Christianity

[Alexis Jacobi]

...your opinion of what I think or what my moral processes are has no power to influence me.

And yet, you naively think I'm likely to jump to attention when you say some bizarre accusation? And you think I owe you the dignity of a response, do you?

What I think is that a thorough response is definitely necessary and required -- when it comes to issues of this importance -- but note that I do not think you own me anything. I also am aware that you cannot make substantive responses and that you never will.

You must think I should have a regard for your esteem that you lack for mine, I guess.

This has nothing to do with whether I *esteem* you or you me. I make the separation and I think you should too.

[Age]

That's not what I mean when I use the word. You'll have to speak for yourself.

I'd suggest that the idea expressed in the Sanskrit term encompasses and encloses any of the conceptual fracturations to which you are wedded.

I'd suggest you're just plain wrong. The Jewish and Christian conception of God does not even fit within Hindu cosmology.

Yes they DO.

'you' are just to BLIND and to CLOSED to even begin to LOOK AT and SEE how they ACTUALLY ARE, nor even how they COULD BE.

And you WILL PROVE this IRREFUTABLY True.

You're ignoring the massive differences, and mistaking a few superficial points of similarity for substantial agreement.

'you' are just MAKING UP 'differences', and 'yoi' do this because of your very DISTORTED and DELUDED views, which 'yoi' obviously HAVE.

I keep mentioning that you must be seen and understood as a Christian Zionist

Not really. I have no particular view of the secular nation known as "Israel," except that people have a right to live on their ancestral lands without fear of being killed.

I regard your brand of Evangelical Christianity as a disease of the mind.

That will make being dismissive very easy for you, of course.

It won't make you right.

It will NOT necessarilyake.that one wrong either.

[Age]

I challenge you Immanuel to respond to the entirety of what I have expressed just now. You have been accused. What is your defense? Silence?

No, my "defense" is that your "entirety" amounts mostly to a pointless tirade...and that even to engage most of it is to give it a far more dignified treatment than it deserves.

I would prefer you to be *somewhere* near the truth before I invest any significant time in discussion. And I think you'll find that ultimately, indulging in personal abuse is irrelevant, and indulging in casual blasphemy is not in your personal interest.

But you are free to listen, or to find that out for yourself.

I have NEVER met ANY one as CONDESCENDING as 'you' "immanuel can".

'you' also ACTUALLY BELIEVE 'you' are right AND superior here. Which could NOT be FURTHER FROM thee Truth of things.

[Alexis Jacobi]

BTW. Some time ago you alluded to having gnosis and/or/not being gnostic...I'm still interested in what you have to say about this, care to elaborate?

Sure. Gnosis, by my definition, obviously refers to knowledge. But knowledge of an experiential sort. So take yourself as an example. You clearly have an *inner life* and a *spiritual life*. What you have learned is not the intellectual dogma that you repeat but rather what you have experienced in the course of a process. That, in my view, results in gnosis.

Similarly, or comparatively, I have my own range of experience that has resulted in something different from theoretical knowledge or dogmatic knowledge. And I refer to that as gnosis.

There is also gnosis that could be called expanded or developed knowing that is related by people, even rather casually, when they talk about their actual experiences. So as an example I would refer to CG Jung as one involved in gnosis. That is to say that his knowledge, when compared to dogmatic and doctrinal positions, is heretical in many ways. It can't be accepted 1) because someone thinks it is wrong or bad, but 2) because what people think of dogmatic systems must be controlled.

The Christian church, of course, battled against both gnosis and Gnostics. The Gnostics were pushed out and strict doctrines formed. I am not saying this is bad, in fact it is necessary: you have to create a program, a general teaching, and to offer it to children. And children require sensible stories that fit into rather reduced and binary conceptual limits.

And so do populations.

There is also the more classic Gnosis of the Gnostics. For example I used a Gnostic story when I proposed that the serpent in the Garden was actually Jesus the son of god. That it was Jesus who subverted his Father's wishes to keep Adam & Eve as pets and Jesus who tried to bring them gnosis. That is an example of a subversive midrash (interpretation) and a twist on the conventional story. To say such a thing means that the one who entertains such a story has stepped out of 'conventional views' that are rarely allowed or accepted by Authority.

[Alexis Jacobi]

AJ said: The *truth* is really a very very difficult problem.

Only for those seeking to evade it.

