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Author Topic: Passing on the Passion
Boinker
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posted 12 March 2004 10:02 PM      Profile for Boinker   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
torture and bigotry masquerading as "history"...

I have passed on the Passion because I realize why the whole idea is bogus. This movie is not about the reality per se with the violence being a subset necessary to the understanding. This is a story where the violence and the spectacle shrouded in pseudo christian mysticism is the focus...

At least one friend who is a good Catholic went and found the film appalling and unappealing...

The point McQuaig makes is that this film is antisemetic by intent. On a number of crucial issues it lacks authenticity...

...so I'll pass.

(Why don't they make a happy movie that resonates with my childhood protestantism full of spring flowers and Christ rising from the dead. A light hearted comedy or something that conveys those aspects of human nature that we think are saintly and good?)

Hmm?

[ 12 March 2004: Message edited by: Boinker ]


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Jesse Hoffman
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posted 12 March 2004 10:28 PM      Profile for Jesse Hoffman     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
...so I'll pass.

Good call. Although some technical aspects of the film were cool, I basically hated it. Who wants to see a man be brutally beaten, bloodied, and tortured for 2 hours? Although the violence was kind of disgusting, I actually got bored of it.

I liked this Toronto Star column by Peter Howell on the movie.

quote:
What really disturbs me about this is the hypocrisy of the whole thing. Many of the same church elders who routinely preach against violence in the media, wringing their hands over Kill Bill or assailing the realistic mayhem of video games, apparently find no contradiction in endorsing a movie where the beat goes on right up to and past the point of a man's horrific death.

Gibson's pious apologists reason it's not just acceptable but downright essential to stare at Christ's suffering, because it's a redemptive experience presented just as the Bible describes it — even though all kinds of Bible scholars have stepped forward to dispute The Passion's claim to authenticity.

How far would they be willing to take this thinking? If it is indeed healthy for the masses to share Christ's pain in the most realistic Hollywood manner, then wouldn't we also profit by communing through other big-screen exploitations of ghastly experiences?

How about an IMAX movie about the Holocaust, in which we can fully engage with the atrocities committed in the Nazi death camps and gas chambers? How about biopics on Jeffrey Dahmer or John Wayne Gacy, in which every one of their victims are violated, murdered and consumed before our greedy eyeballs? Perhaps only by witnessing evil acts in the most intense way possible can we fully understand the pain of victims.

Such an argument is absurd, of course, yet it is being promoted as justification for the masses who are marching off to see The Passion . It's strange how when Osama bin Laden promotes murder as a means to enhance spirituality, he is reviled for it. But when Christians rally at the multiplex to relive Christ's killing, they pat themselves on the back for having lived their faith.



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Bacchus
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posted 12 March 2004 11:08 PM      Profile for Bacchus     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
How about an IMAX movie about the Holocaust, in which we can fully engage with the atrocities committed in the Nazi death camps and gas chambers? How about biopics on Jeffrey Dahmer or John Wayne Gacy, in which every one of their victims are violated, murdered and consumed before our greedy eyeballs? Perhaps only by witnessing evil acts in the most intense way possible can we fully understand the pain of victims.


Schindlers List


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redshift
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posted 13 March 2004 01:35 AM      Profile for redshift     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
if all the dialogue is aramaic and subtitled, given the degree of illiteracy among the audience most likely to go to see the violence, what message is being delivered?
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bittersweet
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posted 13 March 2004 01:54 AM      Profile for bittersweet     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Speaking of "the degree of illiteracy," I have really had enough of the bald prejudice in reaction to The Passion of the Christ.

Peter Howell, whoever he is, hasn't thought it through (and that’s a very large understatement). His typing is typical of what passes for film criticism these days. Christ was a God who went willingly to a torturous death as a sacrifice on behalf of all humankind. The Crucifixion, the Passion, these were acts, scenes, from one of the central myths in human history, of which the Christian version is a relatively late vestige.

Gacy, Dahmer, the Nazis—they were simply murderers, and there can be no catharsis from watching their atrocities, only horror.

Those familiar with Joseph Campbell's PBS series will recall how the reincarnation myth has not only been preserved metaphorically through the ages, but is also sometimes literally acted out and witnessed for its cathartic value in society. The emphasis, the entire point, has always been to witness the Hero dying in order to be reborn again. And the more direct the experience, the more cathartic. I can never forget Campbell’s recounting of the male tribal societies of New Guinea, in which the rituals of death, cannibalism, and reincarnation were deliberately played out. In which, one after the other, six young men have their first sexual experience, publicly, with a young woman, under a great roof supported by enormous beams. The timbers are let go, crushing the last boy and the girl as they embrace. They are then roasted and eaten on the spot. So the myth is fulfilled right there, before the tribe: the union of sex and death and of the male and female, and the reincarnation of the body into Spirit. That, according to Campbell, is essentially the sacrifice of the Mass. You “eat” the body and blood of Christ, and He then works within you. From the sacrificed body comes the food of the Spirit.

And I believe it.

But there is also the Jesuits’ horrified, indignant recounting of the sight of an Iroquois warrior, who, destined to be tortured to death over several days by his Huron captors, is paraded toward his destiny as if it’s his wedding day—like a virtual God. He willingly participates, reveling in his exalted position. Then the priests torture him to death, and he does his best to smile all the way through the ordeal. Because he’s going to become immortal.

And there was the Mayan hoop game, in which each team fought to win the right to be gloriously slaughtered. Again, literally as Gods.

It’s understandable that some Christians would find The Passion a cathartic experience, taking them deeper into their faith. It isn’t hypocritical for them to
“wring their hands over Kill Bill or assail the realistic mayhem of video games,” because those examples use violence for titillation and nothing more. They debase our society, and are reflections of that debasement. The criticisms are completely warranted. Watching a revered myth unfold before one’s eyes—now that is an utterly different thing. Would that I could have the same experience, but I am too trapped within the Church of Reason. More power to them! The reason they find “no contradiction in endorsing a movie where the beat goes on right up to and past the point of a man's horrific death,” is because (duh) Christ was not just a man, and for them, the Passion is certainly not about titillation (the “pornography” Mr. Denby refers to). In fact, it can only be seen as titillation when one is so habituated to titillation that it is no longer possible to accept that spiritual catharsis even exists as a distinct experience. Despite what New Agers and “reasonable” folk like to think, spiritual experiences are often ugly, painful, and dark. The capacity to appreciate, to empathize with, spiritual experience has been so blunted that too many of us now find it difficult to distinguish between the Passion of Jesus Christ and Uma Thurman’s stylized karate chops in Kill Bill. That is the tell-tale symptom of an impoverished mind.

If we don’t want to see extreme violence, we have a good reason not to attend the movie. But our aversion to that violence is not a good reason to shame people for experiencing genuine spiritual catharsis from it. The ignorance, the hypocrisy, is in comparing the sacrifice of the Christian God to the lurid murders of serial killers and the atrocities of Nazi death-camps. That is the “absurd” argument, the truly offensive, ignorant, and shameful hypocrisy.


From: land of the midnight lotus | Registered: Apr 2002  |  IP: Logged
Jingles
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posted 13 March 2004 02:21 AM      Profile for Jingles     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Speaking of Schindler's list, this "Passion" reminds me of the episode of Seinfeld where Jerry makes out with his girlfriend during the movie. Everyone is appauled that he missed the whole cathartic experience. He is vilified for it.

Now, how would one of these Good Christians, having been told by their preacher over and over again how powerful and spiritual this dumb-ass Gibson masturbation fest is, only to find it disgusting with little or nothing to do with the message of the Christ, other than an excuse for a snuff film. What will that person say to their other Christian friends and preacher? Is he/she gonna say "I thought it sucked?", or are they gonna say "Oh, I felt the holy spirit with me as I ate my popcorn."?


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Michelle
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posted 13 March 2004 07:11 AM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by redshift:
if all the dialogue is aramaic and subtitled, given the degree of illiteracy among the audience most likely to go to see the violence, what message is being delivered?

I don't understand. Are you saying that Christians are more likely to be illiterate than other people? I would be interested in seeing some stats on that.


From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Cueball
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posted 13 March 2004 07:20 AM      Profile for Cueball   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Gacy, Dahmer, the Nazis—they were simply murderers, and there can be no catharsis from watching their atrocities, only horror.

Sorry, the truth of the holocaust, and the various atrocities of the twentieth century are far more real and relvant to me than the Christian version of the death of christ. Even within that myth, it is gods hand that deals out the cards, Hitler, Dhamer, Gacy were all people. I can affect and change people, not god.

And it is not a central myth in human history, it is a central myth in Christian history.

[ 13 March 2004: Message edited by: Cueball ]


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nonsuch
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posted 13 March 2004 09:24 AM      Profile for nonsuch     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Bittersweet just did a fine job of explaining how ritual death and resurrection is the) central myth of all human history.
(How sacrifice came to be central to religion is another question: it may very well stem from the same part of human nature as the acts of serial killers.)

The Passion play is hardly a new idea! Nevertheless, i have a problem with this - or any movie version. It's not live. The screen, the movie theater, the comfortable seats, the subtitles put the action on the other side of an impenetrable wall from a passive audience. The whole point of a religious experience is not realism, but ritual participation. Without that, it's just another entertainment.


