(Gnostic Talk) Gnostic Christ vs. Biblical Jesus: The difference changes everything we were taught about "sin" and "salvation"
Sabaoth (the Son) turned against the Demiurge (Creator, Craftsman, the god)? "I've been sitting in Church for 40 years, and I always felt like I was confessing to a crime I couldn't remember committing."
Young Jesus (known in Buddhism as Saint Issa) in India and Tibet
Does curel, bloody black magic animal sacrifice really undergird all of modern Christianity?
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The Church knew, buried truth
In 1887, Russian Christian war correspondent Nicolas Notovitch claimed that while traveling through the Himalayas with other Russian, he was thrown from a horse and broke his leg.
The others left him to recover over the winter at a Tibetan Buddhist monastery known as Hemis Gompa in Ladakh (now part of India), he was shown written documentation called the "Life of Saint Issa, Best of the Sons of Men" (Isa being the Arabic name of Jesus in Islam) by the Buddhist abbot [30][31][32].
Notovitch's story, with a translated text of the "Life of Saint Issa," was published upon his return to the West in French in 1894 as La vie inconnue de Jesus Christ (Unknown Life of Jesus Christ) [5][32].
According to the Buddhist scrolls, Jesus (Issa) abandoned Jerusalem, Palestine/Israel, at the age of 13 and set out towards India, "intending to improve and perfect himself in the divine understanding and to studying the laws [the Dharma or Doctrine] of the great Buddha."
He crossed Punjab and reached Puri Jagannath, where he studied the Brahmin priests' Vedas (sacred text, lit. "Knowledge Books").
He spent six years in Puri and Rajgir (the famous Buddhist city Rajagriha, site of Vultures' Peak and Venuvana/Veluvana Vihara), near Nalanda (site of the world's first university, a Buddhist monastic learning center in India), an ancient seat of Brahminical/Vedic learning.
Then Issa/Jesus/Yeshua went up into the Himalayas and spent time in Tibetan lamaseries, studying Buddhism [30], and continued on through Persia (the Aryan Land of Iran), and returned to Jerusalem at the age of 29.
Notovitch's writings were immediately controversial, and German scholar Max Müller stated that either the Buddhist lamas at the lamasery had deceived Notovitch (or played a joke on him), or he had fabricated the evidence [30][33][34].
Müller then wrote to the Buddhist monastery at Hemis, and the [replacement] head lama replied that there had been no Western visitor at the monastery in the past 15 years and there were no documents related to Notovitch's story [35].
J. Archibald Douglas then visited Hemis Gompa and interviewed the [new] head lama, who stated that Notovitch had never been there [35].
Indologist Leopold von Schroeder called Notovitch's story a "big fat lie" [36]. Wilhelm Schneemelcher states that Notovich's accounts were soon exposed as fabrications and that to date no one has even had a glimpse at the manuscripts Notovitch claims to have had [5] [which is untrue since Swami Abhedananda traveled to Hemis and was allowed to see, touch, and confirm their existence].
Notovich defended himself by responding to these attacks and claims [37]. However, once his story was reexamined by historians – some even questioning his existence – they claimed Notovitch confessed to having fabricated the evidence [36].
American scholar Bart D. Ehrman states that, "Today there is not a single recognized scholar on the planet who has any doubts about the matter [other than German scholar Holger Kersten and his colleague German Indologist Gunter Gronbold, author of Jesus in Indien]. The entire story was invented by Notovitch, who earned a good deal of money and a substantial amount of notoriety for his hoax" [38].
However, others deny this. Notovich never accepted any accusations against him – that his account was a forgery or any such thing.
Although not impressed with his story, Sir Francis Younghusband recalls meeting Nicolas Notovitch near Skardu not long before Notovitch visited Hemis monastery [39].
In 1922, the President of the Vedanta Society of New York between 1897 and 1921 and the author of several books Swami Abhedananda went to the Himalayas on foot and reached Tibet, where he studied Buddhist philosophy and Tibetan Buddhism.
He traveled to Hemis Gompa and allegedly found the manuscript Notovitch claimed and translated, which was a Tibetan translation of the original scrolls written in the exclusively Buddhist language Pali.
