Type I & Type II Existential Personalities

[Ka]

In Copleston's multi-volume A History of Philosophy, where he lays out all sorts of philosophical positions that he personally wouldn't agree with (as a Jesuit) in a very calm way, there is only one place where he gets emotional and uses words like 'evil' to describe them, and that is when he is discussing Gnostics.

Understandable, because the Gnostics represent a sect of Christianity that attempts to turn the entire faith on its head and portray God, YHWH, as a malicious and deceptive god (lowercase d), who is actually subservient to Satan (the Serpent of Genesis). It is the root foundation for every secret society and spiritual movement which informs the Illuminati, i.e. the Freemasons, Rosicrucians and Theosophists. The latter heavily relies on Gnostic principles, especially when it comes to portraying Jesus as just another "ascended master", and some of them claim to be in contact with Him. Incidentally, HP Blavatsky is someone Michael Tsarion refers to as "the best philosopher of all time".

The Gnostic Gospels were written well after the Synoptics and are not written by the claimed authors, a fact that was admitted by the Gnostics back then. A lot of people have tried to suggest that these Gospels were around at the Council of Nicea and that they were intentionally left out of the Canon to give preference to the Synoptics and obscure the fact that Jesus was not divine, but that has been proven to be false.

Yes, yes, I know why Copleston lost his cool. I also know that what you are giving is the narrative told by the winners, which is always suspect. The thing is that unless you hold that the Holy Spirit made sure that the Councils got the right answers, then the questions of what is orthodox, and who suppressed what and when, will just be one careful historian's opinions bashing against another. In this arena there is no such thing as "proof". You can line up your authorities, while Elaine Pagels or Hans Jonas or whoever can line up theirs, and come to opposite conclusions.

What that means to me is that we have no choice but to adopt what Peter Berger calls the Heretical Imperative, in the book of that name. Which is to say, living in a pluralist society, one exposed to many revelations, and accusations of heresy and suppression and  devil-worship passed back and forth, there is no option but to think for oneself. It is quite possible that in thinking for oneself one concludes that the Holy Spirit has been in control. But proving it is another story. As I see it, each of us has to rationally work out a faith s/he can live with, and then live it. Tradition no longer has much say in the matter.

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[Ashvin]

Yes, yes, I know why Copleston lost his cool. I also know that what you are giving is the narrative told by the winners, which is always suspect. The thing is that unless you hold that the Holy Spirit made sure that the Councils got the right answers, then the questions of what is orthodox, and who suppressed what and when, will just be one careful historian's opinions bashing against another. In this arena there is no such thing as "proof". You can line up your authorities, while Elaine Pagels or Hans Jonas or whoever can line up theirs, and come to opposite conclusions.

What that means to me is that we have no choice but to adopt what Peter Berger calls the Heretical Imperative, in the book of that name. Which is to say, living in a pluralist society, one exposed to many revelations, and accusations of heresy and suppression and  devil-worship passed back and forth, there is no option but to think for oneself. It is quite possible that in thinking for oneself one concludes that the Holy Spirit has been in control. But proving it is another story. As I see it, each of us has to rationally work out a faith s/he can live with, and then live it. Tradition no longer has much say in the matter.

Ka, I respect your straightforward and balanced approach to these matters.

However, you are a) falling back on the flawed notion that we cannot have any objective idea of which versions of Biblical history are more accurate than others (a logic that deceivers would love for us to embrace), and b) failing to understand that true Christians have not been "the winners" in any meaningful sense of that word.

The fact is that there is plenty of objective evidence to discredit the version of history which says that the Synoptics were fabricated or manipulated to reflect only one perspective of Christianity and Jesus' life while the "other accounts" were suppressed. Textual critics (of all different faiths/backgrounds) devote their entire lives to studying this stuff, and I'm not about to accept that none of their work counts for anything because it feels better to say that history is in the eye of the beholder. I have linked to sources for that evidence several times on this forum, but will gladly provide them to you again if you wish.

Second, the Catholic Church and the Occult societies which highly influenced the development of Western Europe and America and continue to do so today are the real "winners" in terms of controlling the spin on history that most people are exposed to, and their views are typically 100% antithetical to what the Bible teaches (this is also an easily verifiable fact). Even the so-called "fringe" beliefs about Christianity that we find in the New Age Movement get A LOT of exposure in popular culture, as well as the alternative media. The Da Vinci Code by itself, which started with a preface falsely claiming that the information contained within was accurate, launched Gnostic myths about Biblical history into the limelight of mainstream society. And there have been many other similar books/movies before and after.

