Saturday, 11 October 2014
Friday, 10 October 2014
Mark 3 in support of atheism
Mark chapter 3 supports atheism :
Mark 3v29 also repeats the line about," whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven " I think this is barbaric propaganda for stamping out dissent e.g. " If you dare to question spirit inspired church doctrine - then you can never be forgiven "
It is like a curse by the person who likes to dream of going to heaven, " I want there to be a heaven therefore there is one and anyone who says it doesn't exist can go to hades "
Interesting to note that Mark 3v21 has, " When Jesus' family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, " He is out of his mind"" but like Christina says, " It might help to study world religions ", so Jesus family could have said, " Jesus needs to study the ancient Greek myths and then he might see that they invented the story of Hades and stop fretting about it. He should study ancient Egyptian religion and see that they were among the first to practice male circumcision & taboos against eating pork ".
Actually, in the context, it is a bit odd that Jesus family said, " Jesus is out of his mind " because all he was doing in the previous sentences was eating his dinner, but maybe they were just warning people to stay away from him because they knew he was a babbler.
Look at Mark 3v10 which has a crowd pushing in around Jesus to be healed of diseases. Verse 11 has the evil spirits say, " You are the Son of God " so how would the crowd not hear what the spirits were saying ? Verse 12 has Jesus command the demons not to tell anyone. However since demons & satan are supposed to continually lie ( John 8v44), you would expect that the truth would be the opposite of anything they said, so in fact were they being sarcastic, mocking and the truth was that Jesus was not the Son of God? { I agree with the Sadducees of Acts 23v8 who say there is no resurrection, angels or spirits . I think they are either just a literary device or misinterpretation of mental illness }
Mark 3v22 has the teachers of the law say, " Jesus is possessed by Beelzebub " which is maybe an old fashioned way of saying " Jesus is talking crap "
Mark 3v25 " If a kingdom is divided against itself that kingdom cannot stand ", well the Bible is very divided against itself, the authors were at war with each other. The O.T. and the N.T. do not fit together
Maybe the gospels have evolved in a similar manner to how organelles came together in the first cells. Before the Jesus stories there were many strands which the structures of religious communities and temples wove into Jesus - a myth
Hector Avalos. Fighting Words: The Origins Of Religious Violence (Kindle Locations 400-403). Kindle Edition. quote Marsilius
For although some of the philosophers who founded such laws or religions did not accept or believe in human resurrection and that life which is called eternal, they nevertheless feigned and persuaded others that it exists and in it pleasures and pains are in accordance with the qualities of human deeds in this mortal life, in order that they might thereby induce men reverence and fear of God, and a desire to flee the vices and to cultivate the virtues."'
If you have been indoctrinated with the view that you will go to hell unless you believe the Bible stories then it can blind you to other ways to read the Bible. In that case you can try to force yourself to accept the party line.
Mark 3v29 also repeats the line about," whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven " I think this is barbaric propaganda for stamping out dissent e.g. " If you dare to question spirit inspired church doctrine - then you can never be forgiven "
It is like a curse by the person who likes to dream of going to heaven, " I want there to be a heaven therefore there is one and anyone who says it doesn't exist can go to hades "
Interesting to note that Mark 3v21 has, " When Jesus' family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, " He is out of his mind"" but like Christina says, " It might help to study world religions ", so Jesus family could have said, " Jesus needs to study the ancient Greek myths and then he might see that they invented the story of Hades and stop fretting about it. He should study ancient Egyptian religion and see that they were among the first to practice male circumcision & taboos against eating pork ".
Actually, in the context, it is a bit odd that Jesus family said, " Jesus is out of his mind " because all he was doing in the previous sentences was eating his dinner, but maybe they were just warning people to stay away from him because they knew he was a babbler.
Look at Mark 3v10 which has a crowd pushing in around Jesus to be healed of diseases. Verse 11 has the evil spirits say, " You are the Son of God " so how would the crowd not hear what the spirits were saying ? Verse 12 has Jesus command the demons not to tell anyone. However since demons & satan are supposed to continually lie ( John 8v44), you would expect that the truth would be the opposite of anything they said, so in fact were they being sarcastic, mocking and the truth was that Jesus was not the Son of God? { I agree with the Sadducees of Acts 23v8 who say there is no resurrection, angels or spirits . I think they are either just a literary device or misinterpretation of mental illness }
Mark 3v22 has the teachers of the law say, " Jesus is possessed by Beelzebub " which is maybe an old fashioned way of saying " Jesus is talking crap "
Mark 3v25 " If a kingdom is divided against itself that kingdom cannot stand ", well the Bible is very divided against itself, the authors were at war with each other. The O.T. and the N.T. do not fit together
Maybe the gospels have evolved in a similar manner to how organelles came together in the first cells. Before the Jesus stories there were many strands which the structures of religious communities and temples wove into Jesus - a myth
Hector Avalos. Fighting Words: The Origins Of Religious Violence (Kindle Locations 400-403). Kindle Edition. quote Marsilius
For although some of the philosophers who founded such laws or religions did not accept or believe in human resurrection and that life which is called eternal, they nevertheless feigned and persuaded others that it exists and in it pleasures and pains are in accordance with the qualities of human deeds in this mortal life, in order that they might thereby induce men reverence and fear of God, and a desire to flee the vices and to cultivate the virtues."'
