Christianity

[Age]

Ummm...nope. Not even close. It's about three centuries later. Constantine was nowhere near either of them.

...then I don't understand your statement. You wrote "Christianity had already been widely known before Constantine by three centuries which brings it back to the Christianity of Paul which as I already mentioned a few times is a story separated from what happened after Constantine.

I'm sorry...we're misspeaking to each other, perhaps. What I'm saying is that Christianity was not invented by Constantine, nor did Constantine take over Christianity in 312. Rather, he invented his own new thing -- an illegitimate hybridization of his own creation, which became known eventually as " Roman Catholicism, " part pseudo-Christian, but definitely Roman.

That is not Christianity,

If 'that' is supposedly NOT "christianity", then 'what IS' "christianity", EXACTLY?

Oh, by the way, if you do NOT respond here, then this MEANS that REALLY you do NOT KNOW.

despite Constantine having stolen the word. It's Roman Catholicism.

The rest of it was interesting though it was hardly unknown that the "priestly caste" had their own agenda which had very little to do with the bible or that any method to enable it would have been applied.

What we can also safely say is that anytime religion and politics get together, it's a bad time for everybody else. Christianity is not a political project: and anybody who tries to use it for that purpose, from Constantine down to the present, is doing something Jesus Christ would never approve, nor would anybody who sincerely follows Him.

[Gary Childress]

...

@AJ: Life, the world, everything is bigger than any and all of us put together. No mortal can tame it. We must all eventually face the inevitable. I'd like to think that how we face it depends upon how we've lived it and what we've done during that time.

WHY would you think this?

AND, in what 'way' do you think one faces the so-called 'inevitable' when they have lived life in a particular way and what they have done during that time? Also, what are the different ways or doings?

The only thing I have "against" you is your seemingly ready and enthusiastic embrace of all that can be dark and sinister in a human. When I said you were looking for sheep to "follow" you, you instead exclaimed that you were looking for sheep to "devour". When I offered you very early on to make peace with me and retire into old age to watch over the young, you said "no", that it was "war" between you and me.

But this is just the effect and a throw-back of FOLLOWING "christianity".

Just LOOK AT ALL the wars in the last century or so, from when this is being written. So-called "christian" countries/cultures just LOVE to SHOW their POWER OVER "others" and their BELIEF that 'they' ARE SUPERIOR and do have 'the right' to MURDER and KILL "others", even if they are completely and utterly Truly completely INNOCENT CHILDREN.

I seem to recall there being other examples, but they don't come to mind immediately. I can only give you a warning that you may be headed into dangerous waters. There may be something more out there or within us than we realize.

What do you mean here by 'may be'?

There is OBVIOUSLY STILL a LOT MORE for 'you', human beings, in the days when this is being written, for 'you' TO LEARN and REALIZE.

I do that because I cannot wish the visions I have had on anyone.

The last time I was hospitalized I had shown up at the hospital weeping because I felt more alone and unloved than I had ever felt in my life.

Now IMAGINE those who HAD/HAVE absolutely NO one who loves them, and HOW 'they' FEEL.

All I have ever pursued in life was a love to call my own, a woman, a companion in life.

Here we have ANOTHER PRIME example of WHY these people, back then, NEVER came to FINDING the ACTUAL Truth of 'things'. The MORE or LONGER they TOOK to just SPEAK and TELL the ACTUAL Truth of 'things' was the VERY REASON WHY 'they' TOOK SO LONG to FINDING and SEEING the ACTUAL Truth of 'things'.

I suggest you speak THE Truth, THE WHOLE Truth, and ONLY THE Truth from now on "gary childress".

As I sat on the end of the hospital bed with tears pouring down my face more fervently than a Florida rain storm,

NEVER let the Truth get in the way of a 'good story' hey "gary childress"?

the psychiatrist in charge decided to send me to a psychiatric ward (I had gone to a medical hospital). That night as I waited to be transported to a psychiatric hospital that had a bed opening, I went through the most horrible visions. They were visions of demons who were people

LOL WHO else do you EXPECT are or even could be 'demons'?

I had seen in the news and media. People were killing and destroying people in the street below the room I was in. I saw brave yet innocent young people smiling and playing waiting to fight a war that might just as easily spell their deaths. I heard strange "music" ( if I can even call it that) in the background, just barely perceptible. It had an almost alien, perhaps demonic quality to it. They put an IV in me. I tore it out of my arm and bled on the sheets (that happened for real, it was not part of the visions). It was not the only night of horrible visions I had had.

One just has to watch television or the internet to SEE MUCH WORSE.

There had been others. And there were horrible visions I saw when my father recently passed away.

Anyway, I have not been able to forgive God

So you do now KNOW or BELIEVE that God does ACTUALLY EXIST, right?

or whatever runs the world

When you say, 'the world', what do you ACTUALLY MEAN and REFER TO, EXACTLY?

Also, WHY do you BELIEVE some 'thing' 'runs' 'the world'?

for that night or any of the horror that has taken place in my mind.

1. There is NO 'thing' that has 'its mind'.

2. There is ONLY One Mind.

Also, why do you feel that you are NOT able to forgive ANY 'thing' for what was OBVIOUSLY just SOME vision.

I had started that night with the greatest emptiness and loneliness in my heart seeking love and comfort somehow, somewhere.

Do you think, feel, or believe that there is NOT one, WITHIN, who CAN give love and/or comfort?

Also, what has LED you to SEEK love and comfort anyway?

