I converted to Catholicism after many years deep in the drug culture, AMA

[SKL]

part I

I'm still interested to see what your answer is to the "historicity" of Catholicism. It's a fact that what we have are copies of copies of copies altered by scribes through both accident and bias.

Our textual sources are in their textual aspects, i.e. the occasional scribal error, this is inevitable. The claims of the Jewish and Islamic traditions, however, are quite different in they both claim that a text. In the Jewish tradition, the greater part of the Pentateuch in the Jewish tradition, along with, in the more modern rabbinical tradition, is passed along directly from God via Moses and is preserved textually, literally every "jot and tittle," and in the case of the Oral Torah, the font and origin of what is today the Talmud and other scriptures, the spiritual content of the teachings. In Islam, even more strongly, every letter of the Qu'ran was dictated to the illiterate Muhammad inerrantly and then from him to scribes, then later, by a rather complex process of redaction from various sources, to our Qu'ran. This goes somewhat beyond our purposes here, but this itself is a fascinating topic in Islamic history: during Muhammad's life not much thought was given to recording the text for posterity, or as a written text at all—the transmission of the Qu'ran down to modern days has always rested upon memorization as well as writing. Redacting required traveling around the Muslim world collecitng fragments of parchment, palm leaves, etc. and yielded a text that is found in beautiful poetry, but a bit fragmeneted and, as admitted by even the most conservative Islamic scholars, in no particular chronological order. Modern fundamentalist Protestants who believe in "biblical inerrancy" tend to believe something along the Jewish lines, that the text that we today call a "Bible" was guided by the Holy Spirit from it's inceptions to be the current text that it is and thereby protected from any sort of error. This is demonstrably untrue, in the strict sense of "protect from error," textually speaking. The number of variant readings of Scriptural texts are many.

The Catholic interpretation, as is so often the case, is more complex. The Bible is held up, along with Church Tradition, as an infallible source of doctrine. Catholic tradition holds, however, that the Bible is infallabile only when interpreted by due authority. This is where many of the problems of Protestant Biblican interpreations arise—there are, then, as many interpreters of Scripture as there are Protestants, or at least Protestant pastors. This is why there are over 30,000 Protestant denominations, the most conservative of which believe in Biblical inerrancy and, in cruel irony, mutually condemn one another for misinterpreting the perfectly inerrant Scripture. The Greek text of the New Testament is particularly controversial. Many of the most conservative Protestant sects give various reasons for defending the texts which support the King James Bible, giving a variety of reasons, much of which winds up being circularly dependant upon their familiarity with this English translation. There are even, in a manifestation of Poe's Law, sects that hold that the King James Version is itself divinely inspired and other texts are not (what options there are for the non-English speaking world are often left undiscussed.)

Not even getting into the council of nicea and how so many texts where expunged and chosen.

If this was all directed by God then what does history have to do with it? You're still basing things on faith not logic and reason.[/QUOTE]

Again, the Catholic understanding is that Church Tradition is infallabile and has evolved over the years with Divine guidance. This includes the canon of Scripture. The definitive promulgation of the canon at the Council of Nicaea, however, is myth. By 367 Athanasius (who had attended the Council,) in his capacity as Bishop of Alexandria, on of the centers of learning of that era, gave a list that corresponds with our current canon, but not in terms of being charged with doing so in an official capacity. His promulgation of this list is an indication of the widespread acceptance of these documents, rather than a cause. This canon was more or less uncontroversial down to the present day. There was no single council or individual who set it in stone, so to speak.

The development of this tradition is guided by God, and yes, I am aware that this is basing things on faith, but accepting that God does have the capacity to intervene in human affairs and cause the dissemination of an authoritative text, He could conceivably select between, inter alia, the Jewish, Islamic, and Catholic options as outlined above.

(The Protestant approach to the canon, incidentally, is almost universally to accept the Catholic one, which is rather consistent with the ahistoricity of Protestantism - the only way in which Protestantism could find a historical continuity to find their Scriptural canon was to turn to Catholicism.)

I don't know if you want to continue this thread or not, but one question that did come to mind is one of prayer. Oftentimes when people are confused about religion they pray to "whoever or whatever is listening" and not to the specific god of any religion. In Catholic theology, when someone prays like that (basically sending out a signal to see if anyone responds) does the Christian god hear that prayer and respond or does the prayer have to be directed specifically at Jesus or Yahweh to be valid?

