I believe that Christians, if they want the Kingdom of God to come and the will of God to be done, must learn to shut up and live differently. Christians have something like the models in a Miss Universe competition – from a distance they look pretty, but when they open their mouths they are a catastrophe. It seems to me to be more of a kind of petty bourgeois romanticism that is promoted in many churches rather than the teaching of Christ. If you like it you’re in, otherwise you are left wondering what you have failed to understand.
In this light and reflecting on past discussions here in which I was called a Gnostic, it seem that things were the other way round and I have become an agnostic towards a considerable amount of the teaching of the Church, whilst many conservative Christians promote a kind of Gnosticism that leads to fundamentalism. They know these things and I do not – therefore they are the Gnostics.
Christians would live differently, as indeed they did in NT times. Modern day Christians are as critical of the way of life of Christians then as they are of Socialism or Communism – and they even make comparisons, although they understand none of it. Christians have a chronic fear of eastern traditions, because they instinctively know that they could be challenged in their bourgeoisie structures and brought to the heart of Christianity.
of course, the christian set of “beliefs” is nothing but a massive system of lies, none of it relevant to anything real at all, but, in terms of exposing the inner hypocricy of most christians and modern church traditions, if have to basically say =D>
judging them by their own false system, they fall far, far short of the ideals they pretend to practice.
nice job.
also, i like the brief explanation about eastern fears… indeed it seems there is an almost instinctive fear of anything reeking of mysticism or esotericism or occult or buddhism or meditation or reincarnation… i dont know if i would go do far as to call it all generated by a fear that these things could “disprove” the christian’s belief-set, or bring the true motives to the surface (i think the fear is probably more caused mainly by the fear of ALL different “spiritualities” and religious-exploration in general, which the christian instinctively and violently interprets as the work and temptations of “the devil”). however, like i was saying, it is nice to see a somewhat naturalistic, if nonetheless brief, approach here.
Yes, there are numerous websites to acknowledge that. If you steep yourself in the symbolism of Judaism and Christianity and use the standards like the “Lords Prayer” as a basis for meditation, or if you approach the teaching of Christ from different perspectives, you find that this teaching has a depth that a conservative reading often doesn’t give you. However, if you speak to Christians about this experience, you find them immediately troubled and occasionally it is them that bring up fears of the occult. It seems to me that occultism is either the produce of Christian superstition or initially opposition against the Christianity of the middle ages.
I have met and spoken to enough people who have told me exactly what “borderliners” like Thomas Merton have written that intimate knowledge of Buddhism, Hinduism, Taosim or meditative practise, yoga and any number of other traditions enable Christians to deepen their understanding of Christ, because it is Christianity that is exclusive, not the eastern traditions. I haven’t experienced anybody from eastern traditions who would have me give up my Christianity – indeed some have shown a deep understanding of Christ.
I think that the “belief-set” of many Christians is vulnerable to criticism because it is based of belief rather than on trust or faith. In the same way as Psychology used models of thought to explain phenomena that would otherwise be far too complex, so too has Christianity used such simplifications. The problem arises when people start to believe that these simplifications are reality and everything else has to conform to this “truth”. It is interesting that only a few Christians enter into a discussion that I started about Luther’s interpretation of Paul’s “putting off” of the “old man” which tackles the problem with the ego.
You can have a deeper and more informed discussion with people of eastern traditions about this subject on the basis of Christian scripture than with Christians themselves. This is disturbing.
Christians must learn … there is too much ignorance and intellectual cutback in Christianity
Christian must “emote” less … there definitely is something theatrical in conservative Christianity
Christians must have faith … confidence and trust come from experience rather than belief
I agree, though I think that the only difference it can make for them is that they might become able to see and understand the Kingdom of God better, if they open their minds for other traditions. I think that the better you understand what life is all about, the more you find yourself in the Kingdom of God. I’d also say that everything that happens, happens according to the Will of God regardless of how people interpret it. For these Christians it is only their own understanding and that they are restricting, and with this they restrict their ability to explain things to people and hence their popularity.
