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 Kush_Zombie smug piece of shit    Registered: 10/22/14 Posts: 4,793 |
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I assume this is the correct place to post this.
I'm not a personal believer of Christianity for reasons that aren't important to this discussion, but I've always enjoyed the idea of 'Jesus'. The basic idea of Jesus is a freedom fighter dying for the good of others. I think Christianity as a religion breeds the opposite of this and instead we're left with obedient servants that never question anything. There have been many people like Jesus in the past. No they may not "walk on water" or "turn water into wine" and despite all of that they still decided to do what they knew to be right in the hopes of freeing an "oppressed culture"  There's a popular quote among Christians that goes "What would Jesus do?" and the problem with that is they don't do what Jesus would do, they do what Christians would do and there is a huge difference. There's a reason 'Jesus' wasn't a Christian because he wasn't a FOLLOWER of Christ, he was a leader. He didn't sit by and spread the word of someone else, he flipped over chairs and whipped people in a screaming fit of rage because HE knew what was going on was wrong. I think society would benefit from a lot more Jesus' in the world and a lot less Christians. In a way, I even find Christianity to be insulting and embarrassing to the freedom fighters who died in the hopes of creating a culture that could think for themselves. May their legacy live on in the hopes of opening people's minds in the future and reversing this toxic society we've made. -------------------- How to get started in bulk: Presto 23-Quart Pressure Cooker BOD's Simple as FUCK Still Air Box PastyWhyte's Easy Agar Tek Munchauzen's Cultivation Video Series How EvilMushroom666 Prepares His Grains (I use jars with Synthetic Filter Discs) What is G2G? (Grain-to-Grain) Damion5050's Coir Tek (I use 5.5 - 6 quarts of water instead of 4. Also ignore step 13 and ignore the monotub completely. The only purpose of this tek is to show you how to make a simple substrate. I also add gypsum to it but not necessary) Spitball's Monotub Tek (A liner isn't necessary but is useful) Use 6500k lights throughout the whole process. When you wake up, turn the light on. When you go to sleep turn the light off. It's as simple as that.
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LunarEclipse Enlil's Official Story   Registered: 10/31/04 Posts: 21,407 Loc: Building 7 |
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Yeah well sounds to me like you're going to Hell unless you get with the program.
-------------------- Anxiety is what you make it.
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Kurt Thinker, blinker, writer, typer.  Registered: 11/26/14 Posts: 1,688 |
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Critiques of Christandom were especially notable in existential philosophers. Some of the most cutting critiques even from Christians like Sorren Kierkregaard, or Nietzsche who recognized the crisis of values of western people. Today most people argue over whether gods and miricles could exist, or be confirmed as true or not, and take this as their basis of critique. Critiques advocating rational society, or the sacred right to satire jesus and mohammad or whoever, are a different thing. Christopher Hitchens was supposed to be some modern day, satyr with cleverness rivaling Nietzsche, but the most cutting insight he could manage, was obviously just a personal reaction "anti theist" was "I wouldn't want god to exist, if he did", or rationalizing a way through cosmological arguments.
Anyway, what I am saying is that maybe you are right that priority of authenticity, is really where the critique of christianity is. That is more existential. "What would jesus do", is maybe a bit different than what would jesus be in a story eh? To begin with the predominant social values/narratives rejected Jesus's claims to being christ, were the basic context of Christianity. Can we appreciate this today? An easy answer would be no, it doesn't work. Jesus is a revolutionary, or turning and overturning strength of love and kindness. In that sense, with a judeochristian culture, it is impossible to be authentically Christian. It is impossible to be authentic, as it was for Thomas the Apostle who doubted, and had to see and touch Jesus's wounds, to believe his resurrection. So Jesus said "How blessed are those who believe, who don't need to see", and that is what you have in a Christian. It is the story of a human being, that itself operates on the hinge, and technical mechanics of storytelling, as the story. The way of following a story, or narrative in certain mechanics is like what we sometimes face in our lives. It is the melodrama, and sentimentality, and all of the convenient literature of our lives. It is especially a story of a place of resentment to life and the world, the eventual comeppance, vindication underdog principle. It is the hinge of the mechanics of storytelling. The accounts of jesus were all written after his life and death, and it could be that all that was higher, or beyond was the hand and pen. But that's not to say it is a tradition without roots. It is similar in iteration to an earlier myth, the story of Abraham and how god asked him to sacrifice his son, but in the last second staved his hand. There, again, is another story that hinges on the mechanic of storytelling, over life. Basically it is a story of how whatever you value in life, whatever