Attack Against Christendom

Discussion in 'Religion & Philosophy' started by Kyklos, Sep 14, 2018.

  1. The Wyrd of Gawd

    The Wyrd of Gawd Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Feb 19, 2012
    Messages:
    29,682
    Likes Received:
    3,995
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Just admit that you have zero faith in your favorite religious character. And God can't prove his existence because he doesn't exist. Besides, there are several different Gods in the Bible so which one is your favorite? One of them loved the smell of roasting goats so maybe he will appear if someone roasted some goats for him? He's probably hungry after all of this time.

    Be sure to let us know how you are doing on getting that tree to uproot itself and jump into the pond like the Jesus character said you can do.
     
  2. Migrunt

    Migrunt Banned

    Joined:
    Jul 18, 2019
    Messages:
    1,125
    Likes Received:
    382
    Trophy Points:
    83
    Bye.
     
  3. Paul7

    Paul7 Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jun 4, 2012
    Messages:
    15,854
    Likes Received:
    11,608
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Maybe you really don't exist?

    https://www.bethinking.org/jesus/ancient-evidence-for-jesus-from-non-christian-sources

    Such a crazy contention really isn't worth responding to except for entertainment value, almost no serious historians agree with you, but I think you know that. Even the skeptic Bart Ehrman thinks that is an idiot position.
     
    Last edited: Sep 22, 2019
  4. The Wyrd of Gawd

    The Wyrd of Gawd Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Feb 19, 2012
    Messages:
    29,682
    Likes Received:
    3,995
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Your source is BS because it has the Tacitus character using the word "Judaea." There were no "J" words in the English language before 1600 AD . https://www.etymonline.com/word/J

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J

    The Jesus character did not get the name Jesus until 1631 AD. Before that, his name was something else.
     
  5. Kyklos

    Kyklos Well-Known Member Donor

    Joined:
    Mar 13, 2018
    Messages:
    2,231
    Likes Received:
    583
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    Paul Tillich on The Demonic (δαίμων)


    “11 A large herd of pigs was feeding on the nearby hillside. 12 The demons begged Jesus, “Send us among the pigs; allow us to go into them.” 13 He gave them permission, and the impure spirits came out and went into the pigs. The herd, about two thousand in number, rushed down the steep bank into the lake and were drowned.”--Mark 5:1-20 (NIV): Jesus Restores a Demon-Possessed Man

    “You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord’s table and the table of demons.” 1 Corinthians 10: 21


    People in the Ancient world believed in spirits and demons. The meaning of “demon,” δαίμων, (daimon) has changed through the centuries when the concept did not originally have a negative connotation, but instead meant “a divine power," or “spirit.” The German word “Geist” means “spirit,” or “mind.” Plato wrote that it was a daimon that gave Socrates divine inspiration. It was commonly believed in Palestine that if the name of a demon could be known, one would have some power over the demon. Demons, or spirits were thought to live in unclean isolated places like tombs, caves, or away from water since water could destroy a demon. These spirits were active during the day and a danger to night travelers. Male demons were called “shedim.” Female demons “lilin," were thought to be especially dangerous to children, which is why children had guardian angels in Hebraic ontology (Matthew 18:10). In biblical times people believed that demons where the spirits of evil persons who had died and are still active in the world to carry out their evil plans. Genesis 6: 1-8, tells the story of deviant angels that seduced human women and whose children are demons. All diseases whether known or unknown, mental illness or somatic illness were attributed to demon possession. In the Gospel of Mark and Luke the manuscripts recorded the name of the town of Jesus encountering the possessed man as “Gerasenes” (Mark 5:1 and Luke 8:26) (AKJV); however, Matthew’s account (Matthew 8:28 )(AKJV) has “Gergesenes” as the town’s name. It was most likely the town of Gadara which is only six miles southeast of the Sea of Galilee where the disciples likely landed. This spot on the shoreline had a large grazing area for animals and was near an ancient cemetery. The Alexandrian scholar Origen thought the town was Gergesa of which he personally knew about, but no one can be certain of the historical place. The discrepancy is most likely due to manuscript errors by persons not familiar with the geographical region. [1]

    Tillich believed that his best-written works were those on the demonic, ‘Rechtfertigung und Zweifel’, (Faith and Justification), and his most popular book, The Courage to Be, (1952, pdf.). In Tillich’s semiotics the person and symbol participates in the Unconditional; however, the symbol itself is conditional. Mythological language is a symbolic language that allows the expression of the Unconditional that “designate the boundary line at which the symbolic and non-symbolic coincide(Systematic Theology, Vol. II, pdf., p. 9). The Unconditional is the total, the infinite, “meaning itself” and “the constitution of the sphere of meaning.”(“Tillich on God,” by Martin Leiner, in “The Cambridge Companion to Paul Tillich,” ed. by Russell Re Manning, pdf., p. 49). Tillich believed that symbols give consciousness the ability to experience other levels of reality by transcending—only a spatial metaphor is meant here--the ordinary rules of language to say the inexpressible. “The limit of my language is the limit of my world,” as Wittgenstein wrote. This other fuller dimension of reality is not another world above this world, but this world experienced with a greater depth of meaning.

