As men grow in their spiritual thirst and understanding, religious institutions which exploit fear of the unknown continue to crumble, along with the dark empire they serve to occult
I don't have a problem with the possibility Jesus was real, or there is a God, or a soul.. but while I don't hate The Bible, I have a very radical opinion in that I think The Bible was partly propaganda from bad ET's. And I think it's highly likely we've had ET's of different moral levels involved in human history and the bad ET's involved are the primary reason for this prevalence of blame and fear in our popular religions. Maybe moreso reptilians because most of the claims I've seen about the involvement of greys with humans are bad but not religious. I'm willing to look like a nutjob on this topic, at least online, because even though it's perpetually surreal to me, it's the greatest likelihood around the topic I see right now.
Boom, I finally got around to reading this. I marked the Email because it looked interesting, and I am very glad now that I have read it. Thanks. It fits with Gurdjieff, Vernon Howard's New Life Foundation, the idea of the False self and neither of these are too heavy on condemning us for our sins, but more focused on Teaching to see, learn, comprehend, and grow our souls, grow our Spirituality. This blog posting is kind of an affirmation for me, that this is a correct path to pursue. I want to learn and know Truth, and that can be scary to go through, but quite likely a necessary journey - so that we may recognize and escape this captivity. I suppose it is quite a bit on an individual level, but we may learn something about the notion of a Tipping Point and I would hope maybe even a True Great Awakening!
It seems to me that you discount the most populous current faith systems due to their conflict with some of the ancient documents that precede them. Meanwhile, I could not discern any support for the veracity of those ancient writings other than their temporal position in relation to those faith systems which they contradict. It almost appears that you are not holding ALL of them to the same standard of "to the victor goes the writing of history".
Why would those older writings necessarily hit closer to the mark of Truth than more recent ones? Especially given that written communications were preceded by the oral tradition, at least as prone to evolutionary story telling. While I freely admit that current science does not have an entirely accurate model for the reality of our universe (and I have severe doubts that it ever can), I do believe we get closer to understanding its workings as our knowledge develops over time. Perhaps I'm just experiencing recency bias. Anyway, it seems that science is being overtaken by "THE SCIENCE" these days, which is to say that it appears more like dogma. Real science starts with "I don't know, but I'm trying to figure it out and this is currently my best guess".
All that said, I have a deep faith in God and the salvation offered by Jesus, my savior. I also have a great deal of trouble finding a congregation where I feel at home, but that may be just me being an introvert. Either way, I have a great distrust of pretty much all human organizations and the inevitable political/bureaucratic nature that inevitably corrupts them.
The principle of a messiah to free mankind, along with the principle of captivity originates in Zoroastrianism and Sumerian literature from 3500 to ~650 bce. Many of those tenets/stories fed into Abrahamic, Vedic, and Greek-Mesopotamian mysteries. Thus, claim to historical precedent is clearly not held by the Bible. On the issue of accuracy in description of mankind's state, one merely has to apply critical thinking, and dispel the mind trick which religion has played. At first one is tempted to jump straight into nihilistic atheism - which I have seriously considered as well.
However, it helps to study and understand the reality and nature of dark entities and evil - learning to discern their habits and tradecraft. Pointing out sins, is the chief trick of dark entities. It takes time to break this spell of guilt and blame, and allow the mind to perceive a virtual as opposed to solely epistemological truth. By critical thinking, one can falsify every other ontology, until one is left with a single inescapable theory, which elegantly explains what we see, when all the most popular ones fail miserably in achieving this.
But why place any value on historical precedent? If the truth can be discerned by mere application of logic and reason, would historic precedent not just be an inverse recency bias, complicated by the fact of no (even remotely) direct experience of any of the events in question?
Looking at it from the perspective of a father, I would never allow my own child, were he a murderer/rapist/what-have-you, in my life to endanger others that I also love, short of true repentance and atonement. Such a choice does not abnegate my love for him.
When we choose to engage in evil acts, do we not harm others, either directly or indirectly? Are not all men prone to evil acts, though they may strive to be good? As I see it, that is the nature of original sin.
I think I'll just agree in part, disagree in part. It is rather subjective after all.
