Christianity

[Immanuel Can]

I say (if I, a deist, am allowed): Christianity is meant for the one, not the many.

Being dead right about what you say is its own license to speak, even if you are a Deist not a Theist.

And you're right about that. Christianity is in nowise a "collectivist" belief system. Even in the case of the Church itself, it's an assemblage of the disparate, not a homogenization of all or a class-structure. Individual identity and choice is a sine qua non of Biblical Christianity. Class, culture, race, region, government, collectivization, all that nonsense is out.

It's a faith, not an ideology.

[Alexis Jacobi]

1. Is it your opinion that belief in the doctrinal set in a literalist sense is what defines a Christian?
2. Does this literal belief, also require inclusion of Judaic texts?
3. What was this original "formal definition" of Christianity?

1) Christians define Christianity, no? If the sense is not ‘literal’ what other sense is there? Non-literal? Did Jesus literally incarnate to take on the sin of Man? or no? Answer.

2) For Christians the arrival of Jesus is the fulfillment of Jewish prophecy. It is all connected. It cannot be disconnected.

3) If you are uncertain about this refer to about 30 posts by IC where Scripture is quoted. If you still have doubts get any book titled What Is Christianity.

Do you want me to cut n paste and provide links? A Google search will give you the basic picture.

Are you saving the difficult questions for later?!?

[attofishpi]

1. Is it your opinion that belief in the doctrinal set in a literalist sense is what defines a Christian?
2. Does this literal belief, also require inclusion of Judaic texts?
3. What was this original "formal definition" of Christianity?

1) Christians define Christianity, no? If the sense is not ‘literal’ what other sense is there? Non-literal? Did Jesus literally incarnate to take on the sin of Man? or no? Answer.

Point being, are you expecting EVERYTHING in the bible to be accepted literally to consider one a Christian?

2) For Christians the arrival of Jesus is the fulfillment of Jewish prophecy. It is all connected. It cannot be disconnected.

So, it then begs the question. Are you Jewish? If so, do you literally believe the Jewish prophecy that the Messiah is yet to come?

3) If you are uncertain about this refer to about 30 posts by IC where Scripture is quoted. If you still have doubts get any book titled What Is Christianity.

It was YOU that made the statement about there being a "formal definition" of Christianity, so I expect YOU to provide precisely what that is.

Do you want me to cut n paste and provide links? A Google search will give you the basic picture.
Are you saving the difficult questions for later?!?

If you want difficult questions, then by all means open yourself to scrutiny, let us be awakened to what you actually believe regarding God/Yahweh or " " and the prophesy of the Jewish faith.

[henry quirk]

I say (if I, a deist, am allowed): Christianity is meant for the one, not the many.

Being dead right about what you say is its own license to speak, even if you are a Deist not a Theist.

And you're right about that. Christianity is in nowise a "collectivist" belief system. Even in the case of the Church itself, it's an assemblage of the disparate, not a homogenization of all or a class-structure. Individual identity and choice is a sine qua non of Biblical Christianity. Class, culture, race, region, government, collectivization, all that nonsense is out.

*It's a faith, not an ideology.

*

[henry quirk]

Christians define Christianity, no?

No. That guy in the Gospel, He defined Christianity in His words and acts. If you align with Him, in word, act, and spirit, you're Christian. If you don't, you're not.

This is so basic even a folksy, superficial deist gets it.
(So why don't you?)

[Dubious]

Dubious says that things must be expressed more succinctly. Impossible. It is not possible to solve convolution and complexity through simplistic reductions.

Sorry! Don't mean to interrupt but "succinct" has a different meaning from "simplistic". The former doesn't subtract from the meaning expressed while the latter is prone to do exactly that. To make it clear, "succinct" resembles a flac file, "simplistic" an MP3 one. I usually try to download my thoughts in the flac format but clearly, not everyone likes the sound of it!

Regards!

Over and out!

[Nick_A]

No one has spoken of Christianity as the inner need to experience meaning. Is it that society and technology has satisfied this need for meaning? Without it, why bother with Christianity?

Matthew 16:

13 When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”

14 They replied, “Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”

15 “But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?”

16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”

17 Jesus replied, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven. 18 And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades[c] will not overcome it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be[d] bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be[e] loosed in heaven.” 20 Then he ordered his disciples not to tell anyone that he was the Messiah.

How did Peter know who Jesus was? He must have remembered it through anamnesis as Plato describes. But such memory is the foundation for the original church as an esoteric school.

Truth has three forms in esoteric language: Stone (literal truth, Water (truth that can be digested internally), and wine which is the ability to give the truth to another.

Peter is the rock (stone) on which the literal truth can touch the members of the original church. As an esoteric school the original church can enable the stone to become water and understood internally. The hope is that some will follow Jesus and turn the living water into wine to be shared.

