#13 - Disconnect

Ideally, Christianity should offend the state to be relevant. When churches accommodate to the state, they become ineffective. Christianity has become "dumbed down" so as not to disrupt society.

Where's the disconnect between the original aims of Christianity and the watered down version that has developed in modern times? How has it become a societal norm when it was intentionally designed to disrupt and change society?

#12 - A little more Jewish...

In class on Thursday, it was briefly asked how the world might be different if Jesus was considered a little more Jewish. It kind of struck me as funny, because I know that Jesus was Jewish, but I don't think about it. People like Martin Luther and Adolf Hitler, who were in a way seeing themselves as defenders of Christianity by killing equating negativity with Jew , were actually combating a fundamental principle of who Jesus was. As a result, the Jewish people have suffered through discrimination for centuries. Where would they be now if everyone considered Jesus to be just a little more Jewish?

#11 - The Divine Spark

During our class discussion on Gnosticism this week, we spoke a little about The Divine Spark. I thought it was a little odd how the two came together. So, a quick thought process outline:

 -A "divine spark" somehow made it into a select group of souls in the material universe.
- These select souls would require a redeemer to be led (with "the spark") back into the spiritual world.
- Knowledge is salvation.
- People were saved from their own ignorance, not sin. 

Did this Divine Spark give people the ability to acquire knowledge? If this spark did impart the ability to know, why was a redeemer required? Doesn't quite make sense...

All the while, I can't help but equate the Divine Spark to the All Spark. Wikipedia that. 

#10 - Language

An interesting idea was brought up in class over the last week. We started talking about the way in which our language wires our brain to think in certain ways and see the world in certain ways. It is not possible for us to communicate entirely accurate between cultures due to differences in meanings and an inability to translate exactly. This started me thinking about the story of the Tower of Babel. In earlier years, my thinking process was always that another incident of the same type could occur again if people simply learned the other languages. With this new idea of language shaping our thought processes, its seems as if a disconnect beyond just changing how to say a word occurred. With this in mind, is it ever possible that people could all be united in a common cause? If we cannot fully communicate, can we fully cooperate with each other?