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Originally Posted by ni'k
both pbradley and suchfriends invoke the idea of the 'good' or true christian. now i'm not saying this to be cynical or out of spite but i have never known one of these to exist in my personal life anyway. perhaps there are some out there, if so i'd like to see them. isn't christianity too fragmented and diverse for a set of characteristics narrow enough to converge in an archetypal good christian? also i would question the massive bias in our cultural towards seeing an inherent goodness in christianity. even when taken at its most pious, inoffensive and banally positive there are dangerous and morally shaky presumptions. i find the commandment thou shalt not steal simply evil. i find the idea of jesus's crucifiction as redemption for our sins to be horrendous. i find it to be the most masochistically arrogant act i'd like to imagine. the idea that jesus got gifts from wise men on his birthday and on that very same day you too little boy or girl will get a present - to be closer to the source of our selfish materialism rather than the outcome of our corruption. Are not the properties of christmas that pbradley mentioned that are destructive to humanism and christian agape precisely those very same properties that are integral to it ie. covering up the wound of crucifiction with a crude material gift? a tenuous link could also be made with the whole feeding thousands with a small quantity of bread and fish thing and the capitalist view of the enviroment as an infinite resource to consume. i think it is a mistake to view christianity as being corrupted by man and instead view the characteristics of man's corruption as stemming from his christian civilisation. i've always seen the jesus myth as an apology for imperialism and our ideas of selfish individualism rather than a way out of them. isn't the idea of worshipping this tortured rebel a way of making sure noone stands up to the roman empire of today? isn't original sin just a way of instilling guilt and control? any christian who would follow that fucked up pyscho yahweh is simply wrong. what's worth salvaging from christianity? Surely not following christ to the cross? isn't he blocking our way beyond that fear anyway? isn't much of the relegion too ridiculously fictitious to be considered anything beyond kitsch insanity?
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Jesus crucifixion for our redemption is SUPPOSED to be horrendous, and honestly I would be concerned about the mental health of ANYONE who did feel such a way at viewing an exceptionally graphic Passion icon. Remember, the idea of Christianity is that an all-powerful God, who could do whatever He pleases, literally condescends, having condensing infinity into the limits of our own flesh and existence, to literally court and befriend us. Friendship with God is to be honest and sincere, not a power-struggle. This is the difference between "true" christians and "pseudo" Christians. It is not my business to question the faith of another person, or attach labels, in fact I only use these constructs rhetorically, in my vision, we are ALL good christians, perhaps sometimes acting out more childishly than others, but just as even the worst people are all humans, we are all christians, but this is a fundamental assumption of Christianity, the universal and mutual equality of ALL humans before the Creator.
Its not that Christianity can be corrupted by man, its that people follow their own devices and claim these imaginations to be their Christianity. There is no individuality in Christianity, but conversly there is no conformity. Christianity is not a world of stark contrast or inherit opposites. Just because God loves, does not automatically imply the opposite of God's love is hate. With God, there are no opposites, hence the Alpha and Omega, the Infinity of the Antecedent of Time. In a state of perfection there are no contrasts..
Original sin is not a form of insitutional control, rather it is a point of introvertive reflection. It is not that we are all cursed under the mistakes of our progenitors, rather it is that we continue to make the same mistakte which they made, entirely on our own and of our own volition. This is the freedom of free will which a loving, friend-seeking God gave us. In order for us to be genuine FRIENDS with God, we must be just that, genuine. We can not be coerced by power or circumstance, that is not worship, that is slavery. The entire premise of Christianity is that religion is slavery to legalism and quid-pro-quo, tit-for-tat, and that Christ gives us a friendship with God, and an equality with each other...
hence why the Apostle James, brother of Jesus, summed up Christianity in this, that "pure and undefiled religion is to care for the orphans and widows in their distress.."
go ahead and marinate on that for a while playboy..
"even the sun goes down, heros eventually die, horoscopes often lie, and sometimes why,nothing is fo sho, nothing is fo certain, nothing last for certain but until they close the curtain.."
