From: S
To: Rebelprofiler
Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2012 5:10 pm
Subject: Re: religion and stuff
Same here. I'm liking it a lot.
I have a hard time accepting the divinity of Jesus. The whole Christian concept of the Trinity confounds me. It seems like it's never been sufficiently explained to me.
Ah, right on. I get what you're saying about the letters. Agreed that they're taken to seriously. They are by no means unimportant, but they're in no way divine either.
What exactly does the Book of Jubilees cover? Being around mainly Protestant Christianity, I haven't been properly exposed to it.
Quakerism is much more personal than other Christian denominations. There often isn't a set pastor or "leader" at meetings. The meetings involve an hour mostly comprised of silent prayer. If someone feelings like standing up and saying something, s/he will. I know that some will incorporate hymns, but I've never been to one that has had hymns during the meeting. No loss, as I'm not much a fan of singing, even if I am within the group.
Quakers will discuss religion outside of the meeting, but meetings themselves are much more personally reflective.
Yes, I'm trying to work on the faith thing. I know I'll never have the sort of hard certainty that I see in my, say, Catholic or Mormon friends.
I like the idea of a parent more than a genie. And, technically in Christianity, it should be more parent figure, it seems. Constantly they talk about "our Father" etc. But at the same time, you get the people that want the genie you spoke of. Same thing with challenges. Some Christians believe that struggles are the Lord challenging you. Christian prayer and the variations of such are just... I dunno. I can't quite figure it out. Praying for menial things is weird. I understand, perhaps, the draw of it, but when you really consider it--do you think your supreme deity cares if y'know, the Royals win the World Series? Menial prayer topics in general bother me a bit, but praying about friggin' sports annoys me so much. How absolutely trite.
I think it is impossible to be certain about death. Even if there was some sort of divine document outlining what happens, people would question and debate, even if it was tiny details. It seems human nature to wonder about the unknown of life and death/afterlife is the ultimate unknown. So if it was outlined, it strikes me that people would be more focused on it not just because they are told of it, but because there'd still be questions. Probably more questions. People would be focused not only on the unknown aspects of death, which will always exist, but the somewhat known as well.
The cleansing makes sense. Eternal punishment is utterly useless. While some people might revel in the idea of Hitler suffering on and on forever, what good is there in that, really? No more Hitler seems much simpler and less overkill. I hated having to read Dante's Inferno in my AP Literature class. First, it was simply depressing. But secondly and chiefly, the morbid description of the disgusting eternal punishments. Even good people who were not Christians were in Hell. Not suffering too much, but still damned. Ancients from the pre-Christian time were forever damned due to being born a bit too early. This useless eternal suffering. And some of my classmates--all of them Catholic, I think--believed it too. They were too thick-headed to even listen to my reasoning--not trying to convert them to my way of thinking, simply offering a different perspective... y'know, the whole point of academic discussion. They told me I was wrong. I'm sorry, didn't know I could be definitively wrong about such metaphysical matters.
Agnosticism makes sense to me but atheism doesn't. So: you find it impossible to have faith in a deity, therefore you have this sure-of-yourself faith in nothing? Skepticism makes sense, denial doesn't.
From: Rebelprofiler
To: S
Posted: Sun Apr 29, 2012 6:57 pm
Subject: Re: religion and stuff
I have a catholic friend who majored in philosophy once try to explain how Gd, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost were the same person and yet NOT the same person at the same time but his logic blew my freshman head off and to this day I have no idea what he said. I don't think I have ever heard an explanation on the Holy Trinity that wasn't just circular reasoning or told me to imagine Gd had Dissociative Identity Disorder. And to be honest, one of the biggest draws towards Judaism, in my early exposure to it, was that I didn't have to buy into mortals being divine - just divinely inspired. And I definitely didn't have to see magic tricks as miracles. I have seen poor people turn water into wine. It's not that hard. And the Resurrection you only have to buy if you buy that he was DEFINITELY dead, which a lot of people weren't when they were buried in those days. For me and my science mind - there are just too many loopholes and parlor tricks going on with Jesus for me to buy him as divine.
