Christianity

[Immanuel Can]

Oh btw here's some nuggets dropped by the master that ch'all can chew on during your breaks from the edifying discourse in this thread. But remember, fritz is not tryna hurt you... he's tryna help you... tryna help you see a side of you that lies concealed behind itself. The goal is to make you uncomfortable, not to destroy you. That's the business of a priest.

https://www.theperspectivesofnietzsche. ... hrist.html

Nietzsche? Really?

A toothless tiger. Lots of roar, but no bite. He just assumed his own conclusions, never sought to prove them, and then went on lengthy, polemic rants. His critiques of Christianity were certainly stylish and full-mouthed, but badly misaimed of course...when it came to actual theology, he really didn't know his subject at all.

But this I'll give him: he did expose what WOULD BE true, IF there were no God. So he ought to give any Atheist a serious reality check.

[Nick_A]

Age

If yes, then what would be 'real christianity'?

LOOK, when, and IF, 'you', human beings, EVER get around to discussing and coming to AN AGREEMENT on; 'What is 'chiristianity' EXACTLY?', then 'you' WILL get somewhere. Until then, you will remain STUCK, exactly, where you are now.

Christianity is the attempt with the help of the Spirit, to consciously evolve into a higher quality of being: REBIRTH. Without rebirth all that results are man made interpretations of what cannot be understood and what you see is what you get.

Is your OWN definition of 'real christianity' here an example of a so-called, "man made interpretation", of what cannot be understood?

Christian rebirth is the attempt to receive the spirit. It can replace habitual man made interpretations with understanding coming from above.

1Corinthians2:14

King James Bible
But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

Natural Man cannot understand spiritual man and will fight even to the death to deny him. It is the way of the world. Most prefer to argue over what they don't understand while some make the efforts to receive the Spirit leading to understanding.

[promethean75]

The religious man who is unable to not believe in all honesty in the existence of god, can't experience first hand the absurdity of the situation the unbeliever is put into, by that god he believes in. This absurdity is literally incommunicable to him, and defines the chasm between he and the honest atheist.

If I find no reason to believe in a god, and am to be punished for not believing in something that I would have to be dishonest to claim a belief in, then I'd care even less if this god existed, and now make even greater effort to defy this god at any cost, if he did. Anything that promises me eternal damnation for being honest, can eat my shorts.

But wait. This makes little sense, for if I don't believe there is a god, what am I doing... shadow boxing against an imaginary opponent? Sort of. Rather what I do is defy the principles of religion just in case there really is a god, see. I've reversed Pascal's wager; if I'm right, then god can suck it. If I'm wrong, I've only been shadow boxing.

[Immanuel Can]

The religious man who is unable to not believe in all honesty in the existence of god,

It doesn't actually work that way, P.

The poet Robert Browning put it better: what we are faced with, in the choice between belief and disbelief, is that the world has enough possibility of being interpreted both ways to allow us both options. And everybody has both. Only a person who closes his or her eyes to the data completely has no possibility of faith or doubt. And either religionists or Atheists can be guilty of that.

...the honest atheist.

I hope one day to meet such. I never have.

For Atheism is not something one can hold on data. It has one primary supposition: that there is, and can be, no such thing as a God or gods. If it violates that, then it's not Atheism, by definition.

But that supposition, so fundamental to Atheism -- what is it premised upon? What data would be sufficient to warrant it? Clearly, there's no such thing. For to know, of a certainty, that there is and can be no such thing as a God or gods, one would literally have to have all knowledge. One would have to go everywhere in the universe...to make sure that the god of the Deists did not exist. One would have to time-travel, just to make sure that if a god didn't exist now, none ever had, and that none ever would in the future.

And when one had done all that, then one could finally say, "I know for certain that no God or gods exist. And I know it on evidence and investigation, not mere wishing."

