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What are the books of the bible
~~~ To a flexible thinker ~~~
(54:09)
Human nature
magahubs.com
All religions seem to have similar thoughts
~~~ Question everything one thought one knew ~~~
(13:14)
About God
Philosophers-stone.info Pureblood
Truth
~~~ Will be extremely biblical ~~~
(1:30:26)
Most have difficulties
With its comprehension
Kobak
How can there not be
A relationship between the two
In a choreographed way
To present
As reflection
Becomes relevant
Moving forward
Perspectives
~~~ Can be meaningful ~~~
(55:00)
Foundations have been laid
XandrewX
Lands beyond
Part two
Leaked video images of recipes
~~~ Rebel news reporter arrested ~~~
(11:15)
All over social media
Whatsherface
So much is accepted as reality
Through an unconscious feel or image
Of how things are
Which explains the matrix
Within
Repetition of information long enough
~~~ Will create a belief system ~~~
(25:53)
When belief systems are no longer taken unquestionably
Things will change
David Icke
The Word is that which emanates from G-d.
There is no cultural or religious context.
It can not be edited or censored.
As G-d is the I AM....
IT IS.
With the Source..
Spirit is One...
It is not I who create myself
Rather
I happen to myself
~ Carl Jung ~
Source: C.W. Vol. 11: Psychology and religion
The psychology of the fool
The veil is lifting
~~~ On the final beast system ~~~
(42:09)
They are now stepping out of the shadows
It's right in our faces people
Even the kids are watching it
xandrewx
Where does the road go
~~~ Only time ~~~
(4:50)
Vicious alien klown
Peace in understanding
Means holding the line
To what is
Do not conform
Truth has no fear
Peace in Christ: A cappella cover by Lucca
https://www.bitchute.com/video/tSccaJ9TAEJF/ (3:46)
Spirits are everywhere
https://www.bitchute.com/video/OIb9fylepuPm/ (1:48:41)
$easym watch; PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP RALLY LIVE IN COMMERCE, GA p,b]3/26/22
by RSBN March 17, 2022
https://rsbnetwork.com/video/president-donald-trump-rally-live-in-commerce-ga-3-26-22/
Saturday, March 26, 2022: Join the RSBN team LIVE from Commerce, GA
for all day coverage of President Donald J. Trump’s SAVE AMERICA rally.
President Donald J. Trump, 45th President of the United States of
America, will hold a rally in Commerce, Georgia, on Saturday, March 26,
2022, at 7:00PM EST.
Saturday, March 26, 2022, at 7:00PM EST President Donald J. Trump, 45th
President of the United States of America, Delivers Remarks in support
of David Perdue Candidate for Governor, Herschel Walker Candidate for
U.S. Senate, and other endorsed candidates.
Venue: Banks County Dragway (Formally NHRA International Dragway) 500
East Ridgeway Road Commerce, GA 30529
Timeline of Events: 8:00AM – Parking and Line Opens 2:00PM – Doors Open
and Entertainment Begins 4:00PM – Pre-program Speakers Deliver Remarks
7:00PM – 45th President of the United States Donald J. Trump Delivers
Remarks
Point Roberts Safety; Are you in safe area or you don't want it; Things Are Escalating Very Quickly!
https://youtu.be/ggQzxPWCpgc
What explanation could there be to what it is
Part 1: https://www.bitchute.com/video/l7nA10PtWPcT/ (12:13)
Part 2: https://www.bitchute.com/video/ojMzffElo47A/ (15:27)
Part 3: https://www.bitchute.com/video/6U8mWn4DZhuF/ (16:50)
Part 4: https://www.bitchute.com/video/Nwms4NuF1qDv/ (23:29)
Part 5: https://www.bitchute.com/video/aKGKl4BQDeNf/ (18:03)
For those that have eyes to see
https://www.bitchute.com/video/Q2s7kSfkwl61/ (20:05)
The evidence is overwhelming many lives in danger
A battle to remember
https://www.bitchute.com/video/r5BCZP57bNYq/ (1:00:59)
And We Know
There is no death.. life goes on
https://www.bitchute.com/video/oagQbElhdVse/ (14:16)
DavidIcke
From deep inside, where we are all confined
While we wait
Will fear divide us?
While we are all
In the same room
What is the difference between today and reality
This, will make a difference
If attention, can be paid
Psychology vs. Religion
"Happy is the Man that Feareth Always"
Daniela Kramer and Michael Moore
Abstract
Fundamental contradictions between psychological and religious ideation are illustrated by excerpts from Jewish, Christian and Islamic prayers and hymns. Four substantive areas are discussed: locus of control, self-esteem, social values and the status of the family. In each of these it is shown that religious messages propagated by prayers are diametrically opposed to the goals of humanistic psychology and progressive education.
We often wonder how some scientists are able to reconcile their scientific knowledge with their religious beliefs. Aren't there obvious, blaring contradictions between Bible "truths" and physical anthropology? Doesn't a fundamental belief in providence clash with the efforts of modern medical science? Yet none of these (or similar) inconsistencies are as pervasive as the chasm between religious vs. psychological ideation. Unlike some fields of more limited application, psychology touches upon everything that a person thinks, feels or does. In what follows, we shall pinpoint some of the more obvious difficulties that result whenever a psychological touchstone is applied to monotheistic religious percepts. Of the scores of relevant topics offering an opportunity to demonstrate the gap between psychology and religion, we have selected four; several others are treated in Moore & Kramer, 2000 (see also Moore, 2000). The branch of psychology we use in this discussion is mostly, though not exclusively, humanistic psychology; for a representation of religious thought we have perused several Jewish prayer books. For the sake of comparison, we shall also present texts from Christian (e.g., Catholic, Anglican and Baptist) and Islamic prayers and hymns. Our method of analysis is drawn from orientational inquiry (see orienting theory in Carspecken & Apple, 1992). This approach acknowledges and makes explicit the theoretical perspective of the researchers that guides the inquiry from its outset.
The following inquiry is necessarily limited; additional facets of the conflict between psychology and religion are beyond the scope of the present thesis. We shall only mention in passing that an endless number of religious practices, whether found in so-called primitive religions[1] or in highly developed ones[2], would be classified as neurotic behaviors aimed at the temporary reduction of anxiety were it not for their illustrious nexus. (Cf. Fromm's, 1977, p. 327, concept of the 'pathology of normalcy,' according to which a widely shared pathology is not experienced as pathology.) Radcliffe-Brown's analysis goes a step further, associating religious ideation with the creation of that anxiety which such practices are designed to alleviate[3]: "While one anthropological theory is that magic and religion give men confidence, comfort and a sense of security, it could equally well be argued that they give men fears and anxieties from which they would otherwise be free" (quoted by Levi-Strauss, 1963, p. 67). To what extent these "fears and anxieties" turn into a clinically identifiable disorder is another matter. As we have stated elsewhere (Moore & Kramer, 2000), the research on religiosity and psychopathology is contradictory. In several studies higher religiosity is associated with increased psychopathology (e.g., Kaldestad, 1996; Lewis, 1998; Quiles & Bybee, 1997), while in others there is either a lack of relationship (e.g., Pfeifer & Waelty, 1995), or a positive correlation with various desirable outcomes (e.g., Blaine & Crocker, 1995; Jensen, Jensen & Wiederhold, 1993).
In the present analysis we do not intend to argue about the proper interpretation of prayers. Historically and philosophically, it is edifying to differentiate between the authentic faith of the early Christians and "the ritualistic, nonexperiential activity so characteristic of churches today" (Harris, 1973, p. 229; see also Phillips, 1965, for a similar distinction, as well as Erikson 1971, p. 83, for his criticism of "organized religion"). Psychologically, however, this is an artificial distinction: Millions of believers (among them a large number of fundamentalists, sticking to the letter of the text) are unlikely to engage in theological arguments when they recite, probably thousands of times, any of the sentences quoted below (see Moore & Kramer, 2000).
Locus of Control
Both humanistic psychology and progressive educational theory promote an internal locus of control. Individuals are said to have an internal locus if they believe that they control their destiny and attribute their successes and failures to their own ability. Such individuals tend to take more responsibility for their behavior than those who have an external locus of control. The latter believe that they are the victims of circumstances; luck and fate play a large role in their lives. Research has consistently shown that this acquired personality trait is involved in many important aspects of one's life, and that, in general, successful adjustment is associated with an internal locus of control (e.g., Findley & Cooper, 1983; Lefcourt 1982; Presson & Benassi, 1996). What type of locus of control is advocated and likely to be developed by a person who repeats one of the following sentences hundreds of times?
"May it be thy will, O Lord our God and God of our fathers, that we may keep thy statutes in this world" (Sephath Emeth, p. 80).
"I can of mine own self do nothing.... I seek not my own will, but the will of the Father which has sent me" (John 5:30).
"They should not do their own will, but God's" (St. Cyprian in Paths of the Spirit, 2000).
"We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts" (Book of Common Prayer, 1968, p. 3).
"And it is not for a believer, man or woman, to have any choice in their affairs, when God and His Apostle have decreed a matter" (Koran 33:36).
In each of the above the believer forcefully rejects the possibility of exercising his or her own will: One's course of life is directed by an external source. Once acquired and internalized, it is highly questionable whether individuals subscribing to such an orientation can contribute to anything but the development of an external locus of control in their children.
Self-Esteem
A favorable perception of one's own self, i.e., positive self-esteem, is probably the most precious of our psychological commodities. To feel good about oneself is a prerequisite of mental health, while a lack of self-esteem is a corollary of psychological maladjustment (Brockner & Hulton, 1978; Brown, 1991). Such valued outcomes as self-actualization and healthy communication skills are regarded as dependent on positive self-esteem, which is directly related to academic ability, scholastic achievement and occupational status (Bachman & O'Malley, 1977). Like locus of control, self-esteem is a product of early experiences, greatly influenced by the feedback one receives from significant others during childhood. (Cf. looking-glass self in Cooley, 1902). Yet look at what religious texts promote:
"O my God, before I was formed I was nothing worth, and now that I have been formed I am but as though I had not been formed. Dust I am in my life: how much more so in my death" (Sephath Emeth, p. 311).
