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From Jesus to Christ

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Priscillian

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Time of past OR future Camino
Frances 1999, Aragones 2000, Desde Le Puy 2002, Portuguese 2009, hoping RDLP 2014
Very interesting television series to watch on line. For me the last three chapters were the most interesting as they talk about how the Canon was codified, but all of it deserves a watch. The music and the drums are a bit irritating though!

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline ... ion/watch/
 
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Bart D. Erhman, "Misquoting Jesus" and "Lost Christianities", and L. Michael White, "From Jesus to Christianity" would be some books of interest on this topic. Ehrman is head of Ancient Scripture at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as I recall. He at one time was a deeply believing man, but has since lost his faith. However, his books do not read as an attack on Christianity or its history.

White is also a professor of religion, but I don't recall his university.

Cheers,

mike
 
Interesting, yes, but nothing new in there and it was specifically 'sociology of religion', not 'phenomenology of religon'.

All religions have a simple outer devotional form that the mass can conform to (or deviate from) as only a few have the ability to understand the inner meanings of a religion, which are always about enlightenment, waking up.
The branch of Christianity that prospered after the first diaspora after the fall of Jerusalem was Pauline and he makes it clear in his writings that he didn't ask any of the disciples of Jesus what it was all about, in fact, apart from a very short visit to see two disciples he didn't see any of them for 14 years - he brags that all his teachings come from within ...

so all his theology he made up - which is why it is a direct copy and melange of Mystical Judaism, Mithraism and the Dionysian religion.

However, there has always been access to the inner mystical Christianity but this is never revealed in programmes (and books) such as these as the people who construct them haven't the faintest idea that there is more than one level of attainment.

Such programmes are created by men living at the explanatory level of awereness and those born as women of course, whose brains work in a different way - so different that Gautama (the Buddha) said it was pointless having Buddhist nuns as they couldn't attain enlightenment, and after decades of resistance he eventually allowed the formation of convents only on the explicit instructions that the oldest, most long-serving nun or Abbess was always to be inferior in status to a monk even if he was a child and had just been inducted. His point being that one is reborn as a woman because one has specific duties for that lifetime, and they do not include enlightenment (there are no substantive males or females of course, only male or female bodies to temporarily inhabit).
Then we have Pure Land being introduced later along the Buddhist time-line specifically for the illiterate, the stupid, and women, as it needs only to be followed and practised without deep thought or attainment - there are strong paralells with modern evangelical Christianity. They both serve a great purpose.

But back to Christianity - humans construct religions in the same way that they construct anything else - so McDonalds, for instance, is constructed in the same way as, say, the Church of England. Each has mainly identical buildings, each has a seminary where priests/managers are taught the specific way, each have a bible/manual - an identical copy is kept in each building, each have specific clothing to wear at specific times, each have food offerings, each have ritual sayings "the Lord be with you" " Do you want large fries with that" ....

so at the lower devotional level it isn't what is said it is that it is said - as humans construct things in the same way .... so a major religion such as Christianity takes over (though it took 500 years!) from the main Roman & Greek mystery religions of the period by incorporating their gods and dates and rituals - christmas, virgin mother, miraculous birth, massacre of the innocents, easter, miracle healings, pithy sayings, man-god murdered and brought back to life, the hidden saviour of the world who will return, ritual meals of bread and wine - all of them taken from already existing religions .. but this, all of this, is what humans and societies do - to make one side legitimate and one side illegal, to separate the law-abiding from the criminal, to give structure and prominence to the concept of honesty and morality and ethics and law making.

And this, surely, is a good thing? Yes, it occasionally gets taken over by insane men who wreak havoc, but on the whole the virtues are a good thing for safe societies? Good people living with meaning? Well nurtured and happy children? And five times less likely to have mental/psychological problems if a member of a religion such as Christianit rather than being secular.

But all of this, and the programme mentioned, always misses the point about Jesus. He was a Jew of his time, yes, but he wasn't just a Jew of his time - he was an enlightened being, at the same level as Gautama the Buddha - so when he is speaking of the Kingdom of God being within he is talking about enlightenment and the path to it - hence "leave the dead to bury the dead" and this is why he is so caustic and attacking when he comes up against the smug and those wrapped in their dead rituals and beliefs.

