/christian/ - Christian Discussion and Fellowship

presuppositionalists would come to that in a similar way, the cross-cultural universality of belief in higher law and the need to propitiate for wrongdoing, pointing to a Higher Law-Giver who must be appeased

Let's face it. If you intellectually come to the conclusion that God does not exist, you are just deluding yourself. The beautiful thing is that if you are intellectually honest and more importantly honest with yourself, no matter how, your reason will always take you to the realization that God exists and Christianity is true.

It's literally the simplest most straight-forward realization one can have in life, and the pottery is that the more people tend to think of themselves as intellectual powerhouses, the more they fall into self-deception.

>>565097

Interesting, but Girard is a bit different and would disagree with the idea of a Law-Giver who must be appeased. He thinks this is a bad reading of the God of the Bible which too many critics of Christianity return to.

It's more that, anthropologically, Jesus should have been forgotten, but what happened was contrary to human nature and mythology…the sacrificial victim is proven innocent. His death should reconcile the community's tensions, whereby the community says to itself "Ah, yes, he was guilty, the proof is that the divine power didn't stop us from killing him. God smiles upon our sacrifice. Moving on."

Yet Jesus returns and returns as innocent. Christianity now illustrates human nature better than any other myth: human desire is memetic, this ends up becoming a rivalry, then there is a sacrifice, and people are brought together. Christianity has an understanding of human nature that no man could possibly admit. We never intend to kill a victim while thinking they are innocent. We never admit to ourselves that our desires are not our own.

That is until Christianity came along. The sacrificial mechanism is laid out for everyone to see and we've never surpassed this Christian morality that sacrificial victims are innocent. He agrees with Simone Weil that this Christian morality cannot be surpassed and we cannot return to pre-Christian morality and he agrees with Dostoevsky that All forms of contemporary SJW-ism and anti-Christianity still operate under this matrix. It is Christianity without Christ. But as anyone can clearly see, it is increasingly violent. Apocalypse for Girard means civil war. Early Christianity staved it off but are we headed for it now?

>>565106

Whoa, this is very interesting. I big part of why I have converted is that, christianity just have an understanding of human nature so perfect that isn't human. Can you point out what books should I read about this issue?

>>565102

> The beautiful thing is that if you are intellectually honest and more importantly honest with yourself

not slamming on you cathobro, but i have a bit of a problem with that statement

again, really not meaning to slight you; but having a firm conviction that the human 'heart is deceitful above all things' - and drawing on the understanding that when the Scripture talks of the 'heart' it refers to everything of the inner man, including his intellect - then of necessity a man cannot be intellectually honest in all things, nor honest with himself, unless God first empowers him to be so by an act of regeneration, imputing life to a dead soul

but i'm not wanting to go into a full-on poop flinging match with yourself, because i agree with you that honest truth seeking is integral to knowing He who is The Truth - and can speak to that experientially as it was a major part of my conversion; i'd just be really interested in your thoughts on the subject

>>565110

I See Satan Fall Like Lightning by Girard is probably the best introduction to his work, it's also the most focused on Biblical texts (and a BTFO of Nietzsche). There's also this 5 part radio series which I highly recommend if you like to listen to podcasts/lectures on your commute.

Here's part 1:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8Y8dVVV4To

>>565106

> All forms of contemporary SJW-ism and anti-Christianity still operate under this matrix.

i'm not familiar with Girard, but i'm intrigued by his positing a 'bad reading of the God of the Bible' since i'd hold that the Wrath of God is an explicit teaching throughout the entirety of a harmonious Scripture, the atonement supplied to man by the suffering servant being pointed to from as early as The Fall in Genesis

but as to the idea of fallen man working under the Christian matrix, no matter their intent; the presuppositionalist can only say amen since we hold that all mankind has the knowledge of right and wrong - no matter how much they may deny God's right to determine what good and bad actually are; and moreover the Christian ethic has so inculcated modern thinking, there is no extricating it… as much as many might want to suppress such freedoms, privileges, and value it bestows on every man*

~

*and by that i mean males and females man

>>565115

He doesn't like it when people think God is a tyrant. He believes that the OT and the NT have God trying to communicate the need to abandon sacrifice. This culminates in the Gospels but he believes it's present in the OT as well. God is not trying to enslave men to blindly follow His commandments just for the fuck of it, as Nietzsche and Heidegger claim (to which he see paganism as the religion of free men).