By the end of that night things had changed to absolute terror and horror.

To me, sounds like you were just ACTUALLY watching the news/media IN REAL.

There was NOTHING MORE horrific than what "others" HAVE TO ACTUALLY ENDURE IN REAL.

How can a benevolent creator--anything let that happen to me?

LOL Talk ABOUT a PRIME example of just how Truly SELFISH and SELF-CENTERED the adult human being HAD BECOME, that is; back in those days when this was being written.

"If A Creator EXISTS, then how could 'It' let ANY 'thing' that I do NOT want HAPPEN TO me?" These people REALLY WERE so INFATUATED WITH "them" INDIVIDUAL 'selves'.

It was the equivalent of mind rape. Mind rape is how I would describe it. That happened in 2017, if I recall correctly.

Oh 'you' 'poor thing' "gary childress", 'you' had an UNWANTED 'dream', or nightmare.

I wonder why I of all people had to experience that.

SO, 'you' could eventually come to a philosophy forum and TELL "others" how UNFAIR you feel you were treated and complain about how you feel you SHOULD HAVE BEEN treated MUCH MORE FAIRLY.

I had never had a girlfriend in my life.

WHO REALLY CARES?

And, IF you REALLY WANTED a girlfriend you could get one by the time it took you to finish reading this post of mine. But, OBVIOUSLY, you do NOT REALLY WANT one, or your CHOICE is just TOO LIMITED.

I wasn't wealthy. I had never held a position of any real power over others in my many jobs. I had walked away from many positions of employment in which I perceived I was not doing anything for the good of anyone except making money for myself and those I worked with or managed the business. I had made mistakes in life and caused harm without realizing it, but I didn't perceive that I have ever intentionally done anything of significant evil. Why me? Was it simply because at the time I was agnostic and had been an atheist in the past?

WHY do you KEEP INFORMING us here, in a philosophy forum, and 'HARD DONE BY' you feel?

Also, 'WHY ME?' could NOT come across as MORE OF 'a victim' even if you wanted to.

It also made me wonder if those who commit the worst evils in this world, sending young people to their deaths in war in order to kill young people from somewhere else on a battlefield will ever experience something as debilitating as that.

Well that IS 'you', "gary childress", AND people LIKE 'you'. It is people like 'you' who vote in people, in countries like the laughably called "united states of america", which ORDERS the WARS, which CAUSE the KILLING of the MOST children, who ARE the Truly INNOCENT of 'the world'.

Anyway that is NOT the 'evil' AND 'sinning' that ANY one should REALLY be WORRYING ABOUT.

What about those bringing fentanyl into the drug trade, causing untold death and suffering? Will they ever experience something like that? Or was God punishing me for no other reason than I didn't "worship" him? How can I worship something like that?

I will suggest you LOOK AT what 'you have done', or what 'you are NOT doing', instead of continually 'trying to' BLAME God for just WANTING to 'punish you' for NO real reason.

But PLEASE CONTINUE TO FEEL FREE to DO, or NOT DO, whatever 'it' IS that you WANT.

You can make of it what you will. But I had those visions. I remember that experience. I will never forget what mental illness has done to me.

What has 'mental illness' DONE TO 'you'?

And, who and/or what ARE 'you', in relation to or compared to 'mental illness', itself?

I will never forget the once innocent joy it robbed me of and the smile that has forever been torn from my lips when I was first diagnosed.

I will suggest that EVERY adult human being will NEVER forget the once INNOCENT JOY EVERY one HAD, sometime in childhood, AND WISHED they STILL HAD 'that joy'.

In the days when this was being written, the human named "Gary Childress" shared his most traumatic experiences in public with the one named "AJ" and after sharing those experiences with the one named "AJ" the one named Age called the one named "Gary Childress" "selfish" for sharing those experiences. And the one named "Gary Childress" felt even more alone, unloved and isolated. Such is life.

[Age]

@AJ: Life, the world, everything is bigger than any and all of us put together. No mortal can tame it. We must all eventually face the inevitable. I'd like to think that how we face it depends upon how we've lived it and what we've done during that time.

WHY would you think this?

AND, in what 'way' do you think one faces the so-called 'inevitable' when they have lived life in a particular way and what they have done during that time? Also, what are the different ways or doings?

The only thing I have "against" you is your seemingly ready and enthusiastic embrace of all that can be dark and sinister in a human. When I said you were looking for sheep to "follow" you, you instead exclaimed that you were looking for sheep to "devour". When I offered you very early on to make peace with me and retire into old age to watch over the young, you said "no", that it was "war" between you and me.

But this is just the effect and a throw-back of FOLLOWING "christianity".

Just LOOK AT ALL the wars in the last century or so, from when this is being written. So-called "christian" countries/cultures just LOVE to SHOW their POWER OVER "others" and their BELIEF that 'they' ARE SUPERIOR and do have 'the right' to MURDER and KILL "others", even if they are completely and utterly Truly completely INNOCENT CHILDREN.

I seem to recall there being other examples, but they don't come to mind immediately. I can only give you a warning that you may be headed into dangerous waters. There may be something more out there or within us than we realize.

What do you mean here by 'may be'?

There is OBVIOUSLY STILL a LOT MORE for 'you', human beings, in the days when this is being written, for 'you' TO LEARN and REALIZE.

I do that because I cannot wish the visions I have had on anyone.

The last time I was hospitalized I had shown up at the hospital weeping because I felt more alone and unloved than I had ever felt in my life.