I think that the problems Christians have with acknowledging Eastern traditions and teachings is mainly an identity-crisis. If modern Christians have always been taught that the Church can give all that people need in order to understand the teachings of Christ, they have in a way been taught to reject other teachings. However, the popularity of Yoga and Buddhism in the West show us how influential Eastern traditions already are in the West, and how valuable and unstoppable they are. They don’t need to be acknowledged by large organizations as the Church, they’re already being acknowledged by individual people which is far more important.
I’d like to add that in principle there is nothing wrong with a massive system of lies, as long as it makes people happier. (Call it Matrix-philosophy.)
About their belief system, as far as I get it, they suggest that everything that looks bad from their Christian perspective appears to have come into existence through the Devil and not God, and these two are different principles within their system of belief. If this is true then I’d say that one of the greatest trick this Christian God ever pulled was convincing his followers that he is not the Devil, and the Devil pulls similar tricks in convincing people that he is not God. Funny as they may seem, these principles are still very good foundations for valuable teachings, both ethics and metaphysics.
I do think that the ideals after which Christians strive are of a good nature. After all, I think that one of the most important reasons for them to follow the teachings of Christ is that they think that it will make them better people. Irrespective of the way in which people strive after this goal, people who do so are virtuous by nature.
Personally I think that you’re very correct on this. Maybe the biggest fear of Christians nowadays is that they may have to change (expand) the philosophical interpretation or specification of their spiritual guide. I can imagine that they have a hard time understanding and explaining this world if they stay attached to the same texts, and keep their minds closed for other spiritual teachings or religious perspectives.
Christians emote and call it faith meaning faith is merely an unexamined/unguided emotion–a car with passengers but no driver, going nowhere, in the fast lane.
Christians emote and call it faith meaning faith is merely an unexamined/unguided emotion–a car with passengers but no driver, dead in the water, in the fast lane.
The “will of God” happens according to Matth. 6:10 when and where heaven and earth meet (“Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”) in the kingdom (“thy kingdom come”). The Aramaic word translated as “will” can, according to Douglas-Klotz, also mean desire, delight or consent and expresses an inner harmony of feeling. This means that when the “kingdom comes” into our lives, the “will” of God becomes delight – for us and for God – and we become a conductor for the delight of God in this world.
Although this is a different thought to Taoism, the idea of harmonising with Tao, and flowing with rather than struggling against the natural and spiritual order of things does resound in it too. It is more personal in its description but there is a connection – the idea of serving the order of things actively by allowing the influence of God into our lives and becoming the route by which that order is upheld is inspiring. This is especially because the activity of the Lords prayer is paradoxically wrapped up in passivity, asking and listening for a better understanding of ourselves.
Yes, it is an identity-crisis, but it is so because Christians lack experience and must “believe without seeing” – although this is meant differently in John. My statement in my last thread was that this “putting off” of the “old man” obviously refers to some method or ritual, whether meditative or contemplative, and Jesus was clearly about regularly finding solitude and a different frame of mind. It wasn’t about discussion of scripture, but rather the fulfilment of scripture: “… today this has come to be before your ears [or eyes]”.
This is a different covenant, not like the previous one (Jer 31:33), “I will put My Law in their inward parts, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people”. It is a covenant written on our inward parts, not something external but personal. It has to do with completeness and wholeness, with a whisper of inspiration and the calmness of prayer and meditation. It is peaceful and peacemaking, promoting humility, mercy and comfort for those who mourn and hunger and thirst for righteousness. But it is also a source of persecution, a contradiction to all of what is normal in our world. If only Christians could sacrifice trying to be normal for the sake of completeness.
Don’t bother yourself greatly with the collective behavior, in regards to religion; especially western religion.
Simply enjoy people as they are if you can and enjoy your beliefs and what they provide for your life.
By the way…it’s not Christianity…it’s western culture.
Western culture could have become any number of religions, and still could, and it would still be as overt and judgmental with that religion as it is with Christianity.
The reason that the original Christians were different than the ones you are largely seeing today is because they were a different culture.
It’s strange. I hardly ever see people and know they are Christian. On the news, I suppose, at protests. Or when thousands surround the Pope in some country. These latter seem neither catastrophic nor like models in a Miss Universe contest, even taking that all metaphorically as it was meant.
