Historicity of Jesus - 2

[ramana]

The Two Babylons

Cosimo Classics | November 1, 2009 | ISBN-10: 1605208108 | 816 pages |

Originally a pamphlet published in 1853, The Two Babylons is Hislop's most famous work. In this book he argues that the Roman Catholic Church is nothing more than pagan cult, with roots in Babylonian mystery cults, which have a bank of secret knowledge only available to those who have been formally accepted into the cult. Roman Catholics, Hislop argues, are descendants from early Christians who adopted the Roman religion descended from the worship of Semiramis, the wife of the founder of Babylon. By discrediting the true Christianity of Catholics, Hislop hoped to bolster the legitimacy of the Protestant and Scottish Reformations. Students of theology and those interested in the complex history of Christianity will find Hislop's arguments provocative enough that they may be moved to further research of their own. Scottish minister ALEXANDER HISLOP (1807-1865) became an ordained clergymen in the Free Church of Scotland in 1844. As a Presbyterian minister, Hislop was famously critical of the Roman Catholic Church. He wrote a number of books including Christ's Crown and Covenant (1860) and The Moral Identity of Babylon and Rome (1855).

[dhu]

With India , they encountered a context-free grammar/language and a context-sensitive experiential framework. It was necessary to transform these into variants of Abrahamism (coded language and context-free ethics/meaning).



When worded this way, it becomes clear which framework is conducive to propaganda and which is true discourse.



Foucalt, his predecessor Marx, and the western relativists are objectionable because they seek to transform all discourse as instances of propaganda, ignoring the heathen sensitivity. The believers object to Foucalt because theirs is not propaganda but Truth. BUT THE BELIEVERS DO NOT REALIZE THAT the relativists take their position only to smother the last instance of heathenism i.e., the possibility of context-free grammar/language and a context-sensitive experiential framework; that is, the believers do not realize that the relativists ultimately and conclusively affirm Abrahamism by stating that all frameworks are 'interpretative' frameworks and instances of propaganda (as opposed to experiential frameworks).



To finalize the Abrahamic design, it becomes necessary to state that only propaganda is possible, but this transforms the Abrahamic claims as hollow.



And the blind heathens mistake Foucalt's 'relativism' as relational.



I think, with the movie 'Avatar', the colonizer overplayed its hand (for the first time) and exposed the mask dynamic for a brief period. To resurrect the colonizer dynamic, it will be necessary to shown in the next `movie how the Na'vi are themselves colonizers. This means that Orientalist caricatures of the native have a brief period of vulnerability as they switch between the colonizer's narrative and the native's narrative (in assumed voice and donned clothes)..

[ramana]

Awesome. Also explains the emergence of the Westernized Oriental Gentleman in India and the variants Well off Modern Indian (WMI observed by Naipaul) and DeRacinated Indian Elite(DIE).



And regarding the example where the colonized bvecomes the colonizer, in India's case that period was the time the INC had not yet adjusted to becoming the colonizers. Unfortunately the Hindu right / nationalists got blamed for MKG's killing and window was partially shut down.

[ramana]

Dhu, I need a link to your blogs.



1) Ascendent Asia

2) Colonialism



Thanks, ramana

[dhu]

http://ascendantasia.blogspot.com/



the colonialism blog needs a lot of work. http://colonialism-in-asia.blogspot.com/

[ramana]

X-post...

Bji, Hellenism is the process or factory that takes pagan, Abrahamic concepts and churns out acceptable Western idiom.



Look for Hellas to understand Western ideology. Greeks are gone but their ideas give legitimacy to Western dogma.



Hellas can do this because of the veneer of philosophy that Socrates gave to the Greek intellectuals.

So try to find where and how Socrates got his thinking from. What formed and shaped his ideas?

and Bji's reply

Going after Socrates will be tricky! I have suspicions that he was contaminated by some migratory Indian bird. The Hellenistic "ideological revolution" comes after the Persian expansion into Indian borderlands. When trade opens up and the Egyptian Pharaonic empire falls to ME, so that if they had controlled the flow through Red Sea then they could have lost it. Persian empire would have opened up lots of alternative routes.

