Jesus Dispute With The World (a Sufi parable)

>The Pure Jesus, who transcended paradise,
>Still desired to see the world.
>As he walked one day, immersed in light,
>He saw an old woman in the distance on his path.
>Her hair had turned white and her back was hunched,
>And all her teeth had fallen out.
>Her eyes were blue and her face was dark,
>And her entire body stank of filth.
>She wore a multi-colored frock
>But her heart was filled with spite, and her head with hostility.
>One hand was stained with many colors,
>While the other was permanently stained with blood.
>Every hair on her head had an eagle’s beak,
>While a veil hung down over her face.
>On seeing her, Jesus said: “Old woman,
>Tell me who you are, with such ugliness and trickery!”
>She said: “Since you are so proper,
>I am the object of your desire.”
>Jesus asked: “Are you the base world?”
>“I am that,” she answered “And what about you?”
>Jesus asked: “Why do you wear a veil?
>And why do you wear this colorful dress?”
>She answered: “I am veiled
>So no one ever sees me directly,
>For if they were to see me as ugly as I am,
>How could they stand it for even a moment?
>I wear this colorful dress in order to
>Lead astray an entire world.
>When they see my colorful dress,
>All of them helplessly choose to love me.”
>Jesus said: “You prison of debasement,
>Why is one of your hands stained with blood?”
>She answered: “O unique prince,
>It is because I have killed so many husbands over time.”
>Jesus then asked: “You drunken crone,
>Why have you stained the other hand?”
>She said: “When I seduce husbands
>I need a lot of colored make-up to make myself look attractive.”
>Jesus asked: “When you killed a world of men,
>Did you never feel any compassion for them?”
>She answered: “What do I know of compassion?
>All I know is how to shed all of their blood.”
>Jesus said: “Surely you show some pity
>To them in order to seduce them, you disturbed crone?”
>She said: “I have heard the word ‘pity’
>But I have never felt pity for anyone.
>I constantly wander around the world
>So that all people in it will fall into my snare,
>And I have turned everyone who comes into my clutches
>Into a disciple of my own – I am their master!”

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  1. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    >Jesus was stunned by her, and said:
    >“I have already grown weary of encountering such a person.
    >How ignorant those idiots must be
    >Who want this old prostitute!
    >Will they never take this prostitute as a warning
    >And instead resolve to surrender to God?
    >Alas for humanity, for they have not seen the truth
    >And have lost their religion by not seeing the world for what it is”
    >Once that pure and sinless one had said a few words,
    >He turned his back to the miserable world.
    >Since this fraudulent world is like carrion,
    >You who have become preoccupied with it are like a dog!
    >If you are preoccupied with dogs and a corpse
    >You are a hundred times worse than both.
    >Just as a dog does not attain fulfillment from the corpse,
    >Neither will you attain satisfaction from this dog.
    >You will be liberated if you tie up the dog,
    >Otherwise you will be exasperated day and night.
    >(‘Attar, Ilahi-nama, pp. 91-3)

  2. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    A miserable story, miserably written.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Here’s a shorter version
      >The world was shown to me in the form of an old crone who had been bedecked with israeliteelry.
      >I asked her: “How many husbands have you had?”
      >She answered: “Too many for me to count them!”
      >I then asked her: “Did they die or did you divorce them?”
      >She answered: “I killed all of them.”
      >I exclaimed: “Pity the husbands who remain for the future! How can they possibly fail to learn a lesson from the past husbands and not become scared of you, seeing as you murdered them one by one!”
      >(Ghazali, Ihya’, Vol. 4, p. 589 )

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Only an imperfect God could have created this world.

