Christianity's Immoral Foundation

[gaffo]

correct above king james the first i think.

2nd was the one that turned tail and ran to france with little pressure/small uprising.

[-1-]

Guffo, like your noticing the death/ sin relationship in dogma vs animal life / death.

That was brilliant.

[-1-]

the "water to wine" narative in mark? is an oblique reference to Jesus' own wedding to Mary BTW...............

You mean, "semen to blood". In a stylized way. Very poetic.

[gaffo]

Guffo, your knowledge of Christian literature, dogma, and faith is paralleled on this site only by Serendipper's. AT LEAST AS FAR AS I CAN SEE. AND I DON'T SEE TOO FAR IN THIS MATTER, SO PLEASE NOBODY GET INSULTED, IT IS MY IGNORANCE SPEAKING, NOT GOD IN HIS INFINITE WISDOM.

But I am not a judge of that, as I haven't read even one version of the Bible in its entirety.

I thank you for the complent sir. didn't know this about "dipper" - noted by me for future reference.

I resort to one observation, two questions and a request.

You, Gaffo, and Serendipper, both authoratively deny some statements, and counter it with well-researched ideas.

But you are able to counter your own retort as well.

So which is right?

You say, neither is right, because there are so many verisons of the bible that it's impossible to separate the chaff from the wheat, so to speak.

I am just marvelling that while you deny certain aspects of the bible as non-truth, you accept versions of the bible that are maverick, such as Jesus' marriage to Maria Magda-Lene.

If you deny some aspects, and accept some other aspects, I ask you what is your guiding principle in your decision to believe or not to believe? This is question 1.

well I'm an athiest so I don't beleive any of it as true.

I view the works as historical myth (and a denial of "Sola Scripture" is vital - one can not do a valid anaysis of the works of the bible with that mindset) each author of each work wrote to HIS AUDIENCE in HIS TIME with HIS theology. So i come to this with the view of folks like Robert Eisenmen, Giza Vermes, Bart Ehrman/etc.

I see "patterns" in both the NT and OT.


for instance.

per the OT - earliest works are Polytheistic (but clearly that is has been edited out by scribes 2500 yrs ago when the Torah was "Fixed" - but there remains "hints" of polytheism in the oldest works (scribes had too much heart to remove all of the references).

also per the OT - around the time just after the return of the 2nd exiles (450 BC) - there seems to have been "strife" between the returnees (the elite returned from Persia - Ezra,Zach.Haggi.............and the other 80 percen of plead Israelis that were never removed to Persia.

i.e. esp WRT Ezra (seemed a tribal a-hole) - upon return told pleads that marriages to their non-jews were invalid.

other works shortly showed up to counter Ezra's screed and were included in the OT - namely Jonah (where the author shows "Jonah" the "good jew" as a lout, and the "pagan fishermen" as more godly. the author of Jonah was writting his work to counter tribalist mindset of Ezra - jonah is a universalist humanist work, at the end the cow of assyria are wearing sack-cloth (blessed-holy), and the "godly jew" Jonah is cussing God for the heat of the sun and even the plant that is shading him! (the whole "belly of the whale bullshit and christ" thing is utter crap WRT to this work)


I like Amos too (amos is the oldest work in the OT BTW (780 BC) - older than the text of the Torah itself (though the oral story the torah is based on is proably older than amos)

amos is all about pride - written during time when Israel was actually a regional power and her people were thinking they were going to kick the ass of thier neighbors being God's choosen.

theme in that work is that "choosen" is not a privalage, but a resposiblility! - so be humble.

WRT to NT

I see four theologies:

Mark - jewish, with "a ghandi-like" man good enough for God to adopt him as his son via baptism by John Baptist on river jordan. in this work he is still man mostly, fears his death, does not understand why he must die/etc,

Matt/Luke (outside of my reference of their different views of Satan's role in the crusifiction in earier post - they conform to the same ideology)

Not adopted by God, but born from God - but still not God - literally God's Son. Devine, moreso that that in mark (these works were written 15-20 latter and we can see a "growth" in the myth of the man Jesus to the God Jesus in play.

