The root of Christianity

[Gnostic Christian Bishop]

And Gnostic Christianity based somehow on Jesus is a combination of beliefs?

Exactly what the bible shows, by design.

We use the Chrestian parts that Christianity usurped and made their own.

Do there remind you of a supernatural god or yourself as god of the more esoteric ecumenist, or more of an Eastern mystic teaching?

Here is the real way to salvation that Jesus taught.

Matthew 6:22 The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.

John 14:23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.

Romans 8:29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

Allan Watts explain those quotes in detail.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alRNbesfXXw&feature=player_embedded

Joseph Campbell shows the same esoteric ecumenist idea in this link.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGx4IlppSgU

The bible just plainly says to put away the things of children. The supernatural and literal reading of myths.

Regards
DL

The usual theo-babble.

Apparently you use the same 'Chinese menu' approach to Christianity. Pick one from column a and one from column b..

I always thought there was a homosexual theme to the gospels. You reject divinity but you love a man from 2000 years ago based on a few lines in what was an obviously embellished crafted narrative. From the gospels if anything Jesus was arrogant and craved attention. Love Me!!

BTW, do you keep kosher and stone adulterers? Jesus did not suften Mosaic Law, in fact he reinforced it saying Jews had strayayed. .

We might chat again when you stop lying about what I believe.

As I have told you, I will not waste my time correcting your lies.

Regards
DL

 

[steve_bank]

The usual theo-babble.

Apparently you use the same 'Chinese menu' approach to Christianity. Pick one from column a and one from column b..

I always thought there was a homosexual theme to the gospels. You reject divinity but you love a man from 2000 years ago based on a few lines in what was an obviously embellished crafted narrative. From the gospels if anything Jesus was arrogant and craved attention. Love Me!!

BTW, do you keep kosher and stone adulterers? Jesus did not suften Mosaic Law, in fact he reinforced it saying Jews had strayayed. .

We might chat again when you stop lying about what I believe.

As I have told you, I will not waste my time correcting your lies.

Regards
DL

Point being that I really don't know what you believe. You do a lot of posturing, handwashing, quoting scripture, ranting, and preaching typical of Evangelical Christian types. Especially the use of the word evil.to describe others.

You apparently do not want to discuss Sermon On The Mount or 'turn the oter cheek'. Also typical, Christians typically do not want to discuss actual morality in the gospels.

In case you have not noticed, this is not a place to preach without being challenged.

 

[Gnostic Christian Bishop]

You apparently do not want to discuss Sermon On The Mount or 'turn the oter cheek'.

Your error is duly noted.

Where in our chat did you even mention those?

You did elsewhere, where I just replied, but here?

Regards
DL

 

[steve_bank]

You apparently do not want to discuss Sermon On The Mount or 'turn the oter cheek'.

Your error is duly noted.

Where in our chat did you even mention those?

You did elsewhere, where I just replied, but here?

Regards
DL

I get no great pleure from these exchanges. I partipate becuse us Atheists have to rotect ourselves from all forms of relgion, even Gnostic Christianity.

As I am now officaly retired I take pleasure in exploring math and science in a more leisurely fashion than my hectic high pressure engineing career.

Anger and tension can be a normal response to being confronted by your inconsitncies. You may feel some tension, maybe hitting the keyboard hard and so on.

It is sometimes called a reality check or an attitude adjustment. A thinking mind would objectively evaluate criticism, and do a little introspection. That is not the way of religion and secular beliefs as well, such as politics.

Realizing the truth of it but avoiding it is called being in denal.

The last word is yours.

 

[DrZoidberg]

I highly recommend this podcast series. Since it doesn't care about current doctrine. It only analyses the text itself and puts it into the historical context of the period. It's a brave thing to do.

Here's the next interesting bit he said about the Pauline epistles. It's a lot of massaging history. Paul argues against a lot of straw men, as well as creates dichotomies where there are none. He also paper over conflicts, to create an illusion of a unified early church.

https://literatureandhistory.com/index.php/episode-079-the-pauline-epistles

Here's what I think are the highlights from this episode.

1) Ancient Judaism did not believe in heaven or a life after death. That's something introduced from Zorastrianism after the Old Testament was written. And this was something that was discussed within Judaism around the time of Jesus' birth. We don't need to speculate on which team Jesus chose to join. But it was a preexisting team. Jesus didn't start this idea.