Now IMAGINE those who HAD/HAVE absolutely NO one who loves them, and HOW 'they' FEEL.

All I have ever pursued in life was a love to call my own, a woman, a companion in life.

Here we have ANOTHER PRIME example of WHY these people, back then, NEVER came to FINDING the ACTUAL Truth of 'things'. The MORE or LONGER they TOOK to just SPEAK and TELL the ACTUAL Truth of 'things' was the VERY REASON WHY 'they' TOOK SO LONG to FINDING and SEEING the ACTUAL Truth of 'things'.

I suggest you speak THE Truth, THE WHOLE Truth, and ONLY THE Truth from now on "gary childress".

As I sat on the end of the hospital bed with tears pouring down my face more fervently than a Florida rain storm,

NEVER let the Truth get in the way of a 'good story' hey "gary childress"?

the psychiatrist in charge decided to send me to a psychiatric ward (I had gone to a medical hospital). That night as I waited to be transported to a psychiatric hospital that had a bed opening, I went through the most horrible visions. They were visions of demons who were people

LOL WHO else do you EXPECT are or even could be 'demons'?

I had seen in the news and media. People were killing and destroying people in the street below the room I was in. I saw brave yet innocent young people smiling and playing waiting to fight a war that might just as easily spell their deaths. I heard strange "music" ( if I can even call it that) in the background, just barely perceptible. It had an almost alien, perhaps demonic quality to it. They put an IV in me. I tore it out of my arm and bled on the sheets (that happened for real, it was not part of the visions). It was not the only night of horrible visions I had had.

One just has to watch television or the internet to SEE MUCH WORSE.

There had been others. And there were horrible visions I saw when my father recently passed away.

Anyway, I have not been able to forgive God

So you do now KNOW or BELIEVE that God does ACTUALLY EXIST, right?

or whatever runs the world

When you say, 'the world', what do you ACTUALLY MEAN and REFER TO, EXACTLY?

Also, WHY do you BELIEVE some 'thing' 'runs' 'the world'?

for that night or any of the horror that has taken place in my mind.

1. There is NO 'thing' that has 'its mind'.

2. There is ONLY One Mind.

Also, why do you feel that you are NOT able to forgive ANY 'thing' for what was OBVIOUSLY just SOME vision.

I had started that night with the greatest emptiness and loneliness in my heart seeking love and comfort somehow, somewhere.

Do you think, feel, or believe that there is NOT one, WITHIN, who CAN give love and/or comfort?

Also, what has LED you to SEEK love and comfort anyway?

By the end of that night things had changed to absolute terror and horror.

To me, sounds like you were just ACTUALLY watching the news/media IN REAL.

There was NOTHING MORE horrific than what "others" HAVE TO ACTUALLY ENDURE IN REAL.

How can a benevolent creator--anything let that happen to me?

LOL Talk ABOUT a PRIME example of just how Truly SELFISH and SELF-CENTERED the adult human being HAD BECOME, that is; back in those days when this was being written.

"If A Creator EXISTS, then how could 'It' let ANY 'thing' that I do NOT want HAPPEN TO me?" These people REALLY WERE so INFATUATED WITH "them" INDIVIDUAL 'selves'.

It was the equivalent of mind rape. Mind rape is how I would describe it. That happened in 2017, if I recall correctly.

Oh 'you' 'poor thing' "gary childress", 'you' had an UNWANTED 'dream', or nightmare.

I wonder why I of all people had to experience that.

SO, 'you' could eventually come to a philosophy forum and TELL "others" how UNFAIR you feel you were treated and complain about how you feel you SHOULD HAVE BEEN treated MUCH MORE FAIRLY.

I had never had a girlfriend in my life.

WHO REALLY CARES?

And, IF you REALLY WANTED a girlfriend you could get one by the time it took you to finish reading this post of mine. But, OBVIOUSLY, you do NOT REALLY WANT one, or your CHOICE is just TOO LIMITED.

I wasn't wealthy. I had never held a position of any real power over others in my many jobs. I had walked away from many positions of employment in which I perceived I was not doing anything for the good of anyone except making money for myself and those I worked with or managed the business. I had made mistakes in life and caused harm without realizing it, but I didn't perceive that I have ever intentionally done anything of significant evil. Why me? Was it simply because at the time I was agnostic and had been an atheist in the past?

WHY do you KEEP INFORMING us here, in a philosophy forum, and 'HARD DONE BY' you feel?

Also, 'WHY ME?' could NOT come across as MORE OF 'a victim' even if you wanted to.

It also made me wonder if those who commit the worst evils in this world, sending young people to their deaths in war in order to kill young people from somewhere else on a battlefield will ever experience something as debilitating as that.

Well that IS 'you', "gary childress", AND people LIKE 'you'. It is people like 'you' who vote in people, in countries like the laughably called "united states of america", which ORDERS the WARS, which CAUSE the KILLING of the MOST children, who ARE the Truly INNOCENT of 'the world'.

Anyway that is NOT the 'evil' AND 'sinning' that ANY one should REALLY be WORRYING ABOUT.

What about those bringing fentanyl into the drug trade, causing untold death and suffering? Will they ever experience something like that? Or was God punishing me for no other reason than I didn't "worship" him? How can I worship something like that?

I will suggest you LOOK AT what 'you have done', or what 'you are NOT doing', instead of continually 'trying to' BLAME God for just WANTING to 'punish you' for NO real reason.

But PLEASE CONTINUE TO FEEL FREE to DO, or NOT DO, whatever 'it' IS that you WANT.