code of ethic or moral, or natural kinship you have in the world, it is always possible to sacrifice it to this ideal, simply for being this ideal and narrative. So Jesus was forgiveness, he was the son, to the father, however that worked out. ...A self narrative of selflessness, with very little philosophy to it, and just following the mechanics of stories, is going to be difficult way to actually follow. Of course the story itself is of the turning narrative, in a faith beyond what is seen, of bringing a heaven on earth, "of the meek or passive being rewarded", (I think those are the words) in each case the narrative hinge, no place for thinking, for independent judgement, always a following. Nietzsche suggested the psychological principle, of how christianity follows a revenge principle of an oppressed existence. "I am at the short end of the stick, but you wait till when we are judged". The weak and the meek, for some reason are said to be virtuous in Christianity. The virtue of Christian is pity, and it is not distinguished from being in the position of looking for ones own sympathies this way. Also, more generally Christ was a revolution, "the king", and aside from what may well have been political in nature, He is not against Roman Empire and culture, or theocracy. Jesus, or Christendom, either way, was the champion, and herald of a latin culture. There is absolutely no doubt about this. His testament inspired the continuous misinterpretation and gradual of leveling and covering over of greek or "pagan" world, the real roots of western world. That is the real urksome thing, to me. It is not an issue of truth, or falsity of a testament, a question of science, it is how Christendom rooted itself as western peoples most basic way of thinking and being. I do not think the discussion about whether or not god or miricles can exist has ever crossed my mind one way or another. It is a different insight to already know, not prove, or ask for proof, to seek conjecture, for how all these ideas of a mythic inversion seem to come in simple terms of the mechanics of a narrative. A basic reason to recognize these mechanics, from another point of view, is because when you tell a story, you can hardly escape them as very general to storytelling. Principles of life are deeply conditioned to Christian archetypes, and they are a historical contingency, a testament to western people, that can't be easily stepped out of. For instance a westerners romanticism, and sensuality will have some strain of Christianity implicit to it, because this is how such stories seem to be told. It is like Kierkregaard wrote...
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Kush_Zombie smug piece of shit Registered: 10/22/14 Posts: 4,793 |
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   Felt like I was reading Shakespeare. -------------------- How to get started in bulk: Presto 23-Quart Pressure Cooker BOD's Simple as FUCK Still Air Box PastyWhyte's Easy Agar Tek Munchauzen's Cultivation Video Series How EvilMushroom666 Prepares His Grains (I use jars with Synthetic Filter Discs) What is G2G? (Grain-to-Grain) Damion5050's Coir Tek (I use 5.5 - 6 quarts of water instead of 4. Also ignore step 13 and ignore the monotub completely. The only purpose of this tek is to show you how to make a simple substrate. I also add gypsum to it but not necessary) Spitball's Monotub Tek (A liner isn't necessary but is useful) Use 6500k lights throughout the whole process. When you wake up, turn the light on. When you go to sleep turn the light off. It's as simple as that.
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Kurt Thinker, blinker, writer, typer. Registered: 11/26/14 Posts: 1,688 |
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Just stealing the thunder...you set up a good question/premise.
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 zzripz Stranger  Registered: 12/23/08 Posts: 8,292 Loc: Manchester, UK Last seen: 7 years, 2 months |
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Things are SO urgent now---the utter insanity of this world, I feel personally you cannot beat about the bush anymore but have to really SEE what is what and speak out. Expose bullshit.
Humans are storytellers, and can become so obsessed with stories they actually act out in very dangerous ways IF the story is toxic. A toxic story or myth is exactly that. it is a myth which influences all kinds of toxic actions from others down the line because the literalize the myth they are sucked into I started a thread about this calling it 'toxic myths and scientology'. I chose to because because scientology is a fairly new story/myth it is easy to see its linear development and be amszed at how many people believe the absurdity of a story made up by a self-confessed SCIENCE FICTION and FANTASY author...???  and yet despite that, hint hint BIG CLUE, people actually sacrifice their lives to it, giving all their money, and some even sign 'billion year contrracts'. It beggers belief, but it reveals very clearly to me just how gullible people can be, and if now, same is so for those that believe the tale of a 'God' who makes a errrm 'Virgin Mary' pregnant, with...with his only Son, Jesus, and...........This is absurd right?There is no historical evidence a Jesus of Nazareth ever existed, and yet people will sacrifice their lives to this myth, and wars have been fought, and so much blood lost because of this toxic myth down the ages. People have been tortured, burned alive, there has been genocide of many many native peoples. ALL for the literalization of fiction?
