By: AD Flemmer
[2003-05-29]
Axioms of Theology
humbly submitted for approval, may be fantastically stupid
With spring semester having finally come to a close, I have more than eagerly flushed the remnants of my last final (continental aesthetics) from my brain to ponder topics that less resemble...intellectual masturbation in that those involved in the discussion end up fatuously pleased with themselves with actually accomplishing very little.
As I trudged home tonight I noticed a bumper sticker on the back of a parked BMW station wagon (Don't snicker yet, you haven't heard what it said yet). The sticker read as follows:
Love = God + Jesus
Strange that a theological claim would fashion itself after a mathematical truth claim. The benefits are obvious; appealing to the realm of mathematics (where truths follow logically from other truths) would, if successful, bolster a religion's credibility. However, the wet sticky subjectivity of religious faith compromises this effort drastically.
Let us assume this equation is true; let us accept it as a mathematical statement:
Love = God + Jesus
If this is true, one of two scenarios must be the case:
I. Neither God nor Jesus equal love separately, only in combination
II. Either God or Jesus equal love alone, with the other not existing (i.e. equal to "zero")
IIa. God = Love
Jesus = 0
IIb. God = 0
Jesus = Love
Let us consider which of these scenarios is the case. Scenario IIa comes from a millenia-old religious tradition; the prepense of "God" in the absence of "Jesus" has been the underpinning of Judaism for millennium.
In order for IIa to be true, Jesus must equal zero, and God must equal love. However, given the "God" that is described by the absence of Jesus, the God of the Old Testament, one must be wary of saying definitively that God equals love. God, in the Old Testament, effortlessly interchanges between his vengeful/outraged/jealous mode and his reward-those-on-the-verge-of-slitting-their-son's-throat mode (the mode that rewarded Abraham). The claim that God = Love, like all proposed mathematical truth claims, involve deductions that NECESSARILY FOLLOW from others.
The Old Testament shows that "Love" does not by necessarily follow from "God." At best:
God = Conditional Love
Scenario IIa is thus not possible.
But: now that we have a value for God, let us reconsider scenario I with our value for God plugged into our original equation:
Love = Conditional Love + Jesus
Thus:
Jesus = -conditional ("negative" conditional)
Does the Bible's new testament suggest that Jesus represents not just the "absence" of conditions, but the OPPOSITE of conditions? His crucifixion, a Roman form of capital punishment, by Roman authorities for violating Roman statutes suggest that Jesus certainly did not represent the absence, let alone the opposite of conditionality; the conditions of his life and his existence had very immediate effects upon him.
Thus Scenario I is not the case. Which leaves us with scenario IIa.
God is thus equal to zero, and Jesus is set equal to love. Jesus, subversive socialist Jew that he was, certainly pushed the whole "love thy neighbor" thing ad absurdum, but the only way for the noble teachings of the Gospel to manifest themselves as "love," God must not exist so that Christ's words can be set free from the theological baggage of monotheism.
Isn't it interesting that religious claims can't be phrased in the same way as logically true statements without contradicting themselves?
I wasn't surprised.
I'm thinkign that makybe they haven't got a complete equation there. What about the holy ghost?
Maybe we are looking at a love = (god + jesus)/holy ghost.
Which would also mean love x holy ghost = god + jesus.
Perhaps love is only proportional to god + jesus, in which case there would be some kind of god-jesus love constant, so we would have love = k(God + Jesus) where k is the god-jesus love constant.
maybe they could do some programming bumper stickers for god-fearing geeks.
while(apocalypse = 0)
{
if(god + jesus)
{
holyghost=holyghost+1
love();
}
else
fireydamnation(1000);
}
What I think that the bumper sticker was trying for with the linear religion was to imply that they had something more powerful than E=MC^2---I think that religion is sort of like duct tape in that when people get short on facts or logic, they whip out the duct tape. But there seem to be lots of religious sorts who rely almost exclusively on duct tape. Jerry Falwell is giving away free SUV's to keep the faithful faithful. Rev. Jerry was pretty sure that Jayzus was going to show up in the year 2000, but since nothing manifested itself, he's saying that, Yay, verily Christ is born, but He may not reveal Hisself until He's 13 or 33 or something. You're flogging a dead Jayzus, Rev. Jerry! Man cannot live by duct tape alone.
True brother, true. You will need something to use duct tape on, thus the existance of the world.
