Christianity: Alternative Viewpoints

Originally posted by dadudemon
That was my point: the arguments started popping up after Christ due to the early Christians. In the beginning, the early Christians were Jews and Gentiles. How I was taught this particular portion of theology: it was not a problem before Christ because it was in slightly different language that did not interpret to mean a vice but rather a want for His children to pursue things of righteousness rather than non-existent gods and dead-end obsessions.

Originally posted by dadudemon
I do not think the story changed much from the original but I always thought it was utterly stupid that some of the wandering Jews were too prideful to just go look at something and be cured. That was supposed to be the moral of the story.

And, I do see the Yaldabaoth interpretation as making more sense, now that you put it that way. However, I see it this way:

How I think it really went down:

Jews wandered into an area that a lot of poisonous desert snakes were gathered (mating season? Happens. Saw some scary sh*t on Discovery where thousands of snakes converged in one general are for an orgy...in the desert). Snakes start biting them because it's mating season and they are walking all over their house. Moses gets a magical statue from God that can cure them (maybe it was an inhaled antidote? No idea how it worked). Due to being in a desert, they die quickly because they are already starved and dehydrated. Some people hear from others that the statue works but they refuse to believe something so silly works (I would try anything if I were about 24 hours away from death from a poisonous bite, especially if I lived among such a superstitious tribe).

How it was said to have gone down:

God sent poisonous snakes into the camp to weed out the unfaithful and prideful Jews because he was filtering out the bad ones because they were to become his eventual parents/family in a thousand or so years. The statue was imbued with God's power and those that looked upon it were supernaturally cured of all snake bite symptoms. It worked perfectly as a trial to weed out the unfaithful and overly prideful.

Originally posted by dadudemon
Luke 16:18

It means (as told in the old Testament) that if a man gets divorced explicitly to marry someone else, he's committing adultery. To put it in modern terms, a dude has a raging boner for a certain chick. His wife is not that hot...so he divorces her for no reason other than he wants to bone the other hot chick. So as to not come under condemnation from his peers, he makes sure to divorce the "hag" and marries the hottie.

I believe this, as well. A marriage is sacred. Just because you "play by the rules" doesn't mean you've committed sin in your heart. There's the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. As it goes, the spirit of the Law is what Jesus brought in his ministry.

Mark 10: 2-10

Same as above.

Originally posted by dadudemon
And, like I stated before, some Christians believe that the Jews needed those harsh laws to act as a purifier and a conditioner.

Originally posted by dadudemon
However, we all know how the purification turned out: the Jews became quite self-righteous by the time Jesus came around. They wore these beads on their cloaks that had a bead for every good deed that they did. Those that were considered "really righteous" had lots of beads. How self-righteous is that?

Originally posted by dadudemon
Another thought: what if God weeded out his people, like that, in such a way as to prepare them to become the self-righteous people that they were by the time he was born? It is said that only those contemporary Jews would have crucified their own savior (not antisemitism). Meaning, God had prepared a way for his entire plan to work since the very beginning and the Jews were actually performing the work of righteousness by persecuting and demanding the life of the Savior.

But wait? They were actually doing righteous by killing the apostles and Jesus? Yup. 🙂

Secondly, have you ever read the Gospel of Judas? Reminds me somewhat of what you are saying.

