Are you?
Feel free to share your thoughts on the matter…
Relevant to this discussion is the book “How Jesus became God” by New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman. Another scholar who has studied this problem at length is Larry Hurtado whose book is entitled “How on Earth did Jesus become God” where he presents a different theory. Of course, this takes the matter out of the realm of faith into the realm of historical probability with its relative uncertainties.
Again, given 1] that crucial existential relationship between “morality here and now and immortality there and then”, and 2] the stakes involved if you wager on the wrong God, how on earth could a God, the God merely allow this to become just a “personal matter”?
You either believe in a Judgment Day or you don’t. And you are either able to demonstrate that what you believe about it is true or you’re not. Though, sure, if you are able to think yourself into accepting that whatever you have come [existentially re dasein] to believe about it is okay with your God and this comforts and consoles you then, yeah, you win.
And you’ve won here, right? Now it’s only a matter of taking that victory to the grave. Once dead, your wager is either rewarded or it’s not.
Also, on Judgment Day, with any luck, God will be partial to the conservatives among us.
Again, the irony to me is that, given the stakes involved here, it is the orthodox and fundamentalist communities that seem to make the most sense. Don’t fuck with God’s will. We embody it and if you don’t then be prepared to be…left behind?
But living a certain life revolves profoundly around the historical and cultural and experiential contexts into which you are “thrown” at birth. And then your childhood indoctrination. And then your own unique set of personal experiences that predispose you toward or away from God and religion.
The part where had your parents died when you were a baby and you went on to live a very, very different life in a different family, you might well be here defending atheism instead. The part the moral and political and spiritual objectivists among us don’t or won’t dwell on “philosophically”.
And, with any luck, you won’t have any new experiences that make you question it all again.
You know, like I did.
How we doin in here, guys? Making any progress? That’s okay, there’s always tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day, and the…
If you start off with the theory that Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet, like Bart Ehrman does, there are enough statements in the Gospels that point to his being an apocalyptic prophet and it would explain his original attraction, which I find quite convincing. The further developments led to the various exaltations of Jesus which develop mythologies or Christologies, which speculate on where he came from. Each are making a point, trying to understand how Jesus relates to the one God. The initial idea seems to have been that Christ was born as Jesus and adopted by God at his baptism, or at his resurrection. This wasn’t enough for others, so we had then the incarnation of a (semi) divine Christ and then, in St. John’s Gospel, Christ was at the beginning of creation. In the end it was the emperor Constantine had the leaders of the church in 312AD vote on what was to be believed.
The obvious problem here is that the discussions 300-400 years after Jesus have different issues to the man Jesus, or to the issues mentioned in the Beatitudes. That means that it isn’t what Jesus was preaching that we have in the church, but a teaching about who Jesus was and what his death meant, and even more importantly, what happened after his death. Those that claim that Christianity followed the biblical tradition and assert unity obviously ignore the fact that we find various traditions in the Bible, sometimes not apparent to modern Bible readers, but obvious to those reading in Greek. The thing is though, the academic discussions over millennia have only affected the peasant population insignificantly, and that belief developed over time. There was also a rise of superstition during this time, often a bastardisation of rites and ceremonies, brought on by the failure to relate them to the illiterate population.
But I hold on to the fact that the mythology around Christ developed a meaning beyond those rites and ceremonies, especially in monasteries and convents, in which the divine mystery was expressed. People grasped the symbolism and used it to describe the mystery of life. When I speak to people about faith, I find that very few are intent on orthodoxy, but have their own ideas and views which they are very shy about. Many ceremonies we developed in geriatric care were so that the participants could be active or passive, and many who had only been passive expressed their thanks for such a wonderful ceremony. Even patients with dementia displayed an understanding of the numinous, especially if they had been churchgoers before their affliction.
So, although we can discuss what is orthodoxy or not, I believe that everyone finds their own understanding, and participates in the way they feel comfortable with, even in the fundamentalist groups.
