Philosophy Now Forum

Belinda wrote: ↑Tue Aug 30, 2022 4:03 pm

phyllo wrote: ↑Tue Aug 30, 2022 3:59 pm

Belinda wrote: ↑Tue Aug 30, 2022 3:57 pm Jesus is an iconic figure which is capable of movement between cultures. Jesus is an icon who symbolises supreme sacrifice for others.

Yeah, he's not a real guy any more and he hasn't been for centuries.

If you think symbolic figures from man's past are not "real" then I cannot answer you. Your use of language has a facetious tone that puts me off anyway.

At one point, he was real and accessible.

But the religion made him into an impossible ideal. Nobody can live up to the standard of Jesus.

Thanks for letting me know that I put you off. I won't reply to your posts any more.

Harry Baird wrote: ↑Tue Aug 30, 2022 3:51 pm I am not necessarily comfortable with the actual collective statements you've included me in. I mean the ones with reference to "profitability" and "indicting [...] a secular ideological phenomenon", etc. It might be that I would agree if I contemplated and discussed them a little more, but since we haven't explicitly discussed and agreed on them, I have to distance myself a little from the association with them that you impute to me.

Well, think of it this way, Harry.

If Christ is essential to any definition of "Christianity" worth having, then what will you make of the people who use the word "Christian" but do nothing that Christ approved or taught?

What will you do, for instance, with the Pogroms, Inquisitions, Crusades, and so on? How do we account for these, since Christ not only never encouraged them, but actively taught contrary to the entire spirit in which they operated, and all they represented? What will we make of an alleged "church" that, say, claimed to honour the Jewish Messiah by rounding up and trying to eliminate the whole Jewish race? Or what will we do with Christ's commandment to "love your enemies," if an alleged "Christendom" burns them at the stake?

I think we can only conclude one thing, really: that is, that the people who do those things, but call themselves "Christians" are lying. If obedience to Christ is an essential for Christianity, then there can be no other conclusion: they either don't know, or don't care what Christ actually said. Thus, by what you and I do agree on, they are not genuinely Christian in their actions.

But what motive will we impute to such people? For folks don't do things for NO reason. Why are they rounding up Jews, or burning people at the stake for printing the very Bible they claim to revere? They must have reasons, but not Christian reasons. Therefore, their reasons are secular, and related to some other ideology they hold.

And historical investigation bears this out. What we find is that everybody who acted that way always had some secular, ideological motive for what they did, and merely "baptized" their veniality with nominally "Christian" forms and language. For instance, here is Britannica on the truth of the Spanish Inquisition:

Spanish Inquisition, (1478–1834), judicial institution ostensibly established to combat heresy in Spain. In practice, the Spanish Inquisition served to consolidate power in the monarchy of the newly unified Spanish kingdom, but it achieved that end through infamously brutal methods. (underline mine)

Further investigation shows that Ferdinand and Isabella actually mobilized the religious fervour to threaten, eliminate and subdue their competitors...a thing they were effectively able to do with just a few examples made. Here we have secular ideology finding nominal "Christianity" useful to its purposes, in ways that real Christianity would be utterly counterproductive. One thing for sure: the Inquisition had nothing to do with "loving your enemies and praying for them," as commanded by Christ.

So I accept your caveat that you don't readily leap to those conclusions yourself, can you leap to any others? I think you'll come my way on that, the more you look into it and the more you think about it.

But I'm content to accept your disclaimer as given. It seems fair to me. You've never explicitly said what your conclusion is.

The Inquisition saved more people than it killed.

That's because it established a process and required evidence.

It became impossible to just accuse someone and kill them, which is what was happening prior to the Inquisition.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Aug 30, 2022 4:22 pm Well, think of it this way, Harry.

[Elaboration snipped]

With all of that laid out, I'm fairly agreeable with it.

However, I still want to flag a caveat of discomfort: you seemed to imply in your original statement that AJ does consider "the Pogroms, Inquisitions, Crusades, and so on" to be genuinely Christian, and that you and I disagreed with him on that basis. As I have never seen him make an explicit statement to this effect, I'm not sure that he does take that view, and thus I am not sure that there is any disagreement. My guess is that he would add his own caveat: yes, this is broadly under a Christian rubric, but not at all a healthy or genuinely spiritual and ethical expression of Christianity - but I don't want to put words into his mouth (even though I've just done that!).

