Has it dawned on you, /his/, just how radical the Gospel is, and how revolutionary Christianity is? Christianity is so familiar that I think we miss how strange and alien its vision of the world is. If you compare what Jesus says to the way the world is oriented even now, even in a supposedly 'Christian' world, the two world-views are radically different. Do we really understand Christianity at all, /his/? Is anyone any more a true follower of Christ?
>>1377363
Isn't the basis of Christianity that mankind is inherently wicked and hopeless without God?
Where's the disconnect?
>>1377363
Your observation is correct.
if you dive a little deeper into just the smaller actions of early Christians, the church practices were mostly seen as fucking insane by the people.
during the earliest days, the Church required circumcision as mandatory for becoming Christian as they still kept with the Abrahamic Covenant.
Apparently telling 30+ year old men to slice off their foreskin with no anesthetic is not a fantastic way to get many takers for your new religion, and the circumcision requirement was only done away with after decades of debate.
>>1377363
Christianity is hardly revolutionary. It's just the same old mad desert religion shit mixed with some eastern influences thanks to the Greeks and Romans.
>>1377363
I think the most honest way to view Christianity is as a first-century political movement surrounding a legendary figure, which movement arose as a Jewish response to Roman rule, and gradually became itself an aspect of Roman society.
>>1378530
See >>1378530
Christianity is an extension of Judaism, but its language, its gospels, and its early adherents are all products of political conflict between Romans and Jews.
The Gospel of John, and Revelation in particular, though more hostile to Jews in its language than the other gospels, and thought to be written later, is obviously a byproduct of political revolution and anticipation of a major crisis, with supernatural ramifications assumed.
Its appeal was massive, both because of and in spite of initial discrimination, and also due to its rejection of the oligarchy and the contemporary faiths in favor of something more human-centered.
>>1377363
Christians had revolutionary practices for their time indeed. I remember reading about Christians saving babies that Romans abandoned on clifftops to die and raising them. Very revolutionary and ultimately good.
>>1378530
>Christianity is hardly revolutionary.
Define good. Write it out. Provide yourself with examples.
Look up how ancient's defined good and their examples.
The difference is the work of Christianity
Considering early Christians consisted of martyrs, I'd say its pretty revolutionary. Christianity preached that society should treat its weakest with more kindness. (weak meaning from the crippled, to the estranged whores, to the criminals, to the swindlers). Christianity advocated rehabilitation over punishment.
I think everyone understands the gist of this message, but it has been degraded from lack of actual analysis. Christianity hated sins, but loved the sinners because that was how Jesus wanted them to be changed or converted. Christianity makes a distinction however, with the corrupt. Going off from the book "The Name of God is Mercy", God is ever forgiving has he is ever powerful and all knowing. He wants to forgives, eagerly so. He wants us to feel the guilt, the regret of sinning, so that he may forgive us. He'll even accept us wishing that we felt guilt for our sins went we don't feel guilt. God just needs us to understand our need for forgiveness. He cannot forgive if we do not ask for forgiveness, if we do not believe that adultery and murder are wrong and sinful. Thus the Church makes the distinction, love the sinner, but not the corrupt.
>>1378603
>The difference is the work of Christianity
and the enlightenment. morality in the West hasn't remained static since Christianity took over
From Cows Pigs Wars & Witches by Marvin Harris (written 1974), in a chapter called "Messiahs"
>What most people fail to realize about these vengeful prophecies is that they were made in conjunction with actual wars of liberation waged under the leadership of real-life military messiahs. These wars enjoyed popular support because they not only aimed at restoring the independence of the Jewish state, but also promised to eliminate economic and social inequities that foreign rule had exacerbated beyond endurance.
>[...]
>Inspired by the model of David's triumph against Goliath and the promise of Yahweh's military-messianic redemption, Jewish geurrillas waged a prolonged struggle against the Roman administrators and the Roman army. The cult of the peaceful messiah -- the lifestyle of Jesus and his followers -- developed in the midst of this geurrilla war and in the very districts of Palestine that were the main centers of insurgent activity seemingly in total contradiction to the tactics and strategies of the liberation forces. The Christian gospels fail to expound or even mention Jesus' relationship to the Jewish liberation struggle. From the gospels alone you would never know that Jesus spent most of his life in the central theater of one of history's fiercest Geurrilla uprisings. Even less apparent to readers of the gospels is the fact that this struggle continued to escalate long after Jesus was executed. You would never guess that in 68 A.D. the Jews went on to stage a full-scale revolution that required the attention of six Roman legions under the command of two future Roman emperors before it was brought under control. And elast of all would you ever suspect that Jesus himself died a victim of the Roman attempt to destroy the military-messianic consciousness of the Jewish revolutionaries.
>[...]
> Popular enthusiasm for the military-messianic ideal went beyond a desire to see Jewish nationalists replace foreign puppets.
>>1378650
http://www.drabruzzi.com/HARRIS_the_secret_of_the_prince_of_peace.pdf
More reading
Original teachings of Christ > mainstream churches.
It seems the world lost connecting to God personally for looking for God outside of themselves and only in buildings and in other people
Hallelujah
>>1377363
Kill thyself.
Go and live no more.
>>1377363
This world is run by the devil; people who follow Jesus, born again Christians, are in the world but not of the world.
There are so many mind expanding thoughts about Jesus, but the one people usually have first is "What if it's all true?"
"Radical" Christianity
>not allowing gays to get married in their respective churches
Regular Islam
>Chopping the heads off of gay people and dropping nukes everywhee
>>1378650
I don't know how anyone can write that with any semblance of reality, as one of Jesus' disciples, Simon, was a zealot; John the Baptist was in with the Essenes, the people who would later make Masada infamous; and Jesus was on the block next to Barabbas, a revolutionary who had murdered someone in a fight for Zion.
How many times did Jesus resist the people making Him King?
How many times did Jesus emphasize that His Kingdom was not of the earth?
No, the author of your snippet has a vague grasp of the gospels altogether, and an apparent mental block over the Maccabees revolt.
>>1378622
I wish you understood the topic you were speaking to, as it would bring you great joy to know that all of your sins were forgiven you before you were born, never to be held against you, and never to be shoved in your face by the living God.
>>1378847
Radical Islam
>Nuclear chaos in the Middle East will bring forth the 12th and Hidden Imam, the Mahdi.
>>1378852
>Barabbas
not even a name. either a literary invention of the author or a copyist error
>>1378878
Or the far more likely explanation that the rebel chose his name, Son of the Father, to avoid being identified, and to avoid his family being identified with him.
"What if it's all true?"
>>1378554
Honestly, Christianity's core concepts have more to do with Greek mystery cults than they do with Judaism.
>>1378852
Barabbas almost certainly WAS Jesus, bro.
And remember that anointing ceremony he had? Go look up how a king gets crowned in Jewish society.
>>1379136
Yeah all of Paul's writing has a very gentile flair to it. The idea that he was a member of the pharisee Gestapo is extremely hard to believe.
Yeah, it's quite radically opposed to the way we run things now. Not necessarily an argument in its favor, though some people tend to find the equation "radical = good" to be compelling for some reason.
>>1379164
not that hard to believe imo, jews were quite hellenized at the time. the distancing from gentile culture in the really radical way we see now happened with christianity's ascent to power.
>>1377363
Try reading about the Orphics, if you think Christianity is in any way original it will blow your mind.