No Immanuel, to get to the truth of things is a very difficult endeavor. Especially when our own tendency to self-deception is such an issue. My post dealt on that theme. You avoided it completely. And now you want to assert, as per normal, the truth that will *set you free* etc., etc. In my view this is a transparent manoeuvre on your part. Typical though.

You simply cannot read and consider what I write and what people write. It is sheer obduracy.

AJ: But as I have often said this is a philosophy forum, not a faith sharing-board.

That's a thin, if not very nearly a false dichotomy, really. In most ways, an ideology or philosophy is just a secular "religion." Like any "religion," it has first principles it takes as givens and cannot test further, and can be extended from those first principles on a rational and truth-interested basis.

Well, you are a religious fanatic and religious fanaticism is what defines your arguments and your method. I think there is a way around this. There is a way to see into it certainly (as I see into you). But there is also a different, and I would hope a better way to live.

Yet if it pleases you to go on about false dichotomies . . . the floor is yours!

I presented a quotation from him. I did not present his identity as any reason to believe it. Astonishingly, you immediately go knee-jerk antisemitic and ad hominem. That was no part of the point. That's your predilection, not mine.

I knew the term antisemitic would come up. And it just a mere stone's throw away from statements about Nazism etc.

Don't do that. It's irrational. Look at what he says. Neither this topic, nor me, nor the quotation, has a single thing to do with Zionism.

An irrationalist like you cannot make sound recommendations as to what is rational or not.

The present Evangelical Christian position and structure is Christian Zionism. It is woven around that theme. The challenge is to *see clearly* and *speak carefully*.

Thus 'speaking the truth' in the present atmosphere, with people like you who will quickly play dirty, demonstrates that truth-seeking and indeed the definition of what is true is quite problematic.

[attofishpi]

BTW. Some time ago you alluded to having gnosis and/or/not being gnostic...I'm still interested in what you have to say about this, care to elaborate?

Sure. Gnosis, by my definition, obviously refers to knowledge. But knowledge of an experiential sort. So take yourself as an example. You clearly have an *inner life* and a *spiritual life*. What you have learned is not the intellectual dogma that you repeat but rather what you have experienced in the course of a process. That, in my view, results in gnosis.

Similarly, or comparatively, I have my own range of experience that has resulted in something different from theoretical knowledge or dogmatic knowledge. And I refer to that as gnosis.

There is also gnosis that could be called expanded or developed knowing that is related by people, even rather casually, when they talk about their actual experiences. So as an example I would refer to CG Jung as one involved in gnosis. That is to say that his knowledge, when compared to dogmatic and doctrinal positions, is heretical in many ways. It can't be accepted 1) because someone thinks it is wrong or bad, but 2) because what people think of dogmatic systems must be controlled.

You are extremely well read, thus very knowledgeable . I think it was CG Jung years ago that I saw on a doco and when asked whether he believed there was a God, he stated he knows there is God.
I also know there is God, still not sure if I believe it though.

Yesterday sage/God stated 'he' likes you (to me). Not sure why I bothered mentioning that, perhaps you are interested in expanding that knowledge further?

The Christian church, of course, battled against both gnosis and Gnostics. The Gnostics were pushed out and strict doctrines formed. I am not saying this is bad, in fact it is necessary: you have to create a program, a general teaching, and to offer it to children. And children require sensible stories that fit into rather reduced and binary conceptual limits.

And so do populations.

There is also the more classic Gnosis of the Gnostics. For example I used a Gnostic story when I proposed that the serpent in the Garden was actually Jesus the son of god. That it was Jesus who subverted his Father's wishes to keep Adam & Eve as pets and Jesus who tried to bring them gnosis. That is an example of a subversive midrash (interpretation) and a twist on the conventional story. To say such a thing means that the one who entertains such a story has stepped out of 'conventional views' that are rarely allowed or accepted by Authority.

Adam & Eve is an extreme metaphor of something to think about deeply while under the Test_Amen. The Tree of Life & The Tree of Know_Ledge also...very very interesting.

[Immanuel Can]

...your opinion of what I think or what my moral processes are has no power to influence me.

And yet, you naively think I'm likely to jump to attention when you say some bizarre accusation? And you think I owe you the dignity of a response, do you?

What I think is that a thorough response is definitely necessary and required

Heh. When the allegation is empty, rude and irrelevant to the issue in question, there's none required. I feel neither inclination nor obligation to concede to you your assumptions -- which is what you seem to expect me to do...rather bizarrely.

