History of the devil in a nutshell

[spin]

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Conclusion: it's all man-made rubbish. Any presidential candidate that lives their life by this garbage lacks judgement, is closed minded and is the worst choice for the American people.

One who comes out and says he doesn't, however, is entirely unelectable.

 

[CauseImbetta]

You're joking right? Let's just start with the most glaring and easiest:

If you need any more history lessons, just let me know.

Zoroastrianism did indeed influence the jews. Just watch that video I attached in the OP. Jewish as well as non-Jewish historians are of the opinion that Judaism was strongly influenced by Zoroastrianism in views relating to angelology and demonology:

http://thenon-judaicnatureofchrist.blogspot.ca/2009/02/christianity-can-fully-be-embraced-when.html

http://www.pyracantha.com/Z/zjc3.html


Zoroaster believed in one "god".

" Zoroaster ... proclaimed that there is only one God, the singularly creative and sustaining force of the Universe."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrianism

Though one or many gods don't actually exist. My 3-year-old nephew has the same mentality about the world as those iron-age bacterium with 2 feet that once dwelled on this rock.

 

[CauseImbetta]

I don't get it. If God cast the devil down to hell and the devil still fucks with everybody, Why doesn't God just kick his ass or kill him?

Ring rust?

Because is a man-made invention just like an invisible devil in hell with horns.

 

[CauseImbetta]

As much as I despise religion and really hate the way Republicans use it as a tool to get people to vote against their own economic interests, I have to disagree with your conclusion. We have seen a very wide range of quality of president which believe in god. Obama goes to church and yet he is a rational, fact based decision maker who can separate his religious beliefs from governance.

Perhaps I can meet you half way and agree that some cannot distinguish between the too and admit as such. There is no place for that shit in our government but it exists.

I guess I will leave off with hating that religion is so intertwined in government but it doesn't preclude one from being very good at their job. It is refreshing to see Bernie, a mainstream politician, get as far as he is without buying into organized religion (he claims to believe in a higher power though).

Good post, I understand your point and agree religion has no place in government, but it exists because its human nature. However...I wonder if Burnie has to say he believe in a higher power even though he does not otherwise he has no chance. This is a very sad state of affairs.

 

[CauseImbetta]

I leave you this evening with some great quotes to consider:

Rational arguments don't usually work on religious people. Otherwise there would be no religious people. - Gregory House

The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason.
- Benjamin Franklin

I would never die for my beliefs in case I am wrong.
- Bertrand Russell

Faith means not wanting to know what is true.
- Fredrich Nietzche

Thinking men cannot be ruled.
-Ayn Rand

And my favorite:

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
- Carl Sagan

 

[kpt018]

Good post, I understand your point and agree religion has no place in government, but it exists because its human nature. However...I wonder if Burnie has to say he believe in a higher power even though he does not otherwise he has no chance. This is a very sad state of affairs.

Obviously we don't know what's going on inside Bernie's head but if I were a betting man I would suspect you're right, it's about having to say it versus really believing it. I do give him credit though he doesn't claim to go to church or believe in a specific religion. Although, being Jewish wouldn't help him politically. It's refreshing to see someone go so far without pandering to religious people.

 

[LucasWithLidOff]

Obviously we don't know what's going on inside Bernie's head but if I were a betting man I would suspect you're right, it's about having to say it versus really believing it. I do give him credit though he doesn't claim to go to church or believe in a specific religion. Although, being Jewish wouldn't help him politically. It's refreshing to see someone go so far without pandering to religious people.

Being Jewish is a positive for me, but unfortunately you're right. Jews and Israel get shit on all the time on this forum, and it's not much different in the real world other than people being less direct about their anti-Jewish prejudices.

 

[no fat chicks]

Being Jewish is a positive for me, but unfortunately you're right. Jews and Israel get shit on all the time on this forum, and it's not much different in the real world other than people being less direct about their anti-Jewish prejudices.

I miss when you followed the Quran

 

[Bay Area]

How sadly typical of those with no faith.

You expect everything to come to you, no? Even the hard truths you don't want to hear. Like..

$100 says you are equally poor financially as you are in spirit. You are mad at God because of this.

I'm good, aren't I?