One of the lamas said that it was a copy and that the original was in a monastery at Marbour near the Tibetan capital of Lhasa.
After Abhedananda's death in 1939, one of his disciples inquired about the documents at the Hemis Gompa but was told that they had disappeared [40][41] [which is to say moved for safety so that Westerners would not come kill everyone and steal them to hide the truth in accord with their sectarian religious views]. More
Before "Jesus Christ," there was Serapis Christus, Son of God, Pharoah Ptolemy of Europe
Jump to approximately Min. 24:00 for beginning of actual talk. Everything else is prep and preamble.
"Why and How the Roman Catholic Church CREATED Jesus Christ"
(Dr. Ray Hagins) Streamed live on April 16, 2023: Greetings and welcome to our Sunday Online NJIA Fellowship of The Afrikan Village and Cultural Center. Our prayer is that your life will be enhanced and empowered by your presence with us today. Now, prepare to receive the TRUTH from Spiritual Leader and Teacher Dr. Ray Hagins.
Paul Wallis, June 22, 2023; Sheldon S., Seth Auberon (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
Alien space father comes down to yell at human creation. Jesus never honored that Guy.
Did Jesus worship Yahweh (YHWH) Jehovah? | ET contact vs. religion
(Paul Wallis) Did Jesus worship Yahweh? Is the God of the Hebrew scriptures (aka the Old Testament of the Bible) the same as the God about whom Jesus preached and taught?
Oh, God, please do not ask us to make more war.
For nearly 2,000 years the mainstream of Christianity has acted as if they are the same two beings. However, evidence in the Gospels and New Testament present a very different view.
During his controversial tenure, Pope Benedict XVI insisted that the name "Yahweh" should not be used in prayers and liturgies in the churches "because Yahweh is not a Christian name for God."
In The Eden Conspiracy Wallis presents evidence from within the Jewish/Christian texts themselves that in the beginning Yahweh was not even a Hebrew name for God.
Yahweh was something else altogether. If Yahweh were an "ET" or an alien "colonizer," as Wallis argues in the Eden Series, then where is Jesus in this picture?
Did Jesus know that? Is the truth staring us in the face, hidden in plain sight? Also enjoy:
(ReligionHistory)"Banned from the Bible" examines theforbidden stories in ancientgospels, how they
were rediscovered, and what they might mean to the world today.
The new Republican Jesus
When
Jesus was a boy, did he kill another child? Was Mary Magdalene a "prostitute" -- or an apostle? Did Cain commit incest? Will there be an
apocalypse, or is this the JudeoChristian God's trick to scare us?
The answers to these
questions aren't found in the Bible as we know it, but they exist in
scriptures banned when powerful leaders deemed them unacceptable for
reasons more political than religious. "Banned From the Bible" reveals some
of these alternative tales and examines why they were "too hot for
Christianity."
The Life of Adam and Eve, The Book of Enoch, The
Book of Jubilees, The Infancy Gospel of Thomas, The Gospel of Mary, The
Apocalypse of Peter... these are just a few of the books that were intentionally left
out of the official Christian Bible.
The reasons for their exclusion provide astonishing
insight into the concerns of Church leaders and scholars responsible
for spreading the Christian faith (and the hegemony of Greco-Roman "Western" empires) around the world. It is an illuminating look at early Christian religious history.
(BBC) The truth is stranger than fiction. Inconvenient facts make
sense tosolve agreat mystery. Was Jesus once a Buddhist monk?
One hundred and fifty years after the birth of
St. Issa (Jesus), a man named Marcion (of Sinope) decided that a Greek or Christian Bible was needed to
replace the Jewish or Hebrew Bible. Church leaders opposed Marcion's banning of
the Hebrew books, but they did agree that Christianity would benefit from having a "Bible" of its own, a New Testament.
After Emperor Constantine the Great converted to
Christianity in the 4th century, a serious effort was made to compile a
Christian Bible, one that included both the Hebrew scriptures (Old
Testament) and emerging Christian manuscripts (New Testament). It took
another 40 years before a final list of New Testament books was
officially canonized by the church. Many of the most popular were
excluded. Upon examination today, many of these writings attempt to
resolve inconsistencies and questions raised from reading the Bible.
