Religions

[VirtualCLD]

Is it me, or has this thread gone off-topic? I have read in some places that the Celts were a loose "organization" of peoples with similar backgrounds across Northern Europe (i.e. Gauls). Supposedly, they were responsible for bringing mankind into the bronze age and possibly iron age. Unfortunately not much was known about the earlier history because they didn't have a written language until much later, but supposedly they influenced Greek and Egyptian culture, including their religions. For example, one school of thought is that they migrated south and settled in Greece, inter-marrying with the locals there and bringing with them culture and technology. There, it is possible that all of these earlier religions have a similar root, which Ra and the Goa'uld took advantage of (starting with Egyptians and branching into the other religions as well). There really isn't anything new there, just a possible explanation to the spread of the goa'uld influence in ancient religions.

[Darth Buddha]

Quite right.

Let's call it MYTHOLOGY instead of RELIGION henceforth and drop all references to currently practiced faiths entirely!

[buckner]

Have you read "The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity" by Hyam Macoby? If you haven't, this post makes me suspect you'd enjoy it. Both my father and I were able to see the author's spin (wanting to get the Jewish priests off the hook for the execution of Christ... rather than just pointing out that the Jews all held the Roman appointed priests of the temple in complete and utter contempt and that they in no way represented the Jewish people, but rather Roman interests) but aside from that, it is a REALLY fascinating book.



Umm... that'd be historical fact, my lad. And only the book of Paul seems to have been true to the author's intent. The other Apostles were Jews, preaching to Jews, just as Christ had. To them, the resurrection wasn't a proof of Christ's divinity, but the power of God. Paul is the one who fused Judaism with neo-Mithraism (a resurrection cult) to then sell to non-Jews. The other gospels were then revised to agree with him.

Paul is the historic father of Christianity. Too damned bad, too. Christ's core message was awesome and needed no embroidering. But hey, everyone needs to add their own visions... John Smith, David Koresh. Some of it sells broadly, some does not.

Peter is the human father of Christianity. What does "and only the book of Paul seems to have been true to the authors intent" mean? What is the book of Paul?

[Darth Buddha]

I'm outta this aspect of the discussion and back to mythology only.

And I mispoke... I meant the books ascribed to Paul.

As for the rest, I'd recommend a reading of "The Mythmaker" to you too. You might enjoy Barbara E. Thiering's work on the Qmran secrets of the dead sea scrolls, and perhaps Elaine Pagel's book on the Gospel According to Thomas.

If you have an open mind that entertains historical records of what was made up when, and what was eliminated when, you might just find Christ's preachings a bit more compelling and a hell of a lot less mystical in nature. I know I sure as hell did. I reject the concept of a savior, but his philosophy (a Pharisee philosophy, by the way, despite Paul's spin doctoring) is quite sound.

[buckner]

Is it me, or has this thread gone off-topic? I have read in some places that the Celts were a loose "organization" of peoples with similar backgrounds across Northern Europe (i.e. Gauls). Supposedly, they were responsible for bringing mankind into the bronze age and possibly iron age. Unfortunately not much was known about the earlier history because they didn't have a written language until much later, but supposedly they influenced Greek and Egyptian culture, including their religions. For example, one school of thought is that they migrated south and settled in Greece, inter-marrying with the locals there and bringing with them culture and technology. There, it is possible that all of these earlier religions have a similar root, which Ra and the Goa'uld took advantage of (starting with Egyptians and branching into the other religions as well). There really isn't anything new there, just a possible explanation to the spread of the goa'uld influence in ancient religions.

That is a neat idea I have not heard it before. If they influenced the greek the greek would have influenced the romans and the romans to the rest of the area.

[-Jules-]

Actually, no. Judaism did not have the concept of Hell, the place of eternal punishment. That's a Christian concept. Initially, in Judaism, if you lived a bad life, your "punishment" was that your soul was denied the presence of God, deemed to be the worst thing a soul could suffer. All this other stuff--the levels of Hell, the various punishments and the like--were developed as part of Christianity (and, I believe, Islam has much of the same version of Hell, though I am not sure and I apologize to any Muslims on this thread if this is incorrect).

First off, Christianity isn't about living a good or bad life! nobody's perfect! it's about being deciples of Christ, following His teachings, and believing that He died for us.
Second, when you say Christianity, do you mean the original Roman Catholic Christian (like in the episode Demons) or the modern day Jesus Freaks???

