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MarkostheGnostic
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Loc: South Florida
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Re: The doctrine of predestination, particular redemption and total depravity [Re: redgreenvines]
#6146446 - 10/08/06 12:31 PM (17 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
redgreenvines said: this place of free ideas can be healing to people who have had the book pounded into them for years, but the process is slow, and they must want to be released from the patriarchical-book-aterianism, at least a little bit.
usually it is tangled up with an oedipus complex, and the whole replace thy father complex.
it becomes very hard to let one's father be who he is and to let oneself be who one is. but this might be a good forum in which to start.
Well, I rather appreciate beginning with the psychological whys and wherefores of religious fanaticism. If the historical Jesus, who in Mark 6 ( http://jesusdynasty.com/blog/2006/07/26/an-unnamed-father-of-jesus/ ) is referred to as "the son of Mary," that is a very real appellation of a child born out of wedlock. Transfer of an 'unknown' father to a spiritual Father (namely, God) could be a psychological outcome. This was of course parlayed into a doctrine of parthenogenic birth (not a unique claim among ancients, only unique to uneducated Christians). Calling Jesus a 'mamser' (bastard) is not intended to alarm or insult anyone, but as sure as the earth revolves on its axis, a fundamentalist Christian will explode with righteous indignation among rants of blasphemy at the mere suggestion. This reaction defends against any possibility of detached logical consideration because it strikes at the root of a myth-turned-delusion.
Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder is something that I've seen up close when applied to the Bible. I worked with a man who maintained that notion that the geneology in Matthew was historically accurate and placed our mythic parents Adam and Eve at a few sidereal days after the earth's creation. Obviously the man maintained that the earth was some 5700+ years old instead of 4 billion years. Stars are being born in star nurseries as we speak, and presumably planets. Only earth had instantaneous, Cecil B. DeMille-made instant naked man lying in the dust whence he was made - literally.
This type of mentation was presented as his personal superiority as a man of faith - that he could trust Biblical sayings OVER empirical, scientific evidence. Dinosaur fossils were buried by God to test this type of faith - there were never dinosaurs (the Bible doesn't mention any and mankind existed from the beginning - life did not evolve). Or, the stars will fall from the sky (Biblical age understanding of cosmology) because it says so in Revelations (the earth was at the center of the cosmos). Even conceding that the sun is a star and is a million times the volume of the earth, this man once suggested to me that 'perhaps God puts some kind of force field around the sun to make it look larger than it actually is.' In such a case, the sun, as a star, could also fall to earth. I suggested to him that the Greek word *aster* as in asterisk might mean star, but those big rocks (like B-612) coming this way are called *asteroids* and perhaps the prophesy means our demise by asteroid. Well, the English translation said 'star' after all, not 'asteroid,' so that bit of logic was quickly dismissed.
The point is, one cannot effect an intact delusional system whether it is Obsessive-Compulsive, Paranoid Personality, or Schizophrenia, Paranoid type using logic and empirical evidence. When the delusion has merged with an existing structure like scriptures, additional claims to authenticity, based on metaphysical assumptions add energy to the intactness of the delusion. It is a closed system, and a closed mind that is not trans-rational, but unfortunately irrational. [S&P forum regulars: please consider this before attempting rational debate with rationally insolvent irrationality. Compassion IS Wisdom, but also, while good words are like silver, silence is pure gold in these matters].
Peace be with you all (especially those who need it most - you know who you are).
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery
Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
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Re: The doctrine of predestination, particular redemption and total depravity [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
#6146455 - 10/08/06 12:36 PM (17 years, 5 months ago) |
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Most Excellent post.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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Andy21
Armchairanarchist
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Re: The doctrine of predestination, particular redemption and total depravity [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
#6146576 - 10/08/06 01:37 PM (17 years, 5 months ago) |
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Great post Markos.
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Silversoul
Rhizome
Registered: 01/01/05
Posts: 23,576
Loc: The Barricades
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Re: The doctrine of predestination, particular redemption and total depravity [Re: Icelander]
#6146593 - 10/08/06 01:46 PM (17 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
Icelander said: I was a die hard agnostic for 35 years
Like a pendulum you swing from one extreme to another. You will never find the solid ground you are looking for. It doesn't exist IMO. You need to find a way to let go of your attachment and surrender to the natural flow of chaos.
Interestingly enough, I've also noticed that the most militant atheists often come from fundamentalist backgrounds.
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MarkostheGnostic
Elder
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Re: The doctrine of predestination, particular redemption and total depravity [Re: Andy21]
#6146620 - 10/08/06 02:00 PM (17 years, 5 months ago) |
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-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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MarkostheGnostic
Elder
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Re: The doctrine of predestination, particular redemption and total depravity [Re: Icelander]
#6146635 - 10/08/06 02:07 PM (17 years, 5 months ago) |
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Thanks. Although now I've been judged and remanded to the Pit of Darkness (which it is assumed I've come from anyway). I can say with all sincerity that "Jesus is Lord' (i.e., My Heart-of-Hearts is the Infinite Compassion which I pray guides my every thought and deed)...and yet, and yet...it does not matter one bit to me if Y'shua ben Miriam ever existed in the flesh. Not saying He didn't, not saying He did, but a historical Jesus has no effect on my life or the lives of the most rabidly fanatical fundamentalist Christians. We are not bid to become 'Christians' anyway, we are bid to become Christ.
