Dubious wrote: ↑Sun Jun 18, 2023 6:49 am
Complete garbage! Conscience and its battles with the external world and how it correlates with justice and the fate of the individual has already been pretty much explored and emphasized in the ancient Greek plays, especially those of Sophocles and Euripides. What you're saying is tantamount to IC's claim that one can only be moral if one believes in the bible in spite of otherwise behaving morally!
Conscience comes with unfolding awareness and doesn't require any fucking religion to back it up, when, in fact, most of the time it's religion which preempts it.
What's really apparent to most here it seems is that you are one big piece of snot, but perhaps that's not your fault. You may not yet have realized that just because snot is usually in proximity to the brain does not mean the two are interchangeable.
You were asked, Dubious Duck,
to make it good. And you
severely short-changed me! I expected a throatsome volley and instead I get
this?! This is unacceptable!
Your posts are often rhetorically corrupt and this one is no different. I will explain point by point. You certainly deserve a thrashing but I will proceed calmly and with tremendous compassion. Though a ravening wolf I do have to be concerned for the upkeep of appearances!
Conscience and its battles with the external world and how it correlates with justice and the fate of the individual has already been pretty much explored and emphasized in the ancient Greek plays, especially those of Sophocles and Euripides.
This is an example of a partial truth. I did not say, nor would I ever say, that conscience at some level did not operate in the ancient world. But what I will say is that the moral sense was extremely undeveloped and, as well, without a defined and concretized structure comparable to that of Christian education.
Pages back you made some semi-articulate gurglings and admonitions to *read history* and for this reason I will mention the stunning and abject corruption of the Roman (and Mediterranean) world around the time of the rise of Christian communities. It hardly mattered what any classical Greek moralist might have thought or said, nor certainly any Roman one, the culture was exceedingly corrupt and, simply for the sake of honestly, there was nothing internal in it that could have addressed the corruption problem.
It was in this context and in response that Christian communities arose. And no matter how we now regard their focus on bringing about a transformation in the individual who recognized the corruption I speak of in themselves, and sought a cure for it, the historical fact is that early Christian community did indeed establish itself with that promise. And the point I made, which hardly needs to be bolstered by proofs or quotes since it is well understood and has been for ages, is that Christians could avail themselves of a solidly defined moral and ethical system that had been developed in Hebrew culture. Obviously, the Christian emphasis on original sin (a tendency to sin inherent in the individual) and the way that *sin* was defined, was very differently conceived when compared to the Greek or Roman 'classical' models. Again a 'shame culture' is quite different from a 'guilt culture' and therefore the notion of individual responsibility arises acutely when the moral and ethical focus is placed, exclusively, on the individual and his conduct. And whether you like it or not, Mr Quack, what I outline here are really simple, known and understood facts about the 1st century.
In regard to Sophocles permit me to quote the following and note the bolded sentences:
Owing to this reticence on the part of Sophocles, his feelings on the great questions of religion are not always easy to determine. But there can be little doubt that, as far as the popular legends are concerned, he belonged to a later stage than Aeschylus in the history of religious belief, and that he regarded them, no longer as revelations of truth, but only as picturesque and striking fictions. It is true that he everywhere handles the old mythology with the utmost tenderness, and addresses the gods of the people in language of pious reverence. The legendary deities still figure in his dramas as the directors of human destiny. It is the oracle of Apollo which foretells the disasters of Laius and Oedipus, and urges on Orestes to the work of retribution; and it is Athene who encompasses the fall of Ajax. Moreover, reverence for the established forms of worship is enforced on all occasions, and Athens is extolled for this very quality, that "she knows, more than any other land, how to honour the gods with due ceremonies." But although in all these matters he reflects the popular traditions and feelings of the time, yet the impression which he produces is not the same as that produced by Aeschylus. He nowhere shows the same earnestness and anxiety in dealing with the sacred legends; his tone is rather that of a man who has outgrown the simple creed of his countrymen, but recognizes its value and efficacy, and everywhere speaks of it with veneration.
I can assure you that in the early Christian communities God and God's actions and endeavors were made to be and were seen as extremely real and alive. There was (
obviously you quack!) an immediate and demanding admonition coming from an immediate and thorough living god to subject oneself to existential and spiritual therapy. This was not mere mythology and a recounting of old legends: the advent of Jesus Christ and the reality and immediacy of coming under the influence of Jesus and the Holy Spirit were understood to be real and immediate.
And this explains, of course, the powerful draw of those early Christian communities.
What you're saying is tantamount to IC's claim that one can only be moral if one believes in the bible in spite of otherwise behaving morally!
This is (another) good example of a rhetorically corrupt statement, quite typical of
all that you write. To offer proof of the points I have just outlined successfully (and incontrovertibly) I do not need to have my outline bolstered by a practicing Christian. The facts of the matter are known and accessible to all. An atheist could make the same statements and they'd be just as true.
Since I would never say that other people, and other cultures, and also the pre-Christian cultural world, did not have moral concepts, your assertion falls flat on that account. It does not matter what IC believes or does not believe, what matters is what any one of us can know through a study, even superficial, of the 1st century.
Christian community, with a
living god understood to be operating
immediately and
directly in the spiritual transformation of the individual and the community, and having access to Hebrew scriptures (the Psalms notably), enabled a therapeutic religious community to achieve direct effect on the lives of those who *took the Christian cure*.
There are therefore 2 notable factors: One being a god that one engaged with immediately and directly, and the second being a defined moral and ehtical system to which one could refer and in that sense submit oneself to. The third factor is the surrounding Christian community that supported and also monitored the progress of the catechumen.
And
finally ......