If God isn't Benevolent Doesn't that make God and the Devil?

Etu Malku said:
The Gnostics took the idea of the Judaic Demiurge and ran with it, the god of this world is not the true god and is this evil Demiurge, the Fallen Angel Lucifer then becomes the true savior of Man.
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there is no "judaic demiurge". this is typical of people attributing ideas to us that are simply nothing to do with judaism.

b'shalom

bananabrain
 
Yahweh and Elohim, Yahweh is God emanating, and Elohim is God creating; when Elohim is divided from Yahweh, Elohim becomes the Demiurge. Yahweh is the Olamot-Universes of Adam Kadmon and Atzilut, the Realm of Yichud (Unity), and Elohim is the Olamot of Beriyah, Yetzirah and Asiyah, the Realm of Perud (Separation).

This corresponds to the Pleroma and the Entirety, respectively. On account of the Ignorance, a separation appears to exist between the Pleroma of Light and Entirety, but this is an illusory appearance. Nevertheless, the experience of separation is, in effect, relatively real to the extent that unenlightened beings experience separation – this unenlightened condition is “the separation of Elohim from Yahweh.”

Underlying this saying is the basic teaching that all of our concepts about the beginning are fundamentally in error, for there is no “beginning.” Likewise, all of our concepts about God are not God as God Is – whatever we think God is, that is the Demiurge (Ignorance).

This does bring into play the principle of Tzimtzum, the restriction of God’s presence and power – in effect, Ignorance is the operative principle of the Tzimtzum; hence, the “Demiurge.”

Elohim is the divine name that corresponds to restriction, thus the principle of the Demiurge is the manifestation of Elohim.
 
and where is your authoritative jewish source for this? it seems to me that you're conflating these gnostic ideas about the "demiurge" with kabbalistic concepts when there is no reason to do so. the fact that judaism recognises the limitations of our ideas of G!D does not mean that we are "worshipping ignorance" within the tzimtzum-continuum. we are aware of our "separation" and the lack of unity, but that does not mean there is a separate deity in operation which we worship in preference to Ein-Sof - this all reads like word salad to me.

b'shalom

bananabrain
 
My sources are from the Talmudic sectarian writings known as "the Metatron", the Book of Enoch, the Qaballah, Neo- Platonism, Gnosticism . . . etc. you get the idea.
 
i get the idea, but i don't get how these are authoritative jewish sources. the book of enoch is not canonical; i will need more detail than "the qaballah" - there is no single book. neo-platonism and gnosticism are not jewish sources either. it seems to me like a bit of a mishmash of ideas without any clarity - my original point, that a bunch of beliefs are being attributed to us without being the case, appears to be reinforced.

b'shalom

bananabrain
 
"ALL of them" . . . is that easier?
You're in the Christianity Forum, Gnostic Christianity floats here, not Judaism.
Anything I deem authoritative IS authoritative since it's all make-believe in the first place :) . . . you make it sound like your religion is the 'correct' religion or something? LOL
 
Amergin said:
Excellent countrepoints Mate. You have a unique way of looking at issues outside of the conventional box. Thanks even for your skilled sherracking of my weaker points.
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Thank you for hearing me, Amergin. In the scary future, when we are besieged by atavistic religionsts from the east and amoral scientificists from the west, I do hope that we are assigned to the same bunker. Therein, we shall enjoy ourselves, write rebuttals, devise imaginative and effective defenses and, in the unlikely event that things should ever become boring, lead the charge by becoming agents provocateur, to keep things lively.

Salut,


Serv
 
Etu Malku said:
"ALL of them" . . . is that easier?
You're in the Christianity Forum, Gnostic Christianity floats here, not Judaism.
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you used the phrase "judaic demiurge", which i consider to be an oxymoron. i understand how you get to it, but i don't agree. hence my interjection.

Anything I deem authoritative IS authoritative since it's all make-believe in the first place :) . . . you make it sound like your religion is the 'correct' religion or something? LOL
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kabbalah is a jewish system. therefore, in kabbalistic terms, judaism is correct. if you want to label something as kabbalah, i am presumably free to be curious. if you were calling it "gnosticism", that would be another matter, but you make reference to both the talmud and to kabbalah; and there is an awful lot of drivel that is talked about kabbalah and an awful lot of lazy thinking around judaism, usually because people don't understand it. if it's any comfort, you don't seem like the type for that.

b'shalom

bananabrain
 
bananabrain... as early Christians "borrowed" the OT and made it a non-binding reference that they felt they could misinterpret as required, so too with “Christian Qaballists”. Just look at the web. Between you and I these claims of using Talmudic and Kabbalah sources are just that, claims.

One should remember that if one claims a Zoroastrian root you better read Avestan, a Sanatana Dharman root you better read Sanskrit, a Judaic root you better read Hebrew…
You get the idea. Saying one refers to “777” does not mean you are using Kabbalah nor does referring “Sefer Hekhalot” mean you are using Talmud.

If one is a Talmudist or Kabbalahist one better be pretty Orthodox. Studying Talmud or Kabbalah is a different matter, even Crowley could claim that.
 
yeah, i get that. the thing is, i do feel that kabbalah is at bottom a mystical way of understanding how the cosmos is constituted, so it must have application universally. however, that does not necessarily mean that it can be universally understood. i mean, le'havdil, particle physics also applies to everything, but that doesn't mean that every way of understanding it is correct. it reminds me sometimes of that howler of an advert by some over-priced face-cream vendor that it was "inspired by 25 years of genetic research"; a fancy phrase which sounds scientific, while at the same time not being remotely meaningful in any scientific sense.

b'shalom

bananabrain
 
Yes, bb. The problem is that Kabbalah as such is much more than the texts Sefer Bahir, Sefer Raziel and Zohar. The medieval Christians who studied Ramban, ha-Kohen, de Leon and ARI knew that and were merely trying to understand the texts, not the system (that is the origin of “Christian Qabala”, a study of the concepts). In our own age, they were much akin to Scholem and not Ashlag (the former admitted as much).

Unfortunately in the late IXX and early XX century both Christian and liberal Judaism forgot that difference. So everyone up to Orlov really believes their work in in Kabbalah when (imho) it is merely influenced by some concepts underlying it and those only the ones of the classic texts listed above in their various (imho) bastardized translations.

If one is not a Hasid or a follower of Ashlag, it is contradictory to claim to be a Kabbalist … Christian Qablist, maybe. In this case Thomas’ often cited “one must be in the tradition” is valid. “Influenced by” or “studied academically” is really all the claims outside of the tradition are saying.
 
whos God are you talking about ? since their are a lot of Jewish persons on the christianity site talking talmud stuff which is not of the Christian Triune God.
 
Not all Christians believe in a Triune God. And the talmud is a good source for historically relevant information (that is why most for real Christian scholars read Hebrew).
 
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