HYPOCRITES AND WOMEN PRIESTS

Something I missed the first time through writing about the Vatican anti-women documents issued by Pope John Paul II, and perhaps something he missed also, or so it would seem.

Jesus enemies try to trick him and goad him into speaking out against Roman taxation (Matthew 22:15-22).

But Jesus is not fooled.

Aware of their malice, he says, “Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites?”

Jesus gave his enemies a riddle:

“Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

Jesus did not give them the unguarded answer they sought. By not speaking freely, Jesus proved that what they said was false.

This is what they said:

“Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality. Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?”

Yes indeed, theirs is a hypocritical statement, flattery really.  We cannot assume it is a sincere statement on their part.  Rather, it is an attempt to entrap Jesus.

Millennia later, relying on their flattering and hypocritical words to sustain his argument against women priests, Pope John Paul II is wrong in both his “Mulieris Dignitatem” and “Ordinatio Sacerdotalis.”

The Pope’s argument against women priests is that:

• Jesus appointed 12 males to be apostles, not any women (um, not unless you include the apostle Junia, possibly one of the 70 appointed by Jesus, Romans 16:7).
• The apostles were like priests (um, in the New Testament, there is no indication apostles were like priests). No reason why a priest must be male because 12 apostles were male.
• And based on the words of the “hypocrites” in Matthew 22:16, Jesus felt “free” to defy social convention of letting males-only lead, but chose only males to be apostles anyway.

Proof from the mouths of Jesus’ hypocritical enemies?!!  Proof from those who failed to entrap Jesus? Preposterous.

Did JPII intentionally make a very weak argument — ’12 apostles were male, etc.’ so that in the fullness of time, it could be toppled?

Or did he lazily think, “Well, no one will ever read this” – the Internet was still arriving – “It doesn’t matter what I say”?

Or did he deliberately give an argument that would be so silly as to be an insult to all women everywhere?  Oh well, how can I doubt his intentions?  He is a canonized saint.

“Hypocrite” can mean someone pretending to be more holy or righteous than he really is, or it can even mean deceiver · dissembler · impostor · phoney, from Greek hupokritēs ‘actor,’ per Google dictionary.  Someone with a false appearance.  Basically someone presenting a deception.  A liar. . . .

Shouldn’t the Vatican come up with some argument better than – some hypocritical LIARS said this to trick Jesus, and we are making their LIES the foundation of our policies against women priests . . .

Some argument better than ‘these 12 non-priest apostles were all male, and so all priests must be male.’

Jesus would have felt free to pick 12 women instead??  At least the hypocrites thought Jesus was free to speak and act as he wished, disregarding convention.  Or the hypocrites said so hypocritically.

Pope JP2 writes, “The assumption that [Jesus] called men to be apostles in order to conform with the widespread mentality of his times, does not at all correspond to Christ’s way of acting. ‘Teacher, we know that you are true, and teach the way of God truthfully, and care for no man; for you do not regard the position of men’” (Mt 22:16 using Vatican male-speak). These words fully characterize Jesus of Nazareth’s behaviour.”

How on Earth can these words fully characterize Jesus’ behavior, if spoken by HYPOCRITES !!!

I have been discussing the “APOSTOLIC LETTER MULIERIS DIGNITATEM OF THE SUPREME PONTIFF JOHN PAUL II ON THE DIGNITY AND VOCATION OF WOMEN ON THE OCCASION OF THE MARIAN YEAR” at the Vatican website at:   http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters/1988/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_19880815_mulieris-dignitatem_en.html

There is the same faulty logic in the “APOSTOLIC LETTER ORDINATIO SACERDOTALIS OF JOHN PAUL II TO THE BISHOPS OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH ON RESERVING PRIESTLY ORDINATION TO MEN ALONE” at the Vatican website at:   http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_letters/1994/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_19940522_ordinatio-sacerdotalis_en.html

Out of respect for all women, please at least offer a reasonable argument why women have the “capacity” to be priests, but the Vatican supposedly does not have any authority to ordain women.  After saying the door is shut, Pope Francis said that women have the capacity to be priests (September 28, 2015 NCR article).

The Vatican does not have any authority to ordain anyone if you read the Bible.

