Christianity

[Alexis Jacobi]

But if your theory is good, why can't it stand up to a little doubt and interrogation? That seems odd.

Here, have some Ayurvedic lunch . . .

[Belinda]

But I see why it's more comforting to think "they're all nuts" than to think, "maybe they've got a point." That much, I get. It's just the human impulse to dismiss uncomfortable facts.

If you, the most esteemed IC, actually believe in that Garden...

You're extrapolating, not repeating what I was saying. And I don't feel any justification in responding to what you imagine you wanted me to have said instead of what I actually did.

What I said was that an original mating pair is unavoidable for Evolutionists. If you have an alternate theory, let's hear how the human race came to exist...without an original mating pair.

It's extraordinary that IC who can write lucidly like an educated man also believes that the Creation as described in Genesis is something to do with evolution of a species.

[Immanuel Can]

Have you ever heard the story of the Battle of Waterloo? How about the Crossing of the Rubicon? How about the Life of Jesus? These are stories, to be sure; and they all have allegorical implications. However, nobody says they aren't also true.

Here you zero in on something important (though you do it unintentionally and inadvertently).

You seem very sure of that "inadvertently."

I personally believe from certain evidences (a gleaning of writing on the topic) that the figure Jesus Christ existed. He had impact on the people around him. And his influence set many waves of effect in motion. I do not doubt this.

Okay.

But what I do question, which is not the same as doubt, is the material that was accreted to him, to his person, to his worlds, and to his mission. It is not impossible, in my view of things, that whatever he was factually became invested with all manner of different stuff (for want of a better word).

It's "not impossible," in theory, perhaps: but so unlikely as to be impossible.

That explanation requires a far greater miracle than the miracle it tries to explain away. For if it is the case that, as you claim, Jesus was "mythologized," then you would have to hypothesize that it was by some sort of moral and intellectual genius who would himself have to be on a level equivalent to that attributed to Jesus Christ Himself...and that not only he, but three more gospel writers were possessed of similar genius, and they were able to connnect coherently with the other authors (all geniuses too, obviously) who wrote the rest of the 66 Biblical books.

That's too big a "miracle" for me to swallow. I prefer the more straightforward explanation, was that all the writers had a moral genius of staggering proportions to be the object of their writing...and that the explanation for the overwhelming genius of him was that He is exactly who He says He is. All the writers had an Object worth writing about, and this explains their coherence, their coordination, the behaviour of the disciples, and the overwhelming, unparalleled impact of His person on history... unequalled, as it is, by any other historical figure.

Is that the right explanation, or do you think it's actually more likely that a bunch of ordinary men "created" Him out of their mere imaginations?

Ask Occam. You can easily tell which is the more obvious and preferable explanation.

The function of the Story of Jesus, in the Gospels, and as these function in Christian belief, is to bring one into the possibility of conceiving of certain ideas about life and reality.

Hmm...you say "certain ideas."

Are you "certain" about what those "ideas" are? What do you think the message of the life of Jesus Christ is?

The Crossing of the Rubicon and Waterloo are historical accounts with a greater degree of verifiability than almost any part or aspect of the Gospel accounts.

You'd be surprised. Among ancient documents, with which we should draw the parallel, there is almost nothing so well attested as the life of Jesus Christ. There are pagan sources, Jewish sources and Christian sources, and not a few. https://coldcasechristianity.com/writin ... the-bible/. And all this doesn't even touch the evidence of the millions of lives changed subsequently by the Person and events mentioned in these sources.

Does it really make sense to say, then, that Jesus was just "mythologized" by many very clever fabricators? And what do Jewish or pagan authors "get" out of confirming His real existence? You see, the conspiracy theory you're floating gets harder to believe the more you try to figure out how it could happen that way.

In the end, it's easier, simpler and more intellectually adequate to realize that it just didn't. There was -- and is -- a real Jesus.

[Immanuel Can]

AJ: On another level (and this is my view) Christianity must 'come to peace' with pagan impulse.

Well, that's exactly what the Catholic tradition tried to do from the start. And it's been a serious failure.

Living where you do, you'll be surrounded by the exemplars of the Catholic attempt to syncretize the pagan past with the Catholic ideology. And you'll know of their compromise with Marxism, as well, known as "Liberation Theology." The Catholic tradition has always tried ot absorb paganism, with mixed results...and it's only made their tradition more pagan, to the point that actual Christians do not recognize any association with it at all.

