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6 Oct 2015 @ 03:38, by erlefrayne. Religion
The plot of New Age thickens by the year in real life, as a fruition of Lucifer’s own dream of seeing it replace Great Religions. So this messenger, teacher & volunteer in Mahatma El Morya’s Ashram, Initiate of a certain degree, will continue on the subject, with focus on the agendum of New Age in lieu of Great Religions. More >
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 11 Dec 2008 @ 21:17, by Unknown. Religion
Marsrising, a member of AboveTopSecret.com, claims that 2012 has already happened:
"STOP. THINK. The governments of the world knew 2012 was going to happen. To con everyone they have changed the calendar. So all of you waiting for the world to end or to get saved are wasting your time."
Well, Marsrising, thank you very much on behalf on the rest of us, "conned" little tushies out there, on our way to celebrate the coming new year. Seriously now, how is one even expected to know what year it is anymore, let alone what time it is?
But, thankfully, and reassuringly so (?) before that, there is always Xmas! And, so, Merry Christmas you all! Santa and Satan's Government both want to know (or are they one and the same?): have you been naughty or nice?
What would zz top say?
I been bad, I been good,.......
I aint askin for much....... More >
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27 Aug 2008 @ 08:32, by johnjoseph. Religion
Theology of the Other
It is my basic belief that the fundamental contradiction of the human condition, our basic duality, is that we are all both human and divine. We are all human but we also partake of the nature of the divine godhead. This has been known to mystics for millennia and perhaps before that to the people who shared the Perennial Philosophy as part of their indigenous culture.
It is also my belief that it is the denial of this fact that leads to the problems people have with “the Other”. It is not just minority groups or Nature itself that represent our problem with “the Other” but essentially our denial that we are divine. It is indeed ironic that traditional “civilised” accounts of the “Fall” of man and woman portray it as a result of the “hubris” of wanting to be like God. Our “hubris” consists rather in thinking we are greater than God in our isolated individuality, cut off from ourselves, each other, Nature and the Source itself. Putting our faith in this isolated individuality, and all hopes of global salvation based on it are the two main fallacies that have to be tackled by humankind. The reality is exactly the reverse. It is the Self-conscious level of awareness which cuts us off from this knowledge of the real duality of our nature. We don’t have to become like God, we have always shared in being so, and the “Fall from Grace” is a forgetting of this basic truth. Original Sin is not thinking we are Gods, but that we are greater than God/dess on account of our isolated, alienated individuality. Our extreme individuality, narcissism, is an expression of this. All the problems which are besetting the world today from racism, war, homophobia, sexism, hatred of disabled people, all sorts of scapegoating of others, and particularly climate change all stem from this crisis of identity. Everything in the world is teaching us the same lesson concerning “the Other”. God is the real Other, and our denial of all “the Others”, within us and society, is the same thing on a different scale. More >
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27 Feb 2008 @ 09:48, by erlefrayne. Religion
[Writ. 19 Nov. 2007, Manila. Please see: http://erleargonza.blogspot.com]
A devout Catholic man hurried into the cathedral in his city one day to confess to his parish priest. He felt the irresistible urge to confess and be expiated of any guilt about what he saw in the parish convent one day, and so he had to let the priest be informed right away. Let’s listen to the dialogue:
Devotee: “Bless me Father for I have sinned.”
Priest: “Go ahead Son, tell me what’s bothering you.” The devotee was as white as ash, noted the priest.
Devotee: “Father, forgive me please, but for couples of occasions now, I’ve been peeping in the convent. I’ve been seeing you and your girlfriend having sex.”
Priest: “Oh My God! What things are you talking about?” The priest now turned furious.
Devotee: “I know you’ll feel outraged Father, that’s why I am confessing this sin to you. To be exact Father, your girlfriend is Sister Ngefati, the one from the Order….”
Priest: “Alright, you’ve really been committing this sin, really grave sin! Cut it!”
