/lit/ - Literature

>>16579719
Once you're deeply embedded on western christian culture it's easier to connect with the crypto-platonist position.

>>16579719
Because Christianity is the religion of Incarnation.

>>16579719


CHRISTIANITY IS NOT CRYPTOPLATONISM.

>>16579719
>Why be a crypto-jew (christian) when you can just be a platonist?
FTFY

Why be a degenerated Christian (platonist) when you can be in the Kingdom of God?

>>16579719
>when you can just be a platonist?
Because Platonism was wiped out as a living tradition, except for the currents assimilated into Abrahamic mysticism. It's quite literally larping, pretending that you pick up all the books up and practice it seriously when that has not been done in any organized manner for like ~1,500 years. This is not to say that the surviving texts are not very spiritually valuable to study, but winging it with a dead tradition simply doesn't cut it, you have to be initiated into something with intact lines from its founding down to the person initiating you for the real deal. Otherwise it's just a mixture of self-experimentation and playing make-believe.

>>16579719
No

>>16580134
This

>>16580134

What do you take "platonism" to be? I would say that platonism is alive and well in all sorts of veins of contemporary philosophy. It is easily the dominant position in the philosophy of mathematics, and history is littered with the corpses of nominalists, conceptualists, etc.

>>16579719
Why indeed

Why worship a filthy street J3w vagabond when you can worship grey-eyed Athena?

>>16579719
Because Jesus literally rose from the dead.

Justinian killed the orthodox Platonic tradition. Without initiatory lineage back to the source, you are just a LARPer making stuff up as you go along. Platonic ideas survive within Sufism, Scholasticism, Druzism (not open to outsiders), and Hesychasm.

Both Plato and Jesus were bodhisattvas.

>>16579719
>Why be a crypto-christian(platonist) when you can just be a christian?

>>16581164
Based

>>16581152
And went back to being dead.
Prove me wrong

>>16580453
Platonism as a general school of philosophy which disparate people from across time and distance can identify themselves with like a political ideology =/= (Neo)Platonism as a mystical theology and assorted meditative/spiritual techniques which one could hope to be initiated into and instructed in the practice of

>>16581223
Didn't Iamblichus literally create the esoteric practices for the school by himself based off of what he read on ancient mysteries

>>16581294
Yes.

>>16581294
perhaps, but he certainly popularized and expanded them. porphyry seems to know about forms of theurgy that might well pre-date iamblichus, and there is a legend of julian the theurgist.

>>16579719
christianity is realized platonism.

I don't believe in any theological abstract "prime mover" horseshit. God is a big angry man in the sky who will smite me if I do wrong, thats all

>>16581884
>God is a big angry man in the sky who will smite me if I do wrong, thats all
you'll just go to hell.

>>16580134
I'm not trying to argue with you, but do you believe that the original person - in this case, Plato - was literally LARPing, or are founders of certain traditions not subject to the issue of just LARPing?

Like, if Plato was born in our age instead of 4th century BC, and wrote his teachings on this very forum, how would he be able to refute people who would say that he's just LARPing about it all with muh forms and muh eudaimonia?

Christian platonism is based

>>16579719
faith.

>>16581164
unironically based post

You seem to be confused about Christianity. You seem to think that people on here convert because of some sincere revelation that Christianity is true and good, a faith that is valuable in itself. In reality, people on here convert to LARP, to have a wonderful excuse to be a judgmental asshole, and to ultimately marry a tradwife while living in a castle and listening to classical music 24/7.

>>16579719
>Why be a crypto-platonist (christian) when you can just be a platonist?
Because Jesus Christ is truth, God, and man's first cause and final purpose.

>>16581171
>>16582266
>>16581171
yuppie understanding of buddhism

>>16580134
>platonism is a set of traditions and rituals
Confirmed never read a word of Plato.

>>16580453
>platonism is alive in all sorts of vein of contemporary philosophy
hahahahhahahahaha
Contemporary philosophy is not philosophy and therefore not platonist

>>16581294
I think the esoteric practices were already a thing with plato, his agrapha dogmata is an initiatic stage beyond his written corpus, being followed in the plotinian school later, and even his dialogues represent a parallel with the mysteries and the role of the soul in its initiation.

