Murdering the Prophets

[MollyBloom]

Why do we murder our prophets? Why is it that people like Gandhi, MLK Jr., and Jesus preach messages of love and universal truth, only to be slaughtered in the midst of their living? Do you think it's because humans (en masse) are lazy, and so it would be too much effort to make the sorts of changes that these prophets are calling for? Do you think that we are taught conformity, or that the desire to keep the status quo is inherent in our human nature from the beginning (in the majority of people)? (I'm thinking Lord of the Flies here, and how even though they are isolated children, they still have the same problems in their civilization as adults do.)

[NaykidApe]

Ignorance has always been threatened by reason. To put it in Christian terms Truth (reason) is the light of the world "but men loved the darkness because their deeds were evil".

Most of the systems of the world--political, religious, economic--are (and probably always have been) supported by a network of lies, deception, and exploitation.

Anyone who opposes or exposes that by speaking the truth is going to wind up with some powerful enemies.

...and those who lived reasonably are Christians, even though they have been thought atheists; as, among the Greeks, Socrates and Heraclitus, and men like them; and among the barbarians, Abraham, and Ananias, and Azarias, and Misael, and Elias, and many others whose actions and names we now decline to recount, because we know it would be tedious. So that even they who lived before Christ, and lived without reason, were wicked and hostile to Christ, and slew those who lived reasonably.
---Jusitn Martyr

Note Justin Martyr considers Socrates and Heraclitus christians even though they lived something like 500 years before the gospels were written (and were Greeks, not Jews).

By his definition anyone who lives by truth/reason is a christian, even though the people he mentions never heard of "Christ" and wouldn't have recognised that term.

[shaman sun]

It is the greatest irony that most major prophets of a religion are killed by the followers of that religion. Why? Because they are indeed followers, unable to transcend the fence they put up to create their own reign, psychologically, spiritually. Because, these 'prophets' don't fit inside the territory. These prophets are the direct expression of Spirit, with no boundaries, no limitations. It's quite scary to have all four walls fall down around you, and quite simply, the ignorant would rather kill that divinity and rot in their creations than die to themselves and be born in Spirit, metaphorically speaking.

[Wond'ringAloud]

^^^
Agree!

[TrippinBTM]

I see it as misplaced agression. Not sure if aggression is the right word... but these people, the truly enlightened type who actually practice what they preach, who are the real deal... it reminds people how screwed up they are, how WRONG they are in their lives. Many people can't deal with it, being so wrapped up in ego. So, instead of being "angry" at themselves and trying to change it, they take it out on the person who reminded them of the fault in their ways. Kind of like shooting the messenger.

It's one idea, anyways. Hard to generalize about things but that's my hypothesis.

[NaykidApe]

I see it as misplaced agression. Not sure if aggression is the right word... but these people, the truly enlightened type who actually practice what they preach, who are the real deal... it reminds people how screwed up they are, how WRONG they are in their lives. Many people can't deal with it, being so wrapped up in ego. So, instead of being "angry" at themselves and trying to change it, they take it out on the person who reminded them of the fault in their ways. Kind of like shooting the messenger.

It's one idea, anyways. Hard to generalize about things but that's my hypothesis.
Or smashing the mirror.

[MollyBloom]

So, TrippinBTM, and Shaman_Sun: it's about the ego, and also revealing the true spirit without four walls. These are both excellent explanations.

the ignorant would rather kill that divinity and rot in their creations than die to themselves and be born in Spirit, metaphorically speaking.
Wow, that statement kind of blows my mind: in a good way :)

[themnax]

i believe a day may come when we no longer do. that day has not yet come however.

the Gate was killed by a firing squad and the Glory was exiled many times and died in what was at the time a prison city under a defacto kind of house arrest, though he was allowed to and did receive visitors.

this last is within the last couple of centuries.
a thousand years from now, there is a very good chance things will be VERY different.

things have been very different this past couple of centuries then they had ever been before that, but nearly as much so as they will be in times ahead.

i'm not saying better or worse, or more or less sensable, or that we would neccessarily be any better or worse off if none of these revealers of beliefs had ever happend, or great spritualy inspired other leaders.

i know this doesn't directly address the question.

what does is that fanatacism is how their message gets perverted and those who have a good thing going from having twisted it are jelous of anything that challanges their twistings and promote fanatacisms to protect them.

today's christian fanatics, are no different then the paranoid government and religeous leaders that had their figurehead judicialy exicuted in his own time.

one need only listen to a pat robertson or the like to easily invision them inciting their fallowers to do so.

=^^=
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