Jesus the man or Jesus the Son of God

[Fist and Faith]

I've given a clear, exact criticism of Christianity. At least your version. Where's my ducks?

[rusmeister]

Interesting. Is that the generally accepted version? I'm not arguing remotely, just wondering.

I'm also thinking that flesh could be considered a weakness. But I guess, sort of as Bill Murray said in Groundhog Day, any change is good. So humans were experiencing something the spirit-only angels couldn't.

This much is true.
Also, consider that a big part of the heresy of the Manicheans was in denouncing the flesh while exalting the spirit - something the Puritans copied much later - and made for a much more mournful version of the Christian faith. God created the world - a material world - and saw that it was GOOD. Thus, in its beginnings, sex is good, wine is good, etc.

I don't think it terribly logical to say "any change is good". Phil Conner may have meant well, but logic was never his - or Bill Murray's - strong point. The tsunami in Japan was a significant change. But I would not argue it as "good".

[rusmeister]

I've given a clear, exact criticism of Christianity. At least your version. Where's my ducks?

I'm on my third e-mail to Fr John. YOU could've sent off the e-mails yourself, so remember - beggars can't be choosers!

[Hashi Lebwohl]

Interesting. Is that the generally accepted version? I'm not arguing remotely, just wondering.

I'm also thinking that flesh could be considered a weakness. But I guess, sort of as Bill Murray said in Groundhog Day, any change is good. So humans were experiencing something the spirit-only angels couldn't.

Are my views generally accepted? *shrug* I don't know. I would like for them to be because, to me, they make more sense than some things other people say.

Yes, I could see how a completely spirit being could view a human as being weaker and less perfect. Remember, too, that the physical world was made for humans, not angels. We got a gift they didn't get.

[Fist and Faith]

I've given a clear, exact criticism of Christianity. At least your version. Where's my ducks?

I'm on my third e-mail to Fr John. YOU could've sent off the e-mails yourself, so remember - beggars can't be choosers!

Heh. I'm not begging. You're the one trying to prove something here. I'm just saying the fact that you never cared to look into this matter - that you simply accepted the answer of "Just ignore the apparent contradiction" - until I put you on the spot is very conspicuous.

Are my views generally accepted? *shrug* I don't know. I would like for them to be because, to me, they make more sense than some things other people say.

But do most denominations teach the story as you told it? rus didn't correct you, so I assume Orthodoxy is good with it?

Yes, I could see how a completely spirit being could view a human as being weaker and less perfect. Remember, too, that the physical world was made for humans, not angels. We got a gift they didn't get.

Yeah, but they have eternal life, whereas every one of us is going to die. Anybody willing to trade the Earth for a spirit-only eternity?

Or, if we want to consider pre-Fall, anybody willing to trade an eternity on Earth for an eternity as an angel? Of course, we can't know what an angel's existence is like, eh? Seth Plate thought it was better to be human. Maybe they're like that.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

But do most denominations teach the story as you told it? rus didn't correct you, so I assume Orthodoxy is good with it?

Again, I don't know. Since my goal is not to align myself with other people's religious beliefs I have no answer for that question. I'm sure someone teaches things similiar to what I believe but I don't know who they are.

Yeah, but they have eternal life, whereas every one of us is going to die. Anybody willing to trade the Earth for a spirit-only eternity?

Or, if we want to consider pre-Fall, anybody willing to trade an eternity on Earth for an eternity as an angel? Of course, we can't know what an angel's existence is like, eh? Seth Plate thought it was better to be human. Maybe they're like that.

Yes, I saw that movie, too. I don't know if I would choose to become mortal for Meg Ryan, though. Now...for Diane Lane...perhaps.

[Cambo]

But I think that his statement can still be shown to be broadly true - even if you DID find an exception - which I seriously doubt. The burden of proof would be on you to produce an atheist society of the past (a rather difficult assignment, since belief in the supernatural is common to all human history; the true atheists are few and far between, and atheist societies non-existent as far as I know, and then you'd also have to show some evidence of genuine merriment on their part. An impossible task, in my estimation. They may have believed in Jupiter and Juno, or Odin and Thor (a depressing worldview) but they surely believed in something. The Saturnalia was loosely connected with someone called "Saturn" - and so on.

Er- I think you've missed my point. Or possibly confused it with Murrin's. I said:

His talk of the "gaiety" of Christianity makes me think of the quote that a religious man is happier than an atheist is no more to the point than a drunk man is happier than a sober one. My beliefs make me happy as well. That doesn't make them convincing to anyone else.

