Christ Unveiled (beyond good and evil)

Philosophy Forums Religion and Spirituality
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Contrary to popular misconception, Christianity is about going beyond good and evil. Yeshu (I call him by his Hebrew name in order to emphasize his Jewishness), who was likely a mythological character, paid the penalty for our collective “sin”, evil, the wages of sin being death, mortality, disease and predation. There were none of these things before Adam and Eve ate of the tree of knowledge, knowledge of good and evil, that Elohim forbade us from eating of. In other words, the knowledge of good and evil was itself an evil, something we’re not supposed to know, something meant for the Gods alone, like Promethean fire or the contents of Pandora’s box. We weren’t entirely designed to think in terms of good/evil, which is why death, disease, toil and trouble followed as a consequence of our enlightenment.

If there’s a reason for all this, it’s that the result of disobeying God and attempting to be like God, to have a conscience, is logically to live in a Godless or semi-Godless world, where joy and sorrow, truth and lies, good and evil are all mixed up with one another, as opposed to the positive outweighing the negative, like it was in the age of innocence before the fall, before paradise was lost. Now Man must survive and thrive largely by his own merits, his ego, rather than being humbly dependent on a God for everything. The old testament then is man attempting to lie in the bed he made himself, morally enlightened and miserable.

In the NT, Yeshu came to earth to deliver us from all these things, which we brought upon ourselves. Thus, from Yeshu’s sacrifice on, we’re holy, irrespective of the good/evil we do. Christian salvation belongs to those who have faith, those who believe in and accept his sacrifice, and faith is free. This is why Yeshu can be seen mingling with drunkards, prostitutes and the like, as Christianity is egalitarian. Christianity is essentially Dionysian, in that it releases believer of his or her cares and woes, the cremation of care, the dawn of a new day and the purging of our psychic debts. Just as governments can be merciful and cancel debts, so can Gods, apparently, and that’s precisely what Christianity is, the cancelation of debts.

Christianity is anti-good and evil, not that it doesn’t acknowledge their existence or the meaningfulness and these categories, but it believes man, being created/finite, being made in Gods image but not God himself, cannot create ex nihilo, something from nothing, nor can he fashion a better world (Promethean) or even preserve and sustain this one (Epimethean) through the exercise of good or anything he conjures up, as he’s a flawed being. Therefore, what it’s saying is - the world and everything in it including man is flawed, overflowing with hardship and vice… but it wasn’t always so, it was our own doing, and since it was our own doing, we can restore it by reestablishing a relationship with Elohim, completely and helplessly relying on him to uphold good contra evil, rather than relying on our efforts.

So the world is flawed, but it can be otherwise, we can wish it away, by believing in the new world to come. Christianity is a supremely escapist and life-denying religion. The forgiveness/unconditional love bit only makes sense (well, sense here being purely of the deductive order) when you consider Christ’s sacrifice, that we’re no longer held accountable for our thoughts, words and deeds, good or bad. If we’re not held accountable, than punishing others for their misdeeds is a sign, an indicator that you haven’t really acknowledged and accepted the sacrifice the futility of good and evil, of attempting to uphold “the law”.

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That’s a definition of jesus which is not the church’s definition.
Also it’s a definition of sin different than the church’s definition.

I only agree a little bit that christianity is escapist.
Jesus did have a sense of morality. There were also unforgivable sins mentioned.

The tree of knowledge stuff makes no sense to me.
I don’t think it’s possible to “truly interpret” it in a way that does make sense.

3

If going beyond good and evil is escapist, we are escaping from the consequences of a redemption. This is a fatalism, to the nth degree.

 .

If this argument is re affirmed, as in Nietzche, then his reaffirmation is not a joyful one, hence he has to transvalue the redemption from escaping it (in Christ’s suicide) to embracing it, (with the superman’s will to power).

But christ could come in here,and say of this inversion “but they do not know what they are doing”

So, the ultimate question : piety or power?

Christ would answer the question of the vesting of power : grant to cesar that which is his, and to god which is Gods.

Then, if they would ask the superman-christ, what god is: he may answer nowedays: you hypocrates:
God is the way, through him, in him and for him, in the center of the universe.like Ptolemy once thought.

