BIGOT

I don’t think it’s only Christians who have this sort of problem. It happens whenever people split into groups with different and very strongly held values. Politics is like this and it only takes a few minutes looking at the tabloids and the internet to see people demonising and hurling insults at each other. You get the same between generations. You even get the same problem in science - anyone who tries to explore a legitimate idea outside the scientific established canon in some areas can be treated as an idiot, or even as dangerous and will struggle to get funding for their work.

More even than ideas, values, often expressed in religious terms, have the potential to grab and control central power. I believe that’s why there is so much competition and destructive emotion generated by some of them. It’s so sad that individuals get hurt in the conflicts they generate - it doesn’t have to be like that.

You're accurate in your assessment John as groups are liable to be divisive to those that don't conform to their values and ethical standards as well as those within their groups that descent from their agreed upon values and norms whether implicitly or explicitly, because how do you know who's a part of your group without being able to evaluate levels of commitment to the groups well-being? It's why things like zealousness exists, because the more one proves they're for some cause the more likely they are to be rewarded for their commitment to that cause by others of their group and people as social things are most rewarded and responsive to social approval and acceptance, so members of groups have strong incentive to demonstrate their allegiance to the group and a part of demonstrating the greatest ties of allegiance is too combat the infidel and punish the traitors, usurpers, decenters, wrong, or bad member. These kinds of social dynamics are observed in aboriginal tribes and group conflict among humans is scattered throughout the archeological record; I know we're talking about Christianity, but the earliest evidence of prehistoric violent conflict is about 14,500 years old.

All of this suggest to me that Anti-Gum Putter is correct that though group conflict may be deterrable it is also inevitable in certain cases given how human groups tend to function. It's sad, but even the spread of Christianity is filled with political conflict, warfare, and bloodshed. The Irony is that the same fundamentally Christian values of charity, love for one's neighbor, peace, and universal human equality are what motivate the modern western person on the left end of the political spectrum to level at the Christian when they call them bigots.

However, people seem to be mostly oblivious to the genealogy of our values and subsequently moral attitudes. Like you can say that INFJs are humanitarians who are inherently democratic, but elitism and aristocracy didn't seem to bother Plato who felt democracy was an intellectual and political failure. My point being that Christianity produced a world that seems to grow increasingly no longer able to tolerate it this to me is the saddest irony even if I don't hold faith or believe in the Christian doctrine.
 
Well said @Yoh Asakura - and welcome to the forum, by the way.

Some thoughts …..
It seems to me that Christianity has had two distinct roles over the centuries. One is as a portal to another world that it tells us is the destiny of all people. The other is as a means of controlling large numbers of people politically. Other great religions have an analogous profile.

It’s in the second of these that Christianity has become obsolete in many places and generates censure. It never was the intent of its founder, who rejected the idea of an earthly kingdom. The first is as valid as at the time it was founded but is only available for folks who can find the way there - again this is true of other religions too. This first role is like water which changes shape and adapts to the prevailing structure around it - that won’t die out.
 
Well said @Yoh Asakura - and welcome to the forum, by the way.

Some thoughts …..
It seems to me that Christianity has had two distinct roles over the centuries. One is as a portal to another world that it tells us is the destiny of all people. The other is as a means of controlling large numbers of people politically. Other great religions have an analogous profile.

It’s in the second of these that Christianity has become obsolete in many places and generates censure. It never was the intent of its founder, who rejected the idea of an earthly kingdom. The first is as valid as at the time it was founded but is only available for folks who can find the way there - again this is true of other religions too. This first role is like water which changes shape and adapts to the prevailing structure around it - that won’t die out.

That's a fine analysis John, some thoughts I have in response, is that the belief in other worlds whether heaven or hell has declined over the centuries as well. There are many Christians that though they profess faith think like rational materialist-essentially atheist, as they might profess faith and belief, they would be skeptical of reports of miracles and supernatural phenomenon. In comparison to Augustine or Anslem, the modern Christian isn't inspired by heavenly and supernatural realities as much as they are by social, cultural, and political realities, using the Bible as basis for supporting their beliefs and way of life. I can't imagine that this state of conditions is what Jesus of Nazareth had in mind either.

