I’ve been interacting with some apologists lately. One of the issues that came up was Josephus and whether he refers to Jesus in the Testimonium Flavianum. I don’t care about the issue in and of itself. Even if Josephus refers to Jesus, this is still a reference after Jesus’ death. There is no reference to Jesus or any of the events in Jesus life while Jesus was alive. Besides, proving that some person mentioned a person named Jesus really doesn’t prove anything. ‘Jesus’ is just a name. The theological and supernatural beliefs of Christians can’t be justified by history, but for some reason Christians think it does.
History is not a science. Even the soft sciences have more claims for objectivity than New Testament scholarship. When someone says that scientists have come to a consensus, I tend to respect their authority. However, the concensus of New Testament scholars doesn’t really add up to much. Most New Testament scholars are Christians trained at Christian schools. According to their beliefs, they have strong motivation to prove orthodox opinion. And, as many of them teach at Christian schools, their jobs even might be risked if they voiced criticisms too openly.
Some of the scholars doubt Jesus historicity are scholars in fields such as ancient languages and history. These fields are directly relevant to New Testament studies, but apologists tend to dismiss these scholars because their opinions are inconvenient. As an example, when an apologist says that most Josephus scholars accept Josephus, it’s simply pleading to authority.
For anyone who wants to explore the criticisms for themselves, I’ll offer two articles about Josephus by Earl Doherty and two thread discussions where there are links to other info including an article by D.M. Murdock. After those links, I’ll offer a link to the discussion page on the Wikipedia article about “Josephus on Jesus” which gives a good overall view of the debate between believers and nonbelievers.
http://jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/supp10.htm
http://jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/supp16.htm
http://forums.truthbeknown.com/viewtopic.php?t=2441
http://forums.truthbeknown.com/viewtopic.php?t=953
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Josephus_on_Jesus
Monday, March 23, 2009
Origins of Christian Values
I've been writing a fair amount about the mythological parallels between Christianity and previous religions, but I haven't written much about how this relates to values. Christians could argue that the mythological similarities are just superficial details. It is true that details are just details and in some ways Christians did put those details together in a new way. Then again, so has every other religion. Despite literalist Christians insistence on worshipping a particular narrative, a story is still just a story. What actually matters is the values out of which the story formed.
There are several traditions that influenced Christian moral and theological beliefs. I went into great detail about Augustine who was influenced by Gnosticism, NeoPlatonism, and Stoicism among other traditions.
Many Gnostics had an ascetic attitude towards the material world and the body. The Christian mistrust of sexuality is based in this. Also, this is part of the Hellenistic atmosphere in general. Egyptian and Greek philosophy had elements of dualism. NeoPlatonism gave Christianity its love for higher truth and reality where God is absolute, but also NeoPlatonism offered the hope of an intuitive knowing, a faith that God would reveal himself. Stoicism in particular lent an ascetic bent to Christianity with its ethics of Natural Law (which is particularly important as modern Democracy is built upon it). Zoroastrianism created the extreme dualism of dark and light, good and evil; and this emphasized God as being in polar opposition to evil. This was conceived as a battle for souls where God was fated to win.
This metaphor of light and dark was part of the solar theology that had become popular prior to the common era. Egypt had a major hand in popularizing solar theology which portrayed God as being omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. God according to solar theology was both far away and yet close like the sun and sunlight. God was present to his believers and responsive to their prayers. God was in the world as light shines in the dark and yet above the world unsullied by the material realm. Egyptian religion also made the distinction between God who created the sun and the sun itself as the solar disk. God was the spiritual light that could be experienced within.
Along with Judaism, all of these traditions had concepts of monotheism or monism. Egyptian religion is the earliest known example of monotheism.
Another element is savior theology which was very popular in all cultures at the time. These saviors were conqurerors of evil. They were teachers, healers and miracle workers. They offered themselves as examples to live by and they acted as guides, as mediators, as shephards. As godmen, they stood between earth and heaven. They were personally accessible to prayers and they acted as guardians. Saviors are resurrection deities that provide the pathway of rebirth for their followers. As tradition says of Jesus, some of these saviors even go down into the underworld before ascending.
Related to saviors, were their virgin mothers. Godmen tended to have strange conceptions and births. The concept of their mothers being virgins doesn't make sense rationally or scientifically, but it symbolizes deep archetypal truths. These virgin mothers are fertility deities (even when made into historical figures). As such, they are virgins because their fertility is eternal and infinite, their purity and goodness is inviolable. They are the source out of which all life emerges. The birth of the savior is the birth of us all. The savior is similar to the first man, and this is why Jesus is called the Second Adam. Death had been brought into the world at an earlier time, and the savior comes to defeat death. Without the Goddess, the God couldn't manifest in order to accomplish this. The Goddess gives form. The Virgin Mary gave Jesus his body, and when Jesus was placed into the womb of the cave his spiritual body was given form.
The name Mary has its most likely etymological origin in the Egyptian epithet of meri which means 'beloved'. This epithet could apply to any god or goddess, but Isis became increasingly popular. By Roman times, shrines and temples of her were found widely to the very borders of the Empire and beyond. The image of Isis nursing Horus is also the most likely prototype of the image of Mary nursing Jesus. To this day, some of the Black Madonnas worshipped in Europe were originally Isis statues. The importance of this meri epithet is that it represented an ideal of love. In earlier Egyptian culture, love was something given by a superior to a subordinate. This was the relationship of the worshipper to an Emperor or to a god. Sometime around the New Kingdom (16th to 11th century BCE), the understanding of love changed. Love became an ideal of equality. A god didn't just offer love but also received love. The believer could join their god in a relationship of love.
This seems related to the Axial Age (800 to 200 BCE). Some common traits of the Axial Age religious traditions: a quest for human meaning, idealization of an absolute and eternal reality beyond the mind and senses, development of a spiritual elite and travelling scholars, questioning gender roles in particular in terms of Patriarchy, and a challenging of authority. The latter is interesting because of the ideal within Christianity of martyrdom, but Christianity was a later emergence of Axial Age principles. Christianity inherited its martyrdom tradition from the Stoics who challenged authority in the hopes of being persecuted. Also, in challenging authority, Axial Age prophets challenged the rulling religious dogma which included the gods and the conceptions of the gods. This led to a popularization of monotheism and monism, but it also led to the first signs of atheist philosophy. Also, allegorical thinking was developed. Stories and personifications were symbols of a higher truth, but were deceiving and even idolatrous if taken literally.
