But what about the resurrection? — Josh Vasquez

Apostle Paul was very direct with his use of "sōma pneumatikos", spiritual body of Christ in the resurrection:

Corinthians 15:42-44 "So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body."

It was a spirit body brought to "life" by God the Holy Spirit. Jesus, God the Son was dead, and to reach hypostasis with God the Father, God the Holy Spirit had to "resurrect" him in a spirit form - if we are taking the theology as reality -.

But I see no reason to believe that Jesus was not from the devil. He cast out demons? Yes, but could he not do it while being in cohort with Satan himself? Could not they have been fooling people? Could not Satan have given Jesus his soul back after he died?? — Gregory

At what level of decadence have we reached so that this is open to debate...

Are you seriously proposing that Jesus was revived not by the divine grace of God the Father, but by Satan for some reason that even you can't argue in favor of? If so, please, share you "hypothesis" - whatever this word means at this point - with us, because I'm really, very curious about it - in truth, not so much in the "hypothesis" itself but more on how you'll articulate and distort christian theology to make it agree with you.

Those folk in these conflicts are supposedly talking on behalf of an almighty, caring deity, that could set the record straight in a heartbeat for all to see. — jorndoe

Truth. All actions and, consequently, all errors and successes are causes of human action. The point is that faith exists, has always existed and will always exist. We live in this historic cycle of rise, apex, decadence and fall. This applies even to religion - Rise, apex, secularization, fall -. At a time like ours, where we can see and study why we act as we do and exist in the way we have always existed, we must also be able to assume the mistakes, but be motivated by the successes and try to reproduce them. Kierkegaard would say this already:

"Leap of faith - yes, but only after reflection"

Surely there are more important things in the world than these kind of abstractions? What's the point of this? Let's not do anything "for the sake of argument" and see where this leads us. — JerseyFlight

If you try for a moment to stop using your quasi-religious pseudo-philosophical doctrines and had a sincere discussion with the OP, you would probably have fewer answers like this that I'm posting right now. Even if you don't like what you are reading, try to be more tolerant and less "polemic" - everyone already knows your tactics; they don't work anymore.

A sincere tip from a egoist philosopher - that means much coming from an egoist -

The Church had become an easy target. — Pro Hominem

There are some who say that the secularism that we currently experience would happen during the 17th and 18th centuries in Europe if it were not for Luther's reform and all the movement that would come out of his protests - of course, probably without the technology we currently have -. Christianity, in fact, had already been weakening thanks to the stability and economic prosperity of the 12th and 13th centuries - in western and central Europe, excluding Iberia, and southern Italy -.

He was predated (fairly significantly) by both Wycliffe and Hus — Pro Hominem

Absolutely correct! But they were the proof that Catholicism was still strong enough to erase - in the case of Lollardism - or to simply make it forgotten - in the case of the Hussites - I'm not ignoring the fact that the Hussites were one of the biggest pre-reformation clashes against Catholic hegemony in Germania. I was refering more to the territories controlled by the Catholic church to the west of central Europe - such as France, England, Iberia, and Italy - - to the masses.

Also, the Catholic Church had cooperatively arranged itself into the form of a straw man with a huge target on its chest. — Pro Hominem

How so? Clarify your thoughts more, please.

"That's how the light gets in." — 180 Proof

"The sparks were already there after the fall of Constantinople..."

@dimension72

When I first came here, it seemed to me a continent still unknown, a I had a fear that I would find a society that was going to be civilized and more cultured than me ... and then I see a flood of bad posts drowning the rare good ones. I would love to see debate between philosophers through discussions - ex: Case against * insertusernamehere * - as the great philosophers of the 19th century did, and I am still hopeful to see that happen. For now, I comment when I think it's worth it, I ignore - and I am ignored - when necessary, I start discussions when something is bothering me a lot and so the forum goes on ...

The discussion was about "why you post on this forum" and eventually it became a deluge of people making public what I stated in some past post:

"Your argumentative fallacies don't work here Flight"

@3017amen @Pro Hominem @Philosophim @Xtrix

Congratulations! I applaud you!

