That was my opinion on the subject: 1) I looked up the word and 2) I told you I saw the movie Altered States.
So you don’t find the implications provocative? The questions it raises?
1) Doesn’t the fact that you can alter your consciousness by altering your biochemistry go a long way towards demonstrating that your consciousness is produced by biochemistry?
2) Don’t you find it interesting that by ingesting certain naturally occurring substances you can have profound life changing experiences virtually indistinguishable from traditional mystical religious experiences produced by prayer and meditation?
3) Don’t you find it interesting that some traditional cultures incorporate these substances into their own religious ritual rather than attempt censorship or prohibition?
Not interested? If so I’ll not bother you further.
I’m interested. I think you’re rather skimming over the subject of how it’s a two-way street, and different people can have different reactions to the same substances, depending on who they are, and what their state of mind is. People have known for thousands of years they can use certain substances to alter consciousness–and they have also learned how to direct those experiences. I guess techno-era humans mainly just free-form? Not a good idea. In many ways, we’ve gone backwards, not forwards.
My reaction to weed, if you care, is a slight asthma attack–and that’s it. As for opioids, I quickly decided, post-surgery, that the pain was preferable. And the rest is alcohol, accompanied by good music, good food, or good company–preferably all three.
You do get into a tizzy, don’t you, when people won’t play by the rules you set? Well, every forum has its resident diva.
Stephen said
That was my opinion on the subject: 1) I looked up the word and 2) I told you I saw the movie Altered States.So you don’t find the implications provocative? The questions it raises?
1) Doesn’t the fact that you can alter your consciousness by altering your biochemistry go a long way towards demonstrating that your consciousness is produced by biochemistry?
2) Don’t you find it interesting that by ingesting certain naturally occurring substances you can have profound life changing experiences virtually indistinguishable from traditional mystical religious experiences produced by prayer and meditation?
3) Don’t you find it interesting that some traditional cultures incorporate these substances into their own religious ritual rather than attempt censorship or prohibition?
Not interested? If so I’ll not bother you further.
Not interested.
godspell said
Stiffen:
I’m sure you believe you just made a point, but for the life of me, I don’t know what it is.
Are you a pathological liar?
The god in the Hebrew Bible said do not drink blood. The biblical Paul and the biblical Jesus disobeyed the instructions of the biblical god and they led others into disobedience.
Pretty sure the OT has nothing to say about metaphorical blood. I don’t think even metaphorical pork or shellfish would be considered traif.
It continues to amaze me that people who rail against literal interpretation of scripture by Christians do it all the time themselves.
godspell said
Pretty sure the OT has nothing to say about metaphorical blood. I don’t think even metaphorical pork or shellfish would be considered traif.It continues to amaze me that people who rail against literal interpretation of scripture by Christians do it all the time themselves.
Jesus
I tell you the truth [no metaphor: if you think it is a metaphor, no longer follow me], unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.
Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life and I will raise him up at the last day.
…From this time, many of my disciples turned back and no longer followed me.
The Gospel According to John 6: 53-54, 66
Steefen
You want to speak metaphor? Let’s speak metaphor and the effect is still the same: if one is a cannibal [cannibal Mary], all are a cannibal. And if you are going to do this in remembrance of the son of Mary and the son of God, if you are going to make a religion of it, commune with the Tribulation that no resurrection in the 30s CE prevented.
This is Jesus’ body because of the suffering our enemy inflicted on us during the siege of all our cities in the Promised Land (Deut. 28: 53, 55).
This is Jesus’s body because of the stress of the siege imposed on us by the enemies who sought our lives (Jer. 19: 9).
This IS Jesus’ body because we were defeated and destroyed (Lam. 4: 10).
This IS Jesus’ body because of the Great Tribulation at Galilee (the battle of Jesus against Vespasian and Titus) and at Jerusalem (the civil war there and the Romans putting down the rebellion).