As you can see, Christian moral ideals and understandings didn't arise within a vacuum. Just like every mythological motif, the cherished values of Christianity preceeded Christianity.
There are several traditions that influenced Christian moral and theological beliefs. I went into great detail about Augustine who was influenced by Gnosticism, NeoPlatonism, and Stoicism among other traditions.
Many Gnostics had an ascetic attitude towards the material world and the body. The Christian mistrust of sexuality is based in this. Also, this is part of the Hellenistic atmosphere in general. Egyptian and Greek philosophy had elements of dualism. NeoPlatonism gave Christianity its love for higher truth and reality where God is absolute, but also NeoPlatonism offered the hope of an intuitive knowing, a faith that God would reveal himself. Stoicism in particular lent an ascetic bent to Christianity with its ethics of Natural Law (which is particularly important as modern Democracy is built upon it). Zoroastrianism created the extreme dualism of dark and light, good and evil; and this emphasized God as being in polar opposition to evil. This was conceived as a battle for souls where God was fated to win.
This metaphor of light and dark was part of the solar theology that had become popular prior to the common era. Egypt had a major hand in popularizing solar theology which portrayed God as being omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. God according to solar theology was both far away and yet close like the sun and sunlight. God was present to his believers and responsive to their prayers. God was in the world as light shines in the dark and yet above the world unsullied by the material realm. Egyptian religion also made the distinction between God who created the sun and the sun itself as the solar disk. God was the spiritual light that could be experienced within.
Along with Judaism, all of these traditions had concepts of monotheism or monism. Egyptian religion is the earliest known example of monotheism.
Another element is savior theology which was very popular in all cultures at the time. These saviors were conqurerors of evil. They were teachers, healers and miracle workers. They offered themselves as examples to live by and they acted as guides, as mediators, as shephards. As godmen, they stood between earth and heaven. They were personally accessible to prayers and they acted as guardians. Saviors are resurrection deities that provide the pathway of rebirth for their followers. As tradition says of Jesus, some of these saviors even go down into the underworld before ascending.
Related to saviors, were their virgin mothers. Godmen tended to have strange conceptions and births. The concept of their mothers being virgins doesn't make sense rationally or scientifically, but it symbolizes deep archetypal truths. These virgin mothers are fertility deities (even when made into historical figures). As such, they are virgins because their fertility is eternal and infinite, their purity and goodness is inviolable. They are the source out of which all life emerges. The birth of the savior is the birth of us all. The savior is similar to the first man, and this is why Jesus is called the Second Adam. Death had been brought into the world at an earlier time, and the savior comes to defeat death. Without the Goddess, the God couldn't manifest in order to accomplish this. The Goddess gives form. The Virgin Mary gave Jesus his body, and when Jesus was placed into the womb of the cave his spiritual body was given form.
The name Mary has its most likely etymological origin in the Egyptian epithet of meri which means 'beloved'. This epithet could apply to any god or goddess, but Isis became increasingly popular. By Roman times, shrines and temples of her were found widely to the very borders of the Empire and beyond. The image of Isis nursing Horus is also the most likely prototype of the image of Mary nursing Jesus. To this day, some of the Black Madonnas worshipped in Europe were originally Isis statues. The importance of this meri epithet is that it represented an ideal of love. In earlier Egyptian culture, love was something given by a superior to a subordinate. This was the relationship of the worshipper to an Emperor or to a god. Sometime around the New Kingdom (16th to 11th century BCE), the understanding of love changed. Love became an ideal of equality. A god didn't just offer love but also received love. The believer could join their god in a relationship of love.
This seems related to the Axial Age (800 to 200 BCE). Some common traits of the Axial Age religious traditions: a quest for human meaning, idealization of an absolute and eternal reality beyond the mind and senses, development of a spiritual elite and travelling scholars, questioning gender roles in particular in terms of Patriarchy, and a challenging of authority. The latter is interesting because of the ideal within Christianity of martyrdom, but Christianity was a later emergence of Axial Age principles. Christianity inherited its martyrdom tradition from the Stoics who challenged authority in the hopes of being persecuted. Also, in challenging authority, Axial Age prophets challenged the rulling religious dogma which included the gods and the conceptions of the gods. This led to a popularization of monotheism and monism, but it also led to the first signs of atheist philosophy. Also, allegorical thinking was developed. Stories and personifications were symbols of a higher truth, but were deceiving and even idolatrous if taken literally.
As you can see, Christian moral ideals and understandings didn't arise within a vacuum. Just like every mythological motif, the cherished values of Christianity preceeded Christianity.
Response to “Atheism: Light or Heat?”
Another response to a blog.
http://kreitsauce.com/2009/03/22/atheism-light-or-heat/
I just want to give a quick response. Just because athiests disbelieve (or rather believe in a lack of a) God, it doesn’t follow they don’t have beliefs. God isn’t necessary for a moral belief system. Look into Natural Law which may or may not include a belief in God. Natural Law originated with the Greeks, and it was the Stoics who made into an ethical system that influenced Christianity.
I’m not an atheist myself because I see it as pointless to believe in a lack of a God. I’m agnostic with a strong spiritual bent. I sense that there is something more, but I feel no inclination to formulate it as a specific belief for or against anything in particular.
Atheism isn’t really a belief system as it’s merely a negation. Atheism includes a wide variety of moral beliefs. If you want to consider atheism and morality, you’d have to look at specific organizations and belief systems.
There are a some atheist religions and religions that are accepting of atheism. Buddhism and Taoism are two examples, but I’m sure there are others.
Also, you might be interested in researching Unitarian-Universalism. They accept atheists, agnostics, and religious believers. They’ve developed an ethical code that seeks what is acceptable to all of its members.
http://kreitsauce.com/2009/03/22/atheism-light-or-heat/
I just want to give a quick response. Just because athiests disbelieve (or rather believe in a lack of a) God, it doesn’t follow they don’t have beliefs. God isn’t necessary for a moral belief system. Look into Natural Law which may or may not include a belief in God. Natural Law originated with the Greeks, and it was the Stoics who made into an ethical system that influenced Christianity.
