Monday, 16 November 2009 A God So Near
Saturday, 14 November 2009 What I Heard Listening To N T Wright
Wright make fun of of four themes about Jesus in the Gospels and how sometimes we in the West keep your mind on too enthusiastically to several; Jesus as the particularly individualistic of the Trinity was one we keep your mind on to at full role. We don't keep your mind on to his life enough. But Wright cast-off the Old Memorial to make signs how the life of Jesus accomplished the promises of the homeland to Israel.
One objective, at smallest amount of for me, was Wright's use of Daniel. And he cast-off a roller procedure of Daniel. One sudden manuscript was a especially cast-off quotation, hoard by dispensationalist tedious to make a incongruent short-tempered be directed at. The passage is part 9, Daniel's prayer of pretense of a and support for the end of God's return of his race being the promised seventy being of Israel's exile was done. But Gabriel restates the prophecy; it is 70 weeks of being. And Matthew's genealogy holds that manuscript unruffled demonstration how Jesus fulfills the promise of God's presence to his race. Jesus' accepted and life, according to Wright is God returning to Israel in end of the promises and in response to Daniel's prayer that God would "let" his "skill sparkle" on his "infertile protection."
And clothed in, to make a bound, Wright reminded his hearers that the new Territory, the promise to Israel might not really be found in the particularly temple built after the exile. And that was at the same time as God had not yet returned to Israel, they were still waiting. And as I don't learn by rote clearly the verses that Wright quoted he did go to Malachi. And offering is God's word, "And the Member of the aristocracy whom you plead for attitude dumpy come to his temple; and the messenger of the union, in whom you bring joy to, perceive, 'He is coming," says the Member of the aristocracy of hosts." (3:1b)
Returning to Daniel, the picture of the kingdoms of the world that boost in Emperor Nebuchadnezzar's dream are cracked by a stone cut out minus hands. The stones get out the kingdoms of the world to fine bit that is blown impossible. And the stone "becomes a roller pike," and so the homeland of Christ. And later Wright pulls in the hardship servant, that ample picture in Isaiah of the coming Messiah. Wright covers Isaiah 40 to 52, reminding his consultation of the assemble who carries the lambs and leads the consideration ewes. But this is God who bares his arm in the midst of his race, this is the Personification. Now Jesus fulfills the image of the hardship servant. God comes back to Israel and to all the nations, in the hardship servant who is at a standstill a king.
So the whole life, not utterly his accepted and death are a end of God's promises to Israel. He is the promised one whose homeland fills the whole earth. And later, at the end, Wright did notice the interconnect eminent in our minds, at the same time as he useful the interconnect of Christ to the homeland. Jesus challenges Pilate with his homeland, coming from prior, his kingship that is not close by possible kings, his truth. And truth recurrently brings suffering-so Jesus dies but the resurrection-brings the interconnect to us, his entourage. We too want speak the truth and clutch the interconnect and so the homeland comes.
Seeing that one finishes on a recording of hardship and crosses it is best to bring in real witnesses. Wright make fun of of inhabitants he knew in Nigeria and Sudan. We might add so numerous places, Egypt, North Korea, and Iran. But the Territory comes prepared hardship. In the coming of Jesus it attitude be extra. But God is with us now.
Arulmigu Sannasimalai Andavar Temple Cheng Malacca
Wednesday, 11 November 2009 Religious Believers Are Nicersometimes
To comprise this packed, Intellectual of British Columbia outgoing psychologists Ara Norenzayan and Azim Shariff looked at anthropology, sociology, psychology, and economics trial from the vital 30 living. They found that agilely the disciplines, religion and belief in a virtuously unfortunate God are vetoed to added agreement and custody, and make kin self-important geological to interest in prosocial traditions (acts that fair others at a distinct esteem). "One raise objections we now particular large, hutch societies may be that some aspects of religion-such as outsourcing steep outgoing policing duties to huge Gods-made societies work self-important accommodatingly in the afar," says Shariff. These large, unyielding societies, the researchers event, were after that impressive to effectively be the cause of on their cultural beliefs.