You misunderstand again. When I refer to the Pagan/Christian reconciliation (for want of a better word) I am speaking of the Fin de Siècle and the movement of ideas in the Nietzschean and post-Nietzschean European world.

I know what you meant. But it's just as pagan and futile as the earlier Catholic attempts at syncretism.

So attention must be paid to those who were paying attention to Nietzsche and what Nietzsche meant.

Why?

He was a syphillitic madman. His comments show that he understood very little about either Christianity or Judaism, and hated both in ignorance. However, his comments on the decline of secularism and the moral bankruptcy of Atheism are worthy of consideration, since it was his own worldview, one he understood much better. And he was almost prophetic about the amoral totalitarians that would come to characterize the 20th Century.

If you want to talk about Nietzsche, that's what he had to offer: a critique of godless civilization and a prophecy of its hideous future.

[Immanuel Can]

It's extraordinary that IC who can write lucidly like an educated man also believes that the Creation as described in Genesis is something to do with evolution of a species.

I didn't say it had anything to do with Evolution at all. I said that both Evolutionism and Creationism presuppose an original mating pair.

But if you think otherwise, I'm happy to hear your alternate theory. Fire away.

[Dubious]

AJ: On another level (and this is my view) Christianity must 'come to peace' with pagan impulse.

Well, that's exactly what the Catholic tradition tried to do from the start. And it's been a serious failure.

Living where you do, you'll be surrounded by the exemplars of the Catholic attempt to syncretize the pagan past with the Catholic ideology. And you'll know of their compromise with Marxism, as well, known as "Liberation Theology." The Catholic tradition has always tried ot absorb paganism, with mixed results...and it's only made their tradition more pagan, to the point that actual Christians do not recognize any association with it at all.

You misunderstand again. When I refer to the Pagan/Christian reconciliation (for want of a better word) I am speaking of the Fin de Siècle and the movement of ideas in the Nietzschean and post-Nietzschean European world.

I know what you meant. But it's just as pagan and futile as the earlier Catholic attempts at syncretism.

So attention must be paid to those who were paying attention to Nietzsche and what Nietzsche meant.

Why?

He was a syphillitic madman. His comments show that he understood very little about either Christianity or Judaism, and hated both in ignorance. However, his comments on the decline of secularism and the moral bankruptcy of Atheism are worthy of consideration, since it was his own worldview, one he understood much better. And he was almost prophetic about the amoral totalitarians that would come to characterize the 20th Century.

If you want to talk about Nietzsche, that's what he had to offer: a critique of godless civilization and a prophecy of its hideous future.

...and how did you manage to become so insane with religious zealotry without any such overt interference of brain destruction as was encountered by Nietzsche...which was almost certainly not due to syphilis.

Again it shows how you defend a 2000 year old demented view by a complete distortion of history. To repeat, N, among many others including Jews, understood Christianity and Judaism a thousand times better than you ever will or could.

Why?

Because in order to truly understand, it would be paradoxical to accept these documents as if every word written is literally true which you have absolutely managed to do with the bible. Your complete subjugation to the bible's words preempts you from having to understand any part of it. Unconditional acceptance, such as yours, would be in danger of becoming less categorical if you actually tried to understand it in a more scholarly manner, which, in your case truly amounts to a mission impossible.

Your mind reveals itself claustrophobic in the extreme. No one is born that way! Something must have happened metaphorically equivalent to Poe's The Cask of Amontillado...or put another way, premature burial.

So the question comes back to you. What's your excuse for being brain-dead?? Even if Nietzsche did succumb to syphilis, which, as stated, is extremely dubious, he hasn't made himself a madman as you have voluntarily chosen to do.

[Immanuel Can]

To repeat, N, among many others including Jews, understood Christianity and Judaism a thousand times better than you ever will or could.

I've told you a million times, never hyperbolize!

Well, since you know nothing about the Bible, you're in absolutely no position to say. And, in fact, you're wrong. But that won't stop you, I know. It never has before.

So carry on.

[Dubious]

To repeat, N, among many others including Jews, understood Christianity and Judaism a thousand times better than you ever will or could.

I've told you a million times, never hyperbolize!

Well, since you know nothing about the Bible, you're in absolutely no position to say. And, in fact, you're wrong. But that won't stop you, I know. It never has before.

