Christianity

[Harry Baird]

Yeah, I hear it. I don't deny that it's ugly, but, for personal reasons, it's necessary.

I don't think it is, Harry.

May I contact you privately? I think I can explain something that you might be missing.

[Dontaskme]

Now, if a speaker ceases to offer anything of substance, I may exercise my option not to engage them.

I get it man, you prefer the substance that is the invisible man called Jesus while completely ignoring to engage in the Dam substance.

And I agree, it’s very abusive a loving father ignoring his own offspring,.

[Immanuel Can]

Yeah, I hear it. I don't deny that it's ugly, but, for personal reasons, it's necessary.

I don't think it is, Harry.

May I contact you privately? I think I can explain something that you might be missing.

Of course. As you probably know, there's a private message feature in the top right corner. Feel free.

[Immanuel Can]

...completely ignoring to engage in the Dam substance.

Not at all. Go back and look. I spent a great deal of time corresponding with you. And you'll find my manner completely devoid of malice toward you.

But that doesn't give you any license to simply waste people's time. You need to say something relevant, if you want people to engage with you. As I said, we all have a limited amount of time. If you stop playing games and become responsive, you'll find people much more willing to invest time responding to what you offer, I have no doubt.

[Dontaskme]

...completely ignoring to engage in the Dam substance.

Not at all. Go back and look. I spent a great deal of time corresponding with you. And you'll find my manner completely devoid of malice toward you.

But that doesn't give you any license to simply waste people's time. You need to say something relevant, if you want people to engage with you. As I said, we all have a limited amount of time. If you stop playing games and become responsive, you'll find people much more willing to invest time responding to what you offer, I have no doubt.

Assuming people that are wasting your time is being abusive ….is malicious..but…

You are too stupid to see that.

Engaging with you is like engaging with a ten mile long barge pole, no thanks, but I do like to pop in now and again just to point out your hypocrisy and call out the kettle / pot stupidity.

Even when I’m polite to you, you still choose to ignore me, all because you cannot abide anything that is of no substance…ironic huh!

You’ll Abide with the non- substance that is spirit though, eh!

You are so stupid. And you believe I am the one with the problem.

Wow, you really cannot abide in yourself can you.

Do you need a license to be this stupid?

Shut up your hurting my feelings….oh poor you, poor lil diddums. Does baby need a new dummy to suck on.

[Immanuel Can]

Assuming people that are wasting your time is being abusive ….is malicious..but…

No, it's merely factual. When people are saying nothing to the point (and you, yourself have admitted to "playing games," as you will recall), they are merely wasting one's time.

That's factual, not malicious. And it's not an "assumption," but an objective truth.

Meanwhile, once again you will note I have said nothing to slander your person, impugned none of your motives, applied no unsavoury adjectives to your person, denied you no freedom to speak, and used no obscenities or profanities.

Check your last message for the same.

[Dontaskme]

Assuming people that are wasting your time is being abusive ….is malicious..but…

No, it's merely factual. When people are saying nothing to the point (and you, yourself have admitted to "playing games," as you will recall), they are merely wasting one's time.

That's factual, not malicious. And it's not an "assumption," but an objective truth.

Meanwhile, once again you will note I have said nothing to slander your person, impugned none of your motives, applied no unsavoury adjectives to your person, denied you no freedom to speak, and used no obscenities or profanities.

Check your last message for the same.

The objective truth is an assumption not a fact.

Truth implies a falsity.

So get your facts straight.

And besides, shouldn’t we all be acting as sinners anyway …we wouldn’t want to make Jesus feel like his sacrifice was in vain.


Do we need a license to act the sinner role?

[Dontaskme]

Then they'll swear at you, and make obscene references, and then abuse you and insult you. Instead of dealing with whatever you say, they'll attempt to assault you verbally, and maybe to offend your basic sense of decency as well...and then they'll try to dismiss you entirely, as if whatever you say is simply beneath them, and you don't even count as a human being or a voice...and all the while, they'll also be reminding you that they just don't need Christianity in order to be "good people."

How judgmental of you to say that about other people.

Turn the other cheek, judge not lest he be judged..here, there’s a plank in your eye!

Who died and made you God the most perfect and loving faultless being?

Go to a Christian forum if you want to be treated like a Dog.

