Biblical revelation was a reaction against the pagan cosmic order,

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>people are following a cheater that literally broke the cosmic rules for balance

>Biblical revelation was a reaction against the pagan cosmic order, where man was a finite being at the mercy of infinitely destructive forces and death was eternal.

So in other words, it's a childish rebellion of feelgood bullshit against a more pessimistic, and ultimately more realistic view of the world? Did you just accept the main problem of Abrahamic doctrine?

>>1800984
Not OP posting here:
>I am speaking (impressionistically, I grant) of something pervasive in the ethos of European antiquity, which I would call a kind of glorious sadness. The great Indo-European mythos, from which Western culture sprang, was chiefly one of sacrifice: it understood the cosmos as a closed system, a finite totality, within which gods and mortals alike occupied places determined by fate. And this totality was, of necessity, an economy, a cycle of creation and destruction, oscillating between order and chaos, form and indeterminacy: a great circle of feeding, preserving life through a system of transactions with death. This is the myth of “cosmos”—of the universe as a precarious equilibrium of contrary forces—which undergirded a sacral practice whose aim was to contain nature’s promiscuous violence within religion’s orderly violence. The terrible dynamism of nature had to be both resisted and controlled by rites at once apotropaic—appeasing chaos and rationalizing it within the stability of cult—and economic—recuperating its sacrificial expenditures in the form of divine favor, a numinous power reinforcing the regime that sacrifice served. And this regime was, naturally, a fixed hierarchy of social power, atop which stood the gods, a little lower kings and nobles, and at the bottom slaves; the order of society, both divine and natural in provenance, was a fixed and yet somehow fragile “hierarchy within totality” that had to be preserved against the forces that surrounded it, while yet drawing on those forces for its spiritual sustenance. >Gods and mortals were bound together by necessity; we fed the gods, who required our sacrifices, and they preserved us from the forces they personified and granted us some measure of their power. There was, surely, an ineradicable nihilism in such an economy: a tragic resignation before fate, followed by a prudential act of cultic salvage, for the sake of social and cosmic stability.

>>1801011
>As it happens, the word “tragic” is especially apt here. A sacrificial mythos need not always express itself in slaughter, after all. Attic tragedy, for instance, began as a sacrificial rite. It was performed during the festival of Dionysus, which was a fertility festival, of course, but only because it was also an apotropaic celebration of delirium and death: the >Dionysia was a sacred negotiation with the wild, antinomian cruelty of the god whose violent orgiastic cult had once, so it was believed, gravely imperiled the city; and the hope that prompted the feast was that, if this devastating force could be contained within bright Apollonian forms and propitiated through a ritual carnival of controlled disorder, the polis could survive for another year, its precarious peace intact.

>The religious vision from which Attic tragedy emerged was one of the human community as a kind of besieged citadel preserving itself through the tribute it paid to the powers that both threatened and enlivened it. I can think of no better example of this than that of Antigone, in which the tragic crisis is the result of an insoluble moral conflict between familial piety (a sacred obligation) and the civil duties of kingship (a holy office): Antigone, as a woman, is bound to the chthonian gods (gods of the dead, so of family and household), and Creon, as king, is bound to Apollo (god of the city), and so both are adhering to sacred obligations. The conflict between them, then, far from involving a tension between the profane and the holy, is a conflict within the divine itself, whose only possible resolution is the death—the sacrifice—of the protagonist. Other examples, however, are legion. Necessity’s cruel intransigence rules the gods no less than us; tragedy’s great power is simply to reconcile us to this truth, to what must be, and to the violences of the city that keep at bay the greater violence of cosmic or social disorder.

>>1801001
It is exactly this attitude of meek submission to the "way things are" that I'm talking about

>>1801047

Yes, and that 'meek submission' to the idea that you can get wacked by anyone or anything for any reason, including none at all, is a very smart way to live your life. It means that you will adapt to the worst times, not the best, since the best times won't ruin you.