Devotee: “I’m really sorry Father. What will I do?”
Priest: “To expiate yourself, you must pray 1000 Our Fathers and 5000 Hail Mary’s right now!”… Whew, what a sinful Peeping Tom!... More >
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 25 Jun 2007 @ 11:12, by jazzolog. Religion
O to be delivered
from the rational
into the realm of
pure song...
---Theodore Roethke
Remember these teachings, remember the clear light, the pure bright shining white light of your own nature. It is deathless.
---The Tibetan Book Of The Dead
The healthy person doesn't torture others. Generally, it's the tortured who turn into torturers.
---C.G. Jung
The Torture Of St. Victor was created by an unknown painter in 1490.
I've never been comfortable with the notion of the United States as a Christian nation. Even as a child, I wondered what trusting in God was doing printed on all our money. Was it supposed to be a reminder not to get too involved in the things of this earth? If so, I'm not sure that strategy has worked.
I knew no Pagans, Muslims, Buddhists or Hindus in the 1940s, but Jews were among our neighbors and family friends. A classroom assignment in the second grade in which we were supposed to write a paragraph about our family's Christmas celebration and then read it aloud reduced a Jewish friend to tears when it was his turn. He read, "In my family we have no Christmas. We have no Christmas tree. There is no Santa Claus or presents." And he put his head down on his desk and cried. That's a long time for me to remember that essay. Obviously it changed me forever.
In the 1950s during the "Red Scare" and McCarthy's era, I remember distinctly when "under God" was added to the Pledge of Allegiance. We said the pledge in school everyday, and at first nobody could get it right. The teachers finally said we didn't have to say the new thing if we didn't want to, but just be silent during the time others might say it. I still don't say it.
So it's been quite a stretch for someone as old as me and so often described as a kid who always was thinking about things to get my head around the policies my government has evolved the last quarter century. Bush described his foreign policy at first as a Crusade. He quickly was shut up, not so much because it didn't describe the spiritual nature of Globalization, as his family saw it, but because the term obviously brought back some memories for followers of Islam...and after all, some of those guys are clients.
When the first photographs from Abu Ghraib came out, I thought sure the White House game was up...and I said so. I remembered a couple of photos from Viet Nam that lost us that war, or whatever it was. But the years and months and deaths have dragged on since then. Aren't Americans affected anymore? And what of the Republican "Christian base?" How do they theologize treatment of "detainees?" Do they think about it? Do they pray for them? Do they forgive? Do they love?
As I've written before, we have a new priest at The Church of the Good Shepherd. Bill Carroll and his family have been with us a year now, and so I'm glad to let him know he's not "new" to me anymore but instead a wonderful leader and accepted easily as my personal priest. His wife Tracey is a priest too, although understandably she ministers as Mother more to their 2 children than to us right now.
Both share strong academic backgrounds and Bill clearly is a biblical scholar and Anglican historian. Sometimes his sermons reflect a prior career of lecturing to theology students...which is fine with me. Perhaps there's some of that in the message he delivered yesterday. He used as his text a line from Psalm 63, which we had chanted earlier in the service, and spent most of the sermon differentiating between an idol and an ikon. That's an important distinction to make in one's worship, in whatever religion, but why am I writing to you about it this morning?
It's because at the end, he suddenly made a connection between idolatry and the frame of mind it must take to torture someone that I find stunning. And of course it's because Christians worship Christ who was tortured to death. More >
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 22 May 2007 @ 10:08, by jazzolog. Religion
Do not attempt to become Buddha.
---Dogen
Resolve to be thyself; and know that he who finds himself loses his misery.
---Matthew Arnold
The more deeply we are our true selves, the less self is in us.
