Christianity

[attofishpi]

If we allow that - as is obvious - Biblical Christianity is absurd, but that it must have had its seeds in something that is/was very real and not at all absurd - the historical personage of Jesus Christ - then who exactly is he, what did he do, what are the possibilities of relationship with him (assuming his immortality), how are they realistically entered into, and how can they be of help to the average person who doesn't want to buy into a load of bull (with hat tip to atto)?

Er, I wouldn't tip your hat at me with what you have stated for certainly you have sussed me innacurately.

To be clear, the hat tip was solely with respect to the play on words of "buy"ing into a load of "bull", given your noting that "Bible" sounds phonetically like "buy bull".

I have no expectation that you do nor would agree with anything else I wrote.

You are relieved. Feel free to stand down and have a refreshing glass of lemonade.

I don't have lemonade. If I did I suppose I would meet you half way and have a shandy!

..actually I may have jumped the gun slightly there with a re-read. I guess it depends what you mean by 'Biblical Christianity' - if it entails the bull of the OT, then I stand by my non wanting a hat tip..!

[vegetariantaxidermy]

It is not that I myself put weight on the 'stolen land' idea but rather that I notice that it is a functioning narrative. It functions within a group of observations about conquest, domination, slavery, subservience to powerful interests and groups. It seems to me to be a way of examining things that is deeply bound-up in Christian ideas. So the intensity of the critique against *America and all she is and represents* is, oddly, a restatement of core Christian categories. It is an extension of the desire to see oneself as mored in sin, as determined by needs & desires that always result in sinful outcomes, and then by that strange need to *repent* for all that one is, all that one does.

And as I say if you (the person Immanuel Can) really took your Christian critique to its limits, your statements would not be that much different from those of the intense 'progressive' or antifa-like views. How odd it seems to me that you seem to hypocritically refer to it (the absolute application of Christian ethics) but in relation to a State (the US as the largest and most powerful state enterprise the world has known) that has not and cannot even be a Christian actor in the sense you seem to imagine possible. It is, and I say this without judgment, and in relation to your proposed idealism, thoroughly anti-Christian.

These are very interesting comments.

Given our communications over the years, I note with interest that you seem to be more amenable to the reality that indigenous lands were stolen by Europeans than you ever have been in the past, just as I note with interest that you seem to be more amenable to the reality that Zionism embodies a similar injustice than you ever have been in the past.

And that is the reality. The claims of misguided ideologues like Immanuel Can that the people from whom the land was stolen were fighting amongst themselves anyway are of course bogus: even if a people are warring amongst themselves, that doesn't justify an outsider from stealing their land, and we all know that that's how it went down. Even Immanuel Can does. It just doesn't serve his purposes to acknowledge that injustice.

I wish that you would go further. Land theft is not merely a "functioning narrative": it is the literal reality for millions of indigenous people. Back yourself up better, dude. The likes of Immanuel Can don't deserve coddling here.

You are 100% right in your later comments, and they are why you should repudiate rather than coddle Immanuel Can. Christ would absolutely condemn the land theft perpetrated by so-called Christians. Christ was, in these terms, a progressive, and, taking the Christian critique to the limit, Christ would absolutely condemn the basis on which the USA (and so many other colonies) was founded.

If humans didn't colonise then we would still be living in one small part of Africa, but you are welcome to donate your home to your local indigenous community. People will go anywhere to survive. There are only a handful of peoples on the earth (if any) who haven't committed horrible injustices on any others. I think the Irish might be one, but they were probably more persecuted than anyone else was by the English (and that's saying something). The English didn't even need to colonise there. They just hated the economic competition and wanted control. And the Irish have been living in Ireland for tens of thousands of years. You don't get much more 'indigenous' than that, or are you only referring to non white indigenous people?

[Harry Baird]

I don't have lemonade. If I did I suppose I would meet you half way and have a shandy!

"Shandy" was the name of our first family dog. Seriously, though, I'd sit down with you over a shandy or two.

..actually I may have jumped the gun slightly there with a re-read. I guess it depends what you mean by 'Biblical Christianity' - if it entails the bull of the OT, then I stand by my non wanting a hat tip..!

Well, my focus there was on the historical person Jesus Christ, so, I was in turn focussed on the Gospels. The extent to which the Gospels endorse and/or extend the OT is very debatable, but I don't buy the bull in any case...

[Harry Baird]

There are only a handful of peoples on the earth (if any) who haven't committed horrible injustices on any others.

