posted February 13, 2009 01:07 PM            

OK.....
This puts quite a spin on the word "sheep" and "flock"
Also "kneeling" down.

posted May 13, 2009 08:48 PM            

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What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world is immortal"~

posted July 28, 2009 09:07 AM            

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What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world is immortal"~

posted August 14, 2009 04:15 AM            

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I don't know if this counts, but to me, the bible is weird. Some parts of it ring true and some are just utter nonsense.
As far as the big JC dying for our sins, well, I think it's all perspective related because what does that mean, "dying for another's sin'?

Yes, his death might have awakened a lot of people to some things, woke people up, as far as his message was concerned, but personally this is what I think of Jesus.

I love JC, by the way.

1) Jesus Christ was human, and if he was a God then so are we. Basically, he was as you and I are, just very into the Kundalini experience, like David Blaine but much, much better.

2) He was initiated into the arts by his predecessors , John, the Baptist, and the gang. I am still unsure of which particular order he belonged to.

3) There were many like him during his time who did not get the same type of fame, who levitated, healed people, and did "miracles" through mind-power, probably from the same school as his.

4) Was he crucified? Most probably. He gained too much power and fame and rubbed the wrong people around. His death was political. JC was notorious. he was probably in his time's "Most Wanted" list.

5) If JC is human, then his conception was just like any other, it is just that maybe, that entire thing about its miracle nature was just a metaphor for his rebirth as a Guru, which is common amongst such people, when the training is done, one usually changes their name, leaving their former identity behind, "dies' and gets born again. Or... his entire life was his training and when he supposedly died, this was when he left his life behind.

6) The bit about dying and returning in three days and then going to heaven, well... that could be part of the propaganda that insists that Jesus was deity and not human. He could have just disappeared for a while to meditate, get his strength back after the lashing he got on the cross. Also, there is a lot of symbology there, 3 days, three phases, body mind soul... so it is highly unlikely that he really died.

7) The Mary's are also metaphores for me, symbolising the Goddess, and I believe JC was married, not based on the Da Vinci code hype, but due to other things I have come across, and most likely had kids, but because we are supposed to think of him as other-worldly, that bit was scrapped from our knowledge.

8) JC belonged to a "cult" so to speak of very wise men, whose mission was to teach people of their inner power and godliness, and to lighten the load of humanity. A brotherhood/sisterhood (because I believe there were women too who were part of this order) who made it their mission to free people's minds.

9) This brotherhood had to use smokes and mirrors to achieve their goals because humans are so against believing that life as we know it is magical, and it is just easier for people to believe when you add theatrics into the mix. So, this order which JC belonged to just preached and they added a bit of entertainment into it to increase the curiosity about their message.

10) So, JC is like you and I, but unlike most of us, he was really learned in Hermetic lore and other such mysteries. He was able to unleash the potential that all of us possess, and due to this, I like the guy a lot because he is an inspiration of how far the human spirit can go, and that NOTHING is impossible.

If we were talking about aliens, I'd say that the scene depicted in Matthew/Luke about the conception of JC sounds like the accounts of many abductees, of artifiical insemination, but I won't go there. LOL.

That's me on JC. And the bible is a historical text gone very wrong with parts being edited, taken out and added, making it a tad less powerful than it was meant to be. it's like reading a novel with a chunk missing.

To me, the last book of the bible was written as a code for those in the know about what was being said, and it refers to that time, of Roman and Christian upheaval, and has nothing to do with "raptures" and such. It speaks of "end of days' but not of our days, but of that era back then. I might change my mind about this view as time goes on.

So, the bible is a mix of codes and letters to people, diaries and journals, advice on living, parables, actual events, and that's why I think it is so confusing. It has many genres mixed in one, fantasy, fiction, non-fiction, self-help, esoteric arts, romance, adventure, epics, mythology.

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i you for this unmoved i agree with every single last word. the bible is weriod its confusing and i would think it would be like a book and it starts one parable and then it will start another parable that is completly the opposite in relevence to the one you just read.

posted December 14, 2009 07:29 PM            

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What if the Bible's "prophets" were all astrologers...with some psychic, akashic ability thrown in

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I'll stick to my theories on his birth date.

In the Book of Luke when Jesus is asked "where wilt thou that we prepare?" concerning the Kingdom of the New Age of Jesus's return, Jesus says to follow a man "bearing a pitcher of water" into the house he enters. In Astrology, a man bearing a pitcher of water symbolizes the coming of the Age of Aquarius and is known as "the water bearer". In Astrology, the Age of Aquarius comes directly after the Age of Pisces.

Ages are believed by some to affect mankind. For Aquarius (also called "the Water bearer"), it is reported we have already been feeling influences - titled Orb of influence (the last ten degrees backwards of the Age of Pisces) - in the accelerated individual, social, cultural, scientific and technological development and globalization through the 20th century. This view is consistent with the popular notion of the New Age movement that regards current times as the "dawning of the Aquarian Age".

