"The Christian Marriage"

[km34]

Originally Posted by jorgea

When only hate and control take over, you know something is terribly wrong. People practice what they think or prefer to live by.

This is what bothers me the most. That people CHOOSE to focus on the hateful/judgmental parts and ignore the loving parts.

Granted, some hardcore Christians would probably be equally frustrated by my refusal to use every strict guideline that you can garner from the Bible as my moral code.

[nycindie]

Originally Posted by opalescent

I find frustrating that 'Christian' and 'Christian marriage' have been appropriated by the radical, fundamentalist, evangelical right. (OP, I am not saying you are doing this!) It's to the point that liberal or moderate Christians are effectively erased from a public presence in the US. Christian marriage can look and feel and be different depending if the marriage is Catholic, liberal Episcopalian or Southern Baptist. There will be some commonalities of course but marriage in all of these Christian denominations has different approaches to the purpose of marriage, gender roles if any and so on.

The fundamentalist, evangelical right doesn't even see Catholics as true Christians. There is such a narrowmindedness to the current "denomination-less" sort of Protestant Christian movement where any random guy can start a church and get followers (and money) if he says the "right" thing.

I don't understand how people can let themselves be so brainwashed.

[RunicWolf]

Originally Posted by km34

Granted, some hardcore "Christians" would probably be equally frustrated by my refusal to use every strict guideline that you can garner from the Bible as my moral code.

I'm gonna throw that in quotes for ya.

While I'll admit I'm not a "Hardcore Christian" in my beliefs (God is a disco ball), at least to some, I'd like to think I've hit on a pretty good philosophy that's more "Hardcore Christian" then the radical right. I'm forever rebuffing the radical right with passages from their own book that tell them that what they are doing is wrong and that Christ would rather we hug each other then throw stones and insults.

The moral code that they "go by" is bits and pieces from an old set of laws that forbids even some of the simpler things we do today. Maybe if they went by the whole code, and not parts of it, I'd take them more seriously. After all, how many of them do you see railing against clothing made from two fabrics, or gold/silver jewelry?

What it all boils down to is fear and control. If they can get their people to fear and hate a certain group of people, they keep them under control. If all of a sudden they all actually where Christ-like, how would they steer the flock if there was no wolf at the door any more? Homosexuals have replaced the Romans of biblical times with one important exception: the homosexuals don't actually want to kill you all and tear down the church. All they want is to be accepted by it.

"I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ." - Mahatma Gandhi



I would also like to state I do define myself as a Christian in a loose sense. I have a differing view of God then most, as well as different practices, and that has created some tension before. I've read the bible, front to back, but kept the Old Testament as history, with the relevant, Christian passages (hard to have Christian works without, you know, Christ), in the New Testament as the focus of my study. These are things I've been fighting for years. In some groups there is a deep resentment of Christians as a whole, often treated like the radical right treats people in their sights. I make it a personal mission to reach out to others and show that not all Christians are full of hate and spite, and that, sometimes, we can actually be pretty awesome.

[neegoola]

Originally Posted by RunicWolf

Homosexuals have replaced the Romans of biblical times with one important exception: the homosexuals don't actually want to kill you all and tear down the church. All they want is to be accepted by it.

darling, i can't remember that Romans pulled down christian churches and that they wanted to kill* christians: first reason because there were not so many churches while the roman empire was still "on" (the empire ended about the IV century, while costantino signed in nicea; the church at that time didn't have so much money and people), second reason because romans has always melt their culture (and their pantheon) with culture and religions they did find in other people that they submitted -which were pagan too, everyone fo these groups in their way.
the monotheism of christians, coming to mediterranean side and up and taking people "by" their hunger, came to occupy, to bring a new religion to people that had already theirs, belonging to their geography (i.e. why should i worry about not eating pig if i live among forests? this matters islam, for instance, ah? -"marry just one man, stay at home, be passive, feel opressed, the patriarch rules, give him your dowry. you are a true bitch.". no, thanks.)

*and it is not even true that the christian history was filled up of so many martyrs and saints; two years ago, i think, the church (rome, the vatican, i mean) admitted that more than a half of saints and martyrs on calendars had been invented to fill it up, to give every day a story/mith that the church "needed" to insert in our "literature" -to complete the feudal/courtoise brainwashing about monogamy we suffered.

sorry it was so long, but living 200km from the vatican with what this means on the national AND the international side of it, has such a weight on my true skin..

