Metamodern Christianity? Or Christ as Cosmogram
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- Опубліковано 21 чер 2024
- rambling appreciation for John Vervaeke and Brandan Graham Dempsey's dialogue ( • Reviving Faith with Me... , and a few offerings of my own on the topic (footnotes2plato.substack.com/...)
footnotes2plato.substack.com/p/what-is-metamodern-christianity
Matt, you are so incredibly inspiring mostly because you hold a very grounded , honest approach which many guests because of excitement dont feel as it they get in the true flow of the wonder, beauty and tragic that you are willing to bear. I was a grad school person at Duquesne in philosophy . :You hold the greatest sense of path flow that I have ever felt an alignment with. Thank you
I feel like there's a very serious danger in the language being used here, frankly. "God image", "idea of God", etc.
Now I should say in advance that I'm not advocating for some kind of absolutism which attempts to discredit or disregard other religious traditions, and in fact I very much advocate for a syncretic attitude with regards to religious Plurality.
Nonetheless, I feel that there is a danger here in using that sort of language in order to adopt a more relativized frame, even if there is an implicit understanding that a universality underlies the pluralities in question.
The danger is in the implicit suggestion, intentional or otherwise, that Christianity is just one religion among others - or, conversely, that Buddhism is just one religion among others, etc; but with Christianity in particular I feel that the danger is particularly acute
Christianity is particularly unique, I believe, in the manner in which it has **destined** human consciousness forward through the past two thousand years. It is almost as though there are central tensions or even absurdities within Christianity which serve as a sort of engine which is compelling history forward in a way that nothing else ever has.
There is a very real and almost unfathomably immense power within Christianity as a spiritual impulse which transcends the creeds and doctrines which we denote with the word "Christian".
The meaning and ultimate purpose of that underlying impulse is of course something I can't even begin to summarize in a YT comment, but I think I can say this much; the entire world is becoming Christified, not because people are converting to a creed which carries the label "Christian" but because the inner destiny of Christianity is coming to envelop the whole of humanity in its scope.
Christianity is not a creed or doctrine, let alone an image or an idea. It is a riddle and an - as yet - uncompleted promise of something scarcely comprehensible.
Sometimes I default to Jungian language to make it easier to talk about these things… but you’re right.
I think all of these religions were useful for their time and place (although they also had a negative side to them) but are going to continue to decline as time goes on. Part of this "spiritual" evolution is the emerging of a new form of spirituality that isn't constrained by any one religion, hero, prophet, teacher, guru, etc. Those who are limited by their weird emotional attachment to someone who lived 2000 years ago are going to find themselves left behind. I'm not saying these religions should just be tossed in the trash though - I think there are important ideas and concepts in all of them. I'm more saying that this belief that we need to have a special place reserved for Jesus and Christianity (or whichever religion or hero you favor) is outdated and will become a hindrance to evolution. I don't think it's a coincidence that there has been a rise in more traditional and dogmatic forms of spirituality and religion (and conservatism in general) lately, at least among those who spend too much time on the internet. I think these people are scared of the changes that are happening so they cling to tradition because it's comforting. These are the people that think it's "dangerous" to move on from tradition. They're full of fear.
@@decades5643 for me at least the point is to open your soul so Christ can be born within you. It is not about some dude who died 2000 years ago, but about watering a cosmic seed lying dormant in your soul.
@@Footnotes2Plato Oh yeah, I get where you're coming from. My comment was more directed at Formscapes. For me it isn't literally "Christ" but a "divine" aspect in everyone that is a connection or mediator between you and the divine. I think the Jesus as Christ and savior idea came out of the mystery cults (and Jewish messianic beliefs) where the savior deity experienced the human condition (suffering and death) and then became a model and mediator for its followers. The followers would identify with the mystery cult savior by reenacting its experiences (as described in the story/myth) during the initiation ritual (like Christians do in baptism) and then gain some form of eternal life after death. In other words, the savior deities of the mystery cults and Christianity actually just represent us or the divine aspect of ourselves that is eternal. Jesus is like the ultimate expression of this concept.
