Freethought Nation

Yeah I do. The light at the end of the tunnel is brighter now and its not a train its religious bullshit with headlights!

Indeed. If only guys like Hagee, Jack Van Impe, Hal Lindsey, Perry Stone, etc., etc., had any clue as to what the historical setting was for the apocalyptic writings of early christianity. The authors literally believed Jesus was coming back in THEIR life time. Even though the gospels should make that clear enough, in the apocryphal work, which if I recall correctly is the Apocalypse of Peter, the author specifically says that Jesus would return within 150 years after he first left. Which, interestingly, if the author believed Jesus died in the reign of Tiberius, then 150 years after that would be right around the time that Montanus and his cult were leading somewhat of a Millerite frenzy of their own, and is also, as I pointed out in my vids, is evidently the same setting & time that the book of Revelation and many other apocalyptic works were written in.

This stuff was in no way about our times here today.

That's about it. You know the overall end result. I'm just sharing some of the details.

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The Jesus Mythicist Creed:
The "Jesus Christ" of the New Testament is a fictional composite of characters, real and mythical. A composite of multiple "people" is no one.

The celestial Origins of Religious Belief
ZG Part 1
Jesus: Hebrew Human or Mythical Messiah?

Get right down to it, its all allogorical non sense the Synoptic Gospels that is. Revelation was no more than a symbolic writing written some 150 years after the others if memory serves me correctly. And I agree, they clearly expected a return in their lifetime if you take the scripture at face value.

Yeah. There were actually two things at play. On one hand there is plenty of evidence that some thought that the second coming was at that time. We find the verses talking about Jesus coming before the disciples get through all of the houses of Israel and talking about that generation not passing away until all things be fulfilled. And then there's this other theme placing Jesus as the personification of the age of Pisces and the second coming at the very end of the age, the 2150 year age. So this speaks of divisiveness and a variety of beliefs and themes all thrown in together in a force fit attempt at making it all seem to work together. And the main realization is that when both themes are placed side by side it becomes evident that the modern Bible thumpers are completely wrong to see these verses as referring to anything other than early in the age of Pisces and further out to the next age, which isn't until around 2150 AD. Having all of jack squat to do with our current generation. And when addressing both themes, one is a failed prophecy because Jesus never came back in the past, the other is not about a literal person coming back at all, but rather the sun coming into the second age of the Great Year which happens at the very end of the current age. They're boxed in with folly from all sides when considering every angle of the mythos...

_________________
The Jesus Mythicist Creed:
The "Jesus Christ" of the New Testament is a fictional composite of characters, real and mythical. A composite of multiple "people" is no one.

The celestial Origins of Religious Belief
ZG Part 1
Jesus: Hebrew Human or Mythical Messiah?

Here is an old thread we have on Revelation: viewtopic.php?f=20&t=1354

It appears to be an old allegory about the end of the Great Year in the age of Aries that was later taken and Christianized after the gospels had been around. There was actually a lot of controversy as to whether or not it would be accepted into the cannon. It appears to have come from Gnostic sources and then washed through orthodox copiests. And you can see why it was included. The end result is the New Jerusalem, and streets of Gold and jewels and living forever... All of the trappings that suck people in after scaring the hell out of them with all of the strange Gnostic imagery presented previously in the text.

_________________
The Jesus Mythicist Creed:
The "Jesus Christ" of the New Testament is a fictional composite of characters, real and mythical. A composite of multiple "people" is no one.

The celestial Origins of Religious Belief
ZG Part 1
Jesus: Hebrew Human or Mythical Messiah?

Thats one part of this I have never understood the Great Year, Pisces and this astrology reference have just never been able to grasp that concept yet. I know Acharya makes reference to it in her books 2 of which I have.

