Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Jeffrey Gibson · 11-14-2009, 09:31 AM

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Originally Posted by dog-on

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Originally Posted by Jeffrey Gibson

Without any indication of relevance?? Look at the titles!

What is disingenuous, but not unexpected, is your claim to knowledge you do not possess.

Jeffrey

Again Jeffrey, I understand that you like to snipe from the edges, but as some of us believe that you could add to the discussion, my question stands.

Your question about the content of Hurt's articles came after I responded to your claim that Hurst was wrong.

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Why not tell us why, you believe, that the positions espoused by Mr. Hurst, in the articles listed, should be considered.

It's Dr. Hurst.

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As a matter of fact, I do not actually completely disagree with Hurst, as I see Paul as the primary source of the original christian beliefs and Hurst's ideas do, in some ways, support this against the accepted consensus,

They do?? How?

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but I knew my statement would get a rise from you and allow me to ask you for specifics.

Have you read these two articles by Hurst or not?

Jeffrey

Solo · 11-14-2009, 10:03 AM

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Originally Posted by Clivedurdle

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For Christ did not enter a man-made sanctuary that was only a copy of the true one

Is this not game set and match for the heavenly anointed one? It says explicitly Christ did not become human nor enter the earthly temple. And logically, following the platonic thinking here, the reconciliation of heaven and earth could not happen by the gods becoming human - we have to become as gods, and his sacrifice in the heavens does that!

Ironically, if you did not get stuck on one particular verse you would have seen that Jesus had to come down to be "under law" for his blood to be sacrificial currency.

Heb 9:22-23 Indeed, under the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. Thus it was necessary for the copies of the heavenly things to be purified with these rites, but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.

copies of heavenly things = humans, sacrificing animals to God in the first covenant,
heavenly things = pre-existent Christ (sent as "Yeshua" and exalted per Zech 3 vision, cf. Heb 3:1), sacrificing himself for the second covenant.

Incidentally, the idea of humans being preexistent and coming down from heaven (or some some other place of idyllic perfection) does not originate with Plato; is one of the commonest mythemes all over the world to the point of idiomatic banality. Germans say, "ich bin vom Himmel gefallen !" (I have (just) fallen from heaven) to express incredulity in a pleasant shock., sth like, "heavens, is this true ?" In my native Czech we say "nezpadl jsem z nebe" (I did not fall from heaven)...meaning, "I wasn't born yesterday".

Jiri

Clivedurdle · 11-14-2009, 10:24 AM

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Was Paul actually a Gnostic? The idea is taken seriously by no one in NT scholarship today; even Elaine Pagels, the Gnostic-promoter premier, declines in her book The Gnostic Paul to say yea or nay to whether Paul was actually a Gnostic, instead concentrating on how the Gnostics interpreted Paul's letters.

http://tektonics.org/gk/gnostpaul.html

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The Gnostic Paul
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Gnostic Paul is a book by Elaine Pagels, a scholar of gnosticism and professor of religion at Princeton University. In the work, Pagels considers each of the non-pastoral Pauline Epistles, and questions about their authorship. The core of the book examines how the Pauline epistles were read by 2nd century Valentinian gnostics and demonstrates that Paul could be considered a proto-gnostic as well as a proto-Catholic.

Her treatment involves reading the Pauline corpus as being dual layered between a Pneumatic, esoteric Christianity and a Psychic, exoteric Christianity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Gnostic_Paul

There would seem to be an agenda to deny what I understand as obvious - the cultural habit of splitting the world into a real perfect heaven, stating that our lives now are somehow unreal - Plato's cave, Paul's glass darkly, Hebrew's heavenly temple.

The term Platonic may be being misunderstood - it is a way we interpret the world, that historically was possibly first formalised by Zarathustra and then picked up by Greeks who for thousands of years had been in contact with the regional empires.

What puzzles me is why this insistence that "gnostic" ideas are not there when they are a backbone to thinking - it is where ideas of good and evil come from, righteousness and sin.

What is this reluctance to look at the history of ideas about?

That it makes xianity not that special, an obvious syncretic co-evolution, almost predictable from the elements in the soil it grew in, not an external god meeting humanity at all?