You can make of it what you will. But I had those visions. I remember that experience. I will never forget what mental illness has done to me.

What has 'mental illness' DONE TO 'you'?

And, who and/or what ARE 'you', in relation to or compared to 'mental illness', itself?

I will never forget the once innocent joy it robbed me of and the smile that has forever been torn from my lips when I was first diagnosed.

I will suggest that EVERY adult human being will NEVER forget the once INNOCENT JOY EVERY one HAD, sometime in childhood, AND WISHED they STILL HAD 'that joy'.

In the days when this was being written, the human named "Gary Childress" shared his most traumatic experiences in public with the one named "AJ" and after sharing those experiences with the one named "AJ" the one named Age called the one named "Gary Childress" "selfish" for sharing those experiences.

The one named "age" here NEVER EVER called the one named "gary childress" here, 'selfish', for sharing ANY experiences. As can be CLEARLY SEEN and PROVED True above.

The one known as "age" here just POINTED OUT and SHOWED how WHEN one QUESTIONS, 'How can a benevolent creator let ANY 'thing' [some 'thing' bad/unwanted] happen to me?' then this is A SIGN of just how SELFISH they REALLY ARE.

And the one named "Gary Childress" felt even more alone, unloved and isolated. Such is life.

If an adult human being comes to a philosophy forum, looking for love OR comfort, then they are SURELY VERY NEEDY and WANTING, and completely LOST in WHERE to go in Life.

A 'philosophy forum' is WHERE to go to SHARE 'ideas', and have them QUESTIONED and/or CHALLENGED. 'It' is also a place to go for LOGICALLY REASONING, in order to LEARN, CHANGE, GROW, and TO BECOME JUST (and) WISER.

Now, what you SHARED here is just some 'thing' that probably EVERY child goes through anyway. Night visions, or nightmares, are what 'we' ALL experience. AND, WITNESSING, or HEARING ABOUT wars and murders in waking moments is some 'thing', which 'we' have to ENDURE on just about a daily basis anyway.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Well, the lunatics have been quite active I see. Blessed are the lunatics for they shall overrun everything!

[promethean75]

The paper holds their folded faces to the floor. And everyday the paperboy brings more.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Recently, through nefarious insinuations, my core wonderfulness has been impugned. This is intolerable! Not only because it is totally untrue but because of the wear & tear it causes in the very folds and textures of my self-image!

People, listen! Ye lunatics, mental cases, zealots, ultra-grumps with urination issues, and the unnamed freak-shows-on-wheels who unicycle upside-down around these parts, all ye monomaniacals and scatter-brains: THIS MUST STOP! I am letting everyone know I WILL NOT TOLERATE such ungrounded unfounded and un-pretty abuse!

Where? I'd like to see your alleged evidence of that, because it's certainly nowhere obvious.

IC I want you to know that I will not proceed with posts of "proofs" and then "refutations".

Is that because the proof does not exist? Or are you expecting your interlocutors to accept your word on your sheer wonderfulness?

My contention, really quite simple and also quite self-evident, was that neo-Platonism is evident in Paul's writing and his *conceptual model* through which he explained to the Greek world what Jesus Christ was, and provided imagery through which it could be visualized. What is the purpose of mentioning this? It is to illustrate that those processes described through the term syncretism

syncretism
syn·cre·tism (sĭng′krĭ-tĭz′əm, sĭn′-)
n.
1. Reconciliation or fusion of differing systems of belief, as in philosophy or religion, especially when success is partial or the result is heterogeneous.
2. Linguistics The merging of two or more originally different inflectional forms.
[Greek sunkrētismos, union, from sunkrētizein, to unite (in the manner of the Cretan cities) : sun-, syn- + Krēs, Krēt-, Cretan.]

Are natural, inevitable, and I would also say largely unavoidable. Processes of syncretism can be compared to what is both lost and what is gained in translation (from one language to another). The Hebrew worldview was very different from that of the Greek worldview. The *idea of Christ* had to be communicated to those in the Greek world and, in being “all things to all people”, Paul availed himself of the *conceptual world* of those he evangelized. This is not a complex idea nor is it a threatening one.

One reference from Colossians has been mentioned by those who see in Paul's methods and content of communication (kerygma) a neo-Platonic influence:

Colossians 2:16-23: Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind, and not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God. If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations—“Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch” (referring to things that all perish as they are used)—according to human precepts and teachings? These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.

Here is a description offered by someone proposing that the language terms used (shadow/substance) provide the suggestion, or the evidence, of familiarity with Greek philosophical concepts:

This passage is all about Paul’s argument for freedom in Christ, whose death has freed his followers to live apart from the forces and rules of the world. Viewing this epistle in light of its wider Greco-Roman context, Paul’s portrayal of Jesus as the great freedom-bringer reads as analogous to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, where the enlightened philosopher brings freedom to those trapped within the cave. Particular interesting is the language of Colossians 2:17, which reads, “These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.” This language of “shadow” (σκιὰ) and “substance” (σῶμα) mirrors the precise language used by Platonists (and later, neo-Platonists) to describe the human condition, imbued in shadows and seeking the true substance that can only be revealed by the enlightened.

WR Inge wrote this interesting essay that -- farly and intelligently -- explored the syncretism that quite naturally occurred in the first and certainly in later centuries.

