>Christianity is not 'a syncretic import from the east'. One way we know this is by looking at its differences with eastern ideas. What would first-century Christianity make of the denial of diachronic identity (the self is an illusion), or the denial of the idea that God is personal?

You're still doing the exact same thing. "Eastern ideas" is a leaky set and faulty abstraction. You have pointed to no actual bounded idea or ideology within that set. You proceed to attribute two ideas--the illusory self and non-theism--to that set, again without referent to anything.

>Am I wrong to claim that the ideas I listed are associated with the east? Does the undoubted fact that there are hundreds of eastern religions and philosophies undermine the claim?

You're wrong to claim that association is in any way relevant to what I've written. If I said "Christianity believes that Jesus visited North America" it would be rightly seen as the words of someone who had so little understanding and charity to the concept and diversity of Christianity that it would fall into the "not even wrong" category.

>Do you agree with my point that Christianity "was persecuted for three centuries precisely because it refused to be syncretic -- the Romans were happy to tolerate additions to their pantheon but couldn't abide Christianity's claims to exclusivity"?

I do contest that -- specifically because proto-Rabbinic Judaism was specifically categorized as a monotheistic religion that was largely recognized and exempted from Roman suppression because of its connection with temple Judaism. That Christians were persecuted by the Romans was not solely due to their monotheistic (or rather anti-polytheistic) beliefs, but that it was rapidly becoming expressly a gentile and proselytizing religion.

In any case, you first argue (wrongly) that "eastern ideas" can't be syncretic to Christianity because of a lack of personal deity, then you argue that Christianity is unique and was persecuted specifically because it denied personal deities.

In one breath, you treat theism as the relevant dividing line between Christianity and “eastern ideas”; in the next, you treat religious exclusivity as the relevant dividing line between Christianity and Rome. But those are entirely different axes, and neither establishes anything about the historical provenance of the ideas under discussion.

I would really like to continue to be charitable to and engage with you, but you have a continued fixation on the Roman attitudes of 1st century CE as evidence of an argument based on what was happening in the Mediterranean world in the 2nd century BCE--again, entirely reasonable from someone catechized within the Church--and the ability for you to even provisionally evaluate my argument on its own terms seems insurmountable. You've a priori stated more than once "Christianity is not 'a syncretic import from the east'" which already shows that this isn't really a dialogue.

I think you presume that I am ignorant of Catholicism and the history of orthodoxy. I'm not. I was raised by a traditionalist father who ran around with SSPX back in the 80s and then the FSSP. I ceased being Catholic for the same reason Cardinal Newman said "To be deep in history is to cease being protestant." Well, it turns out that history is much, much deeper than Newman supposed and doesn't end with Polycarp, Clement, and Ignatius.

If you honestly want to seriously engage with my position, here are the questions that would help clarify where we actually disagree. You obviously don't need to answer all of them if you don't want to (and there's a non-trivial possibility you won't even have read this far before noping out), but these are the substantive points I don't think you've addressed:

Where is your evidence that the Buddhist traditions relevant to this discussion posit that “the self is an illusion” in the undifferentiated sense you're invoking? Which Buddhist school, which period, and which text or tradition are you talking about? If you're going to use that proposition as evidence that Christianity could not have incorporated Buddhist material, you need to establish what Buddhist position you're actually comparing it to.

Likewise, what do you mean by “Buddhism denies that God is personal”? Which Buddhist traditions, which period, and which conception of God are you referring to? Why should the theological position of those particular traditions be treated as representative of “eastern ideas” generally?

How do you explain the independent emergence of a gender-inclusive monastic tradition in Christianity that so strongly resembles the general form of Buddhist monasticism found throughout its various sects, especially given that we have evidence of Buddhist missionary activity in the region predating the emergence of Christianity? If you think the resemblance is coincidental, what is your positive account of the parallel development? What historical mechanism do you propose produced the same unusual institutional configuration independently?

What is your explanation for the specific structural and narrative parallels between Christian ascetic literature and Buddhist material that predate or are plausibly independent of the Christian tradition? It appears you might have inferred that I was speaking about the content of Mark 7 and MN 55, but I wasn't. I was speaking specifically about the recurring structure found in both. I'm not asking whether Christianity ultimately gives those narratives a different theological interpretation. I'm asking what you think accounts for the historical similarities.

How do you account for the presence of Indian philosophical material in the Hellenistic world independently of Christianity? In particular, what do you make of the evidence concerning Pyrrho and the Greek encounters with Indian philosophers? If you reject the possibility of influence on early Christian intellectual culture, what is your explanation for why those demonstrable pre-Christian channels of transmission are irrelevant to the hypothesis?

If your position is that these similarities are insufficient to establish influence, what evidence would you regard as sufficient to establish influence in principle? And, applying that standard consistently, which of the existing pieces of evidence fail it, and why?

user:	3m4r
created:	June 16, 2023
karma:	21