Christianity

[Immanuel Can]

Below I have copied and pasted my theory from my post of May 12 at 9.24 AM.

That's not "your theory," at all. You're avoiding answering, or having trouble grasping the question: I don't know which.

It does not give an account of how human beings can evolve as a group without relying on some mutation by way of reproduction. And if they can't, then you're stuck having to conclude there was an original mating pair.

But I'm still waiting to hear your Evolutionary account. God ahead.

But biology, unlike Genesis, is not concerned with ethics. The human condition, with which Genesis deals, is a lot more complicated than evolution by natural selection.

You're dodging. To answer my question, you don't even need to refer to Genesis at all...not even a bit. You just have to understand the basic biology story you're insisting is true, and be able to explain why you think it works.

Here's the truth: you don't have any way of explaining how Evolution could take place without an original mating pair. So you keep pretending not to understand the question; but by now, I know you've got it.

You've just got no answer.

[uwot]

I do not regard it as a defect that early Christianity incorporated into itself different traditions. As I have said a few times those early centuries were made up of 'a confusion of peoples' and also a confusion of ideas and conceptions.

Remind me Gus: in your view, does one have to take any of the New Testament as true to be a Christian? Of course they have informed world events, but do you care whether the gospels are history or literature?

[Immanuel Can]

I do not regard it as a defect that early Christianity incorporated into itself different traditions.

You should -- if for no other purpose than to make your theory work.

A singular, monolythic "Christianity" would be possible to generalize about. One that's too diverse will thwart every effort at historical generalizations: for every theory you might wish to propose, there will be so many exceptions and such great variation that abundant examples disproving the theory will inevitably appear immediately.

That's why so many historians find it useful to fudge the whole idea. It's very, very hard to work with, and impossible to make generalizations about, unless you have a very precise idea about what it is.

In your case, because you attempt to define a *pure* Christian fundamentalism, you exclude, in my view nearly literally, everything that Christianity actually was...

Ha!

So the problem, for you, is not just the lack of a precise definition: it's that I don't blindly accept YOUR definition!

For you claim that I cannot say what Christianity actually is, and then you claim you know "everything that Christianity actually was."

Classic. I am so amused.

When asked Who in history actually lived out of this perspective-interpretation? you offer a few references, but this has always seemed weak to me.

Well, that's fine. It's the truth, but you don't have to like it. There are actually lots of people who have lived this way. If you want to ignore them all, and expound about some mythical "Christendom," then you can. I just can't take that very seriously, because its faults are obvious.

From your position within your Fort you can, and you do, take on all comers.

Sound like a great "fort"! It's doing everything it should.

...this staked-out position enables you to judge all of Christian history, and all of Christian Europe, as essentially non-Christian or contaminated Christian.

Well, that's the real issue: how is Christianity to be "staked out." It's a hermeneutical problem, really, a problem of how-to-define.

But it's similar to the other problems historians routinely encounter, such as "Who was a Roman, and who was a barbarian," or "Where does Algeria legitimately stop, and Libya rightly begin?" These are difficult questions, but simply cannot be dodged by the ethical historian. One has to know the entity about which one is making claims, and have a defensible definition that is not under constant assail. No theory can get going at all without that.

And the worldpicture that you seem to hold to is a very very strict and very circumscribed enthusiastic Christian religious posture.

What you mean is that my definition is more exact than anything you're happy with, because an exact definition would harm the theory. I get it.

What you say thus reduces to this: "Either you submit in an internal act to the concept-picture I have of Jesus Christ and as a result of this a) allow God to reconstruct you (this involves an odd manoeuvre of setting your self and your own conscious will aside to a large degree since Man cannot guide himself because Man is fundamentally corrupt) and b) allow God to bequeath the state of *being saved* that I refer to; or you do not."

Not quite. It's much simpler than that.

I just tell you what the Bible says. I quote it directly. And you either deal with the quotation -- assessing, criticizing, reinterpreting, whatever -- or you don't. It's that simple. And when you decide what the Bible is saying, you either take it seriously, or you don't. That's all up to you. I'm just the messenger here, and my "concept-pictures" have nothing to do with it. See what the Bible says, and deal with it. That's how to do the business.

