Philosophy Now Forum

Does Christianity have a Jewish origin?

https://www.cesnur.org/2002/slc/bauer.htm

5. In Simone Weil's life, religion played a dominant role in the years following the mystical epiphanies she experienced in 1938. Long before, however, her wish to partake in the suffering of the distressed led her to a life-style of extreme austerity. It was under these circumstances that, in 1937, Simone Weil became increasingly attracted to Christianity, a religion she considered to be in its true essence a religion of slaves, and therefore in utter contradiction to the actual form it had taken in history. On this assumption, Simone Weil objected against Catholicism -- the denomination she knew best and respected the most --[21] that it had ended by perverting itself for the sake of power. The historical "double stain" on the Church that Simone Weil denounces originates in the fact that Israel imposed on Christian believers the acceptance of the Old Testament and its almighty God, and that Rome chose Christianity as the religion of the Empire.[22] Despite its universal redemptive mission, the Church became from its very beginnings heir of Jewish nationalism and of the totalitarianism inherent in Imperial Rome. As the spiritual locus in which both traditions of power displaced the religion of powerless slaves, Christianity became the actual negation of its own foundational leitmotiv: the self-annulment of divine omnipotence by the godly act of kenosis or self-abasement.

What if St. Augustine is right? Christianity existed as a perennial philosophy?

The very thing which is now called the Christian religion existed among the ancients also, nor was it wanting]rom the inception if the human race until the coming if Christ in the flesh, at which point the true religion which was already in existence began to be called Christian. -ST. AUGUSTINE, Retractiones

The essence of Christianity which Christ in the flesh actualized was an esoteric school Jesus made it possible 'TO BE" Christian. Modern Man has forgotten its meaning, its purpose

Some people sense that Christianity is far more significant than the modern Catholicism and the Hebrew God Simone objected to. That is why she is known as the Patron Saint of Outsiders.

What if she is right and modern Christianity has lost its purpose in society. Don't we need some open minded souls to become capable of conscious contemplation so as to remember the past?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Jan 13, 2022 2:19 pm

Dubious wrote: ↑Thu Jan 13, 2022 8:50 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Jan 12, 2022 3:41 pmThat's because I don't accuse people of ad hominems unless they try to evade the issues by way of personal insult against the speaker -- the very definition of ad hominem...just as you are attempting to do right now.

Face it IC, you're just an ad hom magnet.

Heh.

Immaterial.

That won't make a fallacy not-a-fallacy, nor an irrelevancy relevant.

But you know that -- or if you don't, you certainly should.

We''ll leave it at that. I've said most of what I wanted to say whereas you have nothing say except blatant denials. There's hardly a brain on the planet that can't manage a simple one or two word denial without any further reference to what it denies. Congrats! No wonder you're so brilliant in defending the faith.

Your belief in the bible as the word of god is best summarized by the nursery rhyme one is taught in the first years.

Jesus loves me this I know
for the bible tells me so!

...and so it does. From that point on, IC never doubted all that biblical propaganda.

Are you a Jehovah's Witness by any chance or better still a Mormon?

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Jan 13, 2022 9:09 pm False teaching is not a light thing. It sends people to a lost eternity. And nothing could possibly be more serious than that.

I definitely would not deny that 'false teaching' exists and is real. In this sense, as Nick often points out, the *world* is a sinister place. Christians define that sinister influence as the diabolic, and if it is looked at in the right way, and understood in a sensible way, this definition of *the world* makes a good deal of sense.

I have absorbed a far more forgiving view. Let's imagine a person made to *stumble* in the New Testament sense, but because that person comes under the influence of those who purvey ideas or temptations that 'lead astray'. An intelligent God, and indeed God can be nothing but intelligence itself, would recognize that that soul had been, let's say, duped, but not through his or her own maliciousness, nor even perhaps by choice.

So I cannot believe, or support the belief in, a 'lost eternity'. Such an outcome would be entirely unjust.

