Posted on 02/01/2016 12:21:23 PM PST by juliosevero
On October 2015 Brazilian philosopher Olavo de Carvalho said in his Brazilian Twitter, "A entidade chamada Inquisicao e uma invencao ficcional de protestantes." Translation: "The entity called the Inquisition was a fictional invention of Protestants." His original statement is here.
“You claim to have a dissertation yet you won’t post anything to substantiate your claim.”
Correct.
“No title, no sources, no school attended.”
Right.
“Obama has given us more about his academic background than you.”
Ha! Cute.
“One of the requirements on these threads is documentation.”
Requirement? R-I-G-H-T. So, in other words, if you post that you live in a particular state you must provide a photo of your driver’s license, correct? Seriously, do you read what you’re going to post before you hit that button?
“When asked for it all you have provided are arrogant and condescending replies.”
All my replies were logical and sound. Whether or not you found them to be anything else is immaterial.
“There is zero reason for any of us to believe anything you claim.”
Except that everything I said is true. It doesn’t matter if you believe it. It’s true no matter what. I have a snail mail shipping tube in a closet in my house - like the kind used to mail posters to people. You know what’s inside? My doctoral diploma. I’ve never seen it. Oh, I’ve looked inside the tube every now and then when packing to move for a new job or whatever, but I’ve never taken it out, unrolled it and looked at it. Not even once. My family has been after me for years to get it professionally matted and framed. So far I just can’t be bothered. The same goes for my master’s degrees. They’re sitting in a closet in the protective folders in which they were mailed to me. My undergraduate degrees are the only ones in frames - because I left those at my parent’s house when I moved away to go to grad school decades ago and my mother framed them unbeknownst to me. I’m not even sure of their location at this point. I really don’t care.
Now, I’m going to tell you about two experiences I had years ago. Believe what I tell you or not. It doesn’t matter to me.
1) At another website I was threatened by a mentally unstable Protestant anti-Catholic (yeah, that’s probably all redundant) who told me he was going to track me down and kill me. I wasn’t terribly worried about my own safety - I’m armed and can take care of myself - but I had plenty of reason to worry about the safety of those around me. I vowed to never share valuable information about my name, location, family members, work place, friends, etc. because as long as I deal with Protestant anti-Catholics I know the chance of running into someone who is mentally unstable and dangerous is high and I just assume take no unnecessary risks.
2) Years ago I was in a similar situation on another site where the Protestant anti-Catholics were demanding I provide evidence of my education. I did - in a way that protected pertinent information about my name and location. They all had to eat crow. As satisfying as that was, I decided I would never again do that because why do I need to prove to anyone what I know to be true about myself? I went to graduate school for years, sometimes working two full time jobs to cover the costs, spent hundreds and hundred of hours in the library every year (year-in-year-out), researched papers, had to struggle though language classes, competed for work assignments and awards, mastered my field, and through it all (despite it all) grew closer to Christ. Quite frankly I know the truth about what I achieved in graduate school. It doesn’t matter to me if you don’t believe it. Everything I know about finishing graduate school will still be true even if you deny it.
Not one human brought me to Marian devotion. Instead I was thing about pastoral ministry and it dawned on me that Mary was a “type,” a template. She was obedient to the Divine Love. She offered her life to it. And through her the Divine Love was made visible and brought into the world.
So, Jesus crucified is the template par excellence of the ministry of every Xtian, Mary is what you might call an ancillary (see what I did there?) template.
From a human perspective I came to this by myself and was more resisted than encouraged by my fellows.
I can concur with the concerns for personal safety on the net. We really have no idea of the mental state of the people on these threads. I respect your right to privacy.
“I can concur with the concerns for personal safety on the net. We really have no idea of the mental state of the people on these threads. I respect your right to privacy.”
I really appreciate that! And, by the way, in all seriousness, I’m not lying about my education. And, believe it or not, and this will shock you, if you knew me in person, we would probably get along just fine. I’m not kidding.
I have a masters myself and I'm currently working on a certificate in biblical languages. The Greek is fascinating.
Here's a proposal.....going forward we both tone down the harshness of our posts to each other? I'm sure we will have some good natured ribbing though and we can indicate as such.
Deal?
Two of the three thought it a good idea because it was, in the sixties, a novel idea only beginning to gain traction with academics. In fact, Dr. LeCroix pulled one book on the subject from her personal library and pointed me to another.
Your haughty nature does feed us some amusing assertions, however.
I wonder how you would perceive these issues if you could stop your mind from conflating the spiritual Ekklesia and the institutional church?
