"Christianity" Needs To Be Differentiated To Grasp Holy Sacredness in History

Da Ca Christianity from its inception has laid particular emphasis upon it being a recounting of historical facts, thereby constructing a binary perception in which all other religions must be incorrect at best or Satanic deception at worst. Outright, Christianity denies the quality of truth in the vast history of human sacredness. Ma So Daniel Calvert Since it’s inception, no. Post council of Nicaea definitely. There was a vast group of early Christian sects that took the metaphorical approach, but they were killed or burned off as heretics. Da Ca Mark Souza the synoptic gospels in particular, written in the first century, do present this emphasis, and remained highly regarded pre & post Nicaea. Paul wrote in the 40 - 60 timeframe and holds no conflict with them. M S Daniel Calvert that assumes the synoptic gospels were meant to be taken literally. And it’s not clear to me at the moment if the author of Paul’s letters would have read the gospels. Mark Rego Monteiro Ma So That´s already anachronistic. Jesus´ amazing life and mission was itself an attempt first with the Jews, and showing his generosity to help non-Jews, and teaching God´s mercy and the need to "go and learn" that. Then came Peter and Paul´s wrestling with the shift to the Gentiles, including Peter´s vision. Anachronistic views of "intolerance" ignore the struggles for basic identity in conflict with imperial paganism and its holdovers. From Greek philosophy to the fall of the West to Gregory´s pro-syncretic ideas, basic threads of applying "love" with broader understanding were cooking. Mark Rego Monteiro Da Ca Good point in acknowledging the topic of "the history of human sacredness"! However, way too overgeneralized, since right wing evangelical and Catholic conservatives are the intolerant centers in Christianity, while progressive Christianity is very tolerant and aligned with US Civil Rights and UN human rights, even if all the layers aren´t yet widely grasped in combination. It becomes a question of adequate empiricism or literacy. In starting to make an intelligent observation, you succumb to a lack of adequate empirical distinctions. Empirical detail keeps a person grounded in the very real struggles of history among people that helps evaporate anachronistic anti-supremacist judgmentalism. The Roman Empire´s Christianity had been in friction against pagans, not angels. The fall of the West in 476 AD wasn´t a joy ride, but it showed how an unprecedented shift occurred. The invading tribes were converted by the surviving church. By 732, Islam was using the sword viciously until Charles Martel´s savvy preparedness spared Christian Church Europe, such as it was. His grandson was Charlemagne, who faced conflicts, centrally with the pagan Saxons and the Arian Lombards. Getting beyond "binary", and even more getting to religious freedom and interfaith awareness and orientation has required specific educational and cultural advances, as in the alternative frameworks of Max Mueller´s Comparative Religious scholarship by the first Gifford Lecture, the 1893 Chicago World Parliament organized by Bonney and Barrows, Simone Weil, Thomas Merton, and more. Those specific educational and cultural advances alone have involved a kind of complexity that has obscured the meaning of "Christianity" and deprived it of its driving loving integrity in Jesus´ legacy. The monk T Aquinas made a fundamental advance with his empirical arguments for God as First Cause. "Science" has been renamed from natural philosophy, and the social sciences and humanities from moral philosophy and human laws. Advances empowered European colonialism based on merchant, soldier, and political ambitions, not usually respected in balance of hindsight, but ultimately misjudged as "inhuman." The law of the jungle was carrying the kill-switch of Jesus´ integrity, which imbues the good side of colonialism in how it spread Universities, and led to Wm Jones´ Asia Society around 1790. That´s where Luther´s Reformation, anthropology, etc could all begin to develop, with Gandhi and FD Roosevelt´s Social Gospel influenced leadership after the 1929 Stock Market Crash to overcoming resistance to war preparations to envisioning the UN and human rights. Not primarily Christianity now, for all its progressive churches, but academia and profiteering business are locked in power struggles for control. Profiteers have spread economic materialism on top of scientific and secular materialism. Academia has followed that trend, while anthropologists and psychosocial studies scholars value various human rights elements. Jung´s psychology before Campbell´s own, has also been accompanied by Mircae Eliade´s thoughts on comparative religious experience, with comparative scholars H Smith and N Smart too little valued still. Later M Harner´s split from academia with his transpersonal shamanic practice legacy. Christian churches have been shaken by profiteering businesspeople in the post-WWII Cold War, in which Marx´s work was wielded for totalitarianism that profiteers exploited by aligning and amplifying militarist anti-communism. Progressive Christianity has had difficulty identifying beyond doctrinal truths because of the larger issues going on. Their position for interfaith positions can be empowered by recognizing the original spiritual Christianity in University-based scholarship. In all the steps, now progressive Christians can align with Christianity´s Jesus-legacy secret sauce of University education like anthropology and Comp Rel Stud to help coordinate a structured pluralism. "Human sacredness" has had its evil eyes and so on that have accompanied universal violence and enslavement practices. Jesus´ legacy has created a standard in UN human rights, along with its red alerts in sustainability. Ma So Author Mark Rego Monteiro I’ve seen some very good scholarly takes on both the historical vs mythical Christ, but that’s neither here nor there, that why I was assuming to operate from a historical Jesus so we