mountainman

Try telling that to the Pythagoraeans.

No Robots

Totally.

Thanks for this. I queued a couple of Laloux's films, and will look for "Savage Planet".

Well, personally I do think that Brunner has given us the last word on Christ, that his theory and his theory alone fits the case. I found Brunner while looking for a decent account of Christ, and then became enamored of the theory that allows for just such a decent account, as well as all the other work developed along the same theoretical lines.

Absolutely.

It seems to me that only Christ himself is utterly free of the world.

Oh, I'm all for active philosophy and active Christianity. We don't have to be mystics to make use of mysticism, any more than we have to be artists to appreciate art.

We don't have to settle this one right now.

It is true that Christ sees himself as a sacrifice. Sacrifice is something that he uses to his advantage. He dominates it, he wills it, as we see in the next quotation:

Beautiful and inspiring, no? Look, I don't think you are necessarily wrong about sacrifice. I just think that maybe you need to develop your ideas a little more. I know that you have made me think about more deeply. I guess in the end my position is that Christ transforms the whole concept of sacrifice from something negative and material into something positive and spiritual. Thus it is no longer sacrifice at all, but is rather eternal life itself.

And what is more helpful to the people than to tell them the truth about the authorities to which they submit?

No Robots

The Pythagoreans were philosophers who paved the way for mathematics and science.

Elijah

I don’t know anything about the films. I’m a fan of the singer. Maynard Keenan of Tool, A perfect Circle and Puscifer.
How does he account for and understand his sacrifice? That’s how I determine your understanding of Christ.
So Jesus is trying to set an example that only he seems to be able to achieve but hopes that eventually everyone will be able to get close enough to his example to bring peace? If his plan was that the people only needed to believe in him as the Christ in order to bring peace then that makes sense because that is possible but if the people needed to imitate his mystic or ascetic nature in order to bring peace then I don’t think that was a rational plan.
What do you consider the active part of your philosophy? It seems like you are hoping for a collective rejection of worldliness to bring about peace.
You don’t have to be an artist but you at least need to have had contact with art. There is no point talking about art with people who have never seen a painting, you’re just going to sound crazy.
Why wait? No one here is getting any younger. Especially on an issue like the sacrifice which I would say is just as important as rejecting a superstitious understanding of god because as soon as you reject that you should be forced to relook at the sacrifice.
There is a whole boat load of concepts that a guy on a cross can represent. Where the material meets the spiritual and thru death… yadda yadda yadda, but what his sacrifice could represent is secondary to the purpose of his sacrifice which was getting his followers to imitate his act. An establishment of a line of martyrs to spread his message. We can argue about the message he was trying to push but the fact that he was using self sacrifice as his selling point needs to be understood so his sacrifice isn’t seen as a superstitious offering.

Also I’m a believer in actual eternal life and an actual resurrection of the dead. You can’t buy my service with symbolic eternal life.
Well if that is the ideology you are pushing then more power to you. If you are saying that the world gets better when the people act better by rejecting worldliness then I can’t support that idea at all. The people’s attachment to the material isn’t the problem; it’s men ruler over other people. We don’t have to reject material pleasure or whatnot for peace we just have to reject the authority that enslaves us and forces us to fight each other for control of land. This is the same thing moses was trying with his commandments. Trying to build a republic where the law ruled so the people didn’t need rulers but could be free of the Pharaohs of the world.

"Motto: Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God." Ben Franklin

"I have sworn upon the altar of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." -- Thomas Jefferson

"What is the best type of Jihad [struggle]?" He answered: "Speaking truth before a tyrannical ruler." Muhammad

“Jesus said unto them, Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's.” Mark 12:17

I don’t think he is just talking about paying his taxes.

No Robots

Brunner has an extensive, magnificent treatment of the Last Supper. Here is one small portion:

Was there then anything which he did not thoroughly change expressing the originality of his own nature, and whereby he always pointed to himself? And so he celebrated Passover with such innovation that nothing of Passover remained. He celebrates himself in the splendidly bold words of himself and of all. He thinks of himself, truly not of the Passover celebration, but as he thinks of himself, he thinks of everything, of the Passover-sacrifice, too, and he himself becomes the Passover sacrifice; the Passover-sacrifice immediately becomes the Messiah-sacrifice, and he is the Messiah! He, in his humanity, his "flesh and blood," as the Jews are wont to call a human being (XXX). His flesh and blood accomplished all this. It has and retains the tremendous significance of: this is my flesh, and this red wine is my blood! (Mt. 26:26). He is the Messiah, who is sacrificed, who sacrifices himself—he is the offering, which they eat. He also thinks about the eating of the Messiah, for this, too, is a Jewish expression (Sanh. 99a: XXXX and XXXX)*.