An interesting question. In Catholicism, prayers are offered to God directly, to Jesus, and to various saints, who are not prayed to as they were "gods," but as intermediaries from a person praying to God. Prayers to God of course come in many different types and with many different purposes:

Tradition teaches us four different types of prayer:

Adoration, in which we praise God and His glory, for His works, His creation of us and the world, and the blessings that we enjoy in life thanks to Him.

Petition, "praying for ..." some favor asked for from God.

Intercession, prayer for others.

Thanksgiving. prayers offering thanks to God for blessings He has given us, in response to other prayers, or in general, blessings both spiritual and physical.

This is a very rough outline and there is obviously considerable overlap between these cathegories.

One of the most important things to understand about prayer is that it is not done for the benefit of God, as if He needed benefits, or praise for His greatness and glory (His inherent attributes), or for what He does for us. It is incredibly presumptuous to assume that we give God glory to add to his Glory, we do so only because it has an impact on us and gets us closer to Him.

Likewise, God is not a genie in a bottle who we can ask favors and have them granted. A lot of the more pernicious heresies in modern Protestantism (the Prosperity Gospel, a/k/a "name it and claim it" or "blab it and grab it") evolve from misunderstanidng this point.

Catholicism has a lot of different pre-written, one might say formulaic, prayers that are provided us by tradition (small 't') as well as things like the Rosary (small 'T' Tradition) and the Lord's Prayer. These can be spiritually powerful, but so can the honest petitions of a seeking soul without formula or direction.

Prayers "to whoever's out there" are "heard" by God in the sense that He is aware of them, as He is aware of everything, but absolutely they could be "heard" and "answered."

Lewis's trilemma

It's an argument with serious issues, I don't use it for that reason.

I think that particular message was distorted for social control purposes. My belief is that Jesus was saying that we're all god and all we need to do is treat each other right and work together and we can have paradise.

This is a very selective reading of the avaiable texts.

Of course I don't really know that. It just seems to me, from reading the NT through multiple times when I was much younger and struggling with the whole concept of Christianity, that the messages are too contradictory. Then when I found out that they were written well after his death, as much as one hundred or more years, and that many books were omitted (including ones written closer to his life that have quite a different tone), I just stopped believing that the words in the NT are actually the unadulterated words of the actual person.

These difficulties with the seeming contradictions of the text and of different perspectives in the Jewish-Roman milieu of the first few centuries (from which came various contradictory "gnostic" and other Gospels which were rejected by the Church) provide a rather succint example of the problems that I believe are solved by reliance upon the Church as a source of authority, which goes back to the issue that I am perenially returning during the course of this thread: Christianity and the variety of interpretations thereof that are necessitated by 2,000 years worth of different perspectives and literature, etc. are very complex, and need interpretation. This is one aspect of the authority of the Church.

The other aspect is soteriological, i.e. having to do with salvation, which involves Jesus's transmission of the power to forgive sins to his disciples in John 20, etc. This is probably something that could be useful to discuss later on, but is not our topic here.

More on the trilemma and madman/moral teacher stuff later. It takes me quite a while to think and type these out.

Skipping over the back and forth about credentials

 

[SKL]

One thing that Jesus did was put an end to the temple sacrifices at his time. The only time he lost his temper, but I guess that wasn't too pleasent.

You're referring to his driving the money changers out of the temple, which wasn't about ending sacrifice, but ending the financial exploitation of worshippers.

However, your words have a deeper spiritual meaning that you may or may not intend. Jesus' death on the Cross put an end to sacrifices, as some esoteric interpretations of the book of Daniel put it, because His was the perfect and final sacrifice, i.e. of the son of God's human hypostasis in substitution for the sins of many (see inter alia, Hebrews 9:22-28 )

 

[Ninae]

He was also against the animal sacrifices which he said was an abomination in the eyes of the Lord.

 

[swilow]

^I think jesus thought that was more idolatry (or heathen/pagan) than cruelty though. None of the monothiestic religions really believe that the suffering of animals is meaningful. Or, more to the point, most monothiestic religions automatically assume the superiority of humans and our corresponding rights to the natural world.

 

[Ninae]

No, but given his extremely compassionate nature towards all life, I find it hard to imagine he wouldn't be bothered by that.

Jesus was also an Essene, a kind of puritan sect, and probably raised a vegetarian. Another Essene, his cousin John the Baptist who grew up an ascetic, subsided on fruits, nuts, wild honey, and carob bread, and loved his simple fare.

 

[SKL]

He was also against the animal sacrifices which he said was an abomination in the eyes of the Lord.

This is entirely without Scriptural basis.

