November 18, 2004

• Other religions

  The Mandeans

  The Mandeans have it tough. They’ve lived on the borders of Iraq and Iran since the 1st century or so. Among other things, they believe they are the original religion of Adam, that believe that Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad were false prophets, and they see John the Baptist as one of their greatest teachers

  Manichaeism

  Well, apparently, these guys are pretty much done. They covered an amazing amount of ground in the first millenia AD. While they shared some things with Christianity, they were also a dualist religion. They believed there was an evil material god who battles a good spiritual god. Obviously, Chrisitans aren’t really hip on the idea that Satan is equal to Jehova. They also weren’t real hip that Mani claimed to “be the Paraclete, as promised in the New Testament: the Last Prophet and Seal of the Prophets that finalized a succession of men guided by God and included figures such as Zoroaster, Hermes, Plato, Buddha, and Jesus Christ.”

  Although, it ended up being the Persians that took out Mani.

  Cainites

  The other day, someone was commenting on my practice of drinking beer by the pitcher rather than by the glass. My response was “The liver is evil, it must be punished.”

  Here I thought I was making a pop culture reference, but in actuality, I was following the Cainite tennent that “indulgence in sin [is] the key to salvation because since the body is evil, one must defile it.”

  While I can see the appeal of this approach, I’m not really convinced that drinking profusely is likely to bring on spiritual enlightenment.

  • 9:09 pm
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