The struggle between Christianity and Neoplatonism is one of the most curious and interesting chapters in the history of religion. The two systems had so much in common that at first sight we should wonder why they quarreled, if it were not a matter of common observation that no people hate and distrust each other more than those who like to express the same ideas in slightly different language. Neoplatonism and Christianity are at one in preaching detachment from the world, the method of "inwardness " -- introrsum ascendere -- and communion with God, as the highest good. "They have," says Vacherot, "the same metaphysic-idealism; the same psychology-spiritualism; the same attitude toward life -- a sober mysticism." And yet there are important differences, which not only prevented the two from combining as organizations, but caused Platonism to hold a somewhat precarious place within the fold of the church, after it had ceased to exist as a rival system. What these differences are may be best considered in the form of an answer to the question: Why did Christianity win and Neoplatonism lose in the battle between them?

Here is an exposition that suggests strong Greek-philosophical ideas in the Fourth Gospel -- all for quite natural and normal reasons:

To suggest that the Gospel of John could have something to do with Plato’s Symposium is nothing strange. They inhabit the same world, as is nicely symbolized in their material culture: the oldest surviving manuscripts of both writings are papyri from the second century that have been found among the Oxyrhynchus Papyri in Egypt. They attest to the simultaneous interest of its inhabitants in Plato’s Symposium and John’s Gospel. Furthermore, we know that first-century Jews were reading Plato and interested in Socrates. Not only Philo of Alexandria, but also Justus of Tiberias in first-century Galilee, as he is the source of an apocryphal story related in Diogenes Laertius that Plato had intervened during Socrates’ trial. Hence the only thing required for the Gospel of John is a Hellenistic-Jewish author such as Justus of Tiberias being interested in writing Jesus’ biography.

That early Christians were interested in Plato’s dialogues for their depiction of Jesus has of course long been recognized, and the late Michael Frede wrote a splendid piece arguing that they were especially interested in Plato’s Apology and Phaedo, the dialogues that deal with Socrates’ trial and death, because of their interest in the case of Jesus and his subsequent death. Restricting myself to the reception of Plato’s Phaedo, I would say that this early Christian interest is already visible in John’s Gospel and well extends beyond the scenes of Jesus’ trial and death here.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Now, if you blathering nutcases would shut the fuck up for a moment I will reiterate the point I made earlier. Quoting IC:

IC writes: Catholic theology has often had a syncretistic relationship with a whole bunch of other ideologies and religions. Mysticism, Santeria, Voudun, Metis and Aboriginal Catholicisms, Marian Cults of Velankanni and La Vang, old English village superstitions, and even Marxism, in the case of things like Liberation Theology...the Catholics have always done business through massaging local deities and practices into their system, provided that the Roman system still dictates the total outcome, so far as their clergy can estimate it. That's why it has a different "flavour" in every country, with different "saints" and "holy days," and a different stock of stories, myths and traditions, but with an overall RC base to them all. It's a kind of chameleon religiosity, in that sense.

Master Alexis wrote: In this paragraph, I note, a Protestant with specific commitments *takes aim* through negative portrayals precisely at the syncretism which has always been so troublesome as a concept to Protestant theology. However, the central pillar of all Christianities is St Paul, and St Paul syncretized early neoplatonic ideas into his *Christian program* as did most of the early Church Fathers (both the orthodox and the heretical). I could go on to illustrate how Protestantism itself, no matter the degree of its idealistic position, could not be seen in any ways except as an evolution of 1,000-1,500 years of cultural and intellectual syncretism. So the use of the accusation becomes, in my mind, absurd.

I won. I dominated. I was right and I KNEW I was right, right from the start! I have proven my point. It is unassailable. And indeed I am unassailable.

See here

[Alexis Jacobi]

I had been waiting for a good time to insert this.

Do not blame yourself for your madness. It is a symptom of larger causes. The pressures mount day-by-day.

Make some tea. Sit out in the sun! Walk in a field. Listen to the birds! Its okay!

[iambiguous]

It should be pretty clear by now, and you'd have understood if you had read a bit better what I write, that I *take the Christian cure* at another level.

I have recently been writing about this and yet all of it goes over your head.

Again, the only level that is of interest to me here revolves around the reason that, in my view, God and religion exist in the first place...

And that's because we all die and we wonder what happens to us then.

NOT ALL of 'us' wonder here as some of 'us' ALREADY KNOW, EXACTLY, WHAT HAPPENS.

And if we are able to believe that, yes, there is 1] an after life, 2] immortality and 3] salvation, what's behind that? For most a God, the God, their God.

Then the part that revolves around connecting the dots existentially between 1] the behaviors we choose on this side of the grave, 2] one or another God with one or another rendition of Judgment Day, and 3] convincing ourselves that we are going up and not down.

Religion in a nutshell. But then all that [to me] insufferably ponderous and pedantic "philosophical" stuff you love to pursue with those like Harry and IC. Up in the "spiritual clouds" in other words.

The ACTUAL and IRREFUTABLE ANSWERS to ALL QUESTIONS here are ACTUALLY VERY EASY and VERY SIMPLE to UNDERSTAND, and KNOW. One just NEEDS to be PREPARED to CHANGE, FROM their current VIEWS and BELIEFS.

That didactic, scholastic, it's so deep that "for all practical purposes" it's meaningless academic or historical stuff/fluff that you have to convince yourself is over my head in order to convince yourself in turn that it's vital to discern even though to the overwhelming preponderous of the faithful it has virtually nothing to do at all with their own religious beliefs. Not even to those of the Northern European white stock.

You can only be what you are, or perform as I put it if you can carry out the act genuinely.

