Do you consider the gnositc/pagan history of christianity encouraging or heretical? Why?
The Jesus Mysteries
Stabby--------------
Do you consider the gnositc/pagan history of christianity encouraging or heretical? Why?
The Jesus Mysteries
Stabby--------------
"The Christ" as sacrifice and surrender is an architypical icon in the consciousness of man.
This is a good thread. I'm moving it to cultology...
Ditch the Garbage! - Too many people are proud of their humility - I, on the other hand, am not humble - and am proud of it!
"Luther's New Testament was so much multiplied and spread by printers that even tailors and shoemakers, yea, even women and ignorant persons who had accepted this new Lutheran gospel, and could read a little German, studied it with the greatest avidity as the fountain of all truth. Some committed it to memory, and carried it about in their bosom. In a few months such people deemed themselves so learned that they were not ashamed to dispute about faith and the gospel not only with Catholic laymen, but even with priests and monks and doctors of divinity." - A complaint by German humanist Johann Cochlaeus.
Follow me on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/kraftb
Follow Predestinarian Network on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/predestinarian
Follow Predestinarian Network on Twitter: http://twitter.com/predestinarian
Kerm--
Do you consider the Jesus fish a Pagan symbol? Are you aware of the historical purpose of this fish symbol? What is the christain purpose of this symbol?
Do you have this symbol on your Car?
Stabby----------
The fish used to be a sign of a secret society....Christianity. Faced with unrelenting and horrific pursecution by the Romans and just about everyone else, Christians would use the sign to identify one another in the early days. A simple curve could be drawn in the dirt by one man and if the other man completed the fish with the opposite arch, then they knew they were among friends. This is of course debated, but the symbol is very old.
Christianity (as a tyrannical religion) has devoured many symbols and ideas from pagan culture. The date of Christmas (the birth of Jesus) was moved to December to correspond with a pagan holiday in which trees were riturally dressed with candles and danced around. Easter (ressurection of Christ) has absorbed all the symbols of the spring and fertility holidays surrounding the equinox (like bunnies, eggs, etc). As the church was forming, the early clergy knew that there were already so many gods, demi-gods, spirits, angels, powers and such, that they would have a hard time getting all those pagans to celebrate entirely new holidays and give up the rituals they had performed for centuries. So they merged with them and took them over.
Anyone with any history/anthropology background will tell you that Christianity added little new symbology. It borrowed from everything. Jesus himself spoke out against organized religion, murtis (pictures) of himself (or graven images), and idols (symbols) of all kinds. The cross itself (as a meaningful symbol) is older than the fish, and histroy tells us that it is doubtful that Christ was crucified on a cross as we know it (one bar crossing the other). It is a symbol that is now taken to mean the whole of the Siddha (teaching) of sacrifice that Christ represents (and is).
None of this undermines the importance or message of Jesus, and for me enriches my ability to understand the time and circumstance in which he arose.
No, I don't have this symbol on my car. I find the use of it particulary ridiculous myself.Originally posted by Stabby
Kerm--
Do you consider the Jesus fish a Pagan symbol? Are you aware of the historical purpose of this fish symbol? What is the christain purpose of this symbol?
Do you have this symbol on your Car?
Stabby----------
Ditch the Garbage! - Too many people are proud of their humility - I, on the other hand, am not humble - and am proud of it!
"Luther's New Testament was so much multiplied and spread by printers that even tailors and shoemakers, yea, even women and ignorant persons who had accepted this new Lutheran gospel, and could read a little German, studied it with the greatest avidity as the fountain of all truth. Some committed it to memory, and carried it about in their bosom. In a few months such people deemed themselves so learned that they were not ashamed to dispute about faith and the gospel not only with Catholic laymen, but even with priests and monks and doctors of divinity." - A complaint by German humanist Johann Cochlaeus.
Follow me on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/kraftb
Follow Predestinarian Network on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/predestinarian
Follow Predestinarian Network on Twitter: http://twitter.com/predestinarian
Kerm-
The thesis of Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy, Authors of The Jesus Mysteries, goes something like this.
Christianity is a product of Gnosticism and Judaism.
They suggest that Gnosticism predated Christianity, and show the themes of christianity are originally the Osiris-Dionysus myth cycle.
They also suggest that Eusebius and the Emperor Constantine constructed a literalist christian movement.
If you don't trust the Roman Church system today, why would you trust the works of the Roman Church's actions of 400 CE?
Perhaps the information age is what prompts the second comming-- the availablity of information allows the true christ message to be known after centuries of lies and deception?
Stabby---
Tell me Stabby, who do YOU trust?
Ditch the Garbage! - Too many people are proud of their humility - I, on the other hand, am not humble - and am proud of it!
"Luther's New Testament was so much multiplied and spread by printers that even tailors and shoemakers, yea, even women and ignorant persons who had accepted this new Lutheran gospel, and could read a little German, studied it with the greatest avidity as the fountain of all truth. Some committed it to memory, and carried it about in their bosom. In a few months such people deemed themselves so learned that they were not ashamed to dispute about faith and the gospel not only with Catholic laymen, but even with priests and monks and doctors of divinity." - A complaint by German humanist Johann Cochlaeus.
Follow me on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/kraftb
Follow Predestinarian Network on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/predestinarian
Follow Predestinarian Network on Twitter: http://twitter.com/predestinarian
kerm-
Interesting Question.
Although, does it matter, objectively, who i trust?
How would this change the fact that early roman church history was directed by an emperor tyrant?
Unless you're asking a more metaphysical question.
Such that the "correct" trust, will lead to truth of some sort.
If my trust is not indentical to your trust, then we have an impase, at best, or heresy, (we both can't be right, therefore one of us is a heratic) at worst.
Although, maybe you have a different intent with that question, that i have not grasped.
Stabby-----------
Last edited by Stabby; 10-22-2002 at 06:00 PM.
The Egyptian Osiris Myth Parallels to the Christian Jesus Myth
Horus was the son of Seb, an earthly father
Jesus was the son of Joseph, an earthly father
Horus stayed with his mother until the age of twelve.
Jesus stayed with his mother until the age of twelve
Between the ages of twelve to thirty there is no record of the life of Horus
Between the ages of twelve to thirty there is no record of the life of Jesus in the Gospels (Matthew/Mark/Luke/John/Acts)
At age thirty, Horus was baptized by Anup
At age thirty, Jesus was baptized by John
By his baptism Horus was transformed into the beloved and only begotten Son of the Father, the Holy Spirit, represented by a bird
By his baptism Jesus was transformed into the beloved and only begotten Son of the Father, the Holy Spirit, represented by a dove/bird
Horus-Bal as christ god man figure
How does such information strengthen your faith? Does it make you feel better knowing that the godman stories have been available for many centuries.
Stabby---------------
Posting Permissions
Bookmarks