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Reading the Bible with the Church Fathers

St. John Chrysostom and Origen

Antiochene (literal) vs Alexandrian (allegorical)

Genesis 1:1-3:19

By: Alphacenturion

Background Chrysostom, lived between 314 and 407 AD, and among many other works he wrote about 76 homilies on genesis. he was a preacher in Antioch and in Constantinople he stands high in the tradition of Antioch looking for a more literal, “by the letter,” interpretation of the bible. His is an exegetical tradition. He preaches and promotes good works such as attending church Bible study and giving alms, and the avoidance of evil deeds such as gambling, being lazy, sloth, and watching horse races. The only time he allows for a spiritual or allegorical sense of the interpretation is when that interpretation is in support of, or supported by, the New Testament especially the writings of Paul.

Origen was born around 185 AD most likely in, or around, Alexandria, though that is disputed by his detractors, his father was a known martyr. Origen himself is a bright light and immense structure of the early church as his works and accomplishments are myriad, he is considered by many to be the first theologian and the first to use reason as a methodology for examining the Bible and biblical texts, at least the first Christian to examine the Bible in this way. A dean and major figure of the Alexandrian School, which was founded by St Mark the Evangelist (the Apostle and Author of the Gospel of Mark), the school didn’t find fame until 190, Origen didn’t become dean of the School until 203 AD. Origen examined the Bible from a Spiritual or what we might now call an allegorical point of view. His most famous work is titled On First Principles. He is spoken highly of by other major Christian figures such as Eusebius. But for all of his accomplishments and his many admirers in the early church he had vocal enemies and powerful detractors such as Demetrius the bishop of Alexandria. Who's slander against Origen persist to this very day in many prominent Protestant and Calvinist circles. Origen was a well-read classicalist for his time, and he enjoyed studying the Bible, first in the Greek then later in the Hebrew, it is his fondness for the Hebrew which will begin to get him in trouble with the orthodox of his day, around 215, Origen visited Rome, a See that still appreciates his gifts to Christian Theology to this day, he was well traveled for that time period and even toured throughout Palestine. His death is disputed, he either died in ignominy, in 255 having unfortunately survived horrible torture, or he died as a martyr in 250 during the persecution of Decius. If you think Origen should be considered a church father, then you are more likely to think that he was a martyr and thus went to heaven; if on the other hand you think he was a heretic you are more likely to think he died having been denied martyrdom.

First let’s look at St. Chrysostom’s literal interpretation of Genesis 1-3.

He begins by an exhortation to temperance, obedience, and moderation which will lead to Wellness; while he warns that indulgence, intemperance and mildness lead to illness and death. For Chrysostom, if overindulgence is the cause of the problem, then fasting and avoidance is the cure and corrective. He is a proponent of self-denial. He then warns that one should not compete in fasting or temperance nor even in moderation; one must not go to excess or excesses in being temperate; one must demonstrate self-control even in self-denial.

He then looks at Romans 2:13 and quotes that: “It is not hearers of the law whom are just before God, but the doers of the law shall be justified.” Then Chrysostom adds a quote from Amos 6:3 “You who put far away in your mind the day of coming disaster, woe to you that sleep upon beds of ivory and are wanton on your couches: that eat the lambs out of their flock, and the calves out of the midst of their herd; you who sing songs idlily from the Psalter; you that think themselves to have instruments for music like David; you who drink wine in bowls, and anoint themselves with the best of ointments; but yet are not concerned for the affliction of Joseph! Wherefore now shall they go for you will be the first to be held captive, led at the head of the exiles, of those who go into captivity: and that faction, the revilers, the luxurious ones shall be taken away.”

After this grim warning, Chrysostom affirms Biblical inspiration, that the word of God truly spoke through the inspired authors, though it was written many generations after the events portrayed or relayed had occurred. Chrysostom takes pains to downplay the abilities of human reasoning, and then takes a moment to talk down to Jewish people for being stubborn in their doubt and questioning. Reminding the Jewish of his audience, as relates to the Hebrew Bible, that it is “God who makes and transforms all things and refashions all things according to his will.”

He bases his teachings about spiritual things on visible realities. That while we are to be guided by the spirit in our teaching and sharing the good news, we are to do so by faith within our limitations and not try to grasp higher than our reach. He advises that we should, and explains that he does, adapt the Message of the Good News to different audiences, based on their needs and comprehension abilities, that your methods, means, and wording of the message must be adapted to who you are speaking in front of or writing to. This for him is especially true when dealing with the Old Testament and even more so when working through Genesis.

Chrysostom, in example, speaks of two passages here. He compares Genesis 1:1-5 with John 1:1-5; but he also makes many inferences and implications that he does not expound on, nor explain in any detail for the rest of these set of Homilies. For instance: What he meant by authorship? Or, What he means by the separation of light and darkness. These are just two examples of where Chrysostom’s principles of interpretation can be applied aptly, but he merely teases out the inference and doesn’t delve into deeper meaning. This is a limitation of his Antiochian approach.

For instance, on authorship he implied that even given the objections Moses being the literal author one could reason to, and remember he is writing circa the 300’s, he claims that it is still correct to call Moses the blessed, or the inspired, author of genesis. His explanation runs something like this, to put it in semi-modern terms. It is right to call “Moses” the author of Genesis just as it is right to call Mark Twain the author of Tom Sawyer, or Shakespeare the author of the plays attributed to him, or Homer the author of the Iliad and the odyssey. The next reasoned to objection, he also dismisses, that even if a myriad of authors penned the work, even if great authors wrote a series together but they did so under one pen name, it would still be correct to give credit of authorship to that penname. As we know what we are getting and what to expect when we pick up that pen name. We, the audience know and trust that pen name and understand the style and conventions we are to expect if we read something by say Anne Rice or by A.N. Roqueluare. To put a finer point on it, we, the consuming audience, are not reading Samuel Clements we are reading Mark Twain and we know the difference.

So too with Moses. Moses is the tongue, Moses is the pen, Moses is the instrument God uses through inspiration to tell his story. In the story of Genesis, Moses is the storyteller. That is his role for us the listener and the reader. Does that mean that Moses was the first to tell the story or that he was its only contributor? No more than Homer was to the Iliad but when we read the Iliad, we read we hear Homer. When we read Moses, we know who and when he represents. That attribution may have come later than the first recitation of the story, but that does not change the authorship for us, nor does it alter the inspiration. In this case the Holy Spirit inspired blessed Moses, whomever blessed Moses was or was not.

The first four homilies of Saint John Chrysostom’s apology on Genesis can be broken up into seven points and span the first four days of creation. The seven themes are as follow:

Day one

1. God is the creator of all things.

2. God is a God of order

Day two

3. God is a God of authority and obedience.

4. God is a God of goodness

Day three

5. God is a God of unity.

6. God is a God of beauty.

Day four

7. All things have their use and purposes. Lights are there to guide and divide. Vegetation, growth, and fruits even those things that are harmful, inedible, or poisonous are that way for a reason.

Chrysostom then comes to some conclusions about the message of the story so far. For him, the first two accounts in Genesis are teaching that there is one heaven; one earth; one reality. And thus, there is only One God, and only One truth. But again, he doesn’t expound beyond his own limitations of interpretation, nor does he go beyond the perceived limitation of the text into speculation.

Instead, he takes this opportunity, in raising and then dismissing the obvious questions and objections, to promote daily study and prayer as exercise for the mind and soul. That rigor and discipline in good habits and good works will produce good fruit. Chrysostom also takes time to demonstrate in his writing an appreciation for Saint Paul. Something many of his readers and commentators take note of. To make sense of his Homilies on Genesis, it is important to make a mental note that he is preaching to a domestic church, during the season of Lent, and that he is actively encouraging them to participate in small group, daily Bible study, and that in these small groups they ought to converse on the divine, and on biblical topics; that is instead of gossiping, gambling, gaming, or indulging in other temptations. He then finally gets to the body of the text, but first he complements the precision and considerateness of the Blessed Author, as he says that he teaches through the telling of the creation of Adam that the body comes first and then ensoulment. But at this point we come to homily 15 and we get to the first major textual corruption, so the rest of this homily is a paraphrase of what is missing from his lecture.

Ironically his next encouragement is to say that with the Christian, correct doctrine is of no benefit unless one attends to the business of living. Therefore, blessed is the one who both does and teaches. He then quotes Matthew 5:19. Followed by an exhortation to “let us not stop short at the literal level; instead, let us reason from the perceivable visible realities to the superiority of spiritual realities.” And here again, Chrysostom complements the precision and considerateness of the text and author. He explains again that the biblical text, especially Genesis, is written with the limitations of its audience in mind. He explains that the words used by the text are precise: that to will, direct, and command are each different things, just as to form and shape are different modes of operation, as is the words formed versus fashioned. Each saying something different about how God approaches the creation of different creatures and beings. After plenty of base level commentary, which can be found in most study bibles or on most apologetic YouTube channels that speak about Genesis the next big topic Chrysostom takes on in his Homilies is the Fall, and here he says something I had not heard elsewhere before, he claims that the snake in the garden was not the devil but that the snake was used by the devil, and that this is evidenced by the devil's words and the fact that snakes don’t talk. That the devil worked through the serpent, but by being a tool for the devil the serpent was still punished, and that we, mortal humans, shall trample upon are the serpents and scorpions of/in our minds. Considering that I had just read a little over a hundred pages extolling the benefits of a literal interpretation I was almost shocked that Chrysostom went for a more spiritual metaphysical interpretation here. That the snakes and scorpions mentioned in Genesis are the temptations and doubts that live in our mind. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil also gets an allegorical treatment here, though to a much lesser degree, the forbidden tree is that of carnal knowledge, it is the divide between the theoretical knowledge of evil and the act of evil, it is highlighting the difference between and is the embodiment of theoretical knowledge and practical experience, between potential and actual. The eating of the fruit is knowing the difference by experiencing it, the act of knowing versus simply understanding, going back to Chrysostom warning about the limitations of Human Reason. Knowing is different than doing, doing is a deeper level of knowing. It is knowing in a true sense. In this vein Chrysostom continues. The concept that “God strolled in the evening” is equivalent to the conscious which knows all but still asks. Adam trying to hide from God is equivalent to shame. To be denuded and aware of one’s own nakedness is equivalent to being stripped of God's good glory. The reason for this departure from a literal simple reading of the plain text is that Genesis if read absolutely literal pushes against the understanding of God from Psalms and the New Testament. An anthropomorphic God is not compatible with the simplistic (unchanging), all knowing, all powerful, timeless, eternal, monotheistic, Trinitarian God of the Gospels, Acts, Epistles, and Revelation. Hence the limitation of the Antiochian School, Protestantism, Ultra-literalism, and Sola Scriptura.

Now, for contrast, let us look at Origen and how he understands Genesis 1:1-29. For Origen, the heaven being spoken of in Genesis one is incorporeal, which is consistent with later Biblical text which states that God's throne comes before the world. Therefore, Genesis and the verse in the beginning is not and cannot be speaking of temporal beginning nor is Genesis meant to be taken in a chronological manner or temporal sense.