    There are multiple forms of the demonic in the realization of life. One demonic force, and the most important in Tillich’s theology, is that of ideological objectification that transforms people into objects, and things—that is the essence of dehumanization. There are “demonic structures,” or “structures of evil” that can determine our consciousness and decision-making. Tillich calls the demonic the “pseudo-Unconditional”(Ibid., p. 53). Demonization is essentially the exaltation of anything finite to the Unconditional, and identifies any symbol of the holy, for example, “with the holy itself”(Ibid., p. 104). In the New Testament demonic powers are the conflicts of power in history, and the “structure of destruction in personal and communal life”(Ibid., p. 53). Human power has periodic demonic upsurges that threaten all life on earth by affirming “a finite as infinite in the name of the holy.” Fanatical religious fundamentalism is the natural union of the religious with the demonic that threatens human life with “promises of supernatural rewards” (Ibid., p. 174). Religion, culture, and politics can all become demonic when put in place of the Unconditional. These demonic-destructive forces can even appear in the Church itself with sacramental activities, “in all holy objects, holy books, holy doctrines, holy rites”(Theology of Culture, Paul Tillich, pdf., p. 69). Tillich argued that the Church is to be the vigilant guardian that reveals these structures of self-sustaining dynamically generating creative evil in society in order to weaken its power.


    The Demonic Possession of Roy Cohn


    Unclean spirit come out! What is your name? “My name is Roy Cohn.” In the name of Jesus the Christ leave us so the American people can live! –A prayer.​


    Roy Marcus Cohn (1927-1986) was born into a Jewish family in New York City. Roy Cohn’s father, Judge Albert C. Cohn (1885-1959), was involved in Democratic politics and the father’s great-uncle was the founder of the Lionel Corporation toy train manufacturer. Roy Cohn was born into great wealth from both his parents and raised in an environment of opulence with unlimited educational resources at birth. Cohn was to become a new member of a mostly invisible American judicial oligarchy. At only fifteen years old Cohn was fixing traffic tickets for his teachers and illegally selling post office stations. Cohn was also a rabid anti-Semite. Incredibly, Cohn was able to graduate from the Columbia Law School at the age of 20, and had to wait a year to pass the bar exam. This rabid fanatical anti-Communist believed that there was no right or wrong. With all the educational resources Cohn was born into he could not get beyond nihilism. With access to experienced lawyers in his father’s social oligarchic circles and Ivy league academic legal training, Cohn was able to damage and destroy untold numbers of American lives for many decades, and we are still feeling the effects of his actions to this very day.

    The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) was formed in 1938 to seek out Americans suspected of subversive activities and disloyalty, which included anyone who could be labeled socialists, communists, leftists, and liberals. Senator Joseph McCarthy and Cohn were not on the HUAC, but instead McCarthy chaired another committee called the Government Operations Committee and yet another subcommittee called the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations in the U.S. Senate. As always, these shell committees are designed partly as bureaucratic insulation of one committee from another in case of scandal. From these various committee investigations more than 300 artists throughout America were blacklisted such as Charlie Chaplin, Orson Welles, and Yip Harburg who wrote song lyrics and parts of the movie script for “The Wizard of Oz.” Yip Harburg, possibility the greatest artist America ever had; who wrote, “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?” and “It’s Only A Paper Moon” was blacklisted by the American judicial oligarchic system. Cohn was involved in the 1951 espionage trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in which he committed numerous violations of judicial procedures which should not of led to their execution in 1953. From this public espionage trial the Director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, recommended Cohn as McCarthy’s chief counsel.

    McCarthy, with Cohn as his chief counsel, began a series of sham investigations of the Army in 1953 that quickly led to their downfall. Evidently, McCarthy’s anti-Communist preaching became instead meddling in military affairs. The Army countered with an investigation of its own called the Army–McCarthy hearings which were about Cohn ordering Army officials to give preferential treatment to his gay lover, and oligarchic heir to the Schine hotel fortune, David Schine. This was a touchy issue. McCarthy was rumored to be gay. J. Edger Hoover was definitely gay and whose lover was his Associate Director of the FBI, Clyde Tolson. Political blackmail was their currency and power, but they were also protected. Both McCarthy and Cohn were disgraced by the hearings, but Cohn re-emerged to damage and destroy even more lives in the decades to follow.

    The nihilist Roy Cohn would **** a corpse. In 1975 Cohn walked into the New York hospital room of the dying multi-millionaire Lewis Rosestiel who was comatose, put a pen into Rosestiel’s hand, and lifted a will to fake a signature making himself and Cathy Frank the beneficiaries. The stories are endless.

