The Karaite Judaism Option

[fschmidt]

I'm reading some books now and they say that Karaite Judaism is the only Judaism that is based on the Old Testament Bible. The other forms of Judaism are based on the Talmud and Cabala. Is that true?

Yes

If so, why didn't you tell us about this?

I did in the original post in this thread and in many other places.

It seems the whole world is deceived about what Judaism is.

We live in an idiocracy. The world is stupid and ignorant.

So what can Judaism do for me? What does it offer the average person? Does it have any doctrines or dogmas that you have to believe in? What are its precepts and theology and philosophies of life?

As you just noticed, there are different kinds of Judaism, so there isn't one answer. I just follow the Old Testament myself, and you can read about that on the Mikraite site.

Shabbat shalom

[livefreeordie]

I have been struggling for years to find a sane alternative to modern culture. Those who are satisfied with modern culture have no reason to read this post, so just stop reading and don't comment. For those not satisfied with modern culture, let's consider the requirements of a sane culture:

1. No feminism - men are allowed to be men and women are allowed to be women.
2. Sound morals - members of the culture should be required to treat each other decently.
3. Reasonable - allows reasoning and doesn't require faith (anti-reason) in supernatural beliefs.

These requirements rule out almost every culture and religion in the world today. One religion from the past that meets these requirements is the religion of the Hebrew Bible (the Old Testament). And there is one religion today that claims to follow the Hebrew Bible, Karaite Judaism. Having exhausted all other options, I consider Karaite Judaism to be the last hope. So I have composed a message that I plan to post to a mailing list that includes Karaites. Here it is:

http://www.actbiblically.org/Daly-City- ... 00990.html

I would appreciate any feedback on this message before I post it.

The trouble I have with organized religions, is that they are watered down and oftentimes distorted versions of the original teachings, frequently designed to be tailored towards conversion, such as Christianity, not necessarily truth seeking

Why not take a look at the faith of your ancestors? If you look at a faith that was extremely moral, lasted for tens of thousands of years ( even to this day in central and eastern Europe to as far as south America and Asia), and was full of powerful rituals to connect oneself to truth, you wont find better. From what I have researched about Judaism, it is a very cliquey religion, seems very occult-oriented, and full of serious moral flaws, especially in books such as the Talmud in respect to hatred of non Jews.

Personally I have opted to seek truth as my guiding light, as well as taking a serious interest in the faith of my European ancestors, what would be called in the modern day naturalism/paganism, which has been one of the most smeared and lied about religions because of its global reach and cosmic truths. Its one of the few religions that connects one with nature, fosters happy families and a creates a strong connection to the spiritual world through nature. I also believe that the suppressed/hidden/buried knowledge of your ancestors will come back to you if you align with their faith, which the church cabal has spent thousands of years attempting to bury and destroy

[fschmidt]

The trouble I have with organized religions, is that they are watered down and oftentimes distorted versions of the original teachings, frequently designed to be tailored towards conversion, such as Christianity, not necessarily truth seeking

Why not take a look at the faith of your ancestors? If you look at a faith that was extremely moral, lasted for tens of thousands of years ( even to this day in central and eastern Europe to as far as south America and Asia), and was full of powerful rituals to connect oneself to truth, you wont find better. From what I have researched about Judaism, it is a very cliquey religion, seems very occult-oriented, and full of serious moral flaws, especially in books such as the Talmud in respect to hatred of non Jews.

Personally I have opted to seek truth as my guiding light, as well as taking a serious interest in the faith of my European ancestors, what would be called in the modern day naturalism/paganism, which has been one of the most smeared and lied about religions because of its global reach and cosmic truths. Its one of the few religions that connects one with nature, fosters happy families and a creates a strong connection to the spiritual world through nature. I also believe that the suppressed/hidden/buried knowledge of your ancestors will come back to you if you align with their faith, which the church cabal has spent thousands of years attempting to bury and destroy

If you didn't notice, this thread is very old, from 2013. I am ethnically jewish, but I don't care about race. I just like the Old Testament. I have no interest in Judaism. So in effect, I am doing exactly what you suggest, bypassing the insanity of recent Judaism and going back to the source. You can read all about it in the link in my signature.

