Philosophy Now Forum

Reasons to Abandon Christianity
Chaz Bufe

Christianity preys on the innocent.

If Christian fear-mongering were directed solely at adults, it would be bad enough, but Christians routinely terrorize helpless children through grisly depictions of the endless horrors and suffering they'll be subjected to if they don't live good Christian lives.

And then around Christmas, Santa Claus is added in for good measure. Santa Claus because he distributes all the presents. Presents because Christmas and capitalism are good buddies now. Only being bad then merely means no presents...not eternal damnation in Hell.

Actually, though, in my church, the children were often inspired more by way of rewards. Name the Books of the Bible or memorize certain verses and you received a small prize of some sort. But fire and brimstone -- the torments of Hell -- were in there too.

Christianity has darkened the early years of generation after generation of children, who have lived in terror of dying while in mortal sin and going to endless torment as a result. All of these children were trusting of adults, and they did not have the ability to analyze what they were being told; they were simply helpless victims, who, ironically, victimized following generations in the same manner that they themselves had been victimized. The nearly 2000 years of Christian terrorizing of children ranks as one of its greatest crimes. And it's one that continues to this day.

On the other hand, for most, it is not construed as "terrorizing" children at all. You warn them of Hell because you love them and truly do not want them to stray far from the flock. And, again, thinking back on my own personal experiences, it was more in the way of emphasizing the glory of God...His loving, just and merciful nature and in acquiring immortality and everlasting salvation. The scary stuff was more on the back burner with Reverend Deerdorf.

Though in other congregations no doubt it is decidedly more a front burner component of the faith.

As an example of Christianity's cruel brainwashing of the innocent, consider this quotation from an officially approved, 19th-century Catholic children's book (Tracts for Spiritual Reading, by Rev. J. Furniss, C.S.S.R.):

"Look into this little prison. In the middle of it there is a boy, a young man. He is silent; despair is on him . . . His eyes are burning like two burning coals. Two long flames come out of his ears. His breathing is difficult. Sometimes he opens his mouth and breath of blazing fire rolls out of it. But listen! There is a sound just like that of a kettle boiling. Is it really a kettle which is boiling? No; then what is it? Hear what it is. The blood is boiling in the scalding veins of that boy. The brain is boiling and bubbling in his head. The marrow is boiling in his bones. Ask him why he is thus tormented. His answer is that when he was alive, his blood boiled to do very wicked things."

There are many similar passages in this book. Commenting on it, William Meagher, Vicar-General of Dublin, states in his Approbation:

"I have carefully read over this Little Volume for Children and have found nothing whatever in it contrary to the doctrines of the Holy Faith; but on the contrary, a great deal to charm, instruct and edify the youthful classes for whose benefit it has been written."

Here, of course, it all comes back to dasein. You are thrown at birth out into a particular world. You are indoctrinated as a member of a particular family in a particular community in a particular culture at a particular time.

Each of us here has his or her own unique story to tell about the time they were kids becoming aware of one or another God and religion and spiritual path. Same with our uniquely personal experiences as adults.

Why should it surprise us then that our own assessments of Christianity may come into conflict?

iambiguous wrote: ↑Sun Jun 18, 2023 7:17 pm

henry quirk wrote: ↑Sun Jun 18, 2023 2:25 pm iam challenged: "if henry quirk really is your friend, you will be encouraging him to watch too."

Hmmm...why would Mannie throw a life preserver to the guy who screams over and over 'I'm drowning over here!' but not throw a life preserver to the guy who swims perfectly fine, who, in fact, is a friggin' expert?

More simply: which is a wiser use of time & energy? Tryin' to save the guy who sez he's in trouble, or, tryin' to save the guy who clearly doesn't need savin'?

Still be befuzzled? Try this one: we don't spoon-feed adults; we spoon-feed infants.

Does or does not your friend Mannie believe that in order to save one's soul one must accept Jesus Christ as one's personal savior?

And whether his friend believes he doesn't need to be saved, that part stays the same.

Right?

Sure, he can say, "Henry, I respect your own views on God and religion. I do. But I know that the Christian God does in fact exist. And if you don't accept Jesus Christ as your personal savior, you will be 'left behind' if you are around for the second coming. Or burn in Hell for all of eternity after you die come Judgment Day. So, let's get together and watch those YouTube videos, my good friend. You will be convinced then to come over to Christ."

henry quirk wrote: ↑Sun Jun 18, 2023 9:47 pm Iam, clearly still befuzzled and obsessed, asked: "Does or does not your friend Mannie believe that in order to save one's soul one must accept Jesus Christ as one's personal savior? And whether his friend believes he doesn't need to be saved, that part stays the same. Right?"