But of course how many in modern times believe in the Resurrection? They find it easier to forget about it and concentrate on morals and conditioned beliefs for the secular good regardless of hypocrisy to satisfy the need for "meaning". Does it in you? Does the original church still exist or has it been secularized into extinction?

[Belinda]

Immanuel Can wrote:

Alexis Jacobi wrote: ↑Tue Jun 21, 2022 12:55 pm
Immanuel Can holds to the most traditional and I could say the classic definition of Christianity.
(IC replied)Only in the sense that I hold that Christ Himself is the prototype and decider of what a "Christian" is.

I agree with you sort of. However I'd rather say "what a Christian ought to be". The Gospels are historical sources for the life and work of Jesus of Nazareth. All historical sources are useless and potentially misleading unless interpreted in the light of reason.

The Jesus Christ myth is a history-making myth and is the mythological basis of a civilised moral code that has universal application. The Bible is an artefact and is no more a direct act of God than is a Beatles lyric.

[attofishpi]

..sometimes Belinda, I do see you as rather daft. (unfortunately)

[Belinda]

..sometimes Belinda, I do see you as rather daft. (unfortunately)

I hope you find a better teacher than me. I am even more daft than you can imagine.

[Dubious]

No one has spoken of Christianity as the inner need to experience meaning.

...a little short-sighted of you.

Why would one need Christianity to experience meaning? Meanings wear themselves out when they render too little for too long.

I gather from your incessant talk about meaning you haven't found it but you do find meaning in its search according to the old but true trope, it's not the destination but the journey...implying you don't need to know what it is or may be; you only need to be convinced it's there to feel a sense of satisfaction in having a mission impossible to complete.

Since you'll never find it, the meaning resides in its endless search. That being the case, it levels down to a simple conclusion that in looking for something you'll never find, it matters not if there was never any meaning to be found in the first place. According to that dialectic, god remains at the helm of both purpose and meaning being simultaneously absent. If meaning is a myth, it's less difficult to apply purpose to all versions concurrent to the age which created them. In that sense too, each age and culture through time enacts its own temporary dramas. What remains an open question, can contain an endless array of responses.

[Alexis Jacobi]

..sometimes Belinda, I do see you as rather daft. (unfortunately)

I hope you find a better teacher than me. I am even more daft than you can imagine.

McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, upon arrival to the Nut House, asks Billy Bibb “Who's the head bull-goose loony around here?”

“I'm accustomed to being top man. I been a bull goose catskinner for every gyppo logging operation in the Northwest and bull goose gambler all the way from Korea, was even bull goose pea weeder on that pea farm at Pendleton -- so I figure if I'm bound to be a loony, then I'm bound to be a stompdown dadgum good one.”

Let’s keep things in proper proportion here, please!

[attofishpi]

Let’s keep things in proper proportion here, please!

Unlike what may have happened to your penis as a child?

I look forward to your serious response.

[attofishpi]

1. Is it your opinion that belief in the doctrinal set in a literalist sense is what defines a Christian?
2. Does this literal belief, also require inclusion of Judaic texts?
3. What was this original "formal definition" of Christianity?

1) Christians define Christianity, no? If the sense is not ‘literal’ what other sense is there? Non-literal? Did Jesus literally incarnate to take on the sin of Man? or no? Answer.

Point being, are you expecting EVERYTHING in the bible to be accepted literally to consider one a Christian?

2) For Christians the arrival of Jesus is the fulfillment of Jewish prophecy. It is all connected. It cannot be disconnected.

So, it then begs the question. Are you Jewish? If so, do you literally believe the Jewish prophecy that the Messiah is yet to come?

3) If you are uncertain about this refer to about 30 posts by IC where Scripture is quoted. If you still have doubts get any book titled What Is Christianity.

It was YOU that made the statement about there being a "formal definition" of Christianity, so I expect YOU to provide precisely what that is.

Do you want me to cut n paste and provide links? A Google search will give you the basic picture.
Are you saving the difficult questions for later?!?

If you want difficult questions, then by all means open yourself to scrutiny, let us be awakened to what you actually believe regarding God/Yahweh or " " and the prophesy of the Jewish faith.

[Alexis Jacobi]

AJ: A real and genuine faith that is grounded on a realistic and verifiable theology, and one agreed upon by most, would necessarily be religious, philosophical, political, economic, aesthetic -- indeed it would determine all activities and all activities would be a response to the defined and realized metaphysics.

A theocracy: is this what you pine for? It does not seem to me, as a deist, He wants such a thing. And as I read the Christian Anarchists (folksy & superficial) it does not seem any of them found or find The Religious State to be the natural or necessary result of Christian thinkin' or livin'.