    Many years later Cohn and his aide Roger Stone were key agents in swaying the 1980 Presidential election to a Reagan victory partly by Stone dropping off a suitcase full of money for liberal candidate John B. Anderson so to split Reagan’s political opposition in New York. Election manipulation was only one of Cohn’s activities. He was heavily involved in the New York’s Mafia scene and had numerous brushes with the law including professional misconduct, perjury, and witness tampering. And as if that was not bad enough, Cohn befriended the well-known New York mafia figure (at least well-known by law enforcement) Donald Trump who eagerly studied with religious passion Cohn’s criminal mind, illegal scams, intimidation tactics, defense strategies, and media management techniques.

    There are two--but not mutually exclusive--ways to interpret the events surrounding Cohn’s life: the intentionalist view, and the structuralist view. The intentionalist view would interpret Cohn’s action as personal, psychological, and biographical. The focus would be on the subject’s character and psychology and this is certainly an important factor. On the other hand, this period of history could be viewed from a structuralist view that includes the political system, judicial system, social class, religious orthodoxy, and cultural norms of the time. The intentionalist point of view located on some hypothetical spectrum would tend to be “non-political” as it centers on the biographical factors behind these historical events. The structuralist view would be political since its focus is analyzing the socio-economic environment of the time. No single person could of possibly caused the wake of destruction that followed from Roy Cohn.

    Maybe there can be a third theological interpretation of these events centered on the Geist of the age, or “Spirit” which can also mean the “Mind” of the age.

    [1] See William Barclay, The Gospel of Matthew, Vol. I, Westminster Press Philadelphia, The Saint Andrew Press, Edinburgh, Scotland, First ed, 1956, p. 326). William Barclay describes demon mythology and gives a demythologized interpretation of Matthew’s account of Jesus and the possessed man. I am using Mark’s account because it is more detailed, but Barclay’s biblical commentary is more detailed in Matthew’s account.

    …to continue "Tillich on the Demonic" with “The Demonic Attack on Sister Dianna Ortiz.
     
    Last edited: Sep 22, 2019
  6. Paul7

    Paul7 Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jun 4, 2012
    Messages:
    15,854
    Likes Received:
    11,608
    Trophy Points:
    113
    No kidding Sherlock, Cornelius Tacitus, called Rome's Greatest Historian, wrote in Latin, that was an English translation. I can't believe I had to explain that to you.

    LOL, read the the NT, it mentions Jesus hundreds of times, in the original language. So do the other non-Christian ancient sources you dodged.
     
  7. The Wyrd of Gawd

    The Wyrd of Gawd Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Feb 19, 2012
    Messages:
    29,682
    Likes Received:
    3,995
    Trophy Points:
    113
    OK Watson, produce the original Latin document.

    Did you know that only four English language Bibles refer to the Jesus character by another name?
     
  8. Paul7

    Paul7 Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jun 4, 2012
    Messages:
    15,854
    Likes Received:
    11,608
    Trophy Points:
    113
    It's your job to support your ridiculous assertion, not mine.
     
  9. The Wyrd of Gawd

    The Wyrd of Gawd Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Feb 19, 2012
    Messages:
    29,682
    Likes Received:
    3,995
    Trophy Points:
    113
    In Post #357 you wrote =
    "No kidding Sherlock, Cornelius Tacitus, called Rome's Greatest Historian, wrote in Latin, that was an English translation. I can't believe I had to explain that to you."

    If Tacitus wrote in Latin and it was translated into English, then the original Latin document must exist. So where is it? That is what I asked you to produce.
     
  10. Kyklos

    Kyklos Well-Known Member Donor

    Joined:
    Mar 13, 2018
    Messages:
    2,231
    Likes Received:
    583
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    ...continuing from post #356, "Paul Tillich on The Demonic (δαίμων)."


    The Demonic Attack on Sister Dianna Ortiz


    “Centeredness is a quality of individualization, in so far as the indivisible thing is the centered thing…the center is a point, and a point cannot be divided. A centered being can develop another being out of itself, or it can be deprived of some parts which belong to the whole: but the center as such cannot be divided—it can only be destroyed.” --(Paul Tillich. Systematic Theology Vol. III., pdf., p.32).


    In 1989 Sister Dianna Ortiz was a member in the Catholic monastic order for women know as the Ursulie Order that dates back to 1435 A.D. in Brescia, Italy to teach girls how to care for the sick and poor. Sister Ortiz was in Guatemala teaching Mayan school children how to read and write. On November 2, 1989 Sister Ortiz was at a religious retreat in Antigua. At this time Guatemala had been in numerous long American financed civil wars since the late 1950s during which death squads became common. Sister Ortiz had gone into the garden of Posada de Belen to pray and disappeared at about 8 a.m. Her friends and relatives immediately reporter her missing. That morning Ortiz had been blindfolded and kidnapped by Guatemalan police officers and taken to a clandestine prison at a police academy facility named “Antigua Escuela Politecnica” in Guatemala City. The police threatened to kill her colleagues at the convent if she refused to go with them.

