Oddbean

The authenticity of that letter has never been verified, but I’ll play Devils Advocate if you’ll pardon the expression. The end of this war, people become disillusioned with Christianity could allude to the multitudes becoming aware go the weaponization & corruption of the teachings of Jesus. Lucifer has been a symbol of freedom In many esoteric circles & a figure symbolizing revolution & challenging authority. To claim Zionism is wrong yet profess the Bible is correct could be seen as contradictory as the Israelites were Gods chosen and He would make a nation out of them. As the current nation of Israel is pretty close to the boundaries described in Genesis. But the Bible having been translated & bastardized since its 1st translation into Greek could be seen as a weak reference. All in all believe what you want mate but if you’re going to espouse a conspiracy at least know who wrote the letter. Pike was pretty open to criticism and liked to claim what he did & didn’t write. Thank you & I look forward to a continued discussion.

Absolute joy that we are free to disagree or enlighten one another as we will. Even the highly lathered, mouth foamers offer keys to the kingdom of heaven (if for nothing more than whom to avoid). I’m thrilled to converse with you, and understand your thoughts, and I find them reasonable, and of good cheer.

Every religion in the world teaches the same thing when you boil them down to base teachings Don’t be a dick & treat others with kindness without expectation of reward. If you’re only acting morally because of an end goal I would argue that your actions are tainted by greed. But then you open up is a good deed bad because it was done by a bad or greedy man?

And the Bible was translated into Greek and Hebrew. So many terms do not mean the same emotion in one or the other. For instance, eight or something,words meaning love in Greek. Hupotasso, (like tough love) Agape has a totally different meaning , etc

My Catholic friends have always looked askance at Freemasonry. My father would call it a pagan cult when I went to midnight mass at Christmas with my friends. Name calling another’s faith is not how to spread the gospel, as I learned from my father many years ago. Tolerant he was not.

My favorite question is to ask people what Jesus looked like. Skin color, ethnicity etc. But yes it was originally written in Aramaic & as with even the best translations, context and nuance can be lost. The debate on whether it was shall not kill or shall not murder is an easy example. Modern Hebrew wasn’t even around back then. An alphabet that lacks vowels can be tricky to decipher. At the end of the day we are all trying to get to the same place. We’re taking the same road. We just drive different model cars.

That is absolutely irrelevant. He was born in Bethlehem and He was made into flesh to live and make things new and to offer Himself as the ultimate bloody sacrifice in a way that no other bloodynsacrifice would be necessary. Your question bears no significance to God's plan.

Yes. Jesus was not the blond who was rendered for our Western palettes to consume more easily. Still, this is the Jesus with whom I was “saved” at age 8, and this remains my Jesus. I do not doubt that He was in fact as dark as Africa, yet lit from within, and so both white and black, God made flesh. https://image.nostr.build/1b811e1db82f19c62f0e5c707c9076bcf7658b81c46f2339453b1c634939d53a.jpg

Ooo I haven’t heard that before “light from within” Well done. Most “debates” I’ve been in stem from my statement that “Following the teachings of Jesus does not always mean following the teachings of the church.

What he actually looked like is irrelevant really. We are all made in God’s image so it’s understandable that different groups of people imagine Jesus looking like they do. Given the way he was conceived he could very well have looked like anyone.