I need some help from some well researched Christian users.

I have stumbled across a site that tries to tie all religions together to ancient Mother Goddess worship as their original meaning, and there is a section on Christianity that seems pretty convincing. I would like Christian users to read through it and tell me where it is wrong, because it is really making me wonder.

The site tires to throw in some ufo theories, but ignore those. The connections made to Isis and other ancient religions are all that matter.

www.bibliotecapleyades.net...

It is interesting that the Sabians say the Biblical prophets served a Goddess that they thought was "evil".

reply to post by NamelessMonster


I am Christian and I read your other thread asking Muslims for help and I have to say that everyone who responded to you did a pretty good job debunking that site.

I took a look at it myself and it was wrong right off the hop. The very first verse they quoted was taken out of context. That sets the tone for the whole site, it is crap. Hope this helps.

reply to post by NamelessMonster

I made my comments on that link the first time you posted it, back in May ("the Doma collective").
I won't bother repeating myself.
abovetopsecret

reply to post by NamelessMonster


i am reading it now, about half way thru.. But I really dont see the ties to Christianity here my friend.
The scriptures are random and out of context. Im just going to keep a running comment as I read it on stuff that sticks out.

The comment about John the baptist, Matthew 11:11 'Verily I say unto you, Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist: notwithstanding he that is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he...'
I believe has more to do with the fact he was a natural birth and conception, Where as Jesus, who would be the higher then John was conceived supernaturally. In other words, out of those born on earth none were greater then John.

John and Jesus were not ment to both acheive the same end. John was the forerunner, preaching about the coming messiah, to prepare the way for the only son of God, Jesus. Yes an angel came and foretold Johns birth, but no differnt then when God spoke to Abraham about Issac or Samson parents concerning his birth. The scriptures are quite clear there was a difference between John and Jesus. Jesus fulfills the prophecies concerning the birth of the Messiah, not John.

The next couple paragraphs I dont know enough about to comfortably answer. But I do know Johns followers belived him to be the Messiah but when Jesus came he pointed them in his direction so to speak.

Solomon, Did worship other Gods, the Bible states that...with his many wives of differnt beliefs, he started to worship their gods as well.. Not entirely convinced the lions that were built were for a differnt god, more so to represent the tribe of Judah, whose symbol is a lion, which he is from.

Im going to post this and finish reading and posting the rest later, Hope this answers some questions. I can back up with scripture.


BUT as I said, Alot of scripture is out of Context, espically the stuff concering females, Just because there is a verse about the suckling of a breast doesnt mean they worshiped a goddes by default. I did my best to try and explain what the verses mean in context as best as I can.

reply to post by deanyo


Also, I believe Joseph fled to Egypt because A) it wasn't under the control of King Herod B) it wasn't under the control of the Roman empire, which if caught by the, would prolly ship them off to Herod, Because He was more of a governor then an actully King. C) it was the closest, biggest place not under Herod or Rome

I wouldn't believe anything on that website. It obviously has an agenda, to find a shred of fact and then write a huge story around it. Yes, Egyptians worshiped goddess.. But an angel told Joseph to go there, ah.. must be so Jesus could be taught by these goddess worshipers! Thats an awful lot of assuming with out very much fact. In my humble opinion.

Im not saying im write, Im just going off the Bible, and what I know about the ancient middle east. This makes the most sense to me.

Thanks for the responses guys, It really helps. But what about the section on the Sabians?

In the part where it starts with "John had a large following of people. Where did they all go?" It talks about the followers of John the Baptist, their mention is the Quran and how they talk about a Goddess beign connected to Christianity. Does this mean anything? Or is it just a later gnostic writing that just so happens to support her agenda by coincidence?

reply to post by NamelessMonster


These two verses should answer your questions about the Sabeans.


Matthew 3:11
I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance. but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire:

John 3:5
Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.

Here is some more references to the baptism of water and the Holy Ghost

www.biblegateway.com...

