I’ve no interest in demon stuff so I won’t be checking that out.
That is fine @MarkD then I should of asked, what did you like about @MelekRimaye post?
How come you liked @MelekRimaye post then?
My mistake is I shared further what I found online. I won’t do that again.
However I looked up Zoroastrian demonology and shared. Oddly @Terry_Sampson claims in another thread I can’t handle any more rabbit holes.
This is real stuff. And @MelekRimaye been thinking about what is Christianity and Judaism, is it
or is this a rabbit hole that can’t be handle?
It’s ok for Abraham almost kill his son. Praise the Lord! Awesome rabbit hole!
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This is real discussion - who’s Abraham?
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Is Abraham for humanity but how come no one was for the children to help these half siblings get along?
So I wrote this:
I’ll share yours and hopefully I’ll learn better how to share.
Lesson learn I should of only stay with your website and read it more. to learn about Zoroastrianism. My apologies. Oddly though @MarkD liked your post. I’ll go study this area more. Maybe what I should of done is ask, @MarkD what did you like about this website?
Your website said
The ancient religion of the rishi Zarathustra (Zoroaster), which we will here call Mazdayasna (but which is usually called Zoroastrianism) was the dominant religion of Persia before the Islamic period. It is often argued to have had an influence on Judaism and Christianity. We need to be cautious here, however. On the one hand Mazdayasna apparently did have a doctrine of general resurrection before Judaism. Yet when the idea of general resurrection does show up in Judean religion (in Daniel 12), it is expressed in language (i.e. ‘awaking’) which is decidedly Semitic, with a long pedigree in Semitic religion, which is, by contrast, absent in Mazdayasna. At most, it seems Achaemenid Persian rule created a more receptive milieu for the idea of general resurrection.
Yet in some cases, an influence of Mazdayasna on developing Judaism seems clear. It is hard to know ‘how much’ of an influence Mazdayasna’s idea of daevas (evil deities) was on developing Jewish demonology, but it is clear that it at least had some influence, for example on the demon Asmodeus in the second temple Book of Tobit, who went on to become the ‘King of the Demons’ in later Jewish literature, and whose name is generally held to be derived from that of the daeva ‘Aeshma‘, through a compound form, ‘Aeshma Daeva’.
Indeed, it is interesting how (as we have seen before), demons didn’t play a huge role in Pre-Exilic Judean religion, whereas their role exploded in popularity during the Second Temple Period. Things have changed since I wrote my first blog post on demons in Christianity. What changed is the realisation that the Old and New Testaments ‘can’ be harmonised here, ‘if’ Mazdayasna can be viewed as a Praeparatio Evangelica, preparing the way for the coming of the Gospel.
Yazd fire temple, Zoroastrianism - WorldAtlas
The Christian (and Jewish) tradition has not been completely without positive assessment of Mazdayasna, even if it was rarely a priority. To give a Jewish example, Philo of Alexandria, in his condemnation of ‘base’ magic (The Special Laws, 3:100), nonetheless offers a praise of the ‘true’ magical art, of which the Persian priests, the ‘Magi’ were paragons,
Now the true magical art, being a science of discernment, which contemplates and beholds the books of nature with a more acute and distinct perception than usual, and appearing as such to be a dignified and desirable branch of knowledge, is studied not merely by private individuals, but even by kings, and the very greatest of kings, and especially by the Persian monarchs, to such a degree, that they say that among that people no one can possibly succeed to the kingdom if he has not previously been initiated into the mysteries of the magi.
A surprisingly positive view of the priesthood and rites of a foreign religion, from an ancient Jew.
Late Antique Christians and Jews held a more negative view of Mazdayasna, sometimes identifying Zarathustra with the wicked biblical king Nimrod (others, such as Epiphanius of Salamis disagreed). A fairly transparent depiction of Zarathustra occurs in The Cave of Treasures,
And in the days of Nimrod, the mighty man (or giant), a fire appeared which ascended from the earth, and Nimrod went down, and looked at it, and worshipped it, and he established priests to minister there, and to cast incense into it. From that day the Persians began to worship fire, [and they do so] to this day.
