This is a MUSIC forum. Irrelevant or disrespectful posts/topics will be removed by Admin. Please report any forum spam or inappropriate posts HERE.

General discussion for non music topics. BE RESPECTFUL OR YOUR POSTS WILL BE DELETED.

Moderators: bandmixmod1, jimmy990, spikedace

#281646 by DainNobody
Sun Dec 17, 2017 4:54 pm
Simon Magus came to Rome during the reign of the Emperor Claudius. As Saint Peter built the Catholic Church in Rome, Simon Magus created his parallel anti-church.
A statue of Simon Magus was eventually erected on the island in the Tiber River with the inscription, Simoni Deo Sancto meaning “to Simon the Holy God.”

so how did Simon Magus convince the Romans that he was the true God? so much they erected a statue in his honor.. and BTW the Western world is all based on the ancient Roman model of culture, government, engineering etc. :)
#281649 by DainNobody
Sun Dec 17, 2017 6:56 pm
it's the Gospel of Philip in which I am not intellectual enough to decipher the veiled hidden knowledge and lessons to be learned from the scripture. but believe you me, I have been actively trying to understand these gospels known as Nag Hammadi....even though I have been tongue-lashed by some on this thread, I will continue on trying to understand, and if it's anything like learning music, it will be continued disappointment while trying to improve, but one day, the magic happens, and you understand a technique in music that had been elusive for possibly years? ,, one fine day as I ready my sleeping bag in the tent, the gnosis might reveal truth instantly and gratifyingly.. :)
#281650 by DainNobody
Sun Dec 17, 2017 7:00 pm
so you believers in orthodoxy that dispute the gnosis have an axe to grind with this gnostic "prose"?
from the Gospel Of Truth / Nag Hammadi scriptures..
THE FATHER’S SON IS JESUS OF UTMOST SWEETNESS

His wisdom contemplates the word,

his teaching expresses it,

his knowledge has revealed it,

his honor is a crown upon it,

his joy agrees with it,

his glory has exalted it,

his image has revealed it,

his rest has received it,

his love has embodied it,

his trust has embraced it.
#281651 by DainNobody
Sun Dec 17, 2017 7:03 pm
I love this stuff! makes you ponder..
THE GOSPEL OF THOMAS

These are the hidden sayings that the living Yeshua spoke and Yehuda Toma the twin recorded.

(1)
And he said,
Whoever discovers what these sayings mean
will not taste death.

(2)
Yeshua said,
Seek and do not stop seeking until you find.
When you find, you will be troubled.
When you are troubled,
you will marvel and rule over all.

(3)
Yeshua said,
If your leaders tell you, “Look, the kingdom is in heaven,”
then the birds of heaven will precede you.
If they say to you, “It’s in the sea,”
then the fish will precede you.
But the kingdom is inside you and it is outside you.
When you know yourselves, then you will be known,
and you will understand that you are children of the living father.
But if you do not know yourselves,
then you dwell in poverty and you are poverty.

(4)
Yeshua said,
A person old in days
will not hesitate to ask a little child
seven days old about the place of life,
and the person will live.
For many of the first will be last
and become a single one.

(5)
Yeshua said,
Know what is in front of your face
and what is hidden from you will be disclosed.
There is nothing hidden that will not be revealed.

(6)
His students asked him and said to him,
Do you want us to fast?
How should we pray?
Should we give to charity?
What diet should we observe?

Yeshua said,
Do not lie and do not do what you hate.
All things are disclosed before heaven.
There is nothing hidden that will not be revealed,
nothing covered that will remain undisclosed.

(7)
Yeshua said,
Blessings on the lion if a human eats it,
making the lion human.
Foul is the human if a lion eats it,
making the lion human.

(8)
And he said,
Humankind is like a wise fisherman who cast his net into the sea
and drew it up from the sea full of little fish.
Among the fish he found a fine large fish.
He threw all the little fish back into the sea
and easily chose the large fish.
Whoever has ears to hear should hear.

(9)
Yeshua said,
Look, the sower went out, took a handful of seeds,
and scattered them.
Some fell on the road
and the birds came and pecked them up.
Others fell on rock
and they did not take root in the soil
and did not produce heads of grain.
Others fell on thorns
and they choked the seeds
and worms devoured them.
And others fell on good soil
and it brought forth a good crop,
yielding sixty per measure and one hundred twenty per measure.

(10)
Yeshua said,
I have thrown fire upon the world,
and look, I am watching till it blazes.

