Christian Theology General

[GraalChud]

You cannot advocate TND and be a Christian.

My first thought to respond to this is that's obvious, but I would like you to expand on why would you say such a thing here where nobody is making such a claim.

Yeah, this conversation’s been had before (most notably on Twitter), no point in re-litigating it until some retard comes along and starts doing an entire mental gymnastics routine to prove that the two are akshully compatible. I’d imagine, or at least hope, that anyone posting here would be smart enough not to make such a claim. 

What I’m more interested in is how the person arguing with me re: the concept of “Judeo-Christianity” being an incoherent concept/“anti-concept” will try to substantiate his claim. I’m genuinely curious as to whether he’ll be the first person to make an argument other than some iteration of the classic “Jews believe in the same God as me but worship him differently and believe some different things about his nature, therefore we can disregard our two religions’ obvious shared roots and history and pretend that they’re wholly unrelated” argument.

Anyway, rather than bickering about this stuff, I’m interested in knowing if anyone knows anything more about the mystical experience with demons that Paul had in 2 Corinthians that I briefly referenced earlier? From what I’ve heard, Paul might’ve been initiated into some sort of Pharaisical Merkabah/Hekhalot-adjacent mystical tradition, and it was this tradition that inspired his writings about that ordeal, but I’ve not seen too much on it aside from some video by a Jewish academic on YouTube (Esoterica). Would love to see if anyone knows anything more about this.

[Muskox]

Anyway, rather than bickering about this stuff, I’m interested in knowing if anyone knows anything more about the mystical experience with demons that Paul had in 2 Corinthians that I briefly referenced earlier? From what I’ve heard, Paul might’ve been initiated into some sort of Pharaisical Merkabah/Hekhalot-adjacent mystical tradition, and it was this tradition that inspired his writings about that ordeal, but I’ve not seen too much on it aside from some video by a Jewish academic on YouTube (Esoterica). Would love to see if anyone knows anything more about this.

I was reading something interesting yesterday about some lesser-known works of Clement of Alexandria where he describes a sort of celestial hierarchy, which the saints can ascend after death, becoming angels and eventually gods (in whatever capacity). I don't know if the assertion made by Jean Daniélou, cited in the essay, that this was part of a mystical tradition that the Apostles were initiated into and passed on to early Christians has any merit, but it's an interesting thought.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/20474764

[Guest]

What part of “on a regular basis” did you not understand? Orthodox Jews doing kapparot once yearly (which is controversial in the Jewish community and not something most non-Orthodox Jews do)  is not the same as Jews engaging in sacrifice regularly (as they did in the past). Furthermore, some versions of kapparot don’t involve the sacrifice of a chicken, but rather the swinging of a bag of money around one’s head and the donation of said bag to charity.

Pedantic sophistry.

Can’t you come up with a more substantive critique of my point than focusing on a relatively unimportant part of my response to the comment about “Judeo-Christian” being an anti-concept? 

Fine. I’ll read your post and deconstruct the Talmudic sophistry in a most aryan analytical fashion, not that it would produce anything when auguring against a Jew, but still.

The term Judeo-Christian is not an oxymoron, nor is it an "anti-concept", but rather a useful term for distinguishing two closely related branches of Abrahamic religion from Islam (which is quite unique as far as Abrahamic religions are concerned). It is a pretty accurate term, too, seeing as it ties Christianity to the Abrahamic tradition from which it arose. 

Lol, “it’s good because it’s good.” This axiomatic tautology is commonly used by jews revealing its nature as nothing more then a slandering/complementing function. This also means that it purely exists as a invented rhetorical term and doesn’t exist as a concept in itself. Although now it is commonly being used as a concept which is an error given that it now is eclipsing the place of more proper classifications for the the idea trying to be exspressed. The terms usefulness is reminding you of its “dirty past” or maybe if your a Christian Zionist a brother struggle phraseology. Conservative reminding you that our civilization is based off Judeochristain values to claim we’re one struggle, one team guys. And even saying Abrahamic in this context is wrong, because the values are unique to Christianity, jews are parasites and not our backbone like the term implies. Which again is its only purpose, to conflate Christian and jew when you’re really just saying Christian. 

There are a lot of similarities between Judaism and Christianity even today in terms of beliefs, namely regarding the identity of God, the nature of God, moral law, etc., and this was even more true in the days of Christ (this is not to say that there aren`t irreconcilable differences between them, such as belief in the Trinity, the identity and nature of the Messiah, etc.). 

“They are both religions man, they both worship god so they must be the same.” Ever heard of  Christ, Christianity? They are not similar on any of these things. Not even moral law. 

In fact, the two were so similar at the time of Christ and in the first two centuries after his death that the Romans struggled to differentiate between Christians and Jews. It is also quite telling that although Christ disagreed with other Jews on certain theological matters - specifically on moral law, as his primary gripe with them was on their interpretation of the Law and the practices that arose therefrom - he agreed with them on a lot; interestingly, the Pharisees actually believed in resurrection, angels and demons (Paul, a Pharisee, actually had a mystical experience with the latter, which he discusses in 2 Corinthians), disliked the Sadducees for their legalistic view of the Law and their elitist nature, and believed divine revelation just as early Christians did. Similarly, many of the religious practices of the Jewish Essenes likely inspired early Christian ascetic practices. Not only that, but both Essenes and Christians had many of the same gripes with mainstream Jewish society and believed in "inspired exegesis" of Scripture. 

No one’s debating that in fact Jews were not in the Bible. Were debating the validity of the term “Judeochristain,” which as you have stated is only important to remind you that Jews were in the Bible. You said that we should use Judeochristain instead of abrahamic because that also included Islam, but it’s only within the context you are speaking. They are all Abrahamic religions but have also diverged, thus when stating Abrahamic you are obliviously not specifics on a unique quality of one of its derivatives, you’re either talking about genealogical roots or a grouping classification which only in one do you include Islam. In the context that judeochristain is used it would again be best to use Abrahamic 

Similarities between both modern Christians and Jews and their counterparts in antiquity aside, 

What do you mean “aside”? When talking about the common root it’s best to use Abrahamic, but the term is mostly used to  demonstrate  some real modern day connect, which there isn’t thereof.

one would have to be a liar or an imbecile to deny the fact that the milieu from which Christianity emerged was uniquely Jewish - the early Christians were overwhelmingly ethnically Jewish, Christianity and Christ`s claims to being the Son of God were predicated on his alleged fulfillment of a Jewish prophecy (the Messiah prophecy in Isaiah and other OT prophecies), and Christian theology was initially rooted exclusively in Second Temple era Jewish theology (the majority of the Greek influence came in the 3rd-6th centuries). 

This is important to show common roots once more. Did you know a lot of early Muslims were once Christian? Bet not. One struggle guys, our muslichristo values.

Oh, and inb4 any of the following sophistic (and quite frankly, retarded) arguments intended to distance Christianity from its parent religion: 

1) Christianity isn`t an offshoot of Judaism because the religion of the Israelites in the Old Testament is different from modern Rabbinic Judaism (seeing as the latter is the result of the former evolving as the material circumstances of the Jews changed) and therefore isn`t Judaism, but rather a sort of proto-Christianity that was rendered obsolete when Christ showed up.

2) Christianity isn`t an offshoot of Judaism because of Hellenistic influence on Christianity (Almost 100% of which came after Christ`s death)

3) "Erm akshully Christianity can`t be tied to Judaism because Jews are Khazars/Edomites/*insert some other obscure and long-extinct ethnic group with no relation to Ashkenazi Jews* and Israelites were Aryan."