I always found it interesting that it was the faith based around a figure who, we are told, represents love, forgiveness, redemption and compassion, that invented a place of eternal punishment from which there is no way to be redeemed or forgiven, to change or move on.

God did not create 'hell'. There wasn't even any sin untill Adam and Eve ate of the forbiden fruit and were cast out of the garden. 'Hell' would be Satan's domain. God created a perfect world and we screwed it up. but like i said...no person is perfect.

Umm... that'd be historical fact, my lad. And only the book of Paul seems to have been true to the author's intent.

The Bible wasn't writen over-night! it took hundreds and hundreds of years to write it. It's God's word spoken to men and writen through them. 2 Timothy 3:16 "The whole Bible was given to us by inspiration from God..."

[-Jules-]

Hey, I'm a Goa'uld underling!

[Darth Buddha]

Hey, I'm a Goa'uld underling!

And the Faithful are Rewarded!

[Julez]

Jules, Whipple is my married name. Barlow is my maiden name - same Barlow that the telescope eyepeices have on them. Very distant relation in England.

Yeah, husband uses the "squeeze" line and I always give in 'Nuf said!

What would be in bad taste on a date is somehow rather cute in the context of an established couple, is it not? The exact why's and wherefore's of that transformation, though, escape me.

I guess it would depend on how touchy and sensitive someone is! I use to be a sailor, so not much offends me anymore! The transformation you speak of escapes me as well. I was never very girlie girlish.

[Beatrice Otter]

why do you think that the Bible was writte 50-100 years after Jesus's death?

Ok, my Lecture Mode has just been engaged. Prepare to learn more than you ever wanted to about the formation of the New Testament . Yes, this is wildly off topic. But hey, sometimes I just can't help myself .

In answer to your question: presumably, because they were. Paul's letters were written ca. 30 AD. And they were letters; we have no sermons, no records of his preaching, and we don't even have the letters written to him that he was responding to. It's like hearing half of a telephone call; one has to try and figure out what the situation is by reading between the lines. We don't have all his letters, and we're pretty sure that some letters that were attributed to him weren't actually written by him. Also, we're pretty sure some of the "letters" are incomplete, and others are sections of several letters that were passed around and pieced together.

the gospels were written (iirc off the top of my head) 60-120 AD. The rest of the New Testament (the other epistles and the Revelation of John) were written in the period, but for the most part slightly later. Nor were the four canonical Gospels the only ones written. They're not even the only ones that survived to this day; we have portions and in some cases the entirety of several gospels (by which I mean, stories of Jesus' life) that were written about the same time but not included in the Bible. The Gospels were written because the original group of apostles who personally knew Jesus were dying out, as were the people they directly taught. Old age, persecution, etc. The Gospels were written to preserve their memories of Christ and teach new-comers to the faith. Each had a slightly different take on events due to source material, the author's point of view, and the community for which it was written.

Mark was the first written of the four canonical Gospels, and is the most matter-of-fact and succinct. Both Matthew and Luke take the Gospel of Mark and edit it for their own audience, adding in material both from a common source (commonly referred to by scholars as "Q," because while they're pretty sure it exists due to various textual evidence, nobody's found it yet) as well as material strictly their own. Matthew was writing for a Jewish audience; his Gospel relies heavily on quotations from the Hebrew scriptures and Jewish symbolic/ritual/prophetic tradition. Matthew's main concern is to establish Jesus as the Messiah, the Annointed One of God, as prophesied. Luke was writing for Gentiles (mostly Greek) and his work is more literate and polished; he emphasises the roles of non-Jews and women especially, and takes care to explain the significance of Jewish culture when Matthew assumes his audience is aware of such things. Luke's main concern is to establish Jesus as the Savior of the world, and as innocent of the crime for which he was killed.

John (written last) bears little relation to the other three gospels, both in attitude, style, and internal chronolgy. John the Evangelist used different source material, and assumed his audience was both already familiar with the story, and already accepted Jesus as the Messiah, the Savior, the Son of God. He was more concerned with theology and Jesus' teachings than with the miracles and day-to-day events; long set speeches by both Jesus and the disciples are more common. The famous "I am" statements ("I am the Bread of Life," "I am the Good Shepphard," "I am the vine,") all come from John. In some ways, John's approach to his material is almost 180 degrees opposed to that of the other three Gospels--where they are trying to convince their audience that Jesus is divine as well as human, John tries to convince his audience that Jesus was human as well as divine. You see, by the time John was written, a separate religious group known as the Gnostics was trying to take over some of Jesus' teachings and incorporate them into their own framework of belief as they'd already taken dualism from Persian Zoroastrianism. From what scholars have been able to piece together, John the Evangelists' congregation was in some danger of being taken over by the Gnostics; he wrote his Gospel essentially to counter their influence.

