Christian Civilization -- The Central Issue

[Alexis Jacobi]

Well, you used the quote. How do you take it? It doesn't matter what the original author meant particularly. You decided that this was important in some way. It represented some message you wanted to convey. It does seem to matter to the message if it is literal or metaphorical. Which would be better for what you are trying to get across and why?

Ah, you’ve put it all back on me.

I don’t know what “a spirit” is and I do not know exactly what a “demonic spirit” is because I do not know how to relate to or process a world divided into an angelic and demonic polarity. I am, after all, a modern — like you I might add.

Yet I can say that I observe people, snd people I have known, who seem to me captured — possessed if you will — by possessive spirits. My lenses have been Jungian so I tend to imagine things, entities, complexes, accreted around the psyche. I use that term as Jung does.

I think Christopher Dawson is important, and there are many good quotes in that book. That was one.

The metaphorical — isn’t that also very often the real and the actual?

[Alexis Jacobi]

So, you responded to one tiny portion of my original response to you in the first post. Then you respond to my comment to Harbal, but not response to the main part of what I wrote. This is also familiar.

Chill out man. I write when I have the time. Presently I am cycling and tapping this on my phone. I thought you made some good points. Certainly relevant to the larger question.

In the course of time your issues will be addressed.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Apparently a Christian is someone who professes Jesus Christ to be his or her savior. So whether or not you are a Christian, would probably hinge on whether or not you do so.

That is sure an aspect that is stressed with aggravating intensity by many.

I do not know what Jesus is to save me from exactly. But I can definitely understand how the upper dimensions of metaphysical idealism, when lived, could and would.

Is that salvation?

[Alexis Jacobi]

But if there are calls for restoration and the sickness now is not compared to previous sicknesses, it implies the past was better.

Not necessarily so. Dawson seems to say the sickness is ever-present. But he is not backwards-oriented though as an historian he cannot be unaware of other periods.

No, I’ve gotten no impression that he is advocating for a return to some former age.

His assertion is that Christianity holds the keys to restoration. His contention is that if there is a restoration (whatever that is) it will have to be through realization of what the Christian Occident has set for itself as its defining, undergirding task. The Christian nexus (he seems to say) cannot ever be excluded.

But I am paraphrasing. Some part of what I wrote is what I personally think.

[Alexis Jacobi]

But at that (2013) time he (Gustav Bjornstrand, my truer self) seemed clear he was not a Christian.

I grew up in California and •on the fringes of Reform Judaism•.

Never trust a convert anyway, Iwannaplato!

[Gary Childress]

Apparently a Christian is someone who professes Jesus Christ to be his or her savior. So whether or not you are a Christian, would probably hinge on whether or not you do so.

That is sure an aspect that is stressed with aggravating intensity by many.

I do not know what Jesus is to save me from exactly. But I can definitely understand how the upper dimensions of metaphysical idealism, when lived, could and would.

Is that salvation?

From what I gather from talking to Christians, salvation is saving one's soul from eternal Hell. If we don't profess Christ to be our savior, then, according to Christ's words in the Bible, we aren't saved from eternal Hell. I mean, IC can chime in and correct me if I'm wrong but that's what I gather so far. I'm still on the fence waiting for an aha moment to hit but so far I still struggle with doubt and skepticism.

[Alexis Jacobi]

His first thread in the forums was
Christian apology by a non-Christian
Of course that was 2013. Perhaps he's converted or reverted or committed.

Eleven years, I can’t believe it.

Shit or get off the pot. Really.

[Alexis Jacobi]

From what I gather from talking to Christians, salvation is saving one's soul from eternal Hell.

I’ve said many times that I don’t know what or where •hell• is or where are what •heaven• is — but I can definitely understand the high-contrast metaphors and take them as more-than-metaphors — as allusions perhaps to things I do not understand.

What I can understand is when I see a person on a hellish path. Especially when I see the consequences and results wrought.

[Alexis Jacobi]

If you don't think things are sicker now, you could just say that.