(11)
Yeshua said,
This heaven will pass away
and the one above it will pass away.
The dead are not alive
and the living will not die.
During the days when you ate what is dead
you made it alive.
When you are in the light, what will you do?
On the day when you were one
you became two.
But when you become two, what will you do?

(12)
The students said to Yeshua,
We know you will leave us.
Who will be our leader?

Yeshua said to them,
Wherever you are, seek out Yaakov the just.
For his sake heaven and earth came into being.

(13)
Yeshua said to his students,
Compare me to something
and tell me what I am like.

Shimon Kefa said to him,
You are like a just messenger.

Matai said to him,
You are like a wise philosopher.

Toma said to him,
Rabbi, my mouth is utterly unable to say
what you are like.

Yeshua said,
I am not your rabbi.
Because you have drunk, you are intoxicated
from the bubbling spring I tended.

And he took him and withdrew, and spoke three sayings to him.

When Toma came back to his friends, they asked him,
What did Yeshua say to you?

Toma said to them,
If I tell you one of the sayings he spoke to me,
you will pick up rocks and stone me
and fire will come out of the rocks and consume you.

(14)
Yeshua said to them,
If you fast you will bring sin upon yourselves,
and if you pray you will be condemned,
and if you give to charity you will harm your spirits.
When you go into any region and walk through the countryside,
and people receive you, eat what they serve you
and heal the sick among them.
What goes into your mouth will not defile you,
but what comes out of your mouth will defile you.

(15)
Yeshua said,
When you see one not born of woman,
fall on your faces and worship.
That is your father.

(16)
Yeshua said,
People may think I have come to impose peace upon the world.
They do not know that I have come to impose conflicts upon the earth: fire, sword, war.
For there will be five in a house.
There will be three against two and two against three,
father against son and son against father,
and they will stand alone.

(17)
Yeshua said,
I shall give you what no eye has seen, what no ear has heard,
what no hand has touched, what has not arisen in the human heart.

(18)
The students said to Yeshua,
Tell us how our end will be.

Yeshua said,
Have you discovered the beginning and now are seeking the end?
Where the beginning is, the end will be.
Blessings on you who stand at the beginning.
You will know the end and not taste death.

(19)
Yeshua said,
Blessings on you who came into being
before coming into being.
If you become my students and hear my sayings,
these stones will serve you.
For there are five trees in paradise for you.
Summer or winter they do not change
and their leaves do not fall.
Whoever knows them will not taste death.

(20)
The students said to Yeshua,
Tell us what the kingdom of heaven is like.

He said to them,
It is like a mustard seed, the tiniest of seeds,
but when it falls on prepared soil,
it produces a great plant
and becomes a shelter for the birds of heaven.

(21)
Miryam said to Yeshua,
What are your students like?

He said,
They are like little children living in a field that is not theirs.
When the owners of the field come, they will say,
“Give our field back to us.”
The children take off their clothes in front of them
to give it back,
and they return their field to them.
So I say, if the owner of a house knows that a thief is coming,
he will be on guard before the thief arrives
and will not let the thief break into the house of his estate
and steal his possessions.
As for you, be on guard against the world.
Arm yourselves with great strength,
or the robbers will find a way to reach you,
for the trouble you expect will come.
Let someone among you understand.
When the crop ripened,
the reaper came quickly with sickle in hand
and harvested it.
Whoever has ears to hear should hear.

(22)
Yeshua saw some babies nursing. He said to his students,
These nursing babies
are like those who enter the kingdom.
They said to him,
Then shall we enter the kingdom as babies?

Yeshua said to them,
When you make the two into one,
and when you make the inner like the outer
and the outer like the inner
and the upper like the lower,
and when you make male and female into a single one,
so that the male will not be male nor the female be female,
when you make eyes in place of an eye,
a hand in place of a hand,
a foot in place of a foot,
an image in place of an image,
then you will enter the kingdom.

(23)
#281652 by DainNobody
Sun Dec 17, 2017 7:22 pm
YESHUA speaketh:
He saw a Samaritan carrying a lamb as he was going to the land of Yehuda.

He said to his students,
That person is carrying
the lamb around.

They said to him,
Then he may kill it
and eat it.

He said to them,
He will not eat it while it is alive
but only after he has killed it
and it has become a carcass.

They said,
Otherwise he cannot do it.

He said to them,
So with you. Seek a place of rest
or you may become a carcass and be eaten.
#281654 by Badstrat
Mon Dec 18, 2017 12:24 am
Perhaps people confuse things when not spelled out.