Like Chrysostom, Origen finds many of the same themes in the opening seven lines of the Bible. For both men, and therefore for both schools, Genesis and the Bible as a whole teaches that God creates, God orders, God brings light from/to darkness. God brings order from/to chaos. For Origen though, the abyss referenced in Genesis is the same as the abode of the devil and the demons. For Origen, he sees direct references to the dragon and his angels in the warnings and ongoings of Genesis. In Origen’s recounting of the Genesis account, God dissolved the darkness, and it was God who names all things before the invention of language.

This can be and is true, because all this takes place before the existence of time. And time, for Origen, is older than this world. You may at this point be excused for thinking mistakenly that this Alexandrian method of interpretation is more literal and fundamental than the Antiochian, but you would be wrong on at least one of those counts. For then Origen explains that the firmament here and the heaven made in the second account is corporal; for him, the division is between earth and heaven, between body and soul. The heaven of the mind. The earth of the body. Darkness is chaos, which is to say lack of reason, lack of consciousness, lack of self-awareness. Light is order, reason, thought, and consciousness. Genesis 1-8 is the story of humanity reaching consciousness, both collective and individual.

Origen’s next big claim is that the world created in genesis came into being before time existed. For all the fun this concept and idea can generate it does lead to some questions, for instance, What does this represent? What is the water above heaven? What are the waters below heaven? Is darkness equivalent to the abyss, is the abyss equivalent to hell?

Origen implies that Heaven and spirit is equivalent to mind, and that mind is equivalent to self. That Heaven is the internal (eternal) self, and that Earth is the external (temporal) self. The firmament is the barrier between your existential metaphysical self and your practical physical body. Christ and the church are the sun and the moon for the believing Christian, he goes on, that just as a blind man cannot see or make sense of the light radiating from the sun so to the spiritually blind cannot make sense or understand the light radiating from Christ. The Birds are equivalent to high thoughts, while crawling things are equivalent to low thoughts. The firmament Divides the spiritual from the carnal.

Origen’s theory, his interpretation of genesis is that it is speaking of the spiritual creation and that genesis 2:5 is speaking of carnal creation. Origen is an interesting and intriguing read. While, his approach does circumvent the current literacy development hypothesis, Origen does have a proof. In Genesis one, man is formed (from dust in later parts of Genesis), while in Genesis two, man is shaped from slime. Genesis one, being the form or spirit of all things. Man being in the likeness of God, bears special significance for Origen. Earth, sun, and moon are created by God. Everything else is created by God’s command. There is present in the interpretation some fine distinctions between words, but I cannot deny that his approach is compelling.

Origen’s views on Humans is also different than Chrysostom’s. For Origen, Male and female are stewards of the earth, the animals, and the vegetation. They, Male and Female, are equal in dignity. Yes, the Male first, then female second, in authority; but that authority is over all creation. This order shows sovereignty of God over beast, earth, rock, and human alike. Ocean or fish; air or bird, God has sovereignty over all. In Origen’s take on the events of the fall, animals suffer due to our fault, due to our flaw the whole of creation suffers. Our power then is in our care for the welfare of the planet, it's resources, and it's life that lives on in it, including each other and ourselves. As the text says, We “are like gods” but we are like gods, lowercase g, in our dominion over the earth and it's creatures. We are made in both the image in likeness of God. Form and Dominion, spirit and creation; through reason, we as humans, can dominate even lions and sharks. The text shows this dominion in our naming things. It should be noted that in these older Early Church Father Homilies you will find the Woman named Zoe and not Eve as we are accustomed too. A common misunderstanding about Zoe and the serpent, as some might explain it, was that Zoe was the weak willed one, the cause of our fall; but for Origen and the Alexandrian school this could not be further from the Truth. She is as much human as Adam, Zoe is as much human and free as you or I. Evidence for this is in the text of Genesis itself. For the woman has a conversation with the snake, the woman's stands her ground against the snake, accuses it of its own faults without hesitation. In Origen’s telling of it, she could have chosen not to take its advice. The snake was scared of her, but she was not scared of it. Again, he highlights that she conversed comfortably with it. She did not take flight. She was not terrified by its appearance. Here we get Origen’s understanding of Sin. For him, and presumably for his school, sin is the loss of both esteem and authority together. That we should not be shocked by this, nor should we be resentful of the punishment, nor think it unjust as we are fellow slaves of God as are the animals. Animals and beast, crops and wild jungles, and untamed forest, all serve and aid us in our daily lives even though they suffer for our mistakes and our cruelty.

Here Origen reminds us of the Biblical precept that “Not sacrifice of animals but contrite spirit and a humble heart is what God desires.” For Origen, the co-creation accounts are a summary of what we would call evolution: but for him it documents more than just physical development, but it documents spiritual adaption and mutation as well. Life adapts to its environment and the environment adapts to the life that is living on it. Habitation is more than just mere survival. The land, seas, rivers, and waters all change and adapt, life in temporal caporal reality changes. But in the spiritual realm there is no change only the eternal.

Here Origen iterates the same philosophical warning as Chrysostom, everything in moderation. The goal here seems to be excellence of some sort, human or divine is unclear at this point of his homily. For Origen, excellence is equivalent to perfection, and perfection is equivalent to the good. If all created things are constantly changing, then excellence must be reached in the spiritual realm. Life is affected by all that is around and interacting with it. Gravity, wind, pressure, and time, to heal and grow are all necessary, but do not fear for all is guided and/or permitted by God's will. For Origen, it is our ability to acclimatize and actualize that is the evidence of design, and then he gets very near to Chrysostom and says that this precision and considerateness is proof of God’s good will toward us. I would like to note here that you may be tempted to contrast and criticize Chrysostom’s apparent anti-Semitism and misogyny against Origen’s perceived environmentalism and egalitarianism; but this would be an anachronistic mistake as these political and social concepts did not exist during the periods that these men were writing. The same accusation and contrast is made by many, modern, would-be, theologians when it comes to St. Peter and St. Paul, but again this perceived difference is anachronistic to the lives, thinking, and times of these men. Sources:

St. Chrysostom, John. The Fathers of the Church vol 74 Saint John Chrysostom Homilies on Genesis 1-17. Translated by Robert C. Hill, Published by The Catholic University of America Press. 1986, 1999.

Origen. The Fathers of the Church vol 71 Origen Homilies on Genesis and Exodus. Translated by Ronald E. Heine, Published by The Catholic University of America Press. 1982, 2002. pp. 1-71.

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Do Catholics Read the Bible Update

By: Alphacenturion

I am updating the info I shared in my Do Catholics Read the Bible video. As some of the nuance and subtlety of my words was missed and I would like to restate and clarify them here. But also, because two new Bible Translations have come out that may change the literary and liturgical options in the English-Speaking Catholic World. The two translations which are causing the stir are the ESV-ce and the NCB. Now, let’s address the other lingering issues from my previous video. Both Right-Wing Rad-trad Catholics and Left-Wing Liberal Catholics had some issues with my video.

I asked the question, do Catholics read the bible, and I said of course we do, but that’s not 100 percent accurate, while the clergy encourages us to do so, and we do have a mostly unknown obligation from Church to do so daily; few observe and even fewer know of this duty. And yes, sometimes misinformed Catholics will tell their children not to read the bible because they fear their children will misunderstand it, and many don’t read the bible out of laziness or lack of interest. But still the Church and the Pope encourages you to read and study the bible every day if not more.

There also seems to be a misunderstanding and a mis-characterization of what I said concerning Catholic Bishops’ Approval of Bible translations, as two opposing groups want me to assent to their extreme norm. One party wants me to downplay the importance of the Imprimatur and Nihil Obstat saying that there is no official Catholic Bible. So, to be clear: as of January 2022, the only Bible Approved for Liturgical Use in the United States is the NAB; and no matter where you are in the world, if you submit to the magisterium of the Catholic Church then only Bibles with the Imprimatur and the Nihil Obstat are approved for personal use and study for a Lay Catholic. Imprimatur only means that a Bishop or a conference of Bishops has approved of a particular writing or translation and the Nihil Obstst just means that the person reviewing it found nothing so objectionable or incorrect as to hinder or prevent its publication. (As the Encyclopedia Britannica put it.) This is nothing more than a permission to print and not an endorsement of the content, nor is it a guarantee of its integrity. Now this does not mean that you cannot use your favorite non-Catholic edition bible translation nor that a particular priest or religious (monk or nun, etc.) couldn’t have recommended a different bible particular to you to fit your peculiar needs and taste. What it does mean, is that unvetted non-Catholic Bible Translations should not be read as Liturgy and that some word choices or phrasing of verses in non-Catholic publications may contradict Catholic teaching and mislead you if you are actively reading this or that bible in order to conform yourself to Catholic practice.

Lastly, there is the issue of attendance and participation. That is going to Church and saying your prayers. Let’s do this differently this time, subdividing the Practicing Faithful into 5 categories, the Devote Religious, the Lay Congregate, the Nominal, the Lapse, and the Folk or Cultural Catholic. Let’s start with those whose goal is praying non-stop.

The Devote Religious: these will pray The Office Reading, Morning Prayer, Midmorning Prayer, Midafternoon Prayer, Evening Prayer, Night Prayer, read a Life of a Saint of the Day, participate in Daily Mass. And at each of these practices they read the Bible through passages and selections in their prayer.

The Lay Congregate: Should Pray the Rosery, ought to do morning and night prayer, and has a duty to go to Church on every day of Obligation (that is all Sunday’s especially 1st Advent, Easter, and Pentecost, as well as attend on Ash Wednesday, and Ascension Thursday). They get the bible at Church during mass and may or may not also read the Bible at home own their own.

The Nominal: Might go to Confession once a year and receive their obligatory mandatory minimum of Eucharistic Participation, they might go to Church as a family obligation only for the big “Catholic” holidays, so Halloween (All Saints & All Soul’s Day), Midnight Mass on Christmas, Easter, Ash Wednesday, Thanksgiving, Independence Day, Our Lady of Guadalupe, and Ascension Thursday. These are also the people who might add that they go to a Catholic School or Catholic University. They might not read the bible on their own and they might not pay attention to its reading in mass, choosing to daydream or nap instead.

The Lapse: Used to go to Church or only go on Christmas and Easter or for a wedding or a funeral. Might say they grew up Catholic, or that their parents were Catholic maybe their parents were even a priest or a nun. If asked how they know something they would brag with distain that they went to a Catholic School or if not, then that a Priest told them so. They read the bible once when they were a kid or a teen and found it unbelievable or too difficult to finish.

The Folk Catholic: Dangerous, heretical, and participates in blasphemous Practices. Does not read the bible, but knows some gnostic or kabbalist text, reads apocryphal passages such as writings from a lost book of Enoch. Says the rosery and prays novenas which would be fine, but they worship instead of venerate, they sacrifice instead of imitate, and they also participate in tarot and maybe even witchcraft or voodoo. They might have an altar to saints at her or his home, including rejected and false saints such as Santa Muerte on an altar. Maybe was baptized, might have received 1st communion, and may have gone through confirmation. Will pray to, not through, statues. Believes in Liberal Theology and Socialistic Christianity. Views mythology on equal or equivalent grounds to Holy Scripture.

