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Heart of the matter

Riverwolf

Amateur Rambler / Proud Ergi
Premium Member
They would need to preach something like that, yes.
In no way does that mean it is at the core of the religion.

The core of Christianity is Jesus, or at least I should think so.
Jesus said some nice stuff too about love and whatever, he also was a fan of slavery.
Now, to me, slavery doesn't come of as happy and love filled.
I can go quite in depth on that but I'll save you the reading expense.
Basically, my point is that plenty of religions have ulterior motives to their humanistic preaching.

Sure, though that's more common when they're hijacked by con artists and politicians. While there are religions that are started solely for the sake of such maneuvering, those seem more the exception rather than the rule, and rarely last very long before people catch on. Remember that for every con artist preaching humanism in the name of religion that you do hear about, there's probably a thousand genuine humanistic workers within that same religion that you'll never hear about because they'd make for boring headlines.

I'm not an expert, but the way I understand it, the "slavery" in Jesus's time wasn't necessarily the sort of thing we think of (though still quite bad by our standards). It's closer to servitude. Also consider that this idea of "any bad elements effectively negating, or rendering meaningless, any good elements" (or as you put it, "nice things") actually comes from a teaching of Jesus's. One that I find rather ridiculous, in fact. (That one about good trees being unable to bear bad fruit and vice-versa). Having a loving core doesn't necessarily mean that everything in the religion is going to be in line with that core, and in any case, we can't really be certain exactly what Jesus said in the first place.

But as far as I can tell, if Jesus had any "ulterior motives", they would have likely amounted to the ousting of Rome from that region. Whether that would have been a good or bad thing really depends on your overall opinion on Caesar and Imperial Rome in the first place.

I think it is unfair to call Judaism an ethnic religion. Maybe at first. These days they just take conversion seriously.

I didn't mean it as a negative, so I'm not sure if the stauts of "fair" is appropriate. It probably does depend a lot on which denomination it is, but if there's one thing I've recently come to terms with about Judaism, it's that I basically know nothing about Judaism.

It's been my impression that it's an ethnic religion, by which I mean conversion inherently means becoming part of a wider cultural identity and not just taking on a new set of beliefs and practices, but I could very much be wrong.
 

Deathbydefault

Apistevist Asexual Atheist
Sure, though that's more common when they're hijacked by con artists and politicians. While there are religions that are started solely for the sake of such maneuvering, those seem more the exception rather than the rule, and rarely last very long before people catch on. Remember that for every con artist preaching humanism in the name of religion that you do hear about, there's probably a thousand genuine humanistic workers within that same religion that you'll never hear about because they'd make for boring headlines.

I pretty much stated that the person at the base of Christianity was one such con artist.

I'm not an expert, but the way I understand it, the "slavery" in Jesus's time wasn't necessarily the sort of thing we think of (though still quite bad by our standards). It's closer to servitude. Also consider that this idea of "any bad elements effectively negating, or rendering meaningless, any good elements" (or as you put it, "nice things") actually comes from a teaching of Jesus's. One that I find rather ridiculous, in fact. (That one about good trees being unable to bear bad fruit and vice-versa). Having a loving core doesn't necessarily mean that everything in the religion is going to be in line with that core, and in any case, we can't really be certain exactly what Jesus said in the first place.

Maybe sadist love is advocated too, huh? Still a form of love, even if not mutual.
Then again, religious literature never seems to be very fond of mutuality.

Likewise, having a corrupt core, as in this case, doesn't necessarily mean that everyone under its influence is corrupt.
People are corruptible, though. Take those that cut parts off a child sex organ, doubt they'd ever think to do that without some guidance.

But as far as I can tell, if Jesus had any "ulterior motives", they would have likely amounted to the ousting of Rome from that region. Whether that would have been a good or bad thing really depends on your overall opinion on Caesar and Imperial Rome in the first place.

He lived in a time where magic was thought to be common place and everything happened because of God (according to many of those in the area).
I can only imagine how easy that was to take advantage of, all you would need is a slightly above average intelligence and the will of god.
 

LuisDantas

Aura of atheification
Premium Member
It's been my impression that it's an ethnic religion, by which I mean conversion inherently means becoming part of a wider cultural identity and not just taking on a new set of beliefs and practices, but I could very much be wrong.

Then we are in agreement, but that is not what I would call ethnic. Ethnicity is inherited and therefore accidental.
 

Riverwolf

Amateur Rambler / Proud Ergi
Premium Member
I pretty much stated that the person at the base of Christianity was one such con artist.

Oh, the apostle Paul? I'll grant that, although I don't think he would have necessarily known it. I mean, this staunch anti-Christian did have a vision of Jesus after falling of his horse and hitting his head on a rock.

Jesus himself, though, I see no indication of this being the case. He was most certainly a rebel, but considering there's so much debate about whether or not he ever said he was God, I'm inclined to think he wasn't in it solely for the glory. Certainly those forms of Christianity where Jesus was not God, such as Arianism, used to be more widespread. Heck, it was Arian Christianity that the Goths and Vandals adopted. (Side note, just in case anyone reading this confuses the two, Arianism is not related at all to Aryanism.)

In this case, I think it more likely that a fairly flawed but still solid set of teachings got corrupted later, rather than the other way around.