Imagine that every despicable loathsome practice you despised was gathered into one event. Then the people who wanted to participate in that event put your child's name on it in order to get your approval. Just how would you feel about that? Just a thought.
#281658 by DainNobody
Mon Dec 18, 2017 6:44 am
I will ponder on your comment Slacker, (I see the logic).. while I unfurl my tent to get a little shut-eye.. glad I bought a smartphone, with ST unlimited plan..
#281660 by ANGELSSHOTGUN
Mon Dec 18, 2017 10:46 am
Badstrat wrote:
ANGELSSHOTGUN wrote:Christmas... One day of the year where people of most religious denominations put down their hostilities.
That includes the people that celebrate Christmas.
Be nice if that feeling got carried over... Another 364 days.
Just saying...


Very true. But why would the evil one cause strife on the season when so many celebrate his ritual holiday?


Maybe because it is becoming CALLED a RITUAL HOLIDAY. Muslims such as our past president have reached so far into AMERICAN hearts that even you have begun to turn against a Holiday of love.
Yes, we follow some PAGAN rituals... That is not what would blow my cookies... It is the the people that will run you off the road in their 5000 lb cars just to celebrate PEACE and LOVE and CONCERN for follow men... even just one day.

FOR THE FIRST TIME IN EIGHT YEARS WE ARE POLITICALLY OK... Too say MERRY CHRISTMAS! Oh, by the way, I have many Jewish friends... HAPPY HANUKKAH. That ritual is also calling on miracles... Love.

The question then becomes, what is next? EASTER? The 4th of JULY, Veterans Day, Memorial day?
Are these all PAGAN rituals?

Her is a true pagan ritual... Picking up guns and starting a killing spree. From world governments to common criminals.
I hope you get my point instead of condemning any family that decorates a Christmas tree.
Gary, I totally appreciate your thoughts... MERRY CHRISTMAS!
#281670 by DainNobody
Mon Dec 18, 2017 5:08 pm
Happy Saturnalia Blue Oyster Cult!
Image
God of Agriculture ..the hook is the sickle, a sickle commonly used to harvest wheat.. :D
#281672 by Badstrat
Mon Dec 18, 2017 6:28 pm
II. How Did Christmas Come to Be Celebrated on December 25?

A. Roman pagans first introduced the holiday of Saturnalia, a week long period of lawlessness celebrated between December 17-25. During this period, Roman courts were closed, and Roman law dictated that no one could be punished for damaging property or injuring people during the weeklong celebration. The festival began when Roman authorities chose “an enemy of the Roman people” to represent the “Lord of Misrule.” Each Roman community selected a victim whom they forced to indulge in food and other physical pleasures throughout the week. At the festival’s conclusion, December 25th, Roman authorities believed they were destroying the forces of darkness by brutally murdering this innocent man or woman.

B. The ancient Greek writer poet and historian Lucian (in his dialogue entitled Saturnalia) describes the festival’s observance in his time. In addition to human sacrifice, he mentions these customs: widespread intoxication; going from house to house while singing naked; rape and other sexual license; and consuming human-shaped biscuits (still produced in some English and most German bakeries during the Christmas season).

C. In the 4th century CE, Christianity imported the Saturnalia festival hoping to take the pagan masses in with it. Christian leaders succeeded in converting to Christianity large numbers of pagans by promising them that they could continue to celebrate the Saturnalia as Christians.[2]

D. The problem was that there was nothing intrinsically Christian about Saturnalia. To remedy this, these Christian leaders named Saturnalia’s concluding day, December 25th, to be Jesus’ birthday.

E. Christians had little success, however, refining the practices of Saturnalia. As Stephen Nissenbaum, professor history at the University of Massachussetts, Amherst, writes, “In return for ensuring massive observance of the anniversary of the Savior’s birth by assigning it to this resonant date, the Church for its part tacitly agreed to allow the holiday to be celebrated more or less the way it had always been.” The earliest Christmas holidays were celebrated by drinking, sexual indulgence, singing naked in the streets (a precursor of modern caroling), etc.

F. The Reverend Increase Mather of Boston observed in 1687 that “the early Christians who first observed the Nativity on December 25 did not do so thinking that Christ was born in that Month, but because the Heathens’ Saturnalia was at that time kept in Rome, and they were willing to have those Pagan Holidays metamorphosed into Christian ones.”[3] Because of its known pagan origin, Christmas was banned by the Puritans and its observance was illegal in Massachusetts between 1659 and 1681.[4] However, Christmas was and still is celebrated by most Christians.