2) Pre Christian Judaism was a collective religion without an afterlife. It didn't matter whether or not you as an individual was a good person or if you did good deeds. What mattered was the collective, and it was your responsibility (if you were a Jew) to make sure the other Jews were in line.

3) The big debate in Palestine during the life of Christ was the one between Sadjusees and Pharises

Sadducees were more cosmopolitan and liberal. They did not believe in an afterlife. They had support from the wealthy and the rabbinical/priestly class. They did NOT care what you believed. It was a religion of ritual, not faith.

Pharisees were conservative, were focused on following the Jewish commandments (all 613) as well as extra ones they'd added, they DID believe in an afterlife in heaven. These did also NOT care what you believed. It was a religion of ritual, not faith.

There was a third group, the Essenes. This was the sect of the Dead Sea Scrolls. These were essentially Christian, with very similar beliefs. Albeit believed that only Jews could be saved. Except of course, no Jesus, because this group predate Jesus' birth. This group is also entirely different that what later became Christianity. Which tells us a lot about the thoughts that swirled around the time of Jesus.

The fact that Sadducees and Pharisees didn't see Essenes as a group worth debating with, inspite of having significant theological works as well as many members, also tells us what a mess, theologically, Judaism was at this point.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharisees
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadducees
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essenes

Worth noting is that Pharisees (as described in the Bible) didn't have the power the Bible says they had. Rome was in charge and they did their best not to get involved in theological debates between Jews. Rome forced the Jews to sort their differences themselves and get along peacefully. The story in the Bible regarding how Jesus was treated wouldn't have happened like that. It's a story tweaked to be more exciting. More importantly, during the life of Christ, the Sadducees were firmly in control over Jewish religion. Not the Pharisees. Pharisees persecuting Christians only started well after Jesus was long dead.

4) Judaism was popular in the Roman empire. Romans revered anything that was old and the Torah's size and age made it fascinating to them. So Judaism had a special status in Rome, and many gentiles followed Jewish commandments and sat in on Jewish mass. When Paul wizzed around the Mediterranean converting pagan gentiles he was doing so in Synagogues to gentiles who were already converted in practice. It was an easy sell.

5) Paul was a maverick, and early on, to a large extent operating alone. in the book of Galatians, (which by experts is considered a genuine letter by Paul) it makes it very clear that early Christians did not agree on much, and most were NOT ok with letting gentiles convert to Christianity. Since Paul was a later convert, and not part of the apostolic generation, he had low status in the early church. Paul was just very good at getting Christians to convert. This is what later lead to the many doctrinal conflicts which had to be sorted in the counciles of Nicea. It was a mess.

6) Paul's doctrine that we don't need to follow all the Jewish commandments makes no sense. If we don't need to follow some of the laws, how do we know which we should or which we shouldn't follow? This was never made clear by Paul. The personal opinion of Doug Metzger, the guy who has the podcast, is that Paul took a lot of things as obvious and natural, due to his Jewish upbringing, and somehow just assumed it would be obvious and natural to everybody. The things he saw as obvious and natural we should do. And the things he didn't, we shouldn't. But he was very much a product of his age, so this does not help us much. It's a nice theory. Either way, Paul's position on this in the Epistles is incoherent. And that's objectively true, regardless any personal opinion.

7) Paul didn't believe in personal salvation, nor did he believe we will be judged by our actions. That's lifted straight from Egypt theology, and worked itself into Christianity much later, and wasn't on Paul's mind at all. To be saved you just need to believe in Jesus Christ. If you did, Paul thought you'd automatically become a good person. But there were no rules as such. As long as you believed in Jesus no amount of mortal sinning would prevent you from going to Heaven. He certainly didn't believe in Hell. Which wasn't at all a thing in any ancient religion and didn't show up in Christianity until much later.

This is what John Calvin noticed when he gave the Pauline Epistles a bit of a closer read. And which then became Calvinism. The problem of course is that there's no incentive for the individual to be a good person in this version of Christianity. The reason for this is because that requires individualism. That wasn't a thing in the ancient worlds. These were all collectivist ways of thinking. Individualism is a product of the European Enlightenment, much much later.


These are just a couple of things that popped out at me while I read it.