Ultimately, I hope you're right, because I think humans need myth to thrive. However, I'm more of the opinion that beliefs and culture are more like organism and less so like inorganic material phenomena, so to me they can die. I was inspired by Spengler's decline of the west in this reasoning, because as equally abundant as extinct species in the fossil record are dead cultures and abandoned temples in world archeology. So, it may be the case that Christianity will carry on across the centuries always adapting and flowing, but I don't take this as a given, because there may come a point where it become completely obsolete or unsustainable as let's say an antidote to existential suffering. I think this partly why Christians are into spreading the Gospel, because analogously if there aren't enough reproducing members of a population it goes extinct, given most people don't worship Odin or Zeus anymore and we study the Ancient Romans, Christianity too could die out.
 
Well said @Yoh Asakura - and welcome to the forum, by the way.

Some thoughts …..
It seems to me that Christianity has had two distinct roles over the centuries. One is as a portal to another world that it tells us is the destiny of all people. The other is as a means of controlling large numbers of people politically. Other great religions have an analogous profile.

It’s in the second of these that Christianity has become obsolete in many places and generates censure. It never was the intent of its founder, who rejected the idea of an earthly kingdom. The first is as valid as at the time it was founded but is only available for folks who can find the way there - again this is true of other religions too. This first role is like water which changes shape and adapts to the prevailing structure around it - that won’t die out.

Thank you for your compliment and welcoming me.
 
I hate to see people torn apart for their beliefs. This is something very personal to me. I have experienced many sides of the table of religion. I have been to two Orthodox Christian monasteries, my greatest friend, or perhaps I should say my greatest bond with another human as of currently happened with a man named only Elder/Father Andrew. He is rather old, I assume to be in his 80s or 90s. We have exchanged many letters. I wish to respect his privacy and mine, so I will just say Fr. Andrew is an elder monk who lives in the Southwestern USA.

I have seen many things. He was/is an example of a true teacher and a follower of the Word of Christ.

I have also met the other kind of Christians. The "lowly" monk Andrew offered me Antidoran when I was not allowed communion due to some technicalities of having, according to the Orthodox, an "illegitimate baptism" i.e. not fully immersed. Nonetheless, that man was truly my friend. There was a man, I will not speak his name, at St. Anthony's Greek Orthodox Monastery whom I came to in a time of need, and he followed the ropes, but there was not the same kind of love behind his actions. It was not tailored to the individual, or by the heart. It was a prescription written in a book, and he thought me doing some routine ritual could solve my problem.

I was not allowed to be in that service, despite having the "experience of the Holy Spirit" with baptism, remembering quite clearly. I knew my baptism was legitimate and yet I was not allowed to witness parts of the Divine Liturgy, I was constantly searched for by a particular monk to be escorted out. In my grief, I cried under a palm tree during the moonlit night saying "I am an Orthodox Christian! I am an Orthodox Christian!"

I was so clinged to this identity of "Orthodox Christian" that I had forgotten than despite my loneliness, the words of Christ lived within me. My heart was my wisdom. God was already here, not somewhere "out there" to be found. That's when I cast aside that title.

This may sound poetic, and it does, but this did happen. I experienced it. But I am now no longer calling myself an Orthodox Christian.
Do I love Christ? Yes, I cannot comprehend how one cannot absolutely love him if one truly knew him and comprehended his words. Will I be castigated when I die for not truly committing myself now to the "Orthodox way"? I do not think so.

From what little I know, and I know it is little, it is the heart which elevates a man or woman, and not his or her beliefs alone.

The doctrine of Christ was always love and always will be love. I am reminded of this verse from the Bible: "If ye love me, keep my commandments." (John 14:15)

I am now a practitioner of Zen Buddhism. It's a bit of a journey, too long to explain perhaps in one post. I know my path may differ from many and that is ok. But my job will always be to be of service to others, bring them peace, and expound the truth wherever I must. To restrain those who must be restrain and assist those who must be assisted.

