31
I was unaware of what Sartre wrote. Is a difference of of such a point indicitive of Anti-Semitism? Then isn't Christainanity Anti-Semetic by the same reasoning?
The only sects I know of that are anti anything are those that prescribe death to adherents of other beliefs.
I know little of Manicheanism but have found myself drawn to understand it as of late...per my above hypothesis. I am in continuous study although a bit preoccupied with other ideas/projects as of late.
I appreciate your observations, knowledge and input. It can only serve my enlightenment.
I do see the Zorastrain influence so far...which I find especially interresting considering the Zorastrian priests are the ones who persecuted Mani so specifically.
You are a Divine expression of the Universe.

32
Historically, Christianity has been virulently anti-Semitic - though we're wandering off-topic here. Most Christians today seem to put it down to reading the gospels out of context. Still, there's no denying it.

Any decent history book, chestnuts like Martin Luther's Of the Jews and Their Lies, which Hitler used as a blueprint for the holocaust, the Justinian laws way back when, and it goes on and on and on and on.

I don't believe Christianity needs to be anti-semitic, though, and there has been huge improvement since the second world war. Anti-semitism would seem to fly in the face of stated Christian principles and ethics.

Also, the only occidental monotheism I'm aware of is Christianity, and even that's fairly split. Orthodox Christianity follows Greek thought more than Roman, and you can definitely see the western/middle eastern split between them.

Both Judaism and Islam are firmly middle-eastern.

Having lived in both societies, there is a huge difference between the two.

33
I can see your line of reason.
Yet, I was raised [here in America] primarily Quaker [We are taught to repect all individual spiritual inspiration] and susequently found my beliefs through a synthesism of Hindu and esoteric/occult Christain beliefs [Essene & Gnostic...among others] which rely heavily on early Judaic scripture, the Torah and Kabbalistic interpretation...I believe there is a common middle ground to be found in "The Mix".
There seems to be "Truth" in all sects which honor "The Light"...of which Judaism, Christianity, Zorastrianism, Hinduism, Bhuddism, Sufism, Sihkism et.al. are of that ilk....and here in the 'States' we have our indigenous rites, most notably the 'Sun Rites' of the Hopi and the Zuni ...Manicheanism, so far as I have ascertained, is in that "Ilk" also.
The rub is in seperating the "Wheat from the chaff"...I like to say that "The Devil is in [or,... has gotten into...] the details."

...also, Freuds' "Moses And Monotheism" is a must read as per understanding the "Light" worship origins of Judaism.
Last edited by Dave M. on Fri Nov 27, 2009 12:11 pm, edited 2 times in total.
You are a Divine expression of the Universe.

35
I'm not very well-read in Sartre either but I was reminded of it because at home I have a small booklet in which anti-Semitism is explained and how it can be recognized, one of the features was said to be Manichaeism and Sartre was mentioned in the book.

Like Olivia says, in history anti-Semitic Christianity can be traced everywere. One of the most infamous examples the concept of 'the Jews' having murdered 'the Christ' (the so called 'Jewish deicide' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_deicide . And indeed Christianity doesn't need to be anti-Semitic. A more widespread acceptance of Judaeism by Christians came after WWII.

Another problem that occurs is that if Manichaeism could be said to make a dualist division between good and evil people too easily, the people who want to combat Manichaeism might do it so fanatically that their fight in fact resembles this same dualist principle of good against evil.

For example the Cathars in 13th century Southern France were heavily persecuted and massacred for their (alleged) Manichaeism, this would make their persecutors not better than them. And nowadays the tiny group (only some tenthousands) of Zoroastrians in Iran are having a real hard time. And somewhere I read that when Buddhism spread to Mongolia the regional shamanist religion was suppressed by the Buddhist as an alleged worship of devils.

So nothing is entirely black and white and a dualism like light-dark, +/-, male-female seems okay to me when they are well balanced and seen as rather complementary instead of the one (light) being better than the other (darkness). We need both sides, darkness for sleep and the lenghtening and shortening of days is necessary for some plants to flower in certain periods etc. etc.

To end with a link to astrology I'm reminded of the idea that in older days people believed that the planet Saturn was ascribed to the Jewish people and the Sun to the Christians, Venus to the Muslims (I believe, not sure of it). I guess all peoples and individuals all have more or less of all planets 'in' them.

36
Hello Eddy,
Eddy wrote: To end with a link to astrology I'm reminded of the idea that in older days people believed that the planet Saturn was ascribed to the Jewish people and the Sun to the Christians, Venus to the Muslims (I believe, not sure of it). I guess all peoples and individuals all have more or less of all planets 'in' them.
Mercury to Christians, because Catholic religion (the only variant during Middle Ages) is the religion of scholars

margherita
Traditional astrology at
http://heavenastrolabe.wordpress.com

37
Olivia wrote:Historically, Christianity has been virulently anti-Semitic - though we're wandering off-topic here. Most Christians today seem to put it down to reading the gospels out of context. Still, there's no denying it.

Any decent history book, chestnuts like Martin Luther's Of the Jews and Their Lies, which Hitler used as a blueprint for the holocaust, the Justinian laws way back when, and it goes on and on and on and on.

I don't believe Christianity needs to be anti-semitic, though, and there has been huge improvement since the second world war. Anti-semitism would seem to fly in the face of stated Christian principles and ethics.

Also, the only occidental monotheism I'm aware of is Christianity, and even that's fairly split. Orthodox Christianity follows Greek thought more than Roman, and you can definitely see the western/middle eastern split between them.

