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post #81 of 198
2/15/05 at 6:15am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally posted by dmz
that was a reference to the axiom that, unless there are written records, any take on history is COMPLETLY speculative.

As it should be. History is rife with tamperings, exaggerations, lies, propaganda, overblown tributes, fabrications, revisions and misinformation. Even with living eye-witnesses, accounts can be suspect.

Now, I'm not one of these people that denies everything, I give it all benefit of the doubt for it to be laid out and examined by all so people can deem it plausible or not and to continually revisit it as theories and technology changes.

History is, and should always be, being inspected for accuracy and new ideas and theories tested. This is where science triumphs and religion doctrine fails. One tests and asks questions, the other believes at face value (or even worse, on faith) and refuses to question. Theologians do test and question doctrines but usually it is to stitch up holes, not tear down illusions.

Quote:
Originally posted by dmz
This "good enough" dogma isn't some rabbit the masses chased for diversion for 2000 years -- you shouldn't ignore, wholesale, what has driven western culture since Christianity overpowered Rome. Even more so, you shouldn't ignore this same metaphysical framework that has survived a concerted effort to unseat it on multiple levels, for the last several hundred years.

"Christianity overpowered Rome"
"The Roots of Violence: wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, politics...

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"The Roots of Violence: wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, politics...

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post #82 of 198
2/15/05 at 6:38am
Quote:
Originally posted by Hassan i Sabbah
Well, OK. Fair's fair. I won't ignore historical records if you won't ignore the the last century-and-a-half's research in geology, paeleontology, genetics, cosmology and physics. How's that?

Yes, I'm sorry, I keep forgetting that all that exists are mathamatical laws and matter -- and that these fields hold all the answers.

In our desire to impose form on the world we have lost the capacity to see the form that is there;
and in that lies not liberation but alienation, the cutting off from things as they really are. --...

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In our desire to impose form on the world we have lost the capacity to see the form that is there;
and in that lies not liberation but alienation, the cutting off from things as they really are. --...

Reply
post #83 of 198
2/15/05 at 7:20am
Quote:
Originally posted by johnq
"Christianity overpowered Rome"

Quote:
Originally posted by Hassan i Sabbah
It didn't 'overpower' Rome. What nonsense. It was a crisis cult...


Rome's power, or organizing principle was continuity, a 'continuous unity' of gods and men, the divine and the human, and the unity of all being. All of Roman society was a part of the 'all-absorbing One'.

I don't think anyone would deny this.

Christianity insists on just the opposite -- a ABSOLUTE division between the human and divine. No human order or institution can claim divinity and then claim to represent total and 'final order', AS SUCH. All governments, from the Christian first principles, were put under God.

From Eric Voegelin:
Quote:
What made Christianity so dangerous was its uncompromising, radical de-divination of the world

the 2nd century Christian antangonist Celsus called this "the language of sedition"

From the Wikipedia entry for Celsus:
Quote:
Over against the state and the worship of the Caesar stood as usual the Christian ideal of a rule and a citizenship not of this world

and from somewhere else:
Quote:
In the conflict with the Roman Empire, the Christian thinkers carried the day, and Rome found that its only effective argument, which finally failed, was persecution. And, the more fanatically the Roman emperors sought to advance salvation, economically, politically, and religiously, through their genius, the more obvious their failure became. Their "salvation," for all Romans, more closely resembled oppression. Clearly, the non-Christian Romans themselves, who were not bound to pray for those in authority as were Christians, were at times more in a mood to swear at the genius of the emperor than by it.

....the Roman ideal ended in failure, trumped by Christianity.

In our desire to impose form on the world we have lost the capacity to see the form that is there;
and in that lies not liberation but alienation, the cutting off from things as they really are. --...

Reply

In our desire to impose form on the world we have lost the capacity to see the form that is there;
and in that lies not liberation but alienation, the cutting off from things as they really are. --...

Reply
post #84 of 198
2/15/05 at 7:51am
Quote:
Originally posted by dmz
....the Roman ideal ended in failure, trumped by Christianity.

Thus feeding Christians to lions was replaced by feeding fires with witches. Ah, the march of human progress!
We were once so close to heaven
Peter came out and gave us medals
Declaring us the nicest of the damned -- They Might Be Giants          See the stars at skyviewcafe.com
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We were once so close to heaven
Peter came out and gave us medals
Declaring us the nicest of the damned -- They Might Be Giants          See the stars at skyviewcafe.com
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post #85 of 198
2/15/05 at 8:00am
Quote:
Originally posted by shetline
Thus feeding Christians to lions was replaced by feeding fires with witches. Ah, the march of human progress!

