If there is a God, why is there evil?
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Re: If there is a God, why is there evil?
Meditation in a Biblical sense means a dwelling upon scriptural words. Contemplation of a wordless, imageless apprehension of God's immediate Presence, was never layed out systematicaly as it was in say, Indian religion. In Christianity, the Ultimate state is only partly available to us (partially realized eschatology it is called) unless we are mystics. John's Gospel, and moreso, Thomas' Gospel takes us to an contemplative awareness of God's presence, here and now. This is developed most systematically by the Greek Orthodox Hesychast (Tranquility) monks of Mt. Athos, Greece, who seek to 'find the Place of the Heart' by way of the Jesus Prayer.
It seems evident that there were those who thought John or Jesus to be Elias/Elijah, reborn. The doctrine of transmigration is not taught BY Jesus in the canonical Bible, but the belief system was clearly in place. The Bible as we have it in its canonical form is going to perpetuate the highly suspect agenda of Constantine, who worshipped Sol Invictus - the Mithraic god of the Roman soldiers, and who was forced to make a deathbed conversion. The Bible in this sense is thoroughly the propaganda device of the power-wielding priesthood who constructed it under Constantine. This is not to say that it isn't a vehicle for spiritual Truth, but that the existent Bible has had great spiritual treasure excised from it.
Transmigration is a notion based on experiences that are far older than Judaism. The Middle East had numerous traditions that held to transmigration, especially Plato's philosophy. The Platonic and Neoplatonic elements of Catholicism are unmistakable even if the transmigration is only hinted at. Everything in the Bible is not plain. Nowhere does it speak of Jesus' Bar Mitzvah, but He doubtlessly had one if He truly was a son of Israel, if not the Jewish Messiah. His visit at age 12 to the Temple was not His Bar Mitzvah. It is implied by the whole gestalt of Jewish life. That Jesus may have been married isn't mentioned anywhere and the lone wandering Holy Man image was perpetuated. Unmarried Jewish men were not allowed to speak publically in the Temple - they were not 'complete' men til their sexual nature was lawfully manifest - yet Jesus was said to have spoken in the Temple often in the NT. So it is entirely possible that Jesus was married. Mary called Magdalene most likely (but no, the most important disciple doesn't get to be called an Apostle, and gets called a whore until the 1960's - because she's a woman!)
I do not understand why many or most professing Christians blink their eyes at the source of the canonical Bible. The attitude which holds that GOD formed the canon is entirely naive. Any seeker of Truth has to come to terms with the most profound failures of Bible interpretation, like the fact that Paul was totally wrong about the immanent Apocalypse and the return of Christ. We also have to come to terms with the Nag Hammadi discovery. All those books portray very divergent forms of Christianity. Does one love Truth, or merely tradition?
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Re: If there is a God, why is there evil?
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Re: If there is a God, why is there evil?
They all centre on Jesus his death by crucifixion and then his resurrection at least so we can assume all these divergent forms of Christianity were based on something that actually happened. Over the first couple of hundred years there were numerous Christian communities in different parts of the Roman Empire that developed and elaborated upon their own gospels to expand on their own beliefs. The form of Christianity that eventually became the state religion of Rome focussed on the earliest three gospels from the 1st century which roughly correlate with each other with some differences here and there. The gospel of John was written in the early 2nd century and is somewhat different from the other three but this more a spiritually inspired story about who Jesus was less a historical account.Diploid wrote: We also have to come to terms with the Nag Hammadi discovery. All those books portray very divergent forms of Christianity. Does one love Truth, or merely tradition?
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Re: If there is a God, why is there evil?
Book 20, Chapter 9 of the Antiquities of the Jews by Josephus Flavius. (c. 94 C.E.)
"Festus was now dead, and Albinus was but upon the road; so he assembled the sanhedrim of judges, and brought before them the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ, whose name was James, and some others, [or, some of his companions]; and when he had formed an accusation against them as breakers of the law, he delivered them to be stoned:"
The Roman historian Tacitus in The Annals, Book 15. (c.110 C.E.)
"Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus."
The Roman historian Seutonius, in Book VI of De Vitae Caesarum - The Life of Nero (c. 121 C.E.)
"Punishment was inflicted on the Christians, a class of men given to a new and mischievous superstition."
