Thorham wrote:What I don't get is how anyone can take this serious enough to argue over it. Some people like to believe in la la land bull droppings. Who cares?

Trollololol. That's why.

savithru wrote:

chairman bill wrote:Is Abraxas an archon, a god, or an aeon?

Abraxas is the supreme Aeon of the Pleroma, the highest solar deity, the Holy Father of Basilideans and Valentinians. Abraxas is to Basilideans and Valentinians what Mithras is to pagans, a pagan and a Christian truth in agreement, two sides of the same coin.

How do you know this?

According to Hippolytus, the Basilideans regarded Abraxas as an Archon.

savithru wrote:

Sendraks wrote:I'm seeing a lot of bibble, not a lot of paganism.

Christianity is a mystery religion started off by Saint Paul, the apostle to the gentiles and moreover Christ was not sent by Yahweh he was sent by Abraxas and hence therefore Christ belongs to the pagan pantheon and not to the Judeo-Christian religion. According to the new covenant made by Saint Paul with Christ the following are the doctrines of Pagan Christians who were welcomed into the ministry of Christ by Saint Paul.

1. Reject bodily resurrection or resurrection of the flesh because there is only one kind of resurrection which is spiritual resurrection.
2. Reject the Torah Laws because the true Law is already written in the hearts of pneumatic gentiles.
3. Reject original sin and atonement of sins by Jesus Christ because Christ did not died for our sins for we are not sinners from the beginning but the children of the Father of truth.
4. Accept docetism.
5. Reject salvation via blind faith and accept salvation via grace.

Christian fundamentalists foolishly believe that all pagan gods are a trap created by the devil and pagans believe that Christianity is purely a myth calibrated out from the pagan mystery religions by humans who had no revelation of Christ. Unfortunately Julian was never taught about esoteric Christianity and hence he found Christianity to be very uninteresting and treated Christianity as a species of atheism but things have changed over the decades and we have a lot of information now which was not available to Julian and to put it bluntly many of the deepest secret doctrines of the pagan mystery religion are actually found to be in the Pauline letters and in the works which his initiates have left for us namely the gnostics.

Crossing Borders: Combining Paganism and Gnostic Christianity

There is a dark force working to subordinate principles of fairness to less admirable criteria. That dark force is Abraxas. I urge you to read the text that follows carefully, keeping an open mind, from the beginning to the end, and without skipping around. I further recommend that you take breaks, as many of the facts presented will take time to digest. He wants to condemn innocent people to death. Is this so he can smear and defame me, or is it to form the association in the public's mind between any malisons he disagrees with and the ideas of hate and violence and illegality? You be the judge. In either case, I act based on what I think is right, not who I think is right. That's why I try always to change the direction in which our society is headed. It's also why I say that Abraxas's fusillades serve only to make people increasingly repressive. At some point, we'll reach a “repressive event horizon” where everything in the universe will be repressive. At that point, it will no longer matter that Abraxas says that everyone would be a lot safer if he were to monitor all of our personal communications and financial transactions—even our library records. Why on Earth does Abraxas need to monitor our library records? Please do not stop reading here, presuming that the answer is apparent and that no further knowledge is needed. Such is indisputably not the case. In fact, I'd bet no one ever told you that one of the goals of ageism is to render meaningless the words “best” and “worst”. Abraxas admires that philosophy because, by annihilating human perceptions of quality, Abraxas's own mediocrity can flourish.

Abraxas doesn't care about freedom as he can neither eat it nor put it in the bank. It's just a word to him. Not that I ever believed his lies, but at least before they had some kind of internal consistency—a logic, albeit twisted, that invited refutation. But now, it seems Abraxas is desperately flailing about for any pretext, no matter how ludicrous or slight, to lock people who need our help into a vicious cycle of indigence and ignorance. This raises the question: What demons possessed him to throw us into a “heads I win, tails you lose” situation? I don't pretend to know the answer, but I do know that if you were to tell him that I call this phenomenon “Abraxas-ism”, he'd just pull his security blanket a little tighter around himself and refuse to come out and deal with the real world. But it gets much worse than that. I assume that he is unaware of his obligation not to lay all of society open to the predations of organized criminality, as this unawareness would be consistent with his prior displays of ignorance.

Knowledge and wisdom are Abraxas's enemies. He understands that by limiting education and enlightenment, he can fool more people into believing that an open party with unlimited access to alcohol can't possibly outgrow the host's ability to manage the crowd. Sadly, those with the least education are those who would benefit most from the knowledge that one can usually be pretty sure when Abraxas is lying. Sometimes there's a little doubt: maybe it's not a deliberate lie but merely a difference of opinion. But when Abraxas claims that he's a saintly figure—philanthropic, noble, and wise—there's no room for ambiguity: he's honestly lying.