Or don't. That's up to you. I can't make you do the right thing.

For those who do not, according to the logic of the zealous binary proposition, there can be no 'true rebuilding', no 'rebirth' in the spiritual sense referred to in the Gospels, and any who live outside of the realm you define are 'the lost' and the 'alienated'. You use a term like 'eternal alienation' as a type of substitute for the traditional image of Christian hell. But you hold to the view that once in that after-life state one will be there eternally.

Is that your reading of what the Bible says? That's the only important question for you to decide.

Then, you either listen, or you don't. But it has to be your reading, because it's your conscience, your soul, and your eternity. None of the above have anything at all to do with me personally.

And if we were to broach that conversation -- an examination of what appears to me to be right, in any case possible -- we would veer into territories that you could not go.

We've already been there, and if you want to go there, we can go again. I'm fine with that. But I don't think the relevant passages of Scripture will change, nor will "Christian" become a thing that fits your theory merely because you want it to.

You missed my point in my reference to Benny Hinn.

I don't think I did. I just find him totally irrelevant in any discussion of "Christianity."

I was making a reference to *enthusiastic religion*

Yeah, I'm not one of those. Nor are other Christians. You can't be saved by "enthusiasm."

...taking the most extreme example I could imagine -- a total evangelical Christian lunatic who runs an entire 'show' which is also a big business.

Heh. No, what you were trying to do was "shoot fish in a barrel." You were taking the most graphic case of abuse of the name "Christian" you could think of, and hoping to use it to muddy the waters with real Christians. We're so used to seeing that.

And yet, we remain unimpressed.

So, I get that you see yourself as a 'chemically-pure' and 'original' Christian

Nothing so grand. I simply see myself as a Christian who knows what a Christian is. There are quite a lot of us around, acutally.

What I am trying to point out, and the area that I work in, has more to do with understanding the Pictures that we work with -- worldpicture, our Weltanschauung, out of which and from which we 'conceive of the world' in which we live.

I'm very familiar with that. I could, in fact, give you the whole history of "worldview analysis," and have lots of books on that, including the most important authors. This is an entirely familiar and unsurprising approach. I know it well.

It does have something to say for it. It can be incredibly useful. But it's always entirely dependent on good definitions. For "worldviews" are generalizations; and like all generalizations, they can only be justly stated about the particular field the historian or sociologist has precisely defined. So once again, the lack of a good definition will frustrate the entire project, in which case, worldview analysis will come to nothing. Its claims will quickly prove perfidious.

If you say "Well, that is all well and good, but where do you stand morally and ethically (as well as metaphysically)?", I can only answer by saying I have done the best that I can do, and I am doing the best that I can do, within the existing perceptual structures that perceptual life have provided me with. I am simply a man within my context.

Is that a lapse back to social determinism? That seems kind of irresponsible, if I can use that word precisely. That is, it refuses to "respond" to the challenge encountered, and retreats to a "there's nothing more I can do" position.

But you wouldn't do that: you have more courage, I think. And I also sense you have a view of personal ethical responsibility, which would be utterly impossible if "I am simply a man within my context" explained that you can only think certain things because your social "context" conditions you to think them.

And what good, then, would worldview analysis be for you? You'd be so predetermined to stay in your own lane, you couldn't possibly make sense of anything in anybody else's worldview. Ironically, that's what you seemed to be trying to accuse me of doing; and here you are, appealing to that strategy to avoid personal responsibility? That would not make sense. I must not be getting the thrust of what you're trying to communicate by "I am simply a man within my context." But I invite you to explain, if you wish.

Salvation? From what to what?

Did I not answer this both simply and immediately? Shame on me, then.

From sin, from self, from a lost eternity, to forgiveness, faith and hope. That's what a person is saved from and to. If that's not clear enough, I invite further question. I'm quite happy to answer.

[Dontaskme]

To be SAVED

Is to save for the future by returning from the past into the eternal present

The concept to be SAVED is pure mental - only the mind moves - not you.

No living thing ever was lost, it was only returned to what it always is.

You cannot say that you will keep returning until you sin no more because you can only know the present as real. The present is not given to you. You are the present

[Alexis Jacobi]

AJ: But when one speaks of 'pagan religions' I'd be more inclined to speak about force of impetus or something irrational, like a longing for participation, a longing to feel oneself 'deeply connected', that is so central to our psychology, our human longing.

