Knowledge, the Forbidden Fruit

Posted in belief, Bible, Christianity, faith, Hebrew scripture, religion, scriptures, Social with tags , , , , , , on May 20, 2013 by chouck017894

Intelligence and knowledge get a sizeable amount of negative press in the “sacred” texts of western cultures.  Man’s existence, as the priest or prophet authors see it, has no other purpose but to submit and obey to what is claimed to have been “revealed” to the varied authors of man-written texts which are declared by them to be “holy.”  It almost seems as though God inserted a brain into man’s head simply to keep that emptiness in the skull from an annoying whistling in the wind.

Take the instructions supposedly given by God to Adam and Eve; they were commanded to not eat of the tree of knowledge! (Genesis 3:3)  So why would God have placed such a tree in the garden landscape at all?  No one seems to pay attention to the impication in Genesis: Adam and Eve, while in the garden, had only one taboo placed upon them–not to eat fruit from either of two trees placed in the center of his garden.  As anyone with half a brain could have foretold, they goofed, and so God tossed them out.  The fruit of the Tree of Knowledge symbolizes sexual awareness, the pivotal hub upon which all matter-life is defined and invigorated.  This natural energy is thus portrayed by conniving priest-authors as “the Fall of Man”–the so-called “original sin,” which just happens to mire everyone in inescapable “sin.”  This no-win situation provides the pulpit-cons with life-long career opportunity. 

All that God wanted, so the authors imply, is that man should simply submit and obey: God would communicate any further instructions through occasional revelations that he would pass on through a series of selected representatives.  Thus in Judaism it became virtually impossible to think or act or express faith outside the revelations of Torah, which is set forth as “law” with every detail of daily life specified!  To even question the rationality of some primitive aspects of those “laws” is implied to be soul-damning; all that can keep you in God’s good graces is to submit.  Now the extra sticky part of this setup is that ever since, according to pulpit guides, God has relayed his instructions to man only through a broken line of revealed taboos and implied threats.  Man is still expected to obey and submit via those self-proclaimed representatives, and man is never permitted any personal association with the Creator.  Something smells.

That commandment of submission proved so successful with the Hebrews’ revelations that it also became the strategy upon which Christian and Muslim faith systems were built.  The motto for each is identical: “Faith before knowledge!”  Under this rule whole libraries of knowledge have been reduced to ashes–for God’s sake, of course.  It is strange, therefore, that each of these interrelated corporate style faith systems should focus so intently upon their own priest-written books rather than attempting to guide by use of intelligence on how all beings could live more productively and peacefully by attempting to understand each  other.

It is much easier of course, especially for the alleged representatives of God, to define their belief by who they hate rather than to define positive refining values that can promote self respect.  Attention rarely labors over the detail that if a seeker cannot adequately define exactly what they believe in, that uncertainty loudly signals that they are insecure in what they profess.  It is alaming therefore that our personal connection to the Life Principle (God) is so often negatively approached in so many “holy” books such as in (OT) Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Ezra, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and also negatively expressed in (NT) Matthew, Luke, Ephesians, Romans, Titus, 1 John, Hebrews, and Revelation.  And the promotion of needless but cultivated hatreds (acts of ignorance) are also embodied in many pages of the Quran.  Consider: even the words Muslim means “to submit” and Islam means “submit.”  Like the Torah and the New Testament, the Quran does not place much emphasis on wisdom, tolerance, mercy or other positive qualities that truly benefit this matter-life experience.

We will here look at only a couple of OT examples of holy hatred, for lingering too long over such propaganda tends to agitate the mind and imbalances one’s sense of right and wrong.  Proverbs 6;16 lists “…six things doth the Lord hate: yea, seven are an abomination to him.”  The things that are subsequently listed by the priest-author certainly cannot be assessed as ethical behavior, and so what is listed are actually extreme negative social interaction practices.  To frighten followers into ethical conduct (which not ethical) the author assures them that the Creator turns livid over, 1) a proud look; 2) a lying tongue; 3) hands that shed innocent blood; 4) a heart that deviseth wicked imaginations; 5) feet that be swift in running to mischief; 6) a false witness that speaketh lies; and 7) he that soweth discord among brethern.  (It was from this list that Pope Gregory 1, “the Great” [590-604 CE], elaborated over the “seven deadly sins.”)  Not one word is offered suggesting that we should seek intelligent perception.  And in Ecclesiastes, chapter 3, divine insight is pretended by musing that everything has its appointed time, actually listing “a time to kill” (3), and “a time to hate” (8). 

In the New Testament, Luke 14:26, it is avowed that Jesus instructed followers, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own soul, he cannot be my disciple.”  Could the alleged “only begotten son” of the all-embracing Life Principle really say such a thing?These words put into Jesus’ mouth by the authors are the very principles that are routinely utilized in cult exploitation, for this imposes the orthodoxy of submit and obey.

Claims of divine “revelations” upon which the bulk of western world’s faith system observances have been built are shown to be suspiciously devoid of any serious awareness of observable universal facts.  Nowhere in holy word, for example, is there any recognition that this world is but a tiny part of galaxy, or that other galaxies exist, or that comets, asteroids and meteors often jostle the heavens and could threaten Earth.  To paraphrase St. John 21:25: “And there are aslo many other things…the which, if they should be written every one…even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written.”

The result of these man-concocted faith systems is their tendency to exalt only themselves by routinely focusing on the modest differences and the dissimilar features and characteristics which give life its radiant range of creative representation.  The creative unifying force in which all life is expressed is routinely imagined in “holy” accounts to be mainly concerned with the dilemmas of only one small representation of human species in one small region on planet Earth, and that force allegedly favors only their particular faith system.  Such a narrow understanding of  life and spirit’s significance in relation to the rest of the universe has resulted only in cultivated hatreds which only encourages indulgence in persistent and unnecessary conflicts. 

Reason and knowledge are seriously limited when self-serving faith systems labor to impose preconceptions of any kind over people’s interactions with each other.  In structured faith systems, for example, seekers are indoctrinated and continuously conditioned with claims that it is only through their particular dreamed up rites and rituals that one can attain favoritism from the Creative Life Principle.  Seekers are deliberately made blind to the fact that the observable universe and nature do not reflect that severely restrictive disposition in its excess and diversity and variety of life throughout Creation. 

