Revisiting The Blatant Incompatibility Between Stoicism And Christianity

 Micah Hoover,
a religious fundamentalist 
has (for years) been abusing and misappropriating various non-religious social-media forums (ie. Stoicism groups) to do P.R./recruitment for his anti-Stoic and anti-virtuous religious mafia.
[Yes, it's literally a mafia]

With that,  
he caught my attention;
again. 

It always boils down to him mispresenting every concept he presents;
Stoicism,
word-meanings,
his own religion,
and even basic human ideals.

It's all just dishonest marketing.

He does that as a means-to-and-end;
in order to spread the reach of his mafia.  

Let's take a look:

The quote that Micah shared 
and tried to mispresent was this:

"“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.” — Marcus Aurelius"

Here, Micah is inferring (incorrectly)
that Marcus Aurelius
would have seen Christian dogmas 
as high quality thoughts;
and thus conducive to a life well-lived.

[Edit:
Micah, the next morning, has denied intending that as his message.

I still say:
Clearly, it was.

However,
since he is now denying it, ...
 I have now challenged him to explain his meaning.

It's weird (and, I think, "telling") that he didn't offer a clarification of what he really meant, along with his denial. 

I had to ask him for that.

I'm expecting to either ignore that challenge,
or to contradict himself.
We shall see.
 But I feel like it's fair to let my readers know that he has denied that as his intended meaning]

Making it even worse, 
the imagine is of a fictional story 
in a really stupid collection of religious folklore. 

The image 
is of a very unStoic bible-character (Moses) 
prostrating and humiliating himself in front of a burning bush;
 a talking burning bush.

The caption in that image reads
"You
will never see anything wonderful 
if you rule it out". 

By his own logic, he is choosing to be blind to a vast array of sources of wonder. 

However, 
his religiosity is, by nature, egocentric.

~So far as he can see~,
only his own personal experiences are valid. 
 
So if you want to live a life worth living ... 
he thinks (or, perhaps, only pretends to think) you need to ~choose to become~ receptive to his religious narrative; making it your own. 

Worse yet, 
there are many depressed, desperate, and naïve people in our world.
Any of them could realistically be tricked by that ploy
into thinking Micah's religion ~just might be~ the only way their emotionally grey skies could clear up. 

Many people simply have no awareness of the downsides and risks to their health (every facet of their health; psychological, financial, social, physical, etc.) 
if they get suckered into it.

In the past, I've made Micah aware of this.
I've linked him to numerous articles and scientific studies; all from the most reputable of sources (CDC, WHO, Nature, etc).
I've explained it all in easy terms. 
He simply ignores it all. 

He protects his mind from
~dangerous knowledge~;
automatically disregarding all facts, logic, and ethics ... except for tiny bits that seems to endorse his religious narrative. 

He has a mafia to recruit for;
human decency be damned.

This game Micah is running 
is geared to seek out vulnerable prey 
and lure them into his religion's
racketeering scheme. 

This time around,
the angle he was caught working is this:

Since the early Stoics DID see wonder in the world. ...
they must have been open to the idea that Christian mythos is all very factually real and very valuable.
-And thus ~so should we all~. 

In any event, citing a pseudo-Stoic as a real Stoic is problematic; to say the least.

It's also unreasonable, regardless of intent, to cite an anti-Christian like Marcus Aurelius 
as support for Christianity. 

Stoics didn't reason the way Micah is reasoning. 
Neither did Aurelius. 

As for any person who does,
that's not a worthy lead to follow.
 
We all should have outgrown that infancy by now. 

More importantly,
it has no place in a group about Stoicism. 

There is also ~great risk of great harm~ 
inherent to Micah's religion. 

In reply,
random people pushed back (yet again)
against Micah misusing a Stoicism group to promote his anti-Stoic religion. 

Immediately, 
Micah doubled-down. 
[as seen here:]

Micah also reasserted his nonsensical position; saying:

"The post was about how people insulate themselves from the good life. Moses didn't do that."

In reply, someone said "Stoicism has nothing in common with the idea of divine revelation, whether through a burning bush or otherwise."
--

Micah simply stopped replying to pushback/challenges to his bullshit. 

Within a week, I noticed the thread.

I then added my voice to those calling for him to STFU. 

Micha briefly returned. 

He replied to my initial responses by gaslighting;
like he always does. 
---

Micah is Micah.
His mind simply is how it is. 