I don't have any objection to the saying that pagan religions or any religions are "central our psychology, our human longing." But what are we "longing" for? And why are we "longing" for it? If it's something we don't have now, why do we "long" for something that's impossible? And if we have it already, we would not be "longing" for it?

The question, though, is "Are all human traditions equally true?" They may all articulate human longings, but do they articulate them all truthfully? Are they all "barking up the right tree?" Or are some on the wrong track altogether?

Recent sociology of religion has some definite positions relevant to this. And one of the few things they agree on totally is what's called "incommensurabilty." Incommensurability means that we all now have to recognize, if we're honest at all, that not all world traditions can be reconciled into one thing, such that no tradition "loses" and none "wins" in a given conclusion. The reason for this decision -- made entirely by secular, not theological scholars -- is that detailed investigation of those traditions shows their various claims and precepts to be actually directly contradictory. So they cannot possibly all be true: and to treat them as such turns out to actually do an injury to all of them.

So the myth of universal unity in religions is now thoroughly dead, in all places but in the minds of leftover liberals of a dying age. Secular scholarship, not just religious scholarship, has proceeded beyond the simple-minded conflactions of the Frazers and such of a past day, and even beyond the Jungian architypes. We all agree now that we are dealing with a situation of incommensurability, not commensurability in traditions.

When Nietzsche is brought up, the German and the Germanic world of the fin de siècle is brought up with it. I do not profess to have a solid handle on it but I do have some inklings. In order to study and understand what I might, I hope fairly, call the German Identity Movement, which is to say a movement that arose along with Nietzsche but which Nietzsche did not invent, there are various strains of idea that have to be taken into consideration. None of this is easy territory because, in fact, we are ourselves, now, very much in the midst of similar octaves of the (similar) problems.

To understand that German nationalism and Germanic identitarianism, and to understand the cultural and intellectual revolution within the German and the pan-Germanic world of that era, one will have to take off ideological blinders, those 'sets of guiding ideas' that have been predetermined through the interpretive prejudices of our politically-correct present. I can only provide the most general outline.

Part of it had (and has still) to do with getting out from under a vast cultural imposition. That is, the conquest of the uncivilized Northern tribes by the acculturated, civilization-bearing Mediterranean culture. The reign, as it were, of this cultural imposition defined Medieval Europe.

But as I said, and I cited at least one source, as Mediterranean Christianity and those civilization-forms were imposed on the North, at the same time and simultaneously these were both received and also modified. If this is so, and it seems certainly to be so, one can inquire as to what those modifications entailed. But at a certain time, and for varying reasons (and a complex of reasons) it became, what is the word? let's say necessary to throw off the yoke of Catholicism. Was this purely an idea-rebellion? or did it involve simultaneously a psychic and psychological rebellion? Both. But I will place emphasis on the psychic aspect.

As I say I see Nietzsche as a 'culmination' of this 'throwing-off' process. What was set in motion was something 'profoundly psychological' but also existential. So then in order to understand the developing German, and Germanic, identitarianism one must revisit those who were most involved in the ideological processes. For example I had to read Foundations of the Nineteenth Century by Houston Steward Chamberlain because he is said to have been one of the major influences within that Germanic movement (I mean comprising the entire Germanic world, not just the German nation).

What one finds there is, as with so many things, a complex of ideas and motives. But what I can tell you (and those who have not read him) is that about 25% of the first volume is titled The Revelation of Christ. However, the effort is largely that of focusing on Jesus Christ as an opponent of the Jewish power-structure. If there is a base to anti-Semitism, as in one basic and solid idea, I believe that Chamberlain described it: What assaults and terrifies, say, the Germanic mind, is the Jewish historical will. That is to say a cultural will that operates through time and among a people (the Jews) scattered into and living among European, Indo-European and the (the word that was used then without the shades it has today was) and "Aryan" peoples.