Sacrificial violence allows him to make the case for the similarities between both testaments quite well. There is a sacredness to violence which we all sense primordially, because the sacrificial victim always takes on crypto-religious significance (He is sent by God for us to kill basically). This is why the God of the OT seems to violent and tyrannical compared to the God of love of the NT. It's simply the slow progression of God revealing the sacrificial mechanism which culminates in the crucifixation whereby, according to Girard, God succeeds in deceiving Satan. Satan fell for the trap of killing Christ. He was fooled by the cross and in fact did not kill him at all but only made him stronger. There's more argumentation to this and he draws on a lot of sources in structuralism, philosopher and even evolution but this deception was the only way God could have irrevocably communicated human nature and it has remained imprinted in our morality ever since.

A lot of his argumentation is a clever "Nietzsche, Freud and Darwin are right…but they didn't go far enough and just activated my trap card."

The scapegoat wasn't sacrificed. It was released into the wilderness.

>>565111

>again, really not meaning to slight you; but having a firm conviction that the human 'heart is deceitful above all things' - and drawing on the understanding that when the Scripture talks of the 'heart' it refers to everything of the inner man, including his intellect - then of necessity a man cannot be intellectually honest in all things, nor honest with himself

Man can definitely reach a certain degree of Truth by himself, after which point he obviously cannot go any further and needs Divine Revelation. God has not left mankind without any means for fulfillment, or truth, especially in this life, but they are fallen and not good enough to know Him and obtain salvation and fulfillment in the afterlife, which is why he lifts us up with his plan of salvation.

Heart can be deceitful, but it can also not be, just like a man can and will most often sin, but can also choose to obey God. The intellect is not perfect, and I never claimed it is, but to claim it is deceitful when it leads you to God means to be disingenuous. It is only deceitful when it leads you to falsehood, not when it leads you to Truth.

>, unless God first empowers him to be so by an act of regeneration, imputing life to a dead soul

Sounds to me like you are rejecting free will and showing your true calvinist colors, no thanks VADE RETRO

Our soul is not dead, it is by definition the opposite of dead, our actions can simply stray it far from God, which is the source of its life

>but i'm not wanting to go into a full-on poop flinging match with yourself

Your post is filled with badly concealed smugness and passive-aggressiveness, so spare me the smooth talk anon.

>>565343

>Your post is filled with badly concealed smugness and passive-aggressiveness, so spare me the smooth talk anon.

ha, oh man - i am really sorry but i genuinely respected your position and wasn't feeling aggressive toward you at all

in all sincerity i really liked your focus on honesty and truth seeking, and kinda wanted to do a bump knuckles bro-fist thing for your keeping it real

i think it might be the environment we're having this conversation in, this board's not really conducive to the exchange of warm feelings, and of course the *chans aren't really full of 'nice' people… so at the risk of sounding patronising, if you inferred i was tryna teleport behind you and slip a blade between your ribs, i can understand that

but you're wrong, because if there's anything i do respect, it's a personal framework of honesty in a person - and bringing it up really endeared yourself to me

… oh but you're totally correct about me being calvinist and rejecting the idea of 'Preveniant Grace' - for though i would agree with you to a point on 'Man being able to reach a degree of Truth by himself'; i would hold that since 'all good things come from God', and Truth being a 'good' thing, then even the pagan's ability to discern truth from falsehood is a result of God's 'Common Grace'

>>565317

Christ embodies both the sacrificial lamb and the scapegoat - being crucified on Golgotha which had a clear view of the Temple right up to the curtain, but also being outside the city walls and therefore 'sent out into the wilderness'

>>565298

>He doesn't like it when people think God is a tyrant.

oooooooooh, i think i follow you now - Girard is reacting to the accusation against God that He is a monstrous archetype of the father-figure

yeah, this is pretty good stuff - i'm gonna grab some coffee and get some readings done