Both Judaism and Islam are firmly middle-eastern.

Having lived in both societies, there is a huge difference between the two.
You may be interested...!
...I don't know how you feel about Sabian analysis...I know that overall this forum is not oriented to it...but here's a link to the astrologyweekly.com forum where-in I've started a thread on the Saturn-Uranus opposition that is currently occuring and how, I believe, it will affect spirituality in the coming years....

...here's the link...
http://www.astrologyweekly.com/forum/sh ... hp?t=19360

...or you may find this thread I have at actastrology.com more concise and easier to follow... http://actastrology.com/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=175
You are a Divine expression of the Universe.

38
No, you're right - I don't give credence to Sabian nor do I do speculative astrology, and I barely use the outer planets at all.

The only reason I'm at astrologyweekly currently is because one of the horary mods kind of suborned me into covering for her during her holidays.

I honestly try to stay away from the rest of the forum. I've read a few threads there, and it's not my cup of tea. The horary forum is bad enough with 'I'm a Scorpio so I'll pick Pluto as my significator' and 'guess what my question is'

AAARRGGHHH.

I'm glad it's there for the people who enjoy it. But it's not geared to the type of astrology I'm interested in, so I just stay in my corner, and in January I can leave.

39
What impresses me on the horary forums of astrology weekly is the complete lack of ethical concerns, concerns about the role of astrology, or even the most simplistic "reality check".

So, there are always "horaries" like: "is my boyfriend gay?", "if I cheat on him will he find out", "this is my horary but I will not say what was my question", "is Obama an alien?", "does horary astrology works?", "who shot Kennedy?", etc, etc, etc.

I am suspect to say this because I am a moderator, so I will add a "IMHO"
:lala
Meu blog de astrologia (em portugues) http://yuzuru.wordpress.com
My blog of astrology (in english) http://episthemologie.wordpress.com

40
I was thinking of doing up a post about how the Delphic Oracle would curse you if you asked frivolous questions, but I fear it would be lost on the audience.

Some of them probably really want to learn horary, but I can understand why the good people tend not to stay, or need to take a month off from time to time.

41
yuzuru wrote:What impresses me on the horary forums of astrology weekly is the complete lack of ethical concerns, concerns about the role of astrology, or even the most simplistic "reality check".

So, there are always "horaries" like: "is my boyfriend gay?", "if I cheat on him will he find out", "this is my horary but I will not say what was my question", "is Obama an alien?", "does horary astrology works?", "who shot Kennedy?", etc, etc, etc.
On the Astrodienst forum I used to see such unethical questions too. And even worse, not only on the horary section but also on the native chart discussions in which native charts, obviously without the knowledge of their owner where discussed, indeed with such questions bout being gay etc.

However there is nothing new under the sun, in medieval times people went to astrologers with similar questions. Although the following article unfortunately can only be accessed via universities etc, I'll mention it because of the interesting historical content.
The Stars and Human Sexuality: Some Medieval Scientific Views
Helen Lemay
Isis, Vol. 71, No. 1 (Mar., 1980), pp. 127-137
Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of The History of Science Society
http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/230317.pdf

The article gives examples of Abenragel and Bonatti how it could be determined whether a woman was a virgin or not. However Bonatti also had ways of telling the truth a bit differently in favour of the female, indicating the loss of virginity but not by intercourse.
(for people in posession of Bonatti's works I mention some footnotes in the article concerning this matter: Bonatus, Decem tractatus astronomie, fols. 203v-204.). In Ptolemy's Tetrabiblos Book III 13 and 14 (Robbins, http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/R ... 3D*.html#4 ) also mentions sexual inclinations. Furthermore,
the article wrote:According to
Abenragel, it is even possible to satisfy
one's curiosity about a neighbor's sex life
by means of astrology; he outlines a
method for determining whether the people
next door will have sexual intercourse
on a certain night.24 (footn. 24Abenragel, Liber in iudiciis astrorum, fol. 27v:
Cap. 24, "In questione si habuerit rem cum muliere
hac nocte vel non.")
Whether this is possible or not, it illustrates how far people could go to satisfy their curiousness.

Short time ago I got a second hand copy of Keith Thomas' 'Religion and the Decline of Magic', expounding on the place of magic, astrology etc. in the social structure of 16th and 17th century England. I immediately started in the chapters on astrology. There it is explained that (horary)astrology was often used to find a thief, by describing the physical features. Previously this suspect finding was done by village wizards etc.
Nowadays most people wouldn't think of trying such a thing through astrology (I hope :shock: ), and fortunately there are laws that protect suspects.

However it must all be seen in the social context of those days. Thomas' book emphasizes the social role of the astrologer, although often wrong, was important for giving advice using common sense. It seems that few things have changed today.
And centuries before it was similar,
the article wrote:Bonatti's discussion of virginity gives
us evidence of how the practitioner of the
science of the stars could have functioned
as an arbiter of sexual disputes
within the society.

42
Greetings. Well, once again I've run into something that gives support to my theory posted above concerning the application of the Musical Scale or Musical Tonality and its relationship to the angle of the sides of the Great Pyramid....51.42871....*
There is a video available to watch on the internet called the "2012 Enigma" and it is presented by a fellow named David Wilcock.
In info presented He talks about Acoustic mechanics and how the degree of the angle of the Great Pyramid applies to it.

...I do recommend seeing it...but be forewarned the bulk of the presentation is a bit far out as it pertains to a lot a odd subjects...such as the "Philadelphia Experiment", "The Montauk Project", "Project Looking Glass"...etc.
You are a Divine expression of the Universe.