Christianity

[Immanuel Can]

The most controversial question of the day: What is Christianity?

How can it be controversial? That's the really stunning question.

To be a "Christ-ian" is definitionally to be one who follows in the path and teachings of Christ Himself.

We could debate what that path requires, perhaps, some of the fine specifics of how one is to act accordingly; though there's little enough controversy in that, too. But there can be no other legitimate definition, of course. Everything else is just an "Y-ian". And we have to find some other authority for "Y," because if Christ didn't advocate it, it ain't "Christian", by definition.

Nobody can call the Inquisition, the Crusades (Muslim or Catholic), or the Wars of Religion, or the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, or the Pogroms, or the Papacy, or indulgences, or Pharisaic Legalism, or Gnosticism "Christian," for the simple reason that these things are flatly contradicted by Christ Himself.

Have we lost our critical faculties completely? Have we lost even our sense of the simple definition of an obvious word? How can we even be asking such a vacuous question?

[Belinda]

The most controversial question of the day: What is Christianity?

How can it be controversial? That's the really stunning question.

To be a "Christ-ian" is definitionally to be one who follows in the path and teachings of Christ Himself.

We could debate what that path requires, perhaps, some of the fine specifics of how one is to act accordingly; though there's little enough controversy in that, too. But there can be no other legitimate definition, of course. Everything else is just an "Y-ian". And we have to find some other authority for "Y," because if Christ didn't advocate it, it ain't "Christian", by definition.

Nobody can call the Inquisition, the Crusades (Muslim or Catholic), or the Wars of Religion, or the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, or the Pogroms, or the Papacy, or indulgences, or Pharisaic Legalism, or Gnosticism "Christian," for the simple reason that these things are flatly contradicted by Christ Himself.

Have we lost our critical faculties completely? Have we lost even our sense of the simple definition of an obvious word? How can we even be asking such a vacuous question?

Neither Nick nor you know who the best Biblical scholars are. The Bible has been misinterpreted as you must know. The best bet for interpreters are peer- reviewed modern historians and anthropologists. You are both arrogantly unwilling to be labelled ignorant and to be tutored by people who have learned more than you have. You are worse than Nick who at least can ask a question.

[uwot]

To be a "Christ-ian" is definitionally to be one who follows in the path and teachings of Christ Himself.

34 “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. 36 And a person's enemies will be those of his own household. 37 Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.
-Matthew 10
So you have to be a bit of a git. Good work Mr Can.

[attofishpi]

To be a "Christ-ian" is definitionally to be one who follows in the path and teachings of Christ Himself.

We could debate what that path requires, perhaps, some of the fine specifics of how one is to act accordingly; though there's little enough controversy in that, too. But there can be no other legitimate definition, of course. Everything else is just an "Y-ian". And we have to find some other authority for "Y," because if Christ didn't advocate it, it ain't "Christian", by definition.

Have we lost our critical faculties completely?

Talking of loss, why don't Christians per se see it as a requirement to have the foreskins of their penis chopped off, as the Jews do and as God demanded?

[henry quirk]

Christianity, certainly in our present, can only be understood when examined through *a broadened approach.

*Insofar as I, a non-Christian, can advance the discussion, I say this: to me, this is the wrong direction.

Christianity fails precisely becuz it's taken as communal or corporate.

A man's relationship with God (and isn't that at the heart of Christianity?) is his relationship with God, not his standing in the congregation or community.

Jesus didn't speak to the masses, but, instead, spoke to each man in the crowd.

The Bible isn't for men, but, instead, is for each man.

Narrow is the way...

[henry quirk]

But apart from what millions of individuals believe, say ,and do, does Christianity exist? I mean if you can imagine a world with no people in it, would Christianity exist?

Hell if I know.

[Belinda]

But apart from what millions of individuals believe, say ,and do, does Christianity exist? I mean if you can imagine a world with no people in it, would Christianity exist?

Hell if I know.