It’s no coincidence that man’s best friend can’t talk.

You talking to me, saying I’m the abusive one…how abusive.

[Nick_A]

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Sun Aug 28, 2022 5:43 pm
So the issue, the core issue, turns back to What is freedom? What does it mean and what can it mean to be a free human being? But then too: What is the object of consciousness? or its purpose? Why bother, say, even to posit freedom, or increasing awareness and consciousness, when it might be *better* to inculcate exactly the opposite: to allow oneself to become even more subsumed into those determining systems (political, economic, whatever) which operate all around us?

To be free one has to become free of all the useless fears, conditioned habits, and attitudes which deny freedom and keeps a person as a conditioned automaton. But what if a person has become free or master of oneself? Are they on the side of encouraging freedom or are they just the potential perfect tyrant? An old question for Christianity.

Matthew 4:

8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9 “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”

10 Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’[e]”

11 Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.

Jesus was master of himself. He was free of all that denies our potential for freedom. Satan offered Jesus the ability to save the world. Jesus chose to deny Satan's offer to help and serve his God instead. Why? What is so wrong about the goal of saving the world? Can so many college students indoctrinated to save the world through communism be so wrong? Aren't saving the world and serving God the same idea?

[Immanuel Can]

Assuming people that are wasting your time is being abusive ….is malicious..but…

No, it's merely factual. When people are saying nothing to the point (and you, yourself have admitted to "playing games," as you will recall), they are merely wasting one's time.

That's factual, not malicious. And it's not an "assumption," but an objective truth.

Meanwhile, once again you will note I have said nothing to slander your person, impugned none of your motives, applied no unsavoury adjectives to your person, denied you no freedom to speak, and used no obscenities or profanities.

Check your last message for the same.

The objective truth is an assumption not a fact.

For you?

Not for anybody else.

And when you write "the objective truth is...," you've just declared it as an objective fact. (That is, unless you don't think I need to believe you... )

[Immanuel Can]

Then they'll swear at you, and make obscene references, and then abuse you and insult you. Instead of dealing with whatever you say, they'll attempt to assault you verbally, and maybe to offend your basic sense of decency as well...and then they'll try to dismiss you entirely, as if whatever you say is simply beneath them, and you don't even count as a human being or a voice...and all the while, they'll also be reminding you that they just don't need Christianity in order to be "good people."

How judgmental of you to say that about other people.

Go and look. Their own words confirm it. (So do your words, actually. Look above.)

[Dontaskme]

No, it's merely factual. When people are saying nothing to the point (and you, yourself have admitted to "playing games," as you will recall), they are merely wasting one's time.

That's factual, not malicious. And it's not an "assumption," but an objective truth.

Meanwhile, once again you will note I have said nothing to slander your person, impugned none of your motives, applied no unsavoury adjectives to your person, denied you no freedom to speak, and used no obscenities or profanities.

Check your last message for the same.

The objective truth is an assumption not a fact.

For you?

Not for anybody else.

And when you write "the objective truth is...," you've just declared it as an objective fact. (That is, unless you don't think I need to believe you... )

Believe what you want, you have no beliefs without one.

[Alexis Jacobi]

AJ. You once told me you have gnosis -- not that necessarily means to are Gnostic -- but I did ask you to explain a little of this gnosis, would you mind doing so now?

There are descriptions, stories as I call them, that represent what I might call diagrams that explain the sort of reality we are in. The diagram, the story, is represented pictorially. A picture is needed, especially when communicating with people who do not have much intellectual background or intellectual strength, and would not be able to understand a straight communication of an intellectually expressed concept. The Gospel stories are in my view such pictures. They are not *reality* and they are not histories, they are a peculiar sort of narrative the purpose of which is to communicate a set of ideas that are completely intellectual in character. (When I use the word intellect and intelligence I always refer to the Christian/Catholic notion of intellectus).

In order to communicate difficult ideas to the great mass of people you must employ pictures and stories. This was certainly true in pre-literate times. So, we all seem to be pretty aware that within our culture (but certainly in all cultures) the religious lore of a given culture always deals with the communication of these ideas through pictorial forms. When one examines the major religious stories -- and they are always presented through pictorials -- it is quite possible to see through them and to see into the *cores* where the essential ideas are expressed.