^I think jesus thought that was more idolatry (or heathen/pagan) than cruelty though. None of the monothiestic religions really believe that the suffering of animals is meaningful. Or, more to the point, most monothiestic religions automatically assume the superiority of humans and our corresponding rights to the natural world.

This has a great deal of Scriptural basis, "Thou hast made him [Man] but a little lower than the angels ... and put all things in subjection under his feet" (Ps. viii, 5-6)

In the Catholic tradition, however, there is of course St Francis and his compassion for animals, among others -- which goes to show just how broad our tradition in fact is.

No, but given his extremely compassionate nature towards all life, I find it hard to imagine he wouldn't be bothered by that.

Our projection of our imaginings onto ancient texts does violence to the texts. I have earlier in this thread used the term eisegesis, which is a term derived from the much more commonly used exegesis, the latter literally meaning "to draw out" the meaning of the text, the former (eisegesis) meaning the opposite, projecting our own meanings onto the text. The text needs to be interpreted in the context of the historical, cultural, etc. space in which it was written. Jesus certainly embodied perfect compassion towards man, but the extension of this to the animal kingdom would be utterly foreign to a 1st century Jew, and nowhere in the text does it indicate that Jesus opposed the sacrifices. Christ says (Mt. 5:18 ), "For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." This encompasses ritualistic sacrifice as atonement for sins, which was a prominent feature of the Old Covenant. The idea of redemption through the shedding of blood is so pervasive throughouht Old Testament, so much it forms the basis for the New, with Christ's blood sacrifice being atonement for man's sin. The beautiful ca. 12th century Easter hymn goes (English translation is my quick and dirty attempt to throw one together keeping the metre) puts it thus:

Victimae paschali laudes immolent Christiani.	Christians, hail the paschal victim with sacrifice of praise
Agnus redemit oves: Christus innocens Patri reconciliavit peccatores.	The lamb redeems the sheep. Chris the Innocent rejoins sinners to the Father.
Mors et vita duello conflixere mirando: dux vitae mortuus, regnat vivus.	Death and life, they did contend In that duel of wonder, Life's Lord who once was dead, Reigns now victorious.

Jesus was also an Essene, a kind of puritan sect, and probably raised a vegetarian. Another Essene, his cousin John the Baptist who grew up an ascetic, subsided on fruits, nuts, wild honey, and carob bread, and loved his simple fare.

It is true that the Essenes did not practice sacrifice of animals, and kept a vegetarian diet.

There is no evidence that Jesus was raised into Essenism, and in fact, since the Essenes lived what we would call a "dropped out" and "off-the-grid" lifestyle, two episodes of Jesus' early life are unlikely were he to be born and raised an Essene: (i) the entirety of the Nativity narrative, which involves dealings with the Roman and the "vichy" Jewish authorities of the time, and (ii) the Presentation at the Temple, when He was twelve, the Essenes had their own centers of worship, and not just rejecting animal sacrifice, rejected Temple sacrifice and worship entirely.

Did Jesus study with the Essenes in the intervening 20 years? It is possible, and there are some interesting parallels here, but it is clear enough that he never embraced Essenism: he neither practiced vegetarianism (see the accounts of the Last Supper, not to mention the fact that he partook in drinking, c.f. Lk. 7:34, "The Son of man is come eating and drinking; and ye say, Behold a gluttonous man, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners!
") nor did he reject Temple ritual, as above, "until all be fulfilled," i.e. until after His Death and Resurrection. N

So, Jesus was not an Essene. John the Baptist is closer to the Essene type, but it seems that he lived in the wilderness in a solitary, eremetic lifestyle, rather than in the communal, cenobitic lifestyle that the Essenes and the Qumran comunity did. So, looked at critically, neither one really fits the mold.

And a word about vegetarianism and abstinence in those days and in fact down to the Middle Ages and even present day as it is practiced in monastic communities: this is not vegetarianism out of concern for animals or cruelty towards them, but more of an ascetic practice. The Franciscan tradition in keeping with their founder's beliefs may add compassion for all living beings as a concern, but fundamentally, whenever you hear of abstinence, fasting, vegetarianism as a lifestyle, or during Lent, etc. you are not hearing about anything like the vegetarianism of today which is concerned wtih the consciousness and suffering of animals, but rather with man giving up certain creature comforts for his own internal spiritual purposes to concentrate this mind on spiritual rather than (literally) carnal matters. So too celibacy. John the Baptist also wore a hair shirt and was celibate. These derive from the same impulse as did his austere diet.

 

[Ninae]

Maybe not in the official version, but Essenism is also far removed from institusionalised Christianity and not very popular. Also keep in mind how much of the facts where changed over the years to accomodate the political objectives for the religion.

