None of those translations say what you said:

If God dies to give his merits in atonement for sin, that is unrighteous — Gregory

I am looking at the text in Greek at the cited passage. It says nothing like what you quoted.

What text are you quoting from? Your translation does not correspond to any that I am familiar with.

Being merely a creature, I am not sure how to view these options you ascribe to "God."
I don't understand how "total worthlessness" relates to the idea that sin is an offense against one's own existence. There are many contradictory ideas about what that might entail but they all come back to a simple idea that you have been given a precious thing and you fucked it up.

Yes. Otherwise the conversation is impossible.
Someone has read the works is talking to someone who has not.
It is like an amputated arm reaching out to grab an imaginary object.

It seems to me that Nietzsche did an excellent job of making fun of other people's attempts at revolutions of thought but applied none of that wisdom to his own project. I am still waiting for the Gay Science to kick in.

It is unfair of me to say he attempted to explain everything. On the other hand, he certainly did try to explain a vast number of things.

It is very interesting how each of the people responding to your OP came to the writings of Jung from different points of view and circumstances. My first introduction to him was through the lens of a clinical psychologist I was engaged with for a decade in a galaxy far away and long ago. The primary concern from that perspective is to understand how persons develop or not and what can be done to help them. The Jungian approach was considered side by side with many others. Practitioners who would work in the art had to pass unscathed through the Boulder Model. There needed to be a way to confirm the value of an approach outside of just asserting this or that was happening. The first work I read was The Nature of the Psyche and I was mostly focused on how his "practice" related to his picture of consciousness and unconsciousness being a dynamic relationship rather than a fixed structure of experience. I tried to understand how that shaped his observation as the one who listened to a patient.

It was only much later that I read other works by Jung that involve the esoteric dimensions of alchemy and the cross-cultural psychology that collides with other philosophies and theological claims. So, when I speak of the discontinuity of models, I admit that I cannot make all these different points of view about a single thesis. My comments are less a critique than a pointing to where I stopped understanding the lecture.

With all that said, I want to acknowledge an appreciation for what Jung presented to me that I did not have words for before him saying it. We cannot be responsible for what we are if we don't become more aware of what we dismiss. An Archimedes lever of personal experience.

What is your native language?

The idea of Jahweh being dependent on humanity for his own development leads to the question: if God is dependent on human beings is God simply a product of the human mind? — Jack Cummins

If the interpretation I put forward earlier is correct, the "human mind" is the result of a condition that predates the appearance of humans. The evolutionary dimension of instincts, whereby new forms of life appear, happens because the "pattern" or image of instincts can change. However that environment is made possible is what is being marked out as "going beyond an anthropomorphic picture." Human reality emerges from another reality. While that is a biological view, it is also an eminently Gnostic perspective. What is startling in Jung's project is that he sees those very different scenes as entangled with each other while also not letting one narrative be absorbed by the other. That separation is "anti-anthropomorphic" in itself. Whatever "transcendent" something that allowed for this potential is not a part of any story we can tell about ourselves or the gods we talk about.

In various Gnostic creation stories, there is a boundary toward which one can never get closer or further away from but it is always introduced as the possibility for what can be talked about. That is not the same kind of boundary Jung is drawing around "physical existence." The models we use to describe natural phenomena are not incorporated (pardon the pun) into the model where humans and "God" are interacting and changing through the interaction. If the "God" we can talk about cannot be identified as the agent that allowed the potential for consciousness to appear at all, that points to something that is not only not human but can barely be gestured at. Any theologian who wants to frame reality so that our experience of the natural world is addressed as a part of the story will naturally be pissed off by such a set up. It is sort of a reversal from other ways the psychological is commonly objected to as a frame for religious experience. In the case of "Victor White, who maintained that we cannot reduce God to images in the human psyche", none of those terms mean what Jung developed them to mean.