G. Some of the most depraved customs of the Saturnalia carnival were intentionally revived by the Catholic Church in 1466 when Pope Paul II, for the amusement of his Roman citizens, forced Jews to race naked through the streets of the city. An eyewitness account reports, “Before they were to run, the Jews were richly fed, so as to make the race more difficult for them and at the same time more amusing for spectators. They ran… amid Rome’s taunting shrieks and peals of laughter, while the Holy Father stood upon a richly ornamented balcony and laughed heartily.”[5]

H. As part of the Saturnalia carnival throughout the 18th and 19th centuries CE, rabbis of the ghetto in Rome were forced to wear clownish outfits and march through the city streets to the jeers of the crowd, pelted by a variety of missiles. When the Jewish community of Rome sent a petition in1836 to Pope Gregory XVI begging him to stop the annual Saturnalia abuse of the Jewish community, he responded, “It is not opportune to make any innovation.”[6] On December 25, 1881, Christian leaders whipped the Polish masses into Antisemitic frenzies that led to riots across the country. In Warsaw 12 Jews were brutally murdered, huge numbers maimed, and many Jewish women were raped. Two million rubles worth of property was destroyed.



III. The Origins of Christmas Customs

A. The Origin of Christmas Tree
Just as early Christians recruited Roman pagans by associating Christmas with the Saturnalia, so too worshippers of the Asheira cult and its offshoots were recruited by the Church sanctioning “Christmas Trees”.[7] Pagans had long worshipped trees in the forest, or brought them into their homes and decorated them, and this observance was adopted and painted with a Christian veneer by the Church.

B. The Origin of Mistletoe
Norse mythology recounts how the god Balder was killed using a mistletoe arrow by his rival god Hoder while fighting for the female Nanna. Druid rituals use mistletoe to poison their human sacrificial victim.[8] The Christian custom of “kissing under the mistletoe” is a later synthesis of the sexual license of Saturnalia with the Druidic sacrificial cult.[9]

C. The Origin of Christmas Presents
In pre-Christian Rome, the emperors compelled their most despised citizens to bring offerings and gifts during the Saturnalia (in December) and Kalends (in January). Later, this ritual expanded to include gift-giving among the general populace. The Catholic Church gave this custom a Christian flavor by re-rooting it in the supposed gift-giving of Saint Nicholas (see below).[10]

D. The Origin of Santa Claus

a. Nicholas was born in Parara, Turkey in 270 CE and later became Bishop of Myra. He died in 345 CE on December 6th. He was only named a saint in the 19th century.

b. Nicholas was among the most senior bishops who convened the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE and created the New Testament. The text they produced portrayed Jews as “the children of the devil”[11] who sentenced Jesus to death.

c. In 1087, a group of sailors who idolized Nicholas moved his bones from Turkey to a sanctuary in Bari, Italy. There Nicholas supplanted a female boon-giving deity called The Grandmother, or Pasqua Epiphania, who used to fill the children's stockings with her gifts. The Grandmother was ousted from her shrine at Bari, which became the center of the Nicholas cult. Members of this group gave each other gifts during a pageant they conducted annually on the anniversary of Nicholas’ death, December 6.

d. The Nicholas cult spread north until it was adopted by German and Celtic pagans. These groups worshipped a pantheon led by Woden –their chief god and the father of Thor, Balder, and Tiw. Woden had a long, white beard and rode a horse through the heavens one evening each Autumn. When Nicholas merged with Woden, he shed his Mediterranean appearance, grew a beard, mounted a flying horse, rescheduled his flight for December, and donned heavy winter clothing.

e. In a bid for pagan adherents in Northern Europe, the Catholic Church adopted the Nicholas cult and taught that he did (and they should) distribute gifts on December 25th instead of December 6th.

f. In 1809, the novelist Washington Irving (most famous his The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle) wrote a satire of Dutch culture entitled Knickerbocker History. The satire refers several times to the white bearded, flying-horse riding Saint Nicholas using his Dutch name, Santa Claus.

g. Dr. Clement Moore, a professor at Union Seminary, read Knickerbocker History, and in 1822 he published a poem based on the character Santa Claus: “Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, in the hope that Saint Nicholas soon would be there…” Moore innovated by portraying a Santa with eight reindeer who descended through chimneys.