American Hegemony and Power
Growing by invasion and force
The Monroe Doctrine is a policy of the United States introduced in1823 that stated that further efforts by European nations to colonize land or interfere with states in North or South America would be viewed as acts of aggression, requiring U.S. intervention. At the same time, the doctrine noted that the USA would
neither interfere with existing European colonies nor meddle in the
internal concerns of European countries. The doctrine was issued at a
time when nearly all Latin American colonies of Spain and Portugal had achieved or were at the point of gaining independence from the Portuguese Empire and Spanish Empire. Peru consolidated their independence in 1824, and Bolivia would become independent in 1825, leaving only Cuba and Puerto Rico [now under de facto American control with Guantanamo and semi-statehood] under Spanish rule. The US, working in agreement with Britain, wanted to guarantee that no European power would move in. It was the USA's time to colonize the world (beginning, it seems, with Mexico and the Philippines).
(The Onion) Satirical look at things that should make the mainstream news
Buddhism, of course, does not have any "commandments." The Buddha did not reveal the Teaching and Training by commanding, coercing, or ordering anyone to follow the path to enlightenment (which also leads to other happy results in the round of rebirths*).
There are Ten Precepts one may voluntarily undertake to uphold for one's own benefit and the benefit of others, particularly during times of intensive practice. There are also Eight Precepts, which are almost exactly the same, with only one difference (yes, not two).
The merit (good karma) that results in a human rebirth is keeping the Five Precepts, which all practicing Buddhists undertake to maintain. Being a "Buddhist" means that one goes for guidance (sarana) -- almost always mistranslated as "going for refuge" -- to the Buddha, Dharma, and [accomplished] Sangha and keeps the precepts.
Although there are no commandments, there are Ten Courses of Unwholesome Action (explained in detail at AN X.206). They can be read as a kind of Buddhist Ten Commandments for those wishing to be commanded. They are called "courses" (routes, paths, corridors) because they have the karmic potency in and of themselves to lead to woeful rebirths:
Thou art well advised not to take the lives of living beings.
Thou art well advised not to take what is not given.
NOTES *Other fortunate results include rebirth in heavenly realms or again in the human world. The Dharma encourages good karma that is of benefit in every kind of endeavor. In fact, it is only on account of good karma that living beings enjoy or meet with any benefits in any plane of existence. This is counter intuitive. But the benefits one experiences while engaged in wrongdoing -- for example, when stealing -- are not coming from the wrongdoing. They are coming from good karma performed in the past. Were that karma not in place, or if it gets exhausted, one is unable to have and enjoy even what one has stolen. See The Workings of Kamma (PDF) for an explanation of why this is so.
**Frivolous: chit chatting, speaking what is not timely, not factual, not good, not connected to Dharma [the doctrine or social obligations], not connected to discipline. In other words, speaking out of season, uttering speech not worth treasuring, unpleasant, unrestrained, disagreeable, and unconnected with what is truly profitable). This kind of "low speech" is commonly referred to as "animal talk" (tiracchana-katha), because it is base and drags close to the ground. Animal talk is defined as "talk about leaders and thieves, heads of state and armies, danger and war, eating and drinking, clothes [fashion] and dwellings, cosmetics and scents, relations, vehicles, neighborhoods and marketplaces, towns and districts, women and heroes, street talk, water cooler [the well] gossip, talk about the long since departed, tittle-tattle, talk about the [origin of the] world and sea, gain and loss" (AN X.69, Wisdom Quarterly translation).
***Wrong understanding includes holding such pernicious views as: "There is no result of giving, offering, or sacrificing for others. There is no fruit or ripening of good and bad actions (karma). There is no here and now [this world], no hereafter [a world to come]. There is no [special significance to things done to or for one's] mother or father. There are no spontaneously-born beings. There are no noble and virtuous recluses and brahmins who have themselves realized by direct knowledge and declared [the nature of] this world and of other worlds."
The Bible was altered at the Council of Nicea. Many changes were made, many misunderstandings codified. For example, the Greek word for "fish weed" (a dried seaweed) has been mistranslated in stories as "fish." The gospels were originally written in Greek and certainly not by original apostles.
