Freethought & Rationalism Archive

gurugeorge · 11-14-2009, 02:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elijah

Quote:

Originally Posted by gurugeorge

You have to bear in mind the ultimate broader context of what religions are, and how they start. 90% of religions start thus: person "sees God" (seems to themselves to talk to God/spirit/demon whatever), gets "message", brings the "message" to humanity. This holds across all cultures, across all levels of sophistication, from Shamanism to Celestial Masters Daoism, from Mormonism to Islam. Even Buddhism, the most rationalistic and least religion-like religion, has this type of thing.

I don’t think this is correct. Religions start by trying to address a problem with implementing certain ideas that visions give credibility to. The visions don’t give birth to the ideas that start religion they confirm them. Jesus wasn’t wandering in the desert and accidently had a vision he went out there to try and figure something out and the vision confirmed for him what he was already suspecting. Same with Paul, the idea didn’t spontaneously come to him it was an idea he was pondering and the vision confirmed it. I think that’s 90 percent of the time, the real world problem/question first, and then ideas to address those problems, then last visions to confirm the idea you think is correct.

I can imagine an early childhood visionary experience giving a person their initial faith but the religions we are familiar with are complex collections of ideas that are produced in attempt to fix/address the world’s problems not just birthed randomly out of visionary states.

If you aren't already familiar with it, I suggest you read William James' Varieties of Religious Experience. With religion, it's always the experience that comes first; and the experience is so convincing to the experiencer that he convinces others. The philosophical use of religious ideas, and religion as a sociological phenomenon (as "social glue") comes after.

The way you are looking at it completely puts the cart before the horse IMHO. Common sense people who don't have visionary experiences don't posit weird entities to explain the world - they simply follow the norms of their culture without giving the deeper questions much of a thought; or (if they do give it a thought, and they're smart) they have philosophical or scientific (in ancient times, proto-scientific) theories about the world.

Or to put it another way: suppose nobody had ever had any visionary or mystical experiences, then there would be no religious explanations of the world at all, only philosophical or scientific (proto-scientific) ones.

Minimalist · 11-14-2009, 03:36 PM

Quote:

All Christians of all times have positively affirmed that Christ is fully a man.

Completely wrong, as Bart Ehrman points out in this exerpt from "Lost Christianities." Scroll down to the 4th paragraph.

http://books.google.com/books?id=URd...age&q=&f=false

aa5874 · 11-14-2009, 04:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gurugeorge

Quote:

Originally Posted by GakuseiDon

I don't want to sidetrack this, but out of interest: if Paul's Jesus was a visionary entity how do you account for all the "in the flesh" statements? E.g. Romans 9:3:

For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my *countrymen according to the flesh, 4 who are Israelites, to whom pertain the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises; 5 of whom are the fathers and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ came

Likely scenario (to my mind): "Paul" gets into a trance state, a glorious being appears in his vision who tells him "I am the Messiah, I was recently here on Earth, in the flesh, born of the line of David."

What's the problem?

But, the NT is about a unique entity CALLED the GOD-MAN Jesus.

The Pauline Jesus was a GOD-MAN who was revealed to the Pauline writer after he WAS supposedly crucified, died, buried, resurrected and ascended to heaven. It is all in the NT.

But, when the Pauline writings are examined the Pauline gospel appear to have been lifted primarily from Hebrew scripture, the Septuagint, or some similar source, not any trance or revelation.

The Pauline writer hardly ever acknowledged his sources but upon examination, they are all fundamentally from Hebrew scripture, perhaps the Septuagint, not any vision or revelation from a GOD-MAN.

The information in the Pauline writings are, in effect, non-historical.

Elijah · 11-14-2009, 05:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gurugeorge

If you aren't already familiar with it, I suggest you read William James' Varieties of Religious Experience. With religion, it's always the experience that comes first; and the experience is so convincing to the experiencer that he convinces others. The philosophical use of religious ideas, and religion as a sociological phenomenon (as "social glue") comes after.