Big surpise! Constantine and the Romish Church wasn't perfect. (It was many years until the Magna Carta, and still more until Martin Luther King.)

(and don't forget gang rape and bestiality in the in Rome's public spectacles)

In our desire to impose form on the world we have lost the capacity to see the form that is there;
and in that lies not liberation but alienation, the cutting off from things as they really are. --...

Reply

In our desire to impose form on the world we have lost the capacity to see the form that is there;
and in that lies not liberation but alienation, the cutting off from things as they really are. --...

Reply
post #86 of 198
2/15/05 at 9:22am
Quote:
Originally posted by dmz
Yes, I'm sorry, I keep forgetting that all that exists are mathamatical laws and matter -- and that these fields hold all the answers.

No. You keep forgetting that water is made from hydrogen and oxygen, the sun is a star and that the planet is very old.
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post #87 of 198
2/15/05 at 9:45am
Quote:
Originally posted by Hassan i Sabbah
No. You keep forgetting that water is made from hydrogen and oxygen, the sun is a star and that the planet is very old.

I don't recall him ever saying such a thing.

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post #88 of 198
2/15/05 at 9:56am
Quote:
Originally posted by dmz
(and don't forget gang rape and bestiality in the in Rome's public spectacles)

and don't forget gang-rape, castration, child-abuse, child-murder, dildos, nudism, blow-jobs, human sacrifice, masturbation, pedophilia, prostitution, sexual mutilation, sexual slavery, in the bible

and my favourite
eating your own shit and piss.

oh I see that the persuit of truth, honesty and integrity is too difficult for dmz, because the site requires a few clicks of a mouse.

Here, dmz, try this,it was written by a Christian. There aren't any links on the first page till the bottom - you can use a scroll wheel i trust.

http://jesusastrotheology.netfirms.com/

Quote:
from article - written by a CHRISTIAN.
After reading hundreds of books over those years and studying usually 5 hours a day, year after year, I have come to see without a doubt that all the world's religions, including Christianity, are nothing more than rewritten versions of an older story held dear by the earliest sages and priest of mankind that can be found on this planet; namely, the story of the birth, death, and rebirth of the Sun as it makes it circuit through the sky and the Zodiac once a year.

Malachi 4:2 (New International Version)

2 But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings. And you will go out and leap like calves released from the stall.
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post #89 of 198
2/15/05 at 10:00am
Quote:
Originally posted by Hassan i Sabbah
No. You keep forgetting that water is made from hydrogen and oxygen, the sun is a star and that the planet is very old.

Quote:
What needs to be done, we are told, is to demythologize the history of theology, the history of philosophy and the history of science. The theologians hasten to demythologize first the confessions of the church and then the Bible on which these confessions are based. Man views himself as a unified being and attributes his experience, thought and volition to his own agency, not to divine or demonic causes. If, as a naturalist, he acknowledges himself in the highest degree dependent, he still does not look upon this dependence as a subjection to higher powers distinguishable from the orderly processes of nature. On the other hand, if he understands himself as spirit, he is aware of his own freedom and responsibility, and even though he recognizes his conditioning by natural forces, he distinguishes his true being from them.
Similarly, when philosophy speaks it no longer speaks with Plato of eternal ideas of goodness, truth and reality or of man as essentially participating in such eternal entities. Man has learned to look within for an understanding of himself. Carrying through the principle of true inwardness as once suggested by Socrates, man sees himself as intelligible to himself in terms of himself and without any reference to any transcendent being.
Finally, science, following or preceding philosophy, has learned to think of time and change as ultimate. Scientists today no longer search for changeless eternal substances. For them nature is explained in terms of functions and correlations.

These details are irrelevant to the discussion -- the Genesis account, I have said time and time and time and time and time agian, may be allegrocial, in it's timeframe, and is rather general in any case. The Earth does not, in any of these events, have it's orgins in the materialist view -- which starts by making universal negative statements of the very nature and possibility of God and then orders what it wants into this system.

