Re: blind faith
AntiUtopia (AntiUtopia@aol.com)
Tue, 09 Dec 1997 23:15:20 -0500 (EST)
Warning--about 98% of this post has nothing to do with Salinger. I'd just go
ahead and delete it if you're not interested.
:)
Jim
In a message dated 97-12-09 21:07:22 EST, you write:
<< Given the amount of historical research we have on the Guy (and you can
throw in
the religious bias as well, too), what else are you going to make of "the
first
Romantic in human history," as Oscar Wilde referred to him as.>>
heh...Interesting Definition :) but, then, Everything Oscar Wilde does is
interesting...
<< And this is where
you get into the crux of just what exactly constitutes a gay man, or a
bisexual
man for that matter. As I've said before, I think homosexuality has a lot
more
to do with "homo" than it does "sexual," and I think bisexuality has a lot
more
to do with "bicameral" than "sexual" also.>>
This is the starting point--the assumptions--guiding the rest of your post,
and I think they need to be established as being Valid. Especially so
radically cross-culturally as from Ancient Palestine to Modern America.
As for homosexuality and bisexuality, I think human sexuality is Sooo complex
that we can't ascribe the same motives to everyone. I know some people whose
habits would classify them as bisexual, but whose attitude is more along the
lines of hedonism. Their sexuality is about getting a new kick than anything
else. For others, their sexual habits are an expression of who they are on a
very deep level.
We aren't all the same after all. I kinda recoil at summaries of human
sexuality that do not take some diversity of motive into account.
<< Christ acknowledged his anima and
fully integrated it into his persona making him a very psychologically
balanced
individual, and he was pretty much the world's first most high-profile
feminine
man who acknowledged love for his fellow MAN rather than simply wanting to
compete with him for a job/girlfriend/whatever in a Darwinistic way.>>
eh, there's a problem here--yah, Christ, being psychologically balanced, would
be able to express both anima and animus fully. How those two are defined
vary from culture to culture, and Most Significantly from Jewish culture to
ours. I'll provide some documentation for that in a minute.
But while I agree that the Christ in the gospels wasn't in competition, he
certainly wasn't passive. He had some pretty choice names for both Herod and
the Pharisees, and used them publicly. He compared himself to a King that has
all those citizens who did not want to live under his rule killed before his
eyes. He makes it Perfectly Clear that no one's taking his life, but that
he's laying it down and taking it up again on his own accord. He made a whip
of cords and drove the moneylenders out of the temple, and the Gospel of Mark
has little problem describing his anger toward the Pharisees on more than one
occasion. In John 13, he has no qualms telling his disciples it is
appropriate for them to call him lord and master...
In short, he has a lot more in common with Nietzche's ubermensch than with the
milequetoast Christ presented by Nietzche in his various writings.
Now, we also need to balance the presentation I made with the teachings you
appealed to--love your neighbor as yourself (eh, agape was the word used, and
was about as non-sexual a love as possible. It was beyond that--it was not
emotional. Other words for love were used by Christ, and those with more
emotional connotations, but not in the context of general ethical teachings).
Now, if you define homosexuality in non-sexual terms, you are stretching the
definition of the word greatly.
So we have a Christ that is both Feminine AND Masculine presented in the
Gospels. That is psychologially balanced. Yes.
Those who believe in his deity would see this as a necessary quality of the
God/Man. In Genesis, both male and female were created in the image of God.
Any God/Man would reflect that, by necessity.
What any of this has to do with homosexuality? I don't know.
<< (I both
defend Darwin AND the teachings of Christ. So I'm not what you'd consider a
card-carrying "Christian.")>>
Nor a card carrying biologist, either, cause Darwinian evolution is pretty
much out the window :)
<< And his legacy is nothing but what has been
stereotyped as "feminine" attributes throughout time: Love, compassion,
sensitivity et al.... >>
His legacy, as I pointed out earlier, was not limited to love, compassion,
etc. The love he taught his followers to have was directed first and foremost
to God, and secondarily to other people. This greatly affects How we go about
loving others.
