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Posted: Sun Mar 01, 2009 10:41 pm
by Interbane
Thomas, the link you posted in reply to me was to an attack site of some sort. Do you have another reference?

Also, I had a baby boy! March 1st 2009, 3:54 AM.

Posted: Sun Mar 01, 2009 11:11 pm
by Thomas Hood
Interbane wrote:Thomas, the link you posted in reply to me was to an attack site of some sort. Do you have another reference?

Also, I had a baby boy! March 1st 2009, 3:54 AM.
Congratulations on the new baby, Interbane. May you find joy in fatherhood.

There was an error in the URL as posted and I have corrected it:

http://www.fortunecity.com/meltingpot/w ... astes.html

Warning: FortuneCity has added pop-ups to this website. Do not access it unless your computer blocks pop-ups.

You had asked (as I understood) for "an example of a correlation between the bible and the cosmos that is not explained by ancient astronomers putting their findings in text." Ecclesiastes is such an example, and based on no more than naked-eye observation. The sequence of the days of the week in Genesis 1 and the sequence of the Ten Commandments are other examples of ancient cosmology.

Tom

Posted: Mon Mar 02, 2009 6:46 am
by Penelope
Congratulations and Mazeltopf !!!!!!!

Will you call him David? It being St.David's Day, 1st March?

:up: :up: :up:

My grandaughter is due to be born on 10th April - I'll keep you posted.

Interbane - I thought you were female!!! :oops:

Unlike others on this thread....I don't read the signs! :shock:

Posted: Mon Mar 02, 2009 1:31 pm
by Robert Tulip
Frank 013 wrote:
RT: You are too harsh on the 'unconscious guidance' point, where I may have worded things unclearly.
Well here is my problem…You say that there is a connection between Venus and Satan and that this connection was intended by the writers of Jesus’ time. The connection is through the traits of Vanity and beauty. Satan had not yet been described this way at that time; he was merely God’s prosecutor. It wasn’t until several generations after Jesus was supposed to have died that the change was made. When I brought this to your attention you basically said that that it was not a problem because the UNIVERSE directed Satan’s ultimate description. Am I getting this right?
Frank, I am not proposing that the early Christians identified the physical planet Venus with Satan. Rather, I am trying to develop a scientific theory of mythology, whereby the ideas that find purchase in human culture have a material base, including a cosmic base, that is only partly grasped. Some further explanation of this view of mythology is here.

I take your point that the symbolism of Satan is complex and ambiguous. We can see this in the analogy with Venus, where the pagan Goddess of beauty and love was twisted in Christian puritanism into a symbol of decadence and depravity. The Pythagoreans, who worshiped Venus partly for the mathematical beauty of its regular eight year pentagram cycle, used the five point star pointing downwards as one of their symbols, and this later became the Satanic symbol. It is easy to imagine how the Christians with their fanatically monochrome belief system would have viewed the intricate complexity of Pythagorean lore as Satanic, as the Church Fathers sought to expel beauty from their world along with depravity. Early Christians like Irenaeus and Tertullian were like the Taliban of their day, destroying the classical world as the Taliban dynamited the Buddhas of Bamayan in a frenzy of faith.

This picks up on the ambiguity of the attraction readers find in Milton's Satan as a figure of dynamism and Promethean creativity against the static stupidity of angels like Uriel. Satan says to man that he can be a God, just as the pagans invoked a mysterious participation in divinity. As I read it, an underlying problem is that the church monopolised the right to define God and Satan primarily to serve their temporal political purposes. These definitions did not accord with the perceptions of those outside the hierarchy, hence the sense that Milton's cosmology did not align directly with objective good and evil in the way he portrayed them.

Your claim that the Gospel myth of Satan as the worldly deceiver only emerged after the time of Jesus does not ring true to me. The deceiver is already present along with God's prosecutor in Job. I know you view the Gospels with extreme skepticism, but the range of Satanic references during the life of Jesus include the temptation in the wilderness, the entry of Satan into Judas, and the condemnation of Peter for rejecting the path of the cross (Matt 16:23). The image of Satan as prince of the world worshipping beauty and pleasure seems to me to have quite deep roots. (Incidentally the idea of God's prosecutor also has a Christian resonance in the Dominicans – the hounds of God – and the Inquisition).
RT: Yes, the cosmos did “back up during the dark ages”.
Then my question would be why? Does the cycle only follow Christian nations? Because the rest of the world (the bulk of the world) was moving along just fine at that time, Asia and the Middle East were making forward progress during those years; North and South America were moving forward as well. Doesn’t the cosmos keep track of those cultures? Later
In fact, the first Christian millennium was a time of the domination of belief around the world, as the major cultures of Europe, Asia and America were in isolation from each other and wrongly believed the universe revolved around them. Europe also made progress during the dark ages, with inventions like armour, castles and the wheelbarrow. The term “back up” was yours, and I partially accept it, while recognising that belief as an organising principal has both positive and negative features.

