The Kingdom of God is Within You

>>9037132
muh nonviolent resistance

Did he believe in an omnipotent, prayer-answering, god? Did he believe in the trinity? Transubstantiation?

Everyone creates their own form of Christianity and then proclaims it to be The Right Way to Live. The horse-and-cart analogy only works if you believe that whatever it was Tolstoy happened to believe is The Right Way to Live. Otherwise you could argue that your version is the right one, and Tolstoy was the one being dragged. It's not an argument.

I have not read all of Tolstoy's works, but I don't believe he had all the answers. His religious works and views are not that popular and I think that's telling about his persuasiveness.

>>9037132
>>9039006
He is pretty fucking clear. Yes you have to live a Christian life re:dogma.

But if you are doing so, and then giving legitimacy towards a state or religion (theocrats in the US, the Orthodox authority in imperial russia) that promotes violence or stands against the precepts set on the sermon on the mount, you are at worst a hypocrite, and at best not fulfilling the instructions of Christ.

>>9039045
Thanks.

>>9039045
fuck off and deus vult

>>9040414
I see you are one of those "christians" over on /pol/. I'm sure your brand of "christianity" will go over well with our Judge.

>>9037132

I would recommend reading Chesterton because he disagrees with Tolstoy, specifically on pacifism.

>>9038827
Idiot memelord.

>>9037132
Turn to India, OP. The Bhagavad Gita and more notably for me the Upanishads. There's a reason they have been attracting thinkers of all age and you're bound to recognize many things.
If you are a Christian theist, I suggest you start with the shortest Upanishad, called Issa or Sri Isopanishad

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TvfBxIkupA

What about communist Jesus?

>>9040808
Don't knock it till you try it.

>>9040716
>implying Matthew, John, Saint Paul's letters, and much of the old testament never happened
You do realize how ignorant you are?
St. Paul in his letters to the Romans talked about how the purpose of Christianity is to persevere with your belief in Christ no matter what you may face. In Matthew, Christ repeatedly states how to treat sinners and gentiles who do not listen and refuse to repent for their sin, in that they should be ostracised, even going so far as to tell the apostles to shake the very dust off their feet after leaving places that do not welcome them.
Throughout the Old Testament the Lord is commonly shown to be merciful to all people, but His mercy has its limits, as seen in the tale of Sodom and Gomorrah, twice in egypt, and many times in battles between foreign peoples and the Hebrews, however despite being His chosen people the Hebrews were not safe from the wrath of the Lord when they acted in ways that warranted such action.
The Muslims in asia minor were slaughtering Orthodox christians in conquered areas lost by the Byzantine empire, leading to the Byzantine empire to call on the Pope in order for Crhistendom to unite against a common enemy in a holy war.
Being as Muslims are still persecuting Christians in Asia Minor, North Africa, and the Middle East, it most certainly can be said Deus Vult.
Read the Bible sometime, you might learn something.

>>9041143
Are you saying that Christ would advocate /pol/ Christianity, i.e. any form of violence whatsoever? The whole point of Christ's word is that it replaces the morality of the OT, so referring to OT morality to justify breaches of NT morality doesn't work.

From Tolstoy's POV - you're viewing things from a pagan mindset, whereas Christ preached a mindset higher than the pagan one.

>>9040824
>>9040787
Thanks, will look into these.

>>9041143
You are a fucking idiot if you interpret Paul's letters that way. A complete fucking idiot. And I'm willing to bet that the same thing can be said about Matthew and John.

You are a fucking retard or a godless asshole. Either way.

>>9041342
chill bruh

>>9039006
I don't think minor theological differences like transubstantiation really matter all that much. Do you really think a Lutheran is all that different to an Eastern Orthodox? They all worship Christ, they all believe he died for their sins and that they will be saved if the live by his words. In the face of that minor theological squabblings are irrelevant

>>9041342
You appear to be flustered.

>>9041143
are you fucking kidding me?????????

fucking jesus himself resisted violence, going so far as to put that one soldier's ear back, the whole time living an explicitly 'hippy' lifestyle

and for fucks sake, you cannot invoke yahweh interventions and take them as prerogative for christians today,


and fucking jfc your spiel on muslims is completely irrelevant american evangelical meme


why don't YOU read the bible and stop using it as a means to justify yourself

>>9043053
cuck

>>9044219
Spoken like a true intellectual.