You make sport of whether or not someone is poor? There are millions of poor people in America. Why do you make light of their circumstances? There are millions of hungry disenfranchised kids in this country. Is that funny to you? Why do you hate children so much?

 

[The ScorpioN]

You make sport of whether or not someone is poor? There are millions of poor people in America. Why do you make light of their circumstances? There are millions of hungry disenfranchised kids in this country. Is that funny to you? Why do you hate children so much?

He's a Christian, hypocrisy is an unwritten commandment.

 

[PainIsLIfe]

Zoroastrianism did indeed influence the jews. Just watch that video I attached in the OP. Jewish as well as non-Jewish historians are of the opinion that Judaism was strongly influenced by Zoroastrianism in views relating to angelology and demonology:

http://thenon-judaicnatureofchrist.blogspot.ca/2009/02/christianity-can-fully-be-embraced-when.html

http://www.pyracantha.com/Z/zjc3.html


Zoroaster believed in one "god".

" Zoroaster ... proclaimed that there is only one God, the singularly creative and sustaining force of the Universe."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrianism

Though one or many gods don't actually exist. My 3-year-old nephew has the same mentality about the world as those iron-age bacterium with 2 feet that once dwelled on this rock.

Check my first post:

A lot of your research looks like it came from the internet because it’s very inaccurate.

And now you posts blogs including one called the non-judaic nature of Christ. LOL

But let's look at the other for just a second:

The Gathas of Zarathushtra, which may pre-date Cyrus by almost a thousand years, do describe God in universalist and abstract terms, but by the time of the Jewish contact, it is unclear just what type of monotheism was believed in the Zoroastrian community. Was it a true monotheism which worships only One God, to whom all other gods are either evil demons or simply non- existent? This seems to be the monotheism of Zarathushtra, but not of the Achaemenid kings of the Persian Empire, who were able to incorporate the veneration of subordinate divinities into their worship, as long as these subordinates were recognized as creations of the One God and not gods in their own right.

-Then you have the fact that Zoroastrianism originally had multiple gods (although the other gods are evil) It has Indian influences.​

Therefore I would not say that contact with Zoroastrian monotheism influenced Jewish monotheism. The philosophical minds of the two cultures may indeed have recognized each other as fellow monotheists, but this central Jewish doctrine is one which was not learned from the Zoroastrians. It grew from the original monotheistic revelation attributed to Moses, just as Zoroastrian monotheism grew from the revelation of Zarathushtra (who may indeed have been roughly contemporary, though completely unconnected, with Moses). These were two parallel journeys towards understanding of one God.

-Zoroaster lived sometime between 1500-1200bc. Thus Zoroastrianism isn’t any older than Judaism.​

Now a little real knowledge:


Zoroaster (Zarathushtra) was a priest of a certain ahura (Avestan equivalent of Sanskrit asura) with the epithet mazdā, “wise,” whom Zoroaster mentions once in his hymns with “the [other] ahuras.”

Though Zoroastrianism was never, even in the thinking of its founder, as aggressively monotheistic as, for instance, Judaism or Islām, it does represent an original attempt at unifying under the worship of one supreme god a polytheistic religion comparable to those of the ancient Greeks, Latins, Indians, and other early peoples.

-Then you have the fact that Zoroastrianism originally had multiple gods (although the other gods are evil) It has Indian influences.​

Zoroaster lived somewhere in eastern Iran, far from the civilized world of western Asia, before Iran became unified under Cyrus II the Great. If the Achaemenids ever heard of him, they did not see fit to mention his name in their inscriptions nor did they allude to the beings who surrounded the great god and were later to be called the amesha spentas, or “bounteous immortals”—an essential feature of Zoroaster’s doctrine.

Religion under the Achaemenids was in the hands of the Magi, whom Herodotus describes as a Median tribe with special customs, such as exposing the dead, fighting evil animals, and interpreting dreams. Again, the historical connection with Zoroaster—whom Herodotus also ignores—is a hazy one. It is not known when Zoroaster’s doctrine reached western Iran, but it must have been before the time of Aristotle (384–322), who alludes to its dualism.