The irony is, though, that no sooner than one had achieved the necessary expansiveness of knowledge, one would be wrong -- there WOULD be a God, and it would be YOU. For to be possessed of all knowledge and not be time-bound are part of the definition of Supreme Being.

So can Atheism be held rationally? No. It can be held as a wish, a hope, a hypothesis, a belief...but never on sufficient evidence. So where is the "honest" Atheist? Because by declaring himself an Atheist, he's being dishonest about what he knows or can know.

If I find no reason to believe in a god,

Then you can admit that you have no knowledge of the matter. And that's fair, if true. One can be agnostic and honest.

However, it's not true in your case. You've been offered some knowledge about God, if only in the last several messages from me. Apparently, you just don't like that. But you don't answer to me. In fact, one day, you'll explain yourself to God, as will we all.

For it is written:
As I live, says the Lord, to Me every knee will bow,
And every tongue will give praise to God.
So then each one of us will give an account of himself to God. (Romans 14:11-12)

Prepare your answer, would be my advice.

[Nick_A]

The religious man who is unable to not believe in all honesty in the existence of god, can't experience first hand the absurdity of the situation the unbeliever is put into, by that god he believes in. This absurdity is literally incommunicable to him, and defines the chasm between he and the honest atheist.

If I find no reason to believe in a god, and am to be punished for not believing in something that I would have to be dishonest to claim a belief in, then I'd care even less if this god existed, and now make even greater effort to defy this god at any cost, if he did. Anything that promises me eternal damnation for being honest, can eat my shorts.

But wait. This makes little sense, for if I don't believe there is a god, what am I doing... shadow boxing against an imaginary opponent? Sort of. Rather what I do is defy the principles of religion just in case there really is a god, see. I've reversed Pascal's wager; if I'm right, then god can suck it. If I'm wrong, I've only been shadow boxing.

Forget for a moment that there is a deity with a white beard so concerned if you pinched a girl on the behind that he sends you to hell. Take a more reasonable approach. Is it so strange that a caterpillar can change into a moth or an acorn can become an oak by a natural process? Is it really so strange that the seed of man can become a Man by a conscious process?

1Coritnthians 15

35 But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?” 36 How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37 When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. 38 But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body. 39 Not all flesh is the same: People have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another. 40 There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another. 41 The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor.

42 So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; 43 it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; 44 it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.

So the question is if Man can consciously evolve much like many forms of life can naturally evolve into a higher quality of being? You may deny it but it is as foolish as a caterpillar denying a moth without the ability to understand. How then can a Man further conscious evolution in a world which violently opposes it?

[promethean75]

Dude. You kan't downplay Nietzsche like that, because if you do, it means he got to ya, and that's what you don't want everybody to know. Like you would never say Mike Tyson can't box. You'd just make some critical comments about his style and form or something.

Kay here's whatcha gotta consider. Being that there is no definitive proof for the existence of god, reasons for believing in god can't be grounded in epistemology or science, but only psychology. As such, belief in god can very often, and most usually does, develop out of and from internal emotional conflicts and attitudes adopted about a life that is found to be rather disagreeable. See there can be nowhere else from whence it comes.... religious beliefs, I mean, and something has to cause it. That cause is most generally a great degree of stress, anxiety, dread, despair and hopelessness. At the other end of the spectrum is the cause of megalomania, which is a defense mechanism manufactured to rationalize away those former mentioned causes. In either case, the religious person is something of a latent basket case if he's intelligent, or he's incapable of thinking critically and remains with an innocent, absentminded childlike mentality throughout his life.

In any event what fritz is tryna do is examine the kinds of conflicts that lead to the creation of religions. He's a psychologist here, that's all. And he is so because there is nothing else to be when facing the question of religion. As a phenomena, it is precisely that. One has to do some detective work to root out the causes of such delirium, and fritz is one of the best gumshoes you'll ever find.