But I have seen many accounts of that he was born and raised in that puritan sect. In one clairvoyant account of his life that made a great impression on me when I was young described how he loved growing up among the men in the white robes who practiced bathing 3 times a day, etc.

Anyway, to me this is closer to what I see as real Christianity and from where he came.

 

[SKL]

A "clairvoyant account" sounds like another case in which modern New Age movements have made much use of Christ and Christ imagery, but by picking and chosing elements that appeal to them. You state "to me this is closer to what I see as real Christianity ..." which has much to do with the "moralistic therapeutic deism" that I reference earlier in the thread, and also to the fact that without an authority for interpretation of Scripture, you have as many interpreters as you have believers, or even as many as you have people who are interested in Scriptures or who are interested in coöpting Scriptural ideas and images to fit their own ends.

This is pretty much why, as I've stated numerous times in this thread, that we, as Christians, as people who believe in Christ and seek Him out as to be our Lord and Saviour, need not just a copy of the Bible and an open mind, nor even all the learning in the world, but an authoritative means of interpreting all of this, which is the Church and it's Sacred Tradition. Now of course, the Church is imperfect as it is made up of, even at the highest levels of the hierarchy, even in the Pope himself, of imperfect, fallible human beings liable to sin. The Church's Tradition and ex cathedra pronunciations of the Pope are only infallible when they are guided by God, and they are only infallible because they are guided by God. Everything else is, in the Catholic view, a morass of relativism and conflicting interpretations out of which it is impossible to produce a coherent objective spiritual truth. If you, as at least one person (perhaps you) in this thread has already stated, do not believe in "objective spiritual truth," then we are at something of an impasse, I suppose. But to throw around statements like "Jesus was an Essene" without any basis except that a later clarification "it feels good to me that Jesus was an Essene" or "I have read certain people's accounts of their own beliefs or putative supernatural experiences in which Jesus was an Essene" does real violence to the dialogue that is trying to be had here.

The Catholic position is that Spiritual matters are not about one man's opinion or "what feels good to me," but something much greater than that, something that is handed down from our ancestors and from their own traditions influenced by innumerable historical events, controversies, and nourished by intellectual and spiritual discoveries of men and women throughout the entire 2,000 year history of the Church and the story of God's relationship with the Israelites that proceeded and set the stage for that history. To have faith (and yes, this takes faith) in this way of interpreting Spiritual truth, is to be Catholic, and not to is to be something else which, I think, is at the heart of many of my answers to many of the questions above. It will figure heavily in the post that I will make soon about Lewis's trilemma and some of the objections to that, but that is one I am still working around and kicking around in my head.

 

[Ninae]

There are many scholarly claims that Jesus was a vegetarian if you care to look into it.

“Whoever slaughters an ox is like one who kills a human being; whoever sacrifices a lamb, like one who breaks a dog’s neck”

But as you also point out, we all tend to make things suit our own ends.

 

[Xorkoth]

I think that particular message was distorted for social control purposes. My belief is that Jesus was saying that we're all god and all we need to do is treat each other right and work together and we can have paradise.

This is a very selective reading of the avaiable texts.

I problem is that I don't trust the texts. I don't believe they had divine origin nor that their interpretation over the centuries was done with divine guidance. It seems to me that any interpretation of ancient texts must be done with faith one way or another because of the confounding factor of human nature, and the inevitability that some humans seek control over others, and that religion is perhaps the most powerful vehicle to use to gain that control. None of us was there, 2000 years have passed since then before any one of us was even born, and all we have to go on is, in effect, hearsay. So we have no choice but to fall back on what we believe.

 

[swilow]

No, but given his extremely compassionate nature towards all life, I find it hard to imagine he wouldn't be bothered by that.

Jesus was also an Essene, a kind of puritan sect, and probably raised a vegetarian. Another Essene, his cousin John the Baptist who grew up an ascetic, subsided on fruits, nuts, wild honey, and carob bread, and loved his simple fare.

Sure, accounts of Jesus's life imply that he was compassionate but there isn't much, if any, evidence that he cared for animals in their own right. Why would he have? People have viewed most nonhumans as automatons for at least the last 10,000 years. Its probably the only way that we can treat them like objects and still sleep at night.

When I watched "The Passion of the Christ" I was very deeply moved by it. Tears and anger at the brutality of humans. But, I found the early scene when Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemne and stomps a 'serpent' to death to be bizarre. I don't think Jesus was violent at all and I thought that scene was ridiculous.

