What Would A World Without Christianity Look Like?

Discussion in 'History' started by unfocusedanakin, Sep 15, 2017.

  1. Tishomingo

    Tishomingo Members

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    I think your mother's experience with French bread is hilarious, as well as sad. Back in the 90s, Americans were boycotting French fries. My French friends asked "Do they think we export them?" But seriously, that kind of mind-numbing stupidity on the part of the grocery people is all too typical of what we run into these days--often by people wearing MAGA hats. Unfortunately, the kind of Christianity you're talking about, which I consider un-Christian, is also all too typical. It's essentially a different religion from the "peace, love and understanding" kind that I have in mind when I say I'm a Christian. I'm basically a perennialist, looking at all humans as brothers and sisters and all religions (and atheism) as offering important spiritual insights. I've learned from them all. None does a better job than Islam in teaching submission to God, equality, the importance of avoiding shirk, and yes jihad, especially the "greatest jihad'--the struggle against oneself.
     
    Last edited: Mar 26, 2021
  2. stormountainman

    stormountainman Soy Un Truckero

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    Thank you, I have concentrated on some concepts which I had observed during my life. When I was growing up, an admirable gentleman was considered a man with "Discriminating Taste" ... meaning he had a taste and the wallet to go with it, for fine cars, fine whiskey, and fine women. At that time I didn't understand that Discrimination had good and bad sides. So, if one discriminates in a bad way, as in against another's race; it would be one thing. If one discriminates between Chinese and Mexican food, it's benign. That brings me to morality. When Cecil Rhodes went to Africa and declared himself owner of an empire, because he could look down on Negros in a discriminatory fashion, his discriminating ways crossed major boundaries of moral consequence. In Christianity, which has its roots in my homeland, there are questionable acts which have crossed morality borders. I went to a Catholic School in Malta back in the sixties and have a special love for Catholics. I married one of them. But I also know what they did to Native people in Colorado. One of them was found still in chains in a mine shaft ... after three hundred years. So when Krishnamurti talks about ethnic distinctions as being violent, I see a man who is trying to tell me that pointing out these ethnic differences could be the source of violent conflict. I doubt that he was trying to teach Marx style equality. I think he was after acceptance in a way similar to Islam teaches submission. There are many schools in Islam, with differences and similarities. We have Shia and Sunna, Salafi and Sufi, and with very branched out Bahai. Samaritans are also very related to Islam. Right now I am trying to learn the Navajo spiritualism which teaches restoration of harmony to the world. It seems to fit well with what I learned from old Jiddu. By the way, Jiddu in Arabic means grandfather.
     
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  3. Vladimir Illich

    Vladimir Illich Lifetime Supporter Lifetime Supporter

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    I am an Internationalist, which means, although I live in Britain, I have not, nor will not swear an allegiance to Mrs Windsor and her brood. I am also an atheist.
     
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  4. Tishomingo

    Tishomingo Members

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    That's a good example of where conservative and liberal Christians part company. I think the exclusionary focus of conservative Christians is misguided. First of all, in dealing with a saying like that, I'd ask: Did Jesus really say it? Then I'd ask: What does it mean? and finally I'd ask "Is it true?" In interpreting the Bible, I use the hermeneutic of love to interpret difficult passages. John tells us that "God is Love" (1 John 4: 8 & 16). Jesus told us that the law and the prophets could be summed up in two commandments: love of God and neighbor. With that in mind, I'd find it hard to interpret the gospels as decreeing that people who don't accept Jesus because they were brought up in a different religion are going to hell. The passage in question is John 14:6 . Marcus Borg , whose theology I tend to ascribe to, says emphatically: "Jesus did not speak of himself with the exalted titles of John's gospels, nor did he speak the great `one way' verse of John 14:6". Or as Bishop Spong puts it:"True religion is not about possessing the truth. No religion does that. It is rather an invitation into a journey that leads one toward the mystery of God. Idolatry is religion pretending that it has all the answers." The progressive Christians at the Jesus Seminar are doubtful about the authenticity of John's saying. Two rules of thumb they use to judge if a passage is authentic are multiple independent attestation and early attestation. John is commonly regarded as the latest of the gospels, written no earlier than 90 CE and possibly later--nearly sixty years after the death of Jesus. The closest we come in the synoptic gospels is the distinction between the wide path/gate) gate and the narrow path/gate' (Mat. 7:13-14; 24) Those are obvious references to the need to walk the straight and narrow, following the way of God--something the Qur'an would probably not disagree with (Qur'an 18:7).