I will always have a deep respect for those who keep Christ's teachings within them. Elder Paisios, St. Herman of Alaska, St. Francis of Assisi, all those great saints, I wish I could only be a fraction of their greatness in following the Dharma/Logos, whatever it is you wish to give a label to for which cannot be fully bound up in words. But fortunately, I only have myself to compete with. The Buddha is already within me. I am that. There is no one I must become, there is only that naturalness which has no fault to which one must let free. We are all that.

"Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?" (1 Cor. 3:16)
"I said, ‘You are “gods"; you are all sons of the Most High." (Ps. 82:6)

If I have spoken any wrong, any ill, may I be accountable for it. I speak only from within. Where can I go wrong?

Deep peace,

FlowingWaters
 
The world, or the people in the world, nowadays seems to be going down the toilet. There is so much more we do not see when looking at an iceberg. Cause and effect can really mess with our world with climatic change. We may not all see things the same, but we may not all see things the same way.

You (@just me) said within this thread you are nearly 70 years old. And so I have no ground to argue against this point, because I have less living experience, at least to this life. But despite this, I know the world is always going through cycles of rises and declines, morally speaking. It is rather unfortunate there is a lack of strict yet compassionate discipline to kids in the West, but I still think that this decline is nothing new nor notable. It has happened for millennia and shall continue after our deaths.

When the tide recedes, it always flows back to shore. As it flows to shore, it will always recede. So on and so forth.

But I suppose there is a difference in teleology when it comes to us. As I know there is always an ever-present fear of the End Times in the Christian side of things.

May I present something from my dear Elder Paisios?
445f53ef5e691498c24b2608d1f8e4e8--christianity.jpg


These are just my thoughts. But impermanence is a given. Perhaps though, we can help "be that change wish we want to see in the world." And we should. That is why we are here. It is why you are here now reading this.

I may not believe in that linear timeline of things, but if I am wrong, then I hope I have the wisdom to discern.

Deep peace,

FlowingWaters.
 
Christ.
What is Psalms 82 talking about?
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Arise, O God, judge the earth: Asaph closed the psalm with a plea to God to take His place as the ultimate Judge. The unjust judges of Israel had their own area of authority, but God's authority is over all the earth. i. This prayer called upon God to do what the earthly judges would not do: properly judge the earth. unquote

I cannot get this to multiquote for me right now. No problem, as it is not my time, but our time, and we have all night and tomorrow. Post being typed to add here and there...
 
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I would like to see this source of information, please. You write the longest sentences...

Christianity has only been around since Christ. Surely others taught love before then.

Well, there is clear history of violence across western history even in the Bible Jesus is crucified around 30-36 CE some time prior to the siege of the of Jerusalem by the Romans in 70CE. You can start by reading the History of the World by J.M Roberts if you want a comprehensive source on world history where the history and development of Europe, The Catholic and Protestant church is covered. Here's a YouTube Video on violence and conflict in early human history:
. Are you familiar with the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides? More specifically, what exactly would like sources regarding? Because I synthesized a lot of information into a few paragraphs.
 
Your post is fine. I was questioning the 14,500 years.

II Peter 3:8

8 But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.


The far left is trying to wipe out and degrade Christianity. It is almost like a war. What have WE done but try and stop what WE could? Help who WE could? The Word is against evil and the works of the flesh, but has thrown out a lifeline for those who would have it. As in the past years, they will be met with resistance of some form or another and the tide will come back in. I am accustomed to it, but will stand up for Christ's teachings. It makes people seem very un-Godly that call me a bigot. They point their finger at me, but three more fingers are pointing at them.

Hebrews 8:10 New King James Version (NKJV)
For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
True faith in the mind only?

I must ask, where is the Holy Spirit when you turn to Buddhism? Thou shalt have one God.

People who use bigot towards a true Christian? To this Christian they are anti-Christ, as with atheism.

