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Have you investigated Gnostic Christianity?

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Robert Tulip

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Re: Have you investigated Gnostic Christianity?

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Flann 5 wrote: Even Richard Carrier while sympathetic to the mythicist cause is reluctant to endorse this claim [of the non-existence of Nazareth at the purported time of Christ]. I could provide the stronger positive case from such as the Israeli archaeologists but here is Carrier from an atheistic website.
http://www.debunkingchristianity.blogsp ... ce-of.html
Hi Flann, thanks for this link which I have now looked at. It addresses Carrier’s views that Nazareth probably did exist early, and his view that the Christ Myth did not evolve from earlier Egyptian traditions. I quite like Carrier’s work, especially his recent book On The Historicity of Jesus. He is formidably intelligent and well-read, but I do think these opinions here are evidence of error and bias on his part.

This debate illustrates some problems of cultural politics regarding the study of religion. A basic problem in scholarship is how to define boundaries. I’m not talking again about Licona’s mistake regarding the borders of star groups, but rather the borders between sense and nonsense. The modern tradition of free thought is dismissive towards traditional religious ideas such as Young Earth Creationism which are seen as nonsense. Similarly, most people regard everything to do with astrology as nonsense.

But the fascinating point here is that when we look back to the early days of free scholarship on religion in the nineteenth century, there was a great ferment of pioneering research, using work such as the decoding of Egyptian writing by Champollion and the discoveries of Babylonian texts to open up whole big areas of study.

This work involved a mix of sense and nonsense, just as the early Gnostic texts do. At the more nonsensical end of the nineteenth century writers stands Madame Helena Blavatsky, founder of Theosophy, a movement which claimed to provide enlightened magical wisdom of God as the modern successor of Gnosticism.

Blavatsky is widely reviled and ridiculed as a sort of kooky witch, and reading her books such as Isis Unveiled makes it easy to see why, since she makes up stories about visiting mystic seers in Tibet and Mormon-style lost lands such as Lemuria. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemuria_%2 ... d_Bramwell

Now, the trouble is identifying the boundaries between astrotheology, as a scientific research method, and theosophy, as a faith-based fantasy. One of the great founders of astrotheology was a British writer by the name of Gerald Massey (1828-1907). Murdock uses Massey’s ideas extensively in developing her claims about how Christianity evolved from Egyptian myth.

Massey was a respected figure in his day, but his malevolent Christian critics were able to damage his reputation by a typical campaign of guilt by association using fallacious comparisons to Theosophy. They couldn’t refute Darwin, but Massey was an easier target. This Christian campaign against astral research has led to scholarship on Christian origins stagnating due to church control of the debate. I personally think that Massey, with AB Kuhn, are great neglected scholars, and Murdock has done an important job in researching their work.

Massey found it immensely frustrating to have his work compared to Theosophy, and specifically rejected this comparison. Murdock has similarly had to contend with malevolent campaigns of disinformation by Christian bigots, most notably Bart Ehrman whose shit-sheet on mythicism made the front cover of Newsweek magazine with baseless slurs against serious scholars.

Carrier has reacted to this political campaign by defending Murdock against Ehrman, while also distancing himself from astral theories about Egypt and claims that Nazareth was a later creation postdating the Gospels. It is understandable that Carrier would see his reputation as damaged by association with topics that are so fringe, but this tactical response on his part does not actually engage with the serious analysis of the topics. Instead we see a continuation of longstanding Christian methods of demonising heretics in order to maintain the social control exercised by dogma, and credible researchers like Carrier buckling under the conformist pressure.
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Re: Have you investigated Gnostic Christianity?

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mythology based on stars, i thought that was a given, i mean this was before tv, why else would we call them stars :lol:

http://www.pleiade.org/pleiades_02.html
Other names

Many other civilizations have given names to the cluster:

Kartikeya (Skanda): is the Hindu god of masculinity and warfare - he is the leader of the armies of the gods. Born out of a magical spark created by Shiva, his name means "him of the Pleiades". (Indian)

Mao (昴), the hairy head of the white tiger of the West - alternatively, the Blossom Stars and Flower Stars. (Chinese)

Kimah: a cluster (כימה). (Hebrew)

Al-Thurayya: a cluster (الثريا). (Arabic)

Subaru: 'gathered together'. This was adopted as the trading name of a car manufacturer. (Japanese)

Hoki Boshi: 'dabs of paint on the sky', literally, the brush stars. (Japanese)