Maybe sadist love is advocated too, huh? Still a form of love, even if not mutual.

I'm not sure the BDSM community would take kindly to such a statement. ;)

Likewise, having a corrupt core, as in this case, doesn't necessarily mean that everyone under its influence is corrupt.
People are corruptible, though. Take those that cut parts off a child sex organ, doubt they'd ever think to do that without some guidance.

I don't think we agree on what the core of Christianity is.

The core of Christianity is often stated to be summed up in the Golden Rule, but I think that the story of the Good Samaritan is by far the better summary. That story's context is all but lost on our ears, because our culture at that time was separated from the politics of this region by several thousand kilometers and nigh impassible mountains, all the way on the coast of the North Sea. The short version of this lost context is: the Samaritans were the generally accepted "bad guys" of Jesus's audience. A rough modern American equivalent might replace "Samaritan" with "Satanist".

Speaking as a non-Christian, I think that's a pretty solid core. And speaking as a polytheist, I'm very saddened that Christ wasn't able to mingle with our own Gods in the way the Buddha did with those of Central and East Asia.

And I think you underestimate the ability of people to organically develop customs that seem horrible to our ears, entirely on their own. According to Roman writers (so take its historicity with a grain of salt; it might not be true), "Germanic" tribes would do something that, IMO, is FAR worse than infant genital mutilation: taking newborns, still warm from the womb, and dunking them in ice-cold water. I'm not explaining why that's horrible; it should speak for itself. In the case of modern Western culture, we organically developed the brilliant (*sarcasm) idea that children need to spend more time behind desks than in play, without needing some charismatic figure. (...by the way, anyone who circumcises infants is doing it wrong).

He lived in a time where magic was thought to be common place and everything happened because of God (according to many of those in the area).
I can only imagine how easy that was to take advantage of, all you would need is a slightly above average intelligence and the will of god.

Be careful not to graft our own culture's superstitions onto other cultures.

If magic were truly thought to be "common place" in contrast to now when it's implicitly not, then those oft-lauded 'miracles' would have been nothing special. However, my understanding is that back then, this region's degree of what we'd call "superstition" was actually quite comparable to modern Western culture's. On the other hand, consider that in our own culture, we do remember a time when practitioners of Dwimmercraft were so commonplace that we don't widely remember any of their names, except perhaps in the mythic character Merlin, who's name might have come from the historical Bard "Myrddin." (...note, this is a Welsh name, so the "dd" is pronounced with a voiced "th".)

Remember that people in West Asia lived in cities for thousands of years before we did, and consider that we, as individuals and cultures, have a nasty habit of projecting our own qualities, good and bad, onto other people.

Then we are in agreement, but that is not what I would call ethnic. Ethnicity is inherited and therefore accidental.

In the case of ethnicity being used as a synonym for race, then yes. My understanding of the term, however, has changed to "everything that encompasses and defines a cultural identity". Hence a "white Jew" is not necessarily of mixed race, but is both racially white, and ethnically Jewish.
 

Deathbydefault

Apistevist Asexual Atheist
We'll have to agree to disagree on some these points.

I'm not sure the BDSM community would take kindly to such a statement. ;)

The BDSM community has mutual love on sadism and masochism.
They also have consensual relations, such a thing is not found on our other topic.

The core of Christianity is often stated to be summed up in the Golden Rule, but I think that the story of the Good Samaritan is by far the better summary.

We definitely do not agree on this.
The core of Christianity is certainly Jesus, he's the direct cause for the religion.
And Jesus wasn't the nice guy cherry pickers might lead you to believe.
 

Riverwolf

Amateur Rambler / Proud Ergi
Premium Member
We'll have to agree to disagree on some these points.

Okies.

The BDSM community has mutual love on sadism and masochism.
They also have consensual relations, such a thing is not found on our other topic.

I know, I was being nitpicky with your choice of words, since that's how I initially read it.

We definitely do not agree on this.
The core of Christianity is certainly Jesus, he's the direct cause for the religion.
And Jesus wasn't the nice guy cherry pickers might lead you to believe.

We actually can't know that for sure, because as far as I can tell, cherry picking was basically the entire process of canonization of the Bible in the first place (to severely over-simplify it). Furthermore, seeing as all the surviving gospels (canonical or not) were written decades after Jesus supposedly died, and considering the often contradictory natures of their narratives and featured teachings, I'd be willing to bet the writers were cherry picking which details to put in from the start.

Heck, just look at all the many variations of early Christianity there were.

Personally, I don't consider the status of "nice guy" to imply, in any way, "totally flawless". As a God in a polytheist context (which, as a polytheist, is how I regard him), I've found that his primary areas of influence are healing and apocalypse (that is, erasure of something old for the construction of something new). While the former does imply love and compassion, the latter most certainly implies that this love is not necessarily universal.

That's not unusual with Gods. Seriously, compared to some of the Gods I worship, Jesus is... well, a proverbial saint. I don't worship him myself because the functions of healing and apocalypse are already fulfilled by two other Gods for me.
 

Riverwolf

Amateur Rambler / Proud Ergi
Premium Member
Your belief is a lie. Fact is Sanskrit made the world religious.

Uh... no it didn't. There's plenty of evidence that religious behavior existed in humans long before Sanskrit developed. Neanderthals buried their dead, for example.
 
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