Now these tiers are not to say that there is no bleed over or bleed through; for instance, a priest may have taken no extra vows or may have no sacerdotal mission but be of the secular clergy. Or a lay religious or lay monastic may have commitments and vows to fulfill. And it can go in the other direction as well, perhaps a lay congregate received poor or little-to-non-catechesis and participates in fringe or heretical practices, or a nominal or lapse Catholic may read the bible daily. Nor am I saying that there are no exceptions. For instance, you can miss an obligation for legit reasons such as getting sick, having a car accident, having overslept because you are overworked, have an emergency, or if you travel to a place where you don’t have access to an ordained Mass. And the bare minimum standard is there to make standing exceptions for the faithful in hard situations, not as recommendations for the average congregant but as a way to accommodate Catholics with say mental health issues or those in nursing homes or those who might be incarcerated. This is why, special ministers can take communion to the sick and immobile, priest can travel for special confessions, and exceptions can be made, like a particular televised or streamed mass counting as attendance because you are in lockdown or at extreme risk. The absolute minimum is set for extreme cases, or those with a legitimate hindrance, not as an easy way out for those who wish to shirk their duties.

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Rachel Stephens doesn’t understand polemics, part two, deconstructing the key Holidays.

Christmas

Originally called Christ’s Mass also called Feast of the Nativity of Jesus Christ, Noel, & Dies Natalis.

 The claim that holds water is that it was based on a Norse holiday celebrating the winter solstice on Dec 22nd. As the Christian high holy day was moved over to occur near the winter solstice as a way of glossing over the seemingly universal and beloved holiday for most Gentiles Cultures which took place on Dec. 20th. Not the 25th.

 The Christian version was 1st established before AD 200, and was originally celebrated on May 20th. It was a Liberian Church tradition that included a midnight mass, it was eventually moved to Dec 25th to confirm to a custom of the Church of Anastasia in Rome, a favorite church of Constantine, which is where the Mythicist will get their Mithras connection from even though the dating and location of the celebration doesn’t line up nor connect. But the Christian celebration quickly faded into the backdrop of normal liturgical feasts and solemnities no more prominent than say the Feast of Anastasia which is also held on Dec 25th, or the Memorial of St Clement which was the holiday on the day when I was researching this. It wasn’t until 1226, when a Devotion by St Assisi made the celebration and holiday popular again.

The Local customs for the feast are usually Christianized folk tradition of whichever community happens to be celebrating the Feast. And while these folk customs can derive from pre-Christian practices, as they are not mandated nor relegated by the church, they can be anything and derive from anything, you can make up a family tradition right now and it will be just as legitimate as a Christmas tree, drinking spiked eggnog, a reading of A Christmas Carol, or a recitation of the Night Before Christmas.

 Easter

 Interesting there is no Pagan nor Heathen holiday that actually lines up with Easter, the closest two are either the Spring Equinox on march 21ts and the Celtic Sumer Festival on April 30th. Though the two celebrations were not related to each other, in a round about way the forced connection makes sense, as the Spring Celebration was a planting feast; and the Summer Festival was a harvest feast. But again they were not practices by the same cultural nor did they celebrate the same pantheons.

 Easter is actually a Liturgical Season called Lent and Eastertide that includes the Holidays of Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, and Trinity Sunday. The day itself, called colloquially Easter Sunday is an Obligation, but so is every Sunday if you really think about it. This vigil was originally an early Church Practice of the 1st century called an Illumination or a celebration of Lights; where a church would keep its candle lights on all night from midnight to early morning, commemorating the night Christ rose from the Dead.

 Halloween

Originally called All Hallows Eve, it is the build up to All Saints Day on Nov 1st, and All Souls Day on Nov 2nd.

 Said to be the Christianization of the Celtic, Gaelic, or Druid holiday of Samhain on Oct 31st. Which was the Celtic New Year’s Eve, on their Lunar calendar. But as the moon that signifies the Gaelic Lunar New Year would not be on a constant day and we have the Julian and Gregorian calendars this true fact does not hold as much weight as it proclaimers make it seem.  Or I should say, it being a Gaelic New Year from pre-Roman times should have no more bearing on the coincidence than the Chinese New Year being on Feb 19th one year or Jan 29th some other year.

 The Christian celebration of Halloween was initiated in AD 608 or 609, by Pope Boniface IV when he rededicated the Pantheon to the Blessed Virgin Mary and All Apostles latter changed to recognize all saints. Originally celebrated on May 13th. It was Pope Gregory III who in 837 changed the date of the observance to November the 1st, with the dedication of a chapel in the Vatican Basilica. But still the holiday wasn’t made popular among Catholic Christians until AD 998 when Abbot Odo of Cluny started making it a big deal. All saints day was originally a Greek Orthodox Feast but in a move of to show Ecumenical Unity it was added to the Latin Calendar as an act of solidarity. It is a commemoration of all the faithful departed, a rite in the church going back to the 1st Christians who held their Mass in Crypts and Necropoli. Sometimes saint names would be recited in litany’s of the mass.

 While its Samhain connections are coincidental at best, its actual pagan connections stem from the Pantheon, a mega Temple dedicated to Athena/Minerva the Goddess of Wisdom and Patron goddess of Athens and Rome, and to the recognition of all the known Gods and Goddess built in the year 27 BC by Marcus Agrippa.

 But that leave a question is the dates don’t really line up what are the dates of the Christan Holidays and what are those Holidays anyway. Jan 1st is the Solemnity of Mary Mother of God, Jan 6th is the Epiphany, Aug 1st is the Assumption/Dormition of the Blessed virgin Mary, Nov 1st is All Saints Day, Nov 2nd is All Souls day, Dec 8th is the Immaculate Conception of Mary, Dec 25th is the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ as two day holiday. And then there is Pentecost which is a moveable feast.

 If we were going to have them fall on the four cardinal holidays of the pagan world we would need less holidays and we would have to include the Feast of John Baptist in the list of the major feast, which we don’t.

 Other than Samhain, non of the pagan holidays line up. From Imblog to Yule, the dates, the practices, and the themes celebrated is not the same, and in fact their theology and morality are completely opposed to each other.

#Holiday #Are Holidays Pagan #Can Christians Celebrate Holidays

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Rachel Stephens misunderstands Polemics

I received a viewer request to do a video deconstructing, but really refuting, Rachel Stephens claims that Modern Christian Holidays are secretly pagan. She has produced screes against Christmas, Easter, Halloween, and of all things Thanksgiving. So, if you came here to hear me say she is wrong and that the holidays you love are not pagan, then “The Christian holidays you celebrate aren’t pagan and Rachel Stephens is wrong.” But if you came here for a full-throated refutation of her claims as baseless and just more of Rachel’s insane conspiracy nonsense you’re not going to get that today. She actually does have some historical bases for her fears and misunderstandings this time, but they are misunderstandings nonetheless. Her discomfort and misinformation comes from her not understanding the long Christian and Jewish tradition of polemics. While the Christian origins of these traditions and customs are not pagan, the dates and some of the modern folk practices that surround these celebrations do have pagan and secular ties and these non-religious additions are a big reason for these holidays’ current popularity.

1st I should acknowledge that most of Rachel’s claims come from long standing anti-Catholic rhetoric, and maybe even some latent antisemitism, that Rachel seems both prone and subject to. As most of the holiday’s she speaks against have Legitimate Catholic Origins. As you will see, most of the holiday’s were initiated by Catholic Popes. As they took this idea of reapportion of pagan practices and holidays as license to Christianize popular holidays, by moving their already established Christian celebrations near the day of a pagan holiday, to overshadow or counter the then more popular pagan celebration. They saw this practice as inline with the already established cultural practice of Judaizing Hellenistic and Roman high feast and memorial days. A ready-made example of this comes from Christians reconfiguring Jewish high Holidays to fit within the context their new faith. For instance, Sukkot, the Feast of Booths, becomes The Feast of the Transfiguration. Or how the Passover Supper becomes the Lord’s Supper that is the Last Supper, commemorated every Mass in the Catholic Church. So the Popes and early Christians saw no problem in doing the same with pagan feast and heathen memorials.

In fact, this polemic Christianization of previously pagan or heathen events is a long-standing biblical tradition going back to the old testament and the proto-Israelite practice of taking the accepted facts of the day and turning them on their ear. Saying in essence, “you’re right but its this not that.” What some secular-humanists and atheist-skeptics call othering, where the Semitic and Abrahamic people spent much intellectual energy and time developing how they were unique and different from the much larger and more influential cultures and societies around them. This type of defining was necessary to maintain tribal unity and identity to avoid assimilation and acculturation. This process would reappear during the Church-Synagogue spilt, two words that originally meant the exact same thing but came to represent two different religions as Christians went about separating themselves from the Jewish Culture and Faith they grew out of.

Three great examples of this in the bible are Tiamat in Genesis, The sacrifice of Isaac, and Paul’s unknown God. All of Genesis up to the appearance of Abraham is Polemic against the Mesopotamian myths of the Canaanite, Babylonian, Sumerian, and Assyrian cultures. This is best examined in the Character of Taimat, she appears in both cultures’ Epic Poetry accounts of creation, but in the Mesopotamian she is the Mother goddess Dragon of Chaos, mother of the gods, slain by Marduk whom was latter identified as Baal by the Neo-Babylonians and post Jewish Kingdoms Canaanites.

Then there is the Sacrifice of Isaac, something most skeptics on youtube seem to misunderstand and mischaracterize. Which is unfortunate as this is one of the most explained examples of this type of polemic in both the Rabbinic and Christian oral traditions. The practice of child sacrifice and child emulation was rampant in the middle east at that time, but to find evidence of this you have to understand what polemics are. Polemics is the act of taking a widely accepted claim to its absurd extreme literal meaning and then filling in, recontextualizing, or reworking its meaning. In pre-biblical times, parents were expected to dedicate their 1st born child to the service of their Patron God or Goddess and in the Phoenician and Canaanite rites the child, when of the age of reason, was expected to take an oath and mark themselves as belonging to their patron god, this can be seen very explicitly in Livy when a teenage Hannibal takes his oath to avenge Carthage on Rome and then burns his hand in the fire of Baal. The Bible takes this rite literal and then freeing the Proto-Israelites from the practice by taking Isaac through the whole process and ending the ordeal by saying that God does not want child sacrifice anymore. It asks the reader, or listener, of its account to think about what it would mean if these commands were followed all the way through, what kind of god would demand that of a parent, and to show that our God is not like those other gods whom would expect you to follow through and complete such a task. Such as Artemis demanded of Agamemnon to sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia in order for the sea winds to blow again in the direction of Troy.

The third example I will use to explain this concept of Christian reappropriation and its appropriateness is from the New Testament. Paul’s unknown God. Where Paul says: “Men of Athens, I observe that you are very religious in all respects. For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, ‘To The Unknown God.’ Therefore, what you worship in ignorance, I will proclaim to you. The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things; and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God, if perhaps they might reach for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are all His children.’ Being then the children of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold, silver, or stone, nor an image formed by the art and thought of man. Therefore … He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead.”

So, now that I’ve shown that the practice is both Christian and Biblical let’s get down to brass tax by defending the three Christian religious Holidays of Christmas, Easter, and Halloween. I will leave thanksgiving out of this discussion as it is a secular holiday that would require a different defense than what I will present here.

end part 1.

