Paul — Fooloso4

And damn those preacher's like Paul, who afterall, was just a man. Unless of course he somehow overshadowed Jesus :razz:

I also come with a certain amount of anger towards St Paul because I had a friend who killed himself by throwing himself out of a college window after going to an evangelical event and getting in a bad state over the writings of Paul. So, in a way, I am in the odd position of needing to forgive St Paul. The death of this friend was one of the key triggers which lead me to challenge my Christian, or Catholic, background. — Jack Cummins

If you can, please share more about this. This is very tragic, and speaks to the Fundy concerns... . As I've alluded to Fooloso4, Paul was not Jesus; he was just a preacher man.... .

You say that we are simply sinners in Christian thinking but I do believe that many people do worry that they are evil. There is also the potential fear of eternal hell, which could be seen as more to worry about than nonexistence. I never really worried about original sin, because it applied to everyone.

You probably remember the thread I created towards the end of last year about how worried I was when I was about the passage about the unforgivable sin, the mysterious 'blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.' I have only ever met 2 people who have really said they have worried over this. I do plan to read Kierkergaard at some point because I read that he worried about the unforgivable sin. So, really, I think that it is possible to worry so much about The Bible, although I remember how when I was working night shifts so many staff sat reading their Bibles, which they said gave them great reassurance.

I can't say for sure that my friend committed suicide just on account of Paul, because I didn't see him in the 2 weeks before he killed himself. But, on the last time I saw him he was talking about not being able to live up to the example of Paul and had smashed a mirror as a result. As he was studying in a different town I never got to see him again. I think that it is likely that he had a lot of problems I didn't know about, so I can't just put it down to Paul.

However, I am also aware of so many people who have developed religious psychoses, including 2 people who I went to school with. I am talking about them having delusions about being a fallen angel and another of being the antichrist. So, I do have a strong interest in trying to understand the psychology of religion, as well as thinking about it as a philosophical issue.

Of course, I realise that Paul was just a preacher. In a way, he is an extremely interesting one because he began as a non believer and had a dramatic conversion experience.

The Bible is a collection of stories written by men long ago as a means for explaining things that were in need of explanation. Since then the stories have been used for all sorts of different things.

Philosophically, I personally want to know if the stories are true. In order to know that, we must first know what makes a story so. True stories are accurate accounts/reports of what's happened or is happening.

The creation story in the Bible is not an accurate account of how the world/universe came into existence. I've come to that belief as a result of knowing that our current knowledge base leads to conclusions that the world and universe are much older than what the stories in the Bible claim.

The notion of sin in the Bible is incredulous as a result of God punishing Adam and Eve for doing wrong before they even knew the difference between right and wrong.

The notion of God being the source of morality(doing what's good) is incredulous as a result of knowing that what so so much of what God commands throughout the Bible is not good.

The notion of God being a loving God is incredulous as a result of his creating a place of suffering for all of eternity as a place to put his disobedient children. Not my idea of how to treat someone you love. Seems a bit abusive to me.

The notion of Mary, mother of Jesus, being impregnated without being asked for permission... well...

Surely you get the point here. Philosophically speaking, the Bible is bereft, to put it mildly. I could go on and on, but need not.

:up:

There do appear to be parallels between Indian ideas about Atman/Brahman and Gnosticicism. One other esoteric tradition which draws upon this is Celtic Christianity.

The relationship between Christianity and sex/sexuality is interesting. I am sure that it is variable and I actually went to a church youth club briefly as a teenager and there was a lot of drinking and affairs. It was too wild for me at the time. One other aspect which I am aware of is how some people have retreated into the church to escape sexuality. I know one gay man who spent time as a monk and another who was a priest, but they did leave eventually.

There is a puritanical aspect to Christianity. However, I am sure that most struggle with it nowadays. I don't think many people find it easy to live the lifestyle of Immanuel Kant.

But hey, that would mean that logic has some benefits too — 3017amen

Maybe it has indeed. And what better place to find that out than a prestigious philosophy forum like this?

