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To: alt.magick.tyagi,talk.religion.misc,alt.christnet.bible,alt.religion.christian,alt.religion.orisha,alt.satanism
From: nocTifer 
Subject: Plagiarism and Ignorance in Religion
Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2004 23:56:03 GMT

50040229 vii om Hail Satan!

mdhjwh@iprimus.com.au (MDHJWH) posts to usenet:
# ...Has me thinking of so many gospels & testaments that not
# only plagerise preceeding mythology but claim transmission 
# of such direct from the almighty.

in general, religious scripture is unreliable as testimony
to factual events. it is helpful as supplement, but its
revered status and (typically) edited condition make it
likely an object of considerable crafting and fabrication,
if not direct replay from previous, competing traditions.

in the case of Christian "Gospels" there is a good deal of
misunderstanding as to the reliability and origin of this
scripture. many Christians are unaware that there is good
reason scholars of Christian scripture call Matthew, Mark,
and Luke "the Synoptics" (on account of their having been
reflections of a previous, single, now lost, text). 

the ignorant malleability of religious makes itself even 
more egregiously blatant when we have mass-media blitzes 
such as the Gibsonian "Passion" presented even within 
'news' publications such as "Newsweek" as 'historical', 
when in fact there is very little evidence to support more 
than incidental details regarding a crucified rebellious 
Joshua. few of the faithful seriously consider the dearth 
of substance and the large cache of contradictory evidence
which undermines the factual contentions of the religious
stories they regard as fact (this makes itself most
blatantly evident in astronomical and geological claims
that have no correlation in contemporaneous cultures).

the condition of what Christians regard as 'testaments'
is even more extravagant, since the details of the stories
of the character Jesus in their scripture are *made to
correlate with prophecies contained in Jewish scripture*,
an obvious response intending to convert Jews inasmuch as
the figure is presented as something important to them
("The Messiah") and provided with earmark qualifications
whereby all manner of claims may be justified (genetic
descendancy, fulfillment of prophecy, demonstration of
supernatural powers, survival of death, etc., etc.) to
those whose axioms include faith in a Jewish Creator God.

that more Jews don't consider Christianity to be a blatant
rip-off and offensive to their religion is interesting.
to call the Torah and its attendant scripture, attributed
itself to Jewish culture-heroes, 'The Old Testament' is in
fact a SATANIC activity --> one obviously adversarial and
intending to be used in conversion of competing religious.

the claim of *plagiarism*, however, is difficult to bring
to bear on scriptures in which there was an oral tradition
which preceded it. age and proliferation of scripture for
the purpose of conversion make it unlikely that extended
copyrights will be available for anything but particular
presentations of the material in question. 

in fact, only modern religions such as Thelema (Crowley),
Scientology (Hubbard), and Satanism (LaVey), have been
able to successfully defend their scripture from being
used to novel ends within publishing efforts. their new
status not only makes it easier to defend such expression
as subject to control, it also makes it easier to identify
the quality and character of the source. too many times
old religious traditions promote their scripture in ways
which, by scrutinizing standards, cannot be reliably
defended (as NOT pseudepigraphic, for example, or as 
from the time period it pretends to be describing, etc.).

very few scriptures self-describe as "from the almighty",
however. almost all but the most ignorant religious are
convinced that the words were literally put to page by
the god which they worship. usually they'll maintain that
the god had someone write it FOR them (exceptions include
fabulous stone-writings of "Commandments", but there is
no reliable evidence of their extranatural origin beyond
the claim of the scripture and religious themselves). 

graduating away from issued instructions from the divine
and the writings of secretary-prophets giving form to the
utterance of the god whom they worship, we have the
reflections of various mystics and religious who have had
some transcendental experience, but do not claim that gods
are issuing proclamations, directions, or informative
text to the faithful through some chosen intermediary.

it is only these latter individuals who should really be
available to criticize for plagiarism. the god will NOT
be produced to defend the text attributed to them.

peace be with you,

nocTifer
-- 
yronwode.com@nagasiva; http://www.satanservice.org/
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