Why do you visit a philosophy forum if you can be nothing but facetious? Do you not have a duty to yourself and your children to think for yourself?

[Immanuel Can]

Neither Nick nor you know who the best Biblical scholars are.

[Immanuel Can]

Talking of loss, why don't Christians per se see it as a requirement to have the foreskins of their penis chopped off, as the Jews do and as God demanded?

You have strange interests.

But you could try reading Gal. 6:15.

[henry quirk]

But apart from what millions of individuals believe, say ,and do, does Christianity exist? I mean if you can imagine a world with no people in it, would Christianity exist?

Hell if I know.

Why do you visit a philosophy forum if you can be nothing but facetious? Do you not have a duty to yourself and your children to think for yourself?

Not bein' facetious, B.

You asked a question: if you can imagine a world with no people in it, would Christianity exist?

I gave you an honest answer: Hell if I know.

If that ain't good enough: get bent.

[Alexis Jacobi]

One of us has a definition of "Christianity," and the other doesn't.

It isn't the one who doesn't who "understands" anything.

Well, the essence of my position, and yet I admit that I do not have this worked out completely because it is, really, a very difficult psychic, psychological, intellectual, historical and social problem, the essence of my position I have already revealed; directly and honestly. I will make an effort to explain, once again, and then I hope to be able to tie what I think to some of what I have been researching about the beliefs, ideas and writings of Simone Weil (who I've never read but who is a very interesting figure and worthy of examination). I know that you will be able to understand none of it, because of the nature of the fortress you have established for yourself and reside in, but no matter!

I do not believe in, and find it impossible to believe in, an absolute external source that is defined as God.

There is a contradiction to what I have previously thought and said when I have expressed 'belief in' the existence of metaphysical principles and the notion of Logos. That is, that what is true in our world (what can be discovered to be ultimately true) must then be true simultaneously 'in all possible worlds'. On Earth but in all worlds (which I believe must exist). The reason I take this tack is because it is a 'logical' tack to take. So, the figure of Jesus Christ, as an emissary of God and the Logos, is in a significant sense a diagram of the relationship of metaphysical truth to the material and mutable plane in which we live. Meaning that in all places, in all times, throughout the universe, the descent of an avatar of God must be a fact of this created, manifested world. But the specificity of the Picture, the historical event (if one believes in it and, it must be stated, many cannot), the symbolic meaning of the descent of God into a material, biological and mutable sphere where certain levels of awareness manifest themselves (our human awareness, our consciousness) -- the same must be repeated, and must have been repeated, and will forever be repeated, throughout the Universe and the Kosmos.

So when I say that I do not believe in an absolute source what I mean must be explained. I do not believe in the Picture that becomes necessary for the visualization of 'God'. It is impossible to create a picture to represent God (the origin of all things) because (I must assume) what God is in this sense is non-material. The *notion of God* is also non-material. And the *stuff* (to use a non-workable metaphor!) which the psyche of man deals in when it conceives of ideas is also of a non-material nature. I am not sure if many people grasp this. It has to be pointed out for it even to be thought about. It is in our psyche and out of our psyche (the physicists refer to this as 'consciousness' and they cannot explain it) that all of our *productions* arise. Our effect in this world, our molding of the world, is as a result of those impositions that arise in our psyche.

The focus is therefore, and must be, in and toward the psyche. Meaning, there is no external location of 'God' (and 'God' should always be put in quotations because when God it referred to God in fact is not referred to! since by doing so it is reduced to a concept, a picture, and the picture is not what the picture represents. The term is a sort of necessary shorthand but to rely on the term exposes many different traps. We cannot do without it but it does not help us to clarify.

The language of God, the description of God, is generally speaking always a false conceptual path. Yet we cannot do without the conception, and we cannot do without the *path*. A path is a way to get from one concept-point to another concept-point. But let's face one solid fact: most people when they 'align themselves with God' are aligning themselves with a limited picture of a conception, but largely with a moral and ethical code. This is how it should be and there is no way around it. If I am explaining anything, and if I am making any sense at all, it is because I am dealing in terms that are those pertinent to 'gnosis', and gnosis refers to ideas that are 'not for everyone'.

