Philosophy Now Forum

Arising_uk wrote: ↑Wed Aug 01, 2018 5:36 pm

Nick_A wrote:... Christendom has done away with Christianity, without being quite aware of it. The consequence is that, if anything is to be done, one must try again to introduce Christianity into Christendom. ...

Something you are failing abjectly to do.

It is only possible with people having open minds. When people are consumed with blind denial then of course the only result is violent nasty rejection so there is no sense in it.

-1- wrote: ↑Wed Aug 01, 2018 8:10 pm ... and, Nick_A, I don't want you to waffle and say things that "a Christian is not this, and the Christian is not that..." etc. SAY for crying out loud, what a Christian IS.

A Christian is not a person calling themselves a Christian. That would be like me calling myself a lawyer. It is meaningless. A Christian is one who lives in accordance with Christ's precepts. It is not possible for us as the wretched man living with inner opposition. A person may want to be a Christian and sense its value but experiences that they are incapable of it. I've learned that such a person is a pre-Christian with the potential for becoming a Christian. A pre-Christian is a student of Christianity. Like medical students their understandings and abilities vary.

Nick_A wrote:It is only possible with people having open minds. When people are consumed with blind denial then of course the only result is violent nasty rejection so there is no sense in it.

You think Christ would have got anywhere with that attitude?

Nick_A wrote: ↑Wed Aug 01, 2018 3:02 amI read you and others attacking what you don't understand. It doesn't only happen with Christianity but in other concepts such as art.

I actually don't even need to in order to show how his argument is insufficient, because it's not relevant to any of the counter-points I made. One of his premises invokes an assumption of christian values being correct, in order to show how christian values are good; That's logically flawed, and doesn't need any deeper understanding.

It really seems to be him who lacks a fundamental understanding, specifically in the similarity that Christianity's 'salvation' shares to the other Judaeo-christian religions. God is said to to reveal himself to you in Islam and Judaism as well. There are historical reasons for why they all share this in common because this is a very early concept before christianity and islam branched off.

Maybe this would be easier if you logged back into that account to address what I said?

Nick_A wrote: ↑Wed Aug 01, 2018 8:39 pmA Christian is one who lives in accordance with Christ's precepts.

You mean like this one?
“And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire…where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.’ For everyone will be salted with fire.” Mark 9:43, 48-49

Nick_A wrote: ↑Wed Aug 01, 2018 8:39 pmIt is not possible for us as the wretched man living with inner opposition.

Ah yes, original sin, the idea that a new born has sinned before she has taken her first breath. Christ's precept on this is that unless she grows up enough to hear the stories about Jesus and uncritically believes all of them, she will burn in hell.
So, back to this:

uwot wrote: ↑Wed Aug 01, 2018 5:07 pm

Nick_A wrote: ↑Wed Aug 01, 2018 4:22 pm

uwot wrote:For anyone who doesn't know, a christian is someone who believes that people who disagree with them deserve to burn in hell forever.

So we can see that those like -1- and uwot do not know what a Christian much less Christianity is.

Is what I said not true?

It is not me saying so, it is Jesus Christ's own words. If you don't understand that, you don't understand christianity.

uwot wrote: ↑Thu Aug 02, 2018 7:44 am

It is not possible for us as the wretched man living with inner opposition.

Ah yes, original sin, the idea that a new born has sinned before she has taken her first breath. Christ's precept on this is that unless she grows up enough to hear the stories about Jesus and uncritically believes all of them, she will burn in hell.

All living things (aside from autotrophs) must kill or steal to live, so we are all rather wretched in that sense.

Still, you'd think that one who hoped not to be wretched might at least care a little bit about the environment. Any person who claims to be spiritual and who does not deeply care about the conservation of natural environments is false, a pretender.

Greta wrote: ↑Thu Aug 02, 2018 10:05 amAll living things (aside from autotrophs) must kill or steal to live, so we are all rather wretched in that sense.

Fair enough, but in the context of christianity, Jesus wasn't too put out by feeding someone's picnic of dead fish to 5000 people.