Man has not been around that long. The further back one goes into a fabricated history, the less fabrication one encounters. Our 'origins' as a culture as we understand them today, are a type of fan fiction. Something extraordinary happened to introduce the current version of mankind, and that something has been hidden. There is only one reason to hide our history.
This sin (denial of the right to thrive) takes precedent over all other offense. It is the critical issue. Everything else is virtue signaling and participating in the crime.
It is not that older stories are definitive truth, rather that recent stories and philosophies are guaranteed to be a lie in comparison. The blame based model of God-Man, has failed to explain what we see around us - failed us for thousands of years. Prolonged, even celebrated, the suffering, fear and ignorance. That is a work which is diabolical. This is the very tradecraft of evil.
Wow! This is the first of your writings I am reading since signing up😳. I nearly cancelled immediately but I came because others have spoken so well about your site, so I will stay and read some more before judging.
:-) Yes, this one is a touch of a departure inside my work JC. This is a bit like Roquefort salad dressing. The first time you taste it, is like 'what? yeechhh...' Then as your palate matures and your mind ponders its tenets - years later it no longer appears so crazy after all. Then decades later, it can become a go-to ontology. A type of post-Christian deliberation, which only the 3% or less ever taste.
I loved the depth of this - thank you for the great article. Interesting topic in general...
Years ago I purchased a book called: 'The Holy Bible from the ancient Eastern text : George M. Lamsa's translations from the Aramaic of the Peshitta'. It opened new perspectives to many things for me as it is likely that in that case less is lost in translation. Lords prayer in that version is just amazing.
I was a so-called Christian until the death of my son. I walked away because I no longer believed in the god of my youth. In the last 3-years, I have been “praying” to a god which I do not understand, but hope that is able to save us; although, oftentimes, I don’t even believe we deserve to be saved.
There with you bigfatpop. Have not lost a child, but two are disabled. Walked away from the Church as well. My acceptance of the story was waning, and I could no longer stand the misrepresentation my presence implied. Over time it just began to hold less and less water, until the dam broke and I started questioning all the doctrine. It was not sound - in fact diabolical in some aspects. And we do know that evil exists.
My well being improved significantly after leaving. It was like getting my integrity back. And no, we do not deserve much of anything. However, we are a blessed sibling for some reason (not a thing we have earned) - and that is why the demons hate us with such a passion.
It cannot be a straw man, because I have not claimed this to be a specific person's assertion.
The principle that not everyone agrees as to a single religion's teachings is called a wicker man: i.e. 'No matter how you pose it, you have posed it wrong.' That is a fallacy with no absolute merit, a very common foible of religious teachings. They can never be pinned down to any form of accountability. There is always an excuse... always an out... always an apologetic... it's always 'You don't really understand'. Not a newcomer to this game. I know it well.
This is an essential part of the whole abuse formula - lack of accountability.
Yes, I accept your rebuttal. Let me try to make my point better.
I am someone who aspires to the truth - consistently and congruently across all areas of life. I am also a practicing Catholic.
How should I engage with your argument when your assertions about my belief system are unrecognisable to me? I am orthodox in my beliefs as defined by the teachings of the magisterium of the Catholic Church. They've been clearly articulated over time so I don't accept your argument about a lack of accountability or being able to be pinned down.
The writeup is meant to show where those beliefs systems actually come from. The origins were unrecognizable to me as well when I first encountered them years ago. Now I understand the backstory and not just the propaganda they handed me as a child.
thank you for your reply. I'll add one last counter perspective on you article.
Christianity's Original Sin, doesn't impart any guilt to a Christian - why should we feel blame for a proto-ancestors actions?
Rather, original sin is like hereditary dietary intolerance. Not your fault, but important to make sense of your body's limitations as it encounters reality.
I'd go further and posit that the doctrine of Original Sin is an antidote to despair and self-loathing - not the cause.
Again, always get a lot from your articles so thank you very much!
I encourage you to learn to read the Hebrew and Greek scriptures in light of what they actually say and not what people want them to say. Also, read them in light of the ancient cosmologies and cultural contexts in which they were written. I highly recommend the Bibleproject.com
Scripture is definitely written for us but not TO us.