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MarkostheGnostic Elder  Registered: 12/09/99 Posts: 14,279 Loc: South Florida 
Last seen: 5 years, 7 months |
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But of course, you are basing your responses on the canonical Bible which was very carefully constructed to emphasize the characteristics of a Christian that the Church Fathers could exploit in the service of that 'super-ego' which was the Roman Catholic Church. Meekness is not necessarily timidity, neither is it weakness (regardless of that Germanic Nietzschean aggressiveness stated to the contrary). Humility is the antidote for hubris, and it is man's hubris which wages wars, small and large, from domestic violence to global oppression. Regardless of most dictionary definitions, I see pity as being different from compassion. One might say that pity is to sympathy as compassion is to empathy. Perhaps not a perfect analogy, but the difference is real howsoever subtle. (Ram Dass illustrated the difference in the intro to BE HERE NOW).
Jesus the Christ is unavoidably influential as an ever-present archetype in the psyche of Western humanity. I was raised in a Reformed Jewish home and my mother went through the motions but remained an atheist. My BFF was a Roman Catholic whose home had those pics of a fair-haired, blue-eyed Jesus with a halo and a Sacred Heart, both glowing, the latter burning with love as well. He told me Bible stories when we were 4 or 5 on a cloudy day in his room while eating apples. Of course he also told me that as the sun set in the summer, "ghosts and goblins" would emerge from the ground. Terrified, he'd walk me halfway to my house, turn and tear-ass back to his mother waiting at the back door. Guess which stories remained with me at the deeper level? By 12th grade, I was doodling Jesus crucified in electronics class, and by my freshman year of college I dreamed that I found Jesus on a cross in the 3rd floor stairwell and I was offering him morphine. Silly dream, but the seeds had taken root in early childhood and were beginning to blossom. There are many many versions of Jesus across history and now split off into over 200 Protestant denominations in the USA alone. Eastern Orthodox Christianity has remained truer to Pagan (i.e., Plotinian Neoplatonism) philosophical roots, but by-and-large all Christian denominations adhere to the Hellenistic mythology of a demigod, and as such, a unique specie of being, instead of seeing the dual nature of Jesus Christ as the archetype for every single human being ever born! This is a Gnostic take rather than a mythic take. The former often speaks to every human's potential if not duty for God-Realization, but the latter mainstream approach to Jesus puts him on a very high pedestal to be worshipped. Some people (I'm thinking Liberation Theology) want to make Jesus out to be a social revolutionary, and of course there are elements in the canonical Bible to support this. Most of the time sayings such as 'hating one's mother and father' being necessary to follow Jesus are misinterpreted. 'Hate' is not what is being called for but rather an identification with the universal self or "spiritual man" (St. Paul) which utterly transcends the social and cultural identifications of the "natural man." It is in this sense that Jesus speaks to a revolution, but it is an inner revolution, a metanoia, a turning about in the seat of consciousness that prioritizes the universal over the personal and particular. This is not the task of a timid follower, this is the task of a spiritual warrior who can stand alone and that separation requires great courage and sacrifice. Lastly, there is a point (and Plotinus says this is many ways) where Intellect yields to Intuition. Eternity is not known discursively, intellectually, it is known in the immediacy of the mystical experience. The closest ordinary state (if I may call it ordinary) to Intuition is Faith as an open-ended awareness, not in the modern bastardized meaning pf 'blind faith' in misapplied doctrines. Faith is a contemplative stance, which may open up into Gnosis - Knowing - the mainstream Christian version of which has been called 'assurance.' It is scarcely different phenomenologically from the Buddhist experience of Kensho or Satori. It results in what the Christian mystic Julian of Norwich meant with the words "All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well." The end of philosophy for mystics, Pagan and Christian alike, is theoria, contemplation that results in the experience of Oneness. The Christian path is no exception except that the bulk of Christians are not mystics (or what Gnostic Christianity called Pneumatics). Most Christians are not philosophers either, although one can certainly be both. The dogmatic 'believer' succumbs to 'blind faith' without reflection or analysis, and those Christians are legion. Unfortunately, they also fail to love and succumb to the temptation to judge in its place. It is this preponderance of mythic-minded, literal believers that have usurped the name Christian that has so turned off Shroomerites. I have ceased identifying myself as Christian because I do not want to be mistaken for something I am not, but that does not mean that I have ceased inwardly to be in moment-to-moment contact with Being, with the Logos, with the indwelling Christ. -------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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Peyote Road Stranger Registered: 09/02/15 Posts: 3,527 Loc: Great Lakes Stat Last seen: 3 years, 10 months |