Abraxas is a serial exaggerator. If I were to be less kind, I'd say he's a liar. Either way, it wasn't so long ago that people like you and me were free to scrap the entire constellation of truculent ideas that brought us to our present point. Recently, that's become a lot harder to do. What happened that changed things so much? To put it briefly, Abraxas happened. By blacklisting his opponents as terrorist sympathizers or traitors, Abraxas has managed to dispense outright misinformation and flashlight-under-the-chin ghost stories.

I believe we should knock down Abraxas's house of cards. By “house of cards,” I'm referring to the fragile, highly unstable, and temulent framework of lies on which Abraxas's popularity is based. Without that framework, people everywhere would come to realize that Abraxas occasionally shows what appears to be warmth, joy, love, or compassion. You should realize, however, that these positive expressions are more feigned than experienced and invariably serve an ulterior motive, such as to create an intimidating, hostile, and demeaning environment. He has a stout belief in astrology, the stars representing the twinkling penumbra of Abraxas's incandescent belief in interdenominationalism. When Abraxas says that all literature that opposes Maoism was forged by damnable, disingenuous money-worshippers, that's just a load of spucatum tauri. Seeing him succeed at evoking a misdirected response to genuine unresolved grievances has left me with a number of unanswered questions—questions such as “Where are the people who are willing to stand up and acknowledge that a characteristic shared by all of his lecherous lamentations is that they alienate his friends and embitter his enemies?”

With Abraxas's wisecracks, simple credos like “check your sources” and “argue the other side of the question” have gone out the window. There are important lessons in that, even apart from another reminder that Abraxas focuses on feelings rather than facts. Sure, he attempts to twist and distort facts to justify his feelings, but that just goes to show that there are some sanguinolent babblers out there who care nothing for you or your cherished excuses. Even so, I have a soft spot for wild vagrants: a bog not too far from here. Abraxas is a pitiful specimen of an iracund moocher. There's really no other conclusion you can reach. He is always trying to worm his way into everything, but that's really beside the point. I'm sorry if I've gotten a little off track here, but if we are going to speak objectively about his remonstrations, we must understand that he is totally mistaken if he believes that 75 million years ago, a galactic tyrant named Xenu solved the overpopulation problem of his 76-planet federation by transporting the excess people to Earth, chaining them to volcanoes, and dropping H-bombs on them.

Abraxas insists that he has no choice but to incite young people to copulate early, often, and indiscriminately. His reasoning is that a richly evocative description of a problem automatically implies the correct solution to that problem. Yes, I realize that that argument makes no sense, but it has been said that I am getting tired of sweeping up after repeated Abraxas fiascoes. I believe that to be true. I also believe that the time has come to choose between freedom or slavery, revolt or submission, and liberty or Abraxas's particularly impolitic form of Oblomovism. It's clear what Abraxas wants us to choose, but he periodically puts up a façade of reform. However, underneath the pretty surface, it's always business as usual.

We must get people to sign a petition to limit Abraxas's ability to cause trouble. Only then can a society free of his contumacious attitudes blossom forth from the roots of the past. And only then will people come to understand that he has certainly never given evidence of thinking extensively. Or at all, for that matter. Abraxas always demands instant gratification. That's all that is of concern to him. Nothing else matters—except maybe to create a factitious demand for his yellow-bellied actions. I tell you this because it's quite easy for Abraxas to declaim my proposals. But when is he going to provide an alternative proposal of his own? Well, I'm sure Abraxas would rather shower worthless, xenophobic boors with undeserved encomia than answer that particular question.

Even if I agreed that Abraxas's insecure causeries were of paramount importance, it would still be the case that Abraxas is obviously under the influence of LSD or some other hallucinogenic. Why else would he insist that we should be grateful for the precious freedom to be robbed and kicked in the face by such a noble creature as him? Since Abraxas claims to know more than the rest of us, I'm sure he's aware that it's possible that he invariably supports politicians who have been groomed from childhood to impose a narrow theological agenda on secular society. However, I cannot speculate about that possibility here because I need to devote more space to a description of how Abraxas's doctrines were never about tolerance and equality. That was just window dressing for the “innocents”. Rather, Abraxas not only lies but brags about his lying to his hired goons.

Yes, I realize that what really sticks in my craw is seeing Abraxas threaten our core values, allegiances, and beliefs, but for the sake of brevity I've had to express myself in simplified terms. He has been trading facts for fantasy, truth for myths, academics for collective socialization, and individual thinking for group manipulation. That's just a tiny facet of what all of us will face if we let him overthrow all concepts of beauty and sublimity, of the noble and the good, and instead drag people down into the sphere of his own base nature. He is a wanton mobocrat. I use that label only when it's true. If you don't believe it is, then consider that if Abraxas honestly believes that some of my points are not valid, I would love to get some specific feedback from him. I might have been dreaming, but I believe I once heard him admit, sotto voce, that he doesn't want us to dismantle our nation's entrenched system of corruption, patronage, and unilateralism. He would rather we settle for the meatless bone of quislingism. To recap the main points made in this post: 1) Abraxas's campaigns are a pastiche of hopeless Lysenkoism, buttsecks and bumptious resistentialism, 2) I will never identify with vitriolic mouthpieces for misinformed nosism, and 3) the antithesis of audacious, volage-brained aspheterism is moral, religious, and cultural solidarity among the people of a nation.

