Attack Against Christendom

Discussion in 'Religion & Philosophy' started by Kyklos, Sep 14, 2018.

  1. Aphotic

    Aphotic Banned

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    Christ was the only true christian. None that have come after him have lived a "christian life" as described in the holy book.
     
  2. The Wyrd of Gawd

    The Wyrd of Gawd Well-Known Member

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    Well, he did have a narcissistic attitude. He was a narrow-minded bigot who was a cheapskate with a murderous attitude. He was a homeless freeloader who was a glutton and a wino. It is all biblical.
     
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  3. Kyklos

    Kyklos Well-Known Member Donor

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    [​IMG]

    The “Graham” Inquisitor
    (An Absurd Dream)


    I have insomnia sometimes, but once in while it all catches up with me and I get a wonderful full night’s sleep. And now I feel so well and strong…. however…when sleeping from sheer exhaustion, I have extremely vivid dreams! We all have experienced them: completely illogical, space-time doesn’t make sense; everything gets switched around and upside down, lapses in memory, and just nonsense. And all those residual Kierkegaard quotes I used and didn’t use floating all around in my head, one sentence running into another, didn’t help. It was truly an absurd dream and very ambiguous, but it doesn’t matter—we are all innocent in our dreams.

    Now, I am assuming that The Reverend in the dream was Graham because I didn’t really see him since his back was to me. The Stranger was in the dark, sitting in a chair with only his lower leg in the light; and the Reverend blocking my view with his back toward me. The Stranger never spoke even a single word so I have nothing to report for he said nothing. The dream seems to be a dialogue between two persons, but it really is a monologue for the Reverend did all the talking! The atmosphere was similar to a business office meeting.

    ...i-n-t-e-r-r-u-p-t-i-o-n...interruption...yet again. When we were so close... there is a pattern here, a definite pattern of which I will point out exactly what I mean. It all stems from poor management and decision skills. And, I have an announcement, but first I want to bring up the thing about...the tests...the failed tests. I know this issue is a sore point with us—the members of the board. But, I got to do my job.

    The first failed test was the Great Spirit of Negation’s suggestion of turning stone into bread to attract more...people for they say, "Feed us, for they who promised us the fire from heaven have deceived us!" A few simple miracles and we would have had the entire world where everyone is a Christian! And now, twenty-one centuries later we are still not there.

    But today, we have a Magnificent Machine that turns stone into bread everyday, as routine as putting on your shoes. Our people have the power to reach through time far into the future and bring back unimaginable amounts of wealth from other generations! But it took 21 centuries to do it! …that is, to buy them off!

    They are weak, vicious, miserable nonentities! They are born wicked and rebellious. You promised them the bread of life, the bread of heaven, but they will instead settle for earthly bread: and so, they pay their own bribe. Some Christian sects say that Christianity is inherently subversive which I believe is absolutely true. Man is weaker than you ever imagined him to be! They are foolish, foolish children--but rebellious children. They are like little rioting children trying to mustard up a mutiny in class and chase the teacher away. They are too weak to keep up any rebellion. They rejoiced that we allow them to be our slaves. Earthly bread is enough. We carry the burden of freedom for them, and they are happy.

    And that is one of the things in the pattern I was telling you about. You gave them too much! I said, you gave them too much freedom! They do best with austerity and permission. We are not even counting the bread and fishes admission and concession losses. The pattern is you keep giving them too much!

    (At this point my cat, Tabby, walked by. I don’t know why she showed up, but I like Tabby. Maybe that’s why.)

    ...the New and Improved Gospel!

    Okay, that’s that. Test number 2…. Failed…see here…Failed. Henry is particularly upset about this one. The suggestion from our sporting opponent was if you could only perform a miracle--like jumping off the pinnacle of the temple and be saved by angels-- the ratings would have been astronomical! This is SPECTACLE! Henry’s media specialty! Henry made us Superstars!

    And the last test, number 3, was also a failure. To refresh your memory, the proposed offer was to be a Caesar over all kingdoms of the world, if you would fall down and worship the Fall Angel. You turned him down without even thinking about it! The “falling down and worship me” was just a preplanned throwaway compromise item. We could of negotiated a “DEAL!” Haven’t you ever heard of “the Art of the Deal?” Remember the non-disclosure deal between the Pharisees and Herodians had going? And worse, you made the greatest power in the universe …ambiguous…when you could of been Caesar of the world…now twenty-one centuries later we’re still trying to catch up. Henry could have handled it…that’s his job.