Ãlker: Mankind being afflicted with much evil and suffering, Tangri Ulgen (the creator god) met with the Sky Spirits of the West in the Pleiades (Ãlker). There they resolved to relieve these afflictions by sending an eagle as the first Shaman. To Turkic nomadic tribes the Pleiades was thus both a source of solace and their original point of contact with the realms of the gods. (Turkish)

Kungkarungkara: the ancestral women. (Australian aboriginal: Pitjantjatjara tribe)

Makara: the wives of the stars in the Orion constellation. (Australian aboriginal: Adnyamathanha tribe)

Matariki: literally the 'eyes of god' (mata ariki) or alternatively 'little eyes' (mata riki). One legend has it that when Ranginui (the sky father) and Papatūānuku (the earth mother) were separated by their offspring, Tāwhirimātea (the god of the winds) tore out his eyes in rage, flinging them far into the heavens—so forming the star cluster. Another has Matariki as a mother goddess surrounded by her six daughters, who rise up from their winter oceanic home to reinvigorate the Sun (Te Rā), weary from his annual journey. Matariki is thus associated with the antipodean winter solstice and the Māori New Year festival. (New Zealand: Māori)

Khuseti: the stars of rain, or rain bearers. (Southern Africa: Khoikhoi tribe)

Tianquiztli: the 'marketplace' or 'gathering place'. (Aztec)

The seed scatterer or sower. (Inca)

To the ancient Egyptians the Pleiades represented the goddess Net or Neith, the 'divine mother and lady of heaven'.

The Bunch of Grapes / The Spring Virgins. (Classical Roman)

The Hen and Chicks. (Old English, Old German, Russian, Czech and Hungarian)

Freya's hens. (Viking)

The Ancestors: an ancient Paraguayan tribe, the Abipones, even worshipped them as ancestors. A singularly poor choice of origin, as it happens, since the youth of the stellar cluster indicates that it is extremely inhospitable to life, with other than rudimentary planetary formation [reference] anywhere in the cluster being highly improbable.
The Star Disk

A recently authenticated archaeological discovery in northern Germany may further enhance our appreciation of the significance of the Pleiades to our ancestors. Offering a glimpse into the human world of 3,600 years ago, the 'Nebra Star Disk' or 'Sangerhausen Star Disk' (Die Himmelsscheibe von Nebra) may transform our understanding of the astronomical knowledge of northern Europeans in the early Bronze Age.

The Disk is exhibited at the Sachsen-Anhalt State Museum for Prehistory in Halle, Germany.
i look up on the way to work and catch the pleiades out of the corner of my eye, and immediately i drift right to orion (Osiris) i see his winnowing fan in his hand, his rod and staff comfort me even as i walk through the valley of the shadow of death, it all seems pretty obvious to me.
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Re: Have you investigated Gnostic Christianity?

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Aha, youkrst you reveal your location in Australia. In the USA Orion is to the left of the Pleiades. I don't at all agree that the match between Orion and Osiris is obvious, since there is no explicit ancient evidence for this association. My preferred star myth is that the belt of Orion is the three kings, Sirius is the star in the east, and Argo is the manger of Christ. Further, the invisibility of Argo from Europe is a significant factor in the social amnesia about the role of the stars in mythology.
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Aha, youkrst you reveal your location in Australia.
not at all, i could have been flying upside down and seen my own reflection in a pool :-D

nah, you got me dead to rights :-D
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Utterance 442
Sarcophagus Chamber, West Wall
The king becomes a star

Truly, this Great One has fallen on his side,
He who is in Nedyt was cast down.
Your hand is grasped by Re,
Your head is raised by the Two Enneads.
Lo, he has come as Orion,
Lo, Osiris has come as Orion,
Lord of wine at the wag-feast.
"Good one," said his mother,
"Heir," said his father,
Conceived of sky, born of dusk.
Sky conceived you and Orion,
Dusk gave birth to you and Orion.
Who lives lives by the gods' command,
You shall live!
You shall rise with Orion in the eastern sky,
You shall set with Orion in the western sky,
Your third is Sothis, pure of thrones,
She is your guide on sky's good paths,
In the Field of Rushes.

