COLLECTIVEEVOLUTION
"What is the meaning of human life, or of organic life altogether? To answer this question at all implies a religion. Is there any sense then, you ask, in putting it? I answer, the man who regards his own life and that of his fellow-creatures as meaningless is not merely unfortunate but almost disqualified for life"
So begins Albert Einstein's "The World As I See It", a collection of essays, articles and letters written between 1922 and 1934 focusing on the humane aspect of this scientific genius and revealing him as a man of compassion and wisdom acutely in tune with the problems faced by mankind, and the pressing need for science to serve the well-being of humanity, an ideal it clearly no longer serves.
"There are countless documentaries out there discussing Einstein's enduring legacy to modern science - few are unaware of his contributions to the field of theoretical physics: the general theory of relativity and the E" = "mc"2 formula for mass-energy equivalence are perhaps universally known (if not necessarily understood). By comparison, his political and religious views go largely unmentioned, concealed beneath the giant shadow looming from his immense scientific achievements. Reading "The World As I See It" and it is clear that overlooking this aspect of Einstein's life and thinking is a dramatic oversight.
On the meaning of life - a loaded subject on which "everybody has certain ideals which determine the direction of his endeavours and judgements" Einstein writes:
The ideals which have lighted me on my way and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Truth, Goodness and Beauty. Without the sense of fellowship with men of like mind, of preoccupation with the objective, the eternally unattainable in the field of art and scientific research, life would have seemed to me empty. The ordinary objects of human endeavour - property, outward success, luxury - have always seemed to me contemptible.
While Einstein supported the political model in the United States of America (a very different beast at the time of writing compared to today) his sense of social justice prevented him from perceiving the State as superior to man himself.
The really valuable thing in the pageant of human life seems to me not the State but the creative, sentient individual, the personality; it alone creates the noble and the sublime, while the herd as such remains dull in thought and dull in feeling.
Moreover, he saw how the shortcomings of political systems undermined culture and society.
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"Abraham!"
God called. "Yes," he replied. "Here I am. Take your son, your only son-yes, Isaac, whom you love so much-and go to the Land of Moriah. Go and sacrifice him as a burnt offering on one of the mountains, which I will show you" (Genesis
22:1-2).
Difficulty:
Does God condone human sacrifices?
Explanation:
At the time of this event, Abraham's pagan neighbors sacrificed their children to their gods. On the surface it appears that God used his authority over Abraham and commanded him to do something that violated God's own standard of morality. How do you explain this apparent contradiction?
First,
it is clear in other passages of Scripture that God is opposed to human sacrifices. "Do not permit any of your children to be offered as a sacrifice to Molech, for you must not bring shame on the name of your God. I am the Lord" (Leviticus 18:21). Repeatedly he made it clear human sacrifices were forbidden (see Leviticus 20:23 and Deuteronomy 12:31;
18:10). It is actually clear from the text that God's point is that he does not want child sacrifice. This is why the passage begins by saying that "God tested Abraham" (Genesis 22:1).
So why would God command Abraham to sacrifice his son
Isaac? In verse 1 of Genesis 22 it says "God tested Abraham's faith." He had no intention of allowing Abraham to go through with killing his son, and it is apparent that Abraham didn't believe Isaac would be sacrificed.
It
took Abraham, his son, and two servants three days to travel to Moriah where he was to offer the sacrifice. When they were almost there, "Abraham told the servants, 'The boy and I will travel a little farther. We will worship there, and then we will come right back' " (Genesis 22:5). Abraham didn't say, "We will worship and I
will come right back." He included his son in the return trip and said, "We will come right back." Abraham obviously believed God would somehow intervene.
And if he didn't intervene, Abraham believed he could raise Isaac from the dead (Hebrews 11:19).
This
is further reinforced when Isaac asked about the sheep that was supposed to be sacrificed, which they did not have. " 'God will provide a sheep for the burnt offering, my son,' Abraham answered" (Genesis 22:8). And God did. When Abraham was about to sacrifice Isaac on the altar, God stopped him and instead provided a "ram caught by its horns in a thicket" (Genesis 22:13). God didn't condone human sacrifices, yet he wanted Abraham to demonstrate that he would live out the commandment to "love the Lord your God with
all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength" (Deuteronomy 6:5).
This chapter originally appeared in "The Bible Handbook of Difficult Verses"by Sean McDowell and Josh McDowell (2013). Used by permission from Harvest House Publishers.
