Christianity

[Alexis Jacobi]

Is it preferable to live a lie than risk dying?

As is usual with you -- this is my impression -- you do not define what the 'lie' is except in the most general, open-ended terms.

You refer to truth but only in the sense that it might be 'something more'. And this does not mean much unless you concretely refer to what you mean.

Your criticism is so general that it can be applied formulaically to anything at all.

How do you know what the 'divine' is or should be for everyone, such that you know they are disconnected from it?

I suggest that you set to work with the learning project that would enable you to answer the question you ask. However, I gather that this does not interest you. You do not consider reading and study as necessary.

You ask me to present you with something like a proof, delivered in a paragraph, yet I maintain that you yourself must undertake the project of study yourself.

But here's the deal: you are outside of the intellectual domain. In fact you do not want to be in it! It is my view that you substitute a very needed effort of study with your extremely general 'there is always something more' assertion.

Conversation with you, I conclude, can go no further. You are going round & round in circles.

You will have to be able yourself to define the divine, and you will have to then understand how structured theology expresses what derives from the perception and grasp of what God is. You will have to know yourself how other systems express what divinity is so you'll have a comparison-point. But you won't do this either. You are not interested, really, in the entire issue!

Your assessments appear to be skewed by your beliefs of what is true and right and should be. What are the consequences and implications of that?

Yet you cannot actually explain why 'my beliefs' or my assertions and suppositions are wrong or 'skewed' as you put it.

You could not defend anything at all. Because you do not really think these things through (through genuine and continued study). You have all sort of opinions but they appear to be all personal opinions. And they all center around yourself.

[Belinda]

Alexis Jacobi quoted by Lacewing:

I have tried to make it clear that my larger endeavor has to do with my sense that when an entire civilization, effectively, disconnects from the metaphysical glue that brought it into existence, that the dissolution of that civilization is a necessary result.

But faithful followers of the Christian moral code don't necessarily depend on Cartesian dualism, supernaturalism, or materialism.

[Lacewing]

Is it preferable to live a lie than risk dying?

As is usual with you -- this is my impression -- you do not define what the 'lie' is except in the most general, open-ended terms.

It's a simple question. Are you not able to answer it? Does it depend on what 'the lie' is? It might be different for everyone.

You refer to truth but only in the sense that it might be 'something more'.

Now you're twisting things.

How do you know what the 'divine' is or should be for everyone, such that you know they are disconnected from it?

I suggest that you set to work with the learning project that would enable you to answer the question you ask.

Your response makes no sense. It's another simple question put to you, based on what you said.

I maintain that you yourself must undertake the project of study yourself.

Why do you imagine I have not and that I would have no reason to come to different conclusions than you?

It is my view that you substitute a very needed effort of study with your extremely general 'there is always something more' assertion.

Isn't there always more to consider? Is it not valuable to explore that as part of philosophical discussion in response to the absolute and skewed claims that people make? Is it just too difficult to consider beyond one's argument? There doesn't have to be a rigidly skewed argument to replace it -- isn't it enough to question the claims that are being made, and to show how the opposite can be true?

Conversation with you, I conclude, can go no further. You are going round & round in circles.

You're the one who isn't answering simple questions/challenges based on your claims.

You will have to be able yourself to define the divine, and you will have to then understand how structured theology expresses what derives from the perception and grasp of what God is. You will have to know yourself how other systems express what divinity is so you'll have a comparison-point.

Ah, so this is how to do it.

Are you aware of how much you claim what is and should be for everyone? Could that be due to your disconnection with the divine?

Yet you cannot actually explain why 'my beliefs' or my assertions and suppositions are wrong or 'skewed' as you put it.

I've pointed out alternatives to what you say, and I've asked a lot of questions to challenge your claims, and I've provided corrections to your misconceptions. Your rejection or avoidance of all of that does not magically erase them.

I've noticed that people who do not want to accept questions or challenges to their claims often insist that others must present their criticisms and corrections in a certain way. This, I think, shows how 'locked-in' they are to some kind of self-serving/self-glorifying platform they've constructed -- as if to say there is no other valid view or approach. That's ridiculous.

If you make a claim that makes no sense, you should be able to explain how it makes sense without denying all to the contrary.

You do not really think these things through

I think you're saying I must not have if I didn't arrive at your conclusions and methodology.

You have all sort of opinions but they appear to be all personal opinions.

You imagine your opinions are not personal and are superior?

And they all center around yourself.

Says the one who models truth and rightness on himself.