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as Markos said, it's man hubris that causes wars. If there wasn't Christianity to fight over, people would have just found some other reason to kill each other. Jesus taught to love your enemy and treat others how you would want to be treated, he said those who live by the sword, die by the sword and taught his followers to forgive, serve and heal others. In short, if people had followed the teachings of Christ, it would have eliminated wars, not caused them. But for whatever reason people like you seem intent on blaming Christianity for societies ills, while of course completely ignoring all the good that has been done in its name (in this already broken world). Can you admit your bias? Edited by Peyote Road (05/31/16 12:40 PM)
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zzripz Stranger Registered: 12/23/08 Posts: 8,292 Loc: Manchester, UK Last seen: 7 years, 2 months |
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why does one have to believe in an absurd story to 'do good'. Why does the doing good justify believing and preaching a story which is used for such evil--as history shows. IE fear-based mindcontrol 'heaven or hell'. You hear this now just talking to christians. THAT is its toxicity
I am saying the very story itself influences a dualistic toxic outlook of reality. I am not interested in the intellectual outpourings of theology--all that Markos discusses, which can be seen to be a deeper layer of esoteric meaning (though just because it is 'deeper' does not mean I agree with it, because I still see it as dualistic). The wo/man on the street believes the basic literalist storyline. This is why you hear biblical cliches coming from the mouths of homophobic Christians worldwide such as the irritating and ignorant cliche: 'God did not make Adam and Steve, he made Adam and Eve'. They really believe that, and it has become a trigger in their little in-toxic-ated brain everytime they are face with anything to do with gayness. Look, if eg the Salvation Army helps homeless people, and I am homeless, then that is a good thing, for real. But to see things deeper, there shouldn't BE homeless people sleeping in the streets in the first place. I don't have to be dressed up in a uniform singing 'onward Christian soldiers' to know that! It is common sense. Why should I or anyone love their enemies? And do you seriously think loving them will make them love you? If some men come into your house and murder your little children and rape your partner, and murder your parents are you going to love them? I truly hope you never have to find out, but I find it utterly obscene that some story claims that you are bad if you do not love such people as that! Only oppressive storytellers could create that idea. The innocent men, women, and children of Afghanistan, and Iraq, etc who had enemies incite an invasion on false pretext--causing unspeakable misery, grief, maimings, and death, and the contamination of their whole region with the depleted uranium from their weapons which carry on causing hybrid cancers, and horrific DNA damage. For such evil those people who are the victims are expected to love them in your book? source
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Peyote Road Stranger Registered: 09/02/15 Posts: 3,527 Loc: Great Lakes Stat Last seen: 3 years, 10 months |
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[QUOTE]
why does one have to believe in an absurd story to 'do good'. Why does the doing good justify believing and preaching a story which is used for such evil--as history shows. IE fear-based mindcontrol 'heaven or hell'. You hear this now just talking to christians. THAT is its toxicity I think its ironic you talk so much about toxicity, because I sense a certain "toxicity" coming across in your posts also. Nowhere did I say that one needs to believe in any story to do good, nor is that a doctrine of Christianity. "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 from the same article: " Elsewhere, speaking of Socrates (who antedated Christianity by about five hundred lears), he said that he was as grand a Christian as any churchly saint or martyr. Indeed, he said that Socrates' Pagan brand of Christianity was as lofty and pure as the kind he himself knew..." "in his famous book Ecclesiastical History, Eusebius, the bishop of Caesarea and one of the major shapers of the emerging Christian orthodoxy he championed, says that the Gospels of the New Testament were really the old dramatic books of the Essenes, from pre-Christian days. Of a group of Essenes called Therapeutae (healers), in Egypt, he writes: "These ancient Therapeutae were Christians and their writings are our Gospels and Epistles." "Celsus, a famous Pagan philosopher with whom Origen waged a well-known, detailed debate, said: "The Christian religion contains nothing but what Christians hold in common with the heathen; nothing new." For this, Origen had no rebuttal. As well, Ammonius Saccas (c. 175-240), the great founder of Neoplatonism (born of Christian parents himself) and the teacher of Origen, stoutly maintained that Christianity and Paganism differed on no essential points." "The words from these early witnesses pack a huge wallop for orthodox theology. But they truly sink in only when one takes the time to examine meticulously the evidence on which they stand. The evidence of close similarities between Christianity and other ancient world faiths is massive, detailed, extremely specific, and quite incredibly far-flung, stretching from the Vedic wisdom of India to the Norse myths of Scandinavia, the legends of the Incas, and the original spirituality of the indigenous peoples of North America. Without exception, every element of the allegedly "new," uniquely revealed religion was extant before the first Christian century in the traditions, practices, and literature of many other"
Yeah, so? You're just posting that because it supports your anti-Christian agenda. Homosexuality is by no means what the crux of Christianity is about and in a truly Christian society, there would be no homophobia problem because it is not the job of the Christian to judge and condemn others. It is human nature that does these things.
