Religion (not Christianity)

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The Afghan lawyer defending a journalist on death row in Kabul has been bombarded with death threats urging him to drop the case.

Islamic extremists repeatedly threatened to murder Afzal Nooristani after he agreed to defend Sayed Pervez Kambaksh in his high-profile appeal.

The 23-year-old student writer was sentenced to death for circulating an article about women's rights. He was tried in a closed court, and denied a defence lawyer. His case has sparked worldwide protests.

emphasis mine...yep...sounds like complementarianism..(NOT)
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The Afghan lawyer defending a journalist on death row in Kabul has been bombarded with death threats urging him to drop the case.

Islamic extremists repeatedly threatened to murder Afzal Nooristani after he agreed to defend Sayed Pervez Kambaksh in his high-profile appeal.

The 23-year-old student writer was sentenced to death for circulating an article about women's rights. He was tried in a closed court, and denied a defence lawyer. His case has sparked worldwide protests. (emphasis mine)

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So offensive, in fact that I refuse to return to a site that has the button in the sidebar.

Personally, I would not compare a spiritual sibling to a religion that condones violence and death as a means to an end...that end being the silencing of anybody who disagrees with them.

I have in my personal library,  the book "Infidel" by Hirsi Ali.

Ms Ali is Muslim;  she is Somali born, and was circumcised as a child.

As an adult, she worked with Theo Van Gogh to make the film "Submission" (she wrote the screen play).  The film was not "anti-Islam", it was anti-violence-against-women and decried those Muslims who supported that violence.

As a result, Van Gogh was murdered and a note containing a death threat against Ali was pinned to his chest.  Ali has received numerous death threats and some of them have come close to succeeding.

This is the Islam that uses violence as a means to the end.

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Christian girls on the way home from school:  ahhh...the photos were here...a young girl's body...her head laying beside her...the World Trade Center...Danial Pearl, his head laying on his belly....

This is the religion that some egalitarians compare complementarians to...and nobody objects.

I will say again...if a picture says a thousand words...that says volumes.

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Godwin's Law: "As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one."
MzEllen's Law: "As an internet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Islam or Muslims approaches one."

Godwin wrote: "Although deliberately framed as if it were a law of nature or of mathematics, its purpose has always been rhetorical and pedagogical: I wanted folks who glibly compared someone else to Hitler or to Nazis to think a bit harder about the Holocaust,"

Well, when a person compares [something] to Islam, I'd like them to think a bit harder about

  • female circumcision
  • honor killings
  • forced arranged marriages
  • beheadings for being raped.
  • being stoned to death for pre-marital intercourse.
  • being killed by your father for dating the wrong boy
  • being stabbed by your brother for going to a dance club

I want you to think a bit harder about those things.
Again, MzEllen's Law (if it's out there someplace else, let me know!)

"As an internet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Islam or Muslims approaches one."

From Wiki:

The concept appears to have entered the public consciousness more broadly, as well. In 2005, the aphorism was the subject of a question in the British television quiz show University Challenge. By 2007, The Economist had declared that "a good rule in most discussions is that the first person to call the other a Nazi automatically loses the argument." And in October 2007, the "Last Page" columnist in The Smithsonian stated that when an adversary uses an inappropriate Hitler or Nazi comparison, "you have only to say 'Godwin's Law' and a trapdoor falls open, plunging your rival into a pool of hungry crocodiles."

"As an internet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Islam or Muslims approaches one."

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"Speaking in tongues" is not only a Christian  phenomenon.  Regardless of whether or not the "gift" is for today, one still cannot point at speaking in tongues as "proof" that they are baptized in the Holy Spirit.

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History of the Church 1:295-297, November 1832: "About the 8th of November I received a visit from Elders Joseph Young, Brigham Young, and Heber C. Kimball of Mendon, Monroe county, New York. They spent four or five days at Kirtland, during which we had many interesting moments. At one of our interviews, Brother Brigham Young and John P. Greene spoke in tongues, which was the first time I had heard this gift among the brethren; others also spoke, and I [Joseph Smith] received the gift myself."

While Mormons share our Scriptures (while translating and interpreting them differently) and are (in their own sense) followers of Christ (although not a Christ who is in full equality and deity with the Father), are not "saved", in the way we are.