The European pagan religions are also promising. The problem is that I don't know of any documentation of these religions that is comparable to the Old Testament. If you know of good original source material on these religions, I would be interested to read them.

[Winston]

Here are paragraphs from Nesta Websters book in 1924 on "Secret Societies and Subversive Movements" about modern judaism and karaite judaism. As you can see, she was an extremely knowledgeable historian.


"But the Jewish religion now takes its stand on the Talmud rather than on the Bible. "The modern Jew," one of its latest Jewish translators observes, "is the product of the Talmud." 805 The Talmud itself accords to the Bible only a secondary place. Thus the Talmudic treatise Soferim says: "The Bible is like water, the Mischna is like wine, and the Gemara is like spiced wine."

Now, the Talmud is not a law of righteousness for all mankind, but a meticulous code applying to the Jew alone. No human being outside the Jewish race could possibly go to the Talmud for help or comfort. One might look through its pages in vain for any such splendid rule of life as that given by the prophet Micah: "He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" In the Talmud, on the contrary, as Drach points out, "the precepts of justice, of equity, of charity towards one's neighbour, are not only not applicable with regard to the Christian, but constitute a crime in anyone who would act differently.... The Talmud expressly forbids one to save a non-Jew from death, ... to restore lost goods, etc., to him, to have pity on him." 806

How far the Talmud has contributed to the anti-social tendencies of modern Judaism is shown by the fact that the Karaites living in the south of Russia, the only body of Jews which takes its stand on the Bible, and not on the Talmud,--of which it only accepts such portions as are in accordance with Bible teaching--have always shown themselves good subjects of the Russian Empire, and have therefore enjoyed equal rights with the Russian people around them. Catherine the Great particularly favoured the Karaites.

Thus even the Jews are not unanimous in supporting the Talmud; indeed, as we have already seen, many Jews have protested against it as a barrier between themselves and the rest of the human race.

But it is in the Cabala, still more than in the Talmud, that the Judaic dream of world-domination recurs with the greatest persistence."

[Adama]

See, he isn't searching for God. He just wants to found his own community. Pagan gods of the Europeans? Who would turn from God to go for demons? There is no interest in God.

[Winston]

The trouble I have with organized religions, is that they are watered down and oftentimes distorted versions of the original teachings, frequently designed to be tailored towards conversion, such as Christianity, not necessarily truth seeking

Why not take a look at the faith of your ancestors? If you look at a faith that was extremely moral, lasted for tens of thousands of years ( even to this day in central and eastern Europe to as far as south America and Asia), and was full of powerful rituals to connect oneself to truth, you wont find better. From what I have researched about Judaism, it is a very cliquey religion, seems very occult-oriented, and full of serious moral flaws, especially in books such as the Talmud in respect to hatred of non Jews.

Personally I have opted to seek truth as my guiding light, as well as taking a serious interest in the faith of my European ancestors, what would be called in the modern day naturalism/paganism, which has been one of the most smeared and lied about religions because of its global reach and cosmic truths. Its one of the few religions that connects one with nature, fosters happy families and a creates a strong connection to the spiritual world through nature. I also believe that the suppressed/hidden/buried knowledge of your ancestors will come back to you if you align with their faith, which the church cabal has spent thousands of years attempting to bury and destroy

Good point. This conspiracy/occult expert I listen to named Michael Tsarion said that the ancient Celtics and Druids were full of mystery school esoteric occult knowledge and wisdom that was lost when the Roman Empire went to Britain to wipe them out. This has been covered up by Roman historians and Western historians. They were wiped out because their pagan spirituality and power were a threat to the elites, who were controlled by the cult of Aton that was started by Pharaoh Akhenaten before he was thrown out of Egypt. Also, pagan cults that are connected to Mother Nature are a threat to the Illuminati and cult of Aton, that's why they've tried to eliminate them all.

I don't know what Michael Tsarion's sources are for all this, or if he has primary sources to back these up. He claims he does, but he doesn't list them for some reason. But he sounds like he knows a lot and it seems he has the most advanced knowledge among the conspiracy/truther movement, when it comes to occult and sorcery of the elites and secret groups that run the world. You can look into it sometime. Tsarion has many lectures and interviews on YouTube.

