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Post by Wonder Woman on Jun 17, 2010 12:28:27 GMT -5
It is difficult for me to take seriously anything that puts 'God' and 'love' together. God so loved the world that he condemned many innocents to death. And, on more than one occasion. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son to die for it. I call BS. Either god had very little to do with the writings of the bible, or he was one sadistic SOB. IMO Taken in bits, there are some admirable qualities, but on the whole, I was wrong to have thought so highly of him.
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Post by Erasmus on Jun 17, 2010 12:37:06 GMT -5
This is the problem with lumping philosophy with mythologized history and pure myth, then taking the whole thing literally. Once you get into any idea of an external personalized divine being then you run into contradictions.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 17, 2010 19:18:02 GMT -5
This is the problem with lumping philosophy with mythologized history and pure myth, then taking the whole thing literally. Once you get into any idea of am xeternal personalized divine being then you run into contradictions. Dessi, I'm not quite certain what you intended to say with your typo. Should 'am xeternal' have read either: an external OR an eternal? The two things are by no means equivalent in meaning!
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Post by liberaljoe on Jun 26, 2010 7:58:41 GMT -5
. Either god had very little to do with the writings of the bible, or he was one sadistic SOB. IMO Who (apart from yourself) has suggested that God had anything to do with the writing of the Bible? I find that a very odd view indeed, especially when it is used as a basis to attack the concept of the Christian (or Jewish) God Vary odd
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Post by sadie on Jun 26, 2010 8:30:47 GMT -5
I have always said that the bible is a book......written by men.........and WW......I think they were bi-polar.
I have always found the Sodom and Gomorrah part rather disturbing........the angels come to save Abraham......the men of the city come to his house and demand to have sex with them......he says they are his guests and refuses and says instead.....no instead here have sex with my virgin daughters.........(seriously....yikes!!!)......then he takes his family into the mountains.....ok...the wife looks back...turns into a pillar of salt........no ones left.....they are up in the mountains......the cities are destroyed........so the daughters believe their will not be anyone to have children with and get their father drunk and have sex with him and have kids by him............
seriously.......there are some really disturbing parts of the bible.
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Post by fretslider on Jun 26, 2010 11:27:01 GMT -5
Akhenaten invented monotheism some time around 1350BC.
Not a good move.
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Post by liberaljoe on Jun 26, 2010 12:58:42 GMT -5
I have always said that the bible is a book......written by men.........and WW......I think they were bi-polar. Why should they be split personalities? Is Brett Easton a mad self-obsessed killer because he wrote such books? Are authors sex-mad when they write of sex? Are holocaust historians Jew-haters? Bit odd claiming that the people who wrote this book were some sort of loons Bit of a loony suggestion, I think.
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Post by Erasmus on Jun 26, 2010 13:56:05 GMT -5
The Sodom & Gomorrah story is the sort of thing that I can believe derived from a real incident because it reflects how primitives might behave but what's behind it I can't imagine. There is said to be something odd under that part of the Dead Sea. Their could have been an earthquake or a volcanic freak because that is an ancient fault line with volcanic potential but there's been no activity in recorded history. Unfortunately, this is unrecorded prehistory we're really talking about and the story might have been updated to the latest culture hero until settling on Abraham from thousands of years before.
Freud thought that Moses was Akhnaton. I don't but I think he was close to him and the reality behind the legend has been reversed. It wasn't proto-Jews that left Egypt for Canaan, it was Egypt that left Canaan during the general mayhem that happened during and after Akhnaton's time. Probably small numbers of his followers went to what was establishing itself as a border state run by his old followers once it became extremely unhealthy to be associated with his regime. Others went South and built a temple on the Nubian border.
Whatever the official line, Jews and Egyptians were always close and when Assyria threatens Israel (the later Northern state, not the united kingdom) he warns not to rely upon Pharoah - so Israel then still considered itself part of the Egyptian bloc.
Moses has half an Egyptian name meaning Child or Disciple. The other half is a a god and it's common in the royalty - Thoth-mose, Ra-mose. It is a very short leap from the God who may not be named (because his name is expunged) to the God who may not be named (because his name is too precious). In any case, it wasn't normal to go throwing divine names around in case it attracted their attention. It is not much of a jump either from Aton to Adon. That is said to mean Lord in the general sense but that's from much later times and it could have started as a personal name of The Lord and taken the reverse route that has turned God into the personal name of a god who was never intended to have one.
There are several names used for 'god' in the OT in distinct styles that allows them to separated into about four sources. Often YHWH occurs as part of a name, so may originally have referred to a pantheon. Then there's that 'El means god in the generic sense (but might have been a name before) and just about every angel you care to name has it as the final syllable in the name.