One thing is clear. Xtianity was created by Saul/Paul to check the Jewish wave that was sweeping the Middle East as Rome was transforming into an Imperium. He used the filter of Hellenism to process Judiasm and other Egyptian concepts and made them palatable to Europeans. There is thousand year gap from Exodus to the creation of Xtianity.

[ramana]

One thing bothersome is this.



We know Jesus and Christianity are fake. We also know that Moses was an Egyptian who took the ideas of his king Akhnaton and created a new group of followers from the Habiru migrants from modern day Palestine area who became the Jews. Jews created the Jehovah image from this.

Now we also know that Akhnaton prayed to the Sun as the life giver. In other words all these derivative religions are Sun worshipers with knowing or unknowing. Christians exalted King Tutankhamen as Christ. Muhammad exalted Allah the moon as the god with same Jehovah ideas.

Now modern science has shown that Sun is star with a finite life true greater than humans but still finite.



The idea of God has to be timeless or infinite or Anantham. It has to be beyond science.



We need to be able to articulate this when the time comes.

[ramana]

Lost In Transmission?: What We Can Know About the Words of Jesus

Publisher: Thomas Nelson | ISBN: 084990367X | edition 2008 |224 pages

Bart Ehrman, in his New York Times bestseller, Misquoting Jesus, claims that the New Testament cannot wholly be trusted. Cutting and probing with the tools of text criticism, Ehrman suggests that many of its episodes are nothing but legend, fabricated by those who copied or collated its pages in the intervening centuries. The result is confusion and doubt. Can we truly trust what the New Testament says?

[dhu]

A civilization is destroyed only when its gods are destroyed.

Cioran, E. M.

[Guest]

Interesting blog and discussion at HP on Nicene Creed and Yoga: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rajiv-malh...78501.html



It is not exactly related to Historicity of Jesus, but I can see RM encouraging people to reject Nicene Creed.

[ramana]

X-post from BRF....

Kind of reverse psy-ops by a reader at the following link.

For those who point out caste system in Hinduism as its evil, I have just one answer, our service class was free to chose its master in India - where as you enslaved your own fellow humans and chained the black man and drove him away from his motherland - slashed him, raped his women, destroyed his culutre, ( this applies not only to black man but also to the american indians - the natives of america - see the 300 nations if you want to know the true story of how they were destroyed ) - Christian missionaries destroyed entire civilizations - its an open secret of Spanish enquisition and Goan enquisition - so, its a total false propaganda that Christianity is a loving religion - its a desert religion just like Islam and both wish for global dominance where as the Church does it in a coward, cheating and scoundral ways.



Westerners themselves are fooled by the Abrahamic stories - or otherwise why would they bow down to someone who is supposed to have been from the middle east? The Roman empire, in its necessity to have a firm grasp on its citizens mind and material always used strict laws - namely Christianity - why would they then burn their own medicine man and women in the name of witch hunting & celebrate haloween by burning their own knwoledge base - its the same as taliban destroying the bamiyan buddha. Christians today are just following the same rules



Hindu view of Christian Yoga

[ramana]

Brilliant post by Brihaspati in BRF..

Although OT, there are parallel undercurrents within western philosophy - besides Hegel or Kant, like Nietzsche. Should we also not consider what he says about the "west", Christianity, "morality", power, etc? From wiki, which is a good summary : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Nietzsche





In Daybreak Nietzsche begins his "Campaign against Morality".[48] He calls himself an "immoralist" and harshly criticizes the prominent moral schemes of his day: Christianity, Kantianism, and utilitarianism. In Ecce Homo Nietzsche called the establishment of moral systems based on a dichotomy of good and evil a "calamitous error",[49] and wished to initiate a re-evaluation of the values of the Judeo-Christian world.[50] He indicates his desire to bring about a new, more naturalistic source of value in the vital impulses of life itself.