1) is pretty convincing, I would use it to counter you’re  pedantic sophistry but maybe another time.

Even if we accept that Jews as a whole regularly engage in sacrifice (they don’t), this neither show the lack of a relationship between Judaism and Christianity nor that the two are antithetical to one another, it simply shows that there is a difference in their respective religious praxes and the metaphysical implications thereof - that Jews think that sacrificing animals is a valid religious practice, while Christians reject animal sacrifice wholesale. This is akin to arguing that Orthodoxy and Protestantism aren’t both Christian because they differ in regards to their beliefs re: scriptural exegesis, metaphysics, and practices (while ignoring the fact that in spite of these differences, both are branches of the same religious tradition).

“Things are like different but similar, where do we delineate? Guess they are pretty much the same thing.”

[GraalChud]

What part of “on a regular basis” did you not understand? Orthodox Jews doing kapparot once yearly (which is controversial in the Jewish community and not something most non-Orthodox Jews do)  is not the same as Jews engaging in sacrifice regularly (as they did in the past). Furthermore, some versions of kapparot don’t involve the sacrifice of a chicken, but rather the swinging of a bag of money around one’s head and the donation of said bag to charity.

Pedantic sophistry.

Can’t you come up with a more substantive critique of my point than focusing on a relatively unimportant part of my response to the comment about “Judeo-Christian” being an anti-concept? 

Fine. I’ll read your post and deconstruct the Talmudic sophistry in a most aryan analytical fashion, not that it would produce anything when auguring against a Jew, but still.

The term Judeo-Christian is not an oxymoron, nor is it an "anti-concept", but rather a useful term for distinguishing two closely related branches of Abrahamic religion from Islam (which is quite unique as far as Abrahamic religions are concerned). It is a pretty accurate term, too, seeing as it ties Christianity to the Abrahamic tradition from which it arose. 

Lol, “it’s good because it’s good.” This axiomatic tautology is commonly used by jews revealing its nature as nothing more then a slandering/complementing function. This also means that it purely exists as a invented rhetorical term and doesn’t exist as a concept in itself. Although now it is commonly being used as a concept which is an error given that it now is eclipsing the place of more proper classifications for the the idea trying to be exspressed. The terms usefulness is reminding you of its “dirty past” or maybe if your a Christian Zionist a brother struggle phraseology. Conservative reminding you that our civilization is based off Judeochristain values to claim we’re one struggle, one team guys. And even saying Abrahamic in this context is wrong, because the values are unique to Christianity, jews are parasites and not our backbone like the term implies. Which again is its only purpose, to conflate Christian and jew when you’re really just saying Christian. 

There are a lot of similarities between Judaism and Christianity even today in terms of beliefs, namely regarding the identity of God, the nature of God, moral law, etc., and this was even more true in the days of Christ (this is not to say that there aren`t irreconcilable differences between them, such as belief in the Trinity, the identity and nature of the Messiah, etc.). 

“They are both religions man, they both worship god so they must be the same.” Ever heard of  Christ, Christianity? They are not similar on any of these things. Not even moral law. 

In fact, the two were so similar at the time of Christ and in the first two centuries after his death that the Romans struggled to differentiate between Christians and Jews. It is also quite telling that although Christ disagreed with other Jews on certain theological matters - specifically on moral law, as his primary gripe with them was on their interpretation of the Law and the practices that arose therefrom - he agreed with them on a lot; interestingly, the Pharisees actually believed in resurrection, angels and demons (Paul, a Pharisee, actually had a mystical experience with the latter, which he discusses in 2 Corinthians), disliked the Sadducees for their legalistic view of the Law and their elitist nature, and believed divine revelation just as early Christians did. Similarly, many of the religious practices of the Jewish Essenes likely inspired early Christian ascetic practices. Not only that, but both Essenes and Christians had many of the same gripes with mainstream Jewish society and believed in "inspired exegesis" of Scripture. 

No one’s debating that in fact Jews were not in the Bible. Were debating the validity of the term “Judeochristain,” which as you have stated is only important to remind you that Jews were in the Bible. You said that we should use Judeochristain instead of abrahamic because that also included Islam, but it’s only within the context you are speaking. They are all Abrahamic religions but have also diverged, thus when stating Abrahamic you are obliviously not specifics on a unique quality of one of its derivatives, you’re either talking about genealogical roots or a grouping classification which only in one do you include Islam. In the context that judeochristain is used it would again be best to use Abrahamic 

Similarities between both modern Christians and Jews and their counterparts in antiquity aside, 

What do you mean “aside”? When talking about the common root it’s best to use Abrahamic, but the term is mostly used to  demonstrate  some real modern day connect, which there isn’t thereof.

one would have to be a liar or an imbecile to deny the fact that the milieu from which Christianity emerged was uniquely Jewish - the early Christians were overwhelmingly ethnically Jewish, Christianity and Christ`s claims to being the Son of God were predicated on his alleged fulfillment of a Jewish prophecy (the Messiah prophecy in Isaiah and other OT prophecies), and Christian theology was initially rooted exclusively in Second Temple era Jewish theology (the majority of the Greek influence came in the 3rd-6th centuries). 

This is important to show common roots once more. Did you know a lot of early Muslims were once Christian? Bet not. One struggle guys, our muslichristo values.

Oh, and inb4 any of the following sophistic (and quite frankly, retarded) arguments intended to distance Christianity from its parent religion: 

1) Christianity isn`t an offshoot of Judaism because the religion of the Israelites in the Old Testament is different from modern Rabbinic Judaism (seeing as the latter is the result of the former evolving as the material circumstances of the Jews changed) and therefore isn`t Judaism, but rather a sort of proto-Christianity that was rendered obsolete when Christ showed up.

2) Christianity isn`t an offshoot of Judaism because of Hellenistic influence on Christianity (Almost 100% of which came after Christ`s death)

3) "Erm akshully Christianity can`t be tied to Judaism because Jews are Khazars/Edomites/*insert some other obscure and long-extinct ethnic group with no relation to Ashkenazi Jews* and Israelites were Aryan."

1) is pretty convincing, I would use it to counter you’re  pedantic sophistry but maybe another time.

Even if we accept that Jews as a whole regularly engage in sacrifice (they don’t), this neither show the lack of a relationship between Judaism and Christianity nor that the two are antithetical to one another, it simply shows that there is a difference in their respective religious praxes and the metaphysical implications thereof - that Jews think that sacrificing animals is a valid religious practice, while Christians reject animal sacrifice wholesale. This is akin to arguing that Orthodoxy and Protestantism aren’t both Christian because they differ in regards to their beliefs re: scriptural exegesis, metaphysics, and practices (while ignoring the fact that in spite of these differences, both are branches of the same religious tradition).

“Things are like different but similar, where do we delineate? Guess they are pretty much the same thing.”

>Pedantic sophistry.

Your inability to read and comprehend the English language does not render what I said sophistic just because I called you out on it.

>Lol, “it’s good because it’s good.” This axiomatic tautology is commonly used by jews revealing its nature as nothing more then a slandering/complementing function. This also means that it purely exists as a invented rhetorical term and doesn’t exist as a concept in itself. Although now it is commonly being used as a concept which is an error given that it now is eclipsing the place of more proper classifications for the the idea trying to be exspressed. The terms usefulness is reminding you of its “dirty past” or maybe if your a Christian Zionist a brother struggle phraseology. Conservative reminding you that our civilization is based off Judeochristain values to claim we’re one struggle, one team guys. And even saying Abrahamic in this context is wrong, because the values are unique to Christianity, jews are parasites and not our backbone like the term implies. Which again is its only purpose, to conflate Christian and jew when you’re really just saying Christian. 