I still have never seen a convincing argument of why I have to staple jew books onto my philosophy. "But muh Jesus rose from the dead-" That's begging the question. This if your jew book ideology in action right here. I'll pass.

>>16581164
based

>>16579740
>who is dionysus
>"I call upon loud-roaring and revelling Dionysus, primeval, double-natured, thrice-born, Bacchic lord

>>16583776
> calling a Catholic Jesuit pope a Jew

Jesus, if Hitler himself came back to life and recreated the expansionist, authoritarian Germany you'd probably call him a Jew too right after he had you rounded up for being a delusional ineffectual conspiracy theorist

>>16579719
>still hasn’t understood the real consequences of the formalism

Christ is the intermediary between Man and the Form of the Good. There is no way to understand the Good except through Christ. Christ is not “babby’s first platonism”, Christ is both the beginning and the end of Platonism. Even Plato himself would be unable to behold the Way, Truth, & Life except through Christ. The human mind is incapable of beholding at once all of this information unless it is codified in a dense story with rituals

>>16579719
I'm a Christian who rejects philosophical abstractions. Philosophy has only ever strained my relationship with God.

>>16583810
That's not what I said retard. I said there is no convincing argument that jew books are necessary to philosophy and theurgy. All arguments in that regard rely on begging the question. I just attached an image of the pope sucking feet because it cracks me up that this is what trad larpers on 4chan unironically support.

>>16583817
> this is your jew ideology in action right here
He's Catholic

>>16583817
See what I mean here? >>16583811
Begging the question. This stuff can only make sense if you take the jew book axioms that Jesus is god, was resurrected, etc. You have to buy it all together as a package deal. I reject this dogma (and I mean dogma in the sense of "authority-enforced absurdities given special immunity to critical thought by those aforementioned authorities").

>>16583811
>Christ is the intermediary between Man and the Form of the Good.

Citation needed.

>>16583839
https://biblehub.com/1_timothy/2-5.htm

https://biblehub.com/luke/18-19.htm

>>16583837
But the Jewish don't believe Jesus is God, don't they have canonized literature saying he's in hell?
They passed up on Christianity and the Romans took it

>>16582773
Hylic understanding of religion.

>>16583837
Those are mysteries anon. Even Socrates prayed to God.

>>16583799
dionysus, like the osiris-horus, is the a symbolique, christ is the incarnation of this very symbolique. this is just one among others instances of veritable Revelation.

>>16583854
An exchange of letters between a self-admitted liar and his willing mark (neither of whom met this Jesus) is not proof that Jesus was a metaphysical being. I could arbitrarily declare John Lennon as "the form of the good" (despite the fact that I never met him) and I could probably find somebody who agreed with me and send him a letter, I could even publish said letter. None of that actually proves my baseless claim.

>>16583855
Jesus cites and alludes to jewish prophets. He was raised as a jew, preached to jews, tried to convert jews, etc. You can't be a christian without accepting jewish interpretations of history (Exodus for example). Christians worship a jewish god, Yhwh. Everything they learn about theology is filtered through hebrew nonsense first. Why is the torah even included in Bible if it's not necessary to christianity? Christianity maintains the jewish and hebrew narcissistic delusion that they are the center of the world and the world revolves around them.

>>16583864
Socrates and Plato didn't pray to Jesus. If it's a mystery and not dogma, why is christ considered necessary? Either it's 100% necessary or not at all. That's the price of christianity. There's no room for nuance. Either the bible is the single and only necessary text (as interpreted and compiled by humans among centuries of controversy and infighting lol) or it's not necessary at all.

>>16583817
wow you really don't know what theurgy is

>>16583885
If we have christological prophecies even in Genesis, clear indications of the Trinity in OT, why would it be unnecessary? Have you ever read any theological work?

>You can't be a christian without accepting jewish interpretations of history (Exodus for example).
You really don't know what you are talking about. Have you heard about Origen? Have you heard about how all Scripture has an allegorical side reflecting an individual muesis into the myteries of the Living God, its epopteia and theosis?

>>16583935
Origen? The man who was such a heretic that the church had to destroy most of his work?