In both these works, Nietzsche's genealogical account of the development of master-slave morality occupies a central place. Nietzsche presents master-morality as the original system of morality—perhaps best associated with Homeric Greece. Here, value arises as a contrast between good and bad, or between 'life-affirming' and 'life-denying': wealth, strength, health, and power, the sort of traits found in a Homeric hero, count as good; while bad is associated with the poor, weak, sick, and pathetic, the sort of traits conventionally associated with slaves in ancient times.



Slave-morality, in contrast, comes about as a reaction to master-morality. Nietzsche associates slave-morality with the Jewish and Christian traditions. Here, value emerges from the contrast between good and evil: good being associated with other-worldliness, charity, piety, restraint, meekness, and submission; evil seen as worldly, cruel, selfish, wealthy, and aggressive. Nietzsche sees slave-morality born out of the ressentiment of slaves. It works to overcome the slave's own sense of inferiority before the (better-off) masters. It does so by making out slave weakness to be a matter of choice, by, e.g., relabeling it as "meekness."



Nietzsche sees the slave-morality as a source of the nihilism that has overtaken Europe. In Nietzsche's eyes, modern Europe, and its Christianity, exists in a hypocritical state due to a tension between master and slave morality, both values contradictorily determining, to varying degrees, the values of most Europeans (who are "motley").Nietzsche calls for exceptional people to no longer be ashamed of their uniqueness in the face of a supposed morality-for-all, which Nietzsche deems to be harmful to the flourishing of exceptional people. However, Nietzsche cautions that morality, per se, is not bad; it is good for the masses, and should be left to them. Exceptional people, on the other hand, should follow their own "inner law." A favorite motto of Nietzsche, taken from Pindar, reads: "Become what you are."



More relevant for this thread is his use and construction of the Brahmin, "Manu" and his "law", as a kind of source for all enlightenment and perhaps even a barely conscious mechanism to deconstruct the "western/Christian" claim to "superiority".



I will try to post some relevant material : though not sure if it will be relevant here. We are not discussing India's nationhood as yet, are we?

[ramana]

Follow-up post....

I promised on Nietzsche and "Hinduism"- Brahmanism- Manu-India and critique of "Christianity": here is a modern assessment. The author makes the right noises about how N was partially deluded about "Hinduism" and Manu and rather used a "fanciful" reinterpretation by another "fascinated with India European" - Jacolliot, to reconstruct an imagery of "Aryansim/Brahmanism/Hinduism" as a weapon to deconstruct European Christianity and its claims. Ignore the comments needed to be "acceptable" for "Manu-Hindu-Aryan-Brahmanism" bashing requirements in academics, but look at what he is conceding beneath :

Both Hinduism and Buddhism are of interest to Nietzsche not in themselves but as alternative positions from which to continue his attack on Christianity. Nietzsche declares that "the critic of Christianity is profoundly grateful to the students of India" for making Buddhism available as a religion to compare with Christianity.6 It may fairly be assumed that Nietzsche felt a similar gratitude in respect of the availability of Hinduism. Buddhism, as a pessimistic and decadent religion for Nietzsche, resembles Christianity "but is a hundred times[...] more truthful, more objective" (A23). Hinduism is an affirmative religion rather than a negative one like buddhism and Christianity, but like Buddhism, it is a product of the ruling orders (KSA 13:14[195]/WP 154).7



Nietzsche seldom referred to Hinduism; nor did he use the word Hinduism, speaking rather of Brahmanism, the Vedanta, or Indian philosophy. However the only extensive Indian text that he chose unprompted to read for himself was a central text of Hinduism not relating to philosophy, namely Louis Jacolliot's version of the Laws of Manu. A valuable account of the defects of Jacolliot's book has been given by Anne-Marie Etter.

Nietzsche's Hinduism, Nietzsche's India: Another Look, David Smith, Journal of Nietzsche Studies, (28) (Autumn 2004), pp 37-56. Penn State University Press.