While making up a religion, wouldn’t it be more Christian to make the religion more Christ-like?  Reflecting the inclusiveness of Jesus and the inclusiveness of the apostle Paul (not one of the 12 by the way).  Make it reflect the inclusiveness of the women who founded the original Church.

Let’s remember how the Church was founded by women of the New Testament:

♀the apostle Junia,

♀Phoebe the deacon,

♀Chloe with her following,

♀Prisca with the church that met at her house,

♀Lydia and her house church,

♀Mary of Magdala, apostle to the apostles

These women founders did not keep males out of the Church, nor make them grovel.

Please notice that it is not just women who are discriminated against by the Vatican; it is also all homosexual males and all heterosexual males.  Only asexual males are allowed to be members of the Vaticanite “brotherhood.”

Equal rites

NRSVCE

Posted 9/20/2018

 

 

 

 

IMPOSSIBLE COMMANDMENTS

Serendipity

Continuing here with my notion that paradox is built into religion and perhaps we learn something from paradoxes.

A problem with the Ten Commandments is that there are eleven of them.  Catholics combine the first two commandments, Protestants the final two.

A major problem with the First Commandment is that it is impossible to comply with it.

“I am the Lord your God . . . .  you shall have no other gods before [besides] me.” (Exodus 20, see also Deuteronomy 5)

The problem is that we can never know exactly what God is, or if there is a god, and our idea of God is always incomplete.  Therefore, whatever concept we have of God is going to be at least partly false, and that false image is what we have in our minds in place of the actual God.  Thus we create an idol and place it before God.  Any idea of God that we fashion will necessarily be incomplete and an idol, not the real thing.

“You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.  You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God . . . .”  (Exodus 20, see also Deuteronomy 5)

I presume this commandment, which I’ll include as ‘First,’ means that there should be no representation of God, whether a stone statue, or a painting, or a poem.

But the Bible has various passages that attempt to represent God’s qualities, God’s words, God’s actions, or God dying a human death.  Thus the Bible, being of human origin, is incomplete in its portrayal of God and therefore a false idol.  Of course the Bible has many wise sayings, which perhaps are ‘inspired’ in some way, but nevertheless, because it is incomplete, and it makes a show of representing something of God, the Bible is an idol.  Something alien that is placed in mind before the actual God, obscuring it.

We don’t know what God is.  That did not stop theologian Elizabeth Johnson from writing a whole book, Quest for the Living God, to discuss what she calls, “The Ineffable” – that which cannot be defined.

I’ve always had a problem with the “Greatest Commandment” attributed to Jesus of Nazareth:  “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” (Matthew 22:37, also search on ‘neighbor as yourself’)

Right off, that tells me that God is a ‘Lord,’ therefore limited by maleness.  Obviously a false and incomplete idol, unless God is indeed limited by gender.

“Your God” implies some sort of relationship.  How do I objectively define that relationship?  My relationship with an unknown.

Is there such a thing as a “soul”?  What is “mind”?  What is a ‘god’ for that matter?

How can I love something that is unknown to me, that is, “The Ineffable”?

When you fall in love with your lover, don’t you love the person you perceive, not who is actually that person, and maybe later on, you find out that what you thought you saw, was there only because ‘Cupid’ wounded you with one of his arrows 😉 ??  Why would I bother loving a God who is merely the incomplete product of my fallible human perceptions?  Can my mind grasp the Infinite?

“No one is good but God alone.” (Mark 10:18)  Further, “a good tree cannot bear bad fruit.” (Matthew 7:17, 18)  In this Vale of Tears, amidst the Yin and the Yang, that is, Samsara, there is definitely something other than the good.  So where does that bad stuff come from?  Not from the good tree obviously.

So exactly what is IT that I am supposed to LOVE with my whole heart, soul, and mind?

As soon as I attempt to define IT so I can obey the ‘Greatest Commandment’ and LOVE IT with my whole supposed soul, I have violated the First Commandment against setting up idols.

“Their angels continually see the face of my Father in heaven.” (Matthew 18:10)  God has a face?  What species is this face?  God is limited to a certain species?

