Paul and Jesus are different, some people say. But as I see it, Christianity's most grotesque ideas can also be found in Jesus' words. Jesus talks more about eternal hell than anyone else in the Bible. He said to hate your family, and sacrifice everything for his seek. "If you're not with me, you're against me." Pure insanity, in my view.
Paul and Jesus are different, some people say. But as I see it, Christianity's most grotesque ideas can also be found in Jesus' words. Jesus talks more about eternal hell than anyone else in the Bible. He said to hate your family, and sacrifice everything for his seek. "If you're not with me, you're against me." Pure insanity, in my view.
It is only insanity if you make the mistake of reading everything literally and oversimplifying. Both fundamentalist Christians and fundamentalist atheists make this same mistakes.
Not sure if I agree. Once you admit that the Bible is man-made, then you're no longer a Christian. Then it's "game over" for divine revelation. You can still find spiritual, moral, or intellectual value in the Bible, I agree—but you can't call this Christianity anymore. At least that's my take (as a deist).
Your take is incorrect. Of course the Bible is “man-made.” That doesn’t mean it wasn’t divinely inspired.
You keep thinking that fundamentalist, literalist, childish Christianity defines the whole religion. It doesn’t.
Reminder: I am not an “orthodox Christian,” I am a “mystic Christian.” These are different traditions and your raging against the former does not refute the latter.
That's a legitimate perspective. Historically, you could argue that the Enlightenment's doctrine of human rights is steeped in English Protestant Christianity.
But my perspective is this: Jesus never talked about rights or freedoms. He didn't talk politics at all. He was nothing more than a sandal-wearing peasant from Roman Judea, who urged his followers to abandon worldly possessions and join the cult. All of this "rights" talk came from the Enlightenment, with ideological roots in Greece and Rome (I'm thinking Aristotle, Cicero, Seneca, etc.).
One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”
“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”
As Tom Holland pointed out any military campaign now the military make a point of saying how few civilian casualties there were and we have rules around protecting civilians that we think are self evident but you go back and read Caesar or other Roman war memoirs and they glory in how many people they killed, Caesar in his Gallic War writings brags about killing 2 million people, so this stuff isn’t self-evident at all but a way of seeing things that you can argue are based in the enlightenment/Christianity fusion
Fair enough, good points. But Caesar's conquests were controversial even at the time; he was condemned as a war criminal by other Romans. Also, the kill numbers can always be inflated, so don't take those at face value.
True, though he was condemned for cynical political reasons, but even that doesn’t detract from your point because the simple fact they had the language of war criminal to use, suggests the difference might not be as clear cut as Holland suggests
I really enjoyed Dominion and thought it raised some really interesting points and is one of those rare books that really does make you look at things in a fresh light but I did think at times it was too definitive in its conclusions, saying something was ‘shown’ when it really it was just ‘suggested’, too often treating conclusions that were persuasive as being proven
Paul and Jesus are different, some people say. But as I see it, Christianity's most grotesque ideas can also be found in Jesus' words. Jesus talks more about eternal hell than anyone else in the Bible. He said to hate your family, and sacrifice everything for his seek. "If you're not with me, you're against me." Pure insanity, in my view.
It is only insanity if you make the mistake of reading everything literally and oversimplifying. Both fundamentalist Christians and fundamentalist atheists make this same mistakes.
Not sure if I agree. Once you admit that the Bible is man-made, then you're no longer a Christian. Then it's "game over" for divine revelation. You can still find spiritual, moral, or intellectual value in the Bible, I agree—but you can't call this Christianity anymore. At least that's my take (as a deist).
Your take is incorrect. Of course the Bible is “man-made.” That doesn’t mean it wasn’t divinely inspired.
You keep thinking that fundamentalist, literalist, childish Christianity defines the whole religion. It doesn’t.
Reminder: I am not an “orthodox Christian,” I am a “mystic Christian.” These are different traditions and your raging against the former does not refute the latter.
All of the best ideas come from Jesus though, the ones we take as self evident now in the west but were actually not the norm before Christianity
The idea of universal human rights you can (and many people have, persuasively) argue that Universal Human Rights are a Christian invention
Now I’m no Christian but if Christianity had kept its focus on what Jesus said and not what Jesus was then it might have had a chance of sucking me in
I think the focus should most be on what Jesus did.
But we don't really know much about the historical Jesus, apart from the written sources of his followers. It's like Pythagoras or Socrates.
That's a legitimate perspective. Historically, you could argue that the Enlightenment's doctrine of human rights is steeped in English Protestant Christianity.
But my perspective is this: Jesus never talked about rights or freedoms. He didn't talk politics at all. He was nothing more than a sandal-wearing peasant from Roman Judea, who urged his followers to abandon worldly possessions and join the cult. All of this "rights" talk came from the Enlightenment, with ideological roots in Greece and Rome (I'm thinking Aristotle, Cicero, Seneca, etc.).
Mark 12:28-31
One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”
“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”
As Tom Holland pointed out any military campaign now the military make a point of saying how few civilian casualties there were and we have rules around protecting civilians that we think are self evident but you go back and read Caesar or other Roman war memoirs and they glory in how many people they killed, Caesar in his Gallic War writings brags about killing 2 million people, so this stuff isn’t self-evident at all but a way of seeing things that you can argue are based in the enlightenment/Christianity fusion
Fair enough, good points. But Caesar's conquests were controversial even at the time; he was condemned as a war criminal by other Romans. Also, the kill numbers can always be inflated, so don't take those at face value.
True, though he was condemned for cynical political reasons, but even that doesn’t detract from your point because the simple fact they had the language of war criminal to use, suggests the difference might not be as clear cut as Holland suggests
I really enjoyed Dominion and thought it raised some really interesting points and is one of those rare books that really does make you look at things in a fresh light but I did think at times it was too definitive in its conclusions, saying something was ‘shown’ when it really it was just ‘suggested’, too often treating conclusions that were persuasive as being proven