Chili

Thanks for not being offended by what I write. Be careful here because I hold that Jesus was a Jew who became a 'Christian' and after that was no longer a Jew. Let me explain. Joseph was a Jew unto whom Christ was born from Mary by God. This event gave Joseph a dual nature and therefore was called Jesus: one was Jesus son-of-man and the other was Jesus the reborn Joseph, commonly known as Jesus the Jew. The event described in the gospels lead to the crucifixion (annihilation) of Jesus-the-Jew so that Jesus-son-of-man may be set free as Christ (fully man and fully God) and therefore no longer a Jew.

Jesus as King of the Jews was a non-entity because only the ego was crucified . . . which is good if and only if his 'temple' can be rebuilt on the other side of his mind.

Notice that to me the entire Gospels take place in the mind of one man. Yes a spade is a spade, but only that which is a rose is called a rose for good reason and we just can't go around lumping all religions together by their appearances.

I would even take this one step further and say that the gospels themselves are not part of Catholicism just as they are not part of Judaism because that is where Jesus began his own liberation from religion. The only reason that they are a very small part of the daily mass is to indoctrinate the way of the cross as the only way back to Eden once salvation comes our way. I only object to your idea of "Christian faith" because when Jesus became fully Christ all doubt was removed and therefore all faith was gone. This idea is expressed with Peter being defrocked on their next [post resurrection] fishing trip (Jn.21:7), to say that when all doubt is removed there can be no faith left. Hence Peter and Thomas were twins in this perspective and the condition of being called Christian is to be without faith and therefore without doubt.

Now please note that this same Peter on that same fishing trip put on his cloak of faith once again and dove headfirst into the celestial sea that was on the other side of the boat. The other side of the boat here is the right side of our mind and this is what makes Catholicism an inspired religion that was built on the the faith of Judaism via Peter to justify our claim as grafted branches into the tree of Judaism.

It is true that Catholicism was the first major religion after Christ but 'if' Christianity can be a religion they would have called it that. Instead, their problem was to eradicate the idea that Christianity can be a religion and therefore they called it Catholicism in Christian domain to say that catholicsm is the means to the Christian as an end in itself.

Catholicism is not a denomination but a religion just as Judaism is not a denomination but a religion.

True, Martin Luther was a reformer.The fact is that Christians have no right to talk without a testament of their own. There are Jewish holy books and there are Catholic holy books but there is no such things as Christian holy books or the supernatural would have to exist in nature itself (in which case heaven would be just as flat as earth).

Chili

You are right, but to say that I just make these thing up as if they are pipedreams is not fair either.

I also wish the best for all and I am trying to be of help in a place where at least I am tolerated. See you around, it's fun here. It truly is and good for all of us at this time in life.

Donnmathan

I just hope you don't find my rebuttals offensive; I tend to get a bit over-enthused when I discuss such things as religion.

Umm...even by the definition of Christian you seem to be using (and we seem to have two in play, here), that comes across a bit odd. Saying that Jesus became Christ is different from saying Jesus became Christian - the subject is not the same as the group that follows it. The difference is the same as the difference between Bhudda himself and the group called Bhuddists...whether or not Bhudda believed what he taught, he can't be considered part of the group that followed his teachings. A very fine distinction, but very real. Another example (and this is an illistration, not an attempt to offend) would be the fact that Hitler is not reffered to as a Hitlerite. He is the source of the ideal, not a follower.

A distinction you are entitled to, however one unsupported even by the books to which you are reffering. There is no evidence from those texts that they are speaking of anything but a physical (well, and supernatural) series of events. Just a question, though...why are there several versions of the same series of events in that book (Mattew, Mark, and Luke, if I recall properly), all of which differ in the details, if it all took place in the mind of one man?

That I have to flatly contradict. I've been married to a Catholic for 6 years, and I can assure you 100% that the gospels are far more than a token presence in their faith. I fear that every evidence that he was beginning any "liberation from religion" is caused by the fact that he is the central figure of one. Look at the articles, holy book, or what have you of ANY religion; demi-gods and heroes always have an ever-diminishing aparent need of faith as they become figures of faith themselves. It's a symptom of approaching divinity, a sign they are supposed to have become the ideal, rather than are still following it.

I hate to say this, but your problem comes in the fact that there is no way to objectively prove that the man named Jesus was in fact Christ, or that he even existed as a real person, for that matter! Without objective proof, the idea of "Jesus as Christ" nessesarily becomes a matter of faith. The fact that you personally have no doubt at all merely indicates a rock-solid faith.


Here I fear we have a bit of a tangle...Christianity is NOT a religion, I agree. Christianity (as I, and most people, use it) is the label applied by the community-at-large to any religion that believes in "Jesus as Christ", nothing more and nothing less. By that definition, Catholics are indeed Christian, as are Baptists, Methodists, and any number of others. You seem to want it to denote a state of absolute conviction in a set of teachings...alternately called "faith" or "religious ecstasy" by most people. Change that to a state of absolute conviction in the teachings of Jesus and his god and you would call it "Christian Faith," not Christianity.

