Cobb

good stuff here. plenty to talk over sometime. dog tired at the moment. guess i need to hop to it and go ahead and read armstrong and pagels. i own some of both, but haven't gotten around to it yet. i replied to your post over on matt's blog, where you can find the link to my stuff. seems like i am moving in a more theological vein lately, too, and my writing is beginning to reflect it. working on a theology of suffering, and a spiritual memoir, and more political diatribes. really regretting that i didn't get to speak with you longer/come to your session (which everyone says was the very most informative). next year?
delighted to be part of your tangental search. keep me in the loop, i will keep checking back.

did i mention that i am not going to get a lick of sleep now? could definately chat about this for many hours.

Let's back up Cobb, in fact you are saying exactly what is the theme in the New Testament, general revelation, and basic subconsious understanding of right and wrong.

But suffice to say, the 'ultimate' argument is not about a fundamental morality, that is secondary to the true Christian. The issue is salvation of which morality is not efficatious in providing.

Yes the nature of man is imprinted with a latent knowledge of Good and Evil in a general sense. This general sense can be distorted or destroyed through the process of free will and rejection of the latent knowledge.

But in applying this in a broad based way one must ask this (as an apologist), if indeed morality is imprinted, based upon being created in the image of God, then what is the purpose of morality in light of the Creator God? To me that is the bigger question.

Finally,

You shouldn't be arrogant, you should be cocky, it is cooler :)

The question I'm begging is that of the doctrinaire style of John who's language is one of submission to Jesus, whereas the Gospel of Thomas suggests that people need to find their inner goodness.

It goes centrally to the question of Worship. Why are Christians *commanded* to *worship*, whereas Buddhists study to find God within themselves and in the harmony of nature. These are two entirely different approaches to recognizing divinity, and yet within the Gospel of Thomas, I believe I've found the bridge between them.

Why was Jesus not King of the Jews? The idea of Jesus as Lord (and master) contradicts the fact that he did not take on that role. Did the Apostles look at him as 'master' in the sense of fuedal lord or in the sense of Sensei?

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I am actually saying with regard to morality, that corrupt people know that they are corrupt, and they never lose a sense that they are wrong. If they do, they are sociopaths - a mental defect. But in normally healthy people - they know. So that renders a certain aspect of ministry redundant.

objective morality, or conscience, is part of your heritable instinctual understanding of the world. however, in order to make us of this faculty, you have to get past all the egoic trappings of good and evil, most especially, you have have normally functioning access to your emotional center.

all of preliminary christian praxis focuses on recovery of the normal faculties of cardio eso anthropos..., the philosophers you've cited in this post can be of little assistance in this endeavor

The Gospel of Thomas? The textual criticism of that book is not very good as it relates to the rest of the New Testament.

Is the aim salvation (relationship with God from the Christian perspective) or is the aim 'morality' in the sense of a certain code of behavior applied in a social setting.

My argument is still the same. Roman's states that man's 'righteousness' is as filthy rags. In the bible old testament and new, faith was always the fulcrum that lead to salvation with the Old Testament sacrifices being representative of Christ's ultimate perfect sacrifice.

Morality as 'imprinted conscience' is purely a tool of God to drive men towards salvation through faith (submission) in Christ and then morality transitions from a driver to an expression of love and faith post-salvation.

The bible doesn't provide for morality outside of faith as being eternally saving in nature. So if we are going to consider the ultimate aim connection with deity, then from a biblical point of view John's position, and the Budhist position are two mutually exclusive positions. One states that faith (which is submission), is based upon externally acknowledging and accepting the work of Christ on the Cross while the other has no such object in its purview, but simple prods one to search internally for that which from a Christian perspective can not be found internally. This means that the buddhist view point from the Christian perspective does not lead one to deity relationship, and vice versa.

You made me pull my old bible degree out the closet.

PS. By externally I don't mean that it doesn't have internal consequences, I mean that Christ work is external to the what the individual can find within himself. Christ is not inherently a part of an unsaved individual.

