League of Fallen Gods and Godesses Board Meeting

1
Odin:
(Looking like an elder executive)

We call this meeting to order... due to the affluent copious amounts of prayers that have been coming our way.

2
Thor
I second that motion to bring this meeting to order (laying his hammer down)

3

Odin
All in favor say aye!

4
(All Members of the League)
AYE!!!!!

5
Frig
(earnestly)
Do we have an opportunity to take away the momentum garnered by this said here Christians. Lately my temple has been empty of converts. Except those watching porno flicks at the Coliseum.

6
Thor
Yeah, Odin do you see a way to stop this onslaught of conversion.

7
Odin
There is hope, in the fact that those who are easily converted often go back into their heathen ways.

8
Frig
Yeah, they still want to...
play with my beautiful curves!

9
Odin
We are currently in the slow Alpha phase, we need to launch project epsilon.

10
Frig
(clearly not listening, and dancing with herself)
High queens will ache with envy
to see my lips of Parthian-red
opening on my pearly teeth,
and gaze at my naked body.

This was a fantasy scene written by me in 2009.  I liked it a lot... although there is probably a lot of work to be don on it. Idea was found in Douglas Coupland's Book Microserfs page 153-157.

 

1301 Boniface vs. William Nogaret

"BLATHER!!!!! My masters ship is made of titanium reinforced steel, and has the capacity to complete a Super Nova. The pope does not have a ship that can stand a chance, his ship is made of imaginary towers sitting on the corner of imagination way and ordination avenue. The pope is a man floating on haughty words. BLATHER! Why bother? Boniface will creep in like a Captain, attempt to reign like a mongrel, and die like a filthy Robot. He will be buried in the trash Heep of history. The pope is not to reign like an Emperor!" said Guillaume de Nogare.

1228-1306 Jacophone De Todi

Plato and Socrates may contend

And all the breath in their bodies spend
Arguing without end -
What's it all to me?
Only a pure and simple mind
Straight to heaven its way doth find;
Greets the King - while far behind
Lags the world's philosophy.

Jaciphone De Todi (1228-1306)

Two medieval point of views emerged:

(1)Those in the monastery held onto the faith. Monks/theologians meditated solely on the word of God and the meaning of Christianity.

(2) Those in the university held onto reason coupled with faith. University professors meditated on the Word of God and how it related to the WORLD. They then waged an intellectual jihad for the merits of Christianity against worldly based human reason.

Dominican and Franciscan monks attempted to blend the role of the professor and the theologian together, an imperfect union of faith and reason.

Within the temporary tent the teachers solidified the Christian system by reading :

"God reached out, touched my mouth, and said,
"Look! I've just put my words in your mouth—hand-delivered!
See what I've done? I've given you a job to do
among nations and governments—a red-letter day!
Your job is to pull up and tear down,
take apart and demolish,
And then start over,
building and planting." Jeremiah 1:10 (The Message)

Interlude: Christianity Today?

Very funny and thought provoking? Enjoy!

Abraham's Blood Began the Feude

Why Can't We Just All Get Along?

Genesis 16:12 He shall be a wild donkey of a man,
his hand against everyone
and everyone's hand against him,
and he shall dwell over against all his kinsmen.”

The battle began here when Abraham and Sarah doubted that they would bear offspring. (Gen 17:17) Sarah tells Abraham to make an heir through her maid Hagar. Abraham listened and conceived a child with Hagar. This action was not of God because God had promised Abraham an inheritance. And the covenant was between Sarah and Abram not between Abraham and Hagar. (Gen 12:13)

Sarah was angry and resented Hagar. Sarah took her anger out on Hagar because she did not dare to confront her husband, the lord of the Manor Abraham.

This offspring , Ishmael was the father of the people who would become the Arabs. These Arabs would hear the call from Mohammad about Allah. This group would battle with the Christians and Jews over the holy-land and Abraham's inheritance.

Whom was the first to be born from Abraham? Ishmael! The "First Born" had a right to the inheritance because of man's legal apologetics. But God had promised the covenant between Sarah and Abraham, (Genesis 17:7) and said "I will establish my covenant with him." (Genesis 17:19), so Isaac gained the inheritance.

The battle over Abram's Inheritance will be waged until the end of time.