Vatican II asserts that Jesus was probably born of human seed - it was Mary who was the immaculate conception, which is how she got to be holy enough to be pregnant with Gd's son. Now when I heard that, my head fell off. I've always thought Catholics were the big proponents of Mary being a virgin. They're not. Not OFFICIALLY anyway. Official Vatican II statements are that Mary was just young, not a virgin, and Jesus was probably born of a male's seed.
That I can buy into. Because if we look into Mary's history as outlined in the gospels, KNOWING what I know of Temple Era Judaism (which is what I practice), it stands to reason that Mary was probably (though maybe not voluntarily) getting it on with her uncle - Elizabeth's husband.
Now Vatican II also covered Dante's Inferno as well by stating that all of the pre-Jesus people who were in hell were met with Jesus during those three days he was dead and released from hell when Jesus took the keys. Alright. I can buy that too. Kind of presumptuous but let's assume Jesus was the right hand of Gd. If he was, that makes more sense.
However what Christians don't count on are that you have even read your Bible because if you make it through the Tenakh you find that Elijah was scuttled off to be Gd's right hand man in 2 Kings ch 2. Kind of throws Jesus under the bus right there. In theory, John the Baptist was Elijah reincarnated but there again it makes no sense when lined up with Judaism because our savior will be announced by Elijah and his trumpet. John had no trumpet and he did no announcing at Jesus' bris.
The more I dug into my religious anthropology degree, the less I was able to buy Christianity. The whole story of Jesus is exactly the same as the story of the Egyptian Gd, Horus.
The Book of Jubilees is basically a repeat of Genesis but with random little details pitched in, like the 7 Noachide laws (which Gd sent to replace the 10 commandments for non-Jews). It also covers more in depth about the angel hierarchy, who are the important angels, what is their purpose, and it's where Lucifer fell from grace (fun that it's not ACTUALLY in the Hebrew scriptures, wouldn't you say? That is because there is no Devil in Judaism, Gd creates all evil, and Lucifer remains Gd's most favored angel). At the end there's some stuff about the messiah and the messianic age too.
The reason it was pitched probably had a lot to do with the fact that it was written so late in history. MOST of the pseudepigraphia books were written between 200 BC and 200 AD so it was hit or miss as to whether they became canon or not. Hebrews is a good example of a book that the Jews rejected for their text but the Christians picked up for theirs. Believe it or not, I know a lot of Orthodox Jews who have read pseudepigraphic books - namely the Book of Adam and Eve and the Psalms of Solomon. Jesus frequently quoted the Psalms of Solomon in his rants to the people of Jerusalem, proving that he had a solid working knowledge of our literature. But nobody figures that out because it's not in a holy text so they just randomly say that Jesus was speaking miracles. Or in tongues if you're Pentecostal. How could he have known that if not because Gd told him! Because he read it in a book. Same way all Jews learn shit about our forefathers - in a book.
The only way to know FOR SURE what happens when we die is to die. And people don't usually come back from that state of being. Not often anyway, and not when they're far enough in to know exactly what happens. So for me, I don't worry about it. I do my good deeds here on earth and hope I leave enough of a footprint that people will miss me when I'm gone. And what happens after? I dunno. Not up to me I suppose. Somehow, oddly, I'm okay with that.
Totally agree about atheism mind you. It's one thing to be unsure and waiting for proof. That I get. But to be so absolutely POSITIVELY sure that there is nothing further up than the top of your head just strikes me as naive and immature. And it PAINS me when people take aim at Christianity and call it an attack on all religion. It's totally not. You don't even know the first thing about Judaism or Islam or Paganism or anything BUT what the standard American knows about Christianity based on our collective consciousness. "A belief in Gd makes no sense." Really? Because, to me, your LACK of belief or even a lack of openness to the idea that there's something out there bigger than you out there are makes no sense.
And to that I say simply....
... aliens. :P
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