When the Life Principle, i.e. God, is imagined to be in man’s image, there is scant room provided for mankind to ever attain its highest potential.  Since each and every man-conceived faith system has a true history of past indulgences in each and every one of the “sins” which their holy word condemns, followers would be much wiser to pay attention to the basic principle of science; Question Everything.  Pretending that a mystical power aids only their particular faith system for exerting control over this material world’s tribulations becomes questionable when the claimed omnipotent, omniscient deity alluded to has to rely upon the puny combative actions of mere man to fulfill his wishes.  Such argumentative procedures practiced by rival faith systems do not jibe with their claims of their deity’s divine capabilities. 

The declared especial access to that Being which the varied faith-system merchants profess to provide has a tendency to nudge simultaneous feelings of alienation in followers, for try as they may to abide by their faith systems’ instructions, there is always the sense of never quite touching higher potential.  Too often the result is the confusion of faith which becomes expressed in crusades of senseless acts of violence and hatred which is indulged in for no other reason than to impose their limited concept of “God” upon everyone else.

The faithful are skillfully kept distracted from the knowledge that evil does not really lie in wait in the variety and diverse expressions of life nor in any of the differing forms of awe and reverence for the Life Principle.  One’s moral fiber is plunged into crisis, however, when they are led into a conceit of spirit which is crafted upon the belittlement of knowledge.  This becomes glaringly apparent when those man-invented faith systems continue to leave the world around them in shambles.

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Denying God-Ordained Diversity

Posted in culture, faith, history, humanity, lifestyle, random, religion, sex, sex taboos with tags , , , , , , on May 13, 2013 by chouck017894

No theocratic form of government in mankind’s history has ever been distinguished by its sterling humanitarian principles.  Indeed theocracies (forms of government conducted under pretext of godly installation) are always viciously self-indulgent in their spiritual decadence.  The god that is imagined in such theocratic manipulation is declared to demand harsh slave-like rigidity in social and sexual conduct: the lavish variety and range of diversity that permeates all Creation is to be disregarded.  In short, such a governing strategy is an imposed short-ciruiting of, and a depressing constriction of the Almighty’s varied and diverse creative expressions.  When man-concocted faith stytems are used to oppress the masses to the point of denying the fact that every being is not and never was intended to be identical, that “faith” is itself merely a contrivance of human ego used by scheming men to rule the masses through a faith system of practiced hatreds.

This assessment of theocratic subterfuge has been evolving with us after ongoing reports concerning the ugly prejudices whipped up by ego-centered faith systems in regard to same sex attraction.  One of the fairly recent deceits of religious hucksters was the appalling intrusion of religious whackos from the United States into Uganda who deliberately urged Ugandan leaders to invent laws–in the name of their religion–for killing gay-born persons.  Not long after that a recorded report on BBC America (September 2012) was forwarded to us which concerned the merciless killings of gays in theocratic Iran.  Same sex attraction, according to an Iranian television  spokesman, is simply a moral disorder, adding that no one is ever born with same sex inclinations.  The government  spokesman further declared that such attraction was mostly an antigovernment “indulgence!”  The third bit of information was forwarded anonymously, a DVD documentary titled A Jihad for Love, which reported on the  vicious persecution of Muslim gays.  In the entrenched theology attributed to Mohammad, such diversity of attraction is judged self-servingly to be an “indulgence,” hence it is interpreted as a defiant act against the theocratic government.  Allah, they theorize, would never allow man, his assumed highest creation in a universe of widely varied and diversely structured universe, to ever veer from a singular physical attraction.   

Mainstream news in our more democratically based western societies generally sidestep any deep attention to the ongoing savage persecution of gays which is encouraged within theocratic cultures.  This shameful avoidance of reporting on murdeous practices being carried out under the guise of godly approval is due to a mistaken interpretation of our freedom of religious expression which is protected by the US Constitution.  The alleged ponderings attributed to the seventh century “prophet” is thus extended the respect which is granted to religious practice in accordance to our democratic principles.  It is a consideration and acceptance that is never extended in a theocracy, however, and is a shining reminder of the wisdom of keeping church and state separate.

According to the Quran (attributed to Mohammad), the people of Lut (referring to Lot in the much older Genesis tale) were allegedly the first to offend God by their recognition of same sex magnetism.  Thus we read in the Quran 7:80-81, “We also sent Lut (Lot): he said to his people: Will you commit abomination such as no people in creation committed before you?  For you practice your lusts on men in preference to women: you are indeed a people transgressing beyond bound.”  This claim made by the seventh century Arab prophet, that same sex attraction did not occur in earlier times, is demonstratively and glaringly untrue.  The Abram/Lot tale is traditionally placed in the timeframe of 2123-1948 BCE, and it is only a subplot which conveniently allows sexual implications (homoeroticism and incest) to be used to stimulate attention of followers.  At variance with the Quran claim (and biblical), pictorial illustrations exist from 6000 BCE by Egyptian artists which attest to same sex attraction.  Even older evidence is shown in 7000 BCE Chinese and Indian depictions.  These ancient representations therefore disprove historically the Quran claim (or biblical implication) that no same sex relations had ever occurred before the time of Lot (Lut).

By custom Islam is also counseled by the Hadith, which is only a collection of sayings which are attributed to Mohammad.  This is curious, for in the earlier times of the Caliphs, not even those who had personally known Mohammad could claim to have written down any authentic quotes.  Nonetheless, Islamic schools of jurisprudence, influenced by those attributed sayings, have been trained to judge same sex attraction as being unnatural and unlawful, and callously recommend brutal execution.

There are also what may be termed lesser Hadith.  For instance, Abu Dawud (also known as sunnah), a collection of alleged sayings and deeds of Mohammad.  These were collected by Iman Abu Dawud around two centuries after Mohammad’s death, so of course they are indisputable.  Used as justification for punishment of death is a quote from this collection (4448): “If a man who is not married is seized committing sodomy, he will be stoned to death.”  (Apparently God does not object to a married man sodimizing his discomforted wife.)  All these lesser Hadiths insist that those who indulge in such acts are to be killed.  The only question that is raised in this pretense of godly justice is over which vicious method the declared offender is to be killed.  (As in Judaism and Christian scriptures, God habitually neglects to explain pertinent details.)