So, it is true: the 'horizon was erased'. And on that horizon (which is man's imagination) the Giant Picture that is the Christian description of Reality was painted. It is all false. That is to say, it is all 'pictures painted on the walls of the cave'. I guess you could say 'shadows cast on the wall of man's imagination and screen of consciousness' and that would work as well. But a truth must be confronted: many people will not be able to understand that though the 'image' is technically unreal (a picture, a trope) what the picture refers to is not! But what is referred to is, literally, in another dimension. That dimension is the immateriality of concept, and it is this that man confronts (deals with, works with) through that inexplicable entity known as psyche.

What is God? Where is God? Once you've done the math, so to speak, the only conclusion that remains is that God and Psyche, or Psyche and God, is the only place that the *endeavor* could take place. The external picture may be elaborate, or simple, or ancient, or futuristic, but it is merely a picture, not the real thing. But even to propose a 'real thing' is to refer, still, to a picture. We have no choice but to picture (as a verb). We are instruments that picture. But it goes without saying that an instrument, any instrument, cannot ever arrive at a 'real picture'.

It must be understood that *most people* will not, indeed will not want to, grasp these ideas. Certainly many do not have any interest at all. Most can only be presented with, and 'held' by, concrete images that are presented as 'absolute'. So, if you are going to tell one of them about Jesus Christ, you are going to have to present them with as detailed a picture as is possible to paint. Not only does the story have to be coherent but, if possible, you will do well to present them with an artifact that "proves' the existence of the historical personage. If you suggested, as I am suggesting, that in fact any picture is just a picture (a visualization!) you will confuse them and, unfortunately, they will not be able to *believe in* the Story.

But there is another dimension and I have also referred to it. Judaism and Judeo-Christianity are 'constructs' and 'pictures' that pertain to the people who created the story, the history (the lived and *real* history as well as the imagined and mythological history -- and these two bizarrely interweave and intertwine). When the Mediterranean generals and their ideological educators conquered the northern regions, the people who were there already had, largely, their world-picture. In what sense? Not as something defined and concretized in written language, but something very essential and part of the 'substructure' of their being. They received all that Christianity represents (this is far more than merely the Gospel stories, a cross and a church building), but what they received came to them with *compulsion*. That is, through the imposition of power. Nevertheless, what they received, which also came through pictures that were entertained in the imagination, they simultaneously modified, transfigured, transvalued, what they were presented with. All of this began in the 7th century (more or less) and waaaaaaay back in the earliest days.

Here, it must be understood that though *Christianity* could be pictured as a solid, defined thing, no matter where it is received, and who receives it, the *it* of it will be bent, modified, interpreted, adapted and all other terms referring to the same thing.

If this is so, and it is certainly so, what then is Christianity? You would have to present a specific picture from a specific place and talk about that Christianity. So my reference point is the Germanic World (because of my identification as European). When I say Germanic World I mean the core of Europe. And I also mean Indo-European. This opens up a problematic question of identity. And as we all know the issue of identity (blood & soil) has arisen and has been presented as a Specter. It is a difficult and complex topic and, here, I cannot go into it, but present Christian forms, in their milquetoast versions, present a form of Universalism that (in my view) must be resisted, opposed and vanquished. Is Jesus Christ then the image or the representative of this Universalism? If yes, then that Jesus Christ must be resisted. Or to put it another way rewritten. Re-pictured.

So I have a position that is potentially intensely dedicated to a re-drawing of the picture. My posture is 'identitarian'. This arises in the context, my context, of realizing, acutely, the degree to which I have been influenced to abandon my 'roots'. And I must use that rather troubling term 'blood & soil'. Meaning, the place where I originated and the biological structure through which my ancestors gave me what they worked for. Heritage, locality, way-of-being, things indeed exclusive, things that I must say These are mine (and not yours). This is all highly problematic stuff. It is filled with all sort of problems and dangers.

