Gretta Vosper - Atheist Christian

[DB Roy]

The bible uses light and darkness metaphorically sometimes and other times literally. In John's gospel Jesus says he is the light of the world, but he also says he is the bread of life and the door to the sheepfold.

Of course it's metaphorical! You don't think the sun was walking around Palestine recruiting fishermen, do you? He is metaphorically the sun just as any solar deity.

In the beginning of the same John's gospel Jesus is described as being the creator of everything.

"All things were made by him and without him nothing was made that has been made." Again as with Paul a sharp distinction is made between the creator and the creation.
If you want to think he is modeled on ancient pagan 'door' deities or 'bread deities' also that's your right, but I don't think it's a reasonable approach to interpretation.
Light and darkness are used as metaphors for moral truth and error when not literal descriptions such as of day or night.

You act like this was lost on pagans!! You think they didn't liken dark and light to good and evil or to knowledge and ignorance or to truth and falsehood? Why do you think the Romans called the sun god Sol Invictus--the Invincible Sun? Because the light and all its metaphors can't be conquered or suppressed forever. No matter how deeply you bury them, they always eventually emerge. Jesus was no different from the other solar deities before him. As a metaphor for light (truth, knowledge, good), they tried to bury him but he rose again just as the sun is buried in the earth each night only to re-emerge in the morning. That's why the Christians moved their Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday. That's the whole meaning of Christmas, December 25 being the birthday of Sol Invictus. After the winter solstice, the sun appears to sit still for three days and then begins to rise and set more progressively northward and so we mark that day as the rebirth or reemergence of the light--the Day of Increase. But even as the Light will emerge, the Dark Giants will always reappear to bury the Light again and so it is an endless cosmic battle--the War in Heaven. To the pagans, these cosmic truths were embodied in the movements of the sun and other celestial bodies and the cycling of the seasons. They were interpretable on more than one level and so important that they were played out in the very heavens which is what made them cosmic truths. It's a beautiful way of imposing meaning on the universe and our place in it.

Jesus as Sol Invictus from Mausoleum M beneath St. Peter's Basilica, dated late 3rd century:



From Wiki: In the 5th century, Pope Leo I (the Great) spoke in several sermons on the Feast of the Nativity of how the celebration of Christ's birth coincided with increase of the sun's position in the sky. An example is: "But this Nativity which is to be adored in heaven and on earth is suggested to us by no day more than this when, with the early light still shedding its rays on nature, there is borne in upon our senses the brightness of this wondrous mystery."

"It is cosmic symbolism...which inspired the Church leadership in Rome to elect the southern solstice, December 25, as the birthday of Christ ... While they were aware that pagans called this day the 'birthday' of Sol Invictus, this did not concern them and it did not play any role in their choice of date for Christmas."--Steven Hijmans

Notice the opening sentence of Hijmans--"It is cosmic symbolism." Of course, the Roman Fathers denied Christmas had anything to do with Sol Invictus but that really doesn't matter. In fact, it only proves, if anything, even though they are independent (they are not, of course) they still couldn't help but liken Jesus Christ to the sun any more than the gospel writers could because when truths are cosmic, they're cosmic!

You know you're getting killed with the mythology thing. I tried to help you by not bringing it up anymore and judging Christianity on its own merits and you took this as a sign of weakness and keep pressing the issue. Between youkrist, Robert Tulip and yours truly, you're getting killed! The only resurrection you seem to truly believe in are these arguments you keep bringing up and others here keep killing. The next post from you--voila!--they're back again

The problem here is that you assume you know how God could or could not think as if your thought processes and capacities are the same. But that's absurd.

Yeah? Well, when I start telling people who and who isn't going to hell for disagreeing with me or for living a "lifestyle" I don't agree with, maybe you'll have something there.

In a previous post you quoted Stephen Hawking to support your argument,but Hawking doesn't think the universe was uncaused, so you are misconstruing him.

The universe WAS caused. It was caused by the Big Bang.

This explains the problem you're either not capable of or are unwilling to grasp:

http://www.deepastronomy.com/what-cause ... -bang.html

Hawking declared " Philosophy is dead" and fell into the same hole as Lawrence Krauss due to his disregard for philosophical thought and logical thinking.

Hawking meant that only hard data from scientific experimentation can definitively answer questions about the universe. Philosophy will always be debated which means it can't provide final answers. He has a point.