    I’m hurt. You know we--The Board members of The Defenders of The Constitution--are ready to smite your enemies at anything! Remember the hippies at Kent State? Remember that reprobate colony of Vietnam that refused to be colonial slaves for this Great Nation of G-d! We smote your enemies with the Sword of The Lord! I gave our President Nixon permission to use nuclear weapons against these pagans. I preached it! I preached to smite your Enemies! The Sermon went like this…like…I remember!!!

    "God the all-terrible! Thou who ordainest! Thunder thy clarion and lightning thy sword!”

    I have faithfully enforced textualist rules to both Law and Scripture, to strip away the power of logos so Scriptures of Freedom become lighter and invisible-- gently suppressing intuition for that which cannot be thought, cannot be said, and what can be said, can be said clearly.

    A pattern reappears. You judge men too highly, again! They are rebels, they are born slaves and nothing more…we will tell these weak children that it is in obedience to your will and in your name that we rule over them…and so they now regard us as gods…. This generation is now rejoicing at finding themselves led once more like a herd of cattle--and at finding their hearts rescued from that terrible burden...that fire from Heaven—Freedom, which you laid upon them, O Lord!

    From the very beginning you were against my corporatization policy and it has been one interruption after another ever since. I must frankly say once again-- you’re the Brand, and we’re the Brains!

    I have an announcement from the board members of “The Defenders of The Constitution” Committee that includes Henry Luce, Myself of course, Richard Nixon, Gerald Winrod, and of course, William Bell Riley--our patron saint. We have decided to promote you to “President Emeritus!” and…there are no duties!

    In addition, The Committee entered a leveraged buyout—leveraged by the blood of a Crucified Christ--of all remaining non-Christian churches. Everybody will be Christian!

    At this point, The Stranger stood up and kissed The Reverend on the cheek. The Reverend was too good of a biblical scholar to not see the symbolism of The Stranger’s kiss. The Reverend jumped back and said….

    “That’s plagiarism…in violation of Code 17 U.S. § 107 of US copyright law!”


    “You’re fired!!!”


    When The Reverend begins sounding like Wittgenstein, you know this is a really absurd dream, complete nonsense---only babbling.

    The Stranger never spoke a word; therefore, I have nothing to report. And yet, there are patterns.

    *I borrowed the words and concepts of Dostoevsky, Mark Twain, Gore Vidal, Paddy Chayefsky, and of course, Kierkegaard.

     
    Last edited: Sep 26, 2018
  4. Kyklos

    Kyklos Well-Known Member Donor

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    It is nice to get some sleep. I don't feel like a vampire staying up at night. For me, late evenings are very constructive. But many people must have this problem--Insomnia, from staring at a computer screen all day.
     
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  5. Kyklos

    Kyklos Well-Known Member Donor

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    As you can tell from my subscript, I have an interest in the "truth" and "power" of art.

    I stumbled upon two musical artists I have never heard before. The first is John Paul Larkin, also known as "Scatman John." He stutters when speaking, but not while singing. His musical themes are spiritual and existentialist.

    And the very next day I stumbled onto another indescribably creative artist I also never heard before: Maxwell Fraser who sings with "Faithless - Insomnia." The group, Faithless, is also centered on spirituality.

    Another creative artist I would explore is the poet and singer, Leonard Cohn. The album "You Want It Darker" was released in 2016, a month or so after his death in Nov 07, 2016.

    The recording, "It Seemed the Better Way," in that album is about coming into insight, or apprehension, just before emancipation-- a relevant theme in struggling with vast political entities. I love these artists because they are uplifting while living life in a discontented world.
     
    Last edited: Sep 27, 2018
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  6. Kyklos

    Kyklos Well-Known Member Donor

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    Koyaanisqatsi: Life Out of Balance, is a 1982 American film directed by Godfrey Reggio with music composed by Philip Glass.

    Reggio was once a monk in the Congregation of Christian Brothers, of the Roman Catholic Church.

