Jesus, a force of evil?

[James_S_Saint]

I can appreciate the sentiment in this thread. While Catholicism, and Christianity more broadly, has done much good in the world, it continues to be a force for evil as well in the world, and not in the “some of the followers are badly behaving humans” sense (that’s to be expected for any human institution), but rather that many of its core ideological tenets are wicked, unjust, perverse.

Being one who supports and defends Jesus ***ONLY ***because I see so very little (if any) error or “wickedness” in what he taught, I am interested in hearing about this “many of its core ideological tenets are wicked, unjust, perverse”. As I have seen a great deal of Atheistic attitude expressing this thought, it seems that such a thought should be supported.

If you can convince me that thought is true and accurate, since Jesus defines those tenets I will stop defending Jesus and Christianity. I have a very high confidence in being able to spot “wickedness” or “error of consequence” in just about anything to the point that I can see almost nothing BUT error in all that Man does. But I have seen Jesus as being the very least of all of those preaching tenets and principles of any evilness or wickedness.

Christianity is a different matter in which I see corruption often, as do most people including Christians. But they see it by the contrast between the tenets or principles that Jesus taught versus what Christianity might be doing at any one time. Science has the same problem. Atheism is far worse.

Very few Christians even know the tenets of Jesus (as I pointed out by asking of them in a much earlier thread), but if there is a belief that those principles are “core wicked ideology”, I would certainly like to know.

Which ones are “unjust, wicked, and perverse” creating a “force of evil in the world”?

 

[bpbasilphx]

\ I am interested in hearing about this “many of its core ideological tenets are wicked, unjust, perverse”. \

I’d like to know WHO said this, and in WHAT context.

 

[James_S_Saint]

\ I am interested in hearing about this “many of its core ideological tenets are wicked, unjust, perverse”. \

I’d like to know WHO said this, and in WHAT context.

Well, I quoted the source which links to the contexts.

 

[Touchstone]

Being one who supports and defends Jesus ***ONLY ***because I see so very little (if any) error or “wickedness” in what he taught, I am interested in hearing about this “many of its core ideological tenets are wicked, unjust, perverse”. As I have seen a great deal of Atheistic attitude expressing this thought, it seems that such a thought should be supported.

I think I can (and will, if necessary) raise arguments regarding Jesus, but I don’t see Jesus as being the source of the problem in Christianity. Indeed, much of Christianity is committed to morally problematic positions in spite of Jesus, or in the absence of Jesus’ weighing in on the subject.

Consider homosexuality. What did Jesus have to say on the subject? Nothing at all directly, so far as I’m aware. But he did make it quite clear how important the “inner” issues were in terms of the heart, and one’s intentions, goals and the consequences of that in moral terms were fundamentally more important than the outward, superficial forms.

But Catholicism has institutionalized the demonization of homosexuality in Paul’s word, canonizing a vicious hatred for homosexuality, not as an act that exploits another, like rape or child molestation or some other abuse of power and advantage, but even homosexuality that is loving, caring, sacrificial, and mutually edifying and supportive. Real love, in other words, declared as evil.

I don’t read that in Jesus’ words. Maybe, had he made his position known on the subject, Jesus would be as wicked as Paul in his judgments. But that seems unlikely to me, given everything we have to go on regarding him. Christianity has, in that regard, become institutionalized pharisaism, the consecration of the superficial and legalistic over the primacy of the heart that Jesus promoted.

If you can convince me that thought is true and accurate, since Jesus defines those tenets I will stop defending Jesus and Christianity.

I don’t think I would like to try. On the issues of homosexuality and sexuality in general, my complaint is that the Catholic Church either goes against Jesus’ core ethics, or simply pays no heed and in the absence of dicta from Jesus on the subject (contraception wasn’t an issue in 1C Palestine), it has simply gone off into the weeds in pursuing its own political and cultural fancies, theological realpolitik detached from anything pertaining to Jesus proper.

I have a very high confidence in being able to spot “wickedness” or “error of consequence” in just about anything to the point that I can see almost nothing BUT error in all that Man does. But I have seen Jesus as being the very least of all of those preaching tenets and principles of any evilness or wickedness.