Sorry, probably won’t be getting around to reading that but if it’s online and you want me to check out something that gives an example of what you are talking about then please throw me a link. The idea that the vision itself is such a big deal that the person needs to run out and tell everyone is flawed because visionary experiences were common place, more so than today and are no reason in themselves to go run and tell anyone anything. The information that your “receive” is what you spread and you try to convince others of.

Yes there are evolutions of ideas within the religion as time goes on but to think that religions never start with social memes or philosophical ideas included or even driving them is crazy. All religions aren’t started with a nut and a vision, they are usually started by trying to address real world issues we face. You can have a vision now of Jesus or whoever and that won’t do anything but if you introduce some new ideas that you are convinced of because of a vision then you can start a new religious movement. A vision with no ideas is going to have a real hard time becoming a religion.

Visionary experiences are produced by ideas a mystic is dealing with, the ideas are possible solutions to problems or questions that we face in the real world that the mystics and religions later try to answer.

Quote:

The way you are looking at it completely puts the cart before the horse IMHO. Common sense people who don't have visionary experiences don't posit weird entities to explain the world - they simply follow the norms of their culture without giving the deeper questions much of a thought; or (if they do give it a thought, and they're smart) they have philosophical or scientific (in ancient times, proto-scientific) theories about the world.

Or to put it another way: suppose nobody had ever had any visionary or mystical experiences, then there would be no religious explanations of the world at all, only philosophical or scientific (proto-scientific) ones.

I’m not sure about what you mean by “common sense people” or “religious explanations” here. Most of the folks that posit weird entities to explain the world do so because of a similar faith by someone close to them… not from visionary experience teaching them this. The explanations that seem nonsensical now can be derived from philosophical concepts that are misunderstand by the masses (as in Jesus personifying Logos). Others belong to long standing superstitions we as a society have held, not something that is reproduced again and again new in visions to be respread each time.

Again it’s the ideas that generate both the religions and the visions, not the other way around. Visions only give you faith in the idea, not the idea itself.

GakuseiDon · 11-14-2009, 08:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by gurugeorge

Quote:

Originally Posted by GakuseiDon

I don't want to sidetrack this, but out of interest: if Paul's Jesus was a visionary entity how do you account for all the "in the flesh" statements? E.g. Romans 9:3:

For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my *countrymen according to the flesh, 4 who are Israelites, to whom pertain the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises; 5 of whom are the fathers and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ came

Likely scenario (to my mind): "Paul" gets into a trance state, a glorious being appears in his vision who tells him "I am the Messiah, I was recently here on Earth, in the flesh, born of the line of David."

What's the problem?

The problem is possibly me. Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that Paul's Jesus was someone Paul regarded as being recently on Earth, in the flesh, born of the line of David, who manifested to Paul as a visionary entity?

aa5874 · 11-14-2009, 08:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GakuseiDon

Quote:

Originally Posted by gurugeorge

As I've said before, compare and contrast: we have clear evidence, from his own words, that "Paul"'s Jesus was a visionary entity.

I don't want to sidetrack this, but out of interest: if Paul's Jesus was a visionary entity how do you account for all the "in the flesh" statements? E.g. Romans 9:3:

For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my *countrymen according to the flesh, 4 who are Israelites, to whom pertain the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises; 5 of whom are the fathers and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ came

The nature of the Pauline Jesus was exactly the same as gJohn's Jesus.

Joh 1:1-14 -

Quote:

1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

2The same was in the beginning with God.

3All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made..............................14. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

The Pauline Jesus was a GOD/MAN, that is, a SUPERNATURAL ENTITY, born of the Holy Ghost but with flesh.

jgoodguy · 11-14-2009, 10:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GakuseiDon

Quote:

Originally Posted by gurugeorge

Likely scenario (to my mind): "Paul" gets into a trance state, a glorious being appears in his vision who tells him "I am the Messiah, I was recently here on Earth, in the flesh, born of the line of David."

What's the problem?

