Date: Tue, 6 Jan 1998 19:28:17 -0500
From: Eric Yost <103423.421-AT-CompuServe.COM>
Subject: PLC: Christ as Other


Pat doesn't  "feel this Christ-killer charge was ever as conceptually
important as
it's cracked up to be. I could see it as something that appealed primarily
to
lynch mobs, or to people of limited education. What I'm seeing more in
Saint
Augustine is rage that the Jews deny there are 'divine prophecies of
Christ'
in the OT. "

According to the Freudian system, aren't "lynch mobs and people of limited
education" more easily driven by unconscious contents precisely to the
degree that they cannot hypothesize them?  By contrast, Augustine's rage is
rather refined and intellectual.

Zimmer mentions a teacher named Goshala, who taught at the same time as the
Buddha.  The Buddhists, who were teaching a system of release from
suffering, couldn't stand Goshala. The outrageous element of Goshala's
teaching was its implacability: everybody has 80,000 reincarnations.  If
you are in great pain, it's because you have lived few lives.  If you are
happy, it is because you have lived many lives.  Nothing you can do will
change this.  You simply have to live the lives.

The parallel is obvious: one sees the refined rage of intellectuals in
competing systems.

Lynch mobs are a different schmear entirely.  The "unconscious,"
overstimulated horse brain, obedience to authority, flight from freedom,
demonic possession -- whatever the cause: group psychosis isn't just bad
taste.  Even Henry Miller knew that.  It's a lowest common denominator
thing, or as Auden said, the only thing everybody can do is to be part of a
crowd.    

Eric


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