As I say: we spoon feed infants, not adults. Can't be any plainer than than, infant.

Note to others:

Be honest. Given the gap between the points I make above and henry's utterly substanceless "retort", should he or should he not be rather embarrassed right about now?

See, from my frame of mind, here is the tricky thing about henry's God:

"What did Deists believe about humans?

Deists insisted that religious truth should be subject to the authority of human reason rather than divine revelation. Consequently, they denied that the Bible was the revealed word of God and rejected scripture as a source of religious doctrine."

"For Deists God was a benevolent, if distant, creator whose revelation was nature and human reason. Applying reason to nature taught most Deists that God organized the world to promote human happiness and our greatest religious duty was to further that end by the practice of morality."

national humanities center

So there is this distant God creating Nature and human beings. And human morality seems to revolve around the capacity to apply our God-given Reason to "conflicting goods".

So, "in his head", henry the Deist applies his God-given mind to "life, liberty, and property" in particular. And it doesn't matter whether the moral conflagration revolves around abortion or guns or human sexuality, only his own arrogant understanding of what those things are ever counts in any discussion with anyone.

I'm just "befuzzled" by how he actually connects the dots here between God and these things.

His God left no Scripture. No Divine Revelations. But when he gave mere mortals access to Reason, what did He have in mind? That in fact in regard to abortion, guns and human sexuality, Deists could arrive at the optimal rational assessment of them as moral issues? Meaning that all Deists should be more rather than less in sync about them? Or, instead, that different Deists living entirely different lives might come to entirely different and conflicting conclusions. Entirely different moral convictions?

Deism...and dasein?

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 6:28 pm syncretism immediately took shape the moment that the notion of the Christian revelation was brought into the Greek mind.

No, that's not right.

What happens is only that every culture comes with its own presuppositions and traditions. But everything depends on what they do next. And the crucial question is, "When culture and revelation conflict (as they inevitably do), which one wins?"

The Catholic answer is, "Whatever the popes and councils say." The ideal Protestant answer is, "Whatever the Scriptures say." So in the former, in the ideal, Catholic culture, including any culture with which it is syncretized, rules interpretation; in the latter, culture of any kind is subordinate to the text.

What I believe that you are trying to do is to insinuate that this process is 'bad'.

I think the above clarifies that.

I would not say that some syncretism could not be looked at in this way (as dilution, as corruption, or as perversion) but my point is more general, and necessarily phenomenal: if one culture communicates metaphysical notions to another, the culture that receives it will necessarily translate the terms into those terms that *make sense*.

Only preliminarily. We all come with our prejudices, born of our culture and upbringing. The question is, "What will correct those prejudices, if anything?" And I would say the answer has to be, "The Word of God."

These things are not evidence of syncretism, but merely of local cultural expressions of exactly the same revelation.

For you syncretism is presented as 'bad'.

Quite so. Bad, but fixable. My impression is that you are advocating a variety of absolute cultural-determinism, as if a person can never transcend or learn to subdue their cultural prejudices. That's clearly not the case.

Just because one first comes to the text as, say, a Scotsman does not mean that one is going be eternally in thrall to Scots prejudices, if such exist. People are not bound to think forever of the Bible-by-bagpipes, or the apostle Paul in a kilt. And if that's the way some begin, it's perhaps understandable, and reflects the clash of particular culture and universal truth. But then it's not inevitable that anybody has to stay that narrow and provincial in their thinking.

Syncretism in our thinking is a thing to be eliminated, not coddled. It amounts to imperious, erroneous, self-centered interpretation. It's something to grow past.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 2:19 pm

Dubious wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 6:41 am

I don't know how long according to your calendar it would predate.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 3:04 amFor the better part of three centuries, Christianity had already been widely known and widely persecuted within the Roman Empire before Constantine appeared and tried to co-opt it at Milvian Bridge (312 AD).

So pretty much between the end of Jesus and the beginning of Paul

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.

Anyway, not worth arguing about.

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.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 2:26 am

iambiguous wrote: ↑Sun Jun 18, 2023 11:22 pm ...lets get back to this...