Whom is the Greatest?

Matthew 18

Whoever Becomes Simple Again

¹ At about the same time, the disciples came to Jesus asking, "Who gets the highest rank in God's kingdom?"

^2-5For an answer Jesus called over a child, whom he stood in the middle of the room, and said, "I'm telling you, once and for all, that unless you return to square one and start over like children, you're not even going to get a look at the kingdom, let alone get in. Whoever becomes simple and elemental again, like this child, will rank high in God's kingdom. What's more, when you receive the childlike on my account, it's the same as receiving me.(The Message)

Gregory the Great Buys a Stairway to Heaven

Gregory the Great believed that our sins committed after baptism needed to be purged through Penance (sincere heartfelt repentance, confession and works of merit).

"Be hold the severe judge Jesus is about to come; the terror of that might council of angels and archangles is at hand. In that assembly our case will be tried and yet we are not seeking patrons who will then come to our defense. Our holy martyers are aready to be your advocates; they desire to be asked, indeed if may say so, they entreat that they may be entreated. Seek them as helpers of your prayer; turn to them that they may protect you in your guilt." Gregory the Great quoted in (Shelley 188)

387-471 St. Patrick

Did Ireland have snakes before St. Patrick rid the island of them? Nope, but here is the story!

Young Christian Patrick became imprisoned and tethered to a number of swine. Patrick prayed he would find freedom. He escaped onto a ship carrying a cargo of hound dogs headed to France. Then he joined a monastery on an Island of the Mediterranean Sea; then becaming a missionary to those who had earlier imprisoned him.

378-476 Eating with Heathens

Bishop Miser in an excerpt to a letter to his Church:

These Franks have horrendous manners! They eat with their left hands. They mix milk and meat, as they salivate like dogs. They drink and drink and then dance, dance, dance, on tabletops. They see our LORD as a "Glorified War Lord." A LORD who makes slaves to him, or else die at his righteous broad-sword.

Response: Dear Bishop Miser,
Go with God Speed, and love on these heathen men. Jesus fulfills the clean laws.
In cooperation,

Bishop Mustardseed

330 AD: Matthew 16:13-19

Constantinople became the New Imperial Roman Center. Rome was now the boonies, a backwater hole, once grand but now laid waste by the Barbarians. This new emphasis on Canstinonople upset many Romans. The Roman Christians believed that in Peter the keys to the kingdom had been handed over. Peter's ministry and martyrdom was in Rome.

*(See Below Matthew 16:13-19)


Matthew 16:13-19 (The Message)
16Simon Peter said, "You're the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of the living God."

17-18Jesus came back, "God bless you, Simon, son of Jonah! You didn't get that answer out of books or from teachers. My Father in heaven, God himself, let you in on this secret of who I really am. And now I'm going to tell you who you are, really are. You are Peter, a rock. This is the rock on which I will put together my church, a church so expansive with energy that not even the gates of hell will be able to keep it out.

19"And that's not all. You will have complete and free access to God's kingdom, keys to open any and every door: no more barriers between heaven and earth, earth and heaven. A yes on earth is yes in heaven. A no on earth is no in heaven."

(See Augustins view of Matthew 16:13-19)

Fifth Citation (Augustine on the Psalms, Volume VII, Psalm LXI ) "For Christ Himself is the tower, Himself for us hath been made a tower from the face of the enemy, who is also the Rock whereon hath been builded the Church."

Augustine and the City of God I.9

Augustine and the City of God I.9

Longmont Colorado, (Parking Lot of a Liquor Store) October 1991 :

We the living, inhabiting teenage wasteland.

"Let's get some Ouzo" Noah said.

"No thanks." I said, the air smelt like snow,cigarettes, and fear; images of dying miserly in a park compelled me to leave the scene.

That night I called Noah's home, because I did not want my friend to be another teenage causality.

City of God I.6

Augustin's City of God I.6

Romans believed that it was noble, "to spare the vanquished and subdue the proud,” and that they preferred “rather to forgive than to revenge an injury;"

Augustine and the City of God I.2

Augustine and the City of God Chapter Two

Romans had embalmed themselves, made themselves Frightened Lost Sheep, excommunicated from the source of truth, God:

The heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately sick;
who can understand it?
10 “I the Lord search the heart
and test the mind, [1]
to give every man according to his ways,
according to the fruit of his deeds.”

