Maria Jose Cristerna, the Mexican Vampire Woman, visits Ripley’s Entertainment in Orlando to have a body cast made. She is nearly completely tattooed, has metal implants and fang teeth.
Christianity has been preaching Dual realities that of God and Satan .
This has resulted in ascribing certain attributes to Satan on par with God and an ongoing battle between the forces of Good and Evil.
Good is supposed to win with a good fight on its hands.
The dichotomy of ascribing Dual Realities is a logical fallacy as the interaction between the two has be triggered by the third thus ensuring the fallacy of ad infinitum.
That which is beyond the control of One Reality gets the status of another Reality.
This means that you are attributing the Status of Reality to Satan as well.
This confusion at the Religious level confuses the ordinary faithful and now this has resulted in the bizarre act of a woman ruining her life by calling herself as Devil’s wife.
Christians especially the Roman Catholics,in practising their religion seem to believe that they are above the law of the land.
In this they are no different from the Islamic Umma , who place their religion above their Nation.
The difference is that the Christians are subtle.
In proselytising the Christians are way ahead of Muslims and they are not noticed for they do it subtly by offering money and promises while Muslims are brash and rush in with high decibel perorations and the blandishing of swords.
One should watch the Public meetings of the Evangelists, the way they speak(why is it all of them have the same intonation in delivering English and have the same posture?) and the way they go about ‘driving away Ghosts’
Paying lip service to tolerance, Christians are the most intolerant as History of Christianity will divulge.
Christians seem to be neglecting the Message of Christ and I often state that Christ will be the last person to identify Christianity as the one he has founded if were to arrive again!
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Religious rules should end “at the door of the temple” and give way to the “public law” laid down by Parliament, the chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission said.
He argued that Roman Catholic adoption agencies and other faith groups providing public services must choose between their religion and obeying the law when their beliefs conflict with the will of the state.
Mr Phillips singled out the adoption agencies that fought a long legal battle to avoid being forced to accept homosexual couples under equality laws.
Last year, following a High Court case, the Charity Commission ruled against an exemption for Catholic Care, an adoption agency operating in Leeds.
Speaking at a debate in London on diverse societies, Mr Phillips backed the new laws, which led to the closure of all Catholic adoption agencies in England. “You can’t say because we decide we’re different then we need a different set of laws,” he said, in comments reported by The Tablet, the Catholic newspaper.
To me there’s nothing different in principle with a Catholic adoption agency, or indeed Methodist adoption agency, saying the rules in our community are different and therefore the law shouldn’t apply to us. Why not then say sharia can be applied to different parts of the country? It doesn’t work.”
He added that religious groups should be free to follow their own rules within their own settings but not outside. “Once you start to provide public services that have to be run under public rules, for example child protection, then it has to go with public law,” he said.
“Institutions have to make a decision whether they want to do that or they don’t want to do that.”
We need to remember the society in which Jesus lived.
Image via Wikipedia
He lived among the people of Jewish Faith -in fact Jesus and Joseph were Jewish with Romans ruling them.
The Disciples of Jesus were of Jewish extract.
One of them betrayed him as believed.
So when one has to refer to some one apart from his name, especially if you have to name a crowd, you tend to refer the ethnicity,tribe or the race they belong to.
How else could some one give a reference?
This is akin to the statement that” all Muslims are terrorists’ or ‘All Germans were Nazis’ which is non- sense.
Any society will have its Judas and crackpots and Megalomaniacs.
To name the race for the mistakes of an individual, is immature.
One must remember that The Bible was compiled nearly after 300 years after Jesus and that too in a conclave of the Cardinals assembled at the behest of Constantine to suit his political ambitions.
Let me leave it at that.
There is no point in talking about some thing which might have happened or had happened.
One must move on in Life.
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Perhaps the only thing more ridiculous than thinking “pope” Ratzinger could declare the Jews exonerated of the blood of Christ, would be accepting ex-Anglican now Roman Catholic traditionalist“bishop” Richard Williamson‘s announcement that the Jews are guilty of “deicide” – a made-up word that the Bible never uses – implying that Christ’s death as a man was the death of God, and therefore man killed God. (Catholics play similar word-games to blasphemously call Mary the “mother of God”).
