How do you know I shouldn't? Why shouldn't I be allowed to work with the resources I have available? It certainly won't work with something I don't understand will it? ... Regardless of how much I know. So where do we draw the line then? It all pretty much comes from the same place anyway doesn't it?MRC_Hans said:
If a mystery was not meant to be revealed, then yes, it must remain veiled by obscurity.
Piscivore
Smelling fishy
*sigh*Iacchus said:So, do you realize that both Christianity and the English language were not prevalent at the time of Zoroastrianism? And yet here it is both seem to be perfectly palatable for most people's use ... except for those who have a bit of distaste for religion of course.
So how do we in fact know that both aren't some fulfillment of Zoroastrianism in that sense? Indeed, everyone keeps claiming how much Christianity is a bastardization from so many other sources, most notably Zoroastrianism, and yet how can we say that the English language fares altogether differently in that respect? We certainly can't claim that it's not without its use can we? Otherwise we'd all have to shut our computers down.
Christianity is a "fulfillment" of Zoroastrianism? That statement is entirely without any sense. Saying Christianinty wasn't "prevelant" at that time is so ambivalent as do be functinally useless as well. English wan't "not prevlant" at the time- like I said, and which part you quoted- it did not exist. As truthful to say "Volkswagens weren't in prevalent use."
Whether Christianity, or English, or Baby sacrifice, or Romantic love, or any concept are "palatable" has no bearing at all on whether they are useful or logically valid.
The fact that English in particular, and language in general, is mutable is sort of my point. Glad you agree.
Just because a tool (the English language in this case) is useful in a general sense does not mean that it is appropriate in a certain specific sense. This was what I meant by "tuning a car with a hammer".
The whole concept of numerology came about because the Hebrew language (and they were not alone in this) used the same symbols for their numerals as their letters. This led people to the sort of speculations as you seem to delight in. This is a known resource that has the advantage of being historically, culturally, and contextually appropriate.
"Sticking with" English and the decimal system (by which you mean Arabic numbers, but you are ignorant of this distinction as well, I bet)- which also may not have been in use in the West at the time Revelations was written- is not historically, culturally, and contextually appropriate.
Let me sum up how moronic this is getting:
On the one hand, we have a hypothesis that the author of Revelations used a number system that not only existed and the time, it was common in his area, and directly applicable to to both himself and the people of his time and region he was most likely writing to. This system identifies, without manipulation, a known enemy (the most antagonistic and actively hostile enemy of the time, no less) as the antithesis of his religous leader.
On the other hand, for your hypothesis to be true, we need to assume that the author intended to use a number that would identify a religious conflict by the name of the individual person that both sides of the conflict claimed to pay allegiance to. That said author intended his numerical code to identify this name, not in the languages of his time, but in a language that didn't yet exist using a number system his people didn't use. That the author did not intend for his writing to be understood contemporaneously, but many centuries hence. That the author didn't mean for his work to be comprehensible for the people of the time that the conflict would occur either, as the form of the name in the intended language didn't yet exist. That once the form of the name is created, a half-century after the event was well underway, that in order to understand the symbology of the number it must be altered by a mathematical operation not suggested by the text, rather by the "feeling" of a reader two millenia hence.
The moronic part? That the originator of the second hypothesis has as his strongest argument for it "I don't know any of that other stuff!"
Now, what does "occam's razor" suggest about that[/i]?
Piscivore
Smelling fishy
Iacchus said:
May I suggest for the same reason we do not allow children to drive cars or own handguns?
Just because it works with what you DO understand (and I would suggest you do not understand even what you think you do in this matter), that doesn't mean that it is correct.
May I suggest I have illustrated that above? Or are you incapable of understanding it?
What?
May I suggest that if a "mystery" does not exist, it will so remain "obscured"? And did you not in the OP claim to have "revealed" this mystery? How can it be revelaed and obsured at the same time.
edited to correct formating error
Why? Are you saying Christianity doesn't stem from Zoroastrian dualism? I think a lof of people would be inclined to disagree. Also, if you believe in evolution, then why shouldn't the same considerations be allowed for religion to evolve?Piscivore said:
So tell me, how could we eat and digest our food if it wasn't palatable?
Well, if in fact human beings have evolved from tiny little microscopic mites, doesn't it stand to reason
that the more evolved an entity becomes the more apt it would be to understand the higher mysteries in life? Apparently you must think Religion to be a dead-end then, unless I've mistaken something here?On the contrary, there are a tremendous amount of things which can be "articulated" through the use of the English language. Which, is why most countries have adopted it as a second language.
And that isn't to say we shouldn't be able to substitute the letters in the English language for numbers as well?
However, they've both become standards which, most people have become familiar with. So how else do you think God could effectively reveal Himself -- contingent upon whether He exists or not of course
-- except through the standard of the day? This is where your arguments fail, and miserably I might add. Otherwise how could we possibly approach God, except from the standpoint of what we know? And, while history might give us one or two clues, how do we actually determine this mystery for ourselves?However, we're still stuck with the notion of how we determine God exists for ourselves. In which case it renders the whole thing meaningless for future generations. How thoughtful of God to think of us in this way, unless of course He really doesn't exist? But then again, how would you know?
