Tophat665

I had a minor religious experience, which may or may not amount to anything. I surely can't get across the whole of it, the raised hackles, the sense of connection, or anything, and as I write, it fades, but here's the line of thought which spawned it.

I conceived this as a dialog.

A: So what's the most important thing about Christianity?
B: Jesus Christ
A: What's so important about Jesus, beyond being a name to hang a religion on? What can Jesus do for me.
B: Jesus is the way, the truth, the light. Only through him can we reach salvation.
A: Assuming, for now, that salvation is something one would want, what's so special about Jesus that I can find salvation through him?
B: He is the Son of God.
A: So am I.
B: Don't be silly. The Bible says that God gave his "Only Begotten Son to die for your sins."
A: You think you have me there. However, there is one way to look at it that reconciles Jesus as "Only Begotten" with me as the Son of God: There's only one human soul. Just one. Jesus had this figured out. Love thy Neighbor as thyself? Of course. On some basic level he is your self.

Think about it.

(And here's where I run out of steam and disconnect and start anticipating the arguments.)

I'm sure someone can name that heresy in 3 notes, and will by naming it dismiss it.

So far, this is one of the two ways that I have been able to make sense of it, and so far as the other goes (Christianity = devotional cult), I know how it would work, I understand how it can lead to, for lack of a better term, salvation, but I haven't yet been able to put into any kind of convincing language...

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Set a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life.

ratbastid

Which, of course, turns all this devotional fervor around the person of Jesus Christ into a great cosmic joke.

Tophat665

Well, maybe, but this is one of the two ways of looking at it that make sense to me. On the one had, it could have been that JC was trying to teach something about the identity of all mankind - there's some evidence (and forgive me that I don't have it at my fingertips or any way to locate easily) that he spent some time chilling with the Essenes, who were some hardcore mystics.

The other way is the Devotional Cult. However, that should work with JC or Vishnu or Baghwan Sri Rajneesh, or Joe Pesci for that matter.

I guess I am approaching this from the vague vicinity of Pascal's wager, which breaks down in an environment of multiple mutually exclusive religions.

__________________
Light a man a fire, and he will be warm while it burns.
Set a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life.

nonplussed

I don't understand what you are asking. Are you asking whether it is blasphemy or not to call yourself the son of God?

If that's the question, I'd say no... blasphemy is a moot point since there is no such thing as a personal God in the Judeo/Christian/Muslim sense. The Bible and the Koran are just a collection of legends from ancient, ignorant, nomadic tribes in a particular place at a particular time.

Pascal's wager, by the way, is self defeating. You can't believe in God just to hedge your bet. That is just lip service and not true belief.

Tophat665

I have no questions. I just needed to get this out of my head and into a medium where folks would kick it around. Blasphemy is, so far as I am concerned, a null program, a product of organized religion, which I consider and oxymoron.

As for Pascals wager, well, there's belief and then there's belief. One is superficial and amounts to merely professing a belief, and the other is internalized. You can pass from one to the other in either direction. In the second way of looking at religion, the devotional way, that second form of belief is critical. I'm not really getting into that here though. Unfortunately, of the two methods of approaching this, I would say that the Devotional method is the one that is most likely to function in providing a gentle exit from life.

The mystical/pantheist/solopsistic thing I am exploring here would be a more difficult path to a peaceful death. It would require fully integrating the sense of all humanity as one into one's being long before dying so as to have it automatically ingrained at the end.

__________________
Light a man a fire, and he will be warm while it burns.
Set a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life.

Ourcrazymodern?

Christianity is either the same evil bullshit as all the rest of the religions or it's something else.

It is not the latter.

Don't worry - peace comes after death.

__________________
BE JUST AND FEAR NOT

Tophat665

The way I figure it is that 99% of organized religion is bullshit, and this has lead a lot of intelligent people to conclude that 100% of religion is bullshit.

Now, I am in no way a Christian (unless Recovering Catholic counts), but the various Christian sects are the ones that I am most familiar with. My aim is to try and figure out some way that one can get one's mind around it so that it could make any sense at all. There are a lot of very smart people out there who are also fairly devout. C. S. Lewis springs right to mind. Now that could be an entirely cultural thing, or it could be that they have come to some sort of understanding that makes the manifest evil done in the name of large organized religions beside the point.