But apparently the religiosos do, too! Therefore, I'm supposed to tithe unto them 10% so that they will have something to hold up their useless duct tape. What's worse, the tithe started, I believe, when people gave 10% and that covered everything. Now, I had deducted 52% in California for tax, and the churchies STILL want 10%. Bite my Wodan-worshipping ass! You show me a church that wants to give me money instead of taking mine, and I'll join the sumbich. Also, there has to be drinking and dancing and joyous lust.
ass + ram = assrammed! yea... anyways..I'm going to go look at this thing in a bag.
according to the Christian doctorine of the holy trinity
God=Jesus=The holy spirt
Since God=Jesus the equation could be re-written
Love=2God which doesn't work because at this point we have three so that's right out
or it could be rewritten Love=2Jesus where we don't have love untill the second coming and we're all dead anyway. So I guess I'm still just depressing us all.
but none of you are mentioning Antwan's beautiful cartoon on the top of the page.
I guessed that was his cartoon...The barely legible Zirealism sucks on the, I guess alien space craft makes it obvious. I'll say this for it. It has an obvious punch-line!
That's antwan's comic? wow... It most have took him many hours to complete that. I'm going to go look at a think in a bag, if you want to see, click my name.
I don't get it.
I thought the cartoon was a Mexican guy with his hat flying off in surprise. Or that it was the Earth complaining after being invaded by flying saucers. But after the note that it's Antwan's cartoon, I guess that Antwan's in the UFO and he's just done something painful to Posthumous anterior parts.
I thought that comic was a giant volcano on top of the Earth, with a spaceship flying away. Who can say, really?
so the black nebulous stuff is the
biblical plague of locustus of the apocolypse. So being the begining of an eternity of torment the guys ass really hurts. Meanwhile Antwan has escaped the end of the world in his patented propoganda adorned space-craft. This also explains the lack of stars.
The collapse of the Universe is sucking in all of the light? Quick! More duct tape!
I must have been really tired when I wrote this; apologies for the Baroque sentences and frequent spelling errors
I hate this kind of clever, self-serving, useless crap. Wow, you're a real fucking free-thinker, way to stick it to the Man. Now that school's out you should probably just stick to drinking and video games, rather than trying to use your head, especially when you consider that you have no goddamn idea what you're talking about. BMW doesn't make station wagons, they're called touring cars.
Due to my crappy artwork in MS paint, you do actually kind of have to think about it. But at least you can sort of settle on the obvious "raped by aliens" scenerio. Also, aliens hate zirealism too.
I thought that BMW used to make something like a station wagon, but it looks like they have a BMW X-5 SAV, which I assume is for Suburban Assault Vehichle. I bet that Jack Chick has a comic tract about linear religion.
i love sitting in church thinking about stuff like that. for example, if god is omnipotent why do you confess sins, as he already knows both about the sin itself and about how you feel about it.
Is like showing god you really are sorry about what you did. Which is also why I think people who sin like crazy but are okay with it because they go confess their sins are hillarious. Me personally I've never been a really relegious person but I've always felt that if god was up there he'd probably dislike some christians more than me. But I've always been prone to greek tragedy sized stints of hubrous. Also I cannot spell.
If people can't petition God directly, which I thought they could, and the Church is closer to God and the Church hierachy acts as a switchboard, clearinghouse, and interpreter for God, why doesn't the Church get their money from God. God owns everything, so when you give money to the Church, it doesn't go to God but to the Church. It's the same with any charity or government beuracracy, only a percentage of what you give them goes to where it's supposed to go due to shrinkage along the way, and huge bloated parasitic organizations evolve. So, if these guys are actually performing miracles, why don't they turn straw into gold, huh?
Now that I've stopped admiring my comic and read the article, I realize that it sort of DEALS WITH MATH. The article completely creeped me out and left me with a strong violated feeling. The kind of feeling you get after passing out on a public bus and waking up in a ditch three hours later with no pants on.
Also, I must sadly say now that the summer months have set it, it's time to hit the tournament road. Finally, nine months of raising fighters, magicians, and monsters all pays off. In my stead, I've asked Zim to give color commentary on Zirealism until I get back.
I hate long good byes so I'll just
Apparently you aren't thinking very hard about it.
I do hate to be a jerk about this and maybe it's just the fact that I finnaly seem to be in the majority on this subject but you aren't winning any friends being angry at everyone here who makes fun of relegion. I understand that you have strong feelings about the subject and I think I can say with some authority that many here even respect that, the trouble is that we enjoy poking fun at things. To the fine people here at thingsihate nothing is sacred both literally and figuratively.
