Atomic_Decay
Bluelighter
- Joined
- Nov 1, 2021
- Messages
- 1,221
That is generally not untrue: But the most important ethic of Christianity is not the Golden Rule. The most important one is the Ethic of Self Sacrifice as expressed in John 15:13, as follows:
“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends”.
This Ethic, of course, being demonstrated by Jesus in the only thing he did or said that ever really mattered,
This act, his self-sacrifice, has enormously complex meanings and resonance in Western culture today: in the last 1,000 years it has also shaped other cultures where Christianity was either practiced or studied.
The ethic of self-sacrifice has been bastardised in some ways that Jesus would not recognise but would no doubt abhor. For example, it fuelled WWI when propagandists shifted ‘for friends’ to ‘for queen and country’. But in the trenches it then returned to it’s original meaning (friends is sometimes translated as ‘brother’ and fuelled incredible acts of heroism.
In a way ‘self-sacrifice’ is the opposite of ‘reciprocity’. The true Christian, regardless of what denomination their Church is, gives to others without expectation of return. In a genuinely Christian society this evens out as everyone gives and what one gives eventually returns when one needs it.
In modern day protestant christianity, especially evangelical christianity in the US, his essential and fundamental part of what it is to be a christ-like christian has been lost. A protesetant will give only to those he deems worthy. He evaluates the receipients morality and not their need. And and giving to the needy is seen as a prudent investment in the giver’s afterlife. So what looks like giving to the unfortunate is really just purchasing virtue for oneself.
As for gnostic christianity, GB does not know what Christianity is:
Christians do not follow or worship Yahweh. Yaheweh is just a whisper from the pre-history of Christianity - along with a few other gods and deities,
Christians almost don’t really worship ‘god - god’. Certainly they believe in God The Father - but they know and accept that he, the One True God, is unknowable. He has no form and he is timeless. He actually has no gender, though we are accustomed for cultural reasons to referring to him by the male pronoun.
But although God the Father is unknowable Christians are prepared, through Faith, to believe that his will was revealed through what Jesus and the Apostles did and said.
So if GB says ‘Christians are Evil’ for any reason other reason than he believes self-sacrifice for on’s friends to be evil then he is comparing apples and oranges and can safely be laughed at for his spectacular ignorance of religion and history.
If GB wants to claim ‘Gnostic Christianity’ is the best religion he must explain it’s ultimate ethic and demonstrate why it is superior to the christian ethic of self-scrifice.
But his nonsensical wailing about ‘genocide’ ‘misogyny’ ‘homophobia’ is now so fucking tedious. State a case for gnosticism’s superiority, marshal the evidence, make the argument.
Until he does that he is on a hiding to nothing. And because does not ever demonstrate ANY christ-like Christian virtues most educated Western people will keep finding him kind of repugnant, because they regardless of whether people go to Church or not those virtues (like selflesness, compassion and tolerance) are the ones we value in common as the most common.
Cheers