"[A]nd I am just a lump of earth, and a worm; dust from the ground, a cup full of shame, a fleeting shadow, a breeze that goes and does not return" (Assembly, 1977, p. 253).
"All praise is for Allah almighty, before whose grandeur everything is helpless, ... before whose honour everything is insignificant" (Azam, 1984, #4).
These prayers seem to prefer believers who feel small and worthless, in contrast with an almighty deity. Analogical power differentials are often observed within pathogenic family systems, where one spouse, parent or sibling aggrandizes him- or herself by disparaging another.
Social Values
Pluralism, equality, and democracy are social values commensurate with those of psychology in general and humanistic psychology in particular. At the positive end of a continuum, ranging from adjustment to pathology, lies the acceptance of the different, a cornerstone of modern, progressive societies. At the other, pathogenic extreme, we find the particular or institutionalized belittling of others at both the individual and the group levels. Compare these social values with the discriminatory messages of the following excerpts:
"It is our duty to praise the Lord ... since he hath not made us like the nations of other lands" (Sephath Emeth, p. 81).
"The more flesh, the more worms; the more property, the more anxiety; the more women, the more witchcraft" (from Ethics of the Fathers, in Sephath Emeth, p. 233).
"O Believers! Take not the Jews or Christians as friends" (Koran 5:56).
"Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife" (Ephesians 5: 22-23).
"Men are superior to women on account of the qualities with which God hath gifted the one above the other" (Koran 4:37).
"And when the sacred months are passed, kill those who join other gods with God wherever ye shall find them; and seize them, besiege them, and lay wait for them with every kind of ambush: but if they shall convert, and observe prayer, and pay the obligatory alms, then let them go their way, for God is Gracious, Merciful" (Koran 9:5).
An objection to pluralism and to the relativeness of experience is fundamental to many religions. According to Eliade (1966, p. 79; see also Eliade, 1957), for the religious, belief in an absolute reality is juxtaposed with the "unreality" of the irreligious world. Yet the idea of "one true way" is troublesome in several respects. First, it produces anxiety before one deviates or flounders, and guilt-feelings following it. Second, it brings about intolerance. By encouraging dogmatism and narrow-mindedness, religion transmits a regressive message in today's pluralistic, human-rights-oriented society. Third, it runs counter to normal cognitive development, in which simple dichotomies (good or bad, black or white) gradually give room to complex categorizations.
The Status of the Family
Many more substantive points of discrepancy between psychological concepts of mental health and religious values can be pointed out, such as religions' rejection of the body, their proneness to guilt production, and their cultivation of various defense mechanisms (mainly repression and compensation). Since we are intensively involved in family therapy, we have chosen to conclude our analysis with a brief description of the relative importance attributed to the family by the two contending approaches: psychological vs. religious.
The crucial role of the family in the shaping of individuals is strongly affirmed by such leading personality theorists as Freud, Adler, and Erikson. The family functions as a primary group where individuals learn interpersonal communication skills; it is the source of one's emotional, cognitive and social assets. Close and intimate couplehood is a prerequisite for healthy family structure; significant and supportive parenthood is the basis for the next generation's readiness to face the challenges of the extrafamilial environment. (See, for example, the work of Minuchin, Lee & Simon, 1996, or Satir, Stachowiak & Taschman, 1975.) The following excerpts, however, alienate individuals from their significant others by belittling them, and instill in them a psychologically odious dependence on the deity:
"Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who hast not made me a woman" (Sephath Emeth, p. 10).
"If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:26).
"He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me (Matthew 10:37; see also Mark 10:29-30).
"Virginity and widowhood, and the modest restraints in secret on the marriagebed, and the one only adoption of it, are fragrant offerings to God paid out of the good services of the flesh" (Tertullian in Paths, 2000).
"O God the love of Thee and the love of Thine Apostle are dearer to me than myself and my family" (Padwick, 1961, p. 148).
When put side by side with some contradictory statements, such messages create a double-bind. (See, for example Trujillo, 2000, for the Vatican's position on the family, and especially his attack on de facto unions unions). On the one hand, religions promote the sanctity of the family; on the other, they belittle both couplehood and parenthood, and openly downgrade the value of intimate relationships within the family. The formal, external shell is regarded as more valuable than the deep ties within, for the latter are likely to compete with believers' love for the deity.
Conclusion
The verse quoted in the title of this article comes from Proverbs 28:14:
"Happy is the man that feareth always."
While a few translators have corrupted the source so as to make clear who is to be feared (such as the Revised Berkeley Version, which reads "Blessed is the man who is always reverent," or Luther's "Wohl dem, der Gott allewege fuerchtet!"), most have been faithful to the Hebrew original, letting this often repeated sentence instill exactly the kind of general timorousness which progressive educators try to eradicate. The contrast between this verse, with its invitation of anxiety, and the psychological recognition of anxiety as debilitating, may serve as a brief reminder of our thesis.
Religions and religious texts are notoriously heterogeneous, enabling their perusers to find in them support for practically any thesis. We are well aware of the messages of peace, love, brotherhood and justice contained in several religious sources, alongside with missives promoting warfare, strife, intolerance and separatism. Though this inconsistency is, in itself, highly problematic (see the danger of double-binds above, as well as Moore, 1999), our current effort is true to our orientational inquiry: We have shown that religious texts contain, inter alia, blatantly pathogenic messages.
In conclusion, the discipline of psychology contradicts religious ideation. As suggested above, examples could be multiplied: Many more basic tenets of psychology are diametrically opposed by a practically endless list of religious statements. Numerous ecumenically driven attempts at a reconciliation of these two approaches notwithstanding, psychology is founded on a view of the human world which is incompatible with the ground rules of religion.
Notes
[1] "On one day of the year the Bhotiyas of Juhar, in the Western Himalayas, take a dog, intoxicate him with spirits and ... chase and kill him with sticks and stones, and believe that, when they have done so, no disease or misfortune will visit the village during the year" (Frazer, 1890/1959, # 458).
[2] The New Year's Rite of Caparoth (i.e., Ransoms) consists of saying three times, holding the fowl above one's head: "I have found a ransom. This is my change, this is my compensation, this is my redemption. This hen (cock for males) is going to be killed, while I shall enter upon a good, happy and peaceful life" (Sephath Emeth, p. 301).
[3] See also the following comment by psychotherapist Karpman (1963, p. 328): "'Sin' is a commodity of the Church without which it cannot more exist than a chain grocery store can get along without canned soup."
References
Assembly of Rabbis of the Reform Synagogues of Great Britain (Ed.). Forms of Prayer for Jewish Worship (7th ed.). London: Reform Synagogues of Great Britain, 1977.
Azam, Umar. Prayers in Islam. Published by the author, 1984.
Bachman, J. G. & O'Malley, P. M. "Self-Esteem in Young Men: A Longitudinal Analysis of the Impact of Educational and Occupational Attainment." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 35 (1977): 365-380.
Blaine, B. & Crocker, J. "Religiousness, Race, and Psychological Well-Being--Exploring Social-Psychological Mediators." Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 21 (1995): 1031-1041.
The Book of Common Prayer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968.
Brockner, J. & Hulton, A. J. "How to Reverse the Vicious Cycle of Low Self-Esteem." Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 14 (1978): 564-578.
Brown, J. D. "Accuracy and Bias in Self-Knowledge." In C. R. Snyder & D. F. Forsyth (Eds.), Handbook of Social and Clinical Psychology: The Health Perspective. New York: Pergamon, 1991.
Carspecken, P. F. & Apple, F. "Critical Qualitative Research." Ch. 11 in M. D. LeCompte, W. L. Millroy & J. Preissle (Eds.), The Handbook of Qualitative Research in Education. San Diego: Academic Press, 1990.
Cooley, C. Human Nature and the Social Order. New York: Scribner, 1902.
Eliade, M. Das Heilige und das Profane. Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1957.
Eliade, M. Kosmos und Geschichte. Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1966.
Erikson, E. H. Identity--Youth and Crisis. London: Faber & Faber, 1971.
Findley, M. J. & Cooper, H. M. (1983). "Locus of Control and Academic Achievement: A Literature Review." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 44 (1983): 419-427.
Frazer, J. The New Golden Bough, rev. by T. H. Gaster. New York: New American Library, 1890, 1959.
Fromm, Erich. The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1977.
Harris, Thomas A. I'm OK--You're OK. London: Pan, 1973.
Jensen, L. C., Jensen, J., & Wiederhold, T. "Religiosity, Denomination, and Mental-Health Among Young Men and Women." Psychological Reports 72 (1993): 1157-1158.
Kaldestad, E. "The Empirical Relationships Between Standardized Measures of Religiosity and Personality Mental Health." Scandinavian Journal of Psychology 37 (1996): 205-220.
Karpman, Benjamin. The Sexual Offender and His Offenses. New York: Julian Press, 1963.
Lefcourt, H. M. Locus of Control: Current Trends in Theory and Research. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 1982.
Levi-Strauss, Claude. Totemism, Boston: Beacon, 1963.
Lewis, C. A. "Cleanliness is Next to Godliness: Religiosity and Obsessiveness." Journal of Religion and Health 37 (1998): 49-61.
Mayhew, Kevin (Ed.). Hymns Old and New (Rev. ed.). Rattlesden, Suffolk: Kevin Mayhew, 1989.
Minuchin, Salvador, Lee, Wai-Young, & Simon, George M. Mastering Family Therapy. New York: Wiley, 1996.
Moore, Michael. "Problematic and Pathogenic Communication Patterns in Prayers." Et Cetera--A Review of General Semantics 56 (1999): 192-203.
Moore, Michael. "A Psychological Reading of Some Religious Hymns." American Rationalist, Vol. 44, No. 3 (2000): 10-13.
Moore, Michael & Kramer, Daniela. "We are Too Weak to Walk Unaided: A Family Therapist View of the Pathogenic Aspects of Prayer." Secular Web Modern Library, 2000. /library/modern/michael_moore/weak.html.
Padwick, Constance E. Muslim Devotion. London: SPCK, 1961.
Paths of the Spirit. 2000. http://www.vatican.va/spirit/documents/spirit_20000818_cipriano_en.html.