    Sister Ortiz was tortured by her captors at this police academy. It is important to understand that this was not random moronic cruelty unleashed unthinkingly on a human being, but rather, this attack is a systematic procedure based on empirical science—especially cognitive science, and psychology—to destroy the self-identity of the targeted person with repeated experiences of devastating dehumanization and fear. A tremendous amount of thought, long-term effort, and treasure was expended to formulate a universally efficient method to permanently destroy the self-identity of a person for control.

    When the police arrived at the academy, she was told that no one knew where she was and no one would care. She was then physically beaten. The purpose of this first beating is to instill complete isolation, hopelessness, and despair. This message is repeatedly verbally stated as psychological reinforcement before and after each torture session technique.

    Each phase of the torture process is more severe resulting in complete objectification and dehumanization, which is the tortures’ goal. Sister Ortiz was interrogated for the purposes of inflicting more pain and teach what psychologists call learned helplessness; to extract false confessions for arresting new persons for victimization; and to physically exhaust the interrogated person for the other phases of torture and dehumanization. Her captors told Sister Ortiz that she would be asked questions, and if they liked her answers, she could smoke a cigarette as a reward. The rules were only stated to demonstrate that there are no rules and nothing she could say would influence her brutal treatment thereby destroying any hope of rescue. After every question Sister Ortiz was asked, she was burned with a lit cigarette regardless of the answer. She received at least 111 second-degree burns on her back in addition to other burns on her body according to physicians.

    In the third phase of torture Ortiz was lowered into a pit that contained the partly rat eaten dead bodies of entire families, including children, some persons with decapitated, and some still alive. Ortiz promised to tell the world of their suffering. This torture was designed to terrify both Ortiz and the other captives to destroy any sense of hope that a greater community could save them by showing that the community itself is held captive by the torturers.

    In the fourth phase of dehumanization is gang rape by three men. It is important to remember she is suffering severe burns on her back making it ineffective and painful to resist a sexual assault when pinned down to the floor, or other surfaces. The person is raped multiple times to reinforce hopelessness and despair. After one of the policemen raped Sister Ortiz he said, “Your God is dead.” Spirituality is another multi-dimensional target that the torturer seeks to destroy. To destroy the person’s moral sense of right and wrong is another goal of these physical attacks. Later, Sister Ortiz had an abortion as a result of the sexual assaults.

    In the fifth phase of the dehumanization process the policemen’s hand is covering Sister Ortiz’s hand holding a knife and is forced to dehumanize another person. The torturer knows that human beings are essentially empathetic. This stage is videotaped to instill guilt and shame in the person to be used as blackmail later if necessary.

    At this point in the torture process, an American named Alejandro showed up at the site in a panic and stopped the torture. Sister Ortiz’s friends and family had triggered a media alert that the North American nun was missing which most likely saved her life. There was a sixth phase of torture, which we will never know, but there was definitely a seventh phase that Sister Ortiz also experienced later.

    While the American was driving Ortiz to another location he tried to blackmail her into keeping silent, but she escaped from his vehicle while stuck in traffic. The American may have been afraid that he himself would be killed as a witness to the abduction and fled, or was hidden by government officials.

    Sister Ortiz was able to get back to the US and reported her capture and torture. Of course the then former head of the CIA and U.S. President, G. H. W Bush through his administration and the Guatemalan government at first denied the event even occurred. The Guatemala defense minister at the time, Gen. Hector Gramajo and CIA operative publicly said the U.S embassy believed her injuries was the result of a “lesbian love tryst.” Then-ambassador Thomas F. Stroock reported to Washington D.C. he did not believe Ortiz’s account that an American was involved. The embassy’s Human Rights Officer, Lewis Amselem, was the source of the lesbian love tryst rumor. Reverend Joseph Nangle of the Assis Community reported he heard Amselem give a vulgar rant in his presence with others about Ortiz and all the religious volunteers working with the indigenous groups. Amselem was attempting to intimidate the volunteers from cooperating with any investigation. U.S. Ambassador, Thomas F. Stroock and his employee, Amselem, worked hard to hinder any investigation of this crime.

    In 2007 Sister Dianna Ortiz went to New Zealand to share her story - here is part one.

    And there is the seventh phase of torture which all the other phases of work cumulate for re-victimizing the tortured person: discredit the tortured person’s testimony by exploiting all the post-traumatic psychological injuries such as memory loss, aphasia, confusion, depression, loss of concentration, hopelessness, loneliness, guilt, and despair. This new shift of torturers do not have to get blood on their hands, but only derive sadistic pleasure in publicly expressing doubt of the tortured person’s experience and pain.

