FredP, on Nov 11 2005, 05:18 PM, said:
We're definitely in agreement that humans weren't created materially and spiritually perfect, as traditional Christianity claims. As for being created by a
literal "demiurge" or flawed god, as many ancient gnostics would have held, no, I don't believe this. But taken symbolically, the idea of the universe being the product of a more limited -- or self-limited -- creative impulse is starting to really make sense to me. The idea of God, in full knowledge and power, engineering a world of pain and suffering for us to awaken in, seems frankly cruel; but God utterly emptying himself, generating the very conditions of our existence out of his own supreme self-sacrifice... that's astounding. Talk about a God who is with us in our suffering, a God who upholds the downtrodden.
Maybe this is a different way of expressing what you mean anyway.
The concept of the demiurge as the flawed creator of the universe is a distortion of what the Gnostics originally meant by it. The demiurge is the creator of the law which is flawed. The universe is an illusion created by our own thought collectively.
…Do not establish laws, as the lawgiver did, so you will not be bound by them.
- The Gospel of Mary
The concept of the law which is proclaimed to have been introduced allegedly by god through Moses has been regarded as the basic tool with which to control our world societies – not the world society as a whole, but populations of individual countries, states and kingdoms. It is structured in such a way that if we follow laws created by our so called leaders or groups of leaders, we are considered “good” and if we don’t, we are considered “bad” and need to be “punished”. As such we have built around them a whole system of law and law enforcement designed to control the masses and keep them on the “good side” of god; or more importantly, on the “good side” of the leaders. But were the Ten Commandments originally intended to be regarded as laws? Does god really have a “good side”? Or have we merely pinned this image on “Him”?
The concept of creating laws contradicts the concept of free will. Why would god give us free will and then dictate laws for us to obey? If you are to obey laws created by others you become the puppet of these “others”. What is the point of having free will if you are nothing but a puppet? Laws actually stifle the concept of free will. Do we have a god that created us to control us? If that is the case then “he” would have been better off creating androids. They obey without question. It just does not make any sense to create human beings with free will for the purpose of making them obey a set of laws.
Perhaps the so-called laws that come to us through Moses are not laws at all – perhaps they are commitments or guidelines. I ask you. “If you were god, would you create people for the purpose of controlling them with laws, or would you create people and give them a set of guidelines to live by?” Quite frankly, I would prefer the latter. According to organized Jewish and Christian religion’s interpretation of the Pentateuch, Moses presented the laws in the second person. You shall do or not do this or that. When commitments are presented as commandments, it means “you” must follow them; it does not necessarily mean “me”. Many early Christians took this attitude when they practiced genocide, torture, shunning, anathema and other abominable practices because they thought they were on the righteous side of god as members of the recognized Christian Church. They could do no wrong as soldiers of god. In their mind, the commandments applied to “you”. “You” are to obey the commandments – not “me”. In order to be on the “righteous” side of god, “you” must follow god’s commandments (which are really “my” commands because “I” know god is invisible and mute and is not saying anything at the time that “I” interpret what god allegedly said and issue “my” commands) to rid the earth of the “unrighteous heretics” and “our enemies”. This is the kind of thinking that would cause any band of “unrighteous heretics” to organize against these “self proclaimed righteous bastards”. The language we use today is a little different. We have the “unrighteous evil Moslem terrorists” against the “self proclaimed righteous American and British Christian and Jewish infidels”. The attitude between fundamentalist religious organizations is the same today as it always was. The laws are for “you” not for “us” and “we” are the “good guys”, “you” are the “bad guys”. The way that Moses is portrayed as presenting the commandments, does not bring harmony; it brings power, control and confrontation. “You” obey; “I” give the orders because “I” am in control. Systems of governments around the world are based on this concept of power and control using the “commandments from god” interpreted in their own way as their basic premise for the control. These “commandments from god” cement their power base, especially that of the dictators and kings, giving them wealth and power and the right to use their citizens as pawns to protect them from dissenters and outside threats and to maintain their wealth and power. For dictators and kings, it works for life or deposition, and for elected politicians it works until the next election. They create and enforce the laws for everybody to obey. There are laws to create borders between municipalities, states, provinces and countries. There are laws forcing us to pay taxes. There are international, federal, provincial, state, and municipal laws controlling just about every aspect of our lives. In this world family of humans, the village heretic proposes that the system of making and obeying laws, although it brings some order, does not stem the growth of anger and rage and serves mainly those who have the greatest power and wealth. There is a better way.