Pfeifer, S., & Waelty, U. "Psychopathology and Religious Commitment--A Controlled Study." Psychopathology 28 (1995): 70-77.
Phillips, D. Z. The Concept of Prayer. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1965.
Presson, P. K. & Benassi, V. A. "Locus of Control Orientation and Depressive Symptomatology: A Meta-Analysis." Journal of Social Behavior and Personality 11 (1996): 201-212.
Quiles, Z. N., & Bybee, J. "Chronic and Predispositional Guilt: Relations to Mental Health, Prosocial Behavior, and Religiosity." Journal of Personality Assessment 68 (1997): 104-126.
Satir, Virginia, Stachowiak, J., & Taschman, H. A. Helping Families to Change. New York: Aronson, 1975.
Sephath Emeth (Speech of Truth) Prayer Book. New York: Hebrew Publishing Company, n.d.
Trujillo, Alfonso L. Family, Marriage and "De Facto" Unions. The Vatican: Pontifical Council for the Family, 2000.
Copyright ©2005 Daniela Kramer, Michael Moore, and Internet Infidels, Inc. All rights reserved.
The 23rd Psalm (A present-day Lamentation)
The politician is my shepherd...I am in want;
He maketh me to lie down on park benches,
He leadeth me beside still factories;
He disturbeth my soul.
Yea, thou I walk through the valley of the shadow of depression and recession,
I anticipate no recovery, for he is with me.
He prepareth a reduction in my salary in the presence of my enemies;
He anointeth my small income with great losses;
My expenses runneth over.
Surely unemployment and poverty shall follow me all the days of my life,
And I shall dwell in a mortgaged house forever.
Courtesy of
~ Pastor Wayne Teel ~
The Global Consciousness Project
Coherent consciousness creates order in the world
Subtle interactions link us with each other and the Earth
Meaningful Correlations in Random Data
Right down the line
I just wanna say
If America is destroyed
Holds true in multiples
Today the tide is changing
May truth be the guide
And the guiding light
Show the way..
A more certain way to attack religion is by favor,
by the comforts of life, by the hope of wealth;
not by what reminds one of it, but by what makes one forget it;
not by what makes one indignant, but by what makes men lukewarm,
when other passions act on our souls, and those which religion inspires are silent.
In the matter of changing religion,
State favors are stronger than penalties..
~ Baron de Montesquieu ~
Source.. The Spirit of the Laws (1748)
In order to understand elementals, it is critical that you realize the nature of reality (the matrix).
Your mind (consciousness), whilst attracted to your physical body, also exists in its own individual world.
The following diagram explains these worlds. @6:00
(pause video to digest)
The belief in government is essentially a religion
The most dangerous and destructive religion ever..
Before Freedom
Chapter 8: President John F. Kennedy
New evidence has recently been discovered relevant to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy that will show who actually planned and carried out his murder. This new evidence will show that the Warren Commission report, which is the government’s final word on the assassination, is a complete cover-up of what actually took place. The following analysis of the assassination will include several events and situations that might not appear to be related to this murder, but will show the extensive intrigue behind it.
While riding in an open motorcade, President Kennedy was shot in Dealy Plaza on Friday, Nov. 22, 1963 at 12:30 p.m. The crowds were cheering. There was a great scene of rejoicing as the president of the United States made his way through downtown Dallas. It seemed as if everyone was smiling in those waving thousands. But presently, shots rang out, and President Kennedy, a short while later, lay dead at the Parkland Memorial Hospital.
This case has baffled people for the last four decades, and is one of the ten most unsolved mysteries of the last one hundred years. The Warren Commission was set up to investigate the assassination, and they concluded that a lone gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald, did it. They claimed that Oswald shot President Kennedy from the Dallas Book Depository building behind his car. But there is rather overwhelming evidence now that disproves the Warren Commission report and points to a massive cover-up and conspiracy behind the assassination. Two days after President Kennedy’s death Jack Ruby murdered Oswald. Why? Was it to keep him from talking?
There were basically two main reasons why Kennedy was assassinated. These reasons are involved with the Vietnam War, and the Federal Reserve Bank.
President Kennedy sent two aides to Vietnam, McNamara and Taylor, who gathered intelligence that convinced him that the United States needed to withdraw from Vietnam. Their memo to the president was entitled, Report of McNamara-Taylor Mission to South Vietnam.
With this report in hand, President Kennedy had what he wanted. It contained the essence of decisions he had to make. He had to get re-elected to finish programs set in motion during his first term; he had to get Americans out of Vietnam. — Col. L. Fletcher Prouty, JFK: The CIA, Vietnam, and The Plot to Assassinate John F. Kennedy, Carol Publishing Group, p. 264.
Fletcher Prouty tells us that,
On Nov. 22, 1963, the government of the United States was taken over by the superpower group that wanted an escalation of the warfare in Indochina, and a continuing military buildup for generations to come. — Ibid. p. 264.
As President Kennedy began to de-escalate American involvement in Southeast Asia, this superpower group was planning his murder. Following Kennedy’s assassination, they made sure that America would remain in Vietnam for a long time.
Who was this group? Who wanted us in South Vietnam and why? When we answer these questions, the people behind the assassination of JFK will be known.
Avro Manhattan was a British journalist who worked for many years for the British Broadcasting Company. He has written at least 15 books on the role of the Roman Catholic Church in world affairs. In his book, Vietnam: Why Did We Go?, he tells us,
The political and military origin of the war of Vietnam has been described with millions of written and spoken words. Yet, nothing has been said about one of the most significant forces which contributed to its promotion, namely, the role played by religion, which in this case, means the part played by the Catholic Church, and by her diplomatic counterpart, the Vatican. Their active participation is not mere speculation. It is an historical fact as concrete as the presence of the U.S., or the massive guerilla resistance of Asian communism. The activities of the last two have been scrutinized by thousands of books, but the former has never been assessed, not even in a summarized form. The Catholic Church must be considered as a main promoter in the origin, escalation and prosecution of the Vietnamese conflict. From the very beginning this religious motivation helped set in motion the avalanche that was to cause endless agonies in the Asiatic and American continents.
The price paid was immense: thousands of billions of dollars; the mass dislocation of entire populations; political anarchy; military devastation on an unprecedented scale; the disgrace upon the civilized world; the loss of thousands upon thousands of young Asian and American lives. Last but not least, the wounding, mutilation, and death of hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children. The tragedy of Vietnam will go down in history as one of the most pernicious deeds of the contemporary alliance between politics and organized religion.
Factors of a political, ideological, economic, and military nature played no mean role in the unfolding of the war, but the religion of the Catholic Church was one of its main instigators. From the beginning her role has been minimized when not obliterated altogether. Concrete facts however, cannot be wiped away so easily, and it is these which we shall now scrutinize, even if briefly. — Avro Manhattan, Vietnam: Why Did We Go?, Chick Publications, 1984, p. 13, emphasis added.
The publisher’s foreword to this book, page 3, states:
Avro Manhattan, world authority on Vatican politics, has blown the cover on the real reason our boys suffered and died in Vietnam. He traces their death to the Vatican’s passionate desire to make Asia Roman Catholic. Vatican agents hatched and plotted the Vietnam War. American soldiers were serving the Vatican in their desperate struggle to survive the jungles, the hell of warfare, pain, death and destruction. It was all engineered by…her Jesuits. — Ibid. p. 3, emphasis added.
Many, especially Catholics, may take exception to the facts stated in the previous quotes, but we must present the facts as they are and as they happened. When this book talks about the Catholic Church, it is not speaking of the faithful church members who know nothing about things like this. It is speaking of the rulers of the Vatican and their Order of the Jesuits.
According to Avro Manhattan, the war in Vietnam was fought because the Vatican wanted to create a power base in Southeast Asia from which to take over all of Southeast Asia and then all of Asia. The following quotes are from this same book.
Ho Chi Minh began before World War Two to maneuver for a communist Vietnam. He received help from the U.S. against the Japanese but used that aid to consolidate his hold on the highlands of Tonkin. In August, 1945 he marched into Hanoi and set up the provisional government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. A master strategist, he cooperated in the transplanting of nearly a million Catholic North Vietnamese into the South…After the election of Pope John the 23rd in 1958 and the turn of the Vatican from the Cold War toward cooperation with Marxism, Ho Chi Minh made a secret deal with Pope John which eventually led to full control of the country by the North. — Ibid. p. 177.
President Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam was a practicing Catholic who ruled South Vietnam with an iron fist. He was a genuine believer in the evil of Communism and the uniqueness of the Catholic Church. He had originally been planted in the presidency by Cardinal Spellman and Pope Pius the 12th. He transformed the presidency into a virtual Catholic dictatorship, ruthlessly crushing his religious and political opponents. Many Buddhist monks committed suicide by fire, burning themselves alive in protest against his religious persecutions. His discriminatory persecution of non-Catholics, particularly Buddhists, caused the disruption of the government and mass desertions in the army. This eventually led to U.S. military intervention in South Vietnam.
In this terrorization he was aided by his two Catholic brothers, the Chief of the Secret Police and the Archbishop of Hue. — Ibid. p. 56, (emphasis added).
Cardinal Francis Spellman, the archbishop of New York, was the key man that brought America into the conflict.
He was active in persuading the U.S. to select Diem and support him as president of South Vietnam. He was made Vicar General of the U.S. Armed Forces and called the GIs the ‘Soldiers of Christ’ [meaning soldiers for the Catholic Church] in his frequent visits to the Vietnam war front. — Ibid. p. 71.
The Vatican played both sides against each other in this Vietnamese Civil War. They controlled Diem in the South while advising and making secret deals with Ho Chi Minh in the North. Thus, however the war turned out, the Vatican would triumph and have control in Vietnam. President Kennedy’s attempt to halt the bloodbath incurred the undying wrath of the instigators of the war — the Jesuits of the papacy.
President Kennedy began to de-escalate America’s involvement in Vietnam shortly before his death. The day after his brutal murder, the following occurred:
At 8:30 a.m., Saturday, the 23rd of November, 1963, the limousine carrying CIA director John McCone pulled into the White House grounds…. He was also there to transact one piece of business prior to becoming involved in all the details entailed in a presidential transition — the signing of National Security Memorandum 278, a classified document which immediately reversed John Kennedy’s decision to de-escalate the war in Vietnam. The effect of Memorandum 278 would give the Central Intelligence Agency carte blanche to proceed with a full-scale war in the Far East…. In effect, as of November 23, 1963, the Far East would replace Cuba as the thorn in America’s side. It would also create a whole new source of narcotics for the Mafia’s worldwide markets. — Robert Morrow, First Hand Knowledge, Shapolsky Publishers, p. 249.