I’m not an atheist myself because I see it as pointless to believe in a lack of a God. I’m agnostic with a strong spiritual bent. I sense that there is something more, but I feel no inclination to formulate it as a specific belief for or against anything in particular.
Atheism isn’t really a belief system as it’s merely a negation. Atheism includes a wide variety of moral beliefs. If you want to consider atheism and morality, you’d have to look at specific organizations and belief systems.
There are a some atheist religions and religions that are accepting of atheism. Buddhism and Taoism are two examples, but I’m sure there are others.
Also, you might be interested in researching Unitarian-Universalism. They accept atheists, agnostics, and religious believers. They’ve developed an ethical code that seeks what is acceptable to all of its members.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Response to an Apologist about The Jesus Mysteries
An apologist wrote a review about the book The Jesus Mysteries by Freke and Gandy. I normally try to avoid getting involved in discussions with apologists, but I felt like responding this time for some strange reason. As always, I don’t actually feel like arguing about any of it. I just wanted to show that scholarly opinion is not so clear. I suppose it’s unlikely an apologist would consent to any significant doubt, but hopefully he won’t delete my comment so that readers of his blog may see it and make up their own mind.
http://1peter315.wordpress.com/2009/03/11/jesus-mysteries/
I have this book, but it’s been a few years since I read it. Even though I enjoy their work, I think there are more scholarly writers out there.
“First of all, they too easily discount the evidence for the historical Jesus. They gloss over Josephus, Paul and the Gospels, even though if this was for any other historical figure it would be plenty of evidence.”
Many scholars doubt or dismiss the mention of Jesus Christ by Josephus. You can find those who do accept it, but there is no consensus of its authenticity. The Wikipedia article about Josephus on Jesus does a fairly good job of showing the complexity of debate.
As for Paul and the Gospels, there are many theories. It’s an endless debate also without concensus amongst scholars. However, if you’re looking for more scholarly support for Freke and Gandy, then I’d advise checking out Robert M. Price and Earl Doherty.
“Secondly they artificially blend a number of gods into a composite being that no ancient person would recognize. They claim that Jesus is a form of Osiris-Dionysus and by that they mean that they can take little bits from a dozen or so unrelated myths and see some similarity with the Gospels. “
Actually, Osiris-Dionysus was a name of the godman that was syncretized during the Hellenistic period prior to Christianity. Egyptian religion and Hellenism were very syncretistic, and this combining of attributes and names was very common. If you want more scholarly support for this, then check out Christ in Egypt by D.M. Murdock.
“Thirdly, they misrepresent the role of Gnosticism. I think they are right to see Gnosticism as playing a parellel role to the pagan mystery religions, socially if not theologically. However, they fall into the popular trap of saying that there were numerous Christianities right from the beginning, suggesting that Gnosticism might even have been earliest, with orthodox Christianity only later emerging.”
Yes, this is speculative because so little survived from the first century, but there is support for it. The earliest commentators on the New Testament were all Gnostics (Basilides being the earliest). In particular, some of the earliest commentators (Marcion and Valentinus) wrote the first commentaries on the earliest NT texts (Paul).
“The earliest Christian texts that we have (which are found in the New Testament) are in continuity with what became orthodox Christianity and in opposition to Gnosticism. To get where they want to be, they have to make some ridiculous claims such as Paul being a Gnostic and many of the New Testament books having a late date, well into the second century.”
There are other scholars that argue that Paul never writes about a historical figure and never gives physical details. Doherty, in particular, writes extensively about Paul.
There is a logical reason for arguing for a late dating for NT books. As I understand, the earliest copies come from the second century. It’s traditional to date them earlier, but there is no hard evidence from the first century.
“They are totally out of touch even with critical scholarship and their claims are far from the evidence.”
They’re not out of touch, but they present just one perspective. Scholars show a great variety in their conclusions.
http://1peter315.wordpress.com/2009/03/11/jesus-mysteries/
I have this book, but it’s been a few years since I read it. Even though I enjoy their work, I think there are more scholarly writers out there.
“First of all, they too easily discount the evidence for the historical Jesus. They gloss over Josephus, Paul and the Gospels, even though if this was for any other historical figure it would be plenty of evidence.”
Many scholars doubt or dismiss the mention of Jesus Christ by Josephus. You can find those who do accept it, but there is no consensus of its authenticity. The Wikipedia article about Josephus on Jesus does a fairly good job of showing the complexity of debate.
As for Paul and the Gospels, there are many theories. It’s an endless debate also without concensus amongst scholars. However, if you’re looking for more scholarly support for Freke and Gandy, then I’d advise checking out Robert M. Price and Earl Doherty.
“Secondly they artificially blend a number of gods into a composite being that no ancient person would recognize. They claim that Jesus is a form of Osiris-Dionysus and by that they mean that they can take little bits from a dozen or so unrelated myths and see some similarity with the Gospels. “
Actually, Osiris-Dionysus was a name of the godman that was syncretized during the Hellenistic period prior to Christianity. Egyptian religion and Hellenism were very syncretistic, and this combining of attributes and names was very common. If you want more scholarly support for this, then check out Christ in Egypt by D.M. Murdock.
“Thirdly, they misrepresent the role of Gnosticism. I think they are right to see Gnosticism as playing a parellel role to the pagan mystery religions, socially if not theologically. However, they fall into the popular trap of saying that there were numerous Christianities right from the beginning, suggesting that Gnosticism might even have been earliest, with orthodox Christianity only later emerging.”
Yes, this is speculative because so little survived from the first century, but there is support for it. The earliest commentators on the New Testament were all Gnostics (Basilides being the earliest). In particular, some of the earliest commentators (Marcion and Valentinus) wrote the first commentaries on the earliest NT texts (Paul).
“The earliest Christian texts that we have (which are found in the New Testament) are in continuity with what became orthodox Christianity and in opposition to Gnosticism. To get where they want to be, they have to make some ridiculous claims such as Paul being a Gnostic and many of the New Testament books having a late date, well into the second century.”
There are other scholars that argue that Paul never writes about a historical figure and never gives physical details. Doherty, in particular, writes extensively about Paul.
