Fell

A good answer to the elohim question that basically says what Timmy and I said.

 

http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/e-gods.html

 

So.

 

 

And these texts pass any historical test for authenticity. At the very least, the people that wrote them believed what they were writing and there is extra-biblical historical evidence for his existance. I guess we all would have preferred a personal letter from Jesus but it didn't work out that way. What is transmitted is normal for that time and place, oral tradition written down. There were way more gnostic texts written at that time than orthodox ones. Why didn't they survive? Because they are inconsistent and poor interpretations of the source material, is one main reason.

 

Well lets see why did the cannonised gospels remain prominent. Well lets see in 325BC irenaues chose the four gospels as the official version for the roman church all other histories of the life of jesus were banned and deemed heretical. the gospel of thomas and the gospel of the hebrews were by far the most wide spread gospels of the age but because they didnt say what was desired they were rejected and banned. There were also two versions of the gospel of mark one was accepted the other denied because it mentioned jesus doing some "unchristian" things. The rest because the stories dont fit the image that they are attempting to create. God didnt edit the bible. After rome converted to christianity the gnostics were persecuted their books burned. Pretty good reason why the offical dogma survived and the other material didnt?

 

 

 

I agree that horrible things are perpetuated by the church but don't follow your logic. If gnosticism is wrong, it's still wrong, even if you think the church in all its forms is a bad thing. God is available to us all - through belief in Jesus. Gnosticism says otherwise.

 

Thats because my logic isnt based on indoctrination. First id have to substantiate the belief that gnosticism is wrong. Because some people viewed their material as heretical and burned and cast them out doesnt make a convincing arguement. Your beliefs are based on an edited version of the history of your faith. You are so blind to the fact anything said to the contrary is a threat. Yes gnosticism is in opposition to your beliefs. BECAUSE they were cast out and persucted and their materials outlawed. Not because their works were any less valid but because they didnt conform with the concept the PEOPLE not god PEOPLE were creating.

 

 

 

 

Uh, not sure what you mean by this. The "Jesus mythos that predates the death of Christ" is ancient Judaism, the Old Testament, which predates the death of Christ by thousands of years, not a hundred years. The origins of gnosticism are shrouded in mystery and debated. If you visit NewAdvent.org and read its entry on gnosticism, it'd be educational.

 

no the jesus mythos that predates jesus is not ancient judaism. mithraism debated whether derived from zoroastrism. mithras was the son of the sun sent to save mankind. He was born on december 25th of a virgin in a cave shepards were in attendance. Mithras sacrificed himself and the last day had a supper with twelve of his followers. At that supper Mithras invited his followes to eat his body and drink his blood. Mithras' festival coincided with the Christian Easter. This legend dates from at least one century before Jesus.The Egyptian god Osiris was also born on the 25th of December, died on a friday and resurrected after spending three days in the underworld.

The Roman god Dionysus was hailed as `The Saviour of Mankind' and `The Son of God'. Dionysus was born (on December 25) when Zeus visited Persephone. Therefore, his father is God and his mother is a mortal virgin. Announced by a star, he is born in a cowshed and visited by three Magis. He turns water into wine and raises people from the dead. He is followed by twelve apostles. Dionysus' resurrection was a popular myth throughout the Roman empire, although his name was different in each country. The rituals in honor of Dionysus included a meal of bread and wine, symbolizing his body and blood. An amulet of the 3rd century has been found that depicts a crucified man (unmistakably Jesus) but bears the inscription "Orpheus Bacchus", which was yet another name for Dionysus. The 5th century Egyptian poet Nonnus wrote two long epic poems in Greek, one on the conquest of the world by Dionysus, and the other a verse paraphrase of one of the Christian gospels. Unfortunately, we know little of the Dionysus' faith because in 396 a mob of fanatical Christians destroyed the sanctuary of Eleusis, likely to have been the largest religious center in the world. We only know that the rituals were very popular and lasted several days.

All of these myths predate jesus by at least a century some much longer.The gospels were chosen in accordance with popular belief and thought of the roman empire. These arent opinions this is FACT you can verify it as you will or wont.