[Belinda]

Lacewing wrote:

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Fri Jan 21, 2022 4:59 pm
Lacewing wrote:
How do you know what the 'divine' is or should be for everyone, such that you know they are disconnected from it?
I suggest that you set to work with the learning project that would enable you to answer the question you ask.
Your response makes no sense. It's another simple question put to you, based on what you said.

I guess AJ means is you have to choose for yourself what God means for you
and what 'God ' means to you.

[Alexis Jacobi]

But faithful followers of the Christian moral code don't necessarily depend on Cartesian dualism, supernaturalism, or materialism.

I would choose to team up with and cooperate with those sorts. If people understand the code, they’d likely understand how it came about — where it came from. If they could not make the metaphysical leap, still they’d likely respect those who can and do.

However with that said — and I suppose you are speaking about yourself (?) — I do not think merely teaching a code is altogether sufficient. You received the code from a practitioner culture.

I don’t think it could be transferred for more than one or two generations merely intellectually. But could those who can no longer believe, genuinely, somehow discover belief again? Could a post-Christian culture?

No matter what, it would have to be encountered, and lived, authentically.

[Alexis Jacobi]

I guess AJ means is you have to choose for yourself what God means for you and what 'God ' means to you.

Somewhat. How could that not be so? But reading and grasping how and why it was relevant to our progenitors is also an important line.

[Immanuel Can]

But faithful followers of the Christian moral code don't necessarily depend on Cartesian dualism, supernaturalism, or materialism.

You received the code from a practitioner culture.

That's certainly true. But the mere fact that some "culture" was "practicing" the code does nothing to assure us that the "code" itself was in any way "right."

There have been cultures in which slavery, wife-beating, infanticide, deception and even canabalism have been part of the "code." No doubt those were "practitioners" of the "code" they espoused.

But what gives us courage to place our culturally-approved "code" against their culturally-approved "code," and say, "Our interdictions against slavery, wife-beating, infanticide, deception and canabalism have priority over your long-standing ritual practice of the same things"? How do we know we are the ones in the right?

So we need to say much more than, "Well, some culture practiced this, and that's where I got my idea from." We need to be able to say that regardless of what culture supported it, the "code" in question was right.

[Lacewing]

How do you know what the 'divine' is or should be for everyone, such that you know they are disconnected from it?

I suggest that you set to work with the learning project that would enable you to answer the question you ask.

Your response makes no sense. It's another simple question put to you, based on what you said.

I guess AJ means is you have to choose for yourself what God means for you and what 'God ' means to you.

Yes... but I was pointing out that his idea of people being "disconnected" is based on his own idea of the divine. So how true is that?

[Nick_A]

"Fool's gold exists because there is real gold." –Rumi

Might Christianity be 'fool's gold'?

No, The many varieties of man made Christendom are fools gold. Christianity is unknown in the secular world. It's gold must remain hidden

Something in the depth of the inner man senses a the deep truth of Christianity.

Are you trying to apply this as a Universe truth about the 'inner man' of everyone? That would be false.

Yes I believe all men have a seed of the soul which can mature into a soul. Simone understood as do all sensitive to esoteric Christianity. The quality of being differs amongst humanity. Some are sensitive to the calling for conscious evolution while most prefer fighting over cave superiority. The purpose of Christianity is the potential for rebirth while the purpose for Christendom is adaptation for cave life

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/questionofgod/voices/weil.html

Draft for a Statement of Human Obligation
Profession of Faith

There is a reality outside the world, that is to say, outside space and time, outside man's mental universe, outside any sphere whatsoever that is accessible to human faculties.

Corresponding to this reality, at the centre of the human heart, is the longing for an absolute good, a longing which is always there and is never appeased by any object in this world.

Another terrestrial manifestation of this reality lies in the absurd and insoluble contradictions which are always the terminus of human thought when it moves exclusively in this world.

Yet something within the shallowness of the egoistic personality

Such as what you demonstrate with your false pronouncements?

Anyone capable of going beyond blind belief or blind denial is presented with the problem "how to begin."

What beginning do you suggest, and what do you imagine we will see beyond this blindness you refer to?

What is square one for the seeker of truth

Do you imagine you know?

Awakening to the reality beyond what the senses make us aware of requires being born of the spirit. That is the problem. Until a person experiences it, it is all nonsense

Before my experiences I could support duality with the best of them. Then my experiences were so intense it became obvious how being third force blind kept me in the dark. I had to get rid of all that and start over with experiencing the structure of our universe and man's conscious evolutionary potential within it.

essential to experience what the soul needs to experience "meaning"

How do you know there's a soul and that it needs something? Perhaps there is one creative force that is simply exploring potential.

and who has the need and the courage to face it?