You, like johnq, simply don't have a metaphysical/physical framwork in place that is internally consistent from which to offer criticism of the Christian metaphysical/physical system. You are left to through stones and nitpick or force things on the Genesis account -- which it in no way claims, all with nothing defintive to offer in it's place. To the contrary, you are coming from a postion that denies the all reality, and the human ability to make definitve statements. This makes no sense.
Quote:
It might seem that the phenomenal world is now enough for man. Whether as a theologian, as a philosopher or as a scientist, modern man needs only to show the utter intellectual untenability of traditional theology, traditional philosophy and traditional science.
However, it has become obvious to modern man that, in order to understand nature, and himself in relation to nature, he still needs some sort of transcendence. Nature deals not only with what is fixed and changeless; nature deals with novelty as well. To be sure, when the modern scientist is engaged in demythologizing, he operates with the principle that nature is wholly perspicuous to mans intellect, because wholly changeless. How else can he exclude what to him are archaic ideas of a transcendent changeless God remaining changeless while, and after, creating a changing world? Nature simply must be such that this logical contradiction cannot be. The scientist must therefore make a universal negative statement about all that surrounds nature in order to preclude the possibility of any of Gods interferences with the laws of nature. In short, the process of demythologizing in which the modern scientist engages requires him to be a pure rationalist and therefore a pure determinist.
But then the modern scientist is not and cannot be a pure rationalist and a pure determinist without at the same time being a pure irrationalist and a pure indeterminist. The modern scientist cannot merely negate the irrational, the supernatural, the miraculous, in short the mythology of the past. He must offer his own substitute for these. He must have his own mythology. With Kant he therefore holds that time is ultimate. Its products are those of pure contingency, of pure indeterminism. Thus, the universe of science must be at the same time absolutely closed and absolutely open.

/**with Respect**/
I don't believe you have a leg to stand on, any more than the only way for a child to slap her father's face is to be sitting in his lap.
/**with Respect**/

gotta git, I can argue more when I get a break

In our desire to impose form on the world we have lost the capacity to see the form that is there;
and in that lies not liberation but alienation, the cutting off from things as they really are. --...

Reply

In our desire to impose form on the world we have lost the capacity to see the form that is there;
and in that lies not liberation but alienation, the cutting off from things as they really are. --...

Reply
post #90 of 198
2/15/05 at 10:01am
Quote:
Originally posted by MarcUK
and don't forget gang-rape, castration, child-abuse, child-murder, dildos, nudism, blow-jobs, human sacrifice, masturbation, pedophilia, prostitution, sexual mutilation, sexual slavery, in the bible

and my favourite
eating your own shit and piss.

Well I don't recall anything about blow-jobs and "eating your own shit and piss"....but besides that...what is your point? That those things are mentioned in the Bible? And? So?

( from some of the posts I've seen of yours...it seems your goal is simply to incite...anger...offend...etc. )
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post #91 of 198
2/15/05 at 10:02am
Quote:
Originally posted by MarcUK
and don't forget gang-rape, castration, child-abuse, child-murder, dildos, nudism, blow-jobs, human sacrifice, masturbation, pedophilia, prostitution, sexual mutilation, sexual slavery, in the bible

and my favourite
eating your own shit and piss.

oh I see that the persuit of truth, honesty and integrity is too difficult for dmz, because the site requires a few clicks of a mouse.

Here, dmz, try this,it was written by a Christian. There aren't any links on the first page till the bottom - you can use a scroll wheel i trust.

http://jesusastrotheology.netfirms.com/

I will, but LATER!!

here's a quickie:

Quote:
Careless seems the great Avenger; history's pages but record
One death-grapple in the darkness 'twixt old systems and the Word;
Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne,
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.
40

We see dimly in the Present what is small and what is great,
Slow of faith how weak an arm may turn the iron helm of fate,
But the soul is still oracular; amid the market's din,
List the ominous stern whisper from the Delphic cave within,
"They enslave their children's children who make compromise with sin."

...

Count me o'er earth's chosen heroes,they were souls that stood alone,
While the men they agonized for hurled the contumelious stone,
Stood serene, and down the future saw the golden beam incline
To the side of perfect justice, mastered by their faith divine,
By one man's plain truth to manhood and to God's supreme design.
60

By the light of burning heretics Christ's bleeding feet I track,
Toiling up new Calvaries ever with the cross that turns not back,
And these mounts of anguish number how each generation learned
One new word of that grand Credo which in prophet-hearts hath burned
Since the first man stood God-conquered with his face to heaven upturned.
65

For Humanity sweeps onward: where to-day the martyr stands,
On the morrow crouches Judas with the silver in his hands;
Far in front the cross stands ready and the crackling fagots burn,
While the hooting mob of yesterday in silent awe return
To glean up the scattered ashes into History's golden urn.

In our desire to impose form on the world we have lost the capacity to see the form that is there;
and in that lies not liberation but alienation, the cutting off from things as they really are. --...

Reply

In our desire to impose form on the world we have lost the capacity to see the form that is there;
and in that lies not liberation but alienation, the cutting off from things as they really are. --...

Reply
post #92 of 198
2/15/05 at 10:10am
Quote:
Originally posted by dmz
I will, but LATER!!

here's a quickie:

save this poetic bullshit for the sheep. I am only here to discuss truth, integrity, honesty, and the cold hard facts.
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post #93 of 198
2/15/05 at 10:18am
Quote:
Originally posted by atomic_angel
Well I don't recall anything about blow-jobs and "eating your own shit and piss"....but besides that...what is your point? That those things are mentioned in the Bible? And? So?