There is another reference in Book 18 of the Antiquities, a whole paragraph, but the authenticity of this passage is heavily disputed. I have good grounds for believing it was a Christian interpolation placed between 250 and 325 C.E.
The Syriac version of this passage reads... "at this time there was wise man who was called Jesus. And his conduct was good, and he was known to be virtuous. And many people from among the Jews and the other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die. And those who had become his disciples did not abandon his discipleship. They reported that he had appeared to them three days after his crucifixion and that he was alive; accordingly, he was perhaps the Messiah concerning whom the prophets have recounted wonders."
Origin of Alexandria, a Church Father who died approx 250 C.E. never mentioned this passage in any of his works, despite repeatedly and directly referencing the much shorter statement in Book 20. (Three times in, "Against Celsus", and once in, "The Treatise on Matthew".) Origen uses the statement to support his account of why Jerusalem fell, "on account, as Josephus says, of the stoning of James the Just, the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ". (Against Celsus - Circa 248 C.E)
The first independent mention of the paragraph in Book 18 is made by the Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea, approx 321 C.E. not long before the council of Nicea and the formal legalisation of Christianity in Rome. The backing of the Roman Emperor Constantine would have made it much easier to insert such a blatant Christian interpolation into such an important historical work, which would explain why Origen never used it.
Hope this helps.
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Re: If there is a God, why is there evil?
By the time Emperor Constantine decided to use Christianity instead of Mithraism as a banner around which the Roman Empire could continue, he was on his deathbed, and had murdered several of his family members who threatened his political agenda. Such was the character of the man who employed Christian myths instead of Pagan myths. Myths are very powerful structures in the psyche. They form a sort of psychic infrastructure around which cultures develop. The core myths are finite, and they are universal, but they take on the idiosyncratic 'clothing' of each culture, but it takes an individual of a certain typology to see the 'invariant features' of the core myths without being confused by the differences. Therefore, Dismemberment-Death-Resurrection must be found within the various myths in order to glean a universal, global perspective.Ruskin wrote:They all centre on Jesus his death by crucifixion and then his resurrection at least so we can assume all these divergent forms of Christianity were based on something that actually happened. Over the first couple of hundred years there were numerous Christian communities in different parts of the Roman Empire that developed and elaborated upon their own gospels to expand on their own beliefs. The form of Christianity that eventually became the state religion of Rome focussed on the earliest three gospels from the 1st century which roughly correlate with each other with some differences here and there. The gospel of John was written in the early 2nd century and is somewhat different from the other three but this more a spiritually inspired story about who Jesus was less a historical account.Diploid wrote: We also have to come to terms with the Nag Hammadi discovery. All those books portray very divergent forms of Christianity. Does one love Truth, or merely tradition?
The Crucifixion of Iesous is not unique to this figure. On the cover of Freke & Gandy's The Jesus Mysteries, there is an illustration of a 'gem' with the illustration of a crucifixion that predates Iesous. Before that there is the myth of Prometheus, an earlier mythic savior who stole Fire from the gods and gave it to humankind out of compassion. For this, he was bound to a rock on a mountaintop where a bird of prey ate his liver (the one who lives, the organ of the soul back then and there), which grew back every night. This torment recurred until Prometheus was himself 'saved' by Heracles (Hercules). Earlier still was Osirus in Egypt, who was killed, dismembered, and scattered all around the world. He was gathered by his wife Isis - all but his phallus - which was replaced by the great god Thoth by a magickal phallus with which the resurrected Osirus gave Isis their son Horus. These three form the original basis of the holy family, later made into Yosef, Miriam and Iesous (Y'shua).
Now the among the droves of literalist Christians, which made up the multitudes at the time of Constantine, were Christians who were well aware of the myths of antiquity. Included among those Christians were the Gnostic Christians, who understood the metaphors and Hebrew midrash, and who asked themselves 'what do these stories really mean?' Among those philosophers, was, for example, Philo of Alexandria who wrote tons of stuff about the 'Logos,' the Word of God. The Logos was God's immanence, as opposed to God's incomprehensible transcendence. Philo lived contemporaneously with Iesous (if Iesous was a historical figure). In Egypt, the Logos was Thoth - the Heart and Tongue of Ra (God). The writer of the Gospel of John began his book with the Prologue (note the Logos root) in which he said "In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God..." In English, this Logos in Greek was translated as 'Word' which is one of its meanings. The Neo-Platonists philosophers of the time saw all this as no different from their own philosophy where their transcendent One emanates Nous (Mind/Logos), which emanates the World Soul (Father, Son, Holy Spirit).