And aside from a few tried and refuted ontological, cosmological and teleological arguments for the existence of god, 'theology' amounts to nothing more than drawn out, substanceless discussions about historical events, stories and reports related to whatever religion. It's philology. I mean that's all it can amount to. Talking endlessly about some passage from some text that some guy wrote thousands of years ago. You could be quoting a reader's digest and experience the same levity.

[promethean75]

Holy moly I can't believe you amateurs are really playing the burden of proof card on the atheist. Fuck man can I get a little more credit than that? I've been doing this for decades. This isn't my first day at Sunday school.

Ya know how Chomsky once answered when axed 'do you believe in god'? He answered 'i'm sorry, I don't understand the question'. There can't possibly be a better answer than this, because it avoids all the traps lying in wait if he were to acknowledge that there is any sense to the word 'god', in the first place. And I shalt do the same. I have no idea what the HECK you wing nuts are talking about.

[Immanuel Can]

Dude. You kan't downplay Nietzsche like that,

I'm giving him his due, for what it's worth. He's a good expositor of Atheism. About Christianity, what he knows could fit in a thimble.

I'm always amused when somebody who pays no attention when the Word of God is quoted chooses to quote Nietzsche or Dawkins as if they were quoting some unimpeachable sacred text. It's more than a little ironic: they won't listen to God speak, but they fall back in reverence at the pronouncements of a syphillitic madman. Lovely.

Being that there is no definitive proof for the existence of god,

But nobody said there is. What we said is that there is enough evidence to give one reasons to believe, but enough uncertainty to warrant doubt. However, it's far from an equal equation: and anybody who considers the evidence dispassionately will be drawn to the God hypothesis.

Hey, even Dawkins says that's true.

reasons for believing in god can't be grounded in epistemology or science, but only psychology.

Heh. If you knew anything at all about the debates surrounding Theism, you'd never say anything so transparently wrong.

Regarding the psychology, Freud said it much better than you're managing to. But even Freud had this serious problem: that the strategy of psychologizing faith works just as well for Atheism. One could argue that just as belief in God could be a desire for a father figure, or a way of escaping stress, or whatever, one could argue that the cause of Atheism is a childish desire NOT to answer to a father, or a way of escaping the stress of moral duty.

A sword that cuts both ways is not a good tool for an Atheist to employ. He's likely to hack his head off.

And aside from a few tried and refuted ontological, cosmological and teleological arguments for the existence of god,

Wait...wait..

You said earlier, that such things don't even exist. Now you're admitting they do? I thought you were committed to the old "psychologizing" ruse.

But here is a stock of those alleged "arguments that don't exist." https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/boo ... 1444308334 You'll find it scholarly, well-documented and fair.

[promethean75]

"I'm always amused when somebody who pays no attention when the Word of God is quoted chooses to quote Nietzsche or Dawkins as if they were quoting some unimpeachable sacred text. It's more than a little ironic: they won't listen to God speak, but they fall back in reverence at the pronouncements of a syphillitic madman. Lovely."

Manny, for god sakes listen to yourself. You're calling the guy who trusts scientists and philosophers more than some semi-literate bronze age desert tribesmen who claim that they heard the voice of God echo down from the clouds and provide them with instruction on what to write on a scroll of wrinkled parchment, the gullible one.

Goddamit Manny get a'hold of yourself! I will not sit here and watch you fall apart.

[Dubious]

"God must rescue man. Jesus Christ is the Savior."

"The one who believes in the Son has eternal life; but the one who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.” (John 3:36)

It's that plain.

No it's not. It's stupid, shit advertising to scare people, the most gullible, into believing. What it's exactly equivalent to is buy me or be damned!

Those are the terms. Propaganda has never been just a recent event in trying to sell you something. The only difference is, the bible does it with threats.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Do you see natural evolution of humankind as undermining the past?

Perhaps if you talk about that *natural evolution* in a good deal more depth and with real precision I will better understand what you refer to.

You refer quite often, in very general and open-ended ways, to these ideals and abstractions. But you don't indicate what, concretely, you are talking about.