So - there are two levels from which to understand the world around us (actually there are four but these two will suffice here), the explanatory and the experiental. The programme is from the viewpoint of the lower and common explanatory level of awareness - works well on naming objects and making drugs to heal us and building buildings - the mechanical world, we couldn't do without it - and people at this level, if 'religious' have to have faith, have to believe, have to fit half-understood sayings into a world that they don't fit into ..... but there is another level of awareness, the experiental, where one has 'experienced' and therefore knows - so there is no 'faith' or 'belief' there is only knowledge.

Consider - if you were given instructions on how to get from A to B, a journey of 50 miles, you would have to have 'faith' that the route was correct and would get you to your destination, you would have to 'believe', to trust completely what you were told - but if you actually made the journey concepts such as faith and belief would disappear as you would know the route and know that it gets you to your destination and you would then trust that person who gave you the route again.

The two levels of awareness are similar to this - and trying to talk from the experiental level to someone at the explanatory level is like an adult trying to talk to a child about sex - doesn't work as only one knows, which is why Jesus spoke in parables so often ... stories to lead people to a sudden awareness that would take them to the next level, and why he was so often exasperated at their mulish stupidity (he wasn't meek and mild, that is an invention). And, his teachings were completely misunderstood by that good hearted but self-opinionated and stupid Paul.

So, yes, the programme was a pleasant simplistic history at the lower level that also made great leaps of faith by taking possibilities and making them truths (such as stating that Jesus lived in Nazareth all his life until his ministry - where their is no evidence for this at all - in fact we have no idea where he was from 3 to 12 and 12 to 33 years old) and it explained fairly well the beginnings of the modern explanatory type of Christianity but completely missed the true Christianity, the inner Christianity that saints and similar know.

As Francis of Assisi said "What you are looking for is what is looking."

:wink:
 
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Br. David said:
Such programmes are created by men living at the explanatory level of awereness and those born as women of course, whose brains work in a different way - so different that Gautama (the Buddha) said it was pointless having Buddhist nuns as they couldn't attain enlightenment, and after decades of resistance he eventually allowed the formation of convents only on the explicit instructions that the oldest, most long-serving nun or Abbess was always to be inferior in status to a monk even if he was a child and had just been inducted. His point being that one is reborn as a woman because one has specific duties for that lifetime, and they do not include enlightenment (there are no substantive males or females of course, only male or female bodies to temporarily inhabit).
Then we have Pure Land being introduced later along the Buddhist time-line specifically for the illiterate, the stupid, and women, as it needs only to be followed and practised without deep thought or attainment - there are strong paralells with modern evangelical Christianity. They both serve a great purpose.

Well, well, well!



So - there are two levels from which to understand the world around us (actually there are four but these two will suffice here), the explanatory and the experiental. The programme is from the viewpoint of the lower and common explanatory level of awareness - works well on naming objects and making drugs to heal us and building buildings - the mechanical world, we couldn't do without it - and people at this level, if 'religious' have to have faith, have to believe, have to fit half-understood sayings into a world that they don't fit into ..... but there is another level of awareness, the experiental, where one has 'experienced' and therefore knows - so there is no 'faith' or 'belief' there is only knowledge.

Ah! the empiricist illusion....



:wink:
 
WOMEN IN BUDDHISM - Rev. Patti Nakai
If anyone wanted to present Buddhism as a viciously sexist religion, they could easily do so by quoting out of context passages from numerous sutras or from more recent texts such as Shinran's wasan (poems) or the by-laws of the Shinshu Otani-ha (Higashi Honganji's denomination) which denies female clergy the same status as male priests.
I believe the essential spirit of Buddhism absolutely includes all beings, male and female, in its vision of enlightenment. If I did not believe in that then I would not want to be a part of this religious tradition. The 48 vows in the Immeasurable Life Sutra point out that there is no discrimination against anyone on the path to spiritual truth. If anyone tries to tell you otherwise, be assured that the Buddha's words won't support them!

[
 
Sorry Sil - that is a quote from a woman to support her unsupported view .. if you read it again you will see that her view rests on her opinion

"I believe the essential spirit of Buddhism absolutely includes all beings, male and female, in its vision of enlightenment"

what Gautama said wasn't 'against women', nor was it 'sexist' - they were a teaching about a sentient being when it has incarnated into a female body - in essence there are no 'females' and no 'males' - how could there be?