Originally posted by Grand-Moff-Gav
Re. Cathars. If you're claim is that these are Christians, then I'd have to say that's a rather pure attempt at history. They certainly stem from a Christian culture and adhere to "some" Christian beliefs but then again, so does Islam. The basic 'problem' with identifying Cathars as Christians is comes down to their dualism. You wouldn't have to push very far to get a Cathar to say that the world was evil, or rather, the created order is evil. Anything material is to be rejected and despised, especially sex; as sex brings about new material life which might procreate itself. As a consequence of their uberanti-materialism Cathars adopted very stict poverty lifestyles, and this is perhaps laudable according to many concepts of Virtue. I would certainly say a simple life is a good thing. However their reasons for doing it were not just a basic detachment from material goods but a rejection of materials as evil which therefore makes their lifestyle slightly worrying. Of course, the most worrying practice of the Cathars was to starve themselves to death. Eating, as it was both the ingesting of a material and it prolonged life, was evil, therefore in order to become "Perfect" the Cathars had to fast until death and their souls were freed from their material prison. The body. The problem this has for Christians is first it rejects out and out the incarnation of the Son. Cathars could not accept the incarnation and therefore their theology of redemption was utterly flawed from orthodox Christian eyes. Cathars also believed in two Creators. One who created the spiritual world "God" and the other who created the material world "the Devil". I am sure why you can see the problem with that for Christians. For non-Christians it is slightly problematic too. For one thing it renders science as evil. Studying the created order to a Cathar is essentially entering into dialogue with the devil. "Ironically, I feel like this interpretation of christianity is much more sensible and moral than the conventional interpretation..." Do you really believe that its more sensible and moral? I mean, you actually think sexual intercourse is immoral? You think eating is immoral? You think shopping is immoral? Heh, who knows. Maybe you are right.

You are wrong if you think you had to starve to death to become a Perfect. There were hundreds of Perfects and the mere fact that, you know, they were alive instead of dead is enough to refute that notion. In general, I think you are better off not focusing on materialism. Now, did they go too far? Maybe. There is a tradition of fasting to death in many cultures, but while this might be meritorious, it is not a requirement. At no point did any Perfect declare that every Cathar should starve themselves to death.

Originally posted by Grand-Moff-Gav
Re. Gnosticism. Which form of Gnostic thinking do you find so coherent? Might I recommend to you Irenaeus of Lyon's "Against the Heresies"? You can find it online... Do you actually think that it would be better if Gnosticism had become the dominant form of Christianity? You are aware that nearly every Gnostic sects chief doctrine was the concept of "Secret Knowledge". Only certain select people would ever have access to the true Gospel and attain the fullest experience of heaven? Maybe you like that sort of thing, but the reason the Gnostics were defeated in arguments is mostly because their philosophical arguments at the time, and now, didn't make much sense or have any actual application...

As far as secret knowledge, I don't see the problem. If you take your religion seriously, I think that by all means you should study it to the highest extent possible. So I can see gnostics thinking "why bother if these people aren't going to go all the way with it", and it seems like a sound point to me.

What I find more coherent is that many of the villains of the bible actually seem to be the victims to me, at least to some extent. I posted a thread a long time ago about my feelings on the Cain/Abel story. In this thread, I discussed my issues with the garden of eden concept. In the gnostic gospels, I think a more logical evaluation of these stories is given; the old testament God always seemed like a villain to me, and in these books he is actually treated honestly as such. I think the moral of these stories is way better. The Nicene interpretation seems to promote following authority for authorities sake.

Originally posted by Grand-Moff-Gav
Regarding the New Testament apocrypha. The earliest complete list of New Testament texts we have comes from the aforementioned Irenaeus of Lyons, c.180AD. We have many gloss' from the Gospels and letters from Church Fathers like Polycarp, Ignatius of Antioch and their successors. I think then, it is impossible for you to claim that "Today's bible is a world apart from what the earliest christians experienced." I mean, I don't think there's a living historian or biblical scholar who would make such a claim. The reason therefore for rejecting the New Testament apocrypha is simple; the early Church did not appear to use it and they never told anyone about them if they did.... Also, most of them are were not written from within the Christian communities or even from within the first two centuries.

As far as your "early church didn't use them" idea, that is just a tautology. You are excluding the Gnostics themselves from the early church. So obviously, no Catholic church fathers used them; that doesn't prove anything beyond the fact that the two intepretations use different books. Well, we already knew that.

Originally posted by Grand-Moff-Gav
You would do well to note King Kandy, that on none of the issues you have raised so far would any Eastern Orthodox believer from any period in history agree with you. On the fundamentals you have mentioned so far, they are as Catholic as the Pope.