You said a whole lot here without addressing my point. I argued that the concept is useful because it highlights the close relationship between two Abrahamic faiths that are closer to one another (genealogically, historically, and theologically) than either is to Islam, and you responded by talking about how Zionist Christians and Jews use and/or invented the term and is therefore bad. This entire rant can be boiled down to "I don`t like the term judeo-christian because I don`t want my faith to be associated with a faith I don`t like and because people I don`t like use it, commonalities and genealogical ties be damned!" In essence, your objection to the term has nothing to do with its conceptual invalidity, but rather the fact that the term is used by Evangelical Zionist retards, Jews, etc. Furthermore, many of the "uniquely Christian values" that you`re citing in an attempt to distance your faith from Judaism are not unique to Christianity. Charity in Judaism (Tzedakah) is not unlike Christian charity, Jews (especially Orthodox Jews) value chastity just as Christians do, both adhere to the 10 Commandments (or are supposed to, in theory), etc. I could go on and on with all of the similarities between Christian and Jewish values and morality, but there isn`t really a need to seeing as the few I pointed out here suffice to show that there are a number of major ones. I`d imagine your response to this will be "but Jews do bad things/things that run contrary to these values they supposedly hold", which would be a critique of Jews and their inability to live up to the moral standards that your God set for them rather than one of Judaism itself, not an argument distinguishing the morals and values of the Jewish religion from those of Christianity. 

>No one’s debating that in fact Jews were not in the Bible. Were debating the validity of the term “Judeochristain,” which as you have stated is only important to remind you that Jews were in the Bible. You said that we should use Judeochristain instead of abrahamic because that also included Islam, but it’s only within the context you are speaking. They are all Abrahamic religions but have also diverged, thus when stating Abrahamic you are obliviously not specifics on a unique quality of one of its derivatives, you’re either talking about genealogical roots or a grouping classification which only in one do you include Islam. In the context that judeochristain is used it would again be best to use Abrahamic 

Another non-response. You correctly noted that we are debating the conceptual validity of that term, but then went on to show that you either did not understand or are blatantly mischaracterizing the part of my response that you`re responding to here. What I did not do was argue "Jews were in the Bible, therefore Christianity and Judaism are basically the same thing and thus Judeo-Christian is a valid concept!" What I did was show that the separation of Islam from two more closely related religions within the Abrahamic tradition is warranted, and I did this by showing that there are a slew of extremely important similarities between Christianity and Judaism and that this was even more true in antiquity, so much so that Europeans struggled to differentiate the two. As far as divergence is concerned, obviously the Abrahamic traditions have diverged from one another with time, no one with a brain would contest this. This does not change the fact, however, that Christianity essentially began as a radical, schismatic offshoot of Judaism predicated on the fulfillment of the Jewish Messiah prophecy by Jesus Christ, the Son of God, that shares a lot with Christianity theologically speaking (and shared far more with it prior to religious developments that both religions had between the 4th and 6th centuries, such as the writing of the Gemara portion of the Talmud in the early 6th century or so and the development of the doctrine of the Trinity); Islam, on the other hand, is centered around Muhammad and his divine revelation - its similarities with the other two major Abrahamic religions pretty much begin and end with believing that God is YHWH and some superficial similarities w.r.t. what Muslims believe when it comes to morals (one thing that seriously distinguishes Islam from Christianity and Judaism when it comes to morality is its viewpoint on war and violence). 

>This is important to show common roots once more. Did you know a lot of early Muslims were once Christian?

Of course many early Muslims (particularly in the Levant and Syria) were Christian, but that doesn`t change the fact that Islam pretty much came out of left field. Mohammad was some sort of weird Semitic pagan prior to conjuring up Islam, and its ties to the other major Abrahamic religions are weak, as it is tenuously linked to them by claims that Mohammad`s spiritual predecessors are descended from Abraham`s bastard child (it was for this reason that Christian scholars who interacted with a young Islam, such as John of Damascus, rightly called Muslims out on their specious claims that Islam was an Abrahamic religion). This tenuous relationship to the Abrahamic tradition, as mentioned above, is why it is appropriate to use Judeo-Christian to denote a certain sub-tradition consisting of two more closely linked traditions within the broader Abrahamic one, as Islam is sort of an "outsider" in the Abrahamic tradition.

[quote pid="8126" dateline="1686539012"]
“Things are like different but similar, where do we delineate? Guess they are pretty much the same thing.”
[/quote]

The difference in the relationship between Christian sects and that of Judaism and Christianity are a matter of degree lmfao. Of course two sects of Christianity will be closer to one another than either is to Judaism, but this does not change the fact that Judaism is the closest extant religious tradition to Christianity and that one sprung from the other lol. You grossly mischaracterized my argument here, I never claimed that Judaism and Christianity were "pretty much the same thing" and explicitly noted that there were substantial differences between the two; as you noted, the issue is the concept of "Judeo-Christian" and its validity, and since the colloquial understanding of this concept does not involve a belief that Judaism and Christianity are the same thing, arguments involving whether or not the two are the same have no relevance to the conversation. Instead, the term/concept is intended to denote the close relationship of these two religious traditions, and is often used in reference to values or the West`s history - since you could not have Christianity without Judaism (no Messiah prophecy, no YHWH, no Davidic lineage, no Mosaic law, no spiritual or corporeal Israel, etc.), it is technically not wrong to shoehorn the "Judeo-" in front of "Christian", even if it is distasteful or upsetting to some.

---

Anyway, rather than bickering about this stuff, I’m interested in knowing if anyone knows anything more about the mystical experience with demons that Paul had in 2 Corinthians that I briefly referenced earlier? From what I’ve heard, Paul might’ve been initiated into some sort of Pharaisical Merkabah/Hekhalot-adjacent mystical tradition, and it was this tradition that inspired his writings about that ordeal, but I’ve not seen too much on it aside from some video by a Jewish academic on YouTube (Esoterica). Would love to see if anyone knows anything more about this.

I was reading something interesting yesterday about some lesser-known works of Clement of Alexandria where he describes a sort of celestial hierarchy, which the saints can ascend after death, becoming angels and eventually gods (in whatever capacity). I don't know if the assertion made by Jean Daniélou, cited in the essay, that this was part of a mystical tradition that the Apostles were initiated into and passed on to early Christians has any merit, but it's an interesting thought.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/20474764

Looks interesting, I`ll give it a read and get back to you.

Can`t help but wonder how similar Clement`s conception of a divine/celestial hierarchy is to Proclus` own in his commentaries on Timaeus (which came centuries later). Perhaps this is worth looking into, might illuminate the relationship between Christian and Pagan metaphysics in Roman antiquity, which from what I`ve read seems to have been unilateral (with Christians doing most/all of the borrowing from the Pagans) but might have actually been bilateral.

