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Explaining Religious Psychosis

tomasis7

stroganoff
Nov 5, 2014
623
65
Electronic bong-shed LEGAL
interesting.

Quote

The first Christian. All the world still believes in the authorship of the "Holy Spirit" or is at least still affected by this belief: when one opens the Bible one does so for "edification."... That it also tells the story of one of the most ambitious and obtrusive of souls, of a head as superstitious as it was crafty, the story of the apostle Paul--who knows this , except a few scholars? Without this strange story, however, without the confusions and storms of such a head, such a soul, there would be no Christianity...
That the ship of Christianity threw overboard a good deal of its Jewish ballast, that it went, and was able to go, among the pagans--that was due to this one man, a very tortured, very pitiful, very unpleasant man, unpleasant even to himself. He suffered from a fixed idea--or more precisely, from a fixed, ever-present, never-resting question: what about the Jewish law? and particularly the fulfillment of this law? In his youth he had himself wanted to satisfy it, with a ravenous hunger for this highest distinction which the Jews could conceive - this people who were propelled higher than any other people by the imagination of the ethically sublime, and who alone succeeded in creating a holy god together with the idea of sin as a transgression against this holiness. Paul became the fanatical defender of this god and his law and guardian of his honor; at the same time, in the struggle against the transgressors and doubters, lying in wait for them, he became increasingly harsh and evilly disposed towards them, and inclined towards the most extreme punishments. And now he found that--hot-headed, sensual, melancholy, malignant in his hatred as he was-- he was himself unable to fulfill the law; indeed, and this seemed strangest to him, his extravagant lust to domineer provoked him continually to transgress the law, and he had to yield to this thorn.
Is it really his "carnal nature" that makes him transgress again and again? And not rather, as he himself suspected later, behind it the law itself, which must constantly prove itself unfulfillable and which lures him to transgression with irresistable charm? But at that time he did not yet have this way out. He had much on his conscience - he hints at hostility, murder, magic, idolatry, lewdness, drunkenness, and pleasure in dissolute carousing - and... moments came when he said to himself:"It is all in vain; the torture of the unfulfilled law cannot be overcome."... The law was the cross to which he felt himself nailed: how he hated it! how he searched for some means to annihilate it--not to fulfill it any more himself!
And finally the saving thought struck him,... "It is unreasonable to persecute this Jesus! Here after all is the way out; here is the perfect revenge; here and nowhere else I have and hold the annihilator of the law!"... Until then the ignominious death had seemed to him the chief argument against the Messianic claim of which the new doctrine spoke: but what if it were necessary to get rid of the law?
The tremendous consequences of this idea, of this solution of the riddle, spin before his eyes; at one stroke he becomes the happiest man; the destiny of the Jews--no, of all men--seems to him to be tied to this idea, to this second of its sudden illumination; he has the thought of thoughts, the key of keys, the light of lights; it is around him that all history must revolve henceforth. For he is from now on the teacher of the annihilation of the law...
This is the first Christian, the inventor of Christianity. Until then there were only a few Jewish sectarians.

from Nietzsche's Daybreak, s.68, Walter Kaufmann transl.
 

syadasti

i heart mac
Apr 15, 2002
12,690
290
VT
Today's crazies/fake patriots don't respect their saint's ideas, Ronald Reagan, 10/26/1984:
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Israel/RR10_26_84.html

We in the United States, above all, must remember that lesson, for we were founded as a nation of openness to people of all beliefs. And so we must remain. Our very unity has been strengthened by our pluralism. We establish no religion in this country, we command no worship, we mandate no belief, nor will we ever. Church and state are, and must remain, separate. All are free to believe or not believe, all are free to practice a faith or not, and those who believe are free, and should be free, to speak of and act on their belief.

At the same time that our Constitution prohibits state establishment of religion, it protects the free exercise of all religions. And walking this fine line requires government to be strictly neutral. And government should not make it more difficult for Christians, Jews, Muslims, or other believing people to practice their faith.
And that's why, when the Connecticut Supreme Court struck down a statute -- and you may not have heard about this; it was a statute protecting employees who observed the Sabbath. Well, our administration is now urging the United States Supreme Court to overturn the Connecticut Court decision. This is what I mean by freedom of religion, and that's what we feel the Constitution intends.