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redshift
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posted 13 March 2004 11:52 AM      Profile for redshift     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
no michelle , my 17 year old son works in the theatre here. his take was that a lot of the people who would go for the violence were the young people and a lot of them wouldn't be able to read the subtitles.
my son , by the way is an honour roll straight a student and he called it "Freddie does Christ"

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bittersweet
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posted 13 March 2004 02:40 PM      Profile for bittersweet     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
nonesuch wrote: The whole point of a religious experience is not realism, but ritual participation. Without that, it's just another entertainment.
I agree with you that ritual participation is necessary. However, cinema does have more potential than to merely express titillating realism. In the hands of masters, cinema is not necessarily a passive experience. In addition, because there is a ritual involved in attending the movies (an experience which has its roots in the spiritual experience of confronting cave paintings), and because this film, for some Christians, is being attended in a consciously ritual manner, it may be that you underestimate its cathartic potential for that particular group.

Compare the reception of The Passion to that of Monster. Critics have fallen all over themselves to praise the latter and malign the former -- with the predictable exception of Armond White, iconoclastic critic for the New York Press:

quote:
The title Monster is as duplicitous as a femme fatale; we’re meant to be both titillated and aghast. That’s part of Jenkins-Theron’s entertainment ritual, linking Wuornos’ rampage to the slasher movie syndrome. (Imagine being asked to share Hannibal Lecter’s warped sense of righteousness.) Instead of probing a murderess’ psychosis, these filmmakers pretend gritty realism–the stylistic refuge of scoundrels.

Monster is revered, despite its graphic horrors, and despite the fact that its cathartic potential is ideological, and therefore superficial. Whereas, though some Christians claim spiritual catharsis after attending The Passion, their experience is dismissed, ridiculed, as stemming from mere titillation. This is the hypocrisy.

Regarding participation vs. passivity in the movies, consider these comments made by Walter Murch in Michael Ondaatje's recent book The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film:

quote:
But if a film can provoke an audience's participation -- if the film gives a certain amount of information but requires the audience to complete the ideas, then it engages each member of the audience as a creative participant in the work. How each moment gets completed depends on each individual person. So the film, although it's materially the same series of images and sounds, should, ideally, provoke slightly different reactions from each person who sees it. Even though it's a mass medium, it's those individual reactions that make each person feel the film is speaking to him or her. The fantastic thing about the process is that they actually see their own version on the screen... It's a kind of mass intimacy. A paradoxical state, because you're in a group and benefiting in some strange way from the group experience -- yet if the film is any good, you also feel that it's speaking directly to you. Even though it's touching all these other people as well. The ambiguity comes from the fact that it's flowing like a river. You don't have a chance to say (wait a minute)...

The first step in the cinematic state of mind...is the urge to leave the familiar surroundings of the house and be drawn outside to a particular film. You are in some way dissatisfied with where you are. You need to get out, to be part of something larger than yourself, yet you're drawn to this particular film in the hope that it will speak to you directly. So again it's this same paradox: Film is a mass medium --you go to the cinema because of the massness of it -- but you feel good only if the film speaks intimately to you. Whereas video is something you've brought into your house. It's there at and for your pleasure.


What I find interesting, is that while I am usually of the "less-is-more" school of filmmaking, successfull staging of The Passion may be an exception to that philosophy, because the details must all be seen in order for each member of the audience to have the sense that he or she experienced exactly what the others did. In other words, to participate in a ritual manner.

[ 13 March 2004: Message edited by: bittersweet ]


From: land of the midnight lotus | Registered: Apr 2002  |  IP: Logged
nonsuch
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posted 13 March 2004 05:32 PM      Profile for nonsuch     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I'm still skeptical, but will suspend judgment - permanently, since this is not a film i have any reason to attend.
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paxamillion
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posted 13 March 2004 08:34 PM      Profile for paxamillion   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
(Why don't they make a happy movie that resonates with my childhood protestantism full of spring flowers and Christ rising from the dead. A light hearted comedy or something that conveys those aspects of human nature that we think are saintly and good?)

A seminary professor friend of ours says that the film is based strongly on the visions of five Catholic mystics -- moreso, in places, than the Gospels.

I wonder about any film that focuses on Jesus' death without telling the story of his rising from the dead. It seems imbalanced.


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jeff house
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posted 13 March 2004 11:34 PM      Profile for jeff house     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I won't go to see any snuff film, including this one.

The flailing of Christ was a big topic in the Catholic Middle ages; there were cults which moved from town to town, whipping themselves to show their degradation as well as their complicity in Christ's death. (It was because they were born in sin, see?)

And almost anything Joseph Campbell ever said was highly doubtful, like the supposed practices outlined above (but not confirmed by anthropologists.)

Campbell would be a prime candidate for an essay like Susan Sonntag's on Leni Riefenstahl. I am not aware of one, but the raw material is there.


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nonsuch
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posted 14 March 2004 12:50 AM      Profile for nonsuch     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
And almost anything Joseph Campbell ever said was highly doubtful, like the supposed practices outlined above (but not confirmed by anthropologists.)

Whoa! Are you saying that sacrifice has not played a major part in ancient religions? Like, it was all just stories, and nobody really got killed?

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Albireo
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posted 14 March 2004 03:10 AM      Profile for Albireo     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
From McQuaig's column:
quote:
A flattering cover story in People magazine last week recounted lightning striking during the filming and asked, "Does Gibson have God on his side?"
A more appropriate question might have been "Why is God so inaccurate?"

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al-Qa'bong
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posted 14 March 2004 12:38 PM      Profile for al-Qa'bong   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
A priest and a parishoner went golfing one afternoon...
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Mycroft_
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posted 14 March 2004 12:51 PM      Profile for Mycroft_     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Did anyone see Saturday Night Live last night? The Robert Smigel cartoon "The Passion of the Dumpty" was absolutely hilarious.

It intercut parts of Gibson's 20/20 interview with an incredibly graphic cartoon of humpty dumpty falling off the wall and the gruesome aftermath as the crowd taunted poor Humpty Dumpty, and bits of brain and egg yolk splattered everywhere.

It ended with a clip Gibson's Porky Pig impression from one of the Lethal Gun movies (that's all folks) superimposed over the actual Looney Toons ending.

Plus there were two "commercials" interrupting the "movie" both made up of the audio from the actual Bush "strong leadership in uncertain times" commercial except that instead of shots of 9/11 etc you saw shuts of men kissing each other, Arnie being sworn in as Governor and Martha Stewart.

It was the most biting piece of satire I've ever seen on US network television. I just couldn't stop laughing.

[ 14 March 2004: Message edited by: Mycroft ]


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beluga2
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posted 14 March 2004 04:42 PM      Profile for beluga2     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
They're in a tizzy of outrage about that SNL skit over on FreeRepublic, so I'm sorry I missed it.

For my part, I think they should have retired the category of "Jesus movie" after The Life of Brian.


From: vancouvergrad, BCSSR | Registered: Mar 2003  |  IP: Logged
Michelle
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posted 14 March 2004 04:45 PM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Oh man, that sounds hilarious! I stopped watching SNL years ago since the entertaining skits have become few and far between, but actually, a couple of months ago I caught an episode that was actually not too bad. Don't tell me they're getting good again!

I'd have loved to see that skit.


From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
wei-chi
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posted 14 March 2004 05:03 PM      Profile for wei-chi   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
How about the Last Temptation of Christ?
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jeff house
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posted 14 March 2004 05:51 PM      Profile for jeff house     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Are you saying that sacrifice has not played a major part in ancient religions? Like, it was all just stories, and nobody really got killed

Joseph Campbell, a student of Jung, and later an acolyte, bought in to the Jungian theology.

The idea that "ancient religions" were particularly savage, is part of the Jungian programme. Much of it was based on mediocre historical theorizing from the late 1890's, and has been superceded.

You no doubt know that "myth" was part of the National Socialist programme for overcoming critical reasoning. Supposedly, since all historic values had been overcome and transvalued by Nietzsche, only myth could give rise to a standard of conduct. Thus, people like Campbell scoured myth to find standards of conduct.

The idea that "ancient religions" have anything to do with IndoAmerican religions, as cited by Bittersweet, above, is an artefact of this. We know IndoAmerican religions from the mid-1500's.
Yet somehow they are "ancient" and "primitive".

Whenever you have to argue that your opponents are "imprisoned in reason", as Bittersweet does, you are simply claiming that rules of evidence do not apply to your assertions.

Only on that basis can Campbell's claims be accepted.


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Mycroft_
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posted 14 March 2004 06:38 PM      Profile for Mycroft_     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Michelle:
Oh man, that sounds hilarious! I stopped watching SNL years ago since the entertaining skits have become few and far between, but actually, a couple of months ago I caught an episode that was actually not too bad. Don't tell me they're getting good again!

I'd have loved to see that skit.


It wasn't a skit, it was a cartoon. The only things worth watching on SNL these days is the Robert Smigel cartoon and Weekend Update.