Originally posted by King Kandy
But it was obviously not a translation error because I showed you this debate occurring in a hebrew-only context. Correlation is not causation; yes, this debate was written after Christianity, but the arguments have nothing to do with Christianity. Surely you realize, Jewish writings in general are sparse from that time period. So I don't see how the simple fact that it is from 200 AD somehow makes it a Christianized document.

It obviously was. I've clearly explained why, already. Even that text uses the same arguments I did to explain why "jealous" is not quite the same meaning as a superficial reading would indicate. It wasn't an argument hundreds of years prior because they not only had the proper context but it was in a different form. The "explanations" I can find from Christian apologetics is the older interpretation being more in line with "zealous" not "jealous". Sounds like a homophone, but that's just coincidence.

To the other part, you think Judaism was an island in the wake of Christianity and the arguments had there?

It's an argument that did not spring up until after Christ. I have never found a reference to that particular argument. Jew and Gentile argued about it, alike. If you can show me a pre-Christ argument, I'll concede this point. (Trust me, I have searched and searched because it was something that irritated me, as well. Surely there's no such thing as a "Jealous God"?)

Originally posted by King Kandy
I would say the first scenario doesn't teach much of a lesson besides "open your eyes and don't reject effective treatment" (ironically, a lesson today's faith healers could stand to learn). The second scenario sounds like the actions of a tyrant to "weed out" people on pain of death. If the snakes just happened to be there, I think the fault would be the Jews. But the Bible would have me believe God sent the snakes, in which case, I can only put the blame for this incident squarely on Yaldabaoth's shoulders.

That was kind of my point with the first scenario. 😄

To your comment on the second, I would agree. However, my interpretation has me believing that the Jews just wandered into a crappy location and God provided a way to save them if they would just try.

Originally posted by King Kandy
Well, I would disagree. I think that if both partners consent, there should be no restriction for divorce; I don't consider it a moral matter. Obviously, if for instance you have kids, the benefits of a two parent household should be taken into account; but to me this has more to do with child rearing than marriage.

I agree here. However, that was not the case in the Patriarchal society in Judea. The husband could divorce his wife but it was really difficult for a woman to get a divorce.

You're applying a modern perspective to how marriage should work. That perspective would actually have you agreeing with Jesus because he did not think it was right that a dude sack his wife on a whim for another.

Originally posted by King Kandy
I don't see how most of them actually accomplish that.

Short answer: it didn't.

It only proved to instill absurd amounts of pride into the Jews as the "Chosen Ones". That was actually to their detriment in the long run. But, as I stated, that could have been all part of the plan.

So confusing, actually. And irritating.

Originally posted by King Kandy
Pretty self-righteous, but it doesn't strike me as any worse than most evangelicals. In fact, i'd rather they just wore it in beads instead of talking about it constantly.

lol!

Win.

True charity, no one knows about. Anonymous charity, imo, is where it is. If you do charity in the open, there's your reward: the praise of man. If you do it privately and anonymously with no hope of ever getting praise, that's truly virtuous.

Originally posted by King Kandy
First off, it wasn't the Jews who crucified him (and i'm guessing even if they hadn't complained, he would have ran afoul of the Roman empire eventually. In fact, if Jews rallied around him, they would have had much more cause for worry).

Secondly, have you ever read the Gospel of Judas? Reminds me somewhat of what you are saying.

First off, it was the Jews who did. You can mince words but that would be rather dishonest. The Romans did not want to get involved with religion. The Jewish leaders (Sadducees) lodged their complaints, pressed it thoroughly, and demanded for the death penalty for "blaspheme" and they strongly supported their position to the Romans by using the "King of Israel" and "rebel" thought process.

Actually, I think what really pissed off the Sadducees was when he went crazy on the people in the temple.

To top it off, it was a Jewish High Priest that interrogated Jesus in front of a Sanhedrin. Yet, you want to push this on the Romans?