Allright, I get to make fun of zirealisms now! Only if I don't understand them..and most of the time I don't. Yea antwan leaves every summer, something about nintendo, I actually think he masturbates so much now, that he has no time for internet at all. its a sad sad life.
The answers can be found
here
I didn't realize that Jonas had strong feelings about religion. Anyways, I was a Boy Scout and an altar boy in the Anglican Church, I didn't miss a Sunday for many years, got a dogwood cross each year, after five years I got a white lamb skin Bible with my name in gold on it. But somehow, that nice, quiet Anglican CofE church got big, then it went Evangelical with everyone hopping around waving their hands in the air and speaking in tongues like a bunch of demented aborigines, so it made it real easy for me to find the exit door. I try to be tolerant of other people's religions, as long as they don't tell me that it's their way or else, which is almost every religion. The old Norse panoply of gods suites me for now. At least I didn't have to do what the Catholic altar boys are expected to do. And the sacramental wine was tasty!
I'm sorry my karma ran over your dogma
Where was I angry at people making fun of religion? I have strong feelings regarding BMWs (although this wasn't the case before I saw their
advertising), and people who don't use their heads.
Furthermore, I'll hate on whatever I might please, even if it
is Hugs'n'Lollipops week on thingsihate. "I do hate to be a jerk about this... we enjoy poking fun at things. To the fine people here at thingsihate nothing is sacred both literally and figuratively." Who dumped the saltpeter in your cereal, laconic, cos you're limper than an impotent man looking at Morticia's picture. All I
do is poke fun, you humourless flubbering softie. Not winning any friends! Hah! If I may quote Jim,
this is THINGSIHATE DOT GODDAMNED ORG and YOU WILL HATE.
The equation differentiates God and Jesus. Therefore, we can assume that whatever faith the owner holds does the same. This limits us to subsets of Christianity which in general designate Christ as either an angel or as a deific being who is not omnipotent/omniscient himself. The Bible also states that God IS love in several verses.
In contrast to the assertions in the update, the OT God wasn't as angry or tempermental but rather highly desirous of his self-claimed followers to live a life which was self-disciplined by a properly founded conscience. This was in contrast primarily to the polytheistic, pagan and gnostic beliefs held by many at the same time period. Many OT believers tried to mix these beliefs with traditional Judaism which caused the theological conflicts and clashes which God was trying to fight primarily from the perspective of "cleaning up the faith." This was in preparation to the NT development of templed Judaism into the new church in Christ.
Thus, we should assume that the statement made by the bumper sticker is indeed IIa. Alas, a quality, well-done apologetic response in support or denial of the statement is well beyond what I would ever consider posting here. Few are as motivated towards comparitive apologetics in both Christian and non-Christian environments as I.
I just ate Harissa.
Mmmmm;
I think I am in love.
Sorry that this is off-topic, but guys (and girls) you must try it.
But of course, being so erudite and experienced, you must sleep on pillows stuffed with it.
Continue. Harissa has been a real turning-point in my life.
Oh, now on-topic. I respect this article - but that's because I don't understand it. Math never was my forte, so I switched off. But Mike the Unicycle Guy was correct when he said that, your equations are denomination-specific. If they do give Jesus and God different values, then they are not Catholic (in the most liberal sense of the word). Arian perhaps? (I.e. Arius, not Hitler).
Religion is fun.
The contradictions between the way religion portrays God, the way they say God acts and the way they treat God.
Use of God as a force of war, a way of controlling people or a way to make money which is usually the exact thing that religions teach against, which is usually their exact modus operandi, The Church of England is loaded, and they have shares in arms producers GEC, Lucas-Varity and Thomkins. Nice.
The definition of God itself is quite amusing and terribly flawed a being without Ego that creates us in his own image? or is the Ego ours and we assume he would create us in his image?
A being that is perfect, yet in the bible he makes many mistakes, meaning he has to entirely purge the world of his evil creations.
Lacks fear, selfishness, lower thinking, yet can't live at peace with the devil, yeah the devil wants a piece of the action and god ain't having none of that, he even gets petty and give him horns and a tail. Not to mention this is an all powerful god who somehow can't banish the devil?