I would say that at the point that one begins to see in this way -- and seeing can become (and should become) broad and encompassing -- one has begun to acquire gnosis. I could say simply 'knowledge' but the Greek word has different connotation. The way I understand intellectual gnosis is through a reference to Plato's Seventh Epistle:

But thus much I can certainly declare concerning all these writers, or prospective writers, who claim to know the subjects which I seriously study, whether as hearers of mine or of other teachers, or from their own discoveries; it is impossible, in my judgement at least, that these men should understand anything about this subject. There does not exist, nor will there ever exist, any treatise of mine dealing therewith. For it does not at all admit of verbal expression like other studies, but, as a result of continued application to the subject itself and communion therewith, it is brought to birth in the soul on a sudden, as light that is kindled by a leaping spark, and thereafter it nourishes itself.

So I think there are levels. On a superficial level, for example, one reads the Gospels and the story (by design) leads to to a discovery of a core truth. That would be a first step. One 'believes' in the truth that one has discovered or has been discovered to one. But there is not a great deal that is sustaining in that level of perceptual understanding. So all religious traditions recommend different 'spiritual practices' that (are said to) have the function of opening one to *understanding*. Now, an average person might not have the capability or even the desire to proceed deeply into matters of spiritual concern. Those people exist and carry on on a periphery. So their level of grasp of the full dimension of the message (the core contained and purveyed through the picture and the story) remains necessarily superficial.

Obviously, there are people who for various reasons are capable and interested in going further. It is always the case that they *engage* at a deeper level. But that means, really, that they have entered into a domain of experience, for example through prayer or meditation. But there is another dimension here too and that is the dimension of 'spiritual magic'. I would say that CG Jung, in significant ways, describes a path of spiritual magic: meaning that he cultivates a relationship with the internal world (the psychic inner world), and the external world, where what he has called *synchronicity* ("an acausal connecting principle" according to his lexicon) is 'worked with'. So the person himself becomes the arena in which the learning and experience process takes place.

What is this "acausal connecting principle"? You can throw dozens of terms at it in an attempt to get one definition to stick. But it seems to me fair to say that if something like *God* exists that God must have a means of communication with the individual. What is that means of communication? I know enough about you (from reading what you write and your relating of your various experiences and realizations) to believe that I doubt you do not understand what I am referring to. So what interests me here is that there seem to be certain types that are more inclined than others to the experience of *synchronicity*, which is a pseudo-scientific terms for 'the magic of experience'.

Now it has to be said that there is an entire order of person (I have verified this) who when they are asked Have you ever experienced the *synchronicity* Jung referred to (and indeed lived by) will answer "No, never". It seems to be an order of experience, or a relationship to reality (?) that is closed to them. Should such an 'order of experience' be opened to them? Could it? I do not have any idea.

There are other levels to 'spiritual magic' that I could refer to but they would appear bizarre and primitive to us. Some of the African pagan religions (the Yoruba for example) have quite sophisticated 'systems' through which individuals experience 'things spiritual'. It is always very practical: how to cure a spate of bad luck for example and any number of different generally mundane problems that individuals confront. And since I read a good deal about these practices one of them stood out for me. There are some people who fall into periods of 'bad luck'. Everything that they do fails. Or they are prone to accidents. Or they lose things. Or their marital life is threatened. They fal into despondency. So (and here I am speaking of tribal Africa) they resolve to go see a tribal elder who is expert in their won pagan spiritual traditions.

The first thing the tribal elder does is to *divinate* using a divination system in order to get some indications about what is wrong and why it is wrong. This would correspond (for the sake of my larger presentation) with going to see Dr Jung and, as a result of the encounter, beginning to dream dreams which reflect back *answers* to the question of neurosis.

But the next order of action is what interested me. In order to *cure* the patient of this malady of infection or infestation of 'bad luck' it was the head of that individual that had to be cured through purification. The *head* in this sense would correspond to what Mercury represents within Greek mythology: Mercury as the vehicle of transmission between *the gods* and man. Now, I also have to stake, but I can't fill it out here, that Christian doctrine, especially in John, is deeply infused with Greek metaphysical ideas pertaining to Hermes (Mercury). But to continue: it is the head that is the seat of 'clear sight' and the possibility to guide oneself properly through life. If the head is clouded, or even especially if the head is possessed by cloudiness or even something foreign-entity-like, that person's decisions will be contaminated. I cannot tell you how many people I have met that seemed to me to have 'cloudy heads'. (There was a time I worked on the street with troubled and delinquent youths and I specially noticed it there).