        I know Sufis are Muslims, and I’m a Christian, so my take on this is going to be necessarily different from theirs. Specifically, it’s dependent on my belief in the trinity. I should also not I’m not a priest or theologian, I’m just a guy who was raised Catholic.
        Creation, simply by definition, will necessarily be flawed. For creation to be perfect, it would need to have no flaws whatsoever. It would need to be of one mind in perfect unity, and that one mind would have to be omniscient; nothing would be impossible, it would be omnipotent, and it would have to be eternal, without beginning or end. It would have to be unchanging, as any change would imply an imperfection.
        Of course, it would also have to be uncreated. It would have to be God. Not a god, not partially God, but God.
        What I’m describing though isn’t creation, but what Christians call begetting. God the Father didn’t create God the Son, He eternally begets Him from eternity past to eternity future.
        You might say in response to this post “so God can’t create anything perfect? Isn’t that a limit on His power?” The answer is no. This isn’t a limit of God’s ability, it’s a limit of language. We cannot use the word creation to describe God’s ability which He has demonstrated from eternity.

        Im protestant.
        Basically God lives outside of Time so everything he does happens at once and also always and forever
        we live in time and in the world and the world is corrupted by the original sin.
        But Jesus was formed before the beginning of the world, so it must have been within God's plan that the world would fall and it could be redeemed.
        God is good and constantly improving very fast, the same way the universe is big and expanding. (Or maybe it just seems that way from our perspective as finite but whatever)
        The world is flawed but he has redeemed us and we are called to advance the kingdom of heaven, meaning bringing the world into alignment with God's perfect will.
        It's happening, but when it is finished, it will be always was, because it will be brough into eternity.
        This is why we are supposed to engage in the "renewing of our minds" in Christ daily - partly because we're sheep and partly because God is always moving and if you stay still you aren't in alignment.

        Basically if you're viewing the world as so rotten and miserable, you're probably just not in alignment with God's will, and so the eternity view for you is weeping and gnashing of teeth, so you should repent and change course.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          >God is always moving and if you stay still you aren't in alignment.
          can you expand on this?

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            If the bus drops under 50mph, the bomb goes off killing everyone
            then you’ll be tortured in hell forever

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            I think of it as an extension of the getting better
            so even if you were within God's will yesterday, you need a daily (hourly? every second, every millisecond) calibration.
            And growing as a christian basically fine tunes your sensors so you can be more precisely within alignment.
            Like the universe expansion analogy, if you are at where the end of the universe was yesterday, you aren't where it's at today. Always moving.
            Plus he's ever present and doing stuff even when you're not involved.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          >if you're viewing the world as so rotten and miserable, you're probably just not in alignment with God's will
          Am I more aligned with God if I turn a blind eye to all the suffering and injustice in this world? Are the rich and beautiful people who live face no difficulties and love life from the bottom of their heart closer to God than the deformed and miserable souls who think the world is rotten and yearn for justice?

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Yes, God loves the world and you resent both the world and God. Resentment correlates with better material conditions not worse, the rich are more likely to share your mental issues.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Look at the sadness and resignation in the eyes of these pajetas. One is even trying to smile, but it's completely devoided of any kind of joy. And these girls aren't even too bad, even if they can't leave their village because other people instinctively recognize there's something wrong with them and attack them on sight. But there are kids born with multiple limbs or without a brain or those horrible harlequin babies. Why would a loving God create these people? Even if there's a loving God, at the very least the devil must be playing a hand on this.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            I forgot the pic.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >why would a benevolent game designer curse super mario by not granting him perpetual star power
            Maybe your assumptions, that you apparently can't even conceive of alternatives for are moronic?

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            If the world is perfect as it is then why did Jesus come and healed the ill? As I understand it, in Eden there was no illness, and Christians should aspire to go back to that divine state, so why are you defending illness, ugliness and misery, something that is clearly evil.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >if super mario is a well made game why does mario want the immortality star or to save the princess?
            The perfect ideal path between two points is a line. On our walk to the promised land we will deviate from the straight line because that's the reality of the world. The ideal for the human body is health which is defined by overcoming sickness.
            Jesus didn't make sickness stop happening, only pointed out that you can transcend it.
            >eden
            The ideal of human existence exists as a definition outside space and time. The pre Biblical myth of a golden age in a lost land was enough to establish a pattern that points to the ideal. The choice to make the fruits of knowledge of good and evil part of us is the origin of imperfection. Without adversity the ideals would embody completely, with adversity/evil introduced it's always a struggle.
            God saw it was good including the tree. Without the struggle nothing happens, there's just static unity and definitions without material bodies.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Didn't Jesus have perpetual star power? Was he somehow lesser than us because of that? Also, is there a chance that Jesus could have been evil? Or is he inherently good?