I would guess that an identification of Canaanite and Egyptian main gods happened early on, either recognising the supreme Egyptian and Canaanite deities as different names for the same thing, which happened in Egypt and in India (in any case, 'names' are more often titles and epithets), or they may have deliberately united the twon ito one. That happened with Serapis constructed in Alexandria from Osiris (Asar) and the Apis Bull although he is treated as thoroughly Greek in form. That sort of thing suggests that the priests at least thought of their gods more as forces and principles that could be magically combined and married off than as divine beings. After that, maybe minor gods came to be seen as aspects of a single god. It's ambiguous whether terms like The Most High God mean head of a pantheon or just O God, you really really are so very very wonderful (© John Cleese) because of the nature of the language. (If they'd written it in Welsh, apparantly there is a difference)
It is important for Christianity because the official Judean religion always considered Israel corrupted by nasty foreign influence. The truth is likely to be the opposite, that Israel (and Samaria) retained folk traditions that were purged when the Judean literati were carted off to Babylon. Christianity always admits a strong Galileean connection and hostility to the Judean Establishment (and quite a few references to Samaritans). It also used the Greek translation of a slightly different OT from the Hebrew, So it's too simple to imagine that it came out of Judaeism because Judaeism was even less monolithic than it is now. It like saying that the Mormons came out of Christianity; that doesn't mean much unless you know that not all Christians at the time followed the Pope. Actually it's worse because in this case, the religion we think we know something about probably derives from the one we don't.
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Post by fretslider on Jun 26, 2010 15:47:25 GMT -5
I have always said that the bible is a book......written by men.........and WW......I think they were bi-polar. Why should they be split personalities? Is Brett Easton a mad self-obsessed killer because he wrote such books? Are authors sex-mad when they write of sex? Are holocaust historians Jew-haters? Bit odd claiming that the people who wrote this book were some sort of loons Bit of a loony suggestion, I think. What is loony is that the feeble-minded still buy into religion.
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Post by Erasmus on Jun 26, 2010 18:24:51 GMT -5
Religion happens when people take metaphor literally. Intellectual logic is bound by its knowledge based on the senses. Experience is not. The only way to describe some experiences to the intellect incapable of understanding them is through symbols. (All language is in any case in one sense symbolic). Then some bloody fool takes the symbol literally and starts worshiping it. Except of course when perhaps they should take it literally. God is beyond description and understanding we often hear - from people who will then proceed to give a detailed description of how they understand their 'god' that we must to. God is Love they say - and then tie themselves in knots calling on the previous to explain how the most diabolical biblical atrocities and disasters show that we just can't understand divine love instead of concluding that maybe those events had sod-all to with any 'god' at all. Latest is that the BP oil spill is God's revenge for Obama's hint that he might be a tiny bit less ready than predecessors to grovel to Israel automatically. Note: no matter what the circumstances where, all divine actions are inevitably aimed at and caused by American actions. You can go through some of the best known parts of the bible and find that what they actually say is the direct opposite of popular belief, often of preaching.
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Post by Wonder Woman on Jun 26, 2010 20:25:50 GMT -5
. Either god had very little to do with the writings of the bible, or he was one sadistic SOB. IMO Who (apart from yourself) has suggested that God had anything to do with the writing of the Bible? I find that a very odd view indeed, especially when it is used as a basis to attack the concept of the Christian (or Jewish) God Vary odd Well, according to the church (any I've been to) the writings were inspired by god himself. It is, afterall, considered 'the word of god'. And, IMO, if it is indeed the 'word of god' then, IMNHO he's worthy of the criticism. If not, then those who wrote ~ and those who believe it's the word of god ~ are. Take your pick.
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Post by Erasmus on Jun 26, 2010 22:23:01 GMT -5
St.Paul says otherwise. I do not know the exact reference, but he advizes followers to assess Scripture (that is, the OT) by What tells of the god which is Love that we know is 'of the god' and what does not is 'of man'. Likewise, Genesis 1 says that we are the likeness of Elohim while the whole saga of Genesis 3 shows 'Jehovah' throwing the first of his innumerable tantrums because Now they know they are gods - like Us and the Serpent told the truth, the Demiurge Lord of material existence who demands worship as 'the deity' under threat lied. Their 'God' is The Father of Lies, a Jealous god, the god of wrath (when I was a kid, I used to think of wrath as the plastic incontinence pants that babies wear and it turned me on!) Does that sound like defining Love as the True Divinity in God is Love? Stick to Love as your God and forget the Demon of religious invention! This weekend's sermon of heretical Liberation
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Post by liberaljoe on Jun 28, 2010 2:59:00 GMT -5
Well, according to the church (any I've been to) the writings were inspired by god himself. It is, afterall, considered 'the word of god'. And, IMO, if it is indeed the 'word of god' then, IMNHO he's worthy of the criticism. If not, then those who wrote ~ and those who believe it's the word of god ~ are. Take your pick. Well it is no surprise that religionists consider the Bible was inspired by God, as they think most things (everything in fact?) was inspired by God?) There is no way that any rational person can consider that it is the word of God. (Unlike the Koran which is considered the word of Allah), for what on earth was God doing acting the partof a raconteur, telling tall tales of insignificant Jewish people? In my opinion the OT can only be understood as an allegory told by a literate elite designed to impress the illiterate impressionable with the awesome power of God. Genesis is an attempt to explain the Great Mystery, something that scientists and philosphers are attempting to do today ( with considerably less success and requiring a similar supension of disbelief on the part of the reader!)
