UNUSUAL CHRISTIAN PRACTICES #3

 This series is really taking off with 50% of our readers embracing it.

Looking at activity from the other 50% of readers I've been inspired by Robert The Cacographic Christian's denunciation of loose women in his most recent post.

The most famous and likely most maligned 'loose woman' in Christian lore is Mary Magdalene.

In some reports in the Bible it was said that Mary Magdalene was a prostitute.

In others however she has variously been described as being financier, a friend of Jesus and witness to his death, burial and resurrection. It seems that only Western Christianity suggests she was a prostitute. Other Christians, such as those from the East, do not. So why the confusion?

Apparently it's all down to Luke and his misogynistic views in his silly book that he named 'Luke'. In the Book of Luke Mary Magdalene is referred to being “released from the power of the seven devils.”  Also, she was referred to as a “sinful woman,”  and she was “taken in adultery.” 

So why is she described as a prostitute? It could come down to the misogynistic group of men who compiled the Bible during the Medieval era. In these days, they would not look kindly upon a woman holding a place of power among the apostles, which Mary Magdalene often is portrayed as having.  They liked Luke's ideas and to further degrade her they referred to her as a prostitute.  Their interpretation of "being released from the power of the seven devils", from their prurient perspective was sexual and not from its possible original meaning of recovering from depression. They also liked the "sinful woman" line and the "taken in adultery" reference which they no doubt got off on. Luke was good at throwing rocks but wasn't good at coming up with proof though since he failed to identify any sin that Mary Magdalene actually committed. My take is that Luke played for the other side and was jealous of Jesus's attraction to Mary since he fancied JC himself.

"My dear Jesus - I enclose this dick pic for you ..."

UNUSUAL CHRISTIAN PRACTICES #2

The first in this new series has already proven to be a success with one reader saying: "Yes" (I had to edit his comment down as the effusiveness was embarrassing). This has encouraged me into continuing.

It used to bug me when I was a kid when told by the nuns about the Assumption of Mary.

They told some cockamamy story about the old dame being hauled up to heaven by Jesus or something.  I always assumed (see what I did there?) that I'd misheard like I did with that 'Our Lady of the Petrol Sucker' thing.

No, I, and I think correctly, interpreted the Assumption of Mary as being her take on some historical, well, Christian-made-up event.

It came as a surprise to Mary, Jesus's mother when she was told of his affair with Mary Magdalene and them running off together, see: HERE

"Shh  Mags... don't tel Mum."

Mary had always thought that her son was homosexual. She had closeted and fussed over him as her little boy and encouraged him to wear those long dresses. WAS JESUS GAY?

She had just assumed this.

UNUSUAL CHRISTIAN PRACTICES #1

 Robert said something unusual in a comment on the Curmudgeon's latest post:

Look, I know that it's not unusual for Robert to say something unusual but it did get me thinking about the unusual things that Christians say or do or have in their little notebook of beliefs.

I thought that you'd like a new post series on this.

First up is one that has intrigued me for many years - Martin Luther's Diet of Worms.

From images I've seen on the web, old Martin was a bit porky so his wife, his mistress or some random nun might have suggested he shape up a bit.

I don't know why he chose worms to eat though so checked up on this.

It seems that the jury is still out on this so I can't see it becoming a fad any day soon. Back in Martin Luther's day though there probably wasn't a lot of information on dieting given that most people didn't have enough food to eat anyway.

It'd be nice to think that his diet of worms worked out well for him but this Cranach portrait of Luther on his deathbed shows him to be still a bit on the 'Rubenesque' side.

Then again, it might have been the worms that did him in.

I hope that this has been informative. Let me know so that more in this series can be planned.

BLESS ME (GOD)FATHER EVEN THOUGH I DIDN'T SIN ...

 

That's how I feel after trying to get away from this religious business. All was going OK until Robert went off the rails again and fantasised about angels and I had to write about it. See: HERE

Now he's banging on about Purgatory, another ridiculous construct from the Catholic Church.

Have a read of this but hold on to your hat!

"When asleep Fr Nathan says he has dreams where souls from purgatory visit him. He says he tries to help the souls on their journey. In his descriptions they are wandering around kind of lost in an in between state.