However, I think it makes sense to investigate these ancient prehistoric religions, because it's a good bet that the earliest ancestors had beliefs and teachings that were CLOSER to the truth, than what we have today, which has been corrupted and formed out of politics, power and corruption. Generally, the older stories are closer to the truth since they are more original and less corrupted than the modern religions we have today.

I know that people like Adama cannot understand or realize this though, because he is PROGRAMMED to believe that modern Christianity is the ONLY truth and that's that. End of story. Yeah right. Well we who are unprogrammed and can think, can see through that.

[Moretorque]

Hey Winston thanks for bringing all this up, I new the religions had all been hijacked and primarily completely by the money changers as of late but was to lazy to research it in detail. This is a great subject and explains how the world to a degree is being turned into a loony bin and when the process started and by who and where they are taking it going into the one world system.

Yes this is the mother of all conspiracies, and again THANKYOU! Great topic.

[Adama]

The trouble I have with organized religions, is that they are watered down and oftentimes distorted versions of the original teachings, frequently designed to be tailored towards conversion, such as Christianity, not necessarily truth seeking

Why not take a look at the faith of your ancestors? If you look at a faith that was extremely moral, lasted for tens of thousands of years ( even to this day in central and eastern Europe to as far as south America and Asia), and was full of powerful rituals to connect oneself to truth, you wont find better. From what I have researched about Judaism, it is a very cliquey religion, seems very occult-oriented, and full of serious moral flaws, especially in books such as the Talmud in respect to hatred of non Jews.

Personally I have opted to seek truth as my guiding light, as well as taking a serious interest in the faith of my European ancestors, what would be called in the modern day naturalism/paganism, which has been one of the most smeared and lied about religions because of its global reach and cosmic truths. Its one of the few religions that connects one with nature, fosters happy families and a creates a strong connection to the spiritual world through nature. I also believe that the suppressed/hidden/buried knowledge of your ancestors will come back to you if you align with their faith, which the church cabal has spent thousands of years attempting to bury and destroy

Good point. This conspiracy/occult expert I listen to named Michael Tsarion said that the ancient Celtics and Druids were full of mystery school esoteric occult knowledge and wisdom that was lost when the Roman Empire went to Britain to wipe them out. This has been covered up by Roman historians and Western historians. They were wiped out because their pagan spirituality and power were a threat to the elites, who were controlled by the cult of Aton that was started by Pharaoh Akhenaten before he was thrown out of Egypt. Also, pagan cults that are connected to Mother Nature are a threat to the Illuminati and cult of Aton, that's why they've tried to eliminate them all.

I don't know what Michael Tsarion's sources are for all this, or if he has primary sources to back these up. He claims he does, but he doesn't list them for some reason. But he sounds like he knows a lot and it seems he has the most advanced knowledge among the conspiracy/truther movement, when it comes to occult and sorcery of the elites and secret groups that run the world. You can look into it sometime. Tsarion has many lectures and interviews on YouTube.

However, I think it makes sense to investigate these ancient prehistoric religions, because it's a good bet that the earliest ancestors had beliefs and teachings that were CLOSER to the truth, than what we have today, which has been corrupted and formed out of politics, power and corruption. Generally, the older stories are closer to the truth since they are more original and less corrupted than the modern religions we have today.

I know that people like Adama cannot understand or realize this though, because he is PROGRAMMED to believe that modern Christianity is the ONLY truth and that's that. End of story. Yeah right. Well we who are unprogrammed and can think, can see through that.

Winston, most of those ancient religions are all the same. They just renamed the gods. There is no lost or hidden knowledge. The Jews have preserved all of the magic of the ancient religions in their Kaballah. They collected all of the "wisdom" of ancient religions because they were dispersed throughout the world. So if it the ancient power of ancient, lost religions which you seek, you know where to find it. But of course you should know, that just like the Hindus and Roman gods, those gods are demons, also known as fallen angels. Real angels aren't allowed to contact humanity without God's command. The ones who are contacting humanity and accepting worship that belongs to God are demons. The Hindus and all of those ancient religions have real gods, with real power, just they are on Satan's team.

