Thomas Jefferson Bible
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Thomas Jefferson Bible
Heavy Fucking Metal Devin Thu Jan 12, 2012 9:19 pm
First, I think we need a forum topic for religion, and one for politics
This article is about Thomas Jefferson's personal customized bible that he pick and chose what parts to include/exclude
via "The Biggest Truth", I've just come upon a section about the bible and different versions - basically the modern day accepted "King James" Bible was customized by King James - he broke away from the Catholic church because he wanted a divorce but wasn't allowed to under catholocism - so he made modern day "Protestantism", altered the bible, and totally through out two "books" within the bible..I forget which books they are, but he made it so it suits him and what he wants
I wonder what the true real official original bible really said
religion.blogs(dot)cnn.com/2012/01/11/my-take-how-thomas-jeffersons-secret-bible-might-have-changed-history/?hpt=hp_c3
This article is about Thomas Jefferson's personal customized bible that he pick and chose what parts to include/exclude
via "The Biggest Truth", I've just come upon a section about the bible and different versions - basically the modern day accepted "King James" Bible was customized by King James - he broke away from the Catholic church because he wanted a divorce but wasn't allowed to under catholocism - so he made modern day "Protestantism", altered the bible, and totally through out two "books" within the bible..I forget which books they are, but he made it so it suits him and what he wants
I wonder what the true real official original bible really said
religion.blogs(dot)cnn.com/2012/01/11/my-take-how-thomas-jeffersons-secret-bible-might-have-changed-history/?hpt=hp_c3
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Re: Thomas Jefferson Bible
gruesomgrimp Sat Mar 03, 2012 9:57 pm
Well, there is no "true" or original Bible for you to see what it said. What we know as the Bible today is a collection of revised, redacted, interpolated, transliterated, translated, mistranslated and retranslated documents that trace ultimately back to Sumerian Mythology, most clearly seen in the Old Testament writings. What became known as the Bible of the Christian Church, ultimately came down to the decision of a series of bishops and councils of Bishops starting in the tumultuous first three centuries of Christianity as to what would and would not be included as official church doctrine. In those first three centuries there were as many sects of Christianity as there were varieties of organic fruit at a farmer's market in California, each with their own interpretations of the Christ story and the life of Christ and his teachings, and with their own epistles, gospels, sermons, and commentaries committed to writing. The funny thing though, is no one can find anything that seemed to be written during Christ's lifetime (if you even accept the notion that a historical Christ existed - that is also very difficult to prove, since even the most prominent Jewish historian of the time, Josephus, doesn't every mention Jesus by name and you think he would have). The earliest writings scholars can attest to seem to date to around 30 - 100 years after the supposed death of Christ. In modern times, scholars tend to divide the debate that raged over official Church doctrine in that incubation period of the first three centuries between the "Gnostics" and the "Literalists." "Literalists" is a term popularized by Elaine Paigels (sp.) and possibly even invented by her. By that, she means the position of most Fundamentalists of all stripes today who take the Bible literally vs. those who saw the stories presented in the Bible as metaphors or spiritual symbolism for the human experience (Gnostics). The Gnostics are largely seen to be the Christianized inheritors of the 'mystery religions' of the area, most notably the Greek mystery religions, as well as the dualism inherent in the Persian religion of Zoroastrianism.
I'm sure you've all heard of the Gnostic Gospels (Paigels has a book of that name about them, which includes the Gospel of Mary (Magdelene)) or the Nag Hamadi fragments or the Dead Sea Scrolls? Well, these are all various Gospels that got left out of "official" versions of the Bible, because they did not serve the agenda of the official State religion (i.e., the Roman Empire). And scholars who study Judaism, the Talmud, etc. can tell you about similar tales that conveniently got glossed over, lost, changed or outrightly fabricated by Church Patriarchs with an agenda within the Hebraic tribal system.
It wasn't really until the Council of Nicea that the newly adopted official state religion of the Roman Empire, Christianity, even began to settle on a shared, uniform Church doctrine. Once they settled the issue of the Arian heresy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arian) over the centuries what came to be known as "the Bible" got codified and accepted by the various Orthodox Churches (the Catholic, Greek Orthodox, etc.) with their own slight variations, but they all pretty much agreed on the idea of the Trinity (God the father, son and holy spirit). So, given that the Bible is a collection of various writings originally in several different languages, starting with Ancient Sumerian, Phoenecian and Mesopotamian (ultimately culminating in Hebrew with the Jewish people and the Old Testament) continuing on with Aramaic, Greek and Coptic (New Testament) that then had to be translated into Latin ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulgate), and from there eventually into more familiar languages (English, German, French, etc.) with the invention of the printing press and in the aftermath of the Protestant reformation.
It's hard to see how one can point to a "true" or "original" bible, unless one reaches as far back as Sumeria, and even then, we have fragments of stone with cuneiform writings and pictographs that in the absence of social context become very difficult indeed to understand by the modern mind (including the minds of those early church elders, when dealing with Hebrew texts and possibly ancient Egyptian texts in the case of the Gnostics).
Let me just give you a simple example to illustrate the translation problem when you're dealing with old and in many cases 'dead' languages (meaning though they may exist in written form no one speaks them anymore). If I tell you to "break a leg," before your performance, you know exactly what I mean in modern English parlance. It means, "Have a great show!" Now, imagine you read that statement 30, 100, 200, 1000 or 2000 years later, but without the context of knowing that this is a common figure of speech in the cliques that perform theater. How would you be tempted to translate the semantic content of that statement? Would you think that the speaker of those words was a brutal bastard that wished ill upon his fellow man? Or would you find it puzzling in a context where the speaker seems to otherwise have the hearer's interests at heart? How can Jesus say, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone," or "turn the other cheek," on the one hand, and yet utter the statement that has been used to justify a great deal of human suffering, most notably in the form of the crusades, "I come not to bring peace, but a sword?" (I have some ideas about that, but I'll leave it a mystery for now).
Furthermore, how do you know that church officials didn't insert certain statements into certain "Holy" texts with intent of promulgating propaganda that benefited the State (in this case, since we're referring to the Bible should be read as the Roman Empire)? Scholars, using textual analysis have put forth the view that many of the writings said to be of Paul, actually turn out to be frauds or interpolations by various monks making copies of scripture, so that one has to distinguish between the 'real' Pauline writings and the forgeries when reading "the Bible."
I think the Bible, though it may retain some of the original wisdom that undoubtedly was meant to be for the betterment of humankind, is best thought of as a tool of control used by the State to keep the citizenry in line, or to advance some esoteric agenda that we can't even begin to comprehend.
And with all this in mind, I ask you further, do you think it's a coincidence that the U.S. is the most Christian nation on earth and often times is compared to the Roman Empire, both in its imperialistic ambitions (right down to the eagle as its national symbol) and in its perceived decline?
A very messy business indeed, that Bible, with plenty of damned things that make you go hmmm....
I'm sure you've all heard of the Gnostic Gospels (Paigels has a book of that name about them, which includes the Gospel of Mary (Magdelene)) or the Nag Hamadi fragments or the Dead Sea Scrolls? Well, these are all various Gospels that got left out of "official" versions of the Bible, because they did not serve the agenda of the official State religion (i.e., the Roman Empire). And scholars who study Judaism, the Talmud, etc. can tell you about similar tales that conveniently got glossed over, lost, changed or outrightly fabricated by Church Patriarchs with an agenda within the Hebraic tribal system.
It wasn't really until the Council of Nicea that the newly adopted official state religion of the Roman Empire, Christianity, even began to settle on a shared, uniform Church doctrine. Once they settled the issue of the Arian heresy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arian) over the centuries what came to be known as "the Bible" got codified and accepted by the various Orthodox Churches (the Catholic, Greek Orthodox, etc.) with their own slight variations, but they all pretty much agreed on the idea of the Trinity (God the father, son and holy spirit). So, given that the Bible is a collection of various writings originally in several different languages, starting with Ancient Sumerian, Phoenecian and Mesopotamian (ultimately culminating in Hebrew with the Jewish people and the Old Testament) continuing on with Aramaic, Greek and Coptic (New Testament) that then had to be translated into Latin ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulgate), and from there eventually into more familiar languages (English, German, French, etc.) with the invention of the printing press and in the aftermath of the Protestant reformation.
It's hard to see how one can point to a "true" or "original" bible, unless one reaches as far back as Sumeria, and even then, we have fragments of stone with cuneiform writings and pictographs that in the absence of social context become very difficult indeed to understand by the modern mind (including the minds of those early church elders, when dealing with Hebrew texts and possibly ancient Egyptian texts in the case of the Gnostics).
Let me just give you a simple example to illustrate the translation problem when you're dealing with old and in many cases 'dead' languages (meaning though they may exist in written form no one speaks them anymore). If I tell you to "break a leg," before your performance, you know exactly what I mean in modern English parlance. It means, "Have a great show!" Now, imagine you read that statement 30, 100, 200, 1000 or 2000 years later, but without the context of knowing that this is a common figure of speech in the cliques that perform theater. How would you be tempted to translate the semantic content of that statement? Would you think that the speaker of those words was a brutal bastard that wished ill upon his fellow man? Or would you find it puzzling in a context where the speaker seems to otherwise have the hearer's interests at heart? How can Jesus say, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone," or "turn the other cheek," on the one hand, and yet utter the statement that has been used to justify a great deal of human suffering, most notably in the form of the crusades, "I come not to bring peace, but a sword?" (I have some ideas about that, but I'll leave it a mystery for now).
Furthermore, how do you know that church officials didn't insert certain statements into certain "Holy" texts with intent of promulgating propaganda that benefited the State (in this case, since we're referring to the Bible should be read as the Roman Empire)? Scholars, using textual analysis have put forth the view that many of the writings said to be of Paul, actually turn out to be frauds or interpolations by various monks making copies of scripture, so that one has to distinguish between the 'real' Pauline writings and the forgeries when reading "the Bible."
I think the Bible, though it may retain some of the original wisdom that undoubtedly was meant to be for the betterment of humankind, is best thought of as a tool of control used by the State to keep the citizenry in line, or to advance some esoteric agenda that we can't even begin to comprehend.
And with all this in mind, I ask you further, do you think it's a coincidence that the U.S. is the most Christian nation on earth and often times is compared to the Roman Empire, both in its imperialistic ambitions (right down to the eagle as its national symbol) and in its perceived decline?
A very messy business indeed, that Bible, with plenty of damned things that make you go hmmm....
gruesomgrimp- Posts : 33
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Re: Thomas Jefferson Bible
Admin Tue Mar 06, 2012 6:37 pm
hmm..im not sure i see the Bible being used as control..i mean i see the fearing the wrath of god...but i also see it suggesting to think for yourself and to basically be a good person...im not sure i see the weaponizing of it...can you please expand?
i think my argument is it isn't the knowledge passed down that is errored, its the people who fuck it up...
It is the people who take things for not just literal meanings but also create their own definitions or blindly follow others that cause the problems---- but whether it is the quran, bible, or whatever other writing there is, i dont see them as instructions in any way, but more as a guide--
i think my argument is it isn't the knowledge passed down that is errored, its the people who fuck it up...
It is the people who take things for not just literal meanings but also create their own definitions or blindly follow others that cause the problems---- but whether it is the quran, bible, or whatever other writing there is, i dont see them as instructions in any way, but more as a guide--
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Re: Thomas Jefferson Bible
gruesomgrimp Tue Mar 06, 2012 7:20 pm
The requirement by Fundamentalists (whether Protestant or Catholic) that the Bible be the ultimate authority becomes a tool for control, because it is so riddled with contradictions (and errors, I might add) that the average person has no chance of being able to understand it if their operating principle is to take it literally. Thus, they (the congregation, believer, etc.) rely on a priesthood to interpret the meaning for them and hardly ever get to the stage where they can interpret from themselves. Also, when you consider, as I already stated, that what we know as the Bible was basically a collection of (effectively) arbitrarily chosen books--well, not so arbitrarily since the Council of Nicea set the standard for official Church doctrine (basically, the divinity of Christ and the Trinity) and it was the first ecumenical council after Rome adopted Christianity as the official state religion. That Council decided the doctrine that would help the Roman state consolidate power under the New Religion.
Notice, I said it is a TOOL, but anything can be used as a tool. I'm very aware that the Bible offers ways for readers to develop a program of thinking for yourself, BUT if you've every actually read some of the gospels that conveniently got left out of the "official" Bible, you'll see that THOSE documents offer EVEN MORE of a program for self-enlightenment. However, it's very hard to maintain power any authority over a congregation if they're thinking too much for themselves, but at the same time you can't completely stamp out traditions that exist everywhere in the minds of citizenry without too much notice. And at the time of that first Ecumenical council the "gnostics" and the "literalists" were just winding down an ideological war that the "literalists" seem to have won at that Council, but many many Christians knew that other ideologies of Christianity existed. So some things have to become massaged and "re-branded" to borrow a marketing term. Where do you think a majority of the Catholic Saints come from? Many were at one time or another pagan gods that couldn't be completely destroyed without causing a ruckus, so they were assimilated like the Borg into the Catholic system of Hagiagraphy.
When Christians wish to justify violence, despite the obvious teachings of Jesus against it, they often put forth verses from the very savage and brutal old Testament, which remember the Christian Church fathers CHOSE to include as the official scriptures to justify the mythology they were putting forth. These contradictions serve to create confusion in the minds of the congregation (assuming they even actually read the bible. Many don't, they just take the word of their preachers as golden) and often prevent the rank and file from acting on their conscience or speaking out when they see their various churches engaging in what we can call decidedly un-Christian behavior. I say that, but the thing is, if you actually look at the history of Christianity (indeed all Monotheisms) in western culture, it is a history of institutionalized bigotry, misogyny and violence and everything you need to justify this behavior is included in the Bible, alongside the more enlightened bits that tend to get overshadowed. To borrow and paraphrase a Biblical saying, "By their actions you will know them."
Bottom line, while the Bible as we may know it may still contain some of the kernels of ancient wisdom that would lead one to free-thinking, that is not how the Bible-As-We-Know-It has been used in the long, bloody history of Christianity by the institution (the Church, here meaning both Catholic and Protestant) that put it together in the first place.
My personal opinion is that the Bible and the name of Jesus has been so discredited and denigrated by this long, bloody history that we need to throw the text and the names out all together and start over with a new and as of yet unsullied symbol for those enlightened values that Jesus seems to have represented (if indeed he was real--do you wanted get started on just how many Christ-like gods that have existed in that region?).
Notice, I said it is a TOOL, but anything can be used as a tool. I'm very aware that the Bible offers ways for readers to develop a program of thinking for yourself, BUT if you've every actually read some of the gospels that conveniently got left out of the "official" Bible, you'll see that THOSE documents offer EVEN MORE of a program for self-enlightenment. However, it's very hard to maintain power any authority over a congregation if they're thinking too much for themselves, but at the same time you can't completely stamp out traditions that exist everywhere in the minds of citizenry without too much notice. And at the time of that first Ecumenical council the "gnostics" and the "literalists" were just winding down an ideological war that the "literalists" seem to have won at that Council, but many many Christians knew that other ideologies of Christianity existed. So some things have to become massaged and "re-branded" to borrow a marketing term. Where do you think a majority of the Catholic Saints come from? Many were at one time or another pagan gods that couldn't be completely destroyed without causing a ruckus, so they were assimilated like the Borg into the Catholic system of Hagiagraphy.
When Christians wish to justify violence, despite the obvious teachings of Jesus against it, they often put forth verses from the very savage and brutal old Testament, which remember the Christian Church fathers CHOSE to include as the official scriptures to justify the mythology they were putting forth. These contradictions serve to create confusion in the minds of the congregation (assuming they even actually read the bible. Many don't, they just take the word of their preachers as golden) and often prevent the rank and file from acting on their conscience or speaking out when they see their various churches engaging in what we can call decidedly un-Christian behavior. I say that, but the thing is, if you actually look at the history of Christianity (indeed all Monotheisms) in western culture, it is a history of institutionalized bigotry, misogyny and violence and everything you need to justify this behavior is included in the Bible, alongside the more enlightened bits that tend to get overshadowed. To borrow and paraphrase a Biblical saying, "By their actions you will know them."
Bottom line, while the Bible as we may know it may still contain some of the kernels of ancient wisdom that would lead one to free-thinking, that is not how the Bible-As-We-Know-It has been used in the long, bloody history of Christianity by the institution (the Church, here meaning both Catholic and Protestant) that put it together in the first place.
My personal opinion is that the Bible and the name of Jesus has been so discredited and denigrated by this long, bloody history that we need to throw the text and the names out all together and start over with a new and as of yet unsullied symbol for those enlightened values that Jesus seems to have represented (if indeed he was real--do you wanted get started on just how many Christ-like gods that have existed in that region?).
gruesomgrimp- Posts : 33
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Re: Thomas Jefferson Bible
Admin Tue Mar 06, 2012 7:46 pm
i see what you mean with used as a Tool--
I still stand by the statement the book is fine though...its the people that fuck it up---
no matter the book we write...even if it was hand written by Jesus himself..2k years later--even if it had 0 translations, people would interpret it as they wish and force/convince others that THEIR interpretation is correct...in fact..as soon as Jesus dies, it is all fair game for interpretation. So it shows it is not the book itself, it is the interpretation and the belief that one's interpretation is correct over someone elses AND acting upon the disagreement.
Even if there is a statement:
Be a good person.
I interpret that as be kind.
Person B can interpret that as be a dick. (how, i don't know, but they did)
As long as me and Person B don't act upon our difference in interpretations, everythings fine...
So I suppose unless the bible preaches acting upon these interpretations, i got no quarrels with it.
I still stand by the statement the book is fine though...its the people that fuck it up---
no matter the book we write...even if it was hand written by Jesus himself..2k years later--even if it had 0 translations, people would interpret it as they wish and force/convince others that THEIR interpretation is correct...in fact..as soon as Jesus dies, it is all fair game for interpretation. So it shows it is not the book itself, it is the interpretation and the belief that one's interpretation is correct over someone elses AND acting upon the disagreement.
Even if there is a statement:
Be a good person.
I interpret that as be kind.
Person B can interpret that as be a dick. (how, i don't know, but they did)
As long as me and Person B don't act upon our difference in interpretations, everythings fine...
So I suppose unless the bible preaches acting upon these interpretations, i got no quarrels with it.
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Re: Thomas Jefferson Bible
gruesomgrimp Tue Mar 06, 2012 7:52 pm
Well, it does in fact preach in certain places the hatred and bigotry infecting our current political system, and was also used to justify the many atrocities of which the Christian religion has been guilty, one that comes to mind being the witch-burnings in both Europe and America. "Suffer not a witch to live." Really no way to misinterpret that, except that now one needs to define exactly what a witch is. However, it was clear in those times that a witch was a female user of "magic," but many men and other enemies of the state were absolutely slaughtered during the Albigensian Crusades for being heretics and passages such as this served as justification.
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Re: Thomas Jefferson Bible
Admin Tue Mar 06, 2012 7:57 pm
I need to read the bible i think and determine for myself if it is a judgemental book or a "guide" to being a good person
but either way that is all according to 300 bishops + relentless amount of translations/changes
but either way that is all according to 300 bishops + relentless amount of translations/changes
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Re: Thomas Jefferson Bible
gruesomgrimp Tue Mar 06, 2012 8:13 pm
Exactly! Good luck reading the whole damn thing. Back in the day (before the protestant reformation) you wouldn't have been able to read it in your native language (complete with all those translation and transliteration errors) unless you're native language happened to be a highly formalized Church Latin.
It's so enlightening to take a peak at some of the gospels that intentionally got left out. You learn just as much from what was "unsaid" as you do by what is "said." Again, I'm not saying every word of the Bible is bullshit, just that a lot of it is and has been used to justify a lot of bad behaviors. Teaching contradictions is a surefire way to cause confusion and therefore destructive chaos. And I mean contradictions as distinct from paradoxes, those are two completely different things. Contradictions tend to be destructive chaos, whereas paradoxes could lead to some creative chaos.
It's so enlightening to take a peak at some of the gospels that intentionally got left out. You learn just as much from what was "unsaid" as you do by what is "said." Again, I'm not saying every word of the Bible is bullshit, just that a lot of it is and has been used to justify a lot of bad behaviors. Teaching contradictions is a surefire way to cause confusion and therefore destructive chaos. And I mean contradictions as distinct from paradoxes, those are two completely different things. Contradictions tend to be destructive chaos, whereas paradoxes could lead to some creative chaos.
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Re: Thomas Jefferson Bible
Heavy Fucking Metal Devin Tue Mar 06, 2012 9:14 pm
1. As always, I read a lot of good things in the posts here, and by the time I get to responding, I forget half of them. So that's my disclaimer.
2. Gronk, if you don't mind me asking, what is your religion/spiritual affiliation, if any?
3. The amount of basically EXACT same "Jesus" stories throughout history are plentiful. Yet another topic covered in "The Biggest Truth"
4. Does anyone have any good links to the book of Enoch and others that were left out of the bible? I'm too lazy atm to look myself...I like links
5. I always find it quite funny that the Catholic Church is the same that had so many atrocities in their history - namely the Spanish Inquisition - which so many actions are complete contradictions and the antithesis to what modern day Catholicism preaches.
6. The more I think about it, the more I see "preachers" and such religions with experts as to be crap - because they are taking the interpretation of this 1 preacher, and his predecessors, and spreading it to the masses - 99% of which believe it and don't read it on their own. If anything, the bible should exist and nothing more. It should be there for one to read and interpret as they wish - no one to tell you what things mean
2. Gronk, if you don't mind me asking, what is your religion/spiritual affiliation, if any?
3. The amount of basically EXACT same "Jesus" stories throughout history are plentiful. Yet another topic covered in "The Biggest Truth"
4. Does anyone have any good links to the book of Enoch and others that were left out of the bible? I'm too lazy atm to look myself...I like links
5. I always find it quite funny that the Catholic Church is the same that had so many atrocities in their history - namely the Spanish Inquisition - which so many actions are complete contradictions and the antithesis to what modern day Catholicism preaches.
6. The more I think about it, the more I see "preachers" and such religions with experts as to be crap - because they are taking the interpretation of this 1 preacher, and his predecessors, and spreading it to the masses - 99% of which believe it and don't read it on their own. If anything, the bible should exist and nothing more. It should be there for one to read and interpret as they wish - no one to tell you what things mean
Heavy Fucking Metal Devin- Posts : 210
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Re: Thomas Jefferson Bible
gruesomgrimp Tue Mar 06, 2012 11:23 pm
Heavy Fucking Metal Devin wrote:1. As always, I read a lot of good things in the posts here, and by the time I get to responding, I forget half of them. So that's my disclaimer.
2. Gronk, if you don't mind me asking, what is your religion/spiritual affiliation, if any?
Haha, well, if you're asking Gronk! then of course his answer will be Gzoroth.
If you're asking me the actor who plays an orc, then I have no religious affiliation and I never will again. I was raised in the Protestant cult known as the New Apostolic Church, but slowly started to disentangle myself from the web of lies when the contradictions inherent in sermons started to turn in on themselves logically and experientially. As a young child several Lao people moved into my town and our church immediately began recruiting them. One of the males in one of those families, though, was one of the nicest, kind-hearted people I had ever met. However, he refused to go to Church, because he was a Buddhist. In southeast Asia they practice a branch of Buddhism called Theravada Buddhism. After meeting him (it was my first exposure to someone who was NOT a Christian) then I started to become really uncomfortable with the idea that THIS man was going to hell, simply because he didn't believe as I believed. It seemed to me that if god was so fucked up as to punish THIS man for not believing in HIM, then maybe that's not the kind of god I wanted to worship anyway.
So there you go, I had my moment of doubt, but I was a child and had no choice due to the coercion of my parents but to keep going. I tried my best to be a good little Christian. The second axe strike to the tree of faith came--and you'll love this one Devin--when I was in seventh grade and heard Number of the Beast for the first time. As soon as that intro with Steve Harris's beautiful bassline struck my consciousness, "I left alone; my mind was blank," I KNEW I was going to HELL, because I was listening to Iron Maiden and I LIKED it...no I LOVED it! Literally, a chill went up and down my spine like lightning in the moment when I released I was going to hell.
But, like I good Christian I tried to comfort myself that I could still have my sins forgiven by partaking of the body and blood of Christ (Cannibal Corpse anyone!) in the form of communion. So, even my dangerous brush with the subversive and satanic music of Iron Maiden, I was able to set aside, pending forgiveness by god through eating a little wafer with three dots of wine on it that I was supposed to believe got turned into the actual body and blood of Christ with some magic...oops did I say MAGIC, I meant Holy, excuse me...words.
But there third and final strike that felled the tree of BLIND FAITH came from the sermon itself. The preacher railed at us from the pulpit that the ONE UNFORGIVABLE SIN was doubt. Oops, I done already fucked up. Given how not fun my religion was; how guilty it made me feel all the time; how it called for the damnation of the nicest person I had ever met, I decided right then and there that I had already doubted, and according to the priest I was already beyond redemption, so why continue to follow these stringent, life-strangling rules. As it turns out, I did continue for one more year until my confirmation, but more for my mother's sake then mine, because you see, until a child goes through the rite of confirmation in that religion the care of their souls is the responsibility of the parent. I could give a fuck about my dad at the time (he and my mother were divorced by then and I was pretty angry at him for always yelling at me all the time) but my mother was devout and really concerned both for my soul and hers. So, I stuck with the church until I went through my official confirmation, so as to absolve her of any responsibilities for my sins in her own mind. After my confirmation, I never went back.
As you can imagine, I went through quite a long period of being straight up atheist, but I was profoundly unhappy and unsettled in my soul during those years, as well. It's not even really until my wife TAed a class in college called spirituality and the sacred that I began there just might be something to spirituality after all. From there my path back to spirituality began by reading Fritjoff Capra's the Tao of Physics. You see, even though atheism didn't sit right with me, I still had a profound respect for scientist in general and in particular theoretical physicists, because to date Quantum Mechanics has produced the most accurate predictions of any branch of science. Here I had a physicist telling me that all the evidence was pointing to the existence of a spiritual realm after all. I also began to see articles in the newspaper and all kinds of stuff pointing out other physicists who were basically say that QT strengthened their faith. Without making a long story too long, by a series of strange turns, I now think of myself, NOT LITERALLY MIND YOU, but metaphorically as something of a tree-hugging goddess worshipper.
The pagan/wiccan rede "Ain it harm none, do as thou wilt shall be the whole of the law; love is the law, love under will," an amalgamation of Crowley and Rabeleis (sp?) has become somewhat of the standard by which I live and love. A wonderful distillation of the goddess philosophy I get a kick out of (because it was invented by my literally brain-damaged father-in-law as a way of dealing with the pain of his divorce from his wife) is http://bombasta.net/
My wife and her sister created this website as a father's day gift for him. It's a joke, you see, but still the beauty and the simplicity of the creed ring bells in my heart. He loved the website, by the way
So, far balance and shits and giggles I'm a Bombasta/Gzoroth follower, a bit like the Tao. I invented Gzoroth, BTW. So, yes, my gods are fictional, as are all gods, but sometimes fictions are useful as long as we remember (a) that they're fictions and (b) what the original intentions of their use were.
3. The amount of basically EXACT same "Jesus" stories throughout history are plentiful. Yet another topic covered in "The Biggest Truth"
Yes, Iche like many others has noticed that. The biggest match seems to be with the, get this, Persian war god Mithras. Look it upHow Iranic, I mean Ironic, that we're now sabre rattling to go to war with Iran (i.e., ancient Persia).
4. Does anyone have any good links to the book of Enoch and others that were left out of the bible? I'm too lazy atm to look myself...I like links
http://www.sacred-texts.com/bib/boe/
5. I always find it quite funny that the Catholic Church is the same that had so many atrocities in their history - namely the Spanish Inquisition - which so many actions are complete contradictions and the antithesis to what modern day Catholicism preaches.
The inquisition is just the tip of the iceberg. The church also is implicated in the 3rd Reich and the Holocaust, the Albigensian Crusades, the normal Crusades we all know about, the P2 Conspiracy in Italy, all the child rape cases going on, etc., etc., etc.
6. The more I think about it, the more I see "preachers" and such religions with experts as to be crap - because they are taking the interpretation of this 1 preacher, and his predecessors, and spreading it to the masses - 99% of which believe it and don't read it on their own. If anything, the bible should exist and nothing more. It should be there for one to read and interpret as they wish - no one to tell you what things mean
Utter crap! Many scholars have said that if the bible were examined on its literary merits alone, it would collect dust, because it basically sucks as a literary piece of writing, with the possible exception of the Song of Solomon.
gruesomgrimp- Posts : 33
Join date : 2012-01-17
Re: Thomas Jefferson Bible
Heavy Fucking Metal Devin Wed Mar 07, 2012 12:12 am
Once again, I preface by already forgetting what I wanted to say. And rather than make it absurdly long by quoting your responses..I'll save us and free flow
1. I'm now a converted Bombastinite
2. I feel with a grain of salt the religious path of my brothers (literal) and myself is similar to yours. All born and raised Roman Catholic - went up through confirmation etc... for me, my first thing was that my best friend since I was like 7 is Jewish..so the same thought of him going to hell for being Jewish didn't add up. Then I remember one time being in church and seeing teh candles to light to "pray for someone", but you had to "donate" money for it...that struck me hard because of how fucked up it was...we'll pray for you, but give us money...then I found metal and delved deep into the darkness of it and have not left since...nor do I want to. The "devil/satan" thing always fascinates me, but more for the mysticism and occult of it - not the literal belief, since that goes hand in hand with "christian' thought anyway....as I'll say till the day I die, Give me metal or give me death...end of story
3. If you haven't already, I recommend reading "The Satanic Bible" by Anton LaVey. Read it with several grains of salt, and he sort of glorified some parts of it and made it real cult-y and crap, but the underlying theme has always stuck with me...basically do what you want and enjoy life... there are some pages of weird verses and chant things or something, but I thought the underlying message is something that everyone can agree with - even christians if they had the balls to admit it..that they agree with satanism..LaVeys version at least
1. I'm now a converted Bombastinite
2. I feel with a grain of salt the religious path of my brothers (literal) and myself is similar to yours. All born and raised Roman Catholic - went up through confirmation etc... for me, my first thing was that my best friend since I was like 7 is Jewish..so the same thought of him going to hell for being Jewish didn't add up. Then I remember one time being in church and seeing teh candles to light to "pray for someone", but you had to "donate" money for it...that struck me hard because of how fucked up it was...we'll pray for you, but give us money...then I found metal and delved deep into the darkness of it and have not left since...nor do I want to. The "devil/satan" thing always fascinates me, but more for the mysticism and occult of it - not the literal belief, since that goes hand in hand with "christian' thought anyway....as I'll say till the day I die, Give me metal or give me death...end of story
3. If you haven't already, I recommend reading "The Satanic Bible" by Anton LaVey. Read it with several grains of salt, and he sort of glorified some parts of it and made it real cult-y and crap, but the underlying theme has always stuck with me...basically do what you want and enjoy life... there are some pages of weird verses and chant things or something, but I thought the underlying message is something that everyone can agree with - even christians if they had the balls to admit it..that they agree with satanism..LaVeys version at least
Heavy Fucking Metal Devin- Posts : 210
Join date : 2012-01-09
Re: Thomas Jefferson Bible
gruesomgrimp Wed Mar 07, 2012 12:19 am
LOL, already been down the LaVey path. I get what he's doing, but view it as an utter failure because by adopting the Christian invention of Satan to strike against Christianity he has bought into and validated the system they created. Epic Fail! That which you resist, persists. The only way out is to opt out of the system completely.
I could also just as easily be a Discordian. Read anything and everything by Robert Anton Wilson and you will begin to grasp Discordianism
I could also just as easily be a Discordian. Read anything and everything by Robert Anton Wilson and you will begin to grasp Discordianism
gruesomgrimp- Posts : 33
Join date : 2012-01-17
Re: Thomas Jefferson Bible
Admin Wed Mar 07, 2012 12:32 am
You probably wont get much argument about religions and how they are associated with lies in this group of people--in some way we have all had certain experiences that caused us to to question--and the answers we have found lead us to believe that RELIGION is..well..wrong (according to us)
there is really no globally accepted term for where we all stand now as for what our religion would be...but the new age religion in my opinion is basically acceptance---- find your own spiritual path(or don't), it is cool with me....
what urkes us are people who blindly follow their religion without ever having gone through the experiences we have to make us question---in my religion..we don't blame them for that because in my religion they are probably just young souls... why do i say my religion? because that is what religion should be...everyones own, not someone elses... i know i am preaching to the choir...but whatever its sometimes nice singing the song people around you know when many times most people around you don't know it.... before you know it, your music led zepplin which will spawn metallica
anyway done ranting for this post...
there is really no globally accepted term for where we all stand now as for what our religion would be...but the new age religion in my opinion is basically acceptance---- find your own spiritual path(or don't), it is cool with me....
what urkes us are people who blindly follow their religion without ever having gone through the experiences we have to make us question---in my religion..we don't blame them for that because in my religion they are probably just young souls... why do i say my religion? because that is what religion should be...everyones own, not someone elses... i know i am preaching to the choir...but whatever its sometimes nice singing the song people around you know when many times most people around you don't know it.... before you know it, your music led zepplin which will spawn metallica
anyway done ranting for this post...
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Re: Thomas Jefferson Bible
SuperAdmin Thu Mar 08, 2012 1:34 pm
Hi there! This thread has me thinking and I like that! In fact, it makes me want to study and research. I have thoughts and questions about the bible translations and who funded them and why and context and taking things literally and missing gospels etc but I'm not sure where to begin. Do you have a book(s) recommendation that supports some of the points you've made in this post? Also, have you read anything by people (Christians) in defense (not sure if that's the right word or maybe opposition)? There are always two sides to a "story" and I am really interested in learning more about both. Do you have any recommendations for reading on that as well?
gruesomgrimp wrote:The requirement by Fundamentalists (whether Protestant or Catholic) that the Bible be the ultimate authority becomes a tool for control, because it is so riddled with contradictions (and errors, I might add) that the average person has no chance of being able to understand it if their operating principle is to take it literally. Thus, they (the congregation, believer, etc.) rely on a priesthood to interpret the meaning for them and hardly ever get to the stage where they can interpret from themselves. Also, when you consider, as I already stated, that what we know as the Bible was basically a collection of (effectively) arbitrarily chosen books--well, not so arbitrarily since the Council of Nicea set the standard for official Church doctrine (basically, the divinity of Christ and the Trinity) and it was the first ecumenical council after Rome adopted Christianity as the official state religion. That Council decided the doctrine that would help the Roman state consolidate power under the New Religion.
Notice, I said it is a TOOL, but anything can be used as a tool. I'm very aware that the Bible offers ways for readers to develop a program of thinking for yourself, BUT if you've every actually read some of the gospels that conveniently got left out of the "official" Bible, you'll see that THOSE documents offer EVEN MORE of a program for self-enlightenment. However, it's very hard to maintain power any authority over a congregation if they're thinking too much for themselves, but at the same time you can't completely stamp out traditions that exist everywhere in the minds of citizenry without too much notice. And at the time of that first Ecumenical council the "gnostics" and the "literalists" were just winding down an ideological war that the "literalists" seem to have won at that Council, but many many Christians knew that other ideologies of Christianity existed. So some things have to become massaged and "re-branded" to borrow a marketing term. Where do you think a majority of the Catholic Saints come from? Many were at one time or another pagan gods that couldn't be completely destroyed without causing a ruckus, so they were assimilated like the Borg into the Catholic system of Hagiagraphy.
When Christians wish to justify violence, despite the obvious teachings of Jesus against it, they often put forth verses from the very savage and brutal old Testament, which remember the Christian Church fathers CHOSE to include as the official scriptures to justify the mythology they were putting forth. These contradictions serve to create confusion in the minds of the congregation (assuming they even actually read the bible. Many don't, they just take the word of their preachers as golden) and often prevent the rank and file from acting on their conscience or speaking out when they see their various churches engaging in what we can call decidedly un-Christian behavior. I say that, but the thing is, if you actually look at the history of Christianity (indeed all Monotheisms) in western culture, it is a history of institutionalized bigotry, misogyny and violence and everything you need to justify this behavior is included in the Bible, alongside the more enlightened bits that tend to get overshadowed. To borrow and paraphrase a Biblical saying, "By their actions you will know them."
Bottom line, while the Bible as we may know it may still contain some of the kernels of ancient wisdom that would lead one to free-thinking, that is not how the Bible-As-We-Know-It has been used in the long, bloody history of Christianity by the institution (the Church, here meaning both Catholic and Protestant) that put it together in the first place.
My personal opinion is that the Bible and the name of Jesus has been so discredited and denigrated by this long, bloody history that we need to throw the text and the names out all together and start over with a new and as of yet unsullied symbol for those enlightened values that Jesus seems to have represented (if indeed he was real--do you wanted get started on just how many Christ-like gods that have existed in that region?).
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Re: Thomas Jefferson Bible
gruesomgrimp Sat Mar 10, 2012 2:21 pm
Hello there,
I would start with any book by Elaine Pagels' but the Gnostic Gospels is her iconic classic. She's a professor of Religion at Princeton University. She IS a Christian by the way; she just doesn't see herself as a literalist.
I note the synchronicity that as soon as I mentioned Elaine Pagels the first time on this thread, I learned that she now has a new book out that's very relevant to our discussion. I'll have to go look for it downtown. http://www.amazon.com/Revelations-Visions-Prophecy-Politics-Revelation/dp/0670023345/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1331399209&sr=1-1
I have attempted to read Fundamentalist views, but they're so obviously skewed and bigoted and founded on this notion that the Bible is the unquestionable final authority on anything, how can anyone read such stuff for very long without getting a stomach ache? I have also read St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, and other early Catholic Fathers' writings (in translation, of course). But, yes, my reading tends to be on the liberal Theologian's side, since they tend to take the point of view of the atheist/agnostic seriously and don't treat them with fire and brimstone derision and contempt for even daring to ask the question. I guess, lately, to me anyone who professes their view with "my way or the highway" isn't worthy of my time for study. You're certainly not going to get a balanced opinion from them and I suspect that their shit won't stand the light of day very long and that's why they yell so loud and do everything in your power to make you accept their views on blind faith. A little rational investigation and the fraud becomes apparent, the lies melt away.
I would also recommend a book called "The Secret History of the Bible," but I can't recall the author's name. That one deals more with the old Testament and the author's belief that the Cult of Baal and Ashtoreth use to carry more weight among the Hebrew people, but slowly got discredited and destroyed by the Cult of Yahweh in its quest to consolidate power over the priesthood, until finally they became demons and devils instead of gods in their own right, like in YE olden times.
Hell, even starting with Wikipedia on something like Epic of Gilgamesh and you'll start to see all the old sumerian, phoenician, and mesopotamian mythology that went into Genesis and some of the old testament. Noah has a counterpart named Uptnapishtim in the Epic of Gilgamesh, and I'm sure you've all heard many times that Flood myths are found any every culture on earth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilgamesh_flood_myth
Be careful of going down the rabbit hole....
Also, I have an M.A. in theoretical linguistics, so some of what I said before about the translation problem is just my observation of the obvious problems on trying to rely on such an old book for wisdom when we CAN'T really know what it said, given the fact of changing idioms and figures of speech.
I would start with any book by Elaine Pagels' but the Gnostic Gospels is her iconic classic. She's a professor of Religion at Princeton University. She IS a Christian by the way; she just doesn't see herself as a literalist.
I note the synchronicity that as soon as I mentioned Elaine Pagels the first time on this thread, I learned that she now has a new book out that's very relevant to our discussion. I'll have to go look for it downtown. http://www.amazon.com/Revelations-Visions-Prophecy-Politics-Revelation/dp/0670023345/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1331399209&sr=1-1
I have attempted to read Fundamentalist views, but they're so obviously skewed and bigoted and founded on this notion that the Bible is the unquestionable final authority on anything, how can anyone read such stuff for very long without getting a stomach ache? I have also read St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, and other early Catholic Fathers' writings (in translation, of course). But, yes, my reading tends to be on the liberal Theologian's side, since they tend to take the point of view of the atheist/agnostic seriously and don't treat them with fire and brimstone derision and contempt for even daring to ask the question. I guess, lately, to me anyone who professes their view with "my way or the highway" isn't worthy of my time for study. You're certainly not going to get a balanced opinion from them and I suspect that their shit won't stand the light of day very long and that's why they yell so loud and do everything in your power to make you accept their views on blind faith. A little rational investigation and the fraud becomes apparent, the lies melt away.
I would also recommend a book called "The Secret History of the Bible," but I can't recall the author's name. That one deals more with the old Testament and the author's belief that the Cult of Baal and Ashtoreth use to carry more weight among the Hebrew people, but slowly got discredited and destroyed by the Cult of Yahweh in its quest to consolidate power over the priesthood, until finally they became demons and devils instead of gods in their own right, like in YE olden times.
Hell, even starting with Wikipedia on something like Epic of Gilgamesh and you'll start to see all the old sumerian, phoenician, and mesopotamian mythology that went into Genesis and some of the old testament. Noah has a counterpart named Uptnapishtim in the Epic of Gilgamesh, and I'm sure you've all heard many times that Flood myths are found any every culture on earth.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilgamesh_flood_myth
Be careful of going down the rabbit hole....
Also, I have an M.A. in theoretical linguistics, so some of what I said before about the translation problem is just my observation of the obvious problems on trying to rely on such an old book for wisdom when we CAN'T really know what it said, given the fact of changing idioms and figures of speech.
gruesomgrimp- Posts : 33
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Re: Thomas Jefferson Bible
SuperAdmin Tue Mar 13, 2012 5:45 pm
Thank you for your thoughtful response. This is helpful!
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