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Forum Guidelines Wrote:Quoting large posts.
Creating long posts is absolutely fine (as long as they are your own work), but when you are replying to one try to avoid the temptation to quote the whole thing. Instead, simply quote small sections that you are replying to, as otherwise it tends to make the thread quite difficult to read. An alternative might be to wrap up large sections using the hide tag, such as:
April 8, 2012 at 10:44 pm (This post was last modified: April 8, 2012 at 10:50 pm by radorth.)
(April 8, 2012 at 8:30 am)michaelsherlock Wrote: The idea/philosophy is focussed on getting people to shed, destroy, see past, re-assess and grow past their subjective beliefs, as much as possible! It is about increasing the “individual’s” independence of thought as much as possible and exploring the limits of that possibility.
You guys have pretty well done that, no? We have histories of whole countries run by atheists exploring "new" ideas. It did not work out well. Upwards of 60 million innocent people were killed, murdered, starved to death in the last 100 years by atheist leaders-- more people than all the religious wars in all of history combined. God forbid a skeptic would stand up to Stalin or Mao. That is not to say Christians did not do evil, but a rational person would compare their works to the teachings of Jesus.
Quote:The ‘I Am Christ’ idea, takes into account that humans are social beings and are therefore naturally dependant on one another to some degree, but the ‘I Am Christ’ idea, asks; to what degree is this dependency healthy for both the individual and the society and do both history and current affairs present us with any evidence to show that such dependency is causing our downfall as a species, who seem to be heading into a new ‘dark age,’ or ‘Idiocracy,’ if we ever in fact emerged from the first one.
Well certainly the Catholic church and state were codependent (I like to say) in the Dark and Medieval ages, and this co-dependency was oppressive and led to the most evil deeds. The real question is, what does that have to do with Jesus, or the possiblity that if we actually did what he said, the world would be entirely peaceful and prosperous? If you are going to claim to think freely, than please do so. I'm reading church history and finding little evidence Christianity as Jesus taught it has ever been tried. Chesterton made the same claim.
Quote:It is about fostering both a cognitive and behavioural humility amongst an otherwise egocentric and overconfident species, whose confidence has been predominantly rooted in misguided beliefs and perceptions that have been reinforced by various psychological strategies employed to protect the house in which these beliefs reside, the ego.
I agree. But I find few humble intellectuals, and the ones I do find as easily become Christians as not. Is the agnostic Will Durant egostistical because he read the Gospels and decided you can't make this stuff up. He called the claimed contradictions "minutae." Einstein read the Gospels and decided the same thing, and openly said so, although he later seems to have had his doubts. Of course he did his best thinking as a young man
Quote: It is about attempting to address and reconcile the various aspects of our own consciousness (individuation) which have been divided and pitted against one another, causing the proliferation of internal and external conflict and the dominance of the ego-self over the “true-self,” for lack of a better word.
Good stuff. What I am saying is that you can't claim to have thought independently until you have tested and guaranteed your own motives are free of bias. How do I know you have ever tried Christianity yourself? Have you tried everything Jesus and the apostles said would lead to true enlightenment? Have you spoken in tongues and prophesied?
Quote:It is about maturing beyond lame and impotent “hero worship,” and becoming the hero, the saviour, the teacher and the student, all at one time and giving up childish things, like religious faith, political ideologies and scientific and academic dogmas.
Well religious belief is not faith, and religious beliefs cannot even co-exist with faith. Jesus told the religious people of his time exactly that, but now they just reincarnate as Christians.
Quote:It is about putting an end to the emotional manipulation achieved by the belief, which, in the hands of various belief peddlers, has fostered inequality, poverty, war,
Well John Locke was a Christian's Christian, calls Jesus over and over, "our savior," defends miracles and seems to have gotten what Jesus was talking about in Luke 4, where we find his mission is to free the oppressed and set at liberty the captives. Jesus also says in another place that heretics are to be left alone, by the way. Too bad half the Popes did exactly the opposite. But you see this si simply more evidence that you are are throwing the Baby out with the dirty bathwater, which of course the great thinkers like Jefferson tried to keep people from doing. He said the words of Jesus had been wrapped in the "rags of the clergy." No argument there. But the words themselves he called the "most sublime" and the "greatest system of morals." Also the three men he most admired were Christians. Ido not say he was a Christian. That is not for me to decide. I doubt it. I am just pointing out what he, a genuinely independent and fearless thinker, believed.