The day after Kennedy was killed, the decision to stop America’s involvement in Vietnam was reversed and the Vatican’s program continued.
Morrow’s statement also revealed another reason for the Jesuits wanting to continue the war; they would make billions of dollars in the international drug trade. For the last four centuries, the Jesuits had been involved in the Far East drug trade and they certainly did not want to lose this opportunity, even if it meant the lives of millions of people!
Since the original Jesuit mission had established itself in Beijing in 1601, the Society of Jesus [the Jesuits] had held the key to the Far East Trade — including the drug trade. — assorted authors, Dope, Inc.: The Book that Drove Kissenger Crazy, Executive Intelligence Review, p. 117, (emphasis added).
The Jesuit controlled politicians in Washington wanted to continue the war in Vietnam. They wanted to create a Catholic power in Southeast Asia. They wanted to maintain their control of the international drug market that they had held for 400 years in the Far East. When President Kennedy stood in their way, he had to be removed. The Jesuits had John Kennedy assassinated.
The second reason for Kennedy’s assassination was his intention to eliminate the Federal Reserve. Colonel James Gritz explains,
When Kennedy called for a return of America’s currency to the gold standard, and the dismantling of the Federal Reserve System — he actually minted non-debt money that does not bear the mark of the Federal Reserve; when he dared to actually exercise the leadership authority granted to him by the U.S. Constitution…Kennedy prepared his own death warrant. It was time for him to go. — Colonel James Gritz, Called to Serve: Profiles in Conspiracy from John F. Kennedy to George Bush, Lazarus Publishing, pp 511, 512.
President Kennedy was attempting to dismantle the Federal Reserve System, which is the central bank of the United States, a creation of the Jesuits.
The Constitution of the United States gives to Congress the power to coin money. If the U. S. Congress coined its own money as the Constitution directs, it would not have to pay the hundreds of billions of dollars of interest that it now pays each year to the bankers for the national debt, for money that came out of nothing This is why Kennedy began to issue U.S. government money that was free of debt to replace the Federal Reserve dollars we have been using.
We have seen in previous chapters who was responsible for the creation of the Federal Reserve Bank, and the unconstitutional operation of this bank that steals money from U.S. citizens. The Jesuits, if you will remember from chapter two, tried to assassinate President Andrew Jackson for discontinuing the central bank. They unfortunately succeeded in assassinating Kennedy for trying to do the same thing. The Jesuits uses the wealth created by the Federal Reserve to finance their murderous deeds.
John Kennedy incurred the deadly wrath of the Jesuits for daring to act as the President and not as their puppet.
But you say, “Wait a minute. Kennedy was a Roman Catholic. He was the only Catholic president we ever had.” That is exactly right. Even though Kennedy was Catholic, he put the welfare of the United States before the desires of the papacy. He was not a Jesuit.
Here is a very interesting section from the secret instructions of the Jesuit Order, written by their founder, Ignatius Loyola.
Finally, let all with such artfulness gain the ascendance over princes, noblemen and the magistrates of every place that they may be ready at our beck and call, even to sacrifice their nearest relatives and most intimate friends when we say it is for our interest and our advantage. — W. C. Brownlee, Secret Instructions of the Jesuits, American and Foreign Christian Union, p. 47.
We see here that if the Jesuit Order says that a person is to die, it doesn’t matter if it is your best friend, if it is your father or your brother; they are to be killed. What a dastardly, evil, and wicked system the Jesuit Order of the Roman Catholic Church is.
Do you think that the Catholic Church isn’t that powerful? Do you think this makes them out to be too strong? Avro Manhattan tells us:
Cardinal Francis Spellman, of New York , was the military vicar of the American Armed Forces in Vietnam. He was also the unofficial link between the pope and John Foster Dulles, the U.S. Secretary of State and therefore the Secretary’s brother, Alan, who was the head of the CIA. — Avro Manhattan, Murder in the Vatican, Ozark Books, pp. 35, 36.
Thus, through Cardinal Francis Spellman, the Roman Catholic Church and the Jesuits had access to and control over John Foster Dulles, the Secretary of State, and John Foster Dulles’ brother, Alan, who was the head of the Central Intelligence Agency. Those two departments, along with the FBI, were in the hands of Cardinal Francis Spellman, the head Cardinal of the Catholic Church in New York.
The Catholic Church in the USA, financially can stand up to all the giant trusts of America. Politically, she looms ever larger in the White House, in the Senate and in the Congress. She is a force in the Pentagon, a secret agent in the FBI and the most subtly intangible prime mover of the S.S. wheel within a wheel; the Central Intelligence Agency. — Ibid. p. 271.
Jean Hill was also a witness to the Kennedy murder. In her book, entitled JFK: The Last Dissenting Witness, she states that during a conversation her friend, J.B., who was one of the policeman in the motorcade that was with Kennedy, told her,
“Well, while Kennedy was busy shaking hands with all the well wishers at the airport, Johnson’s Secret Service people came over to the motorcycle cops and gave us a bunch of instructions. The darnedest thing was they told us the parade route through Dealy Plaza was being changed.” “Changed? How,” Jean Hill asks. “It was originally supposed to go straight down Main Street.” J.B. said, “but they said for us to disregard that. Instead we were told to make the little jog on Houston and cut over to Elm.” Jean felt her mouth drop open. “If you’d stayed on Main Street, Kennedy might’ve been completely out of range of whoever was shooting at him. My ‘shooter’ behind the wooden fence definitely wouldn’t have had much chance to hit him from there.” J.B. stared at her with a straight face. “Maybe that’s why they changed the route,” he said bluntly. “But that’s not all. They also ordered us into the craziest escort formation I’ve ever seen. Ordinarily, you bracket the car with four motorcycles, one on each fender. But this time they told the four of us assigned to the president’s car there’d be no forward escorts. We were to stay well to the back and not let ourselves get ahead of the car’s rear wheels under any circumstances. I’d never heard of a formation like that much less ridden in one, but they said they wanted to let the crowds have an ‘unrestricted view’ of the president. Well, I guess somebody got an unrestricted view of him all right.” — Jean Hill, JFK: The Last Dissenting Witness, Pelican Publishing, p. 113.
So, the motorcade route through Dallas was changed, and the reason given was so that the people would have an excellent view of the president of the United States. The Jesuit assassins sure did!
Other peculiar things happened too. Lyndon Johnson, the vice president of the United States, was apparently having a real problem. Continuing with Jean Hill’s conversation with her friend in the motorcade,
“What are you talking about?” Jean asked innocently. “I don’t understand.” “My friends in the motorcade say he started ducking down in the car a good 30 or 40 seconds before the first shots were fired. I’d say that’s just a little peculiar wouldn’t you?” “Oh, come on, J.B,” Jean Hill said, thinking he had to be joking. “They obviously weren’t serious, were they?” “As far as I know they were dead serious.” J.B. said. “One of them told Maguire that he saw Johnson duck down even before the car turned onto Houston Street, and he sure as ____ wasn’t laughing when he said it.” “Well, maybe Johnson just dropped something on the floor and bent over to pick it up. I mean there can be a simple explanation.” “Maybe so.” J.B. said. “I don’t claim to know what his reasons were but this guy said it sure looked like he was expecting bullets to be flying. When I heard it, it made me start wondering about a whole lot of other stuff too.” — Ibid. pp. 114-116.
Lyndon Johnson was acting as if he knew bullets would soon be flying, ducking down repeatedly before the shots went off.
Texas law prohibits people that die in the state of Texas from being removed without an autopsy. Leading doctors at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas were held at gunpoint as the body of John F. Kennedy was removed from that hospital without an autopsy. Why? There was overwhelming evidence that there was more than one bullet that killed JFK. There was overwhelming evidence that the Warren Commission report was nothing but lies. There were many bullets that the doctors would have found that would have shattered the idea that Lee Harvey Oswald was the loan gunman. That is why an autopsy was not allowed in Texas. That is why Kennedy’s body was shipped to Washington D.C. where a federal autopsy could be made, where they could fabricate the evidence to support the lies of the Warren commission. There was a Jesuit led conspiracy to kill JFK and they didn’t want the evidence to get out, no matter how many people had to be killed in the process.
If there really were several bullets fired that day in Dealy Plaza, then certainly the car would have contained evidence of this. And so it did.
Three days after the assassination, Carl Renas, head of security at the Dearborn Division of the Ford Motor Company, drives the limousine, helicopters hovering over head, from Washington to Cincinnati. In doing so, he noticed several bullet holes, the most notable being the one in the windshield’s chrome molding strip, which he said was clearly ‘a primary strike’ and ‘not a fragment,’ The limousine was taken by Renas to Hess and Eisenhart of Cincinnati where the chrome molding was replaced. The Secret Service told Renas to “keep your mouth shut.” — Charles Crenshaw, JFK: Conspiracy of Silence, Penguin Books USA, p. 106.
Renas was the head of security for the Dearborn Division of Ford Motor Co. Who was the head of that division in 1963 that dispatched Renas for the task of his life?
Henry Ford II says today that the first time he can remember meeting Lee Iacocca was in November 1960 when he summoned the young salesman to his office to tell them he was giving him command of the Ford division [at Dearborn]. — Robert Lacey, Ford, the Men and the Machine, Ballantine Books, p. 531.
Lee Iacocca was the man in charge of the Dearborn Division of the Ford Motor Company, who dispatched Carl Renas to go to Washington D.C. to get the car that JFK was in when he was assassinated. Iacocca was the head of the Dearborn Division until he became President of Ford Motor Company in 1970. Iacocca was part of the cover-up because he suppressed evidence concerning JFK’s assassination.