I could mention that paul never met jesus yet has had the single largest influence on the way jesus's teachings are interprated but there really isnt any point. If you have a belief based on nothing but dogma just accept it for what it is. Dont attempt to argue logicaly from an inherently flawed premise. Christianity exists in the form it does because all contrary ideas were destroyed,supressed or absorbed. Even recently the materials found in qumram were withheld till a university broke the censorship and publicly released scans of the supressed documents (causing all kinds of hell) Cant remember which university it was. You concept of christianity is because thats what been fed to you. Its your choice to let others define what god and faith is to you. or you can do what they have done read the materials and come up with your own ideas. :wacko: haha on an unrelated note how do i make the quote things actualy quote

Lol, well here is the thing, i am not planing to use  it just look into it, and find the roots and tie them togeather, and to put togeather a though and theroy of my own, i cant really explain it but i am not really that screwed up :p

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screwed up is better than boring.

Well yeah, when I say "made up", I mean "made up for the comic/movie without relying on pre-existing concepts".

 

25 and 26 are collected in the recent Rare Cuts trade, along with a bunck of other issues that have never been collected before.

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Lots of people selling the there full collections on ebay about to suck it up and buy them. Want to fill in all the missing gaps and collecting them issue by issue sucks to bad to contemplate.

Some things in the movie were not made up (or not any more than any magic is, I trust you have your opinion already).

 

The exorcism formula repeatedly used was a correct bit from the catholic Rituale Romanum, if nowhere near the full ritual. The slowing down of things to a halt when people entered hell or Lucifer manifested is a way to depict the state of gnosis that most chaos magicians will probably agree with. They had this very short little question "Where's east?" in preparation of some spell which is just sooooo typical in practical occultism I cannot believe they came up with it themselves. Someone must have smuggled it in or something. The idea that water is the universal medium is in some new agey books and also, earlier and more seriously, in Bardon's "Initiation into Hermetics", but it seems rather unoriginal so perhaps this is a conincidence.

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Every single aspect of the exorcism scene is in contrast with the formal rite. Except maybe the words spoken which im not sure. i dont think saying a latin phrase repeatedly constitutes as a real exorcism. What would gnosis have to do with lucifer slowing down time the concept is slightly more involved then a special effect and has no relation to its use in the movie. facing a direction is just random mythos they tossed in. Where in IIH is water spoken and used in that manner? The principals of all the elements are intrinsic to his work.

25 and 26 feature an entire town falling into the kabbalistic abyss.

 

89 and 90 have John doing a bit of ritual meditation to get in touch with the Aboriginal Dreamtime.

 

4 and 182 have divination.

 

But most of the stuff in the comics is made up. Same thing with the movie.

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Not like the "real" stuff isnt just the creative idea of someone.

havent read 25 and 26 :icon_evil: outside of all the trades ive only managed to read like 20 issues most of those not in any order on an unrelated note "angel heart" was on tv saw it for the first time today. Suprisingly good movie and a better adaptation then "constanine" even tho it wasnt. Pretty strickingly similar to JC

Read the comics? At least some of that magic is based on "real" magic. Issue 11, portraying the Newcastle incident, shows an attempt at spell from the Grimoirium Verum. Do a google search for it, it'll be one of the first results as a pdf. Just don't try summoning Sagatana...

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ya grimoirium verum is kinda a composite from the keys of solomon and lemegeton bunch of other stuff tossed in. Ive never seen a halfway decent translation made me want to tear my eyes out. The comic shows a bunch of various "real" things used. Course they are so cliche you dont really have to know that they are accurate to have arcane looking circles,candles,cups swords incense hehe lots of latin greek other archaic languages

I appreciate that, MJ. As I said, it's a classic struggle and heated "info wars" were fought between the orthodox and gnosticism, and contrary to some popular beliefs the gospel - the Bible - is a wonderfully cohesive work.

 

I'll tell you honestly why it bothers me so: Jesus came and said salvation is yours, it's simple, just take it, it requires no intellectual effort on your part - in fact, you can never deserve it. Gnosticism takes this beautiful statement and drags it through the mud, saying: nonsense. It does require effort! To achieve salvation you must solve a mystical Rubik's cube and gain enough experience points in the process to achieve the 18th secret level of Promethea-Immateria-Et cetera.

 

It's like saying, "Boy, I love flowers" and having someone come along and say, "Fuck that, the only good flowers are the one's shown in rose competitions. All other flowers are unworthy to be called flowers."