May you come to know the love of the Messiah and the richness of His presence.
I have a battered old Strong's Concordance and have used it for decades.
I just went out into the world and found a scientific reality which falsifies some absolutely critical foundational stones of the Bible. Semantics will not help correct that.
It depends on if one looks at scripture as providing video-camera footage of events (a documentary) , a scientific outline of the physics of creation, etc. or a metaphysical explanation related to the meaning of life: being created as the images of God and everything that God is doing to bring humanity back to the fullness of our image-bearing.
But then this equivocal approach runs anathema to the 'precision of language' appeal you made originally. One can pursue either basis, but not both simultaneously - or it becomes ad hoc: back to picking and choosing what is literal and what is symbolic.
Instead, I prefer to cull out Biblical edicts which are scientifically falsified. Keep dispassionate historical accounts, and finally understand that the Bible is a rewrite of the actual history, in favor of one religious sect which changed much of the verbiage to their favor. The edits are not trustworthy. That is why all the old documents had to be destroyed.
The bad news to the Abrahamists: We are finding those old documents buried all over the place. The coming decades are going to be rather difficult for the dogmatists.
Yes. No it does not. Yes, which places the Canon at great risk of being found as a rewrite of history by less than scrupulous and low-intelligence religious leaders, and nothing more.
Have you ever spent time with Christians, in worship, Bible study? Don’t know if you’re ever around Louisville, but would invite you to church. Not sure what it is that we can’t know or talk about that defines us? We certainly talk about being captives, to the power of sin, and being set free by Christ. Not much talk about hell/damnation, a lot about having life to the full, following the two great commands: love the Lord your God, and your neighbor. Had a thought experiment once, imagined dying and being able to see that there was nothing before my consciousness extinguished. In that moment I would still testify that Jesus had been my Lord and Savior. I have humility, peace, love, freedom in my life that I never knew before Jesus. He takes away my guilt and shame. Praying for you sir, that you too would know the risen Christ!
One thing you should note about me, I never do anything for grins, simple participation, or in an insincere fashion. If I do something, it is for real - or I cannot tolerate the dishonesty. The difference is, I just continued my process of learning, whereas most Christians just stop.
Much of what the gnostics say, predates modern civilization, not to mention the Bible - by a pretty large span of time... Here is a teaching from 9500 bce, which spread all over the world, long before Egypt, Sumer, or Israel.
My take is alluded to by a statement from the article:
"Call ye nothing good. For in the moment you do, evil will kill crucify it and wear its skin as a costume."
We live in a realm where evil is real, visceral, and bears specific traits/definition. Good does exist, however it is not a logical object in our realm, as is evil. Everything is good aside from the practice of evil. But 'everything' is literally everything, both in this realm and outside it.
The correctness/science of one's intellectual doctrine, in no way obviates their participation in works of evil. One does not progress spiritually based upon their acumen, doctrinal adherence, nor correctness. I learned this lesson from abusive churches in my past:
What about the Son of Man. Was he resurrected in spirit and flesh? I don't have a great grasp outside my evangelical sphere, so I might not even be asking that question properly to a gnostic or proto-gnostic. I know a bit about the early Christian church Gnostics and that even their beliefs varied across sects.
BTW, one of the first long form pieces I read of yours was lat 2020 on creation I believe. If you have that link handy I would love to read it again.
In terms of the Resurrection. I do not hold the answer to that - save for resurrection being a central tenet of Mithraism. I have read various accounts that this story was part of the emergency reinvention of Christianity between 80 and 200 ce. But I do not know the actual truth behind the specifics of what happened in this period.
There are many frames to look at religion and you have presented yours very well. May I suggest comparing religion to child abuse misses several important details.