A clear reference to Zoroastrian veneration of sacred fire. The text goes on to describe Nimrod becoming learned in divination (which is equated with Gelyana, ‘revelation’), and it is perhaps in the context of Nimrod’s revelations from divination that The Cave of Treasures says,
…when the Magi saw the star they were perturbed, and terrified, and afraid, and the whole land of Persia was disturbed. And the kings, and the Magi, and the Chaldeans, and the wise men of Persia, were stupefied, and they were exceedingly afraid of the portent which they saw. And they said, “Peradventure the king of the Greeks hath determined to wage war against the land of Nimrod.” And the Magi and the Chaldeans were terrified, and they consulted their books of wisdom, and through the might of the wisdom of their books they understood and learned, and stood upon the strength of the truth. Now, in truth, the Magi of the Chaldeans discovered that by means of the motions of the stars, to which they gave the name of “Signs of the Zodiac,” they were able to know and understand the strength (or, importance) of events before they took place. And this same knowledge is also given to those who go down into the sea, and by the motions of the stars they know beforehand when there is going to be a disturbance of the winds, and when a violent storm is going to rise up against them, and whenever they are about to be threatened with danger from winds and waves. Thus also was it with the Magi. When they saw and read in the “Revelation of Nimrod” they discovered therein that a king was born in Judah, and the whole path of the Dispensation of Christ was revealed unto them.
In other words, though polemicising against the figure of Zarathustra, The Cave of Treasures could not ignore that he (through divination) had made accurate predictions of the coming of Jesus. After all, the Gospel of Matthew speaks of Magi coming to see the child Jesus. Perhaps the Mazdayasnan belief in a coming ‘Saoshyant‘, a Messianic figure, also played a role in this harmonising.
More positive, or at least ambivalent views on Zarathustra also developed in Syriac Christianity. The 8th century churchman Theodore bar Konai records an alleged ‘prophecy’ made by Zardusht (Zarathustra) concerning the coming of Christ. He concludes,
These (things) were uttered by that second Balaam. As is customary, (either) God forced him to expound them; or he derived from a people who were conversant with the symbolic prophecies about Christ, (and) he predicted them.
This narrative keeps open the possibility that Zarathustra had received real revelation from God, even if he was not a prophet on the order of the Hebrew Prophets, rather being a ‘second Balaam’, a gentile prophet in the Book of Numbers who gave unwilling prophecies.
This is only scratching the surface. Needless to say (even if the prophecy may have Gnostic origins) Christians ‘could’ accept that one way or another (through divination, true revelation, Hebrew contact or otherwise) Zarathustra had real knowledge of the coming of Christ. What this tells us is that Ancient and Medieval Christians could recognise and account for the similarities between their faith and that of Zarathustra, far from this being a modernist idea Christians can only shy away from.
Ultimately, the question of whether Zarathustra truly knew of Christ, and predicted (even prophesied of) him is almost impossible to answer, as we do not know the antiquity of everything in the Avestas (the chief Mazdayasnan scriptures) as they have come down to us. Whilst their core seems genuinely ancient, they were oral works until Late Antiquity, with our earliest extant manuscripts being medieval.
What I can say, however, is that Mazdayasna seems to have had a positive role in God’s plan of salvation, paving the way for certain Christian doctrines (in all probability, including Christian views on demons and maybe general resurretion). That’s something to consider, and far from coming from a place of ‘theological liberalism’ (which has little time for Daevas anyway), accepting this can help preserve the coherence of the gospel’s message.
I hope for this to be a starting point for future discussions of Mazdayasna on this blog.
~ Šar Rīmī
This was posted in another thread, but it certainly seems appropriate here as well:
This too:
This photo is NOT from a German Bible. It’s a dictionary of bible terms.
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I liked getting the early connections between different religious traditions.
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Oddly, Terry_Sampson cannot find the thread in which he said what riversea says he claimed, which is not surprising because riversea has substantial difficulty in understanding things that Terry_Sampson says and in finding them again after she says he claimed them.
This was probably what she was referring to?…
# For You Are My God By John Foley,S J
For you are my God by John Foley, SJ
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You give marvelous comrades to me:
the faithful who dwell in Your land.
Those who choose alien gods
have chosen an alien band. -
You are my portion and cup;
It is You that I claim for my prize.
Your heritage is my delight,
the lot you have given to me. -
Glad are my heart and my soul
Securely my body will rest
For you will not leave me for dead
Nor lead your beloved astray -
You show me the path for my life
In your presence the fullness of joy
To be at your right hand forever
For me would be happiness always
Auf Deutsch:
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Du gibst mir wunderbare Kameraden:
die Gläubigen, die in deinem Land wohnen.
Diejenigen, die fremde Götter wählen
haben sich für eine außerirdische Band entschieden. -
Du bist mein Anteil und Kelch;
Du bist es, den ich für meinen Preis beanspruche.