And in the modern age, we have all the information at our disposal to correct those injustices.

You don't get much more 'indigenous' than that, or are you only referring to non white indigenous people?

I'm referring to any people who lived on their own land for as long as could be known, whatever their skin colour. Yes, that includes the Irish.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

There are only a handful of peoples on the earth (if any) who haven't committed horrible injustices on any others.

And in the modern age, we have all the information at our disposal to correct those injustices.

You don't get much more 'indigenous' than that, or are you only referring to non white indigenous people?

I'm referring to any people who lived on their own land for as long as could be known, whatever their skin colour. Yes, that includes the Irish.

'Who' is supposed to 'correct' them? There are no people living who had anything to do with it. People move on. We're all living in the twenty first century, reaping all the benefits that come with living in the modern world. The Maori were only here for a few hundred years before other colonisers came which is nothing in geological terms (the Australian aborigines were there for 100k years--now that really IS indigenous) yet we are all supposed to feel 'guilty' for what exactly? Being born here? Are we supposed to apologise on behalf of our distant ancestors who probably did nothing wrong anyway? Plenty of them got eaten btw. I've never heard anyone apologise for committing genocide on the Moriori and using them as a food source when the animal food sources had been eaten to extinction. Fuck your faux white guilt. I've got nothing to feel guilty about. My ancestors were starved out of Ireland by the English. They had a right to try to survive.

[attofishpi]

I don't have lemonade. If I did I suppose I would meet you half way and have a shandy!

"Shandy" was the name of our first family dog. Seriously, though, I'd sit down with you over a shandy or two.

Ditto Harry, although let's just pretend it's shandy and not spoil the beer.

..actually I may have jumped the gun slightly there with a re-read. I guess it depends what you mean by 'Biblical Christianity' - if it entails the bull of the OT, then I stand by my non wanting a hat tip..!

Well, my focus there was on the historical person Jesus Christ, so, I was in turn focussed on the Gospels. The extent to which the Gospels endorse and/or extend the OT is very debatable, but I don't buy the bull in any case...

If that's the case I am still perplexed by our conversations re the other chap - the dude with the horns.

[attofishpi]

I don't have lemonade. If I did I suppose I would meet you half way and have a shandy!

"Shandy" was the name of our first family dog. Seriously, though, I'd sit down with you over a shandy or two.

Ditto Harry, although let's just pretend it's shandy and not spoil the beer.

..actually I may have jumped the gun slightly there with a re-read. I guess it depends what you mean by 'Biblical Christianity' - if it entails the bull of the OT, then I stand by my non wanting a hat tip..!

Well, my focus there was on the historical person Jesus Christ, so, I was in turn focussed on the Gospels. The extent to which the Gospels endorse and/or extend the OT is very debatable, but I don't buy the bull in any case...

If that's the case I am still perplexed by our conversations re the other chap - the dude with the horns. ..you believe that bull, but not Christ?

[Harry Baird]

'Who' is supposed to 'correct' them?

Decent people who recognise that they are part of (a) group(s) which committed injustices against (an)other group(s).

Did they choose to be born into that group? Who knows? But either way, if they are decent, they recognise the group debt.

People move on.

That's so easy to say for the oppressor. Not so much for the oppressed.

we are all supposed to feel 'guilty' for what exactly?
[...]
Fuck your faux white guilt. I've got nothing to feel guilty about.

Huh? You seem to be attributing to me sentiments that aren't mine. I have not once used the word "guilt" in our exchange, nor would I.

I am encouraging us as a modern world to recognise that in arriving at our modern society, some groups of peoples have committed injustices against other groups of peoples, taking advantage of, exploiting, and disempowering them, and I expect that now that we have the knowledge and information to recognise as much, we ought to correct those injustices.

My ancestors were starved out of Ireland by the English. They had a right to try to survive.

Yes. They did. That's an example of the injustices that we can now recognise on the basis of modern information.

[Harry Baird]

[L]et's just pretend it's shandy and not spoil the beer.

Well, honestly, beer is foul, but if you want to upgrade from a shandy, then OK - fair enough. I drink more of the foul stuff than I'd care to admit here!

I am still perplexed by our conversations re the other chap - the dude with the horns.

I can't deny my experiences. You can interpret them as you see fit, but so can I - and I'm the one they actually occurred to.

[vegetariantaxidermy]

'Who' is supposed to 'correct' them?

Decent people who recognise that they are part of (a) group(s) which committed injustices against (an)other group(s).

