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A Universe from Nothing?
- Thread starter Tomorrows_Child
- Start date
Thief
Rogue Theologian
we covered that
godnotgod
Thou art That
,
Right, and you keep saying there is no duality, and that the universe is one, and yet, you want to go to heaven and avoid hell. How can you if they are one?
Is heaven a place of unimaginable joy?
Is hell a place of unimaginable suffering?
If so, they are a duality. Story end.
Right, and you keep saying there is no duality, and that the universe is one, and yet, you want to go to heaven and avoid hell. How can you if they are one?
Is heaven a place of unimaginable joy?
Is hell a place of unimaginable suffering?
If so, they are a duality. Story end.
Thief
Rogue Theologian
and you did not follow my advice to review the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus
the rich man was close enough to have conversation with an angel.....yet....
there was a great divide between them
gnostic
The Lost One
Clearly, you are unfamiliar with the books of Enoch.
Before the Jesus, before Christianity. Even before they began building the Second Temple, there was no notion of the "hell" in Judaism.
Hell, is foreign concept introduced by the Greek Tartarus and the Egyptian Daut, in the early Hellenistic period.
If you were to ask me what this have to do with heaven and hell, or with the Enochian texts, or how does it relate to Jesus' new religion a couple of centuries later, I would say that it was such influences that the authors of the two books of Enoch began appearing for the first time.
If you have read 2 Enoch, it narrated Enoch's adventure or visit to the ten heavens. The higher you go, the closer you would approach God himself. Enoch met with God on the 10th heaven, and wrote the book of his visit to these heavens, and the prophecies that were revealed to him.
According to the New Testament, heaven and hell were two distinct places, but originally in Hellenistic Jewish legend, as found in 2 Enoch, hell was the 3rd and 5th heavens.
The 3rd and 5th heavens were the 2nd century BCE Jewish version of hell. Here is where God had the Watchers (fallen angels) in chains and punished till the end of time.
The books of Enoch were quite influential on Jesus and the works of his disciples. Paul, himself, wrote of the 3rd heaven.
The whole reward in heaven and punishment in hell are not Jesus' invention. They were adapted from Greek and Egyptian myths/religions.
godnotgod
Thou art That
So what? They're still a duality. And if your account is true, even before that, there were dualistic ideas of good and bad with their resultant ideas of reward and punishement, another set of dualities, the very first example found in Eden vs banishment from Eden, followed by the Cain & Abel account of reward and punishment for good and evil.
gnostic
The Lost One
You are misunderstanding me. I am not saying that there were no duality.
I am saying that hell as described by New Testament (eg Jesus teachings in gospels, and Revelation) didn't exist BEFORE Hellenistic period (323 - 30 BCE).
Duality existed by the time 6th century BCE, during the Exile and return, because the Zoroastrianism has spread east and west by then.
Duality became more and more pronounced, reaching a new height by 2nd and 1st centuries BCE, which appeared in non-canonical texts written (1 & 2 Enoch, Book of Jubilees) before Jesus ministry began c 33 CE and NT writings (60 - 100 CE).
The origin of hell began with 1 Enoch and 2 Enoch, except that hell was not separate from heavens. The split of heaven and hell as separate places, only began appearing with NT writings.
The distinction between good and evil (or fallen) angels also began appearing with Enochian texts. Before then, there were no evil angels or fallen angels. Satan wasn't god's enemy until these Hellenistic writing.
Thief
Rogue Theologian
you are still attempting to draw lines in grey areas
the garden was an attempt to correct a 'bad' trait in humans
being released back into the environment was not a 'bad' thing
Aren't you the guy? that likes to put forth the image of ocean wave following ocean wave
no lines drawn there......are there?
godnotgod
Thou art That
...with something 'good', the combo being another duality.
It's all just a concoction of the ego, based on morality, which includes the dualities of heaven vs. hell, good vs evil, and reward vs punishment, grave vs escape from grave, etc. and round and round you go, Thief, on a never ending wheel. Stop the becoming, stop the escaping and not escaping. Just stop. Then duality will also stop.
The Chinese view:
When you formulate a concept of The Good, you have automatically in that very moment also created a concept of Evil. Having created a concept of Evil, you must now fight Evil, as dictated by the concept of The Good. In fighting Evil, you only make Evil stronger. Therefore, the wise never try to do moral Good.
'Resist not, Evil'
Jesus
godnotgod
Thou art That
But duality itself, regardless of concepts of heaven and hell, existed beforehand, for example, in the minds of men, in the concepts of good and evil; reward and punishment, night and day. However, I would suspect that even heaven and hell concepts existed unofficially long before what you describe.
gnostic
The Lost One
Again, no.
Hell didn't exist, in Judaism until the Hellenistic period, influenced by Greek religion. The non-canonical scriptures only began appearing when they were translating the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek (Septuagint), which included the Apocrypha (Tobit) and the Pseudepigrapha (Enoch, Jubilees, Assumption of Moses)
Literary evidences that there were no earlier versions of these stories before Hellenistic Judaism.
