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?
Misery and happiness are only states of mind.