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Robert Tulip

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Philip Coppens, who sadly died young last year, argued in his book The Canopus Revelation that the translations of Orion as Osiris are wrong, and that Osiris was actually associated more with Canopus in ancient Egypt. I suspect Coppens was wrong, but it is an intriguing claim, especially in view of my own long campaign to improve recognition of Canopus, and I recommend his book

http://www.amazon.com/The-Canopus-Revel ... 1931882266

Some of my comments on Canopus and Argo discuss these themes, for example freethoughtnation.com/forums/viewtopic. ... 5f0#p24473
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Re: Have you investigated Gnostic Christianity?

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Robert Tulip wrote:One of the great founders of astrotheology was a British writer by the name of Gerald Massey (1828-1907). Murdock uses Massey’s ideas extensively in developing her claims about how Christianity evolved from Egyptian myth.
Hi Robert,
I think the big problem with Massey and Murdock is their failure to cite primary sources to substantiate their claims.
Apart from the failure of the dying and rising Gods thesis itself, this is a further problem.
This is not a matter of Christian bias but the requirement for relevant sources to support claims.
Here's such a critique of Massey's work highlighting this problem.
http://www.tektonics.org/lp/massjc.php
There is also the record of secular historians such as Tacitus and others.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bLlpiWh9-k
I wonder who it is that you think wrote the new testament gospels,when they wrote them, and what their purpose was in writing them as they did.
The dating is important as an early date explains why the people in Jerusalem believed in the public crucifixion of Christ in their city by Pontius Pilate, within living memory. On the other hand they would not have believed an invented story they would have known to be false.
Last edited by Flann 5 on Mon Dec 22, 2014 8:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Flann 5 wrote:
And in answer to the thread title. Yes I have investigated Gnostic Christianity.

Here's an example of Gnostic 'scripture',the infancy gospel of Thomas.
http://www.gnosis.org/library/inftomb.htm
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/03132009/watch.html

What in that gospel and myth would you like to chat about?

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Interbane wrote:
Flann wrote:I feel I've gone as far as I can go on this topic so ultimately just have to agree to differ here. I appreciate the time and effort you put in to researching such things as the history of astrology and your presentation of them here.
Your points are all valid and I can't see where you're wrong...

But I disagree!

:slap:
I agree.

Are you speaking of the 12 or the 13 point zodiac?

The Eastern one has 13 if I recall correctly.

Regards
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Flann 5 wrote: Had he actually been sinful he could not make atonement since he would have been guilty and due the penalty for sin anyway.
Today, Christmas Eve, is a good time for scientific, religious and philosophical contemplation of the meaning of atonement. Christmas is timed in relation to the winter solstice, as the first day when the position of the sun at dawn is to the north of the day before. Therefore Christmas places the birth of Christ at the same day as the birth of the sun each year. http://www.timeanddate.com/sun/usa/chic ... &year=2014 show that the days shortened until 21 December, and then lengthened each day, but only by seconds, with Christmas day just 13 seconds longer than Christmas Eve.

One way to understand this timing for Christmas is through the archetypal mythical link between Christmas and Easter, with the resurrection on the third day after death. At Christmas, the resurrection of the sun in its path back to the warmth and light and life of summer follows three days after its winter death, the date when the position of the sun at the horizon appears to stand still as far as naked eye observation can tell. This period of standstill by the sun can be compared to the myth of the descent of Christ into hell between the crucifixion and resurrection. So today, Christmas Eve, equates to the time of the harrowing of hell on Easter Saturday, when Christ like Odysseus and Orpheus wandered among the shades of Hades to save the souls of Moses and Abraham.

Atonement means becoming at one. The need for atonement arises from the problem of alienation, that we fail to see and understand our deep real unity with the cosmos. The role of Christ in delivering atonement is a central part of the Christian myth. Flann said “Had he actually been sinful he could not make atonement since he would have been guilty and due the penalty for sin anyway.” For me, the phenomenological challenge is to analyse how such language can contain scientific meaning.

We see a range of medieval fantasies swirling about such talk, including Augustine’s idea of original sin. Similarly, the ransom theology of the expiating power of Christ is at play, with its idea that the devil was holding humanity hostage and threatening our extinction, so God decided to pay a ransom to the devil for our salvation, by giving up his own Son to torture and gruesome death as a political criminal.

This is all naturally rather confusing for anyone trying to understand it sensibly, without the metaphysical prop of a supernatural personal intervening magical God. If we start from the material scientific premise that the universe is physically consistent and ordered, then all this talk of atonement is purely symbolic, since there is no real way that nailing someone to a tree in ancient Palestine could affect the prospects of human extinction or enable believers to go to heaven after they die.