The Pharisees also conspired and "formulated" a way to "trap" Jesus into admitting something that would get him killed by the Romans for treason.

They tried to trap him with the "tax" question too. That's where we get the "render unto Caesar" line form.

The last nail in Jesus' coffin (pun intended) was when they, Sanhedrin, asked him again if he was the Messia (the great I am). Jesus answered that he was and someone said, "What more do you need? He has blasphemed God and we need to put him to death, now."

That's quite clear.

They sold it to the Romans by passing him off as an insurgent (the king of the jews) and blasphemer. Pilate was not interested in the Blaspheming as that was not a concern of the Romans.

However, I'm sure the Jews screaming in the streets, "Crucify him, Crucify him!" had a little to do with Pilate's decision to appease an angry mob of Jews offended by Jesus' claims.

But, yes, if you want to mince words, we can say that the jews did not kill Jesus at all and it was the Romans. However, that's like saying a mob boss didn't have someone killed by his assassin. It was in Pilate's best interest to quickly quite down the rage.

Funnily enough, Jesus' disciples WERE ALL JEWS when he was crucified. So when I hear the hate of Jews for crucifying the Savior, I think of it as the way I put it:

1. Jesus WAS a Jew.
2. All of his disciples (before death) WERE Jews.
3. Jesus was SUPPOSED to die, anyway, making their demands for his life a righteous cause.

Point #3 is a very huge point. So huge, in fact, that all anti-antisemitism (for the reasons I'm discussing) are completely unfounded. We can't blame current Jews for their father's sins. Even if they were still alive, we should be thanking them for fulfilling the Plan of Happiness as it was absolutely necessary that this happen. It's like the Star Wars line, "Strike me down..." except he really did become more powerful than they could possibly imagine, but literally on the Earth and in the afterlife.

But, one of the most irritating things I hear from Christians is, "Nuh uhhhh! Teh Romans killed Jesus!"

Okay. You're right. 😬

It's strange that an atheist is using that line, though. Granted, you didn't say that you have some ragy Christian evangelical friends?

Jesus as Obi-Wan Kenobi is probably the most compelling argument I've heard in years for religion.

That's both a huge compliment, and not a compliment at all. Thank you for both.

ermm

Originally posted by Digi
Jesus as Obi-Wan Kenobi is probably the most compelling argument I've heard in years for religion.

That's both a huge compliment, and not a compliment at all. Thank you for both.

ermm

😆 😆 😆

It was intended as humor because these convos make me bored after a while. I try to get KK to laugh in our long discussions but I don't think I ever have success. He' serious business. 🙁

Indeed:

Couple of things. First off, it seems to me that while the Jewish leadership at the time apparently contributed to Jesus' death (I like to think that Jesus was doing what many of us do today: basically, rally against the ossification of organized religion), it was the Romans who physically took him and nailed him to the cross.

But more importantly: as I understand it, Jesus knew he was going to be betrayed and killed, yet he made no attempt to avoid this fate. He knew he had to sacrifice himself to make a point. IMHO, this means, then, that the final responsibility for Jesus' death rests with Jesus himself. Otherwise, if he had been taken away and killed against his will, there was no "sacrifice," which undermines the Christian faith.

Basically: Jesus made a choice, and that's where the final responsibility lies.

I'm at work, typing this quickly, so hopefully I made a clear point.

I find laying blame solely on the jews preposterous. They were not the boss. The Romans were the boss. They could petition all day and all night, but if the empire wasn't willing to do it, they would have absolutely no means to compel them. The Jews had been seeking freedom for the empire for decades and that petitioning went absolutely nowhere, because the Romans said no. Every time a "savior" came along, and got support from Jews, he was killed; I can't imagine a supported Jesus wouldn't have met a similar fate.

