Jul 30, 2012 -- 8:17PM, gorm-sionnach wrote:

I understand you're not a Christian, but certainly you at least recognize that you worship the god of Abraham? And can at least conceptualize the significance of such an offering in the Christian worldivew?

I believe Jesus is the Christ, Messiah, Son of God, Savior. and do my best to obey His 2 commands... love God and love thy neighbor. therefore I consider myself a Christian (in addition to a Jew for believing in Moses, a Zoroastrian for believing in Zoroaster, a Muslim for believing in Muhammad, and Hindu for believing in Krishna, and a Buddhist for believing in Buddha, all of which culminates in the sum total of being Baha'i).

Jews used to make sacrifices, but they stopped quite some time ago. and they offered livestock if I remember correctly. nowhere I'm aware of in Abrahamic tradition have there been human sacrific. it was usually the offerer who ate the offering with some portion going to a priest.

fortunately today we have the abstract reasoning (specifically because of PROGRESS) to understand sacrificing humans as a gross violation of that individual's human rights.

they didn't have the concept of human rights back in Mayan times to even carry on such a debate, if they did have the concept of human rights there automatically would not have been such horrific violations.

Jul 31, 2012 -- 7:04AM, gorm-sionnach wrote:

So it was fine for your omnipotent and omniscent deity to demand a human sacrifice, to change a law he himself established? Why is that morally acceptable?

I think you are grossly mistaken on this.

² Ye shall utterly destroy all the places, wherein the nations which ye shall possess served their gods, upon the high mountains, and upon the hills, and under every green tree:

³ And ye shall overthrow their altars, and break their pillars, and burn their groves with fire; and ye shall hew down the graven images of their gods, and destroy the names of them out of that place.

²⁹ When the Lord thy God shall cut off the nations from before thee, whither thou goest to possess them, and thou succeedest them, and dwellest in their land;

³⁰ Take heed to thyself that thou be not snared by following them, after that they be destroyed from before thee; and that thou enquire not after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods? even so will I do likewise.

³¹ Thou shalt not do so unto the Lord thy God: for every abomination to the Lord, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods.

that makes perfectly clear what Creator thinks of human sacrifice to gods.

Jul 31, 2012 -- 7:04AM, gorm-sionnach wrote:

And the only reason they stopped doing so was because of the destruction of the Temple. Of course the theology behind such an offering is different than in other religions, as it was more a penitent act than anything else.

I believe we have no way of knowing "the destruction of the temple" is the ONLY reason Jews stopped performing sacrifice.

when we look at the "odd" laws of Old Testament days, such as purifying women after childbirth... there appears to me no logical reason to do so. and after giving it much thought I arrived at the conclusion that Jews were commanded to perform rituals similar to their neighboring cultures so as to make it easier to convert them.

such that when the neighboring cultures stopped doing things like sacrifice or purifying women after childbirth, then there was no necessity for the Jews to do so either.

Jul 31, 2012 -- 1:14PM, Aka_me wrote:

Jul 31, 2012 -- 7:04AM, gorm-sionnach wrote:

So it was fine for your omnipotent and omniscent deity to demand a human sacrifice, to change a law he himself established? Why is that morally acceptable?

I think you are grossly mistaken on this.

² Ye shall utterly destroy all the places, wherein the nations which ye shall possess served their gods, upon the high mountains, and upon the hills, and under every green tree:

³ And ye shall overthrow their altars, and break their pillars, and burn their groves with fire; and ye shall hew down the graven images of their gods, and destroy the names of them out of that place.

²⁹ When the Lord thy God shall cut off the nations from before thee, whither thou goest to possess them, and thou succeedest them, and dwellest in their land;

³⁰ Take heed to thyself that thou be not snared by following them, after that they be destroyed from before thee; and that thou enquire not after their gods, saying, How did these nations serve their gods? even so will I do likewise.

³¹ Thou shalt not do so unto the Lord thy God: for every abomination to the Lord, which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to their gods.

that makes perfectly clear what Creator thinks of human sacrifice to gods.

Jul 31, 2012 -- 7:04AM, gorm-sionnach wrote:

And the only reason they stopped doing so was because of the destruction of the Temple. Of course the theology behind such an offering is different than in other religions, as it was more a penitent act than anything else.

I believe we have no way of knowing "the destruction of the temple" is the ONLY reason Jews stopped performing sacrifice.

when we look at the "odd" laws of Old Testament days, such as purifying women after childbirth... there appears to me no logical reason to do so. and after giving it much thought I arrived at the conclusion that Jews were commanded to perform rituals similar to their neighboring cultures so as to make it easier to convert them.

such that when the neighboring cultures stopped doing things like sacrifice or purifying women after childbirth, then there was no necessity for the Jews to do so either.

You are using someone else's book to try to pursuade us?

Seriously?

Care to try again?

Aug 7, 2012 -- 6:41PM, Aka_me wrote:

what would I be trying to pursuade you of? we took a little detour in the absence of any further lessons.

I'm trying to understand how much of polytheism is allegorical and how much is literal.

when UPG happens... is it originating from fictional characters, or beings with self awareness?

dishing it out is easy... but the receiving end is a different story ain't it?

You are not able to understand because you are so in love with your own mythology. You consider the myths in the bible to be true, but insult and make fun of those who do not believe your favourite myths. You have no evidence of your favourite god being real, so you come here and say nasty things about what Pagans believe.

Since you seem unable to realise this, Paganism is many different religions, not just one. Every Pagan has different gods and different mythologies. No two Pagans think alike, Pagans are NOT homogenised.  Nor are they brainwashed into believe a particular set of rules and dogma.

Many Pagans have actually met their gods, as in met. Not just read about in a book.

You clearly show you are not here to learn, but are here to insult and make fun of. Just as you do on the atheist board. Pagans do not need any lessons from your favourite mythological book, at all.

Aug 7, 2012 -- 4:56PM, Aka_me wrote:

so basically polytheists get to cherry pick between myth in allegory (as in snow white)

and myth in literalism (hold the universe together with duck tape and bubble gum)

to define their comfort zone. It's sad, really.

Not at all. Myth is not, necessarily, allegorical. Myths can contain allegory, but they are more often about their own content, best understood through their own context. As I mentioned before, and as you seem to not understand, there is a marked difference between mythos and logos. You're difficulty seems to be in trying to understand mythos, through logos; which is comprable to trying to understand history through mathematics.

As to individual religious experiences, and especially UPG, that is a different matter. People have religious experiences, this is not something which is debatable; it is simply a fact. How one understands those experiences, and makes sense of them is dependent on a number of factors, but the experiences occur none the less.