Remember his answer to the question about the greatest commandments.
I do an Umberto Eco reading group for AOL, and we're reading Foucault's
Pendulum. We've had to study a little bit of the Zohar, because FP is
organized around the Tree of Sefirot (a conceptual map of the Zohar, but I'm
no expert, believe me. It means much more than that to adherents, I'm sure).
Anyway, in my reserach I came across a website maintained by a Real Scholar
type on the subject--he's affiliated with a college in Canada. Here's the
URL.
<A HREF="http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~elsegal/index.html">E. Segal</A>
In cabala--the Jewish mystical tradition based on the Zohar-- we also have a
definition of masculine and feminine. Here's a quote:
"Through these powers God created and rules the universe, and it is by
influencing them that humans cause God to send to Earth forces of
compassion (masculine, right side) or severe judgment (feminine, left
side)"
It's from the Sefirot page. I thought it was a typo when I first read it.
Compassion is a masculine trait, and severe judgment a feminine trait. That's
Completely backwards as far as my thinking had always been; I'm sure you feel
the same way.
But this was the context in which Jesus lived.
<<Kazantzakis' treatment of the question of Christ providing
the logical extension to the question in The Last Temptation of Christ: WHAT
would have happened had he married and settled down, rather than hanging out
with societies outcasts? Would he have committed suicide like Seymour? And
why
didn't Seymour and Muriel produce progeny before he died?>>
In the Introduction to The Last Temptation of Christ, K says, "This book is
not a biography, it is the confession of every man who struggles." The idea
is not to speculate on the life of Christ, but to depict the struggle between
flesh and spirit.
I think Jesus remained unmarried because he knew he was born to die. It would
be unfair to marry a woman only to die on her a short time down the road. I
don't think it gets any deeper than that. To say, "what would have happened
if Jesus had married?" is to ask, "what would have happened if Jesus was not
the Christ?" Well, we sure wouldn't be talking about him, would we? :) The
ethical teachings were just as much an expression of his messianic role as his
death....
Seymour and Mariel were on their honeymoon when he killed himself. Of Course
they didnt' have children :)
<<It's just as reckless to suggest that Christ was a heterosexual as it is to
suggest that he was a homosexual, because outside of palling around with Mary
Magdalene there really IS no evidence, so the point is moot.>>
Yep, the point is moot.
<< (Had they produced
progeny would have helped the evidence needed that he was heterosexual, but
not
really, because history is littered with gay men who married and had
children.
And this is where you get deeper into the Holy Blood/Holy Grail territory as
far
as the secrets and legends of historical evidence is concerned.) Asexual
celibacy is probably more accurate, because he had studied enough of the
Eastern
masters to realize that "desire" is what needs to be overcome to avoid
suffering.>>
How do you define a gay male? Of Course there are many closeted people out
there--don't mean to argue with that.
That's a Whopper about "studying the Eastern Masters," and pure Fiction as far
as I'm concerned. Church history records the presence of evangelists in India
as early as the first century AD; that is enough to account for textual
residue of the Christian message in India.
And this record exists prior to the need to point this out that has arisen
from the philosophical imperialism of Easternophiles :) Ya know, when he
claimed deity he spoke within the context of a rigid monotheism, not a
pantheism... :)
<< And when you take sexuality out of the equation of your relationships
with others, be they male OR female, you suddenly free yourself to, yes, be
able
to "love" EITHER gender.>>
I don't see sexuality and love as being diametrically opposed to one another.
That's what marriage is built upon.
<<What isn't moot is the fact that he demonstrated attributes 2000 years ago
which
only until the last hundred or so years have been acknowledged as necessary
psychologically healthy ways for males to interact with other males and
females
too. This is why Christ as an icon would not/has not ever seriously been
discussed as having been female. His significance is pretty much based on his
gender and the "expectations" of his gender then, as it is still now, and
wouldn't have had the impact had he been female.
Malcolm
>>
Only acknowledged by whom in the last 2000 years?
Again, what "would have happened" is never more than guesswork.
Interesting discussion....
Jim