Things That Make Your Head *Pop*, 1st Installment

This is the first in an occasional series of posts about various bits of news or commentary that I come across that are simply so astoundingly absurd that it is beyond comprehension how someone can believe them. I base the title on radio and television talk show host Glenn Beck's comments that such things are so mind-boggling that they make your head want to explode. Hence, your head goes *pop*.

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As I hung ten across the Internet, I came across a website that I had never heard of previously called The Canadian. The Canadian, according to it's own banner, is Canada's socially progressive and cross-cultural national newspaper. Now, while I don't agree with many issues promoted by social progressives, I ordinarily will take the time to listen to what they have to say. After all, contrary to what some readers of this blog may think, I do read and listen to a great deal of information with which I totally disagree. (Air America radio is even one of the pre-set stations on my car radio -- although I have to be really, really, extremely bored to listen to it.) So, it was with some interest that I started to read an article entitled Gnostics suggest Modern Christianity's repressive views on Sexuality are not Jesus-inspired.

Now, I find looking to Gnostic thought for insight into Jesus to be like looking to John Shelby Spong for accurate information about Jesus -- you're looking in the wrong place. After all, unlike the Gospels which many maintain were all written prior to 65 A.D. and therefore within the lifetime of people who knew Jesus, the Gnostics were not written by people who were contemporaries of Jesus. As noted by Dr. Ben Witherington III in his initial response to the National Geographic television special on the Gospel of Judas:

We have no first century evidence of Gnostics or Gnosticism. This is a movement that reacted to mainstream Christianity, and emerged from it sometime in the middle of the second century A.D. Every shred of first century evidence we have suggests that the actual physical life, death, and resurrection of Jesus was at the heart of the belief of the earliest Christians--- all of whom were Jews, not Gnostics. It simply will not do to suggest that the esoteric Gospel of the Gnostics bears any resemblance to the Jewish creation and redemption theology of Jesus and his first Jewish followers.

So, with that in mind, I thought I'd see what new insight this particular article would give us about Jesus and his thought on sexuality. Here's what I read:

Clerical elites suggest through the mass-media that repressing sexuality shows "religious" conviction to "the Lord". However, ancient Gnostic disciples of Jesus illuminate that organized religion was instigated by Manipulative Extraterrestrials, that sought to control and oppress humanity. Dogma and accompanying rituals, became a basis for the Manipulative Extraterrestrials that sought to use religion to create a "false God". By creating a "false God", as the mask of the demonic consciousness, Gnostics viewed Manipulative Extraterrestrials as attempting to prevent a critical understanding among humans, of the true cosmic God of our universe. While the cosmic God embraces peace, wisdom, and lovingkindness, the false God through religion, spreads fear, oppression, and a culture of violence, which Manipulative Extraterrestrials can use to control and oppress humanity.

Indeed, the apparent creation and spread of HIV-AIDS is consistent with an attempt by a hideous intelligence to oppress sexuality. Researchers like Alan Cantwell, MD, have indeed provided testimony that HIV-AIDS is a genetically engineered virus, designed to perpetrate genocide.

Messages of sexual repression within modern Christianity, which have manifested, for example, in calls by the U.S. Bush administration for "abstinence", in the apparent Gnostic view, seem to be a part of a Manipulative Extraterrestrial ruse. Indeed, ancient Gnostics viewed tantric sexuality as being an integral part of humanity seeking to achieve a spiritual communion with God. Gnostics sought to warn humanity about Manipulative Extraterrestrials, that seek to dis-associate humanity from a vital awareness of the cosmic God of the universe. Spreading messages of sexual repression through modern Christianity then becomes an apparent Manipulative Extraterrestrial technique of trying to support Human DIS-ASSOCIATION from the cosmic God.

*Pop*

Comments

Anonymous said…
Missed those flying saucers last time I thumbed through the Nag Hammadi Library. I'll have to go back and check the index.
Jason Pratt said…
I think they're selectively disregarding the _other_ Gnostics who stressed total sexual abstinence, on the ground that the material world was created by that evil Demiurgy thing (read: malignant extraterrestrial) and so was a trap for souls being constantly embodied, both through the charms of intercourse itself, and through the natural results of intercourse.

That being said, I think I can affirm I'm in favor of 'tantric sexuality as being an integral part of humanity seeking to achieve a spiritual communion with God'. We call it "the sacrament of marriage". I understand it can be cosmically intense when the ritual is done properly, especially for the woman, her service and satisfaction being the primary goal. ('Christian chivalry' in a nutshell.)

What--this wasn't taught at church?? No wonder our public Q score is down... Our clerical elites must be slacking off again... Sigh.

JRP
Steven Carr said…
'Every shred of first century evidence we have suggests that the actual physical life, death, and resurrection of Jesus was at the heart of the belief of the earliest Christians--- all of whom were Jews, not Gnostics.'

So Paul was lying when he claimed that the converts to Jesus-worship in Corinth scoffed at the idea that God would choose to raise a corpse?

Can Witherington produce evidence that statements like 'Who will rescue me from this body of death?', were not written in the first century?

Ben Witherington did make my eyes pop on his blog - when he posted a testimony by an admitted child abuser.

Guess Ben has no qualms about the truthfulness of people who admit to molesting children. After all , they told the truth about that, didn't they?
Jason Pratt said…
Steven,

{{So Paul was lying when he claimed that the converts to Jesus-worship in Corinth scoffed at the idea that God would choose to raise a corpse?}}

Fair enough point, even if the context limits this to certain coteries in that congregation. Glad to see you finally admit that Paul wasn't trying to scoff himself at God choosing to raise a corpse, in his letter to those same Corinthians! (oh... wait, you're still missing the point there, that Paul can hardly be complaining about people in his Corinthian congregation scoffing at the bodily resurrection and also denying any kind of bodily resurrection himself.)

{{Can Witherington produce evidence that statements like 'Who will rescue me from this body of death?', were not written in the first century?}}

There's an obvious technical difference between the nature of something having been corrupted by rebellion against its creator, and the nature of something having been created evil by an evil creator. Paul expects, in that same epistle to the Romans you quoted, to be rescued by having his body raised in the same way that Jesus' body was raised. (Rom 8:11, after talking about the ethical corruption and dying of the flesh for a while: "Now if the spirit of the One rousing Jesus out of the dead is home-ing in you, the One rousing Christ Jesus out of the dead will also be life-shepherding your dying bodies [i.e. in the same way Jesus was raised] because of His spirit home-ing in you.")

And yes, that was written a little later than mid-1st c. {g} At least we agree on _something_. Go bother Doherty about that for a change, how about?

JRP
Jason Pratt said…
Btw, love the icon Bill. {g!}

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