Hmm ... Barn Door like Christianity? To my mind. if one thinks 'hostile' / 'opposition'. But, had a very old colleague / wise friend, and met good people of his Pakastani community. Met similar when working for lengthy periods in very tense FYROM now N. Macedonia. At one remove I also know a little about trad. Morocco. We all live in dangerous times, satanic forces on the prowl not least in our 'Western' mind? I look for friends. Nate & Helen gave of their best.
Sort of ... cautionary reflex perhaps ... sorry ... it was decades back but listened to a Prof of Theology (Anglican and fairly young who had written a brief book arguing against the bomb) on 'Jihad'. The ethics and history of 'Just Wars' got in a tangle. Am a touch sensitive about bombing. Born early 1941 my first and still vivid memory is of being bombed out. Stars where the ceiling should have been, flame in the street, people calling ... Thought later in life about atrocity of revenge ... was reminded by an Italian guy at work when I was in the Balkans of my namesake, and etc.
I can barely keep up. The news of the horrific rain of bombs in Gaza does not allow for much discussion.
There was long discussion way back in peak oil's early days on JM Greer's site of those days when he pointed out the popular American habit of thinking of the future as material Progress as advertised (sort of Star Trek) and the sudden end of functional life (American, that is). Quite where this duality lies on the psychological or indeed spiritual spectrum I cannot guess. (Greerhappened at the time to be leader of an American Druid Order, but that did not invalidate his shrewd comments.
I wonder if in these deficient days the old-fashioned millenarian Christian movements of previous centuries can no longer show up? I seem to remember a lot off them went to America. Do we happen to know whether countries without that historical background entertain similar apocalyptic visions in these dangerous times? I don't know how industrialised civilisation, sort of halfway in its global rollout might extricate from the overall mess. There are and will be horrors, but it could string out over a long period like civilisations have done in the past, which I seem to remember was Greer's thesis back then.
It could be said that the idea of historical progress has its roots in the Christian (mis)-understanding of time.
Put very simply "creation" was a one of event which occurred at a particular time. The appearance of "Jesus" added another seemingly indelible "historical" momentum to the story. Our common Western calendar begins with the seeming birth of Jesus. BC versus AD. I much prefer the more culturally appropriate terminology the Common Era. And his-story ends at the end-of-time when Jesus miraculously reappears. Which of course will not happen.
Jesus was scathingly critical of both the ecclesiastical and political establishments of his time and place. You don't really think that if Jesus happened to re-appear that he would be welcome (or even recognized) at the Vatican or in the case of Britain, St Paul's Cathedral or Westminster Abbey.
Or indeed that he would be found anywhere near such places of very worldly political power.
Thanks for that. Helen Thompson in (long) conversation with Nate Hagens available yesterday raised towards the end, 'millennial' i.e. 'end-times' expectations not sufficiently understood by Israel, in what has been going on on Temple Mount.
Yes I listened to that! Nate seems to be getting lots of very good interlocutors on his programme these days. Once this sequence is finished (before Christmas!) I will do something on Islam - I'm toying with the working title of 'How to resist Islam - a handbook for the despised'.
God does not have a purpose - God merely and only IS.
What do you really know about Jesus or anything at all for that matter?
You can't even explain your own appearance here and yet you presume to know everything about the long ago legendary Jesus.
Did you ever meet him in a living-breathing-feeling human form and receive his personal instructions and (also) witness or participate in his teaching demonstration.
You don't know who you really are or how (as if out of nowhere) your body-mind-complex appeared here because to do so you would have to take into account all of Cosmic history with its multiple space-time paradoxes and how in the scheme of things it manifested both as "you" and the simultaneous arising of everything "else" - it is all an indivisible unity
We are always living in the end times. If not for the world, then definitely for each of us individually. It’s only human to (bad part of ourselves but nevertheless . . .) sort of wish that we’re all going to go at once. Frank Kermode wrote a rather good essay / book about it in the ‘60s. Damian Thompson wrote another in the ‘90s I think.
Don’t think I claimed he is a spiritual authority, but his book was a good survey of both historical and contemporary apocalyptic movements and what drives them.
Hmm ... Barn Door like Christianity? To my mind. if one thinks 'hostile' / 'opposition'. But, had a very old colleague / wise friend, and met good people of his Pakastani community. Met similar when working for lengthy periods in very tense FYROM now N. Macedonia. At one remove I also know a little about trad. Morocco. We all live in dangerous times, satanic forces on the prowl not least in our 'Western' mind? I look for friends. Nate & Helen gave of their best.