You know, at some point the ancients realized that every spring at the equinox that the constellations of the zodiac were slipping backwards through the cycle in the reverse order of the annual cycle of Aries through Pisces. The zodiac precesses one degree backwards every 72 years or so and it takes around 2150 years for a sign to completely pass by, a world age. So the age of Aries was realized as significant because it meant that the zodiac had made one complete backwards rotation. The first age of the yearly zodiac is reversed to the last age of the Great Year. And the last age of the yearly zodiac is reversed into being the first age of the Great Year. This is where we find 'the first shall be last and the last shall be first'. The age of Aries began around 2150 years BCE. And Revelation talking about the lamb seems to come from an older format about the Ram of Aries and the end of the Great Year. Then it's extended to incorporate the age of Pisces which starts off the new cycle and then the age of Aquarius which is the "age to come" that NT outlines so often. Altogether from Genesis to Revelation three world ages are mentioned with an allusion to a fourth age yet to come. Combined the ages mentioned correspond to 1/3 of the entire Great Year cycle, and particularly to the lower part of the cycle during the darkest times according to the cycle. The celebration at the end of Revelation corresponds to coming out of the end of the darkest "times" of the Great Year cycle. Some of us feel that "time, times, and half a time" refers to Taurus, Aries, Pisces, and Aquarius because that's in context with the ages that are mentioned symbolically throughout the Bible.

People like pastor Hagee and others have it made out to mean three and a half literal years yet to come where a literal antichrist person will rule the earth at some point during our current generation. That's the problem with not knowing that astrological symbols are being used in the text by the writers, you then take off trying to decode the text without understanding a major part of the text in question. And the result always ends in false prophecy and folly for those who neglect to use the ancient Gnosis for interpretation that's actually outlined pretty clearly in the text by the writers. The main problem is that theologians are so programmed to ignore or turn a blind eye to the fact that the writers of the Bible incorporated cosmic symbolism that deals specifically with astrological constellations designating certain time periods.

And Israel, as we have it, closely follows the Goddess Isis, Ra, and El. This is mentioned in the thread I just linked you to. Why is it crafted that way in our Bibles? Well, when you understand modern archaeology and know that the ancient Israelites were merely local Canaanite people that formed up their own sects in the hill country after the final collapse of the Egyptian ruled city-state system, you can see how Isis, Ra, and El worship may fit in here. The first two are of the Egyptian pantheon, of the pantheon of the rulers of the former city-state system, and the final God is El of the local Canaanite Elohim pantheon. If we're really going to get down to business then it must start with the term "Israel" itself and go from there. And modern Israel is nothing more than the replacement of these people to their old Canaanite roots and homeland. We're talking about a mythology that started out polytheistic and eventually became oriented around monolatry, only to finally make a political move towards a strict monotheism that simply involved taking the national tribal deity God, Yahweh, and fusing him with the former supreme God El Elyon who had been the father of Yahweh and the other pantheon gods formerly. It was a long hard road but these people finally became monotheistic. But they still continued to gravitate back towards their polytheistic roots for quite some time. The people must not have liked the fact that the political leaders were trying to force them into a monotheistic structure and they knew good and well what was happening to them at the time. That would explain why there is such a strong sense of the people rejecting it and the priesthood trying to scare them into accepting the new way.

Who are the real remnant of Israel? All of the genetic Jews today whose genes link them back to the post city-state era. They are the remnant of a people who were twisted around by their religious leaders, politically, for years and years and threatened into conformity by a dominant priesthood from among them. They are the remnant of a people who were divided according to the twelve signs of the zodiac and whose high priest whore them on his breast plate according to their mythology. They are the remnant of a people with a long back ground of embracing astrological symbolism within the priesthood and rejecting it outwardly to the public. They are the remnant of a people who were told to keep away from the surrounding mythologies of the other nations and from astrological symbolism too, because for the people to know and understand all of that is for the people to understand the methodology of their ruling priest class, which, the priest class obviously didn't want to happen. All of this grains into the question of who and what is Israel in the first place and what does the term "Israel" mean to modern preachers claiming that we're living in the very 'last days' when the very same Yahweh of the OT will come to judge the world.

_________________
The Jesus Mythicist Creed:
The "Jesus Christ" of the New Testament is a fictional composite of characters, real and mythical. A composite of multiple "people" is no one.

The celestial Origins of Religious Belief
ZG Part 1
Jesus: Hebrew Human or Mythical Messiah?

But GodAlmighty, couldn't you have just zapped what you said into existence and beaten him to the punch? Seems you pwned yourself.

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Mriana

Nonviolence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind. It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction devised by the ingenuity of man. ~ Gandhi

Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages. ~ Thomas A. Edison

_________________
The Jesus Mythicist Creed:
The "Jesus Christ" of the New Testament is a fictional composite of characters, real and mythical. A composite of multiple "people" is no one.

The celestial Origins of Religious Belief
ZG Part 1
Jesus: Hebrew Human or Mythical Messiah?