Dein Erbe ist meine Freude,
das Los, das du mir gegeben hast. -
Froh sind mein Herz und meine Seele
Sicher wird mein Körper ruhen
Denn du wirst mich nicht dem Tode überlassen
Führe deinen Geliebten auch nicht in die Irre -
Du zeigst mir den Weg für mein Leben
In deiner Gegenwart die Fülle der Freude
Für immer an deiner rechten Hand zu sein
Für mich wäre Glück immer
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So @riversea, I know how busy you are, but I have a question for you and Bharat and anybody else in the world you may want to consult.
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I ask the question because you and Bharat believe that you are or are becoming one with the Universal Collective Conscious and contribute to making “God”, which I assume includes: Yahweh, Allah, and Brahman.
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So while you’re busy "making God/Yahwe/Allah/Brahaman et al." have you ever wondered what to do do with Psalm 95?
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What does Psalm 95 say, you ask? Here’s a copy of it:
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- Come, let us sing for joy to Yahweh; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.
- Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song.
- For Yahweh is the great God, the great King above all gods.
- In his hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him.
- The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land.
- Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker;
- for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care.
Today, if only you would hear his voice, - “Do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah,[as you did that day at Massah in the wilderness,
- where your ancestors tested me; they tried me, though they had seen what I did.
- For forty years I was angry with that generation; I said, ‘They are a people whose hearts go astray, and they have not known my ways.’
- So I declared on oath in my anger, ‘They shall never enter my rest.’”
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Psalm 95 tells me that Yahweh doesn’t sound like the kind of God who shares his glory with anyone else. In other words, He kind of frowns on idolatry, which is what you two are doing.
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I agree with psalm 95
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allowing God teach me and feed me in my spirit heart, not to harden heart means allow be fed in spirit heart., and allow listen to God
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when I read the words you wrote of Psalm 95 I agree with this.,
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when I’m angry harden heart blocking, I’ll allow Holy Spirit teach me, in the midst of blocking, what is going on that I’m blocking, how to allow Holy Spirit more and blocking less, and I learn from this too. I have a personal relationship with Holy Spirit through all my situations
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So I can relate with this song.
@bharatjj @jim1 @MelekRimaye what is panpsychism?
Can we have a discussion what is panpsychism?
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What is panpsychism?
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please show me how to have a value discussion here at Biologos, where people have value. Please teach me how to do this. I appreciate this thank you
@jim1 wrote: One of the most challenging puzzles for philosophers and scientists is how did consciousness originate? Did it emerge from the complexity of neurons or is there some other explanation? The idea of panpsychism grew out of the realization that consciousness could not have emerged solely from the material elements of the periodic table unless those elements had a spark of consciousness. It is an interesting idea, but how would one test it. Another idea that is not amenable to testing is the Greek idea of the logos which refers to words which are the outer manifestation of self - consciousness. Max Planck, the discoverer of quanta as he immersed himself in the developing theory of quantum mechanics said, “We can never get behind consciousness.” What if consciousness is not emergent but is the ground of all being as Paul Tillich famously proclaimed to be God.
Similarly, what if the universe begins in the present?
stoppit. my brane hirtz
I looked up Paul Tillich and found some quotes I found interesting
Paul Tillich quotes
“Doubt isn’t the opposite of faith, it is an element of faith.”
“The first duty of love is to listen.”
“The courage to be is the courage to accept oneself, in spite of being unacceptable.”
"I hope for the day when everyone can speak again of God without embarrassment.
I can really use the quote “The courage to be is the courage to accept oneself, in spite of being unacceptable.”
To actually accept self when others don’t accept me.
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I’m new to Panpsychism - learning - see me as a beginner at this ok.
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would this be Panpsychism: Example a speaker will be aware of while a person in the audience will be aware of, both are aware of while in areas.
I’m going to study more Paul Tillich
@heymike3 you wrote Similarly, what if the universe begins in the present?
- universe begins in the present
what is universe actually?
Time I understand this as light. I seen light in people radiate outward
I understand light., ok this light doesn’t light up things. This light is of it self and radiates of it self. But no this light doesn’t light up other things instead it radiates outward on its own. So its not the same as a light bulb how that will light up a room
This light that I seen doesn’t light up things, instead this light is a being.
this light lives in people and is usually blocked by people so this light doesn’t radiate outward, but when allowed, then this light radiates outwardly
I think this light was, before our universe
so due to I’ve seen this light, how would that apply in panpsychism when I’m sharing an area some don’t know about?
I had a philosophy of religion professor who defined it as the total collection of objects with respect to the nose of a student in our class…