Let me try and express it again. Let's start with Christianity and speak of it, historically, as an effort to *define the world* in the most holistic sense. The vision of Christianity divides the world into three distinct planes: Hell, the platform and space where we have our existence, and Heaven. These are fundamental to the Christian vision. Into our world came Jesus Christ as an Avatar of God. Again, these are fundamental elements to the Christian vision.

Working again within essentialist reductions let's make it more plain -- and here it is easy to refer to the Really & Truly Christian one among us here and now, Immanuel Can who directly says this -- and state that Jesus said "Do things according to the Will of my Father in Heaven . . . or suffer the consequences of being tossed, like dried-up weeds, into the Unquenchable Fire".

These are the 'facts' of essential Christian assertion. There is no way around them.

Now please tell me again that "It does not seem to me, as a deist, He wants such a thing". You 'as a deist' are irrelevant to the real, honest and precise definition of what a Christian believes (because Jesus Christ the God-Man said it and it it recorded in the Gospels) and what type of overarching definition operates at the core of original, genuine and authentic Christianity.

If you take this definition as a true definition, then you must also recognize that Christianity, starting with the figure of Jesus Christ, has 'defined the world'. Christianity defines a holistic and for Christians a thorough and encompassing view of 'what life is' and 'what life is for'.

There is no place at all for a 'Christian anarchist'.

an·ar·chy (ăn′ər-kē)
n. pl. an·ar·chies
1. Absence of any form of political authority.
2. Political disorder and confusion.
3. Absence of any cohesive principle, such as a common standard or purpose.

[New Latin anarchia, from Greek anarkhiā, from anarkhos, without a ruler : an-, without; see a-1 + arkhos, ruler; see -arch.]

It should be clear that, if anything, the essential aspect of Christian belief, and Christian definition of the world, hinges directly and ineluctably, on declaration of Law. This starts with an 'absolutist' set of definitions about what the World is. How and why it came to exist and what, and what not, people are to do in that World. And there is a further crucial element that must be stated and it is established through an absolute schema of definition: there is God in Heaven, absolutely good, sinless and pure; and there is His demonic opposite -- absolutely and irredeemably Evil -- who has been given rulership over this World. Satan intertwines you. Your fibres are Satan's fibres. You are irredeemably contaminated and that is why you need the Redeemer. You cannot not choose this (if you want to be on a proper track and if you want to progress within the System as defined by Jesus Christ and Christianity. Well, yes, you can if you do not choose to listen.

Now, please do all you can to find the *wiggle room* there.

Let me return to what I said previously:

A real and genuine faith that is grounded on a realistic and verifiable theology, and one agreed upon by most, would necessarily be religious, philosophical, political, economic, aesthetic -- indeed it would determine all activities and all activities would be a response to the defined and realized metaphysics.

Avoid the interpretation that I am 'pining' for anything at all, or trying to sell you on a perspective (you are totally and utterly post-Christian and so am I so let's not kid ourselves), but let's examine what I have asserted with an open mind.

It becomes imperative for Man to define the world. I do not mean you necessarily (you likely choose to exist in a world without definitions) and I mean 'historical man'. Mankind -- all cultures and civilizations -- define a metaphysics, explain what God is, and define what people should and must do in relation to that defined world.

So let us imagine that you, Henry Quirk, have been given the task of truly and honestly telling me just what this world is, what it was made for, who made it, what is a 'person', what are 'proper ethics', what is morality and why does morality exist -- and then go down the line of stating in each and every domain all that these definitions ramify for mankind as a result of the definitions you (sensibly and intelligently) propose to me.

I can assure you that were yo to attempt this you would have no alternative but to define "a realistic and verifiable theology [which] would necessarily be religious, philosophical, political, economic, aesthetic -- indeed it would determine all activities and all activities would be a response to the defined and realized metaphysics."

So what is happening now -- I am that reed of truth and clear statement swaying in the wind and simply try to express this! -- is that one Holistic and Defining Declaration about 'what the world is' (and all else that ramifies from this) has collapsed. The world is not longer seen nor understood through the former metaphysics. That metaphysics has been replaced with another one. Or to state it even more accurately the former metaphysics is in a process of being replaced, and there are battles, the real reasons for which are often unintelligible to those who participate in them, occurring all around us as a result of these essential definitional issues and problems.

What are the best metaphors to employ here? to help us clarify what is going on? Ruins are a good one. A cityscape after a carpet bombing. Or perhaps phantasms of the Olden Metaphysic who appear, disappear, fade in, fade out, like the smile of the Cheshire Cat. There is also the metaphor of schism and schizophrenia, division, separation from unified self, chasm, irreconcilable differences, and also encroaching madness.