This has a great deal of Scriptural basis, "Thou hast made him [Man] but a little lower than the angels ... and put all things in subjection under his feet" (Ps. viii, 5-6)

In the Catholic tradition, however, there is of course St Francis and his compassion for animals, among others -- which goes to show just how broad our tradition in fact is.

That is true. Christianity is exceptionally broad in application; probably the most decisive factor in it's success. Its flexible enough to form dogma about most subject matters, misguided or otherwise. But, I find the scripture you quoted disturbing though SKL. It has no supporting evidence in reality and yet it is the most widespread view regarding inter-species relationships on earth. Such scriptural arguments inadvertently condemn non-humans to lives of degradation. Surely this goes utterly against the notion of compassion and love as espoused by Christians.

According to it, animals are beholden to humans in the same way that humans are beholden to god. I wonder if animals pray for us to save them too.

The Church's Tradition and ex cathedra pronunciations of the Pope are only infallible when they are guided by God, and they are only infallible because they are guided by God.

That's slightly tautological to my mind. But, I do wonder what body determines whether something is "guided by God" or not. That sort of idea seems to be completely open to subjective interpretation and so we come back to the beginning again where we can argue that there is no objective way to determine whether god is actually communicating through scripture or not. You either have to take the churches word for it (which I never would) or have faith that it is the words of god.

As you see, I do not have faith.

 

[SKL]

I find the scripture you quoted disturbing though SKL. It has no supporting evidence in reality and yet it is the most widespread view regarding inter-species relationships on earth. Such scriptural arguments inadvertently condemn non-humans to lives of degradation. Surely this goes utterly against the notion of compassion and love as espoused by Christians.

You are correct that the Bible teaches that animals are inferior to humans, inherently, and are put there for the needs of mankind. However, there are number of Scriptural citations about the treatment of animals:

"A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast: but [even] the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel." Prov. 12:10

"Thou shalt not plow with an ox and an ass together" (as it would be unfair to the ass, who's strength would be overwhelmed by the ox.) Deut. 22:10

"Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn" (so that he can pause occasionally to eat as he does his work.) Deut. 25:4

There are several others in the OT.

And, post-Biblically, look at the works of St Francis, perhaps the world's first environmentalist. Animals are still blessed on St. Francis' day at many parishes especially those with Franciscan religious as priests, or look at his Canticle of the Sun, and any number of stories about his blessing animals, advocating against animal cruelty, etc.

That's slightly tautological to my mind. But, I do wonder what body determines whether something is "guided by God" or not. That sort of idea seems to be completely open to subjective interpretation and so we come back to the beginning again where we can argue that there is no objective way to determine whether god is actually communicating through scripture or not. You either have to take the churches word for it (which I never would) or have faith that it is the words of god.

As you see, I do not have faith.

I problem is that I don't trust the texts. I don't believe they had divine origin nor that their interpretation over the centuries was done with divine guidance. It seems to me that any interpretation of ancient texts must be done with faith one way or another because of the confounding factor of human nature, and the inevitability that some humans seek control over others, and that religion is perhaps the most powerful vehicle to use to gain that control. None of us was there, 2000 years have passed since then before any one of us was even born, and all we have to go on is, in effect, hearsay. So we have no choice but to fall back on what we believe.

Yes, there is faith; we eventually run into it in any discussion about religion, or really, any discussion about an overarching epistemology. One of the strongest things that Catholicism has to recommend it is it's place in history, it's universality (literally, in the Greek equivalent, catholicism) and the "unbroken chain" leading back to the time of Christ. Of course, if Christ is irrelevant to you, the Church will be equally irrelevant, and, from the Catholic perspective, if the Church is irrelevant to you, your perspective on Christ will be incomplete. There is, of course, faith here. One must have faith in something. Why not faith in the God of your ancestors? Why trust a radical break that has only occurred in recent times, in historical terms?

The issue of control is there, yes, but control, hierarchy, and authority is an aspect of pretty much all human relationships, why should it not be a part of the Church? To make spirituality a wholly individual affair invalidates spirituality as making it only a matter of "what feels good," which is no spirituality at all, but rather a sort of hedonism wrapped in spiritual garb.

 

[Ninae]

Sure, accounts of Jesus's life imply that he was compassionate but there isn't much, if any, evidence that he cared for animals in their own right.

No, but he was enlightened, and those who really are value animals as much as humans.

Of course we won't hear about it, as that wasn't the objective of the cultures they wanted to have. There is no mention of abstinence from drugs and alcohol, either, although it's likely that he was.