So, Sil, if you have a disagreement please take it to Guatama, not to me - thanks.

As for those who live at the explanatory level who are attached to naming things - hence 'empiricist' - thinking that by naming they have understood or are in some way superior ... :wink: :lol:


I did not write with the intention of being drawn - again - into futile arguments so I shall not in future respond in threads to those aggressors . please nash your teeth in private and then send me a pm :wink:
 
The one from Galicia (the round) and the one from Castilla & Leon. Individually numbered and made by the same people that make the ones you see on your walk.
I apologise in advance!!

Sorry guys - I'm having a really shitty day and my resistance is low!! Thank the gods for my sense of humour!
 

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Please try and resist being rude Sil - if you want to be rude to me or have an argument with me why not accept my invitation and send me a pm ?

If you have a valid point to make that isn't just a quote from someone else but is you speaking then please do so .... if you look back you will see that this thread is about a series of television documentaries and therefore one's reaction to them - that was mine ...... so, discuss :wink:
 
I'm sorry Mr H. I was just being childish.
 
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Br. David said:
Sorry Sil - that is a quote from a woman ...

how dare a woman quote? :shock: ?



I did not write with the intention of being drawn - again - into futile arguments ....

Promise? :lol:
 
have fun :wink: but please keep it fluffy (and it is considered dishonest to use partial sentences as quotes) :lol:

By the way, I can see that I am now considered to be sexist or think women are somehow 'lesser' but this is not true, not true at all. It is just that males and females are different - not better or lesser ... I cannot have babies as I am not designed to do that - this is not being sexist against men .. it just is.
Every pyschological test demonstrates that females function much better than males in enclosed spaces under stress, which should mean that all submariners and astronauts should be female (and I would vote for that) ... women can see more colours than men, male muscles are 20% stronger than female muscles, women bleed on a monthly basis and during this period suffer (and I mean suffer) a flood of hormones that can and do have extrremely negative effects. Male and female brains - and they are also organs - are constructed differently and interact in the world in different ways, so the Buddha made his statements about enlightenment and gender, which I have repeated - but surely none of any of this is sexist it is merely mentioning differences - neither are better or worse - just different.

My Mother is female, as is my daughter - all my grandmothers were female .. I am happy to stand for equal opportunity - but it would be nonsense to say the same about equality as there is no such thing ... some humans are more intelligent than others, some run faster, some are braver, some are excellent musicians, some linguists - we are not all the same and we are not all equal - but we should expect ALL humans to have equal opportunity .. don't you think?

So can we not have emotive responses but perhaps reasoned ones?
 
Br. David said:
have fun :wink: but please keep it fluffy (and it is considered dishonest to use partial sentences as quotes) :lol:

Ah yes Br...partial quotes. You didnt expect me to repeat all that...stuff...of yours, did you? I really had to cut it down. And no finger wagging morality, please, about 'honesty'.

Oh! you empiricists! you are naughty!

Here's a joke to cheer you up..

There was a hospital which offered brain transplants, but the price of a man's brain for transplanting was double the price asked to transplant a woman's brain. When asked why the high price for a man's brain, a hospital spokesman replied, "Well you see, women's brains are well used, and men's brains are nearly new, not being used much".

Now be good! :wink:
 
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Br. David wrote:-
And, his teachings were completely misunderstood by that good hearted but self-opinionated and stupid Paul.
Another 'partial quote' Br. David! And here was me thinking that Paul's teaching insisted on the experience of a Spirit filled life :shock: His arrival at Ephesus is a case in point: Acts 19. If those early disciples could 'experience' something as powerful as the description there, church members today are sadly lacking. It may be that Constantine and his entourage saw that there was mileage in this new religion and the law was re-emphasised to suit :roll:
The question is why do we depend on rules and regulations? Priscillian would say 'so that those in authority can maintain control'.
Q.E.D.
 
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Suggesting that I don't either?

How rude.

Am I to be insulted for no reason? Please show where I have ever suggested or implied that I don't like half of the human species ...
 
Br. David said:
Suggesting that I don't either?

How rude.

Am I to be insulted for no reason? Please show where I have ever suggested or implied that I don't like half of the human species ...

It's too tiresome and obvious to list. Work out your own salvation.
 
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