/qresearch/ - Q Research

The Christian Invention of the Human Person

The most important lesson that the study of history teaches us is contingency. Things did not have to turn out the way they did. Take, for instance, the answer that our civilization has historically given to the most important question of all: “What does it mean to be a human being?” Ever since the Enlightenment, many people in the West have had the impression that answering this question is easy, that it’s just a matter of observing human behavior empirically across time and space and then abstracting a few universal maxims from the data. This is our modern faith: that we can read the truth about ourselves in the record of nature the way we read a story in a book.

The seminal example of this is the preamble to the Declaration of Independence, written at the high meridian of the Enlightenment by one of its most incandescent minds:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

For Jefferson, and for us who live today by the light of his words, it’s “self-evident” that “the mass of mankind has not been born, with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them.” But most people in most places at most times have not thought about human beings like this. The idea that we are all equal, unique personalities, each possessed of unfathomable dignity and inviolable rights, is a rare and relatively parochial one. The world once existed without it (as much of the world still does today) and could easily do so again if we forget where that idea came from and what has sustained it for so long.

We can trace the ancestry of the word “person” back to the ancient Greek word prosopon, which means “mask.” It was used at first in the context of Greek tragedy. Actors wore the physical prosopon of the role they played in a dramatic production. But it soon took on a political and social meaning, especially in Roman society. The Latin word for prosopon is persona, from which our English word is derived. According to the Roman usage, one’s persona was one’s social and legal role within the community. This role varied wildly from one person to the next, from nobleman to senator to shopkeeper to servant, and it didn’t encompass all humans equally the way the word “person” does now. Different social stations were thought almost to be different species, sharing nothing in common, and no one was thought to have any kind of individual existence apart from the role they played in the state. Roman slaves, for instance, were habitually referred to as non habens personam: literally, “not having a person” or “not a person,” because their social functions were so menial and tool-like. Who they actually were as “people” underneath, as we now understand the word, didn’t matter at all.

The Greek dramatic and the Roman political usages of the word have one important thing in common. In neither case is the unique individual who’s behind the mask or who’s playing the social role assigned to him thought to be significant in the least. Metropolitan John Zizioulas puts it like this: “Many writers have represented [ancient] Greek thought as essentially ‘non-personal.’ In its Platonic variation, everything concrete and ‘individual’ is ultimately referred to the abstract idea which constitutes its ground and final justification.”

As they themselves saw it, people in the ancient world really existed only to the extent that they participated in some larger project, whether on the stage or in the city, which constituted their “ground and final justification.” As Zizioulas goes on to write, “identity – that vital component of the concept of man, that which makes one man differ from another, which makes him who he is — [was] guaranteed and provided by the state or by some organized whole.” For this reason, the historian Larry Siedentop writes that in the ancient city, “there was no notion of the rights of individuals against the claims of the city and its gods. There was no formal liberty of thought or action. . . . Citizens belonged to the city, body and soul.” If the individual had any value at all, it was only by reference to some organized collective.

more

https://www.yahoo.com/news/christian-invention-human-person-103000781.html

CNN’s Jim Acosta: ‘We’re All Dealing with Some Post-Trump Stress Disorder’

Anchor Brian Stelter said, “Do you feel like you are rundown, your lineup is really different than it would have been in the Trump years?”

Acosta said, “When you asked me if I was rundown, I was wondering if you were asking me how I felt during the Trump era. I think we’re all dealing with some post-Trump stress disorder.”

He continued, “There are questions about why aren’t Republicans getting on board with these Biden proposals. There were Republicans getting on board with overturning the election just a couple of months ago, so we shouldn’t have high expectations for that. But in terms of stacking shows and what comes first, what comes second, Brian, you and I both know this all too well. We did cover the news before Donald Trump came along, and we did it pretty well. There’s going to be plenty of stuff in the news put there, and it doesn’t have to have Donald Trump in the headlines for us to continue to exist.”

https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2021/04/04/cnns-jim-acosta-were-all-dealing-with-some-post-trump-stress-disorder/

