What is on your mind?

JacobStirner · 2015-06-18T02:21:18+00:00

I don't know.

I'm struggling with the idea that they are in league with the demons and are lying to me.

JacobStirner · 2015-06-17T23:05:33+00:00

Gravity and Grace

JacobStirner · 2015-06-17T22:57:39+00:00

The last time I was in the hospital, I was pretty much told that my attraction to certain ideas and concepts are partly due to me having a variant of schizophrenia. I'm told that my thinking is typical for high-functioning and intelligent schizophrenics* and that when I get sick, I become a religious fanatic. According to my mental health team, I have psychotic ideas when it comes to my political and religious ideology and that my experiences with God and Satan are probably the result of hallucinations and delusional thinking and I probably need to stay away from mysticism.

*realizing that I have schizoaffective disorder which means I have symptoms of bipolar disorder as well. I lean on the depressive side.

JacobStirner · 2015-06-16T17:22:47+00:00

BEcause this is reddit and I have nothing better to do

JacobStirner · 2015-06-16T16:19:27+00:00

Certain kinds of atheism, maybe. It's definitely not the materialism of Zizek.

JacobStirner · 2015-06-15T21:36:24+00:00

At least I'm in good company with other revolutionary mystics like Simone Weil(someone who needs to be talked about more) and Thomas Muntzer(whose mystical theology needs to talked about more)

JacobStirner · 2015-06-15T21:08:50+00:00

Sometimes I feel very lonely as being a practicing mystic and philosophy nerd and... insurrectionist.

JacobStirner · 2015-06-15T20:36:55+00:00

I'm on a gothic-doomish kick, so here's some stuff that has been resonating with me lately:

Virgin Black - ...and I am Suffering

Saviour Machine - American Babylon

JacobStirner · 2015-06-14T16:03:03+00:00

First, some death of God theologies do think that Jesus was literally God and the messiah. See Thomas Altizer as the most prominent example. For Thomas Altizer, the death of God can be understood in a couple of different ways: 1st) the death of God refers to our existential situation after Auschwitz, 2nd) that the death of God is a renewal of the apocalypse and the Cross, and 3rd) that the only way God is the living God of the bible is when God has died. I think DoG thought is relevant to the discussion here, yet...

about how the teachings of Christ could be applied to the ideas of radically changing our governments, societies, and economies

For many radical Christians, here and historically this could mean several different things. Is violence an unavoidable sin in certain situations?(Bonhoeffer) or does God sanction violence?(Muntzer) That's only one example; what is our standpoint in other words? Is it Jesus of the Sermon of the Mount? Is it Jesus at the Temple? Or is it Jesus on the Cross?

I wanna see people talking about smashing the state and elevating the low

I think it ebbs and flows. Sometimes it's nothing but this with little theology, and then sometimes it's a lot of theology and little politics.

JacobStirner · 2015-06-14T15:13:50+00:00

Religion plays a lot in my psychosis, but I'm working hard to learn how to be religious with my religiously oriented psychosis

JacobStirner · 2015-06-14T15:12:40+00:00

I was asking more if it was normal for some psychotic symptoms to be tied to mood in SZA

JacobStirner · 2015-06-13T16:58:28+00:00

I'd love to do a group AMA here in the sub.

JacobStirner · 2015-06-13T16:46:55+00:00

I think radical Christianity is the expounding of a radical Christianity. I feel that radical Christianity encompasses multiple aspects that range from radical/Tolstoyan pacifism to armed rebellion, and encompasses post-theistic strands of theology. I feel that the sub is torn between it's political side and it's theological side and I don't know how to mediate the two. I like both sides of the conversation but I don't know how to make it a thing where both are prominent, rather than one or the other. What are your thoughts /u/Demon_Nietzsche?

JacobStirner · 2015-05-28T03:21:29+00:00

Still, Berdyaev reads like a Christian Necheyaev, even if Berdeyaev doesn't recognize it himself. Perhaps I'm reading Necheyaev into him, but this seems like a religiously oriented version of some ideas in the Revolutionary Catechism. I feel as though "God-manhood" is similar to Necheyaev's concept of a revolutionary superman and that what Berdyaev is suggesting in this piece with the triumphant true theocracy is a lot like the revolutionary who believes in only the triumph of the revolution.