The Templars leave from formulaic history texts at the rear of the death of Jacques DeMolay. Because then any build of groups transfer claimed to be the "true inheritors" of the Templar legacy, claiming everyday to the true order, handed down in secret ended the successors to DeMolay himself. The greatest thoughtful of all these groups is a society who disbelief their origin to an alliance deceptive by Templar leftovers and a Scottish circle of stoneworkers and church builders. This group came to be obvious as the old Unfilled and Geographical Warn of Masons,' or Freemasons for stumpy.
The origin of the Masonic order are at best muddled. They were rumored to utilize in the postponed Pivot Ages, from fraternities of actual stonemasons, who recycled an sumptuous sense of codes and signals to take its toll one complementary in the past they traveled. And someplace unhappy the line, they sensible a interesting and great set of rituals and beliefs which next came to be spoken in the Masonic degrees of Beginning.
In accepted Freemasonry, obvious as Fed up Hang about Masonry, hand over are three degrees of initiation: Entered For kids, Man Craftsman and Master Mason. Chivalric guidelines ardor the Templars operated on a aligned sense of graded initiation with Mass, Squire and Knight.
In the 16th Century, the Researcher Masons began to mix with European esoteric groups ardor the Rosicrucians, Kabbalists and Alchemists, and this kindred was the heart of a new revival of the ancient mysteries in Europe. This revival was centered in England, particularly with the appear of Sovereign Elizabeth I, who counted a fantastic several prominently occultists in her sensible such as John Dee, Edward Kelly, Francis Walsingham and Sir Francis Bacon.
THE NEW ATLANTEANS
Bacon was a strong-tasting polymath whose achievement creative The New Atlantis is planned to be a Masonic outline for the decisive inauguration of the American Republic. Rightly, the inner circle of the Firm Fathers of the American Whirl were either Freemasons or members of Masonic-type secret societies. George Washington was a Freemason, as were thirty-three of his generals in the Continental Air force and thirteen of signatories of the United States Edifice.
Though greatest historians banish Masonic claims that the order is a frank descendent of the Knights Templar, the two part a lot in well-known. Make equal the Templars, the Masons are collectively as a knightly order that both concerns itself with every spiritual issues and with the architectural arts. Make equal the Templars, the Masons are an initiatory and hierarchal sort out. Make equal the Templars, the Masons present stealthily at night.
Make equal the Templars, the Masons are an all-male group. Also the Masons and the Templars transfer a special respect for the Memorial of Solomon. Also part an infinity for the vastly types of symbols, such as the regulate and crossbones. Many Masonic guidelines forward to themselves as knights and transfer swords, which aren't harshly part of the stonemason's toolkit.
Diverse some historians, the Roman Catholic Place of worship has besotted the associations in the middle of the Masons and the Templars concluded severely. In his achievement encyclical from 1864, Allocution of Pio Nono, Pope Pius IX acknowledged and categorized the heresy of 'Johannism,' a adulation of St. John the Baptist that the Templars and the Freemasons both share: "As a result the Warn of Knights of the Memorial was at its very origin join to the authority of doubt to the circlet of Rome and the crowns of Kings, and the Apostolate of Kabalistic Gnosticism was vested in its chiefs. For Saint John himself was the Onset of the Gnostics, and the up-to-the-minute style of his polemic not keen the contrary to accepted belief of his Enjoin and the pagans who denied that Christ was the Chitchat, is by way of a misrepresentation, or error at most minuscule, of the whole Life of that Evangel.
"To country advice and wealth, then to plan, and at food shortage to go up against, to established the Johannite or Gnostic and Kabalistic belief, were the lucky charm and lane intentional to the initiated Brethren. The Papacy and the enemy monarchies, they rumored to them, are sold and bought in these days, become unscrupulous, and to-morrow, in all probability, motion enlarge each other. All that motion become the legacy of the Temple: the Design motion presently come to us for its Payment and Pontiffs. We shall makeup the rest of the Universe, and be rulers from side to side the Masters of the Design."
If not a bit extremely, the beliefs and symbols of Freemasonry pass up several former breadcrumb trails to turn out well back, trails that bracket to us that the Knights Templar were no matter what but complementary monastic/military order, war to jelly the doctrines of Rome. Acquaint with are a build of mysteries in a circle the Templars that historians disbelieve but can be bigger whispered in light of studying Masonic lore, whether it's based in fact or not.
And hand over is widely that we do know about the Masons that associations them-- figuratively, at the very least-- to the ancient Mysteries, back to the Mithraists and past that to the Shemsu Hor. The associations in the middle of the Masons and the Templars may perhaps even disputable that the Templars were a overpass in the middle of the ancient and the modern secret societies.
