Why is sorcery considered so bad by so many?

Originally posted by Ellie Sagan
That leaves plenty of room for making a mistake in believing in the wrong god.

but there is only one GOD.

Isaiah 45:21-22
Tell ye, and bring them near; yea, let them take counsel together: who hath declared this from ancient time? who hath told it from that time? have not I the LORD? and there is no God else beside me; a just God and a Saviour; there is none beside me. (22) Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else.

GOD is love.

1 John 4:7-8
Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. (8) He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.

1 John 4:16
And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him.

if you love, Ellie Sagan, then you are in GOD and GOD is in you!

no worries!

not to say you can't continue to seek the answers to your question(s).

just don't fear!

perfect love casts out fear and GOD's love is perfect....perfected in YOU!

Originally posted by Ellie Sagan
reply to post by superluminal11

 

God is supposedly Love, but why do I live in fear of Him then. It seems I cannot choose one. I am fearful simply asking the questions I do. I've been thinking of making this thread for a few days now and finally got the guts to do it. I think God might be mad at me now, but I am sick of having questions and being afraid to ask them.

You are right. A true God wouldnt rule by fear (of sending you to Hell -ETERNAL damnation/suffering) if He's indeed ALL-loving...

Read this thread. You need to have time as it's a lengthy one. But I think you'll be surprised:
www.abovetopsecret.com...

Originally posted by Ellie Sagan
reply to post by DISRAELI

 

I know these things in the Bible. What I want to know though, is WHY does God abhor what they do? I know He does, it's been beat into my head for my whole life. I want to know why though... I don't know if I can know.

Perhaps there is a mixture of reasons.
I think part of the reason why there is a blanket ban on idolatry is that people will not be listening to what God is trying to teach them if they are being distracted by other sources of teaching.
There are some forms of "alternative" religion which lead people into immoral behaviour. Again, this is a point which I was looking at very recently in the attached Revelation thread;
Letter to the seven churches
And there's also the possibility that some forms of teaching would lead us into behaviour that was positively dangerous for us; that could be the case for "contact with the dead", for example. Several other answers have pointed this out.

[edit on 3-7-2010 by DISRAELI]

reply to post by queenannie38


Luke 14:26 (King James Version)

If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.

All-loving, indeed

Originally posted by DISRAELI
reply to post by Ellie Sagan

 

I think, Biblically, the offence is appealing to a power which is not God. It is simply one of the branches of idolatry. The law in Exodus ch22 v18 is two verses away from "Whoever sacrifices to any god,save to the Lord only, shall be utterly destroyed". In many forms of the time, the power in question was that of the spirits of the dead, which is a very important rival religion.
[edit on 3-7-2010 by DISRAELI]

Yeah, this sums it up nicely.
It's a "Yahweh or the highway" type thing.
The trouble with magicians throughout history, is that they try to bind and demand. This is such a disgraceul sign of disrespect, it's no wonder people end up having bad experiences with summonings. It's like being put in a cage and bossed around by an arrogant, power-mad chimpanzee. I'd be ticked off, too.

Reply to post by Project_USA

And if your child makes a choice that could harm them, does that mean you love your child any less?


On another note, all I keep reading is that God is love. That is jut one facet of God.

You all forget that God is perfect and just. He loves you, yes. But to think that He lets all be hunky-dory is flat out wrong.


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[edit on 7/4/2010 by Lemon.Fresh]

sorcery is pharmakeia, the use of drugs in worship. so i'm assuming injunctions against pharmakeia, are to differentiate hallucination from real spiritual experience.

Mat 16:19 And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.

Just one word answer this question:

-ignorance!

Thats why sorcery can be considered something bad!