    Journalist Cokie Roberts contributed to the smear campaign by interviewing Ortiz and implying the entire event never happened. Cokie Roberts worked hard to keep the American/Contra Inquisition of Guatemala and Latin America a secret from the American people. It was later discovered that Cokie Roberts’ brother, Tom Boggs, and his law firm Patton Boggs was paid by the Guatemalan government to improve the country’s media image while internationally known as a human rights abuser. The lobbying firm of Patton, Boggs, & Blow received a $220,000 payment from the Guatemalan government in 1991. Those who reported facts of the mass murders in Guatemala were immediately killed such Bishop Gerardi in 1998. Bishop Gerardi was murdered the day after he published a report that 200,000 Guatemalans were tortured and murdered by the Guatemalan army. Because of Cokie Roberts' role as a propagandist, the American media heaped journalistic awards upon her to mask her immoral character and inhuman actions.

    The god that the Guatemalan rapist police officer proclaimed dead is not the God of New Testament Christian monotheism, but rather the rotting corpse of American Christendom lying beside the rotting murdered corpse of American Democracy while the entire world is choking from the putrid stench. The Nation abandoned the God of History--of Time--to fully embrace the pagan occult spirits of Space in which greed is the dynamic engine for accumulating power for its own absolute domain.

    Sister Ortiz is recovering.

    …to continue “Tillich on the Demonic,” with “The Struggle of the Olympic gods of Space with The God of Infinite Time.


    “This leads to the ultimate point in the struggle between time and space. Prophetic monotheism is the monotheism of justice…God is one God because justice is one.”—Tillich, Theology of Culture, p. 37.
     
    Last edited: Sep 27, 2019
  11. Kyklos

    Kyklos Well-Known Member Donor

    Joined:
    Mar 13, 2018
    Messages:
    2,231
    Likes Received:
    583
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    …continuing Tillich on the demonic from post #361.


    The Struggle of the Olympic gods of Space with The God of Infinite Time


    [​IMG]


    “The God of time is the God of history…He is the God who acts in history towards a final goal…the victory over the demonic powers represented as imperialistic nations….”
    Tillich, Theology of Culture, pdf., p.37.


    The Ancient Greek polytheistic gods of Olympus were appropriately lousy gods because they ruled over a lousy world—spatial existence is the closed realm of ubiquitous irrational undeserved tragedy in a never-ending “circle of genesis, and decay, greatness and self-destruction(Ibid. p.32). In this sense, Greek polytheism was a realistic theology of human existence. The Olympic pantheon of gods ruled over a circular spatial cosmology wherein “space is tragic,” and god is a stranger. In post-lapsarian Christian ontology (The Fall of Man) humans are essentially connected to the divine, but are not strangers to God as in Deism—instead, human beings are alienated, or estranged while still possessing an embedded pre-existing inherent connection. The concept of time as circular prevented Ancient Greek thought from developing a philosophy of history. Space and time are the structures of all existence that can be thought of symbolically as the fundamental struggling forces that determine human life and history.

    Mythos transmits insight in a narrative story form through a symbolically coded paradigm such as monotheism. Tillich launches an archaeological search to collect the ancient symbols polytheism to contrast them with our overly familiar concept of theological monotheism. Mythic symbolism--just as with logical symbolism--gives access to deeper levels of existence that otherwise would be unintelligible. Tillich has an extensive typology of religions that include the different types of polytheism (see ST., Vol. III, p. 222). Universalistic polytheism holds that special divine beings, places, or forces populate the world, but still are not fixed entities or subjects of stories. They are only vague embodiments of universal animistic powers that are hidden yet manifests itself everywhere. Mythological polytheism placed divine power in individual ruling deities of a fixed character in mythic stories. These deities are self-related, and transcendent to their realm of control yet relate to other individual gods in conflict, and struggle in which they lie, cheat, steal, kidnap, and kill. These gods were like loud pugilistic neighbors that lived down the road. The polytheistic mythological gods create and battle over holy places. Later in history, these gods lost divine status and were taken less seriously by ancient people. The gods of Ancient Greece were themselves subject to the greater power of fate. Although a ruling god could over power other demonic forces, any victory is only temporary as they are always under threat by other antagonistic tribal forces. These gods were not truly unconditional making them partly demonic (ST., Vol. III, p. 224). The same limited conditional gods compose Dualistic polytheism such as Zoroasterism (Light vs. Dark), and Manichaeism (Good vs. Evil) where holiness is placed in one realm and the demonic in another realm which really is a dualistic monotheism where each god is half limited by the other so that this ambiguity of what is holy leads to new typologies of monotheism seeking to find a resolution. Symbolically understood, monotheism is a conceptual gathering point of the multiple powers of Logos into a universal singularity. Heidegger’s analysis of the Greek word “Logos” found its original meaning as “gathering together, to collect, to order.

    Tillich interprets the Olympic polytheism as pagan because it elevates a special space as ultimate in “value and dignity” so that the pagan god is bound to a place--but beside yet another antagonistic tribal place. Even death and Hell is a place. He concludes that the difference between polytheism and monotheism is “not a difference of number but of quality. Only if the one God is exclusively God, unconditioned and unlimited by anything other than Himself, is there a true monotheism, and only then is the power of space over time broken” (Theology of Culture, Paul Tillich, p. 32).