I really do not know what you are on about, or what you are *up to* (my term for what you are fundamentally involved in) but as I say, and I mean no disrespect, I see you like so many involved in undermining currents.

[Alexis Jacobi]

I was reading about your experience this morning, then, Alexis. For I was reading Matthew 3:19. Jesus says that what He would teach, if not heard with "ears to hear" (v. 9, i.e. with a will to receive and understand) would not be understood, and ultimately would be "snatched away," and not become comprehensible anymore at all. It seems that has happened for this. But it doesn't have to -- it all depends on how one is willing to hear.

The things you say, the things you feel are definitely and absolutely true, those things I respect because I respect you. But in no sense do I believe that I am on the outside of what you try to bring to people's attention. I see these *meanings* as larger, and perhaps deeper, that what is implied on the surface.

And I gather that you recognize that if I am *up to something* it is clarifying what I understand and believe.
_____________________________________________

I thought of this poem mostly for the last 8 lines in relation to an obstinacy that makes hearing impossible for all that one has ears. It is a difficult poem but worth attempting.

I mean nothing particularly by posting it and it is not additional commentary on any perspective. It is simply fun and interesting to interject a poem from time to time...

Directive Robert Frost

Back out of all this now too much for us,
Back in a time made simple by the loss
Of detail, burned, dissolved, and broken off
Like graveyard marble sculpture in the weather,
There is a house that is no more a house
Upon a farm that is no more a farm
And in a town that is no more a town.
The road there, if you'll let a guide direct you
Who only has at heart your getting lost,
May seem as if it should have been a quarry—
Great monolithic knees the former town
Long since gave up pretense of keeping covered.
And there's a story in a book about it:
Besides the wear of iron wagon wheels
The ledges show lines ruled southeast northwest,
The chisel work of an enormous Glacier
That braced his feet against the Arctic Pole.
You must not mind a certain coolness from him
Still said to haunt this side of Panther Mountain.
Nor need you mind the serial ordeal
Of being watched from forty cellar holes
As if by eye pairs out of forty firkins.
As for the woods' excitement over you
That sends light rustle rushes to their leaves,
Charge that to upstart inexperience.
Where were they all not twenty years ago?
They think too much of having shaded out
A few old pecker-fretted apple trees.
Make yourself up a cheering song of how
Someone's road home from work this once was,
Who may be just ahead of you on foot
Or creaking with a buggy load of grain.
The height of the adventure is the height
Of country where two village cultures faded
Into each other. Both of them are lost.
And if you're lost enough to find yourself
By now, pull in your ladder road behind you
And put a sign up CLOSED to all but me.
Then make yourself at home. The only field
Now left's no bigger than a harness gall.
First there's the children's house of make believe,
Some shattered dishes underneath a pine,
The playthings in the playhouse of the children.
Weep for what little things could make them glad.
Then for the house that is no more a house,
But only a belilaced cellar hole,
Now slowly closing like a dent in dough.
This was no playhouse but a house in earnest.
Your destination and your destiny's
A brook that was the water of the house,
Cold as a spring as yet so near its source,
Too lofty and original to rage.
(We know the valley streams that when aroused
Will leave their tatters hung on barb and thorn.)
I have kept hidden in the instep arch
Of an old cedar at the waterside
A broken drinking goblet like the Grail
Under a spell so the wrong ones can't find it,
So can't get saved, as Saint Mark says they mustn't.
(I stole the goblet from the children's playhouse.)
Here are your waters and your watering place.
Drink and be whole again beyond confusion.

[Belinda]

I was reading about your experience this morning, then, Alexis. For I was reading Matthew 3:19. Jesus says that what He would teach, if not heard with "ears to hear" (v. 9, i.e. with a will to receive and understand) would not be understood, and ultimately would be "snatched away," and not become comprehensible anymore at all. It seems that has happened for this. But it doesn't have to -- it all depends on how one is willing to hear.