Greta wrote: ↑Thu Aug 02, 2018 10:05 amStill, you'd think that one who hoped not to be wretched might at least care a little bit about the environment. Any person who claims to be spiritual and who does not deeply care about the conservation of natural environments is false, a pretender.

Jesus Christ, for example:
15 Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in them. 16 For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—comes not from the Father but from the world. 17 The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever. John 2:15-17

uwot wrote: ↑Thu Aug 02, 2018 7:44 am

Nick_A wrote: ↑Wed Aug 01, 2018 8:39 pmA Christian is one who lives in accordance with Christ's precepts.

You mean like this one?
“And if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than with two hands to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire…where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.’ For everyone will be salted with fire.” Mark 9:43, 48-49

Nick_A wrote: ↑Wed Aug 01, 2018 8:39 pmIt is not possible for us as the wretched man living with inner opposition.

Ah yes, original sin, the idea that a new born has sinned before she has taken her first breath. Christ's precept on this is that unless she grows up enough to hear the stories about Jesus and uncritically believes all of them, she will burn in hell.
So, back to this:

uwot wrote: ↑Wed Aug 01, 2018 5:07 pm

Nick_A wrote: ↑Wed Aug 01, 2018 4:22 pmSo we can see that those like -1- and uwot do not know what a Christian much less Christianity is.

Is what I said not true?

It is not me saying so, it is Jesus Christ's own words. If you don't understand that, you don't understand christianity.

It is clear by what you've written that you don't know Jesus mission on earth, the initial purpose of Christianity and what it refers to and the nature of Man.

To begin with, where secularism only recognizes the outer man, Christianity is primarily concerned with the inner man. Where the outer man or our personality is limited to adaptation, the inner man is capable of evolution or the change in Man's being. the change is referred to as rebirth..

Obviously your hand cannot cause you to sin. If you read read Jesus parables and sayings from the perspective of the outer man they won't make sense. If your hand continuously grabs from the perspective of the inner man it indicates attachments which deny a conscious perspective connecting above and below.

Jesus sacrifice opened a path to rebirth and human conscious evolution. The path doesn't happen by itself and initially the Christian church was an esoteric school within which a person could become capable of following the inner path.

So, if you you don't distinguish between the inner and outer man, don't understand the purpose of Christianity or Jesus mission on earth to enable human rebirth, you are only fighting your interpretation of what is not understood.

So are you saying Nick_A that you don't believe there is a 'God', that if Christ returns there won't be a great slaughter by this 'God','its' host and fellow Christians of billions of us who don't believe in your 'God' and won't bend the knee, that what's left of us won't be ruled over by Christian overseers with a rod of iron?

Are you saying that you don't believe in heaven or Hell and that non-believers will be punished with hellfire and damnation for eternity for not believing?

https://old.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion ... ric_pagan/

https://old.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion ... depriving/

https://old.reddit.com/r/DebateAnAtheis ... an_values/

https://old.reddit.com/r/DebateAnAtheis ... ilence_me/

All Nick_A said as a positive declarative description of a Christian, is that "A Christian is one who lives in accordance with Christ's precepts."

Now all we have to do is see what Christ's precepts are.


----------------

To examine this further, Nick_A, I need to know: are all the New Testament's contents precepts of Christ, or just the words he has himself uttered as attributed to him by the Evangelists? This is question number one I need to ask you.

Question number two is this: Must ALL of Christ's precepts be observed and life lived accordingly by a Christian, or is it enough to live only some of the precepts while not living some other precepts.

Question number three is a group of quesitons. 3.1. What authority gave you this insight, or creed, or declaration? 3.2. Is this quote actually in the bible?: "to live life as a Christian, you must live life according to Christ's precepts."? Yes or no. If yes, it is in the bible, then 3.3. Does Jesus say this verbatim, word-for-word (in his own original language) or some other person? 3.4. if there is no bible reference or quote verifying this, what other reasons do you have to have come out with the declaration, "To live life as a Christian, you must live life according to Christ's precepts."

The important things to consider for me, and for you to tell me, whether it was Jesus who decreed this, or people other than Jesus, and if it's in the bible, but not as a text directly attributed to Jesus, who said it, and is it in the same strength of truth as if Jesus himself said it?