What connection does he have with the Catholic Church? In Iacocca’s autobiography he says,
It took me a number of years to fully understand why I had to make a good confession to a priest before I went to Holy Communion, but in my teens I began to appreciate the importance of this most misunderstood right of the Catholic Church. In later years, I found myself completely refreshed after confession. I even began to attend weekend retreats where the Jesuits in face-to-face examinations of conscience made me come to grips with how I was conducting my life. — Iacocca: An Autobiography, Bantam Books, p. 8.
Roman Catholic Lee Iacocca, head of the Dearborn division of the Ford Motor Co. was the one who dispatched Carl Renas to get the limousine that had the evidence of multiple bullets that were shot from multiple guns that killed John F. Kennedy. Isn’t it amazing that many years later as President of Chrysler, Lee Iacocca went to Congress and asked for financial help? Since Catholic Iacocca had been such an obedient servant to his Jesuit masters, another obedient Catholic by the name of Thomas ‘Tip’ O’Neill used his power as Speaker of the House to get Lee Iacocca all the money he needed.
There were many people who knew a great deal about the Kennedy assassination. Unfortunately, almost all of them died under mysterious circumstances. There was a concerted effort to be sure that no secrets were ever told. Even Jean Hill stated that several attempts were made to kill her and her children.
Jim Marrs, author of Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy, wrote: “In the three-year period which followed the murder of President Kennedy and Lee Harvey Oswald, 18 material witnesses died — six by gunfire, three in motor accidents, two by suicide, one from a cut throat, one from a karate chop to the neck, five from natural causes.” ...A mathematician hired by the London Sunday Times in February of 1967 concluded that the odds of the number of witnesses involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy dying between November 22, 1963 and that date were 100,000 trillion to one.... In the time period ranging from November 22, 1963 to August 1993 over 115 ‘witnesses’ have died or fallen victim to death by strange circumstances, suicides or murder. — Craig Roberts and John Armstrong, JFK: The Dead Witnesses, Consolidated Press, p. 3.
Kennedy was one of many Presidents, kings, Czars, and emperors who refused to obey the Jesuits and was killed for it. The role of the papacy in the heinous murder and cover-up of this crime cannot be denied. We have seen that the Vatican had a motive, the people in key positions to carry it out, and the people in key positions to cover it up.
There was one group, one organization, whose historical background was characterized by the planning and execution of such deeds; that had a lasting consistent motive, before, during and after the crime; that had the necessary international connections; that had the money; that could elicit suicidal self-sacrifice in its members; and that continued to exist through all phases of the assassination conspiracy. This is the Roman Catholic Church. — Emmett McLoughlin, An Inquiry into the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, Lyle Stuart, Inc.1963, p. 161.
Winston Churchill, the famous English Prime Minister during World War Two, once said,
Most men occasionally stumble over the truth, but they pick themselves up and continue on as if nothing had happened.
We now understand the facts concerning one of the most controversial events in American history. Will you stumble over the truth here and go on as if nothing has happened or will you begin to analyze history and current events in a new light?
PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY
The three most powerful men in the world are Jesuit priests.
Jesuit Superior General Adolfo Nicolas, 2009
The order of their power is as follows: First, “the Black Pope” and Jesuit Superior General Adolfo Nicolas; secondly, former Black Pope and Jesuit Superior General Peter-Hans Kolvenbach; and lastly, “the White Pope” and Vicar of Christ/Vicar of Horus Pope Francis I. Pope Francis I is the first pope who is openly a member of the military order of the Society of Jesus. As to national identity, Black Pope Nicolas is a Spaniard; ex-Black Pope Kolvenbach is a Dutchman; and the present White Pope Bergoglio is an Italian. These three arch criminals under bloody oaths rule the world on behalf of Satan, “the god of this world” (II Corinthians 4:4).
What this means is these three men rule all the governments of the nations through the Black Pope’s perfected international intelligence community directed by the Jesuits from Rome through London and Washington, D.C. All central banks are ruled by the agents of these men. All the armies of the most powerful nations (US, Russia, China, Germany, etc.) are ruled by these men. All the secret societies are ruled by these men. All mafia families conducting every sort of organized crime are ruled by these men. All entertainment and news outlets are ruled by these men. There is nothing outside of their immediate temporal power, i.e., the power ruling the governments of all nations today.
The only One Who can set back their Satanic power is the Lord Jesus Christ seated at the right hand of His Father on High, and given all power in heaven and in earth (Matthew 28:18-20; Psalm 110:1). The Body of Christ, being the true Church/Assembly of the Risen Son of God, also has the power to set back Satan’s “mystery of iniquity” imposed by the Jesuit Triumvirate. For those in Christ Jesus, it is now time to act in obedience to the Word of God. As was done by our Puritan-Calvinist fathers in Holland, Great Britain, France and America, so shall we do today.
The three most powerful men in the world are Jesuit priests
The Most Powerful Man in the World
by Tupper Saussy
The Most Powerful Man in the World
ONE OF THE REASONS the Roman Catholic Church forbids the unlicensed reading of Scripture is its belief that minds unformatted to receive the word of God pose a threat to public security.
I support this premise. Although I reject the standards by which the Church judges who is and is not properly formatted to receive the Scriptures, I affirm that privately interpreted Scripture can wreak societal havoc.
Likewise with irresponsible knowing the name of the Most Powerful Man in the World.
The world thinks allopathically—kill the problem. I wouldn’t want to be the one who announces the MPMW’s name within earshot of some political allopath. So I disclose it, and then only sotto voce. Really, we wrestle not with his flesh and blood but with the spiritual wickedness he’s ordained to manage.
He lives in a huge piece of real estate that commands Rome’s finest rooftop vista, and from it I’ve personally gazed out over St. Peter’s Basilica. His riches are beyond measure. He creates money simply by suggesting the need for it. All this, and yet, a biography written shortly after he became the MPMW says he sleeps on the floor, prefers walking to driving about Rome, and personally attends to the luggage of his powerful guests.
For my part, I’m morally obligated to wish this important man well. He rules evil, in all its serpentine convolutions, and in my opinion he does an outstanding job of it.
Thus, his name should be reserved only to minds accurately informed as to his position, responsibility, and to the history and provenance of his vital office.
In other words, I identify him to people whom I trust have read RULERS OF EVIL all the way to page 297. That’s where his name appears, inconspicuously, at the bottom.
By the time the reader’s made the journey to page 297, I figure that he or she can handle the knowledge wisely and safely.
I snapped this picture oF the rarely-photographed MPMW from a photo hanging on his wall. The MPMW is the duly authorized commander-in-chief of the best and oldest covert army on earth. He’s in his seventies, speaks seven languages fluently, including Arabic. His mission is to keep the world continually at war so that political economies can continually strive for peace. He’s held office since 1983 and is prohibited by law from receiving awards for his many extraordinary successes. -FTS
Tupper Saussy on the Jesuit Superior General of 1915 - 1942: Wlodimir (Vladimir) Ledochowski
Posted by Douglas Andrew Willinger at 10:58 PM
Labels: Georgetown University, Tupper Saussy
To do nothing in this earthly realm
Other than act as a follower in Jesus
Will accomplish what by not getting involved?
How is this not
An imaginary spaceship
Of wishfull thinking?
Just thinking out loud, any helpers?
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/replies.aspx?msg=66174937
Banned because I asked questions?
Or it hits too close to home?
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/seeBans.aspx?boardid=424
[My views on Christianity] are the result of a life of inquiry & reflection,
and very different from that anti-Christian system imputed to me by those who know nothing of my opinions.
To the corruptions of Christianity I am indeed opposed; but not to the genuine precepts of Jesus himself.
I am a Christian, in the only sense he wished any one to be;
sincerely attached to his doctrines, in preference to all others;
ascribing to himself every human excellence;
& believing he never claimed any other..
~ Thomas Jefferson ~ (1743-1826)
US Founding Father, drafted the Declaration of Independence, 3rd US President
Source.. letter to Dr. Benjamin Rush, Apr. 21, 1803
~~~~~~~~~~~
The Europeans are all deeply tainted with prejudices, both ecclesiastical and temporal, which they can never get rid of.
They are all infected with episcopal and presbyterian creeds, and confessions of faith.
They all believe that great Principle which has produced this boundless universe, Newton's universe and Herschell's universe,
came down to this little ball, to be spit upon by Jews.
And until this awful blasphemy is got rid of, there never will be any liberal science in the world.
~ John Adams ~ (1735-1826)
Founding Father, 2nd US President
Source.. Letter of 22 January 1825 to Thomas Jefferson, Adams expressed his dismay about Jefferson's plan to staff his college with European scholars
~~~~~~~~~~~
I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church, by the Protestant Church, nor by any Church that I know of.
My own mind is my own Church..
~ Thomas Paine ~ (1737-1809)
US Founding father, pamphleteer, author
Abraham's Sons
If we include Eliezer as a son (following the Septuagint and tradition), Abraham had nine sons by two wives and two concubines. The first of the sons born to Abraham was Joktan (Yaqtan), son of Keturah.
Alice C. Linsley
Thursday, March 17, 2011
JUST GENESIS through the lens of Anthropology
He probably had a number of daughters also, but they are not mentioned in Genesis since only ruling sons are listed in the king lists.
Here is a list of the sons born to Abraham by his two wives: Sarah and Keturah, and his two concubines: Hagar and Masek. Jacob, like his grandfather Abraham, also had two concubines: Bilhah (Rachel’s maidservant) and Zilpah (Leah’s maidservant).
Sarah, daughter of Terah (Gen. 20:12)
Yitzak (Issac)
Hagar the Egyptian (Sarah’s handmaid)
Yismael (Ishmael), who was Egyptian, since race/ethnicity was traced through the mother, as is true in Judaism today. This pattern is still recognized in Egypt, which is why the Egyptian government has made it illegal for Egyptian men to marry Jewish women.
Barent Fabritius' Hagar and Ishmael
Keturah, daughter of Joktan (Gen. 25)
Yisbak
Joktan – Keturah’s firstborn son
Midian
Zimran
Medan
Shuah
Masek (Keturah’s handmaid?)
Eliezar of Damascus
Confederations
Reviewing this list we note a linguistic correspondence between three sons: Yitzak, Yismael and Yisbak. This triad of sons appears to represent a tribal unit. Other tribal units are Og, Gog and Magog and Uz, Buz and Huz.