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bittersweet
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posted 14 March 2004 08:25 PM      Profile for bittersweet     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Whenever you have to argue that your opponents are "imprisoned in reason", as Bittersweet does, you are simply claiming that rules of evidence do not apply to your assertions.
Evidently, reason is a convenience for you, Jeff House – you value it less than you think. You quote nonesuch’s question, but avoid answering it. Instead, you rumour that a certain staw man has been “superceded” -- that is, the erroneous 1890’s/Nietzschean/Jungian idea that "’ancient religions" were particularly savage.” Actually, in Campbell’s work, there are hundreds of references to benign, even inspiring, ancient religious conduct, taken from everywhere in the world. The man actually had independent thoughts in his head, and one of them was to learn Sanskrit.

And for my part, I did not use the word "ancient" in my post on the matter.

Further, there is, obviously, a difference between religion and ritual-within-religion. The Jesuits’ first-hand observations are not theory, and they are relevant to a discussion about the central myth of sacrifice. But you don’t address that directly. Instead, you point out that since our knowledge of Indo-American religion dates from the 1500’s, and that therefore we can’t presume to link it to ancient religion—which has been erroneously described as savage, etc., then...then what? If Campbell had alleged that this incident was 1) ancient, and 2) proof that ancient Indo-American religion (as if there was just one religion) was savage, then you would have a reasonable objection. But again, a straw man.

But your most unreasonable, and most convenient, tactic is to invoke the Nazis (twice, with Riefenstahl), thus bluntly tarring Jung, Campbell, and me, with that inexhaustible brush of dark innuendo. Perhaps unconsciously, but no less conveniently, there is more innuendo in the repetition of an ominous, conspiratiorial word describing both the “Jungian programme,” and the “National Socialist programme.” Links can be made poetically, too, as any reasonable person will admit. Well, it can't get any clearer: an irrational fear that those who see value in myth are liable to go down the rabbit hole of anti-intellectualism, unlike the voices of true reason, who merely use it to justify prejudice.


From: land of the midnight lotus | Registered: Apr 2002  |  IP: Logged
CMOT Dibbler
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posted 14 March 2004 09:08 PM      Profile for CMOT Dibbler     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
But Jeff, the Indo American cultures definaty have a darkside. You can't insist that they were perfect.
From: Just outside Fernie, British Columbia | Registered: May 2003  |  IP: Logged
Michelle
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posted 14 March 2004 09:14 PM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I missed the part where Jeff insisted that.
From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
CMOT Dibbler
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posted 14 March 2004 09:30 PM      Profile for CMOT Dibbler     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
shit! I'm sorry. Maybe he could expand on his remarks? What did this campbell guy lie about exactly? Was there human sacrifice in the Americas?

[ 14 March 2004: Message edited by: CMOT Dibbler ]


From: Just outside Fernie, British Columbia | Registered: May 2003  |  IP: Logged
Bacchus
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posted 14 March 2004 10:42 PM      Profile for Bacchus     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Uh Human sacrifice was a given in the Americas, wther it was one of your own tribe or a captured enemy. I dont think anyone disputes that here at all
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nonsuch
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posted 15 March 2004 12:52 AM      Profile for nonsuch     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Here was the problem:

quote:
Originally posted by jeff house:
And almost anything Joseph Campbell ever said was highly doubtful, like the supposed practices outlined above (but not confirmed by anthropologists.)

The implication seems to be that, since Joseph Campbell is discredited, the sacrificial hero is not a central figure in religion, as bittersweet and i had assumed.

The word 'ancient' was used by me, to differentiate organic religion - of any continent - from the modern a-la-carte Disney version.
Christianity is more like a son-of-an-ancient religion, but i'm inclined to include it. I did assume that the Amerind civilizations existed and practiced their religions for some time before Europeans became aware of them. We can call them middle-aged, if you prefer.

Anyway, there is quite a lot of mythology, from various ages and cultures, around resurrected young gods and certainly around both human and animal sacrifice. There are plenty of legends and songs and stories about heroes who give their lives for their comerades and their country.

I didn't say they were 'savage' or 'primitive'.

It would surprise - nay, astonish and amaze - me to learn that these stories are untrue, given the present bahaviour of humans. If people used to less violent, why did they make up those stories? More perplexingly, how and when did we become violent?

[ 15 March 2004: Message edited by: nonesuch ]


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N.R.KISSED
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posted 15 March 2004 11:23 AM      Profile for N.R.KISSED     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I would agree that there is a common themes of sacrafice, suffering and redemption in myth, however, i think bittersweet in his defence of the Passion fails to make any distinction between myth and metaphor, literalism and reality.

quote:
Christ was a God who went willingly to a torturous death as a sacrifice on behalf of all humankind.

Not all christians believe this, this represents a fundamentalist, literlist comic book interpretation of scriptures. Only the literalists take Jesus to be the actual physcial son of some guy sitting around on a throne in a clouds. It is my understanding that in the scripture Jesus never actually even makes a claim to be the son of God it is others who address him as such. Even so what the son of god means is not to be taken so literally. If you do follow the literalist root it leads to all manner of difficulty. It also removes a great deal of metaphorical spirital power out of the whole crucifiction story.

For example if Jesus were GOD meaning ominimpotent omnicient, fully aware of the infinite his suffering or sacrafice would not carry much power or relevance. It obviously be exceedingly painful at the time but if you KNOW you would be going on to everlasting life, if you know the entirety of the divine plan it would not exactly be the same. I mean mere humans have suffered ans sacraficed. as much or more without the certainty a GOD would possess.

Another thing I don't understand is the literalists insisting that the Passion is important because we need to know how much Jesus sacraficed and suffered. This seems to reduce again the entire actions of Jesus to some sort of divine bribe;we somehow "owe" Jesus because he went though so much and the passion then becomes some sort of priveval blood debt.

I believe there is great power in the telling of the passion however the literist view of which Gibson monster is an example is a gross and obscene charicture.

As far as pornography from what I've seen and heard I've drawn two conclusions.

1) It's treatment of the scourging of Christ in itself is obscene voyuerism. The sciptures do not go into gory protracted detail of all of Christ's wounds and afflictions probably because they are not really relevant to the story. We are meant to identify with his suffering not turn away in revulsion or passively pity him. To revel in this portrayal is to indulge in literalist orgy of revulsion , self loathing and guilt.

Secondly I would say the film is pornographic much in the way Schindlers list was descrived as emotional pornography. The passion could be referred to as spiritual pornography. It is pornographic in the sense that there is a stimulus response reaction to the material. The film maker just rings the appropriate bells to elicit the pre-desired emotional or spiritual response, there is no complexity there is no ambiguity, there is no attempt to reach a greater or more complete understanding or meaning of what is presented, you respond as expected.

As far as catharis, I think the nature of catharis is frequently misunderstood. Catharis the emotional response by itself is meaningless, especially if this response is classically conditioned. Catharis in both drama, literature, spirituality or psychology needs both context and the emotional response needs to be integrated into broader experience and meaning. I would doubt this is what is happening in movie theatres.


From: Republic of Parkdale | Registered: Aug 2001  |  IP: Logged
Michelle
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posted 15 March 2004 11:32 AM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Not all christians believe this, this represents a fundamentalist, literlist comic book interpretation of scriptures. Only the literalists take Jesus to be the actual physcial son of some guy sitting around on a throne in a clouds.

This comic book interpretation is what the vast majority of Christians, and almost all mainline Christian denominations believe - that Jesus Christ is the physical son of God. Even the most "liberal" mainstream Christian denominations, such as Anglicans, United, Lutheran, etc., believe in the Word made flesh. It's a core belief of Christianity.

It's true that there are some religious philosophers from mainline faiths that explore whether Christ is metaphor, etc. But I think they are in the vast minority. And very contentious within their denominations.

[ 15 March 2004: Message edited by: Michelle ]


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skdadl
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posted 15 March 2004 11:38 AM      Profile for skdadl     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I am certain that members of the United Church of Canada do NOT believe that "the Word made flesh" equates to "the actual physical son of some guy sitting around on a throne in a clouds," and I would seriously doubt that there are many Anglicans, Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, etc, who do either.
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paxamillion
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posted 15 March 2004 11:43 AM      Profile for paxamillion   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by skdadl:
I am certain that members of the United Church of Canada do NOT believe that "the Word made flesh" equates to "the actual physical son of some guy sitting around on a throne in a clouds," and I would seriously doubt that there are many Anglicans, Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans, etc, who do either.

I'd not be risking any money on a statement like this, skdadl. The United church has its more evangelical congregations, as do the Lutherans, Anglicans and Presbyterians. Having a look at the creeds of confession of thes denominations might be a bit of an surprise.


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Michelle
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posted 15 March 2004 11:45 AM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Well, okay, obviously not "some guy sitting around on clouds". I took that as an exaggeration of an idea of God.

But it IS a general interpretation of observant Christians (I'm not just talking nominal ones who sometimes feel spiritual every once in a while and identify in some vague familial way with one denomination or another) that Christ is the physical son of God. Obviously most Christians don't visualize God as some guy sitting on a cloud somewhere. I think probably a common idea of God is as an intangible yet everpresent spirit or something like that.