We spend billions of dollars on legislation, building places of incarceration, building large police forces and armies and yet theft, murder and misleading others, wars and threats of wars continue day after day, month after month, year after year and century after century. It still has not eliminated the need for spending billions of dollars on security devices and locks. Even though we develop more sophisticated laws, locks and security devices, there are always some who murder, mislead, deceive, steal, commit adultery, dishonour parenthood, ingest dangerous drugs and worship idols. It appears that although making laws to prevent theft, murder, ingest dangerous drugs, and intent to injure and mislead has become a job creation program, for lawyers, judges, policemen, politicians and security specialists, it never seems to solve its intended objective of actually eliminating these activities or eliminating the paranoia and fear of being robbed, misled, injured or killed. We have a never-ending cycle of disobedience followed by punishment. Only a very small sector of the population commits offences against their fellow man, but that small sector of the population creates a very large amount of paranoia and fear among the general population. There is a better way.
There are also many, many examples where the law damages people’s lives and punishes them, even though they have committed no crime. I found in our local newspaper dated the 29th of May 2004 an article that appears to be a good example of one.
WINNIPEG (CP) – A single mother who took her car for a tune-up is without a vehicle after her mechanic was busted for driving without a licence.
The mechanic’s arrest triggered a mandatory section of Manitoba legislation that authorizes police to impound and eventually seize a vehicle – regardless of its owner – because it was the third offence within five years.
“This has turned my life upside down, and I’ve been innocent in this whole thing,” Brandy Simmons said.
The province agrees Simmons is the victim of a “highly unusual situation,” but has refused to reimburse her for the loss of her car.
The mechanic was pulled over by police last November while driving her car from a parking lot into the shop’s garage. Somehow, officers caught the man during the minute-long spin.
Simmons bailed her car out of the impound lot one week later, but had it seized for good in March after her mechanic pleaded guilty to a Highway Traffic Act offence.
The plea triggered a mandatory forfeiture of the vehicle in question.
Simmons was sent a forfeiture notice, which permitted her to appeal within a 30-day period, but she ignored it because she assumed her role in the case was over.
Lawyer Tom Percy said he doesn’t blame her for ignoring the notice.
“She had no clue what was happening here, and this notice was so vague,” he said. “We passed it around the office here and three or four lawyers couldn’t make heads or tails out of it.”
The matter only got worse for Simmons when the car was stolen. Police eventually found the smashed-up car and Manitoba Public Insurance deemed it a write-off.
The insurer was ready to pay Simmons $5,300 for her loss, but the province took the cash instead.
Don Lofendale, Crown counsel with the provincial civil legal services branch, said he sympathizes with Simmons, but his department has refused to return the cash from her wrecked car because she failed to respond to the forfeiture notice.
Lofendale said provincial legislation doesn’t allow for the review of such cases once forfeiture has occurred.
Simmons said the financial fallout has forced her to drop out of Red River College where she was in her final year of studying child and youth care.
“I’m really struggling and I’m wondering where the justice is here,” she said.
This is a case where a single mother was seriously inconvenienced and legally robbed by the Province because of the way the law is written. This is not an isolated case. We read about these kinds of incidents every day in our local newspapers. Parents are convicted of child pornography for taking bathtub photos of their toddlers; a man is convicted of cruelty to animals for fighting off a vicious dog with a cane; a quadriplegic is convicted of marijuana possession for smoking it to relieve post-surgery muscle spasms. In many places, a person can be jailed for growing hemp or fined for putting unopened liquor behind the front seat of his vehicle. According to BBC News March 15, 2002, Saudi Arabia's religious police stopped schoolgirls from leaving a blazing building because they were not wearing correct Islamic dress. Fifteen of the girls died in the fire because the mutaween police were enforcing Islamic law.