I've read his catechisms, and I find his ideas are still very appropriate and applicable in today's world. — dimension72

Luther's ideas were the initial crack that eventually destroyed christian hegemony in Europe and brought its secularization. A disgrace ...

Penny for your thoughts on the other German (and Martin)? — dimension72

The worst thing to happen to Christianity as a whole.
Lets discuss!

I don't think we can say Judaism is Akhenatenic simply because bits and pieces of that religion pre-dated Judaism and might have been adopted by Judaism. The Abrahamic religions refer to an actual Abraham and officially declare a link back to him. I do think there are common roots within all the religions of the Near East, but I don't see the link between Akhenaten and Judaism to be strong enough to proclaim that Christianity is an offspring of it. — Hanover

In the academic field of religions, perhaps we could classify the Abrahamic religions - when, and if stronger evidence of the link between Atenism and Judaism is found - as being a direct branch of what characteristics make up "God" - Jesus, Allah, YHWH -.

I'd also argue, by the way, that Christianity isn't monotheistic, but that it speaks of a trinity that references 3 distinct gods and no amount of mental gymnastics can make the concept of the triunity coherent. — Hanover

Trinity is not coherent, but this is a discussion for another time.

That is to say, while I think Christianity is Abrahamic, I don't think it's Akhenatenic, at least to the extent you use that religion to represent monotheism. — Hanover

Egyptologist and archeologist Donald B. Redford have likened some aspects of Akhenaten's relationship with the Aten to the relationship, in Christian tradition, between Jesus Christ and God. Quoting him:

"After all, Akhenaten did call himself the son of the sole god: 'Thine only son that came forth from thy body'."

Akhenaten's case may have directly - through Judaism - influenced the emphasis which Christianity placed on the heavenly father and son relationship. Akhenaten described himself as being "thy son who came forth from thy limbs", "thy child", "the eternal son that came forth from the Sun-Disc", and "thine only son that came forth from thy body". The close relationship between father and son is such that only the king truly knows the heart of "his father", and in return his father listens to his son's prayers. He is his father's image on earth, and as Akhenaten is king on earth, his father is king in heaven. As high priest, prophet, king and divine he claimed the central position in the new religious system. Because only he knew his father's mind and will, Akhenaten alone could interpret that will for all mankind with true teaching coming only from him.

In resume:

We should - eventually - categorize the Abrahamic religions as being from the branch of "Akhenatenism" on the basis of the direct characteristics that formulate the concept of "God":

All-powerful;
Omniscient;
Omnipresent;
Contact with humanity through a vehicle in wich he could be comprehended - Atenism case = Akhenaten, Judaism case = Revelations, Christianity = Jesus -;
etc...

(1) God alone is responsible for everything coming into being.
(2) If God is responsible for everything coming into being, then the freedom for creatures to choose to come into being is precluded.
(3) If the freedom for creatures to choose to come into being is precluded, then creatures were forced to come into being in a world that consists more of what one does not will.
(4) If creatures were forced to come into being in a world that consists more of what one does not will, then God is ultimately not desirable.
(5) Therefore, if God alone is responsible for everything coming into being, then God is ultimately not desirable. — Jjnan1

Your whole premise collapses when we apply the concept of free will in it:

Proverbs 16: 9
"The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps."

The Universe was created by the "Logos" - John 1: 1-4
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men - and all moments from the past, to the present, to the future, have already been prescribed by the will of God - Logos, or as we translated it, the "Word" -. However, you - as an individual - have the free will to choose what is wrong - in terms of sin - and what serves God's will - what is right -. Of course, if you consider the scriptures as arguments.

The point is that, in christian theology, it does not matter whether or not you believe and/or desires God to exist, for he has always been, always is, and always will be.

What would such "transcendence" entail? What does a "god" do that's different in kind from what any 'immanent non-god' does (or must do)? — 180 Proof

God is all-powerful, omniscient and omnipresent. If you had immortality but still was a finite mind, you would still suffer existence - Being -. Through transcendence, infinite is achievable, and through infinity, Men is not necessary - Being would become retrograde -.

