Nice work, Sean! You covered a lot of bases here. The unbridled lust for power from several sectors is all true. And the danger you warn the reader off is very real. However, anyone who can’t see the writing on the wall by now, God help them; because it is happening all around us. A multi polar world is emerging, but that doesn’t mitigate the insanity of the unipolar, “One state world rule” terrorist.
Your remarks on predatory Capitalism that begin with the “Capitalism doesn’t care…” under the heading of NATO, are the key take aways for me in the article. People need to stamp this in their memory, with an addendum that reads, “never more.”
The paragraph with dating of the composition of the New Testament through me for a loop. In my time under the tutelage of the Franciscans, efficiency in biblical critical analysis was required.
For example, we have no writings from Jesus, even though he would have been literate and multilingual (Aramaic, Hebrew, and some understanding of Latin & Greek). As an aside, Socrates and Buddha left no literary trail either. Alphabetical script was just beginning to take hold around 1000BC in the Levant, which would have coincided with the Davidic Dynasty in Israel. Most scholars tag Gen: 2,4b -3, (the Adam and Eve story) as being composed around this period.
At least four of Paul’s Epistles, which some scholars refer to as the “first Gospel” would have been composed in the around 50-60 AD. Of the four canonical Gospel’s tracking the life of Jesus, which it is assumed they all worked off a text known as “The Sayings of Jesus” which was never found, Mark is tagged to have been composed some where between 50-70 AD., Matt and Luke in the 70’s AD, John was composed in the last decade of the first century. This is generally accepted among biblical scholars with some detractors. I’m not sure about Revelation. It would have been later than John.
Of course, I don’t claim that my understanding is iron clad by any means. There may be new scholarly studies out there (which are being published all the time) that you are aware of and I am not.
One of the pertinent issues that has been discussed among Biblical scholars is that there is no evidence that Paul, or Jesus for that matter, ever thought their words would be etched in granite to be recited throughout the ages. Nor is there any evidence that they meant for their words to be used as an unquestionable guide that governed all human thought and action, at all times, everywhere. Peace, G
I politely disagree. Zionism is a relatively recent political movement. Although they derive their claim to power from the same ancient ideology. European wars, savagery, settler colonial genocidal conquests of countries with indigenous populations, oppressive economic systems, slavery, rape and other atrocious practices were baked into these European societies for centuries. This includes, of course, complicity and the close participation if not coordination of world affairs by powerful national churches and the Catholic Church.
What they do have in common as a foundational principle is monotheism. It’s not Christianity. That’s just the front cover or propaganda. These countries, the five eyes as well as Israel, favor the Old Testament patriarchal kind of theology and theocracy espoused with beliefs of white supremacy and destructive/extractive economic systems that produce class inequality and environmental destruction. This seems to me to be the more likely explanation as the underlying problem that is destroying the fabric of society at every turn today (and for the past 2000 years for that matter).
What the hell is this? A new uniform for the KKK??
Insightful, Sean!
Nice work, Sean! You covered a lot of bases here. The unbridled lust for power from several sectors is all true. And the danger you warn the reader off is very real. However, anyone who can’t see the writing on the wall by now, God help them; because it is happening all around us. A multi polar world is emerging, but that doesn’t mitigate the insanity of the unipolar, “One state world rule” terrorist.
Your remarks on predatory Capitalism that begin with the “Capitalism doesn’t care…” under the heading of NATO, are the key take aways for me in the article. People need to stamp this in their memory, with an addendum that reads, “never more.”
The paragraph with dating of the composition of the New Testament through me for a loop. In my time under the tutelage of the Franciscans, efficiency in biblical critical analysis was required.
For example, we have no writings from Jesus, even though he would have been literate and multilingual (Aramaic, Hebrew, and some understanding of Latin & Greek). As an aside, Socrates and Buddha left no literary trail either. Alphabetical script was just beginning to take hold around 1000BC in the Levant, which would have coincided with the Davidic Dynasty in Israel. Most scholars tag Gen: 2,4b -3, (the Adam and Eve story) as being composed around this period.
At least four of Paul’s Epistles, which some scholars refer to as the “first Gospel” would have been composed in the around 50-60 AD. Of the four canonical Gospel’s tracking the life of Jesus, which it is assumed they all worked off a text known as “The Sayings of Jesus” which was never found, Mark is tagged to have been composed some where between 50-70 AD., Matt and Luke in the 70’s AD, John was composed in the last decade of the first century. This is generally accepted among biblical scholars with some detractors. I’m not sure about Revelation. It would have been later than John.
Of course, I don’t claim that my understanding is iron clad by any means. There may be new scholarly studies out there (which are being published all the time) that you are aware of and I am not.
One of the pertinent issues that has been discussed among Biblical scholars is that there is no evidence that Paul, or Jesus for that matter, ever thought their words would be etched in granite to be recited throughout the ages. Nor is there any evidence that they meant for their words to be used as an unquestionable guide that governed all human thought and action, at all times, everywhere. Peace, G
Thank You Sean
Maybe with the exception of the Japanese war, there’s one common denominator for all other dominations : Israeli Zionism is the catalyst for all wars.
I politely disagree. Zionism is a relatively recent political movement. Although they derive their claim to power from the same ancient ideology. European wars, savagery, settler colonial genocidal conquests of countries with indigenous populations, oppressive economic systems, slavery, rape and other atrocious practices were baked into these European societies for centuries. This includes, of course, complicity and the close participation if not coordination of world affairs by powerful national churches and the Catholic Church.
What they do have in common as a foundational principle is monotheism. It’s not Christianity. That’s just the front cover or propaganda. These countries, the five eyes as well as Israel, favor the Old Testament patriarchal kind of theology and theocracy espoused with beliefs of white supremacy and destructive/extractive economic systems that produce class inequality and environmental destruction. This seems to me to be the more likely explanation as the underlying problem that is destroying the fabric of society at every turn today (and for the past 2000 years for that matter).
Woke is past tense...)