Oddly, although homosexual behavior is held in Islam to be punishable with alleged God-approved execution in this world, there are implied references to such pleasure being available in Paradise.  Not only are virgins to be provided for the martyrs who defend the cause of Allah but also that”…immortal boys will circulate among them, when you see them you will count them as scattered pearls.” (Quran 76:19)  Accented in this view of Paradise is the handsomeness, “perpetual youth” and effeminacy of the youths.

Sexual orientation of a person was not regarded as presenting any horrendous social/spiritual deficiency in numerous ancient cultures, and those close observers of nature would have be puzzled by the feigned prudery over such magnetism which can be observed throughout nature.  Even scriptural texts relate (in a cautious indirect manner) the spiritual implication of male magnetism in the tale of David and Jonathon.  In 1 Samuel, chapters 18 and 20, the commitment that these two men make to each other is not avoided, but is relayed in some detail, saying”: “Jonathan’s soul was bound with David’s, and he loved him as himself…”  In 1 Samuel 18:1-4 it is detailed: “Then Jonathan and David made a covenant…and he (Jonathan) took off the robe he was wearing and gave it to David, along with his armor, his sword, his bow, and his belt.”  That commitment and devotion to each other is reaffirmed in chanpter 20:4, where they meet for the last time and “…they kissed each other and they wept together.”  In the timeframe when this was supposedly played out, a kiss between men admittedly did not automatically carry sexual meaning, so their “covenant” kiss does not exacly indicate that they were or had been sexually involved.  The strong magnetism to each other is cautiously sidestepped by saying that they loved each other “as brothers,” as equals; in other words, as Adam and Eve were supposed to be.  Brotherly love is a natural bond, but it is rarely expressed as in 1 Samuel as their souls being bound to each other.

All condemnation of same sex attraction by manmade faith systems is founded on one principle and one principle only; and that singular principle is to encourage procreation; and that encouragement is solely for the purpose of extending and multiplying followers of that man-invented faith system.  Thus these faith systems falsely aver that God (the Life Principle) condemns any sex acts which would not result in conception: acts such as masturbation, coitus interruptus, fellatio, sodomy, cunnilingus, pregnancy preventions, contraceptives, abortion and same sex attraction.  And the easiest way to lead people around by the nose is to fire up hatred within followers toward any who do not comply with priestly ambition.  The implausible threats of godly punishment too often (almost habitually) soils the mantle of sanctity. Implanting a hatred for non-breeder sex activity is effective only through a system of propagandist allusions.  In the case of same sex attraction, it is deceitfully implied that such attraction will lead to the extiction of the entire human species!  In today’s world teeming with over eight billion persons, that is a preposterous concept.  It may even be possible that same sex attraction is a God-provided means to protect any species from devastating over population.

Ultimately, the creative Life Principle which is personified as “God” continues to be an all-inclusive power, not a power which is narrowly exclusive.  That creative Life Principle did not create a broad range of life-love expressions and then collapse into divine antagonism.  Nonetheless, the manmade authoritarian faith systems continue to market their restrictive teachings as revealed to them directly from that all-enfolding Creator–a Creator who deteminedly continues to openly display a preference for variety and broadly diverse life expressions.

 

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Playing Games of Spiritual Monopoly

Posted in belief, Bible, faith, Hebrew scripture, history, random, religion, scriptures with tags , , , , , , , on May 1, 2013 by chouck017894

Back in the year 536 BCE the Persian King Cyrus II (The Great), freed the people of Judah from Babylonian Captivity and aided their return to Judah.  After seventy years in exile virtually all that had once been programmed into Judean consciousness as sacred truth by the Yahweh priests–the priest-composed laws and traditions–had been largely forgotten.  In that memorable seventy year exile referred to as the Babylonian Captivity the Judeans had, of course, been heavily influenced by the Chaldeans and Persians who became united into one nation by the might of Cyrus.  This national unity seemed heaven-sent and the Judeans were heavily influenced by the religion of Zoroaster.  Indeed, there is a Talmudic passage which freely acknowledges that the names of the angels (which earlier cultures associated with the planets), the names of the months, and even the letters of the alphabet were brought from the land of exile.  It is from the return of the people of Judah to their homeland that the literature now cherished by Jews as the Torah was assembled and established as law.

The principal architect of the Judean reconstruction period is traditionally claimed to have been a priest named Ezra (c.458 BCE); however nothing has ever been presented to verify that such a person ever existed.  It is more likely that some enterprising men among the returnees discovered versions of priest-written accounts which are now referred to as the E, the J, and the P versions, and edited them into the works now known as Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, and also included the  book Deuteronomy which had allegedly been “discovered” during remodeling of the Temple in 640 BCE.  The returning Judeans set about rebuilding the Temple, and at the early meeting held there this revised anthology was read aloud, which gave origin to the Torah.  To establish it as holy authority, the works were claimed to have been dictated by God to the character Moses.

It was from this general 536 BCE timeframe that the industrious revisionists of Judean faith also introduced the character of Job into their sacred myths, which theistically is not Hebrew but was most likely drawn from a Babylonian source.  It was with this work that Judaism was presented with the premier appearance of “Satan,” with a capital S.  What the returned exiles apparently had not carried back with them was the understanding of what certain elements in the tale represented in the original form.  Unrecognized, or perhaps deliberately ignored, was the zodiacal and astronomical significance that was attached to such things as the names of the months, or the cosmological significance of the purely allegorical “angels.”  It is possible that part of that mix-up may have been due to Zoroaster, the “prophet” of ancient Persia, whose ideas of “angels” became separated from older celestial references and redefined by him as an infernal hierarchy.  The consequences of borrowing from the captors’ interpretations was that the Judeans became hopelessly confused in regard to the symbolism for similar ideas used in the so-called Pagan cultures.  Thus today the western and near-east cultures are still trying to dig out from under that disastrous avalanche of sacred interpretation.