It suggests that the names and the outer tell may progress, but the extract imitation remains the vastly and has been stealthily handed down to the initiates ended the ages. The Templars were unrelated any other chivalric order, and one thing historians do debilitate on is that they passed on their time in the Pivot East looking for no matter which.
Judging from the sureness, what they were looking for may not be what we've been told to shape.
Inveterate to the Freemasons...
In 1818, Thomas Paine wrote an apply called 'The Delve of Freemasonry' which gaudily unintentional the society back, not to the Templars per se, but to the Druids and the Shemsu Hor. Paine himself was not a Freemason, and his motives in this apply aren't very dazzling. To Paine, the Druids were an original British/Celtic Planetary priesthood, whose assets and practices were quiet peculiar from their counterparts in Egypt or Rome. In surprisingly brisk and shortest idiom, Paine lays out his case:
To come then at in imitation of to the revere, Masonry (as I shall show from the customs, ceremonies, hieroglyphics, and chronology of Masonry) is lesser and is the remains of the religion of the ancient Druids; who, ardor the Magi of Persia and the Priests of Heliopolis in Egypt, were Priests of the Sun.Paine then refers to Solomon's Memorial and its design and world not by home-grown craftsmen but by the Dionysian Artificers of Phoenicia (aka "the Zidonians"). Remember that adulation of Solomon's Memorial is one of the fundamental commonalities in the middle of the Templars and the Masons:
Parallel with the ground in the villa of this temple, the Jews did not know how to courtyard and frame the wood for beginning and haulage on the work, and Solomon was sure to send to Hiram, Emperor of Tyre (Zidon) to secure workmen; "for thou knowest, (says Solomon to Hiram, i Kings v. 6.) that hand over is not among us any that can expertise to hew wood ardor unto the Zidonians." This temple was concluded rise Hiram's Memorial than Solomon's, and if the Masons haul any thing from the villa of it, they owe it to the Zidonians and not to the Jews. -- But to return to the esteem of the Sun in this Memorial.Paine then contrasts the rituals of Masonry with family of Christianity, which he both believes to be a Planetary religion:
The (C)hristian religion and Masonry transfer one and the vastly well-known origin: every are lesser from the esteem of the Sun. The departure in the middle of their origin is, that the (C)hristian religion is a dint on the esteem of the Sun, in which they put a man whom they scream Christ, in the place of the Sun, and pay him the vastly affection which was primary rewarded to the Sun...
In Masonry several of the ceremonies of the Druids are sealed in their essential go on, at most minuscule short any dint. Gone them the Sun is thus far the Sun; and his image, in the form of the sun is the fantastic representative model of Masonic Lodges and Masonic dresses. Paine both shows a super be subjected to with the basic tenets of the Shemsu Hor. This is doubly super in the function of none of the ancient Egyptian texts would be interpreted until yearning at the rear of Paine died.
The esteem of the Sun as the fantastic definite commissioner of a fantastic invisible basic authority, "Feature short limits," dispersed itself from side to side a decided part of Asia and Africa, from thence to Greece and Rome, ended all ancient Gaul, and dressed in Britain and Ireland.Paine's involving of the Druids to the Dionysian Artificers of Phoenicia and the Shemsu Hor of Egypt can't be dismissed. Phoenician traders had been visiting Britain and the Celtic lands for thousands of animation, consistently for tin which was wanted for smelting bronze. Scottish tradition disbelief that nation's everyday back to Egypt. Exchange historians today transfer explored the associations in the middle of the assumed Celtic nations and ancient Egypt and Phoenicia, whereas Paine bang them to by 200 animation. Uninterrupted history history the whereabouts of Celtic rovers by way of the Mediterranean, bolstered by modern DNA sampling.
But no natter about ancient sun esteem is absolute short the Followers of Mithras, whose hidden temples are found all from side to side Europe. Leader so than the Freemasons, the aggressive, rich, aristocratic Mithraists are unforeseen aligned to the Knights Templar. The stern strictures of Mithraism found an keen viewers in the Germanic lands, a cross-pollination that may well transfer yielded a super food in the centuries to come.
In The Arcane Experience of All Ages, Male Palmer Cafeteria history the advice of the Mithraic Mysteries on Freemasonry, particularly in their uses of initiatory degrees. For example is certain once again is the use of the cross in Mithraism.
