Eichenb2, that is the problem. Most people find it extraordinarliy easy to be two. In fact, that is the source and solution to much of the argumentation on here. Being double minded unconsciously causes compart-mentalization, division, argumentation and beliefs that don’t distribute over all experience. Being double minded in Conscious awareness is the Eden of being self-reflective as a human being. I guess there are gray areas where one is not sure. That must be purgatory.
But I really enjoyed your post. It strikes right at the heart of why non-belivers have a problem with christianists of any discription. You see, the the tenents of christianism, from virgin birth through crucifiction to the resurrections, are in some form present in the mystery religions, as you say, and have been for some 5k years. The Egyptians, according to one source, even paraded a manger and babe through the streets on the Winter solstice.
The whole question, for non-believers, centers around the nature of incarnation, whose, and what it means. Since the mystery religions inception they have used various symbologies to initiate the prepared into an understanding of the mystery of their being human. The “stick firgure” explanation is that the God of Creation manifested the Universe into existance and gave Himself into it, that result being the process of life culminating in Man, His own reflection. Man as a reflection was understood to be awareness, Conscious awareness in particular. This constituted the Trinity: the Unmanifest, The Manifest, and God aware of Himself as His Creation. It was all of a piece. It explained why the basis of morality was “Do unto others” or “Don’t do unto others” or “Love thy neigbor as thyself.” All that was because the other is the Self. The descent into hell was the frogetery and ignorance of the Divinity of Consciousness incarnating in materiality and appearing as individuated awareness. Thus spring up the stories of the Water Bearer, Isis and Osiris, Atawhalpa, etc, etc, all of the crucified saviors of the past. It was all written and practiced as a map of Self discovery. It is the most consistant and persistant of all philosophies of understandig since man could think.
Somewhere around CE1, according to non-believers, there was a rare individual who understood this and taught it within his own religious system. His followers understood Him to some extent or other. But some did not. They spread the Word as they understood it, but somehow, even including possible events in the life of that individual, managed over the next two hundred years to historicize, literalize, and dogmatize what He had always and only meant to be an allagorical map to Self discovery. They also, according to that thinking, attributed solely to that individual the process of Self-relization which is the birthright and nature of all men and women. Much of the current historical and literary exegesis surrouding that time supports this idea.
And there is where we get our current argumentation. Those who have faith in the Church have it on faith and the tradition of the Church. Those who don’t argue that the historicity of the Bible and tradition is mostly irrelevant and what counts is the esoteric meaning of the Teaching as a means to salvation, not after death, but now. They say that even the words of Jesus and Paul and the comparison of the Gospels with each other and other texts, and the early history of the Church bear this out. They go so far as to postulate that “death” refers to the extinction of limited understanding upon realization, and therefore is equal to being “reborn.” In fact, there are many treatises on esoteric and transformative psychology that are utterly fascinating.
I say all this because it pays to be informed of what other people actuallly think, not what we *think *they think. From a non-christianist standpoint there are valid arguments as to the interpretation of the documents Catholics hold in another light, whether we think them true or not.
My contention is that the Light of God trumps all, but that we have to be courageous and willing to look at ourselves and how we work, including how we do or don’t aquire faith. That is, if we wish to enter into competent discourse with non-believers. Otherwise, simple faith is something it is dangerous to argue from in scholastic terms. I like what Mr. Miagi said in the Karate Kid: “Karate yes, ok; karate no, ok, karate maybe, squish like grape.”
This kind of discussion is not to be taken lightly. Although he is, in my understanding, radically different from what “he” is ordinarily portrayed as, (that being an entirely different and remarkable story) there is a Satan, a deciever.