Reality cannot be reduced to the straitjacket of scientism or materialistic philosophy. There are many abstract and non material things such as numbers,dreams,laws such as of logic and the laws of physics themselves.
This is a real problem and highlights the assumptions made in competing worldviews.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anGAazNCfdY

I am essentially an idealist. I believe that everything is ultimately consciousness. It is consciousness that can't be caused or effectively analyzed. Science generally believes matter is the primal constituent although quantum theory at least points to the consciousness actually being the primal constituent. Hawking might disagree with me, you might disagree with me but, as Hawking points out, the only way we're going to get anywhere is through scientific experimentation such as what's bring done in the hadron colliders. Even then, it may not yield up final answers because any data we collect and analyze still boil down to unquantifiable experiences and sense-data. In other words, we have to use consciousness to examine our data and it's consciousness itself that has to be examined and we have no real way to do that. But it's the best we've got.

[Robert Tulip]

there is something fundamentally elitist, that is, condescending, about seeing the matter as primarily one of knowledge.

In ancient religion, for example in Egypt and Babylon and Israel, priests were set apart to assist the king to represent the divine on earth. Part of this representation function of religion involved temples which were horizontal telescopes, as described by Herodotus in Phoenicia, with the light of a bright star at the horizon lighting up an emerald each night in the sanctuary. This central role of astronomy within religion was intrinsically mysterious and secretive, involving teachings which were not to be divulged on pain of death. This entire mystery cult tradition pervaded ancient religion, and gave the priesthood its charisma of holiness, in what the Epistle to the Hebrews calls a royal priesthood.

A further example of the elitism within religious knowledge was found in Plato’s Republic, a core gnostic text included at Nag Hammadi. Plato’s allegories of the sun, the cave and the divided line explain the separation of philosophy from mass opinion. For Harry to say that Plato is condescending towards the ignorant masses is indeed true, just as university professors today condescend to those who lack their scholarship and expertise. This is a good thing, since without elites civilization would collapse.

When Jesus says the teachings of the kingdom are not for the ignorant masses, he reflects this pervasive elitism of ancient religion as something involving the rare skill of literacy, which only a small select caste could then possibly understand.

Gnosticism is the idea that we are saved by knowledge, not by belief. Only the few who are able to study intensively can gain knowledge. Belief is the simple version provided to the masses as a form of social bonding. The Gnostics held that belief alone was not effective for salvation, following on the Platonic view that belief is intrinsically delusional as it is based on mere shifting appearance, while knowledge is about eternal unchanging ideas such as the good, the true and the beautiful, love and equality, and the four cardinal virtues of justice, wisdom, courage and discipline.

Plato’s Academy had as its lintel statement ‘let no one ignorant of geometry enter.’ This fundamentally elitist claim about the royal status of philosophy as exploring logical ideas under the eye of eternity flowed through into the Christian Gnostic idea that a secretive mystery group could control the church using the Gospels as an allegorical public entry point for recruitment.

[youkrst]

When Jesus says the teachings of the kingdom are not for the ignorant masses

and he answering said, 'It is not good to take the children's bread, and to cast to the little dogs.'

And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table.

[DWill]

Gnosticism is the idea that we are saved by knowledge, not by belief. Only the few who are able to study intensively can gain knowledge. Belief is the simple version provided to the masses as a form of social bonding. The Gnostics held that belief alone was not effective for salvation, following on the Platonic view that belief is intrinsically delusional as it is based on mere shifting appearance, while knowledge is about eternal unchanging ideas such as the good, the true and the beautiful, love and equality, and the four cardinal virtues of justice, wisdom, courage and discipline.

The actual emphasis that gnosticism places on ethics as we understand it can be debated. Gnosticism also places the greatest emphasis on the individual's transcendence of the imperfect nature of the world, rather than seeking right answers to the questions that most interested Plato. The knowledge it extols is entirely spiritual, deeply religious and metaphysical. It would have nothing whatever to do with what we call scientific knowledge, which I realize is not something you've claimed in this post.

[Harry Marks]

This is a good thing, since without elites civilization would collapse.

Sure, but when it comes to willingness to cooperate, on which pre-imperialist civilization depended, a little child shall lead them. Knowledge goes a long way even in organizing cooperation, but willingness to trust others may be more fundamental.

I think we live in a tension between the two - the skills of the elites and the cooperation by, well, everyone. That is a lot of what the debate about inequality is concerned with, for example.