But if you're trying to tell me that the majority of people in mainstream Christian churches do not believe that Jesus Christ was the physical son of God, then I think you're mistaken. Some of those churches may be more tolerant of renegade points of view from liberal theologians affiliated with their denominations, but the main teaching of these churches to their adherents is that Jesus was (and is) God, begotten from the Father.


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Hinterland
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posted 15 March 2004 11:48 AM      Profile for Hinterland        Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I think there's a big disconnect between what people say they believe, or what they think they are expected to say they believe, and what they in fact DO believe. I know that in my experience as a Catholic, it saved you a hell of a lot of time and grief to just agree that yes, the Trinity does have explanatory value, the drinking of the blood and the eating of the body makes perfect sense and well...Transubstantiation? Sure, why not?
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Michelle
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posted 15 March 2004 11:52 AM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
From the Nicene Creed, which is included in many mainstream church hymnals or prayer books including the Anglican church:

quote:
We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made.


From the Apostles' Creed, which is included in many protestant church hymnals and prayer books:

quote:
I believe in God, the Father Almighty,
the Creator of heaven and earth,
and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord:

Who was conceived of the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried.


Apparently these two creeds are also accepted by the United Church of Canada as sound doctrine.

Also, from the United Church's Statement of Faith:

quote:
We believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of the Father, Who, for us men and our salvation became man and dwelt among us.

We believe that He lived a perfect human life, wholly devoted to the will of God and the service of man.

We believe that in Him God comes face to face with men; so that they learn that God loves them seeks their good, bears their sorrows and their sin, and claims their exclusive faith and perfect obedience.

We believe that in Jesus Christ God acted to save man, taking, at measureless cost, man's sin upon Himself; that the Cross reveals at once God's abhorrence of sin and His saving love in its height and depth and power; and that the Cross is for all time the effectual means of reconciling the world unto God.

We believe that Jesus was raised victorious over death and declared to be the Son of God with power; and that He is alive for evermore, our Savior and our Lord.

So we acknowledge Jesus Christ as the Son of God Incarnate, the Savior of the world.


[ 15 March 2004: Message edited by: Michelle ]


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skdadl
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posted 15 March 2004 12:16 PM      Profile for skdadl     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
And your point is?

Michelle, books have been written on no more than the expression "the Word made flesh."

People read in different ways. Explaining in convincing detail how we got to where we are spiritually is (I think, anyway) beyond what can be expected of any babbler here for a casual discussion. I very much admire the people who have taken on that task thoughtfully above, but it is beyond my reserves of strength at the moment.


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Michelle
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posted 15 March 2004 12:22 PM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
And do you think the average Christian, who hasn't taken comparative religion in university, has read a bunch of theological tomes on the myriad possible meanings of The Word Made Flesh? I highly doubt it.

I think if you went into an Anglican or United church some Sunday and took a poll and asked them whether Jesus Christ is the son of God incarnate, you'd probably get mostly yesses. I know there are lots of religious theological scholars who have written books that say otherwise. I'm saying that the general interpretation for laypeople and non-religious scholars is that Christ was begotten by the father, God made flesh.


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paxamillion
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posted 15 March 2004 12:27 PM      Profile for paxamillion   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by skdadl:
And your point is?

I'd say the point is that you made a generalization about the UCC which Michelle has now presented as contradictory to that church's doctrine.

[ 15 March 2004: Message edited by: paxamillion ]


From: the process of recovery | Registered: Jul 2002  |  IP: Logged
N.R.KISSED
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posted 15 March 2004 12:32 PM      Profile for N.R.KISSED     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I am sure there are literalist, conservative, fundamentalists in all denominations and they probably are a significant majority. However I also belief there are plenty of ways to interpret "SON OF GOD" .

quote:
It's true that there are some religious philosophers from mainline faiths that explore whether Christ is metaphor, etc. But I think they are in the vast minority. And very contentious within their denominations.

I also don't think it is only treating Christ as a metaphor. I think it is possible to view the divine manifest physically in a number of ways, above and beyond Cloud dwelling sky God magically impregnating Mary. There also the view that all the only way to express the ineffable nature of spiritual matters is through allegory, metaphor and symbollism.
I believe distincition can also be made by those who view the divine as some external supernatural force or as something internal and inherent in all people and indeed things.

I also think it is necessary to be highly suspicious of official church doctrine from any denomination.


From: Republic of Parkdale | Registered: Aug 2001  |  IP: Logged
Michelle
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posted 15 March 2004 12:35 PM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Just to be clear, I'm not saying that skdadl is wrong about there being lots of ways to interpret "word made flesh". I'd probably be more along the "metaphor" lines myself, if I believed any of it at all anymore. All I was saying is that the majority of adherents to the Christian faiths mentioned, as well as the official doctrines of those faiths, decided upon by the adherents, see Jesus as God incarnate, begotten from God himself.

quote:
I also think it is necessary to be highly suspicious of official church doctrine from any denomination.

You'll have no argument from me on that. All my original post was saying is that the vast majority of observant Christians believe in the official church doctrine when it comes to Christ being begotten in the flesh from God. I'm not saying there aren't some Christians who disagree, or that their interpretations are wrong. Just that they're in the vast minority.

P.S. It is not just literalist, conservative Christians within the denominations that believe Jesus was God incarnate, begotten by the spirit. That was also my point, which I didn't make clearly. Even among many of the people who apply very liberal interpretations to "objectionable" sexist or homophobic passages from the Bible, the belief in Christ as God incarnate is a core belief. That particular one doesn't have a lot to do with conservative and liberal factions in the church, at least in my experience. I have experienced everything from the most left-wing Christians you ever want to meet, real social justice activists, to the most bigoted right-wing nutjobs you NEVER want to meet. And while they disagree on many interpretations of certain passages, the one thing they have in common is that most of them believe Jesus was God incarnate, and begotten from the spirit. Wholly human and wholly divine, etc. This isn't to say everyone believes it, but I wouldn't say that the belief is split along political lines the way some other doctrinal debates are.

[ 15 March 2004: Message edited by: Michelle ]


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nonsuch
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posted 15 March 2004 01:34 PM      Profile for nonsuch     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Christ was a God who went willingly to a torturous death as a sacrifice on behalf of all humankind.

Without this, there is no point to Christianity. Maybe Jesus never existed at all, or maybe his real story is no more than a routine case of sedition - like thousands of political prisoners all over the world, right this minute.
Explain it away; treat it as a myth; turn it into metaphor... and you have nothing left to base a religion on. A nice community that goes to church and helps out the poor, possibly, but not a soul-deep faith.

I go along with the supposition that most registered Christians (including fundamentalists)don't really believe. That most never did. For proof, look to their actions, not their preachments.
I also understand why, in these enlightened times, we'd want to distance ourselves from blood-and-gut religion. Sanitize it, civilize it, intellectualize it - or reject it altogether.
But our past and our nature won't go away.

As for the movie, i still think that joining in a rowdy parade with costumes, dancing and big papier-mache figures does more to engage the spirit.


From: coming and going | Registered: Sep 2001  |  IP: Logged
N.R.KISSED
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posted 15 March 2004 01:35 PM      Profile for N.R.KISSED     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
the one thing they have in common is that most of them believe Jesus was God incarnate, and begotten from the spirit.

I'm not sure if I'm being unclear or just pedantic but the point I am making is that two people could endorse this statement but still have radically different beliefs about the meaning.

Language by it's nature is symbollic, allegorical etc. So as Skdadl says "word made flesh" or "begotten from the spirit" can mean different things. Perhaps the majority of church goers do not contemplate this complexity of potential meaning(or perhaps they do) and I would suggest this is probably the result of the way the official doctrines seek to control peoples spirituality.

One of my main points I guess I was making was that Gibson and perhaps bittersweet are at one end of a spectrum,that stresses what I believe to be a stilted literalism.(literalism itself being a paradox.) I also think that this form of literalism makes the telling of the passion more mundane and inconsequential and denies potential spiritual richness and increased understanding of or own struggle as humans. If one believes Jesus to be an ominipotent and omnicient and omnipresent being "posing as mortal" sort of renders all of his actions somewhat pointless.


From: Republic of Parkdale | Registered: Aug 2001  |  IP: Logged
N.R.KISSED
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posted 15 March 2004 01:54 PM      Profile for N.R.KISSED     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Without this, there is no point to Christianity. Maybe Jesus never existed at all, or maybe his real story is no more than a routine case of sedition - like thousands of political prisoners all over the world, right this minute.
Explain it away; treat it as a myth; turn it into metaphor... and you have nothing left to base a religion on. A nice community that goes to church and helps out the poor, possibly, but not a soul-deep faith.

I also think there is no point if you look at the Christ story as putting an immortal to death, it is somewhat absurd.

Further I would argue that the point of Christianity would be to follow Christ's teaching' otherwise your left with nothing other than a patriachal death cult.

Buddhism is based on the teachings of Buddha and also involves a myriad of interpretations although I know often practicioners do not view it as a religion. Buddhist are definetly capable of making a deep connection to the "soul" or "devine"

quote:
As for the movie, i still think that joining in a rowdy parade with costumes, dancing and big papier-mache figures does more to engage the spirit.

