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Pastimes : Ask God -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: PROLIFE who wrote (27558)	10/7/1999 1:32:00 PM
From: Sam Ferguson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 39621

Old frustated Dan can't find any answers so just has to post from his bible about a Jesus genealogy that is just more hogwash and for a man who did not exist. One of the most virulent aberrations resulting from the cult of anti-nature has been the exhibition of near masochism throughout the history of religion. The reference is to the cult of asceticism. With the full sweep into Western Christian consciousness of the doctrine of the sinfulness of the flesh, there came the preachment of the evils of the world, the flesh and the devil, giving rise to the practice of self-mortification and brutal suppression of all natural impulses. To indulge the instincts and propensities of the flesh was not only pagan, but the direst sin. Because the body blocked the freer motions of the spirit, it had to be crucified. The spirit was all, the flesh was evil, and the deadly enemy of the immortal soul. The vehemence with which this trend swept the early Church is little dreamed of by those who have not read the record. Thousands withdrew from the life of the cities and towns of Europe and joined a veritable crusade to the deserts of Assyria, Egypt, Palestine, and Asia Minor to sequester themselves in caves or hovels in order to expiate their succumbing to the "lusts of the flesh, in penance, self-torture and even self-mutilation." Certain seasons of self-denial and self-abasement became established items in the routine of worship, and religious orders were founded to build the spiritual life substantially on the severest of self-disciplines. As the body is an extension of nature into the human system, this special form of pietism had to attack it there where its power over the spirit was most gripping. The devilish power of nature could not be tolerated in such close and dangerous access to the spirit. Great Pan was the deadly enemy. Nature had to be throttled at its source, rooted by original sin in the deepest nooks of man's constitution. All this chaos in the religious area was attended, accentuated, if not largely inspired by, one of the most staggering phenomena in the history of the race. This was--and is--the presence, power, and influence of a--Book. This momentous tome appears to be a collection of ancient documents, of predominantly hagiographic nature, about which the tradition of their personal authorship by God himself, ostensibly using "holy men of old" as amanuenses for purposes of dictation, has tenaciously clung. It gained the name and renown of being the sole transmission of God's wisdom in literary form to his children on earth. To all intents and purposes, it was regarded as God's manual of instruction, knowledge, wisdom and truth. Under the power of such a persuasion, which spread to virtual universality in the West, this extraordinary volume gained a veritable homage and reverence that would not be erroneously described as the worship of a fetish. To be continued Danny boy.