Reviewing all references to 'God' in my programming

[miss taken]

The posts in this thread have been migrated from the "Introduce Yourselves - Tag You're It" thread. The exchange is worthy of it's own thread. However, a copy of the following posts remain on the "Introduce Yourselves" thread as to not interrupt the flow of the original postings.

Thanks Paul.
I have to say too, that in questioning JS, I also felt that to be fair, I also had to question the historical foundation of christianity itself. So as well as researching all that was available to me on LDS history, I also spent years investigating early church (as in from 30AD onwards) history, and the person of Jesus.

It may be that early church history is as white-washed as LDS history. Christianity quickly became a tool of power and control, from the start, Constantine, and over here in England, the monks tended to convert kings first where possible. No religion is perfect IMHO. I do believe in a God of Love, that God is love. I don't care if Jesus was married or not, and I respect what I have come to know about him. Though a lot of christianity itself is a matter of faith which cannot be tried by historical investigation. The new testament itself is full of contradiction, and is not a perfect document. I think the LDS church have got the 'as far as is translated correctly' bit right.

If the LDS church helps someone to be a better loving person, then there are worse things they could do than joining it. It just wasn't right for me.
Thanks for reading (okay...I didn't feel so guilty posting that!!!!!)

[peter_mary]

I have to say too, that in questioning JS, I also felt that to be fair, I also had to question the historical foundation of christianity itself. So as well as researching all that was available to me on LDS history, I also spent years investigating early church (as in from 30AD onwards) history, and the person of Jesus.

It may be that early church history is as white-washed as LDS history. Christianity quickly became a tool of power and control, from the start, Constantine, and over here in England, the monks tended to convert kings first where possible. No religion is perfect IMHO.

I would love to know what the stats are on this, but it seems incredibly common for people leaving the Church to question EVERYTHING...and it seems almost as equally common to end up without a desire for religion at all. Some consider that throwing the baby out with the bathwater, but I think it has more to do with just what you suggested...the same tools you used to deconstruct Mormonism are equally as effective in deconstructing religion in general. Not everyone feels that way, obviously, and there are religiously devout folks on this forum, but it is not uncommon for former Mormons to end up on the other extreme of that continuum!

Paul

[Born Free]

I would love to know what the stats are on this, but it seems incredibly common for people leaving the Church to question EVERYTHING...and it seems almost as equally common to end up without a desire for religion at all. Some consider that throwing the baby out with the bathwater, but I think it has more to do with just what you suggested...the same tools you used to deconstruct Mormonism are equally as effective in deconstructing religion in general. Not everyone feels that way, obviously, and there are religiously devout folks on this forum, but it is not uncommon for former Mormons to end up on the other extreme of that continuum!

Paul

Paul,

I remember a point in my process when I concluded that I had to review all the assumptions I had on board about teh nature of God. I discovered a very problematic aspect of that..... that most references to God in the FAT (computer metaphore here - File Allocation Table) were not logged. The reason seemed to be that when they were written, they were taken as so reliable that they were like "The sun rises in the east and sets in teh west".

I then discovered that it was extremely hard to locate and then isolate for scrutiny, any assumptions about "God and the nature thereof" in my belief structure. Now that said, I have found that work amongst the most useful and satifying of my journey.

I have attached (as a PS) one paragraph extract from John Shelby Spongs' latest essay. This one paragraph presents massive problems for the simplistic literal way I was encouraged to view the scritpures whilst a Mormon. I find all of Christian and Mormon teaching can be subjected to this level of scrutiny, and I now believe that anyone still holding a literal belief in the scriptures after that process, has a real problem.

Daryl

PS: Extract from Spong essay: "Western Christians find it hard to understand that the gospel writers were not writing objective history. Yet nothing we know about the formation of the New Testament supports that conclusion. Jesus lived between 4 BCE and 30 CE. He spoke and taught in Aramaic. The gospels came 40 to 70 years after his death and they were written in Greek. This means that almost everything that we know about Jesus lived in oral transmission and underwent one translation before we get to the earliest documents that we possess. During that time his followers had continued to worship in the synagogues of their ancestral Jewish faith before the movement that he had begun separated itself from Judaism in 88 CE and came to be called Christianity. They were originally called "The Followers of the Way."

[dogzilla]

PS: Extract from Spong essay: "Western Christians find it hard to understand that the gospel writers were not writing objective history. Yet nothing we know about the formation of the New Testament supports that conclusion. Jesus lived between 4 BCE and 30 CE. He spoke and taught in Aramaic. The gospels came 40 to 70 years after his death and they were written in Greek. This means that almost everything that we know about Jesus lived in oral transmission and underwent one translation before we get to the earliest documents that we possess. During that time his followers had continued to worship in the synagogues of their ancestral Jewish faith before the movement that he had begun separated itself from Judaism in 88 CE and came to be called Christianity. They were originally called "The Followers of the Way."

