Freethought & Rationalism Archive

schilling.klaus · 01-24-2008, 10:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

Christianity is actually very dependent on history.

no, it isn't at all.
Only a very degenerated form of Christianity may appear as
depending on Christianity.
This degradation appeared first when Roman Catholic christianity formed,
as the spiritual Christ of proper christianity is a concept hostile
to politics and unammenable to the vulgar people.
The second step appeared with the arrival of modern rationalism,
especially positivism, when modern society lost its ability
for metaphysical thinking.

Quote:

Christians in my part of the world regard the historical accuracy of the scripture as a foundation for their faith.

that's because those pseudochristians have no understanding of Christianity. they are modern people completely allienated to metaphysics and mysticism.
Even in ancient times, proper Christianity was essentially only suited for the spiritual elite and could only be vulgarised by force.

Quote:

If Jesus existed as only a myth, then Christianity is a complete lie.

no, it isn't a lie at all, whether Jesus is a myth or not,
as the true Jesus of Christianity is to be understood metaphysically,
thus immune to historical falsification.
Thus Hermann Raschke wrote:

The evangelical Jesus is a historification of the Pauline Jesus.
The Pauline Jesus is a Catholic adaptation of the Gnostic Jesus.
The Gnostic Jesus is mere metaphysical reality.

Quote:

To most Christians, it is simply unthinkable that Jesus never existed.

Those "Christians" don't understand what they are talking about -
how should they, they are severely allienated from the thinking
that Christianity brought into being, i.e. Alexandrine philosophy
of religion.

Quote:

I knew a Christian over the Internet who was a moderator at a Christian forum. Her participation in debates led her to doubt. When she read the book, The Book Your Church Doesn't Want You to Read (or via: amazon.co.uk), which is largely dependent on the arguments of Acharya S, that was the thing that finally made her lose her faith.

but the work of Acharya S., like the similar work of T. Harpur,
is in many points based on Alvin B. Kuhn.
And this Kuhn is no atheist or stuff like that,
but a theosophian , and theosophy is an attempt to recover
the original meaning of Christianity and other religions.

It's debatable whether such an approach is practically viable
in modern society, without doubt it is very problematic,
but it is certainly not a denial and loss of faith.

Also Robert M. Price, even the great Price,
is not critical to faith as such,
just critical to the ways faith is commonly abused.

Detering, the contemporary author of books deconstructing Paul,
indeed is no less but a minister of the Lutheran church.

Klaus Schilling

Clivedurdle · 01-24-2008, 10:56 AM

Quote:

I am tempted to say that, in legitimate scholarly circles, sociological studies like this do not matter nearly as much, but that would probably be wishful thinking on my end.

Could you expand on this? As a holder of a "toilet paper" degree - from a prestigious university mind - I am always fascinated by examples of academic oneupmanship and wonder if that is going on here! Sociology does have a subject called sociology of knowledge!

Several times I have attempted to start legitimate scholarly discussions of anthropology - a sister subject of sociology - the difference is one is about urban cultures, the other pagans or bronze age goat herders or oiks or barbarians or natives!

There does seem to be great difficulty here understanding basic ideas like magical thinking, that seems to be directly related to complete misunderstandings of the position of the sun and heavenly bodies in human thought!

Quote:

While some ecologists were studying the dynamics of communities and populations, others were concerned with energy budgets. In 1920 August Thienemann, a German freshwater biologist, introduced the concept of trophic, or feeding, levels (see trophic level), by which the energy of food is transferred through a series of organisms, from green plants (the producers) up to several levels of animals (the consumers). An English animal ecologist, Charles Elton (1927), further developed this approach with the concept of ecological niches and pyramids of numbers. In the 1930s, American freshwater biologists Edward Birge and Chancey Juday, in measuring the energy budgets of lakes, developed the idea of primary productivity, the rate at which food energy is generated, or fixed, by photosynthesis. In 1942 Raymond L. Lindeman of the United States developed the trophic-dynamic concept of ecology, which details the flow of energy through the ecosystem. Quantified field studies of energy flow through ecosystems were further developed by the brothers Eugene Odum and Howard Odum

http://www.britannica.com/bps/home#t...20Encyclopedia

ApostateAbe · 01-24-2008, 10:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by schilling.klaus