There is also the problem of people being wrongly convicted. The Death Penalty Information Centre announced on August 9, 2004 that Jefferson Parish prosecutors today dismissed all charges against former Louisiana death row inmate Ryan Matthews. He became the nation's 115th death row inmate to be freed according to the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC). Matthews was sentenced to die in 1999 and spent nearly five years on death row before DNA evidence helped clear him of a murder that occurred just two weeks after his 17th birthday.
Can you imagine how much misery prosecutors, policemen and other members of the prosecutorial system have created for Matthews and his family and friends as well as the other 115 families and their friends while they receive generous salaries for executing their duties? If DNA is able to uncover 115 wrong convictions pertaining to the Death Penalty, how many hundreds or even thousands of wrong convictions exist in crimes not involving the Death Penalty? The question is a legitimate one. Another problem that produces wrongful convictions is sloppy forensic science or outright fraud in forensic testing. Sloppy forensic testing by people like Arnold Melnikoff, Joyce Gilcrest and Jacquiline Blake has resulted in dozens of overturned convictions in the United States. Guardian Newspapers on November 3rd 2003 reports that thousands of convictions based on DNA evidence have been called into question after inspections revealed that sloppy standards and contamination of evidence were rife at American police laboratories.
Wrongful convictions are really not the main issue regarding the inadequacies of using and applying the concept of the law to control unacceptable behaviour. The central issue of the concept of the legal system is that it represents the number of the beast of Revelation, 666. It is based on an adversarial system; the prosecutor against the defendant. It is the system of ha satan which is known as a symbol called the adversary. ha Satan is actually the transliterated Hebrew word phrase in the Jewish Tanakh meaning ‘the adversary’ or ‘the opponent’. The beast of Revelation has ten horns. According to Organized religion’s interpretation of the Old Testament and the Jewish Tanakh, god introduced the law with its ten intimidating horns called the Ten Commandments with the intention of controlling the behaviour of the ancient Israelite tribes. The horns of a moose, bull, deer or other horned animals are used to intimidate their opponents or perceived opponents. If that does not work, then they have the ability to gore and seriously injure or kill any animal or person that they perceive as a threat. Mankind has evolved enforcement and penal systems based on this beast called the law, that have the power to intimidate, confine, psychologically and physically injure or kill any person who does not obey the “Ten Commandments”. The idea of the law has been adopted with the intention of controlling our behaviour when we fail to respect the rights and needs of others. And to some degree, it works. Unfortunately, like so many other things in the world of ha satan, it has also turned out to be a tool for the powerful to keep themselves in power and to make themselves rich. As well, it has been ineffective in completely stopping crime, become a heavy financial burden for prosecuting and housing those convicted of a crime and has contributed to the spread of discontent.
Today we see groups of various kinds campaigning against unfair laws. Just to mention a few, we have the Pro-Choice and Pro-Life groups campaigning against unfair abortion laws from opposite sides. Those who feel that we should have the right to die with dignity, argue that we have unfair palliative care laws. We have petitioners campaigning against unfair incarceration laws in Florida. We have the Countryside Alliance campaigning against unfair laws in general. Iranian women campaign against unfair rape laws. The Centre for Trade Policy Studies in the U. S. discusses the unfairness of the anti-dumping laws. Dr. Kayoko Tsumori, a Policy Analyst at The Centre for Independent Studies in Australia writes a discussion paper on unfair dismissal laws in that country. In Wichita Kansas the Wichita Eagle, February 7, 2004, had an article about unfair sodomy laws. Our local newspaper, the Times and Transcript, reports on May 28, 2005 that a nationwide audit shows Access to Information laws fail in New Brunswick. It has become a burden for business people who have to retain legal representation with respect to every project they begin to make sure they are not breaking the law. The cost of personal liability insurance for professionals is going through the roof. All this makes one wonder why we are all so hell bent on using the law to solve our relationship problems. The Gnostic Christians call the maker of the law, who is the Old Testament god Yahveh (also called Yahweh or Jehovah), the creation of Ialdabaoth the deformed son of Sophia. Sophia is the Greek word for wisdom and the deformed son of Sophia is the symbol for distorted, twisted and warped wisdom. According to Gnostic Christians, using the laws of Yahveh to solve relationship problems is warped wisdom. It is warped to suit the desires of those who are in a position to legislate and enforce the law. It is also deformed and twisted in the sense that it creates as many or more problems than it solves. We are continually fixing it with new laws and yet it never seems to actually get fixed. An example of how bent our wisdom has become is illustrated by the laws making the parents responsible for the acts of their children. It’s a sure fire way to teach our youth how not to be responsible for themselves. I see the laughing Jesus cracking up over this one.
