The essential difference between Western Civilization and the Middle East is that we seek knowledge and they seek Wisdom.
Wisdom is pure Revelation, something that is imposed regardless of the facts because it only exists in the mind of the person who thinks he owns God.
We don’t have most knowledge. But every one of a thousand sects, denominations and cults has a pure Revelation.
The only way to decide whose Revelation is right is war and persecution.
Our ancestors accepted the Gospel of Christ, and only then were they required to accept the entire load of Middle Eastern baggage that came with it. So if you were a Jew who rejected Christ, you were given the right to charge interest. If you had any other religion and rejected the Old Testament, you were burned alive.
Our ancestors were forced to accept the following hierarchy for the use of the human brain:
Above all, there is Wisdom, with a capital W. This Wisdom had no relation whatsoever to factual information. To put it as Emmanuel Kant said it when someone said his philosophy contradicted the facts, “So much the worse for the facts.”
If the facts indicated that the earth was not the center of universe you insisted that it wasn’t, you were burned alive.
Second in our hierarchy for the use of the human brain is the Truth, with a capital T. Once again, if the facts contradict Truth, those who insist on facts get burned alive. But Wisdom, capital W, trumps Truth. Great philosophers of the ancient world were considered to represent Truth, but if what they said contradicted the Scriptures, it was abandoned. The Truths of philosophers were overthrown by the Wisdom of revelation.
The philosophy of Aristotle was respected, and it was respected as Truth even where it was rejected in favor of Wisdom. The old philosophical Truths were respected as what great men thought before the Ultimate Wisdom came into the world by the Revelations of Old Testament prophets.
At the third level of our hierarchy of values is wisdom, with a small w. Old men have wisdom, and a young man who points at mere facts to contradict the wisdom of age or tradition is considered unwise.
Dead last in our hierarchy for the use of the human brain is truth, with a small t. This is just a matter of information, of facts. Simple facts are the lowest in our hierarchy of values. We fit facts into our framework of Wisdom, Truth and wisdom.
With this idea that Wisdom trumps Truth, Truth trumps wisdom and wisdom trumps truth, it is absolutely impossible for us to understand the Old Religion that is the basis of Western Civilization.
Woden of the Germans, Odin of the Norsemen, was the One-Eyed Father-God. Even the most dedicated person who champions Odinism never understands WHY Odin lost his other eye. Richard Wagner, who celebrated the old Germanic religion in his Neibelungenlied, said that Odin lost an eye for his love of his wife, the Goddess Freya.
Modern Odinists say that Odin lost an eye to obtain Wisdom.
The problem is that those who hark back to the adventurous lives of old Germans and the Vikings are romantics. For them it is blasphemy to think that the Father God would give an eye for anything less than romantic love or for True Wisdom.
If one knows the old religion, one offends today’s Odinist more than he offends Jehovists. What Odin gave his eye for brings him to down to the bottom of our mental hierarchy with a loud, dull THUMP!
Odin hung in pain on the world-tree, Yggsdrasil, and suffered and lost an eye in exactly the same way that Jesus hung on the cross. You say that you can understand why Jesus was easier for Odinists to accept. Naturally many have used that to reconcile Odinism with Jehovism.
It won’t wash. Odin suffered on the world tree as Jesus suffered on the cross, but Jehovism was altogether different.
So why did Odin hang on the World Tree?
THUMP!
Odin suffered on the World Tree to know some more facts, simple information, simple truth. Odin, the Father-God, hung there to LEARN.
This throws our Jehovist minds into total confusion. In the Middle East, the definition of God is that He already KNOWS everything.
When the Moslems conquered Persia the first thing they did was to burn all the old writings in the Persian script and all the books of the old religion, Zoroastrianism. When the question came up of what to do with all those writings by philosophers and all that information on the Far East and the history of Persia, the Imams agreed on this point:
“Those writings that are true are already contained in the Koran and the Old Testament. Those that contain anything that is not in the Koran are untrue and dangerous. We do not need what is already the Koran. What is not in the Koran is unnecessary or dangerous.”
So they burned it all.
This was not an idea that the Islamic Imams invented. The reason hieroglyphics suddenly became a forgotten form of writing the minute Christianity took over was because knowledge of hieroglyphics was forbidden and mountains of papyruses were burned.