*I put 'XXXX for the Hebrew.

Right.

There are many active parts of my philosophy. There is my work on the Internet. There is my work at improving the way I deal with myself, my family and my friends. There is also some political activity. I study philosophy actively to help me with all these things.

I am simply repelled by the whole idea of sacrifice. It is hard for me to look at it with any degree of equanimity.

This is way too materialistic a view. He wanted his followers to be prepared to suffer, but he certainly didn't wish suffering for himself or others. When it was inevitable that he should suffer, he did make use of it for his own ends.

I do not believe in the immortality of the ego. What I believe is that we participate in the eternity of Being. Here is Spinoza:

[D]eath becomes less hurtful, in proportion as the mind's clear and distinct knowledge is greater, and, consequently, in proportion as the mind loves God more. Again, since from the third kind of knowledge arises the highest possible acquiescence (V. xxvii.), it follows that the human mind can attain to being of such a nature, that the part thereof which we have shown to perish with the body (V. xxi.) should be of little importance when compared with the part which endures.—Ethics 5, 38, note.

The object is to apply spiritual insight to effect a transformation of the world.

The problem is that the people are constantly setting rulers over themselves.

I certainly do not say that we should reject the material. I am just saying that we shouldn't absolutize it.

But what do the people do? They (probably) murder Moses, worship idols, and set up a theocracy.

This is a great mashal. It has several layers of meaning. First off, he clearly means that material things have no absolute value, so don't worry about images on coins, or paying taxes to heathen. Secondly, pay attention to what he says. He says "Give me a coin," but we don't know if he ever gave it back. Nothing belongs to Caesar, everything belongs to the Father, and to the Son.

bacht

I've wondered that too, whether the Romans inadvertently instigated the eventual end of the sacrificial system by destroying Jerusalem and later embracing Christianity.

As for sublimation Rene Girard has written a lot about the scapegoat ritual and its roots in primitive human psychology.

mountainman

And Gnosticism.
Know Thyself.
Plato's Academy.
etc

Clivedurdle

And Islam still sacrifices although they deny it! They cut the throat of the animal so it cries Allah and then bleed it!

Elijah

I don’t understand what he is trying to say the point was. Maybe you could summarize it in your own words because if that paper you had me read on his complaints on Kant were any indication then I’m going to have problems following him.
Do you understand why I have a problem with your interpretation of him trying what seems to be an impossible plan of changing people spiritually verses him just trying to get people believe he was the messiah?
That wasn’t exactly what I was looking for. Not how you are active within your philosophy but how your philosophy itself is active. What is its active goals. Like Christianity may build churches and evangelize Jesus as the messiah and Islam, nation builds. It seems that your philosophy is based around the activity of preaching a rejection of worldliness in hopes it leads to something. Problem is this rejection is vague and even if it did bring peace to an individual or even a nation that nation would be a sitting duck for the empire building nation.
Well the hard part is over. Admitting you have a biased against the sacrifice is the all you need to do to be able to reexamine the event. As I said it’s completely understandable to have a problem with the concept of sacrifice coming from a philosophical background since it is the example often used to illustrate irrational understandings of god/s.
Matt 16:24Then Jesus told his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

Him sacrificing his life is part of a plan, that isn’t materialist but is based in reality and included the suffering of his followers as a way to get his message out.
I have more of a sci-fi literal understanding of the resurrecting and eternal life.
Yea I get it, I just don’t think it’s a viable strategy. I don’t agree with blaming the people and preaching at them to act this way or that way to improve the world. Instead of preaching at the people stand up to the people who oppress us. Yes rejecting worldliness may help you reach that conclusion but it’s the conclusion that "we don’t need any authority here but god" that we should be focused on.
I would say the mistake the people make is trusting people who don’t have their interest in mind and that’s something I have a hard time faulting them for or wanting to change about them.
I’m still not sure the specifics of what you are suggesting.
Yea but if Moses could go back and do it again, what do you think he should have done different so the people didn’t do that? Freeing the people is a difficult task.
I think it’s a way of saying give Caesar what is his without getting killed or looking like you are trying to obviously start a rebellion.

mountainman

The incomplete ascetic Jesus gnawed on the bones of dead animals
according to the authors of the gospels. Perhaps the fabricators
of the new testament were not aware of ascetic practices
involving vegetarianism?

They certainly used Jesus as a public relations exercise
to state the benefits of rendering the imperial taxation to Caesar.

Islam, Christianity, etc, etc, etc - people of the book.
Books are frozen in time and thus age in the face of aeons.

The inexpressible essence of evolving being does not.
Perhaps Buddha-like, Pythagorean-like,
we know that Porphyry equated vegetarianism
with the concept of justice.