Path: Supernews70!Supernews73!supernews.com!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!newsfeed.nacamar.de!fu-berlin.de!news3.bellglobal.com!news1.bellglobal.com!news20.bellglobal.com!not-for-mail From: richard sprigg Newsgroups: alt.satanism,alt.magick.tyagi,talk.religion.misc,alt.religion.wicca,alt.pagan,alt.mythology Subject: Re: Satan and Horned Gods (was Re: Satanic Witch Question...) Date: Mon, 09 Mar 1998 01:32:51 -0500 Organization: Bell Solutions Lines: 58 Message-ID: <35038D13.34F5@sympatico.ca> References: <6d80ug$bit$1@shell.accesscom.com> <6df249$f2n$1@shell.accesscom.com> <34FB522F.2523@primenet.com> <350024A2.53F7@pacbell.net> <35003149.2709@pacbell.net> <3502739B.1EC1@primenet.com> Reply-To: kteis@sympatico.ca NNTP-Posting-Host: 206.172.206.48 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: news21.bellglobal.com 889424693 23183 (None) 206.172.206.48 X-Complaints-To: usenet@news20.bellglobal.com X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01C-SYMPA (Win95; U) Xref: Supernews70 alt.satanism:87973 alt.magick.tyagi:15043 talk.religion.misc:350232 alt.religion.wicca:115643 alt.pagan:256219 alt.mythology:46734 Joe Jefferson wrote: > > > > LOL! Sorry folks, I'm not a Dr. of anything. I'm just a humble > anthropology student. (Okay, so maybe I'm not that humble.) > > Your post about the Church Fathers was interesting, but I'm not sure of > its relevance since my previous post had to do with the concept of Satan > in the books of Job and Zechariah - both of which were included in the > Christian canon for precisely one reason: that being that they had > already been included in the Jewish canon centuries earlier. The Jewish > Bible and the Christian Old Testament are arranged slightly differently, > but the content is identical. > > What is your basis for claiming that the struggle to keep Gnosticism out > of the church was politically motivated as opposed to motivated by > religious belief? Such contemporary comment as is extant today, (much of which was discovered in the last 25 years) supports that hypothesis. When the church fathers were assembling the NT in the period 75-100 AD, they were inconvenienced by the plethora of true gospels around. They selected the most suited to their ends, and destroyed the rest. With an official canon, the aim of a single, catholic, powerful and politically active church was off to the races. The Gnostics were a problem because they did not support the concept of a fixed canon: each wrote his own gospel. Further they were a direct challenge to the authority of the Bishops: they had no formal hierarchy and did not recognize the authority of the central church. Once you understand that any organized church is about power, control and politics, not religion, it is easy to understand why all heretics must be eliminated, be they Gnostics, Bulgars, Cathars or whatever. There is an excellent book on the fragments of Gnostic gospels and other papers, published by Harvard as I recall. you probably read it anyway. > > > wicca is a christian heresy. so is thelema. > > > > I agree. > > Not being a Wiccan, I'll leave that statement for others to respond to. > Being a Thelemite, I shall not comment. > < snip> > > > > Joe of Castle Jefferson > http://www.primenet.com/~jjstrshp/ > > "Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the > poor and oppressed. Rescue the weak and needy; deliver them from the > hand of the wicked." - Psalm 82:3-4.