10 billion animals are killed each year in the US alone for food. Cattle ranching produces more greenhouse gases than driving cars. - 2006 UN Report warning. Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" failed to mention that consuming meat and dairy is worse for the environment than all emissions from the automotive industry.
1) Factory farms produce massive amounts of dust and other contaminants that pollute the air. A study in Texas found that animal feedlots in the state produce more than 14 million pounds of particulate dust every year and that the dust "contains biologically active organisms such as bacteria, mold, and fungi from the feces and the feed."
2) According to the nonprofit group Greenpeace, all the wild animals and trees in more than 2.9 million acres of rainforest were destroyed in the 2004-2005 crop season in order to grow crops that are used to feed chickens and other animals in factory farms.
3) According to a 2006 UN report, the livestock sector causes more greenhouse gases worldwide than the entire transportation sector.
4) Nitrous oxide is about 300 times more potent as a global warming gas than carbon dioxide. According to the U.N., the meat, egg, and dairy industries account for a staggering 65 percent of worldwide nitrous oxide emissions.
5) According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the run-off from factory farms pollutes waterways more than all other industrial sources combined. The EPA reports that chicken, hog, and cattle excrement have polluted 35,000 miles of rivers in 22 states and contaminated groundwater in 17 states.
6) It takes 16 pounds of grain and 2,500 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of meat. One average meateater could consume that pound of meat during a meal, while 16 people could have been fed on the grain it takes to produce that pound of meat.
7) The meat industry causes more water pollution in the US than all other industries combined because the animals raised for food produce 130 times more excrement than the entire human population -- 86,000 pounds per second. A typical pig factory farm generates a quantity of raw waste equal to that of a city of 12,000 people.
8) Every 2 seconds, a child starves to death somewhere in the world. Countries such as Ethiopia and some Central American countries use their farmland to supply the United States with cheap burgers instead of growing healthful grain foods for their own starving people.
9) The livestock population of the US consumes enough grain and soybeans to feed more than 5 times its human population. 90% of all corn and 80% of all grains and beans grown in the US are used to feed livestock animals.
10) 75 percent of U.S. topsoil has been lost to date, 85 percent of that loss is due to raising livestock for slaughter.
Meat is murder on the environment
A kilogram of beef is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions and other pollution than driving for 3 hours while leaving all the lights on back home.
Fortunately there is something we can do -- switch to a plant-based diet, or at the very least reduce our meat and dairy consumption.
Go vegan for human beings, sentient beings, earthlings, and the environment (woodstockFAS.org)
Many leading environmental organizations -- including the National Audubon Society, the WorldWatch Institute, the Sierra Club, and the Union of Concerned Scientists -- have recognized that raising animals for food damages the environment more than anything else we do.
The meat industry is one of the most destructive ecological industries on the planet.
"It is better not to eat meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause any man to stumble" (Romans 14:21).
"Meats for the belly, and belly for meats; but God shall destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for fornication but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body" (Corinthians 6:13)
"Jesus said, Blessed is the lion which the man shall eat, and the lion become man; and cursed is the man whom the lion shall eat, and the lion become man" (Gospel of Thomas 7.
VEDAS Prophecy? The Vedas describe the future appearance of Ishaputra, the son (putra) of God (Isha). He was born of an "unmarried woman" named Kumari (Mariam, Mary) GarbhaSambhava. He would visit India at the age of thirteen and go to the Himalayan mountains and do tapas (austerities or penances) to acquire spiritual maturity under the guidance of rishis (seers) and siddha-yogis (ascetics with magical powers) before going back to Palestine to preach to the people there.
This would explain why he was able to perform various miracles (siddhas). It would also explain why there are so many philosophical similarities between early Christianity and Hinduism/Mahayana Buddhism. Jesus was initiated into the Vedic wisdom of India and the Tibetan practices at Hemis Gompa.
He would naturally have based much of his own teachings on Vedic knowledge, much of which has been lost from the Christian fold through the ages. (This happened famously in Constantinople in 441 AD when the Romans decided to get rid of Jesus' teachings on reincarnation, karma, vegetarianism and instead rework the teachings to suit their ends).
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