A true Christian does not fear the End Times. quote"
There are many Christians that though they profess faith think like rational materialist-essentially atheist, as they might profess faith and belief, they would be skeptical of reports of miracles and supernatural phenomenon. unquote

One of the youth at the Church I was attending had an accident and cut his right hand up badly. The doctor told him and his mother he would never use his hand again. Preacher asked me to visit them and told me what had happened. He wanted me to console the young man and his mother, which I did. As I was leaving, I asked him what his thoughts were. He said he couldn't understand why something like that would happen to him. With his mother listening while I held my hand over his cast like shaking it, and told him to try to move each finger every day many times, and try to open and close his hand every day when the cast was removed. I told him he may never know if he didn't work hard and try. I left.

At a funeral years later, he came trotting slowly across the area to me. He had a wonderful smile pasted on his face. We both said hello, then he reached out his right hand. I reached mine to his.
He shook my hand with a great grip while smiling. Most people have all it takes: a little shove in the right direction never hurts. You see, I knew his hand would work again and he was rewarded for his faith.

Myth, you say. There is clearly nothing in common.

I have lost two posts tonight, so I will stop typing for now.
 
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Your post is fine. I was questioning the 14,500 years.

II Peter 3:8

8 But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.


The far left is trying to wipe out and degrade Christianity. It is almost like a war. What have WE done but try and stop what WE could? Help who WE could? The Word is against evil and the works of the flesh, but has thrown out a lifeline for those who would have it. As in the past years, they will be met with resistance of some form or another and the tide will come back in. I am accustomed to it, but will stand up for Christ's teachings. It makes people seem very un-Godly that call me a bigot. They point their finger at me, but three more fingers are pointing at them.

Hebrews 8:10 New King James Version (NKJV)
For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My laws in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
True faith in the mind only?

I must ask, where is the Holy Spirit when you turn to Buddhism? Thou shalt have one God.

People who use bigot towards a true Christian? To this Christian they are anti-Christ, as with atheism.

A true Christian does not fear the End Times. quote"
There are many Christians that though they profess faith think like rational materialist-essentially atheist, as they might profess faith and belief, they would be skeptical of reports of miracles and supernatural phenomenon. unquote

One of the youth at the Church I was attending had an accident and cut his right hand up badly. The doctor told him and his mother he would never use his hand again. Preacher asked me to visit them and told me what had happened. He wanted me to console the young man and his mother, which I did. As I was leaving, I asked him what his thoughts were. He said he couldn't understand why something like that would happen to him. With his mother listening while I held my hand over his cast like shaking it, and told him to try to move each finger every day many times, and try to open and close his hand every day when the cast was removed. I told him he may never know if he didn't work hard and try. I left.

At a funeral years later, he came trotting slowly across the area to me. He had a wonderful smile pasted on his face. We both said hello, then he reached out his right hand. I reached mine to his.
He shook my hand with a great grip while smiling. Most people have all it takes: a little shove in the right direction never hurts. You see, I knew his hand would work again and he was rewarded for his faith.

Myth, you say. There is clearly nothing in common.

I have lost two posts tonight, so I will stop typing for now.

See War Before Civilization: The Myth of the Peaceful Savage by Lawrence H. Keeley. This title is where that date comes from.
 
I can't imagine that this state of conditions is what Jesus of Nazareth had in mind either.
I agree. I can't tell where was the point of mass adoption of meta-consciousness, but I see it everywhere today, and it's a source of alienation from life. The first instance is described in Genesis and is inextricable from the rise of self-awareness, but it's unlike how people perceive reality now. It's like nobody except little children is willing to be immersed in a story as the protagonist only; they must also be the narrator at the same time. I suspect this is why the world felt much different during childhood, but eventually I was modernized as well, and I'm not sure if it's possible to "unmodernize" myself. There is great cultural pressure to be as a detached observer and to be able to always explain what you are doing and the mechanics thereof. To simply enact and experience without descending to a metanarrative is almost intellectually shameful.

given most people don't worship Odin or Zeus anymore and we study the Ancient Romans, Christianity too could die out.
That won't be so easy because Christianity is unique. Polytheistic gods are essentially avatars of human psyche that serve a narrative. In Christianity, there is not only the myth but also a concrete history of a concrete person in which the symbol and the symbolized became one.