>>9037132
The biggest problem I have is the more I realize Christianity is true, the more I see how pitiful I am and how pitiful our state is today. Eventually, I am put into positions where acting in accordance with what I think is right ends up with me losing friends, girlfriend, social status, financial success...I don't care about being rich or that kind of grandiose cliches, but it becomes physically/mentally hard when the world rejects you. The feeling of not being accepted, the feeling that you have to screw other people over for some corporation's profit so you can be a wageslave and put food onto the table, if you refuse to do it, you eventually become an embarassement even to your own family.. these are the kind of things that bother me. I don't have the drive to play the kind of zero-sum who is better at screwing others over for own benefit game. And the more I read about Christianity, the more I see it all around me even in small works. For example in a group of people, why does every take shots or make jokes about the meekest one (myself included when I catch myself)? I don't want to do this anymore, but if you don't you're an outcast, at least if you take it very seriously.

>>9041143
Reminder that the Samaritan or Roman or Thief is today's Muslim, and that Jesus had the most room in his heart for those who needed compassion and love.

>>9042774
>minor theological differences like transubstantiation really matter all that much.

It's extremely important unless you believe Christianity to be mere philosophy devoid of the mystical.

>>9044541
OP here - this is definitely part of my issue too, which always brings me to this >>9044588 where I think that, if Tolstoy is right and Christianity is the highest possible philosophy, yet is devoid of the mystical, what's my incentive to follow it if I can achieve similar freedom, tranquility, or whatever through something else like Stoicism adapted to modernity? What's my incentive to not live like an Epicurean or Cyrenaic even, other than of course that such living is currently against my own conscience?

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>>9044541
I feel you.

Wageslaving is so pointless to me. It's not often, but sometimes I have to screw people over myself and or I see my company screwing up other people's lives and it's killing me bit by bit.

>>9040824
This (Upanishads) and Chuang Tzu. These gave me an infinitely richer understanding of God.

>>9040838
"My kingdom is not of this world."
"The poor will you always have with you."
Absolutely not. Communism is theft, idolatry and it replaces God with the state.

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>>9044628
A little pascal's wager often helps take the edge off

>>9044588
>tfw cannot go to catholic church anymore because I cannot believe in transubstantiation
>to do otherwise would be hypocrisy.

>>9044628
If Tolstoy thinks Christianity is devoid of the mystical he is wrong. It doesn't make it any easier of course, but you have to suck it up. Unfortunately, I have vastly underrated how hard it actually is once you see things through a Christian perspective. Before, I would not even have second thoughts of certain things, today I see it all the time. The realization that you have a choice to make not once, but every day with the life you live can be really taxing (of course you still fail all the time, but just the attempt to follow it with a honest effort itself is taxing). But you're never going to arrive at an answer by questioning "does it benefit me to follow this philosophy?", if yes then I can be faithful. That is clearly missing the entire point of Christianity in my opinion, in fact it would be impossible to express genuine faith when you are approaching the question from such a utilitarian angle.

>>9044667
Why cannot you believe in it? Have you read some of the visionaries, stigmatists etc and what they have to say about the matter.? Or do you think all of those are false too?

>>9044685
All bullshit. I would like to, I tried for 2 solid decades of adulthood. I am Thomas, but I won't go to mass and pretend that I believe. I've been going to a traditional Unitarian not universalist church and it suits me better, and I dont feel like I've sinned in my heart every time I say the Nicene Creed.

>>9044694
Btw, after reading Tolstoy I am pretty sure the Nicene Creed goes against Matthew 5:33-37 which also made me feel like shit.

>>9044672
>In 1884, Tolstoy wrote a book called "What I Believe", in which he openly confessed his Christian beliefs. He affirmed his belief in Jesus Christ's teachings and was particularly influenced by the Sermon on the Mount, and the injunction to turn the other cheek, which he understood as a "commandment of non-resistance to evil by force" and a doctrine of pacifism and nonviolence. In his work The Kingdom of God Is Within You, he explains that he considered mistaken the Church's doctrine because they had made a "perversion" of Christ's teachings. Tolstoy also received letters from American Quakers who introduced him to the non-violence writings of Quaker Christians such as George Fox, William Penn and Jonathan Dymond. Tolstoy believed being a Christian required him to be a pacifist; the consequences of being a pacifist, and the apparently inevitable waging of war by government, are the reason why he is considered a philosophical anarchist.