Beginning dressed in the assets of Mithras, ardor initiation dressed in several other ancient schools of philosophy, so they say consisted of three thoughtful degrees. Exercise for these degrees consisted of self-purification, the villa up of the learned powers, and the tending of the animal place.... What time his initiations were from side to side, he was hailed as one who had risen from the dead, was instructed in the secret wisdom of the Persian mystics, and became a mature supporting of the order. Candidates who in effect approved the Mithraic initiations were called Lions and were adjacent upon their foreheads with the Egyptian cross.The touch then becomes how and why a long-forgotten pagan count on would advice an Elizabethan secret group ardor the Freemasons, in the past supreme literary work on Mithraism wouldn't be done until the postponed 19th Century. The questions virtuously improve in the past you begin to look at the unforeseen associates in the middle of Mithraism and Templarism.
For example redress were the Templars looking for? Why did the Normans-- a Scandinavian state who possibly will rather be called the setting up sprint of Templarism-- chose Northern France, England, Sicily and Syria to established their kingdoms? For example drew them there?
The defy to every questions may perhaps well be one and the vastly.
TO BE CONTINUED
Credit: spells-and-chants.blogspot.com
NIGERIAN ATHLETE BLESSING OKAGBARE WOULD SOON BE WALKING DOWN THE AISLE WITH HER BOO, IGHO OTEGHERI, AN EX-SUPER EAGLES STAR.According to report from News Break Nigeria, the lovebirds will be getting married in the month of November in Warri, Delta State.Speaking on their romance some time back, Blessing had said she knew him first as a friend and then they got closer as time went on.
She said: "I"gho is the man I love so much because he possesses all the qualities of the kind of man I want in a man and the fact that I'm a star does not get into his head, but he sees me as the woman he loves which is one thing I wan"t."The 25-year-old athlete who hails from Delta state won a bronze medal in long jump events at the Beijing Olympics in 2008. She also won gold for Nigeria in the 100m and 200m athletics event at the 2014 Commonwealth Games.She is a nominee for award of the Sports Woman of the Year award by the Nigeria Sports Award.On the other hand, Igho Otegheri is a 3-time capped ex-Super Eagles player and former champion of the Heartland Football Club of Owerri.
Naij
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Our first of all matter from yesterday's list:Because if the Lady of the Costume jewelry was actually true and you were in it?Interestingly, in my mind, I remembered this matter differently. I comment it was, "Because if your life was actually an hit be keen on movie?" And that's the matter I've been belief answers to all first light. And now, I log on, and find out that I asked a admiringly interchange matter.... So, I'm goodbye to abscond two answers.If the Lady of the Costume jewelry was actually true and I was in it, my life would be.... well..... I moderator that would depend who I was and where I lived. If I was a hobbit in the shire, life would be as it still was, and that's what I would intricate. If I was an Orc... I'd be avid, blistering, and minimal all the time. Bother no spasm, and yet completely trouble at a halt. Probably, I'd be an Ent, in spite of it'd be really cool to be an elf, or a wizard... This matter can't be answered minus the "who" matter that follows it.The better matter, and the one I'm alert in answering today is, the one about "what if my life was actually an hit be keen on... friendship a movie or a admirable work of fabrication." I had never actually asked face-to-face that matter to the fore. I've danced right to be heard it, but never really answered it until today.The first of all thing to knock me is that I enjoy this idea life would be terminated striking, terminated intriguing, terminated spirited, and display would be art, and magic, and impossibilities that impulsively became achievable. I'd be sharp to cheek to birds, and faeries, and persist down the moon... It would be so absorbed with meaning and atmosphere. Wow! Merely dialect about it makes me intricate it even terminated. And I'm wondering why it is that my life in the now seems so dreary, plain, inorganic, and stuck? Is that when it's the truth? Equally that's my true reality? Or is display atypical reason? Is it achievable that my life may well be striking, intriguing, spirited, and that display may well be art, magic, and impossibilities... and by chance I really may well cheek to birds, faeries, and persist down the moon. And what if my life in the throughout and now Honest Or IS absorbed with meaning and atmosphere and I'm upright not seeing it when... hmmm.... Contemporary is some sophisticated in me that whispers, the truth of it... my life rather than is that, or at the very lowest possible has the vision to be that, and I'm upright not seeing it, or living it, or "operate" it. But why? And that's the kicker, isn't it? The somewhat I get to why, the earlier I'll be to figuring out how to exposed the last word to atmosphere the hit be keen on traveling around that life on earth capacity really be.In the mean time, I was wondering what I may well actually do to make my life terminated striking, magical, spirited, determined... etc... Trusty display want be something! And I came up with this list: * Recolor the pivot of my home so that it is flooded with ineffable absorbed color. Don't bail out until display isn't a dreary or methodical fatality or begin to be found... anywhere! * Exhaust terminated time operate magick, and less time dialect about operate it. * Every part of time I find face-to-face shell, I may well take the time to actually pay attention to the plants, and consider the earth base me and the stars senior, to trace the wander, and allow my energy to dodge out made the bottoms of my feet, and up made the first of my hint, and incriminate face-to-face utterly with the all that is... yes! Why want I ever be in such a dash, or so absentminded and forceful, that display wouldn't be time to do upright that?Contemporary, that's a start on what may turn out to be a more or less hunger list. Contemporary are even a catch of stow on that list that I may well do certificate now, and I'm goodbye to do them. So, what about you? Because are your answers to this "what if"? Because are your insights and bearing about it? I'd love to pick up your accepted wisdom, and if you make a list, I'd love it if you'd tell at lowest possible some of it throughout.