 

Gnosticism is, to my mind, the ugly twisting of the most beautiful thing in the world into something obscene. There may be good intentions but I would rather hear someone say, "Hey, all religions are basically true" than "Jesus attained secret entry into the final sphere and we could do the same if we all learned Kabbalah from Aleister Crowley" or what have you.

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I wasnt aware that the words of jesus are even known. What is known and accepted as the basis of the belief system has nothing to do with what "jesus" said. Its about what people said about what jesus said. And even then from fairly dubious sources. Paul from the bible basicaly the crafter of what is modern christianity was in conflict with the remaining disciples. Pretty interesting stuff if one is inclined to read about it. Also if jesus wasnt claiming that he was :god" why would the jews get ready to stone him for blasphemy? You view gnostic beliefs as a horrible twisting of the spirit of christianity. i find that almost laughable how can you compare the influence of gnostics to that of the orthodxl christian church in the horrible mutation christianity has turned into? The concept that god is available to us all seems alot more fitting with the words attributed to christ and the deeds he was to commit as opposed to the dogma inspired god fearing religion of the sheep people that spawned after his death. You are also aware gnostic texts that give the basis of the messiah and jesus mythos predate the supposed death of christ by a hundred or so years right?

Yes. This is my point. Judaism is not dualistic.

I never said judaism was thats my point :icon_sam:

"chaos magick" often deals with egregores and thought-forms and the use of sigils to represent aspects a person wants to externalize. All ideas "exist" at least as ideas far step to say that ideas can be physicaly manifested through the use of ritual. But even then to say something is a primoridial archtype drawn from our collective consciousness doesnt imply  after being born is still dependent. Thoughts sometimes have minds of their own  :wacko:

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True, true, but (too my understanding) for the sigils and conjurations to work, the idea must be "real" in the subconscious of the practitioner. Meaning that no matter how "real" the demon may be to person A, person B must have said "demon" in his subconscious in order to make it manifest. I think? I dunno...not a chaos magician; I just read some books by chaos magicians.

 

I know this headache I'm getting is "real"! :wacko:

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No you are correct but to me this seems like a convient excuse for why said manifestations arent observable by someone else. OMG I JUST SUMMONED ThE DARK LORD OF HATE. ya you cant see him because you dont believe. I find the idea flawed because if something was a composite entity based on thousands of years of collective belief. One persons thoughts on the matter wouldnt effect it much. fundamental concept of chaos magick is that belief dictates reality. Even if something doesnt exist independently of yourself you could still manifest it. The use of symbols and all the other trappings is to them merely a convience. They can create a sigil that represents a complex idea. So the symbol used to summon something is merely embodying the idea they are trying to manifest. So they will break down a complex idea like something to serve and protect them. Represent that idea with a symbol and then attempt to manifest it using the symbol as a point of focus. When if you were using a formal system of magick. you have a complex set of rules that have to be followed. a device to evoke,protection something to contain whatever is evoked. Something to compel whatever to do whatever. Way to banish whatever. all of it requiring complex rituals to enact. Chaos has no system they do whatever with whatever for whatever reasons. Basicaly role play hard enough and it becomes true.

If you want to manipulate reality and conjure demons...go away. Demons don't exist.

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Some (chaos magicians, especially) would argue that demons do exist, but that they are personal manifestations of dark or destructive aspects of your personallity. The commonality of names (by this I mean that different people encounter the same demon) could be because these demons are represented in the writings of a culture (Mammon, Lucifer, Bealzibub), or because these names are part of our collective subconcious.

 

Of course, mucking about with the dark aspects of your mind can be very dangerous, too.

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"chaos magick" often deals with egregores and thought-forms and the use of sigils to represent aspects a person wants to externalize. All ideas "exist" at least as ideas far step to say that ideas can be physicaly manifested through the use of ritual. But even then to say something is a primoridial archtype drawn from our collective consciousness doesnt imply after being born is still dependent. Thoughts sometimes have minds of their own :wacko:

Hey, when i first saw Constantine the day it came out, i automatically loved it, became fascinated by it, and the magic in it too, i was wondering, where can i learn and find out about all the different symbols, and different types of magic used in the movie, and to learn more about the story line, and the ideas of how hell and heaven are, you know basically everything behind this.