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Tue Aug 30, 2022 4:03 pmHold on Henry. Why do you get angry that I make a little fun (*without rancor!)

I'm not angry. If I were, you'd know it.

My post was on the mark. You're nekkid and you got nuthin'.

Your post: what I'd expect from a nekkid guy lookin' to move eyes elsewhere.

Harry's post: done said my piece to him about that privately.

Now, stick to your schtick and take your licks as you earn 'em.

Harry's post: done said my piece to him about that privately.

Why don't you say it publicly?

phyllo wrote: ↑Tue Aug 30, 2022 4:40 pm

Harry's post: done said my piece to him about that privately.

Why don't you say it publicly?

Cuz the content of that conversation is nobody else's business.

Harry Baird wrote: ↑Tue Aug 30, 2022 4:32 pm ... I still want to flag a caveat of discomfort: you seemed to imply in your original statement that AJ does consider "the Pogroms, Inquisitions, Crusades, and so on" to be genuinely Christian,

That goes back to my earlier conversation with him, long before you came along.

I pushed him hard on the question of what elements of "Christian Europe" he was prepared to identify as "Christian culture," and which he wasn't. He wouldn't answer.

Now, manifestly, Pogroms, Inquistions and Crusades are all part of "European culture," historically. So I wanted his reading on the whole thing. But he wasn't up for that. Those are the extreme cases that test his commitment to the easy ones. They make it very, very hard to be cavalier about the term "Christian," since they are so antithetical to anything that is manifestly coherent with the teachings of Christ.

So I offered AJ a chance to step up and make his claim coherent.

But he doesn't stand the test.

henry quirk wrote: ↑Tue Aug 30, 2022 4:44 pm

phyllo wrote: ↑Tue Aug 30, 2022 4:40 pm

Harry's post: done said my piece to him about that privately.

Why don't you say it publicly?

Cuz the content of that conversation is nobody else's business.

His posts were public.

Why not your reaction to his posts?

phyllo wrote: ↑Tue Aug 30, 2022 4:29 pm The Inquisition saved more people than it killed.

That's not an argument you can make.

It requires us to imagine how many people COULD HAVE BEEN killed, but NEVER WERE, and compare it to thirty thousand or so that conservative estimates say were actually killed in Spain.

We have no idea whether or not any would, or under what circumstances; it never happened that way.

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Aug 30, 2022 4:50 pm

phyllo wrote: ↑Tue Aug 30, 2022 4:29 pm The Inquisition saved more people than it killed.

That's not an argument you can make.

It requires us to imagine how many people COULD HAVE BEEN killed, but NEVER WERE, and compare it to thirty thousand or so that conservative estimates say were actually killed in Spain.

We have no idea whether or not any would, or under what circumstances; it never happened that way.

According to modern estimates, around 150,000 people were prosecuted for various offences during the three-century duration of the Spanish Inquisition, of whom between 3,000 and 5,000 were executed (~2.7% of all cases).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Inquisition

It's unfortunate that those 5000 died. But based on 150,000 accusations, one can reasonable expect that more would have died without due process.

phyllo wrote: ↑Tue Aug 30, 2022 4:47 pm

henry quirk wrote: ↑Tue Aug 30, 2022 4:44 pm

phyllo wrote: ↑Tue Aug 30, 2022 4:40 pm
Why don't you say it publicly?

Cuz the content of that conversation is nobody else's business.

His posts were public.

Why not your reaction to his posts?

The conversation was private.

Harry Baird wrote: ↑Tue Aug 30, 2022 4:32 pm

Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Tue Aug 30, 2022 4:22 pm Well, think of it this way, Harry.

[Elaboration snipped]

With all of that laid out, I'm fairly agreeable with it.

