LBRP Divine Name Sequence
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"The Serpent is the Savior" - a doctrine so powerful and socially disruptive that it was hidden for millennia under a veil of shame.
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OMG is it true?? What does that mean? What does that mean about the Christian concept of Original Sin?
It seems that eating from the tree was good. But then why is man so naturally evil? I mean, I know thelemites like to say we aren't evil, but when you see the crap that happens in the world... It seems SOMETHING happened to us that made part of us have the potential for great injustice.
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@Luce said
"OMG is it true?? What does that mean? What does that mean about the Christian concept of Original Sin?"
It's bogus. I take that to be kinda basic. I reject it outright - at least, in the sense that the Christian's conceive of it.
The actual "original sin" that the myth veils is become self-conscious - developing a Ruach. That's the step that fits all the symbols and fulfills all the criteria of the story.
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And is the Serpent Satan? I know xians always assume, and Jews did identify him with Satan at some point BC. And Revelation identifies Satan with the Devil and the Ancient Serpent. Do you think the Serpent is Satan? By Satan I mean the being that's mentioned in the Bible, like in Job when he terrorizes Job's family, or when Saran stands accusing Joshua in the book of Zechariah.
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I should probably make a new thread for this... Or maybe this has already been hammered out on this forum.
I know original sin is seen as bogus, but I guess I still accept it in the sense that there sure is SOMETHING wrong with people. It's one thing to say our proclivities toward sex aren't wrong, but it's another thing to see genocide and think that everything is peachy. When you have people that are able to torture and dismember children, clearly something is wrong with people.
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@Luce said
"And is the Serpent Satan?"
It isn't stated explicitly in Genesis. That's a common interpretation. But remember that Satan's earliest named appearance, in Job, has him being God's collaborator.
I suggest reading Elaine Pagels' book The Origins of Satan for some deep insight into this.
"Do you think the Serpent is Satan?"
Close enough. But one must understand the nature of Satan, who is a great Briatic figure comparable to an archangel (which even the Christian legend says he once was).
Look at his name; Shiyn Teyth Nun. A letter of Fire, one which means "serpent," and one of which is the serpent of Scorpio.
"By Satan I mean the being that's mentioned in the Bible, like in Job when he terrorizes Job's family, or when Saran stands accusing Joshua in the book of Zechariah."
You've read Job incorrectly (but in a popular way). He isn't terrorizing Job's family. God is terrorizing Job and his family (though partly through his agent, Satan, his good buddy good pal, who is at most a prosecuting attorney and actually appears to be more a management consultant).
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@Luce said
"I know original sin is seen as bogus, but I guess I still accept it in the sense that there sure is SOMETHING wrong with people."
You and I disagree on this. I regard people as originally perfect. At least until they are born, then, at worst, originally under-developed and immature. We're all children! We have growing to do. But that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with us.
Other than accidents of ignorance, somebody had to become damaged to do truly bad things.
" It's one thing to say our proclivities toward sex aren't wrong, but it's another thing to see genocide and think that everything is peachy. When you have people that are able to torture and dismember children, clearly something is wrong with people."
Yeah, they got fucked up along the way. But they didn't start like that. They weren't born like that.
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Okay, fair enough. I guess I just think that it can't be turtles all the way down! If someone is, say, a molester, but they were molested as a child, etc. etc. someone still started the molesting. Actually, that's a common psych myth anyway... Most pedopbiles weren't molested as children (though a lot are, of course). I don't know if that view makes a lot of sense though... That we only do fcked up things if we were badly damaged. I mean, what happened to Hitler to cause him to act that way? Moreover, I think it disagrees with the findings of modern psychology. Look at APD for example: it manifests at a very young age! But, you could say, I suppose, that the BRAIN in damaged. Maybe the "pdrson" is pure but the brain corrupts their true selves.
I'm not sure how much we do disagree on this. I have come to the revelation that people have bad tendencies because of their DNA. Survival of the fittest means that selfishness, murder, cruetly, etc. are literally bred into us. We have millions of years of selfish genes to overcome! I think being human means overcoming these proclivities. Because you see all forms of "evil" in animals. All things that xians call evil: necropbilia, pedophilia, sadism, rape, murder, cannibalism, etc. All of those are found in the animal kingdom. I think a human's job is to be self-conscious and overcome those. I actually made a presentation on that topic, called "an evolved hamartiology" (clever name, huh?). I'm thinking of using that topic for my thesis at the suggestion of one of my profs, as I think the xian concept of Original Sin is corrupted and needs to be properly understood. The presentation was quite unorthodox but was very well received, oddly enough.
