Jesus is not the son of God

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By identifying Jesus as the one true way , and as the actual son of God , I believe many christians have unwittingly severed the link between themselves and his authentic teachings .

Jesus did not claim to be the son of god in the way Christians have come to believe he did . Rather , When asked " are you the son of God " , Jesus replied " you say I am "

Actually , It makes more sense to say that it is in reference to a cosmic principle that ‘ the Son ’ , the second person of the Holy Trinity , is called the ‘only son’ of God.

This cosmic principle has been given the name of Christ by some in the east , and through his work , Jesus identified with this cosmic principle , the same principle taught in all religions .

Just because we use the same words ‘father’ and ‘son’, we must not confuse human realities with cosmic realities. God the Father is the principle creator of all that exists , and his Son , whom Christians call the Christ , is his first emanation.

It is this Christic principle which can descend into each human soul by the power of the Holy Spirit .

Jesus was a conduit for the Christ , he was the voice of the Christ , he served the Christ and he identified with it , but he was not the Christ.

As a cosmic principle , the Christ can incarnate in a human being who has prepared himself to receive it , but no human being , no matter how exceptional , can be the one and only incarnation of God.

That would make no sense .

OM

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i believe you are encountering the error of eisegesis. It does no good to read old religious texts from a 21st century mindset without understanding of (1) the original language and (2) the culture in which it was written.
It is true that Jesus went around telling people not to proclaim him as the Christ-Messiah, but that does not refute any claim to his actually being that. In fact, if Jesus went around claiming himself the Messiah (as certain Maccabeans and other Jewish zealots have done for many, many years), he probably wouldn’t have lived as long as he did. And, let’s not forget the dialogue Jesus has with John the Baptist’s followers. i’ll quickly quote two parts of Luke (i hate quoting this stuff):

This was a reference to some Jewish texts (i believe Isaiah, among others) regarding the coming of the Messiah. Jesus responds, alluding to Isaiah:

While Jesus doesn’t directly answer them with a “yes” or “no”, his allusions to Isaiah are enough of a dead giveaway for any Jew living during this time period.

Secondly, the language is also important. There are, i believe, seven statements in the Gospel of John (i.e. not the Letters or Revelation) in which the English translation is rendered “I am…” Yet, the significance of these statements is that the Greek words actually written (and we shall assume that they are accurate reflections of the Aramaic Jesus spoke) literally translate as “YHWH”, the tetragrammaton. That is, by saying this, Jesus was doing what would be considered blasphemy: he was speaking the name of the Jewish God (which translates loosely as “I am that I am”). By using that specific word, Jesus isn’t simply saying “I am…” but rather aligning himself with the God-figure of the Jewish myth. This then entered into the Christian myth of the Trinity.

*Note: My usage of the word “myth” is not meant in the strict sense as in “Zeus of Greek mythology” (i.e. “false”), but in the academic/anthropological sense of “religiously held story” (i.e. “true or false”).

Jesus mission was to pave the way for Man in the direction of re-birth. For this the Christ had to descend into Jesus and go back. Jesus’ sacrifice cleared the path to the “Way.”

From this perspective the following makes more sense

Re-birth is human freedom from an unnecessary psychological attachment to preconceptions natural for the dominance of imagination and foolish fear. It is the development of the "quality of human “being” in the direction of inner unity and consciousness in place of our usual plurality natural for blind reaction,

Jesus had to be ambiguous to defeat the normal tendency of blind belief in him. He had to refer to “I Am” as function rather than make declarations He had to keep the question open for those that gradually came to the inner experience of the “vertical” conscious nature of man never experienced due to our attachment to the “horizontal” reactive life considered “normal.” It was useless to replace one blind belief with another normal for “declarations.”. Jesus" “presence” allowed others to also experience “presence” in themselves revealing this vertical direction or “awakening.”

Son of God, as I’ve come to understand it is being in the image of God or three in one. The Christ or son within the Father exists also as three in one and evolved man from earth, completed evolution, is also three in one and a much higher level of being than man on earth in the fallen scattered level. Naturally there are degrees of evolution as Jesus suggests when he states that:

So from the Christian perspective it is more important to try to psychologically experience Jesus purpose rather than to worry about “credentials” impossible to verify as we are.