Imagine man in the "garden of eden"... The garden is not a location, its a state of society. The earth was a flourishing garden with everything we needed. And I also suspect that, in these ancient times, we were all more connected to nature and eachother and our Creator. There still exist tribes that do not use much technology. The quakers are another example. Ok, so back to the "garden". Some advanced beings visit the Earth, and think "wow we could really use this nice genetic stock... but how do we gain their trust so we can carry out our plan? we can show them a few things, nothing important, of course. Just some things they would have figured out eventually anyway..." so now there are some people who have some "secret knowledge" about agriculture and a systematic society. Well right there we have an imbalance... perhaps the beginning of the class/caste system. We have some humans who can take advantage of others because they learned something they were not supposed to know yet. Many people have commented that, while we are somewhat advanced technologically, we are still way behind in social & spiritual maturity. Greed, starvation & sickness is still rampant, perhaps b ecause of these "secrets" which are known by some and not others. And the ones with the most knowledge of secrets will always rule over those who know less secrets. And after thousands and thousands of years, it (society)has become the lopsided monstrocity you see today, a mere parody of its former self... As long as we feverishly continue to strive to uncover more secrets and we choose to follow those who "enchant" us with their secrets then we will always be slaves to this pursuit. You could say we need things like medical advances to save lives, but you have to first look at what causes lives to be lost. Perhaps a simpler life with a stronger spiritual connection would solve all of these problems. Maybe we were tricked into tossing away that connection in favor of a mindless, obsessive ... uh, obsession with finding all these so called secrets. Maybe we lost a lot more than we gained.


Posted Via ATS Mobile: m.abovetopsecret.com

reply to post by doctor j and inmate c5779


interesting!

have you ever considered the original description of the tabernacle and later temple of the bible, including the furniture and the ark of the covenant?



every single item (or almost every item) is capable of being an electrical capacitor, particularly the ark. i read a great little piece by an electrical engineer, who described the temple and holy of holies as a gigantic electrical device. the restriction to certain types of special cloth (some type of linen?) worn by the levite priests, was due to the cloth's ability to resist static electrical charge build-up. anyone that strayed/snuck into the temple without knowledge of how to protect against the static discharge, would instantly receive a deadly electrical jolt.

in effect, the thing was advanced scientifically, beyond its years, and not only protected the focal object (the ark) but also protected the interior. my thought is that they eventually fudged on the original design, probably due to impurities in the gold or what not, and the end result was dampening of the electrical field till it was useless as a protective device.

Originally posted by Ellie Sagan
Why did God say that sorcery was bad? Was it because it is inherently evil, or is it evil to Him because it gives man another way of gaining power (and possibly not feeling the need to trust in Him alone)? Strangely, a lot of people who aren't even Christians think it is evil or bad.

Did God say that? Or did men in control of the Early Church Movement say that to stop people waking up to a much larger reality?

Jesus tried to tell us that we can do as he did, and more. He tried to tell us that "we are the real sons of the living father", and he tried to tell us that all are equal in the sight of 'God'.

From this I gather that he was opposed to the Religious Limitations that were in place in his Culture.

The "Three Wise Men" were Sorcerors in their time! So how could it be bad? How is it that we should not follow their paths?

Given the masses of controls inherent in this Belief-System, it is easy to see that those in control do not want anyone waking up to the fact that every person is God being that person... hence they do not want you to know that you are Powerful and capable of far more than what you have been led to believe is even possible.

And if you want your religion to become the Prime Religion in the World, then you insure that no one can Wake-Up! It's really that simple.

I think there is alot of reasonings overal and not just because of certain religions...

Romans have hunted the druids down in previous ages when they where takeing over areas. It may have been due to religion or from just unknown fear of them.

Also there is very few readings out there of magick and sorcery that is actually good in nature, however there is a vast majority of it dealing with greed and wanting. This stigma I think by far is one of the greater reasonings why its shunned.

Also with these times, its rare to find people who would spend time in researching it. To many are just immersed into the technolgy and metro culture that has been the norm..More people now adays are looking for it just to present itself to them, though when it doesn't and fails altogether they are quick to denounce things as unreal. any type of real work put forth into something like this by a normal indivdual would be unfathomable.

reply to post by Project_USA


All religions do not treat knowledge the way your thinking.