There is a logical reason for arguing for a late dating for NT books. As I understand, the earliest copies come from the second century. It’s traditional to date them earlier, but there is no hard evidence from the first century.
“They are totally out of touch even with critical scholarship and their claims are far from the evidence.”
They’re not out of touch, but they present just one perspective. Scholars show a great variety in their conclusions.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Technology: Information, Imagination, and more
Technology, of course, is having a massive influence on society. But it isn’t technology itself but what it makes possible. Two aspects to this are information and imagination. Human potential is increased and so are moral issues.
Individuals and groups have more information technology which offers more power. The results of this are too numerous to list. A simple example is how cellphones have given oppressed people a quick and easy way to organize. A protest can form and disappear before the police even realize what is going on. On the other hand, technology offers better ways for the government to control its citizens and propaganda is becoming more advanced.
On the level of imagination, it’s even more interesting to consider the consequences. Television and movies have opened wide the gates of our collective imagination. And other things (such as cameras, software, and websites like YouTube) have given an opportunity for average people to create and explore possibilites.
The problem is that the more people know and imagine the more they become dissatisfied and restless. And our normal lives pale against the fantasies we obsess over, whether porn or pop stars or travelling. And this is the moral issue. In the past people repressed their imaginations. Thinking about unnatural sexual acts? Just repress it and say 100 Hail Marys. That often works, but often doesn’t. Even priests end up acting on some of those urges. And repression works even less in a culture like ours where everything you can imagine satiates the media.
Right now, many governments are trying to figure this all out. Violence and sex are legislated, but imagination is more difficult to legislate. It only becomes an issue when someone’s imagination becomes a product, something to be shared. There has been many cases in the past decade about animated porn and violence. In the US, violent video games have been mostly winning this battle as some big cases have been thrown out of the court.
Anime porn is an even thornier issue. Art has often been held above the level of pop culture, but the distinction grows less with advancement of technology. Is a picture of an underage nude person porn? Does it matter the intentions of the photographer? Is there such a thing as tasteful nudity? Is the human body to be considered a respectable subject of art? Is it simply a matter of age? If so, what about a painting of a nude underage person? Or what about anime? How legal officials determine the legality of photographic or video porn is by determining the person’s age, but how does one determine the age of an animated figure? An anime character isn’t real and so how does age of consent apply? And who is the victim? Is society as a whole a victim?
It’s well-known that a certain sector of Japanese culture is obsessed with images of young girls. And this has gone beyond anime. There has been computer programs created that portray a cute underage girl you can play with and give gifts to. There have been robots created to look young. Would sex with an android that looked like a child still be pedophilia? These are real questions society will be struggling with very soon.
I have some interest in virtual worlds, but I’ve only been on a couple of them such as Second Life. I’ve heard of another one called Red Light Center. It’s designed so that people can use avatars to have sex with other people’s avatars. I don’t know but something seems missing in the equation. Having virtual sex with a stranger’s virtual self doesn’t overly appeal to me. But the concept of it is fascinating.
This type of thing is just the beginning. Such technological imaginations are also used towards practical ends. Architects, chemists, and doctors all use these technologies to portray information visually. Also, if you consider what science has learned, it’s going to be a brave new world. Science has researched about how the brain works and various techniques to read minds and alter functioning. Scientists now understand how brainwashing works and much money has been put into light and sound machines that can have powerful effects on the brain.
On a really dark note, the development of robots and AI have been put to military use. The US has thousands of unmanned robots operating overseas. I read about a problem when something went wrong with one robot and it started targeting US soldiers. Wars of the future will be technological. Warfare is already happening on the internet. I forget which country, but one of Russia’s neighbors had its whole internet system knocked out. Fortunately, they were prepared for such an attack, but many countries such as the US supposedly aren’t prepared.
Individuals and groups have more information technology which offers more power. The results of this are too numerous to list. A simple example is how cellphones have given oppressed people a quick and easy way to organize. A protest can form and disappear before the police even realize what is going on. On the other hand, technology offers better ways for the government to control its citizens and propaganda is becoming more advanced.
On the level of imagination, it’s even more interesting to consider the consequences. Television and movies have opened wide the gates of our collective imagination. And other things (such as cameras, software, and websites like YouTube) have given an opportunity for average people to create and explore possibilites.
The problem is that the more people know and imagine the more they become dissatisfied and restless. And our normal lives pale against the fantasies we obsess over, whether porn or pop stars or travelling. And this is the moral issue. In the past people repressed their imaginations. Thinking about unnatural sexual acts? Just repress it and say 100 Hail Marys. That often works, but often doesn’t. Even priests end up acting on some of those urges. And repression works even less in a culture like ours where everything you can imagine satiates the media.
Right now, many governments are trying to figure this all out. Violence and sex are legislated, but imagination is more difficult to legislate. It only becomes an issue when someone’s imagination becomes a product, something to be shared. There has been many cases in the past decade about animated porn and violence. In the US, violent video games have been mostly winning this battle as some big cases have been thrown out of the court.
Anime porn is an even thornier issue. Art has often been held above the level of pop culture, but the distinction grows less with advancement of technology. Is a picture of an underage nude person porn? Does it matter the intentions of the photographer? Is there such a thing as tasteful nudity? Is the human body to be considered a respectable subject of art? Is it simply a matter of age? If so, what about a painting of a nude underage person? Or what about anime? How legal officials determine the legality of photographic or video porn is by determining the person’s age, but how does one determine the age of an animated figure? An anime character isn’t real and so how does age of consent apply? And who is the victim? Is society as a whole a victim?
It’s well-known that a certain sector of Japanese culture is obsessed with images of young girls. And this has gone beyond anime. There has been computer programs created that portray a cute underage girl you can play with and give gifts to. There have been robots created to look young. Would sex with an android that looked like a child still be pedophilia? These are real questions society will be struggling with very soon.
I have some interest in virtual worlds, but I’ve only been on a couple of them such as Second Life. I’ve heard of another one called Red Light Center. It’s designed so that people can use avatars to have sex with other people’s avatars. I don’t know but something seems missing in the equation. Having virtual sex with a stranger’s virtual self doesn’t overly appeal to me. But the concept of it is fascinating.