( from some of the posts I've seen of yours...it seems your goal is simply to incite...anger...offend...etc. )

you need to re-read your bible, but first, it would be advantegous to you if you first read through my links to establish what the facts are before we try to discuss them.

And I was trying to make exactly the same points that dmz was.
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post #94 of 198
2/15/05 at 10:23am
Quote:
Originally posted by atomic_angel
( from some of the posts I've seen of yours...it seems your goal is simply to incite...anger...offend...etc. )

Thats been trotted out a few too many times now for me to take it seriously, usually happens when someone is scared to review the evidence and usually results in attempting to have a moderator ban me for being a devil worshipping heretic.
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post #95 of 198
2/15/05 at 10:25am
Quote:
Originally posted by MarcUK
you need to re-read your bible

Yes, but you have such a thorough knowledge, I assuemd you'd give me chapter and verse.


Quote:
Originally posted by MarcUK
but first, it would be advantegous to you if you first read through my links to establish what the facts are before we try to discuss them.

Establish what that particular website thinks the facts are is what you mean to say.

Perhaps if I have some more time to waste, I will. I've seen your various postings and rantings about Christianity and find your credibility (and those of the sources you cite) lacking.

Quote:
Originally posted by MarcUK
And I was trying to make exactly the same points that dmz was.

I still don't get your point...those things are mentioned in the Bible. So what? Are you trying to imply that they are all condoned by the Bible (or God)?
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post #96 of 198
2/15/05 at 10:27am
Quote:
Originally posted by MarcUK
Thats been trotted out a few too many times now for me to take it seriously, usually happens when someone is scared to review the evidence and usually results in attempting to have a moderator ban me for being a devil worshipping heretic.

I couldn't care less if you get banned or not. That wasn't my point. Just stating my own observation of your posts is all.
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post #97 of 198
2/15/05 at 10:35am
Quote:
Originally posted by atomic_angel

Establish what that particular website thinks the facts are is what you mean to say.

As opposed to what, a particular book that you think are the facts?

Thats why i'm here. I spent hours,days, months, years looking for the truth. This is as far as I can get. I have an answer that explains *everything* has no contradictions, doesn't rely on miracles or magic or supernatural voodoo explanations. I present it, you read it, we discuss. I might be right, or you might prove me wrong. If you don't want to read it and discuss, do me a favour - fuck off and leave me alone.
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post #98 of 198
2/15/05 at 10:43am
Quote:
Originally posted by MarcUK
As opposed to what, a particular book that you think are the facts?

( and he fails to see the irony in this )



Quote:
Originally posted by MarcUK
Thats why i'm here. I spent hours,days, months, years looking for the truth.

That's why you're here? If that's why you are here (meaning this forum) I'd say (to paraphrase a sone) you're looking for truth in all the wrong places. You ain't gonna find it here.

Quote:
Originally posted by MarcUK
If you don't want to read it and discuss, do me a favour - fuck off and leave me alone.

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post #99 of 198
2/15/05 at 10:44am
Quote:
Originally posted by atomic_angel
Yes, but you have such a thorough knowledge, I assuemd you'd give me chapter and verse.

II Kings 18:27
Solomon's Song 4:11, 7:9
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post #100 of 198
2/15/05 at 10:49am
Quote:
Originally posted by MarcUK
II Kings 18:27
Solomon's Song 4:11, 7:9

But you still haven't indicated the point of this.
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post #101 of 198
2/15/05 at 10:52am
Quote:
Originally posted by atomic_angel
But you still haven't indicated the point of this.

well mr cuilla, I was making the same point as dmz. If you still don't understand, go ask him. What's your point?
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post #102 of 198
2/15/05 at 10:58am
Quote:
Originally posted by MarcUK
well mr cuilla

Huh?

Quote:
Originally posted by MarcUK
I was making the same point as dmz. If you still don't understand, go ask him.

I asked a simple question. Okay...got it...you're being evasive. I didn't see DMZ's point. I was a simple question.

The Bible makes reference to those things. So what? It doesn't imply that any or all of those things are somehow condoned. In most cases they are statements of what happened without necessarily making any value statements about them. So who cares? You, obviously.

Quote:
Originally posted by MarcUK
What's your point?

To find out yours.
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post #103 of 198
2/15/05 at 10:59am
Thread Starter 
And so it goes, endless unsourced Christian cut-and-paste blizzards. (Meaning the earlier posts on this page)
"The Roots of Violence: wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, politics...

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"The Roots of Violence: wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, politics...

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post #104 of 198
2/15/05 at 11:16am
Thread Starter 
Rubbish. Christianity didn't "overpower" Rome.