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery
Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
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Re: The doctrine of predestination, particular redemption and total depravity [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
#6146671 - 10/08/06 02:22 PM (17 years, 5 months ago) |
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OK, or as I would say we are to become aware our true being as the creator creating.
If LOVE is the motivating force it doesn't matter to me what you call it.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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fivepointer
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Re: The doctrine of predestination, particular redemption and total depravity [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
#6146687 - 10/08/06 02:28 PM (17 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
MarkostheGnostic said: Thanks. Although now I've been judged and remanded to the Pit of Darkness (which it is assumed I've come from anyway). I can say with all sincerity that "Jesus is Lord' (i.e., My Heart-of-Hearts is the Infinite Compassion which I pray guides my every thought and deed)...and yet, and yet...it does not matter one bit to me if Y'shua ben Miriam ever existed in the flesh. Not saying He didn't, not saying He did, but a historical Jesus has no effect on my life or the lives of the most rabidly fanatical fundamentalist Christians. We are not bid to become 'Christians' anyway, we are bid to become Christ.
MarkostheGnostic never ceases to astonish with one blasphemy after another. This in his previous posting he suggests Jesus is a bastard and not born of the Holy Spirit. He never takes on the subject on the table. He creates straw men, then proceeds to argue against something no one has brought up. The very fact that he doesn't know whether Jesus physically existed demonstrates what he really believes about the authority of scriptures. It proves that he considers the apostles liars and deceptive men. Another blashemy. He continues to bring the false gospel of gnosticism, which is a lie from the darkest pits. This teaching was identified and soundly denounced by the apostles in the NT.
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MarkostheGnostic
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Re: The doctrine of predestination, particular redemption and total depravity [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
#6146745 - 10/08/06 02:56 PM (17 years, 5 months ago) |
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I merely want to add that the entire drama of God inserting God's presence in a "superabundant" way is shot through with the idea of humility to the point of humiliation. For omniscient Deity to experience finitude is a lot like the modern myth of Superman when he loses his super powers - only worse.
If being born to poor peasants on the run from a 'slaughter of the innocents' (a recapitulation of the story of baby Moses BTW, and not historically evidenced in Jesus' time) was not enough... If being born in a manger in the midst of farm animals is not sufficiently humble enough circumstances to make a point, then allow me to suggest that being the child of an unwed Jewish woman, raped by an occupying Roman soldier demonstrates far more humbling circumstances, particularly owing to the cruel patriarchal regard for such a situation at the time. A Joseph character was inserted as an 'adoptive' father to rectify such a scandalous beginning (just as another Joseph character [of Arimethea] was inserted at the story of death).
If such lowly birth is not humiliating enough, then death on a cross, naked (though depicted usually with some white shroud to cover the lower body), body broken by 40 rib-breaking lashes of a lead-dumbell (not sharp-edged Mel Gibson creation) tipped Roman flagrum, involuntary urination and possibly defecation mixing with blood and sweat, and the inevitable spontaneous erection and ejaculation that occurs with asphixiation of males (the cause of death on the cross) should make the point of humiliation.
And what exactly is the point of the life of Jesus sandwiched between humiliating conception and death, and humility of life between? That for all of us, if our home is truly Heaven, or the Fullness (Pleroma), then Jesus is the Archetype, the Paradigm, the Template of Universal Humankind and it is exactly the same story for every human being who has ever incarnated - taken flesh - on this earth [plane]. Most people get used to it, come to enjoy it, take earthly life so seriously that they'll even kill for that jacked Mercedes-Benz or diamond ring. But we are supposed to experience the humiliation of our finitude and do what we need to do to transcend its limits. Humility characterizes The Way - it demonstrates that this world of sensate experience and its proliferation is NOT what our 'vertical' dimension of human existence is about. Most everyone becomes content to expand upon the 'horizontal' axis of existence - becoming more worldly, acquiring more possessions, bearing more children, desiring status, wealth, power. Am I saying anything here that even the least-read most marginal Christian doesn't know?
We've been watching The Matrix films with TacticalBongRip and his Lady. Agent Smith, an autonomous being of Artificial Intelligence who eventually learns to leave The Matrix of virtual reality and incarnate (parasitically) human beings. He hates doing that. He refers to 'the smell, if one can call it that,' of co-existing in a 'rotting piece of meat.' Somewhere between this attitude and the attitude of a materialist-hedonist, lies The Way. We are 'to be in the world [and the body] but not of the world.' This bit of dissociative Wisdom is Biblical and at the same time decidely Gnostic. Incarnation, Initiation (e.g., Baptism/Rebirth, Marriage, 'The Bridal Chamber,' etc.), Death, Resurrection (following the final Rebirth), Ascension, all belong to the language of Initiation and all belong to each of us. Can we begin to see Jesus for what Jesus Really is - the Door (like the Good Book says) into Initiation into higher states of being?