Yes precisely and if you read C.S. Lewis's thought experiment about a society that truly based itself on Christian values, guess what? There were no homeless people. I agree that it is common sense and this is exactly what Christianity teaches. It teaches that morality is derived from natural law and one's conscience and the purpose of religion to simply help one form his conscious so it is not corrupted by the barbarism and brainwashing of the society in he lives in. Because as you can see this is apparently not common sense to many of the adults in our society. Many things which would naturally evoke moral distress in a child, have been brainwashed into us as being acceptable by society because "that's just how the world works". The quote in my signature also speaks to this. The value in studying the wisdom of ancient peoples (Christianity being one example) is that it helps one see through current trends, thus giving her or him sharper discernment in matters of conscience. Do you not see that we live in a world where corrupt men (like Donald Trump to use a ridiculous over the top example) can pass themselves off as Christian while embodying an essential worldview and approach to life that has virtually nothing in common with Christianity? Now in a society where that can take place, there must be a disconnect between trying to blame the ills of society on Christianity when said society is completely ignorant to about 97% of the spiritual wisdom taught by Christianity. You are right that the average person believe in the myths literally but is it the myths fault they are misinterpreted? Where are you trying to place the blame and why you think it belongs there and not as a result of many contributing factors?
Jesus never taught that loving your enemies would make them love you. On the contrary he was crucified. As for why you should love them? Because they are still human beings, just like homosexuals and homeless people.
You are really grasping at straws now. Nowhere does the Bible say you are bad if you don't love someone who murders your children. What a ridiculous notion. This is what I mean when I say you are biased. Anyone can twist the text to points of absurdity like this but it only reveals your bias that I mentioned and you are not fooling anyone. Love your enemy could simply mean if for instance, the USA was at war with Canada, you don't need to hate Canadians. You can still recognize that Canadian men and women are your brothers and sisters from the same source as yourself and extend to them neighborly love even though they are your enemy. This is contrast to the idea that we must hate those who are our purported enemies. It's very easy to stand on the sidelines passing judgement on the philosophers of others, but what do you endorse? I have found no philosophy, religion, teaching, idea, approach to life that is immune to critique. If you have one, I'd like to hear it. As i said in another thread, as soon as you take an idea, no matter how spiritual and lofty, once you put it into words it becomes open to misinterpretation, misapplication, twisting around, etc. -------------------- The path of the herbalist is to open ourselves to nature in an innocent and pure way. SHe in turn will open her bounty and reward us with many valuable secrets. May the earth bless you. - Michael Tierra Edited by Peyote Road (05/31/16 10:32 PM)
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zzripz Stranger Registered: 12/23/08 Posts: 8,292 Loc: Manchester, UK Last seen: 7 years, 2 months |
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There is no historical evidence that Jesus of Nazareth even existed! And as for you providing proof that Christian ideas were shared by 'paganism', you fall into the trap of many Christians who believe paganism is meaning one thing/belief. it isn't, because you have paganism which is also world-denying, beeliving 'spirit' is trapped in the physical body and nature, etc. And the Essenes which some claim were the origins of Christianity also were dualistic and believed there was a war between the sons of light and sons of darkness So when I judge a story/myth to be toxic that is what I am meaning, as well as literalization of myths
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SpinScratch Distrusted Cultivator  Registered: 07/26/13 Posts: 835 Last seen: 7 months, 4 days |
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In my opinion, modern Christianity does not resemble the teachings of Jesus that Ive read in the bible. When we look at the media today, its easy to assume that most American practicing Christians are of the right wing, conservative persuasion. It seems as if their most pressing religious issues are birth control, abortion, gay marriage, and public displays of religiousity (like prayer in school, displays on public property).
