Christianity

[Immanuel Can]

First, I deliberately and consciously reject the assertion that this was said or spoken by god incarnated in a human body.

That's your choice.

But it's all that really matters, too.

Here, the 'wolf' kicks into gear...

Strange "wolf" that seeks your best interests, even when you don't, and uncomplainingly refuses to react to abundant abusive characterizations.

But say what you like, what you think of me is worth nothing. What you think of Christ, on the other hand, is worth everything.

[Alexis Jacobi]

That's your choice.

But it's all that really matters, too.

Here, the 'wolf' kicks into gear...

Strange "wolf" that seeks your best interests, even when you don't, and uncomplainingly refuses to react to abundant abusive characterizations.

But say what you like, what you think of me is worth nothing. What you think of Christ, on the other hand, is worth everything.

Universally, and with only a couple of exceptions, you receive 'abundant negative characterizations'. Now why is that Immanuel? How do you answer that question?

In the wolf's game -- I will continue here working the metaphorical angles you have presented me with -- of course, beyond any doubt! you are really deeply concerned for my 'best interests'. There I can locate, I do locate, the platform of the scam you are running. You are 'my father in heaven's earthly agent then? You know my 'true interests' when what those true interests are are obscured to me? That is the assertion. It is, managed by you, a scam. Your scam-artistry is there revealed.

You are more concerned about my real interests and understand what my real interests are more than myself? Now you are really getting deep into scam-runner's territory.

The final gambit is the same as the initial gambit.

However, what I think of you is that indeed you are irrelevant, ultimately. But what is being discussed here are the ideas you wield and their relationship to contemporary culture. And alongside that zone of pertinent interests you as a person are indeed there. You are not absent.

[henry quirk]

There is, and beyond doubt, an intense "religious-tyrannic underpinning to Evangelical Christianity" and it operates strictly in the idea-realm.

No. You're makin' it up. It seems to you, becuz you don't or can't accept Evangelical certainties, no one would or could freely accept them. You won't or can't condemn folks for what may be their bad choices so, instead, you create a boogeyman to consume them.

Simply put, once a people declares themselves especially selected by god, especially chosen, and declares that anyone who opposes that declaration is evil and the principle enemy, what extends from that is chemically pure religious tyranny.

No. A people, motivated by such things, can be tyrannical I suppose, but it's more likely they become isolates. The ideas themselves are not tyrannical.

If you or anyone declares it as a *certainty* that their god, or their god-concept, is the real and true one and all others are false (which includes either directly or indirectly the connotation that other god-concepts are evil) then you have established absolute battle-lines within the ideational realm and these rapidly show themselves as being tyrannical.

Where's the tyranny? Stan tells me I will burn in the lake of fire if I don't accept (a particular interpretation of) Christ as the Way: I tell Stan to get bent. He condemns me: I give him the finger. Stan has no say-so. There's not a damn thing he can do. There is no tyranny with or thru him.

When such assertions become rigid and petrified it creates (to use your term) idea-leashes which are just as real as any physical leash -- in effect.

I can be overpowered and leashed physically. I don't, can't, accept it, will be watchful for a chance to escape. I cannot be leashed by an idea. I have to accept and incorporate it and I'll only do that if it resonates, if it makes sense, if I find it useful, if I find it true. If I reject it, at most, I have Stan ridin' my ass. Big whoop. I'll bust his nose if he keeps it up.

In fact it could be argued that the original leash is in the idea-realm and that the physical leash is an extension of the idea-leash.

Then, please, argue that, cuz, on the face of it, it's a silly notion.

I cannot therefore understand how your eleuthero fixation (to make free, to unbind) ("and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free) would not extend into the realm of ideas.

It does. If it didn't I wouldn't be here.

Which, however, is of greater concern to me: Stan who condemns me becuz I will not live as he likes, who avoids me, or, Stan who takes up arms against me becuz I will not live as he likes? Knowing my principles (if you do) who will I shoot in the face and who will I leave be?

How could such a fixation function as a immunization?

Mebbe becuz I take the notion of bein' the gatekeeper for my own head seriously?

