The Unforgivable Sin

Discussion in 'Religion Archives' started by Leo Volont, Jul 22, 2006.

  1. Leo Volont Registered Senior Member

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    The Unforgivable Sin

    The Unforgivable Sin is explained in the 12th Chapter of the Gospel of Mathew. What precipitated Christ making comment about it was the accusation by some Pharisees, the lawyers of their day, that He was using demonic powers to cast out demons and heal the blind. Jesus makes a few arguments to appease their sense for rationality, but sums it all up by insisting that to characterize Divine Power as demonic power is such an egregious insult that it can never be forgiven. Doing Good is never bad, and to maintain that Good is only being done for Evil ends, that is an accusation so destructive of Social Order that it can never be allowed or condoned. What can come of a Civilization where Virtue and Goodness come under accusation?

    Today there is a saying – “No good deed goes unpunished”. It is just one of so many signs that our Civilization is in the throes of collapse.

    Those already familiar with my writings know that I have been insisting that Paul was the Antichrist, and that his influence upon Christian Doctrine and Christian Culture still exercises a powerful antichristical influence. I have dozens of reasons for supposing so, but in this case I can show that Paul himself had committed the Unforgivable Sin. If you consult the 14th Chapter of the 2nd Letter to the Corinthians we have Paul claiming that Satan himself appears as an Angel of Light and that the servants of Satan take on lifestyles of Righteousness only as a disguise. Hmmmmm. Is this not exactly the same argument that the Pharisee was using to discredit Christ only a few years before? And we know Christ’s answer to it, don’t we. So it is really a wonder that the Christian World had every forgiven Paul, even besides making a “Saint” out of him. And then we have to wonder of all the Protestants who swear up and down on the Bible, without apparently ever reading it with the slightest attention.

    You know, it may be more than a mere coincidence, that the unnamed Pharisee and Paul make the same argument against Divine Miracles and both equally impugn the motivations of those who behave righteously. It may very well be likely that the Pharisee who accused Christ was Paul himself. Same Argument: Same Man.

    It is remarkable that none of the Church writings tell us of Paul’s origins. The first we hear about Paul is that he was the Gentlemen in charge of setting a mob of thugs to murder Stephen, a Christian recently elected to take over for Peter who had swiftly lost popularity after having had murdered Ananias and Sapphira while shaking them down for money. It is significant that of all the Pharisees (lawyers) in Jerusalem, the one who would be hired to involve himself with the Christian Community would be Paul. This certainly must indicate a prior involvement, some expertise that Paul was assuming in regards to this Sect and its followers. It is more than likely then, that in references regarding Lawyers following around Christ and making legalistic arguments to embarrass His Teachings, that we should more than suspect that it was Paul. This would go far in explaining why we hear nothing about the career of Paul while Christ was still alive, since we could assume that the information would have been an embarrassment to him.

    To Paul this argument that Miracles were signs of Evil and that Acts of Righteousness were only fronts for demonic motives, this was not just idle speculation and theorizing. You see, Paul had set himself against the Messianic Factions of the True Apostolic Community. That Community was so vibrant within the Fruit of the Vine of Christ and was so possessed of the Holy Spirit that the Miracles and Righteousness of Christ persisted within it. Paul’s own congregations must have heard about this, and it would have made them wonder why they had no miracles and that Paul was more about collections and contributions then about any ostensible Righteousness or spectacular Miracles. Indeed, all of his talk was more about being forgiven of Sin and diatribes against the Law – more the talk of a rebel or an Anarchist then of an Apostle, no? So to quiet the grumblings and the doubts against him, Paul went on the attack, using the same argument he had previously used against Christ Himself, that Miraculous Powers were of the Devil and acts of Good Will were only the tools of a deception.

    Christians point out that the same argument occurs again in the Gospel of Mark, in the 13th Chapter, where we find the author describing Jesus suddenly caught up in speculation about the future – the destruction of Jerusalem and that all miracles and righteousness would only be manifested exclusively by the Devil for the sake of fooling the elect. Biblical Scholars, who ordinarily describe the Gospel of Mark as being the most primitive of the Outlines for the other Synoptic Gospels are surprised by this passage as it uses Paulist terminologies from far in the future. It seems obvious that paulist doctrine was superimposed into this Gospel of Mark – a flagrant re-writing of History. When we look at the theme and agenda of the Gospel of Mark, we see a reluctant Messiah embarrassed by the pretence of any political destiny who was only biding his time waiting for the appropriate time to put himself forward to be murdered. It is the Paulist view of Jesus as a Non-Messiah, reduced to a mere sacrifice – Super Man reduced to glorified sheep.