Obviously, faith does ultimately involve a personal journey to God, but many aspects of the truth can first be sorted out and fitted together with objective evidence, logic and critical analysis, and we do well to rely upon the work of many others who have come before us and uncovered pieces of that puzzle, including those who have exposed the deceptions of the false historians and the false scientists and the false teachers.

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[Ka]

However, you are a) falling back on the flawed notion that we cannot have any objective idea of which versions of Biblical history are more accurate than others (a logic that deceivers would love for us to embrace), and b) failing to understand that true Christians have not been "the winners" in any meaningful sense of that word.

By the "winners" I mean Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Paul, and the history of those who accepted them and built orthodox theology from them (plus the OT and Greek philosophy). As opposed to Marcion, Valentinus, etc., of whom we mostly know only through their opponents, eg, Tertullian. How do we know that Tertullian wasn't distorting their thought, as, for example, Muslims do when calling Christianity tritheism? I agree that the texts of the NT we have are authentic, in the sense that they are (bar a few minor and irrelevant copying errors or pious insertions) what were originally written, but are they themselves free of "corruption"? Each Gospel author had his agenda, included stories which may or may not be true.

So who interpreted the message of Jesus correctly? That is what I say cannot be established objectively, short of taking a tape recorder back in time, and even then one must figure out how to interpret what he said, given the different kind of consciousness that his audience had as compared to know.

The fact is that there is plenty of objective evidence to discredit the version of history which says that the Synoptics were fabricated or manipulated to reflect only one perspective of Christianity and Jesus' life while the "other accounts" were suppressed.

Then why didn't we have a complete Gospel of Thomas until 1948? Who knows what else was rejected? But I agree (see above) that the Gospels we do have were not fabricated or manipulated. They were, however, selected to reflect only one perspective of Christianity, the one that won.

Obviously, faith does ultimately involve a personal journey to God, but many aspects of the truth can first be sorted out and fitted together with objective evidence, logic and critical analysis, and we do well to rely upon the work of many others who have come before us and uncovered pieces of that puzzle, including those who have exposed the deceptions of the false historians and the false scientists and the false teachers.

Where I come down is that all that has been "sorted out and fitted together" is just one possibility, even just one Christian possibility. Does one follow the Thomists, or the Barthians, or the fundamentalists, or the "Jesus Seminar" folks? How can we be sure that Arianism or adoptionism is a heresy? And so on.

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[Ashvin]

By the "winners" I mean Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Paul, and the history of those who accepted them and built orthodox theology from them (plus the OT and Greek philosophy). As opposed to Marcion, Valentinus, etc., of whom we mostly know only through their opponents, eg, Tertullian. How do we know that Tertullian wasn't distorting their thought, as, for example, Muslims do when calling Christianity tritheism? I agree that the texts of the NT we have are authentic, in the sense that they are (bar a few minor and irrelevant copying errors or pious insertions) what were originally written, but are they themselves free of "corruption"? Each Gospel author had his agenda, included stories which may or may not be true.

Oh ok, I'm glad you brought that up, because I find that to be a much better argument than the fabrication/manipulation ones, even though I disagree with both. The major difference between us here is probably the fact that I would put the onus on you to establish why the Gospel authors were misrepresenting Jesus, just as I would do the same if we were talking about any other historical accounts of a man's life and teachings (for ex. the Buddha).

There are certainly some differences in the descriptions and styles of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Paul. First and foremost, we should recognize the fact that if there were no differences, then a conspiracy between them would be much more likely. They may have been inspired by God/Jesus, but they were still human and therefore capable of misrepresenting the exact reality, both unintentionally and intentionally, with their descriptions of people and events. The key issue is to figure out how bad these errors were and if they intentionally changed the status of Jesus by ascribing events/claims to Him that never occurred. If you believe in the OT and the fact that the NT is Inspired by the same God, then this is really a moot point, but we can leave that issue aside for the sake of argument.

Most people accept that Mathew and Mark used Luke's account to form their own accounts, and that Paul just used his own experiences with the Holy Spirit which led to his conversion. I'll admit that I am not even close to being an expert in this field, but they are certainly out there. So far, I have come across no good evidence to suggest that any of the authors were intentionally lying about Jesus. And there is plenty of evidence to suggest that they would all come to this unprecedented series of events with different perspectives, in the very early stages of Christianity breaking off from Judaism. There is certainly room for disagreement over who got the finer details more right, though.

There is also the issue of why the NT is so congruent with the history and teachings of the OT - if you believe the former was a misrepresentation of history, then you have to admit that they did a FANTASTIC job of making their false history jive with the history/theology of the OT. Either that, or you say the entire OT is also a misrepresentation of history, and the Bible has been one centuries-long conspiracy between dozens of authors in different locations over many, many generations.