How many members in this very forum are female? — DiegoT

Are we seriously letting this kind of discussion get two pages long?

My personal opinion:

I don't care about your gender, much less what you identify with. If you say something that interests me, and are willing to argue, we will have a good discussion. Thank you!

Finally, the basic premise of Christianity is that once you sin you owe an infinite debt to God which you can never repay. — Gregory

“There is no saint without a past, no sinner without a future.” ― St. Augustine

You are obviously distorting and choosing your words and arguments to make your hypothesis look convincing and Christianity a terrible evil, devil worshipping religion.

An Observation: It's not working

What if I don't want to talk about your preconceived notions or idea of reality. No disrespect, I obviously don't know you but, who are you to think you know anything. I mean really. Lol. You know what you're told and little more I'm afraid. Same here, of course. It just seems like you need a good reminding. — Outlander

Quoting Flight himself:

"In a skilled thinker the polemic is implicit to the exposition."

In resume: - An argumentative tactic where he is rude, ignorant and offensive and he is legitimated by "philosophical" - pseudo - theory.

Even the Party from 1984 would be impressed by his use of doublethink...

It is not surprising that anyone who tries to engage in a discussion with him will end up noticing these facts, but in case they don't, I make it a point to make it public.

You're confusing weakness with virtue, and we have already done that - with Christianity -.

are humans a selfish creature or a selfless creature? — dan0mac

Humans are naturally selfish - or as I like to put it: Egoists -.

Natural egoism arises together with the conception of the Being to existence, that is, the ego is part of what makes us beings of the form, way, way of being, and all perception, meaning, and existence, is felt through our free conscience towards the use of our own egoism. Does this mean that we are all already destined to do acts only for the sake of self-interest? Yes, however, how each individual will project his nature into existence, its a unique choice of each Being. Egoism is not a projection of our ideas, concepts, subjections, prepositions, languages, and not even of our consciousness of Being, but rather all of this arises from egoism that comes into existence with existence itself - humans are selfish as they are, because they are and can only be -

The human essence is that of egoism, of individual fulfillment for the purposes conceptualized by the being itself, however, how does it arise towards existence? How does it become an idea, a concept, an abstraction? It is conceived from the moment in which the Non-Being becomes Being:

1 – Life; the concept of existing in time;

2 – Egoism; exists and is part of concept 1 over time;

3 – Emergence of life; when we are born, we are conceived, when we come to be independent of another being in order to exist;

4 – The conception of 3 also brings with it egoism, the nature of being the exclusive property of oneself during existence;

5 – The moment we start to feel existence – ex: when we take our first breath after childbirth –, we empower the individual, thus making the ego become prevalent in our Being;

6 – With the empowerment of egoism, the formalization of possibilities comes into existence – making everything possible to be idealized or conceptualized –;

7 – End of existence through death – life is finite –;

8 – However, individual egoism, even though it has the potential to act “independent of external effects”, ended through the death of life, it continues to exist through the external potency of other individuals – such as the legacy, for example –.

Egoism is the only way to exist that eternalizes something finite – like Being – in something infinite – in ideas and in the world outside the individual –.

Immortality with the conscience and perception of finite human existence - full of errors and anguish -? No thank you. If - and only if - transcendence came with immortality, then I'd agree, because what human would not want to be the maxim of the metaphysical absolute - god -?

harder said than done to just let it all go. — dimension72

Greek tragedy is a good example of what you bring here. The point is that "all" individuals feel something that makes them uncomfortable - like being aware of yourself in a public speech -; the difference is in the attitude of the afflicted person towards the situation. An act of courage does not arise when cowardice disappears. It only arises from the direct clash against craveness, it is the same circumstance for embarrassment, shyness, etc ..., and of course, there is no guarantee that the act of facing your weakness will bring you success, in fact, it is much more likely that you end up like Achiles and all his heroic personality - with an arrow in your tendon -. The fact is that only by facing your villains you'll better yourself, and even if you fail, you can be proud of having at least tried - something that more than 85% of the mass does not do -.