So who exactly might the author be then? The guy who wrote it or, the guy who inspired the guy to write it? Apparently you think both are one and the same. Which, of course invalidates the need for the mystery. And the only true mystery becomes, why do you wish to fool the authorities?
So, do you claim to know everything that I know? Sure sounds like it.
Do you think Occam's Razor should take into account mind reading? Well, I suppose it should if, one were actually capable of it.That perhaps you're making things way more complicated than they need to be?
Just for fun, since the individual is not interested in discussing the topic with anything resembling responsibility:
Please to meet you! Hope you can guess my name!
This is quoted from Forsyth's The Old Enemy: Satan and the Combat Myth
. . . the myth alluded to in Isaiah looks like a blending of the Ugaritic traditions with a story very much like the Phaethon myth; the three together look like variants, adapted to their several purposes, of one common rebel plot.
The following part of Isaiah's famous taunt represents the shades of the dead kings in Sheol, the Waste Land, greeting a new arrival. . . :
The ambitious thoughts of the rebel allude to some figure like the Ugaritic Athtar, who also went up to the "reaches of Zaphon" to challenge the king (though Baal, not El, in the versions we have), and the name of this mythological rebel, "Shining One, Son of Dawn," makes him an exact equivalent of the Greek Phaethon.
Shahar [Even we cannot render the transliterations with "." below letters. This is close.--Ed.], in various Hebrew contexts, preserves some of its old mythological meaning as a feminine dawn goddess ["Ps. 108.2; 110.3, 139.9, in which dawn has wings and can fly. . . ." from footnote.--Ed.], and the original of this feminine dawn may well have been the Indo-European goddess Usas, the Heos of Homer and Hesiod, perhaps blended now with Semitic Ishtar. Her son, Helel, may possibly be the sun itself, and indeed Shahar may mean the rising sun, according to an older school of thought, or Helel may be an allusion to the planet Venus, as most modern commentators on the passage believe. Whether or not the composer of the Isaiah passage made this explicit identification, the Greek translators of the Septuagint certainly did, since their translation of Helel ben Shahar as Heosphoros ho proi anatellon clearly combines the astrolonomical identification with Hesiod's Hesophoros, son of Heos, the dawn-bringer, Venus. The Greek was in turn rendered by the Latin vulgate as Lucifer, qui mane oriebaris, and the name has stuck to the rebel ever since.
Whether he has a specific original in the period, or whether he is the generic representative of all such kings--a more likely assumption--this particular Babylonian king apparently led a glorious life, but he is here aligned with the upstart rebel, . . . . . . and the redactor of this text, the man responsible for its inclusion in the Isaiah scroll, has no doubts about who this is. He introduces the poem with the following prose words addressed to the Israelites: "When Yahweh has given you rest from your pain and turmoil and the hard service with which you were made to serve, you will take up this taunt against the king of Babylon."
It is generally agreed that the poem we are discussing does not come from the genuine Isaiah of Jerusalem, the great eight-century prophet.
--J. "I'm a Man of Wealth and Taste" D.
References:
Forsyth N. The Old Enemy: Satan and the Combat Myth. Princeton: 1987.
Clifford RJ. The Cosmic Mountain in Canaan and the Old Testament. Harvard University Press: 1972.
Kaiser O. Isaiah 13-39: A Commentary. Westminster: 1974.
Please to meet you! Hope you can guess my name!
This is quoted from Forsyth's The Old Enemy: Satan and the Combat Myth
. . . the myth alluded to in Isaiah looks like a blending of the Ugaritic traditions with a story very much like the Phaethon myth; the three together look like variants, adapted to their several purposes, of one common rebel plot.
The following part of Isaiah's famous taunt represents the shades of the dead kings in Sheol, the Waste Land, greeting a new arrival. . . :
The ambitious thoughts of the rebel allude to some figure like the Ugaritic Athtar, who also went up to the "reaches of Zaphon" to challenge the king (though Baal, not El, in the versions we have), and the name of this mythological rebel, "Shining One, Son of Dawn," makes him an exact equivalent of the Greek Phaethon.
Shahar [Even we cannot render the transliterations with "." below letters. This is close.--Ed.], in various Hebrew contexts, preserves some of its old mythological meaning as a feminine dawn goddess ["Ps. 108.2; 110.3, 139.9, in which dawn has wings and can fly. . . ." from footnote.--Ed.], and the original of this feminine dawn may well have been the Indo-European goddess Usas, the Heos of Homer and Hesiod, perhaps blended now with Semitic Ishtar. Her son, Helel, may possibly be the sun itself, and indeed Shahar may mean the rising sun, according to an older school of thought, or Helel may be an allusion to the planet Venus, as most modern commentators on the passage believe. Whether or not the composer of the Isaiah passage made this explicit identification, the Greek translators of the Septuagint certainly did, since their translation of Helel ben Shahar as Heosphoros ho proi anatellon clearly combines the astrolonomical identification with Hesiod's Hesophoros, son of Heos, the dawn-bringer, Venus. The Greek was in turn rendered by the Latin vulgate as Lucifer, qui mane oriebaris, and the name has stuck to the rebel ever since.