That is fascinating to me. What does that possibly say about "The Passion of the Christ?" in that case? (A movie I refused to see for so many reasons.) Was it completely inaccurate? (I would assume so, being a Hollywood account of supposed events occurring more than 2000 years ago.)

[pokatator]

That is fascinating to me. What does that possibly say about "The Passion of the Christ?" in that case? (A movie I refused to see for so many reasons.) Was it completely inaccurate? (I would assume so, being a Hollywood account of supposed events occurring more than 2000 years ago.)
Actually most scholars agree that The Passion movie was realistic as far as the crucifixion itself. The accuracy of the scene (the storyboard) is from the Bible. The blood and gore of crucifixion is some from the bible and from other accounts. There are lots of non biblical descriptions and accounts of Roman crucifixion.

[Born Free]

That is fascinating to me. What does that possibly say about "The Passion of the Christ?" in that case? (A movie I refused to see for so many reasons.) Was it completely inaccurate? (I would assume so, being a Hollywood account of supposed events occurring more than 2000 years ago.)

Spong and many other Biblical scholars regard the PoC as significantly a fictional work, (some add - in the best sado-masochistic Catholic Christian tradition). As he points to in that extract, the early 'Christin' sect sat within mainstream Jewish faith for decades until it distanced itself from zealot activitism (and in turn mainstream Judeaism) to save its neck with Rome. At that point teh Judas story emerged. What is lost on us English speakers unfamiliar with the language, the name Judas tranlsates as Judah! (Funny to give teh baddy in the story the name of teh entire Jewish people - which concept reached its most obscene heights in Nazis claiming Christ was actually Ayran!) He points to ample examples that the Passover story heavily polluted the cruxification story during that period whilst it was not written down.

Like you, I refuse point blank to view Gibson's torrid Catholic guilt workover (I personally regard it as near to pornography - violence for its own sake). But then, I completely reject the notion that anyone had to die for my sins. I regard that as primitive scapegoating, that has deep roots in traditional religous notions that the Gods can be bribed, cajoled, tempted, bought-off etc. So when someone takes as a starting point something I reject from the start, and then turns it into a S&M bloodfest, I want to puke :Puking (Ah! I finally got to use the little puker!)

These days we regard managers and judges who can be bribed as corrupt and deserving of contempt, so why treat the notion of a God who can be swayed with any more respect?

The whole idea of pennance in the Catholic Church was not inconsistent with the basic idea that you can shift guilt around and bribe God, just that it took the idea so far as to upset some folks (read too far beyond what they had already been desensitixed to).

Spong (and like minds) offers another whole insight into the scriptures. Just seeing the Old Testament through Jewish eyes is illuminating, once you get to see how much we filter the OT through New Testament & Christian sensitivies and filters. I would recommend most post-Mos read at least some of his material before rejecting or embracing Christianity in its entirety. He opens up the possibility of a far more expansive, love-based, God concept, that is so far beyond traditional constipated Christian notions as to be nearly unrecognisable. I for one find him a breath of fresh air.

Spong argues that if you read the NT gospels in the sequence scholars now believe they were written, you can see notions of Christs divinity being developed on the fly - evolving, as it were. For example the point at which his divinity is acknowledged gets earlier, starting at this death, and then moving progressively earlier, beyond his birth, until OT scripture is claimed to be pointing to, and announcing him.

The first book of his I read was "Why Christianity Must Change or Die". I loved it, and wished I could have found something like it 20 years ago. It was only then that I could start to countenance anyting other than a complete rejection of Jesus the Miracle Worker from Gallilee.

Daryl

[free thinker]

I agree with Daryl. Who said I am estranged from God? Who has the right, or authority, to say that? Maybe we are not estranged from God!! I dont think we are. I am going to have to read some of Spong. Sounds very interesting!

When you take a chance to reconsider, in a different light, all you have been taught since childhood, it is quite refreshing. I think it is important to note that if Jesus was only a historical figure, it does not mean we are completely lost. Perhaps God, whoever that is, cares deeply, but is more benign than we would wish to think!!

Just a thought!

