Paul's hateful letter to the Romans

[Peterson]

Also of interest is that Paul himself drops occasional bombs like that he's already been stoned (2 Corinthians 11:25), or literally "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me" (Galatians 2:20.) Or, depending how you understand his being "in the deep", he may actually be saying that he's been shipwrecked and SPENT A NIGHT AND A DAY UNDERWATER (same 2 Corinthians 11:25). There is a good possibility that Paul actually had Cotard delusion, one of the fairly common symptoms of schizophrenia. (Note that belief to be figuratively dead, but still somehow special or immortal as a result, is still Cotard.) Maybe. Or maybe not. But if that's the case, and he actually believes that he's died at least 2-3 times and Jesus just pops him back, well, why sweat yet another execution, eh?

He's not talking about death in the same way you are reading it. He's talking about letting go of the external self that we tend to think of as the real I. This letting go is a "death" in a sense and allows us to be "reborn" in Christ and Christ in us. I forget where, but it's also described as emptying your self so that you can be filled with God. I know you'll call this nonsense but, behind the external/physical self is our true self that will survive our literal death. If the inner self is attached to the external, it will be clinging to a phantom that doesn't exist anymore (which would be what we call hell) but if you allow God to transform us into what He created us to be we will be united with Him (which is what we call heaven).

I'm terrible at explaining it and even more terrible at putting it into practice but that's how I read what Paul was saying.

 

[Craig B]

He's not talking about death in the same way you are reading it. He's talking about letting go of the external self that we tend to think of as the real I. This letting go is a "death" in a sense and allows us to be "reborn" in Christ and Christ in us. I forget where, but it's also described as emptying your self so that you can be filled with God. I know you'll call this nonsense but, behind the external/physical self is our true self that will survive our literal death. If the inner self is attached to the external, it will be clinging to a phantom that doesn't exist anymore (which would be what we call hell) but if you allow God to transform us into what He created us to be we will be united with Him (which is what we call heaven).

I'm terrible at explaining it and even more terrible at putting it into practice but that's how I read what Paul was saying.

Regrettably, I find I must call your post nonsense, as you predicted. It is well motivated, with its reduction of the concept of "hell" to pure psychobabble. You've totally got rid of the Revelation 14:10 stuff.

They will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. 11 And the smoke of their torment will rise for ever and ever.

Not a whiff of brimstone smoke in your presentation.

But as to all this separation of the body from the true self is concerned I think you are plain wrong to assume that that's Paul's heaven. Recall a passage from Paul's writings, already discussed in another thread, 1 Thessalonians 4:17:

Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.

He - in his body - is going physically to rise into the air where he will encounter an equally physical Jesus, and they will live together in the sky. This is primitive stuff, but it's what Paul believed. And those already deceased will also rise physically from their tombs. (4:16)

For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first.

Most of the rest of what you have to say is not so much poorly explained by you, as intrinsically incomprehensible. If you separate yourself from your body you don't exist. The mind is a reflection of the activity of the brain. If your brain gets hit by a falling brick, your mental faculties will be impaired. But, you tell me, if you are dead, and your brain has mouldered away entirely, your mind's capacities are enhanced. The burden of proof of this idea lies with its proponents, and they have yet to advance any argument, which is even remotely plausible, in its support.

 

[TimCallahan]

Quick point. The position that God creates people for the purpose of damning them is called "double predestination" or "reprobation". While I think that is consistent with Romans, most Christians reject that position and instead hold that people are damned by their falled nature and by election are saved.

Yes, it's interesting how many religious people edit out the harsh material in the Bible and keep that which shows benevolence and mercy. Unfortunately, the fact that Paul, in Romans, advocates double predestination gives ammunition to the Calvinists.

While I was still a believer, my view of divine grace was that it was given unconditionally to everyone, a free gift, and that damnation resulted from the free-will rejection of what was offered by God's grace. Unfortunately, Paul states explicitly in Romans that this is not so. He says, in so many words, that God actually creates certain people for eternal damnation and that their will in the matter is inconsequential.

 

[JudeBrando]

He says, in so many words,

...

He says in your words, but not verbatim...

 

[bikerdruid]

That you hate Paul does not mean Paul is hateful.

paul was, undeniably, a misogynist and a homophobe.

 

[JudeBrando]

paul was, undeniably, a misogynist and a homophobe.

As you know, your saying "undeniably" doesn't make it undeniable. It only makes it your opinion, and one to which others certainly agree. So what? Who is it that you are trying to persuade?

 

[Mudcat]

It only makes it your opinion, and one to which others certainly agree.

I disagree, because the original opinion assumes the existence of Paul. And he didn't necessarily exist.

 

[TimCallahan]

...

He says in your words, but not verbatim...

The above quote was in response to this statement of mine:

He [Paul] says, in so many words, that God actually creates certain people for eternal damnation and that their will in the matter is inconsequential.

No, Jude, these are not my words. Here. once again, are Paul's words - verbatim - on double predestination (Rom.9:20b - 23, emphasis added):

Will what is molded say to its molder, "Why have you made me thus?" Has the potter no right over the clay to make out of the same lump one vessel for beauty and another for menial use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience the vessels of wrath made for destruction, in order to make known the riches of his glory for the vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory . . .?

To put this into context, it follows passages in which Paul asserts that God hated Esau, apparently just for being himself (Rom. 9:13); then asserts that God told Moses (Rom. 9:15), "I will have compassion on whom I have compassion;" then asserts in the next verse that none of this depends on a man's will or actions. He follows these passages with the example of Pharaoh, whom, Paul contends, God raised up just to humble, thereby showing his power (Rom. 9:17, 18). Of course, if God could harden Pharaoh's heart, he could have also shown his power in softening it and making Pharaoh repent - just as supposedly happened in Nineveh, according to the Book of Jonah.