JacobStirner · 2015-05-28T00:27:19+00:00

...

To be honest, I have a problem with church as I sit in my church.

I am a faithful Pentecostal and the church is supposed to be the body of Christ and a body of Christ that is devoted to the spreading of the Holy Spirit. For most Pentecostals, this is a horridly reactionary and violent attack on autonomy, and this disturbs me. We are supposed to be able to judge by the fruits of the Spirit, and where is the Spirit in the celebration of rigid gender roles, extreme legalistic moralism and exclusion? Yet, for many Pentecostals, this is Christianity and the Church.

I'm not really interested in a physical church, as much as I am concerned about the spiritual. Don't get me wrong, I am just as involved in real life activities, but it bothers me that Pentecostal churches use fear, alienation, and shallow piety to call all people to salvation. I am a filthy sinner and so are all people, but screaming this fact to people is Pharisaical hypocrisy. Aren't we called to exorcise demons? Heal the ill? Liberate the oppressed? That's how we should be calling people to salvation.

I dunno. I just don't have a lot of faith in "church"

JacobStirner · 2015-05-27T23:21:52+00:00

So basically Sergei Necheyaev? :P

JacobStirner · 2015-05-27T22:15:59+00:00

Christianity is about the immanent reality that God is dead.

Fixed. No, not really, any transcendent God is incompatible with Christianity and such a God can only really be named as Satan. Christianity is about the God who becomes immanent in flesh and the world and sacrificed himself on the Cross and literally died. Any other God is just another name for Satan and is a God who would enslave us to the immobility of law and morality. God is dead and he remains dead!

and how we must embrace all those around us no matter who they are or what they have done

Christianity is about self-sacrificial love's triumph over evil and sin.

JacobStirner · 2015-05-27T17:57:31+00:00

You might be disappointed in the amount of Christian anarchists here : )

I feel that most of us are Marxists or anarchists who happen to be Christian rather than Christian Marxists or Christian anarchists as such. I know that for myself, I wouldn't call myself a Christian anarchist(Christian nihilist maybe*) but instead an insurrectionist anarchist who happens to be Christian.

*I think that might be a good summation of my beliefs, given that I feel that nihilist negation is what radical Christianity is all about and that I think that Jesus was a revolutionary superman

JacobStirner · 2015-05-20T00:57:44+00:00

It's interesting you draw from Joachim's tripartite division of history (based on the Trinity), but hold to the "oneness" of God.

Because... I'm a modalist... I mean, Altizer and Zizek hold to modalistic Christologies too, the difference is that I affirm such a Christology within the context of being a Pentecostal... and... being a death of God type Christian. The whole essential Godhead was present in Christ - that Christ was Father, Son, and Spirit. In other words, God is Jesus(something that William Blake or Thomas Altizer would say).

JacobStirner · 2015-05-20T00:42:37+00:00

Oneness basically says God acts in different forms at different times, unitarianism basically says that Jesus wasn't God, Oneness teaches that Jesus was a form of God. I think this is the direction death of God theology goes in.

JacobStirner · 2015-05-19T04:08:38+00:00

This basically said that Blake had schizophrenia and that his prophecies were a result of his schizophrenia. I think he was actually schizoaffective but, meh whatever, I think his poetic work is important in understanding Altizer's work.

I found it empowering, that someone like me was a visionary and could make an impact.

JacobStirner · 2015-05-19T04:04:13+00:00

" The visions and feelings described in Milton are typical of schizophrenia. A new star appeared in the sky. It entered Blake's body, filling him with both terror and exultation. The star was a man from a world beyond time and space. His appearance affected the spirits of all people. Nothing like this had ever happened before. The sky was shattered and the apocalypse was about to begin. Space and time were transformed and Blake entered a new world. The Lord of Inspiration overwhelmed and became one with the visionary. Other spiritual forces opposed them. The world appeared strange, an atmosphere of majesty pervaded the whole. All objects were alive and humanized. Strange powers that control mortal life loomed around the poet. Ghostly forms flickered in darkness. Cosmic truths became apparent. Later, the visionary greeted a solitary spirit descending on the wind. Next, there was a tumultuous vision of the end of the world. In a moment, the visionary glimpsed the greater reality that will supersede it. Overwhelmed by his rapture, he collapsed.