The problem is possibly me. Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that Paul's Jesus was someone Paul regarded as being recently on Earth, in the flesh, born of the line of David, who manifested to Paul as a visionary entity?

Paul spoke to the family of Jesus, spoke to followers of Jesus and had knowledge of the Jewish Church of Jerusalem. His knowledge of the earthy Jesus could have come from them. My opinion is that Paul merged elements of the earthly Jesus into his Mythical Jesus. In that case, historically speaking the Historical Jesus came before the Mythical Jesus. However from the view point of the development of Christianity, Paul's mythical Jesus could have preceded the addition of the historical Jesus.

aa5874 · 11-14-2009, 11:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jgoodguy

Quote:

Originally Posted by GakuseiDon

The problem is possibly me. Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that Paul's Jesus was someone Paul regarded as being recently on Earth, in the flesh, born of the line of David, who manifested to Paul as a visionary entity?

Paul spoke to the family of Jesus, spoke to followers of Jesus and had knowledge of the Jewish Church of Jerusalem. His knowledge of the earthy Jesus could have come from them. My opinion is that Paul merged elements of the earthly Jesus into his Mythical Jesus. In that case, historically speaking the Historical Jesus came before the Mythical Jesus. However from the view point of the development of Christianity, Paul's mythical Jesus could have preceded the addition of the historical Jesus.

The Pauline writer did not claim that he was the originator of the Jesus story. A writer called Paul multiple times claimed there were people in Christ before him and that he persecuted the faith he now preached.

It is clear that the Pauline writers did not consider themselves the first to preach the faith.

It is also clear that the Pauline writers did not consider Jesus a man, but a God who became flesh and was raised from the dead.

Galatians 1:1 -

Quote:

Paul, an apostle, (not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father, who raised him from the dead

Ro 16:7 -

Quote:

Salute Andronicus and Junia, my kinsmen, and my fellowprisoners, who are of note among the apostles, who also were in Christ before me.

1Co 15:9 -

Quote:

For I am the least of the apostles, that am not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.

Ga 1:13 -

Quote:

For ye have heard of my conversation in time past in the Jews' religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the church of God, and wasted it

Ga 1:23 -

Quote:

But they had heard only, That he which persecuted us in times past now preacheth the faith which once he destroyed.

Acts of the Apostles and the Church writers placed the conversion of Saul/Paul after the ascension of Jesus the God/man and after the stoning of Stephen.

Paul's Jesus was a combination of the immaterial and material, the corruptible and the incorruptible, spirit and flesh, the Creator and the created, an unknown imaginary entity that Paul saw in a resurrected state.

gurugeorge · 11-15-2009, 01:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GakuseiDon

Quote:

Originally Posted by gurugeorge

Likely scenario (to my mind): "Paul" gets into a trance state, a glorious being appears in his vision who tells him "I am the Messiah, I was recently here on Earth, in the flesh, born of the line of David."

What's the problem?

The problem is possibly me. Wouldn't it be more accurate to say that Paul's Jesus was someone Paul regarded as being recently on Earth, in the flesh, born of the line of David, who manifested to Paul as a visionary entity?

Well, I think what's accurate to say is the way I put it

dog-on · 11-15-2009, 02:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GakuseiDon

Quote:

Originally Posted by gurugeorge

As I've said before, compare and contrast: we have clear evidence, from his own words, that "Paul"'s Jesus was a visionary entity.

I don't want to sidetrack this, but out of interest: if Paul's Jesus was a visionary entity how do you account for all the "in the flesh" statements? E.g. Romans 9:3:

For I could wish that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my *countrymen according to the flesh, 4 who are Israelites, to whom pertain the adoption, the glory, the covenants, the giving of the law, the service of God, and the promises; 5 of whom are the fathers and from whom, according to the flesh, Christ came

Anti-Marcionite interpolation.

Thread Tools	Search this Thread
Show Printable Version	Search this Thread: Advanced Search

Freethought & Rationalism Archive

The archives are read only.