Archive for Pagan mysteries

Gnostic Wisdom in New Testament

Posted in agnoticism, Atheism, Atheist, belief, Bible, Christianity, ecology, faith, freethought, humanity, life, prehistory, random, religion, thoughts with tags , , , , , , , , , on April 16, 2010 by chouck017894

Over two thousand years ago the symbolism and mythology of several Pagan mystery sects were beginning to fragment while a multifaceted group was developing diverse interpretations which became lumped under the identity as “Gnostic”—from Greek gnostikos, “man of knowledge.”  The movement spread largely through men of culture who sought the secret of higher life.  Unfortunately, lofty thought became entangled with crude mythology and then floundered in mysticism.

Gnosticism was, for the most part, centered on the highest ethics.  To understand Gnostic thought, their concept of ethics was perceived from an amoral perspective.  Remember, amoral does not mean immoral: it is non-judgmental acceptance.  This is difficult for modern religionists to comprehend since standard religious instruction is to uncompromisingly classify things as good/sinful and black/white—with no shades of gray being allowed for consideration.  Unlike rigid religionism, Gnostics recognized that diverse energies found throughout the universe serve as the generative action responsible for all things in Creation.  For this reason the Gnostics regarded what we know as the Old Testament to be the shameful account of Jehovah’s crimes against humanity.  Yahweh/Jehovah was not accepted by them as the true God or the active Source, but as the identity of a demiurge—an energy involvement that fashioned the material world.  Such Pentateuch/Old Testament characters as Abraham, Moses and the like were consequently regarded as the henchmen of Jehovah who had been dedicated to misdirecting the souls of humans into matter and ignorance.

Since the original purpose of the early Christian literature was composed in Rome in the attempt to soften Jewish spiritual arrogance, the new cultists played down the Gnostic attitude to prevent a too strong direct offence to Jews.  Nonetheless, Gnostic influence was cautiously scattered throughout the New Testament.  Although Christianity owes  many planks of its formation and doctrines to Gnosticism, pure Gnosticism itself also represented one of the most challenging threats to the new Christian movement.  Specifically, it denied the keystone upon which the aspiring priestly hierarchy sought to establish itself.  If, as the Gnostics claimed, evil had existed in Creation from the beginning then Adam, meaning mankind, could not possibly have fallen and neither he nor Eve had chosen to disobey God in Eden.  It then followed that Jesus could not possibly be presented by the priesthood as God’s token of forgiveness for humankind’s entanglement with that inescapable condition.

There is a remarkable verse in the New Testament (Matthew 16:23, revised c. 75 CE) that pretty much states what is wrong with all hard-line and fundamentalist organized religions.  Jesus is portrayed as speaking to Simon Peter, saying, “…thou art an offence unto me: for you savor not the things that be of  God, but those that be  of men.”  The real kicker in this scene is that this reproach of Peter comes after verse 19, or immediately after Peter had been given the keys of the kingdom of heaven!  The implication is that the church that he is to establish is intended to be the challenger of the infinite creative powers that are personified as “God.”  There is profound Gnostic wisdom hidden here.

The reason for this rebuke of Peter by Jesus is that Peter stands as the representative of the continuity in matter-existence that resists the necessity of its own transformation.  Thus Jesus utters the accusation that Peter savours those thing that be of men.  What is illustrated with this peculiar scene is that the confinement of consciousness in our physical-matter forms is what traumatizes the human ego, for it is ego that is obsessed with material identity and wishes to dam the natural flow that we interpret as life/death.

Mankind has lost sight of the soul-saving truth that religion is made for man: man is not made for any particular religion.

Knowing this, we are justified in saying to hard-line and hierarchical style religions, just as Jesus is alleged to have said to Peter, “Get the behind me Satan: you are an offence to me.”

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We Are One

Posted in Atheist, belief, biological traits, culture, faith, humanity, life, logic, meaning of life, nature, random, religion with tags , , , , on November 1, 2009 by chouck017894

Beneath the surface differences that we think of as reality all life remains committed to interrelationship, and that is most remarkably shown in the ladder of life that we now know as DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid).  Bogus spirituality and human cultivated ignorance keep too many persons blind to the fact that the DNA of every living person is 99.9 percent the same.  It doesn’t matter if one is tall or short, fat or thin, white, black, yellow or red, male or female, genius or slow-witted, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist or atheist, hetero or homo, all persons are composed of the exact same DNA.  Genetically speaking, every human on Earth is eerily close to being your identical twin! 