Those who have access to MUSE or the journal can look up more, as I think I should not quote more extensively because of copyright. I think he also has a book.





Nietzsche writes to Heinrich Koselitz (Peter Gast) (31 May 1888):



"I owe to these last weeks a very important lesson: I found Manu's book of laws in a French translation done in India....This absolutely Aryan work, a priestly codex of morality based on the Vedas, on the idea of caste and very ancient (uralten) - not pessimistic, albeit very sacerdotal - supplements my views on religion in the most remarkable way. I confess to having the impression that everything else that we have by way of moral lawgiving seems to me an imitation and even a caricature of it - preeminently, Egypticism does; but even Plato seems to me in all the main points simply to have been well instructed by a Brahmin. It makes the Jews look like a Chandala race which learns form its masters the principles of making a priestly caste the master which organizes a people. The Chinese also seem to have produced their Confucius and Lao-Tse under the influence of this ancient classic of laws. The medieval organization looks like a wondrous groping for a restoration of all the ideas which which formed the basis of primordial (uralte) Indian-Aryan society - but with pessimistic values which have their origin in the soil of racial decadence. Here too, the Jews seem to be merely transmitters - they invent nothing.



[Christopher Middleton, eds and trans, Selected Letters of Friedrich Nietzsche, Indianapolis: hackett, 1996), pp 297-98.]







There can be pages written about his use and fascination with the "Vedic", and more can be written about his rapture about the Ramayana and Mahabharata. Perhaps later!

[HareKrishna]

[quote name='dhu' date='11 November 2010 - 06:25 PM' timestamp='1289479641' post='109184']

A civilization is destroyed only when its gods are destroyed.

Cioran, E. M.

[/quote]

Cioran explains that early Christian apologetics are simply a set of libels camouflaged as treatises. But there was one thing that made Christianity different: hatred. Without that hatred, this new religion would merely have traded in "the old gods for a nailed corpse."



Cioran is not the first to criticize Christianity. But he then goes on to defend Paganism. He explains that under Paganism, fervor is shared among Goddesses and Gods. Only under monotheism does this fervor degrade into faith and aggression. People, being capricious, would shift from one God to another if given the chance. And Pagan Goddesses and Gods do not demand to be worshipped, just respected: in general, one does not kneel before them but merely hails them.



As Cioran states, the human soul is naturally Pagan. And thus he has a conclusion:"We humans will return to Paganism. The only thing Christianity had going for it was hatred, and that is no longer going to be there to sustain it. We'll ask the Goddesses and Gods to return to us. And maybe we'll even stop the bizarre Christian practice of burying the dead in broad daylight."

I doubt that I have ever read a better 16-page essay than "The New Gods." Its marvellous prose shines through everywhere. When I read that Saint Gregory's oration against Julian the apostate "makes you feel like then and there converting to paganism," my jaw dropped. I got a copy of that oration right away!



Who was Emil Cioran?

[dhu]

Feeding the Cuckoo



This episode reveals that otherwise right thinking people are allowing themselves be blindfolded with the label of ‘hinduism’, a cuckoo in the nest, placed by mleccha westerners.



The cuckoo child is growing and displacing the original progeny of this land, starving it and stifling it. Originally it looked similar to bharatiya samskriti, now it is starting to resemble its parent.



bharateeyas, blinded to consider it as the original progeny of this land, are striving hard to feed this imposter, while it cries voraciously for more and more.



Rajasekara and others mlecchas like him benefit from such efforts of the blindfolded bharateeyas.

Unfortunately this misplaced support and sympathy may further encourage such charlatans towards more duplicity. Duryodhana would not have gone to war but for the support from Bhisma, Drona, Kripa and Karna.



The final nail in the coffin of bharatiya sampada, so to speak, maybe hit not by westerners, or even their desi sepoys, but by the bharateeya who is unable to discern dharma and blindly feeds the mleccha cuckoo’s child.

[dhu]

This creation of a specie called ‘hindus’ is a western characteristic that creates such species called christian, muslim, kaffir, heathen etc.