Originally Posted by RunicWolf

I make it a personal mission to reach out to others and show that not all Christians are full of hate and spite, and that, sometimes, we can actually be pretty awesome.

thank you, i imagine you understand that my "attacks" were directed most of all to the old testament. i didn't mean to offend anyone, if i did i'm sorry.
just i keep on asking: if the basic book, guideline, of the religion you think you chose for yourself is valid for less than a half, why remaining there? there's plenty of re-discovered currents.. what's about the place you have your roots, your blood? Natives? shamans? pagan? wicca?
why a monotheistic, masculine, "foreign" religion? (not talking about studies, but about religion choice).

p.s. hi, RW, i read you a bit in this period, nice to meet you directly here and now

[BrigidsDaughter]

Originally Posted by neegoola

darling, i can't remember that Romans pulled down christian churches and that they wanted to kill* christians: first reason because there were not so many churches while the roman empire was still "on" (the empire ended about the IV century, while costantino signed in nicea; the church at that time didn't have so much money and people), second reason because romans has always melt their culture (and their pantheon) with culture and religions they did find in other people that they submitted -which were pagan too, everyone fo these groups in their way.
the monotheism of christians, coming to mediterranean side and up and taking people "by" their hunger, came to occupy, to bring a new religion to people that had already theirs, belonging to their geography (i.e. why should i worry about not eating pig if i live among forests? this matters islam, for instance, ah? -"marry just one man, stay at home, be passive, feel opressed, the patriarch rules, give him your dowry. you are a true bitch.". no, thanks.)

*and it is not even true that the christian history was filled up of so many martyrs and saints; two years ago, i think, the church (rome, the vatican, i mean) admitted that more than a half of saints and martyrs on calendars had been invented to fill it up, to give every day a story/mith that the church "needed" to insert in our "literature" -to complete the feudal/courtoise brainwashing about monogamy we suffered.

sorry it was so long, but living 200km from the vatican with what this means on the national AND the international side of it, has such a weight on my true skin..


thank you, i imagine you understand that my "attacks" were directed most of all to the old testament. i didn't mean to offend anyone, if i did i'm sorry.
just i keep on asking: if the basic book, guideline, of the religion you think you chose for yourself is valid for less than a half, why remaining there? there's plenty of re-discovered currents.. what's about the place you have your roots, your blood? Natives? shamans? pagan? wicca?
why a monotheistic, masculine, "foreign" religion? (not talking about studies, but about religion choice).

p.s. hi, RW, i read you a bit in this period, nice to meet you directly here and now

I think Runic Wolf and I agree that the New Testament *is* the basic book/ guideline for Christians. Jesus himself said he formed a new covenant with us and that the old laws, the Old Testament is dead. So for us, we remain because we believe in the teachings of Christ, not the teachings of some church. Actually, we left the non-denominational church we were attending several years ago. I also honor my roots, and follow a celtic path. I tend to refer to myself as either a Christian mystic or a Christopagan. Either way, I feel no need to replace Christ with another faith.

[neegoola]

Originally Posted by BrigidsDaughter

I also honor my roots, and follow a celtic path. I tend to refer to myself as either a Christian mystic or a Christopagan. Either way, I feel no need to replace Christ with another faith.

would you feel in saying that, from a strictly psyco-chemical point of View, the Christ and the Goddess/Mother ARE the same?



you never mind that celtic people too were murdered by those who brought Christ Gooddist message through europe? no? ok.

are you not touched by the fact that people who name christ and officiates rites to Him are entering your energy too as you are in the christ calling out his name (i think that the Spirit has very good antennas)? no, very good for you.

have you ever read that we have NO historical prove of jesus existing? that the fact that he has been hidden in the census period is a lie to cover up that he was not there, he's never born; that those who needed a new monotheist religion to follow with monogamic mariage to build up a "new" society (in which we still llive) created a Huge/wise character stealing pieces of myths and other ancient wise people studies here and there, not worrying so much about copiright as the official Ancient priests and priestesses were all dead by christians' hands? adn that, if he were existed one may consider that no gospel says that he was NOT married on the contrary of any other man living there at that time; so it can also be that he was poly, just authorities didn't let people no and darkness is still around there?
is your power based on faith?

IMO mother mary is not the Goddess, it's the only female image that christians had to let be in order to manage to keep power on people and avoid their revolution.

time passes by, but i still don't com-prehend romance and drama around jesus, above all through pagans; of course it must be a limit i have.
BD, feel free of not answering; i could not keep all these words in silence, but i guess i'm not the first one raising a dust about this subject: i will stop it now. live and let live.
i definitely gave my opinion to Km question, fertig.

have a nice sabbath, tomorrow.