If you look at the comment sections of the videos by Vervaeke and Dempsey (and even yours now) you have all these strange people preaching about Jesus being God in the flesh, quoting random bible verses, defending Jesus, etc. It's just really bizarre cult-like behavior. I think pandering to these people is dangerous.
Wow! And I thought *I* was a heretic 😂😂 Glad I happened upon a channel that embraces the spirit of Jung, Merton, and Teilhard de Chardin. Great stuff!
I'm writing an article on the metamodern for probably the August issue, of The Inquirer, the Unitarian paper in Britain.
Very cool.
What a great phrase! "Christ as Cosmogram" of which many spiritual and religious figures at moments in time both great and small could be a part! It reminds me of the many Bodhisattva's who can teach us of this Cosmogram.
Boddhisatvas are also cosmograms in their own self.
@@user-tf1cn9ve5n That's true, that's a better way to state it, well said. I think there is an overall spiritual cosmogram pattern we are speaking of here that so many of these people and teachers embody in thier own form too. Kind of like one of the themes of that book by R. McDermott "Steiner and Kindred Spirits." All those different people he mentions there help to teach us something very important and help keep alive the value of the Good in our actions, thoughts, and spiritual practices etc.
@@JoshHogins well, this concept has been foundation of Hindu and Buddhist polytheism for millenias. Even neoplatonic greeks believed this.
@@JoshHogins Also, concept of cosmogram is literal appropriation. Hindus developed this concept in their ancient religion, Shiva has been proclaimed as the cosmogram since ancient times. Idk what is new here.
The importance of the Christ healing the body-spirit duality was so inspirational. I hear things when I dream and with the help of those who were awake as I dreamed, I know better what was real in what I heard in the dream. Christ was real but we dream him too…
Yes. Thankyou!
I can't help but feel that we need something like a "meta-religious framework" -- and one that inverts the logic/language of secularism against itself (or something along that line). It seems like we're becoming deeply disconnected from something I struggle to encapsulate with a word.
Despite the many differences of our religious traditions -- I can't help but feel like humanity is overdue for a dialectical synthesis between them. At the heart of virtually all of them, there seems to be the same precious gem. It's as though they are vessels charting increasingly chaotic waters, and they are destined to unite; lest they all sink. I don't know what else can happen in this global age (given we desire prosperity).
Also curious as to whether you've had the chance to talk to Jason Reza Jorjani? I think you guys could have some really interesting conversations on the big picture of consciousness in the universe.
Man! , Jason is a extremely polemic but interesting person
It was occurring to me listening to this that implicit here is that the value vector of spiritual and religious impulses "ought" hopefully to involve the Good. The Cosmic Good as is co-created with every actual entity tapping in to it. I think it is important to having the inner strength to carry forth this value vector that we come to know cosmic purpose beyond the human, yet of which we are intimately and importantly a part of. We and God co-create eachother which is pretty awesome to be in that kind of intimate relationship. Certainly spiritual practices which water this seed are worth doing! Just like how scientific practice is not value neutral in that it seeks knowledge of the reality of the physical workings of the Universe, spiritual practice also seeks truths and experiences associated with those habits of nature correlating with the cosmic spiritual reality. Of course it is really just all part of the same cosmos.
I recently just moved to Oakland too. Synchronicity haha
I highly recommend the podcast The Light in Everything from two priests from the Christian Community for Religious Renewal
Bill Evans, Blue in Green. The best ritual I ever invented was to sit and listen to intuitive jazz for as long as it took me to drink an expensive glass of red wine from my local jazz lounge. For all the other religions it takes you a lifetime to understand their ritual structure and master their insanity. I could add that to the ten fetters. But a, I drink and b. I already have an understanding of rights and rituals through anthropology. I, for multiple reasons, never graduated through a right of passage. I just wanted to learn at university but soon realised it was all a money-making joke. I have the degrees but no pride.
Repetition legitimizes.
I'm not sure where I've heard that saying before... but ive heard it alot, and it seems legit
There's a sociohistorical context behind all cultural wisdom traditions. Making sense of reality is something they all share in common.
I'm concerned about christianity because of its roots in liberation theology. Liberation theology brought the hebrews out of egypt. It brought the christians out of rome. It brought the Rastas out of colonized jamaica. It was an inspiration in central and south america during the cold war.
