To what extent can one believe in Christianity if they do not

its only allegorical to people without strong enough faith

there is no missing link, we aren't related to those apes of which we have found fossils.

>>551674
lol

>>551674
>two humans literally ate a fruit and that's how evil entered the world

It's only literal to people whose God and vision of reality is so small they don't understand the fall is an allegorical depiction of the dawn of the limited, discriminating consciousness, the descent from Being to Becoming

>>551775
Interesting. Elaborate

>>551794
The garden is eternal communion with the divine, the root and principle of reality. Adam and Eve - or rather the archetypal female and male energies of reality, activity vs. passivity - don't need to consume the animals of the garden because they have not yet been polluted by Becoming, or the biological demands of survival in a material universe.

When Eve eats the fruit, that represents and is a culmination of a thirst for bodily existence. This shatters the undifferentiated perfection of the original divine reality. Now there is subject and object, there are boundaries, there is external vs. Internal, there is time and transience, what was eternal and absolute is dissoluted into countless, imperfect forms. And how we interact with these other subjects, being a subject ourselves, determines good and evil. That's the knowledge of good and evil. It's like waking out of a divine sleep.

But at the same time, the perfection of a flawed reality is arguably greater and more sublime than just the placid perfection of the divine oneness. We were One, now we are Many, so we may be perfected as the Many-as-One, the most perfect and glorious thing imaginable, because as even Nietzche says, "to impose the character of Being on Becoming is the greatest test conceivable'

>>551665
Something that you probably also have to take into consideration is that since we're in an age of such knowledge, the Garden of Eden story has been picked apart extensively. By that I mean mainly that - in the grand scheme of things - a lot of the "intelligent" (if I may use this term without sounding like I am saying those who don't follow this train of thought are unintelligent) Christians understand it, and also most of the stories of the bible, are allegorical and are simply stories; such is the nature of most ancient religious stories.

I don't really think I'm answering what you are asking, but meh. Another thing to take into consideration is that peoples' opinions/views on religion - especially now - are very, very varied; as it most definitely should be. For example, I have a religious acquaintance who doesn't think going to church is necessary, as religion to him is "personal" or something like that.

tl;dr: make your own mind up, don't dick yourself out of free thought. Of course you can follow an "accepted" train of thought or whatever, but if you have doubts on some issues, search around for some views/opinions and make your decision after said consultations.

>>551775
>Adam and Eve existed, sure, but they didn't "exist" exist

What people are asking is, "Were Adam and Eve historical figures in the same sense that Alexander the Great was a historical figure? Were they ever present on earth?"

To which the obvious answer is no. They are a myth peddled by a cult. There is no qualitative difference between Adam and Eve and the Berenstain Bears.

>>551822
Good post. I can tell you know your Jung.

Isn't this still at odds with what most mainstream (Catholic, Orthodox and Anglican) churches teach, though?

>>551840
I'd say it's an elaboration, actually, but most Christians would scream bloody murder.

A way I like to think of it is:

Ground of reality: a kind of pure sublime "white noise" that holds all modalities (or tonalities to continue the metaphor) of beings as potentiality in itself
Material universe: the individual tones and notes of being actualized, which unfortunately creates the possibility for "dissonance", ie evil and discord
Many-as-One: all the individual "tones" harmonized with each other and the whole without sacrificing their individuality but contributing it to the overall character of the "divine symphony" that is reality perfected

I don't think it's a coincidence so many mystics and religious authors refer to the totality of creation as a cosmic dance or music

Anyways sorry for rambling I just really like this stuff

>>551888
Where do you read this stuff? Genuinely curious

>>552008
Came up with the music metaphor myself. As for the philosophical grounding of these concepts:

Heidegger and Hegel's concept of the Being of beings as being synonymous with nothingness

The Tao te Ching, Qabbalah, Gnosticism. The Bhagavad Gita and the Upanishads

Ebola's conceptualization of Being

Schopenhauer's unindividuated will vs. The malignant, individuated will

Kierkegaard's Knight of Faith, who transcends the universal by harmonizing it with the particular: he affirms his essential, finite individuality in the face of the infinite/God

Buddhisms Middle Way: neither torturous asceticism nor hedonism, but a balance of what is holy and worldly in the integrated individual

Sartre's disctintion between the perfect, self-contained being we see in objects and the imperfect, conflicted being of conscious organisms, which unfortunately he believes is irreconcileable, but still reflects the basic dichotomy ive been talking aboit


Tons of stuff in the Bible if you know where to look

>>551665

Do you know what the Fall is?

>>551822

where are you getting this interpretation from?

you may as well say Jesus is allegorical for "the love in every one of us"

>>552118
No. Care to tell me?

>>552176
They may have existed and the story is an allegory revealed by God in order to give us a framework to reason our existence.

That's basically what scripture is supposed to be.

>>552176
He is? Obviously the historical Jesus existed, but what he embodied and came to represent, certainly, among other things. Also, scroll up for a list of my sources.

>>552184

but the interpretation is just one person's interpretation. you take 100 people and get them to read Genesis 1-3.. none would come up with that interpretation.. so it means God is the author of confusion

>>552193
are you a christian?

>>552207
No, I'm not.

>>551775
What doesn't make sense to me is why it's still a fall then. The original narrative is very clear. God trusts humanity not to do something, they do it anyway, now they reap the consequences. If it's just a a natural expansion of their conciousness then it hardly seems fair at all.

>>552621
Nature isn't fair.

Because we know good from evil, we are beholden to morality and are thus not inherently innocent, like the beasts not beholden to morality.

This is my take on it, I'm not the anon you replied to.

Without a historical Adam and Eve original sin is thrown into doubt (or completely disproved). Without original sin Christ's death loses all meaning. This is why the Catholic Church commands belief in a historical Adam and Eve.

>>554294
Thought so
I'll speak to my priest and see what he thinks

>>552193
He might have existed.
It isn't obvious.
And generally you reach executed cult founder as one of the remaining attributes before it becomes a more likely maybe.

>>554294
Is this true?

The hallmarks of Christianity are probably

1) A Christology that includes the divinity of Christ

2) A soteriological vision based on salvation from sin through Christ (and/or his teachings) and the eventual realization of the End of the World, Judgement and eternal afterlife.

But all the Christian sects have different ideas about who exactly a Christian is.

>>556000
>salvation from sin
But where did sin come from?

KOS-MOS