Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Solo · 03-29-2010, 08:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gurugeorge

Look, it's pretty evident that Paul is a mystic, and also had visions (that he may have been manic depressive is another possibility - most artists and poets are to some degree, and I don't see any reason to doubt that some genuinely religious types are too).

I don't think you quite appreciate, gg, that 'a mystic who also has visions' is very frequently by the same token a 'manic-depressive'.

With respect to the relationship of mental disorder and religiosity the shoe should be on the other foot. It has been since William James' Varieties more or less a given that if God talks to you, there is definitely an option on apprehending it as a 'mystery'.

Kay Redfield Jamieson, one of the foremost experts on bipolar disorder notes in the compendium Manic-Depressive Illness (or via: amazon.co.uk) (written with Frederick K. Goodwin):

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We have discussed some of the characteristics that intense religious experiences share with manic-depressive illness.
Turning to the opposite perspective, we find several characteristics of manic-depressive illness that are religious in nature. The DSM-III-R, of course, formally recognizes the role of delusions and in both psychotic depressions and manias. Particularly relevant for our discussion here are the defining characteristics of the mood-congruent psychotic features of mania: ' delusions or hallucinations whose content is entirely consistent with themes of inflated worth, power, knowledge, identity or special relationship to a deity or a famous person'. Winokur and associates (1969) in their monograph on manic-depressive illness, noted that delusions were present in 48 percent of the manic episodes they observed and that the content of 29 percent of these delusions was religious in nature. Auditory hallucinations were present in 21 percent of manic episodes and visual hallucinations in 9 percent. The hallucinations were characterized by being "brief, usually grandiose, usually religious". Finally, the most common cognitive theme during mania was religion, expressed by 32 percent of the patients. The high rate of religious themes in manic delusions and hallucinations, and cognitive content may simply reflect unconscious or learned material. On the other hand, it may reflect the inability of ordinary language and perceptual frameworks to express ecstatic, grandiose and transcendental experiences in anything other than the mystical language of religion. p. 361

It is now as it was when Paul was roaming the Mediterranean. You just have no idea how great mania could make you feel and how incredibly it can intoxicate your brain to make it believe things it knows are not happening. Mania tells mysteries to those worthy of her mysteries; do not let the left brain know what the right brain is doing.

Jiri

TimBowe · 03-29-2010, 09:04 PM

Thomas Jefferson wrote that Paul was the first corrupter of the doctrines of Jesus and Bernard Shaw said that "There has never been a more monstrous imposition perpetrated than the imposition of the limitations of Paul's soul upon the soul of Jesus" he also said it would have been better for the world if Paul had never been born. It is clear that in Schonfield's hypotheses Saul of Tarsus considered himself to be God's Messiah.

Quote:

"It was not only the teaching and activities of Paul which made him obnoxious to the Christian leaders: but their awareness that he set his revelations above their authority and claimed an intimacy with the mind of Jesus, greater than that of those who had companied with him on earth and had been chosen by him....It was an abomination, especially as his ideas were so contrary to what they knew of Jesus, that he should pose as the embodiment of the Messiah 's will....Paul was seen as the demon-driven enemy of the Messiah....For the legitimate Church, Paul was a dangerous and disruptive influence, bent on enlisting a large following among the Gentiles in order to provide himself with a numerical superiority with the support of which he could set at defiance the Elders at Jerusalem. Paul had been the enemy from the beginning. and because he failed in his former open hostility he had craftily insinuated himself into the fold to destroy it from within."

Those Incredible Christians
Hugh Joseph Schonfield

mountainman · 03-29-2010, 09:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TimBowe

Nietzsche On Paul

Quote:

His instinct was so sure in this that he took the ideas
with which these chandala religions fascinated,
and, with ruthless violence, he put them
into the mouth of the ‘Savior’
whom he had invented… [/B].

Did Nietzsche ever refer to Eusebius?

Who was the author of the genuine letters of "Paul"?
Who was the author of the ingenuous letters of "Pseudo Paul"?
Who profited from such inventions under the name of either author?
Who was the "Editor-In-Chief" of the first widespread publication of "Paul" in Greek?

Eusebius was not afraid of attacking St Paul’s guesses about the chronology of the Book of Judges.