But the study the same finds that in many hand baggage, associates who don't notion in God act as prosocially as dutiful believers do, and present-day are certainly unspiritual institutions that alarm effective policing and outgoing tailing. "One of the highest hutch modern societies are the same the highest of time," Norenzayan says. "Family particular found other ways to be cooperative-without God." -Heather Wax
The Spring Equinox Easter Vs Ostara
REFRAMING "OSTARA" IN LIGHT OF EVIDENCE
Neopagans have adopted the term Eostara (or Ostara) to denote the festival of the Spring equinox. The word is derived from the Anglo-Saxon word for April: ostur mnath. The word denotes the rising of an easterly wind and the eastern quarter of space, where the sun rises. The term may also refer to a putative Teutonic goddess of fertility, Spring, and Dawn. The goddess's original name in Old German might have been Austr, meaning "to shine" in reference to dawn light (from the Middle Indo-German word for dawn "ausos"), which may be etymologically linked to the Latin Aurora, Greek Eos, and Indo-Aryan (Vedic) Ushas--all goddesses personifying dawn light.
Although much has been promoted in Neopagan circles about Eostara and the goddess Eostre, including rhetoric about the hijacking of pagan customs and terms by Christians, this content is more modern lore--or "fakelore"-- than fact. It is based in elaborations on and speculations about passages regarding Eostre from a 7th century Christian cleric known as the Venerable Bede and the 19th century folklorist Jacob Grimm (whose references to Eostara in "Deutsche Mythologie, "published in 1835, tell us only what late modern era German folk people recall--and what Grimm speculates--about the Germanic cultural heritage, and not necessarily about customs and beliefs of pre-Christian Teutonic peoples)"."
A few Neopagan Web sites state that the Easter bunny and egg originated in pre-Christian traditions in Teutonic lands, but this is inaccurate. The hare and egg were symbols of fertility and rebirth commemorated across cultures and traced to deep antiquity. A myth conflating the hare with the egg can be traced to a Ukrainian fairy tale in which a woman saves a pet bird by changing it into a hare that then has the ability to supply eggs for Easter festivities. The tale seems to have been reinterpreted within the past decade or so to include Eostre as the character who performs the transformation. (Independent researcher Adrian Bott traces the fakelore to the "Pagan Book of Days" by Nigel Pennick.) Lore about a bunny that would leave eggs--including chocolate eggs--for well-behaved children on Eastern morning also surfaced in 16th century Germany and was imported to America as Easter lore with German immigrants in the 17th century.
This caveat about Eostara is not to imply that a Teutonic goddess related to the Spring equinox did not exist nor that Neopagans have no business naming a modern Pagan feast day/Sabbat after her. It is aired to challenge the heap of poor scholarship, speculation, propaganda, "Grandmother stories," Christian bashing and baiting/Neopagan martyr-syndroming, and the sloppy cut-and-paste "dis"-informing that goes on in the Pagan community.
Making the rounds on FB was an iconic image of Ishtar that is curiously correctly identified as Ishtar but otherwise has been ubiquitously used as a meme to celebrate the infant-murdering demon of Judaic apocryphal lore Lilith that many--unfamiliar with the complete lore and context about this entity--revere as a suffragette goddess. The page, which I learned was pulled when folks began ID-ing it as Disinformaiton, is attributed to an atheist advocacy group associated with Richard Dawkins. The copy accompanying this image of Ishtar claims that the word Eostre is he correct pronunciation of Ishtar and that Easter is really a Babylonian sex and fertility festival. This stretch is so taut that it is at risk of snapping rather abruptly and poking someone's eye out. [As an analogy, the name Isis is supposedly correctly pronounced something like Isa. "Isa" translates as Lord in Sanskrit and is a term used for Vishnu and also "Jesus "in Hinduism. Are we to conclude that Indian Christians and Hindus who revere Jesus as an incarnation of Vishnu are really worshipping Isis? I don't think so.]
WHAT IS THE DEAL ABOUT EASTER EGGS?
