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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
"Since that was the only church, we get into the notion that the Bible fundamentalists are using the teachings of the Catholic Church. How terrible."
Not to get too far into a discussion of theology- but yes, that's one of the things that threw me for a long time. I thought that the Protestant Reformation corrected the errors of Roman Catholic integralism, but it didn't. Luther and his fellow Prot schismatics also transferred some of them over to their own "reformed" quasi-political clerical institutions- including much of the fanatical intolerance of the medieval Roman Catholic clericalists, for instance. So to get even a general ballpark idea of what the original Christians were up to, you have to make an end run around all of that, and go back to the era before Christians held sway in any political establishment- even in Armenia and Abyssinnia, just to be sure.
That's pretty much the same conclusion that many well-respected Americans of the Enlightenment tradition such as Thomas Jefferson came to, as well- that the only words that they could really hold trustworthy were the ones spoken by Christ in the Gospels. Most of those guys were nominally Christians- but they were Liberal Enlightenment Christians, influenced by Deism, philosophical agnosticism, and "freethinking".
I mean, someone like Thomas Jefferson would look at the movements that came after his lifetime, in the 19th and 20th centuries- like Dispensationalism, Fundamentalism, Pentecostalism, Dominionism- as if the adherents had taken leave of their senses, in masse.
From the article:
"I was ready to leave the country if Kerry won," he said. "I was moving to Australia."
You mean Australia the liberal democracy that has two major political parties (one of which is actually called "The Liberals") BOTH of which are way left of the Democrats?
Good choice for your "place to flee to if a Democrat wins"!
I take it the rest of your political views are this startlingly intelligent?
Get in your last verbal diarrhea, Sparky. Have fun in the Shitcan of History after Wednesday!
Yeah I agree. I think you can even go back to Gnostic Christianity too. Gnosticism but stripped of esoterica, in other words, without the new-agey mumbo jumbo. Rooted in rationalism and self-awareness. I think we might see an increase in some kind of secular Gnostic Christianity over time.
Although I'm agreeing from a different vantage point.
"Invite Jeremiah Wright to guest-preach in the Colorado pulpit
and get a good dose of what Obama's mentor is all about."
-- terkoy
This is a wonderful idea! The pulpit would be exposed to a pastor who is indeed Christian and also involved in the real world where everything is not black-and-white (literally and figuratively).
On Gnosticism: I think it's important to bear in mind that "Gnosticism" isn't a single set of ideas, or a unified theological perspective. There are some Gnostic concepts that I think have enormous value, or to my mind "invaluable value"- and others that simply strike me as sophistries, solipsistic illusions, or even clever attempts to subvert what might be termed "moral law"- attempts to devise a philosophy that recognizes no constraints on one's own actions. I want to throw out the dirty bathwater, not the baby. The notion of moral law, and the ethical conduct informed by it, is paramount to me as an ideal. Until I slip up and forget about it, anyway, feeding myself some cheap rationalization about my transient ego trips being more important...sounds like Buddhism, and I think the idea of Dharma has a lot of wisdom to it. But I believe in God, not the advance of consciousness into nothingness. Without God, what you got is humanism- which in my opinion is perpetually engaged in endeavors like setting the bar too low, or setting it too high and berating itself in self-pity over its inherent limitations, or offering moral judgements in the absence of any acknowledgement of a divine concept of morality... Jesus makes more sense to me. God as essential, but not essentialist...
"Should places like Colorado, and Ohio, and North Carolina and Virginia -- all states with more than their fair share of evangelical Christian conservatives -- go blue on Tuesday, it will be a clear sign that the sun may be setting on the political influence of fundamentalist churches like New Life."
I think the reverse. I think that if this election is soundly lost by the moderate Republican and concomitant Republican issues, the radical political right combined with the Christian conservatives will say, "See what happens when you run a moderate?" And they will have more influence than ever.
I prefer a scientific approach. Life does begin at conception, does it not? Or even before? I mean, in a technical sense, are not sperm and eggs alive? Microscopic bacteria and amoeba are alive. I don't think it's conceding anything on the abortion issue to acknowledge that a brand new embryo is "alive." That's just not the issue. As someone else mentioned before, we destroy IVF embryos all the time. We kill critters great and small. Whether a second-old embryo is the beginning of "human life"--is that the critical question? I'm getting confused, but I'm trying to get at that of course an embryo is "life" in some technical sense. That doesn't change anything at all about the abortion debate.
Speaking of which, whenever people mention that one candidate is "for" and one "against" abortion, I simply say that in fact both are "against." I say that the candidates differ only in their plan to reduce abortion. One wants to criminalize, the other wants to reduce through various health education initiatives.
I get what you're saying. By esoteric I meant more towards some of the more obscure Gnostic texts and their convoluted cosmology, ie. Archons, Barbelo, etc. I also think another trap of some aspects of Gnosticism is falling into simplistic dualities like Catharism and Manicheanism. I want to move beyond duality, not trap myself in it forever. Fundamentalists are very trapped in simplistic duality. They just differ on who is responsible (The Debbil!!).
But yeah Gnosticism is a very big tent and to me, the text which I feel is about perfect, is the Gospel of Thomas. I think the Jefforsian Bible and the Gospel of Thomas compliment each other wonderfully. If I could form my own Council of Nicea and rewrite the bible I'd just have two books in it:
1. The (natually extrapolated) Book of Q or Sayings Gospel; and 2. The Gospel of Thomas. That to me would be a nice simple basic framework to start from.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Salon headlines in your mailbox