 

[SKL]

Ninae, Your projection of your own values and definitions of "enlightenment" onto Jesus are highly problematic to say the least. As I've said before, it is the height of arrogance to presume that your values and idea of what constitutes "enlightenment" are a meaningful standard by which, even if we were to look at it from a strictly secular perspective, to judge a major religious figure. That just from a secular perspective. From a believer's perspective of course it is greatly offensive but even beyond that it is absurd to put your definitions of all of these things before any other, which, essentially, renders any discussion meaningless.

There is no mention of abstinence from drugs and alcohol, either, although it's likely that he was.

One might expect so, but apparently He was more fun at parties than you might imagine:

John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine; and you say: He hath a devil. 34The Son of man is come eating and drinking: and you say: Behold a man that is a glutton and a drinker of wine, a friend of publicans and sinners. The Son of man is come eating and drinking: and you say: Behold a man that is a glutton and a drinker of wine, a friend of publicans and sinners.

Which is to say, the blind and hard-hearted contemporary Jewish audience of Jesus rejected John the Baptist on account of his fanaticism, and rejected Jesus on account of the company that he kept and an earthier lifestyle.

And Jesus' first recorded miracle is the changing of water into wine at the marriage at Cana,

Jesus saith unto them, Fill the waterpots with water, and they filled them up to the brim, and he saith unto them, Draw out now, and bear unto the governor of the feast. And they bare it.

When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and knew not whence it was: (but the servants which drew the water knew) the governor of the feast called the bridegroom, and saith unto him, "Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine; and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse: but thou hast kept the good wine until now."

A firkin is apparently about 8 gallons, so this is no mean portion of wine. Also, observe that the "ruler of the feast" (a sort of majordomo or master of ceremonies) states "thou hast kept the good wine until now," when the crowd is "well drunk," and then perhaps unable to tell the quality of the wine being drank (you can witness this in any bar on any night of your choice.) This rather puts away the argument of certain fundamentalist sects which preach abstinence from alcohol that all the references to "wine" in the N.T. are to a sort of unfermented grape juice.

Jesus almost rather famously hung out with prostitutes, tax collectors, and various other undesirables: of course, not in doing so justifying sin, but in doing so illustrating that He had came to save all of humanity, and indeed, starting at the bottom ("the first shall be last," &c. and the majority of the Sermon on the Mount, from whence social interpretations of Scripture ranging from the Church-endorsed social teaching of Rerum novarum, which will strike the unfamiliar reader as surprisingly progressive, to the excesses of Marxist-inflected (or infected?) Liberation Theology.)

 

[sigmond]

It's somewhat off-topic but after all this is an AMA thread. Did you vote for George Bush? I thought the first recorded miracle was Jesus curing the diseased and demonized.

Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people. News about him spread all over Syria, and people brought to him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed; and he healed them. Large crowds from Galilee, the Decapolis. Jerusalem, Judea and the region across the Jordan followed him.

 

[SKL]

It's somewhat off-topic but after all this is an AMA thread. Did you vote for George Bush?

It is an AMA thread. I didn't, and don't, vote for anyone at all. This is not for theological reasons but just out of sheer cynicism with our political system. I suppose I am still a registered Republican but I am not active in politics at all, although I pay a lot of attention to politics, read a lot, etc. and in fact my first undergraduate degree, totally unrelated to what I was doing now, was in Political Science (I had the idea of going to law school, which I abandoned eventually along the way. I was, though, the vice president of College Republicans in those years.)

I thought the first recorded miracle was Jesus curing the diseased and demonized.

Gospel chronology, particularly between the Synoptics and John, is difficult to establish with any degree of certitude. Some of it is probably impossible to establish without any doubt, but this, generally speaking, is not problematic in terms of any important historical or theological content. This question, though, I think is one that we can work out pretty easily. The synopticists open with miracles of healing, mostly general ones (as in Mt. 4 as you cite) then proceed to more specific miracles and miracles as "enacted parables." However, in Jn 2., the Wedding at Cana, it is stated that "this beginning of miracles [which were done by Jesus happened] in Cana of Galilee; and manifested his glory, and his disciples believed in him" (v. 11, most English translations of this verse are awkward), which makes a degree of sense: this is happening just as Jesus is gathering His first few disciples, and would still seem to be in the house of Mary and Joseph, at the very beginning of his ministry, or even before his full time ministry, when He was still being called to social events by His Mother. There is some speculation as to who the groom was, some traditions have it as John, the beloved disciple, but there is no textual basis for this, nor against it. The synopticists take up Christ's adult life at a somewhat later point, when He and His disciples were more engrossed in their mission work.