I actually don’t believe there is any harm in making idols.  How else are you going to pray unless you fashion some sort of image of God in your mind so you can speak to it?  Evidently, the author who wrote the First Commandment didn’t really mind if someone inappropriately thought of God as a “Lord,” and was perhaps simply trying to eliminate some of the more extreme idols, like the ‘golden calf.’  (See Exodus 32:28, 35 where Moses has 3,000 of his own people slaughtered and the ‘Lord’ sends a plague upon ‘his’ people in retaliation for the calf.  Gosh, what a nice god. . . . maybe a bit jealous?  At least Moses refrains from killing his own brother, the one who made the golden calf, even though, paradoxically, Moses tells others to kill their own brothers over this (32:27))

By the way, for the many times Jesus is addressed as “Lord,” in the New Testament, there is no way to tell if people are saying “Lord-God” or simply “Sir” in the Greek.  So those editors that translate with the English word “Lord” and put the word “Lord” in caps/red, whatever, are really stretching it. The real historical Jesus, whoever he might have been, apparently thought of himself as ‘servant,’ and would have been appalled at being feted as “Sir,” let alone idolized as a “Lord-God.”

“Because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4:18)  How can one look at what cannot be seen?  What a great paradox.  Perhaps one is in compliance with the First Commandment when one looks for God and at the same time one realizes there is no possibility of seeing that ‘face of God’ while stuck in Samsara.

Is it OK to have artwork in a church if it does not show a face; but rather is like ‘modern art’ or like the sacred math designs in European cathedrals with wreaths of circles, evoking thoughts of Mystery and Glory?  Oh, I don’t know — in some ways that art may be even more compelling, depending on the receptivity of the viewer.

This is a very interesting survey by Pew Research (http://www.pewforum.org/2018/04/25/when-americans-say-they-believe-in-god-what-do-they-mean/):

“The survey finds that three-quarters of American adults say they try to talk to God (or another higher power in the universe), and about three-in-ten U.S. adults say God (or a higher power) talks back.”

“One-third of respondents ultimately say that although they do not believe in the God of the Bible, they do believe in a higher power or spiritual force of some kind.”

It would seem the First Commandment has not stopped Americans from talking to their ‘idol,’ and doing some thinking to visualize what IT might be.

For all you know, “the Universe is unfolding as it should.”  It is June.  It is dusk.  The time and temperature are just right for fireflies to zip about and mate.  They flash their tiny lights that seem to me to be white, gold, and red.  What incredible miracle of serendipity has created this coming together of me, dusk, June, and fireflies?  There has been and still is in my mind, this special June moment where the ‘good tree’ is doing ITS thing.  And I’m lovin’ the moment.  And I have no idea what IT is.

Or why.

________

 

NRSV

June 29, 2018

 

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CHILD SACRIFICE

If you need good luck, why not sacrifice a child to appease the god?

Regarding the practice of child sacrifice in many African countries — doesn’t Christianity promote this false idea that there is a god or spirit that must be appeased with a human sacrifice? According to the Book of Hebrews 7:27, 9:26, etc., Jesus is the one and only sacrifice, a man who offers himself as a human sacrifice to Yahweh.

But the Jews have it right, and also the Muslims, as they know Yahweh did not accept Abraham’s human sacrifice of his child Issac (Genesis 22), and God abhors human sacrifice, and God would never accept a human sacrifice, not even the sacrifice of a Jesus. God has no need for a human sacrifice. A human sacrifice is an abomination.

I suspect that Muslims and Jews are immune to Christianity because they know this fact about human sacrifice — God abhors it.

Islam may be the solution to this problem of child sacrifice in many African countries.  Either that or adequate law enforcement.

Christianity does not permit child sacrifice, but yet retains the ancient Pagan idea that a human sacrifice is/was essential to appease a god.  And Christianity preaches this idea of human sacrifice in Africa where some may be predisposed to act on it.

It would have been better if those who invented Christianity had instead taken the Jewish position that all human sacrifice is abhorrent to God.

It is quite horrific to think that a Virgin Goddess gives birth for the express purpose of having her issue tortured to death with enough blood-letting to fertilize the crops, etc.  That is the old Pagan story.  It should have been ignored by Paul the Apostle as he devised a new religion to supplement his income.  Jesus’ message of love and forgiveness and repentance should not have been tainted with such — sure makes God look like a blood-thirsty demon if God needs to be sated with human blood.