#Rachel Stephens #Should Christans #Should Christians Celebrate Christmas #You're Quitting Pagan Holidays #Are Holidays Pagan

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The Bible is a Catholic Book review

By: Ramon Aguilar IV

This is a book review of the audio version of Jimmy Akins apologetic book the Bible is a Catholic Book. Published by Catholic Answers & purchased through Audible. This book goes through a general and basic history of the bible; both Hebrew Old Testament & Christian New Testament. It seemed to be aimed at someone who has never read the bible before or someone whom is completely unfamiliar with the history around & surrounding the composition and proliferation of Biblical scripture and Judo-Christian texts.

Before I give you my review, I need to acknowledge some basis on by behalf. I am Roman Catholic, I am in good standing with the Church, I am Lay-Religious, I do pray the Liturgy of the Hours, and Jimmy Akin is my favorite apologist. Not just of Catholic apologists, but of all the current youtube and actively working published apologists of all Faiths & Denominations Jimmy Akin is my favorite. Shabir Ali, Darma Speak, David Wood, & James White, being the rest of my top five.

So it pains me to say that this wasn’t a great apologetic work. I have other works by Jimmy Akin that are much more informative and impactful. Now, mind you, I might not be the intended audience as I have been studying the bible using critical, historical, & philosophical methods since I was 15 & I am now 39. The Catechism, bible dictionaries, different bible translations, study bibles, Dead Sea Scroll collections, Gnostic Bibles, The Puedopigripha, & The church fathers are familiar and part of my personal library collection. And understand that most Christians only read parts of bible and few people will ever read the whole bible all the way through themselves even once. And I also understand that disinformation about the Bible is rampant online and on youtube. But that does not dissipate the disappointment I felt listening to this book.

The audiobook is only five hours long and if you are familiar with the bible at all, having read any intro material to a mainstream Study bible; or, If you are reading this to evangelize or for the propose of apologetics you will be severely disappointed until the last 2 hours of the books, and in fact you wont get any interesting ideas to chew over or conversation pieces to debate with your non-catholic friends until the very last hour of this book. The history outlined goes from Pre-Biblical sources, through each major division or grouping of biblical text, through the history surrounding the deuterocanonical or apocryphal books, the new testament in order of composition, the apostolic fathers and then post Biblical textual developments including mentions and brief apologetical dismissals of Gnostic, Pseudepigraphal and other heretical works. And all of that would make you think this is a heavy work, a magnus opus of apologetics. But sadly it is not. Short works, such as the USCCB’s essential guide to the Holy Bible, which is less than 90 pages long covers just as much if not more martial than Jimmy Akin does in 200 pages.

The title of this book is also highly misleading. It implies that this work will contain proofs and arguments for the Catholicity of the Bible yet all it gives are brief passes to claims only the most conspiratorial, radical, and lunatic fringe world make against the Catholic Church’s relationship to the Bible. To paraphrase James White (speaking of other apologetic works by other authors), “this work [by Jimmy Akin] is lacking depth, and has little to no Textual nor Suppositional proofs to support its claims.” There are no premises within this work that relate to the magnitude put forth in by its Title. This book proves nothing. The evidence presented is elementary, the argumentation is nonexistent, by the time I finished the book I wasn’t even sure this book was apologetical. While it was informative, I wouldn’t recommend it for anyone who was over 18 years old and had already read the bible all the way through once in their life. On the other hand if you are under the age of 18, and have never read the bible or never been able to finish reading the bible, or are completely unfamiliar with religion, any religion, then this might be the book for you. But I have read encyclopedia entries with more relevant and lively information about the Bible and its history than this book presents.

This book was released in 2019 and it took me one week to get through. I can only assume that it was originally written as an intro to the Bible and then at some point, in its production, its propose and length changed to become an apologetic proof to the claim, which I myself argue for, that the New Testament Bible as it exists today in all good scholarly translations was composed, edited (redacted), transcribed, complied, & interpreted by Catholics. The Bible truly is a Catholic book.

I have heard many apologist on YouTube of the atheist and non-Catholic type to make the opposite claim and to make amazing and astonishing arguments as to why the the Bible is not a Catholic book. I was hoping that this book would help illuminate a better path for refuting such disinformation and propaganda. Unfortunately this book is a pebble of Truth thrown against a rolling boulder of anti-Catholic conspiratorial rhetoric.

I would give this book a 2 out of 5 star rating. Instead of wasting your momey on this book I would recommend; the NRSV New Oxford Annotated Bible with Apocrypha 5th Edition, The NAB Catholic Study Bible Third Edition, or St Augustine’s Confessions if you want better arguments for the Catholicity of the Bible and The Catholic Church’s role in forming the Bible. On the other hand, if you are reading this because you like Jimmy Akin, I would recommend two of his other works, Teaching With Authority, or The Father’s Know Best.

Thank you. Peace, like, subscribe. Comment down below. Let’s have a discussion.

#Catholic #Catholicism #Jimmy Akin #The Bible Is A Catholic Book #book review

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Is Christianity and Catholicism compatible with Feminism and Socialism.

By Ramon Aguilar IV

As a Philosopher, a Catholic, and an American I have made a few view videos refuting and disagreeing with certain popular Catholic youtubers on the these grounds as my beliefs on these subjects are tied into my identity. This will be my strongest refutation of these men and their views to date. As recent issues in the Roman Catholic Church have raised their reactionary rhetoric to mutinous levels.  Dr Taylor Marshall, Timothy Gordon, and Michael Voris, are Schismatic rabble rousers. Who are ultra-traditionalist disguised as YouTube scholars and theologians, exploiting current real and ugly controversies and scandals to grow an audience, get published and gain their works exposure. These men are doing more damage than good for the American Catholic community. Creating division were there should be unison against a growing tied of apostacy and blasphemy. As I can think of no worse blasphemy than evil priests using the name of God to justify sinful and wicked acts.

As of recent, these men have made certain claims about Catholicism, Christianity, Feminism and Socialism as they relate to each other in a type of pseudo, or proto, or postmodern-Liberation Theology that I would like to refute by looking at a definitional understanding of these terms. I used the Webster’s Encyclopedic Dictionary (1996), the Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy (2016), and Hardon’s the Pocket Catholic Dictionary (2013) to check my definitions, verbiage, and usage against.

           Let us start with their claim of Catholicism being a religion of unchangeable doctrine best expressed in Latin vernacular.

For me, as is backed up by my sources mentioned above Catholicism: Is the faith, ritual, and morals of the Roman Catholic Church with Jesus as its head, the pope as its mouth piece, and its faithful members of the Church as its body. Intended for all human kind it is the general universal of broad, liberal, inclusive, practical, and metaphysical applications, Tradition, and doctrines through the lens of Christian theology. As for the Name Catholic being appropriate to this entity called the Roman Catholic Church it was coined by St Ignatious of Antioch between AD 35-107.  While pertaining to the whole Christian body; it makes exclusive claims and has exclusive characteristics of Truth, Unity, Sanctity, & Apostolic Succession that includes the adherents to such faith and its Organization. It is the part of the Christian body that recognizes the Papacy and the other Patriarchs but is not Protestant.  It also means that it is inclusive of Customs, Doctrine, and Dogma as long as those elements are considered to be Orthodoxy as defined by and explained by the Apostolic Fathers and continued in its Tradition as overseen by the Bishops as distinguished from heresy since the time of Christ. And it originally referred to the Undivided Church before the Great Schism of 1054.

Thus, their almost slavish dedication to the Oral Tradition as it is recorded in doctrine and dogma is equivalent to the Protestants’ devotion to Sola Scriptura.

           Their claims about Christianity do not hold up much better as they describe a judgmental, wrathful religion with tyrannical doctrines, making them sound more Calvinistic than Augustine in their views of what Christianity is.

While what I have learned and been taught is that Christianity is the particular Christian religious system that claims faith in the Jewish Messiah Jesus Christ and the deposit of faith thereof, including its teachings, morals, & spirituality as relates to the beliefs, practices, principles, and conduct of the people who follow Jesus Christ. These people claim Christ Jesus as their Lord, God, and Savior and recognized the Trinity: that is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as defined by the Apostolic Church Fathers and expressed (that is, evident) in the canonized Gospels and Epistles of the New Testament Biblical Scriptures.; including the rites and mainstream branches of Western Catholic, British-North American Protestant, and Eastern Orthodox Churches as well as its minor branches of Oriental and Coptic churches.

           These men: Dr Taylor Marshall, Timothy Gordon, and Michael Voris have categorized Socialism, Communism, and Feminism as absolute evils and grave mortal sin and have all but accused Pope Frances as being members of or at least subject to theses movements and their philosophy. But what are these philosophical political systems and are they by definition diametrically opposed to Christian-Catholicism as these men claim?

Socialism: Is the theory and political system of social organization in which the means of production are not in private hands but under social control, as relates to wealth and power. This system demands the collective ownership of means, interest, production, and control by the community as a whole and advocates for the equal distribution of capital and land among said community. Usually as prescribed by Marx, Lennon, or Mao.

And while Marxism is opposed to Christianity by its very nature of being anti-religious, elements of socialism are compatible with Christianity just as elements of progressive social reform and social justice are compatible, utilitarian, and complimentary to democracy.

           And what of its twin cousin Communism.

Communism or Collectivism: is a socioeconomic theory and system of communal self-government in which each connected community forms a federation based on state-ownership of property distributed down ethnic, gender, cultural, or economic lines expelling free-market mechanisms of control, supply, and demand. The is the exercise of the political principle of centralized, social and economic control.

           And while the argument can be made that this type of political system leads to a type of social tyranny where every man and woman is their own tyrant the Church has stood up for Monarchy, Republicanism (representational governments), direct democracies, and other forms of National Governments its members have been subject to throughout the years. After all we render on to Cesare what is his, our souls belong to God not to the state.

But what of feminism. An evil movement that promotes abortion, promiscuity, the emasculation of men, and an end to motherhood and an end to traditional families. Well, lets take an homes and simple look at what Feminism is, or what the types of feminisms are at their core. Feminism philosophically speaking are the doctrines that advocate for social, political, and reproductive rights for women, and the organizations and movements who advocate for those rights. Feminism being originally concerned with the asymmetrical distribution of powers and rights that leads to the biases that subjugate women to subordination, and disparagement.  And their goal being the end of that subjugation, subordination, and disparagement.

There is much here that is compatible with old and new testament, that is compatible with Judaism and Christianity. The incompatibility comes from two places, Genesis and Paul’s Epistles. And while some may point to Deuteronomy or Leviticus as the points of contention the principles and the place to find the potential reconciliation thereof lays in Genesis and the Epistles. As both men and women are asked to submit to God and to each other in obedience and respect.

That is without denying hard and even harsh realities.

           So lets look at masculinity and femininity. Are they truly incompatible?

Masculinity: is that pertaining to the traditional attributes, characteristics, and qualities inherent to men and male individuals as relates to strength, boldness and gender.

           While, Femininity: are the qualities of feminine womanliness seen collectively as a whole, as pertains to traditional female attributes as relates to sensitivity, gentleness, and gender.