[Guest]

>Lol, “it’s good because it’s good.” This axiomatic tautology is commonly used by jews revealing its nature as nothing more then a slandering/complementing function. This also means that it purely exists as a invented rhetorical term and doesn’t exist as a concept in itself. Although now it is commonly being used as a concept which is an error given that it now is eclipsing the place of more proper classifications for the the idea trying to be exspressed. The terms usefulness is reminding you of its “dirty past” or maybe if your a Christian Zionist a brother struggle phraseology. Conservative reminding you that our civilization is based off Judeochristain values to claim we’re one struggle, one team guys. And even saying Abrahamic in this context is wrong, because the values are unique to Christianity, jews are parasites and not our backbone like the term implies. Which again is its only purpose, to conflate Christian and jew when you’re really just saying Christian.

You said a whole lot here without addressing my point. I argued that the concept is useful because it highlights the close relationship between two Abrahamic faiths that are closer to one another (genealogically, historically, and theologically) than either is to Islam, and you responded by talking about how Zionist Christians and Jews use and/or invented the term and is therefore bad. 

Yes, we are arguing concept validity, you said it was valid as a concept and I said it wasn’t. My argument is that it was invented as a rhetorical tool and has through its popularity as such replaced more apt categorical appellation; substantiating my claim thereof as an anti-concept due to its non-academic(not actually meant to be applied in the way you are doing) origins. You using it honestly is a joke.  

But I guess I got carried away playing with you.

Do you agree with the idea that judeochristian morality is the root of leftism/communism?

My main vendetta is in the phrasing of this. The Jewish morality and leftism are congruent in not a transmittable(tradition) way but rather genetic, being that it springs forth from genetic infirmity. Secular Jews are likely to be leftist because of genetics and the twisted nature of Judaism also springs from this same factor. While liberalism, and all species thereof(communism), are descend from Christianity(Protestantism). So it’s very absurd to place these as a similar concepts when they have so different a relationship with leftism/communism. Theory versus drive.

[GraalChud]

To tie a knot on this eyesore of a conversation there's no such thing as a practicing Jew in the Current Year. George Soros doesn't own chickens to sacrifice and he does not use a Talmudic lamp to avoid the oh-so-menial labor of flicking a switch on and off on the Sabbath. One can argue (as mentioned earlier) that liberalism loosely speaking is a product of Christianity in decline, but you can't say with a straight face that people like Corey Mahler (the Lutherans are hecking liberal because they uhhh, are not Catholic) have anything in common with tr-nnies and communists. Any "Christian" that aids and abets the latter would have been executed or at the very least exiled by any of the three major branches a century ago. Now, not so much, not because Scripture has changed but because its "torchbearers" have. It doesn't have to be that way and it's disingenuous to pretend this was the intended outcome of Jesus establishing his church all along.

Though I agree that there are staunch differences between someone like Malder (who is a massive faggot in his own right) and troons/communists/etc., that you cannot draw a direct line from Christianity to modern liberalism and communism, and that the rise of these two things are neither representative of Christ`s message nor are they the ultimate conclusion thereof, I take umbrage with something implicit in what you wrote: because (European) Christians would`ve executed anyone responsible for aiding/abetting communists/troons (not even true - Christian socialism was briefly a fairly important movement in some parts of the US and elsewhere in the late 19th century and it was not the first movement of its kind within Christianity), "real" Christianity is some keyed fire-and-brimstone faith for Evropans. Perhaps I`m reading that implication into what you wrote, but even if that`s the case and you weren`t implying this, I`m going to write out a response so that any readers who may still believe that "true" Christianity is actually some keyed religion that is all about smiting heretics and crusading sandniggers or whatever:

"Pure", unadulterated Early Christianity (~30 AD to ~312 AD), while not communistic or "libtarded", had an ethos that was far closer to that of modern progressivism than to the sort of Christianity that existed in Europe from medieval times until the early/mid-20th century. The former was pacifistic, egalitarian - particularly w.r.t. spiritual equality and less so w.r.t. worldly differences (though women were afforded far more privilege in the Early Church than they would be later on in Christian Europe), and was unquestionably more appealing to the lowest common denominator in the Roman world than to the elite (which is why the elites were amongst the last to convert in Rome, contrary to the memes surrounding the word "pagan" and its rural connotation, and why many of the earliest Christians were slaves, disaffected plebeians, women, and children); the latter was a religion that was hyper-patriarchal, had a martial ethos, and was a means by which Europe`s elites could keep the masses in check (this isn`t to say that they didn`t actually have faith and only cynically pretended to do so in order to control the masses, but it is unquestionably true that there were actors in Europe who both adhered to the faith and also used it as a means of procuring wealth and/or power). 

The reason for these differences is quite simple - Christianity underwent a series of marked changes between the 4th and 12th centuries as it transitioned from the religion of Christ, Paul, Origen, Gregory of Nazianzus, etc., which espoused pacifism, martyrdom, spiritual equality, and almsgiving, to European Christianity (a heavily Europeanized Christianity that existed from the late Roman/early medieval period until the early/mid 20th century). These changes were primarily a product of 2 phenomena: 1) the adoption of Christianity as Rome`s state religion after a lengthy period of Hellenization/Romanization; and 2) the Germanization (and, more broadly, the "barbarianization") of Christianity that resulted from missionaries` contact with Germanic peoples (as well as with other "barbarian" Europeans such as Celts, Slavs, etc.). With the first of these changes - the adoption of Christianity as Rome`s state religion - Christianity parted with its pacifism, as any state that intends to preserve its own existence cannot adopt a religion that requires its adherents to lay down their swords and embrace martyrdom in the event that the state finds itself in conflict with its enemies. Naturally, theologians like Augustine came up with post hoc rationalizations for the sudden (in the grand scheme of things, anyway) and seemingly random change in doctrinal attitudes towards violence that were necessitated by the aforementioned political reality, which is how "Just War" theory came about, and from this stemmed a series of theological developments that ultimately gave the Church a theological justification for launching the crusades and other wars later on. Needless to say, this change from a semi-organized, pacifistic religion governed by a non-governmental entity to a the official religion of the largest empire in the world was crucial in shaping Christianity in Europe and was a major departure from Christianity as it had existed up until this point, as it set the stage for later polities` adoption and use of Christianity as a state religion and all of the developments, both political and theological, that would follow therefrom. 

Shortly after the first of these shifts occurred, the second followed as a result of missionaries trying (and initially failing) to convert Germanic tribes to Christianity. Though some Germanic tribes had become Arian Christians in the 5th and 6th centuries, many throughout Northern and Western Europe remained "pagan" and were largely unmoved by early attempts at conversion, as Christianity did not "offer" much to Germanic tribes spiritually (they had satisfactory religious explanations for why things were the way they were in the world, had no desire for "salvation", found the Good News to be neither appealing to them nor compatible with their way of life, etc.) In an attempt to make the faith more palatable to these people, missionaries opted not to continue preaching the tenets of the same religion that was first spread to the Romans and Greeks by way of the Jews and their Levantine neighbors, but rather to misrepresent (or even outright lie about) what Christianity was, who Christ was, and how the narrative of the Old Testament was relevant to them. They did this by doing things like framing Christ as a sort of warrior king and claiming that Germanic tribes were actually Israelites who were afflicted by a sort of amnesia that caused them to forget who they were after they wandered into Europe and were subsequently tricked by Satan into worshipping demons. This strategy worked, as this version of Christianity, coupled with worldly incentives for conversion offered by the Church (mostly alliances with powerful established polities, wealth, marriage with Christian nobles, etc.), appealed to the Germanic people, with the end product of this being a Christianity that had synthesized with the worldview of Germanic pagans, giving it an even more martial ethos than its Imperial Roman counterpart and producing the "based" Christianity that many of us know and love - the Christianity of Charlemagne, the Conquistadors, Cromwell, and the Crusaders.