I mean that Christ work is external to the what the individual can find within himself. Christ is not inherently a part of an unsaved individual.

What is sick is the "spirit of man" in the heart which in the early Christian tradition came to be called the noetic faculty, not to be identified with the intellectual faculty of the Hellenic tradition whose center is in the brain. In its cured state within the heart the noetic faculty allows the brain to function without fantasies of which religion and criminality are by-products. In this cured state the noetic faculty prays without ceasing while the brain goes about its normal chores. This unceasing prayer of the noetic faculty keeps the short-circuit between the brain and the heart in repair without impairing the imagination now free from fantasies which are the main tools by which what is called the "devil" makes his slaves. Thus we have "noetic prayer" in the heart and "intellectual prayer" in the brain which is the foundation of the prophetic tradition of both the Old and New Testament. This was the center of the apostolic Church which became the Orthodox Christianity of the Roman Empire.

This tradition of cure survived in Orthodox monasticism quite strongly within the Ottoman Empire. It was only during the drive of the Empires of Russia, Francia and Britain for the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire that they obliged the Orthodox States they created from its ruins to accept the reforms of Peter the Great as one of the essential conditions for gaining their support. In other words, without realizing it, these three Empires concentrated their attack on the cure of the sickness of religion, whose center had for centuries been Orthodox monasticism. This was replaced by a so-called Westernization, which had been accomplished in Russia, which simply meant that Orthodoxy was being condemned to becoming a religion like Vaticanism and Protestantism.

The clearest New Testament outline of this cure of the sickness of religion is to be found in St. Paul 1 Cor. 12-15:11. Here we have the key to his epistles which become clear only within this context. St. Paul was a Pharisee who stemmed from the same tradition as the Hasidim whereas Christ and His apostles evidently belonged to a parallel tradition with the same Old Testament foundations which makes the New Testament intelligible.

We call religion a neurobiological sickness since it stems from a short-circuit between the nervous system centered in the heart, which circulates the spinal fluid, and the blood system centered in the heart which pumps blood throughout the body, including the nervous system. The cure of this sickness of religion is accomplished by repairing said short-circuit between the two hearts which pump blood and spinal fluid which allows them to function normally. In this normal state the various fantasies, religious and otherwise, produced by said short-circuit between the brain and the heart disappear and with them one's fantasies also disappear, including that of religion. The Bible calls this neurological energy the spirit of man which the Fathers came to call the noetic energy.

What is especially interesting is the fact that both religion and criminality stem from the same short- circuit and its fantasies. When being cured one believes either that which he himself sees and which certain others see, only on the condition that they train their charges to see for themselves. The method of cure is like seeing for oneself what specialists are trained to see by means of instruments what cannot be seen by the naked eye, not only in the next life, but especially in this life. The Bible calls this glorification. "When one is glorified the rest rejoice" (1Cor. 12:26) because he has become a prophet who has seen and participated in the uncreated glory of God which has no similarity whatsoever with anything created. This is why a prophet can guide others to the cure of glorification, but cannot describe the uncreated experienced in glorification. The basis for this restoration of normalcy is that the one who sees has himself been restored to normalcy which is to see the uncreated force which creates and governs all of creation. The one cured actually sees above normal seeing from time to time seeing the glory and rule of the Creator. When not in the state of seeing the short circuit in question is kept under repair by the unceasing prayer in the heart while the brain functions normally.[ 23 ] The Old and New Testaments call this force the 'glory' and 'reign' of God which is "everywhere present dividing itself without division and saturating all creation." Also those who have seen it and guide others to the cure of their short-circuit are the prophets both before Pentecost and after Pentecost.

The Cure of the Neurobiological Sickness of Religion

Any reader, please feel free to visit my website at ( overcomingself.net ). The purpose is to teach basic matters. The theme is: Supporting obedience to Jesus by helping overcome selfishness, spiritual blindness and vainglory. Included are more than two dozen topics - short, medium and long in length - with several hundred scripture references (use Bible). As a minister in the church of Christ, you can send basic inquiries to me through the site. Thanks.