The relationship between Christianity and sex/sexuality is interesting. — Jack Cummins

Paul thought that the body was the root of sin. Later Augustine said much the same and introduced the concept of original sin. Judaism in general, on the other hand, has always followed the blessing to be fruitful and multiply.

@Gregory @Jack Cummins :up:

I also see the resemblance of Vedanta to Gnosis, the descent midwifed, perhaps, through (Neo)Platonism. At least in Western civilization, gnosticism is the Ur-conspiracy theory, or template of (ultimate) 'suspicion of reality'. Thus, idealism (i.e. antirealism, along with spiritualism & mysticism), which culminates in nihilism (Nietzsche), is the dominant tradition in post-Socratic philosophy versus the realism of the counter-traditions (e.g. atomism, naturalism, physicalism, pragmatism).

Excellent overview of the christian apocrypha. Good pick.

To be candid, the same way you'd think about any other book, story, or collection of stories, or "testament" even. Fictional or not. There are many parables and stories that offer the same. The parable of the fig tree. Or the wheat and tares. Or the flood. Or Job. Though depending on the person these are literal and physical, historical documentations of events that occurred, they can also offer great lessons depending on if you consider certain events, persons, or statements to be metaphors. Some will call this heresy of course but, you can accept a factual occurrence while extrapolating metaphors and lessons from them. Example, the story of Job. A man who proclaimed his faith or loyalty, or rather acted on it his entire life. The entity of which he claimed to be loyal to wished to test him, and did. He never once wavered and so was rewarded exponentially more than he had or could ever have obtained on his own. Many relationships are tangential to this story, be it employer-employee, father-son, or prospective life partners.

But hey, that would mean that logic has some benefits too
— 3017amen

Maybe it has indeed. And what better place to find that out than a prestigious philosophy forum like this? — Apollodorus

Oh my gosh, lmao, now that was just plain funny!!

Well at the risk of even more redundancy I think it was William James ( The Varieties of Religious Experiences) who said: Philosophy lives in words, but truth and fact well up into our lives in ways that exceed verbal formulation.

In a similar kind of way Christianity doesn't seem to care to talk about things like what it means to be Spiritual. In philosophy, I believe the concepts of spirituality are described in Existential ism/Schopenhauer theories of metaphysical will and related human sentience and angst (from The book of Ecclesiastes)... . Even Einstein said that if it wasn't for human sentience there would be no need for the concept of religion. I think that squares with God and a conscious Being known as Jesus who apparently had thoughts and feelings about Love.

However, I would take it a step further and say without self-awareness and human consciousness itself, we would not possess the (metaphysical) will to wonder about things like causation, and abstract metaphysical structures (Kant) and the like. Much like the mystery behind mathematical and musical genius, I wonder what Darwin said about the Will?

course, I realise that Paul was just a preacher. In a way, he is an extremely interesting one because he began as a non believer and had a dramatic conversion experience. — Jack Cummins

Sure, but much like a lot of newbie converts, perhaps he got caught up in the fundamentalist paradigm. Ironically enough it may have much to do with the sin of pride AKA exaggerated self worth-ego.

Nothing new under the sun there!

You blew off a debate. Now you're posting gratuitous foolishness, ignorance, and stupidity. Why do you not depart for once from form and just make a simple statement of what your point is, on the possibly generous assumption that you have one. Or more simply, what's your point? Do you have one?

In a way, Paul's writings are a source for fundamentalism but I think that it questionable how many of those writings attributed to him were written by him. I have just been thinking that, strangely, I have barely read any. I read the Gospels and The Book of Revelation several time, but, somehow, skipped the writings of Paul, and that was before my friend got in a terrible state about Paul's writings.

'The Book of Job' is one of my favourite books in The Bible, and if you look at it closely, Job does waver and question why he is suffering. I think that the saying 'the patience of Job' is a bit too simplistic, because the character Job has quite a moan really. But, the reason why I like the book is because it is such a human approach to suffering and how life often seems so unfair.

I can see why you see Gnosticism as antirealism, but from my reading of some Gnostic texts I think that there is some variation among authors on how the various writers viewed material reality.

My understanding is that gnostics consider 'material reality' a prison to escape from (i.e. transcend) and so, in this way, are anti-realists (or idealists).