So, what was JC up to? And what did that bastard Paul want us to think he was up to?

__________________
Light a man a fire, and he will be warm while it burns.
Set a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life.

Mith

From the my own religious standpoint, the Baha'i Faith, we believe that Jesus was a Messenger of God. There are Messengers of God for every age and culture, and Jesus was one of them. Each new messenger brings a more complete revelation than the preceding. How we look at evil is that it is potential. The human mind and spirit has great potential for both good and evil, and the result of this potential is dependent on spiritual and material education as well as free will.

I can go on for pages at a time, let me know if you have any questions.

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Mith

abaya

C.S. Lewis was a great writer and thinker. He was my last stronghold against losing my faith, towards the end (and I was very, very into Christianity)... but in the end, even his arguments couldn't hold me. That doesn't mean I think Christianity is bullshit -- on the contrary, I have a lot of respect for it, and its true adherents (of which I know very few). But I just can't believe anymore, and I'm not sure that I want to.

If I were to believe again, though (or if you were), I'd say that you've pretty much nailed the foundation of Christianity. You're looking past the bullshit and trying to get to the essence. Very few Christians ever do that, in my opinion. I think it's the seeking that counts, not the end result... so just keep on truckin'.

P.S. If you're really into reading/seeking, you might want to check out Thomas Merton. He had a lot of power in my intellectual Christian life... I recommend The Seven Storey Mountain, or No Man is an Island.

__________________
And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

bobdog

I recommend you read "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins. It doesn't deny the existence of god but does put the probability into some kind of context.

Dawkins looks at all the fundamental arguments for and against there being a god or gods.

However, I think you are an excellent example of why we shouldn't teach religion to anyone until they are old enough to understand the arguments. If you had been taught as a child how to think for yourself, rather than being indoctrinated by the Roman Catholic beliefs, you would not need to do all this 'sole' (soul) searching now.

Teach people to think 'clearly' rather than to think 'what you want them to think'.

Ourcrazymodern?

[QUOTE=bobdog

Teach people to think.[/QUOTE]

__________________
BE JUST AND FEAR NOT

Tophat665

The point is good, insofar as there are two kinds of education: Rote Memory and Critical Thought, and that the latter is deeply underserved. However, my soul searching here, such as it is, has only as much to do with Christianity as it does with religion in general. I am coming at it from the angle of Christianity because I am less likely to misquote the bible than the Bhagavad Gita, but I hope I am looking for commonalities.

Based on what I have read of Dawkins, his writings don't really enter into what I am trying to pick at here. He's sure it's a non issue. That's fine and well, but I'm looking at, if it were an issue, what would that mean? "Nothing," is a perfectly valid answer, but not one that helps me play with the idea.

/ And if you think this sounds like mental masturbation, you're close. More like curls, though.

__________________
Light a man a fire, and he will be warm while it burns.
Set a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life.

DaveOrion

Its doesn't have to be complicated, unless you make it so. Although I've read the entire Bible, except for Numbers where all the counting begins.... , I try to stick to the red letters (if you have a red letter edition). I think that rekna said it another thread, feed the hungry, cloth the naked, help the widowed and infirmed........in secret of course...

I agree that most organized religion is BS, which is why I'm totally non-denominational. I have read plenty of other books on the subject, some have been suggested already......Just make up your own mind, decide for yourself, do what works best for you.....Peace Out...

P.S. IMO, Paul seemed to forget many of Jesus' teachings.....I didn't care for the Pauline Epistles particularly........

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Syriana...have you ever tried liquid MDMA?....Liquid MDMA? No....Arash, when you wanna do this?.....After prayer...

Ourcrazymodern?

Pretend the universe loves you and it becomes less "deeply undeserved".

Jesus came to say we should love each other, not to argue about the existence of a creator.

__________________
BE JUST AND FEAR NOT

Tophat665

under-served, not undeserved. Punctuation - I should learn to use it.