It's obvious that he contacted every possible expert when writing this podcast episode due to the sensitive nature of it for our modern world. It's extremely well researched.

 

[steve_bank]

It should be Paulism not Christianity.

 

[DrZoidberg]

It should be Paulism not Christianity.

I think anybody who believes that Jesus is the son of God and the Jewish messiah, no matter what rules they follow or otherwise believe, can be considered Christian. By tradition a Christian is someone who believes exactly what I believe (if I'd be a Christian, I'm not) and if they don't, we will label them with whatever heretic subsect label we want. I don't think it's helpful. I think it's clanish mud slinging, doesn't help and is stupid.

He does mention later Christians who took Paul very seriously on that they didn't have to follow Jewish law and went completely off the rails inventing all manner of cooky Christianities that have very little to do with Judaism. The Gnostics and the Marcionists for example.

 

[DBT]

Isn't Jesus reported to have said that he did not come to abolish the law, but to uphold it? Did they miss that bit, or just rationalized it away?

 

[Politesse]

Isn't Jesus reported to have said that he did not come to abolish the law, but to uphold it? Did they miss that bit, or just rationalized it away?

And what is Torah, to you? Just an English translation of an ancient book of laws? Is that what you think Jesus came to uphold? Why would God visit us in person just to tell us to do what we were already doing, worshipping books and hurting each other? I don't think it was crazy or mistaken to search for a deeper meaning within those words as the Gnostics did and do.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Isn't Jesus reported to have said that he did not come to abolish the law, but to uphold it? Did they miss that bit, or just rationalized it away?

This isn't from the podcast but what I know from other sources, it's hard to know what Jesus really said or didn't. Since Christianity is so focused on Jesus and his personal opinions, that any Christian theologian would put words in the mouth of Jesus. To the point where we know Jesus existed. But we know nothing else about him. Not his life story. Not his opinions, other than in the most general sense. Add to that the obvious embellishments to the Jesus narrative to emphasize his humble origins, to a point where its not believable. Fat chance a unmarried poor illiterate carpenter would get the amount of impact and followers as he did.

This podcast doesn't talk about the real life of Jesus. It only cares about what is written in the Bible and why it's written there. He doesn't seem to pick a team.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Fun line. "after Constantine converted the Roman empire and the Jedis started piloting the Death Star Christian theologians needed to reinterpret what Revelation explicitly says will happen to Rome".

Edit: its also funny why it was included in the Bible. When what later became the Biblical cannon was first assembled by the Bishop of Alexandria. He interpreted the whore of Babylon as being about Aryan Christians, which he thought were the worst kind of heretics. But that wasn't the reason it was later kept in when the canon was finally agreed upon. That needed more theological juggling.

Its also no mystery why it was written. It was written around 80 AD, by a very Jewish Christian, at a point when the Roman empire had only just brutally crushed a Jewish uprising in Palestine, demolished the second temple of Jerusalem and taken a lot of wealth and slaves with them. Leaving the Jews destitute. Add to that that Nero had only just tried to frame Christians for the great fire of Rome and was persecuting them, even though pretty much nobody believed this imperial propaganda.

Portraying Nero as the antichrist was pretty obvious since he was a famously decadent and horrific person everybody in the Roman empire hated him. And had in fact just been murdered by an angry mob.

Its for the same reason no mystery why this prophecy was popular among Jews and Christians at that time. And ended up widely spread.

 

[DrZoidberg]

I realize that I'm now pretty much talking to myself, but I am partly writing to just review what I hear so I won't forget it.

https://literatureandhistory.com/index.php/episode-085-river

Here's the episode on canon formation. Not just the Christian canon formation, but religious canon formation in general. He presents a fascinating new theory, which he said was quite recent.

In Nineveh in 1849 the Library of Ashurbanipal was found (dating to ca 650 BC). A large collection of clay tablets of a variety of contents. But there was a section that baffled archeologists. It was a large section which only was the Epic of Gilgamesh. In various states of completion. Some well written. Some badly written. Some in between. It was all just this same book repeated over and over and over. Which defeats a bit of the point of a library. If this section was a library. The new theory is that this section was in fact a school for scribes. What they found on the shelves was homework. And the idea of having a set canon of texts for teachers to teach is the standard way of teaching. And we do it today in any English department. Teachers aren't omnipotent. If teachers are going to have any chance of knowing everything students ask there must be a limited canon in order for them to know what to know. The Epic of Gilgamesh became a standardized work throughout the empire.