           I think it is a mistake to look at these means as virtues or vices on their but instead it is more preferable to look at these trait sets as simply quantifiable quantities that are complementary to each other. And while one sex or gender is more prone to one set or the other that does not make either set mutually excusive to the other.

           But what are Catholics defending when we defend the Patriarchy, is it manly masculine Authoritarianism? No, here is what Catholics, Theologians, and Doctors of the faith mean by Patriarchy.

A patriarch is simply the male head of a family, tribe, rite, or Church. This is the founder or personage who has authority over other members of his group. For the early Church these were the Holy Fathers of Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, Constantinople, and Jerusalem who ruled over Catholic Sees as well as the heads of later Catholic sees such as The Coptic-Ethiopian, Nestorian, Armenian, and Russian sees. But more broadly these are the male elders of a community as a whole.

           But does having a male only priesthood mean that we are against female leadership or a Matriarchy. Well, let’s look at what Matriarchy is. A Matriarch is simply a female head of a family or tribe, or a woman who is a founder of a community or a group. And a Matriarchal system or community where is one where a matriarchate has developed. This would be a family, society, community or state governed by a matrix (by the mother).

           Now, the church has both mother’s and father’s of the faith, and women have been powerful doctors of the faith just as men have been. So, the idea of Matriarchs and Patriarchs ruling and guiding together is not antithetical to our faith. As both the masculine and the famine should be respected and protected. While a misogynist and misandrist order would not be tolerated by the church. So while I see and acknowledge the tension I do not see them as unreconcilable as I will now expand upon returning to the topic of feminism.

           The goal of social, political, and reproductive rights for women, the right for women to organize and gather as a group, is something most Catholics throughout time would agree upon as a good. And again, most Catholics would agree to the goals of ending or preventing the subjugation, subordination, and disparagement of women. It only mater the aim and degree of the goal. For instance, if reproductive right is framed as ending State Mandated Abortions and giving women the right to choose to keep her child in societies where such right are not granted as self-evident then yes Catholics would and do support that, within that framing. Suffrage and having the right to vote is another universal most catholic would support for all women of the age of reason being weighted the same and equal to men of the age of reason. Just as Catholics support and fund monastery for monks so Catholics support and willingly fund convents for nuns. This framing and reframing can go on and one, but you get my point.

           Yet there is another phase or factor to this refutation. These men Taylor, Timothy, and Michael have said that part of the problem were not just the isms but the toxic soup that they make called Liberation Theology. So what is Liberation Theology. Liberation Theology is a Christian and more specifically Latin American Roman Catholic movement that makes criticism of oppression, and the mission of social justice its central tasks. Its adherence seek justice and rights poor, minorities, and women. As well as, sometimes violent retribution against racism, sexism, oppression, and economic imbalance. The justify these goals and actions by emphasizing Biblical themes of liberation, social Christianity, and the preaching of the “Red Letter” social gospel. This religious socialism is based on the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as taken separate from the Epistles or the Old Testament. Making a New Bible out of just the Four Gospels. These “Christians” believe capitalism to be idolatrous, rooted in greed, and a mortal sin. Christian socialists identify with the suffering inequality of the marginalized, minorities, and the oppressed. It is a synthesis of Christian theology and liberal socio-economic political theory, particularly Marx. Such theology found fertile ground in the 1970s in regions such as Peru, Brazil, Uruguay, and Spain. The evangelical context of liberation theology emphasizes evangelism and social responsibility. Similar theologies have developed in repressed and poverty-stricken areas such as the so-called Black Theology of South Africa and some US ghettos, PLT in Palestinian, Dalit in India, and Minjung Korea. Unfortunately, Liberation Theology reinterprets the bible in new ways departing from recognized Catholic, Christian, & Apostolic tradition. These are radical, revolutionary, anti-capitalist sometimes anti-governmental sects who have incorrectly and only partially interpreted the message of Jesus. They do this misinterpretation by divorcing the message of Jesus from the rest of the bible, viewing him as opposed to that more complete message most Christians and Catholics accept.

           While I am sympathetic to Liberation theology, its cause and its main goal, I cannot deny that it is a perversion of Christianity. And to this point I must consider to these men, that in this toxic brew there are version of radical feminism, of Socialism, Communism, and Matriarchood that are incompatible and antithetical to Roman Catholicism there are also so called Christainties which are too. These Christianities fall outside of the definition I gave earlier and include Mormonism, Jehovah Witness, and Oneness Pentecostalism. But as religious and faithful we do not judge all of theism on the actions of Hindu Cult leaders, nor on the action Radical Muslim Sects, nor Christendom on the actions of the Witch Hunters or the incidents in the wars between Catholics and Protestants or Baptist and Anabaptist. So, we should not judge feminism, progressivism, nor even collectivism by the actions or goals of some of or even many of its more radical members.

#christanity #catholicism #socialism #comunism #femenism

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Catholics destroying Statues: Hypocrites or Theological Sound Activist                         Or On Christian Freedom, the Liberation from Cultural Taboos, and The Unrightful Judge

                                  By: Ramon Aguilar IV

           So, on Oct 4th, Pope Francis witnessed an indigenous performance at a tree planting ceremony in the Vatican gardens. The presentation was performed by Amazonian people holding hands and dancing in a circle around a wooden statue of a nude pregnant indigenous woman, said to represent the Virgin Mary. Participants sang in honor of the Feast of St. Francis and danced in manner similar to traditional South American Mother Earth festival rites. Pope Francis remained seated in a chair away from the ceremony bored, not amused, and not paying attention throughout most of the performance. The ceremony included bowls that held dirt from different places around the world, representing different ecological issues. The people set up a net on the ground that held pictures of martyrs for Catholicism and Christianity in the Amazon, mostly women and priests who have died to bring the faith to an otherwise polytheistic nature worshiping culture. Most scandalous was what appeared to be an old wise woman, which is coded language for medicine woman or witch, who approached the pope and presented him with a black ring, and seemed to gesture her own blessing. The black ring is a popular symbol in Brazil and Latin America of Liberation Theology, a movement that tried to marry Catholicism to Socialism. A movement many, North American & US, Catholics consider heretical.

The event was organized by outside parties including the Ford Group. The woman referred to the statue as "Our Lady of the Amazon." And the Pope seemed to bless it. The Pope then prayed an Our Father, and skipped his prepared remarks like any good politician would do when he realized a photo op went sideways. Then he left the performance without comment after the tree was planted.

           The bigger scandal is how Catholics then acted following this event, especially American and Canadian based youtubers and twitter users who claim to be Catholic. At first sounding like Savonarola at the Bonfire of the vanities, and then like fundamental Protestants railing against idols in the Church, and then finally like Muslim fundamentalist screaming for their religion, here Catholicism, to be the Prime religion of the world and calling for an end to religious freedom. The reaction made us look worse than the event which was already egg in the face for a church that has been rocked by one too many scandals in recent years, including unforced controversies concerning backlash from Ultra-Traditionist Catholics, people who literally want to bring Latin back into vogue, against Pope Francis whom they see as too liberal.

           Now, after watching the ceremony a few times and doing some research I’ve come to some conclusions. First, the supposed pagan ritual doesn’t seem to be one. I’ve done a fair bit of study on Pagan and Neo-Pagan rite and rituals and that was not one. Though it did seem to be stealing back or appropriating elements of native Amazonian rituals. Which is something the Church does allow, as some tribal African Catholic Churches do have dancing and rhythmic chants as elements in their celebration of Mass. And this is something I am familiar with as a Hispanic and someone of Native American decent. As we allow Mariachis, clapping, and hand holding at Spanish Mass. In fact, this performance looks very reminiscent of folklórico dances that might be performed around a religious theme such as the Virgin Mary whom is very popular among Hispanic and Latin American Catholics. While some might smear this as Folk Catholicism, the Catechism of the Catholic Church does give license for the Church to incorporate the customs of the cultures it assimilates.

           But there is one other aspect to this event that I am leaving out, that is the conspiratorial accusation that these statues were not of the Virgin Mary as Vatican official claim, nor even of a generic non-divine “mother earth” as some liberal apologist defend, but were actual pagan idols of the goddess Pachamama of the Andes Mountains and Incan civilizations; which would be odd but not impossible for Amazonians who have their own pantheon to be worshiping. Let alone self-professed Catholics, including a Franciscan brother, who would know better. And if it was a pagan rite dedicated to Pachamma it was done horrible incorrectly as her religion still exists and videos of her ceremonies can be watched on YouTube dating back to 2011. Her rites use a collection of fallen leaves, sacred fire, and a collection of stones. None of which was part of the performance at the Vatican.  

           Regardless of the legitimacy of the accusation, this led to some supposed Catholics, and two men in particular, to enter the Church of Santa Maria in Traspontina on Oct 21st, and steal the wooden figurines and then throw them into the Tiber River to “destroy’ them. Showing us Catholics to be reactionary, impatient, and petulant; if not simply short sighted to the precedent we are now establishing of it being acceptable for people to enter a Catholic Church and remove items that offend them by the example we are showing to the world who is watching. As the video of this crime (trespassing, theft, and destruction of Church property) has 60,244 views as of this writing.

           But my opinion aside, I decided to see what the bible, and what more specifically St Paul, had to say on this issue. So, I looked at what to me were the most relevant passages. Those being in 1 Corinthians chapter 10, chapter 5, & chapter 6. I have read these epistles many times over the years, and every time I do I find them eye opening, this time was no different as it changed my position and stance on this topic.

To understand this following interpretation of Paul’s writings we must remember that we are interpreting the bible spiritually, allegorically, morally, and analogically. Not strictly literal or historical, but instead metaphysical and theological, and for me personally with a philosophical lens. Now let’s continue.

So, let’s start off by looking at the performance and the gifting of the ring, and let’s say for arguments sake that it was a pagan ritual performed within the Vatican garden. What then?

1 Corinthians 10 verses 6-15 says this: “These things happened as examples for us, so that we might not desire evil things, as they did. And do not become idolaters, as some of them did, as it is written, "The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to revel." Let us not indulge in immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell within a single day. Let us not test Christ as some of them did, and suffered death by serpents. Do not grumble as some of them did, and suffered death by the destroyer. These things happened to them as an example, and they have been written down as a warning to us, upon whom the end of the ages has come. Therefore, whoever thinks he is standing secure should take care not to fall. No trial has come to you but what is human. God is faithful and will not let you be tried beyond your strength; but with the trial he will also provide a way out, so that you may be able to bear it. Therefore, my beloved, avoid idolatry. I am speaking as to sensible people; judge for yourselves what I am saying.”

These verses serve as a warning that we are not above temptation and that we too can fall if we are unwise and not carful. But it also shows that all worship is sacramental; even false worship. St Paul also confirm the point, that an idol is nothing, as we can see more clearly in the verse that follow.

For then at verses 19-22 the theme continues with: “So, what am I saying? That meat sacrificed to idols is anything? Or that an idol is anything? No, I mean that what they sacrifice, (they sacrifice) to demons, not to God, and I do not want you to become participants with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and also the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and of the table of demons. Or are we provoking the Lord to jealous anger? Are we stronger than he?”