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            The avatar was vulnerable to nails. He transcended death as the player not as mario.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            I'm sorry I'm not going to address your other points, but be careful how much you interpret from photographs.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Yes, God loves the world and you resent both the world and God. Resentment correlates with better material conditions not worse, the rich are more likely to share your mental issues.

            You don't necessarily have to turn a blind eye. You can pray.
            But yes if you dwell in resentment over the world as it is, if you sit there seething, you are like the devil. In my experience there's usually some emotional stuff underneath these sorts of rational arguments. Pride. Fear. Anger.
            And you can say or do basically whatever to God but be careful about it. If you know better and you keep returning to that bitter resentful satanism he might hit you with a car or something to give you a reality check.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >If you know better and you keep returning to that bitter resentful satanism he might hit you with a car or something to give you a reality check.
            That sounds very loving of him. But if God is free to interfere in the world, then why doesn't he coach us all into becoming worthy of him? I understand that there is free will and he can't force us to be good, but in his perfection, he should be capable of testing us in such a gradual and personalized way that we all could become good. This is obviously not the case, because the world is full of evil people. Some of them will be tested and they will pass, some will fail, and some won't ever be tested at all, but why? It makes you wonder if those who fail would have failed anyway even if the test had been better designed, and if that's the case, then why were they created in the first place? They would be just evil souls.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >Very loving
            It is, which is why I qualified with if you know better. It's like a spanking for a child scaled up or down to be appropriate for you. Its also a lived experience by me which is why I brought it up

            I obviously don't have all the answers. Ive heard that in the end everyone gets judged, Jesus is like your lawyer and the saints are like the jury. The devil is like the prosecuting attorney. All the evidence will be laid out in full.
            For the Lord is good and his mercy endures forever. I want to make sure I have a case to plead.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >For the Lord is good
            I do think God is good and I think he does as well as he can. I just think he's imperfect. And not even because there's suffering. It's possible to make a case as to why suffering is necessary. The problem is that the calibration is completely broken. Some people surely could learn a lot of things if they had to endure more hardship in their life, but plenty of them will remain sheltered until they die. In the other hand, a lot of people, perhaps most, suffer to the point where they are not learning anything anymore and are just being torn apart. It's like wanting to teach your kid to ride a bike and then throwing him into a mine field. There could be a better methodology.

            >if super mario is a well made game why does mario want the immortality star or to save the princess?
            The perfect ideal path between two points is a line. On our walk to the promised land we will deviate from the straight line because that's the reality of the world. The ideal for the human body is health which is defined by overcoming sickness.
            Jesus didn't make sickness stop happening, only pointed out that you can transcend it.
            >eden
            The ideal of human existence exists as a definition outside space and time. The pre Biblical myth of a golden age in a lost land was enough to establish a pattern that points to the ideal. The choice to make the fruits of knowledge of good and evil part of us is the origin of imperfection. Without adversity the ideals would embody completely, with adversity/evil introduced it's always a struggle.
            God saw it was good including the tree. Without the struggle nothing happens, there's just static unity and definitions without material bodies.

            >LIFE IS JUST LIKE MY HECKING NINTENDO GAMES!!
            Could you please stop it with Mario? There's a inherent fairness to a video game that doesn't exist in the real world. In a game every player starts in the same position and faces the same challenge, and if you die you can keep trying again until you get better. Life is not like that at all. Some people are playing a modded version in an emulator and are getting stars in every block, while others have to play with a broken controller. There are moronic people being born every day. Kids die before they can develop their souls in any meaningful way. Surely that's not how you're supposed to play Mario. Jesus said that truth will set us free, and it's evident to the naked eye that the world is unjust and imperfect. I think we should confront that, instead of closing our eyes and tell ourselves that everything is perfect.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >Could you please stop it with Mario?
            It's one relatable example of an alternative to your assumptions.
            >In a game every player starts in the same position and faces the same challenge, and if you die you can keep trying again
            Not in all games. Procedural environment and avatar means each character has one chance at one world and can have different stats.
            >Surely that's not how you're supposed to play Mario.
            Clearly it is. Our recent history and biological bodies were shaped by suffering and violent death. It's a miracle that these elaborate machine bodies work at all. moronic people are fine, they have fun, the dead don't suffer.
            >closing our eyes and tell ourselves that everything is perfect.
            Nothing in this world is perfect and it can't ever be. We struggle to approach the ideal but never reach it as material beings.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Pride. Your fundamental criticism comes down to "if I was god I'd do it better"

