Whoever said Christianity’s about Christ? Two-thirds of the Christian Rule Book (aka “Bible”) is about that hoary old War-God Jehovah. Christ doesn’t pop up until the third inning. And even then he’s only sonny boy. When it comes to dads and sons, we all know Daddy rules.________________
thnx to djj for the pic.
What about all that prophecy starting in Genesis, all through the lives of Abraham and his descendants (and even earlier than Abraham, a few times)? Of course the whole story is not about the culmination of the plan =)
ReplyDeleteHey Athana! I just dropped in to tell you that I have my own blog now...it's called Dancing on the Outside of the Circle. Most of it's my personal reflections, musings on some things I've read, and I'm even planning on posting some of the prayers and poetry I've composed. I hope you like it!!!
ReplyDeleteIt's not about Jesus at all, Paxton. His teachings were completely subverted by Saul/Paul and became additional support for hate, misogyny, and elitism.
ReplyDelete@Paxton - Where those prophecies fulfilled in Christ or is that idea simply a creation from the minds of christianity? Most Jews would tell you those prophecies have yet to be fulfilled and furthermore were meant strictly for the Jewish people. It was thier story, handed down from father to son, for thousands of years until someone decided to ink these collection of stories making them one day available to the world as a whole.
ReplyDeleteI would personally say Christianity is about Christ who was a person that quite creatively took the Tanak and linked himself to its stories. Is it any wonder the Jews were upset? He actually stole their work and made it his own.
Finally, what daddy has his son killed? Again more of that broken logic.
peace,
louis
"Broken logic" is a misleading term. It implies that something cannot rationally happen. Talk to some fathers whose sons have died in war, then consider your question again.
ReplyDeleteAs to prophecy -- it was (and is) passed down among Jewish generations because they believe a Jewish man is going to fulfill all those prophecies someday. Jesus was a Jewish man who, many people believe, fulfilled those prophecies. You make it sound like he was an outside who came in and stole their cultural stories. He wasn't -- he was one of them, he grew up learning those stories. When he was older, he told them, "Those stories we all have learned? They are about me."
Morgaine, I'm interested why you think Paul supports "hate, misogyny, and elitism"...I know there are a couple passages about women's conduct in church that you would object to, but I can't think of anything hateful, etc. I'm asking out of honest curiosity, not challenge. =)
@Paxton - That is exactly my point. It is not rational to send your son to die.
ReplyDeleteI have lost a few friends to war in the last couple of years and none of them would tell you they would willing send their sons to die. Every one of them has actually spent significant resources to stop this current ridiculous war.
As for the prophecies I need to clarify. Yes, Jesus was a Jew. The claims he made cast him outside of what most Jewish people believed appropriate. Therefore, the man Christianity has created (whether he was existed or not) was operating outside of Jewish law and tradition. His system was his own and did not belong to the Jews.
I guess the real point I should have made is that they are Jewish prophecies for the Jewish people. Gentiles are without a doubt the outsiders for whom the prophecies were never meant for. Christianity then is a religion which has borrowed from various other religions to form their own belief system.
- Louis
Shoot, I hate it when I write a comment and it doesn't save, and I lose the whole thing. =P I'm short on time now so I will summarize quickly.
ReplyDelete"Footsteps of the Master" by Harriet Beecher Stowe has a chapter (I read it last night) about "Gentile Prophecies" which goes through the OT and argues pretty convincingly that the Messiah was the be a Saviour for the whole world, including Gentiles. She also mentions a number of prophecies from other ancient cultures, which seem to point towards some kind of Messiah-like figure. It's pretty nifty =)
Apparently the Jews in Jesus' day had forgotten that they were chosen not as the only people to receive God's gift of salvation, but rather chosen as the people by whom God would bless all people.
Finally as regards the irrationality of sending one's son to die:
I am not talking about the current war at all. =) I just mean that throughout history many fathers have been saddened by their sons' deaths, but believe that they died for worthy causes.
"Irrational" means that something does not follow the rules of logical thought. But of course the sacrifice of a son for a supposedly worthy cause is rational. It involves spending something valuable to get something valuable, which is quite logical. If you disagree with the sacrifice, you disagree on the grounds that you don't think it was WORTH IT. But that's very different than saying it's irrational.
The reason being -- you can't use Logic to find out how much a son is worth. You can't use Reason to find out how precious are the lives of humanity.
So don't call the sacrifice irrational, when you really mean that it shows a lack of love for the son or an inordinate amount of love for humanity. You and the sacrificing father start with a different set of initial assumptions and value judgments. That doesn't make EITHER of you irrational.
all i know is that in the christian cosmology many good people are in hell or have spent centuries in hell because they did not worship christ.... Pacifists pagans and pagan monks and nuns and yet an axe murderer or a pedophiliac clergyman can enter the kingdom of heaven because they feel bad about what they did and are sorry especially to christ but people who lived sacred and good lives linger in hell because they smell the bullshit explain that... paxton. And donot try any rhetorical gymanastics I grew up in a half christian and half buddhist family I know exactly what christians and the church think of these matters as it consumed me throughout my childhood the brainwashing did not take because the buddhists were much nicer devout people than the christians actions speak louder that penitence regret, uneccessary sacrifice.
ReplyDeleteall i know is that in the christian cosmology many good people are in hell or have spent centuries in hell because they did not worship christ.... Pacifists pagans and pagan monks and nuns and yet an axe murderer or a pedophiliac clergyman can enter the kingdom of heaven because they feel bad about what they did and are sorry especially to christ but people who lived sacred and good lives linger in hell because they smell the bullshit explain that... paxton. And donot try any rhetorical gymanastics I grew up in a half christian and half buddhist family I know exactly what christians and the church think of these matters as it consumed me throughout my childhood the brainwashing did not take because the buddhists were much nicer devout people than the christians actions speak louder that penitence regret, uneccessary sacrifice.
ReplyDelete