This passage makes several strong but quick and glossy statements. It reaffirms that God created everything, thus everything is clean, only sin perverts it. It is only the offending of sensibilities and the confusion it can and does cause that is the problem. For a person can no more change God than move a mountain with our bare hands or change the direction of a hurricane with the wave of a finger. And while we do have rights as humans which were endowed by our Creator these inalienable rights ought not to alienate us from the other. This is a caution against over confidence.

But I will take umbrage with a plan and simple reading here. For then we get to the mystical and metaphysical concept of demons. But I will take a conceit from Saint Augustine and assume that idols being of demons, or a gate way to them, has more to it than just the literal meaning. I think here the word, or threat of, demons seems to be a warning to the bronze age audience against the nondivine realities of sin, that there are temporal corporeal consequences and not just the moral, ethical, or metaphysical consequences we think of and seem to concentrate on as spiritual and religious people. So, the principle Paul sets up here is that you, that is we, must operate in regard to others, we must avoid what might cause scandal and confusion to others who do not know what we know and who do not understand what we understand and instead we ought to prefer what is beneficial and edifying to that which we may find tolerable, enticing, or entertaining. In that way we seek the good and wellbeing of the other person and not just the good of ourselves.

Through this we can acknowledge that idols of any kind are at best neutral representations, at worse a temptation to error for the uninformed, ignorant, unenlightened and fools among us. The strong should consider the weak. For, if idols can provoke God to wrath and passion; how can we mere mortals claim to be immune to their effects or presence. But the problem here becomes what we define as an Idol. As Catholic Churches are full of statues of the Virgin Mary and many other saints and even of art that contains devils, demons, and even Satan (even if they are of those evil spirits being cast out, defeated by our saints and angles). And again, I will steal from St Augustine and other Church fathers. Evil desire is the root of idolatry, not man-made things (that is the work of human hands). For the goal of a good Christian and well catechized Catholic is always to maintain koinonia that is “fellowship” and that fellowship, or unity, is more important than expressing already attained liberty. It also shows that God always provides a way to reject polytheistic rituals. For me, this was done, at the situation we look at today. When the pope said the “Our Father’ instead of his prepared statement.

           But this passage also looks at the other side of the coin on this issue.

For at verses 23-33 we read “"Everything is lawful," but not everything is beneficial. "Everything is lawful," but not everything builds up. No one should seek his own advantage, but that of his neighbor. Eat anything sold in the market, without raising questions on grounds of conscience, for "the earth and its fullness are the Lord's." If an unbeliever invites you and you want to go, eat whatever is placed before you, without raising questions on grounds of conscience. But if someone says to you, "This was offered in sacrifice," do not eat it on account of the one who called attention to it and on account of conscience; I mean not your own conscience, but the other's. For why should my freedom be determined by someone else's conscience? If I partake thankfully, why am I reviled for that over which I give thanks? So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God. Avoid giving offense, whether to Jews or Greeks or the church of God, just as I try to please everyone in every way, not seeking my own benefit but that of the many, that they may be saved. Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.”

Here we get to the nitty gritty of the issue. Liberty is not an end in itself, but a condition that must be maintained against the condition of slavery. St Paul and indeed the Bible itself calls on us to be faithful in difficult times; especially after being liberated from superstition and irrationality. Which for St Paul, superstition and irrationality, are a type of slavery to sin. On the other hand, he also acknowledges that narrowminded scruples are shackles for those who internalize others’ weaknesses, that internalizing of another’s folly is in itself an inclination to the temptation to sin. And here I agree with St Paul whole heartedly, as I think this applies to the situation both during and surrounding the ceremonial performance, its objects, and the gifts given to the Pope by its participants. But some might say that allowing such things is a violation of old testament law and precepts. And I, and St Paul would retort, but there is only one “Law” for Christians, that is Christ, that is the law of Pure True Love.

And here is where the Ultra-Traditionalist and Conservative Catholics get all relied up and call me a liberal. But St. Paul wrote a letter to respond to this inclination for outrage and indignation as well.

In 1 Corinthians 5 at verses 9-13, he writes: “I wrote you in my letter not to associate with immoral people, not at all referring to the immoral of this world or the greedy and robbers or idolaters; for you would then have to leave the world. But I now write to you not to associate with anyone named a brother, if he is immoral, greedy, an idolater, a slanderer, a drunkard, or a robber, not even to eat with such a person. For why should I be judging outsiders? Is it not your business to judge those within? God will judge those outside. [Therefore] "Purge the evil person from your midst."

Here we get the command not sit with the immoral people within the church, that is fellow Christians who are immoral, that does not mean that you must remove yourself from the world that you live in. For: nonbelievers are not expected to be saints; non-Catholics are not expected to live by Catholic Dogma; and non-Christians are not expected to behave as Christians. In fact, Christians have an obligation to reach out, interact with, and be an example of a good person to a nonbeliever.

I would think that it could go without saying that this principle should also apply to the newly converted as they transition from pagan-heathen-polytheism, to Christian-Catholicism, for as that happens and the synthesis that has occurred with all other Christian communities occurs for them, we must tolerate the folk Catholicism that arises at the fringes of conversion as our expands in region or communities that do not understand our sensibilities and when they get it wrong this is our opportunity gently correct and instruct with temperance and patients. This how Christmas gets placed on the 25th of December, the date of the winter a solstice a holiday dating back long before the advent of Christianity, and this is how Halloween gets placed on Samhain.

As someone who likes a Christmas-trees on Christmas, I have no problem that they have their origin tied in with Zeus’s Oak or Thor’s Tree, and I don’t have a problem having All Souls day take on some pre-Christian Gaelic influence and traditions.

           As for the rest, as it relates to pagans, heathen, polytheist, and nonbelievers. It is the baptized Christian who should refrain from the scandalous sins inherent of mortal human nature. Scandal being the key word here. For it is impossible to avoid contact with sinners and thus avoidance of sinners should not be a goal nor should contact with sinners be feared by rightly formed Christians. But instead the goal should be to maintain inner purity within the Christian community. This is a warning against the perception of impiety, from the outside looking in, a warning not to look as if you are condoning sin.

           And it is here that my view on the actions taken by those two Catholics who stole and threw out those figurines changed slightly. While I do not agree with the fanfare and celebration by other Catholics at this action, for that in itself is scandalous and looks unchristian, the act of removing a temptation to sin from within a church, even if you know it is not a temptation for you, when others do not understand its nature and could be scandalized by it, as many many Catholics clearly were. Then yes getting rid of those two images, regardless of rather they were representation of the Virgin Mary that many Catholics found offensive because it went against their sensibilities or if they were actual idols of some mythical and very frictional mother goddess then yes they should have been removed from within the physical Church.

           But, what about the people who participated in the ceremony and performance at the Vatican garden, well St Paul writes in this too. He wrote in 1 Corinthians 6 at verses 7-12

“Now indeed (then) it is, in any case, a failure on your part that you have lawsuits against one another. Why not rather put up with injustice? Why not rather let yourselves be cheated? Instead, you inflict injustice and cheat, and this to brothers. Do you not know that the unjust will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor . . . prostitutes nor practicing homosexuals nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor robbers will inherit the kingdom of God. That is what some of you used to be; but now you have had yourselves [baptized], you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God. "Everything is lawful for me," but not everything is beneficial. "Everything is lawful for me," but I will not let myself be dominated by anything.”

This is a warning that teaches that the love of litigation is the love of greed, while love of persecution is the love of arrogance and self-pride. This teaches that litigation and persecution of a fellow Christian are forms of retaliation not justice. Instead, Christians should possess generosity, mercy, and forgiveness toward the sinner and toward themselves. Turn the other check, after all. For it is faith and grace that saves us from the very worst of our own sins. While, self-persecution and the persecution of fellow Christians is something that St. Paul was indignant against and was loath to do. Better to be wronged or sinned against, than to do the wrong and sin against another.

#catholicism #pachamama #vatican garden

[alphacenturian4]

Yes my tumblr is active again.

Someone suscibe/follow to my page!

[alphacenturian4]

Black Panther movie review

By Alphacenturian IV

Black Panther review

The movie suffers from being a film. Let me explain, the writing, the acting, the setting, & the directing is so good, so stellar, that when it dips back into generic superhero/ “summer” blockbuster mode it becomes glaringly obvious. I can think of two perfect examples of this right off the bat, the way the “movie” formula wasted the relationship between Killmoger & Klaw. Instead of going for evil they could have have gone for noble villain, a literal black-knight & they could have driven that point home, instead of switching into movie mode & giving us a generic villain formula beat (story point), the switch between film & movie was so sudden that it felt like separate movie in the middle of a good film, luckily the movie didn’t stay on that story beat for long & it went immediately back to excellent; the second example of this film slipping in quality when it switched back to movie mode was the final cgi fight scene, which is standard for Marvel, a better option instead would have been if the film kept with the depowered theme and had both men fighting sans suit/costume & arguing out the point until he get to Killmonger’s last line, that would have been much more entertaining as both actors understood & expressed the characters better than most actors in oscar winning movies do. That being said this movie is hard to rate. I went in expecting & craving cotton-candy but instead I got prime steak. Yes an improvement, but it wasn’t what I wanted. If I was to rate this as a standalone film it an easy 10 out if 10, but as a Marvel Movie its more like an 8 or a 7, as there are places, down beats in the film, that are down right borring, like reading Dostoevsky or Tolstoy when I wanted a comic book. This problem also happened when Coates became the led writer on the Black Panther comicbook, it was great, it was literature, but I just wanted some fun art & a relatable good guy. I’d have to set the comic aside & wait until I was in the mood & mentally prepared to read the comic, that is just too much effort for 30 pages & 4 dollars. But if the worst thing I can say about this movie is that it is better than the genre it is part of, that’s not really a complaint at all.

[alphacenturian4]

Answering Euthyphro

(if there are are so many different religions how can we know which one is correct)

This is a responds to Rebecca Goldstien’s comments during the Wycliffe College debate posing answers to the question, “Is there a meaning to Life?”

God is the definition of good, he is the creator. That which set all in motion. That which we judge ourselves against. The bible then is a measuring stick, almost literally the cannon from which it gets its one of its names. I don’t mean creator in the way atheist mean it, some white man with a beard in the sky whose existence is material meaning. The God of, he loves that which is good, therefore it is good. Nor, do I mean some he that guided creation through some pejorative intelligent design which can be proved or disproved by presenting a logical paradox magic trick. Those are mischaracterizations of a religious persons view of God. You see, it is our understanding of God that changes, not God that changes. It is our perception of his nature that changes not his nature.

His is not the gender of the noun. His is a title. God is the ultimate reality, the essence of life. The energy that powers creation is a piece of himself that he gives to creation so that it may exist, yet creation is not all that there is to God. We are a cell, an atom, a proton or neutron in the mystical body of God. That is one concept of what or who God is to a religious person, but it is not the only concept. To some, maybe even to most religious minded people, God is the greatest good, the best man, the ultimate reality. He is the goal. The aim.

But what about those other measuring sticks, the cannon or scripture of other faiths, what of contradicting beliefs? The sacred text of different religions are simply different ways to measure; standard, metric, or imperial, but they come from a time, even up until today, before a universal standard has been accepted. The different religions then are ways of perceiving & understanding reality.