That is why I speculate about those moments, perhaps, just at or right after death (leaving the mortal coil). Anything could happen. That is, when one enters an incorporeal state. The *test* of what one really wishes for or what one really hopes for could very well be presented then. And very different choices could, indeed must necessarily, occur then.

One has to be very very guilty to merit a 'lost eternity' it seems to me.

But I am also of the school that I do not think many souls are absolutely lost, or eternally lost. There is always a way.

But I do understand the diabolic, and of course Satan, as being unconditionally disposed to constant evil. It is a feature, shall we say, of his personality. Indeed he cannot change (is the way it is described). I refer here to how Satan is described in Christian theology.

Walker wrote: ↑Thu Jan 13, 2022 4:38 pm

Dubious wrote: ↑Thu Jan 13, 2022 8:50 am

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Wed Jan 12, 2022 3:41 pmThat's because I don't accuse people of ad hominems unless they try to evade the issues by way of personal insult against the speaker -- the very definition of ad hominem...just as you are attempting to do right now.

Face it IC, you're just an ad hom magnet.

That's because he doesn't return in kind.

Cowards and bullies just luv that kind of target.

Please let me know whether you're the Cheech or Chong character on the site so I know what the status of the guy you're defending is.

Oh, never mind, you're both interchangeable!

How's your hero god Trump doing lately??

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Thu Jan 13, 2022 10:45 pm You are entirely free to say "What I say is what Jesus Christ says" and therefore assert that your interpretive opinions are correct...

But that is not what I say.

Nor do I say that I wish to "use Christ as a marionette," as you put it, for my own views. If my own views do not conform to what the Bible says, then -- and let me say this distinctly -- they are wrong, and I deserve to be corrected accordingly, and am content to change my opinion accordingly. Because a human opinion that does not reflect God's "opinion," (if we can use such a word in that context) is simply wrong: mine included.

But in matters in which a human opinion reflects what Scripture also says, then in that case, such an opinion will also be right. Either way, it is the Bible, not me or any other human voice, be he pope or prelate, that remains the authoritative voice.

As I said before, I have no authority of my own, nor are my opinions privileged. My goal is simply to point out what the Bible says about the questions and comments you are posing to me. This is why I share the references for key things that you might find surprising...so that you can examine and critique my view conveniently.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Thu Jan 13, 2022 10:59 pm But I am also of the school that I do not think many souls are absolutely lost, or eternally lost. There is always a way.

I understand your perspective. But what do you make of these passages:

[Jesus said,]"The one who believes in the Son has eternal life; but the one who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.” (John 3:36)

[Of men who rebel against God] "But because of your stubbornness and unrepentant heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will repay each person according to his deeds: to those who by perseverance in doing good seek glory, honor, and immortality, He will give eternal life; but to those who are self-serving and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, He will give wrath and indignation." (Romans 2:5-8)

"Then another angel, a third one, followed them, saying with a loud voice, “If anyone worships the beast and his image, and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, he also will drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is mixed in full strength in the cup of His anger; and he will be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever; they have no rest day and night, those who worship the beast and his image, and whoever receives the mark of his name.” "
(Revelation 14:9-11)

"Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat upon it, from whose presence earth and heaven fled, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds. And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, and Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them; and they were judged, each one of them according to their deeds. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire." (Revelation 20:11-15)

I could add more, but I think these give you the gist and are enough to make the point.

And please understand that, contrary to your last message, I am not asking you what you think of what you believe to be my "opinion" here. I'm just offering you the Scriptures, and asking you to say what you think they mean. As I said, it is the Bible that has to right to say. I do not claim any such right for myself.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Thu Jan 13, 2022 3:30 pm Perhaps what you assert makes some sense, profound sense, to you. But whatever that sense is I can't grasp it.