In Revelation, there was supposed to be war in heaven, in which Michael and his army of angels defeated Satan (called Dragon) and his fallen angels, in which Michael was said to have cast them into hell. Such a war don't exist in any work of the Old Testament.
Some Christians interpret Isaiah 14:12, is about Lucifer, but that was a late interpretation, in which St Jerome had translated morning star to "Lucifer".
The word Lucifer never appeared in Hebrew passage (eg Masoretic Text, Dead Sea Scrolls) or in Greek (Septuagint).
Isaiah 14:12 Dead Sea Scrolls said:
If these Christians bother to read Isaiah 14:3-4, then they would realise the "Morning Star" or "Day Star" has to do with the King of Babylon and his empire, not Satan and his followers.
Isaiah 14:3-4 Dead Sea Scrolls said:
Isaiah 14:3-4 New Jewish Publication Society said:
Clearly verse 12 about the morning star or day star is a metaphor for the king of Babylon (14:4), not Satan or Lucifer.
Empires, throughout human history, rise and fall, including the Babylonian empire, so such a prophecy is not a prophecy at all.
If you think such a war in heaven existed before in writings of 1 Enoch and 2 Enoch, then please cite your sources?
Thief
Rogue Theologian
so you quote Jesus.....and you didn't get it.....
and you admit the duality can stop....
I've been posting....it's not even there
godnotgod
Thou art That
I was never alluding to any 'official' or biblical emergence of heaven and hell; good and evil; these have always existed in the mind of man from the beginning.
godnotgod
Thou art That
gnostic
The Lost One
So what?
I never said that good and evil weren't in earlier books.
I am saying that there were no hell in earlier books.
All man live and die, and they were rewarded or punished while they were still alive on earth. No where in the Old Testament does it say they would be rewarded in heaven or punished in hell. Moses was Judaism greatest prophet, and he make no mention of hell being the afterlife for the wicked. All men died.
And in the Old Testament, there were no wars in heaven, no God versus Satan, no fallen angels. Satan is merely doing god's bidding, nevertheless working against his boss. Satan's duty as to test man's faith, as it can be seen in book of Job.
I don't remember the book or chapter, but there is a passage, where god created both light and darkness, and he created good and evil...all in one verse.
I find all the heaven and hell business, to be nothing more than myths, but at the very least, I would try my best to understand what I am reading, even those that I don't believe to be real.
If you have read the Iliad or Lord of the Rings or the Harry Potter series, you don't have to believe in the stories to understand and enjoy them.
I have also read many myths from Greece, Rome, Egypt and Mesopotamia, and enjoys reading them all, but I don't have to believe what I have read to be real.
I think many creationists and theists I am anti-bible, but that's really not true. I actually enjoy reading the books; I just don't have to believe to enjoy or understand the stories. Genesis 1 to 11 are my favourite parts of the whole bible, I simply disagree with Christian creationists.
And since the Bible contain very little historical facts, it is important to understand when each books were written.
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godnotgod
Thou art That
And I am am not alluding to what is recorded in any book as a timeline, but to an idea in men's minds.
When concepts of good and evil are formed, then consequences naturally emerge. Those consequences are comprised of reward or punishment, which are then polarized into concepts of heaven or hell.
Officially, it appears that a hell concept was around as early as the Mesopotamian culture.
The cultures of Mesopotamia (including Sumeria, the Akkadian Empire, Babylonia and Assyria), the Hittites and the Canaanites/Ugarits reveal some of the earliest evidence for the notion of a Netherworld or Underworld. From among the few texts that survive from these civilizations, this evidence appears in the Epic of Gilgamesh,the "Descent of Inanna to the Netherworld," "Baal and the Underworld," the "Descent of Ishtar" and the "Vision of Kummâ."
Hell - Wikipedia
Thief
Rogue Theologian
i deny that and your duality
godnotgod
Thou art That
Of course you do. That's because you're surgically attached to your dogma.
duality
As hinted at by the word "dual" within it, duality refers to having two parts, often with opposite meanings, like the duality of good and evil.
If there are two sides to a coin, metaphorically speaking, there's a duality. Peace and war, love and hate, up and down, and black and white are dualities*. Another term for a duality is a dichotomy.
duality - Dictionary Definition
*****
*...along with heaven and hell.
Thief
Rogue Theologian
i have no dogma
gnostic
The Lost One
Sure, the Mesopotamia have earlier myths of the netherworld. But the Christian myth on the afterlife had borrowed something closer to their own times.
There was a fair size population of Jews living Alexandria, in Ptolemaic Egypt (Hellenistic period). Alexandria was said to be place, where they began translating Hebrew scriptures into Greek.
The netherworld that Ishtar/Inanna visited is where all deceased shades go to, regardless whether the person was good or bad. There are no judgments here in the Sumerian-Babylonian myths.
The whole judging the soul, and the afterlife, come from early Egyptian myth.
Jews living in Greek-speaking Alexandria, would have easily come into contact with Egyptian and Greek religions and their related myths.