Did they choose to be born into that group? Who knows? But either way, if they are decent, they recognise the group debt.

People move on.

That's so easy to say for the oppressor. Not so much for the oppressed.

we are all supposed to feel 'guilty' for what exactly?
[...]
Fuck your faux white guilt. I've got nothing to feel guilty about.

Huh? You seem to be attributing to me sentiments that aren't mine. I have not once used the word "guilt" in our exchange, nor would I.

I am encouraging us as a modern world to recognise that in arriving at our modern society, some groups of peoples have committed injustices against other groups of peoples, taking advantage of, exploiting, and disempowering them, and I expect that now that we have the knowledge and information to recognise as much, we ought to correct those injustices.

My ancestors were starved out of Ireland by the English. They had a right to try to survive.

Yes. They did. That's an example of the injustices that we can now recognise on the basis of modern information.

What is this 'group'? What 'group' am I in, as one example? No one is responsible for their ancestors. And yes, people move on. Land changes hands. Fortunes are made and lost. No one alive today is responsible for ANYTHING anyone did hundreds of years ago, or ever, for that matter. Would you be repsonsible if your brother was a serial killer? Are you suggesting that just because people share a skin colour, then they are all complicit in some alleged crime that other people who might have had the same skin colour committed in the distant past?

[attofishpi]

[L]et's just pretend it's shandy and not spoil the beer.

Well, honestly, beer is foul, but if you want to upgrade from a shandy, then OK - fair enough. I drink more of the foul stuff than I'd care to admit here!

I am still perplexed by our conversations re the other chap - the dude with the horns.

I can't deny my experiences. You can interpret them as you see fit, but so can I - and I'm the one they actually occurred to.

Not so sure of that Harry, as I have also ATTESTED.

[Harry Baird]

What is this 'group'? What 'group' am I in, as one example?

This is a charged question, but I'll try to address it, in two parts.

You have indicated that you identify as part of a persecuted indigenous Irish nation. I don't challenge that self-identification. To that extent, you as a part of the persecuted indigenous Irish nation have been exploited, and you have a right to expect that the injustice of that exploitation be corrected (at a group level).

You must, though, surely also recognise that people from the UK in general, including the Irish, have participated in (unjust, of course) colonial projects all over the world. To the extent that you are associated with that group, you should be willing to participate in or at least support restorative justice towards those historically oppressed by that group.

No one alive today is responsible for ANYTHING anyone did hundreds of years ago, or ever, for that matter.

You seem to be looking only through one side of the looking glass: that of the unjustified perpetrators of wars of conquest. What about the victims? They're not responsible either for their ancestors' having been aggressed against by the unjust perpetrators of those wars. Why should they be held responsible, in the way of lower standards of living, less access to justice, unrecognised access to their own lands, and diminished respect for their own culture on their own lands, for that?

[Harry Baird]

I have also ATTESTED.

ATTEST like this, atto, and I will concede defeat!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3dvbM6Pias

[vegetariantaxidermy]

What is this 'group'? What 'group' am I in, as one example?

This is a charged question, but I'll try to address it, in two parts.

You have indicated that you identify as part of a persecuted indigenous Irish nation. I don't challenge that self-identification. To that extent, you as a part of the persecuted indigenous Irish nation have been exploited, and you have a right to expect that the injustice of that exploitation be corrected (at a group level).

You must, though, surely also recognise that people from the UK in general, including the Irish, have participated in (unjust, of course) colonial projects all over the world. To the extent that you are associated with that group, you should be willing to participate in or at least support restorative justice towards those historically oppressed by that group.

No one alive today is responsible for ANYTHING anyone did hundreds of years ago, or ever, for that matter.

You seem to be looking only through one side of the looking glass: that of the unjustified perpetrators of wars of conquest. What about the victims? They're not responsible either for their ancestors' having been aggressed against by the unjust perpetrators of those wars. Why should they be held responsible, in the way of lower standards of living, less access to justice, unrecognised access to their own lands, and diminished respect for their own culture on their own lands, for that?

My ancestors would certainly have identified that way. It really has nothing to do with me after 200 years lol.

[Dontaskme]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FT5bBRjLgR8

When Love Sings from the Same Hymn Sheet.

The Dark Side of Love
The Positive Role of Negative Feelings.

There is Nothing WRONG with You.

Always be yourself, the REAL fictional character.

Permission to be Human: By acknowledging our "negative" feelings, we can come into the full gamut of emotion and hear the message of our darker feelings, without acting them out. Through this, we can increase our capacity for love.