Darius, when he seized power in 522, had to fight a usurper, Gaumata the Magian, who pretended to be Bardiya, the son of Cyrus the Great and brother of the king Cambyses. This Magian had destroyed cultic shrines, āyadanas, which Darius restored. One possible explanation of these events is that Gaumata had adopted Zoroastrianism, a doctrine that relied on the allegiance of the common people, and therefore destroyed temples or altars to deities of the nobility. Darius, who owed his throne to the support of some noblemen, could not help favouring their cult, although he adopted Auramazda as a means of unifying his empire.

-Darius I (550-480bc) who you credit for spreading the ideas or Zoroaster would have been a little late in introducing Jews to the concept of a single God by at least a thousand years and Darius himself believed in multiple gods.
​

http://www.britannica.com/topic/Zoroastrianism






A Zoroastrian hymn:

The Visparad begins: "I invoke and proclaim to: the Lords of the Heavenly, theLords of the Earthly" [Op cit, Trans by Prof Spiegel, p 5].[Page 31]and so on through a long list of Gods. Again: " We make them known: To Ahura-Mazdã, to the holy Sraôsha, to Rashnu the most righteous, to Mithra with large pastures. To the Ameshaspentas, to the Fravarshis of the pure, to the souls of the pure, to the Fire, the son of Ahura-Mazda, and to the great Lord."* [Op cit,xii, 18, 19, p 18]. The Yasna bearsits testimony: " I invoke and proclaim to: The creator Ahura-Mazda, the Brilliant, Majestic, Greatest, Best, most Beautiful, the Strongest, most Intellectual, of the best body, the Highest through holiness; who is very wise, who rejoices afar, who created us, who formed us, who keeps us, the Holiest among the heavenly. I invoke and proclaim to: Vohûmano, Ashavahista, Kshathra Vairya, Spenta-ãrmaiti, Haurvat and Ameritãt; the body of the cow, the soul of the cow, the fire (the son) of Ahura-Mazda, the most helpfulof the Ameshaspentas." [Yasna,i 1-6, Trans by Prof Spiegel, p 26].

http://www.theosophical.ca/otherdocuments/Zoroastrianism_ABesant.pdf

Ahura Mazda (god of creation)
Mithra (god of light & justice)
Ameteretat (goddess of vegetation)
Vohu Manah (god of animals)
Asha (god of fire)
Kshathra Vairya (god of metal)
Haurvatat (goddess of water)
Armaiti (goddess of earth)

^^These lesser gods were later changed to angels, just as other gods become evil spirits.

http://www.avesta.org/angels.html

 

[PainIsLIfe]

I leave you this evening with some great quotes to consider:

Rational arguments don't usually work on religious people. Otherwise there would be no religious people. - Gregory House

The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason.
- Benjamin Franklin

I would never die for my beliefs in case I am wrong.
- Bertrand Russell

Faith means not wanting to know what is true.
- Fredrich Nietzche

Thinking men cannot be ruled.
-Ayn Rand

And my favorite:

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
- Carl Sagan

A few for you:

I belong to the group of scientists who do not subscribe to a conventional religion but nevertheless deny that the universe is a purposeless accident. Through my scientific work I have come to believe more and more strongly that the physical universe is put together with an ingenuity so astonishing that I cannot accept it merely as a brute fact. There must, it seems to me, be a deeper level of explanation. Whether one wishes to call that deeper level 'God' is a matter of taste and definition.- Paul Davies (chair SETI)

Astronomy leads us to a unique event, a universe which was created out of nothing, one with the very delicate balance needed to provide exactly the conditions required to permit life, and one which has an underlying (one might say "supernatural") plan. -- Arno Penzias (Nobel prizewinner in physics)



Once we see, however, that the probability of life originating at random is so utterly minuscule as to make it absurd, it becomes sensible to think that the favorable properties of physics on which life depends are in every respect deliberate... It is therefore almost inevitable that our own measure of intelligence must reflect... higher intelligences... even to the limit of God...
-- Sir Fred Hoyle (astronomy Cambridge)


I find it quite improbable that such order came out of chaos. There has to be some organizing principle. God to me is a mystery but is the explanation for the miracle of existence, why there is something instead of nothing.- Alan Sandage (winner of the Crawford prize in astronomy)



