Post 1/2
San, one of the regulars at the Rajeev2004 blog wrote:
rajeev2004.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/turkey-to-convert-hagia-sophia-into.html
The bit that San writing the above left out (perhaps wacky didn't tell him) was the more important part. The christist basilica (it was a basilica originally, i.e. a tomb to one of the church fathers or something, since it's called a "patriarchal" basilica. Basilica=christian dargah. Church=christian mosque). The christian tomb was built - as always - on a Hellenistic temple site. Its building was commenced by Constantine (who else); no doubt the other raving christist loon - i.e. his mother - put him up to that one too: to confiscate the Hellenistic temple from the Hellenes and build a disgusting christist dargah on it. That was of course a double slap on Hellenes' face: nothing was more impure and more unsanctified than christist tombs, and to turn a sacred Hellenistic Temple site into that abomination was an express act of trying to christianise (by de-sanctifying) a sacred Hellenistic site.
Even the current remains of the christian aberration - Hagia Sophia church (doesn't hagiography mean fictional "histories" of saints and church fathers, confirming its basilica origins - even the church's current remains still have parts of Hellenistic temples broken and impounded for serving as pillars etc for christian churches.* (Rather like christians did in the case of a major church of the invented "st thomas" in India and other churches for which they had likewise stolen Hindu temple remains when they built on Hindu temple sites. And also rather like the islamic Qutb Minar and other mosques and dargahs stealing from Hindu temples even as these mosques/dargahs were built on Hindu temple sites.)
[color="#0000FF"]EDIT:[/color] The supporting data for the above is in the next post.
The christists even stole the sacred Hellenistic name "Sophia" for it, another inculturation. The "church" was destroyed a couple of times at the very start, by christist madmen itself apparently (for once they did something right), due to the usual christian infighting.
* This is the reason why Julian insisted on disbanding christian churches to return the sacred pillars and remaining parts of Hellenistic temples to rebuild Hellenistic temples on the originally-Hellenistic sacred sites. Of course, these sites had to be purified first from the diseased taint of christian basilicas. The Greco-Romans (Hellenes) considered tombs ritually impure, and most especially christian tombs/basilicas of murderous-madmen dubbed "saints" (and non-existent entities used as excuses to take over Hellenistic sacred sites, also dubbed "saints").
I parrot my betters again (previously parroted in post 73 of the Natural Traditions thread):
(Ah, I keep forgetting what Heroes are like. Timely reminder.)
And, Julian's Gods from RSmith again (with some context):
So, there's no need for San to lead some lamentation. Islamaniacs in Turkey are just doing what the christists did before them (and which christos still do: they still take over heathen sites in India etc. PLUS the christist govt also sells off Hindu temple lands to islamania without Hindus' permission, as seen not just in Kerala and TN, but also recently at Tirupati in AP, where an ancient Hindu temple's lands - recovered by Hindus from the islamic invasions at great cost - was sold to islamania by the christogovt - behind Hindus' backs, of course. And now Saudi-sponsored islamaniacs in India are building an islamic madrassa dubbed islamic "university" there. No doubt the eminent hysteric/histrionic Rajarant will call this islamic monstrosity a "temple of learning" and a suitable replacement for the ancient Hindu temple whose remains where until very recently - and perhaps still are at present - visible on the site commandeered for islam by christianism, but the rest of the world need not pretend along with Rajarant.)