This new theory is that the canon formation of the Epic of Gilgamesh was a practical matter, rather than an attempt to control the beliefs of the population. Something that pagans, (for theological reasons) had no reason to do. The bardic tradition, which the Epic of Gilgamesh comes from, is an oral tradition, which leaves a lot of room for improvisation. We know from our study of bardic tradition that the same bard could tweak stories on different nights depending on audience reaction. These aren't boringly recited verbatim at each performance. They are pieces of performance, entertainment. The scribes only much later wrote down this oral tradition.

Once the scribal schools defined the canon of the epic of Gilgamesh it became the official canon of the empire.

Once we found this library/school in Nineveh we've later reinterpreted Greek, Roman, Egyptian and Jewish findings and drawn the same conclusions about what these "libraries" are. Even though the conclusions are more iffy, considering the more perishable materials they wrote on and the extent to which later generations spent on destroying heretic works.

Once canonization and standardization of religious texts became a normal thing in order to teach scribes, it then later became a tool with which to teach a standardized religion, which created the possibility for monotheism to be established.

I think it's fascinating that the rise of monotheism might have been more the result of technology than of any philosophical musings.

He also mentioned a quote from Josephus who talked about the formation of the Jewish canon, which was a ongoing project in his own lifetime. He talks about the degree of importance of certain books. As if some parts of the Old Testament are more dependable than others, and that some of them might be really dodgy and should be taken with a grain of salt.

He also mentions a quote from S:t Augustine (who lived at a time when the Christian canon was being compiled) where he says that the Biblical Canon (versio vulgata) is the more important books of the Bible and that the Apocrypha is mostly just for specialised academics. As if S:t Augustine thinks they're all genuine part of the Biblical Canon, and that it's more a case of simplicity of teaching it, rather than the Apocrypha being heretic (which it later was deemed as). The name of the Christian Bible, the "Versio Vulgata" does litterally mean "the version for common people" which in the name implies that there is more genuine authentic Christian Bibles for special people.

And lastly. Before 325 AD when the Catholic church had become dominant and began to aggressively hunt down heretics, Christian theologians were really nice to each other. Their tone toward competing theologies was respectful and focused on doctrinal differences. Arguments were well thought through. Everybody was given a fair chance to make their case. The Catholic church didn't start becoming aggressively intolerant towards other Christians until it became married to the Roman government and it became an arm in running the empire.

 

[Gnostic Christian Bishop]

It should be Paulism not Christianity.

I think anybody who believes that Jesus is the son of God and the Jewish messiah, no matter what rules they follow or otherwise believe, can be considered Christian. By tradition a Christian is someone who believes exactly what I believe (if I'd be a Christian, I'm not) and if they don't, we will label them with whatever heretic subsect label we want. I don't think it's helpful. I think it's clanish mud slinging, doesn't help and is stupid.

He does mention later Christians who took Paul very seriously on that they didn't have to follow Jewish law and went completely off the rails inventing all manner of cooky Christianities that have very little to do with Judaism. The Gnostics and the Marcionists for example.

Gnostic can be applied to any belief system.

I chose Gnostic Christianity. I could have chosen to be a Gnostic Muslim.

My love for it created the greatest hate and a Gnostic has a duty to let that hate be known.

That is why we condemned Yahweh to hell. Not that any such supernatural creations are real.

We are the black sheep of all religions that we try to improve, in the moral sense.

Regards
DL

 

[Gnostic Christian Bishop]

Isn't Jesus reported to have said that he did not come to abolish the law, but to uphold it? Did they miss that bit, or just rationalized it away?

This isn't from the podcast but what I know from other sources, it's hard to know what Jesus really said or didn't. Since Christianity is so focused on Jesus and his personal opinions, that any Christian theologian would put words in the mouth of Jesus. To the point where we know Jesus existed. But we know nothing else about him. Not his life story. Not his opinions, other than in the most general sense. Add to that the obvious embellishments to the Jesus narrative to emphasize his humble origins, to a point where its not believable. Fat chance a unmarried poor illiterate carpenter would get the amount of impact and followers as he did.