This type of thing is just the beginning. Such technological imaginations are also used towards practical ends. Architects, chemists, and doctors all use these technologies to portray information visually. Also, if you consider what science has learned, it’s going to be a brave new world. Science has researched about how the brain works and various techniques to read minds and alter functioning. Scientists now understand how brainwashing works and much money has been put into light and sound machines that can have powerful effects on the brain.
On a really dark note, the development of robots and AI have been put to military use. The US has thousands of unmanned robots operating overseas. I read about a problem when something went wrong with one robot and it started targeting US soldiers. Wars of the future will be technological. Warfare is already happening on the internet. I forget which country, but one of Russia’s neighbors had its whole internet system knocked out. Fortunately, they were prepared for such an attack, but many countries such as the US supposedly aren’t prepared.
Friday, March 20, 2009
PKD Trumps Harpur and Ligotti
Sometimes I wonder why I write a blog. When I write in my journal, I never wonder about this... I suppose because there is no potential audience to make me self-conscious. But a blog is a public spectacle... and so I wonder what purpose it serves. I sometimes hope someone reads it and at least finds it interesting, and at other times I'd rather be left alone with my rambling thoughts.
I'm wondering about this specifically in relation to my recent blogs about Christianity. I partly write just to give my thoughts form and to make notes about the subjects I study. However, I'm also trying to communicate... afterall, that is what writing is about. I'm sure like everyone my motives are mixed. There are various aspects to my personality, various hopes and fears. Plus, blogging is simply a good distraction from other more responsible activities such as washing my dishes.
In writing about Christianity, part of me wants to persuade. I believe in truth and I want others to believe in truth. I have this lingering faith that truth can somehow win out against all the BS in the world. Along with this, I'd like to believe that religion can be something more than history too often demonstrates it to be. Tom Harpur writes about the horrific side of Christian history, but he also writes about hope... about the possibility that spiritual truth (whatever it may be) can rise above the politics and superficialities that mainstream Christianity has consisted of for centuries. I was raised a New Age Christian and so this message resonates with a part of me that is still innocent and earnest in my sense of faith. Who knows, maybe society can change. Maybe religion can become something more than a means of social control. Tom Harpur believes that if Christianity was willing to face up to its own dark past that a bright future is possible. What a happy thought that is.
But then my inner Thomas Ligotti speaks up. Going by Zappfe, Ligotti the pessimist dismisses such New Agey hopes as just another attempt to avoid suffering. Life is suffering and everything we do is an attempt to avoid the awareness of suffering. Sadly or fortunately, we're simply incapable of even comprehending the horror of our existence. It doesn't matter what cruelties any particular religion was built upon because our whole society is built upon misery. We're just f*cked! Then again, if I have to waste my life in some manner or another, maybe that is all the more reason to sit around contemplating spiritual truths... even if they are nothing more than pretty lies.
I do on occasion think of myself as a Christian, in spite my constant criticisms. My friend tells me I'm a Christian... and, heck, why not? I'm a Christian and many other things besides. It's all good. To be serious, I actually do feel drawn to Christianity, specifically certain Gnostic ideas. Plus, I'm just fascinated by these great myths that percolated down through the millennia to finally take form in the figure of Jesus and the rest of the cast. When I contemplate these stories and symbols, I do sense a deeper truth, something that feels real.
In the end, neither Harpur nor Ligotti wins out. Their voices fade away, and I see Philip K. Dick sitting with one of his cats and he is bantering about something or another. It is true that he was crazy, but crazy in an entertaining and mostly harmless way. He had a playful imagination and an overactive one at that. Harpur and Ligotti, on the other hand, seem like such serious fellows. I can often be quite serious myself. Still, I'd rather be a fool like PKD. He took various random ideas (including ancient mythology and Gnosticism) and he made it his own. He wasn't a good person, he wasn't a bad person. He was just a guy who liked to tell stories and who had an insatiable curiosity. Who needs hope or pessimism if they have curiosity?
Too many people in the world have answers. Even though I have many opinions, I know I don't have any answer myself. But part of me wants an answer. And that is fine to an extent. Maybe we can't live without some answer or another to hold onto. Even so, I don't want to ever stop questioning. If life ever becomes so depressing or boring to me that I lose my sense of curiosity, then what would be the point?
So, I can get annoyed at fundies who present apologetic self-deception as truth. That is their answer and it seems a fairly stupid answer to me. Then again, I get annoyed at lots of things in life. I pretty much get annoyed at anyone who claims any final conclusion about anything. And I get annoyed at life for its lack of a conclusion, its lack of a clear point to it all. I must admit I get too easily annoyed. It must be nice being a fundie, or a fanatic of any variety for that matter, who possesses unquestioning certainty. There is no doubt that fundies get annoyed as well, but at least they have conviction in their annoyance. As for me, I just end up turning my annoyance back on myself. I get annoyed even at my own attempts at finding answers.
Its just with every answer comes a role to play. The fundie is playing their role of righteous believer and some of them can really embrace that role, but there are many other roles besides. I get tired of roles. I go to work and play various roles... for my supervisor, for my fellow employees, for the customers. And then there are all the family roles I'm stuck in... son, brother, brother-in-law, uncle, etc. It almost makes me feel envious of the people playing the role of homeless... a much simpler role to play in many ways even with its drawbacks. There is this one homeless schizophrenic guy that I often suspect has life figured out. That is almost the perfect role because then everyone leaves you alone.
It makes me wonder what conclusion I've come to in my own life order to play the roles I play. I guess any story has to have its roles to be played. Maybe I just don't like the story I'm in. When I'm blogging, I'm usually playing the role of the intellectual. It's a role I'm good at to an extent, but intellectuality can bring out the cynic in me. I suppose I could play the role of the person who has no opinion at all... except I'm too opinionated to attempt that role. I've tried many roles in my life. I've even tried to play the optimist a number of times, and I really suck at it. I'm almost attracted to the role of the Christian miserable sinner except that role doesn't seem like very much fun, and the dogma of the role of the righteous Christian would give me brain cramps.