 

[turkalurk]

That's slightly tautological to my mind. But, I do wonder what body determines whether something is "guided by God" or not. That sort of idea seems to be completely open to subjective interpretation and so we come back to the beginning again where we can argue that there is no objective way to determine whether god is actually communicating through scripture or not. You either have to take the churches word for it (which I never would) or have faith that it is the words of god.

As you see, I do not have faith.

there is a difference between a tautology and begging the question. Regardless, as with any Bible believer, his logic is riddled with fallacies. What else would you expect from someone so deeply deluded into believing in something that might as well be a fairy tale.

 

[turkalurk]

Ninae, Your projection of your own values and definitions of "enlightenment" onto Jesus are highly problematic to say the least. As I've said before, it is the height of arrogance to presume that your values and idea of what constitutes "enlightenment" are a meaningful standard by which, even if we were to look at it from a strictly secular perspective, to judge a major religious figure. That just from a secular perspective. From a believer's perspective of course it is greatly offensive but even beyond that it is absurd to put your definitions of all of these things before any other, which, essentially, renders any discussion meaningless.



One might expect so, but apparently He was more fun at parties than you might imagine:



Which is to say, the blind and hard-hearted contemporary Jewish audience of Jesus rejected John the Baptist on account of his fanaticism, and rejected Jesus on account of the company that he kept and an earthier lifestyle.

And Jesus' first recorded miracle is the changing of water into wine at the marriage at Cana,



A firkin is apparently about 8 gallons, so this is no mean portion of wine. Also, observe that the "ruler of the feast" (a sort of majordomo or master of ceremonies) states "thou hast kept the good wine until now," when the crowd is "well drunk," and then perhaps unable to tell the quality of the wine being drank (you can witness this in any bar on any night of your choice.) This rather puts away the argument of certain fundamentalist sects which preach abstinence from alcohol that all the references to "wine" in the N.T. are to a sort of unfermented grape juice.

Jesus almost rather famously hung out with prostitutes, tax collectors, and various other undesirables: of course, not in doing so justifying sin, but in doing so illustrating that He had came to save all of humanity, and indeed, starting at the bottom ("the first shall be last," &c. and the majority of the Sermon on the Mount, from whence social interpretations of Scripture ranging from the Church-endorsed social teaching of Rerum novarum, which will strike the unfamiliar reader as surprisingly progressive, to the excesses of Marxist-inflected (or infected?) Liberation Theology.)

i feel sorry for you. you actually believe his nonsense don't ya. neither of you have a clue as to how the real jesus lived. at least she can make Jesus into someone she relates with that personifies what the perfect human is to her. At least the image she creates is her own. You've allowed someone else's perspective from ages ago to dominate your pespective. You don't know if they are right or wrong you just decided to put your faith into because you were scared and vulnerable. you feel she offends jesus's name, but with your condescending critique you offend Jesus in your own lame way. Like a snob sticking his nose in the air, you truly believe your Jesus is the "right" Jesus. What a joke.

 

[Ninae]

I don't see how pointing out Jesus as the ultimate example of an enlightened human being in our part of the world can be offensive. Wasn't that the whole point of him? (And persecuted and crucified for trying to teach).

I guess your objection will be that there is no biblical agreement that such a thing as enlightenment exists, or is even possible, save for the son of God. Well, I disagree. I believe he came to show the way. And explicitly did NOT die as a sacrifice for our sins.

The whole idea is perverse and just a remainder of primitive pagan religions. But savour-programming is still rife in this world. Or why make an effort to uplift yourself when you can rely on an external factor to take care of it for you?

 

[SKL]

](General: As I've been doing throughout the thread, I'm picking and chosing bits to respond to and bits that I will get to later-feel free to draw my attention to anything that I haven't addressed ... each of these longish responses takes me well in excess of an hour sometimes two to do so there is going to be a lag and I often responding to the most recent things not some things that have been sitting there waiting patiejly. I will get to it all )

i feel sorry for you. you actually believe his nonsense don't ya. neither of you have a clue as to how the real jesus lived. at least she can make Jesus into someone she relates with that personifies what the perfect human is to her. At least the image she creates is her own. You've allowed someone else's perspective from ages ago to dominate your pespective. You don't know if they are right or wrong you just decided to put your faith into because you were scared and vulnerable. you feel she offends jesus's name, but with your condescending critique you offend Jesus in your own lame way. Like a snob sticking his nose in the air, you truly believe your Jesus is the "right" Jesus. What a joke.

