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it is totally beyond me how anyone could get the idea that occult practices are condoned by christianity.
Its in scripture, if you want to see it, just ask. If you still want to beleive there's nothing wrong with it, you're going to have to find away around it, no prizes go to those who guess what it's gonna be ('the bible is false, jesus taught witchcraft and reincarnation').

[Unfortunately, the originals no longer exist...We may never know what the actual originals contained.]

Unfortunately, the originals no longer exist...We may never know what the actual originals contained.

It's a myth. The Hebrew Torah is still very much if not exactly the same as it has always been. The Greek new testament, likewise.
As already said, if God created the universe in 6 days, would he let his word become obscured and totally distorted?

Doing miracles by the power of the holy spirit through faith.
Not diong magick by the power of satan in the occult.

I find this very offensive. Mustardseed, if you are making this all up, then I think you should own up. I do recall a thread about 'channeling god' with the blue and the red text and the person admitted that they were just making it up to see if people would try it themselves, because if they could then everyone could or something....
Either way, I find this as a spiritual counterfeit, whether you think you are speaking to God or not . . . I suggest that you pray to God and ask for him to show you the truth and help you, because I can see how this 'channeling God' thing can go very wrong.

however, as you say, later Christian Roman writers then used the name 'lucifer' to described the late-judaic 'satan' character who was first formulated in the last few centuries bc. As 'Satan' had somewhat similar attributes, even althougfh they had no real connection, later latin writers used the name Lucifer to refer to the Satan figure: this stuck and the original *roman Lucifer* was forgotten. I have to point out once more for clarification that the two deities are not in any way related, apart from the name. I actually feel a bit sorry for the old roman deity of the same name as he has been rebranded as evil!

Exactly, Satan and the roman deity lucifer have nothing to do with each other and bear no similarities, which just goes to show that translating 'sammael' as 'lucifer' was nothing more then a literal translation. Sammael=Light-bearer. Lucifer=light-bearer. What are you going to do when you translate the hebrew to latin?

Ah, but actually, when we die, we don't go to heaven or hell, we go to the grave. We're dead, full stop. Totally unconscious and unaware. True, God's people are in abraham's bosom (peaceful rest), and those who will be judged are in hades (restless sleep). On judgement day, bodies will be reconstructed, and judgement will take place. No sin can make its way into the kingdom of God. Of course, all people are guilty of sin, but those who have had the slate wiped clean by accepting Jesus will make it into the kingdom of heaven, and those who remain as sinners will be destroyed in the lake of fire, with hades, death, the beast, the anti-christ, satan, demons etc. There is ressurection, not reincarnation. We will have new, perfect bodies in the kingdom of heaven.
Funny that the anti's are like . . . how do you expect to beleive that you will make into a perfect spiritual existance after one incarnation?
hello? reincarnations, enlightenment, hocus pocus, buddha, its all alien to judeao-christianity.

I don't know about the actual Hebrew words, but in the original Hebrew old testament, the pagan Gods worshiped by the idolaters were 'lords', 'idols', and 'hairy men'. The word 'demon' meant a divine intelligence inferior to Gods but superior to humans, see the 'lords', 'idols' and 'hairy men' were inferior to God, but superior to humans, so it was translated as such. And yes, the Christianized Greeks would have certainly used the word demon to refer to an evil being.
Angel is derived from Aggelos which means a messenger, since angels are messengers from God, 'melek' was translated to aggelos/angel.
The words 'demon' and 'angel' in the old and new testaments aren't referring to what the terms denote in Greek mythology, they're just appropriate translations of Hebrew words.
I don't see why new agers or liberal Christians try and use the 'Satan simply means adversary' ploy to try and degrade the existence of Satan. So what? all names have a meaning. The angel Lucifer was given the name Satan after his fall, seeing as he became the adversary to God and humanity. 'Lucifer' just means light-bearer, since Samuel means the same thing in Hebrew, all it is is a roman translation. The Christians did not use the name 'Lucifer' to try and convert pagans to Christianity or any other garbage new agers and liberal Christians try and propagate.

The only religion I can think of that has any evidence of anything going for it is Scientology,

ha ha! you've got to be joking?


Anyway,
the bible is composed of two parts, the old testament and new testament. The old testament is around 4000 years old, and is the Jewish Torah, originally written in Hebrew. The new testament is around 2000 years old, and originally written in Greek. It is not that hard to see whether things were taken out or put in  into the old testament, because all we have to do is look at the original Hebrew text, and like-wise, the original Greek text for the new testament. The bible was first translated into English as the KJV (king Jame's version) and it has been revised into all sorts of different editions, but all of this is done by bible societies. Before this, scripture was translated into different languages by monks and other Christian scholars. No one who hated Jesus got to translate or review the bible.
Anyway, think of it this way: if God created the heavens and the earth in 6 days, and all animals, humans, plants, angels, EVERYTHING, do you really think that he would just let his word become lost in translation and revision?

