Vanguard News Network
VNN Media
VNN Digital Library
VNN Reader Mail
VNN Broadcasts

Prev Previous Post   Next Post Next
Old January 22nd, 2011 #1
Alex Linder
Administrator
 
Join Date: Nov 2003
Posts: 45,756
Blog Entries: 34
Default #1 Christianity Thread

[found this on alternativeright.com in comments section]

parmenicleitus 10 months ago in reply to James Kalb

Mr. Kalb-

Thank you for the reply.

Well, OK, at least you have it out in the open that you desire a Catholic Christian "alternative right." As it is, I see nothing in this that's "alternative" to the progressive social manipulation popular at present, as this is really what you are offering. It's simply rearranging the deck-chairs.

First, no where did I say anything about "returning to the egg," nor did I deny the fact that (some) "pagan" Greeks developed cosmopolitan ideals or that "spirit" was opposed to flesh, or that I think Germanic warbands are a better

alternative, or a way of life for all of us of Euro-descent. What I did say is that the contexts for these to arise were different than what Catholic Christianity proposes (Universalist ideology) and that culture by its very definition offers the very things you seek without the social engineering of ideologies. Simply put, there was, and is, no such movement called "Paganism." Indigenous cultures were just that, rooted in a place, not idea; and plural, while remaining related in some very basic concepts. Such a monolithic characterization is that of the Christians themselves, not of pre-Christian peoples of Europe, or us *un-Christian* people at present. Christianity is anti-cultural, since it evaluates abstraction as superior and operates from the top down. Cultures are rooted,
literally, and climb upward, with abstractions, well, abstracted from a ground of collective experience in-the-world amongst a people in a place. Again, cultures are not founded in "ideas" or "beliefs." That is ideology.

Your assumption that I desire a "return to the egg," of course, evinces the linear time concepts of Christian eschatology on which your faith depends, even as enmeshed as it has become with Aristotelian teleology. In a word, it is a concept of "progress" and the very root of the modern sense of that term. It doesn't follow, however, that because I reject this notion of time and history, that I subscribe to a simple circular "Eternal Recurrence of the Same" either, as time is neither wholly objective or subjective but an interweaving of both, and as such, is highly depended upon culture. Teleology/Eschatology are not, an never have been, the only game in town. Time, like the hierarchies in Alex Kurtagic's latest piece, isn't a singular phenomenon. Rome doesn't set the clock we all dance to.

The strange thing here, is that given your own concept of time, (expressed presently as a denial of an ovarian return) and the Catholic Church's inconsistency and "progress," you cannot return to Medieval Catholicism or any
other such "traditional" phase as might be imagined. The fact of the matter is, your source of "authority" has changed its views on numerous occasions regarding various issues and begs the question of whether or not Catholicism, despite its very name, really represents a consistent "tradition" at all outside the wavering inconsistencies on parade in the name of the "Universal Church".

Cultures are not ideas, they are not abstractions, but the very meeting place, the very world, you are postulating without the need of Catholicism or any of the Abrahamic faiths to justify their existence. Cultures do not require a universal faith, yet such faith is actually parasitic upon culture. Cultures are the very worlds of men, and developed quite apart from Christianity and predate it. Christianity could never have developed without cultures, and has always held an ambivalent attitude toward that essential part of humans. Catholicism will continue to reinterpret its role according to cultural values, and for us, reinterpret what it means to be of European descent, being the ideology that it is.

As such, it will not be long before the office of the Pontiff Maximus will be filled with an Black African or Hispanic, and the air will abound with hermeneutical apologia defending the "authoritative," but sanctimonious, separation of the man from the office, but in such a case, you will be further distancing the Church from Europe and actual Europeans. European identities (and those of their descendent's) will be relegated to the realm of abstract ideas. Once again, universalist ideology trumps place, people, and culture...As such, your proffered "alternative" is a well-worn, well-trodden path that is, indeed, circular. We're where we are because of it.

Catholicism does not get to set up the parameters of what constitutes "religion," (culture, really) and decide upon based on the scales of those self-serving parameters, what constitutes "true" religion. Such a dilemma as "true" and "false" religion is, in itself, silly, and based upon the artifice of abstraction, namely that religion can be abstracted from a living culture.