Some triads represent heads of clans that may not be in confederation. This seems to be the case with Jacob, Esau and Seir the Horite, although these blood relatives might have been a tribal confederation had Jacob not fled to Padan-Aram.
When twin sons were born it was important to determine which breached first; thus the midwife’s use of the scarlet cord (Gen. 38:28). Some name pairs suggest twins, such as Perez and Zerah, Dishon and Dishan (Horites, according to Gen. 36:21), and Letush and Leum (Dedanites, according to Gen. 25:3). Dedan is where the oldest Arabic texts have been found.
Who Out of Four Firstborn Sons Rules?
Abraham actually had four firstborn sons: Yaqtan (Joktan), Yismael (Ishmael), Eliezer, and Yitzak (Isaac), probably born in that order. Joktan became the head of the Joktanite tribes of Arabia. Yismael became the father of the Sinai Bedouins. No sons are named for Eliezar. Yitzak fathered Yisreal (Jacob), and Esau the elder. Esau and Jacob were contemporaries of Seir the Horite. The initial Y in the names of these Horite rulers indicates divine appointment. It is the symbol of the long horns of the Nilo-Saharan cattle and represents a solar cradle whereby the individual is overshadowed.
The firstborn sons ruled among Abraham’s people. However the first-born sons of wives were ranked above the firstborn sons of concubines. So Joktan ranked over Eliezar, and Yitzak ranked over Yishmael. Joktan would rule over the southern settlements of his maternal grandfather (Dedan, Ramaah and Beersheba) and Yitzak would rule the northern settlements of his father Abraham (Hebron, Bethel and Shechem).
Two Kings and Two Kingdoms
Abraham married according to the pattern of his Kushite royal ancestors. These kings had two wives. One was a half-sister (as was Sarah to Abraham) and the other was a patrilineal cousin or niece (as was Keturah to Abraham). Analysis of the Genesis genealogical data indicates that the firstborn son of the cousin/niece wife ascended to the throne of his maternal grandfather. This is indicated by the consistent pattern of the cousin bride naming her firstborn son after her father. So Lamech (Gen. 5), the firstborn of Methuselah, was named after his mother’s father, Lamech the Elder (Gen. 4). Joktan, the firstborn son of Keturah, was named after Keturah’s father Joktan. Esau, the husband of Oholibamah (Gen. 36), was named after his maternal grandfather Esau the Elder, the son of Isaac (Yitzak).
The firstborn son of the half-sister wife ascended to the throne of his biological father. Isaac was Abraham's proper heir and ruled after him. Genesis tells us that Abraham's other sons were given their inheritance and sent away from the territory of Isaac. This is not entirely accurate. Other sons often served as viziers in the territories of their ruling brothers. Indeed, there is much evidence that the men listed in the Horite King lists either ruled over territories or served as high ranking persons in the territories of their siblings or maternal grandfathers. Those who did not, were sent away to establish kingdoms of their own. Most of the heroes of the Old Testament were sent-away sons: Cain, Nimrod, Abraham, Moses, and David are examples.
This is the dynamic which drove the Kushite expansion out of the Nile Valley so that Kushite rulers controlled the great water systems of the ancient Afro-Asiatic Dominion. Raamah and Nimrod ruled separate territories that had once been united under their father Kush. Asshur and Arpachshad ruled separate territories that had once been united under their father Shem. Likewise, Peleg and Joktan ruled separate territories that had once been unified under their father Eber.
Firstborn Sons of Concubines
Had Sarah remained without a son, the rightful heir to Abraham’s throne would have been Eliezar (Gen. 15). The Masoretic and Greek texts do not agree on Eliezer. The Septuagint (Greek Old Testament) clearly states that he was a son of Abraham by Masek, but this is not found in the Masoretic text. This suggests a peculiar characteristic of this unique kinship pattern: the assignment of territories to the firstborn sons of concubines. If the pattern of Hagar and Masek is like the pattern of Bilhah and Zilpah, then Yismael and Eliezar received lands/settlements to govern and were included as tribal heads along with Joktan, Yitzak, Yisbak, Midian, Medan, Zimran and Shuah.
Concerning Ishmael, his assignment of a settlement in or near Paran on the way to Egypt is indicated by these words: This is the genealogy of Ishmael, Abraham’s son, whom Hagar the Egyptian, Sarah’s maidservant, bore to Abraham. And these were the names of the sons of Ishmael: the firstborn of Ishmael, Nebajoth, then Kadar, Adbeel, Mibsam, Mishma, Dumah, Massa, Hadar, Tema, Jetur, Naphish and Kedemah. These were the sons of Ishmael and these were their names, by their towns and settlements… (Genesis 25:12-16).
So it appears that firstborn sons of wives ruled territories and firstborn sons of concubines ruled cities or settlements as regional rulers in obedience to their brother Kings. This is similar to the "nomes" of Egypt, each ruled separately by a tribal chieftain. This sheds light on the relationship between Jacob's sons and can help us to understand the apportionment of land and settlements to their descendants.
Related reading: Abraham's Firstborn Son; Abraham's Two Concubines; Abraham's Nephews and Niece; The Conversion of Hagar; The Genesis King Lists; Peleg: Time of Division; Abraham's Horite Mother; The Kushite Marriage Pattern Drove Kushite Expansion; The Urheimat of the Canaanite Y
JUST GENESIS through the lens of Anthropology
Our Religions: Are they the Religions of Humanity Itself?
By Daniel Quinn / ishmael.org
Contrary to popular opinion, Charles Darwin did not originate the idea of evolution. By the middle of the 19th century, the mere fact of evolution had been around for a long time, and most thinkers of the time were perfectly content to leave it at that. The absence of a theory to explain evolutionary change didn't trouble them, wasn't experienced as a pressure, as it was by Darwin. He knew there had to be some intelligible mechanism or dynamic that would account for it, and this is what he went looking for--with well known results. In his Origin of Species, he wasn't announcing the fact of evolution, he was trying to make sense of the fact.
In my mid-twenties I began to feel a similar sort of pressure. The modern Age of Anxiety was just being born under the shadows of rampant population growth, global environmental destruction, and the ever-present possibility of nuclear holocaust. I was surprised that most people seemed perfectly reconciled to these things, as if to say, Well, what else would you expect?
Ted Kaczynski , the Unabomber, seemed to think he was saying something terribly original in his 1995 diatribe blaming it all on the Industrial Revolution, but this was just the conventional wisdom of 1962. To my mind, blaming all our problems on the Industrial Revolution is like blaming Hamlet's downfall on his fencing match with Laertes. To understand why Hamlet ended up badly, you can't just look at the last ten minutes of his story, you have to go right back to the beginning of it, and I felt a pressure to do the same with us.
The beginning of our story isn't difficult to find. Every schoolchild learns that our story began about 10,000 years ago with the Agricultural Revolution. This isn't the beginning of the human story, but it's certainly the beginning of our story, for it was from this beginning that all the wonders and horrors of our civilization grew.
Everyone is vaguely aware that there have been two ways of looking at the Agricultural Revolution within our culture, two contradictory stories about its significance. According to the standard version--the version taught in our schools--humans had been around for a long time, three or four million years , living a miserable and shiftless sort of life for most of that time, accomplishing nothing and getting nowhere. But then about 10,000 years ago it finally dawned on folks living in the Fertile Crescent that they didn't have to live like beavers and buzzards, making do with whatever food happened to come along; they could cultivate their own food and thus control their own destiny and well being. Agriculture made it possible for them to give up the nomadic life for the life of farming villagers. Village life encouraged occupational specialization and the advancement of technology on all fronts. Before long, villages became towns, and towns became cities, kingdoms, and empires. Trade connections, elaborate social and economic systems, and literacy soon followed, and there we went. All these advances were based on--and impossible without--agriculture, manifestly humanity's greatest blessing.
The other story, a much older one, is tucked away in a different corner of our cultural heritage. It too is set in the Fertile Crescent and tells a tale of the birth of agriculture, but in this telling agriculture isn't represented as a blessing but rather as a terrible punishment for a crime whose exact nature has always profoundly puzzled us. I'm referring, of course, to the story told in the third chapter of Genesis, the Fall of Adam.
Both these stories are known to virtually everyone who grows up in our culture, including every historian, philosopher, theologian, and anthropologist. But like most thinkers of the mid-19th century, who were content with the mere fact of evolution and felt no pressure to explain it, our historians, philosophers, theologians, and anthropologists seem perfectly content to live with these two contradictory stories. The conflict is manifest but, for them, demands no explanation.
For me, it did. As evolution demanded of Darwin a theory that would make sense of it, the story in Genesis demanded of me a theory that would make sense of it.
There have traditionally been two approaches to Adam's crime and punishment . The text tells us Adam was invited to partake of every tree in the garden of Eden except one, mysteriously called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. As we know, Adam succumbed to the temptation to sample this fruit. In one approach, the crime is viewed as simple disobedience, in which case the interdiction of the knowledge of good and evil seems entirely arbitrary. God might just as well have interdicted the knowledge of war and peace or the knowledge of pride and prejudice. The point was simply to forbid Adam something in order to test his loyalty. Under this approach, Adam's punishment--banishment from Eden to live by the sweat of his brow as a farmer--was just a spanking; it doesn't "fit the crime" in any particular way. He would have received this punishment no matter what test he had failed.
The second approach tries to make some connection between Adam's crime and his punishment. Under this approach, Eden is viewed as a metaphor for the state of innocence, which is lost when Adam gains the knowledge of good and evil. This makes sense, but only if the knowledge of good and evil is understood as a metaphor for knowledge that destroys innocence. So, with roughly equivalent metaphors at either end, the story is reduced to a banal tautology: Adam lost his innocence by gaining knowledge that destroyed his innocence.
The story of the Fall is coupled with a second that is equally famous and equally baffling, that of Cain and Abel. As conventionally understood, these two brothers were literal individuals, the elder, Cain, a tiller of the soil, and the younger, Abel, a herder. The improbability that two members of the same family would embrace antithetical lifestyles should tip us off to the fact that these were not individuals but emblematic figures, just as Adam was (Adam merely being the Hebrew word for Man).