In resume: - You'll only get to paradise, if you went through hell first.

You don't even believe in the West in that case though! — Gregory

End of the discussion - again -.

Not if what they want is a clear answer. — DingoJones

What they want is not an answer because they already think they have one - subjectiveness -.

He believed that intelligence is too uncommon to allow humanity to live without the guidance of religion. — Janus

Yes, I agree completely with that.

So secular martyr, bad. Christian martyr, good. Explain! — Gregory

How can a "secular martyr" exist if secular people don't have a purpose to die for, a way of life to die for, values to die for, etc... Secular people only have their own subjectiveness, which destroys them from the inside - implosion of society: The ancient near east saw that, the romans saw that, and we are seeing it happen again, and we are doing nothing to prevent it -.

but a universal Christianity is IMPOSSIBLE because they will be divided on that issue — Gregory

I'm not defending the concept of an ecumenical church, but of Christianity as a whole, with all its ramifications - being it catholic, orthodox or protestant -.

Culture isn't a Christian phenomenon. — jorndoe

Yet, it molded culture in a way that the two of them were intertwined.

I dont think people are picking up on what you are expecting them to. — DingoJones

I think people are getting what they want from my answers.

(imagine this in a high, English style dialect, framed in a tone of up and down expression): Monstrous, you say, because I drew out the implications of your own egoism? I do say, I mean, after all, you are the one who accused yourself of it. I mean, where ever did you get the notion that it would be a good idea to lead with it as a description of yourself? — JerseyFlight

This person is a proof of it.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights is far superior (and more specific) to anything that was ever produced by Christianity. — JerseyFlight

True enough, but, it was only created because the people who created it lived in a christian west, where freedom and individuality is valued.

You will not even live in your own Christian world. It's too extreme, suffocating, dogmatic, primitive, lacking any kind of philosophical intelligence. — JerseyFlight

- Christianity is the basis of all western civilization today, and every advance, progress, freedom achieved, is thanks to the weakening of the dogmas of this same religion - secularism -. However, this same secularism decays - thanks to nihilism - and eventually causes this same society to collapse. To avoid this collapse, a rational belief in Christianity would be necessary, however - as this is practically impossible to achieve -, I opt for conscious-unconscious belief on the christian faith - if it worked for a 1000 years for europe, it should - in theory - work for us -. If you don't believe in Christianity, at least pretend to do so to legitimize your values, morals, and purposes. — Gus Lamarch

Third time I quote myself here because people only read what agrees with them.

So what are you here engaged in, based on your own philosophy, juvenile provocations to appease the cravings of your ego. What you say is not serious, and neither is your manner of discourse, it is nothing more than an exercise in self-assertion to bolster delusional feelings of power. How could it not be, this is what you signed up for, mighty man, when you decided to reduce the world to the size of your ego. — JerseyFlight

Finally, the "revolutionary humanist" monster showed itself!

Muslim — Gregory

If I have to, I would do it. We are not yet at the point of time where forceful conversion is being made by the state. - Saint Augustine only converted to Christianity after the "Edict of Thessalonike" of 380 AD by the roman emperor Theodosius I. The edict stated:

"It is our desire that all the various nations which are subject to our Clemency and Moderation, should continue to profess that religion which was delivered to the Romans by the divine Apostle Peter, as it has been preserved by faithful tradition, and which is now professed by the Pontiff Damasus and by Peter, Bishop of Alexandria, a man of apostolic holiness. According to the apostolic teaching and the doctrine of the Gospel, let us believe in the one deity of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, in equal majesty and in a holy Trinity. We authorize the followers of this law to assume the title of Catholic Christians; but as for the others, since, in our judgment they are foolish madmen, we decree that they shall be branded with the ignominious name of heretics, and shall not presume to give to their conventicles the name of churches. They will suffer in the first place the chastisement of the divine condemnation and in the second the punishment of our authority which in accordance with the will of Heaven we shall decide to inflict."