Of course I don’t know how much negative influence Christian ideas of human sacrifice have had on the current situation in Africa.  For sure, those who kill the children don’t realize that Jesus was supposedly the ‘one and only’ human sacrifice.

The real historical Jesus of Nazareth, if he was typical of his times, would not have considered himself a human sacrifice, because Jews of that time knew that Yahweh abhorred human sacrifice.

It might be that Christianity was designed to put a stop to a practice of human sacrifice (then perhaps resurgent in the backwoods of Turkey??) with the idea that a mythical Jesus was the ‘one and only sacrifice,’ and therefore, in theory, no other sacrifices would be necessary.  However regrettably, Christianity carried forward the non-Jewish idea that God is demon-like, demanding human sacrifice, and assumes God is unable to transform the world except by violence and blood.  Not a fit message for those Africans already predisposed to think in such terms.

We can’t even know if there was a Jesus of Nazareth.  But if you subtract all the stuff that is similar to Pagan imagery, such as virgin birth, human sacrifice, anointing, resurrection, drinking blood, bridegroom, etc., then you are left with Jesus’ message of love, forgiveness, repentance, and the  mistaken belief the world was about to end.  Probably most would agree the historical Jesus was some sort of itinerant preacher and healer.

It is important to know something of the mythology and the politics of the times to understand what may be factual in the New Testament.

Jesus’ message of a loving ‘Abba’ does not seem to be compatible with passages that make Jesus into a human sacrifice.

Are there submerged ideas that are carried forward in time in a religion?  Even if a practice of child sacrifice is not part of the Christian religion, if it endorses the sacrifice of a particular child, that is, the baby Jesus destined to be murdered, then it is carrying forward the wrong idea, a submerged idea, that child sacrifice is necessary and effective.

At the center of Christianity is the idea that killing a child is acceptable.  The young Lord Jesus, decreed to be a human sacrifice, is brought into the world for the express purpose of later killing Him, so you can be “saved” by His blood.

This idea of human sacrifice has roots in pre-Christian Pagan mythology.  It is not Jewish.  Jews didn’t do human sacrifice. Jews did not drink blood, not any blood, let alone human blood.  Jews were not cannibals; not even symbolically (as in wine as blood).

What happens when this idea that the brutal slaughter of the Son is/was necessary, is accepted by millions?  Do these millions then believe that bloody violence is always the answer? Does the world become less peaceful as a result?

Switching from the ancient story of a Goddess weeping over her slain Son to a Father-god ‘willing’ the bloody sacrifice of his Son, is not an improvement. In some versions, she killed her Son. Still not an improvement to switch to Father-god doing killing.

The Hebrew Bible condemned those who practiced child sacrifice (Ezechiel 16:20-21, 16:36, 20:26, 20:31 (DRA)).  But Pagan rituals of human sacrifice were held even in Yahweh’s temple which contained “carcasses of the kings” (Ezechiel 43:7-9 (DRA)).

The “kings” played the role of “bridegroom,” then were sacrificed, mimicking a god who was a bridegroom and who was sacrificed.  I suspect those selected to be kings were teens or otherwise vulnerable.

What happens when retrograde ideas of Bridegroom and sacrifice are deliberately carried forward in time by Paulists in the first century and by today’s Catholics?  What submerged corollary ideas tag along?

Do you ever contemplate this while you are drinking the “Blood” (wine) of the “Bridegroom” Jesus who was a “king”?

The article I am reflecting on at RNS says that many African countries have child sacrifice:  Uganda, Tanzania, Nigeria, Swaziland, Liberia, Botswana, South Africa, Namibia, and Zimbabwe.

Article is at

http://religionnews.com/2017/09/26/witch-doctors-are-sacrificing-children-in-this-drought-stricken-african-country/

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OMNIPOTENCE

Why is Catholicism fading away in Europe?

No one knows? Scandal, lack of democracy, lack of respect for women and gays, etc?  Hardly ‘secularism’ whatever that is.

Perhaps the reason is that theology has drifted so far from the ideals and teachings of Jesus, that there is nothing left that is inviting.