Hmm, whatever that means?

Let me put it this way: If I were to come into contact with someone I really felt was living though their Christian understanding, and fully genuinely, I would likely find a way to put myself in their service.

And that would result in their own soul being saved...how?

As I have said a dozen times I do not have a clear enough definition of what this *salvation* is.

Of course! The definition of it!!

Start here: https://www.google.com/search?q=what+is ... s-wiz-serp

Then get back to us.

Taking the first non sponsored definition, then what are you MISSING here?

That definition FITS IN, PERFECTLY, with the way I VIEW and SEE 'things' here.

Then straight back up into those truly beloved conceptual clouds...

Not that I do not grasp the concept (or the picture). But it used to mean to be saved from The World. The World was the Devil's domain. And to be saved from that was to have purchased a ticket out of this realm to the realm of Heaven. And one took the train of Death to get there. Adios Mundo!

This here appears to be, at first glance anyway, a Truly VERY TWISTED and DISTORTED view of 'things'.

But then so was MOST of what these human beings 'viewed' and 'saw', back then.

I do not *believe (much) in* the typical Evangelical declaration that exclaims *I've been SAVED!*

Again, what matters to me here is not what you or I or IC or others believe about these things but the extent to which, in coming down out of the philosophical/spiritual clouds, we can actually demonstrate that what we do believe about God is in fact true.

I FOUND that FINDING OUT what IS ACTUALLY True, Right, AND Correct FIRST, BEFORE even BEGINNING TO START ASSUMING or BELIEVING ANY 'thing' FAR MORE SIMPLER, EASIER, AND an ACCURATE WAY of LOOKING AT and SEEING 'things'.

Truer than say what these folks...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r ... traditions

...believe.

Then whatever "for all practical purposes" this...

For this reason I am far more classically Catholic, though not a Catholic, insofar as I believe that one's faith should blend with understanding and take form through activity. So in my conception one can *lose one's saved status* -- which idea is inadmissible for Evangelicals.

...might possibly mean.

And then to deepen the mystery further...

My relationship to all this stuff is obviously somewhat bizarre. But there is so much of tremendous value within this nexus and I do see it as being (often) on a higher level than other traditions. It is ours though. And through it we have come to be. We have to honor it (is the ethical injunction) and not toss it out.

Uh, if you say so?

"alexis jacobi" is, OBVIOUSLY, just ANOTHER human being who BELIEVES that 'its' CHOSEN religion and VIEWS are MORE SUPERIOR than "others" are.

"alexis jacobi" is just SHOWING and PROVING how, the majority of adult human beings back in the days when this was being written, REALLY thought and BELIEVED.

By the way, and also just out of curiosity, this new character Wizard22...is he Satyr? I've only read a few of his posts, and I'm terrible at figuring these things out, but that did pop into my head. Or, is he possibly a character that you invented yourself here. Like the characters -- Lyssa etc. -- that Satyr invented over at KT.

Unless of course you are Satyr too. I wouldn't put you past him.

Ecmandu

IS this YOU

[Alexis Jacobi]

[Age]

Well, the lunatics have been quite active I see. Blessed are the lunatics for they shall overrun everything!

If you do NOT NAME the so-called "lunatics", then for all we KNOW it might be 'you' WHO is the ACTUAL LUNATIC here "alexis jacobi".

I ALSO SEE that 'you' HAVE completely AND utterly FAILED, ONCE MORE, to back up and support YOUR CLAIMS here.

[Immanuel Can]

I'm sorry...we're misspeaking to each other, perhaps. What I'm saying is that Christianity was not invented by Constantine, nor did Constantine take over Christianity in 312. Rather, he invented his own new thing -- an illegitimate hybridization of his own creation, which became known eventually as " Roman Catholicism, " part pseudo-Christian, but definitely Roman.
That is not Christianity, despite Constantine having stolen the word. It's Roman Catholicism.

I'm not in complete disagreement. I don't think there are many who believe Constantine created Christianity. The disparity between Constantine and what followed with all its Edicts and Councils is not the same as its pre-Constantinian edition. Having said that - and I know you won't agree - Constantine really didn't "invent" anything. Christianity reinvented itself once it became the official state religion having to reorganize itself amid all the frictions which followed whose official version was yet to be expounded by its Christian leaders. State religions, regardless of what its inner core teaches or once has taught, become the true ruling entities in any decision-making process. With all its additional layers, Roman Catholicism recalibrates as the secularization of Christianity.

In the earlier part of the last century, a thing called "The Secularization Hypothesis" was often held, especially among secular scholars of religion. It suggested that religion was doomed to be eliminated and modern, scientific knowledge increased; and that it was only a matter of time and civilizational development until all religions were gone, and everybody was a secularist.

This hypothesis is no longer accepted, for at least two significant reasons. One is that it has turned out to be factually false: the world has not become less religious, but more religious and otherwise religious than was expected. So statistically and demographically, it's just been proved wrong. But secondly, the confidence in modern secularization has been blown apart by the widespread failure of the process of secularization, under the critique of other secularists. Modernity turns out not at all to be the final phase of human cognitive "evolution," nor even a very tenable one. So what comes next is anybody's guess, but two things have become clear: it's very likely to be religious, but in unconventional ways, and it's not going to involve the smooth replacement of pre-modern beliefs with scientific secularism, but rather some new hybridized or modified pattern(s) of belief and piety we can't really predict...but which current sociologists fo religion are very much enthused about investigating.

