Christianity and saving the West from itself

[death metal black metal]

Now we're in trouble.

We finally blew a gasket in the comments over the issue of religion and saving the West from its own downfall. Now there's a raging brawl going on, but it's an intelligent raging brawl, so we're just watching it for now...

See what happens when you interview "alternatives to modernity" publishers?

http://www.amerika.org/books/interview-with-john-morgan-of-arktos-4/comment-page-1/

[death metal black metal]

If these issues are important to you, there is a forum for you to voice your opinion:

http://www.amerika.org/politics/christianity/

It's a raging debate about whether we:

(1) Reject Christianity entirely

(2) Accept it as is

(3) Adopt it with some changes as part of our negotiation, specifically changes toward a more "pagan" or Nietzschean/Wagernian warlike consequentialist morality and Social Darwinism.

[Dinaric Leather]

(1) Reject Christianity entirely

(2) Accept it as is

(3) Adopt it with some changes as part of our negotiation, specifically changes toward a more "pagan" or Nietzschean/Wagernian warlike consequentialist morality and Social Darwinism.

There is a third option, like an inversion of the third. Paganism infused with the best and most true elements of Christianity. In fact, I'd say a mix of Paganism and Christianity in one degree or another is the only realistic option for pagans. We cannot completely reject something that has been a part of our history for many centuries.

I don't want Europeans to stick with Christianity as is because it's simply boring as fuck. There is but one god responsible for all forces in the world? Are you kidding me? To me the concept of monotheism is absurd. Leave that shit for the camel jockeys.

[Athanasius contra mundum]

Or leave it to Aristotle, who pretty much irrefutably proved monotheism in his Metaphysics.

[§Transcix]

You should get a discussion forum going, it's pretty tedious and impractical to wade through all those comments.

One thing I'd like to add, I think for all the good Christianity legitimately does, it's usually forgotten or misunderstood how much bad it does in regards to the threat of eternal damnation. I live in a relatively atheistic city (thank god), but I believe I understand fear and the impact it can have on a person. And surely no notion in the whole world can be more frightening than eternal damnation--if you think about it, it's absolutely sick. The majority of society's underbelly, all those kids and adults who got to thinking they were on the wrong side of god, or in anger or despair chose to reject god, I think they believe in god, and psychologically they heavily repress and deny the immorality of their lifestyle, or they repress and deny the idea of god's existence, and until they get past this psychological baggage they can't come to any true sort of reckoning about how they've lived and how they could change the way they live. The notion of eternal damnation is just so far off-base from any human point of reference, it's very difficult for the mind to come to terms with it. It's such a sick, disgusting notion, makes me want to vomit that it's appropriated in the name of good and used to suppress the less fortunate. To the extent America's built on Christianity it's also built on fear, and the consequences are plain to see.

Or leave it to Aristotle, who pretty much irrefutably proved monotheism in his Metaphysics.

'Irrefutable' proof can't be 'pretty' conclusive.

[Athanasius contra mundum]

For the sake of discussion please avoid that sort of commentary.

The threat of eternal damnation is gravely misunderstood by most modern adherents of the Gnostic heresy they style as Christianity.

[Sammaellofi]

I will post more in the thread if I feel like expanding, but looking at history, despite what the dates suggest, christianity seems to be neither the problem, nor what anyone seems to be practicing. 

[§Transcix]

For the sake of discussion please avoid that sort of commentary.

I know, at the same time, I used to toss around terms like 'a priori' and 'infallible' until enough people called me on it that I understood proof positive is a foreign concept to people. "If it were that obvious," they say, "then surely it would already have been discovered and implemented". Now I never mention concepts regarding absolute certainty summarily, only at length, lest they be misconstrued. But your case may not be the same as mine.

Admittedly I also find amusement in the notion of infallibly substantiating the integrity of the same system that single-handedly discredits the notion of logical deduction.

[Veritas]

To accept Christianity would be to accept the figure of Christ - is this something we want?

Side with the Christians on the issues where they are in the right, and oppose them where they are in the wrong. Claiming adherence to some form of Christianity doesn't seem worth it.

One thing I'd like to add, I think for all the good Christianity legitimately does, it's usually forgotten or misunderstood how much bad it does in regards to the threat of eternal damnation.

When I was a Christian, I figured that if all that is came from God, and Hell is antithetical to God, then Hell must simply be nothingness - you can choose righteousness, and ascend to be with God, or else you could choose to sin and afterwards perish unless you underwent the process of repentance. I think this would be a better interpretation - still highlighting the seriousness of the choice, but avoiding the anxiety associated with the belief of eternal damnation. I believe this better symbolises the choice we constantly face between doing what is best for the whole, and giving into the pleasure of the moment.

[WAAAAAAGH!]

The threat of eternal damnation is gravely misunderstood by most modern adherents of the Gnostic heresy they style as Christianity.

Would you be so willing as to provide some material which would elaborate on this?