When Jesus says the teachings of the kingdom are not for the ignorant masses, he reflects this pervasive elitism of ancient religion as something involving the rare skill of literacy, which only a small select caste could then possibly understand.

I don't know if it is true, but I heard from a number of sources that the Jews of Roman times typically learned large parts of their scriptures by heart while growing up, much the way Muslim students in Maddrassahs learn much of the Koran today. Literacy is multi-faceted, and the relatively tiny numbers who had access to libraries and could intelligently discuss important texts does not mean that religious understanding was necessarily esoteric.

One kind of religion is inherently elitist - the kind involving reading the auspices and claiming to understand what the gods are doing to the weather. To do that successfully you have to be able to mingle with the powerful and figure out which messages would be politic and which claims about the gods they could get away with. A very different kind was represented by first and second century Christianity, in which gifts of the spirit and a prominent role for empathy meant that it made sense to declare "there is now neither Jew nor Gentile, neither male nor female, neither slave nor free, for we are all one in Christ Jesus."

For every gnostic text in the NT there are surely three or four egalitarian, personalist texts about each person having their own relationship with God which must be genuine.

Gnosticism is the idea that we are saved by knowledge, not by belief. Only the few who are able to study intensively can gain knowledge. Belief is the simple version provided to the masses as a form of social bonding.

I cannot tell if you are using "belief" in the modern mode to mean "ascribing to certain propositions about how the supernatural works" or in the ancient version to mean "trust in and acceptance of a person". The meaning of your statement about social bonding can be very different depending on which of those usages you have in mind. And if you mean "gullibility" there is yet another meaning that comes out. Whether I would agree depends on which.

But again, while elitism is not evil or even necessarily problematic, it does have the limitation of working orthogonally to social bonding and mutual trust.

The Gnostics held that belief alone was not effective for salvation, following on the Platonic view that belief is intrinsically delusional as it is based on mere shifting appearance, while knowledge is about eternal unchanging ideas such as the good, the true and the beautiful, love and equality, and the four cardinal virtues of justice, wisdom, courage and discipline.

Plato’s Academy had as its lintel statement ‘let no one ignorant of geometry enter.’ This fundamentally elitist claim about the royal status of philosophy as exploring logical ideas under the eye of eternity flowed through into the Christian Gnostic idea that a secretive mystery group could control the church using the Gospels as an allegorical public entry point for recruitment.

I have trouble imagining how knowledge of geometry would give a person courage or, for that matter, encourage them to make sense of justice. I understand that these things can be cultivated, but honestly I see the cognitive component as far smaller than the component of character, which is as likely to depend on personality as on cultivation. Discipline is not far behind in still depending more on personality.

I think even at the most insider-oriented parts of the fourth Gospel, the Christian message was one of rejecting sin and identifying with the marginal, not one of becoming a superior person. That is a big part of why I reject the individualist conception of salvation that emerged in later centuries.

[youkrst]

One kind of religion is inherently elitist

how did we get from "i'll wash your feet" to "you kiss my ring"

compare

for we are all one in Christ Jesus

amen Harry, Amen Ra

[youkrst]

I have trouble imagining how knowledge of geometry would give a person courage or, for that matter, encourage them to make sense of justice.

that's strange, i have no problem at all there.

[Robert Tulip]

The actual emphasis that gnosticism places on ethics as we understand it can be debated.

Yes, that is true. Orthodoxy seeks to caricature Gnosticism as indifferent to ethics, but this false picture fails to engage with the possibility that Gnosticism is primarily the actual secret mystery religion that produced the Christ Myth.

The ethical themes of faith, hope and love at the core of Christianity map well to a possible reconstructed Gnostic framework basing the Christ story on the ‘as in heaven so on earth’ theme of linking myth to observation of the stars.

The story of what has come down to us as Gnosticism is highly fragmentary, reflecting factions who lived centuries after the great work was done to invent Jesus. I prefer to consider that an earlier Gnosticism existed, which developed the Christ story as a strategic vision of the clash between good and evil in the world, with Christ designed to represent the forces of good, mirroring on earth patterns imagined in the stars. If this model of Christian origins is accurate, then a logical evolutionary blueprint could be concealed within New Testament theology. My view is that such a blueprint for history exists, and that it provides a highly interesting and relevant picture of the overall shape of history within the limits of ancient observation. The task of understanding Gnosticism is the reconstruction of this ethical blueprint.