This IS Jesus’ body because Mary ate the body of her son [and like a priest offered the other half as communion with
– the siege of her cities
– the stress of the siege on her cities
– enemies who sought the lives of those in the cities
– the leaders of the civil war who laid siege to the food supply causing starvation
– those who were defeated and destroyed
– the Great Tribulation at the Battle of Galilee and the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple
– a mother who cannibalized her son
This is Jesus’ blood because
– the messiah of Temple Judaism was defeated
– the religion of Temple Judaism was destroyed
– the sacrifices to the God of Moses at the Temple in the Promised Land had stopped being offered
– the God of Israel will set His face against that person who eats blood and will cut him off from His people (Lev. 17: 10)
– Jesus no longer wanted God’s face to look upon the survivors of the Great Tribulation at the Battle of Galilee, the destruction of Jerusalem and its Temple, and contemporaries of a Mother who sacrificed her son via cannibalism and offered the other half to others like a Communion priest
– the vineyard, the Promised Land, was given to the Romans
Do this in remembrance of me because we lost the Promised Land to Rome, we lost God’s face, we lost Temple, we lost religion. Do this in remembrance of the son of Mary, byword to the world.
Do this in remembrance of the victor who put under siege all our cities, sought our lives, and defeated us.
In Catholicism, of course, one is supposed to believe the host, when blessed, becomes the body of Christ, and the wine his blood.
I see no evidence in the gospels that Jesus believed this. He is the sacrifice, yes. Not metaphorical. He is giving his life for the salvation of those who are able to attain the Kingdom. But nobody is going to eat his body, except maybe scavengers. Nobody is going to drink his blood. It is a metaphor, which is to say, a mode of expression. He is not actually a wool-bearing farm animal, neither is he a professional shepherd of such animals. He does not actually believe the Kingdom of God is a thief in the night.
The Jesus in the gospels does speak figuratively, metaphorically. That is a fact. Therefore, your argument is invalid.
godspell said
Jesus is the sacrifice, yes. Not metaphorical. He is giving his life.
But I said, let’s speak metaphor.
This is precisely why you are often ignored by me.
The biblical god said, do not eat blood because when that is done, I will turn my face away from you and separate you from my people. Furthermore, when that is done it indicates defeat.
For Paul and Jesus to speak literally and metaphorically about eating the body of the biblical Jesus and drinking the blood of the biblical Jesus is STILL disobedience towards the injunction of god.
What? It’s not disobedience/insubordination?
Furthermore, the biblical Jesus is not a sacrifice to have his blood drunk or his body eaten, replacing the consumption of sacrificed animals.
From AD 33 to AD 50, did the disciples, including James, brother of the Lord, stop celebrating Yom Kippur and Passover?
The biblical God told Abraham to sacrifice his son on an altar. And it’s widely agreed that this story is meant to signify the transition from human sacrifice (practiced in many cultures) to animal sacrifice. But Jesus is saying animal sacrifice isn’t enough–you have to be willing to give of yourself. This isn’t about dietary codes (and you already know Jesus to some extent was skeptical of those, saying that it’s what comes out of a man that defiles him). This is about being willing to sacrifice everything you have to get what you truly desire. The Pearl of Great Price.
It’s all about interpretation. You assume there can only be one correct interpretation. This is a silly thing to assume. You are talking like a fundamentalist. I wasn’t raised that way. Were you?
godspell said
The biblical God told Abraham to sacrifice his son on an altar. And it’s widely agreed that this story is meant to signify the transition from human sacrifice (practiced in many cultures) to animal sacrifice.But Jesus is saying animal sacrifice isn’t enough–you have to be willing to give of yourself.
This is about being willing to sacrifice everything you have to get what you truly desire. The Pearl of Great Price.
It’s all about interpretation. You assume there can only be one correct interpretation. This is a silly thing to assume. You are talking like a fundamentalist. I wasn’t raised that way. Were you?
The biblical god said, do not eat blood because when that is done, I will turn my face away from you and separate you from my people. Furthermore, when that is done it indicates defeat.
For Paul and Jesus to speak literally and metaphorically about eating the body of the biblical Jesus and drinking the blood of the biblical Jesus is STILL disobedient towards the injunction of god.
What? It’s not disobedience/insubordination?
Not only is it a one time sin of disobedience/insubordination, it is a repeating schedule: do this in remembrance of me annually or even once a month (have Communion), if not at every mass.
You disobeyed me and set a repeating schedule of disobedience, leading others into sin in perpetuity.
Let’s talk metaphor. We say no one is actually eating humans or Jesus, therefore it cannot possibly be literal, it can only be metaphorical.
= = =
The Compact Oxford English Dictionary defines ‘metaphor’ as:
1 a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to something to which it is not literally applicable (e.g. food for thought).