I just want to point one out. To start I understand how born into original sin is conflated into blame. Sin at its core is self centred selfishness raised above the highest good, God. We are born into original sin, which means we became self conscious and needed to be selfish to survive this world. The most primitive basic instinct and the paradox of the human condition. Then there is the fact that selfishness does not scale up without creating hell on earth. Selfish competition divides humanity, a mindless display of how powerful we are, a destructive force to others and to ourselves. To survive together selfishness needs to be reined in. We cannot fully escape selfishness as it is a survival and well being mechanism as long as we control it with spiritual guidance. We need to evolve past the instinct of mindless selfishness to prosper as social beings. Religions of the world have always struggled to guide us away from sin because they to have given in to temptation and lost the meaning and essence of sin.
There is zero wrong with selfishness aka the instinct of self-preservation, provided it does not mutate into avarice. The individual needs motivation to acquire enough resources, to live through good and bad times, to be able to find/attract a mate, to be able to raise children, especially to have enough spare to generously offer genuine help to others in need. Some competition is necessary to prevent complacency and to attract their best mate; both men and women do this in their own ways. Absolute morality and rationality, including the Golden Rule, is what really matters, not some arbitrary "sins", some of which look damned like slavery! "Original Sin" looks clearly an absurd, insulting, self-contradictory and evil idea, and is it even Christian?
At the core of most evil in this world are avaricious Babylonian evil worshippers, like the Pharisees, aka Orthodox "Jews"; their Talmud is a book of full of evil dogma! Numerous other Black Magi spread out from Babylon, including to Egypt. The Roman Bible was definitely tainted by these evils, and many other sects/religions are being corrupted by kosher-like means, by inevitably corrupted clergy, who compromise to attract various tainted revenue, to fill their wallets. Religions are caving to the evils of feminism and transsexualism; evils, because they destroy sexual restraint, babies, assurance of paternity, protective male authority, innocence, reproductive capability, and cause depression and suicide!
I am comparing the shuffler to a dishonest deck of cards. This is an absolutely essential tenet of ethics. Once a science declares that it holds and relates ultimate truth (as science communicators do), then it must prove that it is working from an honestly shuffled deck of cards - as it has become 'the dealer' in such a circumstance ethically.
Religion must prove it is not abusive - not simply make that an assumption of the game. This is a requirement of the position. Just like a US President must (defacto) prove that they cannot unilaterally launch nuclear weapons. We cannot divorce the risk from the position of authority.
This is the mantle of the very office it professes to hold. Religion has failed this essential litmus, abysmally.
Fascinating. Reading the OT, one often finds bits that appear to point to a very different realm - Methuselah, Book of Tobit, Book of Job, Jonah. Other parts of the OT are painful reading - historical chronicles with their ceaseless wars. To integrate this material into a whole is already a challenge. When adding Gnostic materials, the challenge of integration gets muuuch more difficult.
If the Gnostic perspective is valid and useful, I would expect that it will be found within the standard Bible, even despite attempts to remove its influence. Tobit, Job, Jonah feel Gnostic to me.
Having experienced Italian-Brazilian Catholicism, and spirituality in Brazil in general, with its blend of spiritualism, candomble etc I would say that the shame/blame-style Christianity is often overtaken by a vast and peaceful approach, which is yet still Christian.
I wonder about Timbuktu, and how much of the Alexandrian materials might still be there.
We have only to look at our own society today to see that human nature itself when deprived of the goodness of what the Bible describes as the Holy Spirit is capable of. The message Jesus left us is so simple and pure yet applying it so difficult for so many. I can only pray that Jesus' spirit will change your perspective.
Yeah, this one I anticipated would cause some dissonance. I have one guy who is angrily stalking in the comments below and in private emails. This is the type of darkness behind these religions about which I comment here.
The Bible contains no errors. Science has not proven one thing in it mistaken. You’re a modernist.
I don't have a problem with the possibility Jesus was real, or there is a God, or a soul.. but while I don't hate The Bible, I have a very radical opinion in that I think The Bible was partly propaganda from bad ET's. And I think it's highly likely we've had ET's of different moral levels involved in human history and the bad ET's involved are the primary reason for this prevalence of blame and fear in our popular religions. Maybe moreso reptilians because most of the claims I've seen about the involvement of greys with humans are bad but not religious. I'm willing to look like a nutjob on this topic, at least online, because even though it's perpetually surreal to me, it's the greatest likelihood around the topic I see right now.