Meanwhile, the ignorant multitudes did not understand philosophy, or mythology, or the new formulation of creeds that became theology. They were very concrete-minded, sense-dominated people for whom it was necessary to write public relations stories which come down to us as the gospels, and which included the 'tomb narratives,' in which Resurrection becomes taught as a historical physical event. The gospels came later than the earliest Christian writings attributed to Paul, who NEVER taught about a resusitated corpse. Paul taught about a spiritual Mystery - Resurrection and the Resurrection Body. The Gnostics had their own internalized understanding of this Mystery - a psychospiritual reality, much like the Resurrection of ancient Egypt when one's Ba (soul) and Ka (spirit) come together after death of the body to form the Akh.
Belief (the psychic) in a resurrection of the body (physical) is what the Gnostics understood to be the superstitious, concrete understanding of the Psychic Christians, as opposed to their Self-Realization theology. The Gnostics have their parallels among all the esoteric (inner) members of most religions, not the exoteric (outer) multitudes who merely 'believe' that believing in a myth AS history, is salvific. The problem is that the Gnostic and otherwise esoteric 'Pneumatic' (spiritual) Christians were eventually stamped out, their books burned, and any sympathizers who remained (like the Cathars, Bougamils, Albigensians, etc.) were set upon by crusades, and the 'Holy Inquisition.' The Gnostics thoughts that Psychic Christians could become Pneumatic Christians, but there were clearly demarcations of typology, and of metaphysical destination (just as there are in Hindu and Buddhist metaphysics: various heavens).
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Re: If there is a God, why is there evil?
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Re: If there is a God, why is there evil?
The founder of Christianity was Jesus not Constantine. In any case he wasn't officially a Christian until his baptism which he held off just before his deathbed. Of course just having your head dunked into some water without any genuine repentance as a bet hedger won't really do anything so he's probably still in hell, not that's for me to say what happens to anyone after they die that's really more for God to know.Diploid wrote:
By the time Emperor Constantine decided to use Christianity instead of Mithraism as a banner around which the Roman Empire could continue, he was on his deathbed, and had murdered several of his family members who threatened his political agenda. Such was the character of the man who employed Christian myths instead of Pagan myths.
Absolutely and the Christian story is a myth, just one that happens to be true as J.R.R Tolkien told C.S Lewis when he expressed similar views to yourself. There were plenty of very intelligent and learned people who were Christians you, all the Apollo Astronauts for example, some very clever people best not to think a Christian faith is for the simple minded or gullible.Myths are very powerful structures in the psyche. They form a sort of psychic infrastructure around which cultures develop.
They never involved an actual historical man returning from the dead nor did they ever leave an empty tomb it's best not to confuse these ancient myths that are tied to the seasons with Christ they are not the same thing remotely at all. Many of the resurrection god myths involved the dismemberment and reconstruction of the body as a metaphor for the soul but Jesus was buried fully physically intact in his tomb with a boulder placed at the entrance so there isn't a comparison to be made between Jesus and Osirus who was murdered by his brother dismembered and thrown into a river. Many of these Christian to pagan deity comparisons were made in the 19th century and anti-semitism was a motivation as it took Jesus away from his Jewish roots by trying to make him into a kind of symbolic pagan resurrectional deity. Also some of the top Nazi's viewed Christ as being originally an Aryan pagan god who was corrupted by some Jewish cult to fit as this fitted with their Germanic racial ideology. So you do have to look a little more deeply into the motivations behind these pagan god to Christian Christ comparisons they're not necessarily accurate or wholesome. The resurrection is an incredible and out of the ordinary thing to happen but then a revelation from God would have to be if you think about it. If this isn't convince you nothing will really. If you want to say it didn't happen you will still have to explain exactly what did you don't necessarily get to dismiss Christ that easily some effort has to be made.Therefore, Dismemberment-Death-Resurrection must be found within the various myths in order to glean a universal, global perspective.