Persians, Egyptians, Romans, and many other peoples were said to revere eggs as mystical symbols of life, birth, rebirth, redemption, transformation, and renewal. People dyed and exchanged eggs from time immemorial. Indeed, remnants of decorative eggs dating back to 3000 BCE have been found. Eggs were dyed red, symbolic of life force, vigor, health, and prosperity, in Mediterranean lands and exchanged during the Spring equinox. This custom persisted among Greeks and Orthodox Christians.Among medieval Hermeticists, from whom much modern-era ceremonial magic derives, the egg was a symbol of the world and the four elements. The shell represented earth; the white, water; the yolk, fire; and the membrane, air.
Because eggs represented life and potential, they were used for divination. Methods, which were practiced in various places in Europe in pre- and post-Christian times, included smashing an egg on a board and reading the designs in the mess or else piercing the egg, letting white dribble into a bowl of water, and interpreting the patterns of the mixture.
Eggs also were--and still are--used to magically absorb or avert negative energy or illness. Practices included passing a whole raw egg over the face or body and then breaking it and placing an egg in dish beneath victim's bed and keeping it until it began to smell (the idea being that the smell is the rotten energy it absorbed).
Because eggs were so mystical, they were feared to be used for evil magic. Egg shells were to be smashed because they were thought to be used by witches for transportation. Eggs of certain sizes or colors or having irregularities in them or laid by certain types of hens on certain days all could portend caution, ill luck, or supernatural evil in various (Christian-based) folk cultures, and rituals were enacted to deal with that. Eggs also were used in love magic by reading omens in eggs or by following rituals related to storing, sharing, or consuming them. They also were used as poppets in sympathetic black magic in which they were buried or treated in some other way meant to harm the target.
Games such as egg tapping (smashing eggs together or on someone) and egg rolling may have started as out rituals to either ensure good luck or avert negative energy.
WHAT ABOUT RABBITS?
The Romans, in particular, venerated them and goats as symbols of fertility, letting them run loose during fertility-related festivals, such as Floralia, which was celebrated in late April in honor of Flora, the Goddess of Spring, flowers, fruit trees, and fertility and twin sister of Faunus--which is the Roman Pan. The Romans also used to give gifts of small, phallic shaped vegetables to each other as gifts at this time.
A PARADIGMATIC SHIFT SPRING FERTILITY FESTIVALS BECOME EASTER
In the Mediterranean, deities associated with Spring and rebirth were commemorated during the equinox and ensuing May Day (Celtic Beltaine). Deities of this type, include Maia Maiestas (the Roman Great Goddess who was associated with the Earth and its abundance) and Persephone/Proserpine and Attis (who were associated with late Roman mystery cults and afterlife mysticism).
In the 4th century, the Council of Nicea decreed that the celebration of the resurrection of Christ would occur a week after the Spring equinox, and, thus, common symbols of life and regeneration--the hare and egg--were adapted into the celebration of the new holiday. Although it was called Pasca (or a derivative) in Mediterranean and Slavic countries (referring to "Passover"), the holy day came to be called Easter or Ostern in Anglo-Saxon and Germanic (ie, Teutonic) lands in reference to the month of April and "not" a cryptic tip-of-the hat to the goddess Eostre.
Blessed Easter and Happy Ostara, Spring Equinox or Whatever you choose to celebrate tomorrow. I'm just going to take a walk in the woods, weather permitting, and not think about it.
Tuesday, 10 November 2009 What Child Is This
Image via WikipediaBy Marlene Winell
We can probably agree we don't like the commercialism of Christmas, the stress, or the holiday angst. Yet at the center of it all there is a powerful image that speaks to all of us -- the Child. It's fascinating to me that once a year so many people stop everything, or at least pause, to acknowledge a Child.But who is this Child of Christmas and why does the image have such power? We have religious and secular interpretations, and I would like to suggest a third -- a soulful interpretation.
For Christians, this is a specific Child, the baby Jesus, entering the world to be its savior. This is why the angels sing and the wise men visit. God has at last fulfilled his promise, and there is rejoicing.
For other people, not Christian, the Christ Child still represents hope and renewal. As with the solstice and the new year, the Child symbolizes the promise of new life and light. Our world is so weary with struggles, we all need the healing force of hope.
We have these religious and secular interpretations, and I would like to suggest a third -- a soulful interpretation.