That it begins to build the equivalent to Darwin's tree of life for religions, an evolutionary trail with clades?

Clivedurdle · 11-14-2009, 10:27 AM

And we will not get anywhere with ecstatic experiences like Pentecost without looking at gnosticism.

Gore Vidal has a fascinating description of the Mithraic initiation of Julian, lots of stuff in dark caves ending by coming out in bright sunshine - a very commonly reported experience.

Jeffrey Gibson · 11-14-2009, 11:53 AM

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Originally Posted by Clivedurdle

There would seem to be an agenda to deny what I understand as obvious - the cultural habit of splitting the world into a real perfect heaven, stating that our lives now are somehow unreal - Plato's cave, Paul's glass darkly, Hebrew's heavenly temple.

These are,even if there was any reason to believe you understood correctly the referents of the the metaphors and the idiom you point to, hardly sufficient reason to claim that this alleged splitting was a habit of any kind, let alone the universal one you claim it was.

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What puzzles me is why this insistence that "gnostic" ideas are not there when they are a backbone to thinking

It is?? Is that what, say, the pre-socratic thinkers thought?

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- it is where ideas of good and evil come from, righteousness and sin.

Better tell that to Aristotle.

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What is this reluctance to look at the history of ideas about?

If anyone here has a reluctance to look at the history of ideas, it's you -- since, as is self evident, you keep avoiding doing any actual work in primary sources in which the history of ideas is evidenced (preferring questionable wiki and internet summaries of the sources instead), and since the question begging and bifurcating absurdities you utter about what the backbone to thinking is can only be made by someone who has never actually examined the history of ideas.

Jeffrey

Clivedurdle · 11-14-2009, 12:02 PM

Like the history of ideas like God and Satan?

But I thought we were discussing Pentecost.

aa5874 · 11-14-2009, 02:45 PM

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Originally Posted by Clivedurdle

And we will not get anywhere with ecstatic experiences like Pentecost without looking at gnosticism...

But, we are really dealing with the silence of the most single important event after the ascension of Jesus, the day of Pentecost when the disciples were empowered by the Holy Ghost and became multi-lingual with the gifts of prophesy and the ability to successfully perform miracles.

The Jesus of the Gospels did not teach his disciples about talking in tongues except in the Long Ending of Mark probably written after Acts of the Apostles. This would indicate that the author of the Short Ending of gMark and the other authors of the Gospels, were not aware of the Pauline writings where Paul claimed he talked in tongues more than anyone else.

This is found in the Long Ending of gMark.

Mr 16:17 -

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And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues..

All the Gospels are silent on the talking of tongues, and the Church writers are silent on any personal experiences with talking in tongues, except the Pauline writer.

When Justin Martyr wrote about his conversion he did not mention that he received the Holy Ghost and spoke in tongues, when Municius Felix wrote about the conversion of Caecilius, Octavius did not say anything about talking in tongues.

The day of Pentecost and talking in tongues appear to be a late invention.

Clivedurdle · 11-14-2009, 03:04 PM

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An alternative hypothesis proposed by David Lewis-Williams following work with similar art of the San people of Southern Africa is that this type of art is spiritual in nature relating to visions experienced during ritualistic trance-dancing. These trance visions are a function of the human brain and so are independent of geographical location. Nigel Spivey, a professor of classic art and archeology at the University of Cambridge, has further postulated in his series, How Art Made the World, that dot and lattice patterns overlapping the representational images of animals are very similar to hallucinations provoked by sensory-deprivation. He further postulates that the connections between culturally important animals and these hallucinations led to the invention of image-making, or the art of drawing. Further extrapolations include the later transference of image-making behavior from the cave to megalithic sites, and the subsequent invention of agriculture to feed the site builders.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lascaux

Shamanistic/Pentecostal behaviours are very common and very ancient.

Maybe we should ask if there are real differences in the New Testament of attitude towards these matters - Mark does especially feel Holy Spirit friendly.

Why would these behaviours go out of favour? Was it a pagan intellectual anti superstition attitude in the Church? Is Eusebius's silence because of an attidunal perspective? Does he report related stuff much - miracles, or is he more interested in structures and hierarchies and relationships?