>>16583935
This is the problem with Christianity. It wants to be a mystery religion and a literal religion at the same time. It tries to blend exoteric teaching with esoteric teaching and fails to deliver on both. Of course you see christological prophecies and ideas about the trinity in the OT if you take it as a priori that the evidence already exists! It only works within its own ecosystem of ideas, which a human authority created. Jesus is only necessary if you accept a priori that Jesus is necessary. There's no reason to believe in original sin unless you accept a priori that original sin exists and we are all guilty. There's no reason to believe in the resurrection unless you accept a priori that the resurrection happened.
>But muh 500 witnesses
Your religion makes historical claims which again, has to be accepted a priori. The only way to parse supporting evidence for christianity and evidence against it is "Whatever the church authorities centuries ago argued over and compromised to deliver is true."

>>16583885
Jesus said he could make stones and mud into descendants of abraham.

>>16583979
Original sin, or even the less catholic belief that all men have a tendency towards sin, is fucking obvious even to atheists.

>>16583979
> It tries to blend exoteric teaching with esoteric teaching and fails to deliver on both.
All religions have this twofold exo-eso-teric penetration into the texts, you can see this even in Plato and the mysteries (passages and levels of initiation in the latter being the degrees of esoteric understanding, gradual penetration).

>if you take it as a priori that the evidence already exists!
how can I take a-prioristically that something means something without having something to be meant? If you want I can tell you several passages suggesting both explicitly and implicitly the trinity and christ's first coming. Do you want?

>Jesus is only necessary if you accept a priori that Jesus is necessary... unless you accept a priori that original sin exists...a priori ressurrection...
Do you have any notion of what you are saying? The way you employ terms and the repetition sounds like you can't think properly and much less what follows from what you say. If we can't affirm anything without having an a priori personal belief, can we know anything that will not be an a-priori unfolding of the very a priori personal belief? Can you know that we assume everything aprioristically without having accepted a priori assumptions aprioristically? This dumb skepticism is shattered with simple reason, I think you can see and overcome it, even though I doubt your intelligence.

>>16583959
which of his works were destroyed? he was influential and theologically important even though he committed mistakes, like tertullian. fathers cite him, agree and disagree, with him. there has been tons of works talking about the place of allegorical interpretation lubac's most famous.

>>16584006
1. Nobody's perfect.
2. ???
3. Ergo, you must believe that all people are born metaphysically evil, god is literally a person who appeared to Mediterranean cave peoples and fucked with them for centuries, eventually this one jew got crucified 2000 years ago, there was a zombie outbreak in Jerusalem, then the jew literally got back up from his cave and appeared to another jew to convinced him to stop being mean to certain jews and then this new jew conveniently ended up writing the majority of what became the TRUE and HONEST letters that are the correct ones for real, and then there was 400 years of infighting and making up a tradition that was then decided by a bureaucratic committee at Nicaea, this tradition continued metamorphosis for centuries but only one interpretation isn't a heresy, even if it changed at some point, and all philosophy in the past that christianity copied was actually secretly laying the ground work for this belief (just trust us on this one), they just didn't know it at the time.

Please fill in point 2 for me.

>>16584091
>If you want I can tell you several passages suggesting both explicitly and implicitly the trinity and christ's first coming. Do you want?
1. You're a fucking faggot. If you were so confident in these passages you would have just linked them. Kill yourself.
2. Are these passages from the Bible? Like, the thing that was compiled by people who needed it to say a certain thing and then left enough in there that literally thousands of interpretations of it exist?

>>16584146
>the thing that was compiled by people who needed it to say a certain thing and then left enough in there that literally thousands of interpretations of it exist?
wait, people dating back to 600, 500 before Christ's Coming, needed to say and knew that Christ was coming? That's a good example to the nonbelievers of what faith is, and I agree with you.
As to your first point, if you cared enough and were honest I would try to find what I have posted concerning this a good while ago, otherwise, I would make the post again. But you simply don't care, you are just a literal npc seething. Go somewhere else.

>>16580134
This. Its like trying to be a roman or nordic pagan in this day and age, they are dead traditions and not only are they dead, but you can never see platonism in the same way as they saw it even if you had every single document and everything about it had survived.

Ancient thought was very different in many ways and you would be just a sad LARP never truly having understood it.

>>16582091
I'm not a Trad, but they say that divine revelation does not happen in modernity.

>>16584179
Behold, bystanders of /lit/. This is the level of discourse of the average internet christian. "Heh, I totally could argue my point but I don't feel like it." And you wonder why christianity is just a pro-immigration and LGBT NGO at this point.