San, one of the regulars at the Rajeev2004 blog wrote:
rajeev2004.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/turkey-to-convert-hagia-sophia-into.html
Quote:Turkey to Convert Hagia Sophia into Mosque
Turkey's Islamist-leaning govt is planning to convert the Hagia Sophia into a mosque:
washingtonpost.com/national/on-faith/turkish-leaders-want-to-convert-the-hagia-sophia-back-into-a-mosque/2013/12/04/0d84411e-5d27-11e3-8d24-31c016b976b2_story.html
huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/04/hagia-sophia-mosque_n_4386401.html
The Hagia Sophia was a prominent Christian church of Constantinople which was turned into a mosque after the city fell to the Turkish Ottomans. It was later turned into a museum under Ataturk's rule.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagia_Sophia
The bit that San writing the above left out (perhaps wacky didn't tell him) was the more important part. The christist basilica (it was a basilica originally, i.e. a tomb to one of the church fathers or something, since it's called a "patriarchal" basilica. Basilica=christian dargah. Church=christian mosque). The christian tomb was built - as always - on a Hellenistic temple site. Its building was commenced by Constantine (who else); no doubt the other raving christist loon - i.e. his mother - put him up to that one too: to confiscate the Hellenistic temple from the Hellenes and build a disgusting christist dargah on it. That was of course a double slap on Hellenes' face: nothing was more impure and more unsanctified than christist tombs, and to turn a sacred Hellenistic Temple site into that abomination was an express act of trying to christianise (by de-sanctifying) a sacred Hellenistic site.
Even the current remains of the christian aberration - Hagia Sophia church (doesn't hagiography mean fictional "histories" of saints and church fathers, confirming its basilica origins - even the church's current remains still have parts of Hellenistic temples broken and impounded for serving as pillars etc for christian churches.* (Rather like christians did in the case of a major church of the invented "st thomas" in India and other churches for which they had likewise stolen Hindu temple remains when they built on Hindu temple sites. And also rather like the islamic Qutb Minar and other mosques and dargahs stealing from Hindu temples even as these mosques/dargahs were built on Hindu temple sites.)
[color="#0000FF"]EDIT:[/color] The supporting data for the above is in the next post.
The christists even stole the sacred Hellenistic name "Sophia" for it, another inculturation. The "church" was destroyed a couple of times at the very start, by christist madmen itself apparently (for once they did something right), due to the usual christian infighting.
* This is the reason why Julian insisted on disbanding christian churches to return the sacred pillars and remaining parts of Hellenistic temples to rebuild Hellenistic temples on the originally-Hellenistic sacred sites. Of course, these sites had to be purified first from the diseased taint of christian basilicas. The Greco-Romans (Hellenes) considered tombs ritually impure, and most especially christian tombs/basilicas of murderous-madmen dubbed "saints" (and non-existent entities used as excuses to take over Hellenistic sacred sites, also dubbed "saints").
I parrot my betters again (previously parroted in post 73 of the Natural Traditions thread):
Quote:The most effective way for Julian to further his cause was to do all he could to ensure that the worship of the gods was firmly linked to the material prosperity of the Empire in the minds of his subjects. That, above all, was [color="#FF0000"]what Constantine had done for the Church[/color]. Behind the success of his reforms had stood the brute force of money.135 Vast sums were spent on [color="#FF0000"]the building of basilicas, [/color]and there were grand endowments of land to the Church. That land, moreover, was to be exempt from tax. Clerics were excused the burden of costly public offices, even personally subsidized. There were food allowances for Christian widows and nuns. To pay for it all, Constantine looked to a source of funds accumulated over centuries: the huge treasure house of precious metals lying to hand in the ancestral temples. Pagans, it has been nicely said, had financed their own destruction. 136 [color="#0000FF"]Julian[/color]'s most pressing task in this connection was to do the same in reverse, to restore the temples as the perceived focus of public beneficia at the expense of the Church.137
A clear step in this direction came as early as 4 February 362. [color="#0000FF"]An edict decreed that temples of the gods that had been put to improper use should be rededicated, and that those which had been destroyed by the Christians should be rebuilt at the Church's expense.138
Owners of land which had formerly belonged to the temples were to give it back, and a special tax was levied on those who had used the fabric of sacred buildings in the construction of new ones.[/color] The importance Julian attached to the issue is clear from a further edict of 29 June: the rebuilding of temples was to take priority over all other building projects in the provinces. 139 In parallel, in March, the clergy's tax exemptions were revoked, and their judicial power and exemption from service as decurions withdrawn.140
(Ah, I keep forgetting what Heroes are like. Timely reminder.)
And, Julian's Gods from RSmith again (with some context):
Quote:[...]