Jeremiah 17:9-10

Augustine and the City of God I.1

Augustine and the City of God (II)

Chapter One of Augustine's City of God

"To their very threshold the blood-thirsty enemy raged; there his murderous fury owned a limit." (Augustine I:5) The limit to the murkiness and the deep darkness is the LORD and Savior Jesus Christ. But once we are saved we go back again, "Yet now, in ungrateful pride and most impious madness, and at the risk of being punished in everlasting darkness, they perversely oppose that name under which they fraudulently protected themselves for the sake of enjoying the light of this brief life." (I:13)

Augustine and the City of God Introduction

Augustine and the City of God (Introduciton)
Augustine was 56 years old when Rome was sacked. He asked himself, "Do cities consist of walls or men?" Rome was no more, it had been blown to pieces by the horde of Barbarians. To Augustine there were two cities, Las Vegas or Boulder Colorado. "Heavenly city outshines Rome beyond comparison.. instead of victory is truth."

431 Augustine Of Sin and Grace (3/4)

Westminster Confession of Faith:

III. This infallible assurance doth not so belong to the essence of faith but that a true believer may wait long and conflict with many difficulties before he be partaker of it: yet, being enabled by the Spirit to know the things which are freely given him of God, he may, without extraordinary revelation, in the right use of ordinary means, attain thereunto. And therefore it is the duty of everyone to give all diligence to make his calling and election sure; that thereby his heart may be enlarged in peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, in love and thankfulness to God, and in strength and cheerfulness in the duties of obedience, the proper fruits of this assurance: so far is it from inclining men to looseness.

"The more merit-mongers labor and sweat to bring themselves out of sin, the deeper they are plunged into it. There is no means to take sin away but grace alone." - (Luther 32)

Belloq: You and I are very much alike. Archeology is our religion, yet we have both fallen from the pure faith. Our methods have not differed as much as you pretend. I am but a shadowy reflection of you. It would take only a nudge to make you like me. To push you out of the light.
Indiana: Now you're getting nasty.

Indiana Jones is a true gritty American, who carries the red, white and blue at the beginning of the regiment. Belloq appears pure evil, a Nazi, in with the great forces of evil. But both are fallen; their faith is humanistic and they both believe that knowledge will make them victorious in a fallen world.

431 Augustine Of Sin and Grace (1/4)

The Westminster COnfession of Faith sees Of Assurance of Grace and Salvation as the Following:

I. Although hypocrites, and other unregenerate men, may vainly deceive themselves with false hopes and carnal presumptions: of being in the favor of God and estate of salvation; which hope of theirs shall perish: yet such as truly believe in the Lord Jesus, and love him in sincerity, endeavoring to walk in all good conscience before him, may in this life be certainly assured that they are in a state of grace, and may rejoice in the hope of the glory of God: which hope shall never make them ashamed.

Outside of him: the cold wind blows hard against the naked body. There is no Good Creek of knowledge outside of God. All creative currency is his, so submit to worship through creativity. He creates the true conversion. We walk in good conscience before him, and our eyes are set on him early and quick.

"It is with such gunshot and artillery that heathen religions must be destroyed, and all works, merit and superstitious ceremonies as well. Martin Luther.

387 AD: Christian Apologetics and Augustine

Luke 14:23
"And the lord said unto the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled."

What made the Christians think towards the inquisition?

Augustine read Luke as Jesus granting the use of force to suppress heresy. Rivals were a threat to the sheep. They mislead them to places where candles could never be relighted. Rivals lead people to eternal damnation. For hark you, Luke warns leaders, that the flock were slain to late, as to never to return.

I am more inclined to the theology of Eugene Peterson when he re-wrote Luke 14:23 as; "Collect all who look like they need a square meal, all the misfits and homeless, and wretched you can lay your hands on, and bring them here."

13 November 354, Augustine is Born

Augustine's nagging mother, constantly asked him to do his laundry, clean his dirty dishes and go to Church. She never relented, even when the perverse winds blew against her advice. Augustine's mom helped her son stop walking the streets of Babylon. And Augustine's heart was regenerated. He did his homework and wrote many Christian Apologies.