In my humble opinion any attempt to make sense of what cannot be made sense of is doomed to fail. Reality makes no sense for the one who wants to make sense of it because that one does not exist, reality cannot inform itself of it's existence. Existence is without doubt or error, but that is all that can be known about it, everything else is a mental projection, aka a conceptual imposition that is not actually there....Reality has no other need other than to just be, it is a mystery even to itself. If it wasn't a mystery to itself, then philosophising about it would come to a permanent end. However, it is very clear that philosophising over what can never be known does apparently happen. All mental seeking for answers to endless questions about the nature of being is just one of many other forms of the same one energy that is life, dancing with itself.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Thu Jan 13, 2022 3:30 pmI guess I am just a failure.

Nothing lives, nothing dies, nothing is everything and everything is nothing. No one can fail at life because no one is living life. Concepts are a fictional story where nothing ever happened. The appearance of 'someone' living a life, disappears when that same 'someone' is thought to have died...all appearances come and go like the wind...I exist, I don't exist, I exist I don't exist, now you see me, now you don't...all appearances of nothing. Nothing is happening.

Knowing, as in knowledge is a fictional story that's all. Knowledge can only point to the illusory nature of reality in that it is one without a second.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Thu Jan 13, 2022 3:30 pmThis cannot be altogether right, but I think I can see how it is somewhat right. There are certainly limits to what can be known, that I can accept. I can also accept that in ultimate senses -- like the *reason for existence* -- we can only stammer in the face of ineffability.

It's both right and wrong in the context of conceptual opposites, can't have one without the other, which in any case are mutually dependant in order to exist, that existence is one without a second.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Thu Jan 13, 2022 3:30 pmI think I agree that though we are forced to *interpret* (everything about this life) yet our interpretations must always be conditional, imperfect, perhaps provisional.

Knowledge is only within the artificial dream of separation, in other words, mental. In reality nothing knows itself.
No one has ever seen a 'knower''

Nonduality teaches this fundamental and absolute principle.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Thu Jan 13, 2022 3:30 pm But my question is: What is its function? It certainly has one. And then What is the function of this perspective for you? To bring other people to it?

Let the one who questions answer, when the one who questions is known, that knowing is where all your answers will reveal themselves..

Dubious wrote: ↑Thu Jan 13, 2022 10:51 pm
Jesus loves me this I know
for the bible tells me so!

Aww,come on now, everyone according to the ad-hominen magnet knows Books can think, and then write those thoughts in the form of words, and then report those words back to themselves. Everyone knows Books can think, write, and recite their own thought words back to themselves..





.

Walker wrote: ↑Thu Jan 13, 2022 4:38 pm That's because he doesn't return in kind.

Cowards and bullies just luv that kind of target.

Only a coward and a bully would ghost another persons opinion if it did not speak same narrative.

Choose your tyranny.


Or wind your neck in...duh!

Why are you such a wet blanket? urgh!!

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Jan 13, 2022 6:10 pm If they do, it's only because they amuse themselves that way. And they are too easily self-amused.

Me, they touch not at all.

I just find them childish.

Yep, you got that right, can't touch this.

So don't bother... oh wait....you too love the drama right?

OOh, they're just so beneath me, pearls before swine, is my mantra, a subtle form of fuck you, without ever having to touch them. We get your game, and you are being called out, yes even you are trapped within your own web.

Nick_A wrote: ↑Thu Jan 13, 2022 10:46 pm Does Christianity have a Jewish origin?

https://www.cesnur.org/2002/slc/bauer.htm

5. In Simone Weil's life, religion played a dominant role in the years following the mystical epiphanies she experienced in 1938. Long before, however, her wish to partake in the suffering of the distressed led her to a life-style of extreme austerity. It was under these circumstances that, in 1937, Simone Weil became increasingly attracted to Christianity, a religion she considered to be in its true essence a religion of slaves, and therefore in utter contradiction to the actual form it had taken in history. On this assumption, Simone Weil objected against Catholicism -- the denomination she knew best and respected the most --[21] that it had ended by perverting itself for the sake of power. The historical "double stain" on the Church that Simone Weil denounces originates in the fact that Israel imposed on Christian believers the acceptance of the Old Testament and its almighty God, and that Rome chose Christianity as the religion of the Empire.[22] Despite its universal redemptive mission, the Church became from its very beginnings heir of Jewish nationalism and of the totalitarianism inherent in Imperial Rome. As the spiritual locus in which both traditions of power displaced the religion of powerless slaves, Christianity became the actual negation of its own foundational leitmotiv: the self-annulment of divine omnipotence by the godly act of kenosis or self-abasement.