The overall theme of the Bible is the imagined world history of grace, fall and redemption. In essence these concepts are Gnostic, involving a theory of the structure of terrestrial time as the basis for the salvation of humanity. Whether we are saved from damnation or from extinction, a biological risk that was not specifically understood by the Bible authors, the effort to see how these old ideas map to modern knowledge is in my view the most fruitful approach to biblical hermeneutics.

My interest is how this mythological cosmology behind Christianity actually maps to what we now know scientifically about the long term trends affecting life on earth. For example, as we study climate science, does the old theory of fall and redemption appear to have any accurate insight about the structure of history? In fact it does in a clear and simple way. The 6000 years from about 5000 BC to 1000 AD map directly to a long season of fall in terms of earth’s orbital structure, marking the time when earth was closest to the sun through the northern autumn. This coincidence presents a useful skeleton to begin to enflesh analysis of the correspondence between myth and reality.

The core ethical lesson I derive from a cosmic interpretation of the Bible is that humanity is on a path to extinction as a result of accepting cultural values that developed through the period of cosmic fall. These values, including the false theory of a supernatural God, promote human alienation from nature. We need to shift paradigm to a next phase, a cosmic winter, as a global ethical transformation based on the moral teachings of Christ in the Bible.

Gnosticism also places the greatest emphasis on the individual's transcendence of the imperfect nature of the world, rather than seeking right answers to the questions that most interested Plato.

You may be surprised to find the extent to which Plato’s focus on the individual's transcendence of the imperfect nature of the world is a main theme of his philosophy. In The Republic, the central allegories of the divided line, the cave and the sun are all about how the individual can transcend the delusory world of imperfect appearance to achieve enlightenment in knowledge of pure logic and ethical ideas. This theme of transcendence is not about escape but rather about achieving a detachment that provides wisdom and knowledge.

The knowledge Gnosticism extols is entirely spiritual, deeply religious and metaphysical.

As was the knowledge extolled by Plato. In the hypothesis that the Christ Myth originated from a Greek-Jewish syncretism incorporating monastic and cosmic themes from Egypt, Babylon and India, Plato’s philosophy is a central factor. The pellucid clarity of Plato’s pure intelligence shines through in his dialogues, which develop moral and logical themes that are still debated today, using language about God which can readily be interpreted as allegory for a natural worldview. There is no good basis to suggest a gulf between Platonic and Gnostic thought.

It would have nothing whatever to do with what we call scientific knowledge, which I realize is not something you've claimed in this post.

The Gnostic theory of Christ as Avatar of the Age of Pisces is actually purely scientific.

Ancient astronomy provided the blueprint that predicted the incarnation of Christ as the avatar of the Age of Pisces, defined solely in observational terms as the marker of the world shift from an equinox in Aries into an equinox in Pisces that happened in 21 AD. I appreciate that the science of this ancient observation of the slow change of the stars is unfamiliar to many, but its discovery certainly dates to the second century BC, and probably is much older.

The emotional power of the stellar prediction of a messiah at the Age Cusp was sufficient for the hope to give birth to the belief. The hope for the appearance of a messiah was actually built upon scientific astronomy, even while the Jesus story drifted away from its simple objective cosmic basis into a range of cultural ideas.

The Gnostic construction of the Christ myth was entirely connected to scientific knowledge of astronomy, through the centrality of precession as the main marker of the historical ages of time. The central Christian symbol, the Chi Rho Cross, encapsulates the moment when the equinox shifted from Aries to Pisces. The fictional account of Jesus built upon this cosmic skeleton with a high level of creative imagination. The central Gnostic theme of a series of twelve ages is a purely scientific idea, based upon accurate pre-Christian observation of the patterns of the stars.

[DWill]

The actual emphasis that gnosticism places on ethics as we understand it can be debated.

Yes, that is true. Orthodoxy seeks to caricature Gnosticism as indifferent to ethics, but this false picture fails to engage with the possibility that Gnosticism is primarily the actual secret mystery religion that produced the Christ Myth.

The ethical themes of faith, hope and love at the core of Christianity map well to a possible reconstructed Gnostic framework basing the Christ story on the ‘as in heaven so on earth’ theme of linking myth to observation of the stars.