In the next post I will talk a bit about Simone Weil and two titles that interest me:

Intimations of Christianity Among The Greeks

The Need of Roots

[uwot]

Neither Nick nor you know who the best Biblical scholars are.

You're right Belinda, it's not objective. Everyone's favourite biblical scholar is the one who says what they want to hear.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Humanity lives in imagination arguing opinions. But what if there is a small minority not governed by imagination but have become conscious so as to experience human meaning and purpose? They would know what Christianity is as a perennial reality and live according to its precepts as common sense. Is conscious humanity fiction or a reality? Is there a transcendent kingdom or level of reality as Simone describes? My gut feeling is that there is. I'm humble enough to know it doesn't include me.

Simone Weil is interesting because she comes out of an extremely secular French culture, from a secular Jewish background, was oriented very strongly toward social concerns, was a Marxist for a time (?) and even took up positions in the Spanish Civil War -- not to speak of her activities in the Resistance. Then at some point her thought turned more in so-called mystical defections. She is described by some (Susan Sontag I believe) as an *anti-Semite* (she is said to have said that Judaism has had too much influence in Occidental culture but I do not know what she meant by this) and by others as both a 'truly authentic and grand person' (one the the very few of the 20th century) as well as a lunatic (!) She worked in factories for 6 months to see what that life was like for the working-class, and also went to Germany in the 1930s to see what Germans lived with.

Here is an interesting article (1951).

Few contributions to COMMENTARY have excited so immediate and intense an impact as Simone Weil’s essay “Hitler and the Idea of Greatness,” printed in our July issue. But this reaction was not untypical of the effect on the contemporary mind of the work of this writer, who died in England in 1943 at the age of thirty-four—a death brought about, at least in part, by self-inflicted starvation: although seriously ill, she refused to eat more than what made up the official ration in occupied France. At the time of her death, she was known in France—to the extent that she was known at all—as an eccentric and brilliant writer on politics and literature. After her death, a small group in the United States who had read translations of several of her essays knew her as a sensitive and eloquent moralist. In the years since, her reputation has steadily grown, and with the posthumous publication of her religious writings she has come to be regarded as one of the most significant religious thinkers to have been produced by France in the past two decades. Here Leslie A. Fiedler tries to find some of the keys to the personality and thought of this troubled spirit and ardent mystic who was born into a Jewish family, violently rejected her Jewishness, as she did most of the influences of her early life, lectured from the doorsteps, so to speak, of the Catholic Church, of which she never became a communicant, and wrote, along with much that is merely tortured and self-lacerating, winged words of moral and spiritual insight which men of all faiths find moving and relevant.

[henry quirk]

Neither Nick nor you know who the best Biblical scholars are.

You're right Belinda, it's not objective. Everyone's favourite biblical scholar is the one who says what they want to hear.

Seems to me: too many folks defer to the scholars.

If you wanna know Christianity (Christ): read the Bible.

[Alexis Jacobi]

But apart from what millions of individuals believe, say, and do, does Christianity exist? I mean if you can imagine a world with no people in it, would Christianity exist?

The question could only be answered according to the way that a given person structured their views. This is why I say that if Christianity is 'real' one has separate out from within it (by a process of distillation, of cooking) to get to the *essence* of what it is. Otherwise it is a historical artifact.

And if one can do that, one will have located a metaphysical residue that is universal (and part-and-parcel of the created universe, and arising in it and out of it).

And that essence will have next to nothing, or nothing, to do with the material and biological planet Earth unless conscious, human persons are there to conceive it, to receive it (if one tends to see metaphysical principles as ever-existent).

This Christianity involves Ideas that are *impositions* that are received uniquely by conscious entity. No other entity could conceive of all of that (and much else of the human world).