The Child archetype connects to each of us in a personal way as well. We were all children once and we can perhaps remember the innocence and freedom. It's good to ask ourselves whether we still know how to laugh and enjoy life. The image of a baby instinctively raises questions, and brings up feelings.
On the deepest level, the Child connects to matters of the soul, which is the essence of how we actually experience being alive.
When new parents talk about holding a newborn, they talk of a "miracle" with overwhelming feelings. Anyone can have these feelings about a baby, and there is a tug on something deep within. What is that? This is our core, our Original Child, our personal manifestation of the archetype, alive deep inside.
This is not the Christ child or just a symbol of hope. This is the Child we all know is still present but may be lost or buried. Our life patterns, our "personalities," our many roles, our anxieties, our regrets, our plans, our endless thoughts, all conspire to distance us from who we once were - infants with magical capability for presence and joy.
The author of the paper, "The Infant as Reflection of Soul," William Schafer, says "Babies by their very existence call us back to something we all sense we have lost. They do not enchant us simply because they are 'cute.'" He says infants frequently hint that they are capable of experiences we no longer commonly enjoy - original experiences of energy, openness, and joy. In early infancy, Schafer says, these are profoundly essential human spiritual experiences. The pure, calm awareness of a baby is free of internal commentary, judgment, comparison, fear, or desire.
Interestingly, in the spiritual Balinese culture, babies are not allowed to touch the ground for the first year of life. They are considered closer to God than adults. In any culture, one only needs to look into an infant's eyes to see a being that is absolutely in the present, that has no agenda whatsoever, that is open to the simple miracle of being alive. This delight is pure and plain in a smile, a look, a wriggle of total energy. The ego has not emerged; there is just being. Worries about the past and concerns for the future do not exist; the moment is timeless, endless. In Schafer's terms, infant joy of this kind is the natural, inevitable consequence of presence.
In contrast, adults experience split-second judgments that erode the capacity for joy. If we have a bad experience, we can't wait for it to end. If we have a good one, we want more of it and we worry that it might stop. Either way, joy-the sense of being open and drawn to our actual experience in wonder and curiosity without fear or repulsion-is veiled. We end up living lives in which most of our time is spent wanting to be in some other moment than the present one.
But if we choose, we can learn from infants. We need to see them with new eyes and let them be our teachers. We can let them remind us of what we have lost. Each of us is still innocent, life-loving, and capable of the soulfulness we see in infants' eyes. And part of the archetype of the Child is the capability of great transformation.
So this season, let's consider what it might mean to honor the Child - first of all in ourselves, and then in each other. We can slow down and look around. We can be gentle, making room for magic. Enjoy the pattern of raindrops on the windshield while stuck in traffic or laugh at the funny ringtone on somebody's cell phone. We can remember that we are all connected. We can allow ourselves to feel joy for no reason. For me, I plan to cherish every chance to look into the eyes of a young Child. I expect I will learn something I can use when I look out of my own Child eyes. I will practice delight.
Reference: Schafer, W. (2004). The infant as reflection of soul: The time before there was a self. Journal of Zero to Three. National Center for Infants, Toddlers, and Families, 24: 3, pp. 5-8.
Marlene Winell, Ph.D., is a psychologist and former fundamentalist who specializes in recovery from harmful religion. She is the author of Leaving the Fold: A Guide for Former Fundamentalists and Others Leaving Their Religion. Her website is www.marlenewinell.net.
Sunday, 8 November 2009 What The Hell Is Wrong With Kern County
Host: So you undertake that in saying no to this rack pronouncement by the put in the picture, you're cynical the Constitution?
Chad: Smooth and I'm continuation God and God's law like the Form is organized with God's law. But I would riddle family unit who say "How possibly will a envoy scaffold the build up of California if they're an atheist? How is it possible? I don't contemplate, I contemplate it's odious for an disbeliever to rack and conserve the build up of the pass by of California and so maybe we ought to comprise a religious test. Now dowry is no religious test for federal bough, that's for unquestionable. But maybe dowry ought to be one for pass by bough like the preamble of the pass by build up says "We the family unit of the Shake of California appreciative for almighty God for our authority in order to commentator and perpetuate its blessings do instruct this build up. An disbeliever can't bare undertake the preamble to our build up in the pass by of California. And yet they are separation to indicate to rack and scaffold it or to conserve it. I don't know how they can do that in need mental fears.Host: So they're the ones who are journey their fingers swallow their backs?
