Why it is Possible that Christianity May be Legitimate

[MikeNovack]

Even the first thought in your post didn't have merit. If the metaphysics of reality is grounded in sacrifice? Why would it be? Does that idea even have meaning?

Every religion one could invent could be justified by such waffling nothing logic. Seriously, invent a random religion right now, use your imagination, and I'll write a post just like yours to show that it is legitimate, that it has merit.

No, in order to be legitimate, a religion has to have (or once had) actual adherents. But I will agree with you that a made up religion could BECOME legitimate (if it gained adherents). I'll give some examples of that. First the The New Reformed Order of Druids. In 1963, some students at Clareton College designed a ritual in humorous protest to Clareton's required attendance at some religion's services. Well they THOUGHT what they were doing just a humorous protest , but to the surprise of most of the participants, the ritual worked to give them a "religious experience". Then in 1967 at San Francisco State a graduate class in ritual designed a ritual as a class project. New Reformed Order of the Golden Dawn grew out of that, although in this case becoming real in the religious sense more gradually. And let us of course consider the "Church of All Worlds". In 1961 a few people influenced by ideas from Maslow and the SF book Stranger in a Strange Land formed a group which in 1967 Tim Zell reorganized as CAW. CAW, NROD, and NROOGD are all extant traditions within Neo-Paganism.

I had to look up those details BUT although NROOGD too west coast for me to have met any of them, I have experienced CAW and NROD rituals. As well as the rituals of various other Neo-Pagan traditions.

[Flannel Jesus]

No, in order to be legitimate,

Idk why you're replying to me with this. You know I don't believe ops argument makes Christianity any more legitimate than it otherwise already was, right? I'm not the one here who thinks "if I come up with a sequence of sufficiently abstract statements, that makes a religion legitimate". Hell, I don't even know what he means by legitimate. I'm pretty sure he doesn't mean "legally permissible to believe", so ... idk . He probably means something more like "intellectually respectable".

[MikeNovack]

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He probably means something more like "intellectually respectable".

Agreed. But I am saying "to whom". I do not consider followers of some religion to be idiots, without intellectual capabilities. So I'm saying if a religion has followers, I presume "intellectually respectable" at least to them.

Not necessarily only to them. I might look at some religion not my own (if I have one) and consider it "respectable", a reasonable approach to answering the fundamental question that religion addresses. Still maybe not my cup of tea (I want religion to be tackling a different question. Since the topic was raised specifically about Christianity, I'd say THAT religion is broad enough that one might consider some branches "legitimate" while others not.

In SOME cases I might intellectually accept, has followers, they can't ALL be intellectual incompetents, so I have to grant "legitimacy"BUT at the same time uncomfortable because at an emotional level "how COULD a sane, intelligent person believe THAT:

[Eodnhoj7]

Even the first thought in your post didn't have merit. If the metaphysics of reality is grounded in sacrifice? Why would it be? Does that idea even have meaning?

Every religion one could invent could be justified by such waffling nothing logic. Seriously, invent a random religion right now, use your imagination, and I'll write a post just like yours to show that it is legitimate, that it has merit.

Time is how reality occurs, time dissolves things, this dissolution is congruent to a metaphysical form of sacrifice that underlies being.

Religions often overlap at some point.

Still more word salad waffling nothingness. I have no idea what sequence of events convinced you that that kind of crap is meaningful.

So reality does not occur through change and change does not dissolve the old and renew things?

[Flannel Jesus]

Time is how reality occurs, time dissolves things, this dissolution is congruent to a metaphysical form of sacrifice that underlies being.

Religions often overlap at some point.

Still more word salad waffling nothingness. I have no idea what sequence of events convinced you that that kind of crap is meaningful.

So reality does not occur through change and change does not dissolve the old and renew things?

It's no more meaningful to talk about all change as sacrifice than it is too talk about all change as manifestations of Jersey Shore.

[Eodnhoj7]

Still more word salad waffling nothingness. I have no idea what sequence of events convinced you that that kind of crap is meaningful.

So reality does not occur through change and change does not dissolve the old and renew things?

It's no more meaningful to talk about all change as sacrifice than it is too talk about all change as manifestations of Jersey Shore.

Nonsense, observing foundations to reality is how people build interpretations. What do you think 1+1=2 would have any meaning without a foundation of number?

[Walker]

What of Jesus usurping our just rewards for our sins?

Negating his just rewards to us for our sins, makes the transaction and Jesus unjust.

This cannot even be argued against.

