: : Then I see such effort made by men as they endeavour to corrupt Christ's simple message and nearly deify a man such as Marx. : Who deifies Charlie? the bugger's, he'd spin in his grave, rotate in highgate so he would.
Nobody deifies Marx, there are a few who seem to deify Lenin and Mao, though...and Trotsky, now that i come to think of it....the governor of Tamil Nadu a while back named his son "M. Karunanidhi Stalin."
: Another way of looking at it, though, is through Hegelian eyes, with Marx showing how to Realise the Absolute Spirit (i.e. God in hegel's version of the ontological proof) in the form of communism. If you are inclined to religious Hegelianism that is...
Or you could take it to an even simpler level. There is a God, and he wants us to distribute the proceeds of production in an equitable and need-based fashion. You need not follow marxist metaphysics in order to hold that communist democracy is the ideal form of economic and political organization.
: the Apostolic tradition holds that the Preists are the descendants of the Apostles, imbued with the holy spirit, doing the funky middle-man thang, and the way to jesus is through them...But then, you don't like Catholicism do you? Shame, i think Catholicism tends to have advantages over protestant mean spirtedness. I like the idea that we are responsible for each others souls...getting to Heaven is a communal effort.
: Mind, the Quakers aren't bad neither...
If i was going to be a Christian, i would be either a Catholic or a Quaker; most of my friends in high school were Catholic, so I'm better acquainted with that church, but from all i know of teh Quakers they're quite leftist in their beliefs. Anti-hierarchical and all that.
On the subject of being responsible for each other. The Mahayana Buddhists (they form the predominant group in Vietnam, Tibet, Bhutan, Mongolia, Japan and the Himalayas) have a very similar principle, namely that no one can reach salvation (Nirvana) unless every other sentient being in the universe achieves it. Therefore, however good you are as a person, the best you can do is reach teh gate of nirvana. Because then, you see, compassion takes over and you are naturally moved to save all the souls which have not yet reached salvation. So gradually more and more souls become "ready to enter", all the while striving to convert the ones who are still reprobates. Eventually, i suppose, all the sentient beings in teh universe sweep into Nirvana in a giant communal salvation.
It's a wonderful concept, and very communistic. Perhaps this is why U Nu of Burma said that Buddha was the first socialist, and that Marxism was but a partial reflection of Buddhism - tho' of course Mr. U was a Theravadist....
: : If God is the motivating force behind Marxism, He is self defeating and will be found as impotent to serve as a hope for humanity. History shows no success of applied Marxist principles on any scale even remotely close to universal.
: No attempt has been made to properly universially impliment Socialism.
See, I'd disagree with you here. Many attempts have been made to relaize socialism, and they have generally been successful, some for quite a while. Often, these experiments have collapsed fully or partially either because of extrenal subversion or more commonly, to paraphrase GK Chesterton "[it] has been found too hard and not tried" any more.
: : If Liberation Theology is from the God of the Bible, He is abandoning man and 2000 years of man's accepted scholarship and doctrine to attempt to build His kingdom on violence and revolution. How stupid do the proponents of Libertion Theology think their adherants are anyway? They must certainly plan on leaving them illiterate unless they plan to rewrite the Bible.
: The bible supported Millitant puritanism, violent Quakerism (yes, they were violent before 1688). lets bring heaven to earth, they said.
I like that! Let's bring heaven to earth. While we're at it, let's also try and establish nirvana, Moksha, Paradise, the Millenium, Aquarianism, Communism, universal human brotherhood, a 'green planet", etc. Most true utopias converge when you get down to it. For this reason, the Nazi, Maoist and Spencerist visions (involving permanent struggle and bloodshed) were not utopias, but rather dystopias (anti-utopias).
: : Indeed the universalist appeal of Jesus was that salvation came outside of the law and therefore outside of the purview of those in religious power at that time.
: Wow, antinomianism! We'll make a muggletonian of you yet, man.
Pardon, qu'est que c'est le antinomianism?
: : It defies common sense to suggest that Christ had not the same racial composition as Mary and Joseph.
: well, Mary, Joseph is more than irrelevent to the equation.
Good one, RD, I already pointed that out, but apparently Mr. Gort has an answer for it. See above.