You really need to read some histories of Rome not specifically written by and for Christians.

Your unsourced quote:
Quote:
In the conflict with the Roman Empire, the Christian thinkers carried the day, and Rome found that its only effective argument, which finally failed, was persecution. And, the more fanatically the Roman emperors sought to advance salvation, economically, politically, and religiously, through their genius, the more obvious their failure became. Their "salvation," for all Romans, more closely resembled oppression. Clearly, the non-Christian Romans themselves, who were not bound to pray for those in authority as were Christians, were at times more in a mood to swear at the genius of the emperor than by it

Is the most blurred, unspecific piece of I-don't-know-what I've read in a while.

Christianity's ideas didn't "win", it was that the Christians took advantage of an already weakened Roman Empire, particularly after Christian radicals infested the government. Damn Theodosius.
"The Roots of Violence: wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, politics...

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"The Roots of Violence: wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, politics...

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post #105 of 198
2/15/05 at 11:26am
http://members.cox.net/deleyd/religion/index.htm
http://jesusastrotheology.netfirms.com/

dont forget the evidence.
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post #106 of 198
2/15/05 at 11:51am
Thread Starter 
Mark, it's futile to get into all this crap with them. The details of any religion are wholly arbitrary and based on the uniformed, illogical whims of countless thousands of ancient humans.

That these people trade logic for comforting brainwashing words, is not something easily changed or countered. They are too far into their conditioning.

I don't even want to lend credence to the various texts by even miring myself in the details.

The real issue is how can DMZ seriously, with a straight face, say that I'm the one that has no right to speak against Christianity until I go out and buy, steal, borrow, create, hypothesize or discover my own "internally consistent metaphysical/physical framework".

What the hell has Christianity ever done with regards to a physical framework first of all, except deny, obfuscate, outlaw and then perhaps claim as its own.

You say: "without strict trinitarian doctrine with the person of Christ as intermingled god/man, you are left to make up what ever you want in the realm of the 'wholly other'"

But:
"Rome's power, or organizing principle was continuity, a 'continuous unity' of gods and men, the divine and the human, and the unity of all being....Christianity insists on just the opposite -- a ABSOLUTE division between the human and divine. No human order or institution can claim divinity and then claim to represent total and 'final order', AS SUCH. All governments, from the Christian first principles, were put under God."

The "Christ as intermingled god/man" directly contradicts your assertion of Christianity's "ABSOLUTE division between the human and divine" because how can you be sure 1. there was a historical human named Jesus that all this history is actually attributable to and 2. that he wasn't just yet another Jewish rebel/bandit leader that kicked up enough dirt to get really noticed?

I'm not surprised if there was a historical Jesus, learned in the ways of various lost arts and healing methods, who preached peace and that this was abhorrent to the Jews and Romans. I'm then not surprise that the details of his life were later embellished so as to strengthen a religious/political movement. I'm not surprised even that he might merely have been egotistical rabble rouser and charismatic cult leader who said he was indeed the son of God, and I wouldn't be surprised if some people believed him.

But saying you are the son of God and other people saying it too, basically proves what exactly?

So the very thing you hold dear, the "ABSOLUTE division between the human and divine" that Christianity has, according to you, might well have been broken by Jesus, either by him or later followers. He basically coronated himself as son of God and that is somehow a rigorous "internally consistent metaphysical/physical framework"???

Get real.

"No human order or institution can claim divinity and then claim to represent total and 'final order', AS SUCH." Um, except the first human to think of it, um...Jesus?

A guy comes along and "claims divinity and then claims to represent total and 'final order', AS SUCH" and that's ok? That's rigorous?
"The Roots of Violence: wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, politics...

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"The Roots of Violence: wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, politics...

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post #107 of 198
2/15/05 at 11:56am
Quote:
Originally posted by MarcUK
save this poetic bullshit for the sheep. I am only here to discuss truth, integrity, honesty, and the cold hard facts.

Hmm..... should I call the literature police, or do you want to do it?


I looked at that site, I understand that the zodiac is very thematic of the seasons, the rise and fall of powers, and -- I believe -- if we had ancient wisdom the stars would tell us a bit more than we know now.

But

With the Christ story, it's so recent, that I can't go for the allegorical Christ. There was such a huge reaction, alot of very close historical documentation to the actually events -- agian, remember Celsus was already reacting to Christ as real only 50 years after the death of the Apostle John. There is alot of cross-referencing in texts around one event, I can't see Christ being mythical. Especially with the way Augustine and the other Church fathers tried to sythesise Christianity with greek thought early on. I don't think they knew what they had ahold of at that time, but when you look back at the implications of all of the information they had on hand it is apparent that it took time to distill this doctrine. There is an organic growth of the doctrine of Christ, and while the texts that were argued over didn't change, the where's and why's of the understanding of the Incarnation got more and more refined over time.

