Manichaeism: The Pollution Of Early Christianity By A Radically Dualistic Iranian Christian Sect

Manichaeism

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

Alan: In the early Christian church, Manichaeism -- St Augustine of Hippo's original religious passion -- was a real contender for theological preeminence. Through those first centuries of theological contentiousness, Mani's radical dualism came to pollute Christianity permanently. 

"Anima naturaliter Christiana" 

"The soul is, by nature, Christian." 

Tertullian

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

Dear Fred,

Thanks for your email.

Like you, I do not agree with the LA Times article - http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-shermer-god-20111104,0,877363.story

At bedrock, we have "good religion," and we have "bad religion." 

"My Gripe With Christianity"

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2017/01/my-gripe-with-christianity.html

Perhaps a universal qualifier of "good religion" is that practitioners see everyone (at least credally) as a manifestation of God.

I believe Mother Teresa's most repeated comment was some variant of "I see God in everyone."

If we see God in everyone - and if we also trust in God - a "lockstep equation" comes into view. (Later in this email, I will "define" "God.")

Where "Good Religion" prevails, you can not "trust in God" without the credal premise that "God is to be seen in everyone." 

From one vantage, I suppose this conjunction of "trust in God" with the perception of "God in everyone" represents the union of "the incarnate" with "the transcendant" - "the manifest" and the "un-manifest." 

Such faith in common union - in communion -- is essential for "good religion," and essential for healthy engagement of humankind's "religious instinct" (which Carl Jung considered homo sapien's fundamental drive).

"Any Religion That Needs Fear To Thrive Is Bad Religion"

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/02/any-religion-that-needs-fear-to-thrive.html  

The "problem" with "seeing God in everyone" is the risk of self-inflation: we too easily identify with God. 

To paraphrase Gandhi: "Although every drop of the ocean participates in the nature of ocean, single drops are not the ocean."

In a recent email, I proposed the "bedrock inclination of fundamentalist Christianity to persuade partisans that they - and only they - are absolutely right." 

The detriment of such self-righteousness is that other faiths - particularly Islam - are not merely wrong, but diabolical, an ideal foil for the radical dualism of Manichaeism. (The same holds for Islam in its treatment of "infidels." It is not rocket science that Armageddon Cheerleaders and Islamic jihadists are mirror images of one another.)

Ultimately, Mother Theresa is "unitary," whereas many "Christians" are divisively dualistic - essentially Manichean. (Manichaeism is the most persistent, and most damaging, of Christian heresies - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manichaeism). 

Here is the draft of a pertinent email I never sent. It culminates with quotations from physicist Max Planck concerning the inter-relationship of faith and science, followed by my comments on those quotes:

Hola,

I just discovered a fine quotation by Galileo -- "Wine is light held together by moisture" -- a fit companion to Galileo's better known observation: “The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do.” - http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Galileo 

We also have a similar reverie from Ben Franklin: "Behold the rain which descends from heaven upon our vineyards, there it enters the roots of the vines, to be changed into wine, a constant proof that God loves us, and loves to see us happy." This quotation is often mis-rendered as "Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." (Aside... The following Franklin quotation is, I think, the most startling comment ever made by an American politician. It deserves wide circulation http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch16s12.html) 

I discovered Galileo's "Wine is Light" reference while tracking down a Max Planck comment cited by Wayne Dyer on an audio CD which Lino Núñez Huerta gave me two years ago - http://magicalmysterytour.homestead.com/ 

Here is the fully-contextualized quotation to which Dyer referred: “As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter.” Max Planck - Das Wesen der Materie [The Nature of Matter], speech at Florence, Italy (1944) (from Archiv zur Geschichte der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Abt. Va, Rep. 11 Planck, Nr. 1797) 

On the other side of the Time/Space Continuum, Einstein held that "Time is an illusion, albeit a persistent one." http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Einstein 

Other Planck Quotes:

“I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.” Quoted in The Observer (25 January 1931)

“Both Religion and science require a belief in God. For believers, God is in the beginning, and for physicists He is at the end of all considerations… To the former He is the foundation, to the latter, the crown of the edifice of every generalized world view.” Religion and Natural Science (Lecture Given 1937) Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers, trans. F. Gaynor (New York, 1949), pp. 184 

“A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.” Wissenschaftliche Selbstbiographie. Mit einem Bildnis und der von Max von Laue gehaltenen Traueransprache., Johann Ambrosius Barth Verlag, (Leipzig 1948), p. 22, as translated in Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers, trans. F. Gaynor (New York, 1949), pp.33-34 (as cited in T.S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions).

§  Paraphrased variants:

§  Truth never triumphs — its opponents just die out.

§  Science advances one funeral at a time.

“Under these conditions it is no wonder, that the movement of atheists, which declares religion to be just a deliberate illusion, invented by power-seeking priests, and which has for the pious belief in a higher Power nothing but words of mockery, eagerly makes use of progressive scientific knowledge and in a presumed unity with it, expands in an ever faster pace its disintegrating action on all nations of the earth and on all social levels. I do not need to explain in any more detail that after its victory not only all the most precious treasures of our culture would vanish, but — which is even worse — also any prospects at a better future.” Religion und Naturwissenschaft (1958)

Curious biographical data:

"Munich physics professor Philipp von Jolly advised Planck against going into physics, saying, "in this field, almost everything is already discovered, and all that remains is to fill a few holes.""