This podcast doesn't talk about the real life of Jesus. It only cares about what is written in the Bible and why it's written there. He doesn't seem to pick a team.

Having people judge Jesus on his moral tenets is one of the hardest things to get a Christian to do.

They know they have to condemn him and do not have the Gnostic balls.

We were called the only good Christians because of our moral sense.

All the other Christians had was supernatural gibberish and inquisitions to sell their filth.

Genocide loving Christians. Gotta love em.

Regards
DL

 

[Gnostic Christian Bishop]

Isn't Jesus reported to have said that he did not come to abolish the law, but to uphold it? Did they miss that bit, or just rationalized it away?

It is also reported that Jesus will genocide our ass once again with Armageddon.

Yeah.

Regards
DL

 

[Gnostic Christian Bishop]

I think anybody who believes that Jesus is the son of God and the Jewish messiah, no matter what rules they follow or otherwise believe, can be considered Christian.

Scriptures confirm that there are no real Christians because the feats of Jesus have not been replicated.

Jesus said that even the smallest amount of faith or belief would give that believer the same powers Jesus had and more.

Supernatural garbage.

Great stuff if you are not a literalist.

Regards
DL

 

[Gnostic Christian Bishop]

I get no great pleure from these exchanges. I partipate becuse us Atheists have to rotect ourselves from all forms of relgion, even Gnostic Christianity.

I have waited a long time and tried to get the more stupid atheists to get the led out of their ass and form more Atheist Churches and Mystery Schools, --- for that same protection you speak of, --- but atheists are a slow lot in some areas, --- like understanding tribalism instincts.

Atheists might be brighter that theists, but still slow off the mark. It has cost you many good lives and slowed civilized social progress.

Regards
DL

 

[Gnostic Christian Bishop]

Anger and tension can be a normal response to being confronted by your inconsitncies. You may feel some tension, maybe hitting the keyboard hard and so on.

Not at all, given that I know not of what you speak.

[removed]

Regards
DL

 

[Gnostic Christian Bishop]

A thinking mind would objectively evaluate criticism,

When seen, and not based on psychobabble, for sure.

Regards
DL

 

[DrZoidberg]

Gnostic can be applied to any belief system.

I chose Gnostic Christianity. I could have chosen to be a Gnostic Muslim.

Sure, but isn't Gnosticism neo-platonism adapted for Christianity? Gnostic Islam is neo-platonism adapted to Christianity adapted to Islam. Why add the extra step and not call yourself neo-platonist? It's simpler.

My love for it created the greatest hate and a Gnostic has a duty to let that hate be known.

That is why we condemned Yahweh to hell. Not that any such supernatural creations are real.

We are the black sheep of all religions that we try to improve, in the moral sense.

I thought Gnostics condemned Yahweh because Yahweh isn't a particularly pleasant Biblical character? The Christian project of trying to pass the early Jewish God off as a loving God who only means well is a tall order. The Gnostics picked a different solution, there is more than one god and Yahweh is an evil god.

I suspect that what the other Christians didn't like about the Gnostics is that they turned Paul's message of an open and transparent church back into a standard pagan exclusive mystery cult. It was popular at the time because Romans were more familiar with pagan mystery cults than they were with Judaism. So for the regular pagan Roman it was less of an effort to convert to Gnosticism.

As I understand it the other Christians felt that the Gnostics were missing the point of simplifying Judaism (which fundamentally is all Christianity is) and making it complicated again by adding a bunch of complicated theology that, (as in all pagan mystery cults) will be dripped to the convert drop by drop as they ascend the hierarchy of step-by-step cultish initiation.

And I sort of understand them. If you're on a project to create a new religion and you get a bunch of converts, who the first thing they do, is to take your religion and convert it back to their old religion, then why did they bother to convert in the first place? Why not stay pagan? But it is a bit of a stone in a glass house because mainstream Christianity is also a paganizing of Judaism. At least Catholics and Orthodox Christianity is more Jewish than the Gnostics are.

In the early Christian church this was the major debate, "how Jewish should we be?". "How little Jewish is it ok to be?". "How many of the commandments do we need to follow?". The Gnostics were among the most radical of the Christians. They wanted to almost break completely from the Jewish faith and denigrated it as evil. They lost that debate.