That's why when we build a house, we build it to stand up to the biggest and most destructive storm, because sunshine and blue skies will probably never destroy it.

So, what your basically saying is that Christianity at best is a doctrine that is way too overconfident, and at worst, when taken to its ridiculous extreme, is downright suicidal. Now you know why its pure form has never appealed to anyone, and it right now is being rejected completely

>guys biblical revelation makes no sense!
Never heard a more compeling argument. Guess I have better convert now.


>>1801001
This is what Nietzsche said in the birth of tragedy. The Greeks knew life was tragic and meaningless and their mythologies were a way to express this fact, even to cope with it, but to to contradict it. Basically what OP is cnfessing is that Christianity play pretend.

>>1801075
>>1801076

It's one thing to be prepared for danger, it's another to be outraged at a religion that believes the suffering of a single living, thinking, feeling being is worth more than all the empty space and rocks in the universe. What do you owe the objective? Do you think a religion that takes the torture and death of an innocent man as the center around which the entire system pivots can in any way be playing pretend?

>>1801129
>it's another to be outraged at a religion that believes the suffering of a single living, thinking, feeling being is worth more than all the empty space and rocks in the universe.

Not when that religion makes empty promises and promotes empty dreams of paradise to the point of harm and death. Then being outraged at such a doctrine is completely justified and even beneficial to your survival

>>1801138
>being this ignorant of what faith means

You're arguing with a child's understanding of a 2,000 year old religion. Sounds like a you problem

>>1801129
>What do you owe the objective?
This is a strange question that I don't know how to respond. What do we owe a truck running at full speed? Nothing I suppose but we have better not ignore it or pretend it doesn't exist when crossing the road.

>>1801144

On the contrary, believers and their holy book spend almost every waking moment telling the whole world about how wonderful your life is when you take on their specific doctrine. You even call your holy text the 'Good News'.

As I've said before, such an optimistic view of life can and will be, in the case of anything you didn't expect, and thus didn't prepare for, completely disastrous, ruining anyone who took on this overconfident doctrine

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What yall' missing is the point that the paranormal is in existence as a very real and very influential force in today's (and yesterday's) world and Jesus dealt with these forces directly for what they rly are, non-physical entities sourced from a very anti-human agenda (ie. kingdom of darkness)

You can mince words all day and play theologian but Jesus cast out demons in order to CURE people of infirmities and diseases and this fact alone made many people of his time believe in what he was saying/who he was and even accuse him of being a mere sorcerer instead of the messiah, and as real Christians know this was not the case "a house divided against itself shall not stand" Mark 3:25]

If you don't even know that much about what's rly going on then yeah it's not going to make much sense lol (This stuff is VERY practical and applicable and real Christians and pagans alike know this stuff is very real and no fairy-tale)

God Bless

>>1801153
Except coming in here and trying to accuse a religion founded on the torture and death of its founder that it's trying to pretend suffering and death are not somehow real is a ridiculous argument.

>>1801180
Yours is a completely emotional argument. He suffered therefore you should convert or you are a bad person. There's not even real evidence that he existed aside from the texts.

>>1801138

christianity is a transcendental religion, it literaly offers one salvation trough following christ

this dosent work for the masses so you have heaven and hell upgrades, whatever

what christianity and similarly gnosticism did was to break with the old system, to go directly against what is described as the way of the world, systematicaly, on purpose

thats the whole 'esoteric' point of the religion, the way to peace, unity with the divine, selfknowledge and rebirth etc and so on

so its not a question of right or wrong, these are different approaches to the same reality, its that christianity is one of those religions that hints at a way out, wich might or might not be illusory but how can anyone know, prechristian religions submitted to absurdity, accepted the cosmic order of things and the non-judging non-caring reality of chaos, this might be more realistic or whatever, who knows

>>1801229
>this might be more realistic or whatever, who knows

I'm not concerned with true or false. For all we know, true and false are concepts that are totally unattainable, or at least should be considered as such. Certainly truth, since we have to analyze the world with a demonstrably fallible mind.