I somewhat admire Ligotti in his adamant pessimism which almost feels like a stoic fatalism. His view seems so simple and straightforward. Ultimately, I don't understand such a view. I'm a spiritual person. One of the best roles I've found for myself is the spiritual seeker who never finds. It isn't always a perfectly satisfying part to play, but it keeps me occupied. As an endlessly questioning seeker, I feel some connection to Philip K. Dick. He definitely had restless mind syndrome.
Another aspect to PKD was that he had great interest in social roles. One of my favorite stories by him is his novel A Scanner Darkly. That story has a strong Gnostic theme. It's a bit dark in it's portrayal of society and relationships, but I oddly find it gives me a sense of hope or else something related to hope. The main character Arctor never gives up. He is confused and split, but he continually questions and in some ways sees more clearly than the other characters. Partly, he tries to step outside of the roles he finds himself in... even though he ends up stepping into other roles. No perspective gives him absolute clarity, but more significant is his nagging sense of doubt. In Arctor, I see something akin to my own seeking nature, my own seeking without knowing what I'm seeking. The seeker is just another role I suppose, but at least it isn't a mindless role. There is a sense in this that there is something more than the masks we wear. In Arctor's shifting perspectives, he at times nearly forgets all roles and a deeper aspect seems to emerge.
Arctor is very much a Christ-like figure. There is the dual nature, the sacrifice and suffering, the descent, the emergence of something new. The dual nature aspect is particularly compelling. Saviors tend to be dual natured in several ways. There is the well-known duality of God and man combined. However, saviors are unifiers of duality in general. Many savior figures combine human and animal features for instance. Another duality is that between good and evil personified as Jesus and Satan or Horus and Set. The relationship of the latter two is a really good example because they were even at times represented as a singular dual-natured god, Horus-Set.
What is interesting about Arctor is that he has a split personality such that one half of him is both spying on and looking out for his other half. Meanwhile, sweet little Donna is playing the role of Judas, but in a sense Arctor willingly plays into this betrayal by his past choices. Arctor is both outside and within the oppressive system, pretending to be a narc. Still, he holds something back from the drama of it all. Donna may think she knows the game, but she doesn't really know Arctor. Despite her larger perspective, she is more identified with the role she is playing than Arctor is. Most of the characters seem to be stuck in roles. Even though outwardly the story is about drug addiction, the story is really about social roles and social control, about how people get stuck in patterns of mind.
And beyond all of that, there is another message. Those who think they're in the know may not know as much as they think. Instead, at the bottom of loss of all certainty, one might discover something unexpected. It isn't nihilism for there is a different kind of certainty within the faith that allows one to survive the descent. There is some kind of balance in it however precarious it may be.
In real life, however, many people don't survive the descent. Staying within the confines of conviction is much safer. Although, how I see it is that such descents are part of a story, and I suspect we ultimately don't choose the stories we are in. I happen to be sympathetic to the story of Arctor, but I'm biased. Maybe ideally I should try to feel compassion for everyone in their respective stories. And maybe I should do many things. Compassion for fundies? I'll have to work on that.
I'm wondering about this specifically in relation to my recent blogs about Christianity. I partly write just to give my thoughts form and to make notes about the subjects I study. However, I'm also trying to communicate... afterall, that is what writing is about. I'm sure like everyone my motives are mixed. There are various aspects to my personality, various hopes and fears. Plus, blogging is simply a good distraction from other more responsible activities such as washing my dishes.
In writing about Christianity, part of me wants to persuade. I believe in truth and I want others to believe in truth. I have this lingering faith that truth can somehow win out against all the BS in the world. Along with this, I'd like to believe that religion can be something more than history too often demonstrates it to be. Tom Harpur writes about the horrific side of Christian history, but he also writes about hope... about the possibility that spiritual truth (whatever it may be) can rise above the politics and superficialities that mainstream Christianity has consisted of for centuries. I was raised a New Age Christian and so this message resonates with a part of me that is still innocent and earnest in my sense of faith. Who knows, maybe society can change. Maybe religion can become something more than a means of social control. Tom Harpur believes that if Christianity was willing to face up to its own dark past that a bright future is possible. What a happy thought that is.
But then my inner Thomas Ligotti speaks up. Going by Zappfe, Ligotti the pessimist dismisses such New Agey hopes as just another attempt to avoid suffering. Life is suffering and everything we do is an attempt to avoid the awareness of suffering. Sadly or fortunately, we're simply incapable of even comprehending the horror of our existence. It doesn't matter what cruelties any particular religion was built upon because our whole society is built upon misery. We're just f*cked! Then again, if I have to waste my life in some manner or another, maybe that is all the more reason to sit around contemplating spiritual truths... even if they are nothing more than pretty lies.
I do on occasion think of myself as a Christian, in spite my constant criticisms. My friend tells me I'm a Christian... and, heck, why not? I'm a Christian and many other things besides. It's all good. To be serious, I actually do feel drawn to Christianity, specifically certain Gnostic ideas. Plus, I'm just fascinated by these great myths that percolated down through the millennia to finally take form in the figure of Jesus and the rest of the cast. When I contemplate these stories and symbols, I do sense a deeper truth, something that feels real.
In the end, neither Harpur nor Ligotti wins out. Their voices fade away, and I see Philip K. Dick sitting with one of his cats and he is bantering about something or another. It is true that he was crazy, but crazy in an entertaining and mostly harmless way. He had a playful imagination and an overactive one at that. Harpur and Ligotti, on the other hand, seem like such serious fellows. I can often be quite serious myself. Still, I'd rather be a fool like PKD. He took various random ideas (including ancient mythology and Gnosticism) and he made it his own. He wasn't a good person, he wasn't a bad person. He was just a guy who liked to tell stories and who had an insatiable curiosity. Who needs hope or pessimism if they have curiosity?
Too many people in the world have answers. Even though I have many opinions, I know I don't have any answer myself. But part of me wants an answer. And that is fine to an extent. Maybe we can't live without some answer or another to hold onto. Even so, I don't want to ever stop questioning. If life ever becomes so depressing or boring to me that I lose my sense of curiosity, then what would be the point?
