AndrewX said:
gosh, you sound happy about that. as you chaps say, man, i am soooo *busted* - congratulations! yes, you've produced, as evidence, a dictionary definition from the theosophical society!! (which, yet again, presents its *assertions* as if they were *facts*. it's not even categorical - it says "necessarily", which doesn't preclude its possibility. i further note that the entry itself points out that this Name should include both male and female characteristics, yet it seems to earlier suggest that it does precisely that! i think that's known as self-contradiction. i mean, seriously, do you really think that thousands of years of jewish scholarship have failed to notice something as basic as this??)
Horsefeathers! Show me where the Spiritual Hierarchy contradicts what They Themselves taught, via HPB, and THEN ask me to buy into his supposedly better evidenced viewpoint of yours.
horsefeathers, eh? now the gloves are really off. as you know perfectly well, this is still a request, in effect, for me to read everything that HPB says that this "spiritual hierarchy", whoever they might be, says, whilst at the same time assessing whether HPB reported it accurately and whether any of what she says contradicts anything by the aforementioned spiritual hierarchy and, furthermore, whether any of the a.s.h. contradict this "they themselves", whoever they are supposed to be. again, this is nothing but the "read this entire library of stuff, some of which doesn't appear to exist and then you'll agree i'm right" - to which i must respond that the burden of proof is not upon me. the burden of proof, if you are making assertions about jewish texts, to demonstrate that HPB's position on them (regardless of these mythical spiritual hierarchies and themselves and lord high grand shambhalic poobahs) has some ground of evidence. why on earth should i treat any of these rather grandiose, inflated assertions as anything approaching a serious piece of insight?
and, furthermore, duck soup!
What, you don't believe in, and accept, this Spiritual Hierarchy - even though they include such figures among Them as your own Moses, Aaron, Joshua ... Joshua again later, Benjamin, et al?
it is a common tactic of many belief systems to attempt to co-opt the patriarchs, prophets and great spiritual leaders of preceding traditions in order to demonstrate their own pedigree. in this sense, getting judaism on board appears to be some kind of equivalent of ISO9000 certification. the more sensible of these do not attempt to graft on a supercessionary viewpoint, but this is not much different to the standard christian and muslim triumphalism of spiritual disqualification. we, in contrast to you, do not make sweeping and unsupported generalisations about other traditions. what's it got to do with us? the point at which i get interested is when someone says, oh, you know, what the bible *really* means is x, y and z, the jews have just falsified it and covered it up. leaving aside the monumental conceit and prejudice that this reveals for a moment, do you really think we ended up lasting as a civilisation by falsifying the only thing that distinguishes us? what would be the benefit of that?
You are full of yourself, and I'm a bit disappointed that you don't have any more enlightened a point of view than that of a supposedly "chosen people," this entire nonsense about a "god" that plays favorites ... although, indeed, without a proper perspective, I think I do see why you feel that way.
*i'm* full of myself? i don't see judaism making smug, patronising remarks about how other traditions are cheats and we have the only real Truth. it may have escaped your notice that we don't proselytise - this is because we believe there are many ways to live a good life and worship G!D. we are not forced by insecurity to impose our views on others. i am not the one with the breathtaking arrogance to inform others that they do not have a "proper" perspective.
It's no different than the same hogwash that informs the contemporary Christian mindset (Fundamentalists especially) ... and I really don't see much different in the end result when it comes to how all this jibberish [sic] affects them psychologically.
ah, the lump-all-the-horrid-sky-beard-worshippers-together defence, haven't seen that one for at least a month. it's good to see that occultists and militant atheists can agree on one thing, namely that judaism is a lie.
But as I say, I have no need to justify one word of what I believe - to you, bananabrain - or to anyone.
perhaps not, but i think you owe it to yourself to find out whether what you appear to believe is based on evidence or wishful thinking. personally, when somebody tells me something uncomplimentary about a belief system, i prefer to check with a believer from that belief system whether that is in fact true. apparently, you would rather believe a bunch of tendentious, prolix, borderline anti-semitic twaddle than actually ask an educated jewish person - which, of course, you are free to do.
Let's resist the temptation to fancy G!D as a giant person ...
no sophisticated monotheist thinks this. it is simply a function of our own humanity that we perceive, insofar as we can, Divine characteristics and attributes as being easiest to contemplate when expressed in terms of human interaction. when G!D Acts in a "kingy" way, we use the name "King", when the Act is one of compassion and nurture, it is more likely to be "All-Merciful" or "G!D full of Compassion", in terms of wrath, "Man of War" and so on. a name, even a Divine one is not the essence itself but merely a label, although it may act as a conduit or interface at times.
Prior to even the first faint flutterings of Activity at Mahamanvataric Dawn ... there is no Universal (Divine) Mind.
really? well, Who is there to determine that if not the Infinite Divine? what a lot of nonsense.
Even bananabrain, if he will set aside his prejudice for a moment, can get something out of this ..
prejudice aside i seriously doubt that. what we still come down to, in the end, is this - what you have said amounts to nothing more than HPB 'providing':
a) the "secret doctrine"
b) the "Stanzas of Dzyan, which HPB provided from her Teacher", apparently
nobody's ever heard of this language, nobody's ever heard of these teachers and pretty much everything i've ever seen of HPB's appears to be cobbled together from a hotch-potch of hindu, iranian and buddhist clichés, together with a fair dollop of christian "cabala", european occultism, hegelian historical inevitability and C19th pseudo-scientific chauvinism. i have read hundreds of overblown epic cosmologies of dubious provenance and i reckon i could write one myself by now if i spent a couple of months in an ashram with nothing to eat but tofu. i understand erich von daniken (he of the randy alien builders theories) is a great fan of this dyzan schmyzan stuff by all accounts but as carl sagan said to him and i say to you:
extraordinary assertions demand extraordinary proof without which it would be inappropriate to believe the claims.
Bananabrain, you would find this too, but only if you take your own time to read HPB's writings - and look up the references yourself. I won't make that any easier for you.
here you go again. it has taken me decades of study to learn what i know about judaism, which is not a great deal, but enough to know you haven't the faintest idea what you're talking about. i'm not telling you i know better than you what theosophical texts say, let alone mean. what i *am* telling you is that HPB doesn't appear to have the faintest idea about how judaism or its texts actually work so for her to presume to inform others about the "truth" that she says lies behind judaism is laughable to an extraordinary degree. as for you trying to dismiss Torah without knowing any, it is hardly calculated to impress. here's an aposite example of this sort of self-satisfied fatuity:
Nick the Pilot said:
"...it is the desire to be the cause and source of our own light and existence ... to be self-determining ... the consequence of which is separation from that which sustains and in which we subsist, so the outcome is a fall toward extinction ..." --> ...which is exactly what Theosophy says is the story of Creation, as opposed to what is told in the story of Adam and Eve.
ok -
ma'aseh bereishit 101 coming up:
1. it's the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil", right?
2. if you don't know whether something is good or evil, you can't choose whether to do it or not in any meaningful sense, right?
3. and once you know and you choose, you are consequently *self-determining*, right?
4. once you are self-determining, you can hardly remain in the edenic state which requires perpetual equilibrium and precludes change and development, hence you leave the garden, have to work to survive and, as a subject to linear time, eventually die.
only someone completely ignorant of how judaism views the adam and eve story would make such a woefully inaccurate statement. now i have "enlightened" you, would you care to retract it? somehow i doubt it.
b'shalom
bananabrain