---Meister Eckhart
Photo of Nigerian Anglican Gay activist Davis Mac-Iyalla in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, during the Anglican Primates' Meeting February 17, 2007. He was there to confront Peter Akinola, the Anglican Primate of All Nigeria, who has pressed for the world's most sweeping anti-Gay law. (The Rev. Scott Gunn)
The simple answer to the question is he has made his first visit to the United States from Togo, where he is in exile, to tell his story. It is the story of a young man born in the south of Nigeria (an important geographic distinction following civil war there some 40 years ago) who happened to get asked to run a church school and accepted. He did so with some fear because at age 14, he realized his sexual desires were for other males. In Nigeria you could go to jail if you acted on such impulses. His work at the school was so successful that it came to the attention of the Anglican bishop of the area at the time, who invited him into his administration. In 2003 Bishop Ugede died suddenly of tuberculosis. The new administration, appointed by Archbishop Peter Akinola, fired Davis and removed any priests who supported him. Within 2 years, Davis had become the center of a growing movement of gays and lesbians in Nigeria demanding rights for their way of life. Archbishop Akinola responded with support for legislation, currently pending, that will make it a crime for any citizen to associate in any way with someone identified as homosexual. The term of imprisonment will be 5 years.
That story is the simple answer. At the same time, the American branch of the Anglican Church, known as the Episcopal, consecrated a bishop in New Hampshire who is openly gay and has a partner. Within hours, Peter Akinola in Nigeria declared the overwhelming majority of archbishops and primates in the area known as the Global South would not recognize Gene Robinson as a bishop. He said the church now was in a "state of impaired communion" and declared he refused ever to be in the same room with a homosexual person. Conservative Episcopal churches in the United States have moved to support Akinola financially and even explore ways to join his diocese in Nigeria. It is possible the entire Anglican church, numbering millions of members worldwide, will divide over this issue. The Archbishop of Canterbury will make his first visit to the States since all this blew open at the end of the summer...around the time Davis will conclude his tour in California. Can this one man have any impact on the situation? More >
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9 Aug 2006 @ 15:56, by andrasnm. Religion
This paper isn’t merely about history or religion alone. Much of the information discussed in this paper as historical fact cannot be proven or refuted. Philosophers and Religious Historians have argued about these same issues since Jesus’ time. Beginning with the publication of Dan Brown’s novel The Da Vinci Code, interested parties have formed two opposing camps of opinion. One camp says that Brown’s novel jut might have some historical basis or at least may be plausible. The other camp says it is impossible that Jesus could have had a wife and a child, let alone have chosen Mary Magdalene for that purpose.
Individuals who do not subscribe to either camp wonder what this dichotomy is all about. What difference does this debate matter? Would the true message and teachings of Jesus be any less meaningful if he actually had been the father of a little girl? The author of this paper belongs to this third, neutral camp. It really does not matter if Jesus was a father or a lifelong bachelor.
What matters to religious thought is whether or not we understand and follow Jesus’ message today or have we given up on the message for so long we can talk about the messenger? Which is more important to the public? This author generally does not subscribe to preaching or teaching any philosophy or creed unless he is approached and asked to do so. Most of the subjects in this paper are esoteric and near the occult. They are only stated because the author thinks the whole controversy of the Da Vinci is in danger of being hijacked by some political motive.
This author’s spiritual philosophy is older than the tenets of either Christianity or Judaism. Many of the sources of these ideas and knowledge were lost at the time of the first destruction of the Library of Alexandria. This knowledge was taught by the ancients in the mystery schools and was often handed down through generations to maintain the secrecy and avoid corrupting the Truth. Naturally, during the long period of the Dark Ages, any non-conforming ideas were considered heresy and were punishable by burning.
This author would like to ask the reader to research and question everything in this paper, but to read with an open mind. He asks that nothing be taken at face value. Question what you read here and accept it if it makes perfect sense, but only after serious contemplation.
This author does not wish to belittle, or any way hinder the importance of The Da Vinci Code. Rightfully, that book has proven to be one of the most important literary works of the decade. The Da Vinci Code raises religious consciousness and encourages people to think, to ask questions and to seek answers. There is nothing more any serious author could wish to accomplish via his work. More >
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 4 Aug 2006 @ 22:56, by bkodish. Religion
First millennium manuscript, stuck open to Psalm 83, found in Irish mud. All the other pages were stuck shut.
