Thou shall not make any graven images

Of that which is above the earth, on the the earth and that which is below the earth.

Not totally sure what graven images meant back then, but sounds like statues maybe...

However......

Below the earth is what I find interesting... most investing:

Could the garden of Eden be an underground ancient city/world?

I way love ancient archeology! Decades of looking and even visiting many, including finding some of my own on a much smaller scale across Europe and Africa. So much - I know there's no way we just came from cave men with sticks and rocks.

No way!

There too much evidence of the past despite efforts to hide it all through academia. If you're like me, you already know that there's a lot we don't know because someone decided we won't know. But somehow, we do know there is some thing we know is known.

youtu.be...

Why would one of the 10 commandments include "under the earth"?

Hmmmm

There's way more to those old stories and I'd love to know all that's being hidden from us. Caves that we are not allowed to go near? Some you can't be within miles of. Others just erased from finding out. Thousands of miles of tunnels? Sticks and rocks?

We can't do today what was done then.

Then there's that!

Surely they jest.

Under the earth? Perhaps God anticipated Dante, Milton and Mary K. Baxter. All three were wrong, contradict each other and add to the Word of God. Away with them...and "hell" - both the word and the concept. "Hell" is a 404.

Emmanuel Swedenborg I imagine he was wrong in your eyes too?

a reply to: Lazarus Short

a reply to: Lazarus Short

Hell is a place for spiritual alchemy. Burn away your demons with suffering.

originally posted by: Athetos
Emmanuel Swedenborg I imagine he was wrong in your eyes too?

a reply to: Lazarus Short

Yes, if he advocated "hell" as real. I found its origins in the pagan Norse goddess/ogress by the name of Hel, who was said to rule over her afterlife realm of Helheim (House of Hel), where you went if you did not rate going to Valhalla. With that in hand, I defy anyone who proposes "hell" as a real place.

originally posted by: HorrorRoach
a reply to: Lazarus Short

Hell is a place for spiritual alchemy. Burn away your demons with suffering.

That is the job of the Lake of Fire, which is NOT ID'd by the Bible as "hell." The LoF burns away your dross, tares, chaff, wood, hay and stubble...until the silver, gold and precious stones remain. Some have a good amount, others very little.

Oh well excuse me so you haven’t read his works and therefor your conclusion is forgone. So you have just latched onto Norse ideals and then equipped blinders. Good to know.

a reply to: Lazarus Short

a reply to: godservant

You have to remember they actually worshipped the images as if their gods were the image and as if the wood and stone and metal was alive and this made it idolatry.

Not the same thing as creating religious art though I am splitting hairs but there was a famous war called the Iconoclasm that nearly destroyed the church in which religious Christian art was declared idolatry by one side in spite of the fact it had helped to convert so very many people who could neither read nor write by showing them the story in pictographic form.

True many people pray in front of a statue, but it is NEVER seen by Christians as their God or saint but as a marker, a place designated as reserved for God even though as Christians we accept, he is EVERYWHERE and at all times and to pick a point and to pray to that point is wrong because like the Lord said he makes his rain to fall on the just and the unjust and both are his children and only he may judge.

Even the Muslims have their icon's, the Kaaba, the black stone and a few others but for them they see there idols pretty much identical to how Christians see our icon's.

Many of the idols in Egypt that were disfigured were actually disfigured by early Christians in a war about the fourth century against the idol worshipping pagan temples that still remained.

Today there are many cults that still worship objects as their gods, Christianity is NOT one of them, neither are Judaism or Islam or for that matter Buddhism though all have their holy places and their holy relics and their holy objects which are dedicated TOO, touched BY or somehow reserved to their respective versions of divinity.

But Hindu's remain a culture of Idolator's, true Idolatry is alive and well their stone statues worshipped by man as actual incarnations of their God's alongside the odd deformed child or animal.

The greatest idolatry though is that we have in ourselves, we build up treasures on earth and worship our own bodies and health, we live for this world when in fact the early Christians lived for the world to come and saw this world and body not as their true home but as a place that kept them separated from the love of God.