    But when reading the Gospel of Mark, we need to consider the source. Mark was a mixed up man. We hear of him in the Book of Acts where Paul decided to fire him for insubordination, you see, as Paul thought he was boss of everybody. This in turn gives us more insight into the character of Paul, because we have the understanding that Paul was working for his own boss, Barnabas, who told Paul that he hadn’t the authority to fire Mark… that the decision was his own, that is Barnabas’s to make. Well, Paul who was incensed with the ‘insubordination’ of Mark toward him, used this occasion to be insubordinate himself toward his own Boss and walked out on Barnabas and started his own Church. It is a wonder that any Christian anywhere would give respect to such a documented renegade, but again I suspect that few people actually read the Bible they Worship.

    Now, in the Acts, written by Luke, which is at times so honest concerning Paul that we can discern the true evil of the man, we yet have instances described which make us wonder whether Luke’s veracity was under some kind of duress. Indeed, we can notice that while the surface most ‘facts’ are ostensively in favor of Paul, the intellectual undercurrent goes incisively against him, which would make me suspect that Luke was being supervised in his writing by barely literate overseers, happy with what they could understand that was being said of Paul their master, but not sophisticated enough to catch the more complete nuances being drawn out for those of keener discernment.

    The most puzzling ‘fact’ noted in the Book of Acts was the publication of the Franchise Letter of Paul’s Gentile Church, in Chapter 15. We are left to suppose that the Messianic Church decided to allow a competing Church with different doctrines to rise up in direct competition to itself. We are told that Paul would have to abide to next to no conditions at all, that he veritably had a completely free hand to teach whatever he wanted, in the Name of Christ. That is simply NOT how any Organization would conduct business. There are always clauses and paragraphs and subparagraphs and understandings and limitations and restrictions. Such a legalistic document would have been daunting and imposing. But, then, most telling is that this Franchise Letter nowhere exists – Paul does not mention it in any of his writings (although in Galatians he mentions an understanding with Peter that he would have the Gentile Franchise, and indeed it later lead to conflict between the two of them when Peter was exiled from Jerusalem, for whatever reason, and began to infringe upon Paul’s monopoly), and none of the Apostles in their letters mention such a Franchise Letter. The Paulist Church was able to save all 14 of Paul’s Apostolic Letters, but was not able to retain, or even copy its very Foundational Document. No. If such a Letter authorizing a Paulist Church had ever existed, it would have been saved… it would have been quoted… every Congregation would have had its own copy made. Or maybe it did exist, but when Paul walked out on Barnabas, Barnabas, the Boss, kept the Letter and thus kept the Franchise. Paul’s efforts were then those of a rogue. Or perhaps when Paul decided to teach his own Doctrines, in violation to the understandings embodied in the contractual Franchise Letter, it was determined expedient to destroy the Letter – to rip up a contract when he no longer approved the terms.

    But this brings us back to the Gospel of Mark and its author. If Paul’s insistence that Mark be fired lead to, or was an excuse for, Paul’s going renegade, then how is it that Mark subsequently went back to work for Paul? Or for that matter, since Mark was such a second rate person – being fired by one person here and needing to be argued for by that person there – it would seem that he would not be much of a man to be considered in his own right. So who would care about a book written by a mere lackey – rebellious and insubordinate at one time, but crawling back at another. An ‘employee’. He probably wrote what he was told to write.

    I am often asked in wonder how I can decide on my own what parts of the Bible are to be believed and what sections are to be laughed at or scorned. To that I reply that such are the purposes behind intelligence and scholarship. Yes, while the dimwitted and the uneducated would probably do best to abide by Authority, we must allow that education and prolonged experience in the field must count for something. Indeed, I often assume that many very educated and discerning individuals had actually stopped reading the Bible when they were still very young, and simply assume they know it backwards and forwards and no longer look much at it, but if they did, they would come to much the same conclusions, in their intellectual maturity, that have come to me. Or perhaps this is why they no longer really read the Bible, as they probably suspect the trouble that they would find if they did.
     
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  3. Lawdog Digging up old bones Registered Senior Member

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    Paul the Antichrist???? HOLY COW!!!
    ...But Paul is the one who warns us of the Antichrist!
    I used to have a problem with Paul, since he was not one of the original twelve. But dont you think you are going too far? His writings are very saintly. The church has long celebrated him as being of like authority to Peter!
     
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  5. Lawdog Digging up old bones Registered Senior Member

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    Last edited: Jul 23, 2006
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  7. Provita Provita Registered Senior Member

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    Err... even if its a supposed act of God.. its murder.. no need for quotes.
     