    All human beings must have a place, or home to sustain their lives. Space has a natural predominance over the life processes of human existence. The “earth and soil” is worshiped for having vital intrinsic divine creative powers, but single groups attribute “divine honor,” or “ultimate honor,” to a particular space, which is then given ultimate unconditional adoration for its divine life- sustaining power. This sacred “earth and soil” also include other spatial concepts such as inborn native loyalty to “blood and race, clan, tribe, and family.” However, space is limited for any one group so that “deificationof Space comes unlimited claims for Space in a will to power struggle against other nations for absolute supremacy. Tillich writes, “The god of the one country struggles with the god of the other country, for every spatial god is imperialistic by his very character of being a god. The law of mutual destruction, therefore, is the unavoidable fate of the powers of space” (Ibid. p.32). A cosmos without a telos (Goal, or Aim)--of directed time, of something creatively new, or a New Being--is instead superseded by demonic powers of the gods of space. Extremist jingoistic state nationalism is collective political narcissism that deifies itself and space. Any god can be symbolically transformed into a god of war, but the polytheistic space gods where particularly susceptible to this fate because of people’s primordial relationship to soil and tribe. The gods of space eventually bring about the fall of a nation because they are necessarily unjust, unfree, idolatrous, and self-destructive. Tillich points to modern nationalism as a form of polytheism in modern life where space rules over time.

    “The people of time in Synagogue and Church cannot avoid being persecuted because by their very existence, they break the claims of the gods of space who express themselves in will to power, imperialism, injustice, demonic enthusiasm, and tragic self-destruction”—Tillich, Theology of Culture, p. 39.

    According to the Hebraic literary interpretation of the books Deutero-Isaiah, God is the God of time and history. History has a beginning and end during which the monotheistic God of time directs history toward a teleological goal. Time reaches for fulfillment in the universal Kingdom of God, a Kingdom of peace and justice. The gods of space destroyed the concept of “universal justice” as each polytheistic deity overpowered another in a series of endless imperialistic wars.[1] “Prophetic monotheism” proclaims the negation of national boundary wars by demanding the separation of God from all nations. The God of Abraham commanded that Abraham leave his homeland, and the false gods of blood and soil. Whenever the Hebraic God of the Old Testament is identified with the finite whether it is a golden calf or a city-god, a separation begins even if it means separating Himself from his chosen people (Ibid. p.35).

    [1] Notice how the concept of monotheism contains within itself the negated concept of polytheism. Only by the internal contradictions of pagan polytheism does the universal concept of monotheism arise to overcome its division in a conceptually refined synthesized “One God” with an open universal teleological history and universal justice.” Monotheism is the anti-symbol of polytheism. Hegel called this process of negation and retention, “determinate negation,” or Aufhebung (sublation).

    In prophetic monotheism, God is the God of universal history that overcomes the divisions of people and even the division of language itself (Pentecost). In polytheism the pagan gods perished when their nations were defeated. Prophetic monotheism preached that the God of Abraham could destroy all nations--even allow His chosen people to be enslaved by all nations-- without destroying Himself so that “his quality as the god of justice enabled him to become the universal God” (Ibid.,11). This conception of a teleological God of history ended the dominance of polytheism. Tillich points out that it is not a coincidence Socrates, the Jews, and the early Christians were persecuted as atheists for not recognizing the polytheistic gods of space for they instead centered on “historical fulfillment and justice belong to the God who acts in time and through time, uniting the separated space of his universe in love”(Ibid., p. 38 ).

    ...continue as "Amos" in post #363.
     
    Last edited: Oct 3, 2019
  12. Kyklos

    Kyklos Well-Known Member Donor

    Joined:
    Mar 13, 2018
    Messages:
    2,231
    Likes Received:
    583
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    ...continued from post #362.


    Amos

    [​IMG]

    “You cry with a loud voice to the nations: ‘This is our God, and there is none beside Him.’ "-- Hymn to Amos


    The prophetic herdsman, Amos of Judah (755 B.C.), described in the Hebraic and Christian Old Testament would not identify himself as a professional prophet because they had no credibility from their past reputations of engaging in hubristic nationalism and ignoring crimes committed by the powerful. Judah is just west of the Dead Sea, but Amos preached in the Northern Kingdom of Israel during the reign of Jeroboam II (781-741 B.C.) and had conquered Syria, Moab, along with Ammon. Amos is the prophet that proclaimed the coming collapse of the prosperous Kingdom of Israel due to its nationalistic idolatry and oppression of the poor. Amos was tortured by Amaziah, a priest of Bethel, then exiled and forbidden from prophesying against Israel. As a consequence of his exile, Amos is the first known literary prophet to write down his prophetic warnings. Amos prophesied that there is one universal divine justice in history thereby reducing all nations and tribes to equal levels before a righteous divinity. Amos preached that all sacrificial ritual obligations of religious orthodoxy are not enough to make a righteous person, but instead calls for un-coerced intentional participatory worship. A nation is required by God to always want economic justice and condemn injustice everywhere to maintain a relationship with the divine.[2]

    [2] Ethical thinking is inherently teleological in that the moral agent seeks to achieve the good by free will and right actions.