Their (christians') failure to sacrifice had long been a central complaint of pagans, and Julian reiterates it with vehemence: the inexhaustible blessings of the gods need to be acknowledged by public worship: 'it is our duty to adore not only the images of the gods but also their temples and sacred precincts and altars.'91
The demand that sacred places be revered bears on a last charge.Against the Galilaeans speaks with disgust of the veneration by Christians of the tombs and relics of the martyred saints.
You keep adding more corpses to the corpse of the past [Jesus]. You have filled the whole earth with tombs and sepulchres ... and yet Jesus himself said that tombs were full of pollution
(akatharsia). How is it, then, that you invoke God at them? (335bd)
In this practice Julian saw only 'the work of sorcery and foulness' (340a). The accusation of magic was a common one, but Julian's polemic seems to have been the first to level a charge against the cult of saints. (Notice the real=christian superstition in the modern i.e. christist sense: the worshipping of fake so-called christist "godmen" aka saints/church fathers and their fraudulent fictional "miracles", when the only things any historical saint did - though most were simply unhistorical - was to destroy Hellenistic temples and take these over for christianism and/or to brutally convert-or-kill masses of Hellenes, such as the famous saint/church father Inquisitors did when they pulverised the Greco-Roman world.) It responds to a developing practice among Christians, and behind it there is a compelling feeling which transcends all philosophic argument. To a pagan, the ascription of holiness to the graves and remains of the human dead involved a monstrous ritual pollution:
'On this point, the rise of Christianity in the pagan world was met with deep religious anger.'92 By replacing the divine helpers of the sublunar regions with privileged dead persons, the cult of saints merely compounded the 'atheism' of Christians.
The strength of Julian's abhorrence of pollution through the dead is evident both from the funeral decree of February 363 - a 'confirmation by law of an ancient custom' by which daytime funerals were forbidden93 - and from particular actions he took in 362. His brother Gallus, as Caesar, had had the bones of the Antiochene martyr Babylas transferred from the city to a new sepulchre built adjacent to the temple of Apollo at Daphne, and columns from the temple had apparently been used in the construction of the Christian monument. En route to Antioch, Julian gave orders that the columns be restored to the temple;94 having arrived, he was dismayed to find that Apollo's oracle was still silent. The cause was plain to him: in October, he had the remains of Babylas removed, and the sanctuary at Daphne purified.95 The episode is further evidence that the palpable well-being of pagan cult ritual was central to Julian's hostility to Christian belief and practice - and it is not to be reckoned an eccentric act of a theurgist obsessed with purificatory rites: in various cities,96 pagans quickly followed Julian's lead, dealing similarly - and less gently - with the tombs of local martyrs.
As we have it in the standard modern edition of its fragments, Against the Galilaeans gives out in the midst of criticism of Christian indolence in the matter of sacrifice and divination.97 That is chance, but it is an apt chance. If my account holds good, the driving force behind Against the Galilaeans will be found in a keen defence of ancestral cultic practice focused upon sacrifice by one to whom it seemed, in all its diversity, the very cement of a civilized world. This verdict gains support not only from the emphasis Julian places on the point, but also from the brute fact that so much of what he says belongs to the stuff of popular pagan polemic.
[...]
So, there's no need for San to lead some lamentation. Islamaniacs in Turkey are just doing what the christists did before them (and which christos still do: they still take over heathen sites in India etc. PLUS the christist govt also sells off Hindu temple lands to islamania without Hindus' permission, as seen not just in Kerala and TN, but also recently at Tirupati in AP, where an ancient Hindu temple's lands - recovered by Hindus from the islamic invasions at great cost - was sold to islamania by the christogovt - behind Hindus' backs, of course. And now Saudi-sponsored islamaniacs in India are building an islamic madrassa dubbed islamic "university" there. No doubt the eminent hysteric/histrionic Rajarant will call this islamic monstrosity a "temple of learning" and a suitable replacement for the ancient Hindu temple whose remains where until very recently - and perhaps still are at present - visible on the site commandeered for islam by christianism, but the rest of the world need not pretend along with Rajarant.)