If God is now all-knowing and all-powerful (a relatively recent emphasis), yet permitting evil, can God be good? Many decades ago I asked a European why there is suffering.  He said, “C’est le bon dieu.”  So a “good god” makes us suffer?  He was being sarcastic, but the response came from his heart.  I still remember.

Is God a harsh judge throwing one’s neighbors into a Hell?  Nasty.  Not a gentle Abba as Jesus taught.

Will you go to church to greet this sort of nasty-god?  A sinister god who will not stop the suffering, and who has to restrain his ‘wrath’ to ration out his “mercy”?  The Vatican’s idol, their mascot really, not very likeable.

Especially in recent centuries among the Protestants, God was portrayed as a raging, punishing demon, ready to throw all sinners into Hell.  People liked that to a certain extent, mainly because I suppose they thought they were innocent and only their neighbors were sinners.  But we are all sinners.

Where is ‘Immanuel,’ that is, God-with-us? Where is Mary? Where is community? Easter? Is there any joy?

Sister Elizabeth Johnson says of modern theism in Quest for the Living God (pp 14-17), that the concept of God as all-powerful and all-knowing took a new turn during the “Enlightenment,” and is not fully compatible with Christian ideas of Christ-incarnated, Spirit-indwelling, God transcendent, God closer than close, if I understand correctly.

I was taught in Catholic high school that God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and everywhere present.  It was like a mantra – God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. The Vatican had swallowed this new definition whole.

My thought is that if you redefine God to be something other than what It was in the very early centuries, don’t be surprised if people abandon the religion.

Now you have fashioned an idol which is totally responsible for all the suffering in your life.  Now you are its victim.  Now you have an ‘all-powerful’ god (what does that mean anyway?), which begs the question of, “Is god able to make a rock that is too heavy for god to lift?”

Rather than spreading illogic, go back to God as our Good Shepherd, the one who clothes the lilies, who knows what we want before we ask, who searches for us as the woman searches for her coin, who transfigures, inspires, saves, loves, heals, feeds, empowers, restores, resurrects, in whom we live and move and have our being, for whom we are a sacred temple, etc.

I found like 500 Google results for ‘omnipotent’ on the Vatican website, but a quick glance at the results told me that maybe they are backing off from this definition of God, or trying to spin it??

Why have a definition of God that is unworkable and so easy for smug atheists to crumple?  Without a workable definition of God people won’t go to church.

But isn’t God called “Almighty” in the Hebrew Bible?  A blogger named Susan Harrison lets me know that the meaning of the Hebrew term “El Shaddai” is not clear, but it is often translated as “Almighty,” and the root has the meaning of “mountain” or to “violently destroy.”  Very interesting that the root may have meant female breasts in ancient times, as in God provides for us as does a mother nursing her infant.  (http://www.mothergodexperiment.com/el-shaddai-mother-name-god/)

“For God all things are possible.” (Matthew 19:26, Mark 10:27, see also Luke 1:37)

Really? God can do anything?

Can God be malevolent? Can God make 2 + 2 = 5??

I will guess that the biblical authors did not know where the boundaries are, if any, and engaged in hyperbole to make us stretch our minds so that we could perhaps gain some insights.

“I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” (Philippians 4:13)

Wow. If I can do all things, then maybe I am omnipotent too.

God was mighty powerful even before the Enlightenment, but my impression is that with the Enlightenment, there was an undue emphasis put on that power, which had the effect of making God take the blame for everything that went wrong.

If God is the prime mover and all-powerful and all-knowing, and directly or indirectly responsible for all that happens, then what?  Well, “God has a plan.”  That is, somehow the willful negligence and abuse that you have pinned on this god can be justified by this supposed plan.  But you don’t know how it can be justified. Because you don’t know the plan.

In 1870, Pope Pius IX made himself the first infallible pope.  He defined God as both ‘almighty’ and ‘incomprehensible’ in the same sentence in Dei Filius.  Pretty neat trick to have it both ways, even if one is infallible.

God is incomprehensible.  People should refrain from trying to make God into something like all-mighty or ‘all-this’ or ‘all-that.’  Especially when you have no ability to conceive of the extent of “all” and know what that means.  Even defining God as boundless puts God into a box.  You can’t do that.  If God is, It transcends your reality.