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sun Jun 18, 2023 1:07 pmThe original point was simply this: is there non-religious, independent, rational evidence for the existence of God? Now that you have the videos, you could know that the answer is "Yes," beyond any reasonable doubt.

Whether or not you're prepared to acknowledge it is now moot. You could, you should, and nobody can make you. So it's 100% on you to inform yourself of as much as you want to know. You have the evidence.

But the claptrap about the Pope, "resides in Heaven," etc? Nobody promised you that, Christianity doesn't claim that, and you made it up. So enjoy as many of the videos as you want...or don't. It's clear to me you don't even want to try to inform yourself...and I can't make you.

So, that really is what you are going to cling to, Mr. Wiggle?!!! Rather than the boring task of saving my soul and henry's soul and the soul of all the others here who have not accepted Jesus Christ as their personal savior...saving souls by noting the video segments powerful enough to convince you that the Christian God does exist...we have to watch all of the videos.

Yet you won't even comment on the points I noted regarding "meaning" video above. You won't even suggest the next most persuasive video we should watch.

How about this: I'll agree to watch all the videos, one by one, in the order you indicate. But after watching them one by one and commenting on them one by one, you respond to the points I raise. Starting with the "meaning" video above.

Wiggle on or let's wrangle with it.

What video should I watch next?

And please explain to us why you refuse to respond to my own reaction to the "meaning" video. The church lady flat out admitting to the atheist that her own assessment does not prove that Christianity is the real deal.

No, let's not bother.

It's boring. And redundant. I'm not finding your contributions interesting or challenging in any way, not even remotely stimulating, or even particularly relevant. Then, even when you have a response to your question, you're not interested in it.

So off you go. I'm good with that.

Pick one, Mr. Wiggle:



No, seriously.


Or...


Absolutely shameless!!



Now, back to your far, far more philosophically relevant discussions with AJ.

Right?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 8:25 pm No, that's not right [that "syncretism immediately took shape the moment that the notion of the Christian revelation was brought into the Greek mind."]

I am afraid that it is *right* insofar as it is correct. St Paul, who very significantly defined Christianity, syncretized into it Neo-Platonist concepts. In the Gospel of John it is even more evident. For my purposes it does not matter if this in a minor amount or something more significant -- it happened.

What happens is only that every culture comes with its own presuppositions and traditions. But everything depends on what they do next. And the crucial question is, "When culture and revelation conflict (as they inevitably do), which one wins?"

The Catholic answer is, "Whatever the popes and councils say." The ideal Protestant answer is, "Whatever the Scriptures say." So in the former, in the ideal, Catholic culture, including any culture with which it is syncretized, rules interpretation; in the latter, culture of any kind is subordinate to the text.

The position you take is similar to that of a modern mathematician who is sure that he can correct some bad equations carried out in the past. The modern mathematician surely can perform the correction.

You on the other hand make yourself a type of revisionist-reformist.

I am not going to go on repeating things I have said, in a dozen different ways, in previous posts months-gone-by, but what I do say is that you give to yourself a unique but also strange *right* to review the Christian interpretation of revelation, and Christianity as a historical phenomenological process, which you determine from a vantage in the present that you can go back through and correct. While I recognize that you can do this, and that Protestantism certainly does this, I do not see it as the wisest choice. But it is not that I do not understand why the operation is attempted and carried out.

However, and in fact, it is not solely what *popes and councils* have said but what theologically-minded men have determined when the issues at stake have been thought-through -- and always through the conceptual lens of that time. The entire concept-model I consider is therefore different. A strongly grounded Catholic would say that the Spirit influenced how ideas were formed and how interpretations and also newer expressions (for example that of recognizing and honoring Mary as part of liturgical worship) have been incorporated into the structure of the religious practice, which does vary from time and place.

So whereas I can see that this is the case, and note how the possibility of it happening, and that it did happen, and that theological ideas are formed which defend the traditions, my position is distinct. I cannot invalidate any of the practices that I am sure you are inclined to invalidate.

For example I explained to Harbal that in the Shakta traditions of India the idea, or the supposed reality, or simply the concept of a universal goddess is an idea established at a psychic level, perhaps below consciousness or undergirding consciousness. Yes, I am aware that in both Judaism and Christianity there is a strong zealousness that rejects and resists any *pagan* concepts, and certainly strict Orthodox Judaism does not and could not allow for a god-concept that takes the Vedic form. And Christianity shares this zealousness.