Fr Schouppe in 'Purgatory; Explained by the Lives and Legends of the Saints' has a different account of what purgatory is like.

Souls in a state of grace with no conscious mortal sin at death still need to do reparation for sins on earth. Hence the dogma of purgatory. The guardian angels and Mary are still doing their best for them. What helps them most are our prayers and entreaties to God for mercy.

Evidently ghosts most likely are souls from purgatory asking for help."

He embellished this nonsense with, appropriately, some nonsensical 'holy' pictures: 

These bizarre paintings, in the classical style show people (assumed to be sinners) burning in some pit or other reaching out for help to, variously, angels, nuns and some strange bint riding a cloud. 

Bugger me! 

You probably remember that I've written about this Purgatory fairy tale before and suggested that it was a money bilking scam of the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages. See: CATHOLIC CATACLYSM 

I thought that this might have laid it to rest with Robert and, for a while he dropped the subject but now in his latest post he's dredged it all up again. I blame this guy:

A new frock-wearing joker named Father Awaythebetter .... sorry, Father Nathan.

I'm not sure where Robert digs these people up from but I wish he wouldn't.

Look, I'm a long-time reader of fables and fantasy novels like Tolkien's The Lord Of The Rings, Frank Herbert's Dune and Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast series so a little bit of fantasy in one's life is OK as long as you don't let it distort reality.

To this end I've got some cousins (who I have kept away from for years) who were 'Trekkies' who dressed up in Star Trek costumes and attended Star Trek symposiums around the world!

I worry about this that Robert wrote though:

"Souls in a state of grace with no conscious mortal sin at death still need to do reparation for sins on earth. Hence the dogma of purgatory. The guardian angels and Mary are still doing their best for them. What helps them most are our prayers and entreaties to God for mercy."

He's not just paraphrasing his favourite fantasy nor paying homage to it as entertainment. He seems to believe in this.

Okay, okay, I can hear you saying "what's wrong with that - leave him alone - it's harmless" but re-read that extract. It's basically saying that innocent people who have lived their lives blamelessly "in a state of grace" still don't get a leave pass to that mythical heaven. Somehow they're still guilty of something that their god (the Church) dreamed up and pinned on them. How unfair is that? Those floating angels and the bint in the blue outfit can apparently help, or try to if the friends and family of the poor tormented buggers 'pray and entreat' for them.

It's this 'entreating' thing that I mentioned in the Catholic Cataclysm post. You will note that I said:

"The Catholic hierarchy somewhere along the way in the Middle Ages were being pressured by their congregations to explain how long they might have to stay in Purgatory before going to Heaven   The church hierarchy saw that they had a ready market and being wonderful snake oil salesmen decided to create the concept of Indulgences.
Indulgences are special actions that a person can perform in order to reduce or remove the temporal punishment they are owed due to having died in a state of Venial Sin. The idea behind it is that certain acts of holiness can take the place of punishment. Indulgences must be declared by the Pope (the chief snake oil salesman).
During the Middle Ages the Church told people that they could pay for indulgences. This abuse helped in starting the Protestant Reformation where Martin Luther nailed his faeces theses to the door of a church in which he complained about the practice of selling indulgences for money (I guess he preferred the trade of prayers to get some time off for good behaviour in Purgatory)."

So the Catholic Church, like Trump-type grifters the world over found another way to screw money out of their 'faithful'. I just don't understand how they fell for this crap and still do. Robert in another recent post said this:

"Christina asked me if I would mind doing the collection after the prayers of the faithful. As I had worn a suit and tie, I felt presentable enough to walk around in front of a couple of hundred parishioners.  Most people give by bank transfer and not a lot of cash is collected. I'm on shop duty next week so will have to do the collection again next Sunday as well."

People have automatic payments set up to pay the Church! This is like the tithing that goes on in those other even more bogus 'churches' like Samoan Assembly of God Church, NZ Mega Church and the Destiny Church which prey upon those who can least afford to give.

I'm flabbergasted.

"BEGONE IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER AND OF THE SON AND OF THE HOLY SPIRIT"

I've made mention of this in the past ...

ASK THE ANGELS

THERE MUST BE AN ANGEL

(Links inserted for your education and enjoyment - no need to thank me.)