  8. Medicine*Woman Jesus: Mythstory--Not History! Valued Senior Member

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    *************
    M*W: Paul didn't exist. His character was taken from the god Apollo. Also called Apollonius and Paulinous, he never knew Jesus. His character was written most likely by Flavius Josephus. Also, he never knew Peter. Peter may not have existed or been the first pope. In fact, that is highly unlikely. These were all fictional characters in a drama of the death of god. Do you people believe in the historical being of Romeo and Juliet? What about Henry Higgins and Eliza Doolittle? These are art forms, not reality. Jesus didn't exist any more than they did.
     
  9. Lawdog Digging up old bones Registered Senior Member

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    I do not think that these stories are based on Greco-Roman or any other Myths of the time. There were already enough Apollo gods, why add more. History is the result of great personalities, like Caesar and Paul, Mary and the Magadalan, and many others. Modernist scholars like to point to sociologies and economies, myths and superstitions, wars and empires. Thats only part of the picture. If that were all there was, there would be no histories.
     
  10. Lawdog Digging up old bones Registered Senior Member

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    You are wrong. God has absolute dominion over all life.
     
  11. Provita Provita Registered Senior Member

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    Murder:
    1. To kill (another human) unlawfully.
    2. To kill brutally or inhumanly.
    3. To put an end to; destroy: murdered their chances.
    4. To spoil by ineptness; mutilate: a speech that murdered the English language.
    5. Slang To defeat decisively; trounce.

    http://www.thefreedictionary.com/murder

    Its murder. No matter who does it.
     
  12. Lawdog Digging up old bones Registered Senior Member

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    No, Provita. God has dominion. To murder is to kill unjustly. There are many examples of him taking life in a way that our own limited human sight would think unjust.
     
  13. Cris In search of Immortality Valued Senior Member

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    Lawdog,

    No it would seem that is not true. There is no historical evidence for most of the key characters in the gospels, including Jesus. These all appear to have been created by the mythmakers in the late decades of the 1st century.
     
  14. Leo Volont Registered Senior Member

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    No. Christ and Simeon warn of the Antichrist, and Paul is only deflecting the accusation.

    Consult Revelation 2:2. John, there, congratulates the people of Ephesus for having run a False Apostle out of town. Next counsult Paul's own Letter to Timothy in which he admits to having been run out of town by the Ephesians.

    Now, then he was only the most famous of False Apostles. It would be his success in building an Anti-Church that would make Paul to be understood as the Antichrist. As Jesus had said, we would know the Tree by its Fruits. Paul's Church of the Forgiveness of Sins by Messianic Murder has GOT to be the Church of the Antichrist. The pieces fit the puzzle too well not to.
     
  15. Leo Volont Registered Senior Member

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    Dear Lawdawg,

    You speak of early Church traditions. Yes, yes, I studied too, but the remarkable thing about the early Church is that the 2nd Century almost entirely escapes history. We have some Bishop named Iraneous or something -- a Pro-Paulist Bigot, and then running from then into the 3rd Century clues regarding civil wars and gang territory fights between competing Churches and Bishops.

    The internal evidence from the Gospel of John, written in the early 2nd Century, we suppose, indicates a great deal of paulist influence while maintaining some pitiful shreads of Messianic Belief. So, at that point in Church History there had been something of a Truce between the Greek Paulist Churches and some of the remaining Survivors of the Messianic Churches that had mostly been destroyed when the Roman Legions had plowed Jerusalem under. Here we have the elements of a Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, which paul wanted to destroy with too much care --"People are not worthy of the Eucharist"... so it is today that the Catholic Bishops will deprive people of the Eucharist for any tiny infraction, even political. And the Gospel of John speaks well of Mary, who is certainly hated by Paul... he never mentions her, and all Paulists just seem to hate Mary. It goes along with the 2nd Prophecy of Simeon "We would know the Secret Heart of Evil in its hatred of the Wounded Heart of Mary".

    Anyway, in regards to the EarlyChurch Traditions you speak of -- The Gang Wars and Infighting. Well the most ruthless bastards won -- the Paulists, and so everything is tilted to their direction. But most of the Tilt can cover only the surface. There is still enough Messianic Influence underneath to discern the Truth. As Christ said, though there would be Weeds, there would still be some Wheat. Though there would be a Wide Way to Destruction, the narrow way would never entirely disappear.

    Lawdog, ... you simply need to open your eyes, ears and heart, and grow some ... Discernment.
     
  16. Provita Provita Registered Senior Member

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    Such examples are?
     