So carry on.

Thank you! I think I will!

When you say I know nothing of the bible you make an assumption of something you cannot know while I admit not knowing as much as you regarding its content. It's due to the fact I'm more eclectic than single minded when it comes down to my reading choices. I usually prefer the non-fictional. But you do hyperbolize when you claim I know nothing of the bible. On the other hand, in regard to how the bible was created, its history, etc., which is complicated, I know a hell of lot more than you who would never consider crossing the dividing line into that forbidden lane because if you did, your unquestioning belief would, in a normally functioning brain, be severely compromised by all the unfolding non-sequiturs.

To boot, when you say "I'm wrong" is simply another one of those immediate and innumerable negations with no reasons attached. The easiest kind of assertion to make and shortest because all one has to do is make it! Your responses have always depended on that technique. Could that be because of your inability to rationalize a very low probability into one considerably higher? But that's understandable; it's nearly impossible to rationalize an absurdity taken literally into its opposite which, if not supposed as literal to begin with, wouldn't need to be rationalized. Simply affirming or denying as required is the easiest way out of this quandry. Is there anyone here who doesn't already know that about you!

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For rabid theist types, the undeviating leitmotiv of all reality is the bible which used to be called sacred but is nothing of the kind. Yours is merely another example of one of those subjugated brains buried alive in its pages.

Without analysis there is no hope for an honest debate. The most you can do is preach, assert, deny with no absurdity too low employed in its defense. One can only imagine your type as a deformation of what the human mind is supposed to be regardless of anyone's belief.

In your system, belief has become paralysis frozen into certainty which invariably becomes totalitarian if empowered; but a mind, if human, needs freedom to think and, not least, question its own limitations. It must flow, not freeze. In that respect, what you say has long ceased to be relevant or interesting or even debatable. What remains interesting is when or what caused you to give up thinking in the first place!

Ever consider returning to its point of origin and re-examine what caused your fall from intellectual grace whose meaning denotes, above all else, an impartial integrity of mindfulness of which you have so little?

[Dontaskme]

Well, since you know nothing about the Bible, you're in absolutely no position to say. And, in fact, you're wrong. But that won't stop you, I know. It never has before.

So carry on.

Well since you continue to be fooled by your own delusions, you are absolutely in no position to say another is wrong.

Only you can be wrong. Notice the bible knows nothing of it's existence, books are not conscious - history is dead. You really need to stop living in the past which is made of dead stuff, like a dream.

Only the immediate presence is real/alive. This real/alive moment remains ever unwritten. The immediate present doesn't need a story to BE ...presence is perfectly functioning, automatic, spontaneous and free to be.

This is the raw TRUTH ..that terrifies you IC ...so be it. You really ought to practice more what you preach just as you're father Jesus set the perfect example by showing you how to DIE but if you refuse to DIE, then you'll just continue to talk bollocks and masturbate over and over and over and over again you're own misguided imaginings.

What's the latest buzz word...ah yes, here it is...( hyperbolize) does using that word give you a little tingle? oooh! pot kettle.

Carry on polly parrot.


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[Belinda]

It's extraordinary that IC who can write lucidly like an educated man also believes that the Creation as described in Genesis is something to do with evolution of a species.

I didn't say it had anything to do with Evolution at all. I said that both Evolutionism and Creationism presuppose an original mating pair.

But if you think otherwise, I'm happy to hear your alternate theory. Fire away.

You said that Adam and Eve represent the original mating pair, and there must have been an original mating pair.

Both of these claims is useless as a contribution to Christian ethics. The exclusion from Eden is about the human condition as it was thousands of years ago , always has been, and still is. The human condition is such that, unlike any other species as far as we know, humans cannot depend on inherited instinct for their ethics but must , each man and each human collective, must decide what is good and what is evil.
The Eden myth is structured on the contrast between man and all other species. All species except man can remain innocent , as in Eden, of bad choices as they are unable to choose.

Christianity is a religion which introduced the notion that there was and is a leader and rescuer who shows the proper ethical system to us.

[attofishpi]

Christianity is a religion which introduced the notion that there was and is a leader and rescuer who shows the proper ethical system to us.

Yes. It's quite a conundrum to exist (what will?) and yet be faced with the EVIL of God itself where we must be rescued from ITS punishment by believing in Christ!

To define God as love and not comprehend the other side of it as evil is short of sight.