That's a big story: but if you consult anybody serious in the sociology of religion today, you'll find that those conclusions have had to be generally embraced in the field, and they are talking as if both are done deals.

However, even when The Secularization Hypothesis was believed, nobody argued that Constantine made Christianity more secular, nor that secularization, when it seemed to be happening, was a product of Catholicism. Rather, the argument was that the Protestant Reformation, bringing into question as it did the authority of the pronouncements of the popes and councils, undermined the practice of blind obedience among the laity, and set free the spirit of individual inquiry that would launch the scientific and industrial revolutions, and eventually the information revolution, as well. The Reformation, it was thought, was the first step toward the secular "Enlightenment" that would undergird the modern period.

That was the hypothesis. It wasn't one that was going to play out, of course, as we now know. But it was at least marginally plausible. By contrast, the thesis that Constantine and RCism perpetuated secularism would be, if anybody had advanced it, very hard to sustain on the back of the evidence provided by the intervening centuries -- which far from exhibiting a pattern of secularization, show long periods of deep supersititious belief, conformism, and powerful political and social religiosity at all levels of society.

But I can grant the thesis this much: that by making nominally-"Christian" religiosity into a form of superstititous and authoritarian conformity, Catholicism did undermine the credibility of the term "Christian" among independent-minded people, resulting in various objector groups (good and bad) that continually broke off and had to be suppressed, and culminating in Luther and the Reformation at the time when public literacy was sufficient for objections to be more widely spread than the popes and prelates could suppress. That much would be a reasonable hypothesis. And if we attribute anything to the period of the Reformation, it might be the right to object to religious authorites being held by the public...which then is a component of secularism.

Also, it was Paul himself who started the process of "Romanizing" Christianity by allowing for the inclusion of everyone in the empire.

Paul never did any such thing, you will easily find. He had no concern at all for the Roman Empire, and doesn't even mention such a project. But this much he and the other early disciples, particularly Peter did: they admitted Gentiles into the fold of Jewish religiosity, through Christianity, the worship of the Jewish Messiah.

That, of course, had nothing whatsoever to do with the Roman Empire that executed both Peter and Paul so summarily. But it did certainly "widen the door" so to speak, of those involved in Christianity.

What we can also safely say is that anytime religion and politics get together, it's a bad time for everybody else. Christianity is not a political project: and anybody who tries to use it for that purpose, from Constantine down to the present, is doing something Jesus Christ would never approve, nor would anybody who sincerely follows Him.

There is no disagreement here. I said plenty of times that Jesus - whether one believes Him to be god or not - would never have approved by what followed

So far, so good...

...nor is it likely He would have condoned what Paul himself tried to accomplish.

As I say, you'll find Paul did nothing of the kind. He was no part of a process of "Romanization," far less of empire. And that's very easy to see, simply by reading his writings...which I highly recommend.

If Gentile inclusion could be linked with "Romanization," I guess you'd have some sort of a case. But any such link would have happened only inadvertently and without Biblical approval, since it's very easy to show that neither Peter, nor Paul, nor any other Biblical writer never advocated any such thing at all.

[Age]

Recently, through nefarious insinuations, my core wonderfulness has been impugned. This is intolerable! Not only because it is totally untrue but because of the wear & tear it causes in the very folds and textures of my self-image!

The self purporting WONDERFULNESS, and CONDESCENSION, OF "alexis jacobi" CONTINUES.

By the way, were you even REMOTELY AWARE that the IMAGE that 'you' HAVE OF "your" 'self' is VERY, VERY DIFFERENT from the IMAGE that 'we' HAVE OF 'you'?

People, listen! Ye lunatics, mental cases, zealots, ultra-grumps with urination issues, and the unnamed freak-shows-on-wheels who unicycle upside-down around these parts, all ye monomaniacals and scatter-brains: THIS MUST STOP! I am letting everyone know I WILL NOT TOLERATE such ungrounded unfounded and un-pretty abuse!

WELL JUST QUESTION and CHALLENGE what is SAID and WRITTEN. But, considering that you WILL NOT, or CAN NOT, then this is a SURE SIGN that there is FAR MORE Truth IN what IS being SAID and IMPLIED here. If you can NOT or will NOT 'counter' what is SAID, then it SHALL REMAIN GROUNDED, OBVIOUSLY.

IC I want you to know that I will not proceed with posts of "proofs" and then "refutations".

Is that because the proof does not exist? Or are you expecting your interlocutors to accept your word on your sheer wonderfulness?

My contention, really quite simple and also quite self-evident, was that neo-Platonism is evident in Paul's writing and his *conceptual model* through which he explained to the Greek world what Jesus Christ was, and provided imagery through which it could be visualized. What is the purpose of mentioning this? It is to illustrate that those processes described through the term syncretism

syncretism
syn·cre·tism (sĭng′krĭ-tĭz′əm, sĭn′-)
n.
1. Reconciliation or fusion of differing systems of belief, as in philosophy or religion, especially when success is partial or the result is heterogeneous.
2. Linguistics The merging of two or more originally different inflectional forms.
[Greek sunkrētismos, union, from sunkrētizein, to unite (in the manner of the Cretan cities) : sun-, syn- + Krēs, Krēt-, Cretan.]

Are natural, inevitable, and I would also say largely unavoidable. Processes of syncretism can be compared to what is both lost and what is gained in translation (from one language to another). The Hebrew worldview was very different from that of the Greek worldview. The *idea of Christ* had to be communicated to those in the Greek world and, in being “all things to all people”, Paul availed himself of the *conceptual world* of those he evangelized. This is not a complex idea nor is it a threatening one.