For more on this, I highly recommend reading James C. Russell`s "The Germanization of Early Medieval Christianity", it`s an excellent primer on the changes that Christianity underwent in Europe.

[Muskox]

...

Your story is overly simplistic. The assertion that early Christianity was pacifistic is commonly made but impossible to prove. It's certainly true that there were many pacifists in early Christianity, as there are in modern Christianity (the larger part of whom are the primarily German Anabaptists. Is this the Germanization of Christianity?), however it is incorrect to say that this was the rule. You can point to such and such Church Father stating that soldiers cannot be Christians, but how many military saints are there before Constantine? Zero? No, and in fact it was seemingly quite common for Roman soldiers to be Christians. Maurice, George, Mercurius, etc. They were certainly not pacifists.

When Paul says that an earthly authority "does not bear the sword in vain; he is the servant of God to execute his wrath on the wrongdoer," should it be understood that the authority is wrong to do so? When soldiers come to John the Baptist and ask him what they should do, does he tell them to give up their profession? No, he tells them "Rob no one by violence or by false accusation, and be content with your wages." When the centurion comes to Jesus and asks him to heal his servant, does Jesus rebuke him? No, he says "not even in Israel have I found such faith."

The fact of the matter is that there have always been various interpretations of how exactly Jesus's teachings should be applied, and as the Church became larger and more important the more practical interpretations won out. The idea that early Christians were all a bunch of Prince Myshkins simply isn't true.

What is true, however, is that Mahler is a massive faggot.

[GraalChud]

...

Your story is overly simplistic. The assertion that early Christianity was pacifistic is commonly made but impossible to prove. It's certainly true that there were many pacifists in early Christianity, as there are in modern Christianity (the larger part of whom are the primarily German Anabaptists. Is this the Germanization of Christianity?), however it is incorrect to say that this was the rule. You can point to such and such Church Father stating that soldiers cannot be Christians, but how many military saints are there before Constantine? Zero? No, and in fact it was seemingly quite common for Roman soldiers to be Christians. Maurice, George, Mercurius, etc. They were certainly not pacifists.

When Paul says that an earthly authority "does not bear the sword in vain; he is the servant of God to execute his wrath on the wrongdoer," should it be understood that the authority is wrong to do so? When soldiers come to John the Baptist and ask him what they should do, does he tell them to give up their profession? No, he tells them "Rob no one by violence or by false accusation, and be content with your wages." When the centurion comes to Jesus and asks him to heal his servant, does Jesus rebuke him? No, he says "not even in Israel have I found such faith."

The fact of the matter is that there have always been various interpretations of how exactly Jesus's teachings should be applied, and as the Church became larger and more important the more practical interpretations won out. The idea that early Christians were all a bunch of Prince Myshkins simply isn't true.

What is true, however, is that Mahler is a massive faggot.

A) Of course my story is "overly simplistic", I`m summing up a series of complex phenomena that occurred over centuries and involved a number of different people in a fairly brief message intended to convey a pretty simple point- that Christianity changed as a result of its adoption as a state religion and through contact with European peoples. Some nuance will naturally be left out in such a message, as I`m not writing a novel.

B) W.r.t. assertions re: Early Christianity and pacifism, it seems they are predicated on the (yet to be disproven) fact that Early Christian doctrine and the teachings of the earliest heads of the Church all point to a pacifistic faith. While you can point to instances of early Christians who were not pacifists, these people were exceptions to a general rule. Most Christians were not soldiers, rebels, etc. Moreover, this discussion is about Christianity (the faith), not Christians (practitioners of the faith, both self-proclaimed and actual), so pointing out that random Christians - regardless of how important they were historically and in the realm of politics/culture - who were neither clergymen nor Church Fathers and thus had no say in what is or is not Christian from a doctrinal perspective does nothing to show that Christianity (the faith) is or is not pacifistic/did or did not have religious prohibitions on violence. While you are correct to point out that it is hard to prove whether early Christians were or were not peaceful individuals (although one would imagine based on facts like most of the Roman army being "pagan" until the mid-late 4th century that most Christians were civilians who were not engaged in any sort of violent conduct on a regular basis), what is not hard to prove is that the early Church and those tasked with defining the faith made it fairly clear that Christianity did not allow for violent conduct; it is not as though for every instance we have an Origen, a Clement of Alexandria, a Tertullian, or a Hippolytus of Rome decrying violence as patently un-Christian and even anathema to the Christian faith, we have some other contemporary of theirs saying that violence was not at odds with Christianity and that the use thereof by Christians was encouraged or even allowed. Since it is likely that you will fall back on "but what about my points re: pre-Constantine Saints who were soldiers", I`ll address this before it even comes up: it is fairly common knowledge that Saints do not have to be without sin, personal flaws, etc. to be canonized, and in fact, many saints lived sinful lives or continued to sin after becoming Christian/more devout. A Saint having been a soldier means very little in the context of this argument because they were Saints, not clergymen who had a say in what was or was not Christian.

C) As far as Paul`s comment, the stories about John the Baptist and Christ, and the Christian interpretation of worldly authorities` use of violence in relation to the Christian views on use of violence by Christians, historical context is crucial. When this was stuff was written, was the worldly authority in question Christian, or were they "pagan"? The answer, of course, is the latter, and this matters because it contextualizes them - of course the world`s non-Christian authorities can and will use violence, and at times are acting as tools of the Lord to do so, but this does not mean that Christians are called to do the same and are justified in doing so. "The pagans who run the empire in which we live are using the state`s power in the form of violence to do things, and are sometimes acting under the directive of God to do so, therefore we Christians can do so too" is not exactly a sound inference to be drawn from comments like Paul`s, and the fact that we never get anything in the New Testament that says as much further indicates that the Christian view of non-Christian use of violence is very much different from the Christian view on Christian use of violence (this is to be expected, as adherents of both religions operated in radically different moral paradigms). Surely if comments like the one by Paul that you cited were intended to show that if pagans could use violence then Christians could too, and if these comments were understood in this way by early Christians, then we would`ve seen things turn out very differently at Gethsemane and after Christ`s death, no? In short, there is nothing indicating that because early Christians saw pagan violence and came up with a religious explanation for (some of) it and had their own views thereon, they felt that this meant that they could also use violence without being at odds with Christ`s teachings and those of the most prominent figures in early Christianity.

D) W.r.t. the bit about Anabaptists and the Germanization of Christianity, this comment comes off as a extremely disingenuous. The Germanization of early Medieval Christianity is a specific phenomenon on which there exists at least some academic literature, it is not referring to any Germanic influence on Christianity at any point in time, and I suspect that you know this. 

E) Lastly, yes, there have always been varying interpretations on how Christ`s teachings ought to be applied, this is not at odds with what I said; it can be true that there have always been multiple interpretations of the Good News and that one of these, which differed from virtually every preceding interpretation of the faith in that it held that violence was ok or even good in certain circumstances, conveniently arose when Christianity became the state religion of a massive empire with a martial culture and a lot of enemies to defend itself against. No mutual exclusivity here at all - in fact, these two things are complimentary, as together they explain how such a marked shift in the predominant doctrinal attitude towards violence could have occurred without too many eyebrows being raised.

