Harbal wrote: ↑Mon Oct 03, 2022 4:41 pmI suspect that the "prejudice" you are experiencing here is more to do with your presentation of Christianity, rather than Christianity itself. I know you would say that you can only tell it like it is, but if it really is like you tell it, it doesn't surprise me in the least that no one seems to want it.
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Mon Oct 03, 2022 7:27 pmPerhaps...but I don't think so.
I've been here a long while. I've sometimes talked in a vague and general way about "religion," or "the transcendent," or "morality" here, and people don't at all get their hackles up. They seem largely undisturbed by my in regard to many, many things. But the things people find most offensive, I have discovered, are the direct quotations from Jesus Christ or from something else Biblical. And for those, I can, of course, claim no authorship at all.
So maybe it's me...maybe. But maybe it's not. I'll take my chances.
Anyway, that hardly accounts for the public refusal to entertain the possibility they're uncaringly prejudicial against Christians, or to coin a "-phobia" meme to combat such animus. Because I'm not the only one around, and I'm not the only one who catches flak.
I'm just the only one who doesn't mind, maybe.
This is an interesting question. It would need to be explored carefully. But unfortunately there is no one available for that careful analysis. I mean, of course, on this forum. (Sorry, that is a type of grandstanding statement!
)
Immanuel definitely has been here a *long time* as he rightly says. But he has done
nothing but disservice to Christianity in the strict sense of 'moral doctrine', and he has done nothing to explain why it has come about the Christianity, especially in the Occident, is in such a bad state and why it is that it is being rejected -- for some very good reasons and also for some very bad reasons.
The key to understanding Immanuel is to see him as a Evangelical Christian Narcissist. (By
narcissism I mean someone unusually or *pathologically* self-absorbed). His American brand of Evangelical Christianity
can be critiqued as a stand-alone entity (it really has perverse elements), but the combination of this strange form of narcissism with an Evangelical
soon-you'll-be-in-Hell posture makes him quite noxious. But this has been a feature of Christianity for the longest time.
Yet his presentation is all his own doing. He earns exactly the contempt he often, more often than not, receives. And
there is his reward. The contempt he receives, and the glorious satisfaction of telling those who disagree with him, and who also those who disagree (or do not understand) some tenets of Christian doctrine, that they will suffer eternal torment in Hell, is a glorious temporal reward.
He glances up to Father in Heaven and bows piously. Surely God Himself supports Immanuel in his evangelical work?! But the rest of us? We are *goats*.
Opposition is proof that he is doing what the Lord Jesus would do and of course Jesus of Nazareth got hung on a cross. Immanuel gets hung on his cross many times in a given week! He has been *killed* (in reasoned argument) many times but he always resurrects! It is not the logtic of the premises that matter or don't matter, it is the solidity of his declared position. It.simply.must.be.right!
So maybe it's me...maybe. But maybe it's not. I'll take my chances.
This is what I have been exploring. As I have said *I am here for my own purposes* whether anything I say is understood or not. It is a crucial question to get to the bottom of Immanuel's rhetorical question.
Is it me? Or
Is it them? This can be broken down rather simply:
- "Do I get opposition because, psychologically or psycho-spiritually or psycho-narcisso-spiritually I derive benefit from it?"
- Or "Are there aspects within the moral teachings of Judaism and Christianity which have become unacceptable to a rebellious culture?"
You know, you must know, that the essence of this question hinges on one basic issue. Is the God defined in Judaism and in Christianity *the one true God*? For those who simply cannot conceive of God, who are atheists, or perhaps agnostics, the entire question has been disposed with. And I for one can certainly understand why! It is easy as pie to see and not at all hard to face.
All religions are filled with many perverse elements. There comes a moment when, for simplicity's sake, they require being thrown out the window. Because a thoughtful man can lead a decent, even a magnanimous and a heroic life without the need to resort to *belief*.
This is clear as day.
But here we move into the core territory and the territory that should really be of concern to us. It has to do with religion used as a coercive and manipulative tool. That is, to use metaphysical notions (such as the threat of endless suffering in hell) to psychologically dominate the evangelized subject. This is what Immanuel does in essence. This is what comprises his preaching. There is nothing more to it.
That is why (in my own case, raised on the fringes of Judaism and very interested in religion generally, and certainly in cultural affairs) I have resorted to the term
Hebrew Idea Imperialism. It is all there in the Bible. It is the foundation on which the religion is built. And Christianity extends from that base. And it also employs the same sort of metaphysical coercion.
Ecce Immanuel.
But a person, a soul, a living entity, one of us, a being who exists in this plane, someone aware, someone thoughtful, should not be coerced through the use of these psycho-manipulative techniques to *believe*.
So the reason people resist Idea-Imperialism becomes the topic of conversation.
Yet the metaphysical questions still remain. As do the moral questions which are
accentuated. They are not subsumed by Christianity. Nor by Judaism. Nor by the Bible. Those questions must necessarily exist *in this world and in all possible worlds*. The questions are transcendent to religious politics!
It is impossible that Immanuel Can
could go in this direction to put it in prepositional terms. He cannot, and he will not, be moved from the binding to Hebrew Idea Imperialism. It is a strange *spirit* that inhabits the three Abrahamic religions, isn't it? It is
absolutely possessive. If you disbelieve . . .
God will chop your head off though the hands that will do that glory-filled work are all of fanatical men.
This erroneous concept, this twisted and twisting
picture must be transcended.