Ignoring all that superstitious blather, the Bible believer can determine and declare the absolute truth on the matter from the real Final Authority – the Authorized Version of 1611. In that Book we read the following:
“After these things Jesus walked in Galilee: for he would not walk in Jewry, because the Jews sought to kill him.”John 7:1.
“I and my Father are one. Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him. Jesus answered them, Many good works have I shewed you from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me? The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God.” John 10:29-33.
Christ said the Jews would be to blame for killing him:
“31 Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets. 32 Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers. 33 Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? 34 Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city: 35 That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. 36 Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation. 37 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!” Matthew 23:31-37.
Those Jews that knew better consented by their silence:
“Nevertheless among the chief rulers also many believed on him; but because of the Pharisees they did not confess him, lest they should be put out of the synagogue: For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God.” John 12:42-43.
Not just leaders, but “all the people” demanded Christ’s death at the price of their own guilt:
“And the governor said, Why, what evil hath he done? But they cried out the more, saying, Let him be crucified. When Pilate saw that he could prevail nothing, but that rather a tumult was made, he took water, and washed his hands before the multitude, saying, I am innocent of the blood of this just person: see ye to it. Then answeredall the people, and said, His blood be on us, and on our children.” Matthew 27:33
“And from thenceforth Pilate sought to release him: but the Jews cried out, saying, If thou let this man go, thou art not Caesar’s friend: whosoever maketh himself a king speaketh against Caesar. … And it was the preparation of the passover, and about the sixth hour: and he saith unto the Jews, Behold your King! But they cried out, Away with him, away with him, crucify him. Pilate saith unto them, Shall I crucify your King? The chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar. Then delivered he him therefore unto them to be crucified. And they took Jesus, and led him away.” John 19:16.
When Peter testified to them of their guilt they plotted to kill him also:
During its 3,000-year written history, Aramaic has served variously as a language of administration of empires and as a language of divine worship. It was the day-to-day language ofIsrael in the Second Temple period (539 BCE – 70 CE), was the original language of large sections of the biblical books of Daniel and Ezra, was the language spoken by Jesus, and is the main language of the Talmud...
During the Neo-Assyrian and the Neo-Babylonian period, Aramaeans, the native speakers of Aramaic, began to settle in greater numbers in Upper Mesopotamia (modern-day northern Iraq, northeast Syria, northwest Iran, and south eastern Turkey). The influx eventually resulted in the Neo Assyrian Empire and Chaldean Dynasty of Babylonia becoming operationally bilingual in written sources, with Aramaic used alongside Akkadian. As these empires, and the Persian Empire that followed, extended their influence in the region, Aramaic gradually became the lingua franca of most of Western Asia and Egypt. From the late 7th century CE onwards, Aramaic was gradually replaced as the lingua franca of the Middle East by Arabic. However, Aramaic remains a spoken, literary and liturgical language among indigenousAssyrian Christians, Jews, Mandaeans and some Syriac/Aramean Christians, and is still spoken by small isolated communities throughout its original area of influence, predominantly in northwest Iraq, northeast Syria, southeast Turkey and northern Iran, with diaspora communities in Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan and southern Russia. The turbulence of the last two centuries (particularly the Assyrian Genocide) has seen speakers of first-language and literary Aramaic dispersed throughout the world. However, there are a number of sizeable Assyrian towns in northern Iraq such as Alqosh, Bakhdida, Bartella, Tel Esqof and Tel Keppe, where Aramaic is still the main spoken language…..