So who interpreted the message of Jesus correctly? That is what I say cannot be established objectively, short of taking a tape recorder back in time, and even then one must figure out how to interpret what he said, given the different kind of consciousness that his audience had as compared to know.

So do you also believe that ANY history recorded before the invention of the tape recorder cannot be established objectively in any meaningful way?

I do not believe an "evolution in consciousness" has made it impossible for us to understand what people back then were thinking when we study their writings and the historical context.

Then why didn't we have a complete Gospel of Thomas until 1948? Who knows what else was rejected? But I agree (see above) that the Gospels we do have were not fabricated or manipulated. They were, however, selected to reflect only one perspective of Christianity, the one that won.

Ka, we know what the Biblical Canon sanctioned by the early Church was and it is the same one that was sanctioned by the Catholic Church much later (not at Nicea), and we also know that the Gnostic Gospels were not even considered or referenced by early Church fathers, most likely because they didn't even exist at that time. The view that best fits the evidence is that the Gnostic Christians decided to create their own set of Gospels and record their views of Jesus after the original disciples and apostles.

You say that the those people "won", but the interesting thing is that the  CC doctrine taught to the masses almost has as much in common with the Gnostic Gospels than the Synoptics and the Epistles. So they may have "won" in terms of the texts that have been passed down until today, but not necessarily in terms of how popular their teachings were in the Western world. The pre-enlightenment/renaissance CC did all kinds of things that were 100% contrary to the NT, and of course the NT has been either completely ignored or brutally attacked ever since the enlightenment era. Everyone wanted to escape religious persecution, and rightly so, but they forgot that it was Anti-Christian institutions doing the persecuting the whole time in contravention to the Gospels.

Where I come down is that all that has been "sorted out and fitted together" is just one possibility, even just one Christian possibility. Does one follow the Thomists, or the Barthians, or the fundamentalists, or the "Jesus Seminar" folks? How can we be sure that Arianism or adoptionism is a heresy? And so on.

I think what you are really talking about here is advanced theology, and while I do believe some of those things can be clearly debunked using scripture, there is obviously room for disagreement. But when those disagreements are reasonable and have some basis in scripture, they almost never go against the basic foundations of Christianity, such as Jesus' divinity. With Christianity, the most fundamental disagreements are usually over Biblical prophecy, and that is understandable. We find similar types of disagreements in all major religions.

Again, this is assuming that the Biblical scripture we have today is not itself corrupted, but I believe I have made a solid case for why it is not, and the onus is on you to prove that the Gospel authors were misrepresenting the life and teachings of Jesus.

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[Ka]

Oh ok, I'm glad you brought that up, because I find that to be a much better argument than the fabrication/manipulation ones, even though I disagree with both. The major difference between us here is probably the fact that I would put the onus on you to establish why the Gospel authors were misrepresenting Jesus, just as I would do the same if we were talking about any other historical accounts of a man's life and teachings (for ex. the Buddha).

There are certainly some differences in the descriptions and styles of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John and Paul. First and foremost, we should recognize the fact that if there were no differences, then a conspiracy between them would be much more likely. They may have been inspired by God/Jesus, but they were still human and therefore capable of misrepresenting the exact reality, both unintentionally and intentionally, with their descriptions of people and events. The key issue is to figure out how bad these errors were and if they intentionally changed the status of Jesus by ascribing events/claims to Him that never occurred. If you believe in the OT and the fact that the NT is Inspired by the same God, then this is really a moot point, but we can leave that issue aside for the sake of argument.

Yes, the onus would be on me to show that they misrepresented Jesus, but I am not claiming that. What I am getting at, and I apologize for being round-about, is that all these questions as to authenticity or who got left out and who got into the canon do not matter, or I guess I should say that they should not matter. What matters are the messages. Now the reason people go on about how they are or are not authentic, or were corrupted, or whatever, is that one wants to give them, or deny them, divine status, i.e., that they are revelations from God. But nothing can prove that. Even if it were a demonstrable fact that Jesus rose on the third day that would not prove he was God. It would prove that miracles occur, and thus prove that naturalism is incorrect, but I, for one, became convinced it was incorrect through other means, so that part of the "message" I consider unimportant.

So what does matter? In my view it is stated in the Gospels, in the statement "the truth shall make you free of sin and death". I take that to mean that, as a sinner, I do not possess the truth. But I also take it to mean that it is possible to acquire it. And one thing one does to acquire it is to study the messages of those who one thinks are, or have become, free of sin (as for the "and death" part, that can mean various things, so I'll let it slide). Jesus, I assume, is one of those, and given the Barfield business in one way the most important. But he is not the only one. However, in the present context (the question of authenticity of scriptures), I do not feel all that confident that what grew up around the Jesus story is all that trustworthy. There is, no doubt, good stuff in the Gospels that -- to my ears -- rings true. But that is only after reading similar stuff from others. On the other hand, there is much that does not ring true, that strikes me as more likely to be the typical addition of legends and such that surrounds any major religious figure.