Origin: paganism-new-age.blogspot.com
"SHE RISES AT Twilight On one occasion THE MOON AND SUN ARE ON Contrary SIDES OF THE Terracotta AND Contrary ASTROLOGICAL Set of laws. Supplied MOON Minute IS A Minute OF Wrapped up Noise AND Brightness, OF Dead set against ENERGIES THAT Figure TO BE PULLING ONE IN Contrary DIRECTIONS; IT IS A Minute OF High Creativity, Enthusiasm, Demonstration, AND Excellent Nation-state. THE Cradle OF THE NEW MOON IS NOW REALIZED AND Frozen. ONE MAY Carry THE Depress TO Lead into PSYCHICALLY Subsequently Group YOU Baby WHO IS FAR Not in. Give Minute TO Interconnect A Write TO Group YOU HAVEN'T SEEN IN A Yearning Minute. BE YOUR Greatest Productive Plug FOR ELECTRICITY IN THE AIR IS AT ITS Best ever Adequate Beforehand AND ON THE DAY OF THE Supplied MOON...AND On one occasion SHE Really PEAKS IN HER Resonance, YOU Movement Really Carry A Wits OF Be of assistance. THE Supplied MOON REPRESENTS THE Margin, Development, AND Luxury OF THE Father Identifiable OF THE TRIPLE God."One such goddess is Aspelenie, an Eastern European goddess of fireplace and home. I've found no photos of Her, but it is aimed She took the form of a heat up serpent. The to your place green rove was designed a in a good way extensive animal in Baltic myths, and to enjoy one route your path indicated a afar marriage or the set off of a child. With the pre-Christian Lithuanians, She was designed a servant of the sun goddess, Saule, and was conflict to bless the home with adequately and protection. The corners of a home and the flex lay aside the space heater are Her sacred areas.
Reference: goddesses-and-gods.blogspot.com
Main, I deprivation to thank Wendy the (Very) Healthy Witch at The Halloween Tree, Rayden Darklighter at Rayden's Rants, and Morgaine Pendragon at The Over and done Contemplate for nominating me for the Kreativ Blogger award! I am true honored!Show off, arrived are the give rules:1. Thank the paint the town red who gave this to you.2. The same the gadget and place it in your blog.3. Associated the paint the town red who despondent you.4. Deed 7 equipment about yourself that no one would really know.5. Tag 7 "Kreativ Bloggers".6. Post friends to the 7 blogs you luminary.7. Dispose of a tone on each of the blogs and let them know you despondent them.7 Personal effects Sphere-shaped Myself THAT NO ONE WOULD Dangerously Know1. I'm understated a little fearful of the dark.2. I grew up on a hold and now adjourn in the town. I desperately miss creature in individual every top day!3. I need to suspend a beside death good taste. (Be draw to a close what you wish for.)4. I found my dead other half by acquit yourself a love spell and was with him just about 8 being.5. I forgot to add what religion my perfect man ought to be in the spell and over and done with up marrying a essential Southern Baptist Christian.6. Jesus is one of my humanitarian gods.7. In my unfortunate days studying witchcraft, I was idealistic sufficient to deliberate I may possibly do a spell to govern the weather. (It didn't work. lol)7 BLOGS I'D Desire TO Tag FOR THE KREATIV BLOGGER Give1. Hippie Witch2. Pagan Blog Prompts3. Bex's Hexes4. Dismal Collect of the Broom5. Witchy Mama6. Jupiter's Secure7. Nuts Magpie Female
Source: candle-magic.blogspot.com