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Three books of occult philosophy,picatrix,heptameron,corpus hermeticum good start to modern systems of magick. adaptatations of the kabbalah and its used commonly. Look up israel reguardie on his books on kabbalah easy to read and understand if a bit uhhh trendy. Crowley's material while widespread and the staple of any wizard in training is crap. This will give you a good idea of the systematic techniques that are commonly used in magick. But its merely knowledge you arent going to be able to throw fireballs or call down lightning by reading these books. Demonology and cosmology varies greatly from each system and individual within the system. the before mentioned materials are in relation to ceremonial magick which isnt the only path but if your looking for arcane symbols and dress up youll get what your looking for.

the good news is though, that it should improve my connection, which means I can finally buy World of Warcraft...

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World of warcraft is ok for a month gets boring fast. Bought the game maxed a char sold it for $554

I agree with Mark. Doom IS one of My most fondly remembered gaming experiences too - along with WarCraft II, Duke Nukem 3D and StarCraft. And the movie DOES seem like its going to suck. Supposedly its about some race of mutant creatures attacking the people on some planet. Doesnt even sound like Doom. Admittedly, Doom doesnt have the fleshiest of stories but what is There should not be fucked with cos its the basis for some potentially EXTREMELY creepy shit. I was disappointed by Doom 3's level design but I do think it was scary as hell a lot of the way and I think the movie if properly done could be a creepy fucker too. Instead, its Mutants! I dont want mutants, I want Satan and his minions. Now THIS movie can be handled by Francis Lawrence no prob.

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haha doom has no story the main character doesnt even have a name. plot is monsters killed everyone kill the monsters. sometimes get a key to open a door. Doom 3 was crap and almost made my computer burst into flames :icon_frown:

It wasnt that judaism wasnt aware of spiritual conflict the history of judaism is ridden with it. Its that they didnt accept any being or force as the counter aspect to their god. Other deities are reconized its never said that other gods dont exist merely not to worship them and that they are false.

Its silly but entertaining.

The inclusion of the jinn into Islamic doctrine reveals some of the pagan influence that was incorporated.

 

So do angels have free will in Christianity?

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I don't know and there seems to be a consensus among sholars that there is no clarity on that subject. Christ says that angels do not marry. In the Old Testament angels take many forms, as messengers, guardians, even emanations of God Himself as in the burning bush (The Angel of the Lord). Seems this greek desire to group and quantify everything hurts us a bit. The Israelites had no such need to dissect and categorize everything. My best guess is that some do and some don't. The being called Lucifer must have in order for him to have been able to declare himself higher than God and rebel. There must have been others as well who could have followed him into rebellion.

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The passage about "lucifer" how the mighty have fallen one. Is usualy taken as a reference to the god of babylon "ishtar" and the decline of that nation.

As we get closer to the birth of christ judaism starts to adopt alot of the ideas from zorostrianism. The dualistic concepts god is good satan evil. Also the concepts of an immortal soul and a bunch of other stuff. to then become the modern christian idea of satan. i suppose modern judaism as well tho im not that certain.

 

That is a common belief of many liberal theologians. The problem is that Judaism developed before and along side the other dualistc systems, but somehow (miraculously?) remains deeply theistic not dualistic. Satan is never considered an equal of God in the Torah, Law, Writings or Prophets (Old Testament) and subsequently not in the New Testament.

Zorastrianism is the first dualistic religion that is known. if you know of one that predates it id be amazed. Gnostism isnt a dualistic belief system by nature. Some sects lean that way more than others. The belief that they believed the material world was evil was a point used by the then forming church to discredit them. More common is the belief that god isnt evil he is ignorant the material isnt evil its an illusion based on ignorance. Im not aware of a religion that accepted "satan" as an equal in zorastrianism he was fated to lose so obviously not an equal. In christianity deffinitly not an equal either. judaic ancient text ascribes both the concepts of good and evil to god. Satan carried out the will of god but god was the one dictating. No need to differentiate betweel good and evil if your god encompasses both aspects. Juadism predates zorastrianism and christianity by many hundreds of years. It adopted and interchanged many concepts with them the concept of an opposing independent evil force wasnt one of them.