The period of the Judean exiles return and restructuring of their homeland and traditions seem strangely linked to an upsurge in the pursuance of higher awareness in the world which would mark the fifth century BCE.  The teachings promoted by Zoroastrianism, for example, went on to develop as Mithraism, which would have a heavy impact on Judaism, Christianity and Islam.  Fragments of the teachings and the hymns attributed to Zoroaster were assembled into a book that is known as the Avesta, or Zend-Avesta, and became the bible of the Persians.  The teachings of Buddha (563?-480?) were passed orally for centuries before being written down as Buddhist scriptures.  In this general timeframe also other thinkers would influence higher thought.  Confuscius, Chinese philosopher (c. 551-479 BCE), Herodotus, the Greek historian (c. 485-425 BCE), Anaxagoras, the Greek philosopher (c. 500?-428 BCE), Pericles, Athenian statesman and orator (C. 500-429 BCE), Socrates, Greek philosopher (c. 470?-399 BCE), and Plato, Greek philosopher (c. 427-347 BCE).  All these men were part of a seeming influx of seekers of life’s meaning which was theorized as radiating from an energy essence, which is commonly termed “soul.”

Rarely is any relationship to such true historical persons such as these acknowledged by the three major organized religions of the western world today.  The Jews, for example, during their reinvention of faith, went to extremes to avoid contact with Greek philosophy, declaring such philosophical searching to be unclean.  Christianity, which became formulated in Rome, embraced much from Greek influence and used it to counter the self-obessed theology of the Jews.  But the Christian focus would also turn in upon itself, and as the Roman Empire declined the life that the Christian faith system came to embrace was firmly anchored upon achieving dominance in all earthly affairs, and from this demanded submission.

Across the centuries the Jews and Christians would spar continuously over which was the true representative of God.  This might seem rather pointless since God is the avowed Creator and Sustainer of all things, but the argument is partly clarified when ego is mistaken for spirit.  The running argument did not keep either faith system from commercial trading with “heathens” however.  And thus it was that an Arab trade merchant assessed the arguments from both sides during his many merchant caravans across the Arabian desert in the 600′s CE.  And eventually God decided to reveal his wishes to Mohammad also.  Since the Creator is omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent, everything that was revealed to each belief system was relayed from God’s all-seeing (surreal) perspective.  Thus in all these “holy” books–the Torah, New testament and Quran–there are found countless contradictions, which believers will, of course, deny exist.  The escape hatch built into all these texts is always the claim of “revealed” word.  Never do any of the godly representatives explain why would an omniscient being have to resort to such a shoddy method of communication in order to convey his wishes to the world. 

What all this demonstrates–Judaism, Christianity, Islam, etc.–is that the spiritual “truth” they each claim to represent is crafted, modified and controlled by those who were/are not well attuned to a true universal perspective.  Thus their limited comprehension regarding the universal interrelatedness of all things has become reduced to dry dogma.  We could, perhaps, conclude from all this that the nuts and bolts used in construction of such faith systems has consisted mainly of nuts.

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Sowing Seeds of Holy Hatred

Posted in belief, Bible, faith, random, religion, scriptures, Social with tags , , , , , , on April 22, 2013 by chouck017894

The majority of people in any of the world’s cultures have never had the freedom to avoid exposure to all the priest-compiled holy scriptures before they were allowed to determine for themselves what is truly worthy of their belief.  For the most part we all grow up in a culture in which standards of belief are crammed upon us from every side even before we might eventually try to read through the texts that are offered as “holy truth.”  By then a person has already been coached and cajoled and indoctrinated into what is emphatically presented as superior belief, so any consultation of “holy” texts that one eventually carries out is usually but an attempt to justify some particular thread of belief.  This is glaringly  epitomized by the rants and judgments of the dogmatists and fanatics of all faith systems.

Such a means of teaching some prescribed spiritual understanding is clearly the well-cultivated (and fertilized) seed-ground for practices of hatred, not true spiritual enlightenment.  That tendency to justify hatred toward some differences in approaching the unknown is met early-on in the Old Testament book of Genesis, for even God is depicted as getting riled up and fuming with hatred over the trespassing upon the landscape feature of his garden by an inexperienced, blameless couple.  The two newly created beings were allegedly subjected to godly intolerance for not comprehending God’s vague rules regarding two forbidden trees.  We are left wondering how could two newly created life forms have any way of comprehending what God’s threat of death meant?  Either the pair had never been intended to have eternal life anyway, or else God is not omniscient (all-Knowing).

Every priest-conceived holy book of any culture contains some hate fueled elements within them, but the priest-composed book of Leviticus, which was jammed unceremoniously between the story-lines of the Israelites alleged wanderings in Exodus and Numbers is probably the most shameless counseling of hate-mongering in Judaic/Christian scriptures.  As a result of legitimizing hatred, the dogmatists and fanatics love to use the Bible as their weapon of intolerance against any human tendency that offends some faith system’s ego-dream of special favor. 

In the main, all “laws” presented in Leviticus are crude, shamelessly prejudicial and insensitive, for they were designed solely for the purpose of establishing uncontested priestly authority over the people under the pretext of godly installation.  A few of the Leviticus truths include:  It is an abomination to eat pork; likewise God supposedly forbids the eating of shellfish such as lobsters (Lev.10); drinking milk is a no-no; and God is allegedly offended by any clothing made of mixed fibers; etc.  And showing that the priest-authors really knew what they were talking about, verse 5 of chapter eleven forbids the eating of the coney “…because he cheweth the cud.”  The coney of the verse implies a rabbit, especially an Old World species, which certainly does not regurgitate from its stomach to chew again.  The authors probably really meant the hyrax, as was later corrected in Deuteronomy 14:7. 