As for Christianity, as I have said before, it is the only one that preaches a faith alone salvation which requires putting complete trust in God for salvation. Every other religion tells you that it is either by works alone (e.g. karma, good works, being a good person) or by faith or belief plus works (believe and do the things the religion commands). If Jesus is God and He paid for our sins, it makes more sense to trust in Him for salvation rather than to try to work my way to heaven since I am imperfect and would fall short of the perfectly good standard of righteousness needed to enter into that holy place. And believing in my own works to any degree is by definition self-righteousness.

I barely even go to church. I have not been programmed by anyone. I am only saved and believe. That's about it. I don't believe in organized religion, just in The Lord.

[Adama]

Hey Winston thanks for bringing all this up, I new the religions had all been hijacked and primarily completely by the money changers as of late but was to lazy to research it in detail. This is a great subject and explains how the world to a degree is being turned into a loony bin and when the process started and by who and where they are taking it going into the one world system.

Yes this is the mother of all conspiracies, and again THANKYOU! Great topic.

Modern Christianity has been infiltrated because most of those denominations are organized and centralized. If a pastor doesn't adhere to the doctrine outlined by the central leadership, he may be removed as pastor of that church. Also freemasonry has infiltrated those organizations.

The Catholic church was infiltrated long before anyhow, even from the beginning.

The only places that aren't infiltrated are independent churches: no affiliation with a centralized church or group (although they may be friends with other independent churches).

Also keep in mind that for some reason Winston believes that joker, but he also admits that he has not seen or heard of any of the references for any of the lies presented to him as facts. Dude is probably making up a large part of that doctrine, yet Winston believes every word.

[Eric]

What's disturbing to me is how little regard they have for us, all of us, and how secretive they are; ....we know from the burgeoning knowledge of the internet about the Talmud, about the Kabbalah...about how far far away these things are from the OT, and where everyone thinks Jews are at.
It's sad...because we are kind of left behind. Like, the whole world that isn't Jewish is just kept in the dark, and treated like shit, w/materialism etc. to keep us satisfied; no one's allowed to have their cultures, different values, beliefs, religions...no one is. There's been a purposeful damping on this on the entire world everywhere. They even tried to destruct our God.
It's like part of us wants to be like them because we want to know what they know, all the secret hidden knowledge that they are off having fun with somewhere; we don't want to be in the dark anymore; we all want to be part of something. Part of us wants to stop it. Part of us wants to chastise them and tell them how wrong they are.

It's a really f***ed up situation what's going on.

I have to say, there are similarities between Israelites/Jews and Aton. Akhenaton wouldn't let anyone worship anyone or anything other than his god; it was supposed to be wonderful for them...they just couldn't realize it! He was universally despised and hated while he was in reign. He was tyrannical and a control freak, always telling people what they needed and imposing his will & vision on peoples in a sort of maniacal way, that he thought of course was good.
This is exactly how Jews are.
Moses was raised in Egypt, even the name Moses is an Egyptian name. Freud himself; eminent psychologist and "founder of modern psychology/psychiatry" which the Jews promote and are proud of said that he thought Moses might have been the son of Akhenaton, in the cult of Aton, promoting this monotheism.
Even the damn Jews got sick of of the monotheism...they created, and scrapped it long ago in favor of the older, cooler ways; so they have to do the only thing they can do, impose their tenacity and their inherent control-freak nature on others around them. It's not them, it's somebody else. The Jews have tenacity, they always have to get their way; that's why they are at the top. It's this one trait, while others would simply fold or make amends or compromises, not Jews; they are utterly convinced they are the Ones, their way is "right" ...and all others must submit, they must dominate, there is no other option for them..
nobody can stand these people... do you wonder why?
Sorry.....there are some feelings there.

But they do hoard knowledge, and have destroyed or either suppressed other knowledge from surfacing - and as such are probably the greatest source of knowledge of the world, ironically.
Jews are both lock and key to understanding or reclaiming the World.