Boom, I finally got around to reading this. I marked the Email because it looked interesting, and I am very glad now that I have read it. Thanks. It fits with Gurdjieff, Vernon Howard's New Life Foundation, the idea of the False self and neither of these are too heavy on condemning us for our sins, but more focused on Teaching to see, learn, comprehend, and grow our souls, grow our Spirituality. This blog posting is kind of an affirmation for me, that this is a correct path to pursue. I want to learn and know Truth, and that can be scary to go through, but quite likely a necessary journey - so that we may recognize and escape this captivity. I suppose it is quite a bit on an individual level, but we may learn something about the notion of a Tipping Point and I would hope maybe even a True Great Awakening!
It seems to me that you discount the most populous current faith systems due to their conflict with some of the ancient documents that precede them. Meanwhile, I could not discern any support for the veracity of those ancient writings other than their temporal position in relation to those faith systems which they contradict. It almost appears that you are not holding ALL of them to the same standard of "to the victor goes the writing of history".
Why would those older writings necessarily hit closer to the mark of Truth than more recent ones? Especially given that written communications were preceded by the oral tradition, at least as prone to evolutionary story telling. While I freely admit that current science does not have an entirely accurate model for the reality of our universe (and I have severe doubts that it ever can), I do believe we get closer to understanding its workings as our knowledge develops over time. Perhaps I'm just experiencing recency bias. Anyway, it seems that science is being overtaken by "THE SCIENCE" these days, which is to say that it appears more like dogma. Real science starts with "I don't know, but I'm trying to figure it out and this is currently my best guess".
All that said, I have a deep faith in God and the salvation offered by Jesus, my savior. I also have a great deal of trouble finding a congregation where I feel at home, but that may be just me being an introvert. Either way, I have a great distrust of pretty much all human organizations and the inevitable political/bureaucratic nature that inevitably corrupts them.
The principle of a messiah to free mankind, along with the principle of captivity originates in Zoroastrianism and Sumerian literature from 3500 to ~650 bce. Many of those tenets/stories fed into Abrahamic, Vedic, and Greek-Mesopotamian mysteries. Thus, claim to historical precedent is clearly not held by the Bible. On the issue of accuracy in description of mankind's state, one merely has to apply critical thinking, and dispel the mind trick which religion has played. At first one is tempted to jump straight into nihilistic atheism - which I have seriously considered as well.
However, it helps to study and understand the reality and nature of dark entities and evil - learning to discern their habits and tradecraft. Pointing out sins, is the chief trick of dark entities. It takes time to break this spell of guilt and blame, and allow the mind to perceive a virtual as opposed to solely epistemological truth. By critical thinking, one can falsify every other ontology, until one is left with a single inescapable theory, which elegantly explains what we see, when all the most popular ones fail miserably in achieving this.
But why place any value on historical precedent? If the truth can be discerned by mere application of logic and reason, would historic precedent not just be an inverse recency bias, complicated by the fact of no (even remotely) direct experience of any of the events in question?
Looking at it from the perspective of a father, I would never allow my own child, were he a murderer/rapist/what-have-you, in my life to endanger others that I also love, short of true repentance and atonement. Such a choice does not abnegate my love for him.
When we choose to engage in evil acts, do we not harm others, either directly or indirectly? Are not all men prone to evil acts, though they may strive to be good? As I see it, that is the nature of original sin.
I think I'll just agree in part, disagree in part. It is rather subjective after all.
Man has not been around that long. The further back one goes into a fabricated history, the less fabrication one encounters. Our 'origins' as a culture as we understand them today, are a type of fan fiction. Something extraordinary happened to introduce the current version of mankind, and that something has been hidden. There is only one reason to hide our history.
This sin (denial of the right to thrive) takes precedent over all other offense. It is the critical issue. Everything else is virtue signaling and participating in the crime.
It is not that older stories are definitive truth, rather that recent stories and philosophies are guaranteed to be a lie in comparison. The blame based model of God-Man, has failed to explain what we see around us - failed us for thousands of years. Prolonged, even celebrated, the suffering, fear and ignorance. That is a work which is diabolical. This is the very tradecraft of evil.