Odd.
Check the story at CNN.com Medieval Book of Psalms Unearthed
Update: Apparently, the book was actually stuck open on Psalm 84, numbered 83 in the Latin version. Some people feel relieved More >
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 3 Aug 2006 @ 11:06, by jazzolog. Religion
In my hut this summer,
there is nothing---
there is everything!
---Sodo
Know that joy is rarer, more difficult and more beautiful than sadness. Once you make this all-important discovery, you must embrace joy as a moral obligation.
---Andre Gide
Don't play what's there, play what's not there.
---Miles Davis
Still Life with Fruit and Shellfish (and insects), 1653
Jan van Kessel
My mother was a country girl, born and raised on a working farm in the dairy country around Frewsburg, New York. That is, she was until her father died suddenly just as she entered her teenage years. Then her mother had to sell the place and move her and her 2 sisters into a house in town. It was a difficult time, but through it all that family and the relatives were strengthened and maintained by a religion of strict fundamentalism. No dancing, no music that wasn't church, no theater, no card games (except one called rook, for some reason), lots of Bible and hours and hours at services. These were the United Brethren, a sect related to Amish and Mennonite, which communities also flourished in that part of New York. They still do, although I understand the United Brethren have disbanded. The radio humorist and writer Garrison Keillor was raised United Brethren and he talks about it sometimes---but not often.
My mother became a registered nurse and met my father at a hospital in the nearby city, where he was working as an orderly. He was not a churchgoer particularly, and some family history showed unrepented troubles. The more successful of the Carlsons were politicians and lawyers. His uncle Samuel was mayor of the town, eventually earning the honor of Mayor Emeritus of Jamestown, New York. All of this did not impress my mother's family one bit. The Johnsons opposed the relationship in spades---er, rooks. Dad had great interest and experience in drama, eventually getting a job with the fledgling radio station there. He also took leading parts in plays at the active community theater. When they married, the Johnsons saw it as my mom's seduction into sin by my father. Mom no longer went to church. When I was born a few years later I suppose I was viewed as some kind of bastard at best.
It was very strange growing up and being viewed by my mother's side this way. We didn't see much of them, but of course some family events were unavoidable. My father was well known in the area and he did his best to be cheerful and at least entertaining, but mostly it all was extremely uncomfortable. I had a cousin on that side who was a boy and about my age. We got along pretty well, but playing together was a bit strange since there was so much he couldn't do---and I had been coached not to mention those kinds of things. By the time he was a teenager he was one of the wildest boys in town, with fast cars and fast girls. His family moved quickly to repair that situation by sending him to a rigid bible college. He came back into the fold and remains there still. His 2 brothers-in-law are fundamentalist ministers. More >
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 2 Aug 2006 @ 23:32, by delphinius. Religion
Dan Brown's phenomenal novel has recently been released as a Hollywood blockbuster creating a furore of religious boycotts, distraught parishioners and an upheaval of interest. Jesus Christ is depicted as having married Marie Magdalene, a former prostitute who became his avid follower, if not a disciple as well. She absconds to France after his crucifixion carrying his unborn child. Mystery and intrigue follow a colourful series of events as the bloodline of Jesus, the true Holly Gail, continues until this day. Another conspiracy theory where this information has been systematically removed and ignored by the overseeing officials of the clergy for almost 2,000 years? That Leonardo Da Vinci, a forbearer of the Enlightenment that ushered in the conventions of Science, was privy to this knowledge and surreptitiously exposes it in such objects such as his painting of Christ's last supper. The Da Vinci Code, a supposedly fictional dramatization interlaced with lesser know facts, continues to escalate in controversy. If this is just a 'load of old cobblers', why is there so much concern and conflict. What does it all mean? More >
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