Had we actually done what Jesus commanded in the Sermon on the Mount, we could speak with authority, but that only a fraction of the world has ever done so, and so calls for "new independent thinking" don't mean much if no one has even tried the "greatest system of morals."
What is in the least irrational about this argument?
April 8, 2012 at 11:02 pm (This post was last modified: April 8, 2012 at 11:03 pm by Epimethean.)
Locke was a christian's christian only because they wished to claim him as such. He is far more along the lines of a deist and is generally regarded as such these days.
As for what jesus is supposed to have said on the mount, let's just say that that is not the least irrational thing you mention.
April 8, 2012 at 11:14 pm (This post was last modified: April 8, 2012 at 11:15 pm by radorth.)
(April 8, 2012 at 11:02 pm)Epimethean Wrote: Locke was a christian's christian only because they wished to claim him as such. He is far more along the lines of a deist and is generally regarded as such these days.
You are ignorant of his beliefs. I can quote 30-40 times him calling Jesus "our Savior," defending his miracles one and all, in his book "The Reasonableness of Christianity." I don't need any other Christian testimony about what he believed than his own book to prove he believed virtually every word of the Gospels. Well sure he is "generally regarded" as a Deist because that is the ahistorical nonsense you hear in the typical history class. This claim is simply bogus and contradicts everything Locke said in "The Reasonableness of Christianity." Read it and you will soon change your mind.
The title of this thread, ‘I am Christ’, although sounding like the rant of a deluded mind, is in fact, a profound notion. A notion that has the power to end wars, famine, inequality and the manipulation, which has been the cornerstone of both religion and politics. This philosophy, which I have termed‘I am Christ’, is not of my own contrivance, but dates back to a time before the alleged advent of Christ himself. Philosophers like Socrates and Plato propagated this ancient idea, along with more modern scholars like, Jiddu Krishnamurti, Carl Gustav Jung, Wilhelm Reich, Albert Einstein and the late professor of mythology at Princeton University, Joseph Campbell, to name just a few.
Although it is an exceptionally useful way of thinking, it is frightening to those malign shepherds who have been at the helm of the sinking ship of humanity, since time immemorial. As a result of the threat posed by this idea, the heads of both religion and politics have released a virus into the minds of the many. In so doing, they have ensured that this philosophy is denied the opportunity to take root amongst the masses. This virus has continued to ensure our masters' ill-gotten power over us. We have given this virus the harmless and innocent name,‘belief.’ Yet, it is far from harmless and has been the favored tool of the malevolent in fomenting disorder and chaos amongst an otherwise intelligent species. Should we be freed from this cognitive prison, the balance of power between the masses and the elites would shift, toppling the naked emperors that have subjugated humanity since the deliberate spread of this mental and emotional plague.
I was wondering how I could best explain the ‘I Am Christ’ philosophy in words that could adequately convey its meaning. Einstein once said that any fool can make something more complicated, but it takes a genius to simplify something, or words to that effect, and so I guess this is going to get pretty complicated!
As I mentioned above, the ‘I Am Christ’ philosophy is not solely my own idea, or philosophy, but for the title, and I understand that the title can be slightly misleading, so allow me to clear up that issue first.
I Am Christ: Title
The title is meant to be read! It is not, ‘I, Michael Sherlock, Am Christ,’ but ‘You, the reader, are Christ.’
So why didn’t I just call it ‘You are Christ’? The reason is that when you read ‘you,’ the emphasis is initially directed away from the reader at a subconscious/unconscious level. The unconscious mind interprets information in a different manner than the conscious mind, so when a person reads, ‘I Am Christ,’ the voice inside the readers head is saying that exact phrase to themself, which is where the message is intended to go. I think the tile describes the philosophy better than a long winded explanation, but here goes anyway.
The reason I have used the title, ‘Christ’ is that I am speaking to a predominantly western audience, who are either Christian, or have grown up around the symbols of that religion, the word ‘Christ,’ being one of the more powerful ones.