It isn’t a “re-birth” at all. i think that it more like a killing of the undead. This is coming from my reading of Santner and Badiou. Basically, before one experiences the Event (this “Resurrection”…whether historically real or not), one is a slave to desire (here comes Paul and his letters to the Romans and Galatians) and are dead to the Spirit of Love because one is under the Spirit of Death. One is a “living dead” (or, more to the point, undead).
The Event is not a re-animating of the dead, but a de-animating of the dead. The subject is already animated. The Event then de-animates the subject.
After the Event, one then is radically changed. The old can no longer be because one has died to it. One can no longer live under Death. This then brings about the heretofore unknown Spirit of Love into which one is born.

If you wish to keep this subject focused on Christianity, the above is disallowed. It is a form of gnosticism, which was condemned as heresy in the 2nd, 5th, and 8th centuries.

Esoteric Christianity is not Gnosticism though I imagine much of it as with Meister Eckhart would be condemned by various "experts"as heresy. The appeal to egotism became dominant gradually secularizing Christianity. You must remember that what you are calling Christianity, I have come to believe to be Christendom or man made Christianity.

Re-birth is a real change of being that begins with a change of perspective called Metanoia.

You must remember that whom i am referring to (particularly Badiou) are non-“Christian”, if not flat-out “athiests.” Christianity is, at its core, a secularizing of Judaism. It is a religion not for a particular people-group, but for all–Jews and Gentiles. There is no longer a “sacred” and “secular” dichotomy in Christianity. Furthermore, i’ll even suggest that the epitome of Christianity can be found in Communist Marxism.
Also, the “experts” at heresy to which i am referring are also the founders of the Christian movement, lest you forget that Jesus was a Jew.

dasnichtege

We’re sure on opposite sides of this one. I agree with Simone Weil who was a Jew and a Communist who became Christian in regards to this “secularizing” and the effects of secular Judaism on Christianity.

cesnur.org/2002/slc/bauer.htm

Care to summarize that for me? i don’t really like reading large chunks with regards to a small discussion. Firstly, because there is the problem of interpretation: i may misinterpret what you are trying to suggest. Secondly, is the problem of accentuation: i may signify parts of the passage that are insignificant to you and vice versa.

dasnichtege

Well to make a long story short, Christianity devolved into a religion of power normal for secular reason. Initially Christianity was the religion of slaves where what one was in life was secondary to striving towards their esoteric or evolutionary potential in the context of the vertical relationship between heaven and earth. Regardless of her Atheistic upbringing, Simone Weil’s dedication to impartial truth brought her to experience what was contrary to her early conditioning. From this perspective it became obvious that the purpose of Christianity wasn’t to acquire power but instead in the ability to abandon reliance upon it in favor of the experience of higher meaning beyond what results from secular life on earth. The redemptive power of the church became secondary to the power of the almighty God from the influence of Jewish Nationalism and the Roman Empire.

The rest of the excerpts I posted elaborate on this basic contention that from the esoteric perspective, the greater good lies in the abandoning of reliance on power and self importance which is the exact opposite for achieving secular goods.

Interesting that one should point to gnosticism and heresy. The gospels of Thomas and Phillip are both considered “gnostic writings”.

My personal view, from what I have studied, is that gnosticism was trounced as heresy by the church, in much the same way the Kabbalah has been by Judeaic “Orthodoxy”, because it was attributed to “mysticism”, or spirituality. Which are obviously against the church as they don’t require an institution to help the individual on their path.

Heresy and blasphemy are separate, disparate subjects. I hold that anything “heretical”, may actually do some good.