The different gods are the shekel in the sanctuary, the value or weight by which we set our standards by. And the thing about that is, there can only be one true value. If I say, one ounce of 70% cooper is worth 1 cent then if by your measure it is something different then we can not both be correct, there can be only one truth. Yet we know, that different communities have different values, and we also know that different communities, do, must, & even should interact & intermingle with each other. Yet, that creates complication, the problem of judging values against each other. For some the answer was polytheism, for others the question was too hard or the time & effort it would take to compare each unit of differing value seemed pointless so their answer was atheism, they said: “there is no value,” or “I set my own value;” fair enough, that’s you choice. For some, the answer to the complication was to became protectionist & isolationist and so laws were introduce to prevent the intermingling and intermixing of ideas, “our set of values must stay pure,” they said; but it doesn’t work for long, a curious man or curious woman goes to see how the others veiw their set of value. So we had to find a way to exchange ideas, so that we could interact peacefully, & productively.

Where do you think we get the word conversion from? People converting one set of values to exchange for an other set of other values. The closer the values matched the more compatible & easier the exchange.

#philosophy #religion

[alphacenturian4]

Story

A descriptive narrative, usually a fictional tale, regarding an account of events.

Story should be a pattern of complication and resolution, with the main problem (question) or major complication of the story being the main driving point (main conflict) of the story. And that conflict (drive) should get the reader to the end of the main story where that question (problem) is answered or resolved. 

Questions to ask before beginning to write any story.

Who?

What?

When?

Where?

Why?

How?

A story should begin and end poignantly; a story should not begin or end arbitrarily. The story should take as long as it needs to, to get to the end, not longer.

Unity: The story should be about a single topic. Example: The Trojan War (The Iliad), one man’s journey home (The Odyssey). Only include events (plot points) that are necessary to tell the story.

The signs of a bad story or deficient plot are: a distorted (an illogical) sequence of events (episodes/chapters, plot), a drawn out plot, unnecessary action, unnecessary description, unnecessary dialogue, and an improbable outcome (ending).

The signs of a good story or effective plot are: astonishment, reversal of fortune (at least once but no more than three times in a single story), recognition, suffering, and redemption.

Astonishment: is something unexpected, something that goes against common sensibilities, or that does not go along with popular expectations. For astonishment to be effective, the author must weigh the strength of the plot versus the level or amount of realization (awareness) of the character(s)/event of the conceit and the probability (logic) of the conceit within the story.

Reversal of fortune: this is irony, the opposite effect/result of what is expected.

Recognition (realization): is when the main character(s) and or the audience learn (realize) hidden knowledge/facts, in order to elicit emotion (an emotional responds from the audience). Ex: Fear, Pity, Anger, Joy, Pleasure.

Suffering: this is the emotional and or physical pain of a character not the audience or the author. Do not punish, scold, or humiliate your audience (readers). This suffering must be done in full view of the audience, it can not be done off page or between the lines.

Redemption: A character rising above his/her own flaws in front of and redeeming themselves to the audience. This redemption must be done in full view of the audience, it should not be done off page or between the lines.

Each event, episode, chapter, book, volume, and series in a story, or group of stories, should be different; over-similarity can cause dramatic failure.

A fictional story should surpass its real world model or inspiration.

Keep the writing clear and concise.

Remember to ask: “What is my purpose in writing this and who is my intended audience?”

Limit the scope of a story to prevent it from becoming convoluted. Yet, be sure that the story is substantial enough and serious (important) enough (to the reader) that the audience is interested and entertained.

#writing #nanowrimo #notes

[alphacenturian4]

Writing

Literary composition as art, craft, and style.

     The first rule of writing is there are no rules. There are only guidelines, conventions, and suggestions.

     Before beginning to write, you should understand that there are several types of basic writing. What you write can be determined and categorized by your intended audience, the kind (type) of writing you want to do, the method (technique) you want to use, the form (format) you want to put it in, and the genre (subject) you want to write in (about).

Kinds (Types)

Exposition – a composition or discourse meant to convey information, or exhibit purpose.

Description – a composition intended to convey an image or sense.

Narration – an account of events such as a story.

Prose – ordinary common (vulgar) language and writing.

Argument – a coherent series of premises and conclusions intended to persuade.

Translation – to render from one language into another.

Interpretation/Adaption – reworking a piece into a new “unique” version.

Ghostwriting – to write the ideas of another for and in the name of the other.

Report – a detailed account announcing or relating the results of an investigation or summary. 

Non-Fiction – an account understood to be based on “actual” facts or “real” opinions.

Fiction – writing that is about storytelling and entertainment not about strict adherence to convention or academic “rules.” Literary prose narrative, an invented story not based on real/true facts.

#writing #nanowrimo #notes

[alphacenturian4]

Genesis 2 Commentary

By Alphacenturian4

           Let’s be clear this polemic narrative is obviously “an artificial and religious interpretation of history” (NRSV Oxford Commentary). But that doesn’t make it false, that makes it non-factual, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true. Just as an actor must find their truth in their performance, just as a painting of a cigar is not the cigar itself. So too is there truth here, and more so, there is genuine wisdom and understanding of greater truths.

           And those truths are echoed in the creation myths that predate it. Interesting enough, the Genesis stories only show up in post exile text. When the Israelites left Babylon at the beginning of the Persian Achaemenid Empire. During the seventy-one year period of exile, the learned scribes of Israel would have picked up on many if not all the major religious narratives of Babylon from Sumerian to the Assyrian traditions. And it is against these traditions that Genesis was written, to explain how we are us and not them, to differentiate the Israelite beliefs from the Mesopotamian and Persian way of thought.

           So why read it, it’s not science, it’s not real history, and if you can find a period of time that, the tradition it sprang from existed without it? Well you should read it for the same reasons you read Jane Austin or Shakespeare, for the same reasons I read The Epic of Gilgamesh and Livy. For the same reasons you might watch Interstellar or read the book the Martian. Because there is a greater truth, a spark that connects with your soul and feeds your imagination and dreams. To say there is no history there is say there is to say that there is no history in the movies “The Alamo” or “the Patriot,” or “the 300.” Was there a time before earth existed? Yes. Was there a first man and woman? Yes. Is this their story? Well …

           This is the story of the first time we became human, the story of our first human thoughts, of the birth of reason. In a sense, Adam is the first philosopher and Eve the first researcher. Or, maybe this is the story of the 1st humanoid primates to experiment with psychedelics, I don’t know, and neither do you.

           But what I do know is that Genesis two is the second telling of creation in the bible, and according to scholars, it is the older of the two versions. In the NAB the idea of a second creation is more pronounced, here expressed more clearly as a second version of creation form Genesis one and an alternative to other popular Mesopotamian and Mediterranean creation myths. All the animals are created for a second time, if not third. This makes me think of the great extinctions at the end of each epoch. While in Genesis one, we see God created the Earth out of watery depths, where there are allusions to Tiamat and the Enuma Elish; in Genesis two we get creation out of nothingness, creation from the word. What we also get is an inversion of nature as we know it today. In the first tale man is created last, here man is create before the other animals, perhaps hinting that first a mind must perceive and name a thing before it can understand a thing exist.

           We also get the invention of the week. We have the Seventh day, a day of rest, and a holy day “Sanctified” (KJV). How man 1st came to recognize a seven-day cycle to the week still amazes me. And the fact that this mythological observation just happens to be scientifically true is even more amazing. What we see, with the observances of creation is that people view the world as it suits them; they 1st see how it can benefit them and how they can exploit it. Of other religions and denominations that believe or ascribe to this story I cannot speak to their belief but I will give mine and I will try to couch it in my faith, that of Roman Catholicism.

           In the catholic, God is the progenitor, the pre-casual. His works were in and of the creation; yet the creation itself could be self-determining and random. God here is more as a cause and gift-er of freewill and not seen as a Greek Fate or Hindu Destiny ascribe-er.

           To my modern eyes, when read with some distance and much reverence, the biblical history of the earth seems to follow the geological historical in a nice parallel; that is if you, the reader, can get over the metaphorical use of word “Days” (NIV). Days here equaling “generations” (KJV). For example, “While as yet there was no field shrub on earth and no grass of the field had sprouted, for the Lord God had not yet sent rain upon the earth … (NAB).” This makes me think of the Precambrian Eon, specifically the pre-Hadean & Hadean period just before water formed and the earth just began to cool, four to five million years ago.

           When someone hears these kind of verses, one can see a desert people, maybe even a lone wanderer, or a small family of nomads pondering existence and waiting for, or being surprised by, a sudden gush of underground spring water coming up from the burning sand and soil. The water of life, the “mist” (KJV) of creation, that gives rise to primordial earth. And the land is most definitely wild before man learns to harness it.

           So to with mankind and humanity, is there a great poetic and maybe even pre-philosophical element. The creation of man seems to be an understanding of decay in reverse. For this to be true, someone would have had to have watched a body die and decompose out in the open. Think about it. A man is created from dust, then his body is a still thing, then he gets breath, and then has life. This is death in reverse. One has breath, when it is lost the body is a still thing, then it decomposes into dust. The “Breath of life” (KJV) to my mind makes me think of CPR.

           Man is infused with “a living soul” (KJV). Which make me ask, as oppose to a dead soul? Here in the catholic tradition it seems to intimate that the body and soul are one, not two separate entries like they are in other understandings of other denominations. To me, this sudden breath of life makes me think a consciousness. A first awakening. Our primate ancestors’ first coming to realize they existed and were living.

           According to every commentary I have read, from nondenominational, to protestant, to Catholic, Adam is the Hebrew word for man and is closely related to their word for ground, humus, and clay (adamah).

           Then we get to “A garden in the east” (NIV). My guess is, to the east of the storyteller and his audience, when this story was first told? Eden is a Sumerian derivative meaning fertile plain, one can easily think of the Fertile Crescent from these words. Eden in the Hebrew and the Greek takes on a meaning more akin to a “Paradise of Pleasures” (NAB commentary). A garden of delights, if you will.

           Here God sounds like a good father or parent providing for and protecting his young. And we hear of two trees in the center of the garden. The Tree of life, and Tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Here the trees are a left over from ancient sematic nature worship, were the trees represented feminine powers. The word knowledge here could be exchanged for wisdom or Sofia, another abstract divinity.

           After the trees we hear about the four branched river. It’s heads, or sources, are the Pishon in Havilah where there is gold. Gihon, in Cush, which is Ethiopia in the KJV, but is more likely a reference to the Kassite region, in Aribia. The Tigris or Hiddekel, in Ashur; that’s Assyria. And then, the Euphrates.

           Here in the historical, theological, and mythical cradle of civilization actual cultivation begins. This cultivation is a first step towards civilization, though far from its true beginnings.

           Here, some say we get the 1st lie of the story, at least the Gnostics would say so, and a few skeptics out there too. But as I said earlier, this is a polemic, and the whole story shows that before knowledge all Order and Nature is inverse to what we understand now as rational beings. And to this yet unconsumed knowledge, God seems to promise an immediate death upon consumption. If that is true, then it would be unto a type of death, a death of a previous self and a death of innocence.