Another reason I have titled the thread this way, is that it also happens to be the title of a 3 volume series I have written. The series has been designed to illustrate the tenuous and erroneous nature of belief, by using Christianity as a kind of whipping boy, so to speak. I chose Christianity due to the fact that it is an easy target and illustrates quite clearly, the potential chasm which exists between a given belief and the truth is claims to be built upon.
Essentially, the name Christ, in the title, could be replaced with any hero’s name! I am Gandhi! I am Socrates! I am Hercules! I am Mohammed! I am Buddha! I am Homer Simpson!
What the ‘I Am Christ’ Philosophy is not!
First allow me to reiterate a point which I have found many people (especially Christians) cannot seem to get past. I am not calling myself Jesus Christ, nor do I think that I am special, enlightened, endowed with super-powers, or even highly intelligent. I am simply a person, or so I have been told!
This philosophy is not an attempt to create yet another “New Age” religion in which dumb dumbs are told to sit down shut up and listen to the “Great Guru!” It is not a form of Gnosticism and it is not a philosophy, in the strictest sense of the word. There are no T-Shirts, beads, incense sticks, no army of converters, nor are there bands of colourfully adorned shaven headed hippies chanting in airports. It is not a movement, fashion, trend, organization, religion, institution, it is not post-modernism gone astray, as many Christians have accused it of being, and it is not “The Answer!” As far as I have been told, “The Answer” is 42, but I am still checking that out!
The ‘I Am Christ’ Philosophy
The idea/philosophy is focussed on getting people to shed, destroy, see past, re-assess and grow past their subjective beliefs, as much as possible! It is about increasing the “individual’s” independence of thought as much as possible and exploring the limits of that possibility. The ‘I Am Christ’ idea, takes into account that humans are social beings and are therefore naturally dependant on one another to some degree, but the ‘I Am Christ’ idea, asks; to what degree is this dependency healthy for both the individual and the society and do both history and current affairs present us with any evidence to show that such dependency is causing our downfall as a species, who seem to be heading into a new ‘dark age,’ or ‘Idiocracy,’ if we ever in fact emerged from the first one.
It is about fostering both a cognitive and behavioural humility amongst an otherwise egocentric and overconfident species, whose confidence has been predominantly rooted in misguided beliefs and perceptions that have been reinforced by various psychological strategies employed to protect the house in which these beliefs reside, the ego.
It is about attempting to address and reconcile the various aspects of our own consciousness (individuation) which have been divided and pitted against one another, causing the proliferation of internal and external conflict and the dominance of the ego-self over the “true-self,” for lack of a better word.
It is about maturing beyond lame and impotent “hero worship,” and becoming the hero, the saviour, the teacher and the student, all at one time and giving up childish things, like religious faith, political ideologies and scientific and academic dogmas.
It is about putting an end to the emotional manipulation achieved by the belief, which, in the hands of various belief peddlers, has fostered inequality, poverty, war, yadda, yadda, yadda and which has underscored each person’s relationship with societal institutions since recorded history and probably even longer. Hopefully by cutting off this root, (the emotionally manipulated belief) in each and every individual, we would effectively cut the strings by which our religious, philosophical, academic and political leaders have made us dance and in so doing, learn to walk for and by ourselves, for the first time.
(April 8, 2012 at 11:02 pm)Epimethean Wrote: Locke was a christian's christian only because they wished to claim him as such. He is far more along the lines of a deist and is generally regarded as such these days.
You are ignorant of his beliefs. I can quote 30-40 times him calling Jesus "our Savior," defending his miracles one and all, in his book "The Reasonableness of Christianity." I don't need any other Christian testimony about what he believed than his own book to prove he believed virtually every word of the Gospels. Well sure he is "generally regarded" as a Deist because that is the ahistorical nonsense you hear in the typical history class. This claim is simply bogus and contradicts everything Locke said in "The Reasonableness of Christianity." Read it and you will soon change your mind.
Fair enough. Cite your 30-40 quotes.
What falls away is always, and is near.
Also, I am not pretending to be female, this profile picture is my wonderful girlfriend. XD