>>16584214
>Ancient thought was very different in many ways and you would be just a sad LARP never truly having understood it.
And you understand this ancient thought well enough to assert this definitively?

>>16584232
Who is they?

>>16584240
>Who is they?
The traditionalist school.

>And you understand this ancient thought well enough to assert this definitively?

I understand it well enough to know that I wont be able to really fully understand it.
Same as I can understand that I would never be able to understand buddhism fully without having grown in a culture that follows it or understand the thought process of an african tribesman, and all of these are still closer to us than ancient thought, thats how far removed it is. Same as how the catholicism of mesoamerica isnt the same catholicism of europe when you start to dig any deeper than just superficially.

>>16584240
As a bystander, anon, you're the one who looks like a fool here. You're in over your head as far as knowledge of the subject matter and making assumptions just as egregious as those you're accusing. You should spend less time talking about reading and more time reading.

The only living Platonic traditions are Abrahamic in nature (Hesychasm, Sufism, Kabbala).

>>16579719
because locating the forms in the divine mind makes more sense then an abstract third realm.

>>16583875
Genesis 38:6-10
2 Kings 2:23-24
Solely these alone, ignoring all other issues I have, even just one of them, is enough for me to NEVER be Christian, as in Catholic/Orthodox/Oriental (Prots aren't christian). These acts and my beliefs are irreconcilable with Ortho-Catholic doctrine.

>>16582293
This doesnt sound so bad

>>16584261
>I understand it well enough to know that I wont be able to really fully understand it.
This is not insight, this is you choosing to give up.

>>16584379
This is not insight either, this is you choosing to ignore your limitations.

>>16583935
>Have you ever read any theological work?
Have you read Dianetics, the Book of Mormon, and Joseph Smith's King Follett Discourse? Why not? What is the specific reason that you are not a member of the LDS church or a Scientologist? Don't you want the latest revelations from god?

>>16584387
How is Christianity not also larping today? Nobody here was alive when Jesus was alive. Christianity was larping in 33 AD. Nobody's understanding is enhanced or furthered by the arbitrary attitude that because a certain amount of time has passed, an idea can't be understood, or a philosophy or a mythology is not worth exploring.

>>16584240
would you read and meditate upon the twenty or more biblical verses about christ and the trinity in the ot? if you can't be honest in the discussion here can you at least be honest to yourself?

>>16584435
Initiatory lineage from the source in Eastern Orthodox, Catholic, and Oriental Orthodox churches.

>>16584435
this, ladies and gentlemen, is your average antichristian poster on lit

>>16584442
All initiatory lineages began somewhere and developed their own traditions. The legitimacy of christian initiation is arbitrary. The LDS has its own initiation, why aren't you a mormon?

>>16584456
The aforementioned churches can trace themselves to Christ. Protestants cannot. Mormons are not Christians, they did not even consider themselves to be Christians until recently and only started as a marketing move.

>>16584476
Nobody's even sure if Jesus existed. If he did, he certainly didn't command anybody to create a church, given that the ending of Mark is a later addition. Jesus seems to have believed that the end of the world was imminent so it's doubtful that he would have commissioned the creation of a major institution.

>>16584496
see how desperate you are. you change your attack any time your previous one is replied and you of course have nothing to say. you say jesus could have not existed and that he believed in something you yourself think he did.
>he certainly didn't command anybody to create a church
what is matthew 16:18? is it also a ''later addition''? whatever in the bible goes against your opinions is ''later addition''?
just stop seriously

>>16584585
I think you've confused me with somebody else. If you like, I can supply a screenshot. Personally, I believe that Jesus was based on a real person, but there's a very good chance he didn't exist, that's not a controversial stance. And yes, the ending of Mark is a later addition. It is not found in the earliest versions. If Jesus was real, he was one of many apocalyptic preachers, that's not controversial either.

>>16584496
>that the ending of Mark is a later addition.
Only by following the Latin and Egyptian documents, the byzantine documents far outnumber the former fragments, even if their papyruses are physically older than the Greek Byzantine texts. Being physically older doesn't mean more genuine since they're all copies and the lack of the ending of Mark is likely an error of the copyist/translator.

before you call me biased (touché)
i am >>16584367

>>16584632
I've never heard of these Byzantine documents, do you have a link. I wasn't going to call you biased anyway, everybody's biased about something.