To put it in the most simple and reduced terms what bothered and terrified those of Germanic stock, and those interested in the recovery of what they believed was a purer and original form of Indo-Europeanism -- conceived as Hellenic culture from its earliest roots to its flowering -- was the powerful and undeniably self-centered will of the Hebrew peoples who, as they saw it, were pursuing their *historical projects* to which their historical will directed them. So (and again simply put) a countervailing will developed to resist this *intrusion*.

So consciousness of Indo-Europeanism being and also 'self' came to bear against what was seen and described as a non-European, Judean, Hebrew, and to a definitely perceived degree invasive and foreign impetus or spirit. The Hebrew Diaspora, as all know, in combination with historical factors, located many Jews within the Rhine Valley and thus when Germany unified it enclosed those peoples. And with the Jewish emancipation the cultural problems, the contrasts of culture, were exacerbated.

Now, if someone (say Dubious) were to say that Nietzsche was not an anti-Semite and was an anti-anti-Semite I would largely agree. It is true that he had no particular animus toward any specific Jew. But in the wider circle of German and Germanic identitarianism, and Nietzsche's core opposition to certain essential tenets of Christianity, he reveals what is, I think, the background or backdrop to the larger issue, which is both ideological and profoundly psychological with a large element that is unconscious (in the Freudian and Jungian sense). But can it be described as 'personal'? No, I don't think so.

So here is an odd fact: Carl Jung was himself very much a product and an exponent of the 'trhwoing off' of the Christian and the Jewish yoke; and Carl Jung was perhaps more deeply thn any other deeply involved in and committed to a self-discovery, a self-realization, of his own Pagan and of course Indo-European and and Germanic roots.

I only point this out 1) because my researches indicate it is true, and 2) only to be able to establish a ground on which and through which we can broach a conversation about ourselves and where we ourselves now stand, insofar as we are outcomes of these Modern historical processes.

Now I know that you, IC, are absolutely and completely scandalized with some of these facts and references. This is why I said, many pages back, that you are actually more of a Christian Jew than you are anything else. Modern Evangelical Christianity has become allied with Jewish Zionism. Christian Zionism serves Jewish Zionism.

Now if you want, if we want, to understand what is going on in our present with the rise of various strains of right-tending nationalism, as well as race-identitarianism and also European identitarianism and even 'white nationalism' as well as the similarly rising left-oriented 'globalist' ideology -- you and we are going to have to let drop all the boundaries, ideological and of politically correct varieties, that have been established around these issues.

Don't get mad at me for telling you this truth!

[Dontaskme]

All rivers naturally flow back to the ocean- don’t get caught in the eddies

The bible was a human psyop written by acid heads

[Alexis Jacobi]

Remind me Gus: in your view, does one have to take any of the New Testament as true to be a Christian? Of course they have informed world events, but do you care whether the gospels are history or literature?

You mean 'remind' you in a Platonic sense I gather?

The way I see things -- it is idiosyncratic I'd admit -- is that any man and every man exists within his *imagined world*. Meaning, that 'the world' is viewed through an imagining apparatus.

I have to imagine the Gospel world when I read the Gospels. But when I do complete my reading, and when I have, say, received and extracted the message (and what is that message?), I am still, and only, within my *imagined world* -- within my own self where I see, perceive, interpret and live.

Oddly, no one can take the Gospel story as real since it is being grasped in an unreal world, our imagined world.

So what I focus on -- as I have said numerous times -- is our 'metaphysical dream of the world'. Which is what I have just described.

I think what you are asking -- and I commend you for avoiding drooling when you do ask -- is Do I consider Jesus Christ God as a literal and real entity or power somewhere out there, in some celestial plane, up there or out there in a heavenly world, outside of my own self; and if and when I pray to Jesus Christ God, does Jesus Christ God then beam down into me that grace or enlivening or whatever it is that a Christian refers to?

This is the way that it is conceived, is it not? Or to put it another way There must be some conceptual image that is held in the mind (the imagination) through which whatever we are talking about (if one thinks theistically) is imagined to take place.

So I tend to focus more on the conceptual image.

What is God, where is God?

[Dontaskme]

That's not "your theory," at all. You're avoiding answering, or having trouble grasping the question: I don't know which.

It does not give an account of how human beings can evolve as a group without relying on some mutation by way of reproduction. And if they can't, then you're stuck having to conclude there was an original mating pair.

