bacht

I can accept the Buddhist analysis of desire but in their theory only a truly enlightened bodhisatva escapes desire completely. The rest of us have to struggle. Worldly riches are only one temptation, there are others.

Social personas are necessary parts of communal life. Complete honesty and vulnerability are impossible, at least at this stage of evolution.

Good and bad are not abstract concepts, they are words we use to describe behaviours. Most cultures recognize "natural law" in the absence of formal legal tradition, people don't have to be told that unprovoked violence is wrong.

The place where we started is the womb. Before that there's nothing.

There is no soul for our subconscious to remember.

Your cognitive model is backwards: without the conscious mind controlling and directing the subconscious there is no order or predictability in our behaviour, and probably no ethics/morality.

Clivedurdle

Hmm Plato. I wonder how much damage he has caused.

From site above (First quote).

stephan huller

Yes, Clive. Celsus rightly argues that the founder of Christianity borrowed heavily from Plato. This cannot be overlooked as an influence (although Celsus says 'misunderstood Plato'). I disagree. I think 'fused' Plato with the interpretation of the scripture - in short reflecting the Jewish interest in the age (Philo, Justus of Tiberias)

charles

I agree it is difficult to make sense of what would cause a single person to voluntarily castrate themselves. It seems to be something produced an unstable mind. It is hard to get behind the mind of a deranged person. But then there are a lot or at least some people who get a sex change operation. Aren't people who undergo this kind of surgery in effect castrating themselves?

In this case we see the motivation must be to become female (in the case of a male). Doesn't that sound Christian especially when we hear a man speak of being a 'bride of Christ'? It's just so unusual. Where did that idea come from?

Chili

Do you really think that half illuminated people get into our heaven?
Yes there is and intelligence is one of them . . . wherefore our 'Bethlehem' is the place where beyond theology is the required state of mind. . . . and is why Jesus was a solitary individual with Christ being the mind that made him so. Note that non-social as opposed to social and asocial is typical of the redeemed way of life which now means that it is not possible for Christians to be engaged in politics unless they are a forgery themselves. I quite agree and must always pay Caesar his dues and abide by civil law wherever we are.But we are incarnate beings with a reign of God to lean on for up to one thousand years back in our very own lineage.

Our subconscious has no memory but is our soul to be explored after our first death. It is called the netherworld until it becomes our new world where the sea is no longer as the unknown element of our present life. It is not easy to walk on water you are telling me but with the sea gone in the new world there is no difference between dry land and the celestial sea.

bacht

Why do you engage me in discussions of metaphysics? I'm an empiricist. There are others here who enjoy this sort of speculation. You must be young enough to have the time for this. I'm getting closer to the grave and I'm not interested in fantasies of eternal life or perfect enlightenment, they're just not real imo.

stephan huller

So let's recap where we left off yesterday as I try to piece together this new understanding:

1) the prophet Daniel was understood to be a eunuch of the line of the messianic line of king David by Jews and Christians alike from a period before the advent of Christianity.
2) the book of Daniel has a unique position in the prophetic writings paralleled by the unique status of Daniel as a eunuch prophet.
3) Daniel is understood to have been given a superior understanding of the great mysteries of the religion. Only he explicitly references 'the messiah' and more importantly the specific circumstances of his arrival (an event which now will be accompanied by the end of the Jewish religion and the end of sacrifices).
4) the Hebrew word karath is used in conjunction with the coming of the messiah by the eunuch prophet Daniel. It is translated in the Greek with a word which implies 'the death' of this figure but this use is unnatural or at least not the expected choice. The underlying concept is that of 'separation' and it is often used to mean the separation of a body part from the body - i.e. castration.
5) if karath was interpreted in this way (i.e. that the eunuch prophet Daniel hailed the arrival of a castrated messiah) one can almost imagine a scenario where someone might have argued that this arrival of this messiah might have justified or ushered in a new righteousness - i.e. to be like Jacob, to be like the messiah and undergo castration to be refashioned as a new man made after the likeness of the angels or indeed the androgynous Father/Adam Kadmion rather than after 'the world' (see Philo and the Jewish mystical understanding that the world had an anthropomorphic shape).

I know this is entirely speculative but I do think it fits into the Marcionite understanding of the sacrament of baptism being tied with ritual castration. So Tertullian:

Deny now, Marcion, your utter madness, (if you can)! Behold, you impugn even the law of your god. He unites not in the nuptial bond, nor, when contracted, does he allow it; no one does he baptize but a coelebs or a eunuch [AM 4.11]

As I noted when I joined this site - a strong argument exists to connect the Marcionites with the tradition of Mark (who interestingly is said to have severed his finger i.e. a euphemism for his male member). 'Marcion' a name derived from Mark is also said to be a self-castrating inventor of a false gospel.