AM

TimBowe · 03-29-2010, 09:27 PM

Nietzsche called Paul "the Dysangelist" a man with a genius for hatred, "the theatrical genius of hate," the chandala-type. He is the power-obsessed invalid, the "greatest of all the apostles of revenge" he is the chief falsifier.

mountainman · 03-29-2010, 09:51 PM

Had Nietzsche ever read Eusebius or ever heard about the name of Eusebius? Or had Nietzsche only ever read "Dear Paul"? What is the modern assessment of Nietzsche background reading with respect to the modern field of BC&H?

aa5874 · 03-29-2010, 10:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TimBowe

Nietzsche called Paul "the Dysangelist" a man with a genius for hatred, "the theatrical genius of hate," the chandala-type. He is the power-obsessed invalid, the "greatest of all the apostles of revenge" he is the chief falsifier.

But, "Paul" was the name given to a group of writers.

The deduction that more than one person wrote letters under the name "Paul" tends to indicate that the name "Paul" was used by an authoritative body to propagate the teachings and fraudulent history of the Church.

Examine Galatians 1.8-9

Quote:

8 But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.

9 As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.

Even the Synoptic Jesus would have been accursed since he only preached the gospel of the kingdom of heaven, was circumcised and asked people to make sacrificial offerings to the high priest.

The Pauline writer claimed, unlike the Jesus of the Synoptic , Jesus Christ will profit nothing if people are circumcised.]

The Synoptic Jesus told his disciples to preach to the Jews, the Pauline Jesus told Paul to preach to Gentiles.

The revelations from Jesus to John are totally different to the revelations from the Pauline Jesus to the Pauline writers.

Even in Acts, very soon after Saul/Paul was converted by the bright light that blinded him to reality, Peter, the rock of the Church, vanished into oblivion.

The name "Paul" appear to have been used by a group of writers to historicise the fraudulent history of the Church.

TimBowe · 03-29-2010, 10:33 PM

Freud argued that Paul brought elements of the primordial human past to fruition, he wrote that Paul was "a man with a gift for religion" he was "a man of an innately religious disposition: the dark traces of the past lurked in his mind, ready to break through into its more conscious regions."

Dark traces of the past lay in his soul....

Quote:

The ambivalence that dominates the relation to the father was clearly shown, however, in the final outcome of the religious novelty. Ostensibly aimed at propitiating the father god, it ended in his being dethroned and got rid of. Judaism had been a religion of the father; Christianity became a religion of the son. The old God the father fell back behind Christ; Christ, the Son, took his place, just as every son had hoped to do in primeval times. Paul, who carried Judaism on, also destroyed it. No doubt he owed his success in the first instance to the fact that, through the idea of the redeemer, he exorcized humanity's sense of guilt; but he owed it as well to the circumstance that he abandoned the "chosen" character of his own people and its visible mark — circumcision— so that the new religion could be a universal on, embracing all men.

Sigmund Freud

DCHindley · 03-29-2010, 10:39 PM

I have long been fascinated by the palace vision in 1 Enoch, in the so called Book of Watchers, the oldest book of Enoch literature found among the DSS:

1 Enoch 14:8-23 And the vision was shown to me thus: Behold, in the vision clouds invited me and a mist summoned me, and the course of the stars and the lightnings sped and hastened me, and the winds in the vision caused me to fly and lifted me upward, and bore me into heaven. 9 And I went in till I drew nigh to a wall which is built of crystals and surrounded by tongues of fire: and it began to affright me. 10 And I went into the tongues of fire and drew nigh to a large house which was built of crystals: and the walls of the house were like a tesselated floor (made) of crystals, and its groundwork was of crystal. 11 Its ceiling was like the path of the stars and the lightnings, and between them were fiery cherubim, and their heaven was (clear as) water. 12 A flaming fire surrounded the walls, and its portals blazed with fire. 13 And I entered into that house, and it was hot as fire and cold as ice: there were no delights of life therein: fear covered me, and trembling got hold upon me. 14 And as I quaked and trembled, I fell upon my face. 15 And I beheld a vision, And lo! there was a second house, greater than the former, and the entire portal stood open before me, and it was built of flames of fire. 16 And in every respect it so excelled in splendour and magnificence and extent that I cannot describe to you its splendour and its extent. 17 And its floor was of fire, and above it were lightnings and the path of the stars, and its ceiling also was flaming fire. 18 And I looked and saw therein a lofty throne: its appearance was as crystal, and the wheels thereof as the shining sun, and there was the vision of cherubim. 19 And from underneath the throne came streams of flaming fire so that I could not look thereon. 20 And the Great Glory sat thereon, and His raiment shone more brightly than the sun and was whiter than any snow. 21 None of the angels could enter and could behold His face by reason of the magnificence and glory and no flesh could behold Him. 22 The flaming fire was round about Him, and a great fire stood before Him, and none around could draw nigh Him: ten thousand times ten thousand (stood) before Him, yet He needed no counselor. 23 And the most holy ones who were nigh to Him did not leave by night nor depart from Him.