It’s the same usurpation that lit the fuse for the Big Bang, namely, the intercession of ordering intelligence (God) upon entropy. The connection of Jesus to God is explained by Christianity that also explains the just rewards.

[Walker]

So reality does not occur through change and change does not dissolve the old and renew things?

It's no more meaningful to talk about all change as sacrifice than it is too talk about all change as manifestations of Jersey Shore.

Nonsense, observing foundations to reality is how people build interpretations. What do you think 1+1=2 would have any meaning without a foundation of number?

Every year the weather changes and horseshoe crabs meet their fate at the beaks of hungry birds on the bayside shores of southern Jersey. Nature overproduces the prehistoric critters to pay the tribute in sacrifice that the predatory universe demands, as the way of things demands when caught in the physics of tightly connected, interdependent processes.

[Flannel Jesus]

So reality does not occur through change and change does not dissolve the old and renew things?

It's no more meaningful to talk about all change as sacrifice than it is too talk about all change as manifestations of Jersey Shore.

Nonsense, observing foundations to reality is how people build interpretations. What do you think 1+1=2 would have any meaning without a foundation of number?

I don't think anybody needs you to build new interpretations.

[MikeNovack]

What of Jesus usurping our just rewards for our sins?
Negating his just rewards to us for our sins, makes the transaction and Jesus unjust.
This cannot even be argued against.

Been a long time since I last read this (but sitting somewhere on our shelves)

Sweet Medicine by Peter J. Powell ---- Looking at Cheyenne traditional ceremonies I remember him interpreting "Sun Dance" as the individual personally performing the sacrifice rather than accepting Christ "usurping" (your word) the role. Since Powell was an Anglican priest, I suspect you will find there arguments you claim cannot exist. << "cannot be argued against" is a VERY strong claim >>

[Eodnhoj7]

It's no more meaningful to talk about all change as sacrifice than it is too talk about all change as manifestations of Jersey Shore.

Nonsense, observing foundations to reality is how people build interpretations. What do you think 1+1=2 would have any meaning without a foundation of number?

Every year the weather changes and horseshoe crabs meet their fate at the beaks of hungry birds on the bayside shores of southern Jersey. Nature overproduces the prehistoric critters to pay the tribute in sacrifice that the predatory universe demands, as the way of things demands when caught in the physics of tightly connected, interdependent processes.

Sacrifice is renewal for what ceases in one respect begins anew in another.

[Eodnhoj7]

It's no more meaningful to talk about all change as sacrifice than it is too talk about all change as manifestations of Jersey Shore.

Nonsense, observing foundations to reality is how people build interpretations. What do you think 1+1=2 would have any meaning without a foundation of number?

I don't think anybody needs you to build new interpretations.

New interpretations are inevitable, it is the constitution of the psyche.

[Flannel Jesus]

Nonsense, observing foundations to reality is how people build interpretations. What do you think 1+1=2 would have any meaning without a foundation of number?

I don't think anybody needs you to build new interpretations.

New interpretations are inevitable, it is the constitution of the psyche.

Sure they're inevitable, bad interpretations are inevitable too. Interpretations that use that waffling sophistry type of "philosophy" to say a while bunch of nothing.

The power ranger religion is legitimate because the ultimate nature of reality is rooted in power crystals.

That just doesn't mean anything man.

[Eodnhoj7]

I don't think anybody needs you to build new interpretations.

New interpretations are inevitable, it is the constitution of the psyche.

Sure they're inevitable, bad interpretations are inevitable too. Interpretations that use that waffling sophistry type of "philosophy" to say a while bunch of nothing.

The power ranger religion is legitimate because the ultimate nature of reality is rooted in power crystals.

That just doesn't mean anything man.

And what determines one interpretation as bad and the other good without resorting to a meta-interpretation?

The fundamental aspect of the reality we know is change, change requires a negation through dissolution.

[Flannel Jesus]

New interpretations are inevitable, it is the constitution of the psyche.

Sure they're inevitable, bad interpretations are inevitable too. Interpretations that use that waffling sophistry type of "philosophy" to say a while bunch of nothing.

The power ranger religion is legitimate because the ultimate nature of reality is rooted in power crystals.

That just doesn't mean anything man.

And what determines one interpretation as bad and the other good without resorting to a meta-interpretation?

The fundamental aspect of the reality we know is change, change requires a negation through dissolution.

Well yours is bad because it's just a word salad that you can plug any word into in place of sacrifice. It's just made up poetic nonsense that lacks substance. Some people think that's what philosophy is about. Sometimes it is.