I have read that book it isn't really on the high end of scholarship (they deny Jesus ever existed at all this is conspiracy theory nuttery even Dawkins accepts his physical Earthly existence) there are better books you can read, I would particularly recommend some C.S Lewis for you. You can start with Mere Christianity if all these different brands of Christian faith are a concern for you. Of course he was also well aware of pagan myths of dying and rising gods but he saw this as God preparing the world for the real thing which is another way of seeing it.The Crucifixion of Iesous is not unique to this figure. On the cover of Freke & Gandy's The Jesus Mysteries
That's been covered and I know all about them so moving on.*insert a load of text about pagan gods that are supposed to be like Jesus*
I would encourage understanding at least some of the Bible as parable and symbol including the New Testament but to be clear Jesus was a real man, he was executed under Pilate, there was an empty tomb (which women discovered had it been pure fiction they would have had men discover this as they would have been viewed as more reliable eyewitnesses at the time) and people did experience the risen Christ. When Saint Paul was writing 20 years after the event he claimed there were literally hundreds of people living in his community who experienced the risen Christ first hand. Someone would have called him out on this if no-one had experienced this event people weren't stupid just because they happened to live a couple of thousand years ago. Also no-one would have historically experienced the resurrection of Osiris who was a purely fictional god who never actually existed that no-one ever met. We ultimately need a God who will manifest himself in reality not just in symbolic parables inspired by the Holy Spirit.Belief (the psychic) in a resurrection of the body (physical) is what the Gnostics understood to be the superstitious, concrete understanding of the Psychic Christians, as opposed to their Self-Realization theology. The Gnostics have their parallels among all the esoteric (inner) members of most religions, not the exoteric (outer) multitudes who merely 'believe' that believing in a myth AS history, is salvific.
The Gnostics believed that salvation was through attaining knowledge of God not just through claiming to have faith in God or follow a religion. Also this knowledge is something that comes from within you don't need an external authority to do this for you as your relationship with God is direct. Of course the Catholic Church as a human power based structure didn't take too kindly to Gnostics. But the Gnostics did have the right general idea. They believed in reincarnation as well much like the eastern religions do and I agree with this though I get from the Western Esoteric tradition and the Kabbalah. I have read the Nag Hammdi library and there is a section in there in the form of a letter that does confirm that they viewed the resurrection as a historical rather than a metaphorical event. If you go to actual authentic the source material rather that Freke & Gandy's buggery you'll get a better idea of what they were about. One of the the main points that differentiated the Gnostics is that they believed the creator of the universe was Satan or an evil demon called Yaldabaoth and this explains the problem of evil. Personally I think God created the universe and suffering exists as a consequence of life being a certain way to allow freewill so I'm more an esoteric Christian than a Gnostic.The problem is that the Gnostic and otherwise esoteric 'Pneumatic' (spiritual) Christians were eventually stamped out, their books burned, and any sympathizers who remained (like the Cathars, Bougamils, Albigensians, etc.) were set upon by crusades, and the 'Holy Inquisition.' The Gnostics thoughts that Psychic Christians could become Pneumatic Christians, but there were clearly demarcations of typology, and of metaphysical destination (just as there are in Hindu and Buddhist metaphysics: various heavens).
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Re: If there is a God, why is there evil?
A lot more than what I'm about to quote. I abstracted this little bit because it's typical of Ruskin's reasoning.
Being 19th century does not automatically condemn. That antisemitism was a motivation is unsubstantiated. The facts include that Greek ideas were scattered throughout the Roman empire. Jesus himself may have been influenced by Greek ideas including myths. Ruskin, you seem to not understand that religions are often constituted of a mix of previous religions from a variety of sources. Christianity is a prime example of such a religion. The early promoters of Christianity in Britain, for instance, were wise enough to build their little churches upon pagan holy sites. The pagan story of Christmas is a dearly revered part of the Gospels and long may it continue thus say IMany of these Christian to pagan deity comparisons were made in the 19th century and anti-semitism was a motivation as it took Jesus away from his Jewish roots by trying to make him into a kind of symbolic pagan resurrectional deity
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Re: If there is a God, why is there evil?