didn’t get side tracked. When I use the word “metaphor” i use it as a synonym for allegory or parable which is definitely biblical language. So bearing that in mind, it can’t be anachronistic when we know this style of literacy was already being used back then. John Dominic Crossan makes the scholarly case for this in “The Power of Parable” if you need a credible source. Reply 16h Mark Rego Monteiro Ma So Well, the issue of metaphor has a few applications, as in the parables of Jesus. However, the referent to spiritual-religious phenomena still becomes a question. Crossan is a materialist. When it comes to truth claims, the issue of spiritual-religious reality isn´t something you can just brush aside. By citing Crossan, you seem to be trying to justify your position that "shuffles its feet," maybe acknowledging Jesus as historical, but then citing the materialist Crossan. You are using the term "metaphor" in general, while this discussion began with your response to DC´s assertion of Christianity "denying the sacred truth outside." My point of your anachronism involves your assumptions about the Gospel being literal or not, and then using doubts about Paul´s status. Your own position of the reality of the Christian figures is basic to your failure to identify the issues of Christians going from indigenous Jewish to relating to exogenous individuals and groups. Crossan´s kind of position is based on various kinds of assumptions. I have my own credentials, and have seen the serious neglect amongst progressives in identifying spiritual-religious reality, as if such a view is limited to current conservative evangelical exclusionism. Thus, my position is approximated by linking C Keener´s excellent 2011 work on Miracles as real and OC Simonton MD´s own patient´s testimony, ie spiritual-religious phenomena, and linking it to work like J Hannam´s History of Science and Religion. Meanwhile, most progressives do acknowledge the psychological benefits of prayer and meditation. "Metaphor" is the overuse, and misuse, of the concept that tries to cater to materialism instead of using empiricism appropriately and overcoming the metaphysical naturalism of academia and progressive culture more generally. US Civil Rights developed by T Jefferson et al up to UN human rights by FDR et al isn´t a modern "metaphorical" development, as a case in point. Neither is Gandhi, Rev MLK, et al. They can be directly linked through the University-based system to the transformative power of God´s love through Jesus and his legacy through historical sociology and psychosocial studies. Transpersonal psychology and C Keener´s work then break the issues of ideological materialist assumptions. Campbell was wrong, in fact, in his own confusing the problem of Biblical literalism with the reality of spiritual religious phenomena and Jesus´ loving integrity for God. Clearly, it´s a widespread issue, with progressive secular materialism linked to other forms. My reference to OC Simonton MD shows how I have used psychosomatic medical resources as a helpful approach in defining spiritual-religious phenomena. That is a modern way to justify Jesus´ Resurrection, and begin to differentiate the meaning of his words then from their development. The Enlightenment then isn´t seen as diverging from Jesus´ legacy of integrity, just from church doctrines. Jefferson, for example, was anti-clerical, but trying to sustain his Christianity as a Deist rationalist. Mark Rego Monteiro D BC I got my degree in Bio Anthro, and studying Dawkins book a bit. I can appreciate the approaches you are looking at. My work, only as an undergrad, focused on the evolution of speech and symbol use, up through religious ritual and microsociology. I identified empirical work by an anthropologist ED Chapple that built on Pavlov (ie and Watson, Jones, and Skinner)´s behavioral neurophysiology of conditioning. That also needs linking to Piaget´s developmental work, and raises the issues of cognitive-object tool use and relational-emotional-social symbol use. Thus, the evolution of "inclusive fitness" ie cooperating with relatives, has been extended beyond mere crude biological levels of local perception. That is where identifying the non-rational issues of spiritual-religious shamanic and post-shamanic experience, phenomena, and knowledge identfies their non-materialist character. Thus, the distinction of Jesus´ life, mission, message, and legacy community is full of specific events and processes of developmental significance. They underlie "biological science" itself, as part of University-based philosophical scholarship with empiricism. Jefferson etal´s Civil Rights, FDR et al´s UN human rights, and Gandhi´s satagraha thus are not limited to mere evolutionary analysis, but require psychosocial and cultural interpretation as I have started providing here. Weinstein is not clear about how his use of the term "metaphor" requires its own deconstruction and interrelation all the way to transpersonal psychology and more. You mentioned Freud, no less, and rightly. However, Freud´s early work had not yet gotten bogged in Oedipal metaphor. Jung´s work addressed new levels of insight that allowed him to start with mere "archetypes," but extend that to broader implications with his Higher Self as Jesus Christ the Imago Dei. Stan Jaki´s work on Science in Jesus´ legacy, among others, also then comes into play. In fact, while Jefferson, FDR, and Gandhi all defy mere biological indulgence, Jefferson´s more rationalist mindset is a key issue. The relevance of empirical spiritual-religious phenomena can then be emphasized by noting George Fox´s experience in founding the Quaker Friends, Sganyadiyo/Handsome Lake healing himself and others of alcoholism in Jefferson´s day, up to Rasputin´s miraculous insertion in the Czar´s circles as a monk from modest origins because he could alleviate the Prince´s genetic hemophilia condition. William James´ use of "mind-cure" testimonies in his classic book Varieties of Religious Experience is also worth noting. Empirical spiritual-religious phenomena.