Our major problem is that you seem to have appropriated a term and now are denying it's original definition is valid. You're welcome to it, but you can't honestly expect the rest of us to use your home-grown definition.

On the subject of that tree...I am discussing the family tree of the Judeo-Christian faiths. Roots in Hittite, Babylonian, and a few other mythos; trunk in the Jewish religion. Get to the crown of the tree and we find Islam and Christianity; the Christian branch starts with the Catholics, then has multiple side branches consisting of the various Protestant denominations founded in the actions of Martin Luther. Not forgetting all the little branches near the base of the Catholic one representing such things as Gnostisism and other "heresies". I'm speaking historically, here, though one could argue that the same tree works very well from a theological standpoint as well.

He founded what became the Protestant group of Christian religions; I'd say that was a bit more than a "reform".

Flat earth, eh? Do I detect my chain being yanked? That aside...there are indeed Christian holy books - namely, what they refer to as the New Testament. Earlier you were taking the gospels away from the Catholics...you can't just randomly hand them back now and wash your hands of them.

greyline

I've no objection to originality. I was just warning the poster not to expect you to provide any evidence in the form of established scholarly discourse on your "original" ideas. You previously said that you believe your interpretation is the only one that makes it all make sense. Unfortunately, you have to make up a lot of stuff to get it all straight... yet 2000 years of some of humankind's other () greatest minds haven't figured it out yet? Congratulations, I suppose.

I don't consider that you've made an argument or that it's my place to defeat it. You are providing a doctrine or interpretation that any other follower-of-Jesus (despite contradicting each other on other points) would label "wrong". It's up to them to show you why they think so, but since I think they're also "wrong", it doesn't much matter to me.

Donnmathan

By-the-by...just for purposes of clarification: I am not a member of any of the Christian religions, myself. I am an eclectic pagan, and a student of comparative theology - a singularly useless field of study when it comes to making a living! The only reason I decided to comment on Chili's assertions was the simple fact that they flatly contradict everything I have learned, and I never pass up the chance to pick up something new in the world of theology. Even if his point of view is unique to himself, it is worth looking at and exploring, if for no other reason than to say you've seen it. Who knows - he may even manage to start his own branch of the Protestant religious group! They all had to start somewhere...

Chili

Not at all, I am untouchable and will remain that way. Here we go again. There is no Christian group possible since each Christian is a solitary individual. Therefore my notion that there cannot be such thing as a Christian religion. The difference between Jesus and Christ is that Jesus is the particular and Christ is the Universal who early in the Gospels become united in "the father and I are one" and later become fully one in Jesus Christ. In Revelation Jesus called himself the Alpha and the Omega to say that the Father was the Alpha and he was the Omega that was added to the Alpha now become one fully integrated mind. Ie, the divide between the left and right brain is removed (rent from top to bottom). Yes I see your point, but the the first lesson the Buddha taught was that "this is Buddha" and by "this" he identified the material world in the essence of its existence. In this sense was there no Buddha in the particular but just one person who attained 'Buddha-hood.' I think "Hitlerite" is a poor example because Hitler did not gain status as Freeman but just Christian in your interpretation of the word (and after that anything is possible). Yes there is plenty evidence that the bible is metaphor from beginning to end. The most obvious are: light before the sun, talking snakes, destroy a temple and raise it in three days, walking on water, raised from the death, those with ears, etc. Apart from this, the Church that claims authority over the NT text has fought against literalism for 2000 years in effort to protect believers from the fires of hell (notice that hell is real only for those who know that heaven is real, which must be true if they are a pair of opposites).

The gospels are about metamorphosis in humans and the four gospels are written to show how and why the NT is an improvement over the OT. The problem in the OT was the failure of messianic Jews to become fully God and leave Judaism behind as we would leave dirty rag behind. Remember here that I claim that Catholicism was taken out of Judaism to become a variant that is grafted into the same tree.

First, the four gospels are not synoptic but they are different perspectives of the same event that are carefully presented to arrive at the Catholic way of salvation in the gospel of John.

In Matthew the Jewish perspective is presented. This would be interpreted by the religionist as workable chain of events. The physics are there and the divine is present to move the event along from the initial birth of Christ through the atonement of the father with the son to the crucifixion of Jesus the Jew. After this Jesus is raised and ascends to be infinitely united with the Father.

Mark is the non-religious perspective wherein Judaism is removed. The physics are there but not the metaphysics such as the virgin birth and post resurrection appearance.