Placed as the book of Leviticus is between the books of Exodus and Numbers, the priest-authors virtually thumbed their noses at the commandment given to Moses against killing, and devoted the bulk of chapter 20 to a list of offences for which God allegedly encouraged killing!  Indeed, in this holy book there are claimed to be twenty-eight God-approved methods for killing persons who happened to step upon priest rules.  And in chapter 21 the priest-authors provided still more of God’s alleged prejudices by listing the physical “blemishes” that supposedly nauseated God to such a degree that it barred them from priesthood.  That appalling allegation of God’s prejudices was expounded upon, declaring that God also detests the blind, the lame, or “he that hath a flat nose or any thing superfluous, or has a broken foot or a broken hand.”  Continuing their rant in chapter 21:18-20, the priest-authors elaborated further: God is displeased with “…the crook back, or a dwarf or (those) that hath a blemish in his eye, or scurvy, or scabbed, or hath his stones (testicles) broken.”  On the other hand, to gain God’s good graces it is claimed that God finds the burning of a bull on the altar to be delightful, because it creates a pleasing odor for the lord (Lev. 1:9); also approved was the burning of flocks (13), or of fowls (17).  It was simply coincidence that such barbecued sacrifices also happened to provide the priests with some pretty belly pleasing food.

There is a heap of other things that allegedly irks the Lord, according to Leviticus.  How about a neat haircut for males?  Heaven forbid!  Leviticus 19:27 states that trimming the hair around the ears and the temples is forbidden by God.  The reason is not made clear.  And farmers, take note: Leviticus 19:19 declares that you are committing gross sin if you plant two different crops in the same field.  And lordy! a man dares not curse nor blasphemy lest he be stoned to death by the people of the village (Leviticus 21:10-16).  And men take note, Leviticus 15:19-24 instructs men that a woman is unclean during her menstrual period, and men should avoid any contact with a woman during her menstrual period.  Another “law” revealed by God, so the priest-authors of Leviticus avow, was that if a man’s brother dies before he has sired a child, the man is commanded to take his brother’s wife as his own; he is expected to impregnate her in his brother’s name to keep the family line going.  It was only coincidence that the more followers that were thus provided happened to benefit the priests’ authority. 

Moral regard for anyone purportedly not chosen by the Lord for special favors permitted the naive devout plenty of room for aloofness and indifference in their treatment of outsiders.  That is why slavery could be tolerated, even though it was not widely practiced among the Hebrews.  Thus Leviticus, chapter 25:44-45, came to be held up as example of God’s approval of slavery by Christians in the southern parts of the United States in the mid-1800s.  The “holy” passage allows possession of slaves, both male and female, as long as they are purchased from neighboring nations!  By that standard, the citizens of the United States today should be free to purchase captured citizens from Canada or Mexico or elsewhere to use however they wish.  Heaven be praised! 

Today the book of Leviticus, chapter 18, verse 22, is still being used by egoistic bigots as the heavenly allowance for practicing hatred against person who are created with same sex attraction.  (An ugly example of this spiritual perversion is the homophobic hate-monger “reverend” in the state of Kansas.)  Never taken into consideration in such bigots’ use of cherry picked Bible verses for practicing hatred for gays is that scientific studies—let us call them revealed realities—expose the Leviticus proposition that attraction to members of the same sex is unnatural has absolutely no psychological, medical or psychiatric support.  And it is certain that such lifesaving medical procedures as blood transfusions, skin grafting, organ transplants, vaccinations, resuscitation, the Heimlich maneuver, etc. would be regarded by those priest-authors of Leviticus as abominations. 

Perhaps, just perhaps it is not particularly wise to cling so trustingly to bronze-age priest assertions in this age of space technology.

 

 

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Abortion and Personhood

Posted in belief, Bible, culture, faith, random, religion, sex, Social, thoughts with tags , , , , , on April 7, 2013 by chouck017894

Read the Holy Bible word by word from front to back and you will never once come upon the word abortion.  No such situation is ever advanced as a “sin,” and considering the many denunciations labored over, that omission concerning abortion is bewildering if it is true that standing sentinel over sensible allowance of life production is a sin.  So where do the overconfident “true believers” get all their divine memos?

When the sin seekers choose to ignore what the Bible does not say, but instead listen to some faith system hawker who cunningly incites naive followers to commit acts of protest, the seekers indulge themselves in judgment passing which holds no genuine spiritual benefit.  The instigator of such rallies may possibly think that he or she is defending a holy principle, in which case he or she has not really read the Bible which, nonetheless, they often hold aloft like some battle flag.  The spiritual benefit that the provokers really achieve from these demonstrations is ego stimulation, a kind of ego masturbation.  To accomplish gratification they use as stimulants a few cherry picked verses that can be fashioned to slip-slide around their desire.

One of these spiritual lubricants used by the self-proclaimed “pro-lifers” is often lifted out of The Ten Commandments; the sixth one which says, “Thou Shalt Not Kill.”  That commandment is not at all specific, however.  If that commandment is taken as an all-inclusive directive it would mean that we should not even squash a mosquito.  The intent of that sixth commandment is that we are to revere the moral rights which are active within all conscious life.  Considering that the “pro-lifers” murder doctors at women’s clinics, their stance is beyond hypocrisy.  Nothing in the Bible equates a developing fetus as a cognizant human being.  That is actually made clear in Exodus 21:22-25 where it is judged that even if a man should accidently kill a pregnant woman while in a conflict with another man, he is held to be guilty of murder.  If, however, that pregnant woman is caused to miscarry–i.e. the fetus is killed–it is not considered, according  to Exodus, to be a case of murder.  Just as an acorn is not an oak tree, a fetus–a seedling or potential person–was not declared by God’s secretary-priests to be a comprehending entity which is equipped for directing authority over life. 

Quick!  Find another stimulant!  Eager hands grasp at Psalms 139:13-16, allegedly the poetic work of David, which avows that God formed him in his mother’s womb.  The claim is made that the Lord used some especial means to create a male who was preordained to be King of Israel.  That was openly declared to be a special case carried out by God who apparently had nothing better to do in the universe, and so took up dabbling in the politics of Israel.  Clearly that birthing method is not applicable to your average conception routine.  In today’s terms, Dave was hot wired to play the lead role in a manufactured history.  Oddly, most of his story in the books of Samuel pivots on his adulterous romp with Bathsheba and his arrangement to have her husband killed.  Oh my, that wasn’t very pro-life of that glorious king.

