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Why is she close, but yet so far away?
Why is she close, but yet so far away?
...also, some of it has to do with the fact that she knows very well what the various perspectives might be; she just isn't convinced by the side that is more biblically inclined.
Jane, you're so close, but yet still so far away. (Why do I have this kind of Yin-Yang feeling about you...?)One thing you might also want to consider: that in politics in the U.S., voting choices are not just a matter of whether one is either "Liberal" or "Conservative"---there can also be a difference in choices between those who are educated and those who are generally uneducated. I count myself as an educated conservative, so in my case, I didn't fall into the social confluences of typicality.
Oh, don't tempt me into derailing the thread!
I was not so much talking about the vote itself, as about the fact that evangelicals are statistically the most likely to STILL support Donald Trump and believe in his promises. (And don't get me started on people who believe that a notorious billionaire con man is "the voice of the people and the champion of the common man", draining the swamp and providing the best health care for everyone.)
Ugh, Marcion.
The Gnostics had some good ideas, but their general disdain for physicality (and their veneration for disembodied, "pure" spirit) renders them hard to stomach. Christianity in general has got this tendency to demonize "the World", but Gnosticism took this to even more ridiculous extremes. Such dissociation is never healthy. (And look at what Origen did just to escape the "sins of the flesh"...)
For the record, although Marcion is lumped with the Gnostics by many, he technically was not, nor did he teach Gnosticism. A lot of his ideas are compatable, but they have significant differences.
Marcion taught a spiritual Christ and that the OT God was a demiurge, but unlike gnosticism he did not teach that divine sparks were embedded in matter that needed to be freed from it. Nor was his demiurge fallen from or ultimately related to the spiritual realm as in Gnosticism. It was utterly separate realms in a way. While Valentinian had complex syzygies and essences of Sophia or Wisdom captured in matter, Marcion taught no revelatory doctrine of secret knowledge nor entrapped divine sparks.
The only problem with Marcion's idea is that it's evident to anyone looking thoroughly enough through both Testaments that both are presenting the same "violent" God. Interestingly, one of my fellow atheist students who I attended some classes with, and with whom I had a discussion over this very thing, admitted to me that he thought Jesus was the same "violent" God and that the Gospels and the book of Revelation make this fairly clear.Yeah I mostly like Marcion's idea that the God of the Hebrew Bible is different than the God of the NT. ...
Yeah I mostly like Marcion's idea that the God of the Hebrew Bible is different than the God of the NT.
Images of deity became demonstrably less violent as mankind became less helplessly exposed to and incomprehending of the forces of nature.
When every flood and every thunderstorm was an inexplicable supernatural threat, demons and deities were almost interchangeable.
But give people a sense of relative security, and their gods become benevolent, kind, and serene.
Jonathan Edwards's sermons would have been a colossal failure, had they been written in less troubling times.
To make your point even more poignant, an even more technologically advanced society invaded Mesoamerica with the full intent of ever more violence, sacrifice and untold human horror upon human with all intent of control over the heathen population.It's interesting to look at the differences between religion in North American indigenous societies and Mesoamerica. The security that comes with a more advanced society did not lead to less violent images of deity amongst the Aztecs and Mayas--quite the opposite! The Great Spirit of the northern tribes may be more of an uncontrollable force, but technological and scientific advances historically don't lead to benevolent gods. They lead to transactionally minded gods that you can appease and control with enough sacrifices.
To make your point even more poignant, an even more technologically advanced society invaded Mesoamerica with the full intent of ever more violence, sacrifice and untold human horror upon human with all intent of control over the heathen population.
I'd strongly recommend Hugh Thomas' books on the Spanish Empire, like The Golden Age or Rivers of Silver: They are well researched, even handed approaches, and quite good.To make your point even more poignant, an even more technologically advanced society invaded Mesoamerica with the full intent of ever more violence, sacrifice and untold human horror upon human with all intent of control over the heathen population.
Queen Isabella actually established laws concerning the fair treatment of the Native Americans, though the conquistadores ultimately didn't adhere to those orders. There's been a 500 year propaganda war waged against Spain in Protestant countries, so a lot of what happened is more complicated than we realize.
I honestly have no problem with the conquest of the Aztec Empire. What followed during the colonial period was ugly, but a society built upon the ritual slaughter of its neighbors deserves destruction.
The method of teaching by the Ancient Sages is the deceptive link in all sacred writings that were wrote to deceive the deceivers, to keep the vain stuck in vanity until sleeping beauty wakes up by the kiss within. The scripture tells us the letter kills seeing its a distortable doctrine machine built on the shadows of the substance casting it, people just don't see the symbology being perverted into secular history which isn't the scriptures fault, people follow well dressed blind guides that have credentials from the best education money can purchase, yet never understand they are killing the message. I recommend Bill Donahue who has some revelation mind candy.I was a christian most of my life, but there were several reasons i could no longer reconcile the basic christian theology.
The momentum started when i chose to thoroughly investigate the NT, by reading the works of various well credentialed NT scholars and historians. I learned quite a bit through that process, which causes me to take a step back and really analyze my belief. As i did and i overlay the basic christian theology, with the evidence we have about the world and universe we live in, it just did not align with any level of logic to me. The traits christianity places on god, dont relate to the world we live in. Also, the whole piece of christianity (most christians at least) that one must be a christian or they are basically doomed, appears morally corrupt to me and quite primitive. Tends to smell like a man made religion, that wants to scare people to stay in line. If you look at the world, ones religion is mostly formed by where one was born and who their parents where, which is another indicator different cultures search for answers and form their own religion. According to many who are christians, 2/3 of the worlds population is doomed. Not quite the loving god who cares for all his creation equally.
The method of teaching by the Ancient Sages is the deceptive link in all sacred writings that were wrote to deceive the deceivers, to keep the vain stuck in vanity until sleeping beauty wakes up by the kiss within. The scripture tells us the letter kills seeing its a distortable doctrine machine built on the shadows of the substance casting it, people just don't see the symbology being perverted into secular history which isn't the scriptures fault, people follow well dressed blind guides that have credentials from the best education money can purchase, yet never understand they are killing the message. I recommend Bill Donahue who has some revelation mind candy.
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All I need to see in order to unmistakably identify the moral bankruptcy at the heart of evangelical Christianity is the way they treated Barack Obama for eight years, in contrast to how they treat Donald Trump now.
There is a theory that God evolved as the Bible progressed. From the vengeful Yahweh to the loving father Abba. The theory basically states that God uses humans for self awareness.
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