I won’t quibble over that. Jesus is not the problem with Chrisitianity, but a mirror on the problem of Paul and subsequent Christianity if anything.

That’s not a hagiography of Jesus by me, but by comparison to Paul, and so many Christians who came later and institutionalized anti-human dogmata in Jesus’ name, Jesus’ problems don’t seem very troubling.

-TS

 

[Touchstone]

Christianity is a different matter in which I see corruption often, as do most people including Christians. But they see it by the contrast between the tenets or principles that Jesus taught versus what Christianity might be doing at any one time. Science has the same problem. Atheism is far worse.

 

[James_S_Saint]

So of the tenets of which you are aware, though not mentioning any at all, is it fair to say that you hold objection to how Jesus is being worshiped rather than his actual tenets being “unjust, wicked, and perverse”?

You are suggesting that Jesus’ precepts were hijacked by a less than altruistic (“perverse”) organization?

 

[James_S_Saint]

Well, perhaps I can ask this;

Are you aware of any other organization that tries to uphold similar principles better than the Catholics?

Specifically those principles of;

1. Love even your enemies
2. Forgive those who appear to have offended
3. Treat others as you would have them treat you (what goes around comes around)
4. Provide for those less fortunate
5. Be honest - (“Let your yes mean yes and your no mean no”)
6. Be a good example
7. Turn the other cheek (“do not resist an evil man”)
8. Consider the real consequences in all that you do
9. Spread such behavior far and wide

 

[Touchstone]

So of the tenets of which you are aware, though not mentioning any at all, is it fair to say that you hold objection to how Jesus is being worshiped rather than his actual tenets being “unjust, wicked, and perverse”?

You are suggesting that Jesus’ precepts were hijacked by a less than altruistic (“perverse”) organization?

Well, Jesus was a pious Jew, an apocalyptic-minded one (cf. Matt. 24). So while I endorse ethical principles like the Golden Rule, I think the other principle that gets coupled with that (and has primacy, in Jesus’ view), that we should “love the Lord our God with all your heart, sould and mind”, is a very serious problem, ethically and morally. That, in itself, doesn’t demonize homosexuals, for example, or declare that contraception is sinful, but it DOES displace what should be good ethical commitments with a fealty that did come to institutionalize those things. Jesus can’t carry the burden of the homosexual hatred, or anti-semitism that came after him, but his ideas about God, and man’s duty to submit to those claims are how such institutionalized ideas get over.

The “delegation to god” thing is just ethically dangerous, irresponsible. It doesn’t represent wickedness directly, and indeed, can spur altruism and benevolence, but what becomes of it for ill is very difficult to dislodge, how does the cruelty and hatred for homosexuals in Paul’s screed get dislodged from the “mind of God” once it’s been put there? By investing power and authority in an imaginary god, the evils put there effectively are put beyond reach, out of the grasp of human discourse.

I’m not saying that was Jesus’ goal in his “great commandment”, but that is the effect of such superstitions.

-TS

 

[Touchstone]

Well, perhaps I can ask this;

Are you aware of any other organization that tries to uphold similar principles better than the Catholics?

Specifically those principles of;

1. Love even your enemies
2. Forgive those who appear to have offended
3. Treat others as you would have them treat you (what goes around comes around)
4. Provide for those less fortunate
5. Be honest - (“Let your yes mean yes and your no mean no”)
6. Be a good example
7. Turn the other cheek (“do not resist an evil man”)
8. Consider the real consequences in all that you do
9. Spread such behavior far and wide

Yeah, Mormons have Catholics beat on this list, hands down. But even so, I’ve no problem saluting the good ethics Catholicism does advance. I object to 5) above as a “credit” to Catholicism, but grant that that is a complex question – I think there is an ethical imperative to “Let your yes mean yes and your no mean no”, but that isn’t nearly half the import of being honest, and that other half… Catholicism, like so many other religions of irrational foundation, provides a very strong pressure toward dishonesty, particularly in being honest with oneself, but also with others. See the dishonesty about science and evolution that is rampant from Christians/Catholics here on this forum.