= = =
So what is the meaning of the metaphor? The meaning are in the supplied verses found in the Hebrew Bible, not in going from human sacrifice to animal sacrifice back to human sacrifice. An argument can be made that one is going from human sacrifice to animal sacrifice to human sacrifice with a dying and resurrecting god as with Osiris/Serapis and other non-Judeo gods.
= = =
David got away with his sins / survived his sins to die with a young beautiful woman straddling him.
Jesus got away with disobedience/insubordination on a repeated schedule in perpetuity. So, if we want to really talk about burning in hell forever, in perpetuity, that punishment fits for sins of disobedience not of just one individual but leading a world of others to follow this forever schedule. Do this in remembrance of me in perpetuity which the scripture says will get the god of the Hebrews to turn away his face and separate one from his people in perpetuity.
= = =
You’re just labeling my finding a fundamentalist interpretation just so there can be rejection of fundamentalism. The finding is accurate especially since Jesus said not one letter of the law will disappear until all is accomplished (Matthew 5:18).
The Biblical God says many things which contradict each other. And Jesus frequently says things that go against God’s word in the OT, which would tend to argue that he doesn’t think all scripture is inerrant (or that God has given him updated directives).
** you do not have permission to see this link **
Jesus was most decidedly not a fundamentalist.
godspell said
The Biblical God says many things which contradict each other. And Jesus frequently says things that go against God’s word in the OT, which would tend to argue that he doesn’t think all scripture is inerrant (or that God has given him updated directives).** you do not have permission to see this link **
None of that rise to the level and significance of a * Savior * insisting on being defeated by enemies and insisting on the face of his god be turned away from believers and insisting that believers be separated not only from god but from god’s people.
Steefen
None of that rises to the level and significance of a * Savior * insisting that he has been defeated by a pro-Roman Jewish intelligentsia ad establishment.
None of that rises to the level and significance of a * Savior * insisting that the face of his god be turned away from believers and that the people disperse, be separated from themselves.
Godspell
Well, he wasn’t really defeated, was he now?
Steefen
Yes, the Savior was really defeated. The Romans won the First, Second, and Third Jewish-Roman Wars.
Godspell
Not if his enemies were all worshiping him a few centuries later.
Steefen
No one was worshipping the militant Jesus of Galilee who was defeated at the Battle of Galilee.
The Jesus of the Gospels was propaganda. Romans making worship out of Roman propaganda or Jewish pro-Roman propaganda is not a victory for the original militant, rebellious Temple Judaism Jews.
= = =
The Jewish Revolt was absurd. The Jewish Revolt is the absurd, Rome putting down the Jewish Revolt added to the plague of messianic militarianism that was the Jewish Revolt.
Philosophical suicide is escaping the absurd by way of believing in / appealing to God or an afterlife, a world beyond this one–that is more important than this life. Take this life seriously. Defending the cruelty of this moment for a future utopia is philosophical suicide also.
David was a man, born of a man and a woman. He was not perfect. Adam was the only perfect man created who became imperfect.
Jesus Christ was God. But he was incarnate man, born of God and a woman. He was the only perfect man ever born.
I don’t have to state the differences because it is obvious.
God is not partial and King David did not get away with anything he pleased. His son ended up hanging from a tree and another died at birth. Of course we could not see his pain but it could have been an albatross around his neck.
About Jesus, I cannot put him in an academic setting and compare him to anyone as he did nothing comparable to any man. Of course he had the curse of man’s sins weighing him down but it did not cause him to react as normal men react. That is the reason why he is called God and why he is God.
pablo said
David was a man, born of a man and a woman. He was not perfect. Adam was the only perfect man created who became imperfect.Jesus Christ was God. But he was incarnate man, born of God and a woman. He was the only perfect man ever born.
I don’t have to state the differences because it is obvious.
God is not partial and King David did not get away with anything he pleased. His son ended up hanging from a tree and another died at birth. Of course we could not see his pain but it could have been an albatross around his neck.
About Jesus, I cannot put him in an academic setting and compare him to anyone as he did nothing comparable to any man. Of course he had the curse of man’s sins weighing him down but it did not cause him to react as normal men react. That is the reason why he is called God and why he is God.
A composite character of historical fiction is God.
I disagree.
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