Saying the Romans were not at fault is ridiculous. If you are the conquering power, that means you remain supreme decision maker in these kinds of situations. If Pilate (or his superiors) had stood up and said "nope, absolutely not going to do it; you jews need to gtfo", what would they have done? Well the answer is absolutely nothing. You say the Jews were an angry mob, but they had plenty of options; they could have sent in the legions (as they did many, many times). They could have taken Jesus and shipped him off elsewhere. They took the easy way out by crucifying him; if they honestly didn't want to, then that is a huge leadership failure.

Originally posted by dadudemon
I agree here. However, that was not the case in the Patriarchal society in Judea. The husband could divorce his wife but it was really difficult for a woman to get a divorce.

You're applying a modern perspective to how marriage should work. That perspective would actually have you agreeing with Jesus because he did not think it was right that a dude sack his wife on a whim for another.

This is one of the biggest reasons why I don't believe in the bible. I think if something really came from God, it should have a timeless message. I don't get that impression at all when I read the Bible; it sounds all too much like a product of its time, written by humans. The first time I actually read the New Testament, my end statement was "it came from the 1st century, and it definitely shows". In contrast, a lot of the gnostic scriptures I read seem way closer to what I consider an enlightened way of thinking.

OK, so I read "Against Heresies" by Irenaeus (or at least, about half of it before it was too much to stand). Am I supposed to be impressed? I actually found the Augustine work I posted much more persuasive (and that wasn't exactly killer either).

In more detail, the works I read fall under the Ophite/Sethian heading, to which he devotes a single chapter as well as noting some "common elements" he considers already refuted. As far as his arguments go, they are just OK. His anti-numerology stuff is a good point, and I found that quite amusing; on the other hand, it is a pretty easy target. His attacks on the substance of their ideas are rather lacking; I find his "proof" that no demiurge could take credit for the Earth to be mainly his own assumptions. He devotes much of his efforts to picking apart the "thirty aeons" idea which is only really relevant to a couple of sects.

As far as his promotion of catholicism goes, it is nothing I haven't heard before and is not very persuasive. I am accustomed to picking apart the Bible in every inconsistency, so his deconstruction of the Gnostics just renders both systems fictitious. So I compare them purely on the basis of the message they send and on trying to show that the Gnostics teach bad ethics, I feel Irenaeus fails in every regard; nothing seems particularly alarming to me. His accusations of witchcraft are obviously not even slightly worrying.

Originally posted by King Kandy
Well, I would agree with you if this were a man. This was a God, and his wisdom should be timeless. God sent his son to completely redefine the social contract with humanity, and you're telling me he altered what he really thought to make it more palatable? In that case, reading the bible is an exercise in futility; who knows how much of the stuff Jesus said, he actually meant? Why didn't Jesus speak out against gender double standards, not make them even more rigid?

This is one of the biggest reasons why I don't believe in the bible. I think if something really came from God, it should have a timeless message. I don't get that impression at all when I read the Bible; it sounds all too much like a product of its time, written by humans. The first time I actually read the New Testament, my end statement was "it came from the 1st century, and it definitely shows". In contrast, a lot of the gnostic scriptures I read seem way closer to what I consider an enlightened way of thinking.

Keep in mind that I'm a Mormon and we do not believe every decree from God is timeless. We believe His rules are fitting, mostly, for the contemporary people.

For instance, Mormons preach against the viewing of pornography. That did not exist (in the way we mean it) in Jesus' day. Some Christian apologists say that the "lust in your heart" counts as adultery.

So what does that mean? It means that any unmarried man can view unmarried women...or men, in pornographic ways. 🙂

So, no, I do not believe his words are timeless in that particular regard specifically because it was explicit for the Pharisees who were asking the question in very culturally specific terms for their people.

If you inject the ideas of Mormonism into his words, yes, the become timeless because we take his words to mean "eternal marriage". In that regard, it is wrong to throw away your eternal marriage for another without a very very strong reason (adultery was the reason commonly used).

So, yes, I fully agree that the bible is so full of interpretation that it is very hard to discern exactly what the messages are to mean.* I hate to say it, but only an idiot would take a direct reading of the bible (and that happens). If you throw out the context, language, and cultural references, you end up with a nonsensical and sometimes inappropriate interpretation half of the time. Not cool.