I fully agree with you there, I also think the movie does more to numb the spirit than to engage it.

[ 15 March 2004: Message edited by: N.R.KISSED ]


From: Republic of Parkdale | Registered: Aug 2001  |  IP: Logged
Mush
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posted 15 March 2004 02:18 PM      Profile for Mush     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by Bacchus:

Schindlers List


Hey! I passed on this movie too, but was made to feel flaky for it at the time (oh....so often). I thought that there was no need for some studio to make millions from the Holocaust. Nice to see that at least someone might agree.

I'm not a Christian, but I find the whole having a PERSONAL relationship with Christ thing that is so often touted as the bedrock of the religion by evangelicals to be a little weird. Whatever gets you through the night, I guess.

[edited for tone].

[ 15 March 2004: Message edited by: Mush ]


From: Mrs. Fabro's Tiny Town | Registered: Mar 2003  |  IP: Logged
bittersweet
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posted 15 March 2004 03:29 PM      Profile for bittersweet     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
One of my main points I guess I was making was that Gibson and perhaps bittersweet are at one end of a spectrum, that stresses what I believe to be a stilted literalism... I also think that this form of literalism makes the telling of the passion more mundane and inconsequential and denies potential spiritual richness and increased understanding of or own struggle as humans.
I’ve expressed nothing that could be associated with a “stilted literalism.” I made it plain that I am incapable of sharing the catharsis that some Christians (like Gibson) claim to experience from the Passion Play, because I am “trapped within the Church of Reason.” The one and only point I wished to get across, mainly in response to the Howell review, is that to deny and denigrate religious experience—in particular, that provoked by Gibson’s movie—is prejudice. To believe that literalism “makes the telling of the passion more mundane and inconsequential and denies potential spiritual richness and increased understanding of or own struggle as humans,” is a perfectly legitimate opinion for a person to have. But, of course, the fact that a person holds this to be true for himself does not make it grounds to throw doubt on the contrary experience of others. Boinker prefers the Protestant “spring flowers” kind of Passion, and N.R.Kissed “believe(s) there is great power in the telling of the passion,” just not the literalist kind, from which follows his conclusion that Gibson’s film “does more to numb the spirit than to engage it.” And, speaking of literalism, Jeff House believes
The Passion is a “snuff film.” All of these are legitimate opinions, yet none of them offer any reason to argue that they are morally, intellectually, or spiritually superior. I suspect that, like all prejudices, this one is provoked by fear. If I wasn’t aware that Reason itself has become like a religion in its exclusionary world-view, then I would be surprised to find that reasonable people are not so keen to look at this intolerance. But, like N.R.Kissed, “I also think it is necessary to be highly suspicious of official church doctrine from any denomination.”

From: land of the midnight lotus | Registered: Apr 2002  |  IP: Logged
skdadl
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posted 15 March 2004 04:22 PM      Profile for skdadl     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
bittersweet, fwiw, I also was surprised to see N.R.Kissed, with whom I am otherwise in considerable agreement, list you among the literalists there. I thought that your first long post especially depended so obviously on a historical reading of modes of thought and form, which rather precludes literalism, at least in my mind.

I know and care little about Joseph Campbell, but I know fairly well guys like Aristotle (Poetics), Giambattista Vico, and Northrop Frye, and found your posts interesting in the context of that tradition. I was shocked and appalled to see the associations that others made rather flatly about the study of myth and your use of it. Suffice to say that poetics pre-dates Nietzsche -- not that he does not have his own interesting place in the trad. I hope that no one will be intimidated away from reading and meditating on him or any other figure in the history of poetics by banal summaries of his "thought."


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Black Dog
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posted 15 March 2004 05:10 PM      Profile for Black Dog   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Origiannly posted by Jingles- "Oh, I felt the holy spirit with me as I ate my popcorn."

Shit, movies are, like, $12 nowadays. I can barely afford to pay for myself yet alone some freeloading Father, Son and Holy Ghost. I gave up on trying to explain to the dude selling tickets that, while they are three seperate entities, they're also one in the same, so they'll only need one ticket. On the plus side, though, Jesus turned our Daisani to wine and divided my Junior Mints among everyone in the theatre. I just wish people didn't keep yelling "He is risen!" everytime J.C. got up to go to the can.


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Michelle
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posted 15 March 2004 05:17 PM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Haha!
From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
nonsuch
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posted 15 March 2004 05:26 PM      Profile for nonsuch     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
The trouble with Christianity... Oh, the trouble with Christianity! Okay, then, one problem with Christianity is that it's not all of a piece. Transplanted, translated, let out and cut down to to fit so many peoples; meditated upon and written about by so many great - and not so great - scholars; reshaped by powerful men for agendas of their own and by humble peasants to whom The Promised Land itself was a metaphor, rather than the actual real estate conquered, occupied and inhabited by the people whose ancient (organic) religion gave rise to this one.

That god was not always omnipresent etc; he used to be a tribal god, much like his neighbours. All those gods used to demand sacrifice at regular intervals - springtime, mostly. God's personal growth is seen throughout the Old Testament. His struggle with human sacrifice is documented in the Cain and Abel story, and again with Abraham and Isaac.

The significance of a sacrifice is that you offer the god something fine, something you'll miss. The greater the favour you want to ask or sin you want forgiven, the more valuable the gift has to be (the best lamb in your flock; a prize stallion, a youthful warrior, a virgin daughter).
At the time in question, the sins of the people were so grievous that nothing they possessed was good enough, valuable enough, to offer in return for forgiveness. They would have had to be damned - unless God loved them enough to provide a worthy sacrifice. (The logic works under the rules; out of context, it's gobbledegook.)

He's NOT in the details!
If the Jews had accepted this saviour, they would have slit his throat with a consecrated dagger. If convicted of blasphemy, they'd have stoned him.
This was, instead, a routine form of execution favoured by the Romans. Crucifiction had no contemporary religious significance - that was added later, as was the notion of omniscience.
Witnessing the scene vicariously (and from a vantage unavailable to any believer present at the time) seems pointless to me - but may work for some Christians, by a logic that can't be evaluated outside its context.


From: coming and going | Registered: Sep 2001  |  IP: Logged
jeff house
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posted 15 March 2004 08:09 PM      Profile for jeff house     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
But your most unreasonable, and most convenient, tactic is to invoke the Nazis (twice, with Riefenstahl), thus bluntly tarring Jung, Campbell, and me, with that inexhaustible brush of dark innuendo.

Hoo hah. Your original post attempts to impose one way of looking at the Christian
Passion. You wax impatient with those who do not think of it in terms of the Campbell mythology.
You make a comment about people being "imprisoned in reason."

Jung was not "imprisoned in reason". Jung was, rather, an open supporter of the Nazis. His mythological theories were based on evidence he fabricated himself. The myths he made up were generally directed at supporting National Socialist Weltanshauung.

"Myth" in Nazi lore, was a category which was to supplant reason. Jung's myths claimed that there was a stratum of the unconscious which proved that each "volk" had a common unconscious based on myths which each ethnic group shared among its own members.

Campbell was Jung's student, and a close collaborator. He wrote the fawning preface to "The Portable Jung", an easily available paperback uncritically retailing the Leader's ideology. His own Foundation (they all have Foundations) claims that he was influenced, not by Hitler of course, but rather by Schopenhauer's "World as Will and Representation", a favorite Nazi text.

Studying Sanscrit was also par for the course; that was supposedly the origin of "Aryan" civilization.

Campbell's students at Sarah Lawrence, where he taught English literature, claimed he was anti-Semitic. It wouldn't surprise me.


From: toronto | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Michelle
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posted 15 March 2004 08:52 PM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Jeff, according to this reviewer on a biography of Jung, he was anti-semitic, but not a supporter of the Nazis. Apparently,

quote:
Yet, the same year that he categorized Jews in the statement above (1941), he was also referring to Hitler as “sinister” and “infected by the Unconscious”; he also opined that the “Germans were in league with the devil, and had a lust for power which is satanic.” While Jung was certainly no Nazi (and this document offers conclusive proof of that, as do other statements that he made in private seminars given in the late 1930s), he did promulgate many of the ethnic prejudices that both the Nazis and many of the other Europeans then believed in.

Of course, opinions differ and you can take or leave it. It's rather interesting to see the kind of prejudices that he held, though, not just about Jews, but other ethnic groups as well (like the Irish).

This looks like an interesting book on the subject, though. My interest is piqued, since this is a conversation we often had when I was in university, taking existentialism courses with Nietzsche (not a Nazi but often accused of laying the philosophical groundwork for Naziism along with Schopenhauer - and that itself is debatable, of course) and Heidegger (who was a Nazi - card-carrying member if memory serves).

Scroll down to "Philosophy of Fascism" in this link for fun.

I tend to reject the idea that because the Nazis interpreted philosophical and psychological theories to suit their agenda that there is something inherently fascist in the works themselves.