[BrigidsDaughter]

Originally Posted by neegoola

would you feel in saying that, from a strictly psyco-chemical point of View, the Christ and the Goddess/Mother ARE the same?

I am not familiar with the psyco-chemical point of view.

Originally Posted by neegoola

you never mind that celtic people too were murdered by those who brought Christ Gooddist message through europe? no? ok.

are you not touched by the fact that people who name christ and officiates rites to Him are entering your energy too as you are in the christ calling out his name (i think that the Spirit has very good antennas)? no, very good for you.

Most religions were not spread as peaceably as we'd like to believe. I am aware that the Church murdered many people in it's "conversion", but I cannot shoulder the burden of responsibility for actions that were not my own. As for the second part of your question, I'm not quite sure I understand what you are asking.... my energy is my own to give; they cannot enter my energy into anything. My own worship is personal and private. I am familiar with the practice of energy raising and know this to be true.

Originally Posted by neegoola

have you ever read that we have NO historical prove of jesus existing? that the fact that he has been hidden in the census period is a lie to cover up that he was not there, he's never born; that those who needed a new monotheist religion to follow with monogamic mariage to build up a "new" society (in which we still llive) created a Huge/wise character stealing pieces of myths and other ancient wise people studies here and there, not worrying so much about copiright as the official Ancient priests and priestesses were all dead by christians' hands? adn that, if he were existed one may consider that no gospel says that he was NOT married on the contrary of any other man living there at that time; so it can also be that he was poly, just authorities didn't let people no and darkness is still around there?
is your power based on faith?

Honestly, I'm having a hard time following your train of thought here. Different groups believe different things, but last I heard, they had found a man who they believe to be Jesus of Nazareth. The main problem with searching for Jesus' birth records is that many times they are looking in the wrong time period. Jesus was born around the time of the census, NOT around when the Catholic church decided to celebrate his birth, in December.

Originally Posted by neegoola

IMO mother mary is not the Goddess, it's the only female image that christians had to let be in order to manage to keep power on people and avoid their revolution.

Some people do revere Mary as a goddess, but I do not. Who am I to tell anyone what to believe or how to worship?

[Quath]

I have talked with several Christians about marriage and the Bible. We ended up talking about gay marriage, Biblical view on marriage and how husbands should treat their wives.

The obvious gay marriage tends to come up, but it is dealt with in a weird way. The Old Testament says to kill them. The New Testament is against it (depending on how you interpret Paul's words). However, there is nothing about gay marriage. The choices seem to be to follow the OT and kill gay people or maybe ignore that and try not to be gay. But it doesn't say anything about how how civil unions are ok while marriage is not. That stuff pretty much just comes out of preacher's biases.

There is a lot of talk about how God wants marriage. However, if you look up how it was originally set up in the Old Testament, a marriage is a man, one or more wives and his concubines and slaves. There are many passages supporting this and many times God blesses such a marriage (like Jacob's or David's). The Biblical view of marriage also had rules like making a raped woman marry her rapist and killing women who are not virgins on their wedding night in front of her parents. As a society we have rejected these things as bad morality even though it is promoted as good in the Bible. But many Christians tend to be in some weird middle ground where such things are just ignored and pretend the Bible only teaches virtues.

Finally, we talked about how a husband treats his wife. This got caught up in how a master treats his slaves. The spin was the same. The husband/wife is equal before God in some spiritual sense. The husband is the head of the house but the woman is equally important in maintaining the household.

However, in the discussion on slavery in which the Christians were trying to justify why slavery was acceptable in the Old Testament, they said that the master/save relationship forms one in which they are equally important before God. The master makes the decisions and the slave carries them out. But they are both equal before God.

So what I took away from this is that it is very easy to rule a wife but spin it as she is equal. Personally, let people fall into the relationship they want. If the woman is better at making decisions, then let her. If they like to share in responsibility, then work on that model. A penis or vagina doesn't make a compelling reason on why one partner should be subjugated to the other.

[Magdlyn]

Originally Posted by neegoola

would you feel in saying that, from a strictly psyco-chemical point of View, the Christ and the Goddess/Mother ARE the same?

I'll play. No, they are definitely NOT the same. Christ and his 2 Marys (Virgin Mother, and the Magdalene/consort) are archetypes, common in Greek/Roman myth of the the time the New Testament were written. In fact, these archetypes are found in earliest written Sumerian myth of centuries earlier.

Early gnostic Christianity expresses this (see the so-called heretical 3rd and 4th century gospels which are readily available online). Early Christianity was feminist, and one of their gospels brings this to light, showing Christ and Mary Magdalene as two parts of a whole, split and constantly questing to be brought back together, a hermaphrodite.