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Post by Deleted on Jun 29, 2010 9:59:38 GMT -5
The Bible (like any other so-called sacred scripture) was written by human beings.
No doubt they believed themselves to be expressing the views of a being in whom they believed but there is no rational basis for us sharing in their beliefs, still less for attempting to structure a society on the basis of mythology.
Whether it is the Bible, the Quran, the works of Marx and Engels, Mein Kampf, whenever any kind of 'sacred book' is allowed to dominate the thought and practice of a society nothing but oppression results nor indeed can result.
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Post by Erasmus on Jun 29, 2010 15:55:06 GMT -5
The Gospel of Philip saying God made Man and Man makes gods sounds triter than it is. Obviously people invent personifications of any number of things and worship them as gods, and as well, people create abstractions which they also treat as gods. The latest such god is The Market: there is no Marketm there are only people and commercial rules that they create. Corporations are other such man-made gods and so are more abstract social concepts of ethics.
But there is a more profound sense in which Man makes gods. No matter how many scriptures in what religion speak in terms beyond comprehension and personified entities sitting on a cloud, that is invariably how people come to think of deity. No matter how many scriptures talk of 'Christ', 'God', 'The Kingdom' as within you, out there somewhere (and usually in a spatial sort of somewhere more than as a different state of being, is how people end up imagining it. The whole pseudo-science of Theology amounts to understanding divine psychology, but psychology implies some sort of personal mind, which goes against the concept of divine transcendence in the first place.
The Christian mythos attempts to correct this but has failed. The deity is transcendent, so cannot be comprehended by intellect restricted within lesser confines. It can however be experienced as the deepest aspect of the individual. In this sense, it is referred to as the Christ within. (In Qabbalistic tradition this becomes Knowledge of the Holy Guardian Angel) However, this no more comes easily than does nuclear physics. Therefore is the image of Jesus as the Christ without, or putting a human face on deity recognizable in this existence. Unfortunately this all got mixed up with centuries of debate about the exact relationship between the divine and human natures of a historical Jesus who may or may not have existed, which still have not been resolved (and never can be) mostly involving Greek linguistic algebra.
The result has not been to keep the concept of deity transcendent. It has been to confuse the person Jesus with the person 'God' (and to reduce the concept of the god to the personal name God) Sometimes this takes the form of an entire pantheon of Holy Family and Saints being asked to pass petitions up the line, other times, the person Jesus takes divine characteristics on while at the same time giving 'God' just the kind of quasi-physical existence that 'The Christ' as a mythic concept was probably intended to prevent.
Christianity was the New Dispensation for the West, to a large extent rendering public what had previously been restricted to initiatory Mystery Schools, though it also had initiatory aspects that have in all practical senses been lost. It united concepts of God beyond the gods which had arisen in different ways in both the traditional and the Jewish religions. Much of the symbology is astrological and would have been recognised as such in an age permeated with basic occult acceptance. Most obviously, Christianity moves the focus of 'worship' from external physical sacrifice to internal devotional practice that Indians might recognize as a form of Bhaktiyoga - a very Piscean kind of concept.
That age is as good as over. The world has changed dramatically in developing science and technology. Therefore, the Next Dispensation (or if you prefer translation of eternal knowledge into symbolism suitable for the age) is more likely to be set in scientific terms. We already have theories of the Holographic Universe and good old E=MC2 confirming what mystics have always said: the 'real' world (if any such thing exists at all) is not the sensory world that we bark our shins on, it is not even necessarily the intellectual world. It is 'Energy' - OK so WTF is Energy when it's at home? There's a damned good guess though, that while scientists may scoff at the mediaeval demons and angels off Qabbalah and Alchemy, any good mediaeval Qabbalist or Alcehmist would recognise in the science of a century or so, what they (and not the external world) meant by the weird terms they used.
Qabbalah is about the nearest to a theology of a universal creative substrate without treating 'the Creative Nothingness' as a personal entity as it gets. We can draw a parallel with the Quantum Physics concept that pure vacuum cannot exist, since it is seething with virtual particles of existence shorter than Heisenberg's limit (as well as permeated by energy fields)
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