Ruskin wrote:The founder of Christianity was Jesus not Constantine. In any case he wasn't officially a Christian until his baptism which he held off just before his deathbed. Of course just having your head dunked into some water without any genuine repentance as a bet hedger won't really do anything so he's probably still in hell, not that's for me to say what happens to anyone after they die that's really more for God to know.Diploid wrote:
By the time Emperor Constantine decided to use Christianity instead of Mithraism as a banner around which the Roman Empire could continue, he was on his deathbed, and had murdered several of his family members who threatened his political agenda. Such was the character of the man who employed Christian myths instead of Pagan myths.
Indeed, but you misunderstood/misread me. It's what Emperor Constantine decided to use as a banner around which the HRE could continue, I didn't state that Christianity was created by Emperor Constantine.
The Gnostic myths are also myth. The difference is that most of the Gnostics recognize the mythical, metaphorical, and metaphysical meanings of scriptural writings without necessarily believing they are historical events. Spiritual stories among he Jews was called midrash. There are many schools of Gnostic thought (Valentinians, Sethians, Ophites, Naasenes, etc.) and pseudo-Gnostic though (like the Gospel of Thomas, or Marcion). The main problem they all dealt with was theodicy, how can there be such evil given that God is good? The Gnostics sometimes had a completely different take on characters like Judas Iscariot (whose last name might simply suggest that he belonged to the 'Sicari,' Jewish assassins), as well as the serpent in Eden, which instead of being evil was sometimes seen as a symbol of wisdom ("..be wise as serpents and innocent as doves" - Matthew 10:16) whereas the humanoid God walking in the garden was the Demiurge who had trapped divine sparks of The Pleroma in bodies of flesh.Absolutely and the Christian story is a myth, just one that happens to be true as J.R.R Tolkien told C.S Lewis when he expressed similar views to yourself. There were plenty of very intelligent and learned people who were Christians you, all the Apollo Astronauts for example, some very clever people best not to think a Christian faith is for the simple minded or gullible.Myths are very powerful structures in the psyche. They form a sort of psychic infrastructure around which cultures develop.
I do not adhere to the notion of the Demiurge inasmuch as it was a not-so-veiled doctrine of antisemitism. Marcion the Gnostic wanted to do away with the entire OT. Valentinus' entire creation myth is an alternative mythos far removed from the Hebrew-Babylonian (Gilgamesh epic) sources. Y'shua, AKA Isso, AKA Jesus (Hebrew-Aramaic-Greek) was a real human being, belonging to a Hebrew lineage. Whatever His ontological status is, He is connected to the Old Testament in an integral way, and cannot be legitimately distilled out.They never involved an actual historical man returning from the dead nor did they ever leave an empty tomb it's best not to confuse these ancient myths that are tied to the seasons with Christ they are not the same thing remotely at all. Many of the resurrection god myths involved the dismemberment and reconstruction of the body as a metaphor for the soul but Jesus was buried fully physically intact in his tomb with a boulder placed at the entrance so there isn't a comparison to be made between Jesus and Osirus who was murdered by his brother dismembered and thrown into a river. Many of these Christian to pagan deity comparisons were made in the 19th century and anti-semitism was a motivation as it took Jesus away from his Jewish roots by trying to make him into a kind of symbolic pagan resurrectional deity. Also some of the top Nazi's viewed Christ as being originally an Aryan pagan god who was corrupted by some Jewish cult to fit as this fitted with their Germanic racial ideology. So you do have to look a little more deeply into the motivations behind these pagan god to Christian Christ comparisons they're not necessarily accurate or wholesome. The resurrection is an incredible and out of the ordinary thing to happen but then a revelation from God would have to be if you think about it. If this isn't convince you nothing will really. If you want to say it didn't happen you will still have to explain exactly what did you don't necessarily get to dismiss Christ that easily some effort has to be made.Therefore, Dismemberment-Death-Resurrection must be found within the various myths in order to glean a universal, global perspective.
A much greater antisemitic force - Nazism - attempted to do this via Hegelian metaphysics. The theology of the Lutheran Church was targeted to [bracket] the eternal Christ out from a Jewish man - split the existential (human) and ontological (Divine) natures. This of course was only an intermediarry step in the replacement of the cross with the swastika.