Speaking of myths, it's not the case that there isn't one right now. What is happening is that religious education in secular population is so dismal that it seems as if they were living outside of a myth. It's almost ironic, given that metacognition permeates everything except the idolatry of science and technology. There is evolutionism as the creationist myth. We are constantly pushed to repent our ecological sins and support green politics, or be judged and wiped off by climate change—there's the secular apocalypticism. Scientific authority is treated as a de facto clergy that divines the mysteries of "the science" and should not be questioned. Every time someone invokes "according to this study," it's like citing a biblical verse; a clear depiction of what sits at the top of the hierarchy of values. The fundamental mistake of this perspective is that science only deals in mere facts, not truths. You can't extract an overarching truth from a material fact pieced together in artificial conditions. That's not how we experience reality, and hence so many are alienated.

The question is not the absence of myth, but whether the myth is any good. Looking at the state of society, I say no. Some say that we will be dominated by the AI when it gains self-awareness, but realistically, that won't be necessary. We are already willingly trading all power that we still have for an increasingly convenient virtualized reality so that no one competent enough to face reality unplugged will remain. And there's the last secular myth—the transcendence of mundane biology, freedom from strife, and eternal life. Just a small problem—it's very difficult to transcend a bunch of atoms.
 
I agree. I can't tell where was the point of mass adoption of meta-consciousness, but I see it everywhere today, and it's a source of alienation from life. The first instance is described in Genesis and is inextricable from the rise of self-awareness, but it's unlike how people perceive reality now. It's like nobody except little children is willing to be immersed in a story as the protagonist only; they must also be the narrator at the same time. I suspect this is why the world felt much different during childhood, but eventually I was modernized as well, and I'm not sure if it's possible to "unmodernize" myself. There is great cultural pressure to be as a detached observer and to be able to always explain what you are doing and the mechanics thereof. To simply enact and experience without descending to a metanarrative is almost intellectually shameful.


That won't be so easy because Christianity is unique. Polytheistic gods are essentially avatars of human psyche that serve a narrative. In Christianity, there is not only the myth but also a concrete history of a concrete person in which the symbol and the symbolized became one.

Speaking of myths, it's not the case that there isn't one right now. What is happening is that religious education in secular population is so dismal that it seems as if they were living outside of a myth. It's almost ironic, given that metacognition permeates everything except the idolatry of science and technology. There is evolutionism as the creationist myth. We are constantly pushed to repent our ecological sins and support green politics, or be judged and wiped off by climate change—there's the secular apocalypticism. Scientific authority is treated as a de facto clergy that divines the mysteries of "the science" and should not be questioned. Every time someone invokes "according to this study," it's like citing a biblical verse; a clear depiction of what sits at the top of the hierarchy of values. The fundamental mistake of this perspective is that science only deals in mere facts, not truths. You can't extract an overarching truth from a material fact pieced together in artificial conditions. That's not how we experience reality, and hence so many are alienated.

The question is not the absence of myth, but whether the myth is any good. Looking at the state of society, I say no. Some say that we will be dominated by the AI when it gains self-awareness, but realistically, that won't be necessary. We are already willingly trading all power that we still have for an increasingly convenient virtualized reality so that no one competent enough to face reality unplugged will remain. And there's the last secular myth—the transcendence of mundane biology, freedom from strife, and eternal life. Just a small problem—it's very difficult to transcend a bunch of atoms.