My reference point, my topic really, is my own country. And I definitely have noticed strong and evident signs of degeneration. That is a broad statement but it seems on the mark. And I am not alone in this view.

It is a wide topic though, and cannot be encapsulated simply.

Since I am ultimately the subject of my own processes and my investigations, I noticed degeneracy in myself, and then I went to work on understanding. Why. What happened? Why was this the result? That led to many years of self-analysis and a general cultural analysis — and lots of reading (Flash, rightfully, describes my wide reading as •legendary• Thanks Flash!)

I think things are so sick that a larger and wider conflagration will break out. It is •world-scale•.

[Gary Childress]

From what I gather from talking to Christians, salvation is saving one's soul from eternal Hell.

I’ve said many times that I don’t know what or where •hell• is or where are what •heaven• is — but I can definitely understand the high-contrast metaphors and take them as more-than-metaphors — as allusions perhaps to things I do not understand.

What I can understand is when I see a person on a hellish path. Especially when I see the consequences and results wrought.

Well according to Christianity one is on a "hellish" path if s/he doesn't profess Christ his or her savior. I bring that up since the title of the thread contains the word "Christian" in it.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Well according to Christianity one is on a "hellish" path if s/he doesn't profess Christ his savior. I bring that up since the title of the thread contains the word "Christian" in it.

I’d amend that somewhat. Christianity defines the earth as a realm with many pitfalls. “The World” when referenced negatively refers to people in it — bad influences say — but the world is understood to be good. Though definitely contaminated.

I think you focus on a more Calvinistic, possibly Protestant, apologetic point? Dawson recognizes that a culture can be ethically Christian and an individual can be so through cultural osmosis. I accept that view.

But there are also further points of commitment.

[FlashDangerpants]

Not a difficult question. Are you a Christian?

His first thread in the forums was
Christian apology by a non-Christian
Of course that was 2013. Perhaps he's converted or reverted or committed.
But at that time he seemed clear he was not a Christian.
And thank you for also finding him nebulous or unclear or whatever one would call it.
It's like actually saying certain things, rather than sort of implying and wandering around saying those things, would be gauche or something.
He said my reaction was paranoid and suspicious.
Actually, I just can't understand why it takes so long for him to say things.
It's so coquettish.

Meh, in one thread I have Immanuel Can pretending he doesn't know whether Mike Pence is a conservative or not because apparently Pence isn't important enough for there to be an answer to that question. In this one we have Jacobi trying to occupy a dual state of Schrodinger inspired quantum Christianity for some reason that isn't even interesting enough to care about. They can probably each spot how pathetic the other looks when doing these silly dances. Can either pass the mirror test though?

[FlashDangerpants]

(Flash, rightfully, describes my wide reading as •legendary• Thanks Flash!)

I didn't say it was wide. You are no doubt a legendary consumer of far right screeds, but whenever you try to use philosophical concepts it's painfully obvious you don't understand them.

[Alexis Jacobi]

(Flash, rightfully, describes my wide reading as •legendary• Thanks Flash!)

I didn't say it was wide. You are no doubt a legendary consumer of far right screeds, but whenever you try to use philosophical concepts it's painfully obvious you don't understand them.

Well, so you say.

But I say that it is you who fundamentally do not understand the function, purpose or raison d’être of any philosophy that has existed. The real reason to engage with it.

You are a pervert, Flash. Perversion is what defines you and animates you. It has led you to a manifestation of self that is ugly and in a real sense vile. I base this on what you say, where your values lie, and how you present yourself.

You have made yourself an ugly small man more interested in some boy’s asshole than in anything genuinely philosophical in any elevated or ennobling sense.

What think you of my analysis? (Which is less about you particularly and more about a you-plural as a disease manifest in the present.)

[Alexis Jacobi]

In this one we have Jacobi trying to occupy a dual state of Schrodinger inspired quantum Christianity for some reason that isn't even interesting enough to care about.

Why then do you bother to appear here Flash? What do you wish to teach?

Make the correction …