But maybe you are on school boards or something or live across the street from a Church that doubles as a Christian Coalition meeting place.
I think the problem I have is that the collective behaviour I shouldn’t bother myself with is misguiding, not only for people outside of Christianity, but also for a number of people within. There is a lot of illusion needing dis-illusionment, a lot of enchantment that has to come down to earth. If it doesn’t, there will be widespread distress.
I would say that it is a Christianity of western culture and agree with you to a large degree – the tendency for these people to box modern spiritual movement up as “New Age” overlooks that their Christianity is a relatively modern approach and as “New Age” as anything else.
I believe that Christianity, like Buddhism and any other large spiritual movement, transcends culture. It starts there, takes its language from it, but the “Holy Spirit” isn’t culturally bound.
There is little hope for the western cultural mass in this regard.
It’s what I call, “Bubble World”, syndrome.
Specifically in America this is rampant, but it also exists in all of the west in varying degrees.
Essentially, a large percentage of the population lives in their individual bubbles and they don’t want to live in the world outside of the bubble they create for themselves to live in.
Furthermore, if a person presents a world to the bubblite’s that is not cohesive with their bubble, then that person will be dismissed as a viewpoint to consider.
Bubblite evangelists, not exclusive to Christianity, though Christian bubblite evangelists are some of the most obvious, are people that attempt to persuade other people to adopt a similar bubble world of their own that matches a model similar to the evangelists bubble world; in so doing, the bubblite’s universe grows larger; their bubble reality expands and their confirmation in their reality is justified further.
Some would call this “perspective” and “opinion”, but there is a difference in that bubblite’s commonly hold their bubble as enlightened and/or blessed, and realities outside of it are the deluded ideals; they do not see their world as a bubble, but a beacon in a world that is shrouded beyond them.
This is specifically cynically humorous when it comes to Christian bubblites because the dogma of Christianity professes helping people in need of help, and yet the common Christian bubblite really only helps anyone out of pity for not having their bubble, or as an extension of a belief of what they should do as a representative of their bubble world representation of good.
So their charity is very touch and go as it comes and goes with convenience.
The chances of destroying the western bubble world syndrome is pretty low without a major catastrophe that also destroys their social and economical bubble securities.
Even then, it only destroys their current bubble world’s.
That is precisely what I meant, but I should add that the Holy Spirit is not exclusive to Christianity to me.
TheStumps is making a lot of good points. But I’d like to expand on the notion of culture as a driving force behind the conformist ethic found in Christianity vs. the non-conformist elements found in other traditions like Buddhism and other Eastern religions. Western culture tends to be heavily individualistic (yes, I am generalizing, we can go into where this generalization breaks down if people want to get into it) so it makes sense that somewhere something is going to act to correct that fault and restore some semblance of the mean. Religion served that purpose for a long, long time and it did it by being heavily judgmental, holding a monopoly on knowledge, and heavily conformist. A lot of this is tied up with traditional power-structures where religion was outside of the state but also massively influential towards it. Eastern cultures are, as a rule, more collectivist/conformist so it makes sense that somewhere something is going to act to correct that fault and restore some semblance of the mean. Religion served that purpose for a long, long time by providing a means of individual expression and access to an individual experience that wasn’t otherwise available. A lot of this ties into how popular religion was used to undermine state power because of how religion and the state were intertwined and inseparable.
Given the a la carte approach that has become the modern religious experience, that means everybody has to ask themselves how their approach is correcting the extremes which they have as well as putting that question into the context of society-at-large.