And there's something else. The ideals of our country leave no room whatsoever for intolerance, for anti-Semitism, or for bigotry of any kind -- none.
 
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syadasti

i heart mac
Apr 15, 2002
12,690
290
VT
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/mar/3/cardinal-dolan-compares-islamic-state-to-irish-rep/

Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York on Tuesday compared the Islamic State’s perversion of the Islamic faith to the Irish Republican Army distorting “everything the [Catholic] church stood for.”

“You know the parallel I’ve drawn?” Cardinal Dolan asked CNN host Chris Cuomo, Raw Story reported. “Enough people have been kind enough to tell me they think the analogy is accurate. Remember 30-35 years ago with the IRA in Ireland? The IRA claimed to be Catholic. And they were baptized; they had a Catholic identity. What they were doing was a perversion of everything the church stood for.”

“The analogy I think is somewhat accurate. These are not pure — these are not real Muslims,” he added. “These extremist do not represent genuine Islamic thought.”

“Even the majority of temperate, peace-loving Muslims would say, ‘I’m afraid they have a particular strand of erroneous Islam.’ But I do think they are. They are distorting it,” he said.

Cardinal Dolan made similar comments in an article for the New York Post last month. He pointed out that in Ireland, Catholic bishops stood up against the car bombings and violence committed by the IRA, which “perversely identified itself as ‘Catholic.’ “

He argued that Islamic leaders should use Ireland’s past as inspiration to unite against the Islamic State.

“We need Islamic religious leaders to stand up and say, ‘This is not Islam. This is a perversion of our faith,’ ” he wrote.
 

syadasti

i heart mac
Apr 15, 2002
12,690
290
VT
Huh, I always thought babies had the good kind of fat. Regardless, the tasty stem cell sauce has helped me keep my youthful visage.
If you run out of babies you can supplement it with ground up emus:

When the fat is removed from the bird, it's rinsed and drained to remove excess water. The fat is kept whole and refrigerated, or frozen, immediately after being removed from the carcass of the emu. Improper handling of the fat can lead to contamination with bacteria, making the resulting oil unusable. The rendering process for emu oil varies among manufacturers; a variety of methods exist and may vary based on region or country. Usually some sort of heat is applied and the resulting oil is then washed, dried, filtered and refined to remove impurities. Be sure to select emu oil produced by a registered FDA manufacturer.
 
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eric strt6

Resident Curmudgeon
Sep 8, 2001
23,188
13,448
directly above the center of the earth
Bite it Bitch
quit, go to jail or issue marriage licenses to all couples, pick one.

Supreme Court rules against clerk in gay marriage case

http://www.sfgate.com/news/us/article/Reckoning-nears-for-clerk-resisting-same-sex-6476562.php

MOREHEAD, Ky. (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday ruled against the Kentucky county clerk who has refused to issue same-sex marriage licenses, and the clerk will arrive at work Tuesday morning to face her moment of truth.

Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis will have to choose whether to issue marriage licenses, defying her Christian conviction, or continue to refuse them, defying a federal judge who could pummel her with fines or order that she be hauled off to jail.

"She's going to have to think and pray about her decision overnight. She certainly understands the consequences either way,"Mat Staver, founder of the law firm representing Davis, said on Monday, hours before a court-ordered delay in the case expired. "She'll report to work tomorrow, and face whatever she has to face."

A line of couples, turned away by her office again and again in the two months since the U.S. Supreme Court legalized gay marriage across the nation, plan to meet her at the courthouse door.

Davis stopped issuing all marriage licenses in the days after the landmark decision. Two gay couples and two straight couples sued her, arguing that she must fulfill her duties as an elected official despite her personal religious faith. A federal judge ordered her to issue the licenses, and an appeals court upheld that decision. Her lawyers with the Liberty Counsel filed a last-ditch appeal to the Supreme Court on Friday, asking that they grant her "asylum for her conscience."

Justice Elena Kagan, who oversees the 6th district, referred Davis' request to the full court, which denied the stay without comment. Kagan joined the majority in June when the court legalized gay marriage across the nation.

Meanwhile, a couple that had been turned away went to Rowan County Attorney Cecil Watkins to ask that she be charged with official misconduct, a misdemeanor defined by state law as a public official who "refrains from performing a duty imposed upon him by law or clearly inherent in the nature of his office." The crime is punishable by up to a year in jail.