Wow! This is the first of your writings I am reading since signing up😳. I nearly cancelled immediately but I came because others have spoken so well about your site, so I will stay and read some more before judging.
But imagine my shock as I am a cradle Catholic 😆
:-) Yes, this one is a touch of a departure inside my work JC. This is a bit like Roquefort salad dressing. The first time you taste it, is like 'what? yeechhh...' Then as your palate matures and your mind ponders its tenets - years later it no longer appears so crazy after all. Then decades later, it can become a go-to ontology. A type of post-Christian deliberation, which only the 3% or less ever taste.
Bear with me...
I loved the depth of this - thank you for the great article. Interesting topic in general...
Years ago I purchased a book called: 'The Holy Bible from the ancient Eastern text : George M. Lamsa's translations from the Aramaic of the Peshitta'. It opened new perspectives to many things for me as it is likely that in that case less is lost in translation. Lords prayer in that version is just amazing.
I was a so-called Christian until the death of my son. I walked away because I no longer believed in the god of my youth. In the last 3-years, I have been “praying” to a god which I do not understand, but hope that is able to save us; although, oftentimes, I don’t even believe we deserve to be saved.
There with you bigfatpop. Have not lost a child, but two are disabled. Walked away from the Church as well. My acceptance of the story was waning, and I could no longer stand the misrepresentation my presence implied. Over time it just began to hold less and less water, until the dam broke and I started questioning all the doctrine. It was not sound - in fact diabolical in some aspects. And we do know that evil exists.
My well being improved significantly after leaving. It was like getting my integrity back. And no, we do not deserve much of anything. However, we are a blessed sibling for some reason (not a thing we have earned) - and that is why the demons hate us with such a passion.
I always enjoy your writings. This is certainly an elaborate straw man you've constructed yourself.
It cannot be a straw man, because I have not claimed this to be a specific person's assertion.
The principle that not everyone agrees as to a single religion's teachings is called a wicker man: i.e. 'No matter how you pose it, you have posed it wrong.' That is a fallacy with no absolute merit, a very common foible of religious teachings. They can never be pinned down to any form of accountability. There is always an excuse... always an out... always an apologetic... it's always 'You don't really understand'. Not a newcomer to this game. I know it well.
This is an essential part of the whole abuse formula - lack of accountability.
Yes, I accept your rebuttal. Let me try to make my point better.
I am someone who aspires to the truth - consistently and congruently across all areas of life. I am also a practicing Catholic.
How should I engage with your argument when your assertions about my belief system are unrecognisable to me? I am orthodox in my beliefs as defined by the teachings of the magisterium of the Catholic Church. They've been clearly articulated over time so I don't accept your argument about a lack of accountability or being able to be pinned down.
warm regards
The writeup is meant to show where those beliefs systems actually come from. The origins were unrecognizable to me as well when I first encountered them years ago. Now I understand the backstory and not just the propaganda they handed me as a child.
thank you for your reply. I'll add one last counter perspective on you article.
Christianity's Original Sin, doesn't impart any guilt to a Christian - why should we feel blame for a proto-ancestors actions?
Rather, original sin is like hereditary dietary intolerance. Not your fault, but important to make sense of your body's limitations as it encounters reality.
I'd go further and posit that the doctrine of Original Sin is an antidote to despair and self-loathing - not the cause.
Again, always get a lot from your articles so thank you very much!
I encourage you to learn to read the Hebrew and Greek scriptures in light of what they actually say and not what people want them to say. Also, read them in light of the ancient cosmologies and cultural contexts in which they were written. I highly recommend the Bibleproject.com
Scripture is definitely written for us but not TO us.
May you come to know the love of the Messiah and the richness of His presence.
Thank you for all that you do
I have a battered old Strong's Concordance and have used it for decades.
I just went out into the world and found a scientific reality which falsifies some absolutely critical foundational stones of the Bible. Semantics will not help correct that.
It depends on if one looks at scripture as providing video-camera footage of events (a documentary) , a scientific outline of the physics of creation, etc. or a metaphysical explanation related to the meaning of life: being created as the images of God and everything that God is doing to bring humanity back to the fullness of our image-bearing.