If you have been indoctrinated with the view that you will go to hell unless you believe the Bible stories then it can blind you to other ways to read the Bible. In that case you can try to force yourself to accept the party line.
Monday, 6 October 2014
Rosetta stone
How come if the Israelites had been in Egypt that their religion / God failed to enable them to remember how to read ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs ? Acts 7v22 says that Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians. The Israelites were supposed to have been in Egypt about 400 years.
How come the ten commandments weren't written like the Rosetta stone - both in Egyptian hieroglyph and in Hebrew ? This would have been really handy for reminding how to translate. How come the Exodus Israelites weren't bilingual ? Why no sign of hieroglyph in the Bible ?
Easy answer - because the stories are mostly fiction. By the time they eventually got the skill of writing they had forgotten the distant past so just made stuff up about it.
How come the ten commandments weren't written like the Rosetta stone - both in Egyptian hieroglyph and in Hebrew ? This would have been really handy for reminding how to translate. How come the Exodus Israelites weren't bilingual ? Why no sign of hieroglyph in the Bible ?
Easy answer - because the stories are mostly fiction. By the time they eventually got the skill of writing they had forgotten the distant past so just made stuff up about it.
Look at the religion of the native North American Indians - it didn't enable them to remember that their ancestors had been in the Old World- north east Asia - nor did it enable them to have a revelation and predict the existence of the Old world.
Eveolution to the modern woman
I agree, whoever wrote Genesis was short sighted, myopic.
Eve should have also realized that the "Garden of Eden" was in fact a bit of a "1984" Orwellian wilderness intellectually: being told that ideas are great which patently aren't and materially a rough experience with bush tucker, very short lifespan, pain in childbirth, tooth ache, disease, fights for survival etc and that in fact there was a much more promising way of living that could be achieved by slamming the door on the God delusion & taking many rapid leaps in the eveolution of information and technology as witnessed in the best of what the 21st Century can offer : in pain free dentistry, much reduced pains of child birth, more interesting activities to fill ones life with, several more decades life expectancy, freedom from worries about non-existent religious threats & taboos, much more diverse diet, better clothing, hygiene, liberation from having to bear a dozen babies, heading towards equal rights , etc [ however also in some cases polluted water, air & general environment depending on location & new troubles and stresses ]
Eve should have also realized that the "Garden of Eden" was in fact a bit of a "1984" Orwellian wilderness intellectually: being told that ideas are great which patently aren't and materially a rough experience with bush tucker, very short lifespan, pain in childbirth, tooth ache, disease, fights for survival etc and that in fact there was a much more promising way of living that could be achieved by slamming the door on the God delusion & taking many rapid leaps in the eveolution of information and technology as witnessed in the best of what the 21st Century can offer : in pain free dentistry, much reduced pains of child birth, more interesting activities to fill ones life with, several more decades life expectancy, freedom from worries about non-existent religious threats & taboos, much more diverse diet, better clothing, hygiene, liberation from having to bear a dozen babies, heading towards equal rights , etc [ however also in some cases polluted water, air & general environment depending on location & new troubles and stresses ]
Go McTell it on the mountain ( Streets of London )
Have you seen the poor man
In the closed-minded religion
Kicking up its papers,
with their thread bare knowledge?
In his eyes you see great pride
And held loosely at his side
Yesterday's scriptures telling yesterday's fantasy
So I can see how you've been mislead,
And see how for you that the sun don't shine
Let me take you by the hand and lead you through out the gates of Eden
I'll show you a modern 21st Century century view of reality
I'll show you a modern 21st Century century view of reality
Have you seen the poor girl
Who walks imaginary history of the Bible
Dirt in her brain and her clothes in rags?
She's no time for researching,
She just keeps right on walking
Carrying her home in two testaments.
In the all night world view
At a quarter past eleven,
Same old man is sitting there on his own
Imagining a fantasy world
Caught in a storm in a tea-cup,
His tea lasts an lifetime
Then he wanders home alone
So how can you tell me you're lonely,
And say for you that the sun don't shine?
Let me take you by the hand and lead you through the streets of London
I'll show you something to make you change your mind
And say for you that the sun don't shine?
Let me take you by the hand and lead you through the streets of London
I'll show you something to make you change your mind
And have you seen the old man
Studying evolution by natural selection
Becoming more excited
By all the books he reads
In evolution of culture
He finds a good explanation for life
Lays down religion's heavy burden
And sees the world that's really there
Becoming more excited
By all the books he reads
In evolution of culture
He finds a good explanation for life
Lays down religion's heavy burden
And sees the world that's really there
Sunday, 5 October 2014
Angels have had their chips
The Bible has very rare moments pointing to reality.
Acts 23v8,” The Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, and that there are neither angels nor spirits ” ,well said by them, unfortunately it is only a set up for the apologist to give his punchline Acts 23v8, ” but the Pharisees acknowledge them all ”
Acts 23v8,” The Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, and that there are neither angels nor spirits ” ,well said by them, unfortunately it is only a set up for the apologist to give his punchline Acts 23v8, ” but the Pharisees acknowledge them all ”
Mark 11v18, ” Then the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection ”
Lukw 20v27, ” Some of the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection ”
But these comments are said in an attempt to have them refuted by an appeal to authority – from Jesus – Luke 20v35 ” In the resurrection from the dead…and they can no longer die for they are like the angels”
Acts 17v18 has Paul meet a group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers who dispute with him and say, ” What is this Babbler trying to say ?”
Pity Acts doesn’t quote the Epicurean paradox
“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?” — ‘
The same could be said of angels, why do they achieve virtually nothing, do they not exist ?
It is propaganda spin to miss out key bits of information. Did the authors of the Bible texts deliberately miss out information that would have shown Babble ideas to be nunsense ?
Since Epicure is a variety of potato I think the other epicurean paradox is how come no Old World priest predicted the existence of potatoes in the Americas and how come no angel flew a few seed spuds over to Europe a few millennium earlier? The theory of the existence of angels has had its chips.
Pity Acts doesn’t quote the Epicurean paradox
“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?” — ‘
The same could be said of angels, why do they achieve virtually nothing, do they not exist ?
It is propaganda spin to miss out key bits of information. Did the authors of the Bible texts deliberately miss out information that would have shown Babble ideas to be nunsense ?
Since Epicure is a variety of potato I think the other epicurean paradox is how come no Old World priest predicted the existence of potatoes in the Americas and how come no angel flew a few seed spuds over to Europe a few millennium earlier? The theory of the existence of angels has had its chips.
Saturday, 4 October 2014
The Golden Bough
In, " The Golden Bough " chapter 5 " The crucifixion of Christ / the scapegoat " James George Frazer looks at the possibility that there was a real raving rabbi Jesus who got caught up in the Jewish festival of Purim. Oxford university press edition
p 666 - " We have seen reason to think that the Jewish festival of Purim is a continuation, under a changed name, of the Babylonian Sacaea, [ p642-652 ]and that in celebrating it by the destruction of an effigy of Haman the modern Jews have kept up a reminiscence of the ancient custom of crucifying or hanging a man in the character of a god at the festival. Is it not possible that at an earlier time they may, like the Babylonians themselves, have regularly compelled a criminal to play the tragic part, and that Christ thus perished in the character of Haman ? The resemblance between the hanged Haman and the crucified Christ struck the early Christians themselves; and whenever the Jews destroyed an effigy of Haman they were accused by their Christian neighbours of deriding the most sacred mystery of the new faith."
p670 " The hypothesis that the crucifixion with all its cruel mockery was not a punishment specially devised for Christ, but was merely the fate that annually befell the malefactor who played Haman, appears to go some way towards relieving the Gospel narrative of certain difficulties which otherwise beset it. If,as we read in the gospels, Pilate was really anxious to save the innocent man whose fine bearing seams to have struck him, what was to hinder him from doing so? He had the power of life and death; why should he not have exercised it on the side of mercy, if his own judgement inclined that way? His reluctant acquiescence in the importunate demand of the rabble becomes easier to understand if we assume that custom obliged him annually at this season to give up to them a prisoner on whom they might play their cruel pranks. On this assumption Pilate had no power to prevent the sacrifice; the most he could do was to choose the victim.
Again, consider the remarkable statement of the Evangelists that Pilate set up over the cross a superscription stating that the man who hung on it was king of the Jews. Is it likely that in the reign of Tiberius a Roman governor, with the fear of the jealous and suspicious old emperor before his eyes, would have ventured, even in mockery, to blazon forth a seditious claim of this sort unless it were the regular formula employed on such occasions, recognized by custom, and therefore not liable to be misconstrued into treason by the malignity of informers and the fears of a tyrant ? "....
"The part of Mordecai was played by Barabbas "
p 674 ~ "the theme of such dying & rising gods was common over Western Asia and may help to explain the spread of the Christ story."
My opinion - what if someone hung a new story on the tradition of Purim. It was any old person who was hung as Haman but gospel authors made the event mean something else, rewriting the O.T. supermen Elijah & Elisha into the new adventures of superman Jesus. Several threads converged in the gospels ? But for Jesus to be a hero he needed to cancel Hades otherwise to only save a select few is to behave barbarically
Before the cotton cloth canvas was woven there were threads and a structure – loom & gin, before the threads there was cotton on a bush, before the bush there were seeds.
There were religious customs & structures & temples before the Jesus story got going, there was also a lot of scripture material, plenty of other myths and legends.
Is the Jesus story a cotton twill textile like Denim or plain woven fabric ?
p 666 - " We have seen reason to think that the Jewish festival of Purim is a continuation, under a changed name, of the Babylonian Sacaea, [ p642-652 ]and that in celebrating it by the destruction of an effigy of Haman the modern Jews have kept up a reminiscence of the ancient custom of crucifying or hanging a man in the character of a god at the festival. Is it not possible that at an earlier time they may, like the Babylonians themselves, have regularly compelled a criminal to play the tragic part, and that Christ thus perished in the character of Haman ? The resemblance between the hanged Haman and the crucified Christ struck the early Christians themselves; and whenever the Jews destroyed an effigy of Haman they were accused by their Christian neighbours of deriding the most sacred mystery of the new faith."
p670 " The hypothesis that the crucifixion with all its cruel mockery was not a punishment specially devised for Christ, but was merely the fate that annually befell the malefactor who played Haman, appears to go some way towards relieving the Gospel narrative of certain difficulties which otherwise beset it. If,as we read in the gospels, Pilate was really anxious to save the innocent man whose fine bearing seams to have struck him, what was to hinder him from doing so? He had the power of life and death; why should he not have exercised it on the side of mercy, if his own judgement inclined that way? His reluctant acquiescence in the importunate demand of the rabble becomes easier to understand if we assume that custom obliged him annually at this season to give up to them a prisoner on whom they might play their cruel pranks. On this assumption Pilate had no power to prevent the sacrifice; the most he could do was to choose the victim.
Again, consider the remarkable statement of the Evangelists that Pilate set up over the cross a superscription stating that the man who hung on it was king of the Jews. Is it likely that in the reign of Tiberius a Roman governor, with the fear of the jealous and suspicious old emperor before his eyes, would have ventured, even in mockery, to blazon forth a seditious claim of this sort unless it were the regular formula employed on such occasions, recognized by custom, and therefore not liable to be misconstrued into treason by the malignity of informers and the fears of a tyrant ? "....
"The part of Mordecai was played by Barabbas "
p 674 ~ "the theme of such dying & rising gods was common over Western Asia and may help to explain the spread of the Christ story."
My opinion - what if someone hung a new story on the tradition of Purim. It was any old person who was hung as Haman but gospel authors made the event mean something else, rewriting the O.T. supermen Elijah & Elisha into the new adventures of superman Jesus. Several threads converged in the gospels ? But for Jesus to be a hero he needed to cancel Hades otherwise to only save a select few is to behave barbarically
On WEIT article,” Rabbi Sacks goes after atheists ” 29th September 2014. At comment 16. Simon Hayward posted the hilarious Youtube video of “Not the Nine O’clock news,Monty Python Worshipers”, kanizu00 channel, which reversed the idea of who was doing a parody – with a film, ” The life of Jesus Christ ” being a parody on the real life of John Cleese (ref to life of Brian }
So the link is with the life of Jesus Christ being a parody on the Esther, Mordecai, Haman story which itself is a parody on the Babylonian festival of Sacaea or Zakmuk in the spring month of Nisan in March/April held in honour of the god Marduk during which the person playing the part of Zoganes dies. Zoganes during his five days in office personated not merely a king but a god, whether that god was the Babylonian Marduk or some other deity is not yet identified.
Before the cotton cloth canvas was woven there were threads and a structure – loom & gin, before the threads there was cotton on a bush, before the bush there were seeds.
There were religious customs & structures & temples before the Jesus story got going, there was also a lot of scripture material, plenty of other myths and legends.
Is the Jesus story a cotton twill textile like Denim or plain woven fabric ?
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