Look at Islam in its Golden Age, the Renaissance's point of rebirth began in Baghdad under the Caliphate.

You might also ask yourself why so many Nobel prize winners are Jewish.

There's other examples involving India, China, and Greece, but the point is religion does not equal suppression of learning, science, or philosophy.

reply to post by Tayesin


i think the problem is a matter of the english translation of old words.
sorcery as you think of it, is not the same sorcery as the english translation depicts it. sorcery is not the performing of sacred rites, it's the ingestion of hallucinogenic drugs to imitate spiritual reality, while performing a sacred rite.

the "sorcery" you are thinking of, and to which the words of yeshua refer, is not the same thing. one is a matter of faith, knowledge and understanding, the other is a matter of hallucinations.

Originally posted by Tayesin

Did God say that? Or did men in control of the Early Church Movement say that to stop people waking up to a much larger reality?

The condemnation of sorcery runs all the way through the Old Testament, so it can't be attributed to "the early church movement". It is much older than that.

I have a feeling that certain beings didn't want us to exhibit the powers that we have.

Sorcery in some of the definitions, mentions "magic," and "evil," but some definitions don't confine it to meaning sorcery has to be evil.

I think part of our condition here on earth, is an "imaginary" limitation on our powers. In other words, we still have them, but a lot of us would refuse to believe that we could have, or should use these powers.

A lot of us mope around our lives believing there is nothing we can do about our fates. And believe life just kicks us around where it wants us. Horse #e to that notion.

Our ability to regain our control over our fates depends on us "waking up," and realizing who we are and what we are capable of. Because, some of the "powers that be" would like to shove you down into the mud, and control you. Actually, it's already happening, turn on the news, depressing bad news 24/7, go to the doctor these days and there is a good chance you will be on a medication (s) that fogs up your senses; some people are on so much medication these days, that it's wonder that they can even still think straight; well, some don't.

This in no way means that power should be used for evil purposes, however.

This is a time for an awakening.

Troy

Originally posted by undo
[
i think the problem is a matter of the english translation of old words.
sorcery as you think of it, is not the same sorcery as the english translation depicts it.

What the OT meant by sorcery is best understood in the context of the condemnation in Deuteronomy ch18, where the full list is;
anyone who practices divination
a soothsayer
an augur
a sorcerer
a charmer
a medium
a wizard
a necromancer

Most of these are about ways of trying to look into the future (in two cases, by making contact with the spirits of the dead), so it seems that looking into the future was part of the essence of the problem.

I'd better expand that definition to "looking into the future by appealing to powers other than God" (in keeping with my previous suggestion that the ban on sorcery was part of the blanket ban on idolatry). Otherwise somebody is bound to pipe up with "reading the Biblical prophets is looking into the future".

[edit on 4-7-2010 by DISRAELI]

reply to post by DISRAELI


yet the prophets could see into the future via the intervention or interaction between themselves and spirit beings such as angels and so forth. the understanding of the movements of the planets and stars (astronomy), allowed the wise men to know where to go on the birth of yeshua. we are admonished to understand the times and the seasons, in biblical prophecy, which by its very nature refers to not only news events and spiritual events, but the passage of time (typically understood by the passage and movements of the the planets, stars, moons and the earth).

this is where you have to ask the question: why are some allowed to see into the future and some not? and if you look realllly close, you may begin to suspect that it wasn't that only some could, but rather that the priesthood had a tight rein on it. they didn't want others getting involved in it for any number of reasons, least of which was interference from hostile "entities", which could be described as spirit beings who had different motives for the hebrews, than the priesthood did.

it's a huge jumbled up mess. the book of enoch further increases the confusion until you learn to read these old texts as generalizations. generally-speaking gave enough wiggle room to correct any itemization on the way, so that it turned to their favor. you could view it in broad terms when it was expedient to do so, and in exacting terms, when it was expedient to do so. i think ya know what i mean.

reply to post by undo


The Prophets were given visions by G-d.

The Magi were not Jews and not restricted by the Torah. They were probably Zoroastrian and Persian.