[Immanuel Can]

When you say I know nothing of the bible you make an assumption of something you cannot know

Yeah, I can.

All I have to do is listen to what you say.

QED.

[Immanuel Can]

It's extraordinary that IC who can write lucidly like an educated man also believes that the Creation as described in Genesis is something to do with evolution of a species.

I didn't say it had anything to do with Evolution at all. I said that both Evolutionism and Creationism presuppose an original mating pair.

But if you think otherwise, I'm happy to hear your alternate theory. Fire away.

You said...

No, not my theory...we know what I think. What I want is your alternate theory.

Or is it the case that you would rather reject what both the Bible and Evolutionism suppose to be the case, and would rather know nothing than have to agree with both?

If you have no alternate theory, that means you'd rather know nothing. That's kind of desperate, B., if you don't mind me saying.

[Alexis Jacobi]

That explanation requires a far greater miracle than the miracle it tries to explain away. For if it is the case that, as you claim, Jesus was "mythologized," then you would have to hypothesize that it was by some sort of moral and intellectual genius who would himself have to be on a level equivalent to that attributed to Jesus Christ Himself...and that not only he, but three more gospel writers were possessed of similar genius, and they were able to connnect coherently with the other authors (all geniuses too, obviously) who wrote the rest of the 66 Biblical books.

That's too big a "miracle" for me to swallow. I prefer the more straightforward explanation, was that all the writers had a moral genius of staggering proportions to be the object of their writing...and that the explanation for the overwhelming genius of him was that He is exactly who He says He is. All the writers had an Object worth writing about, and this explains their coherence, their coordination, the behaviour of the disciples, and the overwhelming, unparalleled impact of His person on history... unequalled, as it is, by any other historical figure.

Discourse with you is tremendously advantageous to me. You indicate, inadvertently, areas that I need to research more thoroughly. A quick comment is that, based on what I have read, that those early centuries, specifically the 1st and 2nd, were centuries of great ferment in the Mediterranean world. A 'confusion of peoples' and a confusion of assertions about the nature of things. It is very clear to many who examine early Christianity that it incorporated into itself many different philosophical and religious elements from the surrounding world. And indeed as everyone knows, and as you also state, Catholicism is, truthfully, a blending of many different strains of tradition.

Yet what you focus on is nevertheless interesting and important. And what is that? It is some sort of power and impetus behind the Christian movement that enabled it to catch on as it did and to penetrate so deeply into Europe. Now, according to you -- here you speak as a zealot and an enthusiast (entheos) of the religion of Jesus Christ -- there can be only one reason why the religion spread so quickly. I would suppose that you would describe that as the essential power of 'saving grace'. Myself, I often tended to see the power of Christianity as having a great deal to do with the Jewish scriptures -- Psalms for example -- and such a defined moral and ethical system (pre-created as it were) which was received so enthusiastically because it was longed for and needed. It provided a base upon which substantial things could be built, and indeed they were built. The Psalms, the Prophets, and the powerful constructed narratives of the OT Bible easily overpowered any other established current.

But there is an element here that is not mentioned and this has to do with straight entheos. Enthusiasm means 'to be filled with the spirit of god'. So when I meditate on your type of enthusiasm, your type of zealousness (and that of enthusiastic Christianity generally) what I point out is that a radical and mindless enthusiasm can easily be noticed when, for example, one contemplates the religious performances of Benny Hinn.

However, there is definitely another level and a far higher level when one considers enthusiasts like CS Lewis, John Henry Newman and GK Chesterton. And I have often referred to Christoper Dawson whose histories of the Christianization of Europe had a strong effect on my views and my (profound) appreciation of Christianity and Catholicism. And while I am on the topic I should mention Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin -- Catholic Personalists -- who had a profound influence on the American scene in the Postwar. I have read their writing and they were very much concerned about the human person and were simultaneously deeply concerned about the dehumanizing influence of modern industrial society.

You describe a sort of relationship to God that, as per your telling, must be total and absolute. You seem to present yourself as one totally subsumed into that enthusiasm. Your zealousness induces you to suspend what we would 'normally' describe as rational logic when, for example, you attempt to bridge two opposed epistemes, the ancient and the modern, in your views about the very early Bible narrative. The 'impulse' behind that action is, I think, sheer enthusiasm. So I only want to point out an inclination toward irrational enthusiasm. Now, what is the motive? Or put another way how would we describe the impetus? What is the impetus behind the throngs who attend a Benny Hinn religious performance? They have to be seeking something. right? What is it?

