Sunday, January 28, 2007

It's theology

Sometimes the places I'm happiest are not where I am.
Yesterday morning I had a very long and interesting discussion on certain aspects of Christianity. I am going to recap some of the topics here, but before you read, keep in mind that this is mostly theory and I do not necessarily believe everything on here. However, it does make sense and is highly fascinating. I also apologize beforehand because my memory is imperfect and I cannot explain things as well. Don't believe everything on this post, just think about it.
1) Catholicism is a cult. An example is praying to Mary, which will be explained in the next point. Another example is priests. Catholic priests are breaking the very first commandment God gave Adam, which is not do not eat the fruit of this tree. It is "be fruitful and multiply". Also, all high priests in the Old Testament HAD TO BE married. They were not allowed to be priests otherwise. There's a little bit of perversion from that model nowadays isn't there? There's more to this theory but I am not going to say anymore at this particular point because I either don't remember it or it's hard to explain and I'll end up screwing it up.
2) There is no such thing as the Trinity. God is more than just 3. There are so many aspects to God that they cannot be counted, but He is still one. The Trinity was put into Christian doctrine but the Romans, when they were converting their Empire from Mytholicism into Christianity. You see, in Mytholicism there were three gods, the Old Man who wanted to kill you, the Child, and the Woman who was the intercessor. Compare: the Father is the Old Man, Christ is the Child, and the Holy Spirit is the intersessor. Catholics also pray to Mary as the intercessor. Perhaps there is more to God than we originally thought.
3) The Church is not the Bride of Christ. Israel is the Bride of Christ. Israel is the Church. This one's harder to explain without speaking it, because you need voice inflections. The "Church", as we so fondly say, is in fact Israel. To be a Christian you have to be Israelite, because Christ's Bride is Israel. However, Israel is not entirely Jewish. There was a Gentile tribe, or half-tribe, if you prefer. You see, under Israelite tradition, the oldest son is the one that carries on the father's line. Joseph's oldest son, Manassah, would therefore be Jewish, but his younger son Ephraim would be Egyptian, or Gentile. It follows that it is possible to be Israelite without being Jewish. It also follows that to be a Christian you are part of Israel. You cannot be a Christian without also being an Israelite.
4) Somewhat following the third point, Christ died so he could get remarried. To explain: Christ married Israel at the beginning, but then Israel split into Israel and Judah. So Christ was married to both. In Old Testament law, you can only divorce due to marital unfaithfulness. Israel was unfaithful, so Christ divorced her. He was still married to Judah however. Time goes on and Judah's still faithful. The only way Christ can remarry Israel, [as a whole] is for either him or his wife to die. We're still following Old Testament law, which states that for someone to get re-married, one of the original partners must die. So either the bride, which is Israel as a whole, or God must die, so that they can remarry as it should have been before Israel was unfaithful. So God sent Jesus, who was also God, to die so He could marry Israel as a whole. We are Israel. The concept I ended up with here is that God is polygamous. I don't think He is but He is married to more than one Bride, but it is the same Bride in the end.
5) Also somewhat following the third point, there is a theory that the original roots of Mennonites are Israeli. When Babylon scattered Israel, they scattered them across the whole Persian Empire, which stretched all the way to Spain. When a group of people faithful to their religion are uprooted and transplanted somewhere else, they will still follow their religion, even if they cannot travel to their holy city. All Israelites were scattered, the few faithful as well as the many adulterous. It stands to reason that a group of the faithful could have been moved to Spain, at the far reaches of the Empire. There they would have continued practicing their Christianity, although it didn't have that name yet. When a group of people practicing a certain religion is dumped into the middle of your town, and they refuse to conform to your culture, they will probably be persecuted. They will also probably get several followers. Cultures will be absorbed if not conformed. When a group of people is persecuted in one culture they may travel, to get away from the persecution. Now imagine this happening over several hundred years and get a map of Europe. Start in Spain and think about the history of Mennonites, and how they traveled in groups to get away from persecution. It is possible that they began with Israeli origins and, when sick of the teaching of the Catholic Church, started listening to the theories of a man named Menno Simon. Put it together, I'm tired of typing.

So if anyone actually read all the way down to here congratulations. I am missing a lot of important stuff here but this is about the gist of it. It's theory, it's what the person who this conversation was with believes, or at least partially, and it makes enough sense to me that I'm debating believing it. For a final thought, perhaps God is neither male nor female, but both male and female together. Angels are sexless, could not God be both sexless and both sexes? Have fun with that one.

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