Again, Romans 9 specifically states that God creates certain people (vessels of mercy) for salvation and specifically creates certain others (vessels of wrath), beforehand, for destruction. These are Paul's words, not mine.

 

[bikerdruid]

As you know, your saying "undeniably" doesn't make it undeniable. It only makes it your opinion, and one to which others certainly agree. So what? Who is it that you are trying to persuade?

I disagree, because the original opinion assumes the existence of Paul. And he didn't necessarily exist.

paul ficticious or real, was the political shaper of the church.
he took jesus'(real or contrived) 'all-inclusive' message of love and turned it into a hateful misogynistic political structure,
that throughout history has made hitler, stalin and pol pot look like boy scouts.

 

[JudeBrando]

paul ficticious or real, was the political shaper of the church.
he took jesus'(real or contrived) 'all-inclusive' message of love and turned it into a hateful misogynistic political structure,
that throughout history has made hitler, stalin and pol pot look like boy scouts.

in your hysterical and hyperbolic opinion, to which you have the right, because of that luxury arising from the foundations of your western judeo-christian culture, even if it be only an increasingly distant memory.

 

[bikerdruid]

in your hysterical and hyperbolic opinion,.

really...do you deny the inquisition or the crusades?

 

[Leumas]

in your hysterical and hyperbolic opinion, to which you have the right, because of that luxury arising from the foundations of your western judeo-christian culture, even if it be only an increasingly distant memory.

 

[Mudcat]

really...do you deny the inquisition or the crusades?

Or any of the thousands of other of acts of sickening rape, violence, oppression and other depravities committed, condoned and conspired by the religious?

 

[bikerdruid]

really...do you deny the inquisition or the crusades?

Or any of the thousands of other of acts of sickening rape, violence, oppression and other depravities committed, condoned and conspired by the religious?

yes, and that....jude?

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

He's not talking about death in the same way you are reading it. He's talking about letting go of the external self that we tend to think of as the real I. This letting go is a "death" in a sense and allows us to be "reborn" in Christ and Christ in us. I forget where, but it's also described as emptying your self so that you can be filled with God. I know you'll call this nonsense but, behind the external/physical self is our true self that will survive our literal death. If the inner self is attached to the external, it will be clinging to a phantom that doesn't exist anymore (which would be what we call hell) but if you allow God to transform us into what He created us to be we will be united with Him (which is what we call heaven).

I'm terrible at explaining it and even more terrible at putting it into practice but that's how I read what Paul was saying.

An interesting theory, to be sure, but it makes somewhat little sense if you put it in the larger context of what Paul was actually saying in 2 Corinthians. The larger context isn't one of spirituality. Paul spends a lot of pages trying to convince the Corinthians of how trustworthy and selfless he is, especially to give him some money for some unspecified churches in Asia, and in that paragraph specifically the theme is "look how much I have suffered for Jesus Christ!" And as proof of how much he suffered for Jesus, he drops the bomb that he's been stoned for Jesus. Twice. I don't need to tell you that stoning was a method of execution. And oh, in his travels apparently he even was shipwrecked at see and spent a day and a night in the deep.

If he were simply trying about some Buddhist life letting go of the desires of the flesh and whatnot, that would be something GOOD, right? It makes no sense to be described to the congregation as some awful tribulation that Paul had been put through for Jesus. You don't really get converts by describing what you sell as a scary ordeal

 

[pakeha]

...Paul spends a lot of pages trying to convince the Corinthians of how trustworthy and selfless he is, especially to give him some money for some unspecified churches in Asia...

I get messages like that all the time in my spam folder. Also from beautiful orphans in refugee camps in Dakar and also relatives of Gaddafi who want to shift large sums of money out of Africa.
Some things never change.

 

[SpuriusMaximus]

Well, I've said before that Paul could be a scammer, or more precisely an L Ron Hubbard type, especially since it seems that in the previous visit to Corinth SOMETHING had happened to make a bunch of Corinthians stop trusting him. Add some stuff that is actually contradictory in that epistle, like his going on about how he'll not impose on them, and he works for them not asking them to support him, and really not wanting anything from them, so... give him donation money.

But it's also possible that he was genuinely schizophrenic.

It's sorta like Poe. It's hard to tell whether someone is just putting up an absurdist mockery of religion, or they're really an unhinged and delusional religious nut.

Or, I guess, Hanlon's Razor: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explain by stupidity." Sometimes if someone's logic doesn't make sense, it doesn't have to be some manipulation, it can simply be that they're illogical.

 

[kerikiwi]

The Bible is the inspired word of God, as meaningful for us today as it was ages in the past.

.....
The Bible is just as vulnerable to quote-mining and intentional misinterpretation as any other substantial text.

You'd think god could do better, wouldn't you?
If I were to write an instruction manual for x appliance, it would behove me to write my instructions unambiguously so people could not end up electrocuting themselves.

 

[bikerdruid]

The Bible is the inspired word of God, as meaningful for us today as it was ages in the past.

wrong.
the bible is a collection of myths, pseudo-histories and poetry, that although central to an understanding of western art and culture,
is misused as a control mechanism for gullible people.
my favourite translation is the KJV, which is a major treasure of renaissance literature, btw..

 

[TimCallahan]

I'm still waiting for answers from AvalonXQ and Jude Brando:

AvalonXQ, I asked you for specific words in the original Koine Greek of Romans that you thought were possibly mistranslated or had to be parsed carefully. I have yet to hear from you on this. Can't you back you assertion with specific evidence?

Jude Brando, in response to your assertion that I was not quoting Romans verbatim, I posted exact quotes from Romans 9, in which Paul espouses double predestination. I pointed out that these were his words, not mine - as you had asserted. What is your response to that?