I agree, you might like the book Science is a Sacred Cow by Anthony Standon. Indeed, the idea that humans being can be detached observer is one of the greater modern mendacities that saturates the westerner collective consciousness. Possibly interesting to you as well is that this modern affair of the hyper meta conscious awareness is something that is likely a consequence of the pursuit of truth that we inherit from Christinaity that gave rise to science and the enlightenment when brought into contact with Greek Natural Philosophy and ancient proto science, this is Nietzsche's hypothesis in the Genealogy of Morals, and one must ask just why modern material science emerge in western Europe? Copernicus, Kepler, Descartes, Newton, Darwin, and Galileo are all Christians as were most early scientist in Europe. By the time Kant writes a Critique of Pure Reason as also a Christian, Christianity is seen as legitimate belief, but non- rationally sensical by most prominent intellectuals; Christianity doesn't make sense like science does, though the vast majority of people was some form of Orthodox Christian and this around the 18th century, so when the trend became as pervasive and normal as it is now, is not obvious, but this trend has been unfolding for centuries hence Nietzsche's "God is Dead". I can only Imagine that the Industrial revolution and the Dotcom Boom accelerated the development of our present state of affairs towards hyper-rationalism.

Yes, this uniqueness of Christianity is to me what gave rise to the philosophy of humanism in the Late Renaissance as Erasmus was a Christian Humanist, but something striking about our technological idolatry is that a form of misanthrope is on the rise, or at the very least human beings are not enough and we must overcome and extricate ourselves from nature, we must also integrate ourselves with technology as well as deny or rebel against biology. To me all of these things are linked.

I agree, science has become the arbiter of truth in the way that the Bible once was and social justice the moral reformer Lutheranism was. Yet, I think that the subsequent Protestantism that resulted from the reformation which put such great emphasis on the seeking of truth is what gave rise to the meta climate that we inhabit where science and social justice took over in modernity. Hence, "Speaking of myths, it's not the case that there isn't one right now. What is happening is that religious education in secular population is so dismal that it seems as if they were living outside of a myth. It's almost ironic, given that metacognition permeates everything except the idolatry of science and technology. There is evolutionism as the creationist myth. We are constantly pushed to repent our ecological sins and support green politics or be judged and wiped off by climate change—there's the secular apocalypticism. Scientific authority is treated as a de facto clergy that divines the mysteries of "the science" and should not be questioned. Every time someone invokes "according to this study," it's like citing a biblical verse; a clear depiction of what sits at the top of the hierarchy of values. The fundamental mistake of this perspective is that science only deals in mere facts, not truths. You can't extract an overarching truth from a material fact pieced together in artificial conditions.", why these trends are so similar to the conditions of early Catholic Christain Europe; the content is different, but the forms are essentially the same. Social Justice is more similar to the inquisition than the Civil Rights movement.
=
I agree. though, I think our present notions of AI are myths as well, and these secular myths are very Christian, freedom from strife equates to peace on earth, transcend our mundane biology equates to there will be no more pain or tears and we will be given perfect bodies, and eternal life it should be easy to see how this conception results from Christianity. Though, I still think that Christianity as we understand could die out, because it just seems that beliefs systems die out and give rise to new ones across human history, like Zoroastrianism is the first monotheistic religion and is likely what inspired the practice of monotheism in ancient Hebrews even in the Bible Israelites are constantly back sliding in worshiping Pagan and polytheistic gods and there's some archeological evidence to suggest that the earliest ancient Hebrews practiced polytheism even Abraham's father Azar was an idol maker where Abraham was called away from idol worship to worship the one true God Yahweh, so it's more likely than not that Zoroastrianism which was present in influenced the Ancient Hebrews to develop their Monotheism that would go onto become Judaism that gave rise to Christianity as Jesus was Jew and Judaism was normal to Medina two centuries before Muhammad's birth so Islam as well, so to me Christianity will in likely hood will give rise to something else as it fades into the Twighlight.
 
I came here tonight wanting to use a phrase out of context from a song. "You don't even know who I Am" is sad to me. We have millions of people migrating over the world in search for something better. They seek food, water, shelter, and work. We are having a bad time worldwide, I can but wonder how the world would be had prayer not been removed from schools: and the taking away of teaching your children to listen and do right The dotcom era, along with smart phones, is hurting us more than we could know.

The removal of many things past in our educational systems has aided in allowing people to not understand wholly who they are and what they are capable of being.

I love who I am, and I Am. I do not seek God for eternal life, though it will open the eyes to the spirit of oneself. I am rather close to God now. Being in His presence is something many have while here on this earth. That is what we seek, after all.

 
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