[Jeff_Ricks]

Spong (and like minds) offers another whole insight into the scriptures. Just seeing the Old Testament through Jewish eyes is illuminating, once you get to see how much we filter the OT through New Testament & Christian sensitivies and filters. I would recommend most post-Mos read at least some of his material before rejecting or embracing Christianity in its entirety. He opens up the possibility of a far more expansive, love-based, God concept, that is so far beyond traditional constipated Christian notions as to be nearly unrecognisable. I for one find him a breath of fresh air.

Spong argues that if you read the NT gospels in the sequence scholars now believe they were written, you can see notions of Christs divinity being developed on the fly - evolving, as it were. For example the point at which his divinity is acknowledged gets earlier, starting at this death, and then moving progressively earlier, beyond his birth, until OT scripture is claimed to be pointing to, and announcing him.

I’m interested in reading Spong now because after I reasoned my way out Mormonism and kept going, reasoning my way through Christianity I had the opportunity to ask a number of very educated Christians to show me where it mentions Jesus in the Old Testament without taking it out of context and to date no one has been able to. Those who tried included a divinity college trained pastor and a professor of Christianity at a Christian university. They all gave up or offered the same excuses Mormonism does for taking scripture out of context in order to apply it to Joseph Smith or Mormonism, ie., prophecy has duel meaning, that's something we don't understand yet -- just have faith, etc. So I had to leave behind Christianity too for the same reasons I left behind Mormonism.

But in the process of examining the Old Testament rather closely, I too concluded that the original authors (of the so-called prophecies in particular) had in mind quite a different notion of God than does Christianity. In fact it’s a notion that appears to me to qualify as atheistic when compared to the typical Judeo-Christian-Muslim notion of a god-being existing somewhere in the universe. In fact, to me it appears to be best described as a blend of psychology and Buddhism and seems to speak not of a god out there somewhere in the universe that we need to get in touch with and placate. Instead they seem to write about a the deeper parts of our consciousness we lose touch with as we get carried away by the usual routines and concerns of the life. The author (or authors) of the concepts attributed to Jesus in the NT seemed to be influenced by this paradigm. The NT quotes Jesus as saying that the kingdom of god is within you. The word Immanuel in the OT is Hebrew for “god within” typically translated by the Christian biased translators of the Bible as “god with us.” The translators correctly translate “eem” as “with” and “el” as god, but they ignore the middle part “manoo” which means hidden, inside, inward etc. So, Immanuel appears to literally translate as “eem” “manoo” “el”, with-in ( is) god, not “god with us” as the Bible erroneously states.

The Hebrews usually translated as Lord in the OT comes form the Hebrew yahweh where yah means “to be, to exist, to live” etc. It seems to speak of life or consciousness, and specifically the part of our consciousness that is deep within us – perhaps our subconscious mind or perhaps even deeper on the order of Jung’s archetypes that he claims exists as the deepest part of our psyche’s. Jung’s collective conscious also seems to be something these ancient Hebrew authors understood. They seemed to view this god within us as a collective thing. Names such as Lord of Hosts (from the Hebrew “yahweh tsaba” seem to stem from this concept and literally mean something like, “to be or to live (within) a body of people.

There’s more I’d like to say on this but I’d better get to work. I'm planning to write some papers or a book on this subject. What I've touched on here only scratches the surface of the subject and the material to back it up. If I write a book it will probably be called something like, "The Atheist Roots of Judeo-Christianity." I respect the choice of some who have left Mormonism and embraced Christianity. As for me, I choose otherwise and am very much at peace with that choice.

Jeff

[miss taken]

Jeff I found the notions you discuss about the words emmanuel, and Yahveh, to be extremely interesting. Would love to know more.

[Born Free]

I’m interested in reading Spong now because after I reasoned my way out Mormonism and kept going, reasoning my way through Christianity I had the opportunity to ask a number of very educated Christians to show me where it mentions Jesus in the Old Testament without taking it out of context and to date no one has been able to. Those who tried included a divinity college trained pastor and a professor of Christianity at a Christian university. They all gave up or offered the same excuses Mormonism does for taking scripture out of context in order to apply it to Joseph Smith or Mormonism, ie., prophecy has duel meaning, that's something we don't understand yet -- just have faith, etc. So I had to leave behind Christianity too for the same reasons I left behind Mormonism.

Jeff

Jeff,

If I am reading your angle correctly, you will warm to Spong. He argues that some religion's attempts to 'define' God (and Mormonism is a good example) are guilty of idolatry. He argues that when we insist that with human understanding, we can get a grip on "GOD", then we are in big strife, and that the Jewish concept of not even using the name of God to avoid limiting God to human capacities, is a good example of checking against that.