Quote:

Originally Posted by ApostateAbe

Christianity is actually very dependent on history.

no, it isn't at all.
Only a very degenerated form of Christianity may appear as
depending on Christianity.
This degradation appeared first when Roman Catholic christianity formed,
as the spiritual Christ of proper christianity is a concept hostile
to politics and unammenable to the vulgar people.
The second step appeared with the arrival of modern rationalism,
especially positivism, when modern society lost its ability
for metaphysical thinking.

that's because those pseudochristians have no understanding of Christianity. they are modern people completely allienated to metaphysics and mysticism.
Even in ancient times, proper Christianity was essentially only suited for the spiritual elite and could only be vulgarised by force.

no, it isn't a lie at all, whether Jesus is a myth or not,
as the true Jesus of Christianity is to be understood metaphysically,
thus immune to historical falsification.
Thus Hermann Raschke wrote:

The evangelical Jesus is a historification of the Pauline Jesus.
The Pauline Jesus is a Catholic adaptation of the Gnostic Jesus.
The Gnostic Jesus is mere metaphysical reality.

Those "Christians" don't understand what they are talking about -
how should they, they are severely allienated from the thinking
that Christianity brought into being, i.e. Alexandrine philosophy
of religion.

Quote:

I knew a Christian over the Internet who was a moderator at a Christian forum. Her participation in debates led her to doubt. When she read the book, The Book Your Church Doesn't Want You to Read, which is largely dependent on the arguments of Acharya S, that was the thing that finally made her lose her faith.

but the work of Acharya S., like the similar work of T. Harpur,
is in many points based on Alvin B. Kuhn.
And this Kuhn is no atheist or stuff like that,
but a theosophian , and theosophy is an attempt to recover
the original meaning of Christianity and other religions.

It's debatable whether such an approach is practically viable
in modern society, without doubt it is very problematic,
but it is certainly not a denial and loss of faith.

Also Robert M. Price, even the great Price,
is not critical to faith as such,
just critical to the ways faith is commonly abused.

Detering, the contemporary author of books deconstructing Paul,
indeed is no less but a minister of the Lutheran church.

Klaus Schilling

Klaus, when I speak of Christianity, I am speaking of the Christianity I am familiar with of my family, friends, strangers, and the media. Your Christianity could be a lot different from the Christianities I know. To me, it is irrelevant which Christians are more pure. It doesn't matter to me which Christians are more right and which are more wrong. You seem to have your own version of Christianity, a very strange one to me. Every Christian thinks that his or her own version of the religion is somehow better than the other versions. This does not matter to me. What I see are belief systems that evolve according to whatever is most persuasive. You live in Germany, which presently has a liberal social environment--spiritual but not religious? Your Christianity is likewise expected to be liberal--it doesn't matter to you whether or not Jesus existed. That is OK by me.

Solitary Man · 01-24-2008, 11:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ted Hoffman

1) The mythicists are a minority with enough 'enemies' on the other side so it would not help their case to have a go at each other: The HJers would only be delighted at this and proceed with alacrity to pit them against each other and capitalize on their disagreements. This, of course, would not help their 'cause.' Its better to piss outside your tent than to piss in it.

So it doesn't matter what they write as long as they agree that Jesus never existed? Sounds like dishonest scholarship to me.

Quote:

2) The HJers have an very huge amount of 'scholars' (like James Tabor and E. P. Sanders), who routinely publish fatuous manure but the more critical scholars do not attack their work or expose them as full of historical inaccuracies, mystical nonsense and fallacious reasoning. Instead, they are welcome with dignity into their guild and their works are reviewed scholastically in SBL and other forums, as if they are worthy of respect.

This is plain wrong. For the prior, James Tabor's work has been roundly rejected by many scholars, especially noted at the Talpiot conference. And against the latter, Jacob Neusner published much against Sanders, making it almost seem like a feud.

Quote:

3) Based on the foregoing, its obvious that the best approach of mythicism is to have the more critical proponents develop along parralel lines with the popularizers (like Archaya) bringing in converts with their uncritical but controversial and popular potboilers, and Price and Doherty weaning the converts with critical stuff when they come of age.