So, I can get annoyed at fundies who present apologetic self-deception as truth. That is their answer and it seems a fairly stupid answer to me. Then again, I get annoyed at lots of things in life. I pretty much get annoyed at anyone who claims any final conclusion about anything. And I get annoyed at life for its lack of a conclusion, its lack of a clear point to it all. I must admit I get too easily annoyed. It must be nice being a fundie, or a fanatic of any variety for that matter, who possesses unquestioning certainty. There is no doubt that fundies get annoyed as well, but at least they have conviction in their annoyance. As for me, I just end up turning my annoyance back on myself. I get annoyed even at my own attempts at finding answers.
Its just with every answer comes a role to play. The fundie is playing their role of righteous believer and some of them can really embrace that role, but there are many other roles besides. I get tired of roles. I go to work and play various roles... for my supervisor, for my fellow employees, for the customers. And then there are all the family roles I'm stuck in... son, brother, brother-in-law, uncle, etc. It almost makes me feel envious of the people playing the role of homeless... a much simpler role to play in many ways even with its drawbacks. There is this one homeless schizophrenic guy that I often suspect has life figured out. That is almost the perfect role because then everyone leaves you alone.
It makes me wonder what conclusion I've come to in my own life order to play the roles I play. I guess any story has to have its roles to be played. Maybe I just don't like the story I'm in. When I'm blogging, I'm usually playing the role of the intellectual. It's a role I'm good at to an extent, but intellectuality can bring out the cynic in me. I suppose I could play the role of the person who has no opinion at all... except I'm too opinionated to attempt that role. I've tried many roles in my life. I've even tried to play the optimist a number of times, and I really suck at it. I'm almost attracted to the role of the Christian miserable sinner except that role doesn't seem like very much fun, and the dogma of the role of the righteous Christian would give me brain cramps.
I somewhat admire Ligotti in his adamant pessimism which almost feels like a stoic fatalism. His view seems so simple and straightforward. Ultimately, I don't understand such a view. I'm a spiritual person. One of the best roles I've found for myself is the spiritual seeker who never finds. It isn't always a perfectly satisfying part to play, but it keeps me occupied. As an endlessly questioning seeker, I feel some connection to Philip K. Dick. He definitely had restless mind syndrome.
Another aspect to PKD was that he had great interest in social roles. One of my favorite stories by him is his novel A Scanner Darkly. That story has a strong Gnostic theme. It's a bit dark in it's portrayal of society and relationships, but I oddly find it gives me a sense of hope or else something related to hope. The main character Arctor never gives up. He is confused and split, but he continually questions and in some ways sees more clearly than the other characters. Partly, he tries to step outside of the roles he finds himself in... even though he ends up stepping into other roles. No perspective gives him absolute clarity, but more significant is his nagging sense of doubt. In Arctor, I see something akin to my own seeking nature, my own seeking without knowing what I'm seeking. The seeker is just another role I suppose, but at least it isn't a mindless role. There is a sense in this that there is something more than the masks we wear. In Arctor's shifting perspectives, he at times nearly forgets all roles and a deeper aspect seems to emerge.
Arctor is very much a Christ-like figure. There is the dual nature, the sacrifice and suffering, the descent, the emergence of something new. The dual nature aspect is particularly compelling. Saviors tend to be dual natured in several ways. There is the well-known duality of God and man combined. However, saviors are unifiers of duality in general. Many savior figures combine human and animal features for instance. Another duality is that between good and evil personified as Jesus and Satan or Horus and Set. The relationship of the latter two is a really good example because they were even at times represented as a singular dual-natured god, Horus-Set.
What is interesting about Arctor is that he has a split personality such that one half of him is both spying on and looking out for his other half. Meanwhile, sweet little Donna is playing the role of Judas, but in a sense Arctor willingly plays into this betrayal by his past choices. Arctor is both outside and within the oppressive system, pretending to be a narc. Still, he holds something back from the drama of it all. Donna may think she knows the game, but she doesn't really know Arctor. Despite her larger perspective, she is more identified with the role she is playing than Arctor is. Most of the characters seem to be stuck in roles. Even though outwardly the story is about drug addiction, the story is really about social roles and social control, about how people get stuck in patterns of mind.
And beyond all of that, there is another message. Those who think they're in the know may not know as much as they think. Instead, at the bottom of loss of all certainty, one might discover something unexpected. It isn't nihilism for there is a different kind of certainty within the faith that allows one to survive the descent. There is some kind of balance in it however precarious it may be.
In real life, however, many people don't survive the descent. Staying within the confines of conviction is much safer. Although, how I see it is that such descents are part of a story, and I suspect we ultimately don't choose the stories we are in. I happen to be sympathetic to the story of Arctor, but I'm biased. Maybe ideally I should try to feel compassion for everyone in their respective stories. And maybe I should do many things. Compassion for fundies? I'll have to work on that.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Egyptian Symbols within Christianity
Besides the obvious crosses and crucifixes in many religions across the world that predated Christianity, there are also other non-Christian symbols found within Christianity. As I’ve been focusing on Egypt lately, I’ll give two examples from that culture. But realize there are many other such symbolic similarities that can also be shown. I also chose the following quote because the author demonstrates that early Christians (including Augustine) were aware of these symbols and their meaning.
The Pagan Christ, Tom Harpur
pp 88-89: The Egyptian Christ, manifested in the sign of Pisces, was fore-ordained to be Ichthys (Greek word for “fish”), the fisherman and to be accompanied by fishermen followers. Doctrinally, he was the “fisher of men”. Horus, the best-known Egyptian Christ figure was associated from time immemorial with the fish, and Massey’s Natural Genesis features a reproduction of an Egyptian engraving showing Horus holding a fish above his head. Several of the early Christian Fathers refer to Christ also as Ichthys, or “that great fish,” and the mitre worn by succeeding popes “in the the shoes of the fishermen” is shaped exactly like a fish’s mouth. It’s well known that the Greek word ichthys forms an acrostic meaning “Jesus Christ the Son of God (Our) Savior.” Having been in Rome numerous times during my dozen years covering religion around the world for the Toronto Star, I have seen first-hand how frequently the outline of a fish occurs in catacombs as a Christian symbol. It also doubled as a sign of the Eucharist. Prosper Africanus, an early Christian theologian, calls Christ “that great fish who fed from himself the disciples on the shore and offered himself as a fish to the world.” Commenting on this same passage from the end of John’s Gospel, St. Augustine says that the broiled fish in the story “is Christ.” The art found in ancient Egyptian tombs commonly shows fish, fishermen, nets, and fishtraps of varying kinds. All have the same spiritual meaning.