Everything else is on the periphery, radiating outward, as in a mandala.

4

Which Church? There’s thousands of Church’s with thousands of interpretations. I’m interpreting the story for myself, what it means to me. I bet some Christians and some Church’s would say I’m on the right track, and some would say I’m way off.

What do you think?

Christianity is 100% escapist. If you believe God exists, that he’s supremely benevolent in addition to being supremely powerful, and that he’s going to establish his heavenly kingdom on earth, where believers will live forever in a state of absolute bliss and contentment, then you’re an escapist my friend, that’s contrary to virtually everything we know about life on planet earth.

Jesus didn’t deny the existence of morality or the law of the OT, but he believed man was incapable of upholding morality or OT law (“the spirit is willing, the flesh is weak”). You could say he brought about a revolutionary morality, one that was more spontaneous and dependent on Elohim’s efforts, on Elohim working through you via the holy spirit, not on one’s own efforts. Additionally, one that was both more consequential and intentional as opposed to deontological, and one that was more merciful/sacrificial as opposed to reciprocal. In summary, he was a proponent of supernatural, unconditional love as opposed to law and morality. Unconditional love is going beyond morality and OT law, beyond good and evil in many regards.

The tree of gnosis represents man trying to play God, by distributing good and evil himself. That’s why he was cast out of the garden, out of paradise, he was no longer sheltered by God. Remember what Satan said, know good and evil and you’ll become God. Man was challenging God’s authority, attempting to “play” God, which is the Christian excuse for why there’s evil, pain and suffering in the world. It was man’s own doing, not God’s. Man turned his back on God, being cast out of paradise was a consequence, having to toil day and night for his food was another, mortality was one more. Man lost Gods favor, he wanted to strike it out on his own… like an adolescent. An adolescent loses his innocence as he accumulates more and more knowledge. As he matures, he’s no longer comfortable being dependent on his guardians for every little thing, so he leaves home, fending for himself. The loss of innocence, being able to discern right from wrong, this from that, means one is prepared for independence. However, in Christianity, we’re supposed to be like permanent children, we’re supposed to go back and be dependent on God, or metaphorically, a king/capitalist, forever, acknowledging our supposed limitations and our inability to live without a lord, where as Satan would have the opposite, Satan would have some of us become our own Gods and Goddesses.

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Obe, could you reiterate, sometimes I have trouble following you.

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I will try to rephrase it, in a minute, eyes.

My wife called me to lunch so I will try answering this as soon as I can return to it: the revision will take faar longer than I anticipated. Later

7 
 Simply put: christ's redemption represents this notion of beyond good and evil, that is predicated on your idea that his message implied an escapism from the idea of man's responsibility for evil, since God created him. So redemption is beyond good and evil, and it is through the redemption that the implication arises that the guilt shifts to the father through the redemption.  The absolution of responsibility shifting to the father is foreshadowed,of course in another test of faith, of an equivocal sacrifice, and this all goes back to sacrifice of animals.

Man’s responsibility for evil, thus lifted by the ultimate sacrifice, does another thing: god through his son’s sacrifice changes. God says I created this mess, now we all know why it’s a mess, despite my best intentions, but the man and the reality I created had to be created imperfect, because reality is imperfect. Without this imperfection, man and his reality would not exist. That’s the price of creation.

God in creating himself, in his son , in the likeness of man, overcomes this obstacle, and by the crucifixion, he actually overcomes his own guilt over creation.

So the redemption causes god to take responsibility for the imperfection of his creation. Christianity is escapist, because man is escaping from the putative responsibility.

Nietzche says not so fast. Man cannot be responsible in the first place in this scenario, therefore god himself destroyed himself by admitting this fallibility.

But Nietzche’s implication is only inferential. Its is only those, who’s faith rests on infallibility, for whom God is dead. Nietzche’s beyond good and evil, rests on fallibility, not on infallibility, resting an aesthetic notion of fallibility on the vanity of art-as knowledge.

8

eyesinthedark,

You’re free to interpret the Scriptures however you like, of course. But insofar as your interpretation is intended as a criticism of Christianity, it really only applies to Protestantism- not sure about Catholicism. The whole “You are saved because you believed and accepted a free gift, good and evil is irrelevant now” thing is a Western phenomenon.