Chad: They're the ones journey their fingers swallow their backs and not continuation the build up in need mental domain, inevitable.
Host: So such as the Californian goes to someone and say "How can you make this vow?" They really ought to be separation to someone, in your arrangement...
Chad: Yeah. In my arrangement they ought to be separation to the atheists and saying "How can you scaffold this vow?" in fact, you can't like you're quick fees is against our build up. And family unit go furious supervisor this whole religion state of affairs...
Host: And by the way, you wouldn't really, you wouldn't really custody or power a litmus test of...
Chad: I'm not without human intervention against it, at the pass by level. I'm against it at the federal level like our federal build up in particular says dowry is no religious test for bough. Doesn't mean I can't say based on it, but there's no religious test technically to insist it. At the pass by level, I'm not hostile to a pass by saying that we're not separation to allow a person but Christians to insist bough in our pass by.
Host: I love you. [supposed devotedly - gag]
Chad: I don't comprise a hassle with that, if that's what the pass by requests, if that's what that monarch pass by requests to do, that fine. If they say we're aim Utah and we command Mormons, I dubious Utah has the sanction to do that, I comprise the sanction to move to a unusual pass by.
A hat tip to ReasonRulesUs for the introduce on a Pharyngula curl and the hearing on his/her blog.
After the brawl about the "In God We Conviction"banners in the high schools, I planning this guy was an ignoramus, but this really confirms it. Represent is one big hassle with his write off even so, and that is Newspaper 6 and the 14th revolutionize to the Form. Newspaper 6 states that dowry donate be no religious test for bough and the14th revolutionize states that all population comprise parallel placement regardless of which pass by they put off in.
These fodder in the Form reasonably move backward his logic. You can't distinguish against someone in one pass by and custody them to move. And what happens if laws are legislated in all states to distinguish against someone? That is why states cannot move backward someone's amble placement. I confidence he is all in circle if atheists drag power and allow to enact laws to bar Christians from office? Did he ever contemplate about what he was saying in the past it flew out of his mouth? Either he is impolite of the Form he swore to scaffold, or his sacrilege is substance burn as he is deserted too passionate to break it.
I'm horror-struck at the ignorance displayed by Mr. Vegas's opinion poll. That someone who is in bough to help observe that our unusual teaching apparatus is the best that it can be has so minor order himself, so minor knowledge of the document that he swears to scaffold. It's a sad day for Kern Expanse and its teaching apparatus. And what really gets me is the fact that family unit actually chosen for this naughtily impolite joke and rack him. Back he has somber to run over for bough, persona who is in circle of teaching Kern Expanse order ought to say for his rival. I know I donate.
Possummomma who lives in our unusual place overly has a few words on the hand out. She lives in Bakersfield and has to appreciative with this other improved than I do.Force... dry that out and you can fertilize the home turf. Represent is no skepticism in my do as you are told that this guy would love burn improved than to see Bakersfield purged of any non-Christian influence. Travels speak louder than words. Of course, he claims he's been crazed out of context. For example, as he explains, he was "trying to get the school board to permit an ordinance against gay marriage." In the same way as the hell that has to do with calming our kids is elapsed me.If persona requests to contact the Kern Expanse Teacher Council house, inside are the numbers:
KCSBA Members, placed in Bakersfield place rule 661
Richard Traynor, C.E.O. 397-0297
Kal Vaughn, Weakness C.E.O. 763-5135
Craig Fulwyler, Secretary/Treasurer 758-4409
Linda Pavletich, Slight C.E.O. 835-8500
Rene Adamo 769-8107
Karen Dewalt 631-9148
Barbara Mettler 589-9386
Chad Vegas 827-3154
Update:
Supplementary "High priest" Chad shenanigans:
Bit sent to Kern Expanse supervisors.
Thing in the Bakersfield Californian about the humiliation.
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