What if St. Augustine is right? Christianity existed as a perennial philosophy?

The very thing which is now called the Christian religion existed among the ancients also, nor was it wanting]rom the inception if the human race until the coming if Christ in the flesh, at which point the true religion which was already in existence began to be called Christian. -ST. AUGUSTINE, Retractiones

The essence of Christianity which Christ in the flesh actualized was an esoteric school Jesus made it possible 'TO BE" Christian. Modern Man has forgotten its meaning, its purpose

Some people sense that Christianity is far more significant than the modern Catholicism and the Hebrew God Simone objected to. That is why she is known as the Patron Saint of Outsiders.

What if she is right and modern Christianity has lost its purpose in society. Don't we need some open minded souls to become capable of conscious contemplation so as to remember the past?

Yes, we do need stories of man's past. Historiography is only partly sifting of evidence and a large part of historiography is interpretational. Hitler's Nazis also needed stories of man's past.

Modern Christianity is increasingly becoming post-Christianity as in the myth of Christ discarded in its literal interpretation, but Christian ethics live on. All theistic religious sects , Humanism, and also the true Eastern religions, whatever their failures have contributed to the conservation of the ethical message. The United Nations Declaration of Human Rights is Christian ethics codified for present times.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Jan 13, 2022 9:09 pm I will put a technical definition, one with many more nuances, in the link at the end. But for the moment, let me be simple, and use common language. To be saved is to be delivered from God's judgment against sin. This is done when a person recognizes his true condition as a rebel against God, and as someone guilty of wrongs that deserve redress from a righteous God. He also realizes that, due to his fallen nature, he is incapable of earning God's favour through merely doing good deeds or being better in the future. He admits the rightness of God in being against what he is and what he has done, and recognizes his desert of judgment.

Despairing thus of his own resources, he turns to God (metanoia), and appeals to be forgiven and changed (also metanoia), on the basis that Jesus Christ has died for the sins of all, (John 3:16) and he recognizes God's rightness in accepting that sacrifice in the place of the judgment that rightly would otherwise fall upon him. (2 Cor. 5:21) The repentant person gives himself thus to God, to be God's thereafter. And this is how a man is saved from sin.

That's the basic mechanics of salvation. But much more can be said about that theme theologically. So far I have not even mentioned things about Torah or Israel, for example, nor any other related issues. So if you want more detail, you can find it here:

I looked up some of the theologians whose works were drawn from to support the definition you offered.

Bibliography. D. Bloesch, The Christian Life and Salvation; O. Cullmann, Salvation in History; E. M. B. Green, The Meaning of Salvation; S. Kevan, Salvation; H. D. McDonald, The Atonement of the Death of Christ; G. G. O'Collins, ABD, 5:909-14; U. Simon, Theology of Salvation; G. R. Smith, The Biblical Doctrine of Salvation; J. R. W. Stott, The Cross of Christ.

The one that struck me was The Cross of Christ.