The story of what has come down to us as Gnosticism is highly fragmentary, reflecting factions who lived centuries after the great work was done to invent Jesus. I prefer to consider that an earlier Gnosticism existed, which developed the Christ story as a strategic vision of the clash between good and evil in the world, with Christ designed to represent the forces of good, mirroring on earth patterns imagined in the stars. If this model of Christian origins is accurate, then a logical evolutionary blueprint could be concealed within New Testament theology. My view is that such a blueprint for history exists, and that it provides a highly interesting and relevant picture of the overall shape of history within the limits of ancient observation. The task of understanding Gnosticism is the reconstruction of this ethical blueprint.

I do appreciate the work that went into your response, but perhaps there isn't a need to be this fancy. The "forest" view of gnosticism is of an approach that seeks to deliver to the individual the means of connecting with the perfect, eternal world of spirit. This doesn't mean that ethics were ignored, but it does seem that the approach was far different from the Judeo-Christian one which emphasizes precepts that have already been revealed.

It would have nothing whatever to do with what we call scientific knowledge, which I realize is not something you've claimed in this post.

The Gnostic theory of Christ as Avatar of the Age of Pisces is actually purely scientific.

Ancient astronomy provided the blueprint that predicted the incarnation of Christ as the avatar of the Age of Pisces, defined solely in observational terms as the marker of the world shift from an equinox in Aries into an equinox in Pisces that happened in 21 AD. I appreciate that the science of this ancient observation of the slow change of the stars is unfamiliar to many, but its discovery certainly dates to the second century BC, and probably is much older.

But again, the enlightenment that Eastern philosophies speak of? Even with my superficial knowledge of Buddhism or Hinduism, I don't feel out on a limb saying that the heavenly bodies do not relate to the spiritual development that is the only goal of seeking the four noble truths. Buddhism doesn't take a position on astrology, since this is mystery not accessible to us and not truly our concern. It doesn't say astrology is either true or false.

The Gnostic construction of the Christ myth was entirely connected to scientific knowledge of astronomy, through the centrality of precession as the main marker of the historical ages of time. The central Christian symbol, the Chi Rho Cross, encapsulates the moment when the equinox shifted from Aries to Pisces. The fictional account of Jesus built upon this cosmic skeleton with a high level of creative imagination. The central Gnostic theme of a series of twelve ages is a purely scientific idea, based upon accurate pre-Christian observation of the patterns of the stars.

Okay, but I was only commenting on your bringing the religion of the East into the discussion and trying to say that delusion would encompass failure to take a accurate perspective, scientifically. The Dalia Lama has said that Buddhism wants to be consistent with science, but that doesn't change its emphasis on the inner work of letting go of attachments and anger, which are the primary delusions.

On Plato, I defer to your deeper knowledge and understanding of his thinking.

[Robert Tulip]

I have trouble imagining how knowledge of geometry would give a person courage or, for that matter, encourage them to make sense of justice.

that's strange, i have no problem at all there.

Platonic philosophy holds that mathematics is the epitome of order in the world, and that we discover the order through ideas, such as equality. The equality of lines and areas in geometry is a paradigm for equality in society, and therefore for justice, good, love, beauty, truth and wisdom. The framework of knowledge in mathematics is the basis of Plato's theory expressed by Socrates in the dialogues that knowledge is the basis of virtue. The provocative theory, based on geometry and its axioms, is that one cannot know the good and not do it. For Plato, as for Calvin's irresistible grace, knowledge of the good impels action.

To digress now on to how Platonic philosophy informed Christianity, its impact on the reformation could be studied, although I am not expert on that. More broadly, Platonism informed the Hellenistic milieu in which Gnosticism prospered, producing ideas such as the reference to Archimedes' analysis of the square root of three in John's tale of Jesus helping the fishermen to catch 153 fish. 265/153 =~ root three, which is the ratio of the long and short axes of the Christian fish symbol formed by two circles with their line at each other's centre.

With Calvin, puritan Christianity uses the TULIP acrostic, Total depravity, Unconditional election, Limited atonement, Irresistable grace and Perseverance of the saints, setting out how the puritans rejected Arminian theology which allowed salvation by works. It is very much possible to trace the ethical concepts of depravity, election, atonement, grace and holiness to Plato, with the reliance on pure concept as the basis of ethics. Nor have these ideas lost all meaning in the world today, but in Platonic terms are present for discovery.