In the site's premise that Marcion started the this trouble, and the Paul didn't believe in Christs as we know Him today, but they don't seem to offer any documentation of the 'original uncorrupted texts' -- so it sounds like specualtion more than anything else. For the Church to have manufactured texts that are seemless in their system of truth before they understood what it meant, all the while fighting off heresy after heresey....and do this before there was a rigid authority structure in place......I think it would have to be an organized forgery on an order that has never been seen, before or since.

In our desire to impose form on the world we have lost the capacity to see the form that is there;
and in that lies not liberation but alienation, the cutting off from things as they really are. --...

Reply

In our desire to impose form on the world we have lost the capacity to see the form that is there;
and in that lies not liberation but alienation, the cutting off from things as they really are. --...

Reply
post #108 of 198
2/15/05 at 12:28pm
Quote:
Originally posted by johnq
Mark, it's futile to get into all this crap with them. The details of any religion are wholly arbitrary and based on the uniformed, illogical whims of countless thousands of ancient humans.

That these people trade logic for comforting brainwashing words, is not something easily changed or countered. They are too far into their conditioning.

I don't even want to lend credence to the various texts by even miring myself in the details.

The real issue is how can DMZ seriously, with a straight face, say that I'm the one that has no right to speak against Christianity until I go out and buy, steal, borrow, create, hypothesize or discover my own "internally consistent metaphysical/physical framework".

What the hell has Christianity ever done with regards to a physical framework first of all, except deny, obfuscate, outlaw and then perhaps claim as its own.

You say: "without strict trinitarian doctrine with the person of Christ as intermingled god/man, you are left to make up what ever you want in the realm of the 'wholly other'"

But:
"Rome's power, or organizing principle was continuity, a 'continuous unity' of gods and men, the divine and the human, and the unity of all being....Christianity insists on just the opposite -- a ABSOLUTE division between the human and divine. No human order or institution can claim divinity and then claim to represent total and 'final order', AS SUCH. All governments, from the Christian first principles, were put under God."

The "Christ as intermingled god/man" directly contradicts your assertion of Christianity's "ABSOLUTE division between the human and divine" because how can you be sure 1. there was a historical human named Jesus that all this history is actually attributable to and 2. that he wasn't just yet another Jewish rebel/bandit leader that kicked up enough dirt to get really noticed?

I'm not surprised if there was a historical Jesus, learned in the ways of various lost arts and healing methods, who preached peace and that this was abhorrent to the Jews and Romans. I'm then not surprise that the details of his life were later embellished so as to strengthen a religious/political movement. I'm not surprised even that he might merely have been egotistical rabble rouser and charismatic cult leader who said he was indeed the son of God, and I wouldn't be surprised if some people believed him.

But saying you are the son of God and other people saying it too, basically proves what exactly?

So the very thing you hold dear, the "ABSOLUTE division between the human and divine" that Christianity has, according to you, might well have been broken by Jesus, either by him or later followers. He basically coronated himself as son of God and that is somehow a rigorous "internally consistent metaphysical/physical framework"???

Get real.

"No human order or institution can claim divinity and then claim to represent total and 'final order', AS SUCH." Um, except the first human to think of it, um...Jesus?

A guy comes along and "claims divinity and then claims to represent total and 'final order', AS SUCH" and that's ok? That's rigorous?


johnq, you started this forum, with a coy sonnet of how rediculous "religion" is and in the end, when I threw some very basic, very common, philosophical issues your way --- the heart of 'who are we' and 'why are we here', you balked. You balked at providing historical references, you balked at citing anyone, you balked at providing your basis for criticising.

You must realize you don't have anyting to offer here. You can make up as many flavors of Christ you want, you can misquote imagined history all you want, and you can leap over tall intellectual buildings in a single "just cause I want to" but it doesn't make it constructive or accessable to anyone but yourself. Understand that there are those who do 'mire themselves in the details' and then there are those who throw rocks, and beat their chests, while talking of 'comfortable brainwashing'.

Brainwashing, by the way, manifests itself not with a multiplicity of references and a common landscape for dialoge, but alot of "that's just sos' and 'I don't wannas'. Relying on pop-shorthand for "all religion" that you were "taught" in popular culture doesn't mean you are prepared to dicuss it in this forum.

You should ask yourself what sort of person does call out those he doesn't agree with blurred slurs, and broad indistinguised deprecation -- and does so for purely personal, inaccesable reasons.

In our desire to impose form on the world we have lost the capacity to see the form that is there;
and in that lies not liberation but alienation, the cutting off from things as they really are. --...