i believe this is the result of a lack of differentiating that you were pushing for earlier (“Christendom” vs “Christianity”). i believe you are putting the distinction where it does not exist: there is no “sacred” and “secular” dichotomy in the sense of “sacred”=“esoteric, vertical relationship” and “secular”=“phenomenal, horizontal relationship.” Look at Paul’s writings and the Acts of the Apostles: “There is neither Jew nor Greek”, “neither slave nor free”, “nothing is unclean for I have made them clean” (Peter’s vision in Acts 6[?]). i want to emphasis where Paul writes “neither Jew nor Greek” because many takes this as a cultural thing, but it was more of a philosophical thing. At the time of Paul’s writings (50-60 C.E.), the Greek Empire had been gone for nearly 300 years and it was the Roman culture that was prevalent. Additionally, there were so many other cultures, that singling out Jewish and Greek seems a bit arbitrary. This is because he was speaking of the philosophical sub-structure by which these two culture operate.
The Greeks were influenced by the Platonists and Sophists such that there was a primacy of self-knowledge (wisdom is knowing one’s self) and deductive logic. On the other side were the Jews that were influenced by the charismatic: leaders and prophets that arise out of nowhere “called by God” and accepted by the culture. One culture sought wisdom and knowledge, the other signs and wonders. By these two different constructs, Christianity was abnormal: it fit neither. Jesus flat-out refused to perform signs and the “logic” espoused by both Jesus and later on Paul was “illogical”. Where is the logic in “where I am weak, He is strong” and “in my weakness, my strength lies”? Both philosophical constructs scoffed the Christians for this reason (in addition to the misconceptions of cannibalism, but that’s another subject). By placing Christianity between Greek and Jewish thought, Paul made Christianity “radical” and “revolutionary.” But, by doing this, Christianity became accessible for all, not just one group, such as the Jews or the Greeks. This is the secularization i speak of.
To put it in a religious/spiritual way: before “Christianity” became available, all religion (at least the major Western ones) centered on violence. In many ways the “sacred” was equated with a violent act (such as the Temple sacrifices of Judaism). Christianity comes along and secularizes that violence by ending it in a violent disruption of violence. i am thinking of Gianni Vattimo’s work Credere di Credere (On Belief) where by inscribing the “weak” ontology of Heidegger into the process of de-sacralisation, we are left with a kind of “kenotic” gospel. Of course, kenotic comes from the Greek kenosis that is used in Colossians where Paul mentions that Christ willingly gave up all authority and power as God and became man.
This is why, Mastriani, i reject the various gnosticisms that have emerged, because they seek to reject this part of the Christ myth/story that is repeated in Paul’s, John’s, and Peter’s writings. Which, if we accept them as being accurate representations of the metaphyical nature of the historical accounts of Jesus, we cannot deny them by appealing to psuedigrapha that has never been considered authoritative religious texts (such as the Gospels of Thomas and Phillip, the Revelations of Peter, or the Acts of Mary). Additionally, even looking at the earliest suggested canons, even the “heretical” ones such as Marcion, these texts (especially Paul’s) are still included while the psuedigrapha you mention are not (mainly because they weren’t written yet).
Nick, mysticism is not in and of itself “wrong”, but by focusing on the eschatological “other-worldly” aspect of Christianity, we would remove the core of Christianity that is centered on the “here and now.” Jesus said, “the Kingdom of God is at hand,” not “the Kingdom of God will come later.” Or, to put a Zizekian/Lacanian spin on it, by focusing on the Wholly Other or even the gap between the Other and the Real, we are removing the reality that the gap is just a surface structure by which the Other emerges into the Real.

dasnichtege said:

It is your choice to reject. As for accuracy of terming things “pseudopigrapha”, that’s bunk. Who’s authority? The church? Please. As for the dates of the books, that is bunk. Written at the same time as any of the gospels.
Gnosticism far exceeded anything within the confines of the church doctrine for spirituality. I stick to my earlier assertion: The church finds heretical that which is not easily indoctrinated, and seeks to defame it into oblivion. No thinking individual, Christian or not, would contend that the aims of the church are anything other than and always have been power, (over the “ignorant” masses) and money, (the insidious vehicle from which one derives power).
Not to mention the fact, in it’s indisputable corruption, the church bares the marks of paganism everywhere. For example the Black Madonna’s, (the original madonnas which are caste in the image of Isis), the rosebud at the top of the arch of the doorway to the inner sanctum of the church, (it is indicative of the clitoris, and the inner sanctum the womb…which is representative further of pagan “goddess” worship).
The church is not an authority on anything other than corruption, deceit, violence and willful misleading for personal gain.
Luckily the majority of knowledgeable Christians show all that is decent about the belief system.

Actually, i am going from non-Christian sources. They are psuedigrapha because they were written under the guise of someone else (e.g. the Book of Daniel). It is not meant to be deragotory.
Being that the early Church (2nd century and prior) were the ones who actually “created” Christianity, i’d accept their opinions on what should be considered authoritative for a Christian and what should not.
To paraphrase your question, we should be asking Rabbis, “Why don’t you include the Gospel of Matthew (or the Epistle to the Hebrew) in your texts (say, the Writings because the Torah and Prophets are a bit more closed)? What authority are you using to reject this book?”