I have gone along to listen to him the last 2 times he was in Australia (where interestingly enough, he says he has a bigger following on a per capita basis than the US, his homeland) and in response to questions about what his God concept was after the journey he has been through, it was "God is love; love is God". Further a key phrase you will hear him use again and again is that we show our love for God by "being all that we might be, by loving willfully and wastefully", a theme I find highly consistent with what many post-Mos report on this site. They refuse to live lives constrained by fear any longer!

Like you, once I got my head in gear enough to really deconstruct Mormonism, it seemed lazy and security-seeking to stop short of following through with Christianity. After all, early Christianity had the same problems of human beings with their fears, history, traditions, biases, alliances, politicing, socialisation etc as did Mormonism, so why should Christianity be any more immune than Mormonism?

As I said, Christainity was falling apart nearly as badly as Mormonism (for me) until Spong postured a major reframe, as a basis of letting go of all the miracle working, all the scripture that is now widely held to be ghost written, and stripping, and stripping until you are back to something approximating what really went down.

He says his audience is the Church alumni - all those who walked because they could not tolerant the mindlessness, willful anti-science/modernity and fear-based control any more. Sound familiar?

He has been very vocal and attracted no end of criticism for his statements (and books) on homosexuality and the Church and women and the Priesthood both of which he argues are sociological constructs and in a few years will be regarded as repugnant as slavery (which was also once justified by scripture).

Jeff, you have a fine mind, and do your research, so I think you will enjoy and feel stimulated by him. He was like a breath of fresh air for me!

Daryl

[Jeff_Ricks]

Jeff I found the notions you discuss about the words emmanuel, and Yahveh, to be extremely interesting. Would love to know more.

Thanks. I'm glad you found it interesting. I wish I had more time to write about it. Another interesting tidbit -- a rather significant one -- is the word we typically pronounce as elohiem and is usually translated as "God" in the Bible. Before vowel markings became part of written Hebrew at around 600 BC the natural pronunciation of the word was elahim. In other words, elahim is likely the original pronunciation. At any rate, the first three Hebrew letters of the word (aleph, lamed, heth) spell elah, which is Hebrew for "oak tree". The remaining two letters in the word (yod, mem) are pronounced "im" and are placed at the end of masculine Hebrew words to make them plural. For example, cherub becomes the plural cherubim and seraph becomes seraphim. And elah becomes elahim.

That oak tree is the intended meaning of the word is support by the passage in Genesis where it says, “elahim (God) created man in his own image, in the image of elahim (God) created he him; male and female created he them.” (Genesis 1:27). Most tree’s have either male or female flowers on them requiring both genders of a species to propagate the species. The oak tree is one of the few trees that has both male and female flowers on the same tree, making it a nifty metaphor for mankind which is also a collective organism that contains both male and female members. So, according to the earliest known writings, man is not created in the image of God but in the image and likeness of the oak tree.

It’s significant to note the some religious sects or cults within the Egyptian culture used trees as metaphors for their various gods, and the Hebrew people are thought to have come from Egypt. The Hebrew elahim seems to stem from this as does various plants used as metaphors for the things the Hebrew worshipped or held sacred. The messiah is called the Branch in Jeremiah, and is called the root out of dry ground a young plant in Isaiah. Jesus is said to have called himself the Vine. All of these appear to stem from the Egyptian worship of tree-gods or from their practice of using plants as metaphors for their gods.

So, when Jo Smith or Brigham Young say that God the Father is named Elohiem they couldn’t be more wrong and obviously haven't a friggin' clue where the word came from. Christian Bible scholars seem to be clueless as well when they "translate" (actually outright redefine completely) the name as God.

Jeff

P.S. I should point out before someone calls me on it that elah is a feminine Hebrew word, not a masculine word. Feminine Hebrew words are made plural by appending "oth" on the end of the word, not "im." But it seems clear that elahim and the oak tree are directly related. Perhaps the word was originally pronounced elahoth, but when the concept of a male deity crept into their culture, rather than completely scrapping their female deity, elahoth, they tweaked it a little by changing it from elahoth to elahim.

[Jeff_Ricks]

Jeff,

If I am reading your angle correctly, you will warm to Spong. ....

I think you will enjoy and feel stimulated by him. He was like a breath of fresh air for me!

Daryl

I read one of Spong's essays today and quite liked it. Thank you for sending me some of his other essays today Daryl!

Jeff

[Born Free]

I read one of Spong's essays today and quite liked it. Thank you for sending me some of his other essays today Daryl!

Jeff

Jeff,

Glad you liked it!