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In our desire to impose form on the world we have lost the capacity to see the form that is there;
and in that lies not liberation but alienation, the cutting off from things as they really are. --...

Reply
post #109 of 198
2/15/05 at 12:39pm
Google for Sai Baba. He doesn't claim to be the son of God. His followers say he's God on earth himself.

Can we see some fundie logic to explain why he can't possibly be and why your internal intellectual framework thingie doesn't apply to people who claim the same as the followers of Jesus do today and why you don't down tools and head off to his ashram in southern India tomorrow?
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post #110 of 198
2/15/05 at 12:45pm

dmz, greet your red-robed overlord.
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post #111 of 198
2/15/05 at 12:57pm
dmz, where the fuck are these documents? they do not exist. There is not a single contemporary historical document that references Jesus. Even Josephus wasn't forged until the 4th century.

Then there is the problem that Martyr had to write an apologetic in the 2nd century pleading for Christianity to be accepted BECAUSE it was no different from the astrotheologies that preceeded it.

MARTYRS OWN WORDS...

"we propound nothing different from what you believe regarding those whom you esteem sons of Jupiter"
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post #112 of 198
2/15/05 at 1:33pm
Quote:
Originally posted by dmz
Understand that there are those who do 'mire themselves in the details' and then there are those who throw rocks, and beat their chests, while talking of 'comfortable brainwashing'.

Miring oneself in the details, however, doesn't necessarily get you anywhere either.

Take astrology. It's bullsh*t. At the very surface, there's no good reason to believe in it. There's no reasonable mechanism by which the movements of the planets are going to have any systematic effect on human behavior or human destiny. You might eke out some reason for a connection between seasons or lunar tides and human biology, but that's a far cry from any justification for predictions like "Wednesday will bring promising business opportunities for Scorpio".

Absence of a understandable mechanism for an alleged phenomena, while a major reason for skepticism, is not proof, of course, that a phenomenon is not real. No one knew for a long time how aspirin worked, but it did work, and its efficacy could be shown statistically in clinical trials. Astrology, however, lacks both a reasonable mechanism and any strong statistical proof to persuade one that it has any important predictive or descriptive value.

Calculating the positions of planets to three or six or 12 decimals doesn't help. Knowing a person's time of birth to the tenth of a second doesn't help. Adding in newly discovered planets and asteroids doesn't help. Making more and more complicated rules about aspects and houses and ascendants, etc., etc., is only a wasted effort building baroque castles on a foundation of sand.

Oh, but those who believe in astrology will indeed fault you for not knowing all of the petty details of all of the various systems of astrology. How dare you criticize that which you don't understand, that which you haven't bothered to study? They'll chuckle at you if all you seem to know is the barest sun-sign, newspaper-horoscope level of astrology, remaining smugly secure in their superior erudition on the subject.

In support of Christianity, you can trot out lots of quotes and historical references and tortured logic based on unfounded assumptions hidden among impressive wording and long chains of references to more of the same, but I've seen nothing yet to convince anyone that you're doing any more than what astrologers do, confusing erudition and complexity with having a solid foundation.
We were once so close to heaven
Peter came out and gave us medals
Declaring us the nicest of the damned -- They Might Be Giants          See the stars at skyviewcafe.com
Reply
We were once so close to heaven
Peter came out and gave us medals
Declaring us the nicest of the damned -- They Might Be Giants          See the stars at skyviewcafe.com
Reply
post #113 of 198
2/15/05 at 1:34pm
Thread Starter 
You took the circular logic of certain philosophical riddles and with some unconvincing slight-of-hand, show it as proof that anything other than Christianity (apparently) is imperfect, undesirable, fantasy, illogical or impossible.

You made this Christian specific. I don't doubt were you a Hindu, Muslim or Buddhist, just to name a few, we'd be down another equally potentialy hot-headed path as you try to say such-and-such makes for a better metaphysical/physical framework than mere observation or science...

But why put yourself further and further into a corner as defensive victim, when I'm merely "out here", outside your Religion X's box, not chasing you.

I offer plenty, I say that all the religions have monopolized the good things in human existence and used them as selling point for their special brands. That was the core point I made starting this thread.

Re-read my posts and you'll see you first made it Christian specific. My rant was against this human preoccupation with needing there to be a superbeing behind everything in order for it to be deemed real, valid or fulfilling.

Quote:
Relying on pop-shorthand for "all religion" that you were "taught" in popular culture doesn't mean you are prepared to dicuss it in this forum.

Yet more smug arrogance, implying that formal education is required to be able to speak and discuss a given subject. That's the old religious elitism we all know and love.