>Tolstoy believed that a true Christian could find lasting happiness by striving for inner self-perfection through following the Great Commandment of loving one's neighbor and God rather than looking outward to the Church or state for guidance. His belief in nonresistance when faced by conflict is another distinct attribute of his philosophy based on Christ's teachings. By directly influencing Mahatma Gandhi with this idea through his work The Kingdom of God Is Within You (full text of English translation available on Wikisource), Tolstoy's profound influence on the nonviolent resistance movement reverberates to this day. He believed that the aristocracy were a burden on the poor, and that the only solution to how we live together is through anarchism.

>He also opposed private property in land ownership[28] and the institution of marriage and valued the ideals of chastity and sexual abstinence (discussed in Father Sergius and his preface to The Kreutzer Sonata), ideals also held by the young Gandhi. Tolstoy's later work derives a passion and verve from the depth of his austere moral views.[29] The sequence of the temptation of Sergius in Father Sergius, for example, is among his later triumphs. Gorky relates how Tolstoy once read this passage before himself and Chekhov and that Tolstoy was moved to tears by the end of the reading. Other later passages of rare power include the personal crises that were faced by the protagonists of The Death of Ivan Ilyich, and of Master and Man, where the main character in the former or the reader in the latter are made aware of the foolishness of the protagonists' lives.

>>9044711
This kind of fatalistic thinking about the Church reminds me of Protestantism, where because the Church is prone to mistakes you take your ball and go home and create another mistake as a response to the first mistake.

>>9044747
I believe the word of the day is heresiarch

>>9037132
la bass, en route, and the cathedral thing

>>9044747
To be fair, the Protestants did initially try to effect change within the Church, until the Church started hunting down and killing them en masse. But you're right, they should have returned after that whole Huguenot thing blew over.

>>9044711

It's called spiritual anarchism and I agree with most of it to be quite honest

>>9044672
I don't actually approach it from that angle, even if my post makes it come across that way. I don't think of it in terms of benefits personally, I was more talking about questions stemming from reading Tolstoy's view of things.

>>9044541
Sounds like you need to pursue a more fulfilling career such as teaching or working for a nonprofit. The money is shit but if all you care about is fulfillment, you will be rich

>>9045656
keep telling yourself this.

>>9045646
>The money is shit but if all you care about is fulfillment, you will be rich
t. povertycuck

>Fulfilling career
>teaching
pick one

>>9045195
>until the Church started hunting down and killing them en masse.
That's not how the protestant churches started off. All the very early violence was from radical mobs of protestants killing Catholics. Almost immediately after Luther came out with his 95 theses he had powerful supporters, whether because of theological or political reasons makes no difference. It was with the empowerment of these powerful princes that allowed Luther to properly sever his ties (and thus the ties of everyone who was sympathetic) after the diet of Worms. Catholic bloodshed against protestants comes much later.

>>9047914
>povertycuck
The only one who sounds 'cucked' by something here is you.
You also sound like a true intellectual and not poor in education at all.

>>9045656
Congratulations. That is probably the most retarded post in this thread.

Tolstoyanism is one of the lamest ideologys ever, also:
>Basing your entire ideology on the words of someone who probably never existed
he gets an A+ in idiocy.

>>9049701
nice argument

>>9037132
>once a man is exposed to the Christian truth, he is like a horse among a few other horses driving a cart forward. Man can either walk forward with the other horses by accepting Christian truth and thereby living in accordance with his conscience, or he can question the truth and be trampled by/dragged behind the cart while the other horses move forward without him.
what

>>9048054
Good choir boy, good.

>>9049701
You now realize that Tolstoi also studied other religious texts like Indian scripture

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>>9044541
>Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you, and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me. Rejoice and celebrate, because great is your reward in heaven; for in the same way they persecuted the prophets before you.

Have faith, friend and brother. You are not, and never will be, alone.

>>9044628

>other than of course that such living is currently against my own conscience?

That's really the heart of the matter (pun partially intended).
I encourage you, and anyone else interested, to read Tolstoy's 'A Calendar of Wisdom'. It was his final work, and should be read as intended: today's page, I try to read it every morning. I used to post it every day on /lit/, but got lazy.