[Eric]

I don't hate Jews, but there is animosity. Of course, how am I supposed to feel when a group excludes and often talks down to everyone that's not them. ...hides knowledge and is infiltrating and sneaky.

The Christians I have difficulty with; sometimes - I can't even hold an intelligent/rational conversation with them most the time, without feeling like I'm not using wisdom or, common sense. I feel that I enter a special land where rules bend, exceptions are made, certain things just magically are SO and, you can't question them. They always come back to Jesus, Jesus is their trump card; there is no way of explaining anything when you ask them a solid real question, sometimes. Everything comes back to Jesus I feel more often than it should - and this bothers me. This Jewish guy (rabbi) has a lot of solid points. A lot of Christians would turn their backs though. I have to say, I agree with him on this and on his point about Satan, which is very interesting.
Here is his video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioRgXAJyxZg

Winston made a post about the benefits of monotheism vs. polytheism in support of the polytheism being the possible superior option. I think maybe that he's right. Most people have a very poor understanding of the history of the Israelites/Jews, the God of the Bible...which had been hellenized/altered by Greek influence by the time of the NT...its Greek, particularly gnostic, influence is evident in the rejection of everything this world, impossible doctrines of purity and chastity... a reliance on man's transcendence. The formation & development is a distinct and recognizable hellenic influence and the essence of Christianity remains distinctively gnostic, in it's denial of this world - there is a separation of Satan from God...which is sort of ridiculous in the ancient Judaic concept of which it came *if you watch the movie above. It's a miserable concept with light at the end of the tunnel - as its main redeeming quality, of course. The One God concept, God was all and everything; but it was accepted there were gods and goddesses in a pantheon, henetheism; if you don't believe me (pick up a Bible and read Genesis 1:26) that Israelites and most other ancient cultures prayed to for help and for different things, but they also prayed to God too. The word Elohim is pl. Hebrew for Gods as well, and is used frequently in the OT.
Christianity I feel allows many people to feel higher & mightier and better 'than this world', and Western civilization, not just Christianity, has an odious tendency to classify everything, to know all things...with "man being the measure of all things". If you want to know where all this stuff came from - it came from Greece. You'll never hear this in the Jewish or ancient traditions or anything that was pre-Greek, the problem with it is that you have to keep doing it; because it's inductive, you can never stop. It's an addiction. Look at the body worship, the mind worship in statues and old Greek civilizations; do you see it continued on today in some form or another? What about man's reliance on his mind to overcome all things and obsolescence of the divine?
Greek thinkers , although the Greeks overall probably enjoyed a liberally satisfying life; they had all the liberal freedoms we do today, and more.....enjoyed without holdovers from Judeo Christianity like (homophobia), which probably came from rejection of temple prostitution of both male & females in Moab, and surrounding areas; not just Sodom and Gomorrah - or purposely toxically injected artificials like feminism or "minority worship". It's very complicated. Christians keep putting happiness off until the next world (because this one is so bad... ). Think of the Greek stoic thinkers thinking and classifying everything, how dry and unhappy a business that must've been, but what a feeling of control and order it must've given them, ...and how addicting it must've been, after a while; mix it with concepts of a religion and you'll get Christianity.
Mix it with concepts of reform or secular political Judaism and you might get communism, or dictatorial dry governments like Mao or Stalin... EU, world government and things like NAFTA, which dehumanize people but they still vote for it, anyway - out of "freedom".
I think the Bible has ancient wisdom in the fact it says "there is a way to man that seems right, but it's end is death."
the Greek arrogance is "that they knew this, but did it anyway"...that is the basis of Greek culture - to strive against fate.
This mentality is doomed to failure, but so infectious that we can't help but be drawn & attracted to it.
It is literally the Satan (hasaytan adversary) of this world, glorified and praised. Look at Achilles, died at 19...petulant, angry, doomed - a handsome warrior with talent he threw away along with himself; raging against gods. Odysseus overcoming all obstacles in defiance of gods using his wit and wisdom to survive.

The Greeks should have taken a hint at this - and stopped..not trying to go ahead with something they knew would fail- but would sacrifice all for their glory, anyways. This is the insane thing...this philosophy that they have, can you imagine this at the head of world government, now?