However, he does go on to query if there is some underlying force involved in the drama between God and humanity as revealed in the drama between Job and Jahweh, by saying, ' the miracle of reflecting consciousness is so great that one cannot help suspecting an element of meaning to be concealed somewhere within all the biological turmoil.' — Jack Cummins

If the argument I have made about his use of models is correct, this line smacks of finding what he assumed at the beginning. Jung removed the element of meaning from the physical as a point of departure.

I have also found a quote in 'Answer to Job' which suggests that Jahweh changed as a result of interaction with Job. He argued that Jahweh 'raises himself above his earlier primitive level of consciousness by indirectly acknowledging that Job is morally superior to him and that therefore he has to catch up and become human himself' — Jack Cummins

That is interesting. I have always preferred Jung as a teller of stories than an explainer of everything.
You might be interested in reading the Lion and the Ass by Robert Sacks. The conversation between Creator and the Created takes center stage. Wrestling with God has many different iterations.

Well, I am sure Constance is wondering about the Kraken released by the Original Post. It is difficult to frame matters as one sees them.

I'm not sure it matters much who venerates him. The question is: Are Jung's ideas more than one man's subjective experiment? The fact that people get things from Jung does not shift his status. Plenty of dodgy ideas have devotees. The fact that Jung is seen as a scientist who flirted with occult and religious matters makes him a kind of hero amongst the Theosophy set. The fact he wrote about symbolism and dreams and archetypes makes him attractive to a very broad cohort. — Tom Storm

I don't understand how the "status" you report relates to comprehending what was proposed by Jung. You have dismissed him as a kook and are asking someone to talk you out of that conclusion. If it is so unimportant, why bother challenging others about it?

I am thinking that if one wishes to read Jung's understanding of the development of the ideas of God in line with a Christian perspective, he is seeing the difference from the God-image from the Old Testament to that in the New Testament, it would not mean that God is changing. That is consistent with his emphasis on the inner realisation of God, as the God-image. So, as far as I can see, Jung's understanding of God could be seen as reductive, or in line with one's choice to fit with the possibility of a belief in God, if one chose to. He simply doesn't go as far as to say that the image of God points to the existence of God. That is where he limits his perspective to a psychological level. — Jack Cummins

I think you are right that he limits his perspective to a psychological level. Establishing what that boundary entails involves considering that Jung has different sorts of models that are used for different kinds of questions. Addressing whether "the image of God points to the existence of God." requires seeing how Jung doesn't turn all his models into a model that rules them all. To consider this, let's start with the Lectori Benevolo that precedes Answer to Job.

555 The fact that religious statements frequently conflict with the observed physical phenomena proves that in contrast to physical perception the spirit is autonomous, and that psychic experience is to a certain extent independent of physical data. The psyche is an autonomous factor, and religious statements are psychic confessions which in the last resort are based on unconscious, i.e., on transcendental, processes. These processes are not accessible to physical perception but demonstrate their existence through the confessions of the psyche. The resultant statements are filtered through the medium of human consciousness: that is to say, they are given visible forms which in their turn are subject to manifold influences from within and without. That is why whenever we speak of religious contents we move in a world of images that point to something ineffable. We do not know how clear or unclear these images, metaphors, and concepts are in respect of their transcendental object. If, for instance, we say “God,” we give expression to an image or verbal concept which has undergone many changes in the course of time. We are, however, unable to say with any degree of certainty—unless it be by faith—whether these changes affect only the images and concepts, or the Unspeakable itself. After all, we can imagine God as an eternally flowing current of vital energy that endlessly changes shape just as easily as we can imagine him as an eternally unmoved, unchangeable essence. Our reason is sure only of one thing: that it manipulates images and ideas which are dependent on human imagination and its temporal and local conditions, and which have therefore changed innumerable times in the course of their long history. There is no doubt that there is something behind these images that transcends consciousness and operates in such a way that the statements do not vary limitlessly and chaotically, but clearly all relate to a few basic principles or archetypes. These, like the psyche itself, or like matter, are unknowable as such. All we can do is to construct models of them which we know to be inadequate, a fact which is confirmed again and again by religious statements.