Most of these things obviously werent very important to Jesus, because he made no mention of them. However, one of the first things he spoke out against was praying in public, and said that prayer should be done in secret.  When I read his words I come away with three important messages that seem to be repeated by him: 1. To love your neighbor. 2. To give up ALL material possessions, and to not give any thought into building a wordly future here on earth, but to prepare for the afterlife... which was supposedly coming VERY soon. 3. To believe his wild claims without supporting evidence. Now I think most christians have #3 down pretty good. But when Jesus was approached and asked how to become one of his followers, he would refer to #2. How many christians do you know that have done that? None that Ive met, and I went to a christian school. Its much easier to worry about your right to put up a nativity scene at city hall or to stop 2 dudes from marrying each other than to it is to sell all your possesions, give the money to the poor and follow Jesus into the impending apocolypse.
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Peyote Road Stranger Registered: 09/02/15 Posts: 3,527 Loc: Great Lakes Stat Last seen: 3 years, 10 months |
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As to the question of the historical existence of Jesus, I disagree there is no evidence, further absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. THere is no way you prove there wasn't a first century Jew who said and did many of of the things attributed to Christ. In fact, there were many first century Jews who went around preaching, teaching and claiming to be the Messiah, so the Jesus of the Bible may very well have been based on a real person. As for Paganism I never said I believed paganism was one thing, I am aware that Paganism is a term applied to a diverse amount of beliefs and practices. Even Christianity itself, is a diverse movement with over 40,000 different groups currently existing calling themselves Christian but with widely varying beliefs and intrepretations of the Bible. What I was saying was that the ideas that became Christianity were not brand new ideas that suddenly appeared on the scene when God decided to release his magnum opus, the Holy Bible, but rather the Bible is a collection of books of ancient wisdom much if not all of which could be traced back to older traditions. As the Bible says "there is nothing new under the sun". You are free to harp on the so called dualism of said beliefs, yes Christianity splits life up into opposing opposites as well as linear time, where the opposites are to eventually be reconciled and life made whole again. But to devalue them or dismiss them because of that fails to do justice to the vast amount of spiritual wisdom they contain, nor does it take into account their target audience, which already had a dualistic worldview. I am not saying Christianity is the ultimate spiritual teaching, but it makes sense when understood in its proper context. You also fail to acknowledge the power of sacred scripture, which is capable of transcending theological conundrums and activating a person's inner wisdom. -------------------- The path of the herbalist is to open ourselves to nature in an innocent and pure way. SHe in turn will open her bounty and reward us with many valuable secrets. May the earth bless you. - Michael Tierra Edited by Peyote Road (06/01/16 12:37 PM)
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zzripz Stranger Registered: 12/23/08 Posts: 8,292 Loc: Manchester, UK Last seen: 7 years, 2 months |
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seeing you claim to be representative of authentic Christianity please tell us what that exactly means?
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Kurt Thinker, blinker, writer, typer. Registered: 11/26/14 Posts: 1,688 |
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If Christians could live up to follow an example of Christ, they'd all be dead right?
