ideological coercion* that derives from Marxist-Lenninist ideology which has filtered into our ideational worlds.

That's true. But it has zero to do with Christianity. Marx was an Atheist and Jewish apostate, and a hater of all religion.

If I might recommend, I just finished reading James Lindsay's Race Marxism. It's brilliant, well-documented and comprehensive on the subject of the Marxism of today.

...if God (to use your sort of lingo) does not recognize, appreciate, value and strengthen those who do this, he is an irrational God.

Heh. That's funny. Your argument seeems to go, "If God doesn't need my help to figure things out, and if he doesn't admire my abilities, or those of people like me, then He's irrational."

I hardly know what to do with that kind of an argument. I think it pretty much answers itself, though.

To become cognizant of the battles going on around us and which have recently heated up extraordinarily, requires a special awareness. It also requires, I think, guidance.

Yes, all that is true. But it's nowhere near the level at which God understands things. And it certainly doesn't signal that he needs our help to figure them out, or to know what to do about them.

Our capacities are very impressive to us, maybe; and even more impressive when we compare ourselves to other humans. But they are considerably less than what it takes to impress God...especially since we have no ability that He has not already given us.

Again, I think the point answers itself. All one has to do is to understand the word "God" to know how unnecessary our wisdom is to Him.

So the fact of the matter is -- and here I refer to the wide current of ideation going on today -- that there is a great stirring-up of through in regard to these existential issues and, perhaps said in another way, of the existential crises and calamities that beset us.

Yes, true.

I do not regard any prediction you'd make about any person as necessarily heading for a 'lost eternity' as being true or factual.

Nor would I. It's not for me to say.

But it is for God to say. And you and I have to decide whether or not we will believe Him when He says what is required.

I see the image of hell as being part of a coercive device.

That's a possible hypothesis. And if you had said, maybe, "Purgatory" instead, I'd be able to show you were right. But you say "Hell," so let's go with that word.

So your hypothesis could be right, plausibly. The Bible is wrong. There is no need for salvation. It's all just a big "fix" by religious zealots to compel people to knuckle under.

Want to risk it?

I must also wonder at the incompetence of these religious zealots who are inventing such a thing. You say they've invented Hell as away to "coerce" people. I have to say that empirically, it's not working; far more people are indifferent to that message than are listening to it. They will need to try a new trick, I think; this one's not achieving the sorts of efficacy you attribute to it. People aren't very "coerced".

Got a better hypothesis?

The other hypothesis is that Hell exists, but God doesn't wish you to choose to go there. So He's telling us right now what we need to do in order to come into a right relationship with Him. "Salvation" means He's prepared to forgive us. "Faith," that all we have to do is believe in His intentions. And "grace," that we'll never deserve it, but receive it undeserved, a free gift of His goodness.

But like all gifts, it must be received; or it's no gift at all, but rather an imposition, a compulsory thing, a tyrannical act.

The terms are very generous: but the offer is not always accepted, believe it or not.

[Immanuel Can]

Be specific. Remember: this is something you and I are actually going to have to DO, if according to works-thinking, we are going to earn our relationship with God. So we need to know what we have to do. This is no place for us to become impractical or vague. Our souls depend upon us getting this right.

No it is enough to point in the direction of what I wish to refer to and accentuate.

Actually, it's not. We have to be practical here: what you've left us with, so far, is a world of uncertainty, and no road to salvation at all.

Remember: we have to DO this. And our souls depend on it.

I am uncertain as to what any particular soul has to get right.

Well, then: that's honest. Thank you for that frankness.

But a matter like one's soul is nothing to play dice with. And if (per argumentum) God has told us what we need to do, and we refuse it and seek our own path, what happens to us?

As the Bible says, "There is a way which seems right to a person, But its end is the way of death." (Proverbs 14:12).

Or as Jesus Himself said, "Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is narrow and the way is constricted that leads to life, and there are few who find it." (Matthew 7:13-14)

[Alexis Jacobi]

AJ: I am uncertain as to what any particular soul has to get right.

