Carl Jung and Universalizing Empirical Observations

i was poking around on your facebook and found your philosophical statements. long time, old friend, good to see the wheels are still churning. is it ok if i come at you on these? initial comments on this one:

"Christian civilization has proved hollow to a terrifying degree: it is all veneer, but the inner man has remained untouched, ant therefore unchanged. His soul is out of key with his external beliefs; in his soul the Christian has not kept pace with external developments. Yes, everything is to be found outside--in image and in word, in Church and Bible--but never inside. Inside reign the archaic gods, supreme as of old." ~ Carl Jung (1875-1961). Psychology and Alchemy, 1, 1944, tr. R.F.C. Hull, 1968

I think a statement like this is so closely true - and that is why i find it so insidious. It depends so much on poor Carl's perspective and particular worldview. no thinking Christian should disagree that his statements can be true and often are - however so many, myself included respond in puzzlement on how he can universalize his observations on the externialization (did i just made up a word?) of our faith to make it a completely true statement. because it is often true, and perhaps more noticeably true, doesn't make it essentially true. especially since by the same observational technique as Carl, I can come up with quite opposite conclusions. I appreciate the introspection, philosophical searching, and genuine desires of people outside of Christianity, and by God I concur with the disheartening number of "shallow, dogmatic" Christians, however, I have a great list of people i know personally and incidentally, who are the deepest, internally honest, peace-filled Christians I could ever think possible - and many of them to a degree I find negligible, although admittedly present and beautiful, outside of Christianity. and so i am offering an equally perspective-driven description as Carl that opposes him- but that is just it.

carl says, "all veneer, unchanged, everything, never" the arrogance! the hubris! Carl has seen enough of the data to make deified objective universalistic statements! he is very guilty of the same crime as ignorant and dogmatic Christians but from his empirically religious perspective! i think that his statement can be generally true - but that is what is so wrong about it - looking at a glass half empty that can also be half full, but then using universalistic statements that by their very nature cannot be possibly true to paint a very different picture of Christianity than the experiences of millions of its adherents! I think the end of the matter is the way you want to look at a billion-strong faith like Christianity - with all its variations, complexity, truisms, and falsehoods. if you choose to look at it from a completely negative light be honest about it and don't try to hide behind empirical observations - it isn't the data that leads one to these conclusions, it is a decided response to experiences. poor Carl Jung - a bastard-child of modern rationality, allowing his experience of individuals, however many they are, to decide for him how he will interpret a faith-system! oh, and if he says the primal savagery of a Christian's inner self represents an archaic version of the Judeo-Christian God, he really needs to compare it to the other gods that were present in antiquity and beyond. Adonai looks oppressive to modernists in 21st century liberal democracies, but stand him up in the time when the New Testament was written and beyond, you find an incredibly liberating and compassionate theology that had no equal.