Chili

If there is any truth to be found in the Gospels it must be in myth as there is no beauty to be found in a wandering preacher with his ass on fire for the Lord, . . . but I suppose he has to do what he's got to do and so Jesus probably was a real being who got kicked around often enough that he got the job done.

Let me remind you tho, that myth proper is real and more real than any of us here but I do not quite know how to defend it myself and will leave it at that.

Horatio Parker

I don't think it's fair to say there's no beauty in the Gospels. Granted, there are many ugly things.

I personally like this one from gT:

I agree that the only truth of any significance in the Gospels is spiritual or mythical.

Chili

I like it but much to bold in assertion as we cannot make our inside the aim of our destiny nor can we make our own mind the subject of our inquiry and therefore a mystery religion must do the trick with a better answer than things will go better after we die.

Horatio Parker

I thought this thread was about myth.

Myth addresses the present, not the afterlife.

Chili

Afterlife is in the present, and it is not about myth but was really meant to be my opinion on the HJ argument in favor of the MJ.

mountainman

"Never did eye see the sun
Unless it had first become
Sun-like
And never can soul
Have the vision of
The First Beauty
Unless itself be beautiful.

~Plotinus
[CE 204/5–270]

Chili

Beautiful and always remember that our soul is a gift to us as we did not create our own self.

gurugeorge

Well, I wouldn't go quite so far, but yes, I think there's a kind of truth in the myth of Jesus Christ.

I think it's best exemplified in the passage Galatians where "Paul" talks about Christ being that in you which cries "Abba! Father!"

IOW, we see ourselves in bondage in a world of suffering; Christ is that in us which recognises this evil as evil and yearns for more - that in us which wonders "is this all there is?"

That capability of discrimination (between good and evil) and that yearning (to return "home") is the call to God to "redeem" the soul from its bondage (i.e. meaning God "buys back" the soul from the slave pen) and brings it to its proper heritage, as Son of God (a chip off the old block).

IOW if there's any truth in the Christ myth, it's not so much mythical (in the sense of pertaining to the origins and practices of a culture) as mystical (one might say: pertaining to the existential situation of the individual and the absolute truth of his or her relation to the cosmos).

Horatio Parker

And doesn't the "M" in "MJ" stand for Mythical? If you're in favor of MJ , you're in a mythical realm.

I agree: afterlife is the life after realization, not life after death.

Chili

Sorry I do not see mythical as cutural as mythical was first and mystical is too foggy for me as truth will stand on its own radiant and bright by day and by night.

The Abba Father is the 'timely uttering" that gave William Wordsworth relief and is just a 'natural call' (non-rational speech) to find release from human oppression which here has a religious slant added wherein God 'buys back' the soul, while in real life it is each on our own as the oppression is ours and ours alone in the world wherein we live and created for ourself. And so it is true that good and bad is the dichotomy that sets us apart and the concept evil is added for the persuasion with fear, while in reality it is an illusion without substance as such.

Gone for 3 days and sorry about that.