Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Julian · 01-24-2006, 09:37 AM

I really wish that you would stop quoting Brunner. The guy is a complete nutjob and is not likely convince anyone on this board of anything. The moment I see the name Brunner, my eyes simply skip ahead until I see the end of the quotation.

Julian

No Robots · 01-24-2006, 09:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Julian

I really wish that you would stop quoting Brunner. The guy is a complete nutjob and is not likely convince anyone on this board of anything. The moment I see the name Brunner, my eyes simply skip ahead until I see the end of the quotation.

Julian

We're having a quiet discussion here. Nothing to get excited about. Move along.

Clivedurdle · 01-24-2006, 11:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by No Robots

We're having a quiet discussion here. Nothing to get excited about. Move along.

You might be! My aims are slightly grander - demolishing the basis of this dead historicist religion!

No Robots · 01-24-2006, 01:16 PM

Clivedurdle:

I blame the hard-core evangelical movement for the resurgence in mythicism. The evangelicals target vulnerable young people, subject them to the most appalling psychological processing, then willfully abuse their trust and need to believe. They spew their excrement all over the most important person in our history. No wonder you can't hack the thought of Jesus. It is very good that, in spite of your background, you see the good in the myth of Christ. Perhaps someday you will see the good in the man, see that he would join you in your project of destruction, see that only with him can you really throw down the temple. (Look, Julian, no quotations! Just for you, dude.)

Clivedurdle · 01-24-2006, 01:24 PM

I just posted this on the eucharist thread - Christ is a concept of high magic related to how we as humans cope with our existential ability to think about life and death, 42 and dead parrots.

http://www.webcom.com/~gnosis/gnosis_eucharist1.html

(Honest guv that ain't the goobledegook it looks!

No Robots · 01-24-2006, 01:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clivedurdle

I just posted this on the eucharist thread - Christ is a concept of high magic related to how we as humans cope with our existential ability to think about life and death, 42 and dead parrots.

Yeah, I saw that. Pretty good stuff. I was reluctant to comment out of respect for Julian, but let me just say that a certain authority to whom I am partial calls the eucharist "the most stupendous mystical reality in the world".

I once visited the National Art Gallery in D.C. I will never forget turning into a stairwell and seeing right before my eyes Dali's Last Supper. I still get shivers about that.

No Robots · 01-24-2006, 01:58 PM

By the way, I was once librarian for a conservative news magazine. The editors wanted a crucifixion image to put on the cover of the Easter edition. I talked them into using Dali's Christ of St. John of the Cross. It was a proud moment.

Clivedurdle · 01-24-2006, 02:51 PM

Tut tut, spreading mythicism - and by a surrealist!

No Robots · 01-24-2006, 03:01 PM

If I weren't afraid of constantly being undermined by anti-historicists, I would do nothing but spread surrealist mythicism. In other words, if you let me keep the man, I am more than happy to help spread the myth.

You know, André Breton was a big fan of he-who-shall-remain-nameless (link).

youngalexander · 01-24-2006, 11:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clivedurdle

http://www.webcom.com/~gnosis/gnosis_eucharist1.html

(Honest guv that ain't the goobledegook it looks!

Some selected quotes:

Quote:

The mind is the slayer of the real; numinous myth and transcendental mystery cannot survive rationalism, ... Dogma is the murder of mystery, even if it takes centuries for the victim to die.

Difficult to know whether to laugh, cry, or give way to despair!

Quote:

As Joseph Campbell said, the Mass is "a metaphor open to transcendence," and as such it is capable of miraculous effects in transforming not only bread and wine, but the human personality as well. The great fault of non-Gnostic Christianity has always been to reduce myth with a meaning to history with a moral, and this is what happened to the Mass at the hands of the theologians.

Now, that's better, but;

Quote:

C.W. Leadbeater, the theosophist and Liberal Catholic bishop, in his work The Science of the Sacraments, made some fascinating observations on the magic of the Mass. With his paranormal faculties Leadbeater perceived certain recurring patterns of forces not ordinarily visible that manifested at each celebration of the Eucharist. The pattern seemed...

Whoops, away with the fairies again.

Quote:

In addition to the views of the mass discussed above, there is also the notion that this mystery is of the nature of a sacrifice. The sacrifice, in its Gnostic sense, involves the return of the alienated spark to its original flame. Neither philosophy, metaphysics, nor dogma can accomplish this longed-for union, for it is not a matter of concept but of experience. If we wish to join our shining twin in heaven by removing the dichotomy, we must do a work, an opus, as the alchemists of old would have called it.