All this I understand, and I also understand the purpose of it [of controlling visualized concepts and of directing people's thought ideologically]. And I also understand that for example early Christianity, for many different reasons, incorporated into it a feminine figure of Mary. I do not have difficulty in seeing and understanding that this was *popular* and one might also say *psychically necessary*. There is a deep psychic resonance therefore.

So then, I understand what a ruling culture (speaking of Roman Catholicism and the Roman Empire) must do: it has to allow concepts to bend, and as you rightly point out to be tolerant of local expressions.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 3:45 am

iambiguous wrote: ↑Sun Jun 18, 2023 11:22 pm What video should I watch next?

White Slaves of Lesbo Island ain’t bad ….

Seriously though, and just out of curiosity, where do you come down on IC's rendition of Christianity? Do you believe that one must accept Jesus Christ as one's personal savior in order to save one's soul?

And what of his claim that one can go beyond a leap of faith to the Christian God and in fact know that He does exist. Everywhere.

Have you watched any of his legendary videos? The one on "meaning" for example? This one: https://youtu.be/NKGnXgH_CzE

The one where the Christian Lady herself admits that her own belief in Christianity doesn't prove that Christianity is true.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 8:25 pm Quite so. Bad, but fixable. My impression is that you are advocating a variety of absolute cultural-determinism, as if a person can never transcend or learn to subdue their cultural prejudices. That's clearly not the case.

No, that is not quite it. In fact what happens is that when I come in contact with you -- and what I say is completely without rancor -- I am forced into contact with zealotry of a peculiar sort. I do not necessarily judge zealotry harshly. In fact I have come to see and understand that it has a 'function' which is unquestionably important.

2. Zealot A member of a Jewish movement of the first century ad that fought against Roman rule in Palestine as incompatible with strict monotheism.

[Middle English zelote, from Latin zēlōtēs, from Greek, from zēlos, zeal.]

You inherit a strongly Judaic intensity, something almost monomaniacal. I use the word descriptively, not negatively.

But the thing is that I cannot myself perform as a zealot. And so I see the zealous form for the function it serves. Orthodox Judaism is certainly zealous, as is Christianity, but in comparison Vedanta has intellectual means to *see* any religious expression through a far more tolerant and comprehending lens. And while I see the good sense of that, and in India both ancient and modern it was a survival strategy and necessary, I can also see that it has a negative side: too much permissiveness does not allow a solid and a 'strict' doctrinal platform to develop, except perhaps within closed circles within a given tradition where the religious practices and the forms of worship are highly defined.

You believe that the religious and interpretive choices you have made reflect, precisely, the revelation-model, and therefore you present yourself as being *properly and correctly situated* on a metaphysical level. You are 'right with God' and as a result your communion is replete.

But I am aware that there are many different sorts of relationship -- and here I only mean within the Christian traditions. So I turn again to the metaphorical model of Plato's Cave. Those on the *lower levels* will fight with their immediate neighbors and try to *correct* the picture that they have and which they work with. But on a *higher level* (and this is my interpretation and results from my value-assessments) there are people who can see through the specific picture to something more essential.

None of this negates what I have recently said about early Christianity as a very attractive option in order to carry out a therapeutic process.

Dubious wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 9:18 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 2:19 pm

Dubious wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 6:41 am

So pretty much between the end of Jesus and the beginning of Paul

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, 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.

iambiguous wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 10:02 pmSeriously though, and just out of curiosity, where do you come down on IC's rendition of Christianity? Do you believe that one must accept Jesus Christ as one's personal savior in order to save one's soul?

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 9:58 pm St Paul, who very significantly defined Christianity, syncretized into it Neo-Platonist concepts.

That's incorrect, actually. Christianity is not Platonic. It has no such thing as, for instance, a realm of ideal forms, and it's not gnostic about physical reality in the ways Platonism is. In fact, you can find direct repudiations of gnostic beliefs in places like Colossians, where the explicity vocabulary they used is repudiated.

In the Gospel of John it is even more evident.

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

...what I do say is that you give to yourself a unique but also strange *right* to review the Christian interpretation of revelation,

I don't, actually. All I do is repeat what the early Protestants themselves said, and said in writing, and repeatedly. So I claim no special authority for myself at all. I'm just repeating the historical facts, as they are manifest both in the Protestant and the Catholic records.