Hey, there’s gotta be something in Bible tales for antiabortionists to use that seem almost rational.  Ah, here it is; good old Jeremiah!  It is clear here; it says that God knew him before he was  even conceived in the womb.  You mean even before the sperm and egg linked up?  Jeremiah 1:5 declares that God told Jeremiah, “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.”  And that must mean also that each and every one of us is preordained and sanctified to be a prophet!  So how come so few of us know what is destined to happen around us?  Oh, I remember: Jeremiah was pre-formulated to fulfill a designated purpose because God was once again dabbling in Israel politics.  Even so, somehow that must indicate that God is right in there at the very instant of every conception and that He regards that undefined squirming mass that he is supervising to already be a full-term self-aware person, right?  A rational person does not have to possess prophetic capabilities to know that God is not in every vagina at the very instant of conception.  That claim is directly opposite to the Genesis command (1:24-25) that each life form is endowed so it may multiply “after its own kind.”  Nowhere in the Bible is it ever claimed that God was going to be present to supervise over every act of “multiplication.”

Leaving the Creator’s alleged political obsession over 8th century BCE Israel politics to be checked only occasionally in the rearview mirror, let us focus on some vital clues concerning personhood that the Creator provides.  Consider the brain.  The  organ of the brain does not begin to develop as a unit of definable energy substance until after the third week of conception.  This initial unit of energy-substance is referred to in medical terminology as the neural plate, a discernable formation of around 125,000 cells from which the physical form is to develop (evolve).  From this initial period of evolutionary development through the remaining months of gestation new neutrons then begin to appear at the rate of 250,000 per minute!  As awesome as this is, it does not mean that God is right there overseeing every gene placement.  It is simply energy-substance interacting within an energy field (the human body) which is the process by which every energy-matter form assumes visible manifestation. 

At birth each human does happen to be in possession of all his or her nerve cells.  Technically, however, the newborn baby can be said to be a mindless organism, for the cerebral cortex–the portion of the brain-matter which holds the seat of higher intellect–scarcely functions.  The newborn’s actions are almost totally dictated by the lower brain stem, a portion of the brain which humans share in common with all primate animals and reptiles.

In the first days of separate existence outside the mother’s body, the situation changes very rapidly with the cerebral cortex then bursting forth with growth.  The first few months of independent survival is the most crucial period of brain development for every human being.  The intense network of interconnecting nerve fibers swiftly develops so that by the age of one year the infant’s brain has reached around fifty percent of its adult weight.  Even so the infant cannot be said to be self-aware in a mindful sense.  The entity does not yet have any consciousness of “I”; that self-awareness emerges around the age of three.  The accelerated growth of the cerebral cortex reduces around this developmental time, and the brain then gradually acquires around ninety percent of its adult weight by the age of six years.

The first six years in general serve as the crucible where the child’s basic values and ethics are set into a pattern, and their interest, abilities and talents develop which shape their personhood and sets the direction of social behavior.  Brain development, the structure that establishes personhood, reaches its average adult weight of about three pound around the time of puberty, when physical growth begins to taper off.

The brain of every individual is assembled from a narrow spectrum of genetic material provided by the parents.  The interaction that will develop as a physical body is itself composed of only about one hundred thousand genes.  This sounds like an enormous quantity, but is a relatively small amount considering that it is from this modest quantity of genes that the brain, the nucleus of personhood, produces in excess of one hundred trillion-trillion nerve cells.  And each of these nerve cells may in turn form as many as ten thousand connections with its neighbor cells!  All this is done “after its own kind” as commanded in Genesis.  The physical brain is established with polar fields: the front portion is active with a “negative” charge, the back of the brain is active with a “positive” charge.  In other words, every living entity is a charged energy pack, and that allowance of creative power is free to progressively define itself in limited expressions of personhood, all of which are valid before the Absolute.

So the broad aspect alluded to in the book of Exodus 21:22-25 regarding the accidental termination of fetal development was correctly understood as NOT the killing of personhood.  And the alleged especial circumstances claimed for a few starring biblical characters who were said to be “chosen” for some special story line purpose clearly cannot be said to be applicable to circumstances of every conception.

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Parting the Waters

Posted in Atheist, belief, Bible, faith, Hebrew scripture, random, religion, scriptures with tags , , , , , , , on April 1, 2013 by chouck017894

Creation began, according to the biblical book of Genesis, with God parting the elements, which the authors symbolized as “the waters.”  That choice of wording is science being told in mythic style.  In the opening chapter of Genesis, verse 2, it is declared that the spirit of God “moved upon the face of the waters” (upon the primordial energies).  We have to understand that the 8th century BCE authors of Hebrew Scriptures (Old Testament) were not particularly prone to theoretical thought, and consequently interpreted some prehistory teachings that they possessed and used (perhaps stored away in some ark?) in terms that their followers could wrap their heads around.  So the primal energies that the authors equated with “waters” were divided. 

Today, in the field of quantum mechanics it is understood that duality extends into this energy dimension which we think of as matter.  Scientists determined in 1924 that subatomic particles (of the lepton family) should be regarded as not only individual particles but also as being associated with systems of waves.  Science has named the most elementary charge of negative electricity and constituents of all atoms as electrons.  An integral part of modern quantum mechanics happens to involve wave mechanics.  We are talking of the subatomic levels which gives rise to all matter forms, which is to say the causation or starting point of  all material objects, as the opening of Genesis attempts to explain.

Much of what is widely regarded as historical narratives in the Bible books which follow Genesis are often also constructed on the Creation formula used in Genesis and are passed off as historical documentation. Consider Moses parting the waters: Joshua parting the Jordan River flow: Elijah dividing the waters: Elisha dividing the waters, etc.  And every such “holy” event was a one time deal for each of them.  That is because every character of scriptures then passed over from primal energy conditions into the purpose that they were meant to fulfill.

There is more text devoted to the activities of Moses than there is to any other timeframe in Israel’s biblical “history.”  Following immediately after the book of Genesis, we should take note how the Moses tale seems something like a modification of the Creation story.  Moses was saved from water–remember Exodus 2:3-6–and thus having been accounted for he was positioned in circumstances which permitted him the protection to develop.  As the story goes, he increased in power, did away with a confining situation (killed an Egyptian), and eventually divided the waters of the Red Sea allowing followers to pass over a shallow sea.  This was a one time deal for him, and the primal creative elements chosen by the Creator in Genesis have been recycled and personified as the Israelites.

