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Robert Barbere

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Robert Barbere

Tag Archives: religion

More On Religion: Three Faiths, One God, Conflicting Futures

06 Monday Oct 2014

Posted by robb1138 in Personal Experience, Philosophy

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big questions, Christianity, death, faith, God, Ishmael, Islam, Israelite, Jesus, Judaism, Life, Muslim, religion, reveal, superstition

Medieval church ruin in CreteWhile superstition deals with the petty beliefs of day to day living, religion tends to answer the big questions of life and death. A religion is revealed knowledge handed to man from above. Whereas science is the discovery through gathering of facts, and although science also looks to answer the same questions about death and life, science tends to look at how, and not why. In religion, the questions and answers of life are, why are we here? What happens to us when we die?, and is there an ultimate goal? Are we all that we are? Science deals with facts, religion requires the faith. Unfortunately, ancient man’s belief that certain gods were responsible for good crops and abundance of food, it was science and observation that provides the answer in looking for the right soil, the right time of the year to plant and the right seeds. Religion dealt with questions that ranged from how to treat your neighbor to where do we go when we die.

Both Islam and Christianity are derivative of Judaism, as they worship the same God. Like the first Jews and Christians, the faithful of Islam originated as the descendants of Noah, through the line of Shem.  That lineage continues down to Abraham and to his first son, Ishmael, by his wife’s handmaiden, Hagar.  Islam and Christianity share many of the same prophets, including Jesus. Muslims, however, think that Christians went too far in that, from the Muslim point of view, Jesus was raised to the level of deity. Like the Jews and ancient Israelites, Muslims believe that there is only one God, and he has no children, other than humanity. Like both Christianity, and Judaism, that same God is also involved in shaping the lives, history, and the civilizations in this world.

Trapped By An Ideology

04 Saturday Oct 2014

Posted by robb1138 in History, Philosophy, Politics

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Babylonians, Canaan, Chaldees, Christian, Egypt, El, Elohim, Fascism, Germanic, Holocaust, Israel, Jericho, Jew, Jordan River, Judah, King Nebuchadnezzar, Levant, Mediterranean, Middle East, Mohammad, Muslim, National Socialism, Palestine, religion, Rhine Valley, Romans, Sephardic Jews, Torah, Ur, World War II, YHVH, Yiddish

What came first?  Was it the chicken, or was it the egg?  The answer is not simple. In a single human being, this relies on a balance of two forces, not necessarily opposing however, influential.  What helps us understand the underlying drive of a group of people is the balance between the material and the cultural world.  In the case of the Israelis, it is important to note that placing these people in a particular geographical location, at a particular time in history, commands a balance of many factors.  One factor drives the other.  Our culture grows from our circumstances, our weather, our terrain, our level of education, and our place in history.  Take note of the Israelis of today, although their history and religion are, to many, one and the same.  One can see, that although they have, in the last two thousand years  spent time in many lands, they are still a people whose past is influenced by political and economic events and whose future is tied ultimately to a particular place on Earth, “the land of Israel”.

To begin with, the Israelis, historically, come from the area we call the Middle East, particularly from an area known as the Levant.  The area on the East Coast of the Mediterranean Sea, now known as Israel, formerly Palestine and was prehistorically known as Canaan.  In a land of low fertile valleys and rocky mountains and where rain is scarce at times, the ancient people settled in areas where their sheep and or cattle would be able to graze and where the people can grow crops of wheat and various vegetables.  With farming and herding of sheep and cattle, the size of various clans grew larger.  The scarcity of land becomes apparent. While telling a tale over the campfire at night, the tribal elders reduce the battle between the shepherd and the farmer for land to the legend of two brothers fighting and one killing the other. Continue reading →

Thoughts On God

23 Tuesday Sep 2014

Posted by robb1138 in Personal Experience, Philosophy

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Life, religion

The concept of god/God has developed over thousands of years. The concept has evolved and has been reshaped, multitude of times separate of what God may actually be. In Man’s attempt to understand their surroundings, they initially did take the concepts around them and started to form them into an all-purpose, and all in one god. The Canaanite deity Elyon was adopted and reshaped into El. Many human like attributes were said to be his, like jealousy, angry, demanding, loving, and forgiving god. As time went by and after the Semite peoples known as the Hebrews, then the Israelites, then once establishing Judea, they became the Jews. During several tumultuous periods of captivity and rebirth, the concept evolved even more. Just before the time of Christianity, the concept of God changed into something less emotional and more of a spiritual being. As Christianity took over the Jewish God El who became Elohim, and eventually YHWH/Adonai and under the Roman Catholics Jehovah, this concept of spirit was “fleshed out” a bit. God is all-good, God is all-wise. God is all powerful, God is all knowing. This description was not about defining the Universe, but the One who could create this or any universe. If you read the Old Testament of the Bible, you will find many laws that were actually just plain common sense for the times. Like don’t eat the pig (because the creatures eat its own feces you will not be able to cook it enough to kill all the diseases in it) or don’t make the latrines within your camp, etc… My personal thoughts on the subject of Worship come down to this. We are meant to worship our creator by being the best human I can be and treating all other humans with dignity and respect as well. For what purpose would a god or God want offerings of blood, sacrifices, or anything of this world, for he needs them not? I do not worship laws of physics but I obey them, as I have not yet achieved the ability to forgo them and create my own laws of physics…yet.

Religion

18 Thursday Sep 2014

Posted by robb1138 in Philosophy

≈ 1 Comment

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religion

Country Road

Country Road © Johnlric | Dreamstime Stock Photos

Since before the beginning of civilization, man has been trying to understand the world around him. He writes books like ‘The Bible,’ ‘The Epic of Gilgamesh,’ and ‘The Egyptian Book of the Dead’ and other philosophical or religious thoughts on the matter will continue to try to answer these questions.Humans will always look to the heavens for an answer. Why the human race continues to look toward a divine being that we can petition with our prayers and offerings, is because we seek to have some control over our fates. If those prayers or offerings are refused, (we can tell because our petitions go unheeded) we rationalize that perhaps our god (Jehovah, El, Elohim, Zeus, Apollo, Athena, Jupiter, Krishna) or the being currently in charge like an emperor, king, or president) doesn’t believe we, humankind, are worthy of survival, Now we are left with the question we started with — why? Why was this flood inflicted upon us. Is God mad at us because of our beliefs, our actions, our hypocrisy? It doesn’t matter, humans are flawed, and no matter what we do, think, or say, it is not going to change the fact that the universe works in mysterious ways, and we humans are just small specks of stardust in the cosmos and the divine behind it all doesn’t take sides, but, just shakes his head and continues on doing whatever divine beings do.

Theocracy

17 Wednesday Sep 2014

Posted by robb1138 in Philosophy, Uncategorized

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religion

I am not willing to be ruled by a theocracy, whether it be Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, or Satanic. Have we not seen what history has taught us about how this leads to corruption. As we also recall from history, the Mormons or Latter Day Saints went west and established themselves in the Utah territory. They wanted their own state, and of course, they wanted their own state religion. Unwilling to allow this new religious movement to have things their own way, the government sent in federal troops. History has taught us that, although a truly free country must have some sense of a founding set of principles, however, being free means that we must not allow our religious prejudices to overtake the common good of the secular government. Beware of fanatics of any kind.

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     Archeology is the search for facts, not truth, So, When looking at the historical King Arthur, we, unfortunately, must put aside all the romantic characters and imagery that we have been exposed to throughout our lives. We forget the tales of knights in shining armor and start from scratch with the story of Arthur.I am not even sure if there was a King Arth […]
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