[Check www.religioustolerance.org which has infor on this religion. It is still practiced in Iran and some other areas. It has had a great influence on late Judaism and Christianity. It was from Zoarastianism that Judaism inherited the concept of dualism, that the world is a battleground between opposing forces of good/evil. The concept of a leader of this opposing force (Satan) was only formulated in the second century BC. This dualism concept was later take even further with Christianity. Its very interesting when you think how used we are to this concept, we think it has always been around, but such a concept would be quite alien to Classical thought. Classical thought (Greco-Roman) thought more in shades of 'grey', everyone was a complex mix of moral shades, even a creature who was nasty, like the Gorgan, might have some nicer characteristics as well. In many ways the classical way of viewing this is much closer to our own post-modern viewpoint, where the judeo-christian (and therefore Islamic) black/white division is seen as simplistic. Zoarastianism is also monotheistic but there is some controvesy about which influenced which, with the Jews convinced they came up with the idea first, and the opposing view of those who think that zoarastianism influenced the early polytheistic jews. The latest thinking suggests that both are wrong, as there is some evidence that both groups may have formed monotheistic philosophies independently of each other. Douglas]

Check www.religioustolerance.org which has infor on this religion.

It is still practiced in Iran and some other areas.
It has had a great influence on late Judaism and Christianity.
It was from Zoarastianism that Judaism inherited the concept of dualism, that the world is a battleground between opposing forces of good/evil. The concept of a leader of this opposing force (Satan) was only formulated in the second century BC.
This dualism concept was later take even further with Christianity.
Its very interesting when you think how used we are to this concept, we think it has always been around, but such a concept would be quite alien to Classical thought.

Classical thought (Greco-Roman) thought more in shades of 'grey', everyone was a complex mix of moral shades, even a creature who was nasty, like the Gorgan, might have some nicer characteristics as well.

In many ways the classical way of viewing this is much closer to our own post-modern viewpoint, where the judeo-christian (and therefore Islamic) black/white division is seen as simplistic.


Zoarastianism is also monotheistic but there is some controvesy about which influenced which, with the Jews convinced they came up with the idea first, and the opposing view of those who think that zoarastianism influenced the early polytheistic jews.

The latest thinking suggests that both are wrong, as there is some evidence that both groups may have formed monotheistic philosophies independently of each other.

Douglas

Although, there really isn't any proof that judaism got the concept of good and evil duality from zoroastrianism.
Zoroastrianism would have experienced very limited if any encounters with judaism. Zoroastrianists did not exist any place close to the hebrews.
Iran is quite a fair way away from where the hebrews were.
It is also somewhat of a misconception that judaism even has a concept of good and evil duality. The jews veiw the garden of eden story for example, as not involving lucifer (or sammael is the hebrew name for him) but literally a snake, and the story is of how the snake lost its legs. The fallen angel story is quite different in the torah as it is to the old testament of the holy bible. In the torah, the story is of a king and not an angel of heaven. Modern judaism does not really involve Satan very much, or a cosmic duel between a good God and an evil god. People assume that it would since christianity developed out of judaism, but even in christianity, is there really a good and evil, white and black, light and dark dualism?
The old story does talk of the fallen angel (lucifer) in the old testament (ezekial and Isiah). In the new testament Satan is made out to be a spiritual enemy, the roaring lion (corinthians). It encourages spiritual warfare against satan and demons. Not alot is said about demons, but that they are the pagan idols, and can posses a person. Angels are spirit beings just above humans created by God to totally serve him and act as messengers. There isn't really a concept of a good vs evil cosmic war between God and angels and satan and demons.
The zoroastrians do have a concept of one good God and one bad God, but they also beleive in and worship many other gods, which either serve good or evil. Zoroastrianism and Judaism are very different. The concept of 'duelism' if there really is any in judaism and christianity is actually ver differnet to zorastrianism dualism. Besides, there is good vs evil dualism in the pagan religions all over the world, including those that were very far isolated from the hebrews. People just assume that good and evil dualism of judaism must have been taken from zorastrianism because both religions existed in the middle east, however iran is a pretty long way from egypt and northern africa.
And as you said Douglas, there is no evidence to support that any one (zoroastrianism and judaism) borrowed from the other, but evidence to indicate they are both seperate.

Christianity, Islam and Judaism are against it. Buddhism is also, essentially.

OK hello everybody,
This is what I know or think I know about new/age spiritualism religion believes in God, sort of as the 'source' so from which everything came and was created. They believe in universal duality and believe God or the source has to counterparts god and goddess. And they believe in male and female duality so as I understand there is no rejection of sacred feminine and sexuality.
And that every religion leads to God/the source, and that every religious teacher was trying to help people to achieve a sort of rebirth into a higher plane or heaven.
There is also a belief in reincarnation and karma, good deeds bring good retribution and bad deeds brings bad retribution and this carries on into the next life and people keep getting reincarnated to learn lessons until they become very highly evolved and reached the highest plane. And the state you have to be in is sort of an unconditional love state that all religious teachers were trying to get off.

And there are also meant to be highly evolved spirits helping people towards enlightenment and guiding people along called spirit guides and they are basically angels and there is a council of light and the highly evolved beings all contribute to the higher consciousness which is basically God or the source. Am I right about new age/spiritualism?