Clivedurdle

It wasn't quite ironic, (sarcastic?) because is this not a classic evangelical approach - like what Campus Crusade for Christ does?

I do favour the approach of Freke and Gandy - that a true Christian (tm) is actually a mythicist!

It is probably a jump too far to change a xian into an atheist for most, an intermediate step of a gnostic mythic heroic xianity is a logical place to go to for xians. That way they can be as religious as they want and lose the fundamentals stuff! William James Varieties was interesting on this!

And if xians look carefully at what they say and do and believe, the concepts of mystery, of communion, of god with us, are very important!

HJism should be seen as a heresy, a clumsy misunderstanding!


So for me mythicism allows me to understand my personal experience as a pentecostal - of a quiet, holiness type - as xianity playing some beautiful hymns about our experience, of touching archetypes and dreams in us, but to see this as a facet of being human, without externalising it into a god figure.

If there were a Jesus figure he is more likely to have been a teacher of righteousness or an earlier priest figure - not the classic HJ about 0 -33 CE executed by Pilate. But a central character in a play seems most likely (listening NOT reading!)

We really do need to get a timeline in place, clearly showing what ideas came when!

Vorkosigan

OK. Sorry to have been so rude.

Vorkosigan

blastula

From all you wrote above, this sounds more like projection to me. Because, seriously, the fear you describe sounds nutty and not very likely to occur in every single member of this group of people you know.

What's with this "into their hearts?" Why would you use those words? That's evangelical lingo.

McD

This is the dumbest thing I have read all day, and I have been reading all day.

Toto

With all due respect, you are quoting anonymous sources, so it's hard to check. I don't know these people and I can't imagine what their motivation would be. I suspect that you have misinterpreted the source of their anger, if it was anger, but I have no way of checking.

I can imagine someone getting angry at a friend who wants to accept an obvious fraud like the Testamonium, and there are probably some people who are so angry at Christianity that citing a Christian author would set them off, or your friends may have been so convinced of their beliefs that they regarded you as a nutcase, the way scientists get angry at creationists. And there may be people who think that only proving that Jesus is a myth can convince other people to give up Christianity.

But to suggest that most mythicists are afraid of a HJ because the next step would be for them to accept Jesus "into their hearrs" is just slander.

McD

Well, I don't want you to pity me because I am a drugged out zombie.

I do stick by the basics of what I said, just give me a little break in the wording, and I equally apologize. I wasn't going to, until I reread that post way, way up there. I was concentrating on that second to the last one, not the one-- you know.

Ah n/m.

Peace.

blastula

What? You're incapable of projection? But you are capable of mind reading?

McD

It would be if that's what I am suggesting, but it isnt'. I have never suggested anything even close to that, at any point, in my entire life, in any medium. Ever.

McD

Ok, you topped it. That is the dumbest thing I have read all day.

Wanna try to top it?

blastula

Yeah. Here's another. I call bullshit on your entire story about MJers fearing believing in Jesus. It stinks. I don't buy it. It's ludicrous and it taints whatever else you have to say.

You can call me stupid again, but you'll still smell just as bad.