But I am again reminded of a saying from a fellow Freeper that when you put a dirty child in top play with a clean child, you get two dirty children. ... Consider how much of modern catholiciism has roots in the cults, more than just dates for celebrations and somber reflections. When one gets born from above, satan can no longer lay claim to that one. But he can lead them into blasphemous behaviors and blunt their works that could have been offered for Praise of The Lord from Heaven Who took upon Himself flesh and dwelt among us, that He could bring us beyond the state of existence remaining with the fall of Adam, to the spiritual evolution of God's design.
“... being in a religion where magic thinking is strong it is understandable that you imagine of that one member of my three something which fits your haughty perspective.”
No magic thinking. Miraculous thinking. The haughty perspective is clearly yours if you deny the difference.
“But the reality is different from your assumption.”
The end result is the same. You were overruled. Sanity prevailed.
“Two of the three thought it a good idea because it was, in the sixties, a novel idea only beginning to gain traction with academics.”
Oh, your view is a product of sixties nonsense. That explains much. You are not doing yourself any favors here.
“In fact, Dr. LeCroix pulled one book on the subject from her personal library and pointed me to another.”
End result was the same: You were overruled.
“Your haughty nature does feed us some amusing assertions, however.”
Your “haughty nature” was overruled by your professor.
“I wonder how you would perceive these issues if you could stop your mind from conflating the spiritual Ekklesia and the institutional church?”
The Church is the Church. There is no conflation. There is a proper distinction. In any case, Protestants sects are neither “the spiritual Ekklesia” or the “institutional church”.
You were overruled. Sanity won the day.
“We just might at that. Sometimes people I argue with the most I often become friends with.”
Fair enough.
“I have a masters myself and I’m currently working on a certificate in biblical languages. The Greek is fascinating.”
I would love to do the same thing! (Sigh) No time, little money, and not sure where to do it.
“Here’s a proposal.....going forward we both tone down the harshness of our posts to each other? I’m sure we will have some good natured ribbing though and we can indicate as such. Deal?”
Okay. . . deal. . . but I’m holding two crossed fingers behind my back just in case! :) Good luck with your greek studies.
I don't think this is so. It's the reverse. Since the time that Catholicism became the religious organ of the state, extinguishing its opposition by forceful persecution rather than by loving persuasion has been its choice method of gaining preeminence.
It is imitation of Catholic methodology that gave Mohammed power, not vice versa, IMO.
Exactly
Well I got to say you sound sincere, whether or not history backs it up (Mad Mo’s misadventures don’t look like any church egged it on to me, unless I’ve missed an essential part of history, feel free to fill it in with sources if you can).
The disagreements between churches can get so strong that sometimes they can’t think of any worse evil than whom they are disagreeing with. And that’s the distraction of the devil. There are FAR worse evils, and we can’t be blind sided to them.
Actually I would say the nominal Christian influence kind of diluted the Muslim approach, if they mixed.
The Koran says plenty about Mad Mo’s musings and they are taken as holy writ today in Islam. The only way a thesis like this could be entertained would be if there were a church input to him. It just looks so, so doubtful to me. The church would have to have been that rabid at his time and the Inquisition would then scarcely be the worst of it. Also this “wild ass of a man” would suddenly have something else besides destiny to blame for his wildness.
Sorry, as much as I respect you... can’t buy it. History and scripture don’t seem to go that way.
Well, I think IHS is stronger than dirt.
Wait! Ad campaign!
Also it looks like the Mithraists got 12/25 from us, not us from them.
Again, emphasizing that I generally highly respect your opinions, It tuns out that I feel necessary to contradict your approach on this. Here are the reasons why:
There is a trail of blood left by the attacks of the Roman statist sacral society on the pages of history, part of which bends off and breaks out as a separate statisyt religion, Islamism:
First, you must agree that the example of dealing with variation from religious tradition was typified in the pragmatists of the perverted Jewish religion that Jesus reprimanded and corrected. The Sadducees and Pharisees cooperated with the civilian Roman government to kill Him. That is exactly the method that false Christianity has taken to rub out its opposition.
Secondly, I disagree with your concept that history does not support my suggestion that Mohammed was not toughed by the religious wars of his day. Some examples of that are as follows:
He (Novatian) and his followers were excommunicated by a synod held at Rome in October of the same year. Novatian is said to have suffered martyrdom under the Emperor Valerian I (253–60).
After the Constantinian shift, when other Christians accepted the emperor as a leader in the Church, the Donatists continued to see the emperor as the devil. After several attempts to bring reconciliation, in 317 Constantine issued a severe edict that threatened the death penalty to anyone who disturbed the peace of the empire. Another edict followed that called for the confiscation of all Donatist church property. In Carthage Donatus refused to surrender buildings and the local Roman governor called for a "police" action, sending troops in to deal with the Donatists. The historical records are unclear, but it appears that some Donatists were killed and clergy were sent into exile.