Can we see the doctrines of Original Sin, Eternal Punishment and the other damnable techniques of manipulation for what they were and are - political mind control? If we choose to live in The Way, we optimize our options as human beings. We no longer need to be threatened by 'wait til your father gets home,' or 'wait until Judgement Day' if we choose to live in The Way.
Illumination, Enlightenment is not all about sin and morality. One doesn't become holy by becoming a 'Boy Scout.' One becomes a 'Boy Scout' by living in The Way. Hellfire and brimstone belong in Hell. What of the beings who are filled with these sulphurous threats? Peace and Light do do emanate from them: anger, guilt, fear, revenge, resentment, arrogance, self-righteous indignation come forth from such beings - Children of Hell, certainly not Children of Light.
There. I got that s**t off my chest whether anybody reads it or not.
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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Andy21
Armchairanarchist
Registered: 01/01/06
Posts: 288
Last seen: 13 years, 2 months
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Re: The doctrine of predestination, particular redemption and total depravity [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
#6146853 - 10/08/06 03:44 PM (17 years, 5 months ago) |
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Hey is this lady a child of the light?
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery
Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
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Re: The doctrine of predestination, particular redemption and total depravity [Re: fivepointer]
#6146970 - 10/08/06 04:34 PM (17 years, 5 months ago) |
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blashemy.
Cut the childish blashemy talk. You sound unhealthy in the extreme. There is really nothing in your posts that relate to this forum IMO. Neither philosphy or spirituality. Your posts seem like those of a religious zelot that seems to me to be self hating and thus hating of those who hold differing beliefs.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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Silversoul
Rhizome
Registered: 01/01/05
Posts: 23,576
Loc: The Barricades
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Re: The doctrine of predestination, particular redemption and total depravity [Re: fivepointer]
#6146988 - 10/08/06 04:42 PM (17 years, 5 months ago) |
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The ultimate blasphemy is to turn a message of love and redemption into an intolerant message of hate.
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Huehuecoyotl
Fading Slowly
Registered: 06/13/04
Posts: 10,689
Loc: On the Border
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Re: The doctrine of predestination, particular redemption and total depravity [Re: Icelander]
#6147097 - 10/08/06 05:18 PM (17 years, 5 months ago) |
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I feel less charitable towards him than you. I deal with people of this mind set everyday.
-------------------- "A warrior is a hunter. He calculates everything. That's control. Once his calculations are over, he acts. He lets go. That's abandon. A warrior is not a leaf at the mercy of the wind. No one can push him; no one can make him do things against himself or against his better judgment. A warrior is tuned to survive, and he survives in the best of all possible fashions." ― Carlos Castaneda
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psychomime
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Re: The doctrine of predestination, particular redemption and total depravity [Re: MarkostheGnostic]
#6147102 - 10/08/06 05:20 PM (17 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
MarkostheGnostic said: There. I got that s**t off my chest whether anybody reads it or not.
I read it. I was reading through this thread and got to this post and had to thank you for writing such a moving interpretation of the suffering and redemption of Jesus. I will never dismiss christianity as flippantly as I have again. thank you too fivepointer for starting this thread. if you hadn't i might never have seen the light.
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Icelander
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Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
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Re: The doctrine of predestination, particular redemption and total depravity [Re: psychomime]
#6147124 - 10/08/06 05:29 PM (17 years, 5 months ago) |
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Interesting that fivepointer's obsession can have such positive results. The Universe is an awesome place.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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Silversoul
Rhizome
Registered: 01/01/05
Posts: 23,576
Loc: The Barricades
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Re: The doctrine of predestination, particular redemption and total depravity [Re: Icelander]
#6147142 - 10/08/06 05:33 PM (17 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
Icelander said: Interesting that fivepointer's obsession can have such positive results. The Universe is an awesome place.
An awesome place full of...SATAN!!!
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery
Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
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Re: The doctrine of predestination, particular redemption and total depravity [Re: Silversoul]
#6147174 - 10/08/06 05:43 PM (17 years, 5 months ago) |
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Satan rules and Jesus drools.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery
Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
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Re: The doctrine of predestination, particular redemption and total depravity [Re: Icelander]
#6147212 - 10/08/06 05:55 PM (17 years, 5 months ago) |
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Not really trying to offend here. Just demonstrating how to Kill the Buddha.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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Sinbad
Living TheMoment
Registered: 12/23/04
Posts: 2,571
Loc: Under The Bodhi Tree
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Re: The doctrine of predestination, particular redemption and total depravity [Re: Icelander]
#6147254 - 10/08/06 06:09 PM (17 years, 5 months ago) |
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Only if you see him on the road though!
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery
Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
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Re: The doctrine of predestination, particular redemption and total depravity [Re: Sinbad]
#6147279 - 10/08/06 06:18 PM (17 years, 5 months ago) |
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yep, shed those icons and realize that within you is everything you seek to realize.
How scary is that?
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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