When you read many theories of the historical Jesus including now the considerable output of the so-called mythicists who deny that he was a historical person, you may come to see that there is a lack of the historical facts necessary to come to a firm in certain conclusion. Traditional theology attempted to unite the various views presented in the New Testament into an integrated view of who and what Jesus was. But the canonical gospels and Paul and the other New Testament writers can also be read as having various christologies that is various views of who he was. So, for example, the Gospel of Mark has a lower christology than that of the Gospel of John. According to Mark, Jesus may be identified with the son of man who appears first in the book of Daniel where he is seen in heaven. Ehrman proposes that when the son of man is mentioned in the Gospel of Mark Jesus is not referring to himself but the one who is to come with the Apocalypse. The Gospel of John has so-called Doubting Thomas called the resurrected Jesus God. If the biggest doubter among the disciples calls Jesus God then what should we suppose the author was suggesting?
Anyway I like your suggestion
“So, although we can discuss what is orthodoxy or not, I believe that everyone finds their own understanding, and participates in the way they feel comfortable with, even in the fundamentalist groups.”
But, easier said than done. The closest I have seen to that was in Unitarian Universalist Church. But even that church split over doctrinal issues. The church split into two factions the rationalists and the spiritualists I’ll call them. They voted and kicked out the pastor who was on the spiritual side. It was perhaps less rancorous then ILP, but a man lost his livelihood over it.
“They voted and kicked out the pastor who was on the spiritual side. It was perhaps less rancorous then ILP, but a man lost his livelihood over it.”
Wait, people get paid to talk about this nonsense?
(u knew it was coming, kat. U practically handed it to me)
The main takeaway I have from these variations in the Gospels (not to mention the Pseudo-Gospels of Nag Hammadi) is that we have stories here that were being told by multiple groups about an event that history hasn’t been able to fully confirm. This tells me that either the evidence has been lost, or the event wasn’t important enough to be recorded. What does sound right is that Jesus was an apocalyptic prophet who saw himself in the lineage of David, and it was this that Judas betrayed to the officials and what got him killed. It could be very well true that this man was a healer, and a storyteller who left a huge impression on his followers, and when he was taken and killed, his followers were left trying to make sense of it all. Their idea of his murder being a representative sacrifice was an inspiration taken from scriptures, and after a long time being rejected by the Pharisees and Sadducees, it reached Saul of Tarsus and the realisation of a cosmic event knocked him off his horse. The rest can be read in his letters and in John’s Gospel.
Oh, I’m sure that people will find some problems with it. The dilemma I saw when I was in the church, was that people thought (without thinking about it) that we were all talking about the same thing, which, when people felt free to speak, you found wasn’t really true. People congratulated me on sermons and told me they liked things I’d said, but which I hadn’t said. They had just thought I had said it. I held a meeting at a ‘Free Church’ and was congratulated by the women and the young people on an ‘appealing’ talk, and at the door I was told by the men, “Not like that, young man, you can’t do it like that …” So, you see, we all pick up different things from what we hear, especially sermons if they last more than 30 Minutes.
The same happened when I used to hold a devotional with a friend of mine before staff events when we worked for the catholic church. We used to do a comic conversation, but one that had a devout punchline. That went down well too, but our bosses and the Priest picked up the devout stuff and the staff picked up the jokes.
Yes, this can be a technique any particular individual can use to soothe their soul. But if their soul is roiled when struggling to connect the dots between morality here and now and immortality there and then…how far can it go here?
Which is my own main interest in God and religion.
And this part:
On the contrary, when it comes to meaning and purpose as most Christians construe it, what I “envisage” is “fractured and frsagmented”. It is instead the overwhelming preponderance of Christians who don’t “get” God as you do who divide up the world between in sync with God’s will or out of sync with it.
And, given the staggering vastness of “all there is” cosmologically, what might that “bigger picture” be given your own infinitesimally tiny existence here on planet Earth? All the more reason then to invent Gods in order to subsume it in some essential meaning and purpose.
No, in a philosophy venue, it is generally not assumed that just because you have found your own comforting and consoling answer pertaining to what you personally construe the “larger whole” to be – the Christian God – that need be the end of the discussion.
A challenge in which each of us an individuals respond, in my view, based on the manner in which I construe the meaning of dasein here. And where, given that, does the political “I” end and the spiritual “I” begin?
Well, some are clear in what they are doing in focusing their compassion on the unborn fetus about to be destroyed, while others are clear in focusing their compassion on the parents, who, in not destroying the fetus, and bringing it into the world, also bring serious problems for them. That’s why there are Christians called Catholics who are far more adamant regarding where the true Christian compassion must lie in the eyes/will of God. The same God as yours but understood differently in regard to abortion.