“There is much shallowness and levity among us. Prophets and psalmists would probably say of us that ‘there is no fear of God before their eyes’. In public worship our habit is to slouch or squat; we do not kneel nowadays, let alone prostrate ourselves in humility before God. It is more characteristic of us to clap our hands with joy than to blush with shame or tears. We saunter up to God to claim his patronage and friendship; it does not occur to us that he might send us away. We need to hear again the apostle Peter’s sobering words: ‘Since you call on a Father who judges each man’s work impartially, live your lives...in reverent fear.’ In other words, if we dare to call our Judge our Father, we must beware of presuming on him. It must even be said that our evangelical emphasis on the atonement is dangerous if we come to it too quickly. We learn to appreciate the access to God which Christ has won for us only after we have first seen God’s inaccessibility to sinners. We can cry ‘Hallelujah’ with authenticity only after we have first cried ‘Woe is me, for I am lost’. In Dale’s words, ‘it is partly because sin does not provoke our own wrath, that we do not believe that sin provokes the wrath of God’.”

― John R.W. Stott, The Cross of Christ

None of this is inconsistent, mind you, from the sole and basic thrust in what I read in Catholic literature, in the Missal, in the Breviary, in the books of prayer that I have assembled in my research. I deliberately assembled what I call Old School Catholic books (many published by Benziger Brothers) and steeped myself in them. There are times when I admit to reacting against a certain sing-song childishness in some of the prayers and yet the more that I meditated on the essence, and side-stepped my own prejudices, the more that I realized the essential message is a crucial one, and the only way to describe it is to use the term metanoia.

As Cardinal Newman puts it: A Grammar of Assent. And I would add to that the notion of A Grammar of Ascent.

What I found especially rewarding was to examine the 'original' and very old liturgical hymns that are included in the Breviary. These prayers go back to the very early days of Christian culture and faith.

En clara vox redarguit
Obscura quæque personans:
Procul fugentur somnia:
Ab alto Jesus promicat.
Mens jam resurgat torpida,
Non amplius jacens humi:
Sidus refulget jam novum,
Ut tollat omne noxium.
En Agnus ad nos mittitur
Laxare gratis debitum:
Omnes simul cum lacrimis
Precemur indulgentiam:
Ut, cum secundo fulserit,
Metuque mundum cinxerit,
Non pro reatu puniat,
Sed nos pius tunc protegat.
Virtus, honor, laus, gloria
Deo Patri cum Filio,
Sancto simul Paraclito,
In sæculorum sæcula.

Hark, a herald voice is calling;
“Christ is nigh,” it seems to say;
“Cast away the dreams of darkness,
O ye children of the day.”
Startled at the solemn warning,
Let the earth-bound soul arise;
Christ, her Sun, all sloth dispelling,
Shines upon the morning skies.
Lo, the Lamb, so long expected,
Comes with pardon down from heaven;
Let us haste, with tears of sorrow,
One and all to be forgiven.
So when next He comes with glory,
Wrapping all the earth in fear,
May He then as our defender
On the clouds of heaven appear.
Honor, glory, virtue, merit,
To the Father and the Son,
With the co-eternal Spirit,
While eternal ages run.

I find that all of this *material*, as I might call it, must be looked at in two different ways. One is the external presentation, which seems a bit corny if I can put it like that, but the internal side of it, the non-superficial side of it, the meanings conveyed leads one internally to a certain *place*. The sense of the words, the meaning behind them, presented in image and concept, guide the mind to what seems like a proper and necessary 'place'. I am uncertain how to express it.

My inclination, or you could say my *spiritual strategy*, is to divide in a sense my inner life from my outer life. The object, as I understand it, is to surrender, to seek association, to present oneself before one's creator for examination, and to allow oneself to go through the inner processes of realization that, in my view, seem part-and-parcel of renewal. The showy, buoyant, self-declaring and over-confident display of many Evangelicals is supremely off-turning. Simultaneously, it seems to me that within the Catholic world there is a great deal of rather 'dead' spirituality -- just going through the motions of Christian living perhaps. At the same time there is a *general death* within the Catholic community which, as I have thought about it, is not so much the fault of the people but the result of larger, surrounding processes. A Gospel message, or a Biblical message, is simply drowned-out by far more powerful influences (TV, movie, the motion of culture generally, novelty, and the myriad forces of *seduction*).