    Reggio was asked why his film had no dialogue.

    He replied, "it's not for lack of love of the language that these films have no words. It's because, from my point of view, our language is in a state of vast humiliation. It no longer describes the world in which we live."

    Yes, language--the Logos--is in vast humiliation.

    For the ancient Greeks, Aristotle specifically, there were two kinds of laws: natural law (physis, φúσις), and made man law, or convention (nomos, νóμος). All of this has been forgotten today.

    "Nature is not a service station," as Heidegger once wrote.

    In Plato’s Republic, the ideal community is "a city which would be established in accordance with nature.”

    This film is about natural law.

    Koyaanisqatsi
     
    Last edited: Sep 30, 2018
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  7. Kyklos

    Kyklos Well-Known Member Donor

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    I may leave this thread dormant for a while as I decide where to go from here. Maybe Adorno. Kierkegaard is worth reading even today as he critiqued the condition of Christianity during his time. Why does he sound so amazingly up to date?
    Kierkegaard wrote in one passage...
     
  8. Kyklos

    Kyklos Well-Known Member Donor

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    Kierkegaard is such a great biblical scholar--I don't mean who married, whom, or if they were somebody's brother. No, Kierkegaard knew the moral code of the New Testament. That truth is intention of the moral agent...that Truth is subjectivity. Remember the Parable of the Widow’s mite. We even have it in our laws that "intention" (Mens rea) is a necessary element for many crimes.
     
    Last edited: Oct 1, 2018
  9. Kyklos

    Kyklos Well-Known Member Donor

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    Kierkegaard’s attack on the Danish Church sounds like a description of many churches in America today. There is an inordinate attention given to finance, wealth, and social status. And notice the description of Christendom’s officials indulging in empty rituals (Spectacle) supposedly to honor the sacred, but instead scheming for money. Christendom’s ministers honor the prophets whom they would of killed had they been contemporaries.
     
    Last edited: Oct 3, 2018
  10. Kyklos

    Kyklos Well-Known Member Donor

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    The Sermon
    (...of the Remainder)


    The Sheriff was in town the other day introducing his great new book “America: The Farewell Tour.” I haven’t looked at it until today, but it appears to be another perceptive exposition full of insights about our situation. One certainly feels that the “...devil is riding crop” as Leonard Cohen once said. Clearly, we are in an emergency situation, which is where I want to be. Spiritual Life is under assault and even damaged. The invisible always yields to the visible: the invisible yields to what is alien to it. A dynamic Demonic union of Money and Power has made the spiritual life nearly impossible, displaced by not just a fetish for commodities, but also a fetish for all objects! An even deeper illness! One doesn’t have to take a vow of poverty to de-fetishize money. Our modern advanced industrial society is intellectually subversive by the scientization of life which short-circuits self-awareness, spirituality, and critical thought with an epistemic authoritarianism that discourages questioning the status quo. The search for certainty deprecates the existence of the spiritual life that is fundamentally ambiguous. This is not a call to give up modern science, but rather a warning that the complete scientization of life has led to death camps.

    We can build a thousand nuclear power plants, but nuclear science cannot be the guide for resolving the question of should we, or “ought” we, build more nuclear power plants. “Ought” cannot be derived from “is.” Scientism cannot be the judge to settle essential “normative” (ethical) questions of how we should utilized that science. Nuclear technology may be used to determine means, but not ends. Currently, the situation with technology is “if it can be done, it should be done.”

    Lack of the Sacred in Life brings forth Disenchantment. The person is not only disenchanted with the mutilated knowledge given by naturalistic-scientific reductionism, but disenchanted with experience as experience! Our limited postlapsarian language is a decayed language that mutilates experience itself. A spiritual life is only possible for a person being human. And yet every aspect of being human is dehumanized by a hyper-exchange society. We live under massive psychological domination. After dehumanizing thought, then follows actual dehumanization. Dehumanization begins with “Do these people have rights?” And after that question is settled, a new question arises, “Do these superfluous people deserve the right to live?”

    What do you mean “disenchanted with experience?” What is wrong with experience? In a de-sacralized world experience is mutilated by selective perception.

    I built a wooden deck with planks of lumber, cutting each wooden plank to the size needed and creating a smaller length of wood as a Remainder. The Remainder can be used on some smaller project, but generally it is considered scrap, waste, and thrown away.