When Christians were marched into the amphitheatres to die at the hands of gladiators and rapists and wild starved animals for the amusement of the bloodthirsty roman populace, they would sing hymns and many of them were even cheerful as they knew they were going home and for a Christian there is no greater death and rebirth into eternal life than to die for Christ and to die for his name and love of him and his sacrifice on our behalf for you see for a Christian he is LIFE and to love him is to love GOD.

Today the false Church of Mammon with its God of Currency and its temples of banks and currency exchanges and stock markets is universally worshipped, so much so that people sacrifice every day to work their fingers to the bone to obtain its false manna, this is worship of the self, indulgence in the wine of the devil, we all need sustenance and money but look how so many can never have enough, how greed makes them devout servants of the greatest idol of all and how they worship it and beg at its alter, the religion that says greed is good, save all you have for yourself even though Christ told the story of the man whom stored up great wealth in his barn (Bank) only to then die and he can't take it with him so who gets it them - the bank perhaps.

I have icons, I believe that the miracle of the Virgin of Guadeloupe is a real miracle, and that image is of divine provenance.

Protestants are actually wrong in dismissing the virgin as she is the Gebirah which is a traditional role in Judaism and Christianity literally meaning Queen Mother as the king's wife was NOT the Queen, but his mother WAS.
Such as Soloman saying to his mother ask anything of me and I shall give it into your hand.

So, the Virgin becoming the Queen or Gebirah of heaven is common sense since her son God incarnate is of course the King and he chose her to be his mother.

Every mother is a queen to her son or should be, but you see the error in denying her right to intercede.

And Catholics do not worship the mother as GOD but as his chosen vessel, the one through whom he came to us.

Even at the miracle apparition of the virgin in which she healed several people at Zeitoun in Egypt she herself made example to the people by bowing before and praying to the CROSS or rather to the one whom the CROSS Represents Yeshua.


The Cross is NOT an Idol it is an Icon.

originally posted by: Athetos
Oh well excuse me so you haven’t read his works and therefor your conclusion is forgone. So you have just latched onto Norse ideals and then equipped blinders. Good to know.

a reply to: Lazarus Short

I have not read the works of many/most theologians, and I suspect, neither have you. What I did do was to examine an ordinary King James Bible to see if "hell" was real or not. My notes grew into a book of 240+ pages. I have already stated my conclusion in this thread, and having done my homework, why should I have any respect for any author, churchman or theologian who wants to instill in us the fear of a non-existent place?

I have NOT embraced or latched onto Norse "ideals" - just found where "hell" came from. Why do you accuse me? I am a Christian. Finding the truth about "hell" removed my "blinders." OTOH, you seem to read what I write through a filter.

a reply to: godservant

Not totally sure what graven images meant back then, but sounds like statues maybe...

Anything carved. That would include the pyramids and their hieroglyphs.

Of that which is above the earth, on the the earth and that which is below the earth.

My most stoic understanding is that this passage became the rationale to ban all etched writing, (remember Moses had just smashed the stone tablets), mapping, carving the earth to affect the natural flow of waterways and migration paths. Do not try to imitate or quantify God by pretending to create something masterful or beautiful. That's blasphemy.

The height of enforcement of this statement was demonstrated during the attacks against the Byzantine Empire, claiming that God hated the arrogance and blasphemous architecture of their cities, castles and cathedrals.

a reply to: LABTECH767

I am sure you are going to cop a bit of flack for that but, not all, most I would agree

"You do not make a carved image for yourself, or any likeness which [is] in the heavens above, or which [is] in the earth beneath, or which [is] in the waters under the earth"

I think the reference to the waters below is a way of saying there is nothing more worthy of worship in the entirety of the world. Idolatry is holding something in higher esteem than God. Imagine if we looked to God as much as we look at our phones.

a reply to: cooperton

Absolutely correct.

It will always be human nature to find something to associate with God however, within the cave where John is said to have had the visons of Revelation there is actually a rock formation with three lobes, so you have to wonder if that made him think of God though it was NOT made by human hands just as the stones of the Alter's were many a prophet sacrificed to the lord were not to be shaped with metal as that would somehow have made them unclean and natural stones of those split using an antler or something were allowed.