9

I disagree, I think it’s fairly obvious free love is what the NT is about.

10

It is only free in the sense that rather than having to do something to earn it or pay for it, you have to be willing to NOT do something to earn it.

The fundamental idea is that IF enough people will simply refuse to offend each other in any of the 3 prime categories, an impenetrable shield is formed creating an anentropic social entity. The Catholic Church stands today as one example of the general methodology. Protestantism didn’t seem to quite understand the fundamentals sufficiently and thus is now almost wholly corrupted.

11

Christianity is an impractical religion. If taken literally, it hastens entropy.

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 Eyes: the way I see it, human nature needs to model.  Not in the sense of mimic, that has been abandoned with the apes, but in the sense of imeme.

We cannot get away from it. Every construction needs a model. An otherworldly model, if there is another world,( which certainly seems to be the case, because our brief tenure here of a few decades is just a pinpoint in the grand scheme of things), may require a minimally self implicated self, as a model. That god model, allows for the possibility of a beyond, whereas our human centered model of a willful over comer, has a sinking realization, that there may not be such a creature, as much as the idea seems remarkably enticing.
It’s just too preposterous and pretentious.

Dynosous and Apollo certainly are divisive from way back, and this has resulted in this sorry split,

Entropy may not be result of christianity, but the realization that perhaps god is dead, and uncaring,unworthy model.

But worth to whom? To those who believe in the thereafter, using instinctive faculties to arrive at that conclusion, or to those to whom such a value means nothing, their only concern being the here and now.

I must admit, I was split likewise, until making my project to re read and understand Kierkegaard, and Polanyi, who seem to be able to see the predicament of the split, and re validate it according to new visions, ideas. The entropy is the result of a lost belief in Christianity, and not of Christianity itself, in my opinion.

13

Eyes,

Scriptures are metaphors, thus not supposed to read verbatim, and that entails some different kind of initial understanding too.

Adam and eve were innocent. That represents the state of pure consciousness, not a liberated one.

The tree of knowledge and the serpent/Saitan were not evil, and not even good either in a sense, though their ultimate intent is still the virtue of Adam and Eve.

The whole story of the Garden represents the journey of the liberation of the mankind, form ignorance and innocence to overcome the temptation. But, the issue is that one cannot learn to overcome the temptation, unless and until, he goes through it.

Let me put it in a different way.

Say there is a five year innocent old boy and his parents want him to keep away from all wrong things. Now, they have two options. One is that they should take him to some isolated place as to keep him away from adverse environment. The boy would grow but would be free from all bad habits, and would remain so ever. That is both innocence and ignorance.

Having said that, he would still be prone to corrupt if exposed to wrong elements. So, his is not liberated yet.

Now, there is a second route. His parents may keep him in the open to face the bad environment and then make him learn to fight the temptation for falling for wrong things under their guidance and help. This is certainly a better way because the boy would become wise instead of ignorant, and would never be tempted for wrong things, even in the bad environment.

But, this is not possible without going through the journey. This is the journey of a human becoming a God. That is why God asked Angels to bow before Adam. Because, Adam may become the God one day, but Angles would not, as Angles do not have the opportunity to go through the journey. And thus, they are not resilient enough for temptation. Angles are pure and innocent but not wise.

Humans are given free will, but not to be the slave of it, but overcome it and be the God.

N got it completely wrong from the word go as he says- Will to power.

And, that is precisely what the real hurdle and the difference between a human and the God. It should be other way around- Power to will . And , everything would change immediately.

The whole story of the Garden and the journey of the mankind are nothing from Will to Power to Power to Will.

with love,
sanjay

14

If taken seriously, it prevents entropy entirely.
That is exactly why they proclaimed it as “the stone” and the eternal solution (whether they were exactly right or not). It is “impractical” for non-sentient beings who can’t fully understand it. But even among those, it quite naturally creates a more anentropic state than entropic state. They literally live longer as well as the gathering of them.

15

Christianity, if taken literally, turns people into otherworldly/willing slaves, which is more of a manifestation of entropy, not “anentropy”.

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You clearly don’t understand what it takes to be anentropic.