... and, believe me I'd be happy to leave it in the past but Robert keeps bringing up this nonsense about angels.

Here's the latest from 2 days ago:

Now, reading that you might think it a funny bit of fiction - someone conversing with an angel and having a bit of to and fro banter as friends do. Read closer though and you'll see that Robert is serious - he really believes that he has an angel traipsing around with him. It does concern me and isn't an isolated admission - but is getting worse.

Here are some other related things he has said in his posts:

We might have to have some kind of intervention sometime in the near future. I wonder if that exorcist joker that Robert's had dealings with can eradicate angels as well as devils?

"I cast you out, unclean spirit, along with every Satanic power of the enemy, every spectre from hell, and all your fell companions; in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Begone and stay far from this creature of God. For it is He who commands you, He who flung you headlong from the heights of heaven into the depths of hell. It is He who commands you, He who once stilled the sea and the wind and the storm. Hearken, therefore, and tremble in fear, Satan, you enemy of the faith, you foe of the human race, you begetter of death, you robber of life, you corrupter of justice, you root of all evil and vice; seducer of men, betrayer of the nations, instigator of envy, font of avarice, fomentor of discord, author of pain and sorrow. Why, then, do you stand and resist, knowing as you must that Christ the Lord brings your plans to nothing? Fear Him, who in Isaac was offered in sacrifice, in Joseph sold into bondage, slain as the paschal lamb, crucified as man, yet triumphed over the powers of hell. (The three signs of the cross which follow are traced on the brow of the possessed person). Begone, then, in the name of the Father,  and of the Son,  and of the Holy  Spirit. Give place to the Holy Spirit by this sign of the holy  cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit, God, forever and ever. Oh, and take that silly guardian angel with you."

I GOD*

* After Isaac Asimov's 'I Robot' book series.

There's been lots of chat (see what I did there?) recently in the media, on the web and in this blogging community about AI and its influence now and its possible future threat to society.

Also, I've been picking up on a lot of 'news' reports of alien landings, cover-ups by governments and hysterical historical discoveries of possible alien influences on civilisation.

There certainly are a lot of unexplained things where past civilisations have had 'miraculous' technological advancements or 'biblical-type' calamities that have changed them irrevocably.  Who can properly explain the meanings of Stonehenge, the great pyramids - and, the origins of religions.

I read this on the web: GODS AND ROBOTS which is interesting.

No doubt Robert won't read it because it's in the form of a link. He's scared of links and, anyway it has a lot of words and doesn't mention him even once.

Richard might go to the link but, as he's busy regressing to his girly childhood days he's off to see the new Barbie movie.

To help I'll paraphrase the article a bit:

Gods And Robots

• Time-traveling back to antiquity might help us think about the human transformations of the future.

• According to Greek myth, after the creation of humans and animals, the gods assigned Prometheus and his younger brother Epimetheus to allocate their capabilities. The brothers were Titans, a race of divine beings.  You might have seen Ridley Scott's film 'Prometheus' and a couple of others in the 'Alien' series that mentions this.

• Plato relates that Prometheus was “desperate to find some means of survival for the human race,” so he appropriated the technology of fire from the gods to bestow on puny mortals. With the gift of fire, men and women could make tools and figure out ways to compensate for their pitiful physical shortcomings.

• In this ancient “speculative fiction” about humanity’s relationship with technology, the gifts bestowed by Prometheus represent the first human enhancements — the first attempts to overcome the limitations of the human body by natural or artificial means. 

• Artificial improvements to overcome the limitations of the human body and to expand natural strength, sensory apparatus and abilities — now known as human enhancement technologies — may seem like cutting-edge science. We often hear both pessimists and proponents claim that our current technology — including artificial intelligence and genetic engineering — is unprecedented, unique to modernity. Yet the concepts of augmenting human capabilities are ancient, as are the qualms they evoke. Time-traveling back to antiquity might help us think about the human transformations of the future.

• Greek myths envisioned borrowing the enviable powers of gods and animals to compensate for human vulnerability. These myths represent some of the earliest science fiction, and where imagination leads, innovation follows. 

• Today, human enhancements — including visual and hearing aids, titanium joints, artificial heart valves, bionic prosthetics and an array of medicines — are commonplace and welcomed.