>>13365130

>>13365104

>>13364989

I'm not very techie,

Final @713

>>13364416 Dough

Notablesare not endorsements

#16931

>>13364429, >>13364442 Look who showed up for Easter Sunday services at Christ Fellowship in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida…45

>>13364444 Biden fails to mention Jesus in ‘Easter Address,’ speaks of COVID

>>13364486 Into The Storm (HBO): Here are all episodes except 5+6

>>13364627 INFO ON MIKE LINDEL'S SECOND ELECTION STEALING DOCUMENTARY

>>13364638, >>13364641, >>13364648, >>13364650, >>13364823, >>13364838 Earthquake LA now

>>13364772 Biden Schedule Monday April 5, 2021

>>13364807, >>13364808, >>13364988 Planefag Reports

>>13364846 GME Shares Plunge As Company Moves To Sell 3.5M New Shares

>>13364855 Satellite images show Russia amassing unprecedented military might in Arctic, readying “super weapons” tests & securing key shipping route. (CNN)

>>13364863 Derek Chauvin Trial for 4/5/2021 10:00 am est

>>13365019 Putin Signs Law Paving Way to Rule Until 2036

>>13365026, >>13365034 Clarence Thomas suggests that social media companies may NOT have a First Amendment right to regulate speech on their platforms…

>>13365051 Human smugglers use Facebook to connect with migrants and spread "false" hope of reaching U.S. (NBC)

>>13365114 A former staff for Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) Mon afternoon to hold press conference regarding recent encounter with the FBI. 12 p.m. EST. (The Hill)

>>13365128 Strange Inert Military Explosive Device Is Found On Florida Beach

#16931

>>13365123

I guess I'll be switching to root beer. Is Hires a Coke product too? If so, then I'll have to quit soft drinks. kek.

>>13364464

we need to proof that…because, NO mention of "Q" or "QAnon"…just that one little Pepe…which could be PS'd…

>>13365092

>>13365070

>Uhhh because they stole all the knowledge, suppressed it, and make everyone think all those concepts are evil.

maybe they did, but who came before?

Christ?

or Ancient Egypt?

even if they stole ancient human wisdom and perverted it, how do that contradict what I said?

- they don't want you to know what they truly worship [they do not want to know how perverted they are]

- they don't want you to figure out the meaning of their retarded symbols

examples:

- the pyramid: the hierarchy

- the compass [1st meaning]: worldwide domination, in all 4 cardinal direction

- the square: the base of the pyramid, the plebs, US

- the compass as a triangle [2nd meaning]: represent the hierarchy, with THEM and the Eye at the top

- what shape does a compass over a triangle make? [freemasonry]

I'm not revealing ground breaking stuff here…

Bill Cooper, Springmeier, all the leaked books, etc.

this place is pozzed as fuck

>>13365129

The multiple anons with the same ID was caused by using clearnet over Tor.

That is not what is happening now.

>>13365152

Brennan's gone too?

>>13365152

"Accidental" payback for all their own personal sewage they threw at the guards the past 2 decades.

>>13365152

comms?

>>13365129

>Also my second post in this bread showed it was my first post. This should be my 3rd

Your IP address changed? That happens with dynamic IP which is what most of us have.

>>13365160

>>13365160

I drink Diet Dr. Pepper on occasion. Very very rarely drink that stuff. So bad for you

Fill this bread first pleeze, TY anons

Baker requesting handoff

FRESH BREAD

>>13365148

>>13365148

>>13365148

FRESH BREAD

Baker requesting handoff

>>13365130

No captcha? Are you positive? You didn't forget doing the captcha?

>>13364627

https://tora3.com/video/3c29612f1edc9a012704dcd04536315b

>>13365161

or

he's not a traitor, but a psy-operation victim, or under blackmail

>>13365157

In the 1980's I was in the navy on a destroyer. We were out to sea about 50 miles off coast of California and found an orange drone like the one in photo floating along. We picked it up and returned it to Raytheon.

So this type thing does happen.

>>13365181

>>13365130

That happens something, after a few posts you should get recaptcha'd.

I think it happens when cookies are not deleted.

>>13365185

yep, those addicted to crotch shots, tits and ass. Sex addicts. Can't see past their own egos, to realize SEX was the weapon most easily used to control.