Moses, with God’s help, allegedly divided the Red Sea (just as the Creator divided the “waters”).  Tradition, which is totally improvable, says it was the Red Sea. Why?  Because, like Adam who was supposedly formed from red dust in Scriptures, the color red symbolized the elementary elements (atoms, electrons, particles, etc.) from which all matter is made manifest.  And as Noah is said to have spent 40 days in the ark riding upon the Deluge, Moses is alleged to have led the Israelites through the “wilderness” for 40 years.  In any myths where the number 40 is at the core, drop the zero: the number always refers to the first four primal energy dimensions (out of seven energy dimensions which are active as Causation) which involve/evolve toward manifestation.  Because Moses personifies the Life Principle within creative energy action through the primary energy dimensions before creative action passes over into visible form it is claimed that he is not permitted by God to enter “the Promised Land.”  And with this it is claimed that the historical books of the Old Testament therefore extend from Joshua to Esther inclusive.

Joshua, the next in command of the Israelites (personifying elementary energies), is also alleged to have parted the waters of River Jordan (river of life) in Joshua 4:18.  It, too, was a one time deal which allowed him and the Israelites to pass over into the next developmental dimension of creative energy.  Joshua is presented as parting the waters of River Jordan so that the “…soles of the priests feet” remained dry, and the “waters of the Jordan returned unto their banks…” and Canaan then came under siege.  Thus Joshua, the personification of the violent conditions active within the primal stages of Creation, is then portrayed as violently taking the “Promised Land” with holocaustic fervor.

Biblical accounts intentionally pervert the energy sequences of Creation dimensions in order to disguise it as Israel “history” and use the subsequent dimensions of Creation’s energy development in matter formation by presenting the next intermediate dimension as the cruel “prophet” Elijah.  Of course he too must part the waters to pass over into his purpose.  To assess the characterizing of the “prophets” Elijah and his successor Elisha, we should study the meanings in the names.  The prefix Eli means “God,” and any suffix indicates an aspect of life development; in this case, Eli, meaning “God” is combined with jah, which refers to Yahweh.  Elijah was allegedly sent by God to confront King Ahab (c. 875-853 BCE), but Ahab actually represent the Babylonian storm god Adad—the rain maker.  Thus in 1 Kings 18:41-45 Elijah supposedly counseled the king of an approaching storm.  But Ahab’s wife, Jezreel, wanted Elijah killed, which caused Elija to flee into–where else?–”the wilderness”–which is to say back into the intermediate energy dimensions of Creation, just like Moses was depicted as fleeing into the wilderness after slaying an Egyptian.  And there in the wilderness Elijah lingered for the typical 40 days and nights, just like Noah, and the 40 years in the Moses tale.

Of course Creation must continue, and so Elijah was directed by God to “Go, return…”  And on his journey back, since he was passing that way anyway, God directed Elijah to anoint Hazael as king over Syria, and to anoint Jehu as king over Israel, and to anoint Elisha as prophet to succeed Elijah.  In other words, the Creator of the universe found nothing of interest in universal affairs and so was dabbling in the political affairs of 8th century BCE Israel!  This meant that Elijah had venture out of the”wilderness” again.  Thus in 2 Kings 2:8 it says, “And Elijah took his mantle, and wrapped (it) together, and smote the waters, and they were divided hither and thither, so that they two went over on dry ground”–just like Moses at the Red Sea and Joshua at the River Jordan,  This is history? 

Elisha, the successor of Elijah, is another biblical character which represents the Life Principle advancing into the next intermediate dimension of primordial energy development.  Thus this unpleasant character is a wee bit more refined than Moses and the violent Joshua, but like them Elisha too must “part the waters”–the pre-physical energies–to pass over into energy conditions which allow prototypal formation to mass.  Thus in 1 Kings 2:14, the priest composed “history” relates: “And he (Elisha, whose name means “God has granted salvation”) took the mantle of Elijah that fell from him, and smote the waters, and said, Where is the Lord God of Elijah?  And when he also had smitten the waters, they parted hither and thither: and Elisha went over.”  This is history?  Elisha represents the prototypal energy into visible matter, and the myth follows the sacred language tradition where a name-change occurs.  This time from Elijah to Eli-sha (as Abram to Abraham, and Jacob to Israel) to signify the transformation into visible matter substance, which is recorded as “…and Elisha went over.”  And then  Elisha hightailed it straight to Bethel: beth happens to mean “house,” and el means “God.”  Oddly Bethel also happened to be the same spot where Abram is alleged to have had his name changed, and also where Jacob watched angels climbing up and down a ladder and had his name changed.  Again, this is history?

The only bit of physical description ever given for this holy character of Elisha is that he was bald.  As Elisha approached Bethel “…there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head, go up, thou bald head. And he turned back, and looked on them and cursed them in the name of the Lord.  And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tore forty and two of them (1 Kings 2:23-24).  Forty-and-two adds up to six, or yod, which in Jewish tradition is representative of God, i.e. the Life Principle.  In this priest written holy tale what is dramatized is the prototypes (children) being reconstituted so that the Life Principle (symbolized with Elisha) may proceed into full matter manifestation.  Elisha is characterized as bald because he represents the naked Earth–the no vegetation stage of Earth development, which is also why Noah was seen naked after getting drunk on the wine of life after landing on Mount Ararat.

This mythic style of presenting “history” is continued in the New Testament with the personification of the Life Principle, Jesus (a name derived from Joshua), reaching the event of quality change at the waters of the Sea of Galilee. It is the Creation formula played all over again. In Mark 6:48, the first of the NT texts to be written, Jesus is depicted as not just parting the waters, but is alleged to have walked on the waters, which expresses the identical power over Creation principles as did the “spirit” that moved on the face of the waters in Genesis 1:2.
 Now the final twist to this Christian version: remember that every one of the mythic characters who parted the waters in the OT also included the number four (disguised as 40 days or years, and even Noah rode upon the waters for 40 days). The number 4 always refers to the last of the four energy planes which precedes visible matter manifestation. And in chapter six, verse 48 of Mark, Jesus allegedly sees that his disciples on board a ship in the midst of the sea are toiling desperately in the turbulent waters. The verse continues, “…for the wind was contrary unto them: and about the fourth watch of the night he cometh unto them, walking upon the sea, and would have passed by them.” The “night” of this verse alludes to the void out of which Creation occurred. Thus in verse 53 it says, “And when they had passed over they came into the land of Gennesaret, and drew ashore.” The water-walk of Jesus is also related in Matthew 14:22-23, and in John 6:15-21.  That too, like all OT characters who parted the waters, was only a one time deal.  And like them, Jesus then passed over to take up his destiny as Christ, the logos and/or word of God made in the flesh.