And that relates to the point I raise here…how? Rittenhouse had his frame of mind. Those he shot and killed their own. Again, in reacting to the consequences of that, where does one’s political frame of mind end and one’s spiritual frame of mind begin? And then some ask themselves “What would Jesus do?”.
Okay, what would He do? Is there a Christian consensus here? Or is each individual Christian likely to think what they do based more on how I construe human identity in the is/ought world as the existential embodiment of dasein.
And the way you choose to live your life is profoundly embedded in the manner in which I construe the “self” here as an existential embodiment rooted in dasein. And the stakes are still the same. Only given your own understanding of the God that you’ve placed your bet on, He seems willing to allow each of us to follow their own path. Much like Maia’s nature allowing each Pagan to follow their own path even if that results in completely conflicting moral convictions.
The problem? Well, here and now, that revolves around the fact that this “dreamless sleep” for all the rest of eternity entails that everything and everyone you love and cherish is taken from you. Forever. In other words, the very thing that disturbs – even terrifies – most. The very thing that prompts them to invent God and religion.
Then back to how that works on Judgment Day when you are pleading to the God of Moses and Abraham as a Christian or a Muslim or a Jew. Or if it all revolves instead around the Hindu or Shinto Deities. Or if it’s Nirvana or Valhalla or Heaven that it all comes down to.
Oh, I saw it alright. Did you see my answer?
MagsJ wrote:
A Shieldmaiden wrote:
MagsJ wrote:
I am interested to read your response to my question first, I may learn something from your emphatic statement that Jesus never called himself God, or the Son of God, but he did call himself The Son of Man.
Perhaps direct me to whatever documentation you have.
Alright u guys got me all confused now. If jesus has called god the father, and all men are god’s sons, and Jesus is a man, then Jesus is god’s son like all other men. Even if Jesus was the son of man, he’d necessarily be a son of god, because men are sons of god. You feel me? I mean do u really need documentation to figure this shit out? A five year old could do it.
Anyway I’m tryna find a religion to join and I gotta tell ya, this Christianity is some pretty wonky stuff. Ya think I should be a shinto or a zen guy? I’m pretty good with nun-chucks.
We could of course consult with St. Brochephus and St. Garth Aloe Mule.
Matthew 18:11
promethean75 wrote:
Romans 1:22
For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking and darkened in their foolish hearts…
Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools,
Try and see? What is the use of soothing the soul if it isn’t “roiled”?
I sometimes get the feeling that you are just being obstruse. You ridicule the phrase “fractured and fragmented” and declare ignorance at what “the bigger picture” could be, even colloquially. You take statements and just blow out their perspectives, which reminds me of children who persist in asking why?
That may be, but in a venue in which people are sat opposite each other, one knows when to stop. It becomes apparent when there is just no more to say. Just to fill the silence with words is not philosophy.
The spiritual way of solving conflicts is to assess whether the person is really interested in resolving an issue. Then one finds out where the conflict actually exists, and asks oneself, have I got an answer, or a suggestion, that could help resolve the issue. If the answer is no, or my answer or suggestion doesn’t satisfy the other person, one ends the conversation, respectfully agreeing to disagree.
There are people with different concepts sitting next to each other in the pews of any church. The concepts we have of the numinous are massively diverse in literature, without even mentioning the other traditions. Abortion is something that my wife would never do, nor would I ever try to persuade her to, but we are not everybody, nor the measure of things. We haven’t experienced the tragedies of multitudes of people or suffered their experience of life. We haven’t stood in mud and rain, carrying a child that is about to be born, nor had so many mouths to feed, with so little in the pot. We only know, in our circumstances, how we would decide. There would also only be reason for conflict with other Christians if they displayed other major misdemeanours, such as violence of any kind towards people in situations they couldn’t relate to.
Whaat!? “His frame of mind”? He went out with a clear intent to use his rifle, accepting that people could be killed. The others were protesting against racism. If you can’t distinguish the difference, you have no place discussing anything. Coming on with your stupid “what would Jesus do?” is either blatant ridicule or blatant stupidity. Either way, the subject is closed.
“The spiritual way of solving conflicts is to assess whether the person is really interested in resolving an issue. Then one finds out where the conflict actually exists, and asks oneself, have I got an answer, or a suggestion, that could help resolve the issue.”