Another flaw in using law to control the masses is that it assumes that there are absolutes around which we can build our lives. Governments and kingdoms proclaim laws and expect them to be followed absolutely. This is impossible because Einstein’s theory of relativity proves that there are no absolutes in the universe. Everything in the universe is relative and always changing and many laws become obsolete before the ink dries on the decrees; or there is an unforeseen issue missed after the law is proclaimed. The end result is that we have truck loads upon truck loads of books of laws and amendments and still we perceive that new ones need to be proclaimed every day. The concept of the law is based on the assumption that we give authority to a few people or accept authority from a few people and the rest obey. The concept of authority and obedience and law and order falls short of its objective of bringing security and harmony because it includes foolishness with its wisdom, chaos with its discipline and often the horns of the law produce fear instead of love.
Harmful side affects of the law include underground markets that develop when you outlaw pornography, prostitution, abortion, drugs and alcohol or create price freezing. Procuring these services and products from an underground market produces a substantially increased risk to your health as those who market in this manner tend to be of the more ruthless kind. They simply don’t care about quality or cleanness or the danger that they present to the prospective buyer. There is a better way.
The law fails to give us complete security against officials of a sovereign nation who would cause our deaths, injure us or take our property. It fails to provide full security for us from stalkers, serial killers, rapists, abusers, thieves, drunk drivers and many other kinds of offenders no matter how strictly it is enforced. It fails to protect citizens in countries where political leaders hide behind an official secrets act to bully, murder and torture. How does the village heretic know this? The answer is simple. It is because these activities continue day after day, month after month, year after year and decade after decade no matter what laws we create to “protect” society. The law brings some security and harmony. However it also carries with it the mark of the beast Jehovah who gave us the law, by retaining the concept of ha satan the adversary in that it uses the antagonistic approach to control people. Those who do not obey the law are considered adversaries. As a result, anger and unrest continues to prevail. There is a better way to bring about harmony on earth. That way is to go back to where it all began and look upon the commandments as guidelines to commit to and to restructure them so that they contain only wisdom that produces love and self discipline and are emptied of foolishness that produces fear and chaos brought about by the power and control systems using the concept of law, authority and obedience. The law binds us and it will not provide harmony and security by itself.
According to Dr. Charles Scobie, retired professor of theology at Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick, ‘law’ is a poor translation of ‘torah’ which really means ‘teaching’ or ‘guidelines’. If we look at the Laws of Moses as guidelines, we are free to build a system with flexibility rather than fall in line with rote obedience. We will follow naturally when we understand the harmonizing value behind a commitment. We will not fall in line if we can see that a commitment produces ha satan immediately or at some point in the future.
I would like to present a word of caution as we take a look at the Ten Guidelines presented by Moses as they come to us through the Bible. The words issuing the Guidelines did not come directly from Yahveh. They came from the mouth of the only witness, Moses, who made the claim that they are the words of Yahveh. The words composing the “commandments” that you read in English, are only the opinion of a translator as to what Moses actually said. All translators of the “commandments” in the Pentateuch to date represent or are sponsored by Jewish and/or Christian religious organizations. No existing translation has ever been audited by any independent experts who are not either paid by or strongly dedicated to either of these religions. As a result the meaning that evolves from reading the “commandments” in English has a bias that favours the theory that they were delivered through Moses by an all powerful third party entity called god and that they are actually commandments. This may not be a completely accurate portrayal of how Moses received them or what was intended by them. I would strongly advise that anyone wanting to get a more accurate understanding of what is written in the Bible, to step out of the boat and into the stormy seas to get familiar with the source languages, Hebrew and Greek. These languages have become institutionalized by Jewish and Christian religious organizations. The meaning of their words has been established by long standing acceptance within these organizations. Such meanings may or may not accurately represent the intended meaning of the original authors. The only way to find out is to dig into it yourself. Tools are now available to permit you to do this.