I don’t have any other group I bump into in the day to day world who are as "dishonestified’ by their credulous worldview as creationist Christians. There aren’t that many holocaust deniers to be found, so that just can’t compete. But the emphasis Christianity puts on its own confirmation bias, and the succor it provides for dishonest folk speaking in brashly dishonest ways is nothing short of tragic. Catholicism really does spoil good and honorable things (and people) in that regard.

It’s a complex, conflicted picture. That’s what you get with gods created in man’s image – some really good and sublime stuff, and some of the worst of humanity’s worst, and everything in between.

-TS

 

[James_S_Saint]

Well, your belief that God is a myth somewhat disqualifies the concern you pointed out about “Love thy God” which is why I left it off of the list.

But you have said that the Mormons do a better job of the others. I personally could point out some very serious cases opposing that, but the problem is that to point out the bad in something without also pointing out the good in it is hardly helpful and certainly bias and irresponsible.

So we are left with either becoming a Mormon so as to promote good ethics or do *what *instead that would result in even better ethics than those pointed out by Jesus?

Is being an Atheist helping in such regard? I don’t see Atheists being at all ethical above the most base in most cases. The Secularists certainly aren’t in that they have taught some extremely damaging ethics. The Scientism Quantum Magi merely teach to hate Christians as their code of ethics (along with a lot of invented fantasies).

But remember just saying, “why can’t we all just get along” doesn’t cause it to happen. What you teach must CAUSE the results you wish to promote, not merely suggest them for sake of being a good person.

 

[Touchstone]

Well, your belief that God is a myth somewhat disqualifies the concern you pointed out about “Love thy God” which is why I left it off of the list.

But you have said that the Mormons do a better job of the others. I personally could point out some very serious cases opposing that, but the problem is that to point out the bad in something without also pointing out the good in it is hardly helpful and certainly bias and irresponsible.

I certainly don’t think Mormons are perfect. And in the case of the major problem I pointed with respect to honesty in Catholics, I think Mormons fail even more than Catholics. Their claims, as effective as they are in producing positive ethics, require even more dishonest intellectual commitments than Catholicism.

And of course, my judgment about “better” is based on my personal, subjective experience. I’ve leaved in the Provo area for a time, and so had a couple years of “deep immersion” in Mormon culture, with all the good and bad that goes with that. My experience, for whatever it’s worth, is that Mormons embarrass Protestant Christians in “walking the walk”, and they surpass Catholics by a good margin. No body does the “live the Gospel” like Mormons do, in my view.

So we are left with either becoming a Mormon so as to promote good ethics or do *what *instead that would result in even better ethics than those pointed out by Jesus?

I think that’s a badly mistaken approach to ethics. A good idea is a good idea, but restricting one’s ethics to Jesus just makes no sense at all.

Is being an Atheist helping in such regard? I don’t see Atheists being at all ethical above the most base in most cases.

Atheism isn’t an ethical framework, any more than “not collecting stamps” is a hobby. I know this is hard to get across given the shibboleths that obtain in these circles, but telling me someone is an atheist doesn’t tell me anything about their ethics.

The Secularists certainly aren’t in that they have taught some extremely damaging ethics. The Scientism Quantum Magi merely teach to hate Christians as their code of ethics (along with a lot of invented fantasies).

Not sure what that means, but I think we are wasting each others’ time if we aren’t looking at an ethical framework to assess. If you want to assail utilitarianism or humanism or ethical egoism, or Buddhism, or…

“Scientism Quantum Magi” just went over my head. Sorry.

But remember just saying, “why can’t we all just get along” doesn’t cause it to happen. What you teach must CAUSE the results you wish to promote, not merely suggest them for sake of being a good person.

Yeah. I haven’t been thinking that Rodney King is the one to follow, either.

-TS

 

[James_S_Saint]

Well my point is that you are aware that “all things are relative” and that applies to the actions you take and the things you preach. If Jesus’ ethics are not as good as another groups, then by preaching Jesus’ ethics instead of the other, then you are displacing the good with the less good (which makes it the bad).