Who, pray tell, will "require" it of me? You? Don't stay up late waiting for it.

You must think I should have a regard for your esteem that you lack for mine, I guess.

This has nothing to do with whether I *esteem* you or you me. I make the separation and I think you should too.

Now I'm highly amused. You're the person least able around here to make any such "separation," and readily go to the ad hominem...exactly as you did in your very last message.

[Immanuel Can]

AJ said: The *truth* is really a very very difficult problem.

Only for those seeking to evade it.

No Immanuel, to get to the truth of things is a very difficult endeavor.

For you, I grant.

...you are a religious fanatic ...

Aaaaaaad hominem!

It doesn't matter what I am. Only the truth matters.

I find your objection to us speaking about Christianity on a thread titled "Christianity" rather funny, actually. And ironically, you join right into the discussion, and even lob your elaborate but loony theories into the fray...and then cry "foul" at others for saying something sane about the very same subject.

The irony of that is quite amusing.

I presented a quotation from him. I did not present his identity as any reason to believe it. Astonishingly, you immediately go knee-jerk antisemitic and ad hominem. That was no part of the point. That's your predilection, not mine.

I knew the term antisemitic would come up. And it just a mere stone's throw away from statements about Nazism etc.

Hey, chum...you went there. I didn't even raise the issue of his Jewishness, far less of Zionism. I didn't even need to include the attribution, as a matter of fact...and the philosophical content would have presented exactly the same problem.

But you're just incontinent...you can't help yourself when it comes to those topics, it seems.

An irrationalist like you cannot make sound recommendations as to what is rational or not.

Aaaaaaad hominem!

See what I mean? You're incontinent.

..with people like you ...

Aaaaaaad hominem!

[Dontaskme]

It doesn't matter what I am. Only the truth matters.

Said every megalomaniac who is involved in a conversation about truth.

But you're just incontinent...you can't help yourself when it comes to those topics, it seems.

Objection!!
Such a claim is an ''Ad Hoc Argument''

See what you mean? You are incontinent.

The truth is silent, never spoken.

God is dead - Philosophy.
Philosophy is dead - God.

[Age]

AJ said: The *truth* is really a very very difficult problem.

Only for those seeking to evade it.

No Immanuel, to get to the truth of things is a very difficult endeavor.

For you, I grant.

...you are a religious fanatic ...

Aaaaaaad hominem!

It doesn't matter what I am. Only the truth matters.

AND, thee Truth IS God is NOT a 'he'. Although 'you' OBVIOUSLY BELIEVE the opposite.

I find your objection to us speaking about Christianity on a thread titled "Christianity" rather funny, actually. And ironically, you join right into the discussion, and even lob your elaborate but loony theories into the fray...and then cry "foul" at others for saying something sane about the very same subject.

The irony of that is quite amusing.

The irony in 'you' BELIEVING some thing, which is OBVIOUSLY completely and utterly False, while 'you' continue to CLAIM that only the truth matters is FAR MORE AMUSING.

I presented a quotation from him. I did not present his identity as any reason to believe it. Astonishingly, you immediately go knee-jerk antisemitic and ad hominem. That was no part of the point. That's your predilection, not mine.

I knew the term antisemitic would come up. And it just a mere stone's throw away from statements about Nazism etc.

Hey, chum...you went there. I didn't even raise the issue of his Jewishness, far less of Zionism. I didn't even need to include the attribution, as a matter of fact...and the philosophical content would have presented exactly the same problem.

But you're just incontinent...you can't help yourself when it comes to those topics, it seems.

An irrationalist like you cannot make sound recommendations as to what is rational or not.

Aaaaaaad hominem!

See what I mean? You're incontinent.

..with people like you ...

Aaaaaaad hominem!

Is saying, "You are just incontinent", NOT just another ad hominen?

[Alexis Jacobi]

AJ wrote: ...you are a religious fanatic ...

Aaaaaaad hominem!

It doesn't matter what I am. Only the truth matters.

A couple of things: To describe you as a religious fanatic is a more polite term, and an accurate one. Literally, you are a religious fanatic. What you refer to as *truth* (as for example when you say 'the Bible is true' and that is why we should pay attention to it, or for example when you propose Romans 1 as a sort of 'proof') you are dealing in those terms that religious fanatics deal in. There is no *proof* in Romans 1. It cannot be presented as a proof and it, of itself, if it carries an weight in argument, only carries one insofar as it dovetails with someone's faith-position.

