jar - On Christianity

Thanks for the clarification, robin. I was trying to be fair and stay with your statement as much as possible. Understood. Aesthetics, schmaesthetics. Mystery is a fact.Unless you expect to answer every riddle of existence in the brief time you have on this planet--is that realistic?--mystery is something you're stuck with. Lack of 'desire' for unanswered questions does not change this.If you want to account for all the facts, you have to account for the fact that you will never acquire all the facts. A certain amount of mystery is a given.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

Didn't you say something in another thread about religion being an art? Well, yes, in the sense that I am not certain in my beliefs. They are tentative. But you were suggesting that I was embracing mystery, that I really liked it. I'm not embracing it.

robinronhan: Of course. But I am not discussing art with you. You are not interested in art. You use the word 'aesthetics' dismissively.You like facts. So I am discussing facts.Mystery remains as a fact you have to account for. It is a fact of your existence--unless you realistically expect to acquire all the answers in one short lifetime.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

I think he's hoping that there will be beer and barbecues. I'm not sure I agree with your yin-yang philosophy you outlined previously, and that you have said you take on faith. It seems to boil down to statements like "There can be no light without darkness to give it form"; "There can be no good without evil for contrast"; etc. Why not?

Did I understand you to say, jar, that you are CoE?If so, you keep some good company. TS Eliot and CS Lewis, Purcell and Holst, Queen Elizabeth and George Washington... a long list. Two of the most influential works in English literature--the King James Bible and the Book of Common Prayer--come to us from the Anglicans.Would you say this rich tradition has affected your outlook in any way? If so, how?

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

Well, I am a Whiskeypalian (AKA Episcopalian) which is part of the Anglican Communion, so certainly in that tradition. It is one of seeking, questioning and search, less ready with answers than many branches.The BCP is a phenominal resource, predating even the KJV and they were both monumental works. IMHO they are particularly important because they stressed opening the theology to the Vulgate, to include the peoples in what had before been hidden by restricting it to the formal Latin. The BCP in particular was unusual because it included some of the source documents as well as a full listing of the procedures of ceremony and also the ordering of materials to be considered.I think there were many things that affected my outlook. One of course was the tradition of questioning. Second was that over the years I was lucky enough to have teacher after teacher, mentor after mentor that pushed me towards questioning and that was then tempered by exposure to environments where the norm was acceptance of authority. The later was so very important as it was those experiences in environments of acceptance that highlighted just how stifling and limited that approach is.There have been some real bummers in the COE as well. Elizabeth I was not really that nice a person and Henry himself left a lot to be desired. But so much of that was likely just the result of conflict of calendars.Robin Williams once posted the Top Ten Reasons to be an Episcopalian. I think they are pretty compelling.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

If you don't mind, jar, I'd be interested in knowing more about that moment when you realized not everybody's religion involved the atmosphere of healthy questioning you were used to. Care to share?Was there a statement that stands out in your mind? Any deja vu when you read posts here?

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

I don't think that there really was such a moment. As long as I can remember I've always felt like this was my journey, not anyone elses. They all have their own lives, their own journey, their own waypoints and destination. I am on my road. I can post travelogs and show snapshots taken along the way, but it can never be anything other than my story.What might happen is that someone else reading a travelog or seeing the snapshots might try to revisit those locations or follow the same trail, but what they will find is that they are on their journey and even if they visit exactly the same places, follow exactly the same trail, what they will see, what they will experience, what they will learn, will be theirs, not mine.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Yes, you are right about Ecclesiastes, it got stuck in the list of quintessentials but that really only applies to Pascal, Edwards and Law. I don't know enough about Samuel Johnson. Ecclesiastes has always been hard to categorize, but the whole Bible is Christian nevertheless and the New Testament is certainly Jewish.You must be Jewish yourself, or half Jewish to keep using the Hebrew name Yeshua. Anyway, your opinion about Jesus' being Jewish and all that has been discussed to death at EvC already, long before you came along. You'll find plenty on your side here and the usual suspects against.However, perhaps an interesting side note is that when the OT canon was being put together, Ecclesiastes was one of the few books in doubt, so I understand -- so it was not even wholeheartedly accepted into the Jewish canon. There have always been those who regard it as a sort of black sheep in the canonical flock.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

I think he's just hoping to be able to stay away from the fundie section, so that he can love himself in peace and quite. It's a good question because like all things philosophical I'm looking for a spiritual truth with a physical brain.I'll use your examples. Say for example that photons of light worked in such a way that light existed everywhere, whether it be in a sealed closet or in a coal mine. There wouldn't even be a word such as darkness let alone an understanding of what it would mean. As a matter of fact there would be no such word as light at least in the way we understand it.If there were no such thing as evil then how could there be goodness? Goodness would just be what is and neither the word or the concept would exist. How would we be able to say that someone was a good (moral) person when there is no other way they could be? There would be no word for or understanding of evil because there would be no such thing.When we are in the water we consider ourselves wet because it isn't the norm for us. What do we call ourselves when we are immersed in our atmosphere? We don't have a word for it because it is just the way things normally are.

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

Faith writes: Be careful with conjectures. He was Jewish or half Jewish. My use of his Hebrew name is motivated by a concern for accuracy.Yes, Ecclesiastes has always made orthodox theologians squirm. The merit of the book is obvious but the content is not really theistic.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

what???If anything, I would think that the New Testament would definetly be christian, seeing as how the OT has a bunch of the books also in the Torah.And the Torah is missing the whole of the NT. which would suggest that the NT is definelty not jewish.

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All a man's knowledge comes from his experiences

Faith writes: It's a very silly pedantic notion that any word in its original language is by that fact necessarily more "accurate" than any translation of it. All terms and names change to fit the structure of the target language.I thought that might be what you were getting at though, but I thought I'd try the guess that you are half Jewish anyway since Yeshua is the way Jesus is said in Messianic Jewish churches (you said you are half -- Taiwanese? I think.) It describes realistically the frustrations and meaninglessness of life in this fallen world, though. That is what Robin appreciates about it.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Well, what do you think "Christian" is? The name was given to the first followers of the Jewish Messiah who were preponderantly Jewish. Well, let's see. Jesus was Jewish and he lived and died to fulfill the Hebrew scriptures. He quoted from almost every book of the Old Testament. All his disciples were Jewish. All the writers of the New Testament were Jewish except Luke. The New Testament is full of allusions to the Old Testament. How is it not Jewish?

then why did christianity break from the jewish fold?
If they accepted Christ as the Way, doesn't that make them by necessity Christian? Which eventually broke them from the jewish tradition?Which makes the NT christian, not jewish.unless you somehow think the christianity is sect of judiasm?

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All a man's knowledge comes from his experiences