Just as we can see Christmas and Easter allegorically linked within the framework of ancient geocentric astronomy, so too I suggest the myth of Christ as the atoning sacrifice by God can be best explained as an astronomical parable.

The day and the year have a regular ordered structure of light and dark, warmth and cold, activity and rest, birth and death. This cosmic order provides the framework for the agrarian myth of the dying and rising saviour, a story going back into a number of different mythological traditions, brought to sublime depiction in the Christian stories of Christmas and Easter, with the birth, death and rebirth of Jesus Christ as saviour of the world.

Trying to understand this myth within a scientific framework, I have found it makes sense to examine the structure of time to look at how these motifs of the day and year fit within bigger orderly patterns. So the concept of atonement, being at one with the cosmos, can be studied against these temporal cycles. At midsummer we feel totally connected, but at midwinter we feel totally separated. This is the natural run of life and death. And yet, the problem of sin, understood as ignorance, delusion and alienation from truth, means that humanity is fallen from grace, and that the sense of oneness at midsummer is disrupted and incomplete.

To make things whole, the religious sensibility sees a need for an atoning sacrifice, a scapegoat whose death enables the community to reflect upon its collective conscience to think about how we can restore a gracious connection to truth and reality, overcoming the alienation of delusion.

This is the meaning of the crucifixion story of Jesus Christ, that when a perfect man walked on earth, the response was to reject and despise him, displaying how humanity was hell-bent towards death and destruction. But the resurrection myth shows that the cosmos is anthropic, that love is embedded in the natural order of reality, and that humanity has good cause for hope in spite of our failings.

None of that requires that the Jesus story was historically true in order to be meaningful. In fact, as Voltaire said of God, if Jesus did not exist it would have been necessary to invent him. This idea of a ‘man without sin’ closely equates anyway to a man without matter, an ideal vision of perfection, descending from the cosmos in the semblance of flesh, as a comforting imaginary fantasy.

The archetypal power of this fantasy rests in its position within the evolutionary structure of planetary order, namely the real long cycles of time that surround our ordinary cycles of the day and the year. We see these deep enfolding cycles in the glacial record, with the advance and retreat of ice over the aeons.

The last warm point in this cosmic cycle, when the northern summer solstice was at the orbital position closest to the sun, known as perihelion, was at the dawn of the Holocene about ten thousand years ago. This is the imagined Golden Age. The last cold point of the cycle, masked by anthropogenic emissions, was in 1246 AD when the summer solstice was at aphelion, furthest from the sun. This is the Iron Age.

Indian mythology, at the root of Western mythology, imagines this great 24,000 year cycle of light and dark, knowledge and ignorance, life and death, as a perpetual seasonal cycle between gold and iron ages representing cosmic summer and winter, with silver and bronze as the intervening periods of spring and fall. Putting this myth into the real astronomical framework of planetary evolution, we find that Jesus Christ may be understood as the presence of the Golden Age within the Iron Age, glorious summer in the discontent of winter, providing redeeming atonement for humanity through a message of eternal truth that not even the grave can destroy or hold.

The atonement of Christ may therefore be understood in purely scientific terms as a symbolic imagination of how the despair of the fall from grace embodied in the climate shift over the aeons may be reversed through a connection to eternal truth, a rekindling of the cosmic wonder of wholeness seen at midday and midsummer, from the perspective of midnight and midwinter.

The themes of advent, the season of preparation for Christmas, are hope in the midst of despair, love in the midst of rejection, peace in the midst of conflict, and joy in the midst of sadness. The message of divine incarnation was understood by the great Christian theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer to be the beyond in the midst of the world. This atoning sense of the presence of the eternal within time is well encapsulated as the vision of the Golden Age in the midst of the Iron Age.

The story of planetary restoration is one of large forces and slow processes. The perihelion now happens on 5 January each year, and will slowly march back through winter and spring to reach the summer solstice in ten thousand years time. Against this encompassing framework for history, the period of the last six thousand years described in the Bible as the fall from grace appears as a cosmic fall or autumn, as the perihelion advanced from September to December.

The challenge is that the mentality of fall is deeply ingrained in psychology and culture, and is resistant to the paradigm shift needed to see a steady path up towards a next cosmic spring and summer. But just as Christmas offers hope of the return of summer at midwinter, so too we are justified in having hope for a slow atoning restoration of planetary integrity, through a sense of connection to place and time. Putting Christian faith into a scientific evolutionary framework is a first step on that connecting path to a transforming liberation of humanity, at one with our natural cosmos.
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