Whether he has a specific original in the period, or whether he is the generic representative of all such kings--a more likely assumption--this particular Babylonian king apparently led a glorious life, but he is here aligned with the upstart rebel, . . . . . . and the redactor of this text, the man responsible for its inclusion in the Isaiah scroll, has no doubts about who this is. He introduces the poem with the following prose words addressed to the Israelites: "When Yahweh has given you rest from your pain and turmoil and the hard service with which you were made to serve, you will take up this taunt against the king of Babylon."
It is generally agreed that the poem we are discussing does not come from the genuine Isaiah of Jerusalem, the great eight-century prophet.
--J. "I'm a Man of Wealth and Taste" D.
References:
Forsyth N. The Old Enemy: Satan and the Combat Myth. Princeton: 1987.
Clifford RJ. The Cosmic Mountain in Canaan and the Old Testament. Harvard University Press: 1972.
Kaiser O. Isaiah 13-39: A Commentary. Westminster: 1974.
Piscivore
Smelling fishy
Iacchus said:
You are slacking- don't forget:
Of course a god that needs to be worshiped would rather his subjects not think. This is also one of my contentions. By your statement are you affirming that the only support you can give to your assertion is ignorance?
Let me counter with a few thoughts:
Navigator
Philosopher
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Hmmm - Well now it is one thing to believe the reality of their being an Intelligent Designer which created this and every other universe....but when it gets down to painting the picture of 'what god is" then and only then can debate and argument and general disturbance enter into an otherwise peaceful reality.
Historically this religious putting god in a box and saying 'this is it' has left a trail of stupid destruction in it's wake.
Then again, if society decided that there was no god, the trail could just as easily continue being destructive.
If the human race was to cease to exist, due to self destruction, then God will still be.
Point being that it is not God which is causing the confusion, just because it is unable and no doubt amused by the thought of being 'put in a box' and proclaimed as "God" by the ignorant.
Or proclaimed as 'not existing' by the ignorant.
For God - Existence goes on....as it always ever has done.
Historically this religious putting god in a box and saying 'this is it' has left a trail of stupid destruction in it's wake.
Then again, if society decided that there was no god, the trail could just as easily continue being destructive.
If the human race was to cease to exist, due to self destruction, then God will still be.
Point being that it is not God which is causing the confusion, just because it is unable and no doubt amused by the thought of being 'put in a box' and proclaimed as "God" by the ignorant.
Or proclaimed as 'not existing' by the ignorant.
For God - Existence goes on....as it always ever has done.
Dancing David
Penultimate Amazing
Fisheater, this is just plain wrong, the second N in NRON would have a value of 700 because it is in the ending position. I am not evn remebering the value of R in the ending position but it is not 200
Dancing David
Penultimate Amazing
Iacchus said:
because if you did your homeowrk you would know that is the value assigned to the letter nun by the hebrai.
Dancing David
Penultimate Amazing
Iacchus said:
Crappin Christ Cruxified on the cross Iachuss, for the last time. If there is meaning to the Bible then it would be found in the meanings and numbers that the Hebrai assigned to it.
What you suggest makes as much sense as using Mein Kampf as some sort of divinitory guide based upon the numers of wrods on each page.
The hebrai had a code, the numbers already had meanings that they used, which is the point that you just ignore. If you are going to assign meaning less drivel to the bible, then at least use the same meaningless drivel that the writers used!
The number 18 is the number of life in hebrai, why? Because they found it on page eighteen of Mein Kampf?
No, because the letters in the hebrai word life 'chai' are cheth and yod which are enumerated as 8 and 10 respectively.
the authors of the bible already had there own foolish mystery, which is the point that you are missing. There are already answers to every number in the bible.
Here are some more references:
from What is the meaning of the number 666 in Revelations 13:18?
Here is another good reference:
The Number of the Beast: A Numerological Primer
--J.D.
from What is the meaning of the number 666 in Revelations 13:18?
Here is another good reference:
The Number of the Beast: A Numerological Primer
--J.D.
Dancing David
Penultimate Amazing
Iacchus said:
The mystery of the bible is that some fools ignore what is right in front of them, enter the word kabbalah or quoballah into your search engine.
The bible code already exists as was intended by the silly people who wrote it.
Wait a second. Are we talking about the whole Book of Revelation here? Or, just the number 666? Because something tells me we won't be able to discuss it much pass a possible association to an emperor's name. Hate to tell you this, but there are just too many other things involved.Dancing David said:
So, does anybody believe that this guy (St. John) actually had a mystical revelation? Maybe we ought to be asking that first and then, ask of those who don't, if they actually believed in any of this "religious crap" in the first place?