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Originally Posted by Solo
There is a brilliant film about contemporary Sufi ecstatics by the Turkish director Ozer Kiziltan released in 2006 and widely acclaimed in Europe. It is called Takva (via: amazon.co.uk) ("Man's Fear of God" is the official rendering of the title although, the term I am told is something closer to "God's (Sometimes Frightening) Omnipresence in Man's Life"). It is a profound, very funny, and moving account of a change in the life of Muharrem, a humble brother in a Sufi lodge, come as a result of his spiritual leader's following God's command received in a dream to appoint him as property manager. The movie provides great insights into the mindset of an ecstatic religious order "absorbed in God". Even admittedly it is a contemporary setting and the Sufi mystics ideas are not a replica for what is known of Qumran and Jerusalem ages ago, it is still telling of the ins and outs of faith, and living a life. Warmly recommended.

Jiri
Yes, this is where the meat of it is: the first Christians must have been ecstatics - either in the HJ or the MJ scenario, but it's much more fitting for the MJ scenario. (For the HJ scenario, one has to say that they're so ecstatically passionate about their teacher that they see him as an incarnation of God, or something like that; it's either that, or the (I think somewhat even more implausible) alternative, that his crucifixion led to a cognitive dissonance that could only be assuaged by the notion that he had resurrected.)

Thanks for the pointer, that film looks fascinating!

Re. the OP: in one of Ehrman's books recently, I read that there was a certain period when prophecy, the revelation of new texts, etc., was outlawed by the orthodoxy. The kind of thing "Paul"'s congregation indulged in (prophecy, inspired babble), and no doubt the kind of practice that led people to write down their visions as "gospels", later became frowned upon, as the canon was solidified, and orthodoxy said "enough is enough".

Perhaps Eusebius is simply down-playing ecstatic and mystical experience by omission.

Clivedurdle · 11-14-2009, 03:12 PM

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Nigel Spivey writes with eloquence and gentle humor and a rich understanding of his chosen topic - how art has informed life has informed art since the beginnings of history. This is one of those books that will appeal to all audiences, whether they be primarily interested in history, archeology, art, human studies, or mystery. It is all here in one splendid volume.

Based on a British television series by the same title, Spivey wanders through the most primitive art known from cave drawings, to ornaments, to early 'sculpture' or god figures, into the Renaissance. With very generous pictorial examples he clearly demonstrates how from the very inception of 'art', as we know it, mankind has tackled with the Big Questions - creation, life, death, and gods to God. He shows panoramas of cave drawings which address 'us vs. them', hunting, procreation, fertility, and symbols to ward off evil, be those mythical beasties or Satan or elements of nature confined to diagram, and celebrations and funeral rites. The permutations seem endless.

But in the end this book invites us to look at 'art' in a new way - as a manifestation of man's looking inward at himself, finding a rational universe out of his attempts to represent phenomena. It was then, it is now, and hopefully it ever shall be - Art. Wonderful book. Highly recommended! Grady Harp, December 05

amazon (or via: amazon.co.uk)

gurugeorge · 11-14-2009, 03:14 PM

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Originally Posted by Jeffrey Gibson

It is?? Is that what, say, the pre-socratic thinkers thought?

Probably. cf. Peter Kingsley's books on Empedocles and the Pythagoreans (or via: amazon.co.uk), Parmenides, Zeno and Gorgias (or via: amazon.co.uk).

The long and the short of it: they were probably far more like Indian gurus than like Bertrand Russell sitting in an armchair.

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11-14-2009, 10:27 AM	#94
Clivedurdle Contributor Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: London UK Posts: 16,024	And we will not get anywhere with ecstatic experiences like Pentecost without looking at gnosticism. Gore Vidal has a fascinating description of the Mithraic initiation of Julian, lots of stuff in dark caves ending by coming out in bright sunshine - a very commonly reported experience.

11-14-2009, 12:02 PM	#96
Clivedurdle Contributor Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: London UK Posts: 16,024	Like the history of ideas like God and Satan? But I thought we were discussing Pentecost.

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