Sir Darius the Clairvoyent

“ [in]… the Christian reformation of the Jewish concept of the Deity: the morally ambiguous Yahweh became an exclusively good God, while everything evil was united in the devil…. Thanks to the development of feeling-values, the splendor of the ‘light’ god has been enhanced beyond measure, but the darkness supposedly represented by the devil has localized itself in man. This strange development was precipitated chiefly by the fact that Christianity, terrified of Manichaean dualism, strove to preserve its monotheism by main force. But since the reality of darkness and evil could not be denied, there was no alternative but to make man responsible for it. Even the devil was largely, if not entirely abolished, … We think that the world of darkness has thus been abolished for good and all, and nobody realizes what a poisoning this is of man’s soul….[12]

“… Lucifer was perhaps the one who best understood the divine will struggling to create a world and who carried out that will most faithfully. For, by rebelling against God, he became the active principle of a creation which opposed to God a counter-will of its own. Because God willed this, we are told in Genesis 3 that he gave man the power to will otherwise. Had he not done so, he would have created nothing but a machine, and then the incarnation and the redemption would never have come about. Nor would there have been any revelation of the Trinity, because everything would have remained One for ever.” Jung (1942)[3]

Oh no, I Get the concept. Scapegoat. The term, IMO, have a very funny back story. Allthough I think ive heard somewhere that that might be an mistranslation, and the hebrew word was refering to some sort of… spirit?

Morning to you, If you live in Israel. Ill admit to being a little bit unfair. I do agree that historically, Islam and Christianity, have been way more intolerant (towards others) then judaism, and this is because they are proseletyshing and world religion. In the case of christianity, I dont think scripture justify this, but rather abuse of it. I dont see anything wrong with folk religion, like that of both yours and mine distant ancestors. In the case of Islam, Id better keep my mouth shut as I am to unklowedgeble. It cant be all bad, but my intuition is that it is lacking in theological depth, violent and intolerant. What I said in my last post, was not about tolerance, but rather wording. For me, it seems like the author was acknowledging the excistence of other deitites. So not monotheistic in this sense. To monotheists there is only one God, and to me it is only one as well. From what Ive discussed with others and listened to on the web (I like history and comperative religion), early, pre platonic judaism was not monotheist, but rather monoletary or something similar.

But I thought judaism was monotheist?

All good jokes contains some truth

Thats fine.

It is the basis of european Notion of herioism, really. You even find it in shrek haha

This is not scandinavian myth, it is indo european myth/mind set. Google the cattle raiding myth If interrested.

Exactly, the dragon slaying myth is a perfect example: slay the dragon (serpent/monster) and youre a hero who will be rewarded.