The fundamental characteristic of a christian, muslim, communist, capitalistic alike is selfish-aggrandizement, the common feature of westerner ‘mleccha’. Even when an indian displays such characteristic, that person is also a ‘mleccha’. Nothing else.

[Husky]

1. The excerpt of #695 is by - I think - "Incognito", right? (Well, by someone who also used to frequently comment at Rajeev2004 at any rate, even if I got the handle wrong. I recall s/he had a blog where they once wrote an entry containing what's now quoted in #695.)





On that (in a communication to someone) -

06 May 2010 - 07:50 PM

[...]



2. I looked at your blog. I can't see myself contributing a post for your blog.

For me, the Hindu Dharmic tradition

- is most certainly a religion. I use "religion" in the sense of how Hellenismos is a distinct religious tradition. AND

- it is distinct from Bauddha, Jaina - and other non-theistic Ajeevika paths if any still exist - and Charvaka, Sikh, etcetera Indian traditions.



Half the destruction of what Hindus themselves have been causing to the Hindu Dharmic religion derives from today's Hindus refusing to recognise what the Hindu religion is and what it is not. And from their denying the label "Hindus" to give recognition to the religious unity of the otherwise unnamed (hence suddenly orphaned) non-Jain, non-Buddhist, non-Sikh etc body of Dharmic traditionalists "unless the named traditionalists can equally share in it".



Hindus will extinct in this invisibility. And it is other Hindus who are enforcing this invisibility. This strait-jacketing of Hindus with other Dharmics (many of whom don't want the Hindu label anyway, because they do not want to be joined with a religion that they know is distinct from theirs. It is NOT the label they object to - contrary to nationalists' assumptions. It is the religion: they know it exists, that it is a religion and hence they object to the label denoting that religion: Hindu. They can clearly see there is a distinct religion - and don't want to be attached to it under an umbrella term, even one that can be made to mean something larger with repeated utterance).



"Hindu" may not be an apt label. I'm not contesting that.[*]

But "Hindu" has for some time been a commonly-used term for a body of traditional Indian religionists who exist as they have ever. Hindus need a name. They need a name. Even if it is only so it may go on their epitaph. And it needs to be one that has been in use in print (and recognised widely) so that the future may be identified with the part of the past that is in print. Therefore it must be "Hindu".



[* And I have ever agreed that "Dharma" is not "religion" - it is only in Hindi and perhaps some other Bharatiya languages - where the Samskrita Term has acquired that meaning. I mean "Dharma" in the Hindu Samskritam sense: so Hindu Dharma is Vedic Dharma, i.e. Hindu code of conduct as in the Hindu Shastras: the Vedas and Upanishads, Agamas and Tantras, the Hindu Itihasas and Puranas etc.]





You are responsible for your own actions, but be very careful in denying Naming Terms to a population (especially those of a natural tradition). And for forcibly merging them with religions/traditions they do not belong to, under an umbrella "civilisational culture". You may find the usage of "Hindu" harmful or at the very least an incomplete description, but for Hindus to become namelessly orphaned when they are under attack - and it is specifically them: only the ones identified as "idolatrous AND polytheistic" are targeted first, both because they are the #1 enemy of the christoclass mindvirus and because they make up the majority heathen religion of Bharatam -

for Hindus to become namelessly orphaned now makes the extinction process that much faster and more definite. Because self-denial and the invisibility/merging with the background that ensues facilitates extinction.



If you would, think your position through completely first. More so than you perhaps have done so far.



Indians are not all merely to be defined and described by the "Bharatiya Samskriti" term as one member ("Incognito") commenting at the Rajeev2004 blog would have it.



Please understand I don't wish to have a conversation on this matter with you - or anyone else. I merely gave you my view to indicate why I don't agree with your blog (for which you asked me to write a post). I have no intention of and no interest in convincing you or anyone to adopt a view similar to mine. I just don't want to make this into a matter of discussion.