Assert all you want, that doesn’t make things true. Because it is your assertion, you should try proving it.

Would you define “the Church” before i respond to this?

Are those the ones with special knowledge (gnosis)?

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This is not true , its you who has to alter how you are looking at things I believe .

Anglican/protestant/catholic christianity is currently , and always has been , mostly a farce , with less and less people becoming interested in it . Exactly because the interpretation of the bible by the various churches is clearly absurd .

I will not listen to those from an organization which has massacred , burnt , drowned , raped , and pillaged for centuries .

At least my interpretation of the christ complies with common sense , which is to try and find the unity in all religions if you are on a spiritual journey , instead of going around ranting about how god can only be reached through one exclusive path , and that the people who hold the key to understanding that path are dull , patronizing , smug and intolerant little men and women with lots of psychological issues to deal with

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Re-read my comment. i am talking about the method from which your belief derived. You are inferring elements not present in the text and then basing your beliefs from that. My beliefs, religious convictions, religious affiliations, and, in fact, anything about me are irrelevant to this.

Then, why are you asking questions? Ignoring or waving off answers because of the respondant’s whatever is not conducive to a philosophical discussion.

Your interpretation of the Christ refuses to address sayings attributed to him.

First off, we are both spelling it wrong … LOL … it’s pseudepigrapha, (now that’s funny). The word means “with false title” and I think that can be agreed to be derogatory by most. They were so named by the Church long before historians or archeologists started studying them, and accepted the name as is, which is standard protocol.

On whether or not my assertions are true, history has already proven me correct, and I am not going to try to enumerate the reasons. Feel free to find a non-biblical historical reference on the past 2000 years of the Church, and it will easily be manifest for you. (Inquisitions, Crusades, Cathaars, Beziers, Davidians, The Magdalene, Martin Luther, etc, etc, ad nauseum).

“The Church”. Especially the examples of the European church that lead to the institutional debauchery that was continued in this country. Another point of reference, the Presbyterian church I attended had all arched doorways, with a vertical mark placed at the apex of each arch, (pagan acknowledgement of the superiority of female sexuality). How about the Cathedral of St. Anthony which has in it’s courtyard an Egyptian obelisque that denotes the god Amun Ra, (pagan god). Again, getting a book on Christian architecture will help you understand this point. If you wish to find some really interesting work, find an architecture book on Templar Churches, it’s geometry, astronomy and astrology, (pagan). Or even the “hat” the Pope wears, that is the Egyptian Pharoah’s symbol of virility, intended to be phallus shaped, (pagan).

I don’t find Christians with “special knowledge”. I find humans who wear the Christian smock, with special interest in seeking and not accepting the words of other men as “gospel”.

It may be considered derogatory in contemporary times, but in the times those texts were written, it was considered both flattering and honorary. Again, you are interpreting the literal actions/words in a 21st century mindset. That is eisegesis.

All of this begs the question, then: who is the authority of the Church? i stated that i would assume it was first and foremost the founders. So, what Origen, Tatian, etc say about which texts should be considered authoritative goes a long way. What Martin Luther, Doug Groothius, or Friedrich Nietzsche say about which texts should be considered authoritative goes nowhere.

So then, you equate “The Church” with the eurocentric institution, not the universal group of “believers”? i am taking the latter and rejecting the former.

Why must it be a pagan acknowledgement? Is it because that’s what you read in The Da Vinci Code? Why can’t it be possible (possible, not definitely) that the architect who designed it just like the mark?

While i am not knowledgeable about this obelisk, why must the reference be “pagan”?

And we can also talk about the “IHS” inscribed in every communion wafer offered by the RCC, but all of these are beside the point and currently irrelevant to the discussion. The fact that one can argue that something is of pagan origins does not make it true.

Well, it is full of human beings. So what? Does that make it “less good”? “Evil”? Christianity isn’t about the people running the institutions, but the people of those groups.

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I never asked you any questions

But they are , if you dont know about the growth and development of christianity you are in no position to tell me I,ve misunderstood biblical scripture

Basing my beliefs around things not present in biblical text ? what I said initially is not a belief , its a fact . Im not christian , just stating the facts . Quite clearly believing Jesus is the " only " son of God is ridiculous . Its just one reason christianity is held in contempt by so many nowadays . And this anti religious feeling shall flourish even greater as time goes by .Which is a good thing

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