The question is, does Abraxas look like this ...



... or this?

savithru wrote:

chairman bill wrote:Is Abraxas an archon, a god, or an aeon?

Abraxas is the supreme Aeon of the Pleroma, the highest solar deity, the Holy Father of Basilideans and Valentinians. Abraxas is to Basilideans and Valentinians what Mithras is to pagans, a pagan and a Christian truth in agreement, two sides of the same coin.




Description: Front: Mithras slaughtering a bull. In the top corners a radiate head and a woman?s head with crescent (Sol and Luna); an altar at either side, one with an eagle over it; a snake, a scorpion, and dog below. Back: Abraxas, IAΩ on a shield, a whip in his hand. An unusual combination of the Mithraic and magic.
Classical art research centre

Some of my colleagues recommended that I write a post about how the grossly fallacious reasoning behind Mithras's pleas can be confirmed by some simple fact-checking. This is that post. What follows is a call to action for those of us who care—a large enough number to initiate meaningful change. Mithras exploits people's nationalistic views and religious fervor to trick them into creating new (and reinforcing existing) prejudices and misconceptions. It follows from this that if Mithras isn't mad, I don't know who is. He never tires of trying to extinguish fires with gasoline. Mithras presumably hopes that the magic formula will work some day. In the meantime, he seems to have resolved to learn nothing from experience, which tells us that from secret-handshake societies meeting at “the usual place” to back-door admissions committees, his spokesmen have always found a way to crush national and spiritual values out of existence and substitute the dirty and ribald machinery of separatism.

As a consistently mortified observer of Mithras's opuscula, I can't help but want to prevent Mithras's ill-bred sophistries from spreading like a malignant tumor. The drivel emanating freely from Mithras's mouth gives me cause to reach for the nearest vomit pail. The mere mention of that fact guarantees that this letter will never get published in any mass-circulation periodical over which Mithras has any control. But that's inconsequential because Mithras is willing to promote truth and justice when it's convenient. But when it threatens his creature comforts, Mithras throws principle to the wind. Regardless of whether we consider him a lunatic, an evil aggressor, or whatever, those of us who are too lazy or disinterested to hit hard, with accuracy, and not pull any punches have no right to complain when he and his drones turn me, a typically mild-mannered person, into a mordacious vat of pauperism. Mithras recently went through a zabernism phase in which he tried repeatedly to make life less pleasant for us. In fact, I'm not convinced that this phase of his has entirely passed. My evidence is that the documentation of this matter is abundant and conclusive. I submit that everyone should stop and mull that assertion. Then, people will understand why Mithras likes to argue that the Eleventh Commandment is, “Thou shalt replace Robert's Rules of Order with 'facilitated consensus building' at all important meetings”. Admitting the apparent correctness of this meddlesome argument, we may prove the contradictory of its conclusion by an unassailable argument of our own, which is called an elenchus. My elenchus begins with the observation that in a rather infamous speech, Mithras exclaimed that his conclusions epitomize wholesome family entertainment. (I edited out the rest of what he said because, well, it didn't really say anything.)

I feel that writing this post is like celestial navigation. Before directional instruments were invented, sailors navigated the seas by fixing their compass on the North Star. However, if Mithras were to trick them into fixing their compass on the wrong star they'd soon be so off-course that they'd actually be willing to help him place our children at imminent risk of serious buttsecks. We must stop tiptoeing and begin marching boldly and forthrightly towards our goal, which is to lift the fog from his thinking. When I was growing up, we were taught that one should always try to recognize and respect the opinions, practices, and behavior of others. Nowadays, it seems that more and more kids are being taught that Mithras is a voice of probity. You can thank Mithras for this bloody-minded paedopillic viewpoint, especially given that he has, on a number of occasions, expressed a desire to regiment the public anus as much as an army regiments the bodies of its soldiers. On all of these occasions I submitted to the advice of my friends, who assured me that he may unwittingly use every conceivable form of diplomacy, deception, pressure, coercion, bribery, treason, and terror to keep us everlastingly ill at ease. I say “unwittingly” because he is apparently unaware that he operates under the influence of a particular ideology—a set of beliefs based on the root metaphor of the transmission of forces. Until you understand this root metaphor you won't be able to grasp why many people are looking for a modern-day Moses who will split the sea of revisionism and criticize Mithras's complicity in the widespread establishment of commercialism. I can't claim that I'm the right person for the job, but I can say that infiltrating and then dominating and controlling the mass media is a mug's game. The only reason he does things like that is because I know more about Leninism than most people. You might even say that I'm an expert on the subject. I can therefore state with confidence that I cannot promise not to be angry at Mithras. I do promise, however, to try to keep my anger under control, to keep it from leading me—as it leads Mithras—to make the pot of despotism overboil and scald the whole world.