On the other hand, the Aquarian Age is thought to bring with it an era of universal brotherhood rooted in reason where it will be possible to solve social problems in a manner equitable to all and with greater opportunity for intellectual and spiritual improvement, since Aquarius is an airy, scientific, and intellectual sign and its ruler planet, Uranus, is associated with intuition (knowledge above reason) and direct perceptions of the heart; and on the mundane level it rules electricity and technology. It is generally described by astrologers that in the Age of Aquarius there will be a blending of religion and science to such a degree that a religious science and a scientific religion will be formed.

Eastern astrology associates the Age of Pisces with the yin; i.e., spirituality and intuition. Aquarius, on the other hand represents the yang, with its emphasis on rationality and high technology.

continued next post...

posted December 14, 2009 07:30 PM            

Bethlehem, Galilee is a city of the Zebulun, mentioned first in Joshua 19:15. It is located about ten kilometres west-north-west of Nazareth.

At first it was simply named "Beth Lehem", which confused it with the Bethlehem near Jerusalem, which is much better known today. To solve this problem some scripts refer to the two as "Beth Lehem of the Judea (tribe) territory" and "Beth Lehem of the Zebulun territory".

Herod Archelaus (23 BC–c. AD 18) was the ethnarch of Samaria, Judea, and Idumea from 4 BC to AD 6. He was the son of Herod the Great and Malthace, the brother of Herod Antipas, and the half-brother of Herod Philip.

Archelaus received the kingdom of Judea by the last will of his father, though a previous will had bequeathed it to his brother Antipas. He was proclaimed king by the army, but declined to assume the title until he had submitted his claims to Caesar Augustus in Rome. Before setting out, he quelled with the utmost cruelty a sedition of the Pharisees, slaying nearly three thousand of them. In Rome he was opposed by Antipas and by many of the Jews, who feared his cruelty; but in 4 BC Augustus allotted to him the greater part of the kingdom (Samaria, Judea, and Idumea) with the title of ethnarch.

He married Glaphyra, the widow of his brother Alexander, though his wife and her second husband, Juba, king of Mauretania, were alive. This violation of the Mosaic law and his continued cruelty roused the Jews, who complained to Augustus. Archelaus was deposed in the year 6 and banished to Vienne in Gaul; Judea became a Roman province.

In the Bible, Archelaus is mentioned in the story of the Flight into Egypt of the Gospel of Matthew, and the Parable of the talents in the Gospel of Luke probably refers to his journey to Rome. His slaughter of the 3000 may also have been the source for the narrative of the Massacre of the Innocents, confusing Archelaus with his father, Herod the Great.

Though many readers follow the author of Matthew in identifying a prophetic allusion from Jeremiah 31:15, others see this episode as expressly crafted for the purpose of recording apparently fulfilled prophecy. The Massacre of the Innocents is not mentioned in the other gospels nor in the early apocrypha, nor in any other historic record of the era, and most scholars see it as a fabrication based on artistic license. Noticably, Josephus, a major historian of the time, was vehemently anti-Herod in his writings, but this massacre, perhaps Herod's greatest crime, is not even hinted at in Josephus' writings.

Josephus does record Herod's execution of two of his sons by his wife Marianme because he believed they posed a threat. (The Jewish War (I.535–7) and Jewish Antiquities (16.121–7, 356). The episode was notorious and heavily displeased Herod's patrons in Rome, and it would be expected that a massacre of further children would have been even more notorious and even more upsetting to Rome, but Rome reports not a sound about the existence of such a massacre. The execution of the two sons, who Josephus describes as young men, has been represented by Robert Eisenman as the original that inspired the account in Matthew, since his two sons were the Jewish children that Herod thought had sought to replace him.

Herod's murder of his own sons certainly points to Herod having deep-seated suspicion and jealousy, and some apologists have used this to argue that Matthew's portrayal of a Massacre of Innocents is historically plausible. (Witherington 2001 p. 71). Josephus records several examples of Herod’s willingness to commit such acts to protect his power against perceived threats, but suggests that not all such acts were recorded, as he summarizes that Herod “never stopped avenging and punishing every day those who had chosen to be of the party of his enemies.” Antiquities 15.2. Nevertheless, Josephus is vehemently anti-Herod in his writings about the period, and would be expected to have mentioned something that could constitute a major attack on Herod's character, such as the killing of hundreds of very young children.

Some apologists have argued that due to the small region involved, the massacre would not have been a particularly large atrocity for the period in general and thus might have escaped mention by Josephus and others. However, Herod Archelaus, Herod the Great's son and successor in Judah, is recorded in several historic sources as massacring some 3000 (adult) rebels shortly after he came to power, a number similar to that expected for Herod, or only one order of magnitude less, so it is certain that the numbers involved in the massacre that Matthew claims existed would be close to being noticed. It is also possible that Matthew had confused Herod the Great with Herod Archelaus, and confused the adults for children.