[fschmidt]

First of all, jews is an ethnic group and judaism is a (racist) religion. They are not the same. If you want to talk about followers of judaism, I suggest using an invented word like "judaist" to make the distinction clear. Judaism doesn't want a clear distinction because it is racist, but I think a clear distinction is essential for any meaningful discussion.

I have no interest in discussing jews or any other race because I don't care about race. Race doesn't matter to me. Race matters to racist groups like white nationalists and judaists.

Talmudic Judaism is a priestly religion with the rabbis being the priests. Most followers really don't understand the Talmud. The Talmud is mostly written in Aramaic, not Hebrew, so most jews simply can't read it. Only the rabbis study it. The Talmud is incredibly racist and anti-Christian. This book explains it fairly well:



But it works because any strongly tribal group works against people who can't cooperate with each other.

Monotheistic religions always beat polytheistic religions because monotheism encourages unity.

Elohim is plural because in Hebrew, things that are ubiquitous are often described in plural to indicate that the singular (definite) is meaningless.

Karaite Judaism is not Talmudic.

Mikraite is not Karaite and is not Judaism. Mikraite is a group of me and some others who follow the Old Testament.

[Winston]

Winston, most of those ancient religions are all the same. They just renamed the gods. There is no lost or hidden knowledge. The Jews have preserved all of the magic of the ancient religions in their Kaballah. They collected all of the "wisdom" of ancient religions because they were dispersed throughout the world. So if it the ancient power of ancient, lost religions which you seek, you know where to find it. But of course you should know, that just like the Hindus and Roman gods, those gods are demons, also known as fallen angels. Real angels aren't allowed to contact humanity without God's command. The ones who are contacting humanity and accepting worship that belongs to God are demons. The Hindus and all of those ancient religions have real gods, with real power, just they are on Satan's team.

As for Christianity, as I have said before, it is the only one that preaches a faith alone salvation which requires putting complete trust in God for salvation. Every other religion tells you that it is either by works alone (e.g. karma, good works, being a good person) or by faith or belief plus works (believe and do the things the religion commands). If Jesus is God and He paid for our sins, it makes more sense to trust in Him for salvation rather than to try to work my way to heaven since I am imperfect and would fall short of the perfectly good standard of righteousness needed to enter into that holy place. And believing in my own works to any degree is by definition self-righteousness.

I barely even go to church. I have not been programmed by anyone. I am only saved and believe. That's about it. I don't believe in organized religion, just in The Lord.

Why do you just repeat the same things over and over again? How do you know that these ancient deities and gods are demons? How do you know? You state it like it's a fact like 2+2=4. Yet how can you know for sure? You can't.

Can you give me some logical reasons why all gods other than God the Father of Jesus, are all demons?

Saying, "Cause the Bible says so" isn't a valid reason. It's not any reason at all.

Why is Christianity more true than other religions? Why is only the Bible true? Do you believe the Bible is inerrant and perfect and infallible, with no errors?

[Eric]

First of all, jews is an ethnic group and judaism is a (racist) religion. They are not the same. If you want to talk about followers of judaism, I suggest using an invented word like "judaist" to make the distinction clear. Judaism doesn't want a clear distinction because it is racist, but I think a clear distinction is essential for any meaningful discussion.

I have no interest in discussing jews or any other race because I don't care about race. Race doesn't matter to me. Race matters to racist groups like white nationalists and judaists.

Talmudic Judaism is a priestly religion with the rabbis being the priests. Most followers really don't understand the Talmud. The Talmud is mostly written in Aramaic, not Hebrew, so most jews simply can't read it. Only the rabbis study it. The Talmud is incredibly racist and anti-Christian. This book explains it fairly well:



But it works because any strongly tribal group works against people who can't cooperate with each other.

Monotheistic religions always beat polytheistic religions because monotheism encourages unity.

Elohim is plural because in Hebrew, things that are ubiquitous are often described in plural to indicate that the singular (definite) is meaningless.

Karaite Judaism is not Talmudic.