You and I would differ in that I see much of those animalistic traits as something to be overcome, including things like promiscuity. I think growing into God's image is overcoming these natural proclivities, not embracing them. Surely you think some of them should be overcome though, like rape and pedophilia (though these are very much natural and all throughout the animal kingdom including our evolutionary history).
Lastly, when I look inside myself, I realize something is not as it ought to be. Naturally, I do not seek God. Naturally, I do not help people. I'm a selfish brute of a man. If I didn't make a conscious effort to seek God, I'd be a horribly selfish and cruel person. I call that "my sinful nature." I would argue that we all agree with that, but we call it different things. Thelema teaches to do one's true will, which means not doing those things that aren't our true will. I call those things sin!
Do what thou wilt is oddly similar to what I consider true Christianity. I find thelema and Christianity incredibly harmonious, oddly enough. There's a conservative pastor who is a household name amongst Christians named John Piper. His tag line is "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him." He calls it Christian Hedonism. The idea is that what we truly want to do is what God wants us to do! We have no right but to do our will!
Jim, do you know that the whole do what thou wilt thing comes from Augustine? I'm sure you probably do, but in case anyone else doesn't, Augustine said "love, and do what thou wilt" in the third or fourth century! That's the first historical instance of something like that being said! Now, maybe Augustine meant something different... But maybe not.
And yes, I do understand Satan's role in Job. I took an entire graduate-level class on Job. Satan is still not cast in a good light when you study the text. Yes, God is using him, yes many people skip that part, but Satan still chides God and says the only reason Job worships God is because Job has nice things and God's protection. Satan does seem to want to terrorize Job, and he does. God gives him permission, of course, and even recommends Job as a target!
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I wrote a piece years ago - may still be around here somewhere - analyzing Job from the perspective that Job was an adept and this was his Adeptus Major initiation, his attainment of Geburah.
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Ironically, the doctrine of Original Sin originated with Augustine as well, who was using Paul to argue against Pelagius.
"Romans 5:12
"Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned"I Corinthians 15:22
"For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.""No one ever should have listened to Paul in the first place. There's a lot of people no one ever should have listened to.
But, you know. He was confident. People like confidence. That I can tell you. I know. We're gonna have the best confidence. Believe me. We're gonna be number one in confidence... oh... wait, I got caught up again.
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I like Paul a lot, though I know most thelemites likely don't. Still, he seemed very spiritual. His Damascus road experience, his time learning directly from God in the wilderness after it.
If you read all of Paul's letters, there are some beautiful nuggets of spiritual wisdom. Union with God, our higher self being seated with God in heaven, the cosmic Christ... If you read his letters and look past some of the more salient issues of Pauline theology, there are some real gems in there.
"I wrote a piece years ago - may still be around here somewhere - analyzing Job from the perspective that Job was an adept and this was his Adeptus Major initiation, his attainment of Geburah."
That sounds fascinating. I'd love to read it if you have any idea where it might be.
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Found it: <!-- l --><a class="postlink-local" href="http://www.heruraha.net/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=5424">viewtopic.php?f=20&t=5424</a><!-- l -->
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@Luce said
"I like Paul a lot, though I know most thelemites likely don't. Still, he seemed very spiritual. His Damascus road experience, his time learning directly from God in the wilderness after it.
If you read all of Paul's letters, there are some beautiful nuggets of spiritual wisdom. Union with God, our higher self being seated with God in heaven, the cosmic Christ... If you read his letters and look past some of the more salient issues of Pauline theology, there are some real gems in there."
Oh, I'm hard on him for sure. But if it was me, I probably would have done the same thing. Geez, some of the stuff I've done...
Yeah, there's a difference between the truth of an experience and the post-experience analysis, especially when we're trying to put it into words for other people - double-especially when trying to convert those people.
I just tend to stay pissed at him because I feel like he locked the historical interpretation of Jesus and his message into a very specific, post-Jewish, post-Pharisaic cultural mindset. Maybe beyond where they had been, but then locked it in.
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Yeah, I really enjoyed the Job analysis. Very interesting! I never thought of the book in that say, that's for sure. I should probably reread the Bible now that I've discovered the Bible. In my daily reading I'm already pretty surprised to pick up on things that I wouldn't have otherwise (like the interesting ways binah and chokmah are used together in so many passages).