Now, with that in mind, consider the consequences of both the optimism of Christianity and the pessimism of pre-Christianity. If the pessimist is wrong, he doesn't lose much, he might even gain a lot, as he doesn't risk anything in a world that he expects to be dangerous. However, if the optimist is wrong, he can harm himself and those around him gravely, as he takes irresponsible risks, as he expects the world to follow his every desire.

This is a point that a lot of people completely miss about the pre-Christian beliefs, and pessimism in general. They don't deal in truth, they deal in utility, and in avoiding risk and ruin

>>1801210
What? Not at all. Christianity is a rupture with the old way of understanding the world, where suffering was justified as a necessary feature of an ineluctable cosmic order. Christ taught it was the the outcast, the abandoned, the lonely who are worth more than any impersonal, faceless system that sustains itself through the consumption of life.

>>1801254
The question of "utility", of rationally weighing options, of sitting there and thinking this out, are exactly what Christianity wants to do away with.

It's saying: all your knowledge and rationality and polished arguments are nothing in the face of someone who is in pain. And they aren't.

>>1801266
>The question of "utility", of rationally weighing options, of sitting there and thinking this out, are exactly what Christianity wants to do away with.

I know. That's why people ridicule it. Because that's the height of stupidity

>>1801254

there is a strong streak of pessimism in christianity

troughout the implication is that the body is just a contraption with a expiration date, that all material things and systems are conditioned, corruptible and void of value, that even what is called life is mere proces

in all this they are also very close to our official scientificaly derived secular version of reality

but they then assume or believe or come to know a higher reality, and there the logic is that of finding something most valuble among a pile of shit basicaly, this is repeated in various ways in both canon and apokrifal texts

so by that logic to christians the question is reverse, and was put like that in some places - if this is truly all, the material proces, nature, chaos, whatever, then what is there to lose, but if they are right, then they have everithing to gain

this folows the thinking of most transcendental religions

>>1801273
>le height of stupidity

The point is death and pain is worse than being called "irrational". Once again you're appealing to the objective and defending it when you know as well as I do that rocks don't give a shit about my existential attitude

>>1801349
>Once again you're appealing to the objective

No, I'm appealing to the harmful. I'm appealing to the things that demonstrably ruin people. Ignoring those, like your overly optimistic doctrine does, is indeed the height of stupidity, no matter how many faggy maymays you hurl at me.

>>1801360
It doesn't ignore them if it's a religion literally founded on the agonizing death of central figure. Read -> comprehend

>>1801398
>It doesn't ignore them if it's a religion literally founded on the agonizing death of central figure

Right, which it isn't, as the central tenet of your religion is that the Resurrection

>>1801421

*took place

>>1801421
Which signifies the conquering of the objective natural order which demands that which is born must also die. Come on dude, it's all in the OP.

>>1801454
>Which signifies the conquering of the objective natural order which demands that which is born must also die.

Which is exactly the type of overly optimistic nonsense I've been criticizing this entire thread.

>>1801479
It's an optimism in the abyss; which is exactly what faith is. That is the only true optimism, the only true strength: hope in the face of hopelessness

>>1801492

Yes, and if it's wrong, it was completely false hope, that made you completely overestimate the world by the standard of a best case scenario. If I'm wrong about my hopeless scenario, I lose little to nothing. In fact, I'm much better prepared for episodes of reversals of fortune, since I expect them. You don't, and if they occur, you're almost certain to pay the price for it

>>1801526
I accept death, I accept evil, I accept this reality is all there is and there is no escape, so if I'm wrong I just end up where I started. Even Jesus feared he was wrong in his death throes, it is this tension in the suffering being, th inexplicability of there being one who cries "God where art thou?" in the void that is the deep truth and paradox of Christian salvation.

It's not about us rationally justifying our hopes to the system, it's the system of finitude and death having to justify itself to us.