__________________
Light a man a fire, and he will be warm while it burns.
Set a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life.

archetypal fool

If you're trying to find the ultimate reason behind Christianity, then I think you've found it - unless you're seeking something deeper. I think the purpose of Christianity is simple: Live a good life, use the golden rule, be the good Samaritan, love everyone you meet. I like your point that we're all one - I've never heard that before, and it's very interesting. I don't know how much farther you can go really.

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I have my own particular sorrows, loves, delights; and you have yours. But sorrow, gladness, yearning, hope, love, belong to all of us, in all times and in all places. Music is the only means whereby we feel these emotions in their universality. ~H.A. Overstreet

Johnny Rotten

I would recommend watching the Zeitgeist documentary. I think it would expand the context of your investigation.


Its presentation is initially histrionic, but it gets better after a few minutes.

__________________
"The idea that money doesn't buy you happiness is a lie put about by the rich, to stop the poor from killing them." -- Michael Caine

JohnBua

Christianity may not be that logical of a religon, but it sure beats Islam.

Willravel

Ever read the Qu'ran? It's a damn good read.

Ourcrazymodern?

Sir!

That was unkind, if not untrue.

I thought we were trying to attract people.

Religionists are very attracted to it.

__________________
BE JUST AND FEAR NOT

Baraka_Guru

Your attempt at brevity has come across as banal.

__________________
Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing?
—Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön

Humankind cannot bear very much reality.
—From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

Challah

You don't ask a question in your first post but you raise an interesting point, so I'll "answer" that as best I can. For what it's worth, last year I had a "spiritual" experience of sorts and considered converting to Judaism to explore and understand my ideas and feelings. Then I asked myself a simple question: "Do I actually believe any of this?" The answer is no, I don't.

Let's look at the start of your dialogue:
A: So what's the most important thing about Christianity?
B: Jesus Christ
A: What's so important about Jesus, beyond being a name to hang a religion on? What can Jesus do for me.
B: Jesus is the way, the truth, the light. Only through him can we reach salvation.

I run into a problem at the second B. As I see it, the answer to "What can Jesus do for me?" is "Almost certainly nothing." The god of the Bible is hilariously human. He creates, he gets pissy, he destroys. Apparently he also fathered the child of a "virgin" mother. That child apparently then went on to die on the cross for the sins of man. Right.

I've never been able to wrap my head around why so many complex, intricate theological debates happen all over the world, yet so many basic questions go largely unasked and unanswered. Questions like...

1. Why do so many religious texts make irreconcilable claims, and what "evidence" is given to support these claims? Should this "evidence" be taken seriously? Why?

2. Who stands to gain from widespread religious indoctrination?(Hint: it's not the masses.)

3. Which is more probable?
-The Bible is the word of an omniscient, omnipotent father figure who's son is the salvation of Man.
-The Bible is a compilation and reiteration of myths that has some good bits but is generally outdated and silly.

I'm not ruling out the existence of god or genuine spiritual experiences, but why look to archaic texts and horrendously corrupt institutions for answers to the most important questions?

You said "Love thy Neighbor as thyself? Of course. On some basic level he is your self." and I couldn't agree more, but why bring the baggage of a colossal sham into such a simple, beautiful idea? I honestly believe that organised religion is one of the main obstacles preventing this mode of thinking from being embraced.

Ourcrazymodern?

I just got another epiphany from a fellow crazy person. Thankyou, Challah.

Mith, archetypal fool, DaveMatrix! We come from different places and meet somewhere in the middle.

Thankyou, God!

__________________
BE JUST AND FEAR NOT

Tophat665

OK, let's try part 2 of this.

If perception ends with death, then the time one spends dying is subjectively eternal. If you no longer perceive, then you can't perceive that you do not perceive any longer. The the end cannot be perceived, then the world is without end so far as you know. Further, sensation of all sorts is mediated through the brain, and who can say with any finality what changes are wrought on the perception of sensation by the brain as it ceases to function.