But I'm still waiting to hear your Evolutionary account. God ahead.

But biology, unlike Genesis, is not concerned with ethics. The human condition, with which Genesis deals, is a lot more complicated than evolution by natural selection.

You're dodging. To answer my question, you don't even need to refer to Genesis at all...not even a bit. You just have to understand the basic biology story you're insisting is true, and be able to explain why you think it works.

Here's the truth: you don't have any way of explaining how Evolution could take place without an original mating pair. So you keep pretending not to understand the question; but by now, I know you've got it.

You've just got no answer.

ON
The mechanism of the original mating pair /creation, assuming they existed, Scripture is silent.

[Immanuel Can]

AJ: But when one speaks of 'pagan religions' I'd be more inclined to speak about force of impetus or something irrational, like a longing for participation, a longing to feel oneself 'deeply connected', that is so central to our psychology, our human longing.

I don't have any objection to the saying that pagan religions or any religions are "central our psychology, our human longing." But what are we "longing" for? And why are we "longing" for it? If it's something we don't have now, why do we "long" for something that's impossible? And if we have it already, we would not be "longing" for it?

The question, though, is "Are all human traditions equally true?" They may all articulate human longings, but do they articulate them all truthfully? Are they all "barking up the right tree?" Or are some on the wrong track altogether?

Recent sociology of religion has some definite positions relevant to this. And one of the few things they agree on totally is what's called "incommensurabilty." Incommensurability means that we all now have to recognize, if we're honest at all, that not all world traditions can be reconciled into one thing, such that no tradition "loses" and none "wins" in a given conclusion. The reason for this decision -- made entirely by secular, not theological scholars -- is that detailed investigation of those traditions shows their various claims and precepts to be actually directly contradictory. So they cannot possibly all be true: and to treat them as such turns out to actually do an injury to all of them.

So the myth of universal unity in religions is now thoroughly dead, in all places but in the minds of leftover liberals of a dying age. Secular scholarship, not just religious scholarship, has proceeded beyond the simple-minded conflactions of the Frazers and such of a past day, and even beyond the Jungian architypes. We all agree now that we are dealing with a situation of incommensurability, not commensurability in traditions.

To understand that German nationalism and Germanic identitarianism...

I confess, I have little interest in this topic.

I actually can't understand how that response even constitutes the next move in a conversation based on my reply. It looks wildly off topic to me.

As I say I see Nietzsche as a 'culmination' of this 'throwing-off' process.

I have no objection to the "throwing off" of institutionalized religiosity. It's predictable: bad religion leads to Atheism. Or, on the other hand, sometimes it leads to a "longing" and a greater hunger for truth.

That's all good.

That may be the least surprising discovery in history.

Now I know that you, IC, are absolutely and completely scandalized with some of these facts and references.

Not at all. They don't seem even minutely threatening to me.

Modern Evangelical Christianity has become allied with Jewish Zionism.

Not really. That's not 100% wrong, but it's wrong enough to be wrong anyway.

There are elements among Christians, particularly the theologically naive, who have been attracted to Jewish forms of Zionism. That's a minority. But most Christians, an espeically the thoughtful and theologically informed ones, are instead just generally favourable to Jewish people and to the idea of there being an Israel. Why shouldn't they be?

As for "Zion," any knowledgeable Christian realizes that it does not happen until after the return of Messiah...so there is no particular Biblical approval of Israel in its present state...beyond its right to exist, and the right of its people to choose their destiny...which are surely things we all should have.

This is a long way short of some kind of "Jewish Zionism." Again, I think the weakness of your definitions is the weakness of the theory.

Don't get mad at me for telling you this truth!

Well, so far, I've never been "mad at you." Nor would I ever be so merely because you "told me the truth." That would be silly.

You can count on that.

[Dontaskme]

So are we all agreed that the scripture written in the bible is silent regarding the question about the mechanism of the original mating pair /creation?

Or do we only care about pushing our own ego generated opinions ignoring the elephant in the living room ?

[Alexis Jacobi]

I actually can't understand how that response even constitutes the next move in a conversation based on my reply. It looks wildly off topic to me.

I am responding, as well, to recent and other developments in this thread. It does not surprise me that this topic is of little interest to you. I make no judgment of course. Everyone has their areas. However, it is a crucial area if we want to understand the European rejection of Christianity.