    John is different in putting the emphasis on Jesus being "the way, the truth and the life", in the context of telling the apostles that they can know the way by following Him. But is he talking here about the human Jesus or Jesus as a synonym for God's Logos, the Truth? This is a striking characteristic of John. In the other gospels, Jesus is relatively silent about who or what He is, as opposed to what His message is. In John, however, He is full of that information, in the various "I am" statements:"I am...the bread of life"; the light of the world; the good shepherd; the resurrection and the life; the true vine; " before Abraham was born, I am!"--that last statement echoing Yahweh Himself. John held what bible scholars call a "high christology" --in other words, emphasizing the supernatural/divine aspect of Jesus as the Logos who existed before time and became incarnated. The Hellenistic concept of the Logos is Truth. Jesus was the personification or embodiment of God's Truth. It is in His capacity as Logos that there is no way to salvation other than to follow His Way, that is the way of Truth. "The Way" was the term Christians used for their movement before they were called Christians, and the term used by the Essenes before Jesus was born. It is also how the term Tao is translated;: way, path, road, etc., the natural underlying order of the universe. Hinduism and Buddhism speak of dharma, cosmic law and order. Islam has the five pillars. I think people who follow those paths conscientiously can be saved, As Justin Martyr, the first Christian to write a defense of the faith, put it (First Apology, 46, written c. 156 CE: "We have been taught that Christ is the firstborn of God, and we have declared above that he is the Logos of whom every race of men were partakers. And those who lived according to reason (logos) are Christians, even though they have been thought atheists; as among the Greeks, Socrates and Heraclitus, and men like them; and among the barbarians, Abraham and Ananias, and Misael, and Elias, and many others whose actions and names we now decline to recount, because we know it would be tedious." I might add that the Catholic Church seems to have come around on this. The Catholic Catechism 1260 teaches that: "Every man who is ignorant of the Gospel of Christ and of his Church, but seeks the truth and does the will of God in accordance with his understanding of it, can be saved."
     
    Last edited: Mar 26, 2021
  5. soulcompromise

    soulcompromise Member HipForums Supporter

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    I would go along with that, and even go a step further to say a firm that's not who we are in terms of being the only way. With that said, as a person raised Catholic, and having spent 1st and 2nd grade in Catholic school to then go on to 3rd and 4th in Christian (Lutheran) school and memorizing verses of scriptures as part of the curriculum, I internalize John 3:16 - (unless I'm wrong, it's about Jesus being the Son of God, dying on the cross, and that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son.) All of that rhetoric though, as @Tishomingo points out, is sort of exclusionary when it comes down to brass tacks about being the only answer.

    What do I mean?

    My girlfriend is Muslim. I have never met someone who is more divinely inspired and truly pious - aside from perhaps my mother, who spent years in the convent in the 1960s. The point is, I can't imagine a heaven without someone like her there. And she seems to know the way forward.

    Perhaps a very biased example, but I'm going with that somewhere more universal. I don't think Christianity condemns. I believe in Jesus as the path forward, but there are those who do not know Jesus - even those who, like our @Vladimir Illich, identify as ashiest and find there way. I believe heaven holds a place for those who desire it. And I like what @Tishomingo seems to suggest - correct me if I'm wrong - that some of the other pathways in their simplicity and humility coincide with the path of Christianity.

    I was taught that Christianity is the only way. But I don't know... I know I believe that God provides a way for everyone, and not everyone knows God in the same way.
     