Back on my theme of Paradise Lost as a rock opera, here is a suitable number for Book XI from those lascivious atheists Bananarama
Goddess on the mountain top Burning like a silver flame The summit of beauty and love And Venus was her name She's got it Yeah, baby, she's got it I'm your Venus, I'm your fire At your desire Well, I'm your Venus, I'm your fire At your desire Her weapons were her crystal eyes Making every man a man Black as the dark night she was Got what no-one else had Wa! She's got it Yeah, baby, she's got it I'm your Venus, I'm your fire At your desire Well, I'm your Venus, I'm your fire At your desire Goddess on the mountain top Burning like a silver flame The summit of beauty and love And Venus was her name She's got it Yeah, baby, she's got it I'm your Venus, I'm your fire At your desire Well, I'm your Venus, I'm your fire At your desire
RT

Posted: Mon Mar 02, 2009 7:20 pm
by DWill
Interbane wrote:Also, I had a baby boy! March 1st 2009, 3:54 AM.
Congratulations. Other things fade into insignificance....

Posted: Mon Mar 02, 2009 8:11 pm
by Frank 013
RT
I know you view the Gospels with extreme skepticism, but the range of Satanic references during the life of Jesus include the temptation in the wilderness, the entry of Satan into Judas, and the condemnation of Peter for rejecting the path of the cross (Matt 16:23).
You must know that any New Testament references you are quoting are far removed from that time period, and that they are copies of copies with many changes added in the interim.

In the time that Jesus was supposed to have lived only the Old Testament (the Torah) had the character named Satan.

In addition, there are no records of Christian writings until at least a generation after the alleged death of Jesus, and those varied greatly in their stories, dogma and rituals until Emperor Constantine ordered the orthodoxy of the religion and the other sects were “purged” some three hundred years later.

Considering that, how can you reasonably claim to know anything about the original intent, writer’s ambitions or specific traits such as education? (You mentioned that Jesus in your opinion was well trained in astronomy despite the fact that there is no mention of this even in the biblical text) how do you feel justified in these claims, especially since we don’t know who wrote any of those works?

Do you not see that beginning with the assumption of Jesus and continuing with each successive unsupported claim you move further and further from probable truth?

Which is, by using a historical Jesus as a starting point, already on very weak footing.
RT
In fact, the first Christian millennium was a time of the domination of belief around the world, as the major cultures of Europe, Asia and America were in isolation from each other and wrongly believed the universe revolved around them. Europe also made progress during the dark ages, with inventions like amour, castles and the wheelbarrow. The term “back up” was yours, and I partially accept it, while recognizing that belief as an organizing principal has both positive and negative features.
Some of that was more like reinvention, and much of that has taken over a thousand years, but that is irrelevant; it is clear that by keeping the definition vague… “belief” that nearly any definition can be reasonably asserted.

It can be convincingly argued that any point in human history (even today) has been subject to some form of false belief.

But it does provide a nice little escape from questions like these.

Later

Posted: Wed Mar 04, 2009 12:59 pm
by Interbane
Thomas, the link still did not work. A monster jumped out and tried to eat my computer.

Posted: Wed Mar 04, 2009 1:22 pm
by Penelope
Interbane:
Thomas, the link still did not work. A monster jumped out and tried to eat my computer.
Oh No!! Don't tell me we will have to keep in touch by writing letters!!

Which will then go down in history....so that future generations will be able to see our fragile efforts to 'connect'.

That won't do at all...will it?

I clicked on the link and it was OK. I like Ecclesiastes! Chapter 3 - where there is that poem about old age.

Consider the Lord in the days of thy youth...before....
and then it goes on to describe getting old and doddery....

but it ends with such triumph.....

the golden bowl be broken....the silver cord be loosed and the spirit returns to God who gave it.

Thanks Tom!

Posted: Wed Mar 04, 2009 3:15 pm
by Robert Tulip
Frank 013 wrote:
any New Testament references you are quoting are far removed from that time period, and that they are copies of copies with many changes added in the interim. In the time that Jesus was supposed to have lived only the Old Testament (the Torah) had the character named Satan. In addition, there are no records of Christian writings until at least a generation after the alleged death of Jesus, and those varied greatly in their stories, dogma and rituals until Emperor Constantine ordered the orthodoxy of the religion and the other sects were “purged” some three hundred years later. Considering that, how can you reasonably claim to know anything about the original intent, writer’s ambitions or specific traits such as education? (You mentioned that Jesus in your opinion was well trained in astronomy despite the fact that there is no mention of this even in the biblical text) how do you feel justified in these claims, especially since we don’t know who wrote any of those works? Do you not see that beginning with the assumption of Jesus and continuing with each successive unsupported claim you move further and further from probable truth? Which is, by using a historical Jesus as a starting point, already on very weak footing.
Frank, as you point out, there is a massive distinction between the Christ of faith and the Jesus of history. Only the most simplistic faith assumes their unity. The range of opinion extends from belief that Jesus said all things and performed all miracles attributed to him, to acceptance of only some of the sayings and deeds, to your contention that he did not even exist. This debate is only partly relevant to present-day interpretation of the Bible. As Voltaire said of God, if Jesus did not exist it would be necessary to invent him. I personally find your idea that Jesus did not exist as implausible as the idea that man did not go to the moon. I simply cannot imagine the psychological inspiration for such a fervent mass movement resting on original fraud. Yes, historical accuracy was secondary to organisational effectiveness in the priorities of the Gospel writers, but no, this does not imply Jesus did not exist.

