The charge irrational coming from you is more than a little ironic. You have consistently maintained that we should move BEYOND the rational.
I have never maintained any such nonsense! I said only that Higher Man's spiritual experience is beyond the rational, thinking mind. Higher spiritual ground is in the realm of Silence, and understanding via
seeing, not reasoning, within the silent world.
Christian belief, although reasoning has formed a central role from very early in christianity, is at its base a belief. What Jesus' sacrifice accomplished is based on faith.
Not at all. It is based on ignorance. The so called "sacrifice" and what it "accomplished", is shrouded in mystery and mumbo jumbo. No one can tell you HOW it was accomplished. Out of their ignorance, they just assume that it did something. In other words, they convinced themselves that something happened. This is called rationalization.
But then, buddhism is just as irrational. There is no basis for the belief that breath is the "life-force" or in chi or in any number of buddhist beliefs. You don't like calling your beliefs faith , but that is exactly what they are (as well as superstitious by your standards), because they are based neither on reason nor on objective data.
...except for the fact that the breath being the life-force is not a belief, but a practice through which one realizes that it is. That realization is not reached via of the thinking process, which is how a belief is formed, but via of inner seeing.
Have you noticed that the breath is central to every single discipline in the East, especially those of the mystics? Taoism, Buddhism, Zen, Hinduism, Yoga, etc., as well as Gnosticism, Kabbalah, and Sufism, not to mention all of the martial arts. Breath controls achieves centering. None of it is via of belief. It is all by practice, via of mindfulness or attentiveness, in total silence, and without thought.
Belief concerning Jesus' sacrifice is not fear-driven.
Yes it is. It is based upon the completely irrational idea that such sacrifice mysteriously and magically washed sin away, with zero understanding as to how this was accomplished. The Christian
must believe this, because if he did not, then he is subject to a trip to hell in a handbasket, and that is extremely frightening. One might say that the immediate terror of such a reality has been muffled by conditioning the mind, via of carefully administered indoctrination, that, no matter how horrible one's sins, they have been paid for by a single divine fell swoop. But the fear and terror are always right under the surface. From the cradle to the grave, he is always one step away from SIN, and SIN, as we all know, is at the very heart of Christitanity, for, without SIN, there would be no Incarnation; no Virgin Birth; no Crucifixion; no Resurrection; no Ascension; no Contrition; no Confession; no Repentance; no Redemption; and no Salvation and no Heaven....and, oh, yes...no Hell either.
What's a body to do?
By running from Evil and submitting to the Good, the Christian unwittingly trades one form of mental and spiritual slavery for another, jumping from the frying pan into the fire. His sense of security is only a temporary one, his mind soothed for awhile to alleviate his sense of anxiety and terror over what comes after his death. Why he believes that the bloody death of his idol somehow frees him from sin is a complex psychological issue. What you are calling faith is nothing more than idolatrous love, which is actually a projection of the ego, one of the five egotistical states. Real faith never clings as the Christian's does. It actually lets go. It lets go because there is trust. It is belief that continues to cling in the way the Christian clings to his view. The irony is that he takes great pride in his clinging, when he should actually be ashamed. But he continues to cling because he clings not to faith, but to insecurity. At the core of his Christian beliefs is great uncertainty, with many layers of rationalizations over it to muffle its cries. And so, instead of rock solid certainty, he develops a sense of smugness and self-righteousness, which leads to an aggressive attitude about his "faith". He is even angry, but he justifies his anger as a righteous kind, for and in, the name of God.
Not at all. First, the vast majority of christians believe that Jesus WAS god, so he was demanding his own sacrifice. Second, it was (according to christian belief) god's love for humanity that caused him to send his "only son" into our world to die for our sake.
Which is completely irrational on God's part! But, then again, the Christian has a way of having his left hand do what his right knows not, and so, once again, the mind of the child invents and creates, weaves and deceives, until he accomplishes what no other can: he succeeds in pulling the proverbial rabbit out of the hat, and managing to pull the wool fully over they eyes of others. The God who sends his only begotten son is none other than the sinner himself.
Ah, the wonderful world of magic and hocus pocus!
Completely false. The whole of the belief about Jesus' sacrifice is based upon the idea that it was willing. This is vital, not to appease guilt, but precisely because this idea of sacrifice is so different from animal sacrifice. If Jesus did not give his life VOLUNTARILY for humanity's sake, his death would mean nothing.
Actually, it does'nt, but too bad the Christian does'nt know that!
Well, now, you would'nt want a whimpering crybaby Jesus, now, would you?
"C'mon, take it like a man, fer God's sake!"
No, no. One wants a stoic superman who proves his mettle. Ah, the wonderful world of myth.
Wrong on every point.
1. God did not demand humans to sacrifice, but sent his son (and according to almost all christians himself) for our sake. Had he been the vengeful god you describe, he would have demanded humans to sacrifice themselves, not his son/self.
No. He would have sent his son, and he did, by Jove! I think maybe he got fed up with slaughtering zillions with floods, disease, famine, Angels of Death, and so on. Something Special was needed.
"Here, boys...heh...heh..heh...allow me to show you how it's done. Why, it's all in the wrist, you know. Just takes a little know how, and...wah!...lah! See? First I trick you with succulent fruit in the Garden and make you Sin, then I slaughter you by the tens of thousands, then I come down there and do a magic act. It's all in your minds, you know....all in your minds...heh...heh...heh."
2. The idea was not "appeasing" an "angry god" but Jesus, god's son, taking on all of humanity's sin on his own shoulders. In sacrifices to appease gods, it is those performing the sacrifce who are trying to appease the gods. But those who killed Jesus were doing nothing of the sort. Rather, Jesus allowed himself to be captured and killed, for our sake. He sacrificed himself for humanity, whereas in animal sacrifice someone sacrifices the animal to appease.
Oh, I see. So Jesus was a scapegoat, then, right? So tell me. Exactly how does someone else carry the sins of others?
3. The motives are completely different. For one thing, the method in sacrifice for the appeasement of the gods is for a person to sacrifice an unwilling victim (animal or person). Jesus' sacrificed himself. And the motive was to absolve our sins through his suffering, not to appease.
No? God was not being satisfied in some way by the sacrifice of Jesus? Animal sacrifice was performed to please God, right? So was the sacrifice of Jesus.
Animal blood was never used to absolve humanity. And again, Jesus' sacrifice was not performed, it was his own.
...but done in place of humanity's, right? So it was not his own, was it? He was just a scapegoat.
By definition, supersition is NOT a form of reasoning. Reasoning is the opposite of superstition.
A superstitious person might reason that, if he does not offer up some sacrifice to an angry god, he might get punished. He might also reason that, if he does not have faith that some Jesus died for his sins, he will go to hell. Or, he might reason that he miraculously survived a horrible auto accident because Jesus was controlling the vehicle. Or, he might reason that a vicious, bloodthirsty fiend, otherwise known as Satan, is stalking him day and night with only one thought in mind: to seek the destruction of his soul.
Makes perfect sense, does'nt it?
Yes, reason is the opposite of superstition. That makes them relative to one another. They are called a duality, like good and evil, night and day, Satan and Jesus, etc. They are two sides of the same coin, and so, Higher Man, realizing this by perfection of his ability to see correctly, ends up transcending duality, and enters into Absolute Reality, which encompasses all dualities within the One.