A strongly grounded Catholic would say that the Spirit influenced how ideas were formed and how interpretations and also newer expressions (for example that of recognizing and honoring Mary as part of liturgical worship) have been incorporated into the structure of the religious practice, which does vary from time and place.

You are agreeing with me here, but in other words. You're pointing out that things like Mariolatry are not original, even in Catholicism, but rather were added in by popes and councils. That they claim they have Spirit-backing for rejecting the explicit teachings already done by the Spirit is the point of contention between Catholics and Protestants. The Catholics believe they have that authority to countermand the Spirit of God, vested in the popes and councils; Protestants protest that they do not, and the move is disobedient to the Spirit.

And I also understand that for example early Christianity, for many different reasons, incorporated into it a feminine figure of Mary.

Actually, such things as the divinization of Mary (431), her alleged "perpetual virginity," (389) her proclaimed being "mother of the church" (1944), and the fictive "immaculate conception" (1854) and "assumption" (1950) all can be dated to the specific Catholic councils that declared them, and were unknown before that -- and all are still totally absent from the Bible, a claim which anybody can also check for themselves. There is no Scriptural warrant for any of them, you'll find.

So you need not take my word for any of it.

Age wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 2:56 am Have you considered that it is 'this way' of LOOKING AT, THINKING ABOUT, and SEEING 'things', which could be contributing to your OWN depression here?

My depression has nothing to do with "black or white thinking". My depression has to do with coming to the realization that there is little if anything that I can contribute to life on Earth and it's only a matter of what I can take from it. I have come to the conclusion that getting out of this world is what I must achieve. And that goal conflicts with every desire and instinct I possess.

¯\_(*_*)_/¯

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 10:30 pm

iambiguous wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 10:02 pmSeriously though, and just out of curiosity, where do you come down on IC's rendition of Christianity? Do you believe that one must accept Jesus Christ as one's personal savior in order to save one's soul?

And what of his claim that one can go beyond a leap of faith to the Christian God and in fact know that He does exist. Everywhere.

Have you watched any of his legendary videos? The one on "meaning" for example? This one: https://youtu.be/NKGnXgH_CzE

The one where the Christian Lady herself admits that her own belief in Christianity doesn't prove that Christianity is true.

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. 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.

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.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 10:30 pmYou can only be what you are, or perform as I put it if you can carry out the act genuinely.

Hmm, whatever that means?

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 10:30 pmLet 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?

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 10:30 pmAs 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.

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

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 10:30 pmNot 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!

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.

Truer than say what these folks...

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

...believe.

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

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 10:30 pmFor 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...

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 10:30 pmMy 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?




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.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 10:46 pm

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Mon Jun 19, 2023 9:58 pm St Paul, who very significantly defined Christianity, syncretized into it Neo-Platonist concepts.

That's incorrect, actually. Christianity is not Platonic. It has no such thing as, for instance, a realm of ideal forms, and it's not gnostic about physical reality in the ways Platonism is. In fact, you can find direct repudiations of gnostic beliefs in places like Colossians, where the explicity vocabulary they used is repudiated.

In the Gospel of John it is even more evident.

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".

It would not matter to you if evidence could be brought forward that the Fourth Gospel and the ideas and conceptions of St Paul were significantly influenced by Greek thought (and thus neo-Platonism) since your ideas are fixed where they are. You would find a way to refute any insinuation.

I read CH Dodd's Historical Tradition in the Fourth Gospel and also his work The Johannine Epistles where he lays out that the author of John had a mind significantly infused with Hermetic ideas. It is entirely normal. One begins from the point where one begins.

I did not say that *Christianity is Platonic* but I definitely say that the Platonic lens, or the philosophical and idea-content in Platonism was infused into Christianity. And it started quite early.

I know, from long experience (!) that it is impossible to argue against your fixed ideas. So let's leave it there.

My point, which I do not want to get lost, is that syncretism, slight or significant, is unavoidable. And that it is not in se a bad thing. Though I do recognize that for you it very definitely is.

Sorry, it was my error to make it seem like I was interested in debate.

And I notice, again, that the substantial points I made in an earlier post were completely skipped over.

As you know I determined that you are a Evangelical Christian zealot (I mean this as an accurate and fair term without a negative connotation), that you have specific ideas that cannot be deviated from, and I see no advantage in rehearsing all that again!

I will continue talking *around* all of that to elucidate my own strategies in regard to hard orthodoxies.

Well, Iambiguous, you know where you stand and you've made it clear enough.