And, indeed, it was said, “Those writings that are true are already contained in the Old Testament and the New Testament. Those that contain anything that is not in the Old Testament are untrue and dangerous. We do not need what is not already in the Bible. What is not in the Bible is untrue and dangerous.”
This quote is just a few words off. It is probably no accident that the two statements were the same, though they were uttered four centuries apart. Every country that became Moslem was required to adopt Arabic script. Yiddish is old German and Slavic, but it is written in Hebrew script.
The Middle East requires the destruction of anything that is not in the Holy Script. American Indian writings were burned when the conquistadores took over America. Everything that needs to be knows is already part of Wisdom, and it is already written down in the Holy Script.
Rule One for every form of Jehovism is that God, by definition, knows everything. God IS Wisdom, and Wisdom stands above Truth, worldly wisdom and, most of it, Towers above mere factual information.
So absolutely nobody understands how the Father God could hang on the World Tree and suffer for mere factual information.
And the entire history of Western Civilization is the slow, agonizing triumph of the search for mere truth against the Middle Eastern mentality.
And that, not the Ten Commandments, is the entire foundation of Western Civilization.
#1 by H.S. on 11/26/2004 - 10:00 pm
? Have you ever stated somewhere (you write for a living) or are you stating here your opinion, that
God/Jesus (the Creator of all things) = all knowledge, truth, wisdom, & Wisdom, Truth, and Knowledge complete and in its finished entirety
-OR-
? Divinity – God/Jesus – is somehow *still* “learning things?” That He is not “omniscient” (to use a man-made Latin term) = “possessed of universal or complete knowledge.” That humans somehow are attributing to Jesus what He Himself did not indicate He self-possessed?
Would you please explain in a new post, here in one spot, what you mean exactly by your term “Jehovism” — so that I could say “there it is” when given your basic definition.
#2 by Peter on 11/27/2004 - 12:50 am
Woops. For Wagner, Wotan’s wife wasn’t Freya, it was Fricka; in Norse Mythology, Odin’s wife is Frigg.
#3 by Peter on 11/27/2004 - 12:59 am
I am sure you are aware that the Alfather was known in an alliterating triad as: Woden, Will, and Wigh (= Óðin, Vili, and Vé).
#4 by Richard L. Hardison on 11/27/2004 - 5:50 pm
Coleridge’s position on Calvinism was rather succinctly stated “not just blasphemy, but the superfeatation of blasphemy.” Calvin’s theology was shot through with Augustine’s Manicheism, which brought Greek dualism into Christinity. Combine that with Ambrose’s neoplatonism, and you get a philosphical mish mash that had little to do with what either OT or NT taught. For example, the NT teaches that God wants all to come to repentance. Calvin taught that some will be saved no matter what, and otehrs will be damned no matter what. Predestination as taught by Augustine and Calvin is a Hellinist concept which held the “fates” determined when you were born and died and those times were already determined prior to your birth. Calvin and Augustine moved that determination to sometime in eternity past. They also added that God deterined EVERYTHING that would ever be done. The bad thing, for Calvin and those who follow him, that makes God the original sinner as he determined that you would sin and you had no control over it. You will find that no where in the Bible.
The hellinistic idea of perfection in God also meant that God could not change in any way. As a practical matter, this meant God could feel no sorrow or regret for something He did. Alas, the OT states succinctly, on several occasions, that God regreted something he did.
The list of Calvin’s and Augustine’s errors could go on for quite awhile. If you want a good survey of the errors and contradictions of Calvin you can get Dave Hunt’s “What Love Is This.” Calvinism is pretty sorry theology. Combine that with Calvin’s autocratic ways and you got a Geneva that was one of the grimmest places to live in all of Europe.
In Christian theology Wisdom is the proper application of knowledge. Knowledge can be either “revealed” (Paul used the term “Spiritually discerned”) or discovered through human effort. Being an Engineer I have to apply a knowledge of Physics to produce something worth having – i.e. fill a need. After the reformation, so you didn’t have to worry about being presecuted for telling the truth, Physics began the rise of which we are still the beneficiary.
Modern Engineering, the flip side of Physics, did not get its start until the work of Newton and saw its full flowering in the late 19th early 20th century. Modern wisdom is found in the Engineer. The “wisdom” of the east is nothing more than mysticism which is nothing but subjectivism enshrined.