• Serious concerns also surround scientists’ ambitions to make “more than human” individuals through implants, artificial intelligence-enabled exoskeletons, human-machine hybrids, human-animal hybrids, gene manipulation, neuro-robotics, micro-robotics, powerful drugs, electro-pharmaceuticals and biomimetic technologies. 

• Archaeological discoveries have unearthed surprisingly early evidence of artificial limbs and other body parts, some of them aesthetic and others functional. A skull from a site in France dated to 3000 B.C.E., for example, sported a false ear carved from a shell. Some of the most ancient prosthetic devices are quite sophisticated. In about 700 B.C.E., a highly skilled artisan who clearly understood the biomechanics of walking made a finely carved artificial toe for a woman. Archaeologists who discovered her mummy in 1997 near Luxor, Egypt, reported that the replacement toe not only appeared realistic but was tailor-made for her foot and even shows evidence of refittings. It was constructed in three sections of wood and leather, with a hinge for flexibility. Worn barefoot or with sandals, the woman’s prosthetic toe likely allowed relatively comfortable mobility.

• An intriguing bionic eye was discovered by archaeologists in the ancient Burnt City site in Iran. The meticulously realistic artificial eyeball was embedded in the left eye socket of a woman who lived about 4,800 years ago. The anatomical details are amazingly true to nature, with a convex surface, cornea, pupil and an interior with extremely fine golden wires to mimic the capillary network inside the eye. It was the disquieting almost-real quality of 20th-century prosthetics that inspired the robotics engineer Masahiro Mori to describe in 1970 the eerie sensation known as the “uncanny valley” — the strange gulf in understanding a human-like object.

• Today, U.S. military scientists are reviving a highly advanced exoskeleton idea inspired by the mythic figure of the bronze automaton Talos. Designated by the acronym T.A.L.O.S. (Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit), the special suit is to be augmented with artificial intelligence software, sensors, and offensive and defensive weapons systems. 

• In the fifth century B.C.E., the tragic playwright Sophocles wrote that we humans are formidable, for no other creatures have the skill and daring to navigate the stormy seas, plow the earth, tame horses and oxen, hunt and fish, devise laws, make war and build and govern cities. What other creatures have the facilities of language and “wind-swift thought” of “all-resourceful” humans, “ceaselessly contriving ways to escape the forces of nature”? Humans’ skills and inventive arts, Sophocles continued, are what drive us to achieve wonders and allow us to surpass nature. Yet we need to be mindful, Sophocles cautioned, that this same bold ingenuity “sometimes leads to good but sometimes to evil.”

"Robert, in the beginning was the word and the word was AI."

This cutting and pasting has been brought to you by The Curmudgeons Inc.ⓒ an, as yet, non AI influenced group of blogs.

PROOF THAT GOD EXISTS!

 JUST KIDDING

Have a read of this:

PROOF OF GOD'S EXISTENCE? NICE TRY

Here's a couple of interesting outtakes:

 

The question remains: Can one prove God’s existence? Yes, but this does not mean that God exists. The classical syllogism is: All men are mortal; Socrates is a man; therefore Socrates is mortal. It provides the recipe for proving with equal elegance that Socrates is immortal: All men are immortal; Socrates is a man; therefore Socrates is immortal. By the same token, we can construct an indefinite number of proofs of God’s existence. If Jesus was trustworthy, God exists; Jesus was trustworthy; therefore God exists. The construction of premises from which the existence of God will follow as a valid conclusion is a mere matter of ingenuity: valid proofs of God’s existence are not hard to find. 

So where does that leave us? It leaves us at a solid wall, and it leaves Aquinas in fantasy of his own dogma. We have no ways of knowing whether God does or does not exist, at least none that would allow for us to remain intellectually honest. Even the most sophisticated defender of Christianity, Søren Kierkegaard, says that faith is not based on logic or reason. If one chooses them as their ethos, then of course believing in God is ludicrous. As there is not a single piece of evidence in the world to suggest he exists, at least, one that isn’t self-referential. This is also not to say that it is impossible either, but only to expose the trickster’s trick. Speculation goes a long way, but it is not determinate. So, I have to disagree with the claim that science proved God is real, and I most certainly have to dismiss the archaic proofs of it.