I think one can posit a relationship between God and us, that intersection, that closer than close point, where God is Providence and is creating in the midst of us, seeking us, guiding us, and we are the essential, indispensable, and beloved co-creators – we forgive, we make peace, we have goodwill, we build the Kin_dom.  But one should not attempt to define that “all” which heads off into infinitude where words and understanding fail.

God does not seem to have any interest in proving to us that It is good. Nor any interest in explaining the why of suffering.

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NRSV

 

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PARADOXICAL TEACHINGS

 

In Webster’s online dictionary, paradox means “contradictory or opposed to common sense,” among other things.

Basically, paradoxical beliefs in religion are mysteries that cannot be explained and are accepted on faith.  I do wonder what is the point of arranging a religion around a bunch of inexplicable ‘mysteries,’ instead of facts.

Examples of paradoxical teachings

1 – Three equal differentiated persons in one consubstantial God

2 – Jesus, both fully divine and fully human

3 – Mary, both mother and virgin

4 – Consubstantial God as father of self

5 – People of God as both the Bride and the Body of Christ (Bridegroom)

6 – Jesus as human sacrifice to Yahweh who abhors human sacrifice

7 – All-knowing, all-powerful God who is absolute good, but allowing evil

8 – Looks like wine, tastes like wine, but really sacred Blood

9 – Looks like bread, tastes like bread, but really a risen Body

10 – “World without end. Amen.” vs. Judgement Day

11 – Celibate priests are holy; couples using ‘artificial’ birth control are in sin

12 – God said, “Do not kill,” then willed a crucifixion for his own Son

13 – Jesus saved us, but 2,000 years later, the world is still a mess

14 – God is “Father,” limited to maleness by convention, but God is limitless

15 – A ‘loving’ and ‘forgiving’ Father tests his children’s sinfulness, then throws them into a burning Hell, all the while knowing the outcome in advance

For sure, paradoxical teachings can be remembered and last for centuries, and as people puzzle over them and argue over them, the teachings are retained, and foster community and communication.

Rather scary to think there are millions out there, probably most of my neighbors, too, who hold similar paradoxical beliefs in their innermost thoughts. With this kind of thinking, how are they able to analyze who they should vote for? How are they able to make any decisions rationally?  Fortunately, it is considered impolite to discuss religion with casual acquaintances, so likely I will never know what they are thinking on this subject.

I guess most people internalize what they hear in church, then struggle to come up with some rational alternative explanation for what they have heard, so they can continue to ‘believe’ and to be part of a group and setting that is comfortable and familiar to them.

I am recalling that some people lie to their own children and say Santa will come down the chimney on Christmas Eve. The youngest children are not able to analyze this tale and determine:

(1) No one lives at the North Pole, least of all, Santa,

(2) Gifts for all the children of the world will not fit into a single Santa sleigh,

(3) Reindeer cannot fly through the air,

(4) A man of considerable girth such as Santa would not fit into a chimney that is at most, several inches wide,

(5) No reindeer has a brightly lit nose to guide the way,

(6) The gift to Santa of cookies was instead eaten by Mommy and Daddy, and

(7) There is no lump of coal for the children’s transgressions

So the little children are deceived. Interesting that the story seems to be designed with several propositions which are easily dismissed by older children, especially when prompted by their better informed peers.

I personally was not told reindeer could fly and so I did not have to overcome that; however, I was indoctrinated very thoroughly in religion in school.  I really have to wonder what the teachers were thinking as they pounded paradoxical “truths” and all manner of religious trivia into our young brains.  Surely, the teachers themselves did not believe all of it. Surely, they had begun to question. Yet they thought it was OK to mold children’s minds with it?

I just noticed an ad on Biblegateway, “God will wipe away every tear.” Are you really doing a child a favor by telling him/her that as if it were true? (And is this the same God who created the situation that caused the tears in the first place?) Logic, please.

One of my religion teachers, a priest, died at a young age, and I have always wondered if he killed himself in despair, having intelligently discovered something he could not bear to know, like . . . reindeer do not fly or some such thing.

Of what use are paradoxical beliefs? Is there some benefit to society from people having to overcome paradoxical beliefs? Do people gain more awareness by overcoming? Do they gain more ability to analyze?

Unfortunately, most people do not seem to progress quickly in their thinking and analyzing.