Mikraite is not Karaite and is not Judaism. Mikraite is a group of me and some others who follow the Old Testament.

Thank you for this response, it is very helpful to me in understanding. I'm sorry I'm not perfect on all the sects in Judaism, Mikraite, Karaite etc., I try but I may mix them up sometimes, it is not my intent. I still find it interesting though - that, and I do understand you are talking about the universalism of God; in Kabbalah I guess it would be used as ein Soph to describe ubiquitousness. I was reading that Moab's and the Ammonites god was Chemesh while Israel's was Yaweh. So, there were these different ideas between neighboring regions back then - we know that for a fact, I find this interesting to understanding things. I'm very interested in this actually... how do we know that the ancient Israelites believed in God but, also worshipped other gods as well? We're not told this and it's not talked about - but why...I find it interesting and useful.
The Israelites compiled 66 books from all over the Mesopotamia region and other areas to form the Bible, Sumerian, Luwein, Hittite, Canaan, Egypt, Babylonia + Persia...all these different areas; it is a compendium of knowledge, customs and wisdom, so it is a bunch of eclectic stuff all come together; but they slap the one God sticker on it and that's that. I find it interesting, there's much more to this than we're told; it's more complex for sure, and there's a richness there that I feel we're lacking in understanding. I'd like to know more about it.

I have this sense, I'm getting at, that it was understood & accepted for to pray to many gods for many different things back then - and this was acceptable, AND you could still do this while understanding and accepting there was ONE God overseeing things. I may be wrong. I don't know. The Bible does talk about no sacrifices, other gods (which acknowledges that they did exist) graven images, idols, etc...
why one God? Why just One? Does it make it easier...is it streamlined? Is that why, or is it actually more oppressive this way.

I don't know. It does seem kind of like a pain in the ass to have to go out of your way to pray to all these gods, offer sacrifices, etc, it's a lot of work. When really there is ONE God so just pray to him. On the other hand, it seems really fascinating and cool to me; the idea of sacred sex in temples, praying to different gods for things...a pantheon of diversity and richness that is unique and complex and interesting. ...it would be cool to have your own god watching out for you - getting certain things you've prayed for, going to this temple, that one, giving sacrifice, etc. I'm just being human and telling it, so please don't judge me; this is how I feel inside; a part of me. I think it's universally human in some regard - which is why I feel like we're missing some part of ourselves as humans now, or it's lost to time. Has anyone felt this way? We have to understand the Bible was writ by man, and is flawed therefore, and not perfect because man is flawed and not perfect. I understand this on a primal level. It does not need explanation.
A part of me also wants to say Moses was influenced by or, part of the Aton cult in Egypt from whence he came out of (Egypt)...as his strict adherence to monotheism and punishment and Law seem very restrictive, dictatorial.
I've always felt that while the Bible is a divine, rich source of material & wisdom/knowledge, custom, history....allegories and a general storehouse of gathered wisdom and knowledge of the near East at that time, and Mesopotamia, I must read it with the understanding of whence it was written, the details of it, etc; the bible itself implores us to exercise wisdom, and the wisdom says this - to me.
That many of the Israelites rebelled under Moses, etc, and worshipped the golden calf, over and over again...things like this; it explains to me they didn't like it; that there was something restrictive & unrealistic about it. Those people in Egypt didn't like Akhenaton either, it was the same sort of deal.

It just makes you wonder.

[fschmidt]

There is a theory, which I find quite plausible, that Moses actually was Akhenaten. You can read about it here:



The Old Testament never says that there is just one God. This comes from the New Testament. But the Old Testament does clearly say that the followers of God (Yehovah) should not worship other gods, this being the first of the Ten Commandments. The reason for this is clearly unity. People are naturally degenerate, and if you let them pick their gods, they will end up with Dionysus or some equivalent.

A good religion makes people behave, and kicks out those who don't. Having one god helps with this.

The Old Testament does say that God is one (which is very different from "there is one god"). This is essentially an affirmation of inductive reasoning, that the same basic forces apply across time and space, and so one can generalize based on historical experience. In effect, the difference between pagan gods and the Old Testament god is the difference between Galileo's gravity and Newton's gravity.