These are incredibly important questions to answer, Nick_A. "To live life as a Christian, you must live life according to Christ's precepts," must be referenced to its details in the reference text, and I need to know if the entire text is reference text (entire bible) or just the parts that has text attributed to Jesus as a quote.

There is a third possibility: the quotes attributed to Jesus are references as to his precepts, and SOME other text is reference, and SOME OTHER other text in it the Bible is not reference. THIS is an even more burning decision to make: how do you separate the reference texts in the bible as NOT precepts from those that ARE precepts?


-----------------

Finally, a fourth group of questions: In the text of the bible, if it's a nominative, descriptive text, is it how one should live?
If a particular text in the bible is an imperative, apparently by Jesus, does that make the imperative a precept?
If a particular text is in the negative imperative (a forbidding), apparently by Jesus, does that make that portion of the text a forbidding?
A nominative, descriptive text is to be taken as an imperative, or as a negative imperative, or neither? (the person is free to live that way, it does not affect his or her christianness as far as his life is lived according to Christ's precepts.)

Sorry to have barraged you with these important, yet perhaps confusing questions. I am obviously not a Christian, (although I may be... who knows, we need to know the precepts first), and I have little knowledge of Bible, so I beg you to help me out with the basic, meta-value questions in my previous post.

thanks.

Arising_uk wrote: ↑Thu Aug 02, 2018 8:52 pm So are you saying Nick_A that you don't believe there is a 'God', that if Christ returns there won't be a great slaughter by this 'God','its' host and fellow Christians of billions of us who don't believe in your 'God' and won't bend the knee, that what's left of us won't be ruled over by Christian overseers with a rod of iron?

Are you saying that you don't believe in heaven or Hell and that non-believers will be punished with hellfire and damnation for eternity for not believing?

I am saying that I don’t believe in Christendom or man made interpretations of Cristianity.

Christianity doesn’t have a personal God. Christianity has the truth of the Cross, No one is being slaughtered. Both mechanical and conscious life follow the cycles of universal laws. Man has the potential for both involution and conscious evolution. The developing human seed of the soul takes part in the ascending path of evolution, the descending path of involution, or be saved for later in the body of the Christ as good seed.

My main interest is in the potential for society to adopt a religious perspective which reveals objective human meaning and purpose that doesn’t insult either the scientific mind or the spiritual heart. It can be done and if it isn’t done society will destroy itself. If you believe your ideas of Christianity are foolish why do you think they would make sense to me?

Nick_A wrote: ↑Fri Aug 03, 2018 2:16 am
I am saying that I don’t believe in Christendom or man made interpretations of Cristianity.

That's peculiar. All interpretations of Christianity are made by one human or another. Newts, trees, obstacle courses have yet to make their contribution to the interpretations.

And the Bible definitely needs interpretations at points.

It is conceivable that the Bible has no interpretive value, and it's a straightforward text understood at face value by someone whose mind is so arranged as to do that.

Humans are not it.

Yet we, humans, are the only species who can approximate the comprehension of the Bible.

-1-

Thanks for a meaningful post.

Before getting into details, What does the following biblical excerpt mean to you? What does it mean to love God or to love yourself? Does Jesus mean egoistic expression or something else? Do you see the difference in how Simone explains it from humility? Christ’s precepts can only be appreciated when a person feels their nothingness in relation to the potential for human being. To love another as oneself is to love the sinner but not the sin. It is a goal most are incapable of without first trying to become master of themselves. To follow in the precepts of Christ a person has to first strive to be master of themselves

Matthew 22:36-40 New International Version (NIV)

36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[a] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

The combination of these two facts — the longing in the depth of the heart for absolute good, and the power, though only latent, of directing attention and love to a reality beyond the world and of receiving good from it — constitutes a link which attaches every man without exception to that other reality.
Whoever recognizes that reality recognizes also that link. Because of it, he holds every human being without any exception as something sacred to which he is bound to show respect.
This is the only possible motive for universal respect towards all human beings. Whatever formulation of belief or disbelief a man may choose to make, if his heart inclines him to feel this respect, then he in fact also recognizes a reality other than this world's reality. Whoever in fact does not feel this respect is alien to that other reality also. Simone Weil