Paganism

[Guest guest]

Hi Simon

 

My problem with the bible is the poor translation from Aramaic / Hebrew / Sanskrit into Greek, then Latin, then English. A lot of the modern bible is either inaccurate, or simply incorrect - take the crossing of the "Red Sea" by Moses. It's not "Red Sea" at all in the original but "Reed Sea", implying probably a fairly small river!!!

 

But in terms of gender, it's amazing how much male orientation has been added by the early church fathers. There's a very good book called "Prayers of the Cosmos" which re-translates the Lords Prayer, the Beatitudes and a few other passages from the gospels from the original Aramaic - the word "father" is in fact completely wrong, as the Aramaic word "Abwoon" refers equally to both male and female. Also the interesting translation of the name of the Aramaic Earth Goddess in the Lords Prayer which has somehow got turned into "Kingdom" in English!!!!

 

In terms of religious texts, the Baghavad Gita is also pretty impressive. But I also find the Apocrypha to be particularly interesting, as they show a side to the stories of the Bible which was written out very early on by the church!

 

BB

Peter

 

I don't know of any other collection of written works which improve upon the works of the bible's over all message, If anyone knows of such works I would be very interested in hearing about them!

 

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[Guest guest]

I thought that Xmas was a christian co-option of Winter Solstice

(Dec 21) but moved along a couple of days- is that different

to 'Yule'?

 

Graham

 

, " Peter " <Snowbow@b...> wrote:

> Hi Shelloid

>

> What we celebrate is Yule - Christmas is simply an ancient Pagan

festival renamed by the church! We still have all the presents,

trees, food etc. - we just celebrate the " original " festival, and

ignore the Christianisation of it. Always makes me laugh when

Christians tell people not to forget the " true " meaning of

Christmas - the true meaning being a celebration of the rebirth of

the sun after the shortest day :-)

[Guest guest]

It's an issue addressed by Hinduism and Bhuddism. Christianity has

mostly stuck to the view that animals are soulless automata put on earth

to support humans.

 

I've never known christianity (or any religion ) try to tackle cruelty

!!

But as you said maybe thats the people who call themselves christians.

Thats why I am so grateful not to be one !

--

Ian McDonald

 

http://www.mcdonald.me.uk/

[Guest guest]

Do Pagans believe that nature has some sort of conscience ,if so, which came first physical nature then conscience or vice- verse? or have they existed together through out time trying to improve itself as one, How do Paganism explain, what went wrong with humans to be as we are regarding meat-eating, Sometime in the past humans must have fallen out with each -other, and where ever the fruit-trees and edible- plants were some humans must have found themselves with out access to the food,for what ever reason, whether they just wandered off and got lost or resorted to eating animals out of desperation or whether some did fall out with each -other and were forced to eat animals,I can except that we have come into existences some how ; that we did do something wrong in the past; The result being the tragic state we have today regarding the mass killing of humans and animals, and I except that who ever wrote( Genesis 1 up until when Adam & eve were oust out of the Garden having to wear animal skin,) had to have known what a lot of Vegans( for the most part are still proclaiming today, the idea that killing is wrong and if people except that, there would be a kind of garden of Eden on earth! It's an ideal that I would image any right thinking person would want!

Sp