Quibbling over the definition of gaeity or happiness makes no difference, as you could just as easily say "it's no more to the point that a religious person is gayer than an atheist than a drunk man is gayer than a sober one." Although, modern uses of the word "gay" would change the meaning of this somewhat! It's also not to the point that I'd struggle to find an atheistic society, or even if you could prove that religious societies have more gaiety than secular ones. Gaiety isn't evidence for rectitiude. I would've thought that would be something you'd agree with. Intoxication is as ubiquitous in society as religion. Does that say anything about the insights into objective truth alcohol can bring us?

But when you speak of "criticisms of Christianity", you need to be clear on what exactly those are. Then you have the problem of "what Church", as most criticisms in the West are specifically of Western Christian faiths, usually the Roman Catholic Church, which are inapplicable to any faith disconnected from them.

I'm gonna turn this one around- what criticisms were you thinking of when you said they were "stale?" I have many criticisms of Christianity. I don't have so many about Orthodoxy in particular as I don't know much about it- although the attitudes towards sexuality are one bone I have to pick (no pun intended ).

[rusmeister]

I've given a clear, exact criticism of Christianity. At least your version. Where's my ducks?

I'm on my third e-mail to Fr John. YOU could've sent off the e-mails yourself, so remember - beggars can't be choosers!

Heh. I'm not begging. You're the one trying to prove something here. I'm just saying the fact that you never cared to look into this matter - that you simply accepted the answer of "Just ignore the apparent contradiction" - until I put you on the spot is very conspicuous.

Fist, the idea never occurred to me for the simple reason that I hastily accepted your printed text, as it looked familiar, and I read it out of context, not remembering all of the details of the context. As soon as you read the larger context you might begin to see why your challenge was basically a Sola Scriptura-type reading of a limited text without reference to other text. I don't want to bash you on the head with that, but I do want to encourage you to ask honest questions, and the reason I am pursuing this for you is to prove one thing - that the Orthodox Church DOES have answers to our questions, which are very often based on our own shallow understandings. If I demonstrate that, maybe you'll finally accept that you are dealing with something serious and deep, and decidedly capable of challenging your conceptions. And I would hope that as it can show that its combined Tradition is smarter than you and me, you might want to go back yourself and find out what other ideas about faith that you might have wrong - as I did.

Are my views generally accepted? *shrug* I don't know. I would like for them to be because, to me, they make more sense than some things other people say.

But do most denominations teach the story as you told it? rus didn't correct you, so I assume Orthodoxy is good with it?

For the most part, yes. As I said, Hashi has been surprisingly Orthodox - I imagine he didn't know how much. But there are things we are agnostic on. We only know what has been revealed, and don't pretend to know what hasn't, and we don't even understand everything - and sometimes, it's just me that doesn't know or understand.

Yes, I could see how a completely spirit being could view a human as being weaker and less perfect. Remember, too, that the physical world was made for humans, not angels. We got a gift they didn't get.

Yeah, but they have eternal life, whereas every one of us is going to die. Anybody willing to trade the Earth for a spirit-only eternity?

Or, if we want to consider pre-Fall, anybody willing to trade an eternity on Earth for an eternity as an angel? Of course, we can't know what an angel's existence is like, eh? Seth Plate thought it was better to be human. Maybe they're like that.

Death is a consequence we got from the Fall. God Himself Incarnated to set the fault right.; to undo Adam's fatal error with the cost being to Himself (Didn't you at least watch the first Narnia film?). And the promise is resurrection - BODILY resurrection - not an eternity as a bodiless ghost. There ARE bodiless powers, but that is not our fate.

We mostly don't know enough to wish to be other than we are as humans. I'd say it's almost certainly a foolish wish - if we knew what we were wishing for. Lewis's "The Weight of Glory" is recommended on that topic.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

As I said, Hashi has been surprisingly Orthodox - I imagine he didn't know how much.

I can honestly state that I had no idea whatsoever.

[rusmeister]

His talk of the "gaiety" of Christianity makes me think of the quote that a religious man is happier than an atheist is no more to the point than a drunk man is happier than a sober one. My beliefs make me happy as well. That doesn't make them convincing to anyone else.