Much more important, however, is the fact that the Egyptian texts bear witness to an “only begotten god” (meaning begotten of one parent only), whose symbol was the beetle because in ancient science this creature was thought to be “self-produced, being unconceived by a female.” Massey says, “The only begotten god is a well-known type [symbol], then, of divinity worshipped in Egypt. In each cult, the Messiah-son and manifestor was the only-begotten god. This, according to the Egyptian text, is the Christ, the Word, the manifestor in John’s Gospel.” In fact, in one early version of the Greek text of the New Testament’s Gospel of John, the phrase “the only begotten son of God” actually reads “the only begotten god”! Its very unorthodoxy makes it likely that it is the preferred, original reading.
The truth thus came forcefully home to me that this Egyptian Christ is indeed the express image of the Christ of John’s Gospel, who begins in the first chapter without father or mother and is the Word of the beginning, the opener and the architect, the light of the world, the self-originated and only-begotten God. I found that the very phraseology of Jonh often echoed the Egyptian texts, which tell of he who was “the Beginning of the becoming, from the first, who made all things but was not made.” Some of the Fathers of the Church knew that the beetle was a symbol of Christ. Augustine, indeed, writes, “My own good beetle, not so much because he is only begotten (God), not because he, the author of himself, has taken on the form of mortals, but because he has rolled himself in our filth and chooses to be born from this filth itself” - like the dung beetle.
When the god Osiris came to the earth as a savior, he came as his own son, the child Horus. He was born “like or as a Word.” The Egyptian text says that he came to earth as a substitute. Indeed, an ancient Egyptian festival celebrating the birth of Horus was called “The Day of the Child in His Cradle.”
When Horus comes to earth in the Egyptian story, he is supported or given bread by Seb, who is god of the earth, “the father on earth.” He is thus the divine father on earth of the messiah-son, who manifests in time. Just as Joseph, the adoptive father of Jesus, provides shelter and food for his son, so Seb (Jo-seph) cares for Horus. The consort of Seb is the mother of heaven, named Nu; Meri (Mary) is another name for the mother of the messiah. Massey concludes, “Thus Seb and Meri for earth and heaven would afford the two mythic originals for Joseph and Mary as parents of the divine child.” There are seven different Marys in the four Gospels. They correspond with uncanny fidelity to seven Marys, or Hathors in the Egyptian stories.
The Pagan Christ, Tom Harpur
pp 88-89: The Egyptian Christ, manifested in the sign of Pisces, was fore-ordained to be Ichthys (Greek word for “fish”), the fisherman and to be accompanied by fishermen followers. Doctrinally, he was the “fisher of men”. Horus, the best-known Egyptian Christ figure was associated from time immemorial with the fish, and Massey’s Natural Genesis features a reproduction of an Egyptian engraving showing Horus holding a fish above his head. Several of the early Christian Fathers refer to Christ also as Ichthys, or “that great fish,” and the mitre worn by succeeding popes “in the the shoes of the fishermen” is shaped exactly like a fish’s mouth. It’s well known that the Greek word ichthys forms an acrostic meaning “Jesus Christ the Son of God (Our) Savior.” Having been in Rome numerous times during my dozen years covering religion around the world for the Toronto Star, I have seen first-hand how frequently the outline of a fish occurs in catacombs as a Christian symbol. It also doubled as a sign of the Eucharist. Prosper Africanus, an early Christian theologian, calls Christ “that great fish who fed from himself the disciples on the shore and offered himself as a fish to the world.” Commenting on this same passage from the end of John’s Gospel, St. Augustine says that the broiled fish in the story “is Christ.” The art found in ancient Egyptian tombs commonly shows fish, fishermen, nets, and fishtraps of varying kinds. All have the same spiritual meaning.
Much more important, however, is the fact that the Egyptian texts bear witness to an “only begotten god” (meaning begotten of one parent only), whose symbol was the beetle because in ancient science this creature was thought to be “self-produced, being unconceived by a female.” Massey says, “The only begotten god is a well-known type [symbol], then, of divinity worshipped in Egypt. In each cult, the Messiah-son and manifestor was the only-begotten god. This, according to the Egyptian text, is the Christ, the Word, the manifestor in John’s Gospel.” In fact, in one early version of the Greek text of the New Testament’s Gospel of John, the phrase “the only begotten son of God” actually reads “the only begotten god”! Its very unorthodoxy makes it likely that it is the preferred, original reading.
The truth thus came forcefully home to me that this Egyptian Christ is indeed the express image of the Christ of John’s Gospel, who begins in the first chapter without father or mother and is the Word of the beginning, the opener and the architect, the light of the world, the self-originated and only-begotten God. I found that the very phraseology of Jonh often echoed the Egyptian texts, which tell of he who was “the Beginning of the becoming, from the first, who made all things but was not made.” Some of the Fathers of the Church knew that the beetle was a symbol of Christ. Augustine, indeed, writes, “My own good beetle, not so much because he is only begotten (God), not because he, the author of himself, has taken on the form of mortals, but because he has rolled himself in our filth and chooses to be born from this filth itself” - like the dung beetle.
When the god Osiris came to the earth as a savior, he came as his own son, the child Horus. He was born “like or as a Word.” The Egyptian text says that he came to earth as a substitute. Indeed, an ancient Egyptian festival celebrating the birth of Horus was called “The Day of the Child in His Cradle.”
When Horus comes to earth in the Egyptian story, he is supported or given bread by Seb, who is god of the earth, “the father on earth.” He is thus the divine father on earth of the messiah-son, who manifests in time. Just as Joseph, the adoptive father of Jesus, provides shelter and food for his son, so Seb (Jo-seph) cares for Horus. The consort of Seb is the mother of heaven, named Nu; Meri (Mary) is another name for the mother of the messiah. Massey concludes, “Thus Seb and Meri for earth and heaven would afford the two mythic originals for Joseph and Mary as parents of the divine child.” There are seven different Marys in the four Gospels. They correspond with uncanny fidelity to seven Marys, or Hathors in the Egyptian stories.
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