There is no part of your general argument, and no part of any specific argument, that does not depend on *religious fanaticism*. Now, 'religious fanaticism' is not an uncommon term:

Religious fanaticism, or religious extremism, is a pejorative designation used to indicate uncritical zeal or obsessive enthusiasm which is related to one's own, or one's group's, devotion to a religion – a form of human fanaticism which could otherwise be expressed in one's other involvements and participation, including employment, role, and partisan affinities. Historically, the term was applied in Christian antiquity to denigrate non-Christian religions, and subsequently acquired its current usage with the Age of Enlightenment.

That seems a fair description. So to use the term in relation to you is not ad hominem especially because all of your arguments depend on fanaticism. They are all tightly wound up with your own Bible literalism.

So, when you make the following statement:

It doesn't matter what I am. Only the truth matters.

I am inclined to agree that *only the truth matters* but that you, deeply wedded to religious fanaticism, are hindered and fettered from the necessary action of *stating truth*. In relation to you, in relation to the person who does this, to say about that person "He does this because he is a religious fanatic, a zealot" is not in any sense unfair. In fact it is an act of telling the truth.

Is this making more sense now Immanuel?

Intellectual cockroach is, I admit, a bit -- what is the word? -- colorful. But even there I attend the mild insult with a fair description: your religious fanaticism destroys the possibility of engaging in an upstanding way in intellectual discourse. You function on a lower, an inferior level.

I find your objection to us speaking about Christianity on a thread titled "Christianity" rather funny, actually. And ironically, you join right into the discussion, and even lob your elaborate but loony theories into the fray...and then cry "foul" at others for saying something sane about the very same subject.

Objections? I don't think I have voiced objections. What I do here, and why I am here, I explain at every juncture. I have my own reasons and many different issues and problems I am trying to resolve.

I gather that you'd like to discuss Christianity in an abstract, theoretical way? Yet I am far more interested in Christianity in the present context. The context of the present time. Everyone you speak to on this forum, and this thread, we are all products of evolutions of events and of ideas. But we are all ensconced in our contemporary time-frame. And therefore when we speak we speak from within those positions.

[Alexis Jacobi]

AJ: What I think is that a thorough response is definitely necessary and required

And yet, you naively think I'm likely to jump to attention when you say some bizarre accusation? And you think I owe you the dignity of a response, do you?

Heh. When the allegation is empty, rude and irrelevant to the issue in question, there's none required. I feel neither inclination nor obligation to concede to you your assumptions -- which is what you seem to expect me to do...rather bizarrely.

Your term *bizarre accusation* is a response, I'd suggest, from your emotional and non-rational location within religious fanaticism. Is this making sense Immanuel? You are a religious fanatic and all your *arguments* are grounded in it.

When you are asked to think and argue carefully and rationally you fail time and again. In your mind, any idea-set which challenges your fanatical positions through clear and discursive presentation of thought is interpreted by you as 'empty allegation'. Why? Because *the truth* is there to behold in Romans 1 (you have various citations, often in red or blue, that you send up from time to time).

Your arguments are grounded in zealous religious positions. They are 100% circular.

Now, it is true that I have come at you recently with a definite intensity (and I also extend this to a general you-plural to refer to a culture immersed in similar forms of thinking as you are). That is very true and it is done deliberately. And yet I continually explain why I am doing this and where I stand when I do it.

You do not own me personally anything at all. I made this clear. But I do believe that you definitely do owe the people on this forum, and I could say 'the intellectual world at large', forthright, fulsome and relational responses (responses that actually answer and do not avoid the general thrust) to all the critiques that are brought out against you.

Now I have been trying to get right down to the grain when I speak about Hebrew Idea Imperialism in relation to Christianity generally and also to your wielding of it. Do you think that the term itself is anti-Semitic? If I speak of a type of intolerance for other religions, for other peoples, and refer to the various phrases attributed to Yahweh in the OT as examples of Hebrew Idea Imperialism -- what do you think of my assertion?

When I say that I notice in you very nearly exactly the same belief-structure, the same assertion, and the same intolerance -- am I right? I mean, am I seeing clearly?

And finally when I speak about *consequences* (the consequences of that sort of intolerant belief and also the effects in our world of it) please be so kind as to let me know if this seems to you either a fair or an unfair line of inquiry.

Yes, I think you are bound to answer these questions, but not because I have asked them. I'd refer to *intellectual integrity* and *responsibility* but I am aware that your religious fanaticism is often the only motive that moves you.