Ultimately what are we doing right now looking at our monitors and TV screens, of course we are worse as we are addicted to this fast pace of information and would go stark raving mad if we did not have the constant input.

Before this though people truly believed in God, they would want something to bring them closer even though they knew he was around them and even the earliest known church as a symbol, it takes the form of a Menorah the original seven branched version with a triangular base and in that another triangular shape that is the tail of a fish forms the star of David with the fish pointing down from the menorah and representing Christ coming from God yet one with God.

This too was not idolatry but an early form of identifier and perhaps even an early icon.

And this symbol was found in what was probably one of the very oldest church sites in Christianity and one that is in need of international recognition and protection.


The Jewish philosophy is that if it does god's will, brings people to God, reminds them OF God without dishonour or blasphemy then it is an ANGEL a messenger of God and Angels are not only beings but can be objects as well.
Call not unclean what the Lord has made Clean.

Pretty certain he would call those phones with all their radiation and brain tumour dangers unclean, but I am not the Lord it is up to him to decide on that one and sometimes phones save lives as well.

originally posted by: godservant
Of that which is above the earth, on the the earth and that which is below the earth.

Not totally sure what graven images meant back then, but sounds like statues maybe...

Could the garden of Eden be an underground ancient city/world?

Sounds like their "As Above, So Below" is correct and often viewed as 2 triangles constructing a Hexagon.
Note numerology shows this same image as 33-6 in their Numerology. This might explain why so many people wake up at 03:36 AM.

We assume that every electrical signal to our "human" brains is the honest truth. Is it ?
Can anyone prove me wrong ?
Right now, we could be nothing more than brains, contained within glass chambers onboard a large spaceship, orbiting a planet called "Zarg" lol, assuming that every electrical signal to our brains is the honest truth. Are they ?

Does OOB mean "Out of Body" or "Out of Brain" experience ? ROFL

originally posted by: cooperton
"You do not make a carved image for yourself, or any likeness which [is] in the heavens above, or which [is] in the earth beneath, or which [is] in the waters under the earth"

I think the reference to the waters below is a way of saying there is nothing more worthy of worship in the entirety of the world. Idolatry is holding something in higher esteem than God. Imagine if we looked to God as much as we look at our phones.

Cant look at God because do not know what God looks like, if God even has an image to see.

Am I right or am I correct?

Edit: You said looked "to" God. I guess that would be staring off into the sky thinking about God, how everything is in order, how all of the chaos ensuing in that individuals particular reality is part of a master plan for the greater good.

As for above, on the earth, below it, in the sea etc, people believed that there were being under the earth, and also, they would attribute creatures features to Gods like Hinduism and Paganism. If you made an idol of a fish god, whale god, a baphomet minotaur god, a cow god, etc.

You would guess wrong. The kingdom of God is within you.

a reply to: Thrumbo

originally posted by: Dalamax
You would guess wrong. The kingdom of God is within you.

a reply to: Thrumbo

That makes it sound like it isn't real then. If it's within me, it's something I make up that isn't actually a real thing.

originally posted by: HorrorRoach
a reply to: Lazarus Short

Hell is a place for spiritual alchemy. Burn away your demons with suffering.

That's an interesting take. Never heard that before.

It makes more sense than eternal burning.

Not so. Perception is an eye opener dude, consider how we experience the creation and the processes that have to occur for us to sense the world around us.

The only experience we have of the world around us is filtered by us, for each of us individually.

How can it be otherwise?

a reply to: Thrumbo

originally posted by: Lazarus Short

originally posted by: HorrorRoach
a reply to: Lazarus Short

Hell is a place for spiritual alchemy. Burn away your demons with suffering.

That is the job of the Lake of Fire, which is NOT ID'd by the Bible as "hell." The LoF burns away your dross, tares, chaff, wood, hay and stubble...until the silver, gold and precious stones remain. Some have a good amount, others very little.

Not exactly.its where a soul goes to stop existing forever. The soul is destroyed and it as if it did not exist,wiping it from the memory of people who cared for it. Cant be sad about someone who never existed right?