No

What you wrote was from a taoist perspective…

A YouTube channel (from seeker to seeker) i follow posted the following: --- ‘Eternity does not mean everlasting time; it means a point without time, timelessness… all of eternity can fully and completely fit into every moment of time. ‘And because eternity is timelessness, there is no conflict or tension between eternity and time—all of timeless eternity is fully present at every moment of time. That means that eternity is ever-present… ‘[Ludwig Wittgenstein says] “If we take eternity to mean, not everlasting temporal duration, but a point without time, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present.” ‘Exactly. And this means that eternal life is fully available to you, right now—in fact, it’s available to you at no other time except right now… ‘Falling into the timeless Now is what happens with an authentic Waking Up—which therefore does indeed include a discovery of eternal life—your eternal life… --- ‘[V]irtually all of the Paths of Liberation maintain that the Enlightened Mind is absolutely impossible to achieve or attain. The Christian mystics claim that in reality you don’t have to do a single thing to reach complete salvation—by the grace of God, you are already fully saved. Zen says that “everyday mind, just that is the Tao”—which means that the everyday state of consciousness that you have right now is indeed the Enlightened Mind, just as it is. The Prajnaparamita Sutras—the core of virtually all of Mahayana Buddhism—make one point over and over again: “If you could just realize that the Enlightened Mind is not attainable, you would be Enlightened.” ‘The Enlightened Mind is not attainable because you already have it, all of it. You can no more attain Enlightenment than you can attain your kidneys or acquire your feet… ‘You are already living fully in the present, in the timeless Now, but you probably don’t recognize this. Correlated to this lack of recognition of the timeless Now is the belief that time itself is real. --- ‘We seem not to live in the Present because we take the past and the future to be real, and thoughts about those realities keep us so absorbed and distracted that we miss the timeless Present and the Enlightened Mind. And according to the Paths of Liberation, the stream of time is no more than an illusion—it’s not really there—it’s just part of the “dream world” that we are supposed to awaken from, even though, in reality, we actually don’t have to do anything but recognize the ever-present, timeless, eternal Now that is always already the case… ‘This Now-moment doesn’t move through time; time moves through it… As Erwin Schrödinger, the cofounder of modern quantum mechanics, put it, “The present is the only thing that has no end.” … ‘Many of the Paths of Liberation therefore refer to the Enlightened Mind as “the Unborn”—it’s unborn because it never enters time; it is never born in the temporal stream. And this means that, in your direct awareness right now, your own Enlightened Mind is Unborn. You can never give birth to it because it is already fully present in its entirety and thus is indeed unattainable—just like the timeless Now. --- ‘But notice that the Paths of Liberation also call the Enlightened Mind “the Undying.” It never dies because, having never entered the stream of time (it’s Unborn), it never leaves the stream of time… ‘This means that you are not living in the narrow, passing present, which is brutally squished in between a huge past and a seemingly endless future. You are not crammed and wedged into a temporal sequence running from the past to the passing present to the future. ‘Rather, you are living in the limitless Spaciousness of an all-embracing timeless Now, through which all past, present, and future events arise within the vast openness of this boundless, borderless Presence. You are not in the entire past-present-future sequence, but it is within you. You embrace it all… ‘[V]irtually everybody who has a genuine Waking Up experience feels that they are directly and profoundly connected to an eternal, absolute, all-pervading, all-inclusive Reality, which is felt not only as a Waking Up to Reality but also as a “Coming Home,” since this is where they truly belong and always have belonged. ‘This Reality is a supreme Identity that is always already the case, timeless, ever-present, eternal… ‘Of course, while it is definitely true that you are perfectly one with the Ground of All Being just as you are, right now, you still need to recognize that fact… it takes a satori to see that you don’t need a satori. (Ken Wilber, Finding Radical Wholeness) Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. Eternity is now.

I dont understand. Eagles and lions and bears are majestic creatures. Serpents are the opposite. In the european mind at least.

Dirty and earthly metaphorically. Crawling along in the mud, in contrast to the noble eagle.

It is earthly, dirty and cold blooded, literally.

He didnt. It is just the mode he goes into when he dont know what to say. A certain type act like that.

It is. Is that not allowed? I just think ive given our Friend the benefit of the doubt a few to many times by now.

Maybe it was a compliment

You are being dishonest again Daniel, and objectively misrepresnting me. But yes, I preger terms as «messed up,» and «disgusting and disturbing,» to evil. Like this passage: Samuel 18:25-27 New International Version 25 Saul replied, “Say to David, ‘The king wants no other price for the bride than a hundred Philistine foreskins, to take revenge on his enemies.’” Saul’s plan was to have David fall by the hands of the Philistines. 26 When the attendants told David these things, he was pleased to become the king’s son-in-law. So before the allotted time elapsed, 27 David took his men with him and went out and killed two hundred Philistines and brought back their foreskins. They counted out the full number to the king so that David might become the king’s son-in-law. Then Saul gave him his daughter Michal in marriage. Disgusting and disturbing for sure. Evil? Not to you I assume, so not objectively so. Israels treatment of palestinians? I would say it is evil, but again, subjective

It is a follow up. And an important one. Open for interpertation, I think. One thing to keep in mind is that there wasnt a Christian cannon before, well, the Christian cannon was constructed. Curiously, the beggining seems to have a lot more diversity and myth, like «the god of this world,» and a higher God.

In regards to how we view… stuff? Extremly general I know, but I have atleast felt way when Ive encountered some spiritual term/concept in the beginning, all though i feel things have gotten a little clearer. Edit: on the other hand, we do see a lot similarties in early eurasian thought, in lack of a better word?

I am curious If satan, the adventsstund, has a Prometheus, Mitra, Lucifer theme going on? Rebelion? Also @Daniel, your interpertation of Job would both be interresting and serve as a start for discussion

Sooo zoroastrianism -> dualism -> God vs. devil? How do you account for the role of devas and asuras being flipped in zoroastrian and indic belief?

Sure maddie, but id like to hear Your thoughts, please.