But let us examine, say, enthusiastic Dionysianism. When the Maenads joined up in those enthusiastic celebrations, what is it that motivated them? It is a tough question to answer really because it is, ultimately, something irrational. They are said to have become *possessed* by their god. Freud would reduce it to sexual and erotic energy but Jung said it was 'libido' and something far wider and broader. What is the rising sap that courses through living trees? What is the Life Force? So let's examine the idea of attaching oneself, or becoming re-attached, to the very Vine of Life.

Allow me to present some ideas from Chinese wisdom regarding 'the Well'. The images here are the wellspring itself and the 'jug' which is dropped down into the well to get the water and bring it up:

In ancient China the capital cities were sometimes moved, partly for the sake of more favorable location, partly because of a change in dynasties. The style of architecture changed in the course of centuries, but the shape of the well has remained the same from ancient times to this day. Thus the well is the symbol of that social structure which, evolved by mankind in meeting its most primitive needs, is independent of all political forms. Political structures change, as do nations, but the life of man with its needs remains eternally the same-this cannot be changed. Life is also inexhaustible. It grows neither less not more; it exists for one and for all. The generations come and go, and all enjoy life in its inexhaustible abundance. However, there are two prerequisites for a satisfactory political or social organization of mankind. We must go down to the very foundations of life. For any merely superficial ordering of life that leaves its deepest needs unsatisfied is as ineffectual as if no attempt at order had ever been made. Carelessness-by which the jug is broken-is also disastrous. If for instance the military defense of a state is carried to such excess that it provokes wars by which the power of the state is annihilated, this is a breaking of the jug. This hexagram applies also to the individual. However men may differ in disposition and in education, the foundations of human nature are the same in everyone. And every human being can draw in the course of his education from the inexhaustible wellspring of the divine in man's nature. But here likewise two dangers threaten: a man may fail in his education to penetrate to the real roots of humanity and remain fixed in convention -- a partial education of this sort is as bad as none -- or he may suddenly collapse and neglect his self-development.

So I will share my own impression: there are, beyond doubt, tremendous sources of living water within the Jewish and Christian traditions. This cannot be denied. But neither can it be denied that the pagan religions and pagan pre-Christian philosophy express the same. But when one speaks of 'pagan religions' I'd be more inclined to speak about force of impetus or something irrational, like a longing for participation, a longing to feel oneself 'deeply connected', that is so central to our psychology, our human longing.

He [Nietzsche] was a syphillitic madman. His comments show that he understood very little about either Christianity or Judaism, and hated both in ignorance. However, his comments on the decline of secularism and the moral bankruptcy of Atheism are worthy of consideration, since it was his own worldview, one he understood much better. And he was almost prophetic about the amoral totalitarians that would come to characterize the 20th Century.

If you want to talk about Nietzsche, that's what he had to offer: a critique of godless civilization and a prophecy of its hideous future.

Except that the precursor to those totalitarian regimes was, in fact, the First World War.

I gather that in your rather reduced and simplified version of things that Nietzsche is somehow responsible for the Nazi regime, the war in Europe, and the Stalinist and Maoist regimes and so many other things. But I am not sure if such a simplified and reductionist view will be of much help to us -- those who want to understand.

The way you state things, your initial framing, is hysterical. You seem to be in the grip of the tensions I have referred to. I don't think you can see this (lacking introspection as you seem to).

Things have to be through-through more carefully, more thoroughly.

[Nick_A]

Belinda

Christianity is a religion which introduced the notion that there was and is a leader and rescuer who shows the proper ethical system to us.

You are describing the religion of your government which becomes your leader and tells you how to live. Christianity is the process of becoming normal so humanity can consciously develop as it should.

What good is the proper ethical system if Man is incapable of it? The Christian must admit that they are sinners and seek to understand and admit why. This can lead either to superficial answers or to a quality of understanding beyond what the West is aware of.

Matthew 6

Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: 29 yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

The outer expression of the lily is the same as its inner essence. However in Man, the dominant outer man has become corrupt so cannot express its essence potential. Jesus mission was to enable spiritual man, through the help of the Spirit, to become normal through the experience of rebirth and consciously advance which is our human potential.