So do you also believe that ANY history recorded before the invention of the tape recorder cannot be established objectively in any meaningful way?

I think that questions of divinity and determining what is true and what is false revelation cannot be determined through historical research. Hence we are reliant on our reason to wade our way through.

I do not believe an "evolution in consciousness" has made it impossible for us to understand what people back then were thinking when we study their writings and the historical context.

It doesn't make it impossible. It does mean that the differences in language and culture are more severe than usually thought.

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[Tao Jonesing]

Tao Jonesing wrote:

"We are more than capable of managing this level of evil by ourselves.  We really don't need help from the supernatural realm."

Well. you would really love Tsarion then.  That is his theme.  He uses a lot of Jungian analysis to deal with the dark side of how the ego hides from the spirit via the shadow.  Though Tsarion is totally aware of the Illuminati agenda and doesn't dispute it.  He is pretty silent on non-human players either way, though he holds Icke in high regard.  One reason that he holds Icke in high regard is that Icke states that the only real solution for the 99.999% is to raise their conscious understanding of the universe and become more heart centered and loving.  They have no alternative other than a total fascist state filled with horror forever.

And while I might not agree with the quote of yours above, my argument against it would lack gusto.  In other words, it might be true.  But even if I did accept your statement at face value, it doesn't negate the role of non-humans in the current catastrophe.  The idea that humans are fucked-up enough to create all these problems alone doesn't prove that they did so, it just proves that they may have.  My acceptance of the idea of non-human players having a huge role is based on massive amounts of direct, eye witness evidence from credible sources as well as credible research based on primary sources.  So my position is that maybe humans are fucked-up enough to create all this mayhem on their own, but it turns out that they didn't.

As to the Illuminati disinformation machine - no shit.  They are masters with their wheels within wheels, and separating out the nuggets of truth is a daunting task (but really interesting).  And the hardest one to do is why.  As Clif High puts it, "I am a linguist and I never do "why."  And it makes my wife furious.  I don't know how she puts up with me."

Thanks for the follow-up. 

I accept your acceptance of the plausibility of my statement of what I believe.  My goal is not to convince anybody of anything other than the plausibility of my beliefs.

I have my own beliefs as to the "why," but I don't feel like sharing them yet.

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[Tao Jonesing]

Oh, and, along with the false claims that certain Christian texts were left out of the Canon in the 4th century, you will always hear people making claims that the Bible and Synoptic Gospels have been manipulated and changed by the Illuminati over the years through translations, substitutions and what not... needless to say, those are more false claims that are easily debunked. You will NEVER find anyone who can show you any evidence of such manipulation (because it doesn't exist), and usually they try to explain away that fact by resorting to the pathetic excuse that "all of the REAL manuscripts were destroyed and written out of history". The problem with that explanation is that... it makes no logical sense and is ridiculous.

Perhaps without realizing it, you're making a compound allegation, i.e., you are alleging (1) that Gospels were manipulated and (2) your Illuminati did it, such that if either allegation is false, your compound allegation is false.

The fact is that the manipulation of the Gospels was well-documented long before the rise of the first group to call itself Illuminati in 1776.

Bart Ehrman does a pretty good job of documenting the most obvious "interpolations" in several books, which I will cite to later.  I have tracked his assertions back to the sources he cites and have confirmed that he's not making it up.  I will cite to those books (free on Google books) for you, as well, including links to the books themselves.

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[Ashvin]

Perhaps without realizing it, you're making a compound allegation, i.e., you are alleging (1) that Gospels were manipulated and (2) your Illuminati did it, such that if either allegation is false, your compound allegation is false.

The fact is that the manipulation of the Gospels was well-documented long before the rise of the first group to call itself Illuminati in 1776.

No, I was alleging that they were NOT manipulated by the Illuminati (and when I say "Illuminati", I mean any of the secret societies that came before them, and I would also include the Roman Catholic Church)

Bart Ehrman does a pretty good job of documenting the most obvious "interpolations" in several books, which I will cite to later.  I have tracked his assertions back to the sources he cites and have confirmed that he's not making it up.  I will cite to those books (free on Google books) for you, as well, including links to the books themselves.

I have already provided you with a response to Dr. Ehrman's work from Dr. Wallace on the "Out of this World" thread. Yes, there are interpolations, but a) that is not evidence of coordinated manipulation and b) that does not prevent us from discovering the wording of the original texts.

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