REPENT!!! THE END IS HERE????

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Foxfyre wrote:
... I teach comparitive religions ...

What were the Eleusinian Mysteries all about then Foxy?

Hang on just a sec - lemme grab a pommegranite and get comfy here on this shock of wheat straw ... this could be interesting.

spendius wrote:

Quote:

Foxfyre wrote:
... I teach comparitive religions ...

What were the Eleusinian Mysteries all about then Foxy?

Are you seriously asking or this this a test? As any discussion on these is of necessity rather lengthy, would you be more interested in the greater or lesser mysteries?

Foxfyre wrote:

... I teach comparitive religions ...

I submit that by the evidence such is not the case; what you demonstrate is not teaching but rather is the preaching of a particular religious construct. For one to teach anything in honest, nonpartisan manner, that one must draw upon objective, legitmately authoritative source material, transmitteng therefrom to the target audience a balanced, accurate, non-agendized sum-and-substance precís of the subject at study. Now, while I don't teach comparative religion - in fact I don't much teach anything at all, having neither the patience nor the compassion to perform the excercize meaningfully - I've long studied it, diligently, objectively, and in painstaking depth through post-secondary and into graduate academic setting along with ongoing independent study, theologic, philosophic, and historic. From my point of view, it is difficult to determine whether your demonstrated disingenuousness pertaining to the matter derives from conscious, agenda-driven duplicity or from a mere paucity of knowledge and understanding. In anyevent, the promulgation of misinformation is not teaching, it is, at the most charitable, proselytization, if not outright propagandizing. And BTW - I'm of the broad school which holds that the academically accepted and generally applied course title for the matter here at discussion is "Comparative Religion", in the singular, not, as in your useage, "Comparative Religions", the plural. A pedantic, perhaps even (and if so, admittedly) pedagogic, point to be sure, but a valid, concrete point none the less..

Foxfyre wrote:

There is a difference between 'scripture' and a New Testament.

Yeah ... precisely the same differentiation as may be made between same as between "Novels" and Moby Dick.

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There is a difference between authoritarian writings and what would be considered 'canonized' as Scripture.

Yeah, sorta; the functional difference is consensus of opinion, and even that is not uniform across the various religions which derive their particular, occasionally conflicting, itterations of "scripture" from the Abrahamic mythopaeia. Not to say, mind you, that the Abrahamics are singular in such respect, far from it - just putting them at the top of the list of those displaying enthusiasm for the practice.

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There was no full agreement and there has never been full agreement among the Church leaders hten or now as to all the interpretation of the writings and/or which ones deserved to be elevated to the status of Scripture.

Thus unambiguously putting the lie to the notion any one or another anthology of myths, mysteries, morés, aphorisms, fables, parables, hero legends, and assorted other fanciful literary excercizes might represent the immutable, revealed, incontravertable truth of some omnipotent, omniscient, patristic overseer.

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And as I do not care to exchange insults with any member here, I'll move on until such member, trolls, and children take their naps.

Well, that's up to you, but if you're not going to use 'em, don't leave your binky and your teddy there; pick 'em up and put 'em back in your cubbyhole. And don't wander too far off if you don't wanna miss snack time.


Oh, and Set ... mind the sticks if you would, please; play nice now.

Mary Renault, The Bull from the Sea . . . great novel . . . ends with heroine going off to participate, if i recall correctly. Did you read any Mary Renault, Miss Wabbit? The King Must Die, perhaps . . . ?

Well, certainly, Miss Renault was not a fount of detailed information--but very little is actually known of them, and what little there was was buried by the goddamned Christians in the sixth or seventh century. Fortunately, they were unable to completely expunge the records of the ancient world, although they did their damnedest. Christians in the first millenium of the current era were the Taliban of their day.

Fox gets caught out making up stories, and describes it as childish and hateful to have it pointed out. Typical.

They have often been the Taliban of their day.

Henry VIII's Reformists wiped out almost all trace of English religious sculpture, and a whole lot more besides, just as one other example.

Christians in the first millenium of the current era were the Taliban of their day.

Yes, it was uncommon that they were killed for their beliefs in the first century of the current era. It was only later, centuries later, that there was any official policy to kill christians. Rather, they were seen (if they were noticed at all) as a sect of the Jews. The Romans made no distinction between christians and other Jews. The policy of the later Julio-Claudian emperors and the Flavians was basically don't ask don't tell with regard to cults--so long as they were no threat to established order, they were ignored. You don't get active persecution of Christians (still then seen as a Jewish sect) until the Severids in the early third century, and that resulted from their political support of the rivals of Septimius Severus--they were "persecuted" for backing a loser, not for their creed. Don't make stuff up, "real life."

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One of the local fundy loony groups threw a flyer up on our porch . . .

The House of Yaweh Newsletter

Nuclear War to start September 12, 2006

We Must Warn the World.

My Dear Friends,

We must warn the world of nuclear wars that will start no later than September 12, 2006. You need to take part in this Last Days Work of Yaweh.

-- excerpted from the newsletter of "Yisrayl Hawkins"

Since the first century of the current era, the concept of the last days has been kept on at least a simmer, when not actually boiling over. In every century of our era, there have been such claims, and in the middle ages, claims of the coming "millenium" were a cottage industry to fleece the gullible.

An interesting take on these sorts of claims is the Fifth Monarchy men. Do an online search about them, they were important in the seventeenth century era of the Puritans in England. After the end of the civil wars in England, the rump of the Long Parliament was finally dissolved. Soon, Oliver Cromwell declared himself the Lord Protector. He convened what is known as the Barebones Parliament. (It was so named for one member, Praisegod Barebones, whose family name was probably orignally Barbon, or Barbonne.) The fifth monarchists created enough trouble, without actually having the numbers to successfully oppose Cromwell, that he dissolved the Barebones Parliament, and ruled as Lord Protector without a parliament.

I rather suspect that this sort of thing will continue for as long as christianity continues to batten upon the credulous.

Your current characterization of early Christians as basically invisible and of no consequence doesn't really fit well with your earlier statement that they were the 'Taliban' of that era , ( thereby implying that they were a powerful governing elite and ruled with an iron fist and forced all to accept their religion and live by it's tenets......or else).

Which theory do you really mean to support?

btw I said nothing of an 'official policy' to kill Christians. If they often lost their lives , property etc due to their faith, whether it was resultant from an 'official policy' or not, the deed is still done, is it not?