    Because of Amos’ continued written criticism of Israel from exile the son of Bethel priest, Amaziah, traveled to Judah and murdered Amos—a familiar pattern.


    “Synagogue and Church should be united in our age, in the struggle for the God of time against the gods of space.“Tillich, Theology of Culture, p. 39.

    The Amos pattern is familiar because we are all living it now. We are all torturable. Torture is now legal in the United States. Torture is an essential theme even in media entertainment. Through decades of legal maneuvering, ethical justifications, and actual practice American society has gradually undergone a mithridization of accepting torture as an acceptable practice. American civil society has embraced an ethos of Machiavellian will to power employing pathological business practices, and given over to solipsistic narcissism. These are the “spirits,” or “mind” of the present local and global era.


    Media is awash with torture imagery. Even family “entertainment” has evolved into the display of pseudo-torture sessions in “reality-based” television programming. In episode 309 of “Fear Factor” (original air date, 3/3/2003) a woman is strapped into a chair while seven needles six inches in length are inserted under her skin (not the breasts, of course, since that would be obscene). Interestingly, the pseudo-torture session is performed in a “prison” setting with the leather strapped chair similar to an electric chair.

    In this case, acceptance for torturing human beings is won by presenting human suffering as a television “game” where the participants are "voluntary." This psychological categorization acts to suspend belief to override one’s natural repulsion of torturing another human being, and allows the message to reach its desensitized target audience. One would wonder what the ratings would be if a person was tortured against their will!

    Researchers Dr. Agnes Nairn ,Christine Griffin, and Patricia Gaya Wicks in a project at the University of Bath started out studying the influence of brands on children from ages 7 to 11 were shocked to discovered that children had intense hatred for Barbie dolls and acted out simulated acts of torture on them “from scalping to decapitation, burning, breaking and even microwaving.” Dr. Nairn focused her study on this violent behavior which crossed age, and gender. The dolls were seen by the children as disposable and therefore could not be an object of empathy, or affection.

    Research scientists have found signs of widespread hopelessness within the American population that include fascist right-wing factions that seek imposing general chaos as a method of destroying society in the hope something better will emerge. Political scientists Michael Bang Petersen, Mathias Osmundsen, and Kevin Arceneaux studied 6,000 right-wing extremists in the US and Denmark and published their findings in a research paper titled, "A 'Need for Chaos' and the Sharing of Hostile Political Rumors in Advanced Democracies, The participants were asked a series of test questions and reported: “24 percent, agreed that society should be burned to the ground, 40 percent agreed with the statement, “We cannot fix the problems in our social institutions, we need to tear them down and start over.” Similarly, 40 percent agreed with the statement, “When it comes to our political and social institutions, I cannot help thinking ‘just let them all burn.’”

    Currently, all American media is saturated with billionaire financed propagandists attempting to jam the channels of communication with endless disinformation, sophistry, false narratives, conspiracies, censorship by omission, sexism, militaristic nationalism, fear, racism, and hate so that the weaker argument defeats the stronger argument. American Christians must be part of this struggle against the pagan gods of space.


    It's Only A Paper Moon

    by
    Yip Harburg​


    "The theme endures because we’ve all had the experience of suddenly finding ourselves believing in something beautiful but flimsy. Our imagination can launch us skyward, but if we don’t return to earth we can lose ourselves. But coming down from a false heaven allows us to connect with our fellow travelers in a new, enlightened way. The road ahead will never be easy, but reality gives us the possibility of finding real happiness."-- Carrie Kilgore

    It is only a paper moon
    Sailing over a cardboard sea
    But it wouldn't be make believe
    If you believed in me

    Yes, it's only a canvas sky
    Hangin' over a cotton tree
    But it wouldn't be make believe
    If you believed in me

    Without your love
    It's a honky tonk parade
    Without your love
    It's a melody played in a penny arcade

    It's a Barnum and Bailey world
    Just as phony as it can be
    But it wouldn't be make believe
    If you believed in me
     
    Last edited: Oct 3, 2019
  13. Kyklos

    Kyklos Well-Known Member Donor

    Joined:
    Mar 13, 2018
    Messages:
    2,231
    Likes Received:
    583
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    Please delete entry, error.
     
    Last edited: Oct 4, 2019
  14. Paul7

    Paul7 Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jun 4, 2012
    Messages:
    15,854
    Likes Received:
    11,608
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Sed non ope humana, non largitionibus principis aut deum placamentis decedebat infamia, quin iussum incendium crederetur. ergo abolendo rumori Nero subdidit reos et quaesitissimis poenis adfecit, quos per flagitia invisos vulgus Chrestianos appellabat. auctor nominis eius Christus Tibero imperitante per procuratorem Pontium Pilatum supplicio adfectus erat; repressaque in praesens exitiabilis superstitio rursum erumpebat, non modo per Iudaeam, originem eius mali, sed per urbem etiam, quo cuncta undique atrocia aut pudenda confluunt celebranturque. igitur primum correpti qui fatebantur, deinde indicio eorum multitudo ingens haud proinde in crimine incendii quam odio humani generis convicti sunt.
     