So if you can’t think of anything better to teach than what the Catholics teach, then you are really saying that they are doing as good as is available to do. I don’t think you are wanting to say that, but without something ELSE, what else could you mean?

Buddhism has specific problems, Humanism has specific problems, Secularism, ALL of them have specific problems. The question is which actually teaches better of the same or better ethics in your mind?

To merely say that Catholics are “unjust, wicked, and perverse” without having any better option seems obviously a foolish thing to say. So what is the other better option you have in mind?

 

[Touchstone]

Well my point is that you are aware that “all things are relative” and that applies to the actions you take and the things you preach. If Jesus’ ethics are not as good as another groups, then by preaching Jesus’ ethics instead of the other, then you are displacing the good with the less good (which makes it the bad).

OK, assuming we have some objective means of grading such things, which may exist, and I’m simply not aware.

So if you can’t think of anything better to teach than what the Catholics teach, then you are really saying that they are doing as good as is available to do. I don’t think you are wanting to say that, but without something ELSE, what else could you mean?

OK, I think I understand where you are going with this, now. I’m not out to throw out the baby with the bathwater, here. There is much to preserve in the ethics Catholicism advances. Keep that – Golden Rule is a principle to preserve, for example. But the bogus stuff – why keep that? That’s a negative, and a very serious one, in some cases. So I think you are thinking that ethics is some kind of “package deal” that obligates us to accept this bundle or this personality or that, as a totality.

That’s not necessary, and it’s not healthy for man, either. If we want to take ethics seriously, we are ever open to evolving in a positive direction, and willing to abandon that which fails and is found to be harmful, and accept that which we’ve learned and vetted.

Buddhism has specific problems, Humanism has specific problems, Secularism, ALL of them have specific problems. The question is which actually teaches better of the same or better ethics in your mind?

I don’t think any of them are a silver bullet, or superior across the board. Some excel in areas others are weak in, and the question of weighting those respective strengths is, beyond a very general level, a subjective matter, and dependent on one’s particular preferences and goals.

There’s a kind of self-canceling nature to your question: if you had some worthy measure for determining the “overall performance” of this ethical framework or that, you wouldn’t need to ask which competitor was best. You wouldn’t even need to evaluate the competitors, as you’d have all the ethical knowledge and principles you’d need to fashion your own optimal ethical framework.

To merely say that Catholics are “unjust, wicked, and perverse” without having any better option seems obviously a foolish thing to say. So what is the other better option you have in mind?

Well, I think the “better option” is to simply have the courage to abandon the evil parts of the framework. I understand the demands that it is a “package deal” (and this is particularly true for Catholicism), but that is in itself an ethical problem, this “bundling”. Treating other as you’d like to be treated is a very broad and effective principle for living. I recommend it, and note that no one needs to take my word for it, just try it, and/or observe it in practice around you. But being able to see the wickedness of the teaching that demonizes homosexuality or contraception, even as it comes from the very same institution that promotes the Golden Rule is a better way, as it enables you to emphasize and embrace the good for its own sake, and reject the cruel and execrable on the merits as well, instead of “buying the package” as a means of pleasing God.

Religious frameworks, underwritten by dogma, and bundled, inseparable by fiat, are a problem, an impediment to discipline, responsible moral thinking.

-TS

 

[James_S_Saint]

So I think you are thinking that ethics is some kind of “package deal” that obligates us to accept this bundle or this personality or that, as a totality.

Oh you are right, I AM thinking that. You can’t “cherry pick” and let me try to explain why;

Imagine that you took statistics on car accidents involving people who had left hand steering wheels versus right hand steering wheels and you discovered that the left handed wheels had a significant greater accident ratio.

But then you took an independent study of accidents involving communities that had people drive on the right versus the left side of the road and discovered that the greater number of accidents were significantly higher for those who drove on the left.

So according to your studies (and of course assuming other factors were properly accounted for) a better “ethic” for traffic would be to have people drive on the **right **and build their cars with steering wheels on the right. Not a good idea, huh?