Those are clearly human expressions of God, a God created in our form, the ultimate statement of mans meglomaniacal tendances
So why religion? why do you worship your own idol you have created to represent your god, why do you worship your self-repression, prostrate yourselves before your own creation, dominate yourselves with your own (stupid) ideas.
Its because your all stupid, stupid, stupid people. Its such as shame your own gods don't exist because then we would likely destroy you miserable excuses for carbon based lifeforms.
we created God in our image; not vice versa.
But nothing just gets *made up* and created out of thin air.
Every fiction has its source in some fact, *no matter how remote*.
Speaking of the diving (and immortal)
has ANYONE, please, n'evitez pas ma question, tried Monsieur Chiu's Fantabuluos Invention? Aargh it's stopped flashing this is surely a portent
The development of Christianity came after the destruction of the Temple, which clearly created a crisis in Judaism. How else could such a radical and baseless reinterpretation of their religion have been accepted?
I think that there are Messianic Jews, or Davidian Jews and those Christians are what you call Branch Davidians because they believe in a Messiah, and there are those Jews who think now Messiah has come yet but will maybe, and those Jews who think no Messiah is coming or is necessary, but Christians are Jews, despite some of them refusing to read the Old Testicle. This shit is harder than Chinese arithmetic.
(high five)
if he's omnipotent he know everything. how you feel about stuff is included in "everything"!
*shakes her head and sighs* if you're going to bug someone about something take a second to think about it before you type
GOD IS FOR LOSERS HUH?! YEAH, FUCK YOU GOD!!! AHAHAHAHAHAHA LET'S GO PLAY SOME MORE DDR, DUDERS!!! I AM AN ATHIEST (HINT: SMARTER THAN GOD!!) !!!
XTIAN SHEEP!
I've been drenched with the juice of a clam!
The best I've ever done is snap into a slim-jim. Additionally I'd like to appologize for my post earlier today the grammer was sad even for me. I blame Antwan because he isnt' here.
We take a dim view of them Tilamook Slim Jim snappers in these parts. I would like to tell you that West Virginia ramps are selling for $16 a pound. But, wait! That's about what Tilamook Slim Jims cost!
Tillamook Beef Silver Dollars cracks me up! It reminds me of
Meat Nickles
I once had a brilliant theory about a utopian society based on food based currency but I think I'll send it in as an article because everything that's REALLY DUMB and REALLY BADLY WRITTEN I send to the editors.
Yah, that happened to me, too. The constant boners, the constant cumming, testosterone rage, bulging pecs, delts dangling and festooned with Spanish moss, being followed by flocks of feral cats, the constant craving.
I should think about relegion more often if I end up cuming that much...or is that just the exercise because if so bummer.
I think what Minna's trying to get at it is what's the point of free will when god already knows what you're going to choose? In fact I've never gotten why we're here if god knows everything frankly after about 10,000 years of watching humanity do EXACTLY what I was expecting I'd just get bored.
Predetermination is the whole point of it. Get on the wave and KNOW what it's going to do next, and RIDE that motherfucker!
Err...when is this site going to update...and more importantly, when is it going to update with something funny!
EXACTLY!
therefor: all religions are screwed up and we should just behave ourselves.
I do not get that. What I get is that I should a warrior, show no mercy. But I am a warrior with honor. Behave? What is that?
If you have a code of honorable behavior, punch it up in the house, OK? But I don't think that you have a foggy clue what good behavior is? Whip it on me, skanky mama!
It's OK! This is my country.
Christianity bases itself in the teachings of Christ, obviously, who lived during the time of the Temple and while early Christian doctrines weren't easily found in their completion as in today until about the end of the second century they were undeniably direct extrapolations from the teachings of Christ recorded in the Bible which we know because of early writings by early Christian fathers, Jewish authors and even secular scholars and philosophers of the time.
Thus, the acceptance of Christianity by contemporary Jews was not based upon the destruction of the Temple or a loss of stability in the religion (because if it were then Judaism would hardly be the vibrant faith that it is today, much less the solid foundation for those persecuted in WW2) but rather due to arguments which clearly seemed logical which were made by the early church fathers.
was allowing you the last word before my own Zirealism took over.
Christianity, and the New Testament, as we know it was not invented and distributed until well after the fall of the Temple. There may or may not have been a man called Jesus before the fall of the Temple, but there wasn't a Christianity.
And Judaism did indeed have a crisis at the fall of the Temple. One result was Christianity. Another result was rabbinical Judaism.