Idea-tyranny operates at the level of the soul or the mind if you wish. One's own will becomes the means by which control is achieved. And the implication is that one needs to become free of that domination.

No. As I say: a person cannot be leashed by an idea. He must accept it and he'll only do that if it resonates, if it makes sense, if he finds it useful, if he finds it true. Of course he can be wrong. Why it resonates, why it makes sense, the usefulness of the idea, the truth of it, may be horseshit. But this is not tyranny, only error.

What do you think are the chiefest certainties within Evangelical Christianity?

Accept Christ as the only Way or be damned.

[Alexis Jacobi]

When such assertions become rigid and petrified it creates (to use your term) idea-leashes which are just as real as any physical leash -- in effect.

I can be overpowered and leashed physically. I don't, can't, accept it, will be watchful for a chance to escape. I cannot be leashed by an idea. I have to accept and incorporate it and I'll only do that if it resonates, if it makes sense, if I find it useful, if I find it true. If I reject it, at most, I have Stan ridin' my ass. Big whoop. I'll bust his nose if he keeps it up.

Your argument, or counter-argument, hinges on the assertion that only a physical restraint, the assertion or threat of force, can be tyrannic. I certainly grant you that. And a person or people under the physical control of such a tyrant or tyrannical system can be free of ideological controls mentally, spiritually and intellectually.

My assertion is that mental or ideological controls, and here I make a direct reference to the sort of mental and ideological controls that Immanuel operates with, have a similar, but non physical, restaining, controlling and tyrannizing capability.

You say that the person you present as an example has to choose, willingly, to accept what you might agree is a tyrannical idea or ideology. You do not take into account that people are often raised up (educated) into controlling ideologies and, as a result, become indoctrinated in them without the capability of 'choosing freely'.

Then perhaps at a later time they have to work to become free of the restraints -- which is analogous to cutting through a chain or devising escape from a cell. Or perhaps they never can or never do. It is also possible that they incorporate the tyrannical idea into their worldview.

You may not be able to be 'leashed by an idea' given your recalcitrant character. But others, and obviously the young who do not have such recalcitrant skills developed, cannot.

[attofishpi]

What do you think are the chiefest certainties within Evangelical Christianity?

Accept Christ as the only Way or be damned.

As an actual Christian, I have to then ask: Are they then worthy of discussion since they have clearly misinterpretted so much of the Bible?

[promethean75]

fishpi pretend you're an atheist and you're witnessing an argument between three christians who can't agree on what it means to be christian.

suppose then that one of the three christians convinced you more than the other two and being impressed, you wanted to check it out... wanted to confirm that his theory was in fact the true definition of 'christian'.

how would u go about doing that? and another question; if such truths about being christian are so easily accessible and doable by anyone, why is there so much disagreement here and in the world about what 'christian' means?

[attofishpi]

fishpi pretend you're an atheist and you're witnessing an argument between three christians who can't agree on what it means to be christian.

suppose then that one of the three christians convinced you more than the other two and being impressed, you wanted to check it out... wanted to confirm that his theory was in fact the true definition of 'christian'.

how would u go about doing that?

Well. The first thing to consider is which one is talking the most rationally about the subject AND the one that questions (doesn't just accept) the contents of scipture. The second thing to consider would be, does this person claim to have actual gnosis and proof of God?

..and another question; if such truths about being christian are so easily accessible and doable by anyone, why is there so much disagreement here and in the world about what 'christian' means?

There can be NO disagreement that to consider onself a Christian is to believe in the life, death and resurrenction of Christ and to live by the standards that He set as ultimately and only then could you be near to being worth.Y of what He did for Faith in Love....that is what BEING a Christian IS.

Easy isn't it?

[Harbal]

Easy isn't it?

Not as easy as not being a Christian.

[attofishpi]

Easy isn't it?

Not as easy as not being a Christian.

Were you baptised?

[Harbal]

Were you baptised?

I assume I had a church christening, if that's what you mean. I would have been a baby at the time, so I didn't sign anything.

