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The "Collective Shadow" partaken of through the Cross with Christ

Eric B

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The purpose of His message was not to condemn institutional slavery, directly. If people saw themselves as needy creatures in need of grace, then they would not be able to lord over others, and that was what His teachings pointed to. Slavery was just a symptom of man's "collective shadow" like every other sin.
 

Mole

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Victor? :\

Are you testing my active listening skills?

It would actually be a good test of your active listening skills as you could be expected to strongly disagree with my statement.

So Brere Fox you could practise your active listening skills, or you could make a counter statement which I am sure you are more than capable of, or perhaps you could put my statement into theological perspective, or you could analyse the psychlogical implications of my statement. Or you could ask, why would I make such an outlandish statement? Or perhaps you could pray for me hoping for a change of heart. But failing all, throw me back into the briar patch.
 

Mole

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The purpose of His message was not to condemn institutional slavery, directly. If people saw themselves as needy creatures in need of grace, then they would not be able to lord over others, and that was what His teachings pointed to. Slavery was just a symptom of man's "collective shadow" like every other sin.

Theology teaches us that Jesus was born without Original Sin and remained sinless all His life. And yet by not condemning institutional slavery which was all around Him, He became complicit.
 

Eric B

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No He wasn't; unless you believe it was His duty to wipe out all evil right then on the spot. That's actually what the people who rejected Him were expecting in a Messiah (so yes, they basically He was complicit in sin), and we all feel that way sometimes, but man needed salvation from the penalty of sin (spiritual death) more than a world where all sin is wiped out. For that would be basically wiping all of us out, as the Noah story showed us.
 

Mole

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No He wasn't; unless you believe it was His duty to wipe out all evil right then on the spot. That's actually what the people who rejected Him were expecting in a Messiah (so yes, they basically He was complicit in sin), and we all feel that way sometimes, but man needed salvation from the penalty of sin (spiritual death) more than a world where all sin is wiped out. For that would be basically wiping all of us out, as the Noah story showed us.

This historical reality is that institutional slavery was first abolished by the House of Commons in Britain in 1833.

So it was the Enlightenment and Liberal Democracy that abolished institutional slavery for the first time in human history.

And the abolition of slavery led to the emancipation of women for the first time in human history at the beginning of the 20th century in Australia and New Zealand. Both countries founded by the Enlightenment and Liberal Democracy.

And the abolition of slavery and the emancipation of women led to the prosecution in our criminal courts of child sexual abusers for the first time in human history in the last decade of the 20th century. But only in countries of the Enlightenment and Liberal Democracy.

And it is also an historical fact that theology never abolished institutional slavery, emancipated women, or prosecuted child sexual abusers.
 

Eric B

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And those movements were influenced by theology, even if they may have been going against what was conventional at the time. "Theology" does not equate to Jesus Christ; it's fallible men's attempt at understanding Him (or, unfortunately in many cases, using Him for their own goals).
 

wildflower

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This historical reality is that institutional slavery was first abolished by the House of Commons in Britain in 1833.

So it was the Enlightenment and Liberal Democracy that abolished institutional slavery for the first time in human history.

And the abolition of slavery led to the emancipation of women for the first time in human history at the beginning of the 20th century in Australia and New Zealand. Both countries founded by the Enlightenment and Liberal Democracy.

And the abolition of slavery and the emancipation of women led to the prosecution in our criminal courts of child sexual abusers for the first time in human history in the last decade of the 20th century. But only in countries of the Enlightenment and Liberal Democracy.

And it is also an historical fact that theology never abolished institutional slavery, emancipated women, or prosecuted child sexual abusers.

victor, there were a lot of different people that were involved in abolishing slavery. quakers were some of the first and william wilberforce, an anglican clergyman and member of the british parliament was one of the driving forces in the parliament to abolish slavery. you can see a whole list of folks who opposed slavery at the abolition project's site and quite a few are christians. i also know it was the quakers who were fighting for first wave feminism in the US with their work and influence in the suffrage movement.

eta:

additionally, there are numerous christian groups currently fighting against the various forms of modern day slavery: human trafficking. international justice mission is one of the larger and more well-known ones.
 

Mole

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victor, there were a lot of different people that were involved in abolishing slavery. quakers were some of the first and william wilberforce, an anglican clergyman and member of the british parliament was one of the driving forces in the parliament to abolish slavery. you can see a whole list of folks who opposed slavery at the abolition project's site and quite a few are christians. i also know it was the quakers who were fighting for first wave feminism in the US with their work and influence in the suffrage movement.

eta:

additionally, there are numerous christian groups currently fighting against the various forms of modern day slavery: human trafficking. international justice mission is one of the larger and more well-known ones.