 

WOMEN’S CHOICES

There is a lot more to women’s choosing beyond use of contraceptives and abortion.

Women ultimately decide who are the “alpha males” — those who will be allowed to have a genetic future.

Also, society is in the process of making a huge eugenics experiment.  Those men who are prone to making violent mistakes and who are now in prison have been removed from the gene pool.  Maybe this is what women were trying to accomplish in former times with the “sacrifice of the king.” Young males who were uncontrollable were told they were being singularly honored to be giving their blood for Her and of course for the welfare of the whole city . . . ??

Unfortunately, the genocide of women (killing of supposed witches) by the males in power in Christendom may have resulted in the female survivors tending to be docile and self-effacing women — another experiment in eugenics.

Eph 5:22-23 (NIV): “Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands . . .   For the husband is the head of the wife . . .”

Do men tend to choose for mates, those women who are wimpy doormats, thus ensuring the continuance of this trait among women? Do men read in the Bible, “women be submissive to your husbands,” and assume that a submissive lass is what they are entitled to, per the word of God? They would rather have a submissive woman than an actual relationship with a woman?

The culture tells men they should not be wimpy – that would be ‘effeminate’ – so men generally strive to be something other than wimpy.

1 Co 14:34 (NIV): “Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission”

Fortunately, women’s liberation came along, so we see fewer and fewer women who are culturally conditioned to think they are obligated to maintain silence in public and gaze with a goofy, adoring look upon their husbands, while clinging to his arm as if unable to stand without his aid, and maybe such women cannot stand with ease if in the habit of wearing supposedly “sexy” spike heels.

1 Tim 2:12-13 (NIV): “I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet.  For Adam was formed first, then Eve.”

Oh silly me (giggling and smiling sweetly – I’d be twirling my long tresses if I had any) — of course I have no idea if traits such as being wimpy or violent are the result of conditioning or can be passed along genetically, and I’ll just wait submissively for some expert – a man of course – to tell me if I am permitted to have any opinions.

After all, ‘Adam was formed first.’ Seems like a good argument to me.

 

OF LIMITS AND LACK

What is this idiotic idea that everything must be divided up according to gender, that the female must be an accessory (complementary) to the male?

The term complementary reminds me of complementary angles in geometry.  The angles must sum to 90 degrees and each angle completes what the other ‘lacks” to make 90 degrees.  Each angle also limits the other.  Is this the way human relationships are?  Limiting?

Or are we supposed to love, support, empower, and to offer mutuality to each other.  Not limiting the other.  Recognizing wholeness (holiness), not finding lack.  Each made in God’s image.

My gender does not limit me.  Rather it empowers me.  It informs who I am becoming.

I don’t have a need to try to limit other people.  Yes, there is the key in lock.  Doesn’t mean you should extrapolate from that biology to place arbitrary cultural restrictions on all human interactions everywhere according to gender.  Yes, only women can breast feed. Doesn’t mean they can’t be astronauts. . . . or priests.

I’m not stuck in the 1950’s. I would leave it up to each couple to decide how to live their marriage. They can decide:

Who does the dishes

Who feeds the cat

Who burps the baby

Who chops the wood

Who lights the barbecue

Who brings home the bacon

It is sobering to realize that some will not allow a woman to speak or read.

• In the Roman Catholic Church, a woman is not allowed to give a sermon or read aloud from the Gospel, as if women’s voices were profane, and as if women’s intellects were hampered by “feminine genius.”
• The Taliban will not let girls or women learn how to read.

How do these chauvinist organizations get away with it?

Women allow it.

 

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STILL SERVING COMPLEMENTARIAN PIE

With regard to Pope’s naming of new cardinals:  Still no female cardinal.

Wouldn’t it be so refreshing if even one of the men being honored by being elevated to cardinal refused the honor saying, “I will not accept such an honor until a woman is made cardinal.”

The Pope and his minions have cast their lot with the women who are satisfied to be treated like doormats and who are as yet not fully aware of the misogyny in the Church. Not a good bet because these women may wake up any day now and not ever be inclined to return to the Church once they have left in disgust.

Telling women they have to be self-limiting, self-undervaluing, unfulfilled, and satisfied with a small slice of the “complementarian” pie, is not an indoctrination that most women will find appealing over the long term, I’ll bet.