According to Christian historian and scholar Samuel Vila, "in the year 660 [ Constantine ] received a deacon in his house, who put in his hands a precious and rare treasure in those days before the invention of the printing press: a New Testament. Upon reading the same he came to know about the whole salvation in Christ; and upon sharing said good news with others, he formed a group of sincere believers; later on, of preachers... who became known as Paulicians...." Regarding himself as called to restore the pure Christianity of Paul (of Tarsus), he adopted the name Silvanus (one of Paul's disciples), and about 660, he founded his first congregation at Kibossa, Armenia. Twenty-seven years later, he was arrested by the Imperial authorities, tried for heresy and stoned to death. Simeon, the court official who executed the order, was himself converted and adopting the name Titus became Constantine’s successor. He was burned to death (the punishment pronounced upon the Manichaeans) in 690
From the beginning of his reign, Pope Innocent III attempted to end Catharism by sending missionaries and by persuading the local authorities to act against them. In 1208 Innocent's papal legate Pierre de Castelnau was murdered while returning to Rome after excommunicating Count Raymond VI of Toulouse, who, in his view, was too lenient with the Cathars.[10] Pope Innocent III then abandoned the option of sending Catholic missionaries and jurists, declared Pierre de Castelnau a martyr and launched the Albigensian Crusade.
The Bogomils called for a return to what they considered to be early spiritual teaching, rejecting the ecclesiastical hierarchy, and their primary political tendencies were resistance to the state and church authorities. This helped the movement spread quickly in the Balkans, gradually expanding throughout the Byzantine Empire and later reaching Kievan Rus', Bosnia, Dalmatia, Rascia, Italy, and France-(Cathars).
Islam is one of the "heretic" Christian-Jewish sects: A challenge
Prophet Mohammad was from a clan that believed in one of these Christian-Jewish heretic sects that were established in Mecca; the father of Mohammad was a convert and his uncle was the Patriarch of the Christian sect.
All that Prophet Muhammad did was to drop the abstract notions in the Orthodox dogma and to adopt the common denominator belief system of the various heretic Christian-Jewish sects in the Arabic Peninsula, Syria, and Iraq.
Islam -- Final Revelation or Ultimate Heresy?
Old Wine in New Bottles – The Genesis of Islam
"Eschatological piety and fear of hellfire recall Syriac monastic preaching. The role of the prophet, the significance of written revelation, obedience of God's commands, and stress on communal life as the context of religious fulfillment all parallel Judaic ideas." -- Ira Lapidus (A History of Islamic Societies, p25)
Combining in his own person both religious and military leadership he could now strike back at the skeptics and rejectors of his prophetic status by deploying a private army and singling out critics for assassination or execution.
Thus, Islam combined the Old Testament integrally and the version of New Testament read by the Jewish-Christians sect, the Ebionites, of Mohammad’s tribe in the Mecca: the Patriarch of this sect was one of Muhammad’s uncles.
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My FRiend, the geography and cultures of Mohammed, particularly the then cosmopolitan Mecca, was saturated with religio-political schisms, confusing and threatening if one did not "belong" to the "right" one, cultural interactions that did not even begin to honor the concept of out Declaration of Independence--that the unalienable rights of a human given by his Creator ought to be life, liberty (physical, mental, and spiritual), and the pursuit of happiness (property, family, livelihood).
But Mohammed found one for himself that he was able to foist on others through raw, powerful control of each of those liberties, by dispensing them at his pleasure. Ditto all systems controlled by the Roman Church. Ditto Hitler. Ditto Stalin. Ditto Osama bin Laden. Ad nauseam.
And that is exactly why any religio-political system like Islam should be denied the right to take root in this land of the last best hope of mankind.
"We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth."
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FRiend, that last best hope is the free exercise of New Testament Christianity through local autonomous bodies of people of Christ--His churches throughout the world-- expressed through civilian government of, by, and for the people of the realm; not Romanism, Islamism, Socialism, or Communism. Or, God forbid, Atheism
And that's the way it ought to be, until He returns to reclaim His Kingdom on Earth.
1 Corinthians 8:1
“Knowledge puffs up, love builds up.”
1 Corinthians 13:4
“Love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude.”
I'm sure of it.
This method we have of communicating here strips us of much of our humanity.
Of course, determining what reference works are “reputable” or “scholarly” is subjective. If one should arrive at a conclusion the debater disagrees with, then of course their arguments would be discarded. It’s curious to me how selective some can be when they have already decided what they believe about something - or what they won’t believe.
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