So, there are elements of Merkabeh and Hekeloth ascents that precede their classical form in the middle ages.

I believe this section of the Book of Watchers is also reflected in a rabbinic tradition about the dangers of a mystical ascent to see the throne of God, as the guardian angels would pounce on anyone who became confused and disoriented by the crystals that paved the halls of the palace. See G Scholem's second lecture, "Merkabah Mysticism and Jewish Gnosticism" in Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (or via: amazon.co.uk).

Hagigah 14b Four entered 'Paradise': Ben Azai, Ben Zoma, Aher and Rabbi Akiba. Rabbi Akiba spoke to them: 'When you come to the place of of the shining marble plates, then do not say: Water, water! For it is written: He that telleth lies shall not tarry in my sight'. (pg. 52)

Tosephta Hagigah 2:3 Four entered the garden [Paradise]: Ben 'azzai, Ben Zoma, the Other [Elisha], and 'Aqiba. ... Ben 'Azzai gazed and perished ... Ben Zoma gazed and was smitten ... Elisha gazed and cut down sprouts ... R. 'Aqiba went up whole and came down whole. The Tosefta (or via: amazon.co.uk) vol 1 pg 669

DCH

Quote:

Originally Posted by andrewcriddle

Quote:

Originally Posted by DCHindley

Now I remember.

Schonfield was of the opinion that Paul was a mystic versed in the kind of lore that best exemplified by the Zohar from the middle ages. He may accept the accounts of him in Acts and supposed that Paul was raised in Jerusalem, and studied under the Jewish sage Gamaliel I. Under Gamaliel, Paul learned about mystical ascents, which is how he came to be in the third heaven and received the revelation about his mission in life.

Maybe.

DCH

The Zohar is of course late but there are much earlier mystical traditions such as those found in the hekhalot literature. What is very dubious is whether these traditions go back to before the fall of the Temple. They seem to be a response to the loss of the earthly Temple and (maybe) a reaction against developing rabbinic Judaism in the post 70 CE period.

The earliest surviving hekhalot traditions are probably later than the Mishnah.

Andrew Criddle

TimBowe · 03-29-2010, 10:43 PM

Freud attributes the real founding of Christianity to Saint Paul.

Toto · 03-30-2010, 12:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TimBowe

Freud attributes the real founding of Christianity to Saint Paul.

This is a very common idea. The Jesus portrayed in the gospels is a good guy, but Christianity doesn't seem to have lived up to his wisdom sayings, so people look for someone to blame for missing the message, and Paul is a likely suspect. The "history" in the Book of Acts makes him the first to spread Christianity beyond Jerusalem.

But since the time of Freud, the accuracy of Acts has become subject to much more doubt, and the history of early Christianity seems murkier.

Is there some point you wish to make?

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03-29-2010, 09:27 PM	#24
TimBowe Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Oak Lawn, IL Posts: 1,620	Nietzsche called Paul "the Dysangelist" a man with a genius for hatred, "the theatrical genius of hate," the chandala-type. He is the power-obsessed invalid, the "greatest of all the apostles of revenge" he is the chief falsifier.

03-29-2010, 09:51 PM	#25
mountainman Contributor Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Falls Creek, Oz. Posts: 11,192	Had Nietzsche ever read Eusebius or ever heard about the name of Eusebius? Or had Nietzsche only ever read "Dear Paul"? What is the modern assessment of Nietzsche background reading with respect to the modern field of BC&H?

03-29-2010, 10:43 PM	#29
TimBowe Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2009 Location: Oak Lawn, IL Posts: 1,620	Freud attributes the real founding of Christianity to Saint Paul.

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