Quote:
You should ask yourself what sort of person does call out those he doesn't agree with blurred slurs, and broad indistinguised deprecation -- and does so for purely personal, inaccesable reasons.

As opposed to you? That's rich. You've been insulting for pages. My lack of faith is an affront to you and you cannot step outside your heritage and argue rationally, only pick and choose from tidbits that fit what you want to hear and see.

You quoted:

Quote:
Creationism does not at all rest "on the premise that the Bible is literally true." Creationism, as understood by Islam, Mormonism, Christianity, Judaism and more, rests solely on the revealed truth that God created the heavens and earth ex nihilo, out of nothing. Whether the Genesis account is figurative or literal in its details is another matter altogether.

Evolution, on the other hand, and especially as articulated and promoted by men like Richard Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould, rests solely on the premise that matter and mathematical laws are all that exist.

The two positions are mutually exclusive. Nor can science prove one or the other because both positions demand metaphysical presuppositions. Whether we got where we are as a result of divine purpose or of meaningless chance is not a question science can hope to answer.

Creationism has no quarrel with science, but creationism is unalterably opposed to materialism in any disguise. Anyone advocating against teaching intelligent design alongside of evolution exhibits a closed mind.

I should have written you off right there, after all, my mind is closed, right?

Sorry, you are simply too far gone. You want to pry off a few metaphysical puzzles from philosophy and make them yours for long enough to be used to defend Christianity, yet when similar paradoxes are exposed in Christianity, suddenly we are hostile and deprecating.

You continually say that science can't answer this or that but then all you do is fall back on this purely arbitrary, ancient soap operas.

You've told me nothing about how Christianity answers anything besides it's own riddles.
"The Roots of Violence: wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, politics...

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"The Roots of Violence: wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, politics...

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post #114 of 198
2/15/05 at 1:35pm
Thread Starter 
Thank you Hassan...



sweet
"The Roots of Violence: wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, politics...

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"The Roots of Violence: wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, politics...

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post #115 of 198
2/15/05 at 1:40pm
Quote:
Originally posted by Hassan i Sabbah

dmz, greet your red-robed overlord.

Didn't he show up later on "Welcome Back, Kotter"?
We were once so close to heaven
Peter came out and gave us medals
Declaring us the nicest of the damned -- They Might Be Giants          See the stars at skyviewcafe.com
Reply
We were once so close to heaven
Peter came out and gave us medals
Declaring us the nicest of the damned -- They Might Be Giants          See the stars at skyviewcafe.com
Reply
post #116 of 198
2/15/05 at 1:57pm
Quote:
Originally posted by shetline


Take astrology. It's bullsh*t. {snip}

I'd just like to point out, if this is a dig at me, that I think astrology is utter bullshit too. Im not arguing FOR astrology, infact apart from mentioning the zodiac, as far as Im concerned, astrotheology is based on observational ASTRONOMY as understood by ancient man.

However, I have noted from experience of life, that most of the people I made friends with, have most in common with, of equal intelligence etc, are born between September and December. I have also noticed that most people I consider stupid, are born around Feb-April, and I noticed that most people I find happy go lucky types are born in the summer months.

But I'd put that down to psychological traits formed in the first few months of life.
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post #117 of 198
2/15/05 at 2:03pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally posted by MarcUK
However, I have noted from experience of life, that most of the people I made friends with, have most in common with, of equal intelligence etc, are born between September and December.

Scorpio here

Right, Astrology itself is bunk beyond the possible influences the seasons might have on humans.

But it is useful for an insight into ancient man's culture, technology and astronomy skills and how other religions might have deeply integrated either astrology and/or astronomy into their systems.

But what's Sai Baba's sign?
"The Roots of Violence: wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, politics...

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"The Roots of Violence: wealth without work, pleasure without conscience, knowledge without character, commerce without morality, science without humanity, worship without sacrifice, politics...

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post #118 of 198
2/15/05 at 2:12pm
libra here. Balanced and truthful

\\wonderswhatstarsigndmzis?
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post #119 of 198
2/15/05 at 2:18pm
Scorpio.

Sex, death and other people's money.

Astrology is bollocks.

Apart from the bit about Scorpios.
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post #120 of 198
2/15/05 at 2:53pm
Leo here...

My logical side also says that astrology is nonesense. And yet I cannot deny at least one heavenly body having an impact on humanity. Just ask any person who works in an emergency department or on a maternity service. Goofy things happen around the time of the full moon. ED's suddenly become even more busy with sometimes bizzare stuff and more children are born. The menstrual cycle of women is roughly 28 days... no other animal I am aware of has a monthly cycle like that. I do not buy into astrology, but there is something going on here that doesn't fit into my understanding of the world around me.
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