Are you imagining the way you have faced the story you believe in?

It seems that you are compelled to imagine your story as an epic battle that involves everyone. Perhaps this reflects quite clearly (thank you) the drive of Christianity. The greatest story ever told: an epic battle over a man's 'soul'.

I faced it once but can I remember it? Plato describes our problem with "Meno's Paradox"

The argument known as “Meno’s Paradox” can be reformulated as follows:

If you know what you’re looking for, inquiry is unnecessary.

If you don’t know what you’re looking for, inquiry is impossible.
Therefore, inquiry is either unnecessary or impossible.

An implicit premise:
Either you know what you’re looking for or you don’t know what you’re looking for.

Plato resolves the paradox through remembrance or anamnesis which is a quality of intellect above discursive thought. The truth the heart hungers for doesn't come through dualistic science but rather is remembered as eternal truths existing above what our senses re normally aware of.

[Alexis Jacobi]

That's certainly true. But the mere fact that some "culture" was "practicing" the code does nothing to assure us that the "code" itself was in any way "right."

At this point I would mention what results from my study of the period when the Judean Christian practice met the Greek world. I understand that you attempt to define a *true* and *authentic* Christianity and to describe it as distinct from the Christianity that developed. They were different and they are different. Christianity, a religious ethic that in truth could only be practiced by a certain sort of radical person, was assimilated into the (Greek) cultural context. And they did that by finding, or noting, a similarity in ethical commands. The 'command' was more proper to the original Christians. And deviation from the command resulted in 'sin'.

The Greeks rationalized and intellectualized it. So it is true that Christendom (what I call Christian culture) is distinct in a precise sense from a radical Christian lifestyle. But in my view this does not invalidate it.

However, to refer to Belinda's culture as a practitioner's culture fits with my more lenient sense of what Christianity is or has become (and will always become when it is assimilated into any culture). And she is a product of that Christian culture.

[Immanuel Can]

Christianity, a religious ethic that in truth could only be practiced by a certain sort of radical person, was assimilated into the (Greek) cultural context.

That would be true of Catholicism, of course. Catholicism proudly owns those roots through people like Aquinas. However, Christianity itself, the belief system instituted by Christ, did not do the same. It rejected many of the Gnostic, Roman and Aristotelian aspects that became so deeply entrenched in Catholicism, and went its own way. Consequently, it never became the sort of overt engine of political and social control that the Catholic organization became; its effects were present, to be sure; but they were more subtle and chemical, unyoked as they were with the political, economic and military activities of Europe.

Catholicism's activities have been largely political. Christianty's have been primarily moral and soteriological. The distinction is quite profound.

The 'command' was more proper to the original Christians. And deviation from the command resulted in 'sin'.

No, mere "deviation from command" is what's called Legalism, not Christianity. The Pharisees had "commands," and were quite militant about them. They too were Legalists. But you'll note that they never got along with Christ.

Here's what I'm thinking, Alexis. I think you're trying very hard to get all those people who have ever used the term "Christian" to describe themselves under the same umbrella. In contrast, I'm trying to show you the distinction between real Christianity and mere nominalism, in whatever form it may manifest.

And I have a sense that you have a conclusion toward which you want to work...namely, that European "Christianity" is a sort of Greek syncretism. And my pointing out the history of the Catholic organization as distinct from everything Christ Himself taught and His followers have followed, is a fly in that ointment.

I'm not quite saying that you're merely assuming a conclusion, then bending all the data to fit it; but it also seems to me you are continually trying to reconcile the irreconcilable for some purpose. And that purpose seems to have something to do with a thesis involving both the Greeks and pre-modern European culture. Fair enough?

..my more lenient sense of what Christianity is or has become

In a phrase like that, I find both of the impulses I listed above represented. Firstly, you collapse "Christian" into (essentially) Catholic again, and then again you refer to that as "lenient" rather than "loose" or "imprecise." I would go one step further and call such a collapsing "confused," because it again tries to reconcile the irreconcilable.

Then you conclude that Belinda is a "product of that Christian culture." Again, the assumption returns that "Christian" is a culture and all it takes for a person to be "a product of it" is that they live in Europe somewhere.

You'll forgive me, perhaps, if I wonder what the value of our previous discussions has been: for at the start, you were committed both to the confusing of the institution of Catholicism with "Christian" and the relegating of it to a mere cultural phenomenon.