So either the Sabeans heeded John and looked for the one who would baptize them with the Holy Spirit or they were content to just continue baptizing only with water.

Perhaps you might start at an earlier point than just reading the text of the website. Elaine Pagels is a Christian and a college professor who writes books about Theology.

One of her points is that the New Testament is a product of its time. Written after the death of Christ it reflects not only who what Christ is, but the position the Christians wanted to take in regard to the ongoing Roman occupation of Palestine. Other Jewish groups had approached the Christians and had asked for the Christians to join in the rebellion to rid their land of the Romans. Christians turned down their fellow Jews and wanted to send a message to the Romans that Christianity was not a threat to the Romans, therefore the Romans should not persecute the Christians. Not having the exact quote, I paraphrase Elaine Pagels, “The New Testament is a piece of war time propaganda. By turning down their fellow Jews the Christians made an enemy. That Christians accumulate enemies.”

My personal view is that the New Testament was also written to create a power structure to make the older men the most powerful group.

I am left with a perplexity, if the New Testament (and the rest of the Bible) is divinely inspired by a perfect divine God, why do we have so many different understandings of the Bible?

reply to post by rectangle


Because people lean on their own understanding rather than that of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit which moved the men to write the scriptures, only the same spirit can understand it as it should be understood.

So when you come across many understandings of the bible, dismiss all that deny the Power of the Holy Spirit, and take the rest with a grain of salt, this will clear away much confusion.

Originally posted by iamnot
reply to post by NamelessMonster

 

These two verses should answer your questions about the Sabeans.


Matthew 3:11
I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance. but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire:

John 3:5
Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.

Here is some more references to the baptism of water and the Holy Ghost

www.biblegateway.com...

So either the Sabeans heeded John and looked for the one who would baptize them with the Holy Spirit or they were content to just continue baptizing only with water.

Did the Sabians interpret the "holy spirit" as the evil female entity? They most likely got mixed up in the whole Trinity thing and got the idea. I heard that the Old Testament concept of "Shekhinah" is femanine, and that the concept of the Holy Spirit is similar. So maybe they mixed all of that together and got their idea.

As a former Christian who has rejected that religion and moved on to other concepts and ideals, I have only one piece of advice. Never take the word of one web site. What religion you choose to follow is between you and whatever you face after you die (which is, of course, what religion really ends up with). There are many Christians on this site that I get along fine with and respect. The religion taken on the surface is no better or worse than any other.

I would suggest that you not get caught up in the "my religion is older than yours" rut, though. Age doesn't matter here... just what speaks to your heart and experience.

reply to post by rogerstigers



I am not religious or really looking for any religion. In fact, I am trying to stay far away from religion and distance myself from some of the esoteric concepts that I was getting caught up in to try and justify certain spiritual beliefs. That is why I want people to debunk these connections for me.

Re Deanyo

You wrote:

"The next couple paragraphs I dont know enough about to comfortably answer. But I do know Johns followers belived him to be the Messiah but when Jesus came he pointed them in his direction so to speak."

John's followers STILL consider him as 'above' Jesus, whom they call the 'deciever messiah'. (It is not clear, if they here refer to the alleged Jesus of the pauline NT or to a historical person).

So there are two contradictory versions, and with the pauline tradition of falsifying, editing and lying, I would trust the followers of John, who have no religious world-monopoly obsession.

That is, if I wanted to take a religious stand; which I don't.

Re Iamnot

You wrote:

"Because people lean on their own understanding rather than that of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit which moved the men to write the scriptures, only the same spirit can understand it as it should be understood.

So when you come across many understandings of the bible, dismiss all that deny the Power of the Holy Spirit, and take the rest with a grain of salt, this will clear away much confusion."

Back to square one. People can, and DO, fake experiences of the holy spirit as well as faking anything else. Besides believing in the 'holy spirit' is still doctrinal, meaning that it's totally subjective.