There are several Apocalyptic texts which remain apocryphal (most notably the Apocalypse of Peter), but the accepted body of Biblical scripture has been more constant than you might imagine through history. There may have been revisions to Biblical texts over the years, but the main body of the book has been pretty much constant since at least 1611, when the first King James edition was published.

 

The main problem with the notion of a coherent body known as "the Apocrypha" is that it leads people to assume that these texts were in some sense eligible for inclusion in the Biblical 'canon' and at some point in the process of the formation of the canon they were excluded - this simply isn't the case. This is particularly true of the New Testament Apocrypha - only three of the widely-recognized NT apocryphal works (Apocalypse of Peter, Acts of Paul, Gospel of the Hebrews) were ever listed among the 'disputed' books which some treated as canonical (i.e. used in worship). Many texts which were written before and during the process of canonization (the original compilation of the books comprising the NT) are treated by later theologians as 'rejected' (apocryphal) works, but were never seriously considered as candidates for canonical status. Many more were written during and after the completion of the canon as works functioning to supplement the canon - these were never intended to be read as 'rivals' to the canonical books.

 

The term 'apocrypha,' which has come to be widely used with reference to 'spurious' or 'rejected' books, suggests a body of literature that was in some way 'rejected' or 'suppressed' in mainstream Christianity (a vast array of books have sprung up suggesting all sorts of implausible conspiracies relating to these books, most of which are utter bullshit - I direct your attention to The Da Vinci Code for a notable recent example. Don't bother reading it, it's shite). This is definitely true for some of these works, but to a massively varying degree, and differently in different periods. The Gnostic works were among the first texts to be called 'apocryphal' and were pretty unequivocally rejected in mainstream Christianity from around the second century (the Gnostic texts are a variety of writings which suggest an explicitly revealed knowledge of God, guarded as a secret tradition of the apostles. They're fucking ludicrous, for the most part). But many of the so-called NT apocrypha were not actually particularly unorthodox in content. Some of these were officially rejected but remained popular in practice. These texts continued to be written by orthodox Chtristians well into the early middle ages, and some of the NT apocrypha were extremely popular throughout the middle ages - not suppressed, but not treated as authoritative in the canonical sense (particularly the 'Infancy' Gospels and the apocalypses that revealed the fate of the dead in the afterlife, such as the Harrowing of Hell which is covered in the so-called Gospel of Nicodemus). The Catholic church still regards as canonical a couple of books which are still treated as apocryphal by most other churches, though, which does confuse matters.

 

I hope that clears things up a little. Any further questions?

 

(don't ask for details, 'cos I'm nobody's idea of a Biblical scholar. I just know the basic outline of this stuff)

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Well you have a big body of source material alot of it equaly valid as far as time period and authors goes. And a vast majority of it isnt included a good deal of it deemed heretical. Gnostism wasnt a unified body some forms had nothing to do with christianity. What is known is that the gnostics were deemed heretical and forced underground their works suppressed and destroyed. skip 2000 years of the destruction of contrary works to cannonized gospel too many to actualy mention on a point by point basis. We have discovery of the nag hammadi library which contains a vast amount of ancient "biblical" text. Im sure everyone is aware of the internation scandal that was caused because of them. If not there are several good books if you dont mind filtering out the ones written by ufo worshiping weirdos. And the da vinci code is fiction of course its nonsense. To this day attempt to get a permit to view some material in the vatican its next to impossible. It took untill the late 80's early 90's for the stuff found on the dead sea scrolls to get published. This isnt myth or consipracy theorist nonsense this is easily researchable fact. not to say there isnt a large body of idiocy also related to it. The Dead Sea Scrolls Translated by Florentino Garcia Martinez,The Dead Sea Scrolls by M. Wise and M. Abegg & E. Cook two good books that contain almost all the scrolls compiled. And yes the bible remains very consistent for the past 400 years the catholic church is based upon that version of the doctrine. They are an institute based on their very particular interpratation of that book. Of course it has remained static that should be a good indication that something is amiss. when new material isnt included even tho vast amounts of ancient text has been found since then.

Ah, thanks James!

 

Fell, yes I realize that the basic concept of demons and Hell (even though it wasn't the same as the Christian concepts) existed pre-Christianity, but Nergal was never considered a demon until Christianity.