From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
bittersweet
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posted 15 March 2004 08:56 PM      Profile for bittersweet     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Bah hoo hah. Jeff, by that logic, Volkswagens mustn't function because Hitler ordered Porsche to invent them. Bacon's art must be dreck because he was a misanthropist. Again, circumstantial fact and innuendo, amounting to an interesting and cautionary theory, while avoiding the substantial issue raised in my post.
From: land of the midnight lotus | Registered: Apr 2002  |  IP: Logged
flotsom
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posted 15 March 2004 09:10 PM      Profile for flotsom   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Deirdre Bair has authored an exhaustive biography of Jung.


http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?endeca=1&isbn=0316076651&itm=26

quote:
Yet Jung has also been the subject of much dispute and conjecture. Did the respected scientist fake the data that led to his seminal theory of the collective unconscious? Was he an anti-Semite, a Nazi sympathizer and collaborator? Was he a misogynist who conducted polygamous relationships throughout his life? Did Jung really author his well-known autobiography, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, or was it vetted and rewritten after his death?

Drawing on unprecedented access to private archives, restricted interviews, analytic diaries, and early drafts of Jung's own writings, Bair addresses these accusations and separates fact from myth and misconception, revealing surprising discoveries about Jung's personal and professional life. We learn the truth about Jung's role as "Agent 488," working for the U.S. government during World War II; about his relationships with the women in his life; and about the actual content of the papers that purportedly proved his scientific malfeasance. No apologist for her subject, Bair paints an engrossing, objective, and very human portrait of the controversial genius. The result is a groundbreaking, authoritative, and thoroughly readable work that promises to be the source for future discussion and debate about Jung and about his lasting impact on how we think about ourselves and our world.



From The Critics
The New York Times
Bair's stated goal is to rise above the fray and answer the questions most often posed about Jung: Was he an anti-Semite? Was he a womanizer? Was his psychological theory a form of religion? She largely succeeds. Painstakingly fair, she digs up and scrutinizes sources with an admirable, if sometimes exhausting, thoroughness. — Robert S. Boynton



From: the flop | Registered: Jul 2002  |  IP: Logged
jeff house
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posted 15 March 2004 09:31 PM      Profile for jeff house     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Jung has already been outed. The Jung Cult,a book which won the National History prize in the United States as best historical work for the year 1999 makes the Nazi connection very clear.

People interested in the topic might also be interested in Richard Wolin's new book The Seduction of Unreason, which documents the pull of the irrational on segments of the intelligentsia, and the manner in which they, one by one succumbed to Nazism.

He quotes Jung: "The Jewish race as a whole...possesses an unconscious which can be compared with the Aryan unconscious only with reserve...the Aryan unconscious has a higher potential than the Jewish; it has been a grave error in (Freudian) psychology to apply Jewish categories to Aryan and Slavic Christendom".

Wolin says: "Jung's willingness to assume a position of leadership among Nazi psychologists constituted an irredemiable taint, as did his numerous public declarations in favour of German and Italian fascism."

The vast literature of apologia concerning Jung-Campbell is a contributor-simply refuses to face this reality.


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flotsom
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posted 15 March 2004 09:53 PM      Profile for flotsom   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Well, if we're going to play at credentialism, National Book Award winner Deirdre Bair published her 'exhaustive' book in 2003.

I would think that Bair's research (given that she had access to countless documents that Richard Noll did not) would preclude much what he wrote.

Of course there is also the uncomfortable fact that Jung was apparently an agent for the allies during the war.


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Michelle
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posted 15 March 2004 10:04 PM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
*getting out the popcorn*
From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
jeff house
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posted 16 March 2004 12:17 AM      Profile for jeff house     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Jung was a pro-nazi at least until 1939. Deidre Bair's work has been celebrated by the professional members of the Jung Cult, who make their livings by offering access to "archetypes" invented by Jung as a mystical "God within".

The Jungians claim the book is "neutral". Many newspapers, justifiably ignorant of Jung, simply had Jungians do the reviews, with predictable results.

For example:
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/ae/books/reviews/2238173


Bair's book QUOTE: was written with the cooperation of members of the Jung family, who, as beneficiaries of his royalties, have refused access to his papers to authors they deem unfavorably disposed to him. UNQUOTE
.

http://www.iht.com/articles/126611.html

----------------
The idea that Jung was a Western agent during the war cannot be confirmed since the relevant papers remain classified. Of course, if he was a western agent "during the war", then we may simply have to ask what he was doing from the rise of the Nazi movement until the war began, or until the moment in the war when he began to assist the Allies.

We do know that he was the President of the National Psychological Association in 1933, when Hitler took power. He presided over the expulsion of Jews from the profession. (This conformed with his long-standing idea that Semetic peoples did not have the same access to "the God within" as did Aryans, so it was no surprise.)

And we do know that he made various unequivocal statements of support for the New German Awakening.

But, as a citizen of Switzerland, did he ever make a CONTEMPORANEOUS denouncing Nazi crimes?
I have never heard of one. Oh yes, by 1950, the "Jewish quota" within his organization had been eliminated, and by 1952 his anti-Nazi views were clear. But what about 1920-1939?

In fact, his trajectory mirrors the similar ones of other intellectuals, Heidegger and Carl Schmitt. They both started out as enthusiastic supporters of the Nazis, but cooled off as the wars started to look like defeats.

Noll says that Jung disenchanted by 1939. Good for him.

------------

The original claim by Bittersweet, that there is a worldwide archaic practice of sacrifice by a God, and that the crucifixion of Christ must be understood in that respect, is pure Jungian dogma, without empirical underpinnings.

Jung claimed that the sacrifice of the hero-God, or the man-God was a near UNIVERSAL archetype. (Jews did not have such an image within, at least for the first thirty years of Jungianism).

Since he claimed that all humans have a "god within", he counselled his supporters to follow the path into the soul, to die and go to Hell (figuratively of course) and to be reborn!

All this required MANY years of work with Jungian analysts, who had to be paid a fortune to help you follow this path. It was a con game.

[ 16 March 2004: Message edited by: jeff house ]


From: toronto | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
jeff house
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posted 16 March 2004 12:33 AM      Profile for jeff house     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
P.S.

The New York Times review says that, according to Bair, Jung offered to be an agent in 1943!
Yes, that is an embarrassing fact, but not for the reasons earlier posters may believe!

A quick Google shows that Deidre Bair has a relatively close connection with the Jung Institute and Jungian "analytic psychology".

http://www.cgjunghouston.org/bair.htm

Interestingly, although she had access to the Jung Archives in Switzerland, this access is strictly controlled by the Jung foundation. Only sympathetic scholars are allowed in.

Apparently, the Bair biography says that Jung was a Western "agent" AFTER 1942. And what happened in 1942?

quote:
Then came the war. In 1942, Jung was approached by the German authorities and asked to treat Hitler, whose mental disintegration was by now even causing alarm to the Nazis. He refused, and later secretly advised the US government on dealing with the German high command.


Well, I guess the German authorities who wanted treatment for Hitler were just misguided in thinking that Jung was a sympathizer. Or maybe they were right.

[ 16 March 2004: Message edited by: jeff house ]


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nonsuch
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posted 16 March 2004 01:38 AM      Profile for nonsuch     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I'm beginning to sense that jeff house doesn't approve of Jung.
What does this has to do with Jesus?
Was there human sacrifice in any religions, on any continent, before 1500AD? Or not?

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bittersweet
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posted 16 March 2004 02:07 AM      Profile for bittersweet     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
edited for redundancy.

[ 16 March 2004: Message edited by: bittersweet ]


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Michelle
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posted 16 March 2004 07:58 AM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by nonesuch:
I'm beginning to sense that jeff house doesn't approve of Jung.
What does this has to do with Jesus?

What it has to do with is the claim that Joseph Campbell, the scholar who was brought into the conversation to support bittersweet's point of view as expert testimony, is being questioned and discredited due to his closely allied work with Jung. The reason being that Jung said by critics to have pretty much made up his psychological theories about myth out of whole cloth in order to support the popular political ideology of the time - Naziism - and Joseph Campbell apparently was his intellectual descendant.

Seems like a pretty clear progression to me.

[ 16 March 2004: Message edited by: Michelle ]


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jeff house
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posted 16 March 2004 11:12 AM      Profile for jeff house     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Yes, Michelle.

The Noll book speaks of Campbell's interviews with Moyers being the largest injection of Jung's philosophy into the mainstream in many years.

Jungian doctrine concerning sacrifice was injected into this thread with the implication that those who didn't accept that doctrine are somehow fools, "entrapped in reason".

I simply think that people should be aware of the source of this stuff, and the use to which it is then put. Once you start to accept ideas about mythic archetypes floating in the subconscious, access to human history through interpretation of myth, etc., you have few defences against the next claptrap, be it The Guru Rajneesh, Madame Blavasky, or whoever.


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skdadl
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posted 16 March 2004 11:22 AM      Profile for skdadl     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
It is a gross oversimplification to claim that all work on "mythic archetypes" (we're using those terms very loosely here in my view, but I'll go with the flow so's to keep this short) was totally commandeered by Jung or Campbell or the Nazis.

It's also something of a shame that more people are watching an American TV series than are reading a Canadian writer who made one of the C20's greatest contributions to a great and very old discipline.


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jeff house
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posted 16 March 2004 11:28 AM      Profile for jeff house     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
That might be the Jungian writer Robertson Davies, might it not? I am pretty sure he often admitted a Jungian influence.

