Who has more control of our thinking; God or Satan?

You are correct as to what Christianity ended like.

I do not think that would have happened if Christianity had not started to take their myths literally.

I see the bible as being written as a consolidation of many of the older and wiser religions and their wisdom sayings as talking and arguing points only, for the purpose of seeking God. God as defined the way Gnostic Christians still do. As the best rules and laws to live by. Literal reading of myths killed that good motivation.

I hope you can see how intelligent the ancients were as compared to the mental trash that modern preachers and theists are using with the literal reading of myths.

What is God?

Further.
Bill Moyers Journal . Watch & Listen | PBS

Rabbi Hillel, the older contemporary of Jesus, said that when asked to sum up the whole of Jewish teaching, while he stood on one leg, said, "The Golden Rule. That which is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. That is the Torah. And everything else is only commentary. Now, go and study it."

Please listen as to what is said about the literal reading of myths.

"Origen, the great second or third century Greek commentator on the Bible said that it is absolutely impossible to take these texts literally. You simply cannot do so. And he said, "God has put these sort of conundrums and paradoxes in so that we are forced to seek a deeper meaning."

Matt 7;12 So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.

This is how early Gnostic Christians view the transition from reading myths properly to destructive literal reading and idol worship.



Regards
DL

 

Evasion.

 

You want to, yes.
You do not want to see your error and uncouth practice of criticizing in a vague way while not having anything specific to show.

Regards
DL

 

That's just more of your evasion.

 

Obtuse.

Regards
DL

 

a committie of fursonalities, residing in a redundant computer network at the galactic hub, which is a planet sized constructed artifact of considerably greater antiquity then any human belief, humanity itself, or even earth's solar system. galactic hub is its name, its actual location is outside of any galaxy, let alone solar system.

 

You talk about facts, but little you say is factual. Any scholar familiar with the deities you talk about knows that what you say about them is nonsense. Satan is Zoroaster? Zoroaster was not a god at all, but a man, a Vedic priest and great prophet who worshiped Ahura Mazda and opposed the dark forces of Angra Mainyu and the devas. In fact, ha-Satan makes his debut in scripture during the Persian protectorate period, and was probably based on Ahriman.. As for the pagan deities you mention, what did they have to do with Satan? Ptah was the Egyptian god of creation, fertility, and arts and crafts. A better candidate for head demon would be Seth, the god of chaos and destruction. What evidence can you provide that the Sumerian deity Enki and the Greek deity Dionysus were "basically the same supreme god in more pagan religions?" They were not thought of as the supreme god even in their own polytheistic religions, and had little else in common. As for Krishna, he can be regarded as the eighth atavar of Vishnu, an emanation of the supreme god Brahman; but there was nothing "satanic" about his character. You provide no scholarship to back up you assertion, only a website that could be put together by any addled mental patient.

 

I don't think "literalism" has ever been the issue between orthodox Christians and Gnostics. That was an issue between Catholics and Protestants. The issue between Catholics and Gnostics was authority/hierarchy--i.e., who has the last word in saying what scriptures mean. The Catholic church has never maintained that the bible needs to be read literally. As Saint Augustine famously said "when I understood literally, I was slain spiritually". .Pars 115-118 of The Catechism of the Catholic Church says: “According to an ancient tradition, one can distinguish between two senses of Scripture: the literal and the spiritual, the latter being subdivided into the allegorical, moral and anagogical senses.” Pope Benedict VI, himself a biblical scholar and former head of the Sacred Congregation of the Faith (formerly, the Inquisition) in Verbum Domini (“The Word of the Lord”) “criticized ‘fundamentalist’ or ‘literalist’ interpretations and urged renewed appreciation for the symbolic and spiritual interpretation techniques used by the ancient fathers of the church”."Revelation" he observed, must be considered in "the cultural and moral level of distant times..." The position of the Catholic hierarchy is, as it was even before Constantine, that the Church is guided by the Holy Spirit and that it is up to the Church to decide what is to be taken literally or figuratively. That's where the mainstream bishops like Saint Irenaeus differed from the Gnostics, who were into independent personal revelations.

The notion that pagans and Gnostics understood their religions figuratively and didn't actually believe their gods were real supernatural beings who influenced life events is fantasy. Sure there were myths which most of the educated elite understood to be metaphors and allegories, but belief in gods who could reward and punish people was very real and potent. That's why the Christians were regarded as "atheists" and subversives for refusing to sacrifice to the gods and the genius of the Emperor. People feared they'd bring the wrath of the gods down on the whole community if something wasn't done about them. It is simplistic and fictional to reduce ancient or modern religious beliefs to "the best rules and laws to live by.."