The exquisite order displayed by our scientific understanding of the physical world calls for the divine.-- Vera Kistiakowsky (MIT physicist)



(In response to the question: Can a person be a scientist and also a Christian?)
"Yes. The world is too complicated in all its parts and interconnections to be due to chance alone. I am convinced that the existence of life with all its order in each of its organisms is simply too well put together."-- Allan R. Sandage (C.I.T. astronomy)


[Physics] filled me with awe, put me in touch with a sense of original causes. Physics brought me closer to God. That feeling stayed with me throughout my years in science. - Isidor Isaac Rabi (Physics Columbia, MIT)


An honest man, armed with all knowledge available to us now, could only state that in some sense, the origin of life appears at the moment to be almost a miracle, so many are the conditions which would have had to have been satisfied to get it going. -- Francis Crick (Nobel prize for his co-discovery of DNA)


Just for Fun:
In fact a universe like ours with galaxies and stars is actually quite unlikely. If one considers the possible constants and laws that could have emerged, the odds against a universe that has produced life like ours are immense. --Stephen Hawking

 

[TheComebackKid]

You're joking right? Let's just start with the most glaring and easiest:


-Zoroaster lived sometime between 1500-1200bc. Thus Zoroastrianism isn’t any older than Judaism.


-Then you have the fact that Zoroastrianism originally had multiple gods (although the other gods are evil) It has Indian influences. There’s actually more evidence that Judaism influenced Zoroastrianism than the other way around. Even the concept of a savior in Zoroastrianism didn’t appear until after Christianity was established.



-Zoroastrianism didn’t develop a concept of heaven or hell until at least 400BC- again this would imply that it got the concept of (at least) Heaven from the Jews instead of the other way around


-Darius I (550-480bc) who you credit for spreading the ideas or Zoroaster would have been a little late in introducing Jews to the concept of a single God by at least a thousand years and Darius himself believed in multiple gods.


If you need any more history lessons, just let me know.

Great post

 

[PainIsLIfe]

Great post

I don't think he even read his own links.

 

[CauseImbetta]

Painislife: assuming the documentary got it wrong, do you assert the concept of a devil is man made or not?

 

[PainIsLIfe]

Painislife: assuming the documentary got it wrong, do you assert the concept of a devil is man made or not?

When you say concept of a devil are talking boogie man with a pitch fork or evil spirit?

 

[CauseImbetta]

When you say concept of a devil are talking boogie man with a pitch fork or evil spirit?

Either I suppose. Personally I don't believe in either, since a boogie man with a pitchfork is an evil spirit. Let me rephrase it, do you believe in an evil spirit or did humans create one via our vivid imagination? Just as we created a good spirit "god".

Also I thought the documentary was accurate, but you have raised good points and forced me to think twice. Thinking is a good thing.

Except for a few passages in Aramaic, appearing mainly in the apocalypticBook of Daniel, these scriptures were written originally in Hebrew during the period from 1200 to 100 bce. The Hebrew Bible probably reached its current form about the 2nd century ce.
http://www.britannica.com/topic/Hebrew-Bible

So, we agree with the above quote? Ok..based on this jews have had tons of writings over the span of a thousand plus years. Now, all I am saying is there has to have been influence from other cultures/powers. Persia was a power. Jews must mingle and mix with powers to survive as they have such few numbers. Zoroastrianism must have been one of those out of several others. Of that there is no doubt in my mind or the minds of some scholars based on how long jews have been writing/inventing/copying stuff.

Maybe we will never know....

The simplest answer to the first question is, yes, there is a great deal of Zoroastrian influence on Judaism and Christianity, but the problem is that it is hard to document this exactly, at least in the early stages of Judaism. The evidence is there, but it is all "circumstantial" evidence and often does not stand up to the rigorous judgment of scholarship. Nevertheless, I will dare to present these ideas assertively, with the qualification that there will likely be no definite way to prove them either true or untrue.
http://www.pyracantha.com/Z/zjc3.html

Now, when it comes to Christianity, we have more history to go on. Such as the Greek influence of Hades, Roman Pan god influence, the intention of the trinity 300 years after Jesus' death, and a host of other man-made bullshit. Jews simply created self-serving mythology. They are choson people and they don't go to hell.