Was this a response to my comment about Islam? spoiler alert - I'll be talking about spiritual combat, the cross and the nature of non-violence...!
Sort of ... cautionary reflex perhaps ... sorry ... it was decades back but listened to a Prof of Theology (Anglican and fairly young who had written a brief book arguing against the bomb) on 'Jihad'. The ethics and history of 'Just Wars' got in a tangle. Am a touch sensitive about bombing. Born early 1941 my first and still vivid memory is of being bombed out. Stars where the ceiling should have been, flame in the street, people calling ... Thought later in life about atrocity of revenge ... was reminded by an Italian guy at work when I was in the Balkans of my namesake, and etc.
best wishes ongoing
I can barely keep up. The news of the horrific rain of bombs in Gaza does not allow for much discussion.
There was long discussion way back in peak oil's early days on JM Greer's site of those days when he pointed out the popular American habit of thinking of the future as material Progress as advertised (sort of Star Trek) and the sudden end of functional life (American, that is). Quite where this duality lies on the psychological or indeed spiritual spectrum I cannot guess. (Greerhappened at the time to be leader of an American Druid Order, but that did not invalidate his shrewd comments.
I wonder if in these deficient days the old-fashioned millenarian Christian movements of previous centuries can no longer show up? I seem to remember a lot off them went to America. Do we happen to know whether countries without that historical background entertain similar apocalyptic visions in these dangerous times? I don't know how industrialised civilisation, sort of halfway in its global rollout might extricate from the overall mess. There are and will be horrors, but it could string out over a long period like civilisations have done in the past, which I seem to remember was Greer's thesis back then.
best wishes anyway
The Muslim world certainly has equivalent messianic expectations (the Mahdi etc), not sure about the East (but the Kali Yuga cycle? Mayan cycles?)
Sorry, my reply ended up in the wrong place, see below, but thanks again.
It could be said that the idea of historical progress has its roots in the Christian (mis)-understanding of time.
Put very simply "creation" was a one of event which occurred at a particular time. The appearance of "Jesus" added another seemingly indelible "historical" momentum to the story. Our common Western calendar begins with the seeming birth of Jesus. BC versus AD. I much prefer the more culturally appropriate terminology the Common Era. And his-story ends at the end-of-time when Jesus miraculously reappears. Which of course will not happen.
Jesus was scathingly critical of both the ecclesiastical and political establishments of his time and place. You don't really think that if Jesus happened to re-appear that he would be welcome (or even recognized) at the Vatican or in the case of Britain, St Paul's Cathedral or Westminster Abbey.
Or indeed that he would be found anywhere near such places of very worldly political power.
Thanks for that. Helen Thompson in (long) conversation with Nate Hagens available yesterday raised towards the end, 'millennial' i.e. 'end-times' expectations not sufficiently understood by Israel, in what has been going on on Temple Mount.
Yes I listened to that! Nate seems to be getting lots of very good interlocutors on his programme these days. Once this sequence is finished (before Christmas!) I will do something on Islam - I'm toying with the working title of 'How to resist Islam - a handbook for the despised'.
God does not have a purpose - God merely and only IS.
What do you really know about Jesus or anything at all for that matter?
You can't even explain your own appearance here and yet you presume to know everything about the long ago legendary Jesus.
Did you ever meet him in a living-breathing-feeling human form and receive his personal instructions and (also) witness or participate in his teaching demonstration.
You don't know who you really are or how (as if out of nowhere) your body-mind-complex appeared here because to do so you would have to take into account all of Cosmic history with its multiple space-time paradoxes and how in the scheme of things it manifested both as "you" and the simultaneous arising of everything "else" - it is all an indivisible unity
We are always living in the end times. If not for the world, then definitely for each of us individually. It’s only human to (bad part of ourselves but nevertheless . . .) sort of wish that we’re all going to go at once. Frank Kermode wrote a rather good essay / book about it in the ‘60s. Damian Thompson wrote another in the ‘90s I think.
Damian Thompson as an "authority" on the great necessarily Spiritual matters of humankind - oh puleez!
Don’t think I claimed he is a spiritual authority, but his book was a good survey of both historical and contemporary apocalyptic movements and what drives them.