In January 1945, Erwin, (the son) to whom he (Max) had been particularly close, was sentenced to death by the Nazi Volksgerichtshof because of his participation in the failed attempt to assassinate Hitler in July 1944. Erwin was executed on 23 January 1945.

Planck's Wikiquote page - http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Max_Planck

Planck's Wikipedia bio - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Planck

Planck's Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech - http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1918/planck-lecture.html

Planck's Religious Affiliation - http://www.adherents.com/people/pp/Max_Planck.html     

Whichever "side" of "matter/spirit" we favor, we remain bound by the inescapable orbit of faith. 

Personally, I consider "matter" as "spirit" seen from the outside; and "spirit" as "matter" "seen" from the inside. 

"Depends on what you look at obviously, but, even more, it depends on the way that you see." - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lp6czLE8Ucg  ///  http://cockburnproject.net/songs&music/cotw.html

I also believe Planck is right. In particular, I have long intuited that Planck's observation about humankind's "future prospects" -- in the absence of belief and in the presence of aggressive atheism -- is accurate. (I think God may be properly conceived as that "ontological matrix" - that Ground of Being - that manifests as Universe-and-beyond; that Being-trans-Being which The Nicene Creed reveres as "all that is seen and unseen." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicene_Creed  This Nicene "definition" of God is, I think, essentially beyond sectarian Christianity: in effect one religion's attempt to identify what resides, divinely, beyond definition. That said, we are still "challenged" by Tertulian's observation that "Anima naturaliter Christiana" - "The soul is, by nature, Christian." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tertullian)

Combative British historian, Paul Johnson (a feisty Christian as well) observed: "The history of the 20th century proves the view that as the vision of God fades, we first become clever monkeys; then we exterminate one another." Johnson's "History of Christianity" is widely admired - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_History_of_Christianity_(Paul_Johnson)  ///  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Johnson_(writer)

One thing is "certain": "The Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose." J.B.S. Haldane http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/J._B._S._Haldane

In closing, I cite inter-related quotations by Thomas Aquinas and Jesuit paleontologist, Teilhard de Chardin and biologist, Gregory Bateson (who coined the psychiatric phrase "double bind"):

Arguing against those who said that natural philosophy was contrary to the Christian faith, (Aquinas) writes in his treatise "Faith, Reason and Theology that "even though the natural light of the human mind is inadequate to make known what is revealed by faith, nevertheless what is divinely taught to us by faith cannot be contrary to what we are endowed with by nature. One or the other would have to be false, and since we have both of them from God, he would be the cause of our error, which is impossible." "Aladdin's Lamp: How Greek Science Came to Europe Through the Islamic World" by John Freely 

“There is less difference than people think between research and adoration.”  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Chardin

“Natural History is the antidote for piety.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_Bateson

It is, I think, no accident that in the virtuous trinity of faith, hope and charity, faith comes first. 

In closing, I will add that faith - a phenomenon that is most inspiring as a "gift" - can also be chosen. 

Ideally, everyone's faith - and we all subscribe to a credal system whether we acknowledge it or not - would be consciously chosen.

That's another story.

Pax on both houses,

Alan

                                                                            

On Fri, Nov 4, 2011 at 8:50 AM, Fred Owens wrote:

What's God got to do with it?

I don't agree with this opinion.  I don't know if we trust God, but I think He trusts us. Maybe God has the kindness and wisdom to let us make our own mistakes.

Fred Owens

Do American "Conservatives" Only Celebrate Paranoid Fantasies And Armageddon Wet Dreams?

"Since God Doesn't Heal Amputees, Humankind Will: The Future Of Christian Theology"

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/07/since-god-cant-heal-amputees-mankind.html

"Do Republicans Do Anything But Piss, Moan, Whine, Bitch?

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/11/do-republicans-only-piss-moan-whine.html

Dear Fred,

Thanks for The Good News! http://www.nationalreview.com/article/426029/economics-wealth-global-liberal-democracy-free-markets

Do you think American "conservatives" will 1.) believe "the news," and 2.) celebrate it if they do?

Good Manichaeans that they are, I think many conservatives want the human condition to worsen so they can finally have "The Cosmic Showdown" between Good and Evil.

We overlook the remarkable fact that Manichaeism once rivaled Christianity in the ideo-spiritual competition to replace classical paganism.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manichaeism

Lamentably, the corrupting influence of Manichaeism on Christianity -- particularly Christian conservatism -- is incalculable.

Ironically, "The Good Christians" are unaware of their substantive heresy and inter-related adoration of a false god.

Pax 

Alan

On Mon, Oct 26, 2015 at 10:45 AM, Fred Owens wrote:

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/426029/economics-wealth-global-liberal-democracy-free-markets

Good news in this national review story by Kevin Williamson

Fred Owens
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