The (Hindu) Gods are the (sum-total of the) religion of all my ancestors. It is all that matters to me too. I recognise only that. The Gods come first. And second come those people for whom the Gods similarly come first. Nothing else is remotely relevant to me. I recognise no further allegiance.

- I have sympathy for the other Dharmic traditions.

- Beyond sympathy, I feel affinity for those Gods-based Natural Traditions in the world that are similar to the Hindu religion.



So you know you cannot trust me. For you the "devi devatas" have but merely "helped" you and your ancestors, along with "divine beings". Something you thank them for.

For my ancestors, the Gods are all there is, the Gods are the whole and sole purpose to their life. The Gods are the religion of my ancestors (i.e. for them, Hindu Gods=Hindu religion), and for many other ancient Hindus besides.





Your blog states:

"I make this assertion that the Bharatiya Dharmas are the finest and only system surviving on this planet (native American and African traditions are gone) that can enable Human beings to live sustainably with nature and accelerate Human evolution."



Bharatiya Dharmic traditions are nowhere near the only systems surviving on the planet that enable the same. They are not the sole finest.

When you do not know other natural traditions (that continue to exist, esp. in Asia - it is apparent from your conclusion that you do not know them) how can you make such claims?



I'm sorry if I sound angry. I'm just tired.

[...]

2. On this excerpt in #696:

This creation of a specie called ‘hindus’ is a western characteristic that creates such species called christian, muslim, kaffir, heathen etc.

Parroting oneself is lame, but I've done it so often, why stop now -

Mentioned the following in a different context once, on why "Pagan" (like kaffir) should not be used as a means of self-address by people of the various traditional religions. (Not in any serious sense or situation, certainly never in one's mind, which of course one doesn't do.) While the topic of #696 is different, from that angle too, I want the following stated:

And the English term [color="#800080"]("pagans")[/color] is even more inappropriate: the traditionalist peoples certainly have nothing to do with the christian biblically-imposed worldview of the "christians and pagans" - "the faithful and infidels", "dar-ul-islams and dar-ul-harbs", "heaven/pardees and hell/jahannah" (and monopolytheism ultimately fits in this continuum since it derives from enforced views). Natural Traditionalists are not part of the christian world (incl. its views of humanity's place in it, etc.), they don't believe in jeebusjehovallah, don't subscribe to the bible, don't end up in hell (or christoislamic heaven - same thing) no matter how hard the christoislamics believe.

[color="#0000FF"]That's not to say that these vituperative terms are not referring to actually existing groups: the terms were designed to. The point is, these populations have names for themselves - legitimate names, self-references they identify with. Ones that explain to ourselves who we are - views that exist entirely independent of the bible[/color], its judgements/commandments, or its non-existent demonic character jeebusjehovallah. (The way "AD and BC" are not anyone's dating system but christists'.)

[HareKrishna]

Hinduism is not a religion,its a geographic term.Just like hellenism.

hellenism=religions from Greece region

hinduism=religions from India region

sinism=chinese folk religions,the intricate mix between taoism,confucianism,mohism,buddhism,legalism,shamanism,alchemy,animism.

semitism=religions from middle east=zoroastrism,judaism,christianism,islamism,druze(islam whit reincarnation),yazidism,mandeanism,yazdnism,yarsanism,manicheism,paulicianism.

[ramana]

Why did I post thsi here? Please read on about the 'scary' prospects of new life form for the leader of Western world to contact the scientists!



NASA finds arsenic based life form on Earth

....

All life on Earth - from microbes to elephants and us - is based on a single genetic model that requires the element phosphorus as one of its six essential components.





But now researchers have uncovered a bacterium that has five of those essential elements but has, in effect, replaced phosphorus with its look-alike but toxic cousin arsenic.





News of the discovery caused a scientific commotion, including calls to NASA from the White House and Congress asking whether a second line of earthly life has been found.

....

]

[dhu]

every two bit "discovery" has the "potential" to "shatter" these jokers' "self-image"..



Just now these guys are in a "crisis of conscience" over wikileaks..