If we understand these as emblematic figures, then the story begins to make sense. The firstborn of agriculture was indeed the tiller of the soil, as Cain was said to be the firstborn of Adam. This is an undoubted historical fact. The domestication of plants is a process that begins the day you plant your first seed, but the domestication of animals takes generations. So the herder Abel was indeed the second-born--by centuries, if not millennia (another reason to be skeptical of the notion that Cain and Abel were literally second-generation brothers).
A further reason for skepticism on this point is the fact that the ancient farmers and herders of the Near East occupied adjacent but distinctly different regions. Farming was the occupation of the Caucasian inhabitants of the Fertile Crescent. Herding was the occupation of the Semitic inhabitants of the Arabian peninsula to the south.
Another piece of background that needs to be understood is that in very ancient times farmers and herders had radically different lifestyles. Farmers were by the very nature of their work settled villagers; but herders (by the very nature of their work) were nomads, just as many present-day herding peoples are. The herding lifestyle was in fact closer to the hunting-gathering lifestyle than it was to the farming lifestyle.
As the farming peoples of the north expanded, it was inevitable that they would confront their Semitic herding neighbors to the south, perhaps below what is now Iraq--with the predictable result. As they have done from the beginning to the present moment, the tillers of the soil needed more land to put to the plow, and as they've done from the beginning to the present moment, they took it.
As the Semites saw it (and it is of course their version of the story that we have), the tiller of the soil Cain was watering his fields with the blood of Abel the herder.
The fact that the version we have is the Semitic version explains the central mystery of the story, which is why God rejected Cain's gift but accepted Abel's. Naturally, this is the way the Semites would see it. In essence, the story says, "God is on our side. God loves us and the way we live but hates the tillers of the soil and the way they live."
With these provisional understandings in place, I was ready to offer a theory about the first part of the story, the Fall of Adam. What the Semitic authors knew was only the present fact that their brothers from the north were encroaching on them in a murderous way. They hadn't been physically present in the Fertile Crescent to witness the actual birth of agriculture, and in fact this was an event that had occurred hundreds of years earlier. In their story of the Fall, they were reconstructing an ancient event, not reporting a recent one. All that was clear to them was that some strange development had saddled their brothers to the north with a laborious lifestyle and had turned them into murderers, and this had to be a moral or spiritual catastrophe of some kind.
What they observed about their brothers to the north was this peculiarity. They seemed to have the strange idea that they knew how to run the world as well as God. This is what marks them as our cultural ancestors. As we go about our business of running the world, we have no doubt that we're doing as good a job as God, if not better. Obviously God put a lot of creatures in the world that are quite superfluous and even pernicious, and we're quite at liberty to get rid of them. We know where the rivers should run, where the swamps should be drained, where the forests should be razed, where the mountains should be leveled, where the plains should be scoured, where the rain should fall. To us, it's perfectly obvious that we have this knowledge.
In fact, to the authors of the stories in Genesis, it looked as if their brothers to the north had the bizarre idea that they had eaten at God's own tree of wisdom and had gained the very knowledge God uses to rule the world. And what knowledge is this? It's a knowledge that only God is competent to use, the knowledge that every single action God might take--no matter what it is, no matter how large or small--is good for one but evil for another. If a fox is stalking a pheasant, it's in the hands of God whether she will catch the pheasant or the pheasant will escape. If God gives the fox the pheasant, then this is good for the fox but evil for the pheasant. If God allows the pheasant to escape, then this is good for the pheasant but evil for the fox. There's no outcome that can be good for both. The same is true in every area of the world's governance. If God allows the valley to be flooded, then this is good for some but evil for others. If God holds back the flood then this too will be good for some but evil for others.
Decisions of this kind are clearly at the very root of what it means to rule the world, and the wisdom to make them cannot possibly belong to any mere creature, for any creature making such decisions would inevitably say, "I will make every choice so that it's good for me but evil for all others." And of course this is precisely how the agriculturalist operates, saying, "If I scour this plain to plant food for myself, then this will be evil for all the creatures that inhabit the plain, but it'll be good for me. If I raze this forest to plant food for myself, then this will be evil for all the creatures that inhabit the forest, but it'll be good for me."
What the authors of the stories in Genesis perceived was that their brothers to the north had taken into their own hands the rule of the world; they had usurped the role of God. Those who let God run the world and take the food that he's planted for them have an easy life. But those who want to run the world themselves must necessarily plant their own food, must necessarily make their living by the sweat of the brow. As this makes plain, agriculture was not the crime itself but rather the result of the crime, the punishment that must inevitably follow such a crime. It was wielding the knowledge of good and evil that had turned their brothers in the north into farmers--and into murderers.
But these were not the only consequences to be expected from Adam's act. The fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is harmless to God but poison to Man. It seemed to these authors that usurping God's role in the world would be the very death of Man.
And so it seemed to me when I finally worked all this out in the late 1970s. This investigation of the stories in Genesis was not, for me, an exercise in biblical exegesis. I'd gone looking for a way to understand how in the world we'd brought ourselves face to face with death in such a relatively short period of time--10,000 years, a mere eyeblink in the lifespan of our species--and had found it in an ancient story that we long ago adopted as our own and that remained stubbornly mysterious to us as long as we insisted on reading it as if it were our own. When examined from a point of view not our own, however, it ceased to be mysterious and delivered up a meaning that not only would have made sense to a beleaguered herding people 8,000 years ago but that would also make sense to the beleaguered people of the late twentieth century.
As far as I was concerned, the authors of this story had gotten it right. In spite of the terrible mess we've made of it, we do think we can run the world, and if we continue to think this, it is going to be the death of us.
In case it isn't evident, I should add that of course my reading of Genesis is only a theory. This is what creationists say of evolution, that it's "only a theory, it hasn't been proved," as though this in itself is grounds for dismissal. This misrepresents the point of formulating a theory, which is to make sense of the evidence. So far, Darwin's theory remains the very best way we've found to make sense of the evidence, and my own theory has to be evaluated in the same way. Does it make sense of the evidence--the stories themselves--and does it make more sense than any other theory?
But solving this particular riddle only began to alleviate the pressure I felt for answers that were not being looked for at any level of our culture. The philosophical and theological foundations of our culture had been laid down by people who confidently believed that Man had been born an agriculturalist and civilization builder. These things were as instinctive to him as predation is to lions or hiving is to bees. This meant that, to find and date Man's birth, they had only to look for the beginnings of agriculture and civilization, which were obviously not that far back in time.
When in 1650 Irish theologian James Ussher announced the date of creation as October 23, 4004 B.C., no one laughed, or if they did, it was because of the absurd exactitude of the date, not because the date was absurdly recent. In fact, 4004 B.C. is quite a serviceable date for the beginning of what we would recognize as civilization. This being the case, it's hardly surprising that, for people who took it for granted that Man began building civilization as soon as he was created, 4004 B.C. would seem like a perfectly reasonable date for his creation.
But all this soon changed. By the middle of the 19th century the accumulated evidence of many new sciences had pushed almost all dates back by many orders of magnitude. The universe and the earth were not thousands of years old but billions. The human past extended millions of years back beyond the appearance of agriculture and civilization.Only those who clung to a very literal reading of the biblical creation story rejected the evidence; they saw it as a hoax perpetrated on us either by the devil (to confound us) or by God (to test our faith)--take your pick. The notion that Man had been born an agriculturalist and civilization builder had been rendered totally untenable. He had very definitely not been born either one.
This meant that the philosophical and theological foundations of our culture had been laid by people with a profoundly erroneous understanding of our origins and history. It was therefore urgently important to reexamine these foundations and if necessary to rebuild them from the ground up.
Except, of course, that no one at all thought this was urgently important--or even slightly important. So human life began millions of years before the birth of agriculture. Who cares? Nothing of any importance happened during those millions of years. They were merely a fact, something to be accepted, just as the fact of evolution had been accepted by naturalists long before Darwin.
In the last century we'd gained an understanding of the human story that made nonsense of everything we'd been telling ourselves for 3,000 years, but our settled understandings remained completely unshaken. So what, that Man had not in fact been born an agriculturalist and a civilization builder? He was certainly born to become an agriculturalist and a civilization builder. It was beyond question that this was our foreordained destiny. The way we live is the way humans were meant to live from the beginning of time. And indeed we must go on living this way--even if it kills us.
Facts that were indisputable to all but biblical literalists had radically repositioned us not only in the physical universe but in the history of our own species. The fact that we had been repositioned was all but universally acknowledged, but no one felt any pressure to develop a theory that would make sense of the fact, the way Darwin had made sense of the fact of evolution.
Except me, and I have to tell you that it gave me no joy. I had to have answers, and I went looking for them not because I wanted to write a book someday but because I personally couldn't live without them.
In Ishmael, I made the point that the conflict between the emblematic figures Cain and Abel didn't end six or eight thousand years ago in the Near East. Cain the tiller of the soil has carried his knife with him to every corner of the world, watering his fields with the blood of tribal peoples wherever he found them. He arrived here in 1492 and over the next three centuries watered his fields with the blood of millions of Native Americans. Today, he's down there in Brazil, knife poised over the few remaining aboriginals in the heart of that country.
The tribe among aboriginal peoples is as universal as the flock among geese, and no anthropologist seriously doubts that it was humanity's original social organization. We didn't evolve in troops or hordes or pods. Rather, we evolved in a social organization was was peculiarly human, that was uniquely successful for culture-bearers. The tribe was successful for humans, which is why it was still universally in place throughout the world three million years later. The tribal organization was natural selection's gift to humanity in the same way that the flock was natural selection's gift to geese.
The elemental glue that holds any tribe together is tribal law. This is easy to say but less easy to understand, because the operation of tribal law is entirely different from the operation of our law. Prohibition is the essence of our law, but the essence of tribal law is remedy. Misbehavior isn't outlawed in any tribe. Rather, tribal law prescribes what must happen in order to minimize the effect of misbehavior and to produce a situation in which everyone feels that they've been made as whole again as it's possible to be.