I see these things all the time, and especially it is noted in my region which is undergoing rapid change as a result of growth and construction. However, I do very much and very strongly notice in people what I discern as the vestiges of a formerly more committed religiousness. I notice it all the time in the respectful and kind way that people talk to each other, greet each other, show interest in the affairs of the other.

Dontaskme wrote: ↑Fri Jan 14, 2022 7:12 am In my humble opinion any attempt to make sense of what cannot be made sense of is doomed to fail. Reality makes no sense for the one who wants to make sense of it because that one does not exist, reality cannot inform itself of it's existence. Existence is without doubt or error, but that is all that can be known about it, everything else is a mental projection, aka a conceptual imposition that is not actually there....Reality has no other need other than to just be, it is a mystery even to itself. If it wasn't a mystery to itself, then philosophising about it would come to a permanent end. However, it is very clear that philosophising over what can never be known does apparently happen. All mental seeking for answers to endless questions about the nature of being is just one of many other forms of the same one energy that is life, dancing with itself.

What I can say -- if response makes any sense at all and it may not -- is that everyone finds their *level* and the ideas that work for them. I can only say that the *ideological predicates* in what you write can be abstracted and examined. These ideas, for you, must have a function. It is not no-function that they have. They are part-and-parcel of what I call *strategies* or *manoeuvres* that we employ for (what I discern are) specific reasons.

My mind-set, my personality perhaps, my way of being, run contrary to what I take to be the recommendations in what you present here.

However, if eventually you do get some of this made into a mini-series -- perhaps like the Polish series Dekalog -- I promise to sit down and watch it!

Think of it! Ten sessions, ten hours, of dissolving screens! And then at the end if, through some arrangement, everything, including the TV, melts and the whole manifest Universe vaporizes into a light that is not a light -- it would be fantastic.

Alexis:

The first thing I have to note here is that your protested me using what you termed my "opinion" to justify anything. And I agreed that I cannot stand on my own "opinions," but must make myself subject to the truth of God.

But when I gave you nothing but the Word of God itself and asked you what you thought, you chose not to respond. I cannot help but note that fact, and wonder at it.

Why?

It seems to me those passages unequivocally show that there IS such a thing as "eternal punishment." I don't think one can read them and doubt it. One may debate who is implicated in each case, perhaps; though it's mostly explained in the context -- but I don't think one can believe any longer what you said to me earlier: namely, that there's "always a chance." Pretty clearly, for some folks, there just isn't.

My encouragement: let you and I not be one of those folks, right?

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Fri Jan 14, 2022 3:17 pm None of this is inconsistent, mind you, from the sole and basic thrust in what I read in Catholic literature, in the Missal, in the Breviary, in the books of prayer that I have assembled in my research.

Then I must say, you've found some very evangelical Catholics, rather than some mainstream ones. For mainstream Catholic theology teaches the axiom, "extra Ecclesiam nulla salus," which translates as, "outside the Church (i.e. Catholicism), [there is] no salvation."

In Catholicism, it is supposed that membership in the organization saves people. It is not at all their personal faith. And it is works by which they are justified, according to Catholic theology, not at all merely faith. If you read about the history of the Luther trial, you will see, in fact, that it was this very issue over which the Catholics were willing to fry Luther.

Well, that and his opposition to their teachings of Purgatory and Indulgences, both entire inventions of Romanism that find absolutely no support and no mention in Scripture at all.

My inclination, or you could say my *spiritual strategy*, is to divide in a sense my inner life from my outer life. The object, as I understand it, is to surrender, to seek association, to present oneself before one's creator for examination,

Before a sinner presents himself before God for "examination," he is best to present Himself for "salvation." To be "examined" as steeped in sin, unrepentant toward God and untransformed by metanoia is not likely to earn him a result he wishes.

There is, after all, such a thing as eternal lostness.

The showy, buoyant, self-declaring and over-confident display of many Evangelicals is supremely off-turning. Simultaneously, it seems to me that within the Catholic world there is a great deal of rather 'dead' spirituality -- just going through the motions of Christian living perhaps.