    So it is in relation to the spiritual. We venture out into the world with performative cover concepts used to extract by subjective and objective manipulation the desired meanings and ends from the world; but there also exists a Remainder after we subtract our immediate interests—therein this residuum is where spiritual experience resides as unreduced experience. Except, there is one difference regarding spirituality: the Remainder in this case is infinitely larger than the whole. This Remainder is the non-conceptual because it stands outside the region of our stereotyped concepts. Also, the Remainder is non-identical to our preexisting concepts of the world so it goes unseen, unnoticed, and uncomprehended. The non-conceptual and non-identical are simply lost experience.

    Some would argue that whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent. On the other hand, some would argue we should attempt to say the unsayable and name the g-ds, for we name ourselves in an act of self revelation from which emerges the contents of our disenchantment and the Holy.
    Through mythic conception a new genus, the holy, reveals patterns in disenchanted experience that were once invisible. Mircea Eliade coined the term "hierophany" which has its etymological origin in the Greek word ἱερός heiros, meaning "sacred," and φαίνω, phainein, meaning "to show." The appearance of the sacred is a prelogical conception of thought and acts as "organs of reality."
     
    Last edited: Oct 4, 2018
  11. DennisTate

    DennisTate Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Good news Kyklos...... a change is coming........... in Christianity and all religions........

    https://www.near-death.com/reincarnation/experiences/mellen-thomas-benedict.html#a09
     
  12. Kyklos

    Kyklos Well-Known Member Donor

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    I can't remember why I put you on ignore...but you are the first person to caused me to "unignore." I think it is because,--and I mean this is a gentle and kind way--I don't believe in Christian utopianism, nor in a "Magic Jesus." However, I do respect Mellen Thomas Benedict's reported spiritual experiences. I cannot say what does not exist. Literal interpretation of the Bible is, however nonsense, there must be different principles of interpretation. St. Thomas Aquinas wrote that the Truths of Faith and Reason ultimately do not conflict: if they conflict, there is something wrong with our conception of reason, or of faith, or both.

    You enthusiasm reminds me in some ways of a missionary in Scotland I once knew. I met him in a Christian College for Pentecostal missionaries. He was a very good Christian. Without health insurance, he died here in the US of massive metastatic cancer in near poverty about 12 years ago.
     
    Last edited: Oct 6, 2018
  13. Dissily Mordentroge

    Dissily Mordentroge Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Often scripture taken out of context tells us more than it was intended to. Instance 2nd Thessalonians 2:11.
    Can we all step back and allow ourselves to meditate upon the developing human mind exposed from youth to a theology that worships a God who tortured his own son ( who is himself, if you swallow trinitarian theology ) in order to redeem the sins of our species, sins he knowingly made possible in the first place by granting us free will?
    On the other hand if we regard ‘Christandom’ as a human creation, a creation a deity posssessed of omniscience would have known to lead to the evils and horrors of organised religion. The ‘God of Love’? Something doesn’t add up that all of biblical apologetics over the centuries has failed to explain.
     
  14. yasureoktoo

    yasureoktoo Banned

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    If your religious doctrine needs to be interpreted, That's a pretty good indication, it didn't come from any God.
     
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  15. Dissily Mordentroge

    Dissily Mordentroge Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    The presumption ‘any God’ would communicate with our species in terms we could even begin to comprehend can be seen as yet another example of human vanity. On the other hand the term ‘doctrine’ is in and of itself indicative of a body of human ‘learning’ passed down from a priesthood to the believers.
    There’s a wonderful Yiddish expression - ‘Rabbinical plot’ ( ראַבינאַקאַל פּלאַנעווען rabinakal planeven) which can be described as a large body of theology and/or biblical exegesis so complicated and obscure only the Rabbinical class can interpret it. Wonderful scheme for those in a position of ‘knowing’ how to interpret the Tora to keep the income flowing.
    The Roman church played the same game for centuries denying the congregation of believers direct access to the bible in their own language.
    A brief reading of some of today’s biblical theology indicates the same game is still being played by religious academia.
    Not that I’m making the claim any of us can really make sense of the multitude of contradictions contained within scripture as we now have it, let alone the many questions over centuries of mistranslation, forgery and expurgation inflicted on that collection of stories.
     