In Luke we are presented with the details as perceived by the subconscious mind to show the effect of religion. Luke is heavy on Mary who is the driving force from behind the scene and a good example of this is the lineage of Jesus that is given in Luke 3 just after the descent of the HS ("the father and I are one"). In Matthew this lineage was taken from actual records but is different in Luke to show that Catholicism was taken out of Judaism and is grounded into their Genesis to distinguish our Christ as the equivalent of their Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

In John the infancy narrative is changed to Nathanael under the fig tree to show that the entire infancy idea is metaphor as well. The wedding in Cana is where the lineage of Jesus became known and the temptation in the desert is missing because that is the flip side of the wedding in Cana as perceived by the conscious mind during that time (Cana is in the subconscious mind and the city of Nazareth is the intuit Judaism that made Joseph built an ark against the will of reason in Jerusalem). I am glad you object but I have been a Catholic for much longer than that and have always wondered why the altar is facing East if not to send the believers West again once they leave the church; why they must confess that they are not worthy to receive the body of Christ but go anyway; why bread tastes like bread and not flesh but they have just agreed that it is the body of Christ; why, at least traditionally, there had to be a bar between the Church and the cemetery; why after confession of our sins the forbidden fruit seems to taste better, etc. And you think that these are all accidents?

That's not true. The Jesuits were beyond the law. The Church Triumphant is beyond the law. Newton was. Einstein was. Gogol was and many or most of the saints I know were free to the same extent that Augustine said that after we have found freedom in Christ we can do what we want. Simply, beyond religion there is no religion but only censorship by natural law wherein the weakest members of society become those who need our protection the most. That, my friend, is the law that lies deep within the human heart and lies much deeper than any religion can ever pretend to deliver. I could hate their pretensions and their flatteries, yet I like religion, but not as a moral guide but as an aid to shape humans into heroes that built towers of babel so tall and so great that sooner or later they will collapse, as they must, and crash on the very ego itself that created it. This, then, is also why Jesus was called King of the Jews and was counted among the wicked.

BTW, the gospels are a comedy and the crucifixion was the best thing that ever happened to him.
Of course he was because that is what they called him. The name Christ is just a name given to a reality that is native to each and every man. The historical Jesus means nothing since he is the particular in the same way that you have your own individuality and I have mine. The message of the gospel is to show how we as believers can place our individuality subservient to our intuition wherein is contained the Thousand Year Reign of God. Indeed faith is required to learn to go by this (they called it "walking on water") but once you know how to do this it is easy, and is as "easy as eating and drinking" -- which we also do intuitively (nice metaphor of Golding).I know what you mean and I don't mind if sheep recognize each other as sheep. The problem is that we, as philosophers of religion, must be able to
identify the wolves in sheep's clothing that are marauding the flocks of the good shepherd . . . who himself is also a sheep, really, for he must also stray from the flock before he can be recognized as lost.I don't quite get this connection but the very reason that Catholicism is the religion of Christendom already shows that Catholics are not Christan but that the domain is the collective creation of Catholics. Some come to this realization while others do not.

Israel is the equivalent of Christian. Both are 'one with God' and Christendom is the domain where this God reigns. The Jews do not have a homeland and if they do it should never be called Israel for the simple reason that Israel cannot be 'the means' and 'the end' at the same time. Once again, that is why Christian is the end of Catholicism just as Israel is the end of Judaism.The Gnostics were half gnostic just as the Christians are half christian. They all have the same thing in common that they want to be counted among the righteous because they have one foot in heaven but cannot let go of their sin nature (original sin) to get beyond that.It was a major revolt that ended the rise of our civilization and send it on a downward trend from its highest point in history. No I never said to completely taken them away. The NT is a Catholic holy book and supervision is recommended when we read it. We have other such books and many or most must be approved by certain authorities before they are recommended to be read by the faithful.

Donnmathan

Okay...seems we're not even on anything close to the same wavelength, here. For example:

Very good - faith is an individual experience. However...if you get a bunch of people with similar beliefs together, especially if they agree to use the same holy book, we call them a religion. Therefore, the Baptists, for example, are a denomination of the protestant subset of the Christian group of religions. It is most certainly possible to have a Christian religion.

Missed the point completely, there. The point I was making involved how the individual that provides the ideals isn't identified by the same label that identifies the followers of that ideal. It had nothing to do with Hitler's personal religious beliefs.

I was referring specifically to the first four books of the NT - those regarded by most Christians, Catholic and Protestant alike, as accounts of the life of Jesus. Do they endorse the OT as literal? No. The NT is another matter.

I'm going to leave the rest of this alone; as I said, I don't think we are operating on anything like the same wavelength.

Chili

Yes, faith is an individual experience and the condition of being Christian is when all faith has become clear and is therefore the end of faith. But I understand that very well. My point is that the ideal of Hitler was not an end in itself and therefore those who follow him are idiots without a mind of their own. Same with Baptists who are believers for the sake of believing until they die nonetheless . . . while Jesus said that if we could ever come to the realization that his body *is* the bread of life we will never die. See the difference? They were accounts of the life of Jesus but not a Jesus as a believer but one who was to destroy religion in his own life that he might be set free from the bondage to slavery and sin.