Aramaic languages and dialects
Traditionally, Aramaic is considered a single language. However, it could equally well be considered a group of closely related languages, rather than a single monolithic language—something which it has never been. Its long history, extensive literature, and use by different religious communities are all factors in the diversification of the language. Some Aramaic dialects are mutually intelligible, whereas others are not. Some Aramaic languages are known under different names; for example, Syriac is particularly used to describe the Eastern Aramaic of Christian ethnic communities in Iraq, southeastern Turkey northern Syria and northwest Iran. Most dialects can be described as either “Eastern”‘ or “Western”, the dividing line being roughly the Euphrates, or slightly west of it. A kind of high Aramaic Standard Aramaic survived till the 9th century. It is also helpful to draw a distinction between those Aramaic languages that are modern living languages (often calledNeo-Aramaic), those that are still in use as literary languages, and those that are extinct and are only of interest to scholars. Although there are some exceptions to this rule, this classification gives “Modern”, “Middle” and “Old” periods, alongside “Eastern” and “Western” areas, to distinguish between the various languages and dialects that are Aramaic.
True, there might have been Jesus.(even the name means ‘son of God, not Jesus’s original name).
One has to understand the social and political conditions at the time of Jesus.
People were revolting against Roman Empire and the society had become corrupt and was oppressive.
There was a crisis of values.
Jesus was a social thinker .
He was also a rebel against the Romans.
He preached human values.
Constantine, to buttress his hold on the Empire, embraced Christianity , called for a meeting of people to organize the information on Jesus( nearly three hundred years after Jesus’s death),had an Anthology compiled and called it The Bible; laid down Rules for the election of Popes through a Conclave of Cardinals.
He wanted to ensure his hold on the population.
Hence he organized the Office of the Pope for he knew that people can be controlled under faith and made the Papacy to do his bidding.
However, The Bible, whatever be the intentions, is one of the greatest pieces on Ethics .
It is not important who said, but what is said.
To research into Christianity is welcome and at the same time it should be ensured that the moral values of The Bible(excepting Religious Conversion) are not demeaned.
Please read my blogs filed under Christianity.
Crossan says Jesus was an exploited “peasant with an attitude” who didn’t perform many miracles, physically rise from the dead or die as punishment for humanity’s sins.
Jesus was extraordinary because of how he lived, not died, says Crossan, one of the world’s top scholars on the “historical Jesus,” a field in which academics use historical evidence to reconstruct Jesus in his first-century setting.
“I cannot imagine a more miraculous life than nonviolent resistance to violence,” Crossan says. “I cannot imagine a bigger miracle than a man standing in front of a tank in Tiananmen Square.”
…..Crossan believes the public should be exposed to even the most divisive debates that scholars have had about Jesus and the Bible. He co-founded the Jesus Seminar, a controversial group of scholars who hold public forums that cast doubt on the authenticity of many sayings and deeds attributed to Jesus.
John Dominic Crossan
…The 77-year-old Crossan has built on the seminar’s mission by writing a series of best-selling books on Jesus and the Apostle Paul. With his silver Prince Valiant haircut and his pronounced Irish accent, he’s also appeared on documentaries such as PBS’s “From Jesus to Christ: The First Christians” and A&E’s “Mysteries of the Bible.”
…
Crucifixion meant that imperial power had won,” Crossan says. “Resurrection meant that divine justice had won. God is on the side of the crucified one. Rome‘s’ values are a dead issue to me.”
How about the stories of Jesus’ miracles, like raising the dead or stilling the storm?
John Dominic Crossan wanted to be a missionary priest as an Irish schoolboy.
Most were parables, too, Crossan says. But there were some exceptions.
“I’m completely convinced that Jesus was a major healer,” he says. “I don’t think anybody would talk about Jesus if all he did was talk.”
People like to talk about Scripture, but Christians should also know history to understand Jesus, Crossan says.
In Jesus’ time, Rome was forcing many Jewish families into destitution, with high taxes and land seizures. Some Jews advocated violent rebellion, but others opted for non-violent resistance.
Jesus called for nonviolent resistance to Rome and just distribution of land and food. He was crucified because he threatened Roman stability — not as a sacrifice to God for humanity’s sins, Crossan says.
If you believe in a God that uses violence to “save” humanity, you’ll start believing that violence is permissible in certain circumstances, such as suicide bombing or invading other countries to spread democracy, Crossan says.
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