It is quite true that Jungian thought penetrated many English departments, both in the US and in Canada.

And it can be fun to play with as art; but once you start to claim for it a truth value, perdition is not far away.

PS. A two-second google gets us this:

quote:
"What [Jung] offers from the furnace of his mind is near enough to that Philosopher's Stone sought by his old friends the alchemists to hold us enchanted through unnumbered re-readings."--Robertson Davies, The New York Times Book Review


Ah yes, our old friends the alchemists.

[ 16 March 2004: Message edited by: jeff house ]


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skdadl
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posted 16 March 2004 11:34 AM      Profile for skdadl     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
No, that would be Northrop Frye.

I do not understand why you persist in implying that Jung controlled all C20 thought about myth. Did Frye read Jung? Frye read everybody.

I repeat: Did Aristotle read Jung? Did Vico (C18)? Schiller?


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Puetski Murder
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posted 16 March 2004 12:05 PM      Profile for Puetski Murder     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Robertson Davies' 'The Manticore' was soaked in Jungian analysis, as the main character was unravelling his life for a Jungian analyst.

Like that book.


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Michelle
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posted 16 March 2004 12:08 PM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Originally posted by jeff house:
That might be the Jungian writer Robertson Davies, might it not? I am pretty sure he often admitted a Jungian influence.

Oh, absolutely.

In fact, if I'm not mistaken, an entire novel of his from the Deptford trilogy consisted of a Jungian analysis of the main character, and the relationship that formed between the him and the analyst. World of Wonders, I think it is. And in many of his novels, he has the theme of myth weaving in and out of people's lives.

P.S. Puetski - whoops, was it The Manticore? Same series, wrong book. It's been a long time since I read the series, but I suppose I could have checked my book shelf before posting.

And speaking of alchemy, Davies' book "The Rebel Angels" has that as its subject matter.

[ 16 March 2004: Message edited by: Michelle ]


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jeff house
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posted 16 March 2004 12:12 PM      Profile for jeff house     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I think you misunderstand.

In the 20th century, and in the latter half of the 19th, the idea of myth was used by a number of irrationalist groups to create a standard which denied the efficacy of reason. Not only Jung.

As the irrationalist strand became more and more emphasized, the idea was also emphasized that the prehistory of each nation contained myths which suggested an appropriate manner of behaving in the world, one which would transcend the old ho-hum bourgeois world.

Jung thought that the old myths, such as that of Siegfried, counselled the "heroic" destruction of what Jung called, as a term of abuse, "Zivilization".

The Nazis, in parallel, sought the Aryan sources of Germanic racial might in myth; they wanted to pull down the corrupt Weimar democracy and destroy the "Jewish and Christian" "zivilization" which had created it. Their use of the swastika and of Norse runes were attempts to illustrate this reliance on mythic modes of action.

I have no problem with fantasies about mythical worlds, and I have no problems with analysing literature as myth-related. It IS myth-related!
So, if Northrop Frye analyses the Bible as myth, more kudos to him. But if he suggests that we should tear down our corrupt society and behave like warriors and heroes, count me out.


In the 20th century, myth was a part of the political ideology of most fascist and nazi organizations. This political use of myth was catastrophic.

Then we have the associated ideological use of myth. Take a look, again, at the Jung quote above, about how Jewish soul is less worthy than Germanic or Slavic soul. He is not describing a work of literature; he is making a claim about the intrinsic superiority of the Aryan race.

Someone who writes that can't ever be a voice of authority for me.


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skdadl
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posted 16 March 2004 12:15 PM      Profile for skdadl     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Just to clarify:

jeff house was clearly guessing at what I meant by this reference:

quote:
a Canadian writer who made one of the C20's greatest contributions to a great and very old discipline.

By no stretch of the imagination could such stature be claimed for Robertson Davies. It is pretty generally agreed upon for Frye.


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nonsuch
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posted 16 March 2004 12:18 PM      Profile for nonsuch     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
So the whole Jung-Campbell-Nazi business was set off by this:
quote:
bittersweet:
Would that I could have the same experience, but I am too trapped within the Church of Reason.

The reference is to self, not accusation of others. Bittersweet did use an example from Campbell, and admitted to beliving it. This is not exactly the same as trying to force a Jungian world-view on anyone.
It seems to me that jeff house's response is disproportionate to the stimulus and way too inclusive.
He hasn't said whether we should also toss Bullfinch, Kramer, Johnston - who all may be tainted by Jung.
But i seriously doubt Jung's influence extended to pre-Columbian America, or that Homer and Virgil had partaken.
Are any sources reliable?
And i'm still waiting for an answer:
Was human sacrifice ever practiced or not? If so, where, by whom and what for? If not, who made up the stories before 1900?

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Michelle
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posted 16 March 2004 12:19 PM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I will also clarify: I have no idea what Canadian writers contributed the most to this or that. All I was saying "absolutely" to is the statement that Robertson Davies was influenced by Jung.
From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
bittersweet
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posted 16 March 2004 01:25 PM      Profile for bittersweet     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
Jungian doctrine concerning sacrifice was injected into this thread with the implication that those who didn't accept that doctrine are somehow fools, "entrapped in reason".
Since that interjection, it has been shown that myth has been studied and used to great effect by psychologists, fascists, racists, spiritualist charletans, artists and literary critics. Two reasonable conclusions can be gathered from this. First, myth can be used for wicked or benign purposes. Second, it resonnates for people of all persuasions.

There has been no substantive criticism about the existence of widespread/collective/universal myths such as godly sacrifice, but I can assure everyone that after reading The Hero's Journey and before that, The Great Code, and later on, The Serpent and the Rainbow (by ethnobotanist Wade Davis on, yes, ancient Amazonian belief systems), I was not compelled to seek out the nearest crystal ball or skinhead fraternity. That these myths exist is not disputed, but attempts have been made to discredit them based on their co-option by evil-doers and idiots. This is, of course, blatantly irrational. Ironically, this irrational argument stems from a dread of the irrational.

Speaking of irrational responses, my interjection did not claim that people are "fools" for being trapped in the Church of Reason, but rather, like me, they are in no position to cynically judge some Christians' claim of a deep spiritual experience watching
The Passion, since The Church of Reason (as opposed to humble reason) excludes the possibility of such experience. Like all fundamentalist belief systems, it is threatened by the organic.

I see nothing since that interjection to discredit my original complaint, and much to support it.


From: land of the midnight lotus | Registered: Apr 2002  |  IP: Logged
N.R.KISSED
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posted 16 March 2004 02:35 PM      Profile for N.R.KISSED     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I spent a few hours last night looking at reviews and comments on Nolls book and was actually quite surprised by discoveries.

I was surprised to see that Jung's work is so widely discussed in various Christian communities.
It seems that conservative catholic and rightwing protestant groups in particular are interest in denouncing Jung's work.

I think those who enjoy Gibson's film or belong to the same catholic sect would actually vehemently oppose Jung's work rather than embrace it.

Jung's work of course also comes under criticism from both Freudians and the "rationalist" camp. In no way I am suggesting a connection between any of these groups though.

I would stress that I am not a Jungian nor have any particular affinity for his work, from what I have seen though I do not believe the Nazi connections are well founded.


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CMOT Dibbler
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posted 16 March 2004 02:57 PM      Profile for CMOT Dibbler     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
I have no problem with fantasies about mythical worlds, and I have no problems with analysing literature as myth-related. It IS myth-related!
So, if Northrop Frye analyses the Bible as myth, more kudos to him. But if he suggests that we should tear down our corrupt society and behave like warriors and heroes, count me out.


No one said that we should.


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flotsom
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posted 16 March 2004 03:42 PM      Profile for flotsom   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
It is interesting to discover that Noll himself was once an ardent Jungian. He has even been described as a former Jungian 'apostate'. Noting the "considerable overlap" between Noll's two books on Jung (The Jung Cult, 1994, and The Aryan Christ, 1997) another reviewer paused to wonder why the "media savvy" Noll wrote "the same book twice." But of course this question of Carl Jung is not central to the subject. But staying with Jung for a moment I do think we have to realize that a good deal of the mud-slinging directed at Jung is of the emotional type and part of a larger battle between well-entrenched Freudian and Jungian factions within the psychoanalytic community itself.

The Freudian/Jungian split was realized when Jung categorically refused to carry on Freud's own work, rejecting Freud's sexual theory, (and Freud's continuous admonishment to forward the same), in favour of his own research. Freud for his part felt that the sexual theory was a necessary "bulwark against the black tide of mud", speaking of occultism. Jung on the other hand felt that what Freud considered 'occultism' amounted to "everything that philosophy and religion had learned about the psyche."

Also I've found nothing that would indicate that Deirdre Bair is anything but the highly scrupulous and meticulous researcher fully deserving of the lofty esteem with which she is universally regarded. Her biography of Samuel Beckett stands next to Ellman's Joyce as one of the masterpieces of the genre.