If you think I am bothered by your lack of intellectual cooperation you are wrong. You are frustrating at times, I admit. But you are so instructive by all you omit and through all your evasions and double-talk that you often demonstrate the effects that I refer to as destructive.

You are really the star of the show here. It is an odd but interesting postmodern intellectual Vaudeville!

[Immanuel Can]

AJ wrote: ...you are a religious fanatic ...

Aaaaaaad hominem!

It doesn't matter what I am. Only the truth matters.

...an accurate one...

Utterly irrelevant. I could have firecrackers for ears and a propeller on my head, and it would not say one thing about whether or not what I said on a particular occasion was, itself, true or not. That's what the fallacious status of ad hominems reflects.

..is a pejorative designation used...

That's the first really true thing you've said in this message: it's simply a "pejorative" you are "using" to avoid dealing with the argument. That's the very mental error that the ad hom fallacy indicates.

I am inclined to agree that *only the truth matters*

If you were, you would not go ad hom. For it "would not matter."

I find your objection to us speaking about Christianity on a thread titled "Christianity" rather funny, actually. And ironically, you join right into the discussion, and even lob your elaborate but loony theories into the fray...and then cry "foul" at others for saying something sane about the very same subject.

Objections? I don't think I have voiced objections.

Sure you did. You said this is not a "faith" conversation, or one for sharing one's convictions with others. Well, I didn't pick the topic, and Christianity happens to be the single most important thought system in all of Western history, one in which you, yourself came in participating.

So if you believed that, you would not have participated. But you did...vigorously, at length, by way of your own theory of "Christendom." So now...your options are two: accept what you've already bought into, or, I guess, go to some other topic you do find appropriate. Here, the topic is "Christianity," as you can see if you merely read the title.

I gather that you'd like to discuss Christianity in an abstract, theoretical way?

Why?

I have no idea why you "gather" that. I'm interested in it as a practical life philosophy, and as the truth. I thought I'd made that pretty clear.

Yet I am far more interested in Christianity in the present context.

Well, you are interested in it as a sociological construct of your own making -- it's clear you're not interested at all in Christianity itself. You use it as little more than a label synonymous with "Western" or "European," and make sweeping historical claims as if whatever it is that you're talking about is hugely powerful, influential, and potentially up for a renaissance of some kind imminently. You act as if you're referring to something specific, something everybody "just knows about" or should know about, a monolythic conception that you regard as beyond questioning. But you don't even have a definition of what a "Christian" is, in your own usage. Or at least you don't provide one, when pushed on the point...as I have done repeatedly.

So here's what we have to conclude: it seems you're just using the word in order to float various overly-broad and often misguided generalities, so as to sponsor your existing beliefs...you don't seem open to being modified, asked to provide specifics, or even to define your key term. In other words, if there's anything to your theory, we can't really ask you about it...you don't seem to know the most basic thing about it...i.e. who you are talking about, specifically.

Your ongoing reticence on the point suggests either that your theory is too fragile to survive such examination, or that even you don't understand it well enough to provide such. I see no other obvious conclusion from that.

Or, you could provide your definition of "Christian" right now, so we who are doubtful could examine it for ourselves, and see if you've got a point.

Your choice.

[Alexis Jacobi]

That's the first really true thing you've said in this message: it's simply a "pejorative" you are "using" to avoid dealing with the argument.

A pejorative indicates contempt or disapproval. I am one among many who regard you in this way. I have contempt for a man who because of his religious fanaticism cannot reason; does not participate fairly in conversations; avoids the important points and the general thrust of a person's posts . . .

And I strongly disapprove of these tactics and methods.

And here you distort and twist again. If I only communicated through you through pejoratives that indeed would be a bad means of argument. But I express myself clearly and directly all the time.

Is this beginning to become more clear Immanuel?

You are now launching into a oft-repeated strategy and a mechanism of avoiding dealing with what I say by latching on to one irrelevant element.

[Alexis Jacobi]

it's clear you're not interested at all in Christianity itself.

Different people here have different relationships to the question. You will have to accept, if you wish to, what my interest and focus is, or not. And try to understand what it is, or not.

Yet you must be aware that given that this is a public space when I seem to write to you (commenting on something you've written) I am writing for a general audience?

I am comfortable with what my thrust is now and refuse any attempt by you to define it or to control it.

Does this make sense you you Immanuel? Do you need additional explanations?