[Jim Necroslaughter]

To accept Christianity would be to accept the figure of Christ - is this something we want?

I think a mistake that Christianity made was getting so caught up in Jesus, the son, and the nightmarish story his martyrdom.  The complete acceptance of death at the hands of the proles never sat well with me, either.  Christianity seemed to lose track of the Father, The Almighty.

[Conservationist]

I like Christianity without Christ. The Christ story, which is almost wholly plagiarized, is one that rewards self-sacrifice instead of achievement. It is self-pity incarnate.

The term ‘positive Christianity,’ a vague type of non-denominationalism not beholden to any particular religious institution, makes an appearance in the 25 points of the NSDAP (set forth in 1920 by the founding party members). Point 24 is brief but significant, considering that the Nazi party is so often cast as monolithically anti-Christian. These points demonstrate an attempt to present a systematic worldview to the German population. Point 24 distances Positive Christianity from the denominational conflicts (and institutional oversight) of the day and binds it to a nationalistic rhetoric which links Christian morality with the Germanic race:

24. We demand freedom of religion for all religious denominations within the state so long as they do not endanger its existence or oppose the moral senses of the Germanic race. The Party as such advocates the standpoint of a positive Christianity without binding itself confessionally to any one denomination. It combats the Jewish-materialistic spirit within and around us, and is convinced that a lasting recovery of our nation can only succeed from within on the framework: common utility precedes individual utility.
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/imt/1708-ps.asp

This somewhat amorphous sense of religious community was defined primarily by its struggle against the perceived threat that German Jews were said to represent, and its concurrent desire to protect “the moral senses of the Germanic Race.” It resisted any absolute expression of institutional form… or rather had too many institutions vying to represent it. In the nascent years of the NSDAP, the party offered a synthesis of various Christian ideologies, nationalistic loyalties, and racial/cultural investments, and honed in on the characteristics and beliefs which many at the time shared, such as a belief that Jesus was not Jewish, a desire to define Christianity in opposition to Judaism, a hope for a unified and empowered Germany, and an antagonism towards Capitalism, liberalism, Marxism, and secularism.

Also referred to as ‘Practical Christianity’ or ‘Active Christianity,’ this protean tradition was meant to supersede the denominational strife in Germany and unite German Christians under one banner- the Reich. Hitler repeatedly stated that to get bogged down in theological details was political suicide and would only help Germany’s true enemy- the Jew. In Mein Kampf, he writes that Jesus as a critic of Judaism who “drove those enemies of the human race out of the Temple of God” and was “nailed to the Cross for his attitude towards the Jews.” In a 1939 speech in Munich, Hitler claimed that the party was itself more Christian in deed than their Christian critics. According to his reasoning, National Socialist Germany programs were Christian in that they “cloth the poor and feed the poor.”

For example, the Winter Relief Program (Winterhilfswerk), while not an innovation of the Nazi Party, quickly became an institutionalized part of its public outreach. With unemployment and poverty high, this program clothed, warmed (via coal and fire wood), fed, and employed many destitute Germans (in the winter months) from 1933 until the regime’s demise in 1945.

http://religionnerd.com/2012/01/10/nazi-christianities/

[lafindumonde]

Yes, the whole obsession with Christ's pain and suffering and all the whining and crying about it really puts the Judeo in Christianity.

[fallot]

To discard that part of Christianity is I think an impossible endeavour. Whether apologists acknowledge it or not, in those doctrines and that concept lie the root of corruption. No matter the solidity of the reasoning, no matter the declaration of deviance as heresy. The age of revelation is over, there is no room for anything new in the minds of men. At least that is what I have become convinced of. You can therefore only build from the past if you want weight behind the belief. Any substituing ideology must be monotheistic if it is to be monistic (if you want to put it another way, realistic). One Godhead, one God.

You can only discard the deviant sects. In Catholicism and Orthodoxy lie the value in Christianity. If their state can't be fixed or is not acceptable then Christianity is simply not an answer. I don't have alternatives, I have my religion and I think it will serve us well but I don't know whether it is for you; but I'm almost certain that without the support of a movement in clergy, eventually you'll end up with a different facet of the same thing. Yet who will do it? Who will enter the Churches to change them from the inside? Who will assert the fundamentalism, the rigid application of neccessary truth?

[Veritas]

I like Christianity without Christ. The Christ story, which is almost wholly plagiarized, is one that rewards self-sacrifice instead of achievement. It is self-pity incarnate.

Possible compromise: Christ sacrificed himself so that you wouldn't have to, hence shall you journey forth and prosper.

However, given the focus on self-sacrifice in so much of Christ's teachings (run the extra mile, turn the other cheek) this probably wouldn't work.

Catholicism/Orthodoxy without Christ-ianity? Or deny the gospels and redesign Christ as a proponent of a Master, rather than Slave, morality?

Ultimately what we would want is a meta-religion under which the best aspects of Christianity, Hinduism, Zen etc. would be subsystems.