Quibbling over the definition of gaiety or happiness makes no difference, as you could just as easily say "it's no more to the point that a religious person is gayer than an atheist than a drunk man is gayer than a sober one." Although, modern uses of the word "gay" would change the meaning of this somewhat! It's also not to the point that I'd struggle to find an atheistic society, or even if you could prove that religious societies have more gaiety than secular ones. Gaiety isn't evidence for rectitude. I would've thought that would be something you'd agree with. Intoxication is as ubiquitous in society as religion. Does that say anything about the insights into objective truth alcohol can bring us?

One of the problems I note is that people focus on quotes without paying attention to context. GKC preceded the remark on gaiety by saying:

Before I give an outline of my view, there is one other thing to be said in which I cannot avoid the personal note.
...
Christianity is itself so jolly a thing that it fills the possessor of it with a certain silly exuberance.

Now, gaiety may not be proof of rectitude - nor was that the point being made - but it IS proof of joy - the ability to rejoice.

But when you speak of "criticisms of Christianity", you need to be clear on what exactly those are. Then you have the problem of "what Church", as most criticisms in the West are specifically of Western Christian faiths, usually the Roman Catholic Church, which are inapplicable to any faith disconnected from them.

I'm gonna turn this one around- what criticisms were you thinking of when you said they were "stale?" I have many criticisms of Christianity. I don't have so many about Orthodoxy in particular as I don't know much about it- although the attitudes towards sexuality are one bone I have to pick (no pun intended ).

The stale ones can be seen in the papers almost every day. The New York Times and the Washington Post, for example. It is so boring to even write of them, because they are repeated so often - straw men easily defeated by triumphant rationalists. Yesterday it was the suffering atheist in the W.P. www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/why-do- ... story.html
It's one of a million out there, that assumes that believers are stupid, bigoted and unreasonable, that consistently sounds the trumpet for secular pluralism, the religion of our age. The main thing about articles like that is that people - esp. intellectuals - the most susceptible group - get bombarded daily with a steady diet of nonsense and assumption, so that they can hardly help holding those views, any more than the average citizen under Hitler could hardly help holding views that tended to support Nazism - it's what we're all bombarded with, unless we disconnect ourselves. There are too many falsehoods to name. One, off the cuff, is the idea and assumption that dogma is by definition unreasonable, and that only "religious people" have it. I'm prepared to accept that you don't hold that view, but if you say that view is NOT widespread, I don't think I could take you seriously.

But I don't even think I need to accept a turnaround. Bring on your objections. I'll bet that probably half really are stale (unfounded, based on false, biased, or no information whatsoever), and the other half reasonable with reasonable answers. On sexuality, for example. You may have objections founded in your worldview, but I can at least show that within the Orthodox framework, its stand on sexuality is entirely reasonable and consistent.
I see a coordinated campaign against the Christian faith. It is subtle, not overt, and relies heavily on "tolerance" of it (as long as its adherents do not act like their faith is actually true, esp. in the public arena - and it is not such a big step from that arena to the arena of the Colosseum.

The main quote, the conclusion, the thing that I highlighted was not commented on here, although it is the essence of what he was saying at the very beginning of his career:

Why will many of you not accept my four explanations? Obviously, in mere logic, they are as logical as Mr. Blatchford's. It is as reasonable, in the abstract, that a truth should be distorted as that a lie should be distorted; it is as reasonable, in the abstract, that men should starve and sin for a real benefit as for an unreal one. You will not believe it because you are armed to the teeth, and buttoned up to the chin with the great Agnostic Orthodoxy, perhaps the most placid and perfect of all the orthodoxies of mean. You could sooner believe that Socrates was a Government spy than believe that he heard a voice from his God. You could more easily think that Christ murdered His mother, than that He had a psychic energy of which we know nothing. I approach you with the reverence and the courage due to a bench of bishops.

And at the end of his career, shortly before his death the following year:

www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/Well ... allows.txt

The context, of course, clarifies the remarks - in two words it is about how the Liberal Party of his time had adopted an extremely illiberal position regarding the Spanish Civil War - a fascinating account from a former party member:

Now that is a small and purely political point.
But to me it was very awakening. It showed me quite clearly
the fundamental truth of the modern world. And that is this:
there are no Fascists; there are no Socialists;
there are no Liberals; there are no Parliamentarians.
There is the one supremely inspiring and irritating
institution in the world; and there are its enemies.
Its enemies are ready to be for violence or against violence,
for liberty or against liberty, for representation or
against representation; and even for peace or against peace.
It gave me an entirely new certainty, even in the practical
and political sense, that I had chosen well.