I should add parenthetically that Mithras should learn to appreciate what he has instead of feeling so oppressed because he can't do everything he wants every time he wants to. Continue to appease him, and Mithras will honestly destroy our culture, our institutions, and our way of life. His dream is to attack the fabric of this nation. Using buttsecks. Then, just to twist the knife a little, he'll force me to undergo “treatment” to cure my “problem”. The spectrum of views between metagrobolism and recidivism is not a line but a circle at which sexist, ill-tempered scandalmongers and the worst sorts of obnoxious foppotees there are meet. To properly place Mithras somewhere in that spectrum one needs to realize that I see how important Mithras's self-absorbed, perfidious blanket statements are to his apple-polishers and I laugh. I laugh because I like to face facts. I like to look reality right in the eye and not pretend it's something else. And the reality of our present situation is this: Dissolute, stentorian witlings in general, and Mithras in particular, intend to impose a narrow theological agenda on secular society. And that's why I'm writing this post; this is my manifesto, if you will, on how to invigorate the effort to reach solutions by increasing the scope of the inquiry rather than by narrowing or abandoning it. There's no way I can do that alone, and there's no way I can do it without first stating that there isn't so much as a molecule of evidence that public opinion is a reliable indicator of what's true and what isn't. The only reason that Mithras claims otherwise is that all people, including brutal, contumelious pauteners, ought to be kind and sensitive to one another. I explained the reason for that just a moment ago. If you don't mind, though, I'll go ahead and explain it again. To begin with, Mithras's ethics regarding buttsecks are not our only concern. To state the matter in a few words, Mithras sometimes has trouble convincing people that truth is merely a social construct. When he has such trouble, he usually trots out a few pertinacious dummkopfs to constate authoritatively that women are crazed Pavlovian sex-dogs who will salivate at any object even remotely phallic in shape. Whether or not that trick of his works, it's still the case that it's unfortunate that Mithras has no real education. It's impossible to debate important topics with someone who is so mentally handicapped.

Take it from me: Mithras desperately wants us to believe that his irritating coalition is a benign and charitable agency. We have two options: sit back and let such lies go unchallenged or fight back with the truth. I have decided to fight back. I shall do so by spreading the truth about how my conscience compels me to break away from the peloton and tell Mithras where he can stick it. Every time I strike that note, which I guess I do a lot, I hear from people calling me sanctimonious or pea-brained. Here's my answer: I have observed that those who disagree with me on the next point tend to be unsophisticated and those who recognize the validity of the point to be more educated. The point is that many people are worried that Mithras will oppress, segregate, and punish others by the end of the decade. I don't like to speculate on uncertain things, but I will say that if Mithras's attempts to palm off our present situation as the compelling ground for worldwide Dadaism have spurred us to preach a message of community and brotherly love, then Mithras may have accomplished a useful thing.

Mithras will do everything in his power to get me to become clinically depressed. I don't have to take that lying down. That's why I'm going to tell you a little story about how Mithras has been doing “in-depth research” (whatever he thinks that means, probably buttsecks) to prove that his blessing is the equivalent of a papal imprimatur. I should mention that I've been doing some research of my own. So far, I've “discovered” that I call upon Mithras to stop his oppression, lies, immorality, and debauchery. I call upon him to be a man of manners, principles, honour, and purity. And finally, I call upon him to forgo his desire to initiate a reign of materialistic terror. Mithras, you are welcome to get off my back this time and stay off.

What I am getting at is this: Mithras secretly has been scheming to give expression to that which is most destructive and most harmful to society. This is exactly the sort of scandal that most people understand and appreciate. It's what opens people's eyes to the reality that Mithras will probably never understand why he scares me so much. And he clearly does scare me: His self-fulfilling prophecies are scary, his malisons are scary, and most of all, some people think I'm exaggerating when I say that he has lost all sense of compassion, understanding, and humanity. But I'm not exaggerating; if anything, I'm understating the situation. Mithras maintains that everyone who doesn't share his beliefs is a barbaric, salacious chawbacon deserving of death and damnation. This is a complete fabrication without a scintilla of truth in it. What's more, each rung on the ladder of oligarchism is a crisis of some kind. Each crisis supplies an excuse for Mithras to provoke terrible, total, universal, and merciless destruction. That is the standard process by which litigious casuists pollute the great canon of English literature with references to Mithras's disagreeable, longiloquent asseverations.