Christians always have these self-affirmative and absolute answers to everything, but there are nonetheless 34000 different types of them, who dispute or fight merrily with each other. They can't be taken seriously for that reason.

But I take it, that YOU have the correct answers.

Re NamelessMonster

The bibliotecapleyades is not to be taken as an encyclopedia or with a certain authority. The articles on it often gainsay each other.

Originally posted by NamelessMonster

Originally posted by iamnot
reply to post by NamelessMonster

 

These two verses should answer your questions about the Sabeans.


Matthew 3:11
I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance. but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire:

John 3:5
Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.

Here is some more references to the baptism of water and the Holy Ghost

www.biblegateway.com...

So either the Sabeans heeded John and looked for the one who would baptize them with the Holy Spirit or they were content to just continue baptizing only with water.

Did the Sabians interpret the "holy spirit" as the evil female entity? They most likely got mixed up in the whole Trinity thing and got the idea. I heard that the Old Testament concept of "Shekhinah" is femanine, and that the concept of the Holy Spirit is similar. So maybe they mixed all of that together and got their idea.

Jesus makes reference to the feminine aspect of Truth in both the Gospel of Matthew Chapter 12:42 and the Gospel of Luke Chapter 11:31 where he refers to the "queen of the south".

The "queen of the south" in this context is another symbol for the Vision of the "Son of man". (see, also, the dance by Michael Flatley enitled "Stolen Kiss", in which the movements of the woman's body represent the progressive Revelation of Truth and the Knowledge Revealed through the Vision of the "Son of man" and the Revelation of the "resurrection".)

But the Revelation of the "resurrection" is an exclusively Feminine Revelation...

Which is why it is so viciously rejected and repudiated by a male-dominant, intellect-is-Truth Jewish, Christian and Muslim religious establishment...

And why they prefer to say that John is "the apostle that Jesus loved"; when, according to the Gospel of Philip and the Gospel of Mary, Jesus loved Mary more than the other apostles.

Michael

'Trinities' are

....in one form or another, directly, indirectly, graphically, symbolically, clearly described and 'explained' or vaguely mentioned....

present in a major part of all european and asian mythology, religion and semi-religion. And while the 'feminine' principle isn't always called so, it's easy to draw comparative parallels between the various systems, and find similarities so strong, that it's almost certain, that trinities have had a long and migratory existence here with one principle of feminine origin as part.

In the debate on the pauline trinity the 'holy spirit' is often used in a feminine way. Which has been explained as referring to 'spirit' per se (a feminine noun), not to the whole concept 'holy spirit'. But a few months ago I read an article by a most holy christian (he was talking negatively about 'heretics' in his article, so he MUST have been very holy), and this guy (who was a linguist) said, that he'd found 'holy spirit' used in a earlier context with verbs or adjectives used in femininum. Meaning, that the original early christian trinity actually was including a feminine part.

(This linguist has probably been burned since then, to clean his soul).

This fits well with the other trinities around, so the later pauline change to all-male-trinity is probably part of paulinism's usual male-chauvinism, which is a deep-going exponent of ideological warfare (plus that the paulines obviously found it convenient to have submissive women around).

reply to post by NamelessMonster


I can tell you that it is not Truth, if that is what you're wondering. If you are searching for 100% Truth it will be found only with the Light of Life Ministry which is not associated with any man-made organized religion. ALL other religions today are FALSE because they are not based in truth.

reply to post by bogomil


Im not familiar with the part of the Bible where it says that...or any other book for that matter. Could you please tell me where you get your info?

I gave my explanations straight from scripture or what I'd consider common knowledge of the times. ( King Herod and the roman empire ruling the other countries )

I know the Pharisees thought Jesus was a false prophet/Messiah but they weren't really followers of John, they were their own religious sect

The article is mythology - interesting reading to be taken with a grain of salt - big time.