In The Story of B I described how adultery is handled among the Alawa of Australia. If you have the misfortune to fall in love with another man's wife or another woman's husband, the law doesn't say, "This is prohibited and may not go forward." It says, "If you want your love to go forward, here's what you must do to make things right with all parties and to see to it that marriage isn't cheapened in the eyes of our children." It's a remarkably successful process. What makes it even more remarkable is the fact that it wasn't worked out in any legislature or by any committee. It's another gift of natural selection. Over countless generations of testing, no better way of handling adultery has been found or even conceivably could be found, because--behold!--it works! It does just what the Alawa want it to do, and absolutely no one tries to evade it. Even adulterers don't try to evade it--that's how well it works.
But this is just the law of the Alawa, and it would never occur to them to say, "Everyone in the world should do it this way." They know perfectly well that their tribal neighbors' laws work just as well for them--and for the same reason, that they've been tested from the beginning of time.
One of the virtues of tribal law is that it presupposes that people are just the way we know they are: generally wise, kind, generous, and well-intentioned but perfectly capable of being foolish, unruly, moody, cantankerous, selfish, greedy, violent, stupid, bad-tempered, sneaky, lustful, treacherous, careless, vindictive, neglectful, petty, and all sorts of other unpleasant things. Tribal law doesn't punish people for their shortcomings, as our law does. Rather, it makes the management of their shortcomings an easy and ordinary part of life.
But during the developmental period of our culture, all this changed very dramatically. Tribal peoples began to come together in larger and larger associations, and one of the casualties of this process was tribal law. If you take the Alawa of Australia and put them together with Gebusi of New Guinea, the Bushmen of the Kalahari, and the Yanomami of Brazil, they are very literally not going to know how to live. Not any of these tribes are going to embrace the laws of the others, which may not only be unknown to them but incomprehensible to them. How then are they going to handle mischief that occurs among them? The Gebusi way or the Yanomami way? The Alawa way or the Bushman way? Multiply this by a hundred, and you'll have a fair approximation of where people stood in the early millennia of our own cultural development in the Near East.
When you gather up a hundred tribes and expect them to work and live together, tribal law becomes inapplicable and useless. But of course the people in this amalgam are the same as they always were: capable of being foolish, moody, cantankerous, selfish, greedy, violent, stupid, bad-tempered, and all the rest. In the tribal situation, this was no problem, because tribal law was designed for people like this. But all the tribal ways of handling these ordinary human tendencies had been expunged in our burgeoning civilization. A new way of handling them had to be invented--and I stress the word invented. There was no received, tested way of handling the mischief people were capable of. Our cultural ancestors had to make something up, and what they made up were lists of prohibited behavior.
Very understandably, they began with the big ones. They weren't going to prohibit moodiness or selfishness. They prohibited things like murder, assault, and theft. Of course we don't know what the lists were like until the dawn of literacy, but you can be sure they were in place, because it's hardly plausible that we murdered, robbed, and thieved with impunity for five or six thousand years until Hammurabi finally noticed that these were rather disruptive activities.
When the Israelites escaped from Egypt in the 13th century B.C., they were literally a lawless horde, because they'd left the Egyptian list of prohibitions behind. They needed their own list of prohibitions, which God provided--the famous ten. But of course ten didn't do it. Hundreds more followed, but they didn't do it either.
No number has ever done it for us. Not a thousand, ten thousand, a hundred thousand. Even millions don't do it, and so every single year we pay our legislators to come up with more. But no matter how many prohibitions we come up with, they never do the trick, because no prohibited behavior has ever been eliminated by passing a law against it. Every time someone is sent to prison or executed, this is said to be "sending a message" to miscreants, but for some strange reason the message never arrives, year after year, generation after generation, century after century.
Naturally, we consider this to be a very advanced system.
No tribal people has ever been found that claimed not to know how to live. On the contrary, they're all completely confident that they know how to live. But with the disappearance of tribal law among us, people began to be acutely aware of not knowing how to live. A new class of specialists came to be in demand, their specialty being the annunciation of how people are supposed to live. These specialists we call prophets.
Naturally it takes special qualifications to be a prophet. You must by definition know something the rest of us don't know, something the rest of us are clearly unable to know. This means you must have a source of information that is beyond normal reach--or else what good would it be? A transcendent vision will do, as in the case of Siddhartha Gautama. A dream will do, provided it comes from God. But best of all, of course, is direct, personal, unmediated communication with God. The most persuasive and most highly valued prophets, the ones that are worth dying for and killing for, have the word directly from God.
The appearance of religions based on prophetic revelations is unique to our culture. We alone in the history of all humanity needed such religions. We still need them (and new ones are being created every day), because we still profoundly feel that we don't know how to live. Our religions are the peculiar creation of a bereft people. Yet we don't doubt for a moment that they are the religions of humanity itself.
This belief was not an unreasonable one when it first took root among us. Having long since forgotten that humanity was here long before we came along, we assumed that we were humanity itself and that our history was human history itself. We imagined that humanity had been in existence for just a few thousand years--and that God had been talking to us from the beginning. So why wouldn't our religions be the religions of humanity itself?
When it became known that humanity was millions of years older than we, no one thought it odd that God had remained aloof from the thousands of generations that had come before us. Why would God bother to talk to Homo habilis or Homo erectus? Why would he bother to talk even to Homo sapiens--until we came along? God wanted to talk to civilized folks, not savages, so it's no wonder he remained disdainfully silent.
The philosophers and theologians of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries weren't troubled by God's long silence. The fact alone was enough for them, and they felt no pressure to develop a theory to make sense of it. For Christians, it had long been accepted that Christianity was humanity's religion (which is why all of humanity had to be converted to it, of course). It was an effortless step for thinkers like Teilhard de Chardin and Matthew Fox to promote Christ from humanity's Christ to the Cosmic Christ.
Very strangely, it remained to me to recognize that there once was a religion that could plausibly be called the religion of humanity. It was humanity's first religion and its only universal religion, found wherever humans were found, in place for tens of thousands of years. Christian missionaries encountered it wherever they went, and piously set about destroying it. By now it has been all but stamped out either by missionary efforts or more simply by exterminating its adherents. I certainly take no pride in its discovery, since it's been in plain sight to us for hundreds of years.
Of course it isn't accounted a "real" religion, since it isn't one of ours. It's just a sort of half-baked "pre-religion." How could it be anything else, since it emerged long before God decided humans were worth talking to? It wasn't revealed by any accredited prophet, has no dogma, no evident theology or doctrine, no liturgy, and produces no interesting heresies or schisms. Worst of all, as far as I know, no one has ever killed for it or died for it--and what sort of religion is that? Considering all this, it's actually quite remarkable that we even have a name for it.
The religion I'm talking about is, of course, animism. This name was cut to fit the general missionary impression that these childlike savages believe that things like rocks, trees, and rivers have spirits in them, and it hasn't lost this coloration since the middle of the nineteenth century.
Needless to say, I wasn't prepared to settle for this trivialization of a religion that flourished for tens of thousands of years among people exactly as smart as we are. After decades of trying to understand what these people were telling us about their lives and their vision of humanity's place in the world, I concluded that a very simple (but far from trivial) worldview was at the foundation of what they were saying: The world is a sacred place, and humanity belongs in such a world.
It's simple but also deceptively simple. This can best be seen if we contrast it with the worldview at the foundation of our own religions. In the worldview of our religions, the world is anything but a sacred place. For Christians, it's merely a place of testing and has no intrinsic value. For Buddhists it's a place where suffering is inevitable. If I oversimplify, my object is not to misrepresent but only to clarify the general difference between these two worldviews in the few minutes that are left to me.
For Christians, the world is not where humans belong; it's not our true home, it's just a sort of waiting room where we pass the time before moving on to our true home, which is heaven. For Buddhists, the world is another kind of waiting room, which we visit again and again in a repeating cycle of death and rebirth until we finally attain liberation in nirvana.
For Christians, if the world were a sacred place, we wouldn't belong in it, because we're all sinners; God didn't send his only-begotten son to make us worthy of living in a sacred world but to make us worthy of living with God in heaven. For Buddhists, if the world were a sacred place, then why would we hope to escape it? If the world were a sacred place, then would we not rather welcome the repeating cycle of death and rebirth?
From the animist point of view, humans belong in a sacred place because they themselves are sacred. Not sacred in a special way, not more sacred than anything else, but merely as sacred as anything else--as sacred as bison or salmon or crows or crickets or bears or sunflowers.
This is by no means all there is to say about animism. It's explored more fully in The Story of B, but this too is just a beginning. I'm not an authority on animism. I doubt there could ever be such a thing as an authority on animism.
Simple ideas are not always easy to understand. The very simplest idea I've articulated in my work is probably the least understood: There is no one right way for people to live--never has been and never will be. This idea was at the foundation of tribal life everywhere. The Navajo never imagined that they had the right way to live (and that all others were wrong). All they had was a way that suited them. With tribal peoples on all sides of them--all living in different ways--it would have been ridiculous for them to imagine that theirs was the one right way for people to live. It would be like us imagining that there is one right way to orchestrate a Cole Porter song or one right way to make a bicycle.
In the tribal world, because there was complete agreement that no one had the right way to live, there was a staggering glory of cultural diversity, which the people of our culture have been tirelessly eradicating for 10,000 years. For us, it will be paradise when everyone on earth lives exactly the same way.
Almost no one blinks at the statement that there is no one right way for people to live. In one of his denunciations of scribes and pharisees, Jesus said, "You gag on the gnat but swallow down the camel." People find many gnats in my books to gag on, but this great hairy camel goes down as easily as a teaspoon of honey.
May the forests be with you and with your children.
Delivered October 18, 2000, as a Fleming Lecture in Religion, Southwestern University, Georgetown, Texas
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Do all religions exist solely to control the actions of people, by controlling their thoughts?
Are all religions designed to erode the follower's connection to reality?
Does the encoding of various belief structures make it easier to control that group?
Can all religions be considered practicing sociocognitive warfare?
Men are disturbed not by things that happen
but by their opinions of the things that happen..
~ Epictetus ~
Very few established institutions, governments and constitutions
are ever destroyed by their enemies
until they have been corrupted and weakened
by their friends..
~ Walter Lippmann ~ (1889-1974)
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Ordo Ab Chao..
Religious beliefs of the Founding Fathers
http://jeromekahn123.tripod.com/thinkersonreligion/id9.html
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