Vissarion (Виссарион): Boreal Messiah

Back


If Jesus or his followers hoped to put an end to any future claims of messiahship, they didn't foresee (how could they, God works in "mysterious ways" after all) how "impostors" viz. Wayne Bent, David Koresh, or Satya Say Baba would sycophant Jesus' words of "wisdom" (common to lower Asia) to either impersonate him or to claim he has returned in their "humble" or "sinless" tabernacle. To all of those keeping tabs, allow me to add (with the help of ABC news, thanks!) one "Vissarion" otherwise known by Sergey Torop. He is the leader and "teacher" of an isolated coterie in the Minusinsk Depression of the Siberian taiga. Among many common threads, religious leadership such as he, especially demonstrated in "cults," use Christian, and Hindu before it, ideology to gain membership: -Prophetic utterance only found with one man or one group who lead the people to a self-sustaining, communal, and safe place. For whatever reason this isolation will allow the members to better follow the leader's admonitions and maintain purity. -The end of days rallying call in which the leader with his counselors or the leader alone or the whole organization will either die or transform so as to leave this wretched state and unify with something else more grand or mysterious. Bent, Koresh, Hawkins and this man use a variation on these passe and worn themes. As I alluded before, this ought not to be a new concept to anyone who adheres to most religious followings. Primitive Mormons, Westboro Baptists, and Sun Myung Moon followers (called "moonies" by evangelicals) establish alarmingly similar if not identical, I suggest here, Orwellian techniques to maintain membership. It seems that once the spectacle and pomp of cultish dictum have all disappeared and been tossed by forced infusion of reason, we get something like the incapacitated Catholic church. I submit that the Mormonism is in the middle of such a transformation. One doesn't hear much about other gods and world "organization" any more within their CES (Church Education System). Most lessons center on more "moderate" themes found in something like the Catholic curriculum. No longer does the president of the church wear a black uniform with a long beard, but he might even opt for a cream double-breasted business suit and a more familiar shaven visage. As Gregory Prince points out, David McKay (the ninth president of the LDS church) can largely be compared to Atatürk or Trikoupis in that David has attempted to modernize his cultish group into a truly mainstream organization thus shadowing the trend of Catholicism's Vatican II and Anglicanism's Lambeth Conference. 
 Acceptance of modernity means conformity and change. All atheists require is a further use of said reason. Atheists have considered the current claims held and rejected them with all available tools of reason, not a portion of them. There are many truths atheists cannot and ought not dispute. These include the equal dignity of men and women, the sanctity (in the nonclassical sense) of life, the right of man to not be a slave. These ideas, nevertheless, are not from "cut-flower" acquisition as Shmuley Boteach would have us belief. No, they come from an innate sense of right and wrong that was so eloquently discovered in an ancient conversation between Euthyphro and Socrates. Let us not toss their scholarship for the burning bush and the 10 loaves. Let us speak and live honestly in all venues and epochs.

Category: Education
Uploaded: July 25th, 2008 @ 5:25 am
Author: AlecsDeLarge

Length: 09:51
Rating: Whole StarWhole StarWhole StarWhole Star
Views: 1,196

Tags: atheism christopher dawkins harris hitchens reason religion richard sam vasarian

Related Video Links:


» View Video Comments For Vissarion (Виссарион): Boreal Messiah
» View AlecsDeLarge's Other Uploaded Videos

Video Thumbnails:


Thumbnail #1 Video Thumbnail #1:
Thumbnail #2 Video Thumbnail #2:
Thumbnail #3 Video Thumbnail #3:


Video Embedding Code:


Video Url:


Embed Code:

* Embed this video on your website, social bookmark, myspace, or blog.