I'm addressing this to atheists, but I take responses from another quarter.
If you don't like the idea of someone suggesting your God may, or may not exist, you might be offended if you read any further.
My lawyer told me to say that.
Anyway...
We know that many ancient and still-existing religions base their rites on sacrifice.
Christianity seems to be partly an attempt to justify no longer requiring daily sacrifices and so forth...
Jesus is sacrificed and he becomes a historical figure. For the sake of this argument, it doesn't really matter if he existed as a person or not.
Christianity seems to be a complex philosophical construct to reconcille the Old and New Testament into a God that was no longer so demanding.
So in a sense, Christianity is a taming of a religious idea that is much more violent and which involves actual sacrifices of the living.
But then, God forgives.
So we don't have to be quite so violent anymore. (Except professionals).
I did my B.A. in philosophy something like 15 years ago.
I may also have read too much Nietzsche.
Jeff Spicoli: That is a very good question.
Mel Gibson suggests its because of the sheer intensity of his suffering. Mel Gibson, of course, is a barking mad lunatic.
Machine Head: Nietzsche is a bluntly honest boor.
He's way too intransigent to be truly preachy, but he doesn't care whose toes he steps on.
In fact steps on all of them eventually.
I remember reading him and going: Yes! We should scorn such people, he's right! - Then I'd turn the page and found out he was mocking my way of thinking now.
If you don't like the idea of someone suggesting your God may, or may not exist, you might be offended if you read any further.
My lawyer told me to say that.
Anyway...
We know that many ancient and still-existing religions base their rites on sacrifice.
Christianity seems to be partly an attempt to justify no longer requiring daily sacrifices and so forth...
Jesus is sacrificed and he becomes a historical figure. For the sake of this argument, it doesn't really matter if he existed as a person or not.
Christianity seems to be a complex philosophical construct to reconcille the Old and New Testament into a God that was no longer so demanding.
So in a sense, Christianity is a taming of a religious idea that is much more violent and which involves actual sacrifices of the living.
But then, God forgives.
So we don't have to be quite so violent anymore. (Except professionals).
I did my B.A. in philosophy something like 15 years ago.
I may also have read too much Nietzsche.
Jeff Spicoli: That is a very good question.
Mel Gibson suggests its because of the sheer intensity of his suffering. Mel Gibson, of course, is a barking mad lunatic.
Machine Head: Nietzsche is a bluntly honest boor.
He's way too intransigent to be truly preachy, but he doesn't care whose toes he steps on.
In fact steps on all of them eventually.
I remember reading him and going: Yes! We should scorn such people, he's right! - Then I'd turn the page and found out he was mocking my way of thinking now.