If that 'gospel of Mark' associated with the Marcionite sect by the Philosophumena (7:18) justified the ritual castration of its members it certainly must have looked like the first addition to Mark mentioned in Clement's letter to Theodore:

And after six days Jesus told him what to do, and in the evening the youth comes to him, wearing a linen cloth over his naked body. And he remained with him that night, for Jesus taught him the mystery of the Kingdom of God. [III 7 - 10]

To this end when we understand the Marcionite (and Markan) idea of ritual castration PRECEDING ritual water immersion we can begin to understand not only the many references in the Apostolic writings describing baptism as connected with death but more over that the sacrament represented the 'end of the law.'

The law and the prophets were until John.

Perhaps John was the castrated messiah who established Christianity as a means of perpetuating his blessed state as a 'gift' to the rest of humanity.

Chili

In our modern "gender equal society" the opposites between male and female are no longer as distinct as they once were, wherefore we now see masculine females and effeminate males who actually can feel out of place in their own body. If nothing else it proves that our sexuality is an illusion that is socially engendered in the confrontation between two opposites, ex nihilo, to be sure, wherefore then surgical correction can be effective.

So no, surgical correction can be effective which is not to say that reproduction will be an automatic result.No, we are the bride of Christ in our servience to the mind of Christ that belongs to the mythology instead of us. It was the New Jerusalem for Joseph/Jesus and is Rome for Catholics. It so is the city of God that exist in our 'new mind' as per Rev.21:9-.

In metaphysics it is where we obtain a [divine] union with our own soul on account of the veil that divides our left and right brain being fully rent so we can take up residence in our soul where the woman who contains our wherewithal for up to one thousand years (our bone of bones and flesh of flesh) presides over what may be called the Tree of Life (TOL). So effectively we have the convergeance of the TOL with the TOK wherein the TOK is absorbed by the TOL (or the greater serpent eats the lesser serpent, also depicted with the dying and rising slave).

The woman is also wherein we are eternal since time-as-such is not known in our right brain simply because 'she' is incarnate upon us. She then was Elizabeth in Luke who gives birth to John who so becomes the Christ to which the purified essence of Jesus-nee-Joseph was added.

charles

Just wondering what people believe? Was Christianity a celibacy religion which only later took on more extremes of monogamy (i.e. castration rituals) or was it the other way around - i.e. it started off with the most radical forms of extreme castration rituals and 'softened' its original stance when the religion tried to appeal its message to a wider audience?

stephan huller

Some of you may be asking yourselves (at least those following my posts at my thread) - how do we know that the Marcionites took an interest in John? What suggestion is there that he was made a eunuch or came to embody the ascetic ideal of the Marcionite sect? Well there is a statement in the writings of Ephrem (whose information about the Marcionites is the best of all the Church Fathers given the influence of the sect in Edessa into the fourth century). Ephem says quite explicitly:

And that thou mightest know that this is so, the Maker sanctified Moses and sent him to Egypt, and since Moses wished to take his wife with him by force, He (i.e. the Maker) constrained him by means of an angel to send her back, that He might show how pleasing holiness is to Him. And the Stranger also acted likewise towards Simon (Peter), although he did not compel him ; and (the fact) that he did not compel him, was it because it did not [become] Him to compel, not only because He is good but also because He is not our Creator ? And again, when the People [of Israel] had been sanctified, He did not allow them to approach the holy mountain because they were turning again to married life; but the People were standing at a distance, and Moses the holy was speaking, and God was answering with a voice. And again, the disciples also were standing in silence [at the Transfiguration], and Simon only was speaking. And perhaps thou wilt say, Was there not among them John, a virgin, and were not all his companions holy? (But I reply, Nay—) for here (i.e. at Sinai) also were not the People holy in relation to the Maker ? And Joshua was a virgin, and he (i.e. Moses) was brought in with Joshua only. Lo ! here also it is found that Isu resembles the Maker; for the Maker sanctified the chief of His prophets, and Isu sanctified the chief of His apostles.[Ephrem Against Marcion Book 1 from Prose Refutations of Mani, Marcion and Bardaisan. Transcribed from the Palimpsest B.M, C. W. MITCHELL, volume 2 (1921) p. 95, 96]

The only reason that Ephrem would have thought that the Marcionites would bring up John's virginity here is because he knew that they were quite vocal about their interest in it. I am going to shoot Baarda an email and see what the word for 'virgin' is here and whether it can be translated another - STRONGER - way.

The point is that my basic understanding that the Marcionite gospel of Mark might have introduced the idea of a secret initiation of John the disciple (cf Secret Mark) who in turn might have been Jesus the Lord's eunuch Christ is a possibility which is very much alive.