Clivedurdle

Um, it is Moses Maimonides Guide to the Perplexed! And interestingly I would agree with its observation that male genital mutilation moderates male sexual ardour!

Vorkosigan

Nothing in the content of its beliefs. But Christianity worked out a powerful proto-Leninist organizational structure that proved extremely difficult to defeat. Perhaps you should stop searching for the clue to its success in new content and rather focus on the political organization of the Church, which is the real secret of its enduring strength.

Vorkosigan

Clivedurdle

But sex - well alright in this case the lack of it - is far more fun than politics or advantages due to communitarian lifestyles.

And why should this type of stuff not be a core driver of this oriental cult's success as well?

Tenorikuma

Sacraments weren't just symbolic, they were vicarious participation in the salvific act of the god. After all, Mithraism had more or less the same practices, including the Eucharist.

Chili

Yes indeed, sacraments are not symbolic as in 'consubstantiation' that is expressed by protestants when looking at the substance itself, seeing with their eyes instead of with their mind wherein transubstantiation is to be seen.

Their problem really is that they equate Jesus with Christ, and so in essence actually call Jesus the 'look-alike' but not the Christ and therein they are right, of course, and will even die for that as martyr on their own.

The difference here then is equal to iconic and symbolic, and hence The Book of Martyrs is what they wrote opposite to The Book of Saints, and still insist that they are right today.

Jaybees

Mithraism and Christianity vied with each other and borrowed dogma and practices back and forth. My guess is that Mithraism lost because one of its main tenets was that women didn't have souls and so would not go to the great beyond.

Neglecting women is a no, no.

stephan huller

I don't know how to answer this question frankly, but let's just say that 'American exceptionalism' certainly extends to the realm of religion. If I knew you better and we were having a private discussion I might answer this statement more candidly. But let's just say that America is unique.

But ignoring the banality of American religious life, it is enough to say that when I was growing up there were two types of people - those who wanted to figure women out and those who said 'fuck em, they're just pussies, it's all pink in the middle, don't bother figuring them out they're all bitches etc.' In my experience there was a small minority who spent too much time trying to figure members of the opposite out (myself included) and probably an even split between (a) women can't be figured out but 'you got a love them' and those misogynists mentioned above - i.e. (b) women can't be figured out so bang as many of them as you can especially when they are vulnerable and/or drunk.

The question of whether people can actually be figured out is an interesting question. Sometimes it certainly feels as if I - or others like me - are just 'making up shit' to suit the occasion. Why did they do that? 'Well ...' and then some 'catch all' explanation which is vague enough to be a catch all for everything. Perhaps it is nothing more than a habit - something akin to biting one's nails or scratching a certain part of one's body. Perhaps there is more random motivation that I account for. But nevertheless I still have - perhaps I naive belief - that all human motivation is (a) rational and (b) can be explained.

Chili

I see snot, my friend. Not saying that your analogy is wrong, but to confirm that 'woman' proper does not have a soul.

To see this just go to Gen. 2:23 where:


. . . and so is the essence of the man 'as' the soul of man and hence is his dowry in bethrothal in natures own kind of way.

So what that means is that she IS the soul of man and IS without an identity of her own AS woman but not as female, please understand this well, and we are talking metaphysics here.

In Buddhism they call her Nairatmya with no soul as the soul of man and she will be presented as female in their art to make Man the masculine as the Atman. And no, it is not a play with words but is the reality wherein we as humans live outside of Eden.

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

To be sure that you understand this right let me add that the division in our mind between the the left and right is what constitutes this separation between woman and man (as human now himself), that really is the essence of alienation (fall of man), now with woman as insider and human as outsider to himself.

This estrangement now becomes the opposites of attraction that is fanned by Elizabeth who keeps the flame alive that we translate as thirst (tanha) in the human mind or TOK in search for TOL (destiny) as his home in Being ('to on'). Of course, for the female it will be just opposite "in good faith" to become Buddha Queen, and so unlike Lady Macbeth who hath no name but Lady Macbeth to say the same.

Sheshbazzar

DEATH.

That is to say a ritual symbolic death through 'baptism', by being laid into a watery grave and symbolically leaving the old man of flesh behind, through a spiritual resurrection from that grave. The old, sinful former man from thenceforth accounted as being dead.

And the resurrected one now alive in the Spirit and free from sin, and in fact having so died once, now one dead to the injunctions of The Law. And as dead to the flesh, unable to commit sin. Dead men don't sin.

And thus freed from those many obligations of The Law that could never be satisfied (and incidentally from all of those man-made rules imposed by the Levitical Priesthood, under that granted authority contained within The Law.)

It allowed all converts to adopt all of the positive promises of the Books of the Jews religion without any of its curses, or any requirements to follow the onerous legalistic strictures of Judaism.
And it also held claim to place those who accepted this doctrine on a higher ethical plane than those that attempted to justify themselves by their own doings and actions ('works' of the Law)

Not as though that were all of course, (as you may well know) but it presented a highly attractive proposition; Believe the gospel, Repent. (be sorry for your sinful condition) be 'baptized' (made DEAD and buried) and become freed from condemnation by The Holy One of Israel, and receive the PROMISE of eternal life.
The person that 'dies' and is 'buried' in baptism has symbolically fulfilled the requirement that a man must die once.
Those that rise from that watery grave never die again, although they may 'fall asleep' until the Master returns.

mountainman

With a little help from Constantine and his friends - a select bunch of very large and influential barbarian chieftains and their tribes, who secured the diocese military divisions of the empire, and their "Taxation Domesday Records" from the Diocletian administration.

Why proto-Leninist? Oh I see Vork, the organisation before Lennin.

We'd be focussing our attention on the network surrounding the bishop of bishops.