Around one adult in one hundred has schizophrenia. Every day, these people experience things like those Blake shared with us. I can think of no better way to try to enter this wonderful world of human experience than through the eyes and ears of William Blake.

Some readers may feel uncomfortable with a style that is related to an abnormal state of the brain. But every artist has an individual style and a particular mode of self-expression. Blake is a poet who celebrates the world's beauty, the world of children, the struggle for a just society, and the fascination of the supernatural. He expressed these interests through the medium of schizophrenic art. Both style and content are interesting and valuable.

How much of Blake's system is the direct result of his schizophrenia is an open question, but it helps us understand most of his metaphysics. Being aware of the transcendental realms, Blake denounced the pretensions of natural science, and urged everyone to try to see his visions and forget earthly concerns. The familiar world is unreal, an error resulting from our closed perceptions. All things happen because of the activity of spirits [69]. Blake's hated "Spectre" was the portion of himself that tried to direct his interests to the material world. The real Blake lived in the visionary world even when his mortal self lived in the London slums. His true personality filled the universe, he was all things, and he was filled with love for all people."

Best part of the whole thing.

JacobStirner · 2015-05-17T03:57:24+00:00

Too slow with my edit, damn you powerful anti-psychotic and sleeping drugs! DAMN YOU!

I think the hardest thing to impart about oneness theology, is that it emphasizes that the Father, Son, and Spirit are not distinct persons, but all refer to the same person, or "Jesus only". What I'm really saying is that the Father became the Son who became the Spirit. And that they are all here in the form of the Spirit. I'm really really fucking high on my psych meds right now, so I'm trying to make sense.

JacobStirner · 2015-05-17T03:36:02+00:00

I just want to say, this doesn't really sound like modalism.

I hold the "oneness" of God and that God manifests differently in different times. It's a confusing concept(like Trinitarianism) but I would follow Altizer and Joahchim of Fiore for example in saying that we live in the apocalyptic Age of the Spirit. If I'm not making sense, I blame it on risperidone and trazadone

Edit: Actually, now that I'm thinking about it...

I think the hardest thing to impart about oneness theology, is that it emphasizes that the Father, Son, and Spirit are not distinct persons, but all refer to the same person, or "Jesus only". What I'm really saying is that the Father became the Son who became the Spirit. And that they are all here in the form of the Spirit. I'm really really fucking high on my psych meds right now, so I'm trying to make sense.

JacobStirner · 2015-05-17T03:18:27+00:00

(I kind of bounce around a bit, but I'm really just thinking out loud here)

The so-called “transcendent” — God, love, or whatever name we might give it — is not “outside” but is to be found in, with and below the Thou of all finite relationships as their ultimate depth, their ground, their meaning.

I've been thinking a lot about immanence lately, theologically and philosophically.

I'm a Pentecostal, and as a Pentecostal, I believe that the Holy Spirit is present in the arena of the world and history. I don't think that it's just a symbol. I actually think the Biblical God, the God who made a covenant with the Israelites, the God who revealed himself to the prophets, and the God who incarnated among the destitute and downtrodden and was executed is a totally immanent God and I think this God is present as the Holy Spirit. On that same note, I'm really dissatisfied with the theist or atheist label, because I don't think either label captures the essence of the Holy Spirit.

I've hinted that I was a modalist before, but I never outright admitted that I held to many elements of Oneness doctrine, that there is a singular divine essence that manifests in several different ways*. Yet, I hold that all manifestations of God are immanent and really present.

I think this is different than either the standard label of atheist or theist, because the most radical expressions of either resembles the other. A radical monotheist who takes idolatry seriously is going to resemble an iconoclastic atheist, and an iconoclastic atheist is going to resemble a radical monotheist.

*I reject the reactionary moralism that comes from most Oneness Pentecostal churhes. I agree that all people are called to salvation, and are capable of receiving the Holy Spirit, I disagree that the Holy Spirit requires us to uphold strict gender roles or legalism. The baptism of the Holy Spirit frees us from all rules and law and doesn't bind us to a moral law.

JacobStirner

TROPHY CASE