Gosp John - Jesus here IS God, and he is little man. he's got all the anwsers, understands why he must die and has no fear.

---those are 3 differing theologies WRT to the nature of Christ right here.

now to the fourth - Saul's letters (I dislike Saul so use that name - i think he was a phoney egotistical asshole personally). Sauls theology is similar to Matt/Luke conserning post Resurrection Christ, but unlike matt/luke Saul dissregards the man/actions of Jesus prior to his death (its as if he does not view them as the same being (and I don't think he does) - i think he view the man Jesus as not even as good a man as what Mark had to say, instead Saul fixates upon the Post crusified Chirst as the being worth worshiping (that being is also literally the Son of God - so no trinitity.

Question two is, if there are 40 versions of the bible that are not identical, do you, personally, and it is an opinion I seek, not truth; do you personally believe Christianity exists? I mean, if the bulk of their teaching is manifold, then why accept the entire religion as one?

because folks over the centuries via "social covention" have force a fit "Sola Scripture" upon the masses. (i.e. folks just expect wrong bibilical interpretation).

for instance - back 1600 yr ago it was just assumed by both Jews and Christians that the Devil and his legion rule the earth due to sexual desire with mortal women (there is that one reference in Genesis about the their offspring being the Giants (Nihilum) and "men of great renoun" - dead sea scrolls mention the same theology, as does the Jubaless and Enoch (hell even Saul mentions in 2 corenthons(sp) for women to cover their hair so as not to tempt demons.

and yet a few centuries ago this theology was booted out and we got the one in The Apocalypse instead - Satan rebelled out of pride, not lust for women




oh ya - back to OT real quick (thinking of the Apocalypse reminded me "that old serpent the devil") - well that old "serpent" might have been the Devil in 97 AD when that work was written, but it sure as shit was not when the Psalms were!

it was a dragon - Leviathon (which was the same beast as the Summarian Taimat) - Jews as other "Beast gods" too, Rahab, and Bohemoth.


"Satan" did not even exist prior to the 2nd exile - the jews adopted Arhiman from the Persians upon their return from exile.


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I read with great interest where you wrote, that Jesus hauled up all the deserving souls from hell. Yet in Dante's "Divina Comedia" the souls of Plato, Socrates, and everyone else's who had been born before Jesus, were in the front yard of hell, not going in, but not able to proceed to anywhere else either.

So there is a discrepancy... why did Dante not notice the passage in Peter 2 which you noticed and claimed is a description of Jesus etc.

I know you can't get into Dante's head, that is clear. But you probably could tell me why the zeitgeist of Dante denied this fact? If it is a fact. This was question numero 2.

An exact line quotation would be very, very helpful, thank you very much. This is a request.

that is an excellent question - dante was a learned man so i've not doubt he knew is peter2, i like your question and respect dante, i wish i know, but honestly don't.

can you think of any reason he would do so for stories sake?

[gaffo]

sort of an aside but may apt.

Jesus mentions several times about the "Restoration of the Kingdom of God" i.e the final day (after the tribulation) - where the "loin will lye with the lamb" (peace - all animals will eat grass - no really - that is the concept) i think the view of some animals becoming carnivores was a result of the "Fall" of man (the Judaic theology of that time - this is utterly lost today).

also refer to book of Jubaless - jewish work written 200 yr prior to Jesus' time. in it the theme is that man and animals could talk to each other..........until the Fall............when man was cut from animals (nature).

St Francis might be linked here - i wonder if there some link somehow, i've never looked into it.

[Belinda]

I agree with Skip. If I may paraphrase Skip's point, tribalism is alive and strong in modern developed societies. Tribalism , that's to say "my people, ancestors and so on , are, were, right and yours are,were, wrong" applies to social classes. The sins of the fathers are what sociologists call 'ascribed status'. The alternative to ascribed status is achieved status . Status may be achieved by persons from a despised social class when the society allows for social mobility.

The sins of the fathers may be regarded as a warning from The Bible that this old injustice will recur unless we act to prevent it.