The things you say, the things you feel are definitely and absolutely true, those things I respect because I respect you. But in no sense do I believe that I am on the outside of what you try to bring to people's attention. I see these *meanings* as larger, and perhaps deeper, that what is implied on the surface.

And I gather that you recognize that if I am *up to something* it is clarifying what I understand and believe.
_____________________________________________

I thought of this poem mostly for the last 8 lines in relation to an obstinacy that makes hearing impossible for all that one has ears. It is a difficult poem but worth attempting.

I mean nothing particularly by posting it and it is not additional commentary on any perspective. It is simply fun and interesting to interject a poem from time to time...

Directive Robert Frost

Back out of all this now too much for us,
Back in a time made simple by the loss
Of detail, burned, dissolved, and broken off
Like graveyard marble sculpture in the weather,
There is a house that is no more a house
Upon a farm that is no more a farm
And in a town that is no more a town.
The road there, if you'll let a guide direct you
Who only has at heart your getting lost,
May seem as if it should have been a quarry—
Great monolithic knees the former town
Long since gave up pretense of keeping covered.
And there's a story in a book about it:
Besides the wear of iron wagon wheels
The ledges show lines ruled southeast northwest,
The chisel work of an enormous Glacier
That braced his feet against the Arctic Pole.
You must not mind a certain coolness from him
Still said to haunt this side of Panther Mountain.
Nor need you mind the serial ordeal
Of being watched from forty cellar holes
As if by eye pairs out of forty firkins.
As for the woods' excitement over you
That sends light rustle rushes to their leaves,
Charge that to upstart inexperience.
Where were they all not twenty years ago?
They think too much of having shaded out
A few old pecker-fretted apple trees.
Make yourself up a cheering song of how
Someone's road home from work this once was,
Who may be just ahead of you on foot
Or creaking with a buggy load of grain.
The height of the adventure is the height
Of country where two village cultures faded
Into each other. Both of them are lost.
And if you're lost enough to find yourself
By now, pull in your ladder road behind you
And put a sign up CLOSED to all but me.
Then make yourself at home. The only field
Now left's no bigger than a harness gall.
First there's the children's house of make believe,
Some shattered dishes underneath a pine,
The playthings in the playhouse of the children.
Weep for what little things could make them glad.
Then for the house that is no more a house,
But only a belilaced cellar hole,
Now slowly closing like a dent in dough.
This was no playhouse but a house in earnest.
Your destination and your destiny's
A brook that was the water of the house,
Cold as a spring as yet so near its source,
Too lofty and original to rage.
(We know the valley streams that when aroused
Will leave their tatters hung on barb and thorn.)
I have kept hidden in the instep arch
Of an old cedar at the waterside
A broken drinking goblet like the Grail
Under a spell so the wrong ones can't find it,
So can't get saved, as Saint Mark says they mustn't.
(I stole the goblet from the children's playhouse.)
Here are your waters and your watering place.
Drink and be whole again beyond confusion.

The people from whom I learned Christianity are of their time and they are all dead now. What I know of good came from them, but I have to fill in the details for myself. The river that makes you whole again , I picture as an underground hidden stream that can be tapped by man- made wells. With respect, you never saw the river in all the historiography you have read you saw man-made wells.

[Immanuel Can]

"God must rescue man. Jesus Christ is the Savior."

"The one who believes in the Son has eternal life; but the one who does not obey the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.” (John 3:36)
It's that plain.

No it's not.

You'll find it is.

Like it or not, that's how God promises it's going to be.

[Immanuel Can]

And I gather that you recognize that if I am *up to something*

I didn't mean to suggest you were up to anything sinister. I would guess you just have a particular theory you find winsome, and you're looking to shore it up with the available evidence.

Nothing wrong with that.

it is clarifying what I understand and believe.

That's an even better goal. No problems, then.

Directive Robert Frost

Thanks for that. I'm fond of poetry.