The earliest extrabiblical reference to the Massacre of the Innocents is by Ambrosius Theodosius Macrobius, a Roman philosopher of the 4th century. The reference is found in Macrobius’ The Saturnalia:

When Augustus heard that Herod king of the Jews had ordered all the boys in Syria under the age of two years to be put to death and that the king's son was among those killed, he said, "I'd rather be Herod's pig than Herod’s son." -Macrobius, The Saturnalia, trans. Percival Davies (New York 1969), page 171.
It was probably a pun in Greek: hus being pig and huios meaning son. Unlike Matthew, Macrobius places the massacre in a Syrian province and combines it with the separate killing of one of Herod's sons. Palestine was considered a Syrian province during Roman occupation and could justify Macrobius' use of Syria. Because of Macrobius’ conflation of two different accounts and the fact that he shows no other signs of dependence on Matthew, New Testament scholar Paul Barnett has posited that Macrobius was relying on an independent source. (Barnett 1993 p. 103). However, given the popularity of Matthew among Christians, the spread of Christianity by that time, and the late date in which Macrobius wrote, Raymond E. Brown conclude that Macrobius' reference is derivative of the Matthean account, though not directly dependent on it.

The prophecy of Jeremiah
The massacre of the innocents is explained by Matthew as fulfilling a prophecy of an old testament prophet, which most ancient manuscripts of Matthew identify as Jeremiah, but the Old Syriac Sinaiticus manuscript has it being Isaiah. The quotation is clearly based on Jeremiah 31:15, so identifying the quote as from Isaiah is a clear error, though some scholars feel this error was in the original text of Matthew, as in this case preserved by the Old Syriac Sinaiticus, with the text being corrected by later copyists.

The text itself is not an exact copy of the Old Testament verse, and the passage has been taken completely out of its original context. In Jeremiah this verse is a metaphorical description of Rachel, the ancestress of the northern tribes, mourning when those tribes were taken into captivity by the Assyrians. The passage in Jeremiah was one of ultimate joy, ending by stating that God had saved the Israelites and the children would be unharmed, conflicting utterly with the destruction of Bethlehem's children in the massacre in Matthew. However in the Catholic and Orthodox churches, the slaughtered children were all proclaimed to be saints, known as the Holy Innocents, thus contriving an explanation of how the prophecy could possibly have the children as being saved.

It is true that Rachel's supposed tomb has long been associated with Bethlehem, providing a tenuous connection between the quotation and the massacre, but Jeremiah, in this quote, seems to be asserting that she was buried in Ramah, a town some five miles from Bethlehem, thus removing this tenuous connection. While Ramah could be translated as on high, Jeremiah is very clear that he is referring to a town by the name Ramah. Another difficulty with the quote is that Bethlehem is in Judah, and thus tradition held it to be descended from Leah not Rachel.

posted December 15, 2009 01:25 AM            

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Hi Lexx, where did you get the birthdate of Jesus from?

From a purely astrological and astronomical perspective the celestial signs match up to the Biblical dates to give September 3 BC as the date. With a new moon on the day of his birth and in keeping with the numerological influence of 9,3 and 6,September the 18th fulfils all of this criteria! But perhaps too specifically so.
If we add in the fixed stars of Regulus and Spica it reinforces the date further... BUT I'm not religious or dogmatic so open to your theory also.

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quote:

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Herod The Great died after a lunar eclipse according to the historian Josephus.
Josephus gave an account of events between this eclipse and HTG's death, and between his death and Passover.
A partial eclipse took place on March 13, 4 BC, about 29 days before Passover.

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Saturday March 16th. 4 BCE.
3:39 am.
Sun Pisces
Mercury Pisces
Uranus Pisces
Ascendant Aquarius
which fits the following quite well.

quote:

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when Jesus is asked "where wilt thou that we prepare?" concerning the Kingdom of the New Age of Jesus's return,
Jesus says to follow a man "bearing a pitcher of water" into the house he enters.
In Astrology, a man bearing a pitcher of water symbolizes the coming of the Age of Aquarius
and is known as "the water bearer".
In Astrology, the Age of Aquarius comes directly after the Age of Pisces.

Ages are believed by some to affect mankind. For Aquarius (also called "the Water Bearer"),
it is reported we have already been feeling influences - titled Orb of influence
(the last ten degrees backwards of the Age of Pisces) - in the accelerated individual, social, cultural, scientific
and technological development and globalization through the 20th century.
This view is consistent with the popular notion of the New Age movement that regards current times as the "dawning of the Aquarian Age".

---

quote:

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Herod Archelaus (23 BC – c. 18 AD) was the ethnarch of Samaria, Judea, and Edom from 4 BC to 6 AD.
He was the son of Herod the Great and Malthace, the brother of Herod Antipas, and the half-brother of Herod Philip I.

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quote:

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Archelaus was deemed incompetent by Augustus and replaced with a prefect in 6 AD, Antipas would govern Galilee and Perea for forty-two years.

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posted January 22, 2010 10:16 PM            

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/donald_morgan/atrocity.html

http://www.ebonmusings.org/atheism/atrocities.html