Ethics deals DO come in packages. Not because they just accidentally fell that way from the great god Randomness, but because they compliment each other so as to make a complete package that actually works.

Jesus didn’t invent any of the principles he taught. He merely put the right package together. What makes your house stand is not merely the materials that it is made of, but the WAY they are put together in combination. If you change some materials, then you need to compensate by changing other things.

So what you have said so far is that you believe in just picking the ethics rules that make sense to you even though you haven’t seen any study concerning the best package that actually has proven to cause the better results.

Now the issue with this is that you really have to be a social engineer to even do that picking for the exact same reason you have to be an engineer to pick what IC components go onto the motherboard of that PC (probably MAC) you are using.

Imagine if the techs putting that together were to use their own judgment of what they thought was better and ignored what the engineer designed. I have seen that personally happen. I isn’t pretty. You wouldn’t buy it.

Nor would you buy the end result of people just picking and choosing what they thought seemed moral. The end result, as any social engineer can tell you, isn’t pretty and darn right dangerous.

So I’m afraid I have to insist on a “package deal”. Many packages have been put together and tried over the thousands of years. I haven’t seen Science actually study any of them. That would really be tough to do for even one, much more so for the better and larger religions.

So where are we now? I see it as you still saying that Mormonism is the best package deal. Is that right?

 

[Touchstone]

Oh you are right, I AM thinking that. You can’t “cherry pick” and let me try to explain why;

Imagine that you took statistics on car accidents involving people who had left hand steering wheels versus right hand steering wheels and you discovered that the left handed wheels had a significant greater accident ratio.

But then you took an independent study of accidents involving communities that had people drive on the right versus the left side of the road and discovered that the greater number of accidents were significantly higher for those who drove on the left.

So according to your studies (and of course assuming other factors were properly accounted for) a better “ethic” for traffic would be to have people drive on the **right **and build their cars with steering wheels on the right. Not a good idea, huh?

Ethics deals DO come in packages. Not because they just accidentally fell that way from the great god Randomness, but because they compliment each other so as to make a complete package that actually works.

I was arguing for against the Jesus/Christian model for exactly this reason – it’s a self-contradictory framework. One the one hand we see Jesus emphasizing the “inner” motivations and goals of man, focus on love as agape, sacrificial, giving. And while we don’t have any direct words from Jesus on the question of homosexuals, Paul takes over later and completely “legalizes” and demonizes homosexuality in a way that is starkly and conspicuously at odds with Jesus’ focus on love as giving, selfless, intimate in a generative and “building up” way.

It’s not hard to see the conflict, nor to see how that happens, as a hodge-podge. Jesus isn’t Paul, agape and barbaric ancient hatreds compete in the same culture for mindshare and power.

It’s precisely because frameworks like Christianity are fraught with these ethical and moral contradictions that the ethical man refuses to take on the cancer and pathogens with the good fruit that’s available. We esteem the idea that the ‘truth shall set you free’, and yet we are confronted with this “mystery” of our freedom really being bondage (wink), as we are most free when we are bondservants of Christ – again the same kind of ethical thinking that puts “arbeit macht frei” over the prison gate.

Christians are exhorted to tell the truth, but when it comes to the science of human physiology regarding human sexual orientation, their honesty and fairness goes out the window. Gays simply cannot be so as a result of genetic dispositions. God wouldn’t do that. And all manner of deceit and evasion and dishonesty flows from that as a way of dealing with their cognitive dissonance.

Same thing with creation. Same thing with health and freedom and contraception. The ethics war against each other, and they kick against the goads of reality. It’s becuase these frameworks commit one to self-contradictions and irrational positions by the VERY STRUCTURE that we should resist the “packaging” you demand.

Jesus didn’t invent any of the principles he taught. He merely put the right package together. What makes your house stand is not merely the materials that it is made of, but the WAY they are put together in combination. If you change some materials, then you need to compensate by changing other things.

So what you have said so far is that you believe in just picking the ethics rules that make sense to you even though you haven’t seen any study concerning the best package that actually has proven to cause the better results.