My discussion here, linking Christ to the gas giants, is primarily a conceptual image focussed on the universal message of the Christian Trinitarian faith, explaining this message in a way that is compatible with materialist observation, underpinning the cosmic battle described in Paradise Lost. The Zodiacal Age, 2147 years, is I argue the actual period meant in Biblical discussion of ‘the end of the age’. The gas giants are in a cycle which corresponds to one twelfth of this period, in astrological terms the House of the Age (179 years). This cycle is a primary physical structure of our solar system, shown in the wave function of the solar system centre of mass. In ancient times the Age period was estimated variously at 2000, 2160 or 3600 years. The 2160 year estimate is arguably built in to the Revelation concept of the New Jerusalem as a cube with a total of 2160 degrees. Graham Hancock argues the accurate period was known to ancient astronomy, and for example was built in to the architecture of Angkor Wat.

The Gospels were heavily edited for political purposes to improve their acceptability to a broader audience. Part of the conflict between Judaism and Paganism was over the legitimacy of star-worship, as practiced in Egypt, Chaldea and Rome. In saying God was beyond the stars, the monotheist movement, wrongly in my view, inferred that God was not also revealed in the stars, in a typical example of political conflict also extending to matters of obscure doctrine. Hence many Biblical references to the revelation of God in the cosmos are presented in code. I discussed this in my review of DH Lawrence’s book Apocalypse. The presence of these coded references indicates that someone put them there. Whether this was agreed by the historical Jesus or not is a secondary point to whether the cosmology underlying the New Testament, whoever wrote it, is coherent. The ideas of eternity and infinity are so intrinsically linked to the slow majestic movement of the heavens that it can be argued this sense of the cosmic nature of God has a deep central profundity. In Trinitarian terms, we can conceptualise God the Father as the whole universe, God the Son as the manifestation of God in our part of the cosmos (ie the structured cycle of the solar system), and God the Holy Spirit as the reverberative relation between the Father and Son manifest in our world today.
It can be convincingly argued that any point in human history (even today) has been subject to some form of false belief.
My point is that belief as an organising principle had its high point one thousand years ago, and has been steadily on the wane due to the rise of knowledge as an organising principle. This general world observation is entirely compatible with and predicted by the cosmology I have presented. In my view, belief will continue in actual dominance until we reach a cusp between the ages, at which point knowledge will become dominant and the sustainability of false belief will break down under the pressures of maintaining a global civilization.
RT

Posted: Wed Mar 04, 2009 5:00 pm
by Frank 013
RT
As Voltaire said of God, if Jesus did not exist it would be necessary to invent him. I personally find your idea that Jesus did not exist as implausible as the idea that man did not go to the moon.


Then you need to reexamine the evidence (or lack there of) and I never made the claim that he did not exist, I am just saying that there is no evidence that he did, and I apply the same rational to that idea that I do to pink unicorns. In light of no evidence there is no reason for belief.
RT
I simply cannot imagine the psychological inspiration for such a fervent mass movement resting on original fraud.


You obviously do not lack for imagination, so you must not be giving equal credibility to the theories that regard Jesus as myth due to prejudice, the myth theories are in fact superior to the historical Jesus theories because they are in perfect sync with the evidence at hand, no assumptions need be made.

And the myth was not necessarily fraud; it is very possible that it was a misunderstanding of cultural parable by non-Jewish readers.

What is truly unimaginable in this case is that a man like the supposed Jesus could manage to evade being recorded by anyone until a full generation after his own death, and even then there was no cohesive description of himself (there is no description of Jesus written anywhere in the biblical text) or his deeds.

Early stories of Jesus range from him being a spirit who confronted evil in the heavens; to stories of a man who had sex with Mary and then sprouted a woman from his side and drank his own semen.

Some early sects had ritual sex and drank their semen as described in the text.

Imagine if that were the script that made it into the cannon! :crazy:

I wonder if they would substitute milk for the semen like some denominations do with grape juice for wine?

I digress… anyway other early hero’s were equally as popular and just as likely fictional, Hercules, and Mithra are but two that were massively popular at that time.
RT
Yes, historical accuracy was secondary to organizational effectiveness in the priorities of the Gospel writers, but no, this does not imply Jesus did not exist.
There is plenty of evidence that shows the strong likelihood that Jesus never walked the earth, of course you have to look at it fairly to see it for what it is.

And if your going to base an entire theory off of this myth you should know all you can about it.

Later