Have we made any progress at all, I might wonder, thinking as a Christian. Or is your desire for that thesis so strong that no amount of countervailing evidence is sufficient to trouble it? That would be a concern for any sociological or historical hypothesis, of course.

[Alexis Jacobi]

You'll forgive me, perhaps, if I wonder what the value of our previous discussions has been: for at the start, you were committed both to the confusing of the institution of Catholicism with "Christian" and the relegating of it to a mere cultural phenomenon.

Have we made any progress at all, I might wonder, thinking as a Christian. Or is your desire for that thesis so strong that no amount of countervailing evidence is sufficient to trouble it? That would be a concern for any sociological or historical hypothesis, of course.

My views have not changed really. I take what you offer -- your particular Protestant view -- as hyper-idealistic. It is in this sense irreal. I mean no offense! You mention a few people, Kierkegaard among them, who you define as 'truly Christian'. But no actual Christian group that I could visit with and learn about.

You present your *ideal Christian* as a contrast to the Christianity that is!

I work with the idea, the fact really, that European Christianity is, in fact, Catholicism. That is about 1,000 years. But I am not hindered with the same issue as you are. I now see with greater clarity the degree to which the Early Christians and the religion they brought was assimilated into the Greek and thus the European world. Catholicism assimilated into itself many many different strains of practice but also understanding and ideal. And this is how it should be.

I would not say 'mere cultural phenomenon', that is your interpretive term. I would simply say what I have been saying: that the original impetus of the first Christians was transferred to and assimilated by the Greeks. I could even describe this as Providential. And in fact I see it like this.

The fact is that I do not think I am inventing a thesis but rather that I am simply describing the situation realistically.

Where I can agree with you, and I do agree with you, is in working in the area of clarification, or highlighting, of what Christianity originally was, in contrast with how it developed and what it became. I do not have an issue with your thrust in this area. One could do this however within the Catholic tradition. Now why would I chose to do this rather than to abandon Catholicism altogether? (It is a bit absurd because I am not really a Catholic).

I have not concealed nor would I that I am more interested in what the Indo-Europeans (the various European groupings) did with their version of Christianity than I am, necessarily, with the original version. The reason is, as I say, that the Europeans 'built a world'. They constructed civilization.

Then you conclude that Belinda is a "product of that Christian culture." Again, the assumption returns that "Christian" is a culture and all it takes for a person to be "a product of it" is that they live in Europe somewhere.

I recognize and respect gradations. Gradations of commitment are part-and-parcel of the human world. I simply accept this as so.

[Alexis Jacobi]

No, mere "deviation from command" is what's called Legalism, not Christianity.

I meant something different.

For the Early Christians there was no *Christian philosophy*. In fact the religion was so new, so untried, so speculative in a sense, that it could not ever have become a part of the culture it came to unless the culture assimilated and adapted it. So this was necessary. If I say that Jews and early Christians lived *under the command of God*, I would contrast this with the Greek method, or application, of having to define and prove why any particular *command* was believable, necessary and actionable. Catholic and Christian theology are presented in this way.

This is the difference I wanted to point to. When God gave commands to the Hebrews he did not offer options. It was not to be rationalized. It could not be objected to on ethical or moral grounds nor any intellectual ground. Commands had to be obeyed or the consequences would be dealt with. When a command was disobeyed, starting from that fateful apple, sin resulted. Sin is a result of disobedience. I don't think there can be any doubt about this.

In the Greco-Christian tradition, at least in its philosophical branch, it all had to be worked out to accord with rational ideas. And when it was applied to culture at large it had to assimilate itself in jurisprudence and in government. There could have been no possibility of this being done outside of the developed Greco-Roman system.

[Immanuel Can]

You mention a few people, Kierkegaard among them, who you define as 'truly Christian'. But no actual Christian group that I could visit with and learn about.

Well, you didn't stipulate that. "Ask, and you shall receive": I could point you to many...but I don't know the Colombian scene well enough to help you out at home.

I work with the idea, the fact really, that European Christianity is, in fact, Catholicism.

Yes, I got that.

Unfortunately for that hypothesis, almost all of what the Catholic Church does today, and even what it has done for many centuries past, bears any resemblance to the teachings of Christ Himself, whatsoever. So it's a singularly inapt identification...a fact you could verify for yourself, if you took the term "Christian" to have any necessary reference to the Person of Christ.

Where I can agree with you, and I do agree with you, is in working in the area of clarification, or highlighting, of what Christianity originally was, in contrast with how it developed and what it became. I do not have an issue with your thrust in this area. One could do this however within the Catholic tradition.