Wagner’s composition was “Ring of the Nibelungs.” It was derived from the “Volsungasaga.” In the “Nibelungenlied” the Nibelungs were Burgundian kings. In the “Volsungasaga” they are dwarfs that guard a treasure and ring in the Rhine. If I recall correctly “The Nibelungenlied” was written in the 12th century. I have no idea when the “Volsungasaga” was written.
I’m not sure it’s siginificant, but writing a given language using Hebrew script may well have been commonplace among Jewry. Yiddish, for example was a German/Slavic/Hebrew meld written,as Bob points out, in Hebrew script. Maimonides, a jewish court physician in Egypt in the 13th century wrote the “Mishnah Torah” in Arabic using Hebrew script. I’m guessing both were done to keep outsiders from knowing what was written.
#5 by Peter on 11/27/2004 - 8:08 pm
Richard L. Harrison: Hey, Dave Hunt’s wife was my fifth grade teacher (and principal). I’ve met him at his old house. Small world, eh?
#6 by H.S. on 11/28/2004 - 5:18 am
Richard,
Thank you! Finally glad to hear it… I don’t know John Calvin. Never heard much about him — had to ask last week what country he was from. Never heard him preached about – only occasionally quoted from the pulpit – both negative and postive viewpoints. The writings I’ve read where he’s quoted for reference in making a point, I didn’t disagree with at all. One I agreed with the man referencing him – he quickly showed the presuppositional error of Calvin. Most has been broad-brush statements as people make a point.
Due to my own personal experience with being branded with words and ideas I’ve never authored, and knowing many others (especially political figures) branded with words and ideas they never espoused, I like to know basically where folks are coming from – that’s only right. I started my own polling service to that effect. When men are put on record, their answers change drastically and they crawfish faster than the real thing. I’ve seen pages of his books in book catalogs. I know of Hunt through one of his friends, a careful just researcher and writer. Hunt is not a theologian either, but is not as careful with his research as Al is. Dispensationalism is pretty wild stuff, and when I tried to find it to answer kind criticism we were challenged with… low and behold, it wasn’t in the there and I happily recanted, even though I was never threatened with burning at the stake.
I just found an older gentleman here (who said he was in fact what others may brand a Calvinist, by heritage) who knows a great deal about the personal and writing history of Calvin, and remarked that legends loom large and people are not aware that (as Bob has remarked) not every professional historian got his facts right. But every person I respect has said he *was* a genious – he was an honest man. I am a WASP – so my heritage of upbringing included prewiring from that general world view. I have no recollection of any sermon I ever heard from any church up to a young adult prior to 1978 – we did a couple Christmas plays – we were all petrified. Life was, and I could not have cared less about world view. Now I do.
I don’t know if Calvin did a good or bad job, not knowing him, or who and what he battled. But many of the topics you dismiss with, “You will find that nowhere in the Bible,” are nowhere but the Bible. I derived them from nowhere but there, under circumstances not enjoyed by most (enjoyed as I see it). You don’t need theologians to arrive at most major truths about God as He wrote them to us. (Provided you are literate and have reasonable access to written materials–concordance, etc.)
The cruxpoint is whether you trust the words on the pages you read. And if you believe that they are the truth of God from God, then are the views you are forming reality — reality He created? What is wrong and false goes hard – that IS the job of the Holy Spirit in you. I never liked college classes (science major) where the prof was only a few years older than me, just out of college. (Evolution hit the dirt before I knew it was PC and I wasn’t allowed to do that.) Where was HIS reality check? – go get a REAL job! I and many pastors have concluded the same thing — you wanna be a pastor? — build your own businss and support, get married, rear what children you are given and then come back to the arena with evidence that you can even begin to handle the job — then let the workman be worthy of his wage. Imagine that. You can even find that in the Bible by demonstration. What a difference there would be today if we believed that God is truly as awesome as he is. Do you believe what you say you believe?! I don’t have time to waste on what doesn’t work. He is the only source of what does. How utterly pathetic to think He’s still wondering what’s coming next and how the plan will all turn out. “Tune in tomorrow folks and we’ll all watch together — How the World Turns.” Matt: 5, 6 & 7
Vacation time makes for too long a response. It’s back to work and brevity. (G)
#7 by Richard L. Hardison on 11/28/2004 - 10:51 pm
There are many people who hold Calvin was an honest man. From our vantage point we can see a good bit of the history of Calvin’s Geneva and it wasn’t a nice place to live. Ask Servetus and Castellio.
