Religion

statistics

dotheevolution1 wrote:

Now THAT was the perfect answer.
not for me, but I know many for whom it (religion) helps.

happy to oblige.

Abuskedti

Smellyman wrote:

haha

"yes"

"then you've come to the right place."

I wonder if they keep books of other faiths in the ficton section?

Collin

It works for some people. It doesn't work for me, so I'd appreciate it if the religious people would leave me alone. And I will leave them alone.

yellowled24

Ahnimus wrote:

Apollonius of Tyana (c. 1-c. 100 AD) was a Greek Neo-Pythagorean philosopher and teacher. His teaching influenced both scientific thought and occultism for centuries after his death.

He is best known through the medium of the writer Philostratus, whose biography's peripatetic narrative structure is built upon a series of instructive dialogues and the sage's responses to places and events. Apollonius was a vegetarian, and a disciple of Pythagoras. He is quoted as having said "For I discerned a certain sublimity in the discipline of Pythagoras, and how a certain secret wisdom enabled him to know, not only who he was himself, but also who he had been; and I saw that he approached the altars in purity, and suffered not his belly to be polluted by partaking of the flesh of animals; and that he kept his body pure of all garments woven of dead animal refuse; and that he was the first of mankind to restrain his tongue, inventing a discipline of silence described in the proverbial phrase, "An ox sits upon it." I also saw that his philosophical system was in other respects oracular and true. So I ran to embrace his teachings..."

This is The Prayer of Apollonius of Tyana, circa 23: "Oh, Thou Sun, send me as far around the world as is my pleasure and thine; and may I make the acquaintance of good men but never hear anything of bad ones, nor they of me."

Having kept a vow of silence for five years, he decided to travel to India, and to learn the wisdom of the Persian magi and the Indian gymnosophists ("Naked Philosophers") and Brahmans. On his way through Asia and before reaching the Euphrates, he visited a sacred city of Syria called Hierapolis ("Ninos" in Philostratus), where he attracted a disciple, Damis, who kept a diary of Apollonius's deeds and sayings. These notes described a number of incidents and adventures in the life of Apollonius, including events relating to Roman emperors from Nero (54-68) to Nerva (96-98). Eventually Damis's notes are said to have come into the possession of the Empress Julia Domna, wife of the emperor Septimius Severus (194-211), who commissioned Philostratus to use them to assemble a biography of the sage.

The narrative of Apollonius's travels, as they are reported by Philostratus on the basis of Damis, is so full of the miraculous that, in the words of Edward Gibbon, "we are at a loss to discover whether he was a sage, an imposter, or a fanatic." If we can believe Philostratus, he continued to travel widely after his return from Europe, going far up the river Nile as far as Ethiopia, and in Spain as far as Gades (modern Cádiz). Though he had many followers and admirers, Philostratus maintains that he also had many enemies, notably the Stoic philosopher Euphrates of Tyre. Both his friendships and his quarrels are also reflected in his extant Letters. He himself claimed only the power of foreseeing the future; yet, again according to Philostratus, he either raised from death or revived from a death-like state the daughter of a Roman senator. In the biographer's account, he is accused of treason both by Nero and by Domitian, but miraculously escapes, and after further travels in Greece finally settles in Ephesus. Philostratus keeps up the mystery of his hero's life by saying, "Concerning the manner of his death, if he did die, the accounts are various," though he seems to prefer a version in which Apollonius disappears mysteriously in the temple of the goddess Dictynna in Crete.

Around 300, a certain Hierocles endeavored to prove that the doctrines and the life of Apollonius were more valuable than those of Christ. Hierocles was soon refuted by the Christian bishop, Eusebius of Caesarea, in his extant Reply to Hierocles. In modern times, Voltaire and Charles Blount (1654-1693), the English freethinker, have adopted a similar standpoint. Apart from this extravagant eulogy, it is absurd to regard Apollonius merely as a vulgar charlatan and miracle-monger. If we cut away the mass of mere fiction which Philostratus accumulated, we have left a highly imaginative, earnest reformer who attempted to promote a spirit of practical morality.

He wrote many books and treatises on a wide variety of subjects during his life, including science, medicine, and philosophy. A few decades after his death, the Emperor Hadrian made a collection of his Letters, though it was Philostratus's biography that made him into a major figure of religious history.

Apollonius' fame was still evident in 272, when the Emperor Aurelian besieged Tyana, which had rebelled against Roman rule. In a dream or vision, Aurelian claimed to have seen Apollonius speak to him, beseeching him to spare the city of his birth. In part, Aurelian said Apollonius told him "Aurelian, if you desire to rule, abstain from the blood of the innocent! Aurelian, if you will conquer, be merciful!" Aurelian, who admired Apollonius, spared Tyana.

Medieval Islamic alchemist Jabir ibn Hayyan's Book of Stones is a lengthy analysis of alchemical works attributed to Apollonius (called "Balinas") (see e.g. Haq, which provides an English translation of much of the Book of Stones).

In some of the teachings of Theosophy, Apollonius of Tyana has been regarded as an Ascended Master and an embodiment of the Master Jesus.

Plagarism? ( omg, is that even how you spell it???)