I don't reject European civilization, nor am I positing a revisionist past presuming that there's been no Christianity. Nothing is further from my mind. My point is that the path of ideology is well-worn, that Christianity is an ideology, that ideology can't be equated to culture, and that an "alternative right" is not alternative at all, if we continue to follow an anti-cultural ideology. Christianity, a universal ideology, has always piggy-backed culture to give it some manner of coherency (which I think is little), not the other way around.

While I would agree with you the Christianity was heavily Hellenized, I would also submit that it was heavily Romanized and Germanized. The Romans provided the means of an expansive, Imperium that coincided with Christianity's
inherent evangelism, which they freely adopted in becoming a State religion. The Germanic qualities of native industriousness, adventure, and spirited bellicosity, and even some governing institutions, have always underlaid European success, though little credit is given them, perhaps in penalty of not converting on time (i.e. the Vikings) in the name of their "progress."

All the above concessions only serve to demonstrate the inconsistency, incoherency and opportunistic features that have gone into creating the fog that is Christianity.




parmenicleitus 10 months ago

I believe I can see the push for this to become a Christian "alternative right" in this piece, even while I agree with many of the premises and respect Mr. Kalb and some of his writing.

That fact of the matter is, that while Christians bemoan "secular rationality," it is their very theology that dominates the day, and has led to where we are, namely "secular rationality." The whole split between "secular" and "spiritual" is, in turn, based in a dual ontology and given voice in Matthew 22: 21-22, or, as one study put it, it made possible the notion of the "Kings Two Bodies."

Theocracy is the split side of this coin. For a "spiritual authority" to gain power over what is ostensibly "un-spiritual," or namely "secular," is, of course, yet another way of giving credence to the very theology and ontology in question. In short, both "secularism" and "theocracy" are derived from the same source.

There was, and is, a possibility, in our "pagan" roots, which through Christian libel has been relegated to so-called "nature" worship (whatever that means). The ancient Hellenes centered their lives around the hearth (Hestia) both in their homes (oikos) and their cities (polis). This bound the people not only as families, but as a culture, a political unit, with *real* religion (to be bound together) focused always around and through Hestia.

Thus, while private and public were distinct, they were always bound together organically, as were the particular and general. The fussiness regarding them began when "logos" was torn away from "mythos" (even while in reality it remained a "mythos" in itself) and became even more exacerbated with logos was torn from the Kosmos itself finding its "origin" in the "Absolutely Other".

This was mirrored in Rome as well. Traditionalist Christians, and Christians in general, harp on about the family, yet had no compunction destroying the basis of Roman religion which was founded directly, like the Hellenes, in and upon the family. Like the Hellenes, the Romans had a hearth in both their homes and in their City (Vesta). All in all, religion, by definition, was destroyed in favor an ideology, which co-opted the term "religion" and transformed from family life to "universal children of God." "Secularism" has simply come to call it "humanity." "Religion" became a "bond" of ideas to be spoken (logos) rather than anything to do with "physis" (coming into being, growth, etymologically tied to the word "be."). As such Christianity is an ideo-logos, giving precedence to idea and speech over phenomena and imagery.

As this article has demonstrated, Christians feel no compulsion in utilizing de-contextualized "pagan" thought as it suits them...again, all things to all men. Plato did believe in a split between the "idea" and "mere physis," but it was always in context of *both* being in the same Kosmos (world-order). Christianity believes in a complete split between "natura" (a horrible translation of "physis") and an infinite, absolute "spiritus" which is ultimately unworldly and completely disengaged and separate from the world of "natura." At the end of the day, these are different ontologies, and don't necessarily add up to the same thing. In so saying, I also don't hold in high estimation the seemingly common assumption that Plato was somehow equivalent to a "Pope of Paganism". He simply didn't speak for all "pagan" thought, no matter how influential he was or remains. Life is simply more than matters of "thought" and "belief."

My point is that Christian ontological speculation and theology have ruled the day and have led to the very crisis in which we find ourselves. While on the surface Christians, such as Mr. Kalb and Patrick Ford, bemoan the same "secular rationality" as many who are undecided or already inclined to a more "polytheist" attitude, what they are really offering is a more reified solidification of the very metaphysical presumptions that led to this crisis in the first place: namely an ontologically dualist monolatry from the East.
 
 

Tags
#1, christianity

Share


Thread
Display Modes


All times are GMT -5. The time now is 09:33 PM.
Page generated in 1.80424 seconds.