Jung, C. G.. Answer to Job: 11 (Jung Extracts) . Princeton University Press.

According to the above explanation, the question of the "changeable potential" of God is a part of the possibility of many different conceptions. The only "existential" claim being made here is saying: "There is no doubt that there is something behind these images that transcends consciousness and operates in such a way that the statements do not vary limitlessly and chaotically, but clearly all relate to a few basic principles or archetypes."The lack of doubt" does not concern the outcome of how the images may be understood one way or another. The domain of the psychological is marked out by the conditions the images are understood to be happening within.

To look at it that way returns us to the models where the difference described in The Nature of the Psyche between "conscious" and "unconscious" are not based upon having a clear view of what is personal or not. You would need a story for that. In looking at the instincts, it can't be a matter of reduction because of the observation:

" For the organ with which we might apprehend them - consciousness - is not only itself a transformation of the original instinctual image, but also is its transformer."

The "lack of doubt" seems to start with this as the point of departure.

The why is what I meant when I said:

What Jung is rejecting is the function of a Credo where one says something like: "I believe God exists." The problem with it is that the ground of self awareness that such a proposition requires is under investigation.

Framing it as an "idea of God" puts words in Jung's mouth.

From my reading of Jung, there seems to be a fair amount of ambiguity ranging from that which could be seen as supportive of traditional religious experience and that which is more in line with science. — Jack Cummins

In the passages I was referring to, I read him to be saying that the ambiguity encountered is not a disavowal of instinct in relation to the interactions between the conscious and unconscious as fundamental elements of the Psyche. The line between science and expressions of traditional religious experience is precisely what is being challenged as sources of information about what Jung is always approaching as a matter of phenomena. Is the use of such information a reduction or negation of experience outside of the context of the project? That is a charge that is often leveled against Jung but I don't recall any text where he claimed it to be the case.

To that point, I take issue with your opening statement: "Jung sought to establish a connection between the inner psychic processes of human beings and the idea of God" I don't dismiss either your approach or the challenge Victor White may have confronted Jung with but would like to see them as taking exception with what Jung says in his own words.

As you say, there are so many of them to choose from.

In other words, he was not actually claiming that God exists. He was aware of a force which he felt able to call God but he was unable to say whether this force represented the reality of God beyond his own consciousness. — Jack Cummins

I think this may be looking at it through the wrong end of the telescope. What Jung is rejecting is the function of a Credo where one says something like: "I believe God exists." The problem with it is that the ground of self awareness that such a proposition requires is under investigation.

In his book, On The Nature Of the Psyche, the boundary of what is "his own consciousness" is what is part of the unknown. Consciousness and Unconsciousness play a part in each others processes simultaneously as well as relate to each other as potentials that may or may not happen to connect experiences across stretches of time. The role of archetypes is presented in the context of instincts developed by all animals that emerges through their evolutionary development. To wit:

Although the existence of an instinctual pattern in human biology is probable, it seems very difficult to prove the existence of distinct types empirically. For the organ with which we might apprehend them - consciousness - is not only itself a transformation of the original instinctual image, but also is its transformer. It is therefore not surprising that human mind finds itself it impossible to specify precise types for man similar to those we know in the animal kingdom. I must confess that I can see no direct way to solve this problem. And yet I have succeeded, or so I believe, in finding at least an indirect way of approach to the instinctual image. — Translated by R.F.C. Hull. paragraph 399

This paragraph is followed by a long discussion of how he developed his view through his experience as a clinical doctor and is at least one of the ways he has to be heard as saying "he knows something about the unknown."

From this point of view, I suggest that Victor White doesn't understand the role of the images in Jung's project but does realize that it somehow challenges his understanding of the "image" of God.

Ortega y Gasset has a great rebuke which goes along the lines of "what it explains, you already knew, what it leaves out, is kept that way."
I would link but he is one author that is under represented in the Internets. It is in his book upon Metaphysics.

Have you read any history books or biographies that detail what he did and when he did it?