[GraalChud]

We could spend decades arguing about the details, but at the end of the day I really don't care whether "historical" Christianity supports my interpretation or not. I merely care about what Scripture says, which is more than enough to reverse the past century of social decay if not putting an end to it altogether by ejecting Africans and post-1960 immigrants ("You shall make no covenant with them, nor with their gods. They shall not dwell in your land, lest they make you sin against Me. For if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare to you." (Exodus 23:32-33); "Also you shall destroy all the peoples whom the Lord your God delivers over to you; your eye shall have no pity on them; nor shall you serve their gods" (Deuteronomy 7:16)), destroying leftist influence in America ("There shall be no harlot of the daughters of Israel, or a perverted one of the sons of Israel.") and tightening Christian control over the metastasizing Third World (“I will punish the world for its evil, And the wicked for their iniquity" (Isaiah 13:11)). It's been done over a thousand times but there is actually a reason these verses are included in the Old Testament: for people to observe them, not as mere history. Righteousness doesn't change with time and these are no mere ceremonial pronouncements. 

Furthermore, the religion essentially can be defined by what Scripture commands so Christianity would never in itself be the root of leftism / communism, which is what the original post was trying to claim; if there is any truth to that statement it is that Christianity had become so culturally dominant by the time any perverted ideologies had emerged in a systematic form that any ground they could claim would also necessarily be gradually conquered by twisting the religion to support their goals. The perfection of the religion is absolute, so any argument that it could be the source of evil will need to be appended with a complete refutation of the religion in general, which I doubt is going to happen here.

And in the end, nobody's so obtuse as to argue that simply dialing back the clock to previous iterations of the Faith would be sufficient. Heresies and theological issues are no longer primary concerns; rather, the complete twisting of the Law is. Biden is still a Catholic in good standing, after all, but I don't think you'd argue that the fact that he claims he's Christian means that the Catholic church deliberately spent the past 500 years trying to cultivate such an individual. He's Christian because it's still popular to nominally be one but that has nothing to do with what the religion has preached in the past and much more with the infiltration efforts by outside forces in the past few centuries. I think that much is obvious.

While I`d typically refrain from getting into debates on these sorts of issues, we are discussing this in a thread on Christian theology, so I`ll open this can of worms: the belief that the permissions given to the Jews/Israelites in the Old Testament (yes, I called them Jews, because that`s who they were) apply to Gentiles is absurd and, quite frankly, contra Scripture. 

Proclamations/laws made by God and given by his prophets that dealt with things such as expulsions of non-Jews from Israel, rules against miscegenation, etc. were made pursuant to the formation of covenants made between the Israelites and God and were more or less provisional - this is why at some points in the Pentateuch, things such as miscegenation were banned, while at others those same things were permitted (as they were in Numbers 12 and the entirety of the book of Ruth). Said covenants were between God and the Israelites, a specific group of people (to whom we Aryans have no blood relation), and, per Heb. 8 were abolished/replaced (Heb. 8:13: "By calling this covenant “new,” he has made the first one obsolete; and what is obsolete and outdated will soon disappear") with a new covenant ushered in by Christ and thus do not apply to Christians. Seeing as there is nothing indicating that Christ intended to carry over these laws given by God to the Jews in the Old Testament into the new covenant, it is safe to say that they were presumably abolished in the same way that many of the Jewish laws (such as Levitical laws regulating what one can wear and eat) were after the establishment of the new covenant. This conclusion is bolstered by the existence of verses in the Epistles that make it clear that the new covenant is universal and that all men are brothers in Christ and the fact that the ministry of Paul and the other Apostles was aimed at a diverse range of peoples, making it highly unlikely that many of the laws prohibiting things like the intermingling of different peoples apply to Christians and were, in fact, only meant to apply to the Jews in a specific time and place. After all, why would people who believe that they are to refrain from mixing with and living alongside people from other racial/ethnic groups for religious reasons go out and preach to them, live amongst them, and write letters saying that all men are equal in Christ? Would we not see harsh polemics railing against multiracial Roman society as it existed in Roman North Africa and Anatolia from Christ, Paul, Peter, Andrew, etc. - all of whom had the highest possible level of interpretative/exegetical primacy over Scripture - if there was truly a Scriptural basis for these things; similarly, would we not expect the Christian emperors in Rome and Byzantium to take action against multiculturalism/multiracialism, miscegenation, etc. in the same way that they did against the pagans if God truly demanded it (or at least held that it was acceptable/desirable for Christians to oppose these things)? It is not as though they did not consider these issues or have the opportunity to discuss them, seeing as multiracialism was something that Romans were aware of by and before 30 AD (we have instances of Augustus and Tacitus speaking out against miscegenation well before Christ`s death), so it is unlikely that these men were not acutely aware of the fact that the Roman world that they so wished to Christianize was, in fact, multiracial and would remain such unless they opposed it.

Make no mistake, I`m not against Christians in our spheres being hardcore racialists who want TND and whatnot, as discouraging Christians on our side from believing this stuff would be counter-productive (and quite frankly, retarded) from a strategic standpoint, but since we are discussing theological matters in a place where we are supposed to be intellectually honest, it would be wrong of me to let assertions like the ones you made re: the moral acceptability and desirability of certain policies (and their basis in scripture) from a Christian perspective go unchallenged.

Inb4 someone reading this comes in and freaks out about my assertions re: the relationship between Jews and Israelites - I genuinely hope that nobody here is CI and will reply with some stupid semantic argument about how Jews =/= Israelites because the word Jew didn`t appear until long after the OT was written, out of context quotes from one of the 3 or so studies that CI types cite to support their positions (none of which actually support their positions, which they`d know if they`d actually read them), word games ("Muh tribe of Dan = Danes, muhfugga!" "Judah... Gudah... Gurdah... Germah... Germany! See? Germans are literally Israelites you guys!"), or some other hotep-esque sophistry.

[Muskox]

C) As far as Paul`s comment, the stories about John the Baptist and Christ, and the Christian interpretation of worldly authorities` use of violence in relation to the Christian views on use of violence by Christians, historical context is crucial. When this was stuff was written, was the worldly authority in question Christian, or were they "pagan"? The answer, of course, is the latter, and this matters because it contextualizes them - of course the world`s non-Christian authorities can and will use violence, and at times are acting as tools of the Lord to do so, but this does not mean that Christians are called to do the same and are justified in doing so.

This is exactly the point I'm making. You can interpret this passage this way, if you make the presupposition that Paul believed that it was impossible for a Christian to be a soldier, a guard or in any position of authority, which is impossible to prove through scripture or by any other means. The fact that there were inarguably large numbers of Christian soldiers is not irrelevant (in fact, it's thought that the possible earliest known depiction of the crucifixion, the Alexamenos graffito, depicts a Christian soldier). The argument rests on whether the words of a handful of famously fanatical and heterodox writers like Origen and Tertullian represent the common view of the period. I am not aware of Clement of Alexandria endorsing pacifism, although that doesn't mean he didn't, but I have seen Lactantius, who was one of Constantine's advisors, quoted in support of pacifism. Perhaps it's more likely that Christians have, on the whole, always had a nuanced view of the issue.

My laptop crapped out a few days ago so I'm phoneposting this. I will probably not make any more replies until I fix it.

[GraalChud]

C) As far as Paul`s comment, the stories about John the Baptist and Christ, and the Christian interpretation of worldly authorities` use of violence in relation to the Christian views on use of violence by Christians, historical context is crucial. When this was stuff was written, was the worldly authority in question Christian, or were they "pagan"? The answer, of course, is the latter, and this matters because it contextualizes them - of course the world`s non-Christian authorities can and will use violence, and at times are acting as tools of the Lord to do so, but this does not mean that Christians are called to do the same and are justified in doing so.