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The Oracle at Delphi needed interpreters to pass along her "wisdom".  There is speculation as to whether or not the wisdom was "tongues" or "riddles" that needed interpreting.  There does also seem to be some indication that the trance of the Oracle was due to some intoxicating substances that seeped out of the lower regions of the cave that she prophesied from.

This is not a wonderful example, but it does indicate that "ecstatic speech" was an indicator of the prophetic in religions other than Christianity - and before Christ walked on earth.

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in 1956 Carlyle May wrote an article in "American Anthropologist", "A Survey of Glossolalia and Related Phenomena in Non-Christian Religion."  I cannot get to the entire article, but the first page is here.

"Ecstatic vocalization in the form of incoherent sounds and foreign words has long been on interest to students of religion.  (...)This paper will show that glossolalia and similar speech-phenomena occur in various forms during shamanistic rites of the New and especially of the Old World. (...)

Herodotus (Lombard 1910:90) speaks of an inspired priest in Greece who suddenly spoke in a barbarian language, and Virgil in the Aeneid (1953: vi. 44-49, 97-99) tells of a Cumaean sibyl who spoke strangely while possessed.  The Old Testament (Lombard 1910:89) alludes to a form of ecstatic behavior similar to glossolalia.   Guillaume (1938:144-45) states that in 853 B.C. four hundren prophets raved in ecstasy before the gate of Samaria, and in ancient Egypt (Erman 1894:352-55) necromancers uttered formulas, believed to be revelations from the gods, made up of foreign words and senseless noises.  The more mysterious and incomprehensible these formulas were, the greater their power was thought to be.

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What about xenoglossia?

  • Swarnlatta Mishra:[1] A girl in India who lived entirely among Hindi-speaking people but was able to sing songs in Bengali, as identified by Professor P. Pal of Itachuna College in West Bengal, who studied the case after Professor Stevenson and transcribed some of the songs.
  • Uttara Huddar:[2] Uttara was a woman in India who normally spoke Marathi but, after participating in a meditation during a hospitalization, began speaking in Bengali, much to the bewilderment of her parents.
  • Two hypnotic regression cases: Professor Stevenson is quite skeptical of most hypnotic regression work but he did have two cases that included responsive xenoglossy; that is, hypnotic subjects who could converse with people speaking the foreign language, instead of merely being able to recite foreign words. One is that of Jensen[3], an American woman who, while under hypnosis conducted by her physician husband, described being a Swedish peasant farmer and was able to converse in Swedish. The other is Gretchen[4], an American woman who was hypnotized by her Methodist minister husband and began spontaneously speaking in German. She described the life of a teenaged girl in Germany, and Professor Stevenson, who is able to speak German, was able to converse with her. (from wiki...hopefully the links to the citations are there, the link to the page is here.

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It seems clear that (whatever "tongues" is) and whether or not "tongues" is for today, that the phonomena is not limited to Christianity, or even to religion.

In "testing the spirits", we need to look at all the evidence and not blindly follow.  It may very well be real (in some cases and in some cases not), but we need to look realistically.

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Two "favorite quotes" from one article...

""You can purchase anything off the Internet except common sense,"

And...

"A venomous snake isn't a pet. You don't play with it. If you do, you're an idiot."

or...

A member of a Kentucky Full Gospel Tabernacle...

HT:  "I Really Don't Have Time To Blog" (but I'm glad she does)

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As man is, god once was...

Once upon a time there was a man that lived on near a planet called “Kolob”, not so very far away. It came to pass that this man lived a good life and became a god; he came to another little planet called “earth” with his wife that he had married on his home planet.. In their exalted states, this god and his wife gave birth to “spirit children”; the first-born was Jesus – later would come Lucifer, along with many other "spirit children".

The “father-god” was concerned about the future salvation of humans on this new planet and he had a planned. One of his sons (Jesus) agreed with the plan. The other son (Lucifer) did not agree and rebelled, convincing a large number of (pre-human) spirit-children in heaven to side with him. As punishment, the father-god cast Lucifer out of heaven and made Lucifer’s followers into demons, who could never, ever be born as humans(1). Another large number (although not the remaining) of spirit-children sided with Jesus and would be blest to be born as Caucasians. The remaining spirit-children (who had not taken sides) would be born in the line of Cain, as non-Caucasians (black people).