  17. Leo Volont Registered Senior Member

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    When Lawdog supposes that a Transcendent God is taking Life, he is falling into the Calvinist/Paulist/Augustinian Heresy of supposing, with those of purely Greek Philosophy, ignoring actual Divine Revelation, that God is Absolute and Decides Everything.

    But what does Transcendent mean?

    What does Free Will mean?

    The Transcendance of God and the Free Will of Man specify that God does not involve Himself into every single occurance. People dying and people being Murdered are not in any integral version of some God's Plan.

    yes, it sound intuitively convincing to say that God is All Powerful, and then to believe what follows, that we are entirely powerless to do anything ourselves and must rely entirely upon God Alone who Alone has any power or Will to influence the least tiny little outcome. And that is exactly why it is not true. We see all the time that we can make choices. Heck, why did Jesus speak of Judgment unless he insisted that we had our own Free Will.

    It was only Greek Mathematicians who asserted that God must be defined as a cluster of Absolutes. But they were only guessing, weren't they? They call it speculative Philosophy. Paul, interested in starting up a Church among the Greeks, played to Greek Philosophy. What did he care as long as he got dues paying, tithes paying members? As Paul says of himself, and advises to his lieutenants, "Be all things to all men".. which is to say, tell people what they want to hear and then sign them up and cash the checks before they can be stopped.

    So, no, God is not in the business of killing people.

    However, Can Angels sometimes be dangerous? Can Saints or Prophets be sometimes dangerous? Yes.

    Remember Saint Patrick's wonderful success of TOTALLY converting Ireland from Druidism to Catholicism, in not just his Lifetime, but in just a few years of his Lifetime, and thereafter he spent the rest of his years institutionalizing Catholicism in some 50 Diocese. And incredible accomplishment, no? Well, this is how he did it. He invited the Druid Establishment to a debate. Everytime someone stood up against him, in a very loud voice he would curse them dead, and they would drop dead on the spot. The Moderator chimed in and said that Curses were against the Rules, and guess what. He was ordered to drop dead and he instantly complied. By the time the debate was over, where Druids were only permitted to AGREE with Mr. Patrick, the entire Druid Establishment had agreed to convert over to Catholicism. And, afterall, with the demonstation of Divine Powers and with the Goddess Religion of Marianism to examine, the Druids soon became honestly enthusiastic enough, and these same Druids, turned Catholics, have been the Best Catholics of the World. Indeed, not long ago there was an Apparition of Our Lady in which She appeared wearing a White Dress trimmed in Green and Clover and Shamrocks -- a clear homage to Ireland and its Faithfulness to Herself.
     
  18. Lawdog Digging up old bones Registered Senior Member

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    You are also wrong about your definition of the unforgivable sin.
    The unforgivable sin is precisely this:

    To believe that you do not need God's forgiveness.
    God cannot forgive someone that does not want to be forgiven.
     
  19. Diogenes' Dog Subvert the dominant cliche... Registered Senior Member

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    An interesting thesis Leo! Some bits of Paul I find heavily legalistic and intolerant, other bits inspired. It wouldn't surprise me that there were very human and macheavelian power struggles for control of the early church, which Paul won. It worries me the extent that Paul is quoted to support many modern christian doctrines. I'm glad you reminded me of the story of the deaths of Ananias and Sapphia - it does sound suspiciously like an 'execution' by Peter. Worrying!

    One thing I seek clarification on is Paul's expulsion by the Ephesisan church in Timothy? He was thrown out of the temple in Jerusalem in Acts21, because he brought gentiles (including an Ephesian) in with him, but where is he thrown out by other christians - I can't find it in Timothy? Do you have chapter and verse?

    I agree 100% about the need for discernment - to introject every word of the bible (or any book) literally and uncritically as 'God's word' leads to some insoluable logical paradoxes, and crass beliefs. It seems too obvious to need saying that the bible was written by men, within a historical context!
     
  20. Lawdog Digging up old bones Registered Senior Member

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    This theory is MORONIC!

    Why would Paul exhort people to believe in Christ if hes the Antichrist!!!???
     
  21. cybercom Your face will crack. Registered Senior Member

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    So I can't say I'm particularly fond of Paul, his views of women want me to travel back in time and tell him he's very very wrong. However I'm with Lawdog here someone who preaches so forcefully and convincingly of Christ is not an antichrist. Read Hebrews 11 and then tell me Paul is evil.
     
  22. Lawdog Digging up old bones Registered Senior Member

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    Did someone agree with me?
     
  23. cybercom Your face will crack. Registered Senior Member

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    congratulations
     

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