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Nergal has always had negative connotations. God of the underworld,war,strife,plague. You sometimes see moderate associations as well. Christian demonology isnt a unified field. Some systems make distinctions between fallen angels and demons. They are given various attributes and associations depending on time period and the author. But nergal translated into christianity is a "demon". even tho im not certain how nergal is ranked in christian doctrine. ill have to look it up.

I'm not sure about this, but there was an old DCU character called Nergal. Wasn't it mentioned somewhere that the demon in H.B. was the same character from DC? Or, is this Nergal just based on the Babylonian god who was later relegated to demondom by Christianity?

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Im fairly sure its two different characters using the same generic babylonian gods name. The concepts of "demons" extends beyond christianity. Summerian and babylonian mythology mentions "demons" and a sometimes negative underworld. Christianity adopted most of their cosmology from various other sources. But it does mention gods from different hierarchies as having distinct realms. Lucifer has to retrieve his wings from some gods name i forget and is powerless in his realm.

The whole thing with the Spear isn't the only little bit of Catholic doctrine the movie got wrong.  The whole thing with suicides not being allowed a proper burial hasn't been on the books for ages.

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Well if you consider the 1983 to be ages then yes. And the new code just leaves it unknown it doesnt establish that its acceptable to be buried on consecrated ground or not. People have and are still sometimes denied burial rights based on suicide and other things.

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All uncannonized gospels are not accepted as the "word of god" being able to edit the accepted words of god is a handy trick. All kinds of interesting material is ommited or downright supressed.

Wasnt nergal explained to be a human that aspired to the rank of demon in hell?

 

Nope.

 

I thought human souls that went to hell could become demons over a period of zillions of years.

 

Yup.

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I recall The First torturing nergal and nergal being a human. The first tells nergals past that he was a child molester from some time period i dont recall. And how it took nergal a thousand years to become a demon and he could be reverted to a human soul whenever the first wanted?

The whole thing with the Spear isn't the only little bit of Catholic doctrine the movie got wrong.  The whole thing with suicides not being allowed a proper burial hasn't been on the books for ages.

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Well if you consider the 1983 to be ages then yes. And the new code just leaves it unknown it doesnt establish that its acceptable to be buried on consecrated ground or not. People have and are still sometimes denied burial rights based on suicide and other things.

The fact that many demons seem not to care about their relatives was made clear in Carey's Lucifer: A Dalliance With the Damned.

 

However, that storyline also features a demon falling in love, somewhat disproving Nergal's claim in the latest issue that demons do not make such attachments. And there's always Ellie as an example of a demon going head-over-heels for someone.

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Wasnt nergal explained to be a human that aspired to the rank of demon in hell? I thought human souls that went to hell could become demons over a period of zillions of years. Ritchie was still "humanish" or at least had a human soul when he was dragged into hell to become a demon.

Couldn't be bothered with the rest of the thread, but I had to chime in to point out Mark's wrongness.

 

Wasn't he in on that?  If he wasn't, Christ, I'll be the first to admit my comprehension skills are getting REALLY rusty.

 

It's a wee while since I read 'Rake', but unless I'm very wrong indeed, John wasn't in on Ellie's plan.

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You're very wrong indeed.

 

John's plan is to hide behind Gabriel (who cannot be killed unless his heart is destroyed) whilst Ellie gets her shit together and kills The First. Obviously the Gabriel part of the plan fucks up, which is why John is left exposed to The First in Nigel's flat.

 

John and Header raid the Caligula Club at the start of Rake... to get hold of the grimoires which have the secret for defeating the FOTF. Later on, Renee tells Chas that some "slag" was looking for John - we're supposed to think that she's talking about Kit, but she really means Ellie.

 

The only part of the plan that John isn't in on is Ellie's disguise as Astra, something John couldn't know about if she ever had to make an "in character" appearance in front of him.

 

With regard to Ellie's comment that John owes her, both she and John were quits after Gabriel fell, and both had something to gain from The First "dying" (after all, she was being hunted by him not too long ago). So when The First died, they were still equal. What tipped the scales in Ellie's favour was her decision to cure John's relapsed lung cancer.

 

Who said that Ennis' issues were easy to get on a first reading?

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Gabriel will only fall into hell if his heart is destroyed he wont die. Still dont understand how a dagger in the back will kill The First but dissolving in holy water just pisses him off.