I'm not sure if this is appropriate for this blog, but I'm going to go with it anyways. This argument has to do with the method I have deemed, "AP", being used in religion. These are my stretched out thoughts, as of right now...
"A wise prince must, whenever he has the occasion, foster with cunning some hostility so that in stamping it out his greatness will increase as a result."
-Machiavelli
Is it possible for a company like Pepsi to covertly establish an alternate, formidable, "nemesis" company in an attempt to make their image look better...? I began thinking about this after reading (as is the usual case) an insightful bit about how Machiavellian State Terror is used in governments. Jumping the dots, I assumed this type of technique has been used in companies with *a lot of power. Hell, if we wanted to, we could even say the United States Government is a company itself. What are the differences...? Let's not get distracted from the purpose of this article: the applications of this method beyond governmental control.
* a lot is a term used to describe a significant amount.
We think about what other applications this 'method', which I will call 'antagonistic protaginism' (other names: 'antagonist proprellism', or 'the oppositional protagonist') or AP, for short, could be used in. We obviously see variances of AP in popular media that uses rhetoric to appeal to the audience. An example might be in a children's cartoon show, or in a comic book, or even in movies where the audience is built up to believe that the cause of conflict is independent of a main archetypal character, formally seen as 'good', but then realizes at the climax that this same character created that conflict to benefit himself.
Loosely stepping stones, we can apply this to religion. Could God have created Satan to make God's image look better? This could correlate or run parallel with the problem of evil (philosophy).
Now I will explain why I believe that God could not have used AP to benefit God and that it could only be a human who uses it.
Based on my experience, I cannot believe that God is intelligent. Intelligence in a higher power is probably a gross understatement that is not feasible, moreover, an intelligent God is a human construct because only humans can have intelligence. This construct is also a device that utilizes the natural properties of emotions (see earlier notes) to mechanically (or biologically) pull or force a human audience to relate to the image of the personified entity. However, I am not saying that God doesn't exist. Simply, based on my experience, God is not intelligent. God is not a person. God is far beyond intelligence. God doesn't have to think in order to do. God IS. And what God IS is what DOES.
What I encountered, is that if God is not intelligent, how can Satan be? The intelligent higher power or nemesis of higher power, is the acutely narcissistic construct created by man for man to portray something that is more abstract and incomprehensible in a way that is relational to him. This is the argument for why only humans could use AP. Do you smell conspiracy...? Only if it is done so on purpose.
It is apparent that the life of Jesus may perhaps be conspiracy itself. There is contradictory evidence. However, this does not take away that Jesus still exists, whether he is fictional or not (Yes, similar to saying Harry Potter exists, or Santa Claus for that matter).
Even if it is a conspiracy, it all the more proves that Jesus's words have a purpose, even if they are not what we think them to be. If it is a conspiracy, we can say that Jesus's words are the words of a human with insight. If it is not a conspiracy, then all words coming from Jesus were original. Regardless of conspiracy (and I don't like to say "conspiracy"), there is 'conspiracy' even within this situation which proves that Jesus, or the man who wrote Jesus, used a form of AP to guide his audience.
We can say that Jesus, or the man who wrote Jesus, knew of this 'conspiracy' in the way he talks to his disciples. Jesus says in the Bible (I believe I am correct on this) that even what he tells his disciples is encrypted. Jesus tells (Paul?) something along the lines of, 'If you do not understand what I say to you now, how is it that you will understand what goes on in heaven...?' (paraphrasing). I take this to mean that there is a deeper message to what Jesus says. Jesus speaks in parables to the masses and metaphors to his disciples. He did this to protect himself and the message from ignorant backlash, so it would continue to survive.
Jesus, or the man who wrote Jesus, utilized the natural tendency of man to relate more with his own image by making God a "Father"; metaphorical words for an audience that, based on the technological state at the time, could not possibly interpret something as abstract as an unintelligent God that solely IS or exists just because. Remember, this is abstract to them, not to us.
And then we get to the same method of personifying used on, "The Evil One".
I'm not going to get into the WHOLE thing (including the Master Idea and such). But Jesus, or the man who wrote Jesus, knew of this conspiracy, that God is not a person, and in order to disseminate the 'message', i.e. "the word", rhetorical modifications must be made. There must be an "Evil One". There must be an opposition and this opposition must relate to man. I am not saying that evil doesn't exist. I am saying that Jesus, or the man who wrote Jesus, because God cannot be intelligent, constructed the perfect antagonist for a cause, and in doing so, he may have practiced the first form of antagonistic protagonism. The purpose of using AP was the same whether Jesus was a real person or fictional. The true meaning, whether it was for controlling of the masses or an actual revolution based on peace, however, is debatable.
Archaic, but not simplistic. Tactics were used far before Machiavelli realized it.
These are my thoughts...
-XJ
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