Um excuse me.
the ‘spiritual way’ of solving conflicts. How would you know you used the wrong spiritual solution, if indeed you did?
Firstly, we’re not even sure what a ‘spiritual solution’ would look like, and secondly, the cause/correlation problem is especially glaring here.
An African witch doctor sticks a pin in a doll and the store owner who cheated him, falls over dead. A Christian prays before bedtime and his favorite team wins the next day. I could go on.
…
Now if you merely mean ‘a change of attitude’ when you say ‘spiritual solution’, there’d be no reason to mystify that by calling it ‘spiritual’.
Joe is depressed, his career is falling apart and his wife just spent thousands on a pair of fake tits. He needs a solution to this feeling of dread and despair… and yet each item is perfectly addressable without recourse to some obscure notion of ‘spiritual solution’.
Joe starts exercising more, makes some changes at work or even considers another career option, and convinces his wife that she’s beautiful even without the tits. No spirit stuff here. Just good ol’ fashioned workable solutions.
Rittenhouse went out to defend his community from Anarchists, Democrat brown-shirt thugs, hell bent on Burning Looting and Murdering.
There were dozens of political killings by these Anti-American, Soros-backed, Marxist scum groups. If Rittenhouse would not have defended himself, then he’d be shot or beaten to death. Why don’t you radical Marxist-Leftists call-out the guns that the rioters had? Because that would expose your hypocrisy and lies. And nobody would have bat an eye about Americans dying, like the others victimized during the past couple years.
For you to defend the “victim” domestic terrorists, really demonstrates which side you are on.
As if we were going to change anyone’s opinion about the intent of Rittenhouse by discussing it here. It is as if you fellas want to support Iambiguous’s proposition of moral nihilism based on conflicting moral and political judgments. Judgments about a person’s “intent” can seldom if ever be conclusively determined. Admitting that whatever we think about the killer’s intent is merely our judgment based on limited facts and the inability to get inside the killer’s head would improve this discussion. Oh and remind me again what this has to do with the Christ and the Power.
Seems like the message of Christ too …
Actually, I’m more interested in how you connect the dots here using this technique. Given a world bursting at the seams with moral conflagrations and countless religious denominations offering up their own “one true path” to immortality and salvation, why your path? How “for all practical purposes” does any technique you use soothe your soul?
After all, here and now, that’s no longer even an option for me.
To wit:
And this pertains to the point I raised here…how? Back again to making it all about me?
And what, from the cradle to the grave existentially, could possibly be less “abstruse” than the “human condition”? Birth. School. Work. Death.
Then what?
And discussions like this. A God, the God, your God. And the arguments I note in examining why you came to believe what you do now and not something else. And you avoiding going there by making it all about me or taking the exchange up into the spiritual contraption clouds.
Ah, “the silence”!
That will make all those grotesque and ghastly newspaper headlines go away. And now your God has thickened the plot with the “Omicron coronavirus variant”. New headlines. And not much either the theologians or the philosophers among us can do to make them go away.
So, sure, if “the silence” technique lessens the roiling turmoil for some here, bully for them.
Whose “spiritual way”? Yours? Others here? And, again, how are these individual assessments not in and of themselves profoundly rooted in dasein? And, sooner or later, these conflicting assessments regarding the resolution of the conflict have to come down to one set of moral and political prejudices rather than another. One set of laws or another.
Again, though, we need a context. Choose a context in which human behaviors often come into conflict over value judgments and reconfigure your suggestions above into an actual…plan?
Exactly my point. You and your wife, given the experiences and circumstances that you have come to embody together, have, existentially, come to think and feel as you do. Others, in embodying very, very different experiences and circumstances have come to think and feel what can be conflicting or even contradictory things.
But there it is: Judgment Day.
So, in regard to abortion, does the God of Moses and Abraham Himself take into consideration my own arguments here? How can He judge Christians who come to opposite beliefs about abortion if those very beliefs are rooted – problematically – in the lives that they lived?
Google “abortion and the old testament” – google.com/search?q=abortio … nt=gws-wiz
…and let the debate [among mere mortals] commence.
Huffing and puffing, Bob?
I thought you didn’t want to go the polemical route?
But, in my opinion, you really need to dig deeper into exploring why you allow yourself to react to me like that. You are clearly intelligent enough to note that the points I make above can be troubling to those who actually do place a bet on a God, the God, my God.