h. The Bavarian illustrator Thomas Nast almost completed the modern picture of Santa Claus. From 1862 through 1886, based on Moore’s poem, Nast drew more than 2,200 cartoon images of Santa for Harper’s Weekly. Before Nast, Saint Nicholas had been pictured as everything from a stern looking bishop to a gnome-like figure in a frock. Nast also gave Santa a home at the North Pole, his workshop filled with elves, and his list of the good and bad children of the world. All Santa was missing was his red outfit.

i. In 1931, the Coca Cola Corporation contracted the Swedish commercial artist Haddon Sundblom to create a coke-drinking Santa. Sundblom modeled his Santa on his friend Lou Prentice, chosen for his cheerful, chubby face. The corporation insisted that Santa’s fur-trimmed suit be bright, Coca Cola red. And Santa was born – a blend of Christian crusader, pagan god, and commercial idol.



IV. The Christmas Challenge

· Christmas has always been a holiday celebrated carelessly. For millennia, pagans, Christians, and even Jews have been swept away in the season’s festivities, and very few people ever pause to consider the celebration’s intrinsic meaning, history, or origins.

· Christmas celebrates the birth of the Christian god who came to rescue mankind from the “curse of the Torah.” It is a 24-hour declaration that Judaism is no longer valid.

· Christmas is a lie. There is no Christian church with a tradition that Jesus was really born on December 25th.

· December 25 is a day on which Jews have been shamed, tortured, and murdered.

· Many of the most popular Christmas customs – including Christmas trees, mistletoe, Christmas presents, and Santa Claus – are modern incarnations of the most depraved pagan rituals ever practiced on earth.



Many who are excitedly preparing for their Christmas celebrations would prefer not knowing about the holiday’s real significance. If they do know the history, they often object that their celebration has nothing to do with the holiday’s monstrous history and meaning. “We are just having fun.”

Imagine that between 1933-45, the Nazi regime celebrated Adolf Hitler’s birthday – April 20 – as a holiday. Imagine that they named the day, “Hitlerday,” and observed the day with feasting, drunkenness, gift-giving, and various pagan practices. Imagine that on that day, Jews were historically subject to perverse tortures and abuse, and that this continued for centuries.

Now, imagine that your great-great-great-grandchildren were about to celebrate Hitlerday. April 20th arrived. They had long forgotten about Auschwitz and Bergen Belsen. They had never heard of gas chambers or death marches. They had purchased champagne and caviar, and were about to begin the party, when someone reminded them of the day’s real history and their ancestors’ agony. Imagine that they initially objected, “We aren’t celebrating the Holocaust; we’re just having a little Hitlerday party.” If you could travel forward in time and meet them; if you could say a few words to them, what would you advise them to do on Hitlerday?

On December 25, 1941, Julius Streicher, one of the most vicious of Hitler’s assistants, celebrated Christmas by penning the following editorial in his rabidly Antisemitic newspaper, Der Stuermer:

If one really wants to put an end to the continued prospering of this curse from heaven that is the Jewish blood, there is only one way to do it: to eradicate this people, this Satan’s son, root and branch.

It was an appropriate thought for the day. This Christmas, how will we celebrate?
#281674 by MikeTalbot
Mon Dec 18, 2017 9:18 pm
I will celebrate with the community of believers who have chosen to use 25 Dec as a festival day to honor the birth of Christ. I can't speak for every denomination, but in my Confessional Lutheran Church we don't spend much time on pagan idols or paganism in general. That stuff has no authority over us.

It's not so very complicated.

Merry Christmas
Talbot
#281678 by Badstrat
Tue Dec 19, 2017 12:31 am
MikeTalbot wrote:I will celebrate with the community of believers who have chosen to use 25 Dec as a festival day to honor the birth of Christ. I can't speak for every denomination, but in my Confessional Lutheran Church we don't spend much time on pagan idols or paganism in general. That stuff has no authority over us.

It's not so very complicated.

Merry Christmas
Talbot


Not telling you to do anything one way or another. If you can't see it you can't see it. That's not so complicated.
#281679 by ANGELSSHOTGUN
Tue Dec 19, 2017 12:41 am
MikeTalbot wrote:I will celebrate with the community of believers who have chosen to use 25 Dec as a festival day to honor the birth of Christ. I can't speak for every denomination, but in my Confessional Lutheran Church we don't spend much time on pagan idols or paganism in general. That stuff has no authority over us.

It's not so very complicated.

Merry Christmas
Talbot


Mike , you old tough man.
One of those people I am happy to made aware of that you are still around.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 5 guests