I was reading the writings of Julian the Apostate (emporor 361-363 A.D.)
in his polemic "Against the Galileans." He points out that in the first
commandment, JHVH says of himself "I am a jeleous god" but in the tenth
commandment JHVH says "Thou shalt not covet." Covetting equals being
jealous in MY understanding. So the JHVH character has sinned against
himself from the very begining and non-stop ever since. The old testament
is just one jealous JHVH shit-fit after another. This character seems
ready to smite every Jew in sight if even ONE of them steps out of line.
YES! JEHOVAH IS A SPACE ALIEN AND *STILL* *MENACES* THIS PLANET!!~@@!!!
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From: rwo@raptor.eng.ufl.edu (Demerol Jesus)
ljduchez@en.com (Lou Duchez) wrote:
:
: Technically, coveting is wanting what you don't have, and jealousy is
: being paranoidly protective of what you do have. Jealousy and envy are
: largely miscomprehood today, but they serve as sort of a yin and yang
: of compulsive behavior.
Ok, I had to double check my dictionary.
covet (v):
1. To desire enviously (that which belongs to another).
2. To crave.
jealous (adj):
1. Resentful or bitter in rivalry: envious.
2. Inclined to suspect rivalry.
3. Vigilant in guarding.
4. Arising from feelings of envy or bitterness.
5. Intolerant of infidelity.
Covet = desire enviously = envious by definitions 1 of both words.
Still sounds like Jehovah has been breaking his own commandments to me.
:
: > So the JHVH character has sinned against
: > himself from the very begining and non-stop ever since.
:
: I don't disagree with this point at all. JHVH-1 is a sumbitch.
I wish I could post the entire text of Emperor Julian's oration
entitled "Against the Galileans" to the Net, but it's a copyrighted
translation, so alas, you'll have to go to a BIG library to find
a copy. FYI, Constantine the Great established Constaniople as
the eastern capitol of the Roman Empire -- that was the Hellenistic
half that did NOT fall and continued on as the Byzantine Empire on up
to 1492 A.D. or so. They were the Orthodox Christians. Actually,
the Byzantine monks were more humanistic than their western counterparts
and they preserved a lot of books that would have been considered
sinful in the west. For instance, they preserved the comedies of
Aristophanes including such ribald ones as _Lysistrata_.
Of course, an Orthodox priest could be married but he could not
advance beyond the rank of priest without vowes of celebacy. And
the Orthodox church was not so centralized as the western church.
They had national churchs such as Armenian Orthodox, Serbian Orthodox,
Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, etc. So the organization did not
lead to the same abuses that brought on the Reformation.
Anyway, as for Julian the Apostate, he defended the old Hellenistic
religion and attempted to counter the spread of Christianity. The
Christians seemed to advance their religion through:
1> being tax-exempt
2> accumalating property of the believers by getting the church
named in the will
3> acting like a second or shadow government
4> being extremely intolerant of other religions
All this undermined the ability of the empire to tax the citizens so
that they could pay for mercenaries to defend the empire. If some
little farm owner wanted to avoid taxes, he just deeded the farm to
the local bishop and the bishop took him in as a monk and cared for
him in his old age. The estates of the mediaval churchmen in France
stand as evidence of this erosion of the revenue base.
Thus you get the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. Because of
tax evasion by the middle class through the abuses of the Church.
Julian died in 363 A.D. while fighting the Persians on the eastern
border of the empire. And Armenia was lost along with him. Armenia
was an important source of soldiers and gold, so maybe this was
one of those steps down the road to decline in the east. Had Julian
lived, perhaps the Christians would have been checked. Julian was
in favor of religious tolerance.
There's other enteresting reading in these books of Julian. He
says that the Christians were like leeches who sucked all the
bad blood from the Hebrew religion and none of the good.
And that the Christians fought to the death amongst themselves
over the proper method of "wailing over the corpse." A reference
to the internicine theological disbutes over nature of Jesus.
If you read Julian's letters, you get a feel for how intelligent
and well-meaning he was.
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