I’m not sure what the performance metrics would be for any such study, which was my point in my previous post. As I said, if you have some authoritative standard, you have solved the problem right there. The problem is we don’t have such a thing, it’s a desire and a fiction rather than a reality. Ethical reasoning in the real world is much more difficult and challenging than that. I agree that we can find results where one guideline yields results we agree to be better than a competing guideline (honesty is a good policy vs. lying as a rule for human interactions, for example). But at the “package level”, there is no objective standard we’d expect to agree to.

Many, for example, would find it morally inadequate that there was no god to worship, be enslaved by, or to offer us an “absolute standard”, even if it’s an imaginary one. So right there, we’d have an insoluble problem as to what is a “better” framework. This is a kind of utopian thinking that tends to produce horrors and atrocities in spite of itself, anwyay, so it really isn’t a bug so much as a feature of human psychology, that kind of diversity.

-TS

 

[Touchstone]

Now the issue with this is that you really have to be a social engineer to even do that picking for the exact same reason you have to be an engineer to pick what IC components go onto the motherboard of that PC (probably MAC) you are using.

 

[James_S_Saint]

Wait, our “design criteria” was “the best ethics package”. Promoting the belief in God is only one of the optional materials to use in the design. So don’t try to tell the architect what material he must use if building the “best house” is your real goal.

Forget how it got built for a moment and be concerned only with the real results even if they aren’t perfect. Do you have a BETTER COMPLETE package in mind? If not, then you are attacking the best thing available with no idea of what it would be replace by; burning down your house because it used the “wrong” kind of wood, yet have nowhere to live that is any better.

So do you have a better complete package to recommend?

I can probably tell you what your next thought is and I advise to think about it before you say it.

 

[AlbertBall]

You may be interested in Matt Dillahunty destroying the sermon on the mount

wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=Sermon_on_the_mount

 

[James_S_Saint]

You may be interested in Matt Dillahunty destroying the sermon on the mount

wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=Sermon_on_the_mount

That guy is an idiot. I didn’t see such anti-Jewish rhetoric and sophomoric wisdoms being thrown around in Wiki when I read about their Scriptures.

“The Scripture says to do this…, but that’s bad advice.” Who asked for his naive opinion?

 

[Touchstone]

Wait, our “design criteria” was “the best ethics package”. Promoting the belief in God is only one of the optional materials to use in the design. So don’t try to tell the architect what material he must use if building the “best house” is your real goal.

What makes the “best house” the best, in your view? That seems an intractable problem as an objective matter. If everybody’s view of “the best house” is different, where does that leave things?

Forget how it got built for a moment and be concerned only with the real results even if they aren’t perfect. Do you have a BETTER COMPLETE package in mind? If not, then you are attacking the best thing available with no idea of what it would be replace by; burning down your house because it used the “wrong” kind of wood, yet have nowhere to live that is any better.

So do you have a better complete package to recommend?

As above, I think we’ve now moved off into the ether, and our terms are empty, undefined. What do you mean by “best” or “better”? How do competing claims get adjudicated, here, when you and I disagree on what is “good” or “best”? In the natural world, we can agree on objective “refereeing”; if I have a model of solar astronomy that is at odds with yours, we can let them “duke it out” in terms of predictions and performance and results. We disagree up front, but we both can read numbers of charts and agree what they signify, so we have a common basis for resolving the dispute, for me to say “My theory is inferior to yours, yours has prevailed in real world testing!”.

No such method is available here.

I won’t press on what you mean by “complete”, but I can’t think what that would mean in this context.

I can probably tell you what your next thought is and I advise to think about it before you say it.

I consider myself duly cautioned, have thought about it, and have said what I’ve said.

I hope you’ll respond to the question about what makes “best” “best” here; it’s important, fundamental to where you’re trying to go. If you have a justifiable criterion for “best”, all the rest of this just falls into place, and nearly all of the other points here are obviated. It’s precisely because what you appear to assume is available is NOT available, that we have to work on these issues the hard way.

-TS