So the tribal elder (the religious officiant) would go to work on the person's head in order to purify it and clear it of the 'cloudiness'. The Africans are very practical people and rely on nature to provide the cures -- in addition of course to prayers, to ritual, and to what we might call 'mantras'. But the head would get wrapped with cooling herbs and whatever energies had got possession of the head (and which caused the 'bad luck') would be removed through days or even weeks of special sort of work. And the end result is that the person's malady would be cured.

So as you might guess I look for 'correspondences' within these so-called *primitive* traditions and our own supposedly *sophisticated* traditions. And they are quite easy to find. The principles must (according to my understanding) be generally the same.

But back to 'the leaping spark'. What is that? What is it that ignites awareness and understanding and then self-illuminates and 'nourishes itself'? It is like asking what is the general and over-stretching or over-arching intelligence that (seems to) preside over the entire domain of the Earth, or this sphere of reality in which we exist. We exist within a sphere of reality and there really is a general intelligence that presides.

So it seems to me that gnosis can be thought of as one's own accumulation of experience in regard to what I have defined as 'inner experience' and understanding. It is different, of course, from theoretical and doctrinal understanding, since the actual color and flavor of experience is always different or perhaps I can say 'peculiar'. My own view is that if we are to refer to a Spirit (what I refer to as presiding over this entire dimension) that we are speaking essentially about an hermetic entity. Hermes is dual. Hermes presides over a catastrophic accident as well as a tremendous boon. Life will indeed present every individual with experiences that are both divine and (permit me to say) demonic. It is just a terribly weird truth that those experiences that are daemonic:

[Middle English, from Late Latin daemōn, from Latin, spirit, from Greek daimōn, divine power; see dā- in Indo-European roots.]

It is just a strange and terrible fact that it is more often than not that we learn the most when we have been overcome by misfortune and those sorts of 'dual' events over which Hermes is said to rule. Weeks or even months back I referred to Gerhart Hauptmann's novels. Take The Heretic of Soana and Phantom especially. The catastrophic event and the catastrophic experience is the door or the vehicle through which knowledge and understanding is attained. And that knowledge and understanding is rarely understood (or allowed) within conventional religion (and for certain good reasons!)

And this is why, of course, I cannot go along with a range of the standard Christian definitions and why they require, in my view, a gnosis-perspective to round them out. The fact of the matter is that life not only can be cruel but it is a terribly cruel teacher. Who or what is the author of that cruel learning and teaching?

[attofishpi]

Matthew 4:

8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9 “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and worship me.”

10 Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’[e]”

11 Then the devil left him, and angels came and attended him.

Jesus was master of himself. He was free of all that denies our potential for freedom. Satan offered Jesus the ability to save the world. Jesus chose to deny Satan's offer to help and serve his God instead. Why?

Oh ye of little faith.

That you think that a man referred to as SATAN had an offering of the parts of the Earth, a place of God's creation to offer - who? GOD!

You simple of mind to not comprehend the TEST_AMEN_t ..satan is a nothing, and so many fundamentalist fools think that this entity has some dominion over the ALPHA to OMEGA.

IDIOT.

Belief in SATAN is a theists greatest folly.

[Dontaskme]

Then they'll swear at you, and make obscene references, and then abuse you and insult you. Instead of dealing with whatever you say, they'll attempt to assault you verbally, and maybe to offend your basic sense of decency as well...and then they'll try to dismiss you entirely, as if whatever you say is simply beneath them, and you don't even count as a human being or a voice...and all the while, they'll also be reminding you that they just don't need Christianity in order to be "good people."

How judgmental of you to say that about other people.

Go and look. Their own words confirm it. (So do your words, actually. Look above.)

But isn't that supposed to me my role, to be a sinner. And the fact that you verify the existence of the sinner with your very own words, does than not prove it...and now you are complaining about the roles they were born to play.

My God there's just no please in you is there dear Good God..Oh Gawd!!