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Birthplace and Delivery of Christianity

Posted in belief, Christianity, faith, religion with tags , , , , , on March 26, 2013 by chouck017894

The New Testament character of “saint” Paul occasionally dropped little bits of information that later generations would fail to notice, or perhaps they chose to ignore them.  A case in point is his offhand statement that Christianity had actually begun in the city of Antioch (Acts 11), which was then part of Syria, but is now known as Antakya in southern Turkey.  So what was this “saint” referring to?

Antioch was founded c. 300 BCE on the left bank of the Orontes River, and was named by Seduces (1) Nicator in honor of the founder’s father, King Antiochus III the Great.  The settlement and two other nearby colonies were populated largely by Macedonians.  The region was occupied by Pompey in 64 BCE, and Antioch rapidly developed into the largest and most important Roman city in the region, attaining its greatest glory under the Roman emperors.  In the first century CE Antioch was the third largest city of the Roman Empire, and served as the capital of the proconsul province of Syria.  The city would grow in Roman Empire times to become one of the most sumptuous cities in the world due to the fact that it lay on the intersection of trade routes from the Euphrates to the sea, from El Bika to Asia Minor.  It was, therefore, a melting pot of numerous religious cultures as well.  Antioch in the Roman Empire times could boast of a great library and a noted school of philosophy.  And there, too, was traditionally celebrated the yearly death and resurrection of the Babylonian harvest god Tammuz, also known by the Phenician word Adonis, which meant “Lord.”  This Pagan faith had considerable influence on Jewish thought–remember, Ezekiel is said to have roundly rebuked the women of Jerusalem outside the gate of his temple for weeping for the dead Tammuz (Jerome, Epistle 58, ad Paulinium).

There existed in Antioch as well a group of Greek Gnostics who recognized and honored the universal “Logos,” which they identified and revered as the Chrestos, the Life Principle (creative “word”).  From their Chrestos or Chrest this esoteric group referred to themselves as Chrestianoi.  It is from this Greek Gnostic sect’s identity that the authors of Acts introduced the term Chrest, which through the timeframe of Acts composition became written variously as Chrest, Chreist, or as Christ.  Indeed the manner of spelling the word actually identified a specific author through a code of numerical value of the letters!  True history shows that the reference of Jesus as Christ did not become standardized until around 300 CE.  So the Chrestianoi predated by about 300 years the Jesus cult movement, which 600 years later became standarized as Christian.  As Paul acknowledged, the true founding place of Christianity was actually Antioch, and not a region of Palestine nor the city of Rome.

In the timeframe when Paul allegedly visited Antioch on a mission among Antiochene Jews, a famine occurred in Jerusalem (Acts 11:27-30), and Paul and Barnabas are said to have been sent there with famine relief by the new Antiochene church.  How the new fledgling church could have afforded to do this goes unexplained.  But more pressing to Paul was his wish to discuss the issue concerning observance of the Mosaic Law by gentile converts (Acts 15) in regard to the question whether or not men’s genitals had to be circumsized.  To Roman and Pagan seekers the scarring of mens penises seemed a bizarre passport into God’s good graces.

This alleged discussion among the apostles and elders in Jerusalem is referred to as the Apostolic Council, and is said to have taken place in front of the assembled church of Jerusalem.  And here is was that Peter is alleged to have saved the day by purportedly referring to his own experiences with converted gentiles: he is said to have declared that the converts had already received the Holy Spirit apart from the Law.  Considering how strict Simon-Peter was characterized in regard to Judaic Law, this would have been a near-profane assertion from him.  But then the disciple James is claimed to have stepped forward with proof-texts “from the prophets” which he said did indirectly support Peter’s interpretation of the Holy Spirit’s allowance.  James then further  smoothed things over by suggesting a set of minimum obligations for gentiles to follow, and James’ proposal was adopted and became incorporated into what is referred to as the Apostolic Decree, which was then dispatched to the churches in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia.  The obligations that were proposed strangely echoed verses 17-18 (chapter 10) from the priest written book of Leviticus which concerned certain demands directed to the aliens residing in Israel in that prehistory Leviticus timeframe. The adjusted requirements in the Apostolic Decree thus demanded abstinence from idolatry, blood, meat from animals that had been strangled, and sexual immorality.  All theses no-no requirements, however, managed to gradually get watered down into a minimal moral code referred to as the “golden rule.”  Oddly, in Galatians 2:11-14 the impression is given that the question of necessary obligations for converts had not really been been resolved between Paul and Peter.

Unfortunately, the authors of Acts in the earliest versions, in which the character of Paul alluded to the universal Logos (Chrest), did not appeal to the Jewish mentality which leaned through training toward narrow, literal and strict tenets.  This necessitated editing the earlier Pauline theology in which Antioch Gnosticism could be grafted upon Jewish roots.  And this is the whole basis of what became known as the Peter-Paul controversy.  In the earliest writings attributed to Paul there was no expression of a belief in a personal Christ: the tenor was always in regard to a principle, which the Gnostics spoke of as the Chrestos.  The indelible impact that the auxiliary apostle Paul afforded for the emerging church was the blending of the Jewish ideas of Law and submission with the Gnostic interpretations of life, death and resurrection which became the groundwork of Christian doctrine.

A curious fact lingers over the Pauline influence and the Antiochene flavoring that evolved as the Christian faith system, and that is the fact that the early apologist and prodigious writer for the Christian movement, “saint” Justin Martyr (c. 100-165), never mentioned Paul!  That is a most peculiar silence.  But then as late as 254 there were lingering debates over the authenticity of the epistles attributed to Paul.

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