I realise that Paul was just a preacher. — Jack Cummins

Paul was a master rhetorician and founder of a religion.

Of course he was the founder and master rhetorical , although based on my reading about texts he only wrote about half of the writings attributed to him. However, there does appear to be more certainty about him having written some of the texts than about who wrote the Gospels.

However, there does appear to be more certainty about him having written some of the texts than about wrote authors the Gospels. — Jack Cummins

Yes, it is generally agreed that he is the author of some of the texts. It is also generally agreed that none of the texts are not authored by the people whose names are attributed to them.

Yes, my understanding is that the Gospels were written a long time after the death of Jesus, and that the authors are different from the names of those of mentioned in the titles.

many people do worry that they are evil. — Jack Cummins

I reckon that's a good thing.

eternal hell — Jack Cummins

Prima facie, eternal hell seems to gum up the works. Death isn't as bad as eternal hell. Why did our ancestors think death was the ultimate punishment and not eternal hell? What about suicide which is premised on there are fates worse than death? If people take their own lives, it implies death can be a relief rather than a burden.

My logic is simple. Death is, all said and done, the gateway to hell (if one has sinned). In other words, death is the worst possible penalty for the simple reason that a life in hell becomes likely given we're all sinners.

This gibes with the notion of original sin. Adam & Eve's actions condemned all of humanity - we inherited the proclivity to sin and we became mortal, double jeopardy! Now, not only are we more likely to sin, we also die thereby fulfilling all necessary conditions (sin + death) to be sent off to the fiery pits of hell!

It's like inheriting the "likes a drink" trait from one's parents (Adam & Eve) and you're bar hopping, downing glass after glass of Adam's ale and God, by making us mortal, is simply making arrangements such that your wild night/day ends with a cop and a breathalyser. What follows is hell of course.

The 'Gentile Christianity' of Paul (re: the Christ) had completely vanguished the rival 'Jewish Christianity' of James (re: the Nazarene) by the time the Church had been established in Rome which, I think, set the table, so to speak, for sanguinary millennia of anti-Judaic persecutions and pogroms (e.g. "blood libel") ... culminating in the Shoah. — 180 Proof

I think that's a stretch. There was plenty of anti-Judaic sentiment in the Roman Empire already, and that seems triffling in comparison. Nor is anti-Judaism --> holocaust very compelling... Jews at the time were just as, more, anti-Christian.

Pauline Christianity is inherently anti-Judaic as shown by how the "Church fathers" legitimized the antiquity of "the Christ's" lineage by coopting ancient Hebrew scriptures as surpassed (read: incomplete, inferior) "revelations" – repurposed as the "Old Testament" – and appending the OT on to the NT "good news" wherein "the Jews" are depicted as "guilty of deicide" – the evergreen tree of Christendom's, anti-Judaic antisemitic fruits. — 180 Proof

That's rather circular: it's an interpretation based on the desired conclusion. The Christian Bible is rare insofar as it does acknowledge some of the primary texts of another religion. You could equally spin that as great respect. In reality, it was probably just a necessity.

Okay. :roll:

A book of ideologies, traditions and fairytales that exaggerate its importance when trying to compete with other religions.

Feeling like I just upset you, not intended dude :( I'd not argue against the harm Christianity has done in various guises, including the anti-Judaism of the Church and numerous adored (indeed canonised) theologians en route. It wasn't even really my intention to say that Christian ethics are particularly good, just that they are extremely important to the dominant ethics of much of the world. (Even the McDonaldisation of morality this entails is evil, but hardly the fault of Mr Christ or his biographers.)

No worries, my man. Our interpretations of Christianity's – the NT's – historical role as per the OP are divergent enough that there's not much point going further talking past each other. For what it's worth, I'm trying to get across that while that historical role was indeed very significant, it was also, I think, demonstably negative and perverse .

You blew off a debate. — tim wood

I believe 180 threw in the towel. It's a shame, I expected more from him... .

Or more simply, what's your point? — tim wood

In Jack's OP, it would be sweet Jesus peace :razz: