Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Chili · 12-11-2011, 07:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by seattlegal

I know this sounds really far-out, but they remind me of how the Tibetan lamas go out in search of the child that a recently deceased lama reincarnates as. The parents of such children often have dreams about it, (like Mary and Joseph are reported as having) and the searching lamas will bring gifts that belonged to the deceased lama to present to the child. They consult oracles and look for signs, as well. Jesus also seemed to introduce dharma teachings such as "love your enemies."

Yeah, it's wild and far out, and over 200 years after

Ashoka sent monks out to teach the Dharma as far as Egypt and Lybia. :huh:

Interesting but Joseph was the only dreamer in Matthew and not in Luke where Mary pondered and took things to heart, and according to Luke reincarnation follows a lineage as if apples do not fall far from the tree --and maybe Shirley Maclean is a little bit wrong here as well..

Chili · 12-11-2011, 02:51 PM

But I like the Magi as a very unique story and a very clever way to find the empty stable wherein Christ was born and where this Joseph was supposed to be at to receive his dowry there. If you consider that all our ambitions originate from our soul, as Aristotle showed us in Posterior Analytics Book II at the end, but closer to home is our soul where this woman presides over the TOL who from there is the cause of all our ambition in the chain of command from Gen.3:15 (from woman to Eve to our heel), it is no surprise that she knows and should know because she is the one who kind of led us to there by way of ambition, if we were willing to dance to her tunes as sensuous being in response to the vibrations she made.

So the Magi then just follow the light that gave us the 'bright ideas' that lit up our life on the way out and so she knows exactly where we are at and what our mood and our predicament is 'these days' now with our 'strongholds' on-the-run, not knowing the difference between pleasure and pain nor day and night, and 'had us' herding our sheep in the middle of midlife, midwinter, midnight where neither young nor old is known, nor good and bad or light or dark so that we would respond to her trigger and so is where the empty stable is found for our dowry to receive that we may be made whole.

I am just saying that it is a clever way to express metaphysical movement that comes full circle for us in Gen 1-2. and 3. I have poem for you here that told Li Po much the same about 1300 years ago in Buddha-land there:

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Ri...Wife:_A_Letter

steve_bnk · 12-11-2011, 05:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sotto voce

Matthew's gospel, written (unless those cunning Catholics are right) in Greek, refers to mágoi. Not an easy word to translate, and one subject to fanciful interpretations. No doubt the three (kinds of) gifts they brought, with the added seduction of trinitarianism, led to the view that there were just three of them— one being unmistakably Negroid, in more modern views. So perhaps interpretations of mágoi are liable to current social or political influences? Oklahoma; isn't that suspiciously close to the Southern fundamentalist notion that God created in six days? Isn't monasticism a product of a set of fundamentalist notions? Perhaps scholarship needs to take account of the liability of such dubious pressures, and not be over-impressed by the latest idea, available, seasonally adjusted, for $15 on the 'net from a source whose reputation does not resound in academia with all the conviction that it might.

At any rate, Herodotus, a systematic Greek who lived in the 5th century BC, the 'Father of historians', might just be supposed a better informed and less prejudiced source than Oklahoma. He wrote that mágoi were Persian astrologers, dream interpreters, and magicians. Persia was already then inhabited by Jews as well as Persians, due to forced migration. We know from archaeology that Jews were influenced by astrology, but there is no reason to suppose that astrology was not influenced by Judaism, and its scriptures. In Numbers 24:17 we read, and no doubt magi read:

'"I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near. A star will come out of Jacob; a sceptre will rise out of Israel."' (NIV)

With more temporally and geographically local revelation for Persians, added to more about a prophesied king in the Hebrew Scriptures, there is surely enough in this to explain the visit of the magi. Indeed, any notion about Chinese visitors may seem like defiant contradiction.

In the Book of Daniel, a book about one of those relocated Jews, astrologers, supposed interpreters of dreams, of Babylonia were mentioned— translated, before Jesus lived, into Greek as mágoi. So is there really so much need for conjecture?

Actually Herodotus is known for creatively filling in the blanks. It is more the reality of the times than a condemnation.

sotto voce · 12-11-2011, 05:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by steve_bnk

Actually

Ah.

Minimalist · 12-11-2011, 05:30 PM

So...let's get this straight. A bunch of wise guys see a star in the western sky and instantly conclude that it is over "Judaea" rather than Rome, Carthage, Athens, Ephesos because they can tell where it is pointing.

Then they follow the "star" to Herod the Great's court, give him a song and dance and then tag along behind while this "star" bounces over the landscape like some ersatz Tinkerbell until it ends up overlooking some rat hole in "Bethlehem?"

And xtians wonder why sane people treat these stories as utter bullshit.

steve_bnk · 12-11-2011, 05:33 PM

Today we discriminate between a factual documentary of historical events and a dramatization which takes license with grey areas and may create composite characters.

The Gospels and Acts are more dramatizations.

aa5874 · 12-11-2011, 06:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by steve_bnk

Today we discriminate between a factual documentary of historical events and a dramatization which takes license with grey areas and may create composite characters.

The Gospels and Acts are more dramatizations.

Well, if Acts and the Gospels are dramantizations then the Pauline writings must be a part of that drama.

The Pauline writers met the same charaters in the Gospels and Acts and was a WITNESS to the resurrected one.

Chili · 12-11-2011, 06:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by steve_bnk

Today we discriminate between a factual documentary of historical events and a dramatization which takes license with grey areas and may create composite characters.

The Gospels and Acts are more dramatizations.

. . . and not just more but true nonetheless. Let me clarify, in a world where everything is in a flux only eternal things are said to be true and this is one of those, and even there they are composites to present beauty as the vapor of truth.

Chili · 12-11-2011, 06:07 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aa5874

Quote:

Originally Posted by steve_bnk

Today we discriminate between a factual documentary of historical events and a dramatization which takes license with grey areas and may create composite characters.

The Gospels and Acts are more dramatizations.

Well, if Acts and the Gospels are dramantizations then the Pauline writings must be a part of that drama.

The Pauline writers met the same charaters in the Gospels and Acts and was a WITNESS to the resurrected one.

Well yes, Paul was the cloak of faith that Peter put on when he dove headfirst into the celestial sea on that first post resurrection fishing trip they had made and then moved to Rome.

Chili · 12-11-2011, 09:04 PM

And do you not remember that Peter was defrocked when 'all doubt was removed from Thomas' with the exclamation "My Lord AND my God! to say that you cannot have faith without doubt and so Peter was defrocked . . . and caught nothing all night because he was naked? . . . and then put on a cloak and dove in headfirst . . . and do you catch fish swimming at night? or what?

So there was no Peter either but the rock of faith is still real and they buried him under the Chapel as Jesus said he would built his church on Peter, and now the door is still open for everyone to see that they did and Paul wil be testimony to that as he is the cloak of faith seated on the insight of Peter as rock . . . and hence also the rock throwing allegory of old.

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12-11-2011, 02:51 PM	#22
Chili Banned Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: Alberta Posts: 11,885	But I like the Magi as a very unique story and a very clever way to find the empty stable wherein Christ was born and where this Joseph was supposed to be at to receive his dowry there. If you consider that all our ambitions originate from our soul, as Aristotle showed us in Posterior Analytics Book II at the end, but closer to home is our soul where this woman presides over the TOL who from there is the cause of all our ambition in the chain of command from Gen.3:15 (from woman to Eve to our heel), it is no surprise that she knows and should know because she is the one who kind of led us to there by way of ambition, if we were willing to dance to her tunes as sensuous being in response to the vibrations she made. So the Magi then just follow the light that gave us the 'bright ideas' that lit up our life on the way out and so she knows exactly where we are at and what our mood and our predicament is 'these days' now with our 'strongholds' on-the-run, not knowing the difference between pleasure and pain nor day and night, and 'had us' herding our sheep in the middle of midlife, midwinter, midnight where neither young nor old is known, nor good and bad or light or dark so that we would respond to her trigger and so is where the empty stable is found for our dowry to receive that we may be made whole. I am just saying that it is a clever way to express metaphysical movement that comes full circle for us in Gen 1-2. and 3. I have poem for you here that told Li Po much the same about 1300 years ago in Buddha-land there: http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Ri...Wife:_A_Letter

12-11-2011, 05:30 PM	#25
Minimalist Veteran Member Join Date: May 2007 Location: Arizona Posts: 1,808	So...let's get this straight. A bunch of wise guys see a star in the western sky and instantly conclude that it is over "Judaea" rather than Rome, Carthage, Athens, Ephesos because they can tell where it is pointing. Then they follow the "star" to Herod the Great's court, give him a song and dance and then tag along behind while this "star" bounces over the landscape like some ersatz Tinkerbell until it ends up overlooking some rat hole in "Bethlehem?" And xtians wonder why sane people treat these stories as utter bullshit.

12-11-2011, 05:33 PM	#26
steve_bnk Contributor Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: Seattle Posts: 27,602	Today we discriminate between a factual documentary of historical events and a dramatization which takes license with grey areas and may create composite characters. The Gospels and Acts are more dramatizations.

12-11-2011, 09:04 PM	#30
Chili Banned Join Date: Apr 2004 Location: Alberta Posts: 11,885	And do you not remember that Peter was defrocked when 'all doubt was removed from Thomas' with the exclamation "My Lord AND my God! to say that you cannot have faith without doubt and so Peter was defrocked . . . and caught nothing all night because he was naked? . . . and then put on a cloak and dove in headfirst . . . and do you catch fish swimming at night? or what? So there was no Peter either but the rock of faith is still real and they buried him under the Chapel as Jesus said he would built his church on Peter, and now the door is still open for everyone to see that they did and Paul wil be testimony to that as he is the cloak of faith seated on the insight of Peter as rock . . . and hence also the rock throwing allegory of old.

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