Harry Baird wrote: ↑Fri Jul 22, 2022 3:22 amHere's the thing, though, AJ: I don't identify as a Christian. I'm not claiming that my ideas of Christ and/or salvation are compatible with those of Christianity.
It's not clear whether you do and are - you don't seem to want to say - but
if you do and are, then, yes, I
do assert that you have broken the definition and are now talking about something
other than Christianity.
Since I do not accept the assertion that *Christianity* is one thing only, and also that modernity and myriad perspectives have entered into the picture, such that any definition of Christianity becomes far less possible, I operate in and I exist in a liminal territory; and because I am aware of this territory, and aware that zillions of people are in it, I choose to reveal and talk about this.
You may not claim any particular thing about your *beliefs*, and you may not recognize your own cultural connection with Christianity and also 'Christian culture', and yet you very clearly are a participant and an actor in the sense I have described as 'post-Christian. But you take your place among millions of others in a post-Christian relationship to the
former structures. Those former structures are not frequently seen entirely, and I also get the impression that you do not see them fully. But I am quite aware of what comprises the former structures (because I have been studying these directly for some years now).
The area I work in is within the contrast between one tightly woven metaphysical picture and the modern viewpoint and standpoint which cannot 'see' nor 'believe in' the older picture. I find it ironic and amusing that you challenge me to explain if I am or if I am not a believer! It is not possible, today, to believe. Or let me put this another way. Belief becomes a set of absurd declarations and a set of choices one makes as-against *reality*. It would be similar to discovering a need to believe in leprechauns, and then setting one's will to believe what one, in fact, cannot believe in. The positions or perspectives that I try to talk about keep going over your head. Why? Well there is an answer. And the answer is that you too live in the liminal zone between the former perceptual system (it can be reduced to The Great Chain of Being) and what seems to be your more normal, and to a degree stronger, actual belief. A conventional realism within strongly liberal categories.
You seem to *entertain* notions of the possibility of the appearance of Jesus as if such are real or could be real. But all of this occurs in an 'imaginary space' and into this space, as if onto a canvas, you seem to project these images and imaginings. And you are not alone in this! My assertion is that this is indeed the *space* where millions and millions live. It is a shadow-realm that is in its essence uncertain and in fact undefined. It is a dreamscape.
Is this not relevant to see and understand?
Since I have regularly exclaimed that I do not have any idea at all what 'salvation' really refers to, and this means that those who talk about it, who constantly refer to it, refer to a chimerical idea that, when examined, falls to pieces, I could not be said to claim that whater ideas I may have formed are 'compatible' to conventional Christianity. I simply say that the entire notion of salvation has become
meaningless. Take you as an example! If it were
meaningful you'd have no choice but to act in response to what it means. The realization of 'meaning' and 'meaningfulness' would act as a prod and an inspiration.
Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Thu Jul 21, 2022 2:00 pm
Obviously, there is no Jesus of Nazareth who does appear, or even could appear.
HB: I mean, there we have it: you can't say things like that and then imagine you can identify as a Christian.
But you misunderstand. Part of the reason is that though you may have read many things I have written it seems that certain elements have gone over your head. I will try to clarify. The general shift has been from a "I believe in a God out there who I conceive as being interested in this world and in me" (the general theological picture we are all familiar with) to a different way of entertaining the general idea: the therapeutic model. The references would be Freud and Jung. But more specially Jung. What is God? Where is God? How does 'God' manifest to the individual? And how, when dealing with that Picture, is God actually explained? Jung explored these 'manifestations'. And he explored them, at least to all appearances, as a Modern.
So an manifestation of a god-image -- let's say in a dream or in an epiphany or even as an inkling or as a powerful sentiment -- would necessarily be seen as a manifestation within the psyche and also psychologically which needed, obviously, to be heeded and responded to. But so too a manifestation os something dark, dangerous and devilish would within this model similarly require a therapeutic response. The entire focus, thus, shifted to an inner plane. And the notion of 'shadow' and 'projection/ come to the fore. (Among so many different responses and views that are brought to the fore -- comprising a therapeutic system which is, in a sense, a theological system, in any case a
response, and
a mode of interaction).
Since you have never, and not till now, had any good reason to understand any part of this shift (beginning in the mid 19th century and carrying forward in the fin-de-siècle and progressing with all manner of different ramifications into our immediate present), you could only interpret my statement as you have! "There we have it: you can't say things like that and then imagine you can identify as a Christian". This is a block for you because you do not fully see the situation we are now in.
Nor did you respond to a relevant critique (poignant one of course!) that your imagined Jesus becomes for you a figure corresponding to Richard Simmons! You have committed a veritable blasphemy and in all senses revealed that God is a meaningless idea. But what? You are going to turn this around so that I am seen as blameworthy here? Think about it . . .
What I proposed about
a possible Jesus who might speak you did not or cannot register. I say he'd have to speak with the depth of a Hamlet. An awareness of a crisis situation. How would
that Jesus speak? What would be the terms of his speech? The terms of his discourse? The content of his admonitions? When I said that I propose that he'd have to speak as Richard Weaver speaks -- examining with intense analytical focus on the causes for deviation and the reasons why *the world* has fallen into decadence -- this flew over your head! (Because you do not read and, also, you are not really concerned for nor involved in these issues, problems and questions. In this sense then you exemplify a modern man sustained by the State. You have a quasi-existence within a nebulous territory. And here, as often, the you is you-plural and also a 'we').
As insipid as you thought the advice I imagined Jesus might give to me directly was, I at least am open to such an appearance happening. And, by the way, I am not saying he would not have deeper, profounder things to say too - just that he would focus on what was most relevant to me personally at the time, since he was, presumably, appearing personally to me and for my benefit. I'm not sure, in any case, how the advice I imagined is any more insipid than what mainstream Christians believe is the means to salvation.
This is an example of meaningless and rather vain speculation. If there were a meaningful and real entity named Jesus of Nazareth
you would live in relation to the meaning of a real existence. But you do not! And along with you are many many millions. So why bother with the vain speculation that you are "open to" such an epiphany when, it is more truthful to say, you are not at all
open to it! What is this zone of half-belief then that you(plural) seem to live in and which largely defines our world, our perceptual world?
If the God-being that created this world, the entire Universe, and the kosmic manifestation did not have anything more meaningful to say to you, nor you to him, and if your largest concern were essentially your flab and your minor addictions, then you have a supremely reduced concept of what God is. It is
meaningless. It is simply an empty vessel. And as I say that God you might well encounter in the aisles of the Australian counterpart to America's Walmart.
Did you get
any of this?
And as for you when it comes to the idea of salvation: as usual, you have offered no details. What is salvation according to Alexis Jacobi? Who on Earth knows? Why even bother asking?
Here is a perfect example that illustrates what we'd touched on in previous pages. Because you cannot understand nuance and because what I am talking about will require of you energy and commitment -- which you do not care to have! -- you can only insist that I make my message intelligible to the 8 years old who is your Everyman reference-point. It does not work this way.
I have been doing little else but writing about the problem that we all face, and certainly in nuanced terms about any *notions of salvation*, but what you seek are statements reduced to bullet points! Again I am speaking to you but really I am speaking to a 'condition' of many many people who exist in a similar lazy, weak, worn out and 'flabby' state. They are 'consumers' who demand their nourishment-bits all chewed up for them in advance. And if it gets at all hard and demanding they simply jump ship.