The epistles from writers other than Paul came after this for the most part, and the Revelation of John (note, Revelation is singular, _not_ plural, and that the John who wrote it was neither the author of the Gospel nor the disciple) was the last to be written. While I highly doubt the theory that Revelation was written in some sort of code, it is a confusing and often disturbing book that becomes much more readable when you compare it with the apocalyptic portions of the book of Daniel in the Old Testament and realize that John was using the same terminology/imagery.

How did these disparate writings come to be gathered together and declared canon? It's an interesting story. See, the Roman Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity in the year 312 (mostly for political reasons; he thought a unified empire under one emperor needed a unified religion under one God). And having done so, he wanted to spread this religion he had decided to patronize (he wasn't baptized until shortly before his death twenty-five years later). Only to find that this religion he had chosen to unify the empire with ... wasn't unified. There was no set hierarchy; there was no set theology (though many aspects of the faith were at least generally agreed upon); there was no set group of religious texts (while some books had wide acceptance, 'canon' varied by congregation and region); and (what appalled him the most) was that there was no set list of holy places upon which he could build churches and shrines. And a theological controversy was brewing.

So he set out to fix all that. He called together the leaders of the church from all around the Empire, in what is called the First Council of Nicaea (325 AD). The main business of the Council was to write the Nicene Creed and decide what to do about Arian theology (they rejected it as heresy); however, they also put together a tentative list of which writings were considered canonical and which were not and compiled a list of holy places where Constantine could put up churches and shrines (including what is now St. Peter's in Rome). Despite some lingering dispute, this Council marked the formation of the New Testament as we know it today.

[Darth Buddha]

I guess it would depend on how touchy and sensitive someone is! I use to be a sailor, so not much offends me anymore! The transformation you speak of escapes me as well. I was never very girlie girlish.

Has nothing to do with girlish.

I'd have no respect for a fellow male who engaged in such a lame, obvious, unimaginative comment... that DOUBTLESS would have been used before in a mere dating circumstance. But you wheren't squeezable before taking your husband's name, so that doesn't apply.

However, even lame, weak, obvious bits when used by a spouse are somehow cute. After all, it isn't a matter of trying to impress anymore (perhaps that's the transformation?).

[Beatrice Otter]

And the Faithful are Rewarded!

Heck yeah! I'm still a Death Glider Pilot myself, though not for too much longer.

But that is one of the principles of every successful group, be it political, military, religious, economic, web-based, etc. Me, I'm aiming for 800 posts, so I can get a wider selection of avatar choices that includes Jacob Carter.

[Ugly Pig]

Whose God? Or Gods? Or concept of the divine? Defined by what worship?

That is completely irrelevant to my statement. I don't think you got my point.

You have been given a rational mind, and yet you are unwilling to use it.

On the contrary, my (rather random) comment was born out of rational thinking, and not out of any kind of belief.

To those who do believe, a far more relevant question is: Do you hate? Do you judge? Do you persecute? Do you look down on those who believe differently? Do you ostracize those who don't subscribe to your dogma? Does it motivate you to real acts of compassion? Do you give to the poor if you are able (or do you feel self righteously better than them)? Do you give of yourself?

Good questions - for believers and non-believers, all.

[-Jules-]

Heck yeah! I'm still a Death Glider Pilot myself, though not for too much longer.

But that is one of the principles of every successful group, be it political, military, religious, economic, web-based, etc. Me, I'm aiming for 800 posts, so I can get a wider selection of avatar choices that includes Jacob Carter.

Yes.

[Darth Buddha]

On the contrary, my (rather random) comment was born out of rational thinking, and not out of any kind of belief.

Sorry, I read that the wrong way.

Good questions - for believers and non-believers, all.

Yep. Though I wonder about morality derived essentially from fear of an all powerful being that may or may not be imaginary. The atheist or even agnostic position may be a bit sterile and cold, bu it is a lot cleaner.