But then this equivocal approach runs anathema to the 'precision of language' appeal you made originally. One can pursue either basis, but not both simultaneously - or it becomes ad hoc: back to picking and choosing what is literal and what is symbolic.
Instead, I prefer to cull out Biblical edicts which are scientifically falsified. Keep dispassionate historical accounts, and finally understand that the Bible is a rewrite of the actual history, in favor of one religious sect which changed much of the verbiage to their favor. The edits are not trustworthy. That is why all the old documents had to be destroyed.
The bad news to the Abrahamists: We are finding those old documents buried all over the place. The coming decades are going to be rather difficult for the dogmatists.
Yes. No it does not. Yes, which places the Canon at great risk of being found as a rewrite of history by less than scrupulous and low-intelligence religious leaders, and nothing more.
Have you ever spent time with Christians, in worship, Bible study? Don’t know if you’re ever around Louisville, but would invite you to church. Not sure what it is that we can’t know or talk about that defines us? We certainly talk about being captives, to the power of sin, and being set free by Christ. Not much talk about hell/damnation, a lot about having life to the full, following the two great commands: love the Lord your God, and your neighbor. Had a thought experiment once, imagined dying and being able to see that there was nothing before my consciousness extinguished. In that moment I would still testify that Jesus had been my Lord and Savior. I have humility, peace, love, freedom in my life that I never knew before Jesus. He takes away my guilt and shame. Praying for you sir, that you too would know the risen Christ!
Absolutely.
One thing you should note about me, I never do anything for grins, simple participation, or in an insincere fashion. If I do something, it is for real - or I cannot tolerate the dishonesty. The difference is, I just continued my process of learning, whereas most Christians just stop.
See here:
https://theethicalskeptic.com/2022/03/01/the-riddle-of-sin/
https://theethicalskeptic.com/2021/08/14/the-awesome-insistence-of-cataclysmic-mirage-theory-cmt/
So gnosticism?
Well,
Much of what the gnostics say, predates modern civilization, not to mention the Bible - by a pretty large span of time... Here is a teaching from 9500 bce, which spread all over the world, long before Egypt, Sumer, or Israel.
https://theethicalskeptic.com/2023/02/02/karahan-tepe-and-the-serpent-motif/
We can call it that, but then it will be subject to canned understandings and answers.
TES
What’s your stance on the concept of evil(ness)?
My take is alluded to by a statement from the article:
"Call ye nothing good. For in the moment you do, evil will kill crucify it and wear its skin as a costume."
We live in a realm where evil is real, visceral, and bears specific traits/definition. Good does exist, however it is not a logical object in our realm, as is evil. Everything is good aside from the practice of evil. But 'everything' is literally everything, both in this realm and outside it.
https://theethicalskeptic.com/2020/10/15/how-to-detect-an-evil-person/
The correctness/science of one's intellectual doctrine, in no way obviates their participation in works of evil. One does not progress spiritually based upon their acumen, doctrinal adherence, nor correctness. I learned this lesson from abusive churches in my past:
https://theethicalskeptic.com/2022/03/01/the-riddle-of-sin/
We are here to learn who we are, how to love, (and to not inhabit evil).
What about the Son of Man. Was he resurrected in spirit and flesh? I don't have a great grasp outside my evangelical sphere, so I might not even be asking that question properly to a gnostic or proto-gnostic. I know a bit about the early Christian church Gnostics and that even their beliefs varied across sects.
BTW, one of the first long form pieces I read of yours was lat 2020 on creation I believe. If you have that link handy I would love to read it again.
In terms of the Resurrection. I do not hold the answer to that - save for resurrection being a central tenet of Mithraism. I have read various accounts that this story was part of the emergency reinvention of Christianity between 80 and 200 ce. But I do not know the actual truth behind the specifics of what happened in this period.
I think you might mean this one....???
https://theethicalskeptic.com/2021/08/14/the-awesome-insistence-of-cataclysmic-mirage-theory-cmt/
The Monty python image looks familiar. I will read (or reread) regardless. Thx!