Jesus is dishonored by this religion that has degenerated into discrimination and exclusion, instead of being a “priesthood of all believers,” and “neither male nor female.”

THE KEYS ARE ON THE FLAG

Have you ever noticed how the Papal flag with its triple crown, draped stole, and crossed keys, is the same basic design as the Jolly Roger flag with its skull, mandible, and crossed bones? Historically, which flag copied which flag? The Papal flag is a unique design among today’s national flags.

The keys are on the Vatican flag, but the idea that earth binds heaven may be a mistranslation.

In the ‘Our Father,’ it is ‘on earth as it is in heaven’ (the reverse).

The NIV footnote has for Matthew 16:19, “Whatever you bind on earth will have been bound in heaven.” So heaven affects earth, not earth binding heaven. Similar footnote for Matthew 18:18.

So the Vatican may need to redesign its flag.

Possibly “heaven” meaning expanse, is inner consciousness, and that sets the stage for how we view “earth,” the material world we inhabit?? So the “key” is that your inner consciousness is very important.

Jesus obviously knew nothing of a pope or a Vatican flag.

 

 

 

 

 

MOVING MOUNTAINS

An online commenter has asked, are we not all “sons (children) of God,” and isn’t the point that we should all be “moving mountains” (Matthew 17:20).  I will add, why not move mountains, if that is what Jesus taught us to do?

“For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.”

I rather doubt that Matthew 17:20 is a parable, that is, a “simple story used to illustrate a moral or spiritual lesson,” rather, it is a teaching tacked onto a demonstration by Jesus of how to move mountains (Jesus removes a so-called “demon”).

Is Jesus a god and the only one to move mountains?  It does no honor to the historical Jesus, a Jew, to make him into a Pagan god as many do today, and the Gospel, which draws its supposed legitimacy from the antiquity of Hebrew religion, does not make Jesus into a Pagan god, not exactly; rather just makes allusions to Pagan imagery, such as, virgin birth, bride and bridegroom, sacrifice of the god, resurrection, etc.

However, it would seem the Gospel is, at least at some level, really serious about the concept of resurrection.  Probably it takes more than just dying to escape the misery of Samsara.

Jews know that their God is One and that is why they don’t subscribe to god-junior. Also, they know their Yahweh would never accept a human sacrifice.  This deliberate?? error in the Gospel — of Jesus as a human sacrifice — lets the Jews know the Gospel is not for them.  Rather the Gospel is crafted to impress the Pagans that are being lured into a supposed “monotheism” confected just for them and their tastes.

I think the following, from Daily Word April 28, 1997, while perhaps overly optimistic?? is a valid interpretation of Matthew 17:20-21: “ Spirit moves through me as the wisdom and strength to do what I need to do. In touch with the one Power in the universe, I realize unlimited potential. My goals are attainable, new ideas flood my mind, and I am guided to the right solutions. I welcome each day with joy and expectation, for I am lifted in spirit by my belief in the power of God to see me through. With faith, I believe that all things are possible.”

Most Biblegateway versions of Matthew 17:20 have Jesus say that his disciples fail at removing demons because they have “little faith.”  However the Mounce interlinear says “poverty of . . . faith” instead.   So what is this poverty that is an impediment to moving mountains?  Perhaps it is a poverty of attitude that does not perceive the Love that is always for us, never opposed.  The Love that is Abundance.

I never did like the interpretation that made for straining to try to have more and more faith, when all that is needed is to ‘let go and let God’ move that mountain.

The next verse (21) is relegated to a footnote by the NRSV as being of possibly later origin. It does seem overstated. It advises the reader to make a greater effort to achieve results by fasting.  But Jesus’ formula for moving mountains is to have an attitude of gratitude.  Could fasting result in greater clarity of mind so as to focus better on having gratitude for abundant goodness?  I’ll tell you, when I fast, I have great clarity of mind visualizing the foods I crave.

Do I move mountains?  Sure, all day long.  Tons of them.  Just molehills, really.  But by the time I get through a day, I have moved so many molehills, the total volume approximates a mountain.  So same thing.  Besides most of these molehills seem like mountains.

 

 

 

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