True Go(o)d of True Go(o)d, Light of Light, One In Being...

[UrbanMonk]

So, I would like to set aside the word 'created' while it is yet in dispute and try to move on with this thesis. I'll make it as simple as possible.

If Go(o)d can birth Go(o)d can birth Go(o)d...why make man?

[headheart]

How can one be perfectly just and yet be perfectly merciful?

If this was in fact Marcion's question, it is easily solved (accent Peter Sellers)

Sincerely,
HH

[robertb]

If this was in fact Marcion's question, it is easily solved (accent Peter Sellers)

Sincerely,
HH

Go for it! (Stallone)

[headheart]

Go for it! (Stallone)

Do you believe in that Jesus Christ came in the flesh ?

Sincerely,
HH

[UrbanMonk]

I was referring to this:



These inconsistencies disappear once you distinguish the Old Testament God from the New Testament God.

Marcion's solution was to accept the OT as true, but to distinguish the creator, Yahweh, from the Father of Jesus. I believe that he likely used OT passages as proof text for this. Passages which you alluded to in the body of your post, the most high god as a distinct being from Yahweh, the tribal god of the Jews.

The OT taught that Yahweh is a perfectly just God.

Jesus taught a perfectly merciful God.

How can one be perfectly just and yet be perfectly merciful?

A contradiction.

Unlike the Orthodoxy, Marcion would not accept such contradictions as part of his theology and actually took his belief in the truth of both propositions, that the OT was true and that Jesus was true, to it's logical conclusion.

So, in Marcion's view, God the Father is not the creator of man. Perfection only begets perfection.

The contradictions vanish.

Yes, i believe Marcion was one who would not so easily just fall down in order to allow inconsistencies to thrive. I could only speculate on the thought process that led him to conclude that the Father of Jesus was not the creator of man. By default, then, he must have considered the OT god to be the maker of man. But then, what did he (Marcion) consider man to be? What is man's relation to the Father of Jesus, in Marcion's view?

As for me, in answer to: Why make man?

I consider man to be self-made rather than birthed of a divine Father. To be self-made is to deny our divine Father his fatherhood by denying him his Son. Self-making is about rejecting our Spiritual Birth...forsaking our Heritage. I believe man is an expression that reverses Cause and Effect. Man is something that does not accept that it comes *from* Go(o)d. And so, man is technically....not Go(o)d. I consider man to be a taken rather than a given...a stolen rather than a beholden. I believe there is an incestuous relationship between man and man's maker...meaning, man is intimately complicit in his own making, in bed with his own maker. In other words, man is man-made. He resembles his maker - and visa versa - because they are cut from the same cloth, so-to-speak.

It's complicated.

[robertb]

Do you believe in that Jesus Christ came in the flesh ?

Sincerely,
HH

As far as the contradiction is concerned It doesn't really matter, but for the sake of argument, I will accept it.

Go on.

[robertb]

Yes, i believe Marcion was one who would not so easily just fall down in order to allow inconsistencies to thrive. I could only speculate on the thought process that led him to conclude that the Father of Jesus was not the creator of man.by default, then, he must have considered the OT god to be the maker of man. But then, what did he consider man to be? In relation to the Father of Jesus?

As for me, in answer to: Why make man? I consider man to be self-made rather than birthed of a divine Father. To be self-made is to deny our divine Father his fatherhood by denying him his Son. Self-making is about rejecting our Spiritual Birth...forsaking our Heritage. I believe man is an expression that reverses Cause and Effect. Man is something that does not accept that it comes *from* Go(o)d. And so, man is technically....not Go(o)d. I consider man to be a taken rather than a given...a stolen rather than a beholden. I believe there is an incestuous relationship between man and man's maker...meaning, man is intimately complicit in his own making, in bed with his own maker. In other words, man is man-made. He resembles his maker - and visa versa - because they are cut from the same cloth, so-to-speak.

It's complicated.

I think that he believed that the Father of Jesus took pity on the creation.

I suppose the answer would be that men's souls would be saved from the just reward, provided by Yahweh, due to our imperfection (sin).

[UrbanMonk]

How can one be perfectly just and yet be perfectly merciful?

A contradiction.

Perhaps that was Marcion's thought process. Somewhere, somehow, it must have struck him deeply - perhaps as gnosis (a knowing) - that such a conflict cannot stand (be tolerated).

For Mary Baker Eddy it was similar. She concluded that blessing and cursing cannot come out of the same mouth (come from the same God). Similarly, she felt that sweet water and bitter water cannot come from the same spring. These concepts come from the letter of James. Somehow, she was struck deeply by the meaning. Is it not obvious that the OT god both blesses and curses?