This is exactly the point I'm making. You can interpret this passage this way, if you make the presupposition that Paul believed that it was impossible for a Christian to be a soldier, a guard or in any position of authority, which is impossible to prove through scripture or by any other means. The fact that there were inarguably large numbers of Christian soldiers is not irrelevant (in fact, it's thought that the possible earliest known depiction of the crucifixion, the Alexamenos graffito, depicts a Christian soldier). The argument rests on whether the words of a handful of famously fanatical and heterodox writers like Origen and Tertullian represent the common view of the period. I am not aware of Clement of Alexandria endorsing pacifism, although that doesn't mean he didn't, but I have seen Lactantius, who was one of Constantine's advisors, quoted in support of pacifism. Perhaps it's more likely that Christians have, on the whole, always had a nuanced view of the issue.

My laptop crapped out a few days ago so I'm phoneposting this. I will probably not make any more replies until I fix it.

True as it may be that there were large numbers of Christian soldiers and that it is certainly relevant, it is important to note that there is a qualitative difference between the Christian layperson who has his own idiosyncratic understanding of Christianity and his own praxis and the theologian/clergyman who dedicates a significant portion of his life to understanding the Christian faith and educating others thereon - this is especially true when talking about these two groups of people and their relationship to Christianity-in-theory (the faith, a set of religious and moral ideals and teachings given by Christ and handed down to his successors, who were tasked with preserving it and spreading it) and Christianity-as-practiced by your average person.

Given that it is a cornerstone of the Christian faith that we, mortal men, are all flawed individuals inclined towards sin and that it is no easy task to live a Christ-like life (something the faith accounts for by offering forgiveness via Confession), does it not follow that from a Christian perspective, most Christians are/were sinners in some capacity and that there are individuals who sin regularly and can still confidently call themselves Christian? If so, would it not make sense to understand the aforementioned Christians who were soldiers as being Christians who were - at least according to the prevailing understanding of the faith at the time we are discussing, a time before just war theory & similar doctrines that diverged from the traditional early Christian views on violence and before the politicization of Christianity - engaged in varying degrees of sinful behavior by virtue of having been soldiers and engaging in sinful behaviors that were part and parcel of the profession rather than as delineators of Christian doctrine? To me, this seems to be a better understanding of the relationship between Christian soldiers and their faith than simply saying that there was always some nuanced position on Christians and the acceptability of violence, especially in light of the fact that the words and actions of the most important early Christians seems to indicate as much. That said, I don`t want to completely dismiss what you`re saying, as it could be true that there exists some text from some prominent early Church figure that predates Just War theory and holds that there are certainly circumstances in which Christians can engage in violence without sinning, which I am simply not aware of at the moment.

[Mladorossi88]

"But Judaism was established after Christianity."

[ꦈꦒꦲꦸꦫꦲꦺꦴꦗ꦳ꦲ]

🅵🅾🆁 🅼🆈 🅼🅾🅽🅴🆈?

🅼🅾🆁🅼🅾🅽🆂.

🅵🅾🆁 🆃🅷🅴🅸🆁 🅲🅾🅼🅼🆄🅽🅸🆃🆈 🅸🆂 🅵🆄🅽🅲🆃🅸🅾🅽🅰🅻 🅰🅽🅳 🅸🆃 🅴🆇🅸🆂🆃🆂.
🆃🅷🅴🆈 🅰🆁🅴 🅷🅰🅿🅿🆈 🅰🅽🅳 🅰🅲🆃🆄🅰🅻🅻🆈 🅻🅸🆅🅴 🅸🅽 🅰 🅱🆄🅱🅱🅻🅴 🅾🅵 🆃🅷🅴🅸🆁 🅾🆆🅽 🅲🆁🅴🅰🆃🅸🅾🅽.
🅲🅷🆁🅸🆂🆃🅸🅰🅽🆂 🅰🆁🅴 🆂🆄🅱🆅🅴🆁🆃🅴🅳 🅰🅽🅳 🅰🆁🅴 🅸🅽 🆃🅰🆃🆃🅴🆁🆂.

🆆🅷🅰🆃 🅸🆂 🆃🅷🅴 🆅🅰🅻🆄🅴 🅸🅽 🅰 🆁🅴🅻🅸🅶🅸🅾🅽 🅸🅵 🅸🆃 🅾🅵🅵🅴🆁🆂 🆈🅾🆄 🅽🅾🆃🅷🅸🅽🅶, 🅶🅸🆅🅴🆂 🆈🅾🆄 🅽🅾🆃🅷🅸🅽🅶, 🅾🅽🅻🆈 🆃🅰🅺🅴🆂, 🅰🅽🅳 🅸🆂 🆁🅰🅽 🅱🆈 🅲🅾🆁🆁🆄🅿🆃 🅿🅴🅾🅿🅻🅴?
🆁🅴🅻🅸🅶🅸🅾🅽🆂 🅰🆁🅴 🅻🅸🅺🅴 🅰 🅶🅰🅽🅶, 🅾🆁 🅿🅴🆁🅷🅰🅿🆂 🅴🆅🅴🅽 🅰🅽🅾🆃🅷🅴🆁 🅵🅾🆁🅼 🅾🅵 🅶🅾🆅🅴🆁🅽🅼🅴🅽🆃. 🆃🅷🅴🅸🆁 🆅🅰🅻🆄🅴 🅷🅰🆂 🅿🅻🆄🅼🅼🅴🆃🅴🅳 🅾🅽🅻🆈 🅱🅴🅲🅰🆄🆂🅴 🆃🅷🅴🆈 🅰🆁🅴 🅼🅰🅽🅰🅶🅴🅳 🅱🆈 🆆🅴🅰🅺 🅿🅴🅾🅿🅻🅴 🆂🅷🅴🅿🅷🅴🆁🅳🅸🅽🅶 🆆🅴🅰🅺🅴🆁 🅿🅴🅾🅿🅻🅴 🅰🅽🅳 🆃🅷🅴🅸🆁 🅲🅾🅼🅼🆄🅽🅸🆃🅸🅴🆂 🅰🆁🅴 🆂🆃🅾🅼🅿🅴🅳 🅾🆄🆃. 🅾🅽🅻🆈 🅴🆇🅸🆂🆃🅸🅽🅶 🅸🅽 🅲🅷🆄🆁🅲🅷🅴🆂 🅾🆁 🅲🅷🅰🅿🅴🅻🆂, 🅱🆄🆃 🅽🅾🆃 🅾🆄🆃🆂🅸🅳🅴 🅾🅵 🅾🅽🅴.

[GraalChud]

"But Judaism was established after Christianity."

I`m hesitant to ask, but do you actually believe this? 

Rabbinic Judaism is the most maligned religion on our side of the internet. Whenever it is discussed, you`ll inevitably have someone who got all of their knowledge on that creed from some shitty Smoloko infograph enter the conversation and screech about "muh synagogue of Satan" or come up with some convoluted explanation for how the Jews "akshully worship Satan/Moloch/Baal" (conveniently ignoring what the Jews say about their own beliefs in the Mishneh, Babylonian Talmud/Gamara, and the Zohar + various related Kabbalistic texts); these people are unserious and usually have an agenda (shilling Christianity or trying to establish its "supremacy" over Judaism, which is done out of a sense of deep insecurity), and consequently, they refuse to be honest (or are wholly ignorant) about what Judaism is, where it came from, and its relationship to Christianity (no, I`m not one of those "Christianity is LITERALLY Judaism" pagan types, those people are retarded and intellectually dishonest in their own right). 