The recognition that genuine religious experience can come from within the believer is definately a Gnostic stance, and one that I hold in a defining way. The external institution of Sacramental theology, controlled by a priesthood who claims the power to excommunicate heretics, thereby damning individuals, is as most here agree, nothing more than terror-tactics and tyranny. The movie 'Stigmata' was an overly dramatic version of this threat to Catholicism (in particular) with regard to the Gospel of Thomas. The once-popular 'Celestine Prophesy' was a sort of take-off on this theme as well. The real Demiurge today is not 'the blind god' Samael, but the same false god of the New Testament, ''Mammon," or money. Rudolf Steiner identified Greed with the devil Ahriman. It may be an Aristotelian 'efficient cause' of change in this world, but it is regarded as 'Absolute cause' - as God - when of course it is simple idolatry.
The first God, of the Lower Countanence, is the Demiurge, the Architect in 'The Matrix' whose face forms of metal 'sqigglies' in the sky before Neo.The Gnostics believed that salvation was through attaining knowledge of God not just through claiming to have faith in God or follow a religion. Also this knowledge is something that comes from within you don't need an external authority to do this for you as your relationship with God is direct. Of course the Catholic Church as a human power based structure didn't take too kindly to Gnostics. But the Gnostics did have the right general idea. They believed in reincarnation as well much like the eastern religions do and I agree with this though I get from the Western Esoteric tradition and the Kabbalah. I have read the Nag Hammdi library and there is a section in there in the form of a letter that does confirm that they viewed the resurrection as a historical rather than a metaphorical event. If you go to actual authentic the source material rather that Freke & Gandy's buggery you'll get a better idea of what they were about. One of the the main points that differentiated the Gnostics is that they believed the creator of the universe was Satan or an evil demon called Yaldabaoth and this explains the problem of evil. Personally I think God created the universe and suffering exists as a consequence of life being a certain way to allow freewill so I'm more an esoteric Christian than a Gnostic.The problem is that the Gnostic and otherwise esoteric 'Pneumatic' (spiritual) Christians were eventually stamped out, their books burned, and any sympathizers who remained (like the Cathars, Bougamils, Albigensians, etc.) were set upon by crusades, and the 'Holy Inquisition.' The Gnostics thoughts that Psychic Christians could become Pneumatic Christians, but there were clearly demarcations of typology, and of metaphysical destination (just as there are in Hindu and Buddhist metaphysics: various heavens).
The True GOD, the Fullness (the Pleroma), the Reality of which Neo intuits when he flies above the Demiurgic creation, above the clouds of doom into the pure atmosphere and sunlight.
The Demiurge, in Gnosticism, was born of a 'cosmic cataclysm' when the last of 30 Eternal Intelligences (Aeons) in the Pleroma named 'Wisdom,' decided to create Life without the consent of her consort (Aeons were paired, or married). The result was the Demiurge which became equated with the Creator, or with the God of the Old Testament, and who 'entrapped' divine 'sparks' or spirits of the True GOD within human beings. Some humans become aware of this and wish to return to the Pleroma to which they 'KNOW' they belong. This awareness or awakening was agreed upon in the last of the Matrix films when the Architect makes concession for those humans who awaken from the Matrix to do so, join Zion, and live their lives and deaths in Freedom (which includes a spiritually awakened life aimed at transcendence). A great clue in the first Matrix film is a shot of the hovercraft's model number 'Mark IV No. 11.' Check out Mark 4:11 - it is the number one Gnostic message in the New Testament.
A Gnostic reading of Paul, like most Gnostic interpretations does not make the mainstream doctrine of the Vicarious Sacrifice the center of Christian belief - all that language (that my Lady's mother often uses) about 'being cleansed in the blood of the Lamb.' The Vicarious Sacrifice doctrine is that a cruel execution served as the 'rending of profane history' that allowed a specific Divine process to enter the Human condition, available to anyone who believes in the Name of Jesus. My Greek Orthodox friend points out that it is the Resurrection that defines Christianity, not the crucifixion-death. The Resurrection is described as a historical event, but many Gnostics understand, once again, that 'midrash' - Jewish story-telling of spiritual ideas - are NOT to be read as historical, empirical events. Resurrection, in its essence is Christian Mystery.
The Gnostic understanding sees the historical storyline (factual or mythic) to symbolize a continual process of crucifixion of the self - the same notion as 'ego-death', often spoken in Jungian psychology, mysticism, psychedelics or entheogens. For Gnostics there are 3 divisions of spiritual development: the Hylics or Sarkics [sarx=flesh] who are essentially materialists, sensualists and basically living a mammalian existence.