There are many frames to look at religion and you have presented yours very well. May I suggest comparing religion to child abuse misses several important details.
I just want to point one out. To start I understand how born into original sin is conflated into blame. Sin at its core is self centred selfishness raised above the highest good, God. We are born into original sin, which means we became self conscious and needed to be selfish to survive this world. The most primitive basic instinct and the paradox of the human condition. Then there is the fact that selfishness does not scale up without creating hell on earth. Selfish competition divides humanity, a mindless display of how powerful we are, a destructive force to others and to ourselves. To survive together selfishness needs to be reined in. We cannot fully escape selfishness as it is a survival and well being mechanism as long as we control it with spiritual guidance. We need to evolve past the instinct of mindless selfishness to prosper as social beings. Religions of the world have always struggled to guide us away from sin because they to have given in to temptation and lost the meaning and essence of sin.
There is zero wrong with selfishness aka the instinct of self-preservation, provided it does not mutate into avarice. The individual needs motivation to acquire enough resources, to live through good and bad times, to be able to find/attract a mate, to be able to raise children, especially to have enough spare to generously offer genuine help to others in need. Some competition is necessary to prevent complacency and to attract their best mate; both men and women do this in their own ways. Absolute morality and rationality, including the Golden Rule, is what really matters, not some arbitrary "sins", some of which look damned like slavery! "Original Sin" looks clearly an absurd, insulting, self-contradictory and evil idea, and is it even Christian?
At the core of most evil in this world are avaricious Babylonian evil worshippers, like the Pharisees, aka Orthodox "Jews"; their Talmud is a book of full of evil dogma! Numerous other Black Magi spread out from Babylon, including to Egypt. The Roman Bible was definitely tainted by these evils, and many other sects/religions are being corrupted by kosher-like means, by inevitably corrupted clergy, who compromise to attract various tainted revenue, to fill their wallets. Religions are caving to the evils of feminism and transsexualism; evils, because they destroy sexual restraint, babies, assurance of paternity, protective male authority, innocence, reproductive capability, and cause depression and suicide!
I am comparing the shuffler to a dishonest deck of cards. This is an absolutely essential tenet of ethics. Once a science declares that it holds and relates ultimate truth (as science communicators do), then it must prove that it is working from an honestly shuffled deck of cards - as it has become 'the dealer' in such a circumstance ethically.
Religion must prove it is not abusive - not simply make that an assumption of the game. This is a requirement of the position. Just like a US President must (defacto) prove that they cannot unilaterally launch nuclear weapons. We cannot divorce the risk from the position of authority.
This is the mantle of the very office it professes to hold. Religion has failed this essential litmus, abysmally.
Very impressed with usage of the term hylic. That is all
Fascinating. Reading the OT, one often finds bits that appear to point to a very different realm - Methuselah, Book of Tobit, Book of Job, Jonah. Other parts of the OT are painful reading - historical chronicles with their ceaseless wars. To integrate this material into a whole is already a challenge. When adding Gnostic materials, the challenge of integration gets muuuch more difficult.
If the Gnostic perspective is valid and useful, I would expect that it will be found within the standard Bible, even despite attempts to remove its influence. Tobit, Job, Jonah feel Gnostic to me.
Having experienced Italian-Brazilian Catholicism, and spirituality in Brazil in general, with its blend of spiritualism, candomble etc I would say that the shame/blame-style Christianity is often overtaken by a vast and peaceful approach, which is yet still Christian.
I wonder about Timbuktu, and how much of the Alexandrian materials might still be there.
Very good point Jean Marc. I did not even think of that when I was there... crap.
We have only to look at our own society today to see that human nature itself when deprived of the goodness of what the Bible describes as the Holy Spirit is capable of. The message Jesus left us is so simple and pure yet applying it so difficult for so many. I can only pray that Jesus' spirit will change your perspective.
Came to the comments expecting hackles to be raised, was not disappointed.
Thought-provoking post regardless of personal beliefs, thank you.
Yeah, this one I anticipated would cause some dissonance. I have one guy who is angrily stalking in the comments below and in private emails. This is the type of darkness behind these religions about which I comment here.