Now, that is more like it. Still do not believe a word of it, but it does sound better than the historicised crap.

Quote:

Myths may bring us nearer, magic may illuminate, philosophy may elucidate, but the mystery remains, as it must, for it is in us and we are in it.

We are in it all right, up to our necks.

Now look here. Forget all this Christian malarkey. Eating the flesh and drinking the blood of the god in order to become as One with them is cannibilism pure and simple and not to be countenanced in civilised society.

Blood-brotherhood whereby peoples drink or shed each other's blood in solemn ceremony has been widespread as reported by Herodotus and Tacitus in ancient times, Dr Livingstone of african tribes and the Nazis, to mention but a few.

As for the Eucharist: the Titans ate Dionysus flesh and drank his blood, as New Guinea cannibals did of their vanquished enemies until very recently. The Aztecs made figures of the god Huitzilopochtli and then conducted an "eating the god" ceremony. The Spanish saw Peruvian Indian rituals as a Satanic counterfeit of the Christian Eucharist. Frazer (The Golden Bough) has an entire chapter on "Eating the God".

Transubstantiation: Cicero railed against the corn Ceres and wine Bacchus "do you imagine that anybody is so insane as to believe that the thing he feeds on is a god?" The mystery is found from India to Mexico and all parts in between.

Myths may indeed bring us nearer for it is their very universality amongst humankind that points to the commonality of the deeply held psychological and societal reasons that they have arisen. Magic illuminate? I don't think so. Philosophy elucidate? Very likely. The mystery remains? Only to make us wonder why we should still be besotted with notions of blood sacrifice and cannibilism in the 21st century.

Alchemy: From an alchemical mass written by Nicholas Melchior, astrologer to the king of Hungary in the 16th century.

Quote:

Then will appear in the bottom of the vessel the mighty Ethiopian, burned, calcined, bleached, altogether dead and lifeless. He asks to be buried, to be sprinkled with his own moisture and slowly calcined till he shall arise in glowing form from the fierce fire... Behold a wonderous restoration or renewal of the Etheopian!

It's all beginning to make sense....:notworthy:

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01-24-2006, 09:37 AM	#11
Julian Veteran Member Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Washington, DC (formerly Denmark) Posts: 3,789	I really wish that you would stop quoting Brunner. The guy is a complete nutjob and is not likely convince anyone on this board of anything. The moment I see the name Brunner, my eyes simply skip ahead until I see the end of the quotation. Julian

01-24-2006, 01:16 PM	#14
No Robots Veteran Member Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Edmonton Posts: 5,679	Clivedurdle: I blame the hard-core evangelical movement for the resurgence in mythicism. The evangelicals target vulnerable young people, subject them to the most appalling psychological processing, then willfully abuse their trust and need to believe. They spew their excrement all over the most important person in our history. No wonder you can't hack the thought of Jesus. It is very good that, in spite of your background, you see the good in the myth of Christ. Perhaps someday you will see the good in the man, see that he would join you in your project of destruction, see that only with him can you really throw down the temple. (Look, Julian, no quotations! Just for you, dude.)

01-24-2006, 01:24 PM	#15
Clivedurdle Contributor Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: London UK Posts: 16,024	I just posted this on the eucharist thread - Christ is a concept of high magic related to how we as humans cope with our existential ability to think about life and death, 42 and dead parrots. http://www.webcom.com/~gnosis/gnosis_eucharist1.html (Honest guv that ain't the goobledegook it looks!

01-24-2006, 01:58 PM	#17
No Robots Veteran Member Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Edmonton Posts: 5,679	By the way, I was once librarian for a conservative news magazine. The editors wanted a crucifixion image to put on the cover of the Easter edition. I talked them into using Dali's Christ of St. John of the Cross. It was a proud moment.

01-24-2006, 02:51 PM	#18
Clivedurdle Contributor Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: London UK Posts: 16,024	Tut tut, spreading mythicism - and by a surrealist!

01-24-2006, 03:01 PM	#19
No Robots Veteran Member Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Edmonton Posts: 5,679	If I weren't afraid of constantly being undermined by anti-historicists, I would do nothing but spread surrealist mythicism. In other words, if you let me keep the man, I am more than happy to help spread the myth. You know, André Breton was a big fan of he-who-shall-remain-nameless (link).

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