That may seem like a shot below the belt, but it if anything it seems to be not enough. It is not just to say that Christianity is an impossible ideal. Moreover this is a case where the story or model of life is itself - in its story - supposed to be received as a metaphor. A Christian is not supposed to die for the sins of humanity - he or she is supposed to find this example instructive or edifying, and live like a christian. Another sense of Christendom is the interdependent strands of interpretation we are all familiar with, the cross hatching between moderate bourgoise existence (apologists) and literalists (who are often crazy). One corrects the other and has truth, but relies on interdependence. Pointing things like this out is not supposed to be a fundamental criticism, but something anyone can rightly observe, like loose ends. I doubt that everyone will agree with what I am saying. I think if you want to get to the substantive problem, it is that when you come to it, there is actually very little of substance, in philosophy, or authentic way of life, the allegorical examples of Christians. There is the golden rule, somehow given the particular force and respective volitions and circumstances playing out and teaching a particular lesson. These allegories are one of two things in reality. They are actual historical circumstance, which are utterly contingent (which is to say, not simply and easily unpacked as something demonstrative), or again, woven narrative. And anyone can see, again, that Christianity is these two modes, warp and woof, over and underside. I think the way of Jesus Christ - is such a way that can't be told. But unlike a Lao Tze's weaving way (The way, called the way, is not the way) again to make another general observation - is it not obvious that the Christian mistakes, its very one yin element, the passive nature of life? I am not saying every Christian does, but this is a real problems. A christian is supposedly good at the passive way, but does he or she stand as someone who is able to "let be"? In the Christians way of explicitly making examples of passivity - what becomes a western society's pity culture, there is a real problem, again, general as it may be to observe. Much of what we take as christianity is going to be an interpretation, but it is also a certain kind of observation at the same time. And objecting is knowing well enough, that this problem with pity culture arises out of the impossible contingence/narrative that the Christian demonstrates. To unravel it is not just "because" it is fiction. Yet the texture is the fiction, and the images woven in (which includes the stakes of apologetics) - are what anyone can see at root. They are found in base of interwoven strands that can be pulled on; these observations that people are making. What I am saying for myself is that aside from apologetics, the allegorical stories of the christian seem to me to be broadly constructed as pity (being pitied, or pitying). Indeed there is nothing wrong with the "golden rule" or a natural empathy, kinship or compassion, and this can be found in Christian culture as any, but perhaps some people (philosophers from Plato to Lao Tze to the buddha) know that people can't be taught such a virtue so bluntly. Example making of pity, and pitying, is not a good approach. My view is that Christians may basically take a wrong attitude toward suffering. They assume its slate, its image, as part to be written to derivatively. Virtues can come once a cleaner beginning is found, but christian pity is clearly in many ways an unbalanced, basis to life. Hopefully people are okay to find their views challenged, but I'd also observe this is a philosophy forum, and we can be open to images, as much as we criticize and deconstruct, or take them apart.
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Kurt Thinker, blinker, writer, typer. Registered: 11/26/14 Posts: 1,688 |
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Well said.
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zzripz Stranger Registered: 12/23/08 Posts: 8,292 Loc: Manchester, UK Last seen: 7 years, 2 months |
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3 is a big no no, as are also 2 and 1. Look, this is all words words words. that is my point. Moral codes. Noral codes that are not even followed by the people who preach them. Have YOu given up all your material possessions Peyote Road? You given away your i/cellphone to a homeless person yet??  what does that even mean anyhow? Cults do that, and the cult-master/guru ends up with LOTS of stuff!It is all just empty slogans like the politics we are used to. Obama makes a speech in 2009 about how nukes are gonna be deployed and never meant it even to begin with. twas just empty words. the Church ended up with so many peoples material possessions--OMFG! And look at the Vatican? It is all BS But this doesn't mean I am therefore advocating souless materialism or nihilism either, but just encouraging to stop wasting energies on old dead stories, and grasp the hidden---the hidden being the psychedelics, especially psychedelic fungi from which most mythos is inspired from. BUT when secrecy and words take hold we get the BS which really is convoluted literalist none-sense you know love when you eat psychedelics, you dont need no words to TELL you to Edited by zzripz (06/02/16 03:47 AM)
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Kurt Thinker, blinker, writer, typer. Registered: 11/26/14 Posts: 1,688 |