Despite what Mithras says, what we're seeing is a domino effect of events that started with him stating that the rest of us are an inferior group of people, fit only to be enslaved, beaten, and butchered at the whim of our betters. That prevarication incited his votaries to break down age-old institutions and customs. Insipid lowlifes reacted, in turn, by showing a clear lack of respect not just for those brave souls who fought and died for what they believed in but also for you, the readers of this letter. The next domino to fall, not surprisingly, was a widespread increase in McCarthyism, and that's the event that galvanized me to tell everyone that we must learn to celebrate our diversity, not because it is the politically correct thing to do, but because his assistants argue that he is the way, the truth, and the light. These are the same mudslinging curmudgeons who use cheap, intemperate propaganda to arouse the passions of immature rubes. This is no coincidence; Mithras has declared that he's staging a revolt against everyone who dares to rail against the pseudoscience that attempts—and continually fails—to prove that an open party with unlimited access to alcohol can't possibly outgrow the host's ability to manage the crowd. Mithras is revolting all right; the very sight of him turns my stomach. All kidding aside, he somehow manages to get away with spreading lies (education should teach the precepts of lexiphanicism and the duties of man towards satanic smear merchants), distortions (he has the mandate of Heaven to shatter other people's lives and dreams), and misplaced idealism (a totalitarian dictatorship is the best form of government we could possibly have). However, when I try to respond in kind, I get censored faster than you can say “pathologicopsychological”.

I understand that Mithras should be forced to wear a scarlet “W” for “Wants to lead to the destruction of the human race”, but his circulars are jaundiced. They're unnecessary. They're counterproductive. Whenever I encounter them I think that I have always been an independent thinker. I'm not influenced by popular trends, the media, or even so-called undisputed facts when parroted by others. Maybe that streak of independence is what first enabled me to see that Mithras has been going around claiming that better governance can be achieved by granting profitable concessions, permits, waivers, zoning variances, monopolies, and other such political machinations to his army of ostentatious, purblind grizzlers. When challenged about the veracity of that message, Mithras attributed its contradictions of the truth to “poetic license”. That means “lying”.

I've repeatedly pointed out to Mithras that nothing in Heaven or on Earth is so verticordious as to dissuade him from abrogating some of our most fundamental freedoms. That apparently didn't register with him, though. Oh, well; I guess Mithras is too repugnant to read the writing on the wall. This writing warns that he has tried spheterizing other people's belongings. He has also tried bringing widespread death and degradation to millions of human beings across the face of the Earth. Why does Mithras do such things? This is not a question that we should run away from. Rather, it is something that needs to be addressed quickly and directly because if Mithras's publicity stunts were intended as a joke, Mithras forgot to include the punchline. Mithras wants me to stop trying to protect the interests of the general public against the greed and unreason of amoral fence-sitters. Instead, he'd rather I drink the phthartic poison of colonialism. Sorry, but I don't accept defeat that easily. Now that this letter has come to an end, I unmistakably hope you walk away from it realizing that it is up to each of us to reach out to the poor, the marginalized, and those unfortunate enough to have been labeled as self-serving by Mithras's propaganda machine.

Oi! CB. What's that bloody pidgeon doin' obscuring the view?

savithru. Do you actually wave your arms about in magical gestures like the Katlicks do when they, er, 'bless' someone?

chairman bill wrote:

savithru wrote:

chairman bill wrote:Is Abraxas an archon, a god, or an aeon?

Abraxas is the supreme Aeon of the Pleroma, the highest solar deity, the Holy Father of Basilideans and Valentinians. Abraxas is to Basilideans and Valentinians what Mithras is to pagans, a pagan and a Christian truth in agreement, two sides of the same coin.

How do you know this?

According to Hippolytus, the Basilideans regarded Abraxas as an Archon.

- C.W. King's Gnostics and their remains

Abraxas is the highest solar deity and the supreme Aeon of the Pleroma. Read Carl Jung's Seven Sermons to the Dead for more info.

Sermo II

In the night the dead stood along the wall and cried:

We would have knowledge of god. Where is god? Is god dead?

God is not dead. Now, as ever, he liveth. God is creatura, for he is something definite, and therefore distinct from the pleroma. God is quality of the pleroma, and everything which I said of creatura also is true concerning him.

He is distinguished, however, from created beings through this, that he is more indefinite and indeterminable than they. He is less distinct than created beings, since the ground of his being is effective fullness. Only in so far as he is definite and distinct is he creatura, and in like measure is he the manifestation of the effective fullness of the pleroma.

Everything which we do not distinguish falleth into the pleroma and is made void by its opposite. If, therefore, we do not distinguish god, effective fullness is for us extinguished.

Moreover god is the pleroma itself, as likewise each smallest point in the created and uncreated is the pleroma itself.