  15. Paul7

    Paul7 Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jun 4, 2012
    Messages:
    15,854
    Likes Received:
    11,608
    Trophy Points:
    113
    "Van Voorst states that "of all Roman writers, Tacitus gives us the most precise information about Christ".[4] Crossan considers the passage important in establishing that Jesus existed and was crucified, and states: "That he was crucified is as sure as anything historical can ever be, since both Josephus and Tacitus... agree with the Christian accounts on at least that basic fact."[54] Eddy and Boyd state that it is now "firmly established" that Tacitus provides a non-Christian confirmation of the crucifixion of Jesus.[8] Biblical scholar Bart D. Ehrman wrote: "Tacitus's report confirms what we know from other sources, that Jesus was executed by order of the Roman governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate, sometime during Tiberius's reign."

    Wikipedia
     
    Last edited: Oct 7, 2019
  16. The Wyrd of Gawd

    The Wyrd of Gawd Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Feb 19, 2012
    Messages:
    29,682
    Likes Received:
    3,995
    Trophy Points:
    113
    That doesn't look like the original Latin language document.
     
  17. Paul7

    Paul7 Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jun 4, 2012
    Messages:
    15,854
    Likes Received:
    11,608
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Argue with Wikipedia.
     
  18. The Wyrd of Gawd

    The Wyrd of Gawd Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Feb 19, 2012
    Messages:
    29,682
    Likes Received:
    3,995
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Don't you know that christ is just a title and that it wasn't routinely capitalized until the 17th Century = https://www.etymonline.com/word/christ
     
  19. Paul7

    Paul7 Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jun 4, 2012
    Messages:
    15,854
    Likes Received:
    11,608
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Yes, it refers to the Messiah, Jesus Christ.

    So what?
     
  20. The Wyrd of Gawd

    The Wyrd of Gawd Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Feb 19, 2012
    Messages:
    29,682
    Likes Received:
    3,995
    Trophy Points:
    113
    ...
    When did Gentiles get a messiah?
     
  21. Paul7

    Paul7 Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jun 4, 2012
    Messages:
    15,854
    Likes Received:
    11,608
    Trophy Points:
    113
    It's in the NT, ending with the Great Commission. God's concern for gentiles is on the OT also, Jonah was sent to preach repentance to a gentile nation, Ninevah.
     
  22. The Wyrd of Gawd

    The Wyrd of Gawd Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Feb 19, 2012
    Messages:
    29,682
    Likes Received:
    3,995
    Trophy Points:
    113
    It is so silly that people buy into that fairy tale.
     
  23. Paul7

    Paul7 Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    Jun 4, 2012
    Messages:
    15,854
    Likes Received:
    11,608
    Trophy Points:
    113
    I don't believe in fairy tales either.
     
  24. ARDY

    ARDY Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Mar 1, 2015
    Messages:
    8,386
    Likes Received:
    1,704
    Trophy Points:
    113
    So anything jesus did not address.... we can just make stuff up?
    And it seems obvious that if Jesus was divine, and if he brought a message for ALL PEOPLE.... then the message should actually be for all people.... not just the people immediately adjacent to him at a particular moment

    If we are going back to the Mosaic law.... their were lots of silly sins. Mosley No one these days seems to object to eating shrimp or bacon.... and to be honest, it seems like a whole lot of people do not care all that much about adultery. (Ahem Donald trump).

    I am just saying.... if we can eat bacon, take the lords name in ...
    If we are ok with people like trump bearing false witness....

    WHAT THE HECK IS THE REASON WE ARE SO VERY WRAPPED UP IN HOMOSEXUALITY

    After all,
    Homosexuality Didn’t even make it into the Ten Commandments. (like adultery (Ahem trump)How do you know that it is not an sin not unlike eating shellfish?.
    . And if we really took what Jesus seriously (Ahem trump) I might even be convinced .... but the simple fact is that for almost anything other than homosexuality and murder.... Christians mostly don’t give an excrement
    Christians lie, cheat steal, commit adultery take gods name in vain, don’t respect their parents and bear false witness

    really, when it comes right down to it.... all you care about is homosexuality and murder. As long as people avoid those two things, they are Christian enough to get by
     
    Last edited: Oct 16, 2019
  25. yabberefugee

    yabberefugee Well-Known Member Past Donor

    Joined:
    Feb 23, 2017
    Messages:
    20,614
    Likes Received:
    8,980
    Trophy Points:
    113
    Gender:
    Male
    No one here is preventing you to practice whatever you, as a practicing homosexual, would like to do to fulfill your lusts. Why are you so threatened?
     

Share This Page