I am not disputing any claims about his condition. I am disputing the distance you place between him and the crimes he committed as reported in multiple histories, biographies, etc.
So far, all I can tell is that you watched a lot of the History Channel.

I was only asking where you got the information that Hitler was outside of the Holocaust or was simply the tool of others. The passage I quoted earlier shows him the author of a role you claim was impressed upon him. None of your perspective makes sense from anything I have read of the history.
What have you read to give you such a different understanding of the facts?

So, your testimony is a first hand account?

Whose report are you basing the idea that Hitler was not directly involved in the genocide from its inception to its execution? It contradicts everything I have read upon the subject. It sounds like some crap Buchanan used to spew.

I mainly wanted to bring up the practice to emphasize how the arguments regarding scholarship complicate the direct reading of the text.

Do you have a feel for what this means? Does "numinous pervasion" mean experience of the Tao? What does "separate the adept from the Dao as Source" mean? — T Clark

I will try to give an answer that connects with our discussion after some time. It a practice of meditation where the homework is difficult. I can't see very far ahead. It is like learning the form in Tai Chi. I understand more of the language framing it after doing it for a while but I am not able to explain much.

I don’t think they’re necessarily ‘hidden from themselves’. I think it’s that intentionality doesn’t collapse into intended action for them but rather remains wave-like. It isn’t about their own intentions, but about the flow of energy - the distribution of attention and effort as far as their awareness of it extends into the world. Perhaps it isn’t that their intentions are hidden, but that they comprise only one facet of this more complex flow of energy. — Possibility

Your description is a viable way to understand it. I certainly don't mean to say we could be an open book to ourselves such that we could start carving the uncarved block.

I think one role of "trying to describe what can't be really described" is the listener is being invited to look for this follower of the way in their own being. That an activity is underway that involves all of existence means that one is a part of it with varying levels of experience. One can start finding the "old follower" in experience that has already brought about good results. The power of metaphor can observe what precise explanations cannot. The elusive quality of "Falling apart like thawing ice" cuts through any list of qualities that can be expressed in other ways. All of our attempts to characterize it cannot add up to the "observation" we are being invited to participate in. Laozi is including his own efforts in that separation. But it doesn't mean we can avoid trying.

I am taking time out to read this:
https://terebess.hu/english/handbooks.pdf — Amity

I would like to add to my remarks above that the development of medical arts such as acupuncture from the same tradition involved empirical analysis that is "philosophical" in a way that is not discussed in the text.

The Xiudao you have linked to is an excellent review of Daoist practices and how they developed. At the very least, it shows how extensively they have made the original texts an integral part of their view of the sacred.

But I disagree with this statement as far too simple of a view:

"Moreover, there is no such thing as philosophical Daoism. Philosophical
Daoism is wholly a modern Western construct that has no correspondence
to actual historical events or personages. 10 From its “beginnings,” here
dated to the Warring States period (480-222 B.C.E.), “Daoism” was a
“religious tradition.”11"

The text that we have of the different schools of thought record disagreements and arguments about the nature of reality and of human beings within that context. The people who continued the arguments through different dynasties had their own view of how to describe the texts and their arguments. This argument that excludes the "philosophical" by default is a construct of its own in so far as it assumes the western tradition has succeeded in separating that activity from the religious. I am tired of all the babies getting thrown out with the bathwater.

The school of practice I am involved with is referred to in the Xiudao as the following:

"In Daoist texts as historically distant as the anonymous fourth-
century B.C.E. “Neiye” 內業 (Inward Training) and Laozi 老子 ( Book of
Venerable Masters), anonymous sixth-century C.E. Yinfu jing 陰符經
(Scripture on the Hidden Talisman; DZ 31), and anonymous eighth-century
Qingjing jing 清静經 (Scripture on Clarity and Stillness; DZ 620), one
finds repeated admonitions to refrain from behavior patterns that dissipate
one’s foundational vitality. Inward Training understands Daoist practice as
ultimately connected to consciousness and spirit ( shen 神 ), with particular
emphasis placed on the ability of the heart-mind ( xin 心 ) either to attain
numinous pervasion ( lingtong 靈通 ) or to separate the adept from the Dao
as Source. Here the heart-mind is understood both as a physical location in
the chest (the heart [ xin 心 ] as “organ” [ zang 藏 / 臟 ]) and as relating to
thoughts ( nian 念 ) and emotions ( qing 情 ) (the heart as “consciousness”
[ shi 識 ]). Intellectual and emotional activity is a possible source of
dissipation and disruption. However, when stilled ( jing 靜 ) and stabilized
( ding 定 ), the heart-mind is associated with innate nature ( xing 性 ), the
givenness ( ziran 自然 ) and the actualization ( xiu 修 ) of one’s innate
endowment from and connection with the Dao. This return to one’s original
nature ( benxing 本性 ) is the attainment of mystical unification ( dedao 得
道 ).
Inward Training is clearly concerned with possible sources for the
dissipation of vital essence ( jing 精 ), vitality ( sheng 生 ), and spirit ( shen
神 ). As the title suggests, emphasis is placed on cultivating the internal ( nei 内 ), as innate connection to the Dao, over the external ( wai 外 ), as potential
disruption of one’s personal harmony and stability."

While it is true that this map has continuity with Dao De Jing, it can never be a replacement for it. The importance of the poetic exhortation to all who would agree or not is not a formula that structures experience through assignment of roles. That would reduce the role of the hidden to simply being a trade secret.

I don't see any way to avoid understanding that the intention of Lao Tzu is as you describe — T Clark

As a matter of philosophy, the text appeared amongst other views regarding "naming" and language. Contrasts between Mohist and Confucius are commonly drawn. But the matter is complicated by circumstances. The period when these texts appeared was followed by a dark age of the Qin Dynasty who expressed their distaste for scholars of any stripe through erasure. We only know of these works at all because of various "enlightenments" who had their own agendas long afterwards. As in the western tradition, the act of preservation is not completely separable from the ends of the one who saves.

Along these lines of inquiry, there is an interesting SEP article on Zhuangzi that challenges traditional explanations of the relationship between Laozi and Zhuangzi. While making a number of helpful observations, the author blithely attributes the perspective of training as I presented it as a product of Chan Buddhism. He suddenly becomes guilty of a generality he condemns others of committing. That sort of thing makes scholarship very difficult in both the "western and eastern" traditions

I don't really think he had any intention at all. In order to act without acting you have to intend without intending. — T Clark

My understanding of Verse 15 gives me a different view:

Of old he who was well versed in the way
Was minutely subtle, mysteriously comprehending,
And too profound to be known.
It is because he could not be known
That he can only be given a makeshift description:
Tentative, as if fording a river in winter;
Hesitant, as if in fear of his neighbors;
Formal, like a guest;
Falling apart like thawing ice;
Thick like the uncarved block;
Vacant like a valley;
Murky like muddy water.
Who can be muddy and yet, settling, slowly become limpid?
Who can be at rest and yet, stirring, slowly come to life?
He who holds fast to this way
Desires not to be full.
It is because he is not full
That he can be worn and yet newly made. — Translated by D.C Lau. Book 1, verse 15

The "holding fast" seems to involve both deliberate focus and bearing along with not doing what has to happen without his help. Desiring not to be full in contrast to desiring to be full. The intentions are hidden from others but is the one who is "holding fast" also hidden from themselves?

Taoist meditation is a method of "quieting the mind." I practice a form of it called Shen Gong. But it is difficult to trace the origins of its principles before the powerful influence of Buddhism regarding the language differentiating levels of awareness and on the chattering quality of the "monkey mind."

Another element of the "practical" includes forms of movement that involve being guided by following the way. What we practice today as qi gong and related martial arts connects training with being able to do things along with preserving well being and bringing about rejuvenation.

From that point of convergence, the line between the practical and the intellectual is not only a type of self awareness but an understanding of what is around you and the capacity to act effectively as a result.