One reference from Colossians has been mentioned by those who see in Paul's methods and content of communication (kerygma) a neo-Platonic influence:

Colossians 2:16-23: Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. Let no one disqualify you, insisting on asceticism and worship of angels, going on in detail about visions, puffed up without reason by his sensuous mind, and not holding fast to the Head, from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God. If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations—“Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch” (referring to things that all perish as they are used)—according to human precepts and teachings? These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.

Here is a description offered by someone proposing that the language terms used (shadow/substance) provide the suggestion, or the evidence, of familiarity with Greek philosophical concepts:

This passage is all about Paul’s argument for freedom in Christ, whose death has freed his followers to live apart from the forces and rules of the world. Viewing this epistle in light of its wider Greco-Roman context, Paul’s portrayal of Jesus as the great freedom-bringer reads as analogous to Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, where the enlightened philosopher brings freedom to those trapped within the cave. Particular interesting is the language of Colossians 2:17, which reads, “These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ.” This language of “shadow” (σκιὰ) and “substance” (σῶμα) mirrors the precise language used by Platonists (and later, neo-Platonists) to describe the human condition, imbued in shadows and seeking the true substance that can only be revealed by the enlightened.

WR Inge wrote this interesting essay that -- farly and intelligently -- explored the syncretism that quite naturally occurred in the first and certainly in later centuries.

The struggle between Christianity and Neoplatonism is one of the most curious and interesting chapters in the history of religion. The two systems had so much in common that at first sight we should wonder why they quarreled, if it were not a matter of common observation that no people hate and distrust each other more than those who like to express the same ideas in slightly different language. Neoplatonism and Christianity are at one in preaching detachment from the world, the method of "inwardness " -- introrsum ascendere -- and communion with God, as the highest good. "They have," says Vacherot, "the same metaphysic-idealism; the same psychology-spiritualism; the same attitude toward life -- a sober mysticism." And yet there are important differences, which not only prevented the two from combining as organizations, but caused Platonism to hold a somewhat precarious place within the fold of the church, after it had ceased to exist as a rival system. What these differences are may be best considered in the form of an answer to the question: Why did Christianity win and Neoplatonism lose in the battle between them?

Here is an exposition that suggests strong Greek-philosophical ideas in the Fourth Gospel -- all for quite natural and normal reasons:

To suggest that the Gospel of John could have something to do with Plato’s Symposium is nothing strange. They inhabit the same world, as is nicely symbolized in their material culture: the oldest surviving manuscripts of both writings are papyri from the second century that have been found among the Oxyrhynchus Papyri in Egypt. They attest to the simultaneous interest of its inhabitants in Plato’s Symposium and John’s Gospel. Furthermore, we know that first-century Jews were reading Plato and interested in Socrates. Not only Philo of Alexandria, but also Justus of Tiberias in first-century Galilee, as he is the source of an apocryphal story related in Diogenes Laertius that Plato had intervened during Socrates’ trial. Hence the only thing required for the Gospel of John is a Hellenistic-Jewish author such as Justus of Tiberias being interested in writing Jesus’ biography.

That early Christians were interested in Plato’s dialogues for their depiction of Jesus has of course long been recognized, and the late Michael Frede wrote a splendid piece arguing that they were especially interested in Plato’s Apology and Phaedo, the dialogues that deal with Socrates’ trial and death, because of their interest in the case of Jesus and his subsequent death. Restricting myself to the reception of Plato’s Phaedo, I would say that this early Christian interest is already visible in John’s Gospel and well extends beyond the scenes of Jesus’ trial and death here.

[Alexis Jacobi]

You-know-who goes after you-know-who ...

[Age]

Now, if you blathering nutcases would shut the fuck up for a moment I will reiterate the point I made earlier. Quoting IC:

LOL
LOL
LOL "alexis jacobi".

IC writes: Catholic theology has often had a syncretistic relationship with a whole bunch of other ideologies and religions. Mysticism, Santeria, Voudun, Metis and Aboriginal Catholicisms, Marian Cults of Velankanni and La Vang, old English village superstitions, and even Marxism, in the case of things like Liberation Theology...the Catholics have always done business through massaging local deities and practices into their system, provided that the Roman system still dictates the total outcome, so far as their clergy can estimate it. That's why it has a different "flavour" in every country, with different "saints" and "holy days," and a different stock of stories, myths and traditions, but with an overall RC base to them all. It's a kind of chameleon religiosity, in that sense.

Master Alexis wrote

Could you have a HIGHER VIEW OF "your" 'self' here "alexis jacobi"?

: In this paragraph, I note, a Protestant with specific commitments *takes aim* through negative portrayals precisely at the syncretism which has always been so troublesome as a concept to Protestant theology. However, the central pillar of all Christianities is St Paul, and St Paul syncretized early neoplatonic ideas into his *Christian program* as did most of the early Church Fathers (both the orthodox and the heretical). I could go on to illustrate how Protestantism itself, no matter the degree of its idealistic position, could not be seen in any ways except as an evolution of 1,000-1,500 years of cultural and intellectual syncretism. So the use of the accusation becomes, in my mind, absurd.

I won. I dominated. I was right and I KNEW I was right, right from the start! I have proven my point. It is unassailable. And indeed I am unassailable.

See here

It appears, 'No', could be the ONLY ANSWER to my last QUESTION here.