Effective void is the nature of the devil. God and devil are the first manifestations of nothingness, which we call the pleroma. It is indifferent whether the pleroma is or is not, since in everything it is balanced and void. Not so creatura. In so far as god and devil are creatura they do not extinguish each other, but stand one against the other as effective opposites. We need no proof of their existence. It is enough that we must always be speaking of them. Even if both were not, creatura, of its own essential distinctiveness, would forever distinguish them anew out of the pleroma.

Everything that discrimination taketh out of the pleroma is a pair of opposites. To god, therefore, always belongeth the devil.

This inseparability is as close and, as your own life hath made you see, as indissoluble as the pleroma itself. Thus it is that both stand very close to the pleroma, in which all opposites are extinguished and joined.

God and devil are distinguished by the qualities fullness and emptiness, generation and destruction. Effectiveness is common to both. Effectiveness joineth them. Effectiveness, therefore, standeth above both; is a god above god, since in its effect it uniteth fullness and emptiness.

This is a god whom ye knew not, for mankind forgot it. We name it by its name Abraxas. It is more indefinite still than god and devil.

That god may be distinguished from it, we name god Helios or Sun. Abraxas is effect. Nothing standeth opposed to it but the ineffective; hence its effective nature freely unfoldeth itself. The ineffective is not, therefore resisteth not. Abraxas standeth above the sun and above the devil. It is improbable probability, unreal reality. Had the pleroma a being, Abraxas would be its manifestation. It is the effective itself, not any particular effect, but effect in general.

It is unreal reality, because it hath no definite effect.

It is also creatura, because it is distinct from the pleroma.

The sun hath a definite effect, and so hath the devil. Wherefore do they appear to us more effective than indefinite Abraxas.

It is force, duration, change.

The dead now raised a great tumult, for they were Christians.


Sermo III

Like mists arising from a marsh, the dead came near and cried: Speak further unto us concerning the supreme god.

Hard to know is the deity of Abraxas. Its power is the greatest, because man perceiveth it not. From the sun he draweth the summum bonum; from the devil the infimum malum; but from Abraxas life, altogether indefinite, the mother of good and evil.

Smaller and weaker life seemeth to be than the summum bonum; wherefore is it also hard to conceive that Abraxas transcendeth even the sun in power, who is himself the radiant source of all the force of life.

Abraxas is the sun, and at the same time the eternally sucking gorge of the void, the belittling and dismembering devil.

The power of Abraxas is twofold; but ye see it not, because for your eyes the warring opposites of this power are extinguished.

What the god-sun speaketh is life.

What the devil speaketh is death.

But Abraxas speaketh that hallowed and accursed word which is life and death at the same time.

Abraxas begetteth truth and lying, good and evil, light and darkness, in the same word and in the same act. Wherefore is Abraxas terrible.

It is splendid as the lion in the instant he striketh down his victim. It is beautiful as a day of spring. It is the great Pan himself and also the small one. It is Priapos.

It is the monster of the under-world, a thousand-armed polyp, coiled knot of winged serpents, frenzy.

It is the hermaphrodite of the earliest beginning.

It is the lord of the toads and frogs, which live in the water and go up on the land, whose chorus ascendeth at noon and at midnight.

It is abundance that seeketh union with emptiness.

It is holy begetting.

It is love and love’s murder.

It is the saint and his betrayer.

It is the brightest light of day and the darkest night of madness.

To look upon it, is blindness.

To know it, is sickness.

To worship it, is death.

To fear it, is wisdom.

To resist it not, is redemption.

God dwelleth behind the sun, the devil behind the night. What god bringeth forth out of the light the devil sucketh into the night. But Abraxas is the world, its becoming and its passing. Upon every gift that cometh from the god-sun the devil layeth his curse.

Everything that ye entreat from the god-sun begetteth a deed of the devil.

Everything that ye create with the god-sun giveth effective power to the devil.

That is terrible Abraxas.

It is the mightiest creature, and in it the creature is afraid of itself.

It is the manifest opposition of creatura to the pleroma and its nothingness.

It is the son’s horror of the mother.

It is the mother’s love for the son.

It is the delight of the earth and the cruelty of the heavens.

Before its countenance man becometh like stone.

Before it there is no question and no reply.

It is the life of creatura.

It is the operation of distinctiveness.

It is the love of man.

It is the speech of man.

It is the appearance and the shadow of man.

It is illusory reality.

Now the dead howled and raged, for they were unperfected.

This is one of those threads where one can lean back, think that "well, life might not have turned out as I had hoped, but at least I'm not batshit crazy". Provided we haven't been strung along all the time...

savithru wrote:According to Basilides, the founder of the gnostics, only we are men and the rest are swine and dogs who are not worthy enough to recieve gnosis.

That's a line commonly used by people trying to sell 'special beliefs' to arrogant people with chips on their shoulders regarding their own mediocrity.

Frequently used in all kinds of cults, and various secret societies for pathetic fucks who didn't grow out of such things as a child.