YouTube offerings by Timothy Freke keep coming up in your posts as though he's some authority on something and we should take his words seriously. Atheist scholar Richard Carrier, agnostic Bart Ehrman, and Christian NT Wright would have difficulty agreeing on the time of day, but they all do agree that Freke is not a serious scholar. Carrier is afraid that exposure to the ideas of Freke and his co-author Peter Gandy could "disease" a readers' mind "with rampant unsourced falsehoods and completely miseducate.". Ehrman says: "this is not serious shcolarship. It is sensationalistic writing driven by a desire to sell books." Wright said that to ask him to debate Freke and Gandy was "like asking a professional astronomer to debate with the authors of a book claiming the moon was made of green cheese." The video is somewhat odd, consisting, it seems, of a number of snippets spliced together. And the background makes it look like Freke is in a padded cell. Anyhow, Freke and Gandy's contention that Jesus was simply the reiteration of some "Osiris/Dionysus" fertility myth echoes the 1890s dying rising god" thesis of the late Sir James Frazer currently out of favor by religious historians and anthropologists. Freke and Gandy ignore the Jewish context for Jesus and stretch the pagan myths to make them fit their thesis, complete with the crucified Orpheus/Bacchus amulet on the cover of their book. (The amulet.is authentic enough, but dates to the third century c.e., when Christianity was well-established and thus could be pagans copying Christians instead of vice versa.) We can give Freke's thesis the Scotch verdict: "Not proven."

 

You speak about scholars? Since the entire ancient history was modified to fit the Christian model of the world, why I would pay attention to someone who is really believing that pseudo-history? Satan has his origins in the Sanskrit language, but was knows under different names in the ancient world, so the other Gods also. Is no point to waste the time with someone who believe in a so called history which was invented to fit the lies of the Christianity and of the bible. Also is no point to show someone like you how these names are related to each other by etymology and symbols. I will cite only this.
This excerpt quote from the Catholic Encyclopedia is very revealing:
In the same way the Greeks and Romans may have worshipped their divinities, fondly believing them to be good. But the Christian Scriptures declare that all the gods of the Gentiles are demons.
Demons, the Gods of Hell

Anyway. Most knowledge of the ancient world was destroyed by Christianity and islam. If you want to believe the bible then go for it.

 

You've created an alternative universe for yourself and dismiss the work of serious scholars as fake news. Live in your own world, but don't be surprised if we pay no attention to you.

 

And more evasion.

Clearly you think it's ok to accuse someone of lying and then refuse to say where and when they allegedly lied.

How can you hope to be taken seriously?

 

Spaceship Earth has no Captain.

Regards
DL

 

Yes they have by positing a real and historical Jesus.

If Jesus is not read as a literal character, then Christianity dies.

You cannot take a supernatural salvific character out of a salvation based religion without killing the religion.

Regards
DL

 

I see that you do not like reciprocity. Thank me later for the valuable lesson.

Regards
DL

 

Given ones ability to think, as commonly understood, one then has control of ones own thinking, unless ceded to the ideas/thinking of others. Of course learning/thinking is not done in a vacuum and that is where discernment becomes of import.

 

True.

Theists cannot think that way as they have ceded their free thinking with idol worship of a named supernatural and fictional god. They are not wise.

Regards
DL

 

Well, obviously the fact that there IS creation, bespeaks of SOMETHING that created. However, given the observable, continued and UNINTERRUPTED actions of homo sapiens --it's been difficult for me to see the value of many/most of the common beliefs of said H. Sapiens. Where might the amelioration be?

 

Where all innovation comes from. The minds of people.

We continue to create all of our gods. Political as well as religion and imaginary ones. One of them will eventually rise to the top and the world will give that god control. I look forward to that day.

Spaceship Earth needs a Captain.

Regards
DL

 

Hopefully a benign one that makes empathy and concern and compassion for all sentience a number 1 priority. No one should be starving, no one should be without life saving medicine, no one should be homeless no one should be without life giving sustenance and no one should be at war. The earth is not being organized correctly and the blame falls directly on the aforementioned H. Sapiens.

 

We get what we elect and we are recognizing intelligence better.

You gotta have ----



Regards
DL