    Last edited: Oct 8, 2018
  16. Kyklos

    Kyklos Well-Known Member Donor

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    Same tired old saws looking foolish trying to make religion look foolish. No one in this thread...especially this thread has ever stated explicitly "G-d" existed. Show me. So a completely false assumption on your part--engrained biased. But, more importantly, why would this thread not explicitly say "G-d existed?" That you will never figure out... You must get a new script...this one of multivarious genetic ad hominems is from a graduate of the University of Ad Hominem. Theists and atheists both look foolish. The theist says "God exists." The atheist asked, "Okay, what is his zip code?" The theist responds, "His address is unlisted!" ...their level of intellectual debate is the same ...breathtaking. Thank you for taking our breath away.
     
    Last edited: Oct 8, 2018
  17. Kyklos

    Kyklos Well-Known Member Donor

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    You need to read Feuerbach, most educated people in philosophy have.

    oh, a new standard of truth....if its too complicated.....
    What does that have to do with the validity or invalidity of anything? Texts have multiple interpretations....let's abolish language.LOL!!!! There is counterfeiting....let's abolish money!!!! LOL!!! Institutions act in there own self interest!!!! Discovery, and it must happen only in religion!!!! LoL!!!!

    But...Sir...the rules of this forum requires that members stay on the general topic of a threat....therefore, you really should go the the "Does G-d exist?" thread to not violate the rules of this forum....Got it?
     
  18. Paul7

    Paul7 Well-Known Member

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    If anyone did, it would mean they weren't a sinner and wouldn't need salvation. "For ALL have sinned and come short of the glory of God."
     
  19. yasureoktoo

    yasureoktoo Banned

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    Jesus was a Jew.
     
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  20. Dissily Mordentroge

    Dissily Mordentroge Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I’ve re-read my post and fail to see any attempt at claiming God does or doesn’t exist. My central theme was to draw attention to the connection between the many branches of so called Christianity and the very nature of the tomes such are based upon. Thanks for the suggestion I acquint myself with Feuerbach. Although accepting his place in 19th century thought and the role of the German idealists etc and having some sympathy for his take on demystification of both faith and reason (although I fail to see why ‘reason’ requires demystification) of embodied human consciousness and the concrete I find his thesis more significant in relation to Marxism than theology.
    As this has again wandered way off topic again I cease.
     
  21. Kyklos

    Kyklos Well-Known Member Donor

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    Everyone has to pass through the River of Fire (Feuerbach). Reason requires demystification because Reason itself evolves. This is a Hegelian view of history as Reason pass through history and engages antithesis Giest (Mind or Spirit...same thing) Reason becomes self-conscious. Reason first appears as religion that uses picture language, but Reason becomes philosophy, and from there to Absolute knowledge (aware of Reason's dialectical forms in a teleological process of history which is the true Incarnation). Marx had a greater impact on religion than economics because Classical Marxism is a Christian heresy.
    Karl Marx turned Hegelianism on its head. Hegel was a philosophical Idealist, but his student, Marx, was a Historical Materialist ( The term "Dialectical Materialism" cannot be found in any of Marx's writings).

    For Hegel, Truth descends from Heaven to Earth; for Marx, Truth ascends from Earth to Heaven. Marxism is a Christian heresy, not a non-Christian heresy.
     
    Last edited: Oct 8, 2018
  22. yabberefugee

    yabberefugee Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    John 3:16 sums up what it takes to be a Christian. Add to or take away anything from that and you are apostate!
     
  23. Dissily Mordentroge

    Dissily Mordentroge Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Feel free to call me apostate then.
     
  24. Dissily Mordentroge

    Dissily Mordentroge Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I’m somewhat confused, both by your explanation of Feurebach and by your second unatributed quote.
    What any form of unconscious reason might constitute is beyond me. Are you hinting at something Freudian? History as reason ( why Reason with a capital?) Who then is doing this ‘reasoning’ ? The collective unconscious? All too much of an overtossed word salad for my tiny uneducated mind.
     
  25. yasureoktoo

    yasureoktoo Banned

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    Be grateful.

    The Christians won't kill you for it.
     
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