Also, I tend to write rather extensively, but also in *preamble*. So much has to be tediously established before one can make solid and reasonable assessments.

There are elements among Christians, particularly the theologically naive, who have been attracted to Jewish forms of Zionism. That's a minority. But most Christians, an espeically the thoughtful and theologically informed ones, are instead just generally favourable to Jewish people and to the idea of there being an Israel. Why shouldn't they be?

We have done different research you and I. In a general sense America has been, shall I say, conquered and subdued by exceedingly effective PR and advertising of a Zionist sort. I do not really want to hash this out with you though as if you could contradict what I say here. I know this is so. It is known. It is not debated. If this topic does interest you I suggest doing a search on YouTube with the term Christian Zionism. Here is one, a Jewish source, that supports the idea.

[From the Jewish-Israeli side I might also suggest at least understanding the narrative that Miko Peled presents -- again, if one wants to understand real events that are highly relevant to our present. It is part of my project that what we talk about is related to topical events. ]

This is a long way short of some kind of "Jewish Zionism." Again, I think the weakness of your definitions is the weakness of the theory.

Here, and once again, you are speaking about things of which you have insufficient understanding. I will not haggle over these things with you.

[Dontaskme]

Augustine defined evil as absence of good. If evil is absence of good then good is the default i.e. God.

Only within the dream of conceptual separation.

God is everything and nothing at all.

Nothing is when God is totally absent.

It is only when there is no illusion that "what is" is most sacred. When there is no illusion "what is" is god or any other name that can be used.

Keep driving home the real truth Belinda

[Immanuel Can]

...the European rejection of Christianity.

"Europe" is a geographic mass. It was never Christian. There was nothing "Europe" could reject.

Don't you see the futility of such generalizations? They just don't work.

In a general sense America has been, shall I say, conquered and subdued by exceedingly effective PR and advertising of a Zionist sort.

Really? Where are you getting that from?

I don't deny that Jewish people are extraodinarily influential in America, and that some of that hasn't always been good. But some really has. The same could be said of other groups, but people tend to carp more about Jews because of their disproportionate influence in things like Hollywood and Wall Street. Me, I'm not so concerned. Corruption happens everywhere. So do benefits. And every people-group has its good and bad apples.

That America has historically tended to be supportive of the survival of Israel as a nation. But that all seems good to me. Especially when you consider the alternative.

This is a long way short of some kind of "Jewish Zionism." Again, I think the weakness of your definitions is the weakness of the theory.

Here, and once again, you are speaking about things of which you have insufficient understanding.[/quote]
Now you're just being funny.

[Alexis Jacobi]

"Europe" is a geographic mass. It was never Christian. There was nothing "Europe" could reject. / Don't you see the futility of such generalizations? They just don't work.

I understand that in your view you can say, sincerely, that Europe was never Christian. If seeing it that way serves some purpose for you, stay with it. I have already explained where I stand.

AJ: In a general sense America has been, shall I say, conquered and subdued by exceedingly effective PR and advertising of a Zionist sort.

IC: Really? Where are you getting that from?

Through various sources and as a result of study/reading. If you'd like me to recommend a source or two I can do that.

That America has historically tended to be supportive of the survival of Israel as a nation. But that all seems good to me. Especially when you consider the alternative.

What *seems* good, to you, may or not mean that it is good in fact. I did not make any statements as to whether I feel it is good or bad. What I do say is that it is part of Jewish history. And Jewish history has not ended.

So, and returning to what I said before, I am not going to get into haggle-sessions with you on topic you are not prepared for. You have another view, stick with that view if it serves you. It is not that I am not interested in the debate-slash-exchange of ideas, it is rather that your mind is clamped shut and the effort is futile. This is your issue (and I personally think misfortune) but I am not the cure for your issue. Can I be any more clear?

[Dontaskme]

It’s ok calm down nothings going to happen to the Jewish state of Israel because the book promised it will save it upon the return of Jesus..he’s gonna save you do not despair..he’s coming with his sword and he’s gonna bash every enemy of his beloved homeland.

Isreal will be spared in the battle of Armageddon….whooo hooo!