That said, the Old Testament's main thrust is a hatred of Asherah worship in Canaan and a constant struggle to destroy her sacred groves and orgiastic worship. Patriarchy using force to destroy the goddess worship taints the entire religion for me... and makes Abrahamic/Christo-paganism impossible.

you never mind that celtic people too were murdered by those who brought Christ Goddist message through europe? no? ok.

Right. Though the Irish have had some success keeping Brigid alive while vilifying "sinful" women at the same time.

are you not touched by the fact that people who name christ and officiates rites to Him are entering your energy too as you are in the christ calling out his name (i think that the Spirit has very good antennas)? no, very good for you.

The only possible way to "worship Christ" is to understand him as a spirit within each one of us, entirely identical to the Buddha nature of the Far Eastern philosophers.

have you ever read that we have NO historical prove of jesus existing?

Correct. Christ is a literary figure based on other grain gods of the past, such as Osiris and Tammuz and Adonis and many others. The British had their John Barleycorn as well.

he's never born; that those who needed a new monotheist religion to follow with monogamic mariage to build up a "new" society (in which we still llive) created a Huge/wise character stealing pieces of myths and other ancient wise people studies here and there, not worrying so much about copiright as the official Ancient priests and priestesses were all dead by christians' hands?

Right. Hypatia was the last pagan priestess in Rome, killed by the Christians in the 4th century, her skin scraped off with sharp oystershells as she died.

and that, if he were existed one may consider that no gospel says that he was NOT married on the contrary of any other man living there at that time; so it can also be that he was poly, just authorities didn't let people know and darkness is still around there?

Evidence in the gospels represents Christ as mated with Mary Magdalene/Mary of Bethany. It's just been broken up and hidden.

is your power based on faith?

My power is based on knowledge (gnosis), and I don't *believe* anything without data and proof.

IMO mother mary is not the Goddess, it's the only female image that christians had to let be in order to manage to keep power on people and avoid their revolution.

The Virgin Mary is half a goddess, complimented by the sexual, slippery with oil, Mary Magdalene. One is at the womb cave, one is at the tomb cave. Combined, they equal Sophia, Wisdom, the great goddess of the gnostics.

time passes by, but i still don't com-prehend romance and drama around jesus, above all through pagans; of course it must be a limit i have.
BD, feel free of not answering; i could not keep all these words in silence, but i guess i'm not the first one raising a dust about this subject: i will stop it now. live and let live.
i definitely gave my opinion to Km question, fertig.

have a nice sabbath, tomorrow.

Heh, Saturn's Day, or the day of the Sun? And what does either designation have to do with Abraham or Yeshua? Jews celebrate the Sabbath from Friday sundown til Saturday sundown. So did first century Jews. The Romans spread pro-pagan-da, by getting pagans to celebrate the Christ on the day of the pagan Sun god. And to celebrate his resurrection on Ostara/vernal equinox, and his birth on Yule, the winter solstice.

[neegoola]

i came to put together my words for answering here

Originally Posted by BrigidsDaughter

Honestly, I'm having a hard time following your train of thought here.

Who am I to tell anyone what to believe or how to worship?

and to many other open options that BD left open, and i'm very pleased to see that Magdlyn gave a very good anwering, i thank you very much

BD and RW, i was not trying to tell anyone what to do and who to " worship" if this is still for you a valid word for your relationship to Deities; i tryed to explain that it's wise to try to know truth through knowledge together with Feeling and choosing what's ok for us. i really go mad when i see that lies are been told to my sisters and they seem they don't know..

Originally Posted by Magdlyn

Patriarchy using force to destroy the goddess worship taints the entire religion for me... and makes Abrahamic/Christo-paganism impossible.

yes, after agriculture and monotheism came, our whole system changed..it's such a long and powerful speech..

Originally Posted by Magdlyn

The only possible way to "worship Christ" is to understand him as a spirit within each one of us

never happened, darlings, that while you "meditate" or act somehow in your own spiritual way, you may Feel souls to whom you are connected being closer than they are geographically?
once i was in the stones Circle in my sister's garden; i entered, radicated, breath few times and: my sister came outside saying "did you call me?", one of our closest friend/sister called just to say hallo, our friend/sister's cat living with my sister entered the Circle
we are all connected and the vibration (sound, words, are vibrations) of Holy Names put us together.
but: if i call Shiva or Kernunnos i may say that the result is iva "the same" because they are the same.