I'm not sure if this liberation ideal is satisfying the ultimate claim or if the narrative is actually reproducing itself. Is there an inherent slave/master process going on? To what extent is it needed? Does christianity propose a solution? Has it done so, or, how can it do so in the future?
"The patient", is the human. Complex life is the healer. Sometimes you have to reverse your thinking to see the solutions.
...a reading throughout our personal uniquenesses of ...bias, sway, and whim...., including the popularizations of our ...propaganda, philosophy and panentheos.... without an integrally greater care for ...sense, science, and salience.... coming forth and going forward, eventually runs amock and afoul in time....
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❤️🔥
John 14:26 But the Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring all things to your mind, whatsoever I shall have said to you.
Well said. As in depth of translation. It takes some 6 feet to fathom the concept of God or to conceive of god we would need 12 feet by the apostle's. The pressure is building as these God's are being (tri)ed due to the one ate depth of see. Four you to fathom all would be twenty four feet yet 2 4 feet is eight feet if you give it space. Is it gravity that holds these words together or pressure?
10:18 - Is that the book where Steiner talks about the seven planetary rounds starting with old Saturn and ending in Vulcan? I read that ten years ago when I was trying to learn more about Rosicrucianism and I think that's where my taste for huge cosmologies started to dip (particularly his accounting of earth seemed land-locked in misconceptions from the Victorian period). Steiner clearly did a lot for education and was a Renaissance man in a lot of ways but Anthroposophy's one of those where the only ways I can test their claims is how well the claims hold up against the world as we know it, and if he'd nailed these things bang-on we'd be in a completely different place. What I do sometimes wonder about is whether the cosmos stores prior human beliefs, such that a person could actually have contact with something transpersonal that serves them up wild images of Atlantis and Lemuria which aren't their own, which they confuse for revelation but as it turns out our fictional stories get stored there as well.
Yep, that's the book. I don't relate to Steiner's claims in this text as "true or false." I am more interested in the participatory method he is attempting to develop that would allow us to imaginatively recollect deep history in a way that is less dualistic (ie, leaving consciousness out of the process) than standard physicalist (ie, Big Bang) cosmologies. What Steiner claims about history obviously sounds fantastical, but to my mind the materialistic idea of a big bang is no less so.
@@Footnotes2Plato It is a good book for getting the background of his ideas. I read maybe five or six of his works after getting into The Burning Bush, Valentin Tomberg's Meditation on the Tarot which opened a whole side channel of disputes between Sergei Prokofieff and Robert Powell over Tomberg. I think maybe the most interesting Steiner book was 'The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity' because it got more into the weeds of his particular Platonism.
My godmother is a white supremacist, but in a very humble, protestant way that elevates her status even more than most others. I wish I was exaggerating.
But why should we do as you suggest, regarding Buddha and/or Jesus? Why them? Is it just because their followers survive into the present? Is it because they were singular in some way? You are making concessions and making suggestions without explanations or substantiation. Yes, we could do as you suggest regarding Buddha and Jesus, but why them? The same suggestion can be applied to others, to the self, to an idea and not a human, to so many others things and people, so why Buddha and Jesus? Follow the logic and you get to the illogic.
Jesus along with Socrates is the quintessential teacher of Western Civilization,
Buddha along with Confucius, are the great cornerstone teachers of the east.
I don't know how these statements relate to your comment particularly but i just wanted to get it out
@@WeenkerIV why not plato, why not aristotle, why not sources and teachers from christianity from whom there are ten-fold more teachings and philosophy than jesus? why not muhammad, who inspired roughly 40 billion total human? why not anyone less problematic than all of the listed? concessions are made to buddha and jesus, when neither had much to teach. both are taken as axiomatic when neither was very special
@@thepath964 this is the longest rhetorical question i've ever read in my life
@@thepath964 If you follow any logic far enough you will get to illogic. Both of them represent two highly influential figures; whose collective teachings have now encompassed the whole world (when taken in conjunction). I'm not sure where your aversion to this notion is coming from, but it seems misplaced.
@@thepath964what the fuck?
woo woo