However, I still want to flag a caveat of discomfort: you seemed to imply in your original statement that AJ does consider "the Pogroms, Inquisitions, Crusades, and so on" to be genuinely Christian, and that you and I disagreed with him on that basis. As I have never seen him make an explicit statement to this effect, I'm not sure that he does take that view, and thus I am not sure that there is any disagreement. My guess is that he would add his own caveat: yes, this is broadly under a Christian rubric, but not at all a healthy or genuinely spiritual and ethical expression of Christianity - but I don't want to put words into his mouth (even though I've just done that!).

Harry, as you well know I have what I think you have identified as a complex and somewhat troubling notion of 'how power actually functions in our world'. When Satan, in the picture-story, took the cartoon Jesus up above the World to look down on all the Kingdoms of the Earth, what perspective essentially operated there? What makes the world *bad* and *evil* and therefore satanic?

It is the world itself. It is the power-dynamic. It is nature that sets up systems where one being, to live, must literally devour another being. Understanding this seems so very important to me.

Christianity, in one sense, is a sort of neurotic reaction against the 'reality' of the way the world functions. The world functions that way now and the world will always function that way. I mean, nature will always function as it does. But I do not say that I do not think that we (humans) cannot create, within smallish spheres, more 'just' and 'fair' systems. That is what society is for, is it not?

The power dynamics of old Spain are power-dynamics that are being repeated, perhaps in even more extreme manner, today. All of the machinations to move the embassy to Israel, to cooperate with Israel in its projects, the remodeling of the Middle East, the establishment of global economic and trade-systems: it is all the same. And we live in it and we are subsumed in it. America has an empire. It manages a world-empire. Just as Spain did but far larger and with more consequence, both good and bad.

This is one of the core ideas that I work with. A clear statement about 'the nature of the world'. All other systems and states compete in exactly this dynamic. There is no way out of that dynamic. I apologize if this is upsetting news to you.

Now, I know that all of these machinations are deeply troubling to you. I know that you cannot, in one sense, see them as they are but must see all of it as manifestations of evil (the conquest of Australia, the conquest of the American continent, etc).

In a sense I see things with Satan's eyes. Or perhaps if I say I go along on the tour put together by satanic perspective -- Satan flying Jesus, the observing man, on the magic carpet to *see* the real working of things -- and therefore participate in Jesus's eyes?

The power-dynamic will always exist. It is part-and-parcel of the World. The only way out is through absolute renunciation.

What Immanuel has referred to -- the Germanic movement to a) throw off the Hebrew idea-imperialism yoke, and b) the need and desire to return to pagan ideas and pagan paths and to validate these as genuine (in the Heideggerian sense) -- these things are extremely laden, fraught and difficult topics. I have made efforts to study these topics. And that alone places me in a questionable territory of intellectual work.

Now I have read George L. Mosse's The Crisis of German Ideology: Intellectual Origins of the Third Reich as well as The Aryan Jesus: Christian Theologians and the Bible in Nazi Germany by Susannah Heschel (daughter of the famous Abraham Joshua Heschel) and I have read Julius Evola's Fascism Viewed from the Right and many other titles (like Alain de Benoist) by those who critique, with tremendous power and sound reasoning, the Christian imperious construct (Hebrew idea-imperialism).

So I am very open, though not as prepared as I might like (this all takes time) to discuss any aspect of these issues.

But I simply want to point out, because it is true, that Immanuel has an extremely monistic position and conception. He literally believes that Jesus will come down out of the clouds and set up the Kingdom as The Prince of Peace. Once one grasps his absolutist, fantastical and as I say fanatic position, then his *project* becomes far more clear. The implications of this strange way of seeing can then be unraveled. Carefully and cautiously.

I am open to looking at all things. All the things that are manifest today.

henry quirk wrote: ↑Tue Aug 30, 2022 4:59 pm

phyllo wrote: ↑Tue Aug 30, 2022 4:47 pm

henry quirk wrote: ↑Tue Aug 30, 2022 4:44 pm

Cuz the content of that conversation is nobody else's business.

His posts were public.

Why not your reaction to his posts?

The conversation was private.

So you're okay with what he posted?

henry quirk wrote: ↑Tue Aug 30, 2022 4:35 pmMy post was on the mark. You're nekkid and you got nuthin'.

Without a clear exposition it is that sort of statement that really has no power at all. Can you carefully and throughly articulate your position?