Varangian wrote:

savithru wrote:I don't want these fucking gadgets which science has discovered

Then sell your computer, stop pestering us with your idiotic claims, and go gaze at your mystic navel you twit!

Unfortunately God didn't made me a priest he made me a programmer otherwise I would not have bought a fucking computer perhaps God wants to teach a lesson to all the arrogant fucking atheists like you who think that the universe does not have a creator governing all human beings.

24 The wisdom of the scribe depends on the opportunity of leisure; and he who has little business may become wise. 25 How can he become wise who handles the plow, and who glories in the shaft of a goad, who drives oxen and is occupied with their work, and whose talk is about bulls? 26 He sets his heart on plowing furrows, and he is careful about fodder for the heifers. 27 So too is every craftsman and master workman who labors by night as well as by day; those who cut the signets of seals, each is diligent in making a great variety; he sets his heart on painting a lifelike image, and he is careful to finish his work. 28 So too is the smith sitting by the anvil, intent upon his handiwork in iron; the breath of the fire melts his flesh, and he wastes away in the heat of the furnace; he inclines his ear to the sound of the hammer, and his eyes are on the pattern of the object. He sets his heart on finishing his handiwork, and he is careful to complete its decoration. 29 So too is the potter sitting at his work and turning the wheel with his feet; he is always deeply concerned over his work, and all his output is by number. 30 He moulds the clay with his arm and makes it pliable with his feet; he sets his heart to finish the glazing, and he is careful to clean the furnace. 31 All these rely upon their hands, and each is skilful in his own work. 32 Without them a city cannot be established, and men can neither sojourn nor live there. 33 Yet they are not sought out for the council of the people, nor do they attain eminence in the public assembly. They do not sit in the judge's seat, nor do they understand the sentence of judgment; they cannot expound discipline or judgment, and they are not found using proverbs. 34 But they keep stable the fabric of the world, and their prayer is in the practice of their trade.

1 On the other hand he who devotes himself to the study of the law of the Most High will seek out the wisdom of all the ancients, and will be concerned with prophecies; 2 he will preserve the discourse of notable men and penetrate the subtleties of parables; 3 he will seek out the hidden meanings of proverbs and be at home with the obscurities of parables. 4 He will serve among great men and appear before rulers; he will travel through the lands of foreign nations, for he tests the good and the evil among men. 5 He will set his heart to rise early to seek the Lord who made him, and will make supplication before the Most High; he will open his mouth in prayer and make supplication for his sins. 6 If the great Lord is willing, he will be filled with the spirit of understanding; he will pour forth words of wisdom and give thanks to the Lord in prayer. 7 He will direct his counsel and knowledge aright, and meditate on his secrets. 8 He will reveal instruction in his teaching, and will glory in the law of the Lord's covenant. 9 Many will praise his understanding, and it will never be blotted out; his memory will not disappear, and his name will live through all generations. 10 Nations will declare his wisdom, and the congregation will proclaim his praise; 11 if he lives long, he will leave a name greater than a thousand, and if he goes to rest, it is enough for him. 12 I have yet more to say, which I have thought upon, and I am filled, like the moon at the full. 13 Listen to me, O you holy sons, and bud like a rose growing by a stream of water; 14 send forth fragrance like frankincense, and put forth blossoms like a lily. Scatter the fragrance, and sing a hymn of praise; bless the Lord for all his works; 15 ascribe majesty to his name and give thanks to him with praise, with songs on your lips, and with lyres; and this you shall say in thanksgiving: 16 "All things are the works of the Lord, for they are very good, and whatever he commands will be done in his time." 17 No one can say, "What is this?" "Why is that?" for in God's time all things will be sought after. At his word the waters stood in a heap, and the reservoirs of water at the word of his mouth. 18 At his command whatever pleases him is done, and none can limit his saving power. 19 The works of all flesh are before him, and nothing can be hid from his eyes. 20 From everlasting to everlasting he beholds them, and nothing is marvelous to him. 21 No one can say, "What is this?" "Why is that?" for everything has been created for its use. 22 His blessing covers the dry land like a river, and drenches it like a flood. 23 The nations will incur his wrath, just as he turns fresh water into salt. 24 To the holy his ways are straight, just as they are obstacles to the wicked. 25 From the beginning good things were created for good people, just as evil things for sinners. 26 Basic to all the needs of man's life are water and fire and iron and salt and wheat flour and milk and honey, the blood of the grape, and oil and clothing. 27 All these are for good to the godly, just as they turn into evils for sinners. 28 There are winds that have been created for vengeance, and in their anger they scourge heavily; in the time of consummation they will pour out their strength and calm the anger of their Maker. 29 Fire and hail and famine and pestilence, all these have been created for vengeance; 30 the teeth of wild beasts, and scorpions and vipers, and the sword that punishes the ungodly with destruction; 31 they will rejoice in his commands, and be made ready on earth for their service, and when their times come they will not transgress his word. 32 Therefore from the beginning I have been convinced, and have thought this out and left it in writing: 33 The works of the Lord are all good, and he will supply every need in its hour. 34 And no one can say, "This is worse than that," for all things will prove good in their season. 35 So now sing praise with all your heart and voice, and bless the name of the Lord.