My theory is this, then: at some point in dying, the the perception of sensation becomes muted to nil, either by derangement of the mental processes of sensation as the brain dies, or by the complete cessation of it and the inputs to the brain cease to function. At that point as the brain shuts down it semi randomly fires thoughts and memories, and it is your deepest convictions - the things that you know beyond any doubt - that last longest.

So if you believe that Jesus will save you, with all your heart, your peception, your final, subjectively eternal perception, is that he has. If you believe you are on your way to 72 virgins and the souls of your dead enemies for servants, so will it be. Think there's a lake of boiling blood or a pain of flying obsidian knives in your post mortem future - bet on it. Have you placed yourself beyond desire and sensation in life? You will be blown out like a candle. I would not be surprised if those believing in direct reincarnation view the beginning of their "next life" or even begin to experience a delusion of it.

Devotional Christianity is a <i>bhakti</i> cult, much like Shaivism or Vaishnavism. Like the Tibetan Book of the Dead, it is a bulwark against panic and pain; chaos, confusion, and dismay, in the last moments alive - if you can believe it without doubt.

I surely can't as it stands. Sort of why I am looking for the 1% of not-bullshit in organized religion - not Christianity per se, but any of it.

I am looking for the useful parts of all religions to someone with a fundamentally secular view of the afterlife.

I am convinced that Jesus was a fellow who had some really interesting insights that were too politically dangerous at the time to survive. He was no more, or less, the son of God than anyone reading this.

__________________
Light a man a fire, and he will be warm while it burns.
Set a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life.

Ourcrazymodern?

SECULAR AFTERLIFE?

May we meet in the bardo.

__________________
BE JUST AND FEAR NOT

Tophat665

Precisely.

The afterlife, if I am correct, has no objective reality. However, the process of life's ending is subjectively eternal. So whatever is in the mind when the mind shuts down is the afterlife.

It is at least part of the purpose of each religion to make it possible for that short span of eternal time to be glorious or at least understandable. Thus the prescription of reading the Tibetan book of the dead to the dying, to reinforce that version of the afterlife for as long as hearing lasts. Thus the reliance on total faith in devotional cults from Jesus Christ to Bhagawan Sri Rajneesh.

The theory seems to me to fit the facts. Right down to that fellow who did experiments on the heads of the recently guillotined during the French revolution to see how long consciousness remained (It turned out to be something between 5 & 45 minutes, IIRC).

__________________
Light a man a fire, and he will be warm while it burns.
Set a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life.

abaya

Shit... what?! Who was this? I'd like to know more... that's beyond trippy.

__________________
And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran

Tophat665

The info's out there, but I haven't looked around for it in about 5 years. Google is your friend.

__________________
Light a man a fire, and he will be warm while it burns.
Set a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life.

ottopilot

Pretty much sums up my perception of religion in general. Enjoy

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waltert

I don't know about that, the muslims don't have to spend large amounts of time trying to understand the trinity, and how Jesus can be both fully god, and fully man at the same time.

and the concept of god as an infinite being. of course, my physics text suggests the possibility of 4 dimensional travel, so perhaps its only a matter of time<---LOL! until we become infinite beings ourselves.

anyway...I will leave you with this quote (presumably found somewhere in the christian text) "you must first remove the plank from your own eye, so that you may see clearly to remove the speck from your neighbor's eye"

Tophat665

Life of Brian. The best Documentary every made. Certainly the most accurate portrayal of first century Judea ever made. Except that bit about the aliens. That was more postwar France.

/ Wot's so special about the cheesemakers?

True. They need to figure out the 99 names of god instead (that's one for the whole shebang and 7 groups of 7 paired concepts - that's how wrath and mercy are the same. No weirder than any other religion) Then there's the whole dual nature of jihad and the evidently ambiguous language about Jews, Christians, women, Wine, Song, and a host of other things. No more or less confusing and nonsensical than any other religion. Unfortunately I don't know enough about it to even try to figure out the 1% that's worthwhile (though I bet you it's somewhere in Sufism.)

__________________
Light a man a fire, and he will be warm while it burns.
Set a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life.

Ourcrazymodern?

Believers, believe in yourselves first. Then examine what comes from the outside. ...it'll work out.

__________________
BE JUST AND FEAR NOT