One of the greatest tools ever invented for studying the Bible is the computer disk version of The Expositor’s Bible Commentary. It uses something called Strong’s numbers and Strong’s concordance and a system known as G/K numbers produced by Goodrick and Kohlenberger, editors of the New International Version Exhaustive Concordance. Strong’s numbers are numbers given to words in the Bible by a seminary professor, Dr. James Strong for his Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible first published in 1890. With the recent development of personal computers, Strong’s Numbers became very easy to use. By looking up the corresponding number, you can observe the original Greek or Hebrew word, the pronunciation of the original word, the definition of the original word and references to other appearances of that same word in the Bible. Unfortunately Strong’s Number system has some inconsistencies and some numbers are skipped entirely. In order to circumvent this problem, Goodrick and Kohlenberger developed their own system called G/K numbers. Both the G/K numbers system and the Strong’s numbers system are used in The Expositors Bible Commentary. With these numbers systems you don’t have to be a scholar to understand Hebrew and Greek. Pastors and laymen, and for that matter, any heretic who can read and use a computer who knows little to nothing of the original languages of the Bible, can gain access to the Greek and Hebrew words behind their English translation. It is precisely that tool, along with three Hebrew/English lexicons and the study of the Hebrew language, which I used to gain access to the Hebrew meaning of the Ten “Commandments”. I have version 5.1, a Microsoft Windows version powered by Pradis and produced by Zondervan. It requires a Pentium 166 MHZ or higher processor. My impression of Zondervan is that they are a caring Christian organization ready to provide first rate service to their customers. I highly recommend this product and their service for it.
As I got into the reading of The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, I was shocked at the liberties taken by Christian organized religions in their translation out of the Hebrew language. When translating passages into English, some addition or deletion of words is acceptable because often one Hebrew word can best be interpreted with the use of two or three English words and vice versa. However, over 30% of the words that appear in the English translation of our Old Testament do not even appear in the Hebrew version. According to The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, The words were inserted and called an “assist in translation”, “not in Hebrew”, “article”, and “repeated English word”. The range of meanings for individual Hebrew words is often different from the English. For this reason too you may need to use a string of English words to accurately reflect the meaning of one Hebrew word. I was also concerned by the wide variation of English words that are considered “equal words” for one Hebrew word. I found as many as 45 different English words represented as “equal words” for a single Hebrew word. How do they select which particular English word is the “equal word” for a particular passage? Does this mean that translations from Hebrew and Aramaic to English are more of an art than a science? Is organized religion putting their own spin on the meaning of the words? Does this mean that the translator has to guess which meaning the original author of the script intended based on the context of what he or she is saying? There are dozens of different English translations of the Old Testament. Which one is the most accurate? Are the English translations of the Hebrew Old Testament screaming for an audit to be done by an organization something like Robert Funk and the Jesus Seminar, which is not influenced by organized religion? The Jesus Seminar is a group of over 100 Bible scholars sponsored by the Westar Institute, a scholarly think tank headquartered in Santa Rosa, California, who have produced a new translation of the Gospels. At the end of a six year period of examining the source documents and events pertaining to the acts of Jesus, their conclusion was that 84% of the Gospels are largely or entirely fictive. This does not mean that the wisdom contained in them is entirely useless. Every time I have the opportunity to attend, I hear valuable wisdom coming from my United Church pulpit and my wife’s Salvationist Church pulpit, and a large portion of it is derived from the Gospels. What I object to is organized religion presenting the Gospels as literal historical fact. Likewise, the Old Testament is full of valuable symbolism that can add greatly to the wisdom of mankind. But it is currently monopolized by an organized religion that portrays it as historical fact.