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  6. stormountainman

    stormountainman Soy Un Truckero

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    You are right on here and I would agree with your Christianity, since you do not insist on "My way or the highway" interpretation. As a man who was born Muslim, I like many facets of Christianity. I like the forgiveness aspect. The name Messiah in my language means "one who erased" ... meaning he's the one who erased your sin ... your short comings. Islam believes that Jesus was real and lived among us. Islam says he was born of a virgin and died on the cross and went on to heaven. Islam accepts and is founded on Jewish Law. So, Islam would not declare Jesus as having died on earth, because he was never buried. Islam says he was taken up to heaven. Islam demands its Muslim people comply with Judaic law. The Quran is mostly the first Five Books of the old testament, with the story of Joseph in Egypt and the story of Jesus, which is mostly the new testament. The law in Islam is Qanoon, a noun similar and related to Canon Law in the Catholic church. Islam demands its people follow and comply with God's Law (Ten Commandments) even though forgiven by the price Jesus paid for their sins. The Five Pillars are solid never changing concepts in Islam. They simply say God is infinite, meaning never was born, always there, and never dies. plus: God is all powerful, all knowing, and all compassionate. So, Islam differs from Christianity in that they don't believe Jesus is the SON OF GOD, because that would be placing God within the cycle of birth and death. It would conflict with the Infinite concept of God. Nestorian Christianity is also different from Catholic Christianity. Peter Nestorius argued the Human and Devine nature of Jesus and questioned the Godliness of Mary The Virgin Mother Of Jesus. Today, Catholics say, "Mary Mother of God." You don't hear that in the Christian Church of the East (Nestorian Path) and Peter Nestorius was from Nestor in Iraq. It is the Nestorian Priest Sergis Bkhira who was Mohammad's teacher. So, we Muslims know that the founder of Islam was in fact a Christian. He for sure was a student of Christianity. He has changed a few things, as had Joseph Smith of the Mormon religion. And some people point out that passages in the new testament are attributed to Jesus, but a Gospel of Jesus is missing. We only have Matthew, Mark, Luke , and John. Muslim historians have for many years pointed out that The Ten Commandments in The Bible are in fact almost identical to Hamurabi's Law from Babylon. So that says morality based law is much older among humans. The various religions are simply offering us their own path for living life in a morally correct way, and a path to heaven, or a path to The Place Of Songs as the Zoroastrians call it. .
     
    Last edited: Mar 27, 2021
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  7. themnax

    themnax Senior Member

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    there is no one answer to the thread title question. christianity being a human invention, though god or gods and their possible existence might not be,
    one need only visit such sapiently populated worlds as likely exist in many if not most, other solar systems, to find on each one, a different answer,
    and on many of them, quite likely places i would prefer to live.

    of course humans don't have an easy way of doing this, and the question remains would they appreciate the good fortune to be able to if they did.

    humans being humans, the non invention of christianity would in no way, nor has it, prevent the invention of the spectrum of other beliefs that exist.
    it is a very special kind of religious myopia to refuse to look, honestly and unbiasedly, beyond the box of such things as one is familiar with,
    especially when one lacks the slightest familiarity with anything beyond it.

    in the parallel world my dreams take place in, there is nothing like the role of dominance played by religious beliefs in this one i'm awake in.

    there are temples and grottoes and sacred places, but there is nothing like people being convinced to hate logic, nor anything like the use of beliefs as excuses for keeping things screwed up, for people to harrass each other with aggressive inconsiderateness or try to use belief as a get out of shame free card for doing so.

    as for what a world would be like, that is best described, or how i experience anyway, by infrastructure, its harmonizing with environment, and cultural values and perspectives and how they interact with environment. my whole perception is of landscape furst, and really the people in it, are a very minor aspect of that perception, no more central to it, then what their creativity has added to that environment of landscape, along with what and how other species interact with it as well.
     
    Last edited: Oct 9, 2021
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  8. sherman march

    sherman march Members

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    Christianity is essentially the basis of western civilization along with the Roman, Greek & Jewish influences. Remove any one of those 4 legs and western civilization is not the same. Besides what exactly do we mean when we say "Christianity" because there are literally hundreds of variations of the Christian religion and always have been. What we call Christianity today is a conglomeration of dozens if not hundreds of barbarian religions and holidays absorbed into Christianity over the past 2000 years.
     
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  9. themnax

    themnax Senior Member

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    not the same does not equal not exist. so the point of western philosophical perspective not existing is not really pertinent to the question as i perceive it.
    people might, even probably would, believe there were gods and souls. maybe be more ready to accept that what isn't known isn't know, maybe less ready to accept hating logic. maybe not.
    but infrastructure would most likely have been invented, the technologies that make it possible would. so the things i think are important would mostly just as much be there, though possibly in more interesting, creative and diverse forms. sure the landscape would look different, and to my mind, a lot better, without cars and rectangular grids of paved roads for them. maybe less shaped by money and greed. everything could be almost exactly the same, or it could be wildly different, but it wouldn't be this one factor, all that overwhelmingly by itself that much influential on what the world would look like or feel like to experience. people just wouldn't have that one excuse to use the way that a lot of people do.
     

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