[henry quirk]

AJ,

Only man tyrannizes. He may take an idea -- (borrowing from atto) to consider onself a Christian is to believe in the life, death and resurrenction of Christ and to live by the standards that He set -- and use it as a cudgel or salve, as an endpoint or an option, The idea itself is not tyrannical (no matter how it's twisted).

As for children indoctrinated (or, more generally, people in a community, indoctrinated, over the long haul): even children are free wills (though inexperienced, ignorant). The trope of brainwashed from birth really holds no water. Junior is reared in a cult, taught the Most Holy/Glorious Leader/Proper Culture is the way. If these ideas serve him, if he finds them true, he retains them (and he may tyrannize to spread them). If not, he rejects them (with sometimes great cost). If there is a tyranny it is one he self-imposes when he doesn't break with the idea he knows is false or lacking in utility. Such a man is (self) leashed more securely than one, who havin' rejected the idea, is in the Gulag for his thought crime.

My recalcitrance: I just know my own head, is all. I know, as fact, I am free and am my own. This is not, to my mind, a remarkable or novel thing. Every one knows the same, about himself. I'm just more loud-mouthed about it than most.

[Immanuel Can]

Universally, and with only a couple of exceptions, you receive 'abundant negative characterizations'.

Nope, not true. Especially among those who know me. But even were it true, it would be just a giant mountain of irrelevancies.

It ain't about me. That's the point you're trying so hard to avoid facing.

[Immanuel Can]

My assertion is that mental or ideological controls, and here I make a direct reference to the sort of mental and ideological controls that Immanuel operates with, have a similar, but non physical, restaining, controlling and tyrannizing capability.

Poor AJ...frightened of an idea.

No, you cannot be "restrained," "controlled" or "tyrannized" by an idea. You can always accept it or reject it. Just how weak does a person have to be, before hearing a point of view throws him into fainting spells, or puts the poor little lad in mental "prison"?

You do not take into account that people are often raised up (educated) into controlling ideologies and, as a result, become indoctrinated in them without the capability of 'choosing freely'.

You clearly don't know my history. But how could you? You don't know me. So how are you going to know through what paths I came to my convictions?

You don't.

The truth is that my biggest influences in my youth were probably the skeptical agnostics. But I found them, and their brothers the Atheists, empty and dusty. I gave them a good run...and you can tell I've read their stuff, if you look. But they've got nothing to offer. They're non-evidentiary, non-scientific, and pretty unhappy, as a lot. All they can promise you is a pointless life and a cold grave. Not much of an offer, really.

So the smart person goes looking for options. When the best they've got is dusty, look elsewhere.

[Walker]

You can always accept it or reject it.

By accepting blasphemy, you condone it. You even encourage it.

And, blasphemy is just an idea.
What happens to blasphemers, even if you reject their blasphemy?

Interesting.

(Note: I have not been following your discussion with A.J.)

[attofishpi]

AJ,

Only man tyrannizes. He may take an idea -- (borrowing from atto) to consider onself a Christian is to believe in the life, death and resurrenction of Christ and to live by the standards that He set -- and use it as a cudgel or salve, as an endpoint or an option, The idea itself is not tyrannical (no matter how it's twisted).

As for children indoctrinated (or, more generally, people in a community, indoctrinated, over the long haul): even children are free wills (though inexperienced, ignorant). The trope of brainwashed from birth really holds no water. Junior is reared in a cult, taught the Most Holy/Glorious Leader/Proper Culture is the way. If these ideas serve him, if he finds them true, he retains them (and he may tyrannize to spread them). If not, he rejects them (with sometimes great cost). If there is a tyranny it is one he self-imposes when he doesn't break with the idea he knows is false or lacking in utility. Such a man is (self) leashed more securely than one, who havin' rejected the idea, is in the Gulag for his thought crime.

My recalcitrance: I just know my own head, is all. I know, as fact, I am free and am my own. This is not, to my mind, a remarkable or novel thing. Every one knows the same, about himself. I'm just more loud-mouthed about it than most.

Pretty much well said HQ.

RE: Indoctrination.
A sage would tell you that we get what we believe, we reincarnate into it.

(if we are lucky )