Well, then: that's honest. Thank you for that frankness.

I am nothing else but frank. Yet you took my words as a confession, not as an intended statement.

There is nothing at all clear, today, about what salvation is. What it means, what it requires.

The soul has been created, the soul exists. I have doubts about the Christian’s breadth of a general understanding about the soul, it’s journey so to speak, and I am not at all sure that the traditional Christian story provides enough of the picture.

So I might say our soul depends on the life and consciousness given to it because it is an eternal entity. That Christianity has placed such specific and limited parameters on its life may be a mistake.

So as I have said I am uncertain if all the souls said (by Christianity) to be destined for eternal damnation do in fact have that specific destiny. There may be, and I think there is, far more to the story.

To set up a picture of life with sheer, unutterable and eternal punishment in the form of Eternal Torture by demons as a likely or even a possible end for the soul, may in fact be a mistake.

The story has a function though. And that function, as we know, is managed by men who manage the story.

Worth thinking about.

[Alexis Jacobi]

From After the Catastrophe by CG Jung (1945), written as a companion to his 1936 essay Wotan in which he pre-visualized (predicted because he saw the madness forming and read the signs & omens) the European crisis and the German manifestation of madness.

As Europeans, or rather as the white man in general, we are hardly in a position to judge of our own state of mind. We are too much in it. I had always wished to see the European through other eyes; and eventually I was able to establish sufficient relationship with exotic people on many of my journeys to enable me to see the European as it were through their eyes. The white man is undoubtedly nervous, restless, unstable, and (in the eyes of the exotic man) possessed by the craziest ideas; in spite of his energy and gifts, which give him the feeling of being infinitely superior. The crimes he has committed against exotic people are legion; but obviously this is no excuse for any fresh crime, just as the individual is no better when he is in a vast company of bad people.

Primitives dread the sharp focus of the European's eye, which they look upon as the “ evil eye”. A Pueblo-Indian chief confided to me that he was convinced that all Americans (the only white people he had ever come in contact with) were mad; and when he gave his reasons for such an opinion, he might have been describing the condition of possessed people.

Well we must realize that the primitive is still living in a world which we have long since forgotten, a world in which the whole of nature was filled with the divine breath of life; and we are bound to admit that -- for the first time since primeval days -- we have at last succeeded in absorbing this powerful, animating spirit pretty thoroughly. Not only have the gods descended from the celestial planetary houses -- or rather been fetched down -- to become chthonic daemons, but under the influence of increasing scientific enlightenment, this band of daemons, which in the time of Paracelsus still frolicked happily in mountains and woods, in rivers and in human habitations, has been reduced to lamentable remnants, and has even finally disappeared altogether.

Since time immemorial, nature was always filled with spirit. Now, for the first time, we are living in a lifeless nature, bereft also of her gods. Nobody will deny the important rôle which the powers of the human soul, personified as “ gods ”, played in the past. It is true that owing to the mere progress of civilization the spirits of nature have lost their validity. But this by no means applies to the corresponding psychic factors, such as suggestibility, lack of discrimination, fear, inclination to superstition, and prejudice; in short all the well-known characteristics which expose a person to the danger of possession. Although nature may have been deprived of life, the psychic conditions which breed daemons are as actively at work as ever. As a matter of fact, the daemons have not really disappeared, they have merely taken on another form.

I submit this, one because it is simply interesting, but two because it occurs to me that the Christian notion of a soul always on the verge of Eternal Damnation and Eternal Torture may, as I have suggested, be an error, but also, in itself, a symptom of madness. This is not to say that I deny the existence of the soul, but rather that these Stories that have been developed may be inaccurate pictures.

I have stated that I am here for my own purposes. So I may introduce ideas simply because they occur to me.

The wind bloweth where it listeth,
and thou hearest the sound thereof,
but canst not tell whence it cometh,
and whither it goeth:
so is every one that is born of the Spirit.