The majority of problems that have arisen among the human family is easily traced back to the so-called “holy revealed wisdom” in selected writings that has misled seekers to concentrate on what are only superficial differences.  As a result the human species continues to fail in understanding that all things in Creation remain interrelated.  This self-induced failure of spirit to see the common relationship of all things only makes for an atmosphere of smug ignorance where the smallest diversities are pointed to as inferior or even “an abomination” in the sight of the power that created them!   In truth, the real abomination is to hoard such ignorance as spiritual truth, for such ignorance only teaches hatreds, and cultivated hatreds breed only violence, and we wind up with the world in a state of constant bloody conflict that we now have.

Knowledge of our close interrelationship with each other and other life forms was discovered barely over one hundred years ago, so we do have great piles of ignorance to flush away.  And of course, religious doctrines that were fashioned millennia ago to calm fears of the unknown and for ego gratification are intolerant of questions, investigation and exposure about how life-forms actually manifest.  None of the scriptural heroes ever mentioned that every cell nucleus in the human body contains the genetic master code for the entire physical body, for example.  And it was only in occasional flashes of intuition that a hint of the interrelatedness of all life might bob up in an obsure verse or two in scripture.  But the great diversity of all the observable life forms just did not seem to support such strange suggestions.

The propaganda that spiritual understanding was saved when it turned to monotheistic comprehension attempts to suggest that it became intellectually understood that all things are made manifest out one source and are therefore interrelated.  That is not how the lumbering monotheistic religions conduct themselves, however.  In many ways the Pagan attitude that all things held its own divine essence and that their influence radiated about them brought intimacy to Creation.  That recognition was actually more respectful of the source-power that had brought them into manifestation than is the practice of shortsightedly focusing on the minor physical differences seemingly decreed by an impassive creative being.

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John the Baptist, myth of

Posted in Astronomy, Atheist, Bible, Christianity, culture, history, life, random, religion with tags , , , , , , , , , on June 10, 2009 by chouck017894

June 24–or Midsummer day–is alleged in Christianity to be the birthday of John the Baptist.  The date was a contrived arrangement instigated by Pope Gregory I (540?-604), who is called “the Great” because his pontificate was marked by fervor in propagating Christianity.  The conversion of Britain was begun under his direction and carried out by Augustine in 597, for example.  Gregory was passionately opposed to Paganism, introduced numerous changes in the liturgy of the mass, and is credited with revision of church music, better known as Gregorian chant.

The reason for Gregory’s passion for contriving a birth date for the unproven predecessor of Jesus was due to the Pagan’s midsummer festival which always coincided with the summer solstice and which was in honor of the Chaldean, Syrian, and Phoenician messiah Tammuz.  In his zeal for gathering Pagans into the Christian fold, Gregory had sent emissaries all across Europe, and the midsummer festival in honor of Tammuz was found to be lovingly favored nearly everywhere.  So entrenched was this yearly festival with its curious rites which engaged the minds of men that Gregory could not allow the season to pass without instigating some counter incentive for Christian purpose.  He was faced with the problem of what could the Christian faith business offer as enticement.

Gregory was divinely shrewd, counseling his subordinates (such as Augustine) that if Pagans were to be lured into the church the wisest policy was to make an effort to meet the Pagans half-way.  The answer to the dilemma was to incorporate the festival activity into the calendar of Christian holy events.  Of course it was impossible to retain an honor to Tammuz or Bel, but nothing in the myths of Jesus Christ could be linked as occurring specifically around the summer solstice period.  O what to do?

Then divine inspiration struck.  Since the birth of the Savior was honored at the time of the winter solstice, and John the Baptist was said to be  born before Jesus’ birth, was it not reasonable that the summer solstice was the birth time of his forerunner?  Hallelujah!

The Vatican think-tank had to contrive a link with Pagan thought though.  The link was discerned hiding in Pagan Mysteries:  there, after  Tammuz had been slain, he reappeared to the faithful under the name Oannes, and the name used in sacred language adopted by the Roman Church for John was Joannes!  Double Hallelujah!

Thus the Pagan festival of June 24 was made to cohabit with Christian ideas under the label festival of Joannes–Nativity of St. John–which, not so subtly, begins exactly as the Chaldean festivities.

The Pagans were not really fooled by all this jockeying.  They remembered that the name John was also  part of the church promotion of Christmas, with the feast of  “Saint John” the disciple (a personification of light) celebrated on the 27th of December immediately after the winter solstice.   Because retaliation from the church could be harsh, even deadly, the heathens and Pagans mockingly spoke of the year being divided “from John to John.”

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