My problems with the short extract from the lengthy Chris White "debunking".
I assume Chis White is the narrator, but I'm not sure.
The narrator here claims Icke makes all kinds of false assumptions about the Bible and its symbolism.
He even says that Icke makes the "Pisces" fish connection to Christianity.
Yet, a sentence later he reveals that the connection is quite old in Catholic and other Christian traditions.
Only the narrator's current brand of Christianity and its fish stickers are deemed as being based on a harmless, "non- Babylonian" acrostic (although
all churches pretty much give that official explanation).
Apart from pointing to inconsistence between Icke's early and more recent books (which he freely admits, and is not unusual for free thinking
authors), this is the basic methodology: the occult connections and view of the Bible were all the additions of later pagans, Catholics, Masons and
Luciferians. Only the narrator has the sanitized version of Christianity. One assumes the narrator is speaking from the view of modern protestant
Evangelical Christianity.
This gets somewhat confusing, as the narrator wants to appeal to common sense, but yet never passes an opportunity to bash Catholicism and other forms
of Christian thought. So the pagans indeed modeled statues of the nativity on the pagan goddess Semiramis and Tammuz (because that's just what the
Vatican did to popularize an unpopular sect, and if they hadn't, most probably nobody would have given a hoot about it today), but to save himself
from agreeing with Icke, he says in the next breath that mothers and children are simply popular images in global art. This is neither here nor there
in conspiracy theory, because the best place to hide something is in plain sight. But what is it now? Are all the Catholic, Anglican (yes they who
translated the King James Bible) and Orthodox statues of the Virgin and her divine infant simply accidental tropes in art?
Or did the Catholics mix in pagan influences (as Icke claims) in violation of the commandment against "graven images" (one would assume that renders
fish stickers, crosses and the entire clip blasphemous). The narrator cannot seem to make up his mind.
The same occurs with the miracle of the fish and the Pisces symbol. The narrator seconds that it is indeed in the Bible, but because it occurs twice
with different numbers the first number must be co-incidental! Wow, that's a novel approach to Biblical interpretation.The narrator cannot think of
another explanation for two fishes (except the astrological one, which he feels it simply cannot be for whatever reason), so it's just a meaningless
coincidence. So by the narrators system, if something is referred to twice in the Bible and it is not identical, then it is meaningless! Then we are
told that the pagans invented halos. I'm not so sure, considering the Transfiguration:
As they looked on , a change came over Jesus: His face was
shining like the sun, and his clothes were dazzling white. Matt 17:2-3
Then there are some problems with history. The narrator says that Constantine converted to and legalized Christianity after the sect and the Jews and
been persecuted for 300 years. Of course he then says that he's not sure that actually happened (one assumes he refers to Constantine's conversion).
He claims that pagan imagery only entered Catholicism later, when Justinian banned the pagan religions. Yet the superficial conversion of pagan
temples to Christian shrines in Jerusalem already began with Constantine's converted mother, Helena. The point is that we are given a picture of
history of Bible believing Christians (the "true Christians", meaning of course the narrator's kind of Christians), and these pre-modern "modern
evangelicals" were persecuted by the pagan Empire and later by its paganized church.
This is a common trope in fundamentalist Christianity - the Catholic church burnt the true Christians, rather than the pagans, gnostics, Cathars and
heretics. That is quite an astounding claim to make with no evidence except a picture of unidentified people being burnt at the stake! The same
reworking of history can be found in everything from sermons to emotive gospel videos by Carman (see their revisionist claims:
www.youtube.com...). Never mind that the early Christians were first not divided from the Jews in pogroms, and that later they
were hardly unified on issues like the Trinity or the divine nature of Christ until Constantine's Council settled what would be official doctrine.
Indeed the same doctrine that Luther kept with the Reformation and that most Protestant sects keep today (although they still accuse each other of
blasphemy on a number of other issues).
Otherwise, all that is said in this clip is that Christianity and the Bible has been congruous with several occult traditions.
This is exactly what Icke writes:
In the same way, an initiate of the esoteric knowledge will read the Bible differently to a Christian or a
Jewish believer. The initiate will recognize the symbolism, the numerology and esoteric codes, while the believer takes the text literally.
(David Icke:
The Biggest Secret. 2001,p. 81).
So the narrator is really giving an unsure historical context, and an approach to the Bible without what is currently deemed to be "the occult".
Astrology would be one example of what the narrator considers occultism, which renders the ancient symbol of the cross and the 12 disciples
representing 12 houses as a mere coincidence in the Bible. However, astrology was not always considered occult, but was once an accepted science.
The church not only forbade the commoners from reading the Bible, but many other forms of knowledge (including the Greek philosophies), and these
became "hidden".
How much current Protestant Christianity is really free from Catholic doctrine is debatable.
Some sects say the rapture is literally in the Bible, while others say this was a heresy originating from Catholic futurism.
It is fair enough that the narrator wants to distance himself from other churches and leaders who (as Icke points out) have used occultism.
Sadly, where Icke does directly address Biblical doctrine, the answers seem so uncomfortable or unsound that they are ignored. Icke asks what happens
to unbaptized/unsaved babies when they die (Ibid. p.105).
According to both Catholic and Protestant teachings on Original Sin the straight answer is that they go to hell or some kind of limbo.
However, that's not an answer they like to give, or an issue they like to discuss without adding to the doctrine.
Ironically the narrator ends up agreeing with Icke (that is, where he actually agrees with his own statements), the only difference is that he broadly
argues that the occult meanings weren't intentionally put in the Bible.
That is really irrelevant to Icke, since he clearly states that he aims to offer his findings on the esoteric reading of scripture, and not that of
the believer.
edit on 24-5-2011 by halfoldman because: (no reason given)