What I like about his approach is the love of truth or greater truth, so he keeps working at peeling away teh myths and untruths, and at least I figure that brings us closer to the historical Jesus Christ. If that means letting go of Christ teh Miracle Worker than, for me, that is just an inevitable proce to be paid. I would rather be looking at the man as he really was, and with what gifts or insights he really offered, that all warm and fuzzy with the myth of teh Divine Christ that is evidently based upon lies.

Everything I have ever read by him has the ring of just good sense.

He is interesting on evolution, saying that all the evidence is that rather than we have fallen from some innocent state to sordid sinful mortality, that all the evidence points that we are evolving as more moral, more ethical, more civilized and more loving. He takes the exact opposite view to many religions.

I have been meaning to get back to the thread re books we have gained greatly from. I would want to add the suggestion that we add some summary of the book, and what we got from it/what need in us it addressed.

[Born Free]

[QUOTE=Jeff_Ricks]Thanks. I'm glad you found it interesting. I wish I had more time to write about it. Another interesting tidbit -- a rather significant one -- is the word we typically pronounce as elohiem and is usually translated as "God" in the Bible. Before vowel markings became part of written Hebrew at around 600 BC the natural pronunciation of the word was elahim. In other words, elahim is likely the original pronunciation. At any rate, the first three Hebrew letters of the word (aleph, lamed, heth) spell elah, which is Hebrew for "oak tree". The remaining two letters in the word (yod, mem) are pronounced "im" and are placed at the end of masculine Hebrew words to make them plural. For example, cherub becomes the plural cherubim and seraph becomes seraphim. And elah becomes elahim.

Jeff,

Scripture starts to look very different when you go back to both the language in which it originated, AND the sociological context in which events occurred.

The ignorance and arrogance of projecting modern notions backwards across time never fails to amaze me. Joseph Smith was a great example, of course. In his immediate historical and social setting American Indians as part of the Lost Tribes was a ripping good yarn. Bummer when someone turns up a few hundred years later and throws a wet blanket over the nonsence with a technology inconceivable at that time.

The bibles literal advocates get stuck on its glaring problems with being taken literally: shepherds get their arse frozen off in December in Judean hills, the tree branches that were supposed to be waved at Christs coming into Jerusaleum, just are not abundent at that time of year, women did not have to report for the census, and 8 month pregnant woman laugh at the idea that some woman took a week long journey on donkey (and state that the story could only have been written by a man!) etc., etc..

Daryl

[silverfox]

The posts in this thread have been migrated from the "Introduce Yourselves - Tag You're It" thread. The exchange is worthy of it's own thread. However, a copy of the following posts remain on the "Introduce Yourselves" thread as to not interrupt the flow of the original postings.

[wescape]

Jeff,

Very interesting info about how the first three letters of elahim mean oak tree which has both male and female flowers. It really made me think and I see it as supporting the view that we (men and women) are both equally made in God's image. It is fascinating that the root word for God in Hebrew refers to something both strong and beautiful that encompasses both genders and yet is not human. To me this speaks of a tangible way to describe God's spiritual nature.

I also enjoyed reading your other post about how Jesus said the kingdom of God is within us. Much of what you said harmonized with my belief that the deepest part of who we are is made in God's image and that is the reason Jesus said His kingdom is within.

Thanks for stirring my thoughts!

Wes

[Born Free]

In case you have missed it, I have created a new thread which links to a great test that enables you to explore the internal consistency of your "God belief".

I recommend it.

[Born Free]

Actually most scholars agree that The Passion movie was realistic as far as the crucifixion itself. The accuracy of the scene (the storyboard) is from the Bible. The blood and gore of crucifixion is some from the bible and from other accounts. There are lots of non biblical descriptions and accounts of Roman crucifixion.

I was just reading something regarding the cruxificion in a Spong newsletter in the last few days.

He points out that all the apostles did a runner! None, read zip, were present, so what we have in the NT accounts is ALL hearsay and 2nd or 3rd hand, and again not written down for 50 years.

And by then the melding of the historical truth, and the Passover tradition had got very, very blurred.

Daryl

[Born Free]

I like to keep an eye on what visitors here find of most interest, and this thread rates highly (as in the most read outside the Stickies).

Anyone want to engage in some speculation as to why is rates so highly?

Daryl

[helemon]

I like to keep an eye on what visitors here find of most interest, and this thread rates highly (as in the most read outside the Stickies).

Anyone want to engage in some speculation as to why is rates so highly?

Daryl

Could it be the word PROGRAMMING is causing it to show up on search engines? Jeff can people google individual posts, or can search engine spiders crawl through the posts?

[miss taken]

I think it is because it started on the 'introduce yourself' thread, so it's views got counted in with the 'introduce yourself' views. So I think the 'view' count is misleading???

????