Another problem observed by the village heretic is organized religion’s presentation of the image of god. No one seems to know who or what god is. At least, they don’t think they know. There are those who seem to regard “Him” as a divine all powerful, all loving, mighty, all seeing male deity. Some think “He” needs to be worshiped, loved and feared. Others regard “Him” as a meek preacher who taught great wisdom, suffered on a cross and who also needs to be worshiped. Some theologians even say that if we don’t believe in “Him” and worship “Him” as our Lord and Savior, we will go to hell. Still others see “Him” as the creator of the Universe. No one can ever be sure of any of this because “He” is invisible. So, we can’t ask “Him” outright. “He” seems to be hiding and no matter where you look, you simply cannot see, hear, touch, smell, taste or psychically perceive “Him”. It appears that god is completely unclear.
Enter organized religion whose life blood is the fuzziness of god. They have the answers to the questions about whom and what this mysterious invisible god is all about! They’ve got their Old Testament, Tanakh and New Testament, the Qur’an, and the Bhagavad-Gita, these newly discovered collections of Dead Sea Scrolls, and Qumran Scrolls called Gnostic literature, and a vast array of other books. They’ve divided themselves into religious factions and each group proclaims the clearness of their invisible god while judging other groups’ god to be fuzzy. Actually, there is no way you can create a religious sect or a new religion without the belief that your god is perfectly clear and everyone else’s god is fuzzy.
According to the Bible, god tells us not to murder. And yet “He” murders the whole world except Noah and his family. There are numerous incidents in the Old Testament of wholesale murder sanctioned by or committed by god. Is god an example of how we should not treat our neighbors? It seems strange and unclear why god would murder, tell Moses and Joshua to murder people of “His” choosing and tell the rest of us not to. The New Testament “god” says to love your neighbor as yourself and practiced that philosophy until his death. We seem to have a contradiction between the Old and New Testament god. Is the Son, perhaps, a new model of god? As we move into the New Testament, we discover that Christians created their god by taking this holy, jealous, powerful, creating, vengeful, murdering, destroying Old Testament god from the Jews and changed “Him” to god the Father, god the Son and god the Holy Ghost. Some Christians even add another dimension giving “Him” a mother Mary called the Holy Mother of god. Wow! That’s quite a feat. Apparently Christian religious scholars are saying that this god has manifested himself as a man called Jesus Christ as part of this trinity to proclaim a new image. How can we accept that buzz? Shouldn’t this all powerful, all knowing god have had that image in the first place if it is such a wonderful way to be?
This awesome, compassionate, gay hating, gracious, murderous, forgiving, jealous, holy, creating, powerful, vengeful, commanding, Father and Son god who works wonders reminds me of the exp
ression, “A bare foot boy with shoes on stood sitting in the grass.” I sense that awesome poetic un-clarity that fills our minds with inconsistency, ambiguity and fuzziness inducing us to worship “Him” with fanatical enthusiasm in the hope of finding the clarity we are looking for. This god who we call the giver of the law is a very strange beast indeed.
Current translations of the Bible produced by organized religion, say that you must fear god and love god. Dr. Robert Schuller, head of the popular television ministry called The Hour of Power, is on the record as saying that love and fear are opposites. Therefore, you cannot fear that which you love and you cannot love that which you fear. It is very difficult to reconcile these two obligations toward god preached by this interpretation of the Bible if Dr. Schuller is correct. If we go to The Expositors Bible Commentary, we discover that the Hebrew word elohim is plural and means ‘gods’. Reading from the Hebrew without looking at any English translation, I see that throughout Deuteronomy it repeats eight times, “…love Yahveh of the gods”. Joshua repeats it twice and Psalms says, “…love Yahveh” three times. Not once in the Old Testament does it say, “Love god”. Exodus 9:30 says, “…fear Yahveh gods”. Deuteronomy says seven times, “...fear Yahveh of the gods”. Jeremiah 5:24 says, “…fear Yahveh our gods”. And “…fear Yahveh” appears seventeen times in the rest of the Old Testament. Seven times the Old Testament says “…fear the gods”, but it never says to fear god. Hopefully as we move through the Ten “Commandments”, we will be able to begin to clear up some of the confusion about the image of god.
I go on to talk about the Ten Commandments as guidelines.
BobD
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I've heard that there are people out there who become very hurt when somebody types to them in all caps, because they feel yelled at. I think there's a little bit of a lost grip on reality going on there.
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Posted 11 December 2006 - 06:45 PM