From the review of Bair:

quote:
Bair presents new evidence regarding allegations that Jung had pro-Nazi sentiments, another of the controversies that linger to this day. The confusion was fueled in large measure by his assuming the presidency of the German psychoanalytic society in 1933 when its Jewish members were being expelled by the Berlin government precisely as it also sought to coerce this individual-oriented discipline into conformity with fascist ideology.

Before he resigned the untenable presidency, Jung's defence was that a Swiss serving as president would allow Jewish members to remain in the international society, whose office would switch from Berlin to Zurich. Despite rumors begun by his enemies, including even the calumny that he was Hitler's personal therapist, what Bair publicly reveals for the first time, in a chapter titled "Agent 488," is that Jung worked for the Office of Strategic Services, the predecessor to our CIA, during the war years. Jung ("Agent 488") became a senior adviser to Bern station chief Allen W. Dulles "on a weekly, if not almost daily, basis."

Dulles thoroughly vetted Jung on the profascist charges and relied on Jung's psychological advice, including his prediction that Hitler's narcissistic grandiosity would likely end in "suicide in a desperate moment." Later Dulles said that "nobody will probably ever know how much Professor Jung contributed to the Allied cause during the war. ... [and that his work needed to remain] highly classified for the indefinite future."


http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/ae/books/reviews/2238173

Gunning for Jung


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nonsuch
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posted 16 March 2004 03:49 PM      Profile for nonsuch     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
...he is making a claim about the intrinsic superiority of the Aryan race.
Someone who writes that can't ever be a voice of authority for me.

That leaves very few authorities, on any subject, since writers before the age of political correctness tended to prefer - openly - their own race above other races, their own nation above other nations, and a lot of them didn't think too highly of peasants, women, Catholics, Whigs... If you reject the entire opus of anyone who harboured a prejudice - well, at least your library will be more portable than mine.


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jeff house
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posted 16 March 2004 05:20 PM      Profile for jeff house     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
That leaves very few authorities, on any subject,

Quite right.

I don't like arguments from authority.

Of course there is a difference between being a someone who dislikes Jews in the 8th or 14th century, and someone who does so in Nazi Germany.

I consider the latter to have no redeeming qualities; they provide justification for an ongoing genocide.


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Rebecca West
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posted 16 March 2004 05:22 PM      Profile for Rebecca West     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Wow. That debate on Jung, Frye, Campbell, et al, was very interesting. I learned a few things. And I think it's always important to place the scribblings/babblings of Great Men in a sociohistorical context. That way, we don't fall too easily into the trap of seeing them in too harsh or soft a light.

Be that as it may, I still don't see what the big deal is about Mel Gibson's movie. Is it anti-semetic? I don't know, I haven't seen it, but people I respect who have are divided in their opinion. Is it a piece of violence of a pornographic magnitude? Again, people are divided.

It looks alot to me like religious art, which generally inspires some and repulses others. Not being a Christian, but having been brought up with Judeo-Christian cultural values and an intellectual interest in religion as a power structure and social phenomenum, I would get something very different from viewing the movie, I imagine, than a devout Catholic. Or a moderate Protestant. Or a right-wing fundamentalist. Or a Jew, Buddhist, Sikh, or whatever.

I'll probably rent the thing when it comes out on video - I have no desire to see that kind of graphic violence on a big screen - and at that point I'll weigh in on whether it's anti-semetic or not. As far as the martyrdom of Jesus goes, my personal opinion is that a religion that builds itself around the torture and death of a dissident is a perverse death cult.

But that's just me.


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CMOT Dibbler
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posted 16 March 2004 06:07 PM      Profile for CMOT Dibbler     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Jeff, would you please answer this question?

quote:
Was human sacrifice ever practiced or not? If so, where, by whom and what for? If not, who made up the stories before 1900?

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CMOT Dibbler
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posted 16 March 2004 06:34 PM      Profile for CMOT Dibbler     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Jeff, do you reject the idea that certain aspects of myth are universal, i.e. that all cultures have their heroes and monsters?)
You still haven't answered my question. What did Campbell make up? Which lies did he perpetrate?

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nonsuch
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posted 16 March 2004 07:29 PM      Profile for nonsuch     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
As far as the martyrdom of Jesus goes, my personal opinion is that a religion that builds itself around the torture and death of a dissident is a perverse death cult.

It's not just you; it's our culture. We hide our nastiness and pretend it either doesn't exist or it's something other than it is. In Jesus' time, as in many places today, and here, too, not so long ago, it wasn't perverse; it was s.o.p.

The execution itself wasn't noteworthy; that kind of thing happened all the time. Most of the perpetrators/victims went unsung. This was a special case, because of his previous teaching, which was later exported successfully. His teaching was never about death - though he had premonitions, as would anyone who speaks out against entrenched power. It was about living decently; about reform and challenging inherited wisdom, about tolerance and generosity, about immortality. I'm not sure what a death cult is, but i'm fairly convinced that wasn't what Jesus had in mind.
Like most martyrdoms, this was only half - maybe less than half - deliberate. At the time of their death, you never know which martyrs will become cult heroes, and which be forgotten as common criminals.
(How many men were hanged in Canada, besides Louis Riel? How many are remembered?)

The mythical elements were grafted onto the story long afterwards, from a (or several) culture(s) other than his own. This is why the mythology interests me. It did grow out of Judaism, but not directly, and for damn sure it didn't start in 20th century Germany. So how did it come together? And why did Europe need it? Why do so many people need it still?

[ 16 March 2004: Message edited by: nonesuch ]


From: coming and going | Registered: Sep 2001  |  IP: Logged
CMOT Dibbler
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posted 16 March 2004 07:48 PM      Profile for CMOT Dibbler     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
We hide our nastiness and pretend it either doesn't exist or it's something other than it is.

All societies do that, not just ours.


From: Just outside Fernie, British Columbia | Registered: May 2003  |  IP: Logged
CMOT Dibbler
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posted 16 March 2004 07:55 PM      Profile for CMOT Dibbler     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
So how did it come together? And why did Europe need it? Why do so many people need it still?

The idea of an afterlife is very appealing. The concept of the void is very frightening. It frightens me, and I am a secular humanist.


From: Just outside Fernie, British Columbia | Registered: May 2003  |  IP: Logged
nonsuch
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posted 16 March 2004 07:58 PM      Profile for nonsuch     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
A lot of countries still have their executions and other punishments out in the market square, where everyone can see exactly what is done. We usually look down on those cultures.

We rarely question or oppose the common assumption that a citizen sentenced (justly or not) to our prisons will be beaten, raped, debased and humiliated, maybe for decades. We rarely ask just how many political prisoners the US, the UK and Canada keep in unheated cells for years without probable cause, without proof, without trial, and what happens in tiled basement rooms, and what 'debriefing' actually means, and how many we deport to Syria or some other place where they'll be tortured.
This is the price of our illusion of safety and we're mostly content to let somebody pay it, as long as we don't have to take responsibility.

[ 16 March 2004: Message edited by: nonesuch ]


From: coming and going | Registered: Sep 2001  |  IP: Logged
nonsuch
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posted 16 March 2004 08:12 PM      Profile for nonsuch     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
No, i don't mean why do they like the afterlife idea. Reincarnation was a pretty good idea, too, but it didn't play in Prague.
I mean, why do they need the martyrdom? What makes Europeans let somebody convince them of original sin? Why do they think that they can be redeemed by someone else, someone not even related to them? More curiously still, how can someone ask a Jew to buy their ticket to heaven and at the very same time be angry at other Jews for collecting the fee (even though their own most revered book clearly states that a European did that) and also for rejecting the free ride?

Verily, the definition of a human being is: the only animal capable of being equally convinced of six mutually contradictory absurdities before breakfast. (Once he gets to work, nobody can keep count.)

[ 16 March 2004: Message edited by: nonesuch ]


From: coming and going | Registered: Sep 2001  |  IP: Logged
ketel
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posted 17 March 2004 11:57 AM      Profile for ketel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I loved the short cartoon The Passion of the Dumpy which aired Saturday night on SNL.

I am the coordinator of a young adults group for my local Catholic Parish. We have been co programming with our local chapter of the Jewish Federation. Mister Gibson’s movie is going to set our efforts back.

The cartoon was a much needed respite for me. Does anyone have a copy they could send me? I would like to show it to my group. I have been searching the P2P would without success.


From: New Orleans | Registered: Mar 2004  |  IP: Logged
Mycroft_
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posted 17 March 2004 04:01 PM      Profile for Mycroft_     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Hopefully it will be repeated whenever that SNL episode(with Ben Affleck) is rerun so watch your tv guide. Of course SNL has banned controversial Robert Smigel cartoons from being rerun in the past (there was one particular one that attacked GE for its poor safety record with nuclear power plants and for being fined for polluting the Hudson River. GE owns NBC. The cartoon was only ran once )
From: Toronto | Registered: Feb 2002  |  IP: Logged
Mycroft_
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posted 17 March 2004 04:10 PM      Profile for Mycroft_     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
The banned cartoon was Conspiracy Theory Rock (a spoof of the old Schoolhouse Rock cartoons that used to run on ABC Saturday mornings).

You can find it at http://www.tvparty.com/80/ctr.ram


From: Toronto | Registered: Feb 2002  |  IP: Logged

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