- Augustine converted in 386 AD and eventually became one of the most recognizable and important saints of Christianity -

i'd rather be killed — Gregory

Secularism, ladies and gentlemen! Nihilism in its truest form...

Pope Francis — Gregory

Weak Pope as only the secular West could accomplish.

Christianity unity is simply not going to happen since Islam is invading the West quietly, subtlety, and under the protection of liberalism. — Gregory

As Chritianity did in the Roman civilization in the past, during its secular and globalizing phase. its a cycle and we are again doing it. We could try to stop it or even get out of the wheel completely, but then we have all kinds of people who prefer to argue while the barbarians are at the gates of Rome, or should I say, Washington - using the USA as an example -.

In my opinion yours is the last or close to the last word that's reasonable, all else unreasonable. — tim wood

Thank you for the kind words.

As to a better or a best alternative, maybe, maybe, that's the home-made, home brewed set of beliefs, maybe a synthesis/distillation of the familiar. To aver Christianity best available, over and above familiarity, calls for a knowledge of other belief systems. Perhaps the best has come and gone. I suspect there are treasures to be had in native North American Indian beliefs - but where would a person easily find out? — tim wood

It is really complicated to try to create a new set of values ​​and morals from the remains of another set. My biggest question about this is how to make it legitimate while everyone who follows it - in a time like ours - in most cases will be aware that it is all the result of a metaphysical construction.

If there is such a higher standard, it's likely there has never been one so blithely ignored in all of our sad history, and by avowed Christians too. — Ciceronianus the White

Fact. Values ​​have always been there, however, only as public dogma, while individually - private - everyone did the opposite - generalizing -. In moments of secular weakness, I notice that people who really want to rescue these virtues and morals start popping up.

When religion, in this case, Christianity — JerseyFlight

Here you take and use Christianity as if it were something real, something physical, and we all know that it is just an abstract concept and that people are the real things that then distorts and uses these same concepts. I don't know why I keep trying to argue with you since everyone here has noticed that you are pure pseudophilosophy.

I'm not going to pretend to be Jesus's spouse to please you — Gregory

End of the discussion.

I'll try to summarize my point in the best possible way:

- Christianity is the basis of all western civilization today, and every advance, progress, freedom achieved, is thanks to the weakening of the dogmas of this same religion - secularism -. However, this same secularism decays - thanks to nihilism - and eventually causes this same society to collapse. To avoid this collapse, a rational belief in Christianity would be necessary, however - as this is practically impossible to achieve -, I opt for conscious-unconscious belief on the christian faith - if it worked for a 1000 years for europe, it should - in theory - work for us -. If you don't believe in Christianity, at least pretend to do so to legitimize your values, morals, and purposes. — Gus Lamarch

I had to quote myself - for the second time - because I really think you didn't read it.

Christianity is as brutal as Islam. — Gregory

And yet, here you are, living on the world it helped build...

LOL — 3017amen

:lol:

It is impossible to make such a statement without first defining the term God. — JerseyFlight

On what "basis" are you referring? — 3017amen

He lost his point when he evaded your questioning. This evasion has no basis in this discussion.

can themselves be rejected without standards — JerseyFlight

"Revolutionary Humanism" ladies and gentlemen.

I have attempted to engage you on more than one occasion. — JerseyFlight

@3017amen is trying to engage your argument right now and you're articulating your lines to avoid going back to your starting point, which you know to be founded on no basis.

You're not really claiming this is quote from Seneca, are you? I know that Christianity borrowed assiduously from the Stoics and other pagan philosophers in trying to create a intellectual basis for itself, but to claim he wrote this about Christianity is excessive even for those ever-acquisitive early Christians. — Ciceronianus the White

You're not really claiming this is quote from Seneca, are you? — Ciceronianus the White

Stauch, Marc; Wheat, Kay (2015). "12.1.2.1:The Sanctity of human life by H.Kuhse". Text, Cases & Materials on Medical Law.

I'm not saying nothing.