Christians invented hell to control the masses.

Mythology is a collection of myths, especially one belonging to a particular sacred, religious or cultural tradition of a group of people. Myths are a collection of storiestold to explain nature, history, and customs[1]–or the study of such myths.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mythology

 

[PainIsLIfe]

Either I suppose. Personally I don't believe in either, since a boogie man with a pitchfork is an evil spirit. Let me rephrase it, do you believe in an evil spirit or did humans create one via our vivid imagination? Just as we created a good spirit "god".

I believe in an evil spirit that the Bible refers to as Satan - one reason I ask you to qualify the question is that we have so many secular influences on the re-telling of biblical stories that we often forget that the version we currently hear isn't the biblical account. ie An apple in the garden

Also I thought the documentary was accurate, but you have raised good points and forced me to think twice. Thinking is a good thing.

Except for a few passages in Aramaic, appearing mainly in the apocalypticBook of Daniel, these scriptures were written originally in Hebrew during the period from 1200 to 100 bce. The Hebrew Bible probably reached its current form about the 2nd century ce.
http://www.britannica.com/topic/Hebrew-Bible

So, we agree with the above quote? Ok..based on this jews have had tons of writings over the span of a thousand plus years. Now, all I am saying is there has to have been influence from other cultures/powers. Persia was a power. Jews must mingle and mix with powers to survive as they have such few numbers. Zoroastrianism must have been one of those out of several others. Of that there is no doubt in my mind or the minds of some scholars based on how long jews have been writing/inventing/copying stuff.

Mostly agree - Jews weren't even writing until around the 10th century bc and current scholarship suggest that the Torah was canonized around 700 bc (based on scrolls found in tombs), the prophets were canonized around 200bc and then the writings around yr 100. Funny fact - the Christian Bible was probably actually 'canonized' before the Hebrew.

On top of all of that you have pre-paleo Hebrew (pictohebrew):

Maybe we will never know....

The simplest answer to the first question is, yes, there is a great deal of Zoroastrian influence on Judaism and Christianity, but the problem is that it is hard to document this exactly, at least in the early stages of Judaism. The evidence is there, but it is all "circumstantial" evidence and often does not stand up to the rigorous judgment of scholarship. Nevertheless, I will dare to present these ideas assertively, with the qualification that there will likely be no definite way to prove them either true or untrue.
http://www.pyracantha.com/Z/zjc3.html

That same site said they developed independently:

Therefore I would not say that contact with Zoroastrian monotheism influenced Jewish monotheism. The philosophical minds of the two cultures may indeed have recognized each other as fellow monotheists, but this central Jewish doctrine is one which was not learned from the Zoroastrians

http://www.pyracantha.com/Z/zjc3.html

Now, when it comes to Christianity, we have more history to go on. Such as the Greek influence of Hades, Roman Pan god influence, the intention of the trinity 300 years after Jesus' death, and a host of other man-made bullshit. Jews simply created self-serving mythology. They are choson people and they don't go to hell.

Christians invented hell to control the masses.

Mythology is a collection of myths, especially one belonging to a particular sacred, religious or cultural tradition of a group of people. Myths are a collection of storiestold to explain nature, history, and customs[1]–or the study of such myths.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mythology

While the term Hell is certainly influenced by the Greeks, it's clear that Sheol is an idea that is in the very first writings of the Hebrews. As a side note - these 'documentaries' usually attribute Sheol to the place trash was burned and criminals buried (Gehenna).

While Jesus likened Sheol (Hell) to a prison and outer darkness he also likened it to a lake of fire that would never be quenched. And while my Greek mythology may be a little rusty - Hades wasn't exactly a fiery underworld and originally wasn't even a place of punishment.

 

[CauseImbetta]

As you believe in an evil spirit, I believe Persians influenced Jewish writings. However I have a bit more proof...take a peek...

http://www.askwhy.co.uk/judaism/0200PersiaJudaism.php

Also Moses come from Egypt and was originally called Akhenaten.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akhenaten

Lastly it's well known the Catholic structure is a copy of the Ancient Egyptian mythology, with Horus eventually being Jesus. None of these Christian inventions are original. Including the concept of a devil as you know it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_in_comparative_mythology