But in hopes that someone else might be helped by sane counterpoints, 
I consider it worthwhile to add my voice to that scene. 

This blog recaps and continues that effort. 

For anyone is interested in the matter, 
I submit these thoughts for consideration. 

People who either:
a.) have no interest in
or
b.) ~rule out~
fundamentalist religious narratives 
aren't "insulating themselves from a good life".

Instead, they are protecting their potential for ~realizing and pursuing~
their best possible self 
and their best possible life.

The truth
is the opposite of what Micah is claiming. 

Like all religious fundamentalists, 
Mica simply avoids engaging about any points he can't afford to acknowledge.

Clearly, he realizes that his worldview is bullshit. 
Otherwise, he wouldn't dodge the points being made; like this one: 

Micah never really acknowledged that point. 
He just kept re-asserting his own. 

Like all religious fundamentalists,
Micah is what we call a "Bad Faith Actor". 

So this is where I jumped in. 

In reply I offered this: 

re
1." Solomon wrote a lot that resembles stoicism."
--
Nope.
----------------------------------------------------------
2. "Paul in the new testament quotes a stoic philosopher. "
--
Nope.
---------------------------------------------------------------
3. :"Then there's the overlap with self control and discipline."
--
Nope.
-----------------------------------

This brought Micah back to the scene.

So now Micah finally responded to what the other guy said 5 days ago.
BUT he still didn't really address the actual point. 
Instead, 
he goes out of his way
to mispresent what the other guy said.

Notice:

 Steve (the other guy in this exchange)
never said anything about atheism.

Here, Micah is committing a form of social and psychological abuse called "gas lighting".

He is also ~bearing false witness~;
while he publicly announces that his adversaries have said things which those adversaries never said (nor even hinted at). 

He is also misrepresenting Stoicism 
by focusing on Marcus Aurelius;
who believed in literal deities.

Or, perhaps Marcus only pretended to believe?

Regardless of what Marcus Aurelius thought, ...

The founders of Stoicism,
along with everyone who actually understood and fully accepted Stoicism ... 
never endorsed literal deities as real people.

It really would run counter to Stoic principals.

They would ever endorsed the very un-Stoic notion of trying to submit to, serve, or otherwise revere any literal god-people. 

Marcus Aurelius
either misunderstood some very important facets of Stoicism 
or 
he pretended to misunderstand.

Either way,
he tried to reshape it into a religious and political tool. 

So here we are, today;
still contending with socially and politically power-hungry Un-Stoics 
posing as Stoics.

[Disclaimer:
Just to be clear, ...
I have rejected Stoicism ~as a whole~. 

Instead, I openly cherry pick the best parts; 
leaving the underdeveloped and the rotten bits behind. 

That is, evidently, what Marcus Aurelius tried to do also.
But he did a worse job of it.
And then he misrepresented himself as a "Stoic".

I could never behave so willfully unethically. 
Thus,
I'm not speaking to anyone as a Stoic.

Nor am I claiming to speak by any authority; since such a thing is merely a mind-game and a bid to leverage other minds into submission.
 I don't play such games.] 

[To continue, ...]

Micah finally replied to me; 
saying:

" You aren't thinking about what you are saying.

Who was Paul quoting when he said:
for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His descendants.’
Acts 17:28 NASB2020

He wasn't quoting the NY Times.

Solomon wrote the book of Ecclesiastes, a book that focuses on the berevity of life and the sobering implications of that. He says life is a vapor.

Just like Marcus Aurelius said, "Keep thyself then simple, good, pure, serious, free from affectation, a friend of justice, a worshipper of the gods, kind, affectionate, strenuous in all proper acts."

If you take out the polytheism there, would you not see any commonality ?

Or are you just trying to throw rocks at Christianity?"


To all of that, I replied:

Re:
What Paul said in Acts.

1. Paul didn't write Acts.
Acts has the same author as "Luke".
No one knows who wrote Luke.
------------------------------------------------------------
2. (more importantly)
Seating our self-worth in someone external to us (like a parent or parental figure)

is

not

Stoic.
-------------------------------------------------------------
3. No one knows who wrote "Ecclesiastes".
It's really old news that scholars have rejected the claim that "Solomon" wrote it.
--------------------------------------------------------------
4. It's neither news
nor brilliant
for anyone to notice that this life is short.