My conversion was similar. I decided one day that I would not tolerate a God who goes back and forth like this. I decided that if there was a God...God must be GOOD (only good, not both). That was in 1996. I walked away from ten years of Catholicism and never looked back. It was clear to me that the "satisfaction doctrine", in any form...was evil.

[headheart]

As far as the contradiction is concerned It doesn't really matter, but for the sake of argument, I will accept it.

Go on.

Do you believe that GOD [came] in the flesh?

Sincerely,
HH

[UrbanMonk]

Do you believe that GOD [came] in the flesh?

Sincerely,
HH

People who ask this question don't really care about Go(o)d. They do, however, care about "our beautiful bodies".

[robertb]

Perhaps that was Marcion's thought process. Somewhere, somehow, it must have struck him deeply - perhaps as gnosis - that such a conflict cannot stand (be tolerated).

For Mary Baker Eddy it was similar. She concluded that blessing and cursing cannot come out of the same mouth (come from the same God). Similarly, she felt that sweet water and bitter water cannot come from the same spring. These concepts come from the letter of James. Somehow, she was struck deeply by the meaning. Is it not obvious that the OT god both blesses and curses?

My conversion was similar. I decided one day that I would not tolerate a God how goes back and forth like this. I decided that if there was a God...God must be GOOD. That was in 1996. I walked away from ten years of Catholicism and never looked back.

As a Catholic one must accept the infallibility of the church for issues regarding dogma. Though their are many contradictions, the doctrine of infallibility does allow for some modicum of rationality by making such issues untouchable.

Marcion, however, was really sola scriptura, in his approach.

[headheart]

[UrbanMonk]

As a Catholic one must accept the infallibility of the church for issues regarding dogma. Though their are many contradictions, the doctrine of infallibility does allow for some modicum of rationality by making such issues untouchable.

Marcion, however, was really sola scriptura, in his approach.

I was sola scriptura for two years before giving allegiance to Catholicism for ten years. Probably because i felt i wasn't getting anywhere with the sola scriptura approach...sooo confusing. I assumed Catholicism got closer to the beginning with more of the facts. Yes, i was well aware of the alledged infallibility of "Mother Church". I was intimidated by it, and by it's God. But one day a straw finally broke the camel's back, and i took on God for two or three hours, in spite of my fears. Somehow i managed to walk through my fears into a sense of peace...once i had dismissed that image of God from my mind. I suddenly realized that i must have made up an image of God in my mind and i was afraid of my own thoughts. I didn't blame the Catholics though. I figured i had used them to help me build a false image of God in my mind. Having dismissed God, i didn't know if there was a God. I remember just deciding that if there was a God, God was GOOD. It was clear to me that the "satisfaction doctrine", in any form...was evil, and spoke of an evil (if not good-and-evil) God of my imagination. I was agnostic for another ten years until some books began to turn me on. It wasn't until i felt i understood some things that my faith in Go(o)d increased. So in one sense, i ended up sola scriptura...just other scriptures, and not the bible (at all). There were a couple of books that helped me dismiss the good-and-evil God i had been afraid of. One was called "Psycho Cybernetics", Dr. Maxwell Maltz.

[UrbanMonk]

As a Catholic one must accept the infallibility of the church for issues regarding dogma. Though their are many contradictions, the doctrine of infallibility does allow for some modicum of rationality by making such issues untouchable.
.

Although i should have been, i was not aware of Marcion during my Catholic years because, like headhead, if they called someone or something a heretic, i wouldn't look into it. I remember reading Justin Martyr, but Marcion? Nope. I did not really understand the issues relative to the alleged heresies. So i can understand the hypnotic trance that settles upon the mind that just isn't ready to wake up. I believe the gospel is most truly about breaking that trance...that hypnotic spell. For me, the book Psycho Cybernetics...was the gospel i needed at that time.

[UrbanMonk]

Do you believe in that Jesus Christ came in the flesh ?

Sincerely,
HH

It's really a ridiculous question since most people don't even know what Christ is. And if they did, they would understand that Christ does not appear in flesh except through imagination. This is basically what many voices were saying, which prompted the alleged "John" to retaliate in his "gospel". All it means is that the author of that book did not understand the gospel...did not understand what Jesus was all about. Jesus was the first among us to understand what Christ was all about. Conversely, he understood what man was all about. Flesh is a manifestation of imagination...a conceptual construct in a wayward aspect of the mind of Christ. It is a 100% mental phenom, despite the apparent distinction between body and mind. There is no such thing as a body when it comes right down to it. There is only Spirit and Mind. Mind, divorced from Spirit, get's into mischief. The body is something mind toys with. To ask Spirit to become flesh is to ask for the impossible. You can, however, ask flesh to lay down it's alleged "life" by waking up to the fact that it is imaginary...while Christ is the real reality...unlimited, and therefore formless.