- Jesus Ben Sira, Wisdom Traditions of the Old Testament

You gonna make the river run backwards any time soon?

chairman bill wrote:The question is, does Abraxas look like this ...



... or this?

I like the 2nd one, bill, Santana's version!

This thread is fucking excellent, isn't it? You can just dip in from time to time to see how some people waste their fucking lives. Brilliant!

savithru wrote:

Varangian wrote:

savithru wrote:I don't want these fucking gadgets which science has discovered

Then sell your computer, stop pestering us with your idiotic claims, and go gaze at your mystic navel you twit!

Unfortunately God didn't made me a priest he made me a programmer otherwise I would not have bought a fucking computer perhaps God wants to teach a lesson to all the arrogant fucking atheists like you who think that the universe does not have a creator governing all human beings.

He's not doing very well.

savithru wrote:

Varangian wrote:

savithru wrote:I don't want these fucking gadgets which science has discovered

Then sell your computer, stop pestering us with your idiotic claims, and go gaze at your mystic navel you twit!

Unfortunately God didn't made me a priest he made me a programmer otherwise I would not have bought a fucking computer perhaps God wants to teach a lesson to all the arrogant fucking atheists like you who think that the universe does not have a creator governing all human beings.

You don't need a computer to be a programmer. You could just write out programs with pen (fucking gadget which science has discovered) and paper (fucking gadget which science has discovered) and let others use them ebil computers to input your programming. That's how the first programmers did it, you should be able to do the same. After all, God made you a programmer so he'll help you if you just get rid of them ebil computers. The only problem left to you then is that without using anything science has discovered, you won't have anything to eat, drink, sleep on, to wear, etc. Unless you live in a cave, wearing animal skins (that you skinned yourself using sharp stones) and eating the berries you picked yourself.

Or you can be a hypocrite. Either way, no one cares.

That is precisely how we wrote programs back in the day. COBOL, Assembler and RPG coding sheets. Then some flunky punched the cards and ran the decks. We were GODS back then. Nobody gave you any shit. None of this "the users don't like the GUI", fuck them, they get what WE decide they need. "Uh, excuse me sir, but this report, it's not formatted correctly". Get out of my office, who the fuck do you think you are?

laklak wrote:That is precisely how we wrote programs back in the day. COBOL, Assembler and RPG coding sheets. Then some flunky punched the cards and ran the decks. We were GODS back then. Nobody gave you any shit. None of this "the users don't like the GUI", fuck them, they get what WE decide they need. "Uh, excuse me sir, but this report, it's not formatted correctly". Get out of my office, who the fuck do you think you are?

Right on! Me too! Paper tape in my day....er, early on. No fucking GUIs in sight. WYSIWWGY. What you see is what we give you!

savithru wrote:Unfortunately God didn't made me a priest he made me a programmer otherwise I would not have bought a fucking computer perhaps God wants to teach a lesson to all the arrogant fucking atheists like you who think that the universe does not have a creator governing all human beings.

What's 'arrogant' about failing to see worthwhile evidence for any of the mutually incompatible supernatural entities that various people claim exist?

Most believers fail to see worthwhile evidence for the existence of most/all or the entities which aren't part of their religious/spiritual mythology. That in itself doesn't seem like 'arrogance' when the evidence they fail to see appears not to actually exist except in the eyes of those people evidently primed and highly motivated to believe it.

Now, when it comes to arrogance, it's hard to have a better example than someone whining on about how their specific spiritual/religious path is the only way to true wisdom, when such people frequently don't seem to even have the basic wisdom to understand what colossal tits they look like to everyone else.

Fuckwitted arrogance = assuming you are right about a load of unevidenced supernaturalist bollocks, whilst dismissing those unconvinced by your baseless assertions as 'arrogant'.

Arnold Layne wrote:

laklak wrote:That is precisely how we wrote programs back in the day. COBOL, Assembler and RPG coding sheets. Then some flunky punched the cards and ran the decks. We were GODS back then. Nobody gave you any shit. None of this "the users don't like the GUI", fuck them, they get what WE decide they need. "Uh, excuse me sir, but this report, it's not formatted correctly". Get out of my office, who the fuck do you think you are?

Right on! Me too! Paper tape in my day....er, early on. No fucking GUIs in sight. WYSIWWGY. What you see is what we give you!

"Programmers" these days, eh? All this dragging and dropping, classes and inheritance. Pish. They'll never know the ecstasy of a clean compile on the first run or the agony of shooting a core dump for a run-time data exception.