>>16581154
>Without initiatory lineage back to the source
>Scholasticism

just the biggest religion in the world.

>>16584660
>Manuscripts including verses 9–20 in its traditional form
>The Majority/Byzantine Text (over 1,200 manuscripts of Mark)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byzantine_text-type

>>16584695
These oldest of these is from the 5th century, that's older then the Vulgate. It's not surprising that they contain addenda.

>>16581154
braindead, the old platonic academy was closed by a roman dictator in 86 bc

>>16584766
Middle Platonists kept the tradition alive in Athens, which allowed a new Platonic academy to form before Justinian shut it down for good, as Damascius and his disciples did not continue teaching the practice. Simplicus and some followers went to Harran, where the teachings were integrated into Christian mysticism and Sufism.

>>16584476
>The aforementioned churches can trace themselves to Christ
Joseph Smith literally talked to God and Jesus in person. It's part of their church history. Smith was initiated by Peter, James and John.

>>16584618
he was a real person but this real person was not real? what is the difference between the original and the ending? nothing about what you say may be controversial for people like you, but for scholars your personal opinions can be discarded (and they don't even make sense)

>>16584808
you are right about platonism being absorbed by islam and christianity, but how did the middle platonists kept it alive? any book on this please, sorry to call you braindead i thought you were arguing about another thing, lol

>>16581154
Olympiodorus continued it in Alexandria (later moved to Constantinople where it likely fused with Byzantine secular schools) and his influence was still seen in guys like Stephanus of Alexandria who used his methodology, likewise Michael Psellos lived in the 11th century, after him and before him there are interspersed various byzantine scholars with neoplatonic tendencies, like Plethon who shows they never died out.
Then it is unlikely that the other half-dozen Neoplatonists who stayed in Syria/Levant just sat around and did nothing, we know Simplicius was still active and respected since most of his works are dated to after the exile and return to the empire. Indeed, it is the survival of them, but semi-underground, that explains the popping up of Sufism and Kabbalah and Scholasticism and the ever increasing mysticism in Orthodox praxis; some "Islamic" Neoplatonists could hardly even be said to have been Muslim.
The initiatory aspect of Platonism isn't essential to the Philosopher, 'the true one' is to reach That through himself anyway. Initiation is in fact a shortcut (and that isn't a bad thing); or an interpersonal pathway, similar to how the Mathematician can reach 'there', or how the Lover reaches the Good through others and the beauty of the world; the Philosopher encapsulates all four of these in addition to being a soul-master. Saccas and Plotinus, after-all, weren't passed down a retrieved physical tradition but rather revived it (by means of the noetic and scriptural tradition, and direct inspiration) He also revealed Saccas' secret doctrine in the Enneads, he just didn't tell us where (somewhere in the later half). The Enneads are also literally a step by step guide-book of self-initiation, but you have to obviously be a 'Philosopher' by nature for it to work, a Lover/Musician/Mathematician won't reach That (or at least not in such a way).

>>16584862
the new academy was already not correct Platonism, which shows that Plato didn't teach any 'bodily' initiation practices, he did pass down Unwritten Doctrines, these are all present in Aristotle and in Plato himself if read with a careful eye. Like Plotinus >>16584865,to finally understand Plato's oeuvre IS the initiation, one way in which this is done is through exegesis of his dialogues, finding in your mind to see the harmony between them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plato%27s_unwritten_doctrines

>>16584846
There's three possible theories on Jesus:
1) He was a real person.
2) He was entirely fictional.
3) He was fictional, but was "based on a true story"
I favour option number three but, as you say, that's just my personal feelings I don't expect scholars to take me seriously. I just wanted to make it clear that I wasn't determined to "debunk" Jesus, I'm just discussing the matter impartially. The difference between the original and the ending is that the original ends shortly after the news that Jesus is risen, the scene where Jesus' friends meet with him is an addendum.

>>16584367
>2 Kings 2:23-24
Thanks for the laugh, holy shit

>>16584962
>>16584367

>>16579719
Because Plato won't save me from my sins.

>>16584359
this

>>16579719
I am both

>>16586414
but you will

>>16586751
only together with God in theandric operation