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 Here is an example of people trying to convey christian pity - and sympathy and empathy or whatever - as something instructive. (Sympathy and empathy may be different, Markos, but when as posed as an instruction or moral, as in Christian doctrine it all means the same thing). The Christian chooses violence as its moral symbol, and christian suggests there is virtue in being on the passive or receiving end as opposed to being an infliction of violence. That is the blunt notion as a whole, the psychological slate that is of course so difficult for christians to live up to, (while in some ways they certainly do, some cynic may well say). It is always pity that is a psychological slate to the Christian. No doubt, pity can be a pretty natural reaction even something kind and good. But who wants to be pitied? Who looks for pit, and wants to pity? Being meek and subordinate and otherwise passive, looking for pity, and pitying others (often lying to oneself in that) to feel good, as opposed to evil is what as a construct, and symbolic tapestry, marks christianity. The insinuation and basic notion,again, seems to be that when violence is received, it is certainly better than being inflicted, and that counts for everything, and becomes a generality, and associative image, and psychological slate. That proceeds to become a dominant moral value to a western culture. Many people have pointed out that Christianity is complicit to a kind of violence, and have looked for proofs. The proof is in the pudding. That historical or empirical data should be considered secondary, and we know people will argue tooth and nail. Instead there is something just to consider in the idea of a christian example or allegory itself. How strange is it, that christians (of all religions in the world) invest in a glorified image of suffering, a cross, a sublime violence for redeeming, as if this as a whole were something positive? No other philosophy or even religion is quite like that endorsing the slate of violence. We over look this because the receiving of violence the apologetics, have their predominant value in a face of reality. Christian pity is a contrived, or a construct, because the circumstances and the ways of dealing with suffering in nature, do not have this kind of idealization or resulting narrative to them. Pity isn't a natural response. This doesn't mean pity isn't something we can experience in reasonable and natural ways though. Some of us may say that we pity others sometimes and this sympathy may even be kindness, and goodness, but we also realize that we would never want to be pitied in such a way, so we have second thoughts about how we generalize pity as something good. Pity does not imply anything good in a situation, after all. So pity may be an attitude of dominance over a situation, or person or group of people that is genuine or natural, but as just said that is a notion to be considered and examined. Many of us live in a largely historically dominant judeochristian society. How does pity become dominant? Namely, so far as pity is cleaved to as an ideal - it does not only arguably imply the predominance of suffering in the world, as just said, but it is at base a contrived intent. The person who idealizes pity by tendency, always has relied on the ideal of other people being bad to make oneself (or an ingroup) good by comparison to this. This is what Nietzsche called ressentiment, (as a pychological tendency) and slave morality (which can become a dominant social value) Resentment is the psychological tendency that this construct as a whole and complex tapestry, begins in and grows out of. Christianity is wanting to pity or trying to instruct pity in these ways. Anyway, anyone can take the notion or not. I think this conveys it pretty wellm I am not trying to make anyone agree, but any good christian should be able to face these critiques (while not putting it up to me, hopefully.)
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MarkostheGnostic Elder Registered: 12/09/99 Posts: 14,279 Loc: South Florida
Last seen: 5 years, 7 months |
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I do not care for Nietzsche, lucid or syphilitic. Even less do I care for your own rehashing of Nietzsche plus whatever feelings of contempt you have for Compassion which is the essence not only of Enlightened Mind in the East, Illumination in the West, but of Ultimate Reality Itself, East or West.
You're looking at Christianity through the old and tired socio-political-psychological criticisms of Nietzsche and his ilk. Such objections are mere surface. They reach only as far as the popular version of Christianity (as unpopular as that is around these parts) which is the unfortunate historical husk of Christianity and doesn't comprehend its transcendental kernel in the least. Obviously you do not see the mystical pre-Christian as well as Christian participation in the archetypal theme of Dismemberment. This is the universal experience of ego-death and transcendence. Myth, and in particular Christian myth, depicts this universal theme as a series of spiritual moments, with ego-death and transcendence as Crucifixion and Resurrection respectively. One of the values of the passion-play of the gospel narratives identifies other spiritual moments - Birth, Rebirth [Baptism], Death, Ascension, Judgement, Reward and Punishment - just as the pre-Christian Mysteries did. These are experiential moments transposed into myth, and myth mistakenly read as history by the uninitiated multitudes. IF you had experienced psychedelically-elicited ego-death and the 'reconstitution' of an utter psychic dismemberment, you would grok the unsurpassable significance of Christ crucified from experience. If you experienced the archetypal significance, you would recognize the mythic image you've posted of Christ crucified as the last major historical iteration of a transcendental process that has incarnated the human psyche throughout its history: Osiris dismembered and re-membered (pun intended) by his wife Isis (except for his male member - a cosmic emasculation magickally restored by Thoth), Ixion broken on the wheel, Prometheus bound to the mountain-top (his liver [the liv-er or soul] devoured daily restored by night), or Dionysos rent limb-from-limb by the maenads. The resurrected/restored/reconstitut -------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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viktor psychotechnician  Registered: 11/03/10 Posts: 4,293 Loc: New Zealand 
Last seen: 4 years, 4 months |
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The last major historical iteration of someone being murdered for doing the right thing was Gaddafi. There have been many such cases after Jesus.
-------------------- "They consider me insane but I know that I am a hero living under the eyes of the gods."
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