How is that logical? Convert people by feeding them lies and bullshit? Yes, that does sound parallel...parallel with creationism and fundy Christianity. You're in good company.

Clivedurdle · 01-24-2008, 11:11 AM

Quote:

a very strange one to me.

Not to me!

Look up about medieval mystics, why is the Dali painting I keep on posting here called St John of the Cross?

Xianity is an amazing human creation that is based on dreams and visions and ecstatic experiences, of transcendence. (Glass darkly!)

What we see now - megachurches, people shouting and screaming and falling down in trances is a horrible caricature of this, but critiques of it have to understand the various xian niches and ecosystems that have developed, and a part of that understanding has to include an understanding of the role of the sun and stars in human thought and how they appear in human structures - like Churches facing East!!!

Amaleq13 · 01-24-2008, 11:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Solitary Man

So it doesn't matter what they write as long as they agree that Jesus never existed? Sounds like dishonest scholarship to me.

And it smells like money to me.

Gonna move more paper for everybody on "the team" if you avoid pointing out any deficits in scholarship.

Clivedurdle · 01-24-2008, 11:26 AM

Quote:

Human ecology views the biological, environmental, demographic, and technical conditions of the life of any people as an interrelated series of determinants of form and function in human cultures and social systems. It recognizes that group behaviour is dependent upon resources and associated skills and upon a body of emotionally charged beliefs; these together give rise to a system of social structures.

From link in link above - love the bolded phrase as a summary of what we are actually discussing in BCH!

Toto · 01-24-2008, 12:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GakuseiDon

Quote:

Originally Posted by Roger Pearse

On another thread someone referred to litigation by Acharya S against Price. Is there documentation for this? Naturally it would explain a more cautious tone in a subsequent publication.

That may have been me. I've seen Acharya threaten suing those who have criticized her, and so I wondered if the same occurred with respect to Dr Price. ....

This is how legends get started, based on no facts at all. There would be no legal basis for a lawsuit by Acharya S against Price in the United States. There is no indication of any lawsuit.

I see that the two appeared together on the infidelguy radio show, but I don't have the time to listen now. Podcast here. I suspect that would throw some light on the matter.

Clivedurdle · 01-24-2008, 12:22 PM

Quote:

They are largely unaware of the degree to which they teach and write undermines all traditional thought and belief. Unlike an earlier generation of iconoclasts they feel no mission to undermine "superstition." They would consider the questions raised above to simply, "outside my field," and would refer one to philosophers, humanists or students of religion to discuss them. So fragmented is our intellectual life, even in the best universities, that such questions are apt never to be raised. That does not mean that they are not implicitly answered.

Christians have not always been clear about the contrast between their faith and modern ideology, either. Some have accepted without quite realizing it the assumptions of empiricism and positivism and tried prove biblical faith on scientific grounds, as in the current creationist controversy. We call them fundamentalists. Others, liberal Christians, have tried to believe there is perfect harmony between biblical religion and modern thought and have even gratefully accepted the idea that their religion has only psychological or sociological truth. Yet from the very beginning of the modern era there have been those, like Pascal, who have seen the enormity of the problem.

http://www.robertbellah.com/articles_1.htm

Biblical Religion and Social Science in the Modern World1

by
Robert N. Bellah

Clivedurdle · 01-24-2008, 12:53 PM

Quote:

To some extent, the study of religion has suffered from the barriers between disciplines, and this fact is increasingly recognized in the formulations, notably in the United States, of the idea of religion as a subject that should be institutionalized in a university department or program in which historians, phenomenologists, and members of other disciplines work together. There are some, however, who consider that there are dangers in such an arrangement; thus Eliade prefers to work rather tightly within the framework of the history of religions, concerned lest the social sciences overwhelm and distract the interpreter of religious meanings. Similarly, the theological tradition in the West remains powerfully operative (quite legitimately) in regard to the articulation of the Christian faith and sometimes resists any attempt to treat Christianity itself in the manner dictated by the history and phenomenology of religion. Thus, the history of religions and the comparative study of religion still tend to mean in practice “the study of religions other than Judaism and Christianity.

http://www.britannica.com/bps/topic/...20Encyclopedia

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