Calvin threatened Servetus death 7 years before he came to Geneva. Calvin used a straw man to press charges of heresy against Servetus because under Genevan law he would have been remanded to jail along with Servetus. Only at the trial did Calvin come forward as the actual accuser. Not quite the act of an honest man, nicht wahr?
Castellio was the head of the bible college in Geneva. He has a very small disagreement with Calvin on theology. Calvin went after Castellio with a vengeance and hounded the man across Switzerland until he died an early death from exhaustion.
The two acts detailed above only scratch the surface of John Calvin’s character. 54 people were executed for various religious offenses in Calvin’s Geneva. “The most Christian man in Europe,” as one contemporary described him, in a word, wasn’t. There is no evidence that Calvin repented of either the acts above. It is possible he did repent and he died right with God. If he didn’t, he went to his grave and split hell wide open.
Secondary effects were seen throughout Europe. The Pope was watching the Servetus business. The Roman Catholics had caught Servetus and charged him with Heresy themselves, but a couple of Bishops connived to help him escape church custody twice. Basically, the RCC manuvered Servetus to Geneva to test Calvin.
Bluntly, Calvin utterly failed the test (he became known as the Pope of Geneva because of his persecution of anyone who did not agree with him). The ashes of Servetus inspired RCC persecution of the Hugenots. The Pope viewed the Pope of Geneva as no different than the RCC. It also led to the persecution of the Anabaptists. Most of American protestantism is descended from the Anabaptist movement – Southern Baptists, Wesleyans (i.e.Methodists), and Pentecostals, hold Anabaptist doctrines on baptism and soteriology. It is significant that Calvinists view every group I just listed as rank heretics. Even knowing Calvins doctrines, I do not class Calvinists as heretics, but they are an very abberant group whose doctrines share more with Greek philosophy than Christianity.
It is easy to pick and choose from the “Institutes” and find things a solid Christian can agree with. I can do the same with the Koran as well, or Plato’s Republic. That, however, doesn’t make either a Christian document. It is highly significant that the overwhelming majority of Calvinists have never read Calvin’s Institutes. They teach many of the doctrines and try their best to gloss over the contradictions. If I were them I would do the same thing, but it doesn’t keep the Institutes from being one of the poorest works of theology that was written during the reformation.
Most theological works are works of “speculative” theology. All that really counts is biblical theology. Speculative theology is a product of man’s pride because he has to be able to explain everything, even the way God works things out. God is above our explantions
Peter – Do you still live in Oregon? I used to live in Albany while my father was stationed at Adair Air Force Station. I loved the area. An hour from the beach, or an hour from the mountains. That was probably the best place I ever lived as an Air Force brat.
#8 by H.S. on 11/29/2004 - 1:11 am
Hmmmm. I’ll have to check this out. Thanks.
“Servetus and Castellio” these two people were brought up when I asked my series of questions and we weren’t able to finish in a tight time frame. Recall, however that these people, including all the actual civil officials who were pressing for the death penalty here did not live in horrid times we do today either. I’d have to think again, I’m having doubts Geneva was actually as you perceive, given their time, their point, in history and what was going on in and around them. The anything-goes filth society we live in today I prefer less. I’m preferring it less and less and believe we’re heading quickly for open warfare on our own turf against foreign invaders (including the millions that have already landed) – then after years of sustained treason, bloodshed, and destruction, we’ll judge Geneva. I’ll read into it for sure; since I’m being branded, I’d better know what it’s about.
#9 by Richard L. Hardison on 11/29/2004 - 3:22 pm
H.S. People in Geneva were literally jailed simply for laughing on a Sunday. Questioning Calvin would get you jailed. It went on and on, alas. Geneva was a fanatic’s paradise – legalism enthroned. If you woul like to elarn more about Castellio and Calvin’s Geneva you can find it at, http://www.gospeltruth.net/heresy/heresy_toc.htm. Some Unitarian/Socinian types claim Castellio, but from everything I’ve been able to dig up about the man he was aghast at their beliefs. He was for tolerance, but not in favor of real heresy.