A lot of scholars resist reading this perspective as the intention of Lao Tzu and Zhuangzi but the many traditions that used those maps for their own purposes are important voices to be heard.

Can you cite the passages that call for murder of Jews? That work was clearly a hysterical attempt to unite a nation and many people didn't take everything in it literally. — Gregory

Does the following count as such a passage?:

To me equally plain was the significance of physical terrorism toward the individual and toward the masses. Here too was exact calculation of psychological effect.
Terrorism on the job, in the factory , in the meeting hall and at mass demonstrations will always be successful unless equal terrorism opposes it.

Then indeed, the party screams bloody murder, and - old despiser of state authority that it is - yells for help from that quarter, in most cases only to gain its end after all in the general confusion. That is to say, it finds some jackass of a high official who, in the silly hope of making the dreaded enemy perhaps more kindly disposed some day, helps to break down the adversary of this universal pestilence.

The impression of such a success on the great man of both adherents and and antagonists can be be realized only by a man who knows the soul of a people not from books but from life. While its partisans regard it as triumph of right for their cause, the beaten opponent usually despairs of any success for any future resistance.

The better I learned to know the methods of physical terrorism in particular the more did I beg the pardon of the hundreds and thousands who succumbed to it.

That is the thing for which I am most profoundly grateful to that period of suffering; it alone gave me back by my people, and I learned to distinguish the victims from the deceivers. — Hitler, published by Stackpole

Well, some people are not focused upon the cult that perpetrated the crime but the crime itself.

I am not sure how to place this observation along side of your comments saying response to the genocide of WW2 is too wrapped up in assigning blame.

What is the area of taboo? Characterizing people through stereotypes?

Whether race is truly a biological thing or not does not change the history and psychology of it — Gregory

Then what is it then? It is supposed to be something independent from other categories but nobody seems able to say what they are.

I dunno. It seems, in part, to involve the Nietzschean idea of where the "Christian" form of ressentiment enters the conversation. That point of view suggests that whatever one might say about cultural differences has been absorbed into another culture. And that is why one could notice it as such.

There was certainly some seriously evil malice behind the Holocaust, but this obsession with trying to figure out who was to blame where and when is just not healthy and distracts us from the seeing others evils in proportion — Gregory

I disagree. The desire to understand it as an event is healthy and is much different than framing the matter as an outburst of inchoate rage. You want to assign an explanation where others are exploring causes.

Lastly, the majority of Germans didn't even know about the concentration camps until after the war — Gregory

Except all the people who carried out the program.
Who were those people? Why were there so many of them?

What Husserl is doing here is showing that for each person, their participation in interpersonal activities
and consequentially objective meanings is not simply an paring of you and me to make a we, but a ‘we’ from
each person’s own interpretative vantage. — Joshs

I see that connection as a kind of standing wave where it is difficult to make out if the observation is a limit to be observed as something applied to the region of the "personal" or a limit that restricts the use of a universal.

Put that way, there is something missing here. People claim to own some territory. I am trying to follow the logic as best as i can.

I have always thought that Billiards at Half Past Nine by Heinrich Böll is an important kind of witness of this. Eating from the host. Don't receive everything you are offered.

“ Can we be satisfied simply with the notion that human beings are subjects for the world (the world which for consciousness is their world) and at the same time are objects in this world? — Joshs

I am not sure what not being satisfied with these conditions imply. When I can change my conditions for the better under these conditions, I try to do that. Every other person I know operates under the same principle of recognizing opportunity and trouble as tightly wound aspects of possibility.

What are you proposing, a polity where circumstances occur upon a different basis?

I am not sure if the references to different realms are being presented as conflicting reports of phenomena. It is acknowledged at the beginning that you will never be able to prove the difference or the sameness. The Tao that cannot be named and all. But the difference and sameness under-lay the claim about what is happening.

The ideas seem different as heard as a call to remain calm because of a "solution" or in the face of what will always be in tension.