Both are reasonable observations. Personally, I feel the same.

At the same time there is a *general death* within the Catholic community which, as I have thought about it, is not so much the fault of the people but the result of larger, surrounding processes.

Yes, I agree.

I think there are genuine Christians within the Roman Catholic sphere. I would say my next-door neighbours are likely among them. They are not merely good-hearted, generous and honest people themselves, but they have a deep reverence and appreciation of Christ. And I love them very much, and think well of them. They are dear friends to me. But it is so hard to know, within the Catholic sphere, which people are genuinely saved; for the doctrine of the organization itself is so convoluted, so full of human innovations and changes, so theologically cacophonic, that somebody who comes from that fold is often full of confused and anti-Scriptural ideas about saints and purgatory, or god-mother worship, or works salvation, that you can't tell whether they know or not what they need to know in order actually to be saved.

In contrast, the Biblical message of salvation, as I've laid it out to you in colloquial language above, is quite easy to understand, is it not? Really, even a child can grasp it...and in fact, they often do. (Good thing, too: for if it were less simple, then only the sophisticates could be saved.) However, there are many people around who do not want the gospel to be simple, clear and save souls. Rather, they would wish to see those souls vexed and frightened, and directed toward works demanded by the "church," so that power and benefit flow into that organization...instead of salvation to the individual.

It's a serious problem. But I still suspect there are some in the Catholic sphere who have sufficient clarity of understanding to still be saved -- not because of the Roman Catholic dogma, but in spite of it. And they, like all who trust Jesus Christ, are my brothers and sisters.

A Gospel message, or a Biblical message, is simply drowned-out by far more powerful influences (TV, movie, the motion of culture generally, novelty, and the myriad forces of *seduction*).

Well, or as in the Catholic case, by the massive accretions of false doctrine assembled around the few remaining residual core truths of Christianity still held within Catholicism itself, which often threaten to overwhelm the latter with the clamour of clericalism, legalism and ritualism.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Thu Jan 13, 2022 10:45 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Thu Jan 13, 2022 9:09 pm But I think you are imputing to me some sinister motive, perhaps.

I do not think this is right, because to be sinister requires a specific intentionality. My impression, based as always on what I read on a forum, is that you operate with very strong biases. Since I discern that your applied biases seem to me unfair and also prejudiced (they fit into the general Protestant critique of Catholicism, and these dogs have been fighting for many centuries) I could only say that you appear to me mistaken. However, I am judicious and fair-minded enough to always try to see the best. You have your opinions because you genuinely believe they are good opinions to have, and the right opinions.

How could I then define your intentions as sinister? (Rather, leave that to Lacewing et al )

So, he is 'mistaken'... not sinister. Foolish and somehow not aware enough to do anything twisted with it. I don't think you give I.C. enough credit. There are valid reasons why he has earned the reputation that he has on this forum -- he is not misunderstood. After all of the discussions through which he has revealed himself, why he would think anybody would still believe in his integrity simply signals how deep he is into his denial and self-service. He is parading about the stage, holding the Bible as his megaphone for reciting 'the words and judgements of God'... from a book written by primitive men.

Mr. Can has made it clear that everyone here is not living up to the standard of God as defined by that book, and he has told us how much in error we are because he knows better than we, what is possible and not possible from our perspectives. He is an authority on what is true and right, and does not consider any other potential beyond the small glorifying bubble that he operates in.

Wouldn't you agree that most people who are participants on sinister paths think that they are doing the right thing? That's what enables people to extraordinarily twist things as they do, in such a manner that they never have to face it or answer for it. And countless such people walk under a Christian banner which further obscures and distorts what they are doing.

My impression: There is more truth and potential in this world than what is to be found in or known by any singular place or collective. So instead of solely focusing on those stories and dances, we can see and create EVEN MORE by living the best qualities we discover along the way, and continually looking further.