A cursory review of Jewish religious history reveals something that is fairly obvious to most Christians who are not also anti-semites, as well as to most historians and theologians: Christianity branched off from Judaism, not the other way around, and extant versions of Judaism can unquestionably be traced back to and are genealogically descended from what we might call "Old Testament Judaism." The only way that you can semi-soundly reach the conclusion that Judaism was established after Christianity is if you believe that the religion of the Old Testament was actually just proto-Christianity (ridiculous take, the OT is very clearly a mythical retelling of the history of the Jews first and foremost, and by no means does it read like a document that is intended to "build up" to Christ`s birth, ministry, and death - potential allusions to Christ`s coming are few and far between, of secondary importance, and are usually written in vague language at best that can be interpreted in a number of ways) and that the Jews in Christ`s day had no claim to that religion whatsoever - from this, you can claim that Rabbinic Judaism, which technically did not appear until the 6th century AD (but was the conclusion of religious reforms within Judaism that predate the birth of Christ), is actually just a fake religion that is trying to usurp Christianity as the rightful claimant of the religion of the Old Testament, with adherents of said fake religion having come up with extremely tenuous ties to the aforementioned religion of the OT and using these to justify their claims to being the inheritors of the same. This conclusion is almost always paired with some batshit insane and easily disprovable claims re: who Ashkenazi Jews are ("muh Khazars/Edomites/Slavs") and where they come from. 

The issue with this line of argumentation is glaring - as mentioned above - is that you can easily draw a fairly straight line from Shammai and Hillel the Elder (who did the bulk of their work before Christ died and whose thought is easily linked to post-Exile Judaism in Judea/Israel) to the later generations of the Tannaim to Maimonides to the authors of the Talmud. Once this is done, all one need do is point out that it is Christianity that departed most markedly from the religion of the OT Israelites, thus showing that *it* is the religion that has the more tenuous ties to OT Judaism, not Rabbinic Judaism.

The impetus behind these sorts of arguments being made seems to be due to a strained relationship with Judaism and deep-rooted insecurity re: the role of Christianity in the grand scheme of things and its relationship to the events of the OT. It is almost as though the people who make these arguments feel so threatened by the continued existence of Judaism and the challenge this poses to their narrative about being the "real" inheritors of Israelite religion that they feel like they have to make these arguments; the smarter move for someone with these concerns would be accepting dual covenant theology rather than replacement theology, as Judaism does not potentially invalidate Christian claims to the religion of the OT and the legacy of its prophets in such a system because it allows for there to be more than one "real" inheritor of these things. That said, I understand why this is something many would hesitate to do, as replacement theology has been the norm in Christianity since almost the beginning (see Heb. 8); as a counterpoint to this, I`d simply point to Romans 11, which can be read as supporting dual covenant theology.

[Mladorossi88]

I'm a supersessionist. For me it ultimately comes down to a matter of soteriology, and the Son of God makes it very clear that nobody comes to the Father except through him.

As far as Old Testament Judaism goes, I think it's very important to make the distinction between the tribe of Judah and the tribe of Israel. The tribe of Judah committed several acts of sedition and conspiracy against the true Chosen (ie Joseph) and this usurpation of Order is not at all dissimilar to the sort of Jewish infiltration and subversion we've seen throughout history, from Rome to Weimar Germany. I don't have anything against the "BASED JEWS" of Israel or whatever but I seriously question Jewish claims to the covenant when they are essentially the closest things to real world skinwalkers. The term "Semite" as in "sons of Shem" doesn't even apply to the majority of them, they will latch on to anything that affirms their legitimacy when the slightest bit of scrutiny reveals them to be rootless.

I will have to do more research on the idea of a Dual Covenant as I'm not sure how I feel about it, I will say that its better than the idea of Dispensationalism which is frankly retarded and when taken to its logical extreme results in nonbinary women pastors who affirm buttsecks because "we're under a different dispensation than the Bible times."

[GraalChud]

I don't have anything against the "BASED JEWS" of Israel or whatever but I seriously question Jewish claims to the covenant when they are essentially the closest things to real world skinwalkers. The term "Semite" as in "sons of Shem" doesn't even apply to the majority of them, they will latch on to anything that affirms their legitimacy when the slightest bit of scrutiny reveals them to be rootless.

Case in point re: my comment about how these sort of arguments almost always get coupled with claims that Jews are not really Jews - here, you`ve claimed that "semite" doesn`t apply to them despite the fact that the totality of genetic evidence makes it unequivocally clear that they are, in fact, "Semites" (albeit bastardized ones with European admixture they picked up during their time in Europe); this is even more true if you believe that patrilineage matters, seeing as the overwhelming majority of Jewish males have the same Y-DNA haplogroups as do samples from ancient Israel between the neolithic and Iron Age (J1/2a, T, etc., all of which are associated with various MENA populations and that are extremely prevalent in Levantines). 

As for your comment about the tribe of Judah and its degenerate nature, I`d like to take this opportunity to remind you that Christ was of the tribe of Judah, so I`d personally tread carefully when it comes to comments about them. 

Furthermore, though you are discussing conflict that has taken place between the "true Chosen" and the tribe of Judah, it is worth keeping in mind that their conflict is akin to conflict between, say, Germans from Hamburg and Germans from Berlin, seeing as there were no racial or even ethnic differences between the Tribes of Israel; it amounts to little more than squabbles between closely-related Jewish tribes over personal and political issues and differences in belief. The implication that this conflict was somehow a racial/ethnic one is wholly unfounded, as to date the only ancient Levantines that we`ve found that weren`t part of the Levantine "cluster" on a PCA (autosomal DNA) were Iron Age Philistines, and that`s because they had European admixture from 1st Gen. Philistines, who themselves came from somewhere in the Aegean.

[Mladorossi88]

I just really do not like Jews.

[GraalChud]

I just really do not like Jews.

On this we can agree, I’m not a fan of the kikes.

[Mladorossi88]

Have you read these? Feels pertinent to the theological discussion, hopefully mentioning Church Fathers doesn't summon the Orthobro coalers.

https://www.tertullian.org/fathers/chrys...omily1.htm

[NuclearAbsolutist]

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If you have a problem with Christianity being made up of weak bellied cucks, Mormonism is no better or even worse outside splinter groups of 100s of fundamentalists that retain the polygamy and blood atonement theology. Mormon's do not live in a bubble of their own creation either as inconvenient history keeps coming to light, especially with the rise of the internet. I recommend this article which goes into how Joseph Smith was maybe one of the greatest cult leaders/con men of the 19th century, founder of a great faith, less so. Or if you don't at least see this quote:
https://www.ldsdiscussions.com/ldsessay-translation

Taken together, there are many questions as to the accuracy of the scriptures Joseph Smith is responsible for, which opens up many questions about Joseph Smith's truthfulness as a prophet.. As prominent LDS historian Richard Bushman noted, "I think that for the Church to remain strong it has to reconstruct its narrative. The dominant narrative is not true; it can’t be sustained. The Church has to absorb all this new information or it will be on very shaky grounds and that’s what it is trying to do and it will be a strain for a lot of people, older people especially. But I think it has to change."