I’m a Christian. I believe in God. I am also an empiricist for the most part (though that has been waning more and more recently). I used to be an atheist for a long time- especially when I studied philosophy at school. I was an “I need facts” type of guy. Still am. For me it changed when I actually gave it a chance. I asked God to make himself appear in my life- honestly trying it. I can say some amazing things have happened in my life that have strengthened that faith. Further, I don’t think I would be able to describe in detail how or what happened. It’s more of a “you had to be there” type thing. I agree that many “Christians” are jerks trying to tell people what to do and how to live. Many of them are judgemental liars. I don’t think of those people as real Christians. They are worse than anything else. They are posers. It’s the main reason I avoided actually taking it seriously for so long. Many of those people are phony- even more so than other people who consider themselves of other religions or no religion (though I think there are these kinds of people in every religion and non-religion). Many of them are ignorant in the true sense of the word. I don’t tell people how to live- but I feel I have become a fairly successful person in life, and I believe I owe that to God. I believe in leading by example. If people ask, I tell them where I get the swagger. If they don’t- I don’t worry about it. I don’t have to sell God to anyone- if you try it, it sells itself.
by the way. it’s really rude to tell me to shut up and live differently. saying things like that make you just as awful as the a-holes telling you how to live your life. brings a whole new meaning to “if you can’t beat 'em join 'em” - go ahead.
I’d be satisfied with the first and well there’s always a first time for Christians to follow their faith on mass, and stop sowing discord and hatred with their intrinsically elitist nonsense. I like religion only in that it is of interest to the ascent of man. Beyond that it should keep itself to itself to some extent.
My mother is a gnostic, good job they don’t burn them or nail them up or catapult their bodies in two separate directions for fun any more. She doesn’t believe in churches, or organised religion, she’s more of the split a piece of wood and there you will find me type Christian, if only they all were. And she hates any church that thinks it can convey something special like salvation or forgiveness without God, no man can grant anything, that is Gods will and all that. So she’s fine with Orthodox Christianity, and liberal Islam, particularly Suffists, doesn’t like Catholics or fundamentalist protestants all that much. And is fine with Judaism.
So you are (or were) opposed to rationalism and you propose the existence of innate ideas which are derived from experience? Therefore, you could claim that what we consider to be knowledge of the physical world is nothing more than an oversimplification of the real thing, viewed from one restricted perspective. This actually fits in with the thesis that you don’t “know” something until you have been there, done it and bought the t-shirt to prove it. What you said about experience is true, being something that a simple statement cannot adequately represent. You have to transport feelings with language to get anywhere close to experiences.
The terminology that you asked God to “make himself appear” is telling – at least about what kind of people you were with – and makes me wonder what we imagine God to be. Many religious people of various traditions may ask you whether you asked God to prevent you from being so blind, or hard-necked, or stubborn, since they regard God as evident in many aspects of life. Only a stubborn blind man would tell somebody to “appear” who is already there. There is also the case of selective perception, only seeing what you want to, and fading everything else out. If God didn’t look like what you were expecting, you would walk right past him.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say that some Christians are “jerks”, they just talk to much about things they don’t understand, assuming that their words do some justice to the reality behind their metaphors and analogies. Since the Protestants put the emphasis on the “WORD”, there is a tendency towards idolatry of the spoken or written word – even to the idea that their spoken Word is God, because it is so pious. That is why some stand up muttering gobbledegook and say it is “glossa” or tongues. These are just emotional highs that accompany fanaticism – just like young girls scream until they loose consciousness.
The material side of life, money, eating and drinking, clothing etc. is really only incidental and has nothing to do with spiritual progress – in fact, wealth in Aramaic is connect to heaviness and in Germany they talk about somebody being “schwer reich”. Wealth therefore weighs you down which, as a nomad, could cost you your life. It also prevents you being flexible in more way than one. You have to weigh the cost of entering the Kingdom of God, since it easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get in. The way you put it, you could get the idea that God gave you your wealth for being so good … I suppose you didn’t think of it that way, but there you are.
Well, if you look closely, I said that “Christians, if they want the Kingdom of God to come and the will of God to be done, must learn to shut up and live differently “. I didn’t tell Christians to “shut up”, but that they must learn to shut up, which is something different. On the other hand, I knew that people could be attracted by the title of the topic.
I think that just being Christian, without proclaiming it, would make a great deal of difference. If they just followed the Way of Christ, rather that the bourgeoisie romanticism that passes as Christianity, they would revolutionise the world.
I don’t believe in the “ascent of man” as a historic development, but rather as an individual personal development that has a broader effect on society – especially when groups of enlightened people influence their surroundings.
Your mother sounds very interesting – what have you learned from her?