*This is why Mormons advocate the use of apostles and prophets. Individuals that are supposed to be very holy and dedicated individuals that have been given the divine authority to interpret those scriptures properly and in context. This is also the very reason that many Christians hate us.

And, the New Testament is mostly timeless information about morality. "Turn the other cheek", "stop being hypocrites and live the spirit as well as the letter of the law" and so forth.

In fact, I would say the majority of the doctrines in the new testament are timeless. Very few are contemporary only doctrines.

Originally posted by King Kandy
OK, so I read "Against Heresies" by Irenaeus (or at least, about half of it before it was too much to stand). Am I supposed to be impressed? I actually found the Augustine work I posted much more persuasive (and that wasn't exactly killer either).

I agree.

I think Augustine brings up some good work but does fail. I can't remember what I was reading from him about his takes on the gnostics, but I remember thinking, "Well, that principle could be equally applied to your position." Meaning, "let he who is sinless cast the first stone". I can't remember what he was talking about. It will bug me until I find it.

The older I get, the more I think that there's an active/petty God that interferes at every last chance. I believe less and less in what I have deemed an "immature" God and more in a God of Creation. You could say I am closer to a Deist than I am Christian Evangelical. However, I still believe in an interfering God...I think He interferes once in a blue moon.

I may shit my pants if the second coming occurs, however. If that happens in our lifetime (keyword is "if"😉.

Originally posted by King Kandy
Saying the Romans were not at fault is ridiculous.

Saying the Romans had much of a choice in the matter is equally ridiculous. It was literally an appeasement to an angry, Theocratically ruling, mob.

The cost of not appeasing them was great. The choice was not really there for Pilate.

Originally posted by Mindship
Couple of things. First off, it seems to me that while the Jewish leadership at the time apparently contributed to Jesus' death (I like to think that Jesus was doing what many of us do today: basically, rally against the ossification of organized religion), it was the Romans who physically took him and nailed him to the cross.

But more importantly: as I understand it, Jesus knew he was going to be betrayed and killed, yet he made no attempt to avoid this fate. He knew he had to sacrifice himself to make a point. IMHO, this means, then, that the final responsibility for Jesus' death rests with Jesus himself. Otherwise, if he had been taken away and killed against his will, there was no "sacrifice," which undermines the Christian faith.

Basically: Jesus made a choice, and that's where the final responsibility lies.

I'm at work, typing this quickly, so hopefully I made a clear point.

Yes, that was ultimately my point. It was all part of God's plan.

Somehow, my original point AGAINST anti-semitism was lost and we started talking about "who's on first." My original point was: We shouldn't hate on the Jews for their actions concerning Jesus. In fact, they should be praised for both their history AND their actions. It was all "part of the plan".

Jesus himself could have easily cleared himself if he had just lied and said, "NOPE! I'm not the Christ. WEEEE!"

Originally posted by dadudemon
Yes, that was ultimately my point. It was all part of God's plan.

The Orthodox have never hurt anybody, and tried not to attack first. Blessed are the peacemakers!

The Old Testament belonged to the Jews, they were chosen by God. They were the wisest rulers, a lot of land, a lot of wealth. Then when they had crucified Jesus, God - they have all been taken away, can be seen throughout the history of God's wrath on this people, they lost everything. It was necessary to analyze just why? And to Christianity. Of Christianity - the most pure faith, which has not changed from the Christ-Orthodox Faith is the closest to the apostles, (and it is often called Apostolic). Remaining unchanged under him and lost a first purity. This is a virgin forest, while a man does not interfere with the forest is beautiful and there is a chist.Tak Orthodox faith remained, first from God.

l

Originally posted by dadudemon
Indeed:

Do not see the beauty of the Faith and Temples - who is God?

Originally posted by 3lv
Do not see the beauty of the Faith and Temples - who is God?

Originally posted by 3lv

Originally posted by 3lv