The next division, an intermediary level, are the Psychic Christians who understand scriptures in terms of the Vicarious Sacrifice doctrine, and whose discipline is living by faith and doing good works. Psychics can develop to the next level.
The final division are the Pneumatic [pneuma=spirit] Christians, who comprise the Gnostics. Gnosis, unlike the word 'Episteme' (which refers to knowledge about phenomenon, scientific, empirical knowledge), refers to a form of Knowing that is experiential. More specifically, Spiritual Experience, including but not limited to what we call Entheogenic Experiences (Psychedelic Experiences). It is uncertain whether substances were employed by Gnostics, but there are ancient mosaics that illustrate the Amanita Muscaria mushroom. Gnostic Christianity, widely practiced until Constantine came down on them and destroyed their scriptures, had doctrines that approximate the Self-Realization doctrines of Indian thought. GOD is Present, and His/Her Presence is to be Realized within. This understanding leaves no need for sacraments and the holders of the sacraments, the priests, and by extension, the whole Church. The movie 'Stigmata' was about this. Some Docetic Gnostics maintained that Jesus was not a Human and had only a 'phantom body,' among other things, and this was the main problem that the new Catholic Church condemned. Alternatively, other Gnostics believed that someone else had died in Jesus' place. This, BTW is how Jesus is presented in the Qu'ran.
The Divinity of Jesus (Iesus, Issa, Y'shua) does not have to be compromised by His Humanity, but today as in the past, it is important to fully understand the notion of 'midrash.' Educated Buddhists, for example, understand that the story about lotus blossoms springing up from the baby Buddha's first steps, is mythos, is spiritual 'highlighting' and not historical. The same with stories of the Buddha's Virgin Birth. The Sacrality of Jesus and Buddha are not in any way diminished by an understanding of the mythic overlays. For the best Christian explanation (non-Gnostic but enlightening) is the book 'Liberating the Gospels: Reading the Bible With Jewish Eyes' by John Shelby Spong. The title 'Son of God' was used throughout the OT for the Divine Right of Kingship -all the OT kings were considered to be Sons of God. Gentiles, unfamiliar with Judaism continue to misunderstand the term as being unique to Jesus, whom they called "King of the Jews" in mockery. Later, the metaphysical overlay that occurred with Trinitarian doctrine (something no 1st century Jew would've known about) changed Matthew's "Anointed" [Christed] Son of Man (Jesus) into John's version of Christ which was 'God clothed in flesh' - Very Very different status!! This theology has overtaken Matthew's, Mark's and Luke's versions of Jesus as a man "Anointed" by GOD, and turned Him into GOD Incarnate. Hellenistic mythology - a Hero born of a god and a mortal woman!
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Re: If there is a God, why is there evil?
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Re: If there is a God, why is there evil?
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Re: If there is a God, why is there evil?
Precisely.Platos stepchild wrote:The argument is that, if there's a God then why does evil exist. My question is, why do we suppose that God and evil must preclude one another? First demonstrate to me why that should be the case, and then maybe I can answer the titular question .
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Re: If there is a God, why is there evil?
Hence the problem of evil. It is predicated upon the tacit assumption that imperfection cannot arise from perfection. This has put countless true believers in quite the quandary: how to justify their faith in light of the **** going on all around them. While I do not deny or trivialize evil, or even the possibility of a good God, I do deny that tacit assumption which has long bedeviled theodicy. I contend that perfection is nothing of the sort if imperfection cannot flower from it.
How can God be all-knowing if (He) doesn't know what imperfection is like? And, if God knows what imperfection is like, that's only because such exists, in order for (Him) to know it. The admittedly counter-intuitive conclusion is that if evil didn't exist, there could be no God. That's because God wouldn't therefore be all-knowing. This certainly isn't the "God as traditionally understood in [p]hilosophical discussions".
-- Updated July 24th, 2015, 4:11 am to add the following --
Please do not reply to this post. its a mistake.
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Re: If there is a God, why is there evil?
- Alec Smart
- Posts: 671
- Joined: June 28th, 2015, 12:28 pm
Re: If there is a God, why is there evil?
How did you arrive at this conclusion?Ruskin wrote:If God created a perfect paradise of a universe where evil didn't exist then there would be no freewill
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