For almost 2,000 years christianity failed to abolish slavery, child sexual abuse and women as chattels. However when some christians and others were informed by the Enlightenment and enabled by Liberal Democracy, institutional slavery was abolished for the first time and later women were emancipated and child sexual abusers were prosecuted.
 

Eric B

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The mistake here is to focus on "Christianity". It's not about "Christianity, in fact, the word is not even mentioned in the Bible. Yes, Christianity has claimed to uphold God's Law, while the rest of the world is deemed "lost" in their "sin" (based on their wrong beliefs and/or "lawlessness"), and judged by that standard, yes, Christianity fails miserably. (Romans 2:1)

But it's not about Christianity, it's about God and His Grace. In the system of soteriology I believe in now, all has been "fulfilled" (Where much of Christianity is still waiting for a "return" that was supposed to be "soon"), and God's Spirit has been "poured out on all flesh" (Joel 2:28/Acts 2:17).
While it may not seem like it, as the Church has made us accustomed to thinking of the influence of the Spirit as causing good behavior, this can be understood as a greater level of conscience in mankind, compared to ancient times. This would be a part of what some acknowledge as "common grace".

This is basically what you're describing, regarding slavery being abolished due to movements such as the Enlightenment.
 

Mole

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This is basically what you're describing, regarding slavery being abolished due to movements such as the Enlightenment.

The Enlightenment of the 17th and 18th centuries was more than just a movement. The Enlightenment replaced blind belief with evidence and reason.

The Enlightenment gave us science and technology, modern medicine, modern economics, liberal democracy, and abolished institutional slavery, emancipated women and prosecuted child sexual abusers.

So Christianity has been informed by Ancient Greek philosophy and the the Enlightenment, whereas, by comparison, Islam has not been influenced by Ancient Greek philosophy or the Enlightenment.
 

Eric B

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Regardless, it's still not about Christianity, Christianity used "blind belief" to maintain control; which all you're showing is that it is another human enterprise, so what if those other enterprises did something better?
 

Mole

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Regardless, it's still not about Christianity, Christianity used "blind belief" to maintain control; which all you're showing is that it is another human enterprise, so what if those other enterprises did something better?

Christianity is a failure philosophically and also a failure morally. Why is this?
 

Eric B

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Because it's a human system (one that capitalized on a genuine need, and then people got in to manipulate it for their own power). Again, what's the point?
 

Mole

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Because it's a human system (one that capitalized on a genuine need, and then people got in to manipulate it for their own power). Again, what's the point?

Christianity is based on blood sacrifice, and indeed on the blood sacrifice of the Son by the Father. So Christianity is based on child sacrifice.

This is understandable as we have four developmental modes of child rearing -

The first was child sacrifice - producing the paranoid personality.

The next improvement was the abusive form of child rearing - producing the blaming personality.

And the next improvement was the authoritarian form of child rearing - producing the controlling personality.

And our last improvement is the helping form of child rearing, where we help our child reach their life goals - producing the empathic and creative personality.

So Christianity is important to remind us where we came from, namely from child sacrifice.
 

Eric B

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I'm sorry, but that is totally contorted reasoning. The Christ who was actually sacrificed was fully grown (30's), and the Father-Son relationship in the Godhead is not the same as a human father and "child", so the analogies do not fit.
 

Mole

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I'm sorry, but that is totally contorted reasoning. The Christ who was actually sacrificed was fully grown (30's), and the Father-Son relationship in the Godhead is not the same as a human father and "child", so the analogies do not fit.

C'mon, Jesus is known far and wide as the Son of God, just as christians are known as the Children of God.

So the relationship of Jesus to God the Father was filial, as is all christians.
 

Eric B

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It's still not the same as the sort of "child sacrifice" you're talking about, and you know it.
 

Mole

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It's still not the same as the sort of "child sacrifice" you're talking about, and you know it.

That's true, for here were are entering the realm of the mytho-poetic where we speak in metaphor.

But ever since I read, "The History of Childhood", by Lloyd deMause I recognised how child sacifice had been imprinted on the psyche of homo sapiens for 200,000 years, and how child sacrifice released us from our fears. So no wonder we formed a religion with a theology that holds the sacrifice of the Son as its central redeeming image.

Child sacrifice is part of our collective unconscious, that we keep repeating and repeating every day in the Mass, in the vain hope that one day we will wake from our nightmare.

The nightmare of child sacrifice.
 

Eric B

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The concept then is obviously something that looms deeply in the collective unconscious. That doesn't necessarily mean that men just made up the concept of Christ based on that. Perhaps the collective unconscious may have been part of the means of revelation. The problem of sin and need of redemption was serious enough to be keyed into something that would parallel sacrifice of a child. That was the whole point. It was about Love, and yet done without sacrificing an actual child.
 
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