Actually, you couldn't.

What you would find, if you researched actual Catholic history, is that all their doctrines have come as innovations or insertions made by mere men. You could find the years in which these things were instituted, such as: Purgatory (1274), The Doctrine of Indulgences (1571), Papal Infallibility (1870), The Assumption of Mary (1950), and so on. (Imagine that: they only "discovered" that Mary was immaculate to the point of being magically transported to Heaven a half century ago; one wonders where she's been all this time.)

You'll find out that since it's very inception, the Catholic Church has been a morphing organization, on that took its shape on piecemeal, as political necessity developed, and has always been committed not to the Bible at all, nor even faithful to its own traditions, which it has continually modified, but rather devoted singularly to the alleged authority of its ecclesiastical men.

You can find out all this from the Catholic historians...you don't need me to confirm it. They don't like to give a singular clear timeline of their major doctrines, because that would make the whole sham too obvious; but you can find the dates in the individual documents by which they declared the particular doctrines themselves. It is as if they never really knew where they were going, or where they were going to end up. Of course, that always happens when one plays fast-and-loose with the Original.

If I can remark without offence, it seems to me that for some reason you seem inextricably wedded to melding "Catholic" and "Christian." I can only surmise it must be for the convenience of holding to some thesis you find winsome...maybe your theory of "Christian" civilization. Maybe a (rather Modern) desire to remain "inclusive" at all costs. Maybe because that supposition is foundational to another you are at pains to hold. I don't know. But I think the facts, examined carefully, simply won't assist that thesis. And keeping the thesis will only be purchasable by the expedient of keeping the facts in very fuzzy focus.

[Nick_A]

No, mere "deviation from command" is what's called Legalism, not Christianity.

I meant something different.

For the Early Christians there was no *Christian philosophy*. In fact the religion was so new, so untried, so speculative in a sense, that it could not ever have become a part of the culture it came to unless the culture assimilated and adapted it. So this was necessary. If I say that Jews and early Christians lived *under the command of God*, I would contrast this with the Greek method, or application, of having to define and prove why any particular *command* was believable, necessary and actionable. Catholic and Christian theology are presented in this way.

This is the difference I wanted to point to. When God gave commands to the Hebrews he did not offer options. It was not to be rationalized. It could not be objected to on ethical or moral grounds nor any intellectual ground. Commands had to be obeyed or the consequences would be dealt with. When a command was disobeyed, starting from that fateful apple, sin resulted. Sin is a result of disobedience. I don't think there can be any doubt about this.

In the Greco-Christian tradition, at least in its philosophical branch, it all had to be worked out to accord with rational ideas. And when it was applied to culture at large it had to assimilate itself in jurisprudence and in government. There could have been no possibility of this being done outside of the developed Greco-Roman system.

You may find this link suggests important observations on Christian Platonism

https://catholicgnosis.wordpress.com/20 ... rituality/

OR some time I’ve hesitated to address the question, ‘What is Christian Platonism?’, believing this is something too important to treat lightly. Just when it seemed I could delay no longer, W. R. Inge’s book, The Platonic Tradition in English Religious Thought (Hulsean Lectures, 1925−1926), became available online. As Inge’s definition and understanding of Christian Platonism, it turns out, corresponds closely to my own, and also has the imprimatur of a respected authority, let this suffice as a working definition for now.

As Inge explains in the first lecture, the key features of Christian Platonism might be summarized as follows:

Christian Platonism is, first and foremost, a form of personal spirituality. It is not the abstract application of Platonic philosophy by Christian theologians (whom we might rather call Platonizing Christians). It is, as Inge puts it, a religion of the spirit. As such, it is based on personal religious experience, and, for that reason, not infrequently poses a challenge to dogmatic, authoritarian religion.
This form of spirituality is very much — if not almost exactly — what St. Paul described as spiritual mindedness. As such, Christian Platonism is concerned with achieving a certain higher level of consciousness or awareness opposed to, or at least different from, our usual concerns for material and worldly things (carnal-mindedness).
A religion of the spirit is the perennial philosophy, although this has evolved over time. It was the basis of Christ’s original teachings, which sought more to spiritually liberate individuals than to establish church hierarchies and dogmas.
In each age there have been specific obstacles opposing the emergence of spiritual Christianity. Despite this, there have been periodic flowerings of it at opportune moments of history. Hopefully now is such a time.
Below are excerpts from this lecture, along with a few comments.

A religion of the Spirit is the perennial tradition. It is remembered, while morals are temporal social traditions forever argued over.