I have two questions:

I have two questions:
-I’m sure there have been plenty of self-sacrificing people and martyrs in other world religions. Why would a total pacifist Jainist be condemned for not believing specifically in Christ?
-How did Christianity evolve from Jainist-style pacifism and bias towards martyrdom to extreme risk aversion (worldliness), “just war” theory, and the crusades?

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Jainists specifically teach detachment. They'll get exactly what they want. Seperation from God.

Second question is more interesting. After the persecutions under the Roman empire, Christianity indeed became a bit too comfortable within society. This is precisely why hermits ran out to the deserts and monastic orders came to be. They were distraught at being in the world - let alone suddenly having to commune with the very people who persecuted them just years prior. They knew they couldn't harm their own selves, so they retreated from the world to recreate (as best they could) the experience of the martyrs, by practicing the motification of sinful desires and flesh. But this has nothing to do with detachment in the Eastern sense. Only a detachment from sin specifically.

All branches of Orthodox Christianity believe in the Oneness of body and soul. Only Gnostics every tried to "escape" the body (much like Buddhists or Jainists). This has always been a heresy in Christianity, even for those who retreat from the world.

Because Rome purged the gnostic heretics and galaxy brains like Augustine wrote accessible works that reconcile Christianity with real life observation, which includes just war theory and aversion to cuckoldry. The Romanization of Christianity brought it CLOSER to God.

I appreciate your answer. What do you think is the precise difference between Christian monasticism and eastern detachment? On the surface at least they appear very similar.

Not sure about this. Are you even a Christian? Do you think Christ was a ”cuck” then?

Augustine had much practical application for the world, but he was hardly a symbol for worldly rule. He wrote City of God, after all.. which was first meant to comfort a poor brother who mourned the sack of earthly Rome.

That's precisely it. The detachment part. We Christians look to Christ and pray.. and as I just actually mentioned in another thread, God is always the "Other". We are Not God or not part of the "One" or some pantheistic view of the universe to get our egos lost into. We retain our identies. We were created in the image of God, but not God ourselves.

Of course I'm Christian.
Christ was God. He could raise Himself from the dead. Humans can't.

If the eastern mystics don’t worship God, what do they worship?


If you have faith in God then you believe with perfect certainty that will be raised at the Resurrection.

Nothing. They're all reflect the story of Eden and the original lure of the serpent. They want to be like God.

Fascinating. Can you elaborate on this relationship (between Eden and eastern philosophy).

How does desiring to lose the ego relate to wanting to be like God?

This reminded me of a bit out of Chesterton:

"Even when I thought, with most other well-informed, though unscholarly, people, that Buddhism and Christianity were alike, there was one thing about them that always perplexed me; I mean the startling difference in their type of religious art. I do not mean in its technical style of representation, but in the things that it was manifestly meant to represent. No two ideals could be more opposite than a Christian saint in a Gothic cathedral and a Buddhist saint in a Chinese temple. The opposition exists at every point; but perhaps the shortest statement of it is that the Buddhist saint always has his eyes shut, while the Christian saint always has them very wide open. The Buddhist saint has a sleek and harmonious body, but his eyes are heavy and sealed with sleep. The mediaeval saint's body is wasted to its crazy bones, but his eyes are frightfully alive. There cannot be any real community of spirit between forces that produced symbols so different as that. Granted that both images are extravagances, are perversions of the pure creed, it must be a real divergence which could produce such opposite extravagances. The Buddhist is looking with a peculiar intentness inwards. The Christian is staring with a frantic intentness outwards. If we follow that clue steadily we shall find some interesting things."

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I love it. Thank you so much.

Let’s call a spade a spade: we are implicitly accusing Buddhists of self-worship.

Derp

Theosis indeed seems somewhat serpentine. But it’s still possible to believe in theosis and properly worship God. Therefore your point is orthogonal to accusations of eastern self-worship.

Well, you could say the Bible itself is from the East too. It's just that it represents a rogue viewpoint. It's hard to give a decent answer though in a succinct way. It'd basically take a run through comparative religion.


Theosis isn't becoming God himself. Orthodox will "forever be learning God". He is Eternal. Only Catholics teach a finality to it (I.e. Beatific Vision, but this has never been Orthodox).

Go away

Actually, I don't know if Catholics teach a definite finality, but sometimes it sounds like it. Maybe it's just a poetic way of stating it.

This is off-topic but the finality of the beatific vision disturbs me. Seems like how I imagine Hell.

As regards answering the question, it may be an oversimplification, but I don’t think it’s unsafe to dichotomies and say that everyone either worships God (those in Christ) or themselves (children of Satan).

I know what you mean. It's kind of why I wanted to correct myself and say it may just be poetic on Catholicism's part. Which I could understand.

If it’s poetic it’s bad poetry.

As I understand it the soul (atman) is identified as identical to brahman (deity) so they worship not themselves in the created sense as such as that would be idolatry.

I don’t understand. If they worship their own soul, how is that not idolatry?

because they inadvertently worship deity, if you can accept others can worship God who are not trinitarians.

I wouldn't relate either concept of atman or brahman to anything Christian.

We do have concepts of the soul. But in Christianity (at least in Orthodoxy), man is three parts: soul, body, and spirit. On top of that, all are fallen, or in the case of the spirit, dead within man. Two fallen and one deadened part to man's nature will never bring you to God.

Only by the Spirit of God, through Christ, are they renewed.

“Deity” in general is not God; even less so if the self is seen as an instance of it. I think you are giving them too much credit. The only way to the Father is by the Son, and if you are a Christian then must be ok with many of the world religions leading straight to Hell.

Yes, and I second this Buddhists are self-worshippers

There's a difference between wanting to emulate God's sinlessness and wanting to emulate His power.

Who is God then?

God is both the numinous presence which haunts the entire universe and the being who orients rational creatures toward the moral law. Within Him are three persons who are fully the one God yet are fully distinct from one another: the Father who created the universe, the Son who is the Logos - the order of the universe - who was eternally begotten of the Father, and the Holy Spirit who inspires and guides mankind and who eternally proceeds from the Father and the Son.

Excellent point. Mormons prefer the latter.


The other.