Is Christianity superior to other religions?

Who is René Girard ? : http://www.mimetictheory.org/bios/girard.html

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Interview with René Girard on ‘DICTATORSHIP OF RELATIVISM':

http://www.digitalnpq.org/global_services/global%20viewpoint/05-10-05.html


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Gardels: Is Christianity superior to other religions?

Girard: Yes. All of my work has been an effort to show that Christianity is superior and not just another mythology. In mythology, a furious mob mobilizes against scapegoats held responsible for some huge crisis. The sacrifice of the guilty victim through collective violence ends the crisis and founds a new order ordained by the divine. Violence and scapegoating are always present in the mythological definition of the divine itself.

It is true that the structure of the Gospels is similar to that of mythology in which a crisis is resolved through a single victim who unites everybody against him, thus reconciling the community. As the Greeks thought, the shock of death of the victim brings about a catharsis that reconciles. It extinguishes the appetite for violence. For the Greeks, the tragic death of the hero enabled ordinary people to go back to their peaceful lives.

However, in this case, the victim is innocent and the victimizers are guilty. Collective violence against the scapegoat as a sacred, founding act is revealed as a lie. Christ redeems the victimizers through enduring his suffering, imploring God to "forgive them for they know not what they do." He refuses to plead to God to avenge his victimhood with reciprocal violence. Rather, he turns the other cheek.

The victory of the Cross is a victory of love against the scapegoating cycle of violence. It punctures the idea that hatred is a sacred duty.

The Gospels do everything that the (Old Testament) Bible had done before, rehabilitating a victimized prophet, a wrongly accused victim. But they also universalize this rehabilitation. They show that, since the foundation of the world, the victims of all Passion-like murders have been victims of the same mob contagion as Jesus. The Gospels make this revelation complete because they give to the biblical denunciation of idolatry a concrete demonstration of how false gods and their violent cultural systems are generated.

This is the truth missing from mythology, the truth that subverts the violent system of this world. This revelation of collective violence as a lie is the earmark of Judeo-Christianity. This is what is unique about Judeo-Christianity. And this uniqueness is true.

Gardels: Leszek Kolakowski, the Marxist humanist philosopher who late in life wrote "The Revenge of the Sacred in Secular Culture," made a distinction between "pluralistic tolerance" — the respect for other beliefs — and "indifferent tolerance," which refuses to believe there can be any superior Truth. One can be opposed, as you and Ratzinger are, to value indifference, but must that imply a kind of theocratic intolerance?

Girard: That would be foolish. Christians cannot turn others into scapegoats in the name of the innocent victim! You don't have to approve of Charlemagne converting the Saxons by force or the Crusades to be a good Christian. Ratzinger is not for that.

Gardels: Unlike his predecessor, who was seen as ecumenical, Benedict is seen as a sectarian who will not reach out to other religions. Don't such strong views against relativism limit an ecumenical approach?

Girard: I did not find the famous Assisi meeting scandalous — when John Paul invited other religious leaders for dialogue and kissed the Koran — as some conservatives did. I see no conflict between Benedict strongly affirming his Christian beliefs in the presence of others who believe as strongly in their own faiths. No one should imagine that ecumenicism means giving up your belief in the superiority of your faith.

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http://www.digitalnpq.org/global_services/global%20viewpoint/05-10-05.html


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Any serious comments ?

( .... no Christian bashing and no Ad Hominems, please. Thank you.)

Originally posted by ivanhoe
( .... no Christian bashing and no Ad Hominems, please. Thank you.)

Is Christianity based on Hermetism?

Moses, the patriarch of Judaism, is also claimed to have been initated into the Hermetic Mysteries. (Regardie p. 16) The name משה, meaning Moses, may be an anagram for שמה, a name for the Sun. This is significant since many of the initiates into the Hermetic Mysteries were given names synonymous with the Sun to symbolize its powers of redemption and regeneration within them.

It is hard to trace the Hermetic texts back all these millennia because of an event in 391 CE. In Alexandria, a woman named Hypathia, an initiate into the Hermetic Mysteries, took on the growing creed of Christianity head on. She had convinced the people of Alexandria that the beliefs of Christianity were all of pagan origin as well as that the miracles of Jesus of Nazareth were available to all by demonstrating the natural laws behind them. (Hall The Secret Teachings of All Ages p. 650) Though her murder didn't take place until 415 CE, it is an example of why the event in 391 CE happened. In that year, her works, along with most of the Hermetic texts, perished when the Great Library of Alexandria was burnt to the ground by the Romans.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:King_Vegita/Hermetism

One day in March 415CE[22], during the season of Lent, her chariot was waylaid on her route home by a Christian mob, possibly Nitrian monks[22] led by a man identified only as "Peter".

She was stripped naked and dragged through the streets to the newly christianised Caesareum church and killed. Some reports suggest she was flayed with ostrakois (literally, "oyster shells", though also used to refer to roof tiles) and set ablaze while still alive, though other accounts suggest those actions happened after her death.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypathia

Originally posted by Thequ1ck
One day in March 415CE[22], during the season of Lent, her chariot was waylaid on her route home by a Christian mob, possibly Nitrian monks[22] led by a man identified only as "Peter".

She was stripped naked and dragged through the streets to the newly christianised Caesareum church and killed. Some reports suggest she was flayed with ostrakois (literall ...[text shortened]... nts suggest those actions happened after her death.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypathia

Originally posted by slimjim
The crowd probably got lessons from the Moslems.

Originally posted by ivanhoe
Who is René Girard ? : http://www.mimetictheory.org/bios/girard.html

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Interview with René Girard on ‘DICTATORSHIP OF RELATIVISM':

http://www.digitalnpq.org/global_services/global%20viewpoint/05-10-05.html


"....................."


Gardels: Is Christianity superior to other religions? ...[text shortened]... omments ?

( .... no Christian bashing and no Ad Hominems, please. Thank you.)

Originally posted by ivanhoe
Who is René Girard ? : http://www.mimetictheory.org/bios/girard.html

********************************************************


Interview with René Girard on ‘DICTATORSHIP OF RELATIVISM':

http://www.digitalnpq.org/global_services/global%20viewpoint/05-10-05.html


"....................."


Gardels: Is Christianity superior to other religions? ...[text shortened]... omments ?

( .... no Christian bashing and no Ad Hominems, please. Thank you.)

I saw this recently:

http://www.i-am-bored.com/bored_link.cfm?link_id=26796

Something nice about Christianity, as least as implied by this clip, is that it got a lot of it's influence via missions, instead of conquest.