           Again, here god reminds me of a parent talking to a child in simple terms. This is edible, but this is poison, eat it and die. What parent wouldn’t explain that to a child when in the wild, even in the controlled wild of a garden, let alone a first garden? A first an attempt at taming nature.

           But it is in the naming things and the power of language that things are 1st tamed. Yet, this cataloging does not satisfy the man and the story turns to the longing for companionship. And, comically it explains how a pet does not equal a person. So instead, we get The rib of Man. But. How would you explain the sudden appearance of an individual that arrived as you slumbered, especially if you were a child, or if you had an extremely limited understanding of reality? And, here again, we see nature as we understand it inversed. We see the reversed order of birth, here the man “births” the woman, not the other way around.

           Most organized religions state that this is a claim to the origin of marriage. And indeed it does say that “Two of them become one body” (NAB). It could easily be a metaphor for sex; or genetically speaking it could be a good description of what a child is, two separate individuals becoming one new individual.

           But. It is also a play on words. Eve here meaning something like the word Wife. Though, in most versions she is not named until the next chapter. The same play on words is done with man and woman, Ish and Ishah in Hebrew.

           The chapter ends with, a time of nudity without shame. Though mankind is still uncivilized here, unlike later in the bible, humankind is “very good.” It is almost comical how the relationship between man and woman must be affirmed so early in the text and twice in the first two chapters of the bible. What was going on at the creation of this story, that this was a matter that had to be addressed so often and so concretely? I honestly don’t know what the Babylonian perspective was on homosexuality. I’ve read recent articles that speculate that Enkidu and Gilgamesh could have been in a homosexual relationship, but that is mere speculation on the reader’s part. I have read multiple accounts of the epic of Gilgamesh, and honestly, to me, their friendship sounds like a best friend bro thing and nothing more, you’d have to really read into things to get anything more out of their relationship. And it has been about ten years since I last read a translation of the Hammurabi code, but I don’t remember anything sex positive in there either. But, maybe there was something with the Babylonian priests’ or priestesses’ practices that I’m not aware of that the teller of these stories would be railing against with this last line. Either way, it is an odd and yet beautiful way to end this part of the story, nude without shame.

#The Bible #Genesis #Genesis 2 #Genesis two #Philosophy #Bible Study #Catholicism #Catholic #Christian #Christianity

[alphacenturian4]

Batman/The Shadow #4 review

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCU1vwkdiJQ&feature=share

[alphacenturian4]

An Augment against Zeno & Philosophical Absurdity

By: Alphacenturian4

          Let’s talk about Zeno and Postmodernist. These two schools of thought have a few threads in common. One, they both find flaw with western logic, science, & philosophy. Second, they both find fault with the limits of human language and sense perception. Zeno lived from 430 to 490 BC, at the birth of western thought; and the postmodernist began with the rise of Heidegger, and Derrida, and they think we are witnessing the death of western civilization. And from that perspective, you could almost call this digital age of postmodernism, an age of post humanism, and that their generation will bring about the death of existentialism and modernity. See, both Zeno and the postmodernist are looking at the same “problem” from different points in time, the beginning of and the end of the patriarchal normative right. And to this problem, they say “no,” and reject the claim that “western-capitalist-democratic thought,” holds any objective truth. Both Zeno and the postmodernist are sticking out a tongue and pointing, saying, “That there are no universal objective truths, that there is only relative truth, subjective facts, and consensus.” Zeno and postmodernist are essentially trying to do the same thing, to undermined modernity (what we consider progress) at its foundation. The one place that Zeno and the postmodernist disagree, and what my argument cannot reconcile, is Pluralism.

           Yet, even so, to me Zeno is a proto post-modernist. What I say today, is an argument against socialistic postmodernism; and an argument for logic, reason, and science. And though I will take jabs at them to prove my point, this is not an argument against atheism, nor feminism, for both of these ideas and movements can be based on reason and logic and can have moral and righteous goals. It is when these movements hit postmodernism that the mix becomes toxic and skepticism gets turned on those who wield it.

           Let’s compare Zeno and postmodernist for a moment. Zeno defended Oneness and argued against logic, logos, mathematics, and science. While postmodernist protest for extreme pluralism and relative subjectivism, they promote narrative facts, magical thinking, and equality of outcome. Zeno was arguing against the foundations of western and modern thought. His targets of ridicule were Pythagoras, and Socrates, while his most vocal opponent was Aristotle. Current postmodernist are arguing against the consequences of democracy, capitalism, and western philosophy. They care more about emotions and feelings than logic and reason.

​            But now you might be asking, who was Zeno of Elea. Zeno was a pupil of Parmenides. It was Parmenides who defined the concept of the One, which Zeno famously defended. Zeno's paradoxes were designed to disprove or at least show the flaws in the popular ideas of his day, those of plurality and change. His arguments were on the flaws of perception and against the concepts of plurality, motion, and space. He argued for the idea that "being is one seamless unchanging whole," (Philosophic Classics) that reality is an illusion, and that real "change is impossible." (Philosophic Classics) The lesson that should be learned from Zeno’s paradoxes should not be that the institutions of realty are flawed and so must be dismantled but that there are discrepancies between philosophical theory and lived reality. To my mind, Zeno knew his paradoxes were absurd and that their implications were ridiculous. To me, at the end of the day, his arguments were merely intellectual exercises. You can see this by the claim that he was "two tongued" (Early Greek Philosophy) and that he would regularly argue both sides of a paradox.          

           This reaction to the limitations and failures of western civilization and thought can be seen as the internal thoughts of a teenage student when they come to realizations, about the world and reality, which contradict themselves. First, they are disgusted, realizing that their air is being re-breathed by the whole classroom; and that they have to inhale the same breath from a classmate that they hate. Then comes doubt, they find out about, particles, cells, and atoms. For what can be both solid and whole yet be porous and filled with empty space at the same time. They ask, “how can this be normal?” Next is fear, they find out that photons can pass through walls. That they are not safe from radiation, that their mothers, and fathers can’t protect them; that their very walls are illusions. Soon they feel anger, for the problem is worse than their parental figures, those pillars of strength, being weak, worse than their teachers and religious leaders, their authority figures being flawed. No, they find out that the very language they speak was made up and possibly by people who they disagree with, the words that they have to use to communicate with other humans are flawed, and incomplete. And finally, they’ve had enough, and they reject the entire institution. Here that institution is education, but you can switch in any that you like, religion, science, history, military, political, heck, civilization itself.

           That the rules are made up by consensus blows their minds and destroys their reality. It is the same way many baby atheist leave religion. Because either their basic understanding of religion cannot handle the complexities and paradoxes (what they would call hypocrisies and contradictions) in adult faith; or because they never truly believed in the 1st place and when their faith was tested their doubts got the better of them. For there are stronger arguments against faith than the reactionary spite of an immature mind. It is when I was a deconstructionist and one of my best high school friends said, "But if we can break the speed limit then how it is really a law, it’s just made up."

           In the end, it is the same old argument between deist and atheist. If nothing can be destroyed then how is it that we living people see things constantly and consistently end? To a modern person this would be a matter of science and perception. But to those of us with faith this supposed paradox never phases us. But there was another group silently listening to our argument, the postmodernist, and to them the argument itself was a sign of failure, the pain, and suffering that such an argument caused could not be allowed. They cried out “if they are arguing about what happens after we die then we must stop death.” While we were arguing about the existence of a soul or a god, the postmodernist were off creating their own language and with it their own new gods and idols. And it is language where they got us, for we could never admit to each other or ourselves that what you call energy we have always called the soul, chi, or ki. It was in the end a matter of terminology. And that brings us to the current Zenos in our midst.

           And while sometimes these realizations bring about necessary and positive change, like the renascence and the enlightenment, sometimes they have negative pushback like the soviet revolutions in Russia, China, Korea, and Cuba. So today, we have a new revolution, a new pushback, with questions both sides of our dichotomy thought were settled long ago, that go down to the more fundamental way we view the world. How many genders? How many sexualities? How many races; nay species of humans? Well we can make the same arguments as Zeno, first let’s try his “there is only one.” Okay, one human race, for we are all Homo Sapien Sapien; one sex for we all start off as female in the womb, and we are all animal so there is no human. Oh dear, I hit my first paradox. For how can there be no human if I am one, how can there be no me if I am the one who is saying this? But alas, let’s continue this line of thinking to its end, let’s continue into absurdity, we now have to wipe out gender, sexuality, and, oh shit, there goes science.

           But wait Zeno would argue the other side too. So let’s take it to the other extreme. Let’s take humans, and let’s say that each variation is something new; so if each gene can mutate 64 times per generation at 20,000 genes in a human animal, meaning there are now a million possible human species, whatever the threshold for a species might be. And, logically there are three sexes, male, female, and intersex; but wait what about all the variations in-between. And soon enough it all becomes unwieldy and the language means nothing. Opps, went too far the other way, and to hold on to any sense of identity each nation has become its own race, its own people, and then suddenly we regress to biblical and then prehistoric times. Where each tribe is fighting for a foothold for survival and eradicating your enemy is the only way to guarantee safety and victory.

           And this is where the Aristotelian in me comes out. So, from my point of view, the solution remains in the middle. A comprise in language, a social contract with society, where we don't need absolutes to get things done, to accept that motion is real, to see things and recognize them as they are. Yes, words change, meanings change, laws change, and people evolve; but that doesn't mean these things don't exist. We are imperfect, we are incomplete. We label things as male and female and accept that some people are born intersex (but we also understand that the individuals who meet that criteria are rare) and we also understand that thanks to science people can transition from one sex to another.

           That language is “good enough,” not because those terms are precise but because of their utility, they are true enough and easy to communicate. We accept that there are traffic laws, not because we can't go over the speed limit, but because we understand that as a society, we do not want people driving 50 mph through a neighborhood where children are playing. We understand the need for simplicity; we don’t add to the law all the reasons one might use to speed; a clear street, an emergency. We state the law and leave it alone to be interpreted, sometimes incorrectly, by those who are subject to it and by those who enforce it. Zeno and the postmodernist are wrong not because their complaints are invalid or unsound, but because their solution is.

References/Citations:

Philosophic Classics volume 1, Ancient Philosophy 4th edition, pgs 23 - 27, Forrest E Baird and Walter Kaufmann, Prentice Hall 2003.

Early Greek Philosophy, pgs 99 - 108,  Jonathan Barnes, Penguin Classics 2001.

#Zeno #Zeno of Elea #postmodernism #postmodernist #philosophy

[alphacenturian4]

I review Green Arrow issue 27.

[alphacenturian4]

My TBR for 2017

Marcus Aurelius (reread with new translation) Aristotle The Organon Aristotle Politics Immanuel Kant Logic Epictetus Discourses Andrzej Sapkowski The Time of Contempt Timothy Zahn Dark Force Rising Timothy Zahn The Last Command Curtius Rufus The History of Alexander Livy Hannibal (reread with new translation) Jane Austen Pride & Prejudice Jane Austen Sense & Sensibility Jane Austen Lady Susan Caesar The Civil War The Elder Edda (reread) Mary Shelly Frankenstein

#TBR