Discarding the hostile bits (it's always amazing the degree of hostility that serious and sincere discussion of religion can engender among the militantly anti-religious), the sentence in bold really gets to the point of this particular tangent. God created man in His image, not the other way around -- or at least says the Christian believer, which is the perspective that I'm obviously taking here (says so right on the tin.) Not sure if you have been following the entire thread but some posts ago I made reference to "moralistic therapeutic deism" (in fairness, a term coined by opponents of the concept) which basically says God exists, created the world, and answers prayers, and wants us to be as good and happy as possible, and that theology does not progress much more beyond that.If this is true, organized and dogmatic religion is indeed silly and a waste of time.

A sort of natural outgrowth of moralistic therapeutic deism, sometimes nontheistic or agnostic in character is the now clichéd self-identification as "spiritual, but not religious." If we take this approach we get to create God, Christ, and the entire spiritual reality in our own image or rather in any image that we should like to, which here I guess you are praising Ninae for ... for being a free thinker, for not being tied down to tired old dogmas and to be able to create for herself her own interpretation of Christ, that which makes her feel good. Notice the phrasing that's used here: "She can make Jesus into someone she relates with ... what the perfect human is to her ... the image she creates is her own." This is a very individualistic, almost solipsistic kind of spirituality, and one which would baffle our ancestors. It is, in the Christian world at least, a sort of hyper-Protestantism that stretches the "every man his own Pope" aspects of Protestantism I've critiqued above almost to unrecognizeability and beyond even parody.

Individualistic, "spiritual but not religious," color-outside-the-lines spirituality is everywhere these days, including within organized religion (the Unitarian Universalists and several of the mainline Protestant denominations have been nearly wholly taken overcome by it, there is a strong thread in the Roman church since the changes of Vatican II, as well as in the more liberal strains of Judaism and even Islam and other world religions.) It is characteristic of the psyche of modernity and postmodernity, a psyche which longs for the feeling of depth and connection but goes about seeking after them only in the most superficial and disconnected ways -- from Bowling Alone down to today, the hookup culture, the Facebook generation, whatever you want to call it, it's the sake thing. Swipe right for your own personal Jesus.

What drew me to Catholicism is the rejection of all of this, the rejection of spirituality as simply a feel-good exercise, the rejection of spiritual truth as "what feels right" and my own whims. So, as my answer to nearly every question in this AMA goes, tradition. My spirituality is not just what feels right for me, or something that I have made for myself as a creative act (as you have Ninae doing for her "personal Jesus"), but rather it is grounded in history, text and interpretaton by an authoritative hierarchy which stretches back lineally to the time of Christ. We are surrounded by a "cloud of witnesses" (Heb. 12:1), those who have came before us in the faith. Chesterton, as I cited above I believe, speaks of tradition as "the democracy of the dead." Not only do we have a say in our conception of spirituality, but so do our ancestors.

I don't see how pointing out Jesus as the ultimate example of an enlightened human being in our part of the world can be offensive. Wasn't that the whole point of him? (And persecuted and crucified for trying to teach).

My objection was simply the fact that you seemed to be saying that Jesus was enlightened because he agreed with your values in ertain areas. Neither you nor I can judge Christ or God (a substantial part of the book of Job, which I'd highly recommend to even the most earnest nonbeliever to read, even if only as one of the great pieces of anceint philosophical literature, deals with this.)

Jesus was crucified, generally speaking, for being a threat to the power of the leading political-religious party at the time, but he was specifically crucified for, i.e., the opportunity presented itself for the powers that be to do the deed, making explicit claims not just to enlightenment as a human being but to divinity.

I guess your objection will be that there is no biblical agreement that such a thing as enlightenment exists, or is even possible, save for the son of God. Well, I disagree. I believe he came to show the way. And explicitly did NOT die as a sacrifice for our sins. The whole idea is perverse and just a remainder of primitive pagan religions. But savour-programming is still rife in this world. Or why make an effort to uplift yourself when you can rely on an external factor to take care of it for you?

Having gone into much more detail about this above, I'll just try to ask this in the, most direct manner possible: why do you feel qualified to speak about these things? Or are you using Christ simply as a metaphor, an allegory of soke sort: Or as a figure (your version of which) you see as a model for people to aspire to?

I find the frequent appropriation of Christ and Christ-imagery amongst New Agers odd (I don't know if you would self-identify as such, or if it is solely a pejorative term or not, if you take offence please do let me know how I would do better to describe your belief system, which seems to be very eclectic?)

You do not seem to be very familiar with the Gospels (just the impression that I get in this conversation), so what are your sources for your understanding of Christ? If you are interested in Christ as part of your spiritual system, why not make a deeper study of the Gospels?