...continue reading →

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This is response to a question on another blog about how to decide who is Christian and who is not:

Once upon a time there was a man that lived on a planet called “Kolob”, not so very far away. It came to pass that this man lived a good life and became a god; he came to another little planet called “earth” with his wife that he had married on his home planet.. In their exalted states, this god and his wife gave birth to “spirit children”; the first-born was Jesus – later would come Lucifer, along with many other "spirit children".

The “father-god” was concerned about the future salvation of humans on this new planet and he had a planned. One of his sons (Jesus) agreed with the plan. The other son (Lucifer) did not agree and rebelled, convincing a large number of (pre-human) spirit-children in heaven to side with him. As punishment, the father-god cast Lucifer out of heaven and made Lucifer’s followers into demons, who could never, ever be born as humans(1). Another large number (although not the remaining) of spirit-children sided with Jesus and would be blest to be born as Caucasians. The remaining spirit-children (who had not taken sides) would be born in the line of Cain, as non-Caucasians (black people).

These spirit children remained in heaven, to be born as humans – their race and location depend on the choices that they made in heaven in this great spiritual battle.

Some of these people moved to a place far across the ocean. A group of people from a place called Babel settled in what we now know as Central America(2). Another group, called “Jews” also came to this new place(3). A man named Nephi led these Jews. They divided into two groups, the Nephites and the Lamanites who fought each other. The Nephites were defeated in 428 A.D. The Lamanites continued and are now known as the American Indians.

The father-god’s plan of salvation included the spirit-child, Jesus. In order for the father-god’s plan to work, Jesus needed a body. So the father-god used a girl named Mary, in a process that is as natural as our own birth(4), to give birth to Jesus.

Jesus was born, got married (to three women: Mary, Martha and Mary Magdelene) and had children. At the end of his life, Jesus began to atone for the sin of man (but not personal sins) in a garden(5). After he began the work in the garden, he finished his work on a cross. After Jesus died on the cross, he arose from the dead after three days. During the time between his death and resurrection, Jesus’ spirit was in the spirit world, where the souls of the dead wait for their own resurrection, to be reunited with their bodies. There, he ministered to the “righteous spirits, training them to teach other (sinful or ignorant) spirits – extending his ministry on earth into the spirit world.

After Jesus was resurrected, he went to minister to the Nephites in America. He appeared before a congregation in their temple, and allowed them to feel the wounds in his hands and feet, staying with them for several days, teaching and healing.

For 1800 years, this father-god was quiet. Then(6) the father-god(7) appeared to a boy(8) and revealed to him that religion, as he knew it, was wrong – all of it. Teachers, churches, creeds and beliefs were all abominations. The angel told the boy that he had been chosen to translate a very special book that was written on tablets of gold. Four years9 later an angel(10) appeared and told the boy to begin the work of translation. As the boy translated, a prophet(11) appeared to him and ordained him to restore the “true church”

The story on these tablets was amazing. The story (as related by this boy) was the account of ancient people who came to the Americas, people from Babel and Jews who were fleeing persecution in Jerusalem. According to the boy (now a man), his translation of this book is more doctrinally correct than the Bible(12). He even boasted that he did more than Jesus to keep his church together(13)!

The boy (now a man) published this book(14) and started the one “true” religion – a religion that was so outside of orthodox Christianity that the church was driven from town to town. As the religion grew, so did its doctrine.

Just like the “father-god”, all humans have the potential for becoming god, with their own planets (like earth). One of the father-god’s prophets(15) said, “As god once was, man is. As God is, man may become." When this prophet said, “man…”, he meant exactly that. Women cannot be saved unless they are married to a “priest(16)” in this new religion.

Another teaching of this new religion was that the spirit-children in heaven could only be exalted (with the possibility of becoming a god themselves) if they were born into human bodies and that a man’s glory in heaven depended on the number of babies he had fathered. This meant that adherents of this religion must have as many babies as possible. In order to do this, polygamy was essential. This effectively reduced women to mere commodities. One follower of this religion said, "I think no more of taking another wife than I do of buying a cow(17)."

Folks, this is Mormonism. Either Mormons believe their prophets and doctrine (and all of this story), or they believe that their prophets and presidents were wrong.

Full references and bullet points