It's like saying "I like a book that says we can drink water".

It's fun that you're impressed by something so obvious.
But I'm not.
And frankly, it's weird that you keep offering random bits of trivia (most of which is wrong anyways) as if those support some other point you're trying to make.
--------------------------------------------------------------

5. Life is not like a "vapor"
IF we are each a soul that does not evaporate and (instead) keeps existing after our body dies.

It is always ... interesting (in a sad way)
to watch religious fundamentalists struggle to understand basic concepts.
But I've said it before.
And I'll say it again.
Christian churches and Christian book stores
really need to start shelving dictionaries next to their mentally-enslaving fantasy books. 
And they certainly WOULD;
except that it would interfere with their blatantly Orwellian propaganda. 

----------------------------------------------------------------
6. re "Just like Marcus Aurelius said, "Keep thyself then simple, good, pure, serious, free from affectation, a friend of justice, a worshipper of the gods, kind, affectionate, strenuous in all proper acts."
If you take out the polytheism there, would you not see any commonality ?"
--

a.) Christian dogma= simple?

#SorryNotSorry. 
But I must side with old Abe Lincoln on this one.

“The Bible is not my book nor Christianity my profession. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma.”

----------------------------------------------

b.) "good" means nothing more than an appeal to authority
when religious Authoritarians speak of it.

And yet,
I refute the idea that Might Makes Right.

I also refute the claim that the slave-mind is a form of righteousness or even compatible to Stoicism.

Again,
ya'll need to put down your bibles and hymnals on occasion
and pick up a dictionary.

A book about ethics should be next.

You are using a lot of the same words as early Stoics.
But what those words mean to you ... is not what those words meant to Stoics;
 nor what they mean in any non-religious setting.

----------------------------------------------

c.) "pure"
If ~your interpretation of that word~ 
 is a reference to the roots of "purity culture", then I'm not impressed.

And yet,
 if you mean something entirely different by it, then:
 you'd need to specify your meaning.

But I'd be ... surprised if it's anything the Stoics would have agreed with;
since you lot habitually get that stuff wrong.

----------------------------------------------

d.) "serious"
I mean, yea. You're being serious.
But that's what makes this tragic.

----------------------------------------------

e.) "free from affection"
Again.
Quoting something said
by a man who rejected Christianity,
~as support for Christianity~. 

How can that be justified? 

----------------------------------------------

f.) "justice"
--
Again.
Christians need to read more dictionaries.

These words
do not mean
what you think they mean.
----------------------------------------------

g.) " a worshipper of the gods"
--
Granted, the term "gods", when pluralized, seems to be a literal use of the term "god".
But we both know that the founders of Stoicism were not theists.

They were pantheists; which is really just sexed-up-atheism.
 The other guy (Steve) never mentioned this.
But at this point, I am mentioning this.  

What "god/God" meant to them ... is not what it means to you.

It's not even compatible with what it means to you.
----------------------------------------------

h)
"kind"

Some Christians
are genuinely kind
despite their hateful religion.
And that's great. Really.
But genuine kindheartedness really not a Christian ideal.
A lot of people just like to imagine that it is.
----------------------------------------------
I)
"affectionate,"

Everyone has some affection to-or-about ... something.

So? 

In fact, "affectionate" is a way of saying
"is not free from affection".
But just a couple of words ago, in that quote,
he said we should be "free from affection". 

Apparently, Marcus Aurelius had damage to the reasoning centers of his brain. 

It makes me think he really was religious;
rather than just pretending to be. 

~Religious ways of thinking~
may have damaged his brain.

  Or, perhaps pre-existing damage caused him to mistake religiosity as reasonable?

Either way, it was unfortunate for him;
and for everyone he harmed because of his religiosity. 
----------------------------------------------
J.
"strenuous in all proper acts.""

Everyone agrees with this also; based on their own personal subjective intuitions about which behaviors/acts are "proper".

Meanwhile, ....
what use is discipline without ethics?

Bibles spend a lot more time
promoting anti-ethics
than they do promoting ethics.

I'm glad various bible writers were sometimes having a 'good day' and channeled their better-self into something actually-decent on occasion.
Good for them.

However,
the larger collection of biblical themes and ideals
are antithetical to healthy human mental, social, and societal health.

Quote-mining ancient Stoics, semi-Stoics, and fake-Stoics won't change that.