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            I'm well aware that if I created a world it would be much worse than this one. If I were perfect though, then yes, I would do it better. I don't even know what such a world would even look like, but I know it would be better than this one. I don't blame God for creating this world though. I know he's doing his best effort. He's just imperfect.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            All of the things you perceive to be imperfect about this world are the result of human free will, not God, and ultimately God allows these things for our own good.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >harlequin and anencephalic babies, child cancer are the result of free will.
            Whose free will if not god’s?

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Nobody living holds guilt for these things, but they are the direct result of the fall, which was a consequence of human free will choosing sin over God.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            The garden of Eden story is just ancient mythology to account for why snakes don’t have legs. The theology of original sin was retconned onto it by Christians. But you sound like a Christian so you probably believe it’s true, so I’ll just say that doesn’t work for me because I don’t believe it. That explanation doesn’t work for non believers in Christianity.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            I cannot make you have faith in Christianity, but even taken purely allegorically it does answer your question as far as man's relation to being being determined by our own actions, rather than God's will.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            So a deformed moron is born because of the free will, a trace of spirit is diluted in unformed raw soul material oozing from brain more akin to overgrown slug ganglia cluster, trapped in dysfunctional, misconfigured meat. His blood carries the curse that leads to extinction in best case scenario.
            It's hard for me to see this as result of human free will. Seems more like God spat in a petri dish and forgot about it.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            The parents chose to value life with its flaws.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Well that explanation is moronic, so that can’t be right

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >I am completely unable to think about any subject
            Thanks for clearing that up.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            You’re welcome

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >The problem is that the calibration is completely broken...
            Referring to C.S. Lewis (Mere Christianity), who was not a theologian so his explanation might not be scriptural or dogmatic or whatever, he made the argument that God is aware of our varied human calibrations and takes this into account.
            In other words say due to your inborn nature and environmental nurturing you become a miserly, embittered butthole. God is aware of this, and even small acts of charity and goodness in your life would go a long way in... Refining your soul to enter the kingdom of heaven. Conversely if by your nature and nurture you have the capacity for great virtue but never utilize that capacity... Let's just say you're not refining your true you. Again I'm not sure how accurate that is but it makes sense.
            There's really a lot to ask to be Christian, I don't care if I look foolish anymore or something if I were to become one. My hesitation is the difficulty to walk a virtuous path, and the worldly attachments I would have to give up.

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Well put

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven
            >Blessed are the meek: for they shall possess the land
            >Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted
            >Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice: for they shall have their fill

  3. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Putting this in greentext makes it harder to read, and I know took unnecessary on your part. I recommend you leave out the greentext next time you do a post like this.

    Nice story though, thanks for sharing. It seems like proto-antinatalist nonsense, so I don't agree with it, but it was a nice, evocative read anyways.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      How does green text make it harder to read? I find them easier to read
      I don’t interpret it as antinatalist in any way, it’s just saying to become attached to God rather than the world

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        It probably isn't meant to be antinatalist because such an ideology didn't exist when this was written, but portraying the material world as nothing more than a murderer (nothing but suffering in life) which humans foolishly refuse to learn despite many generations dying at the world's hands, and then a pity for any future generations, all sounds similar to antinatalist points here.

        The greentext makes it feel like each line should be read as its own sentence, but it's poetry and there's supposed to be much more of a flow between lines.

  4. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Great story man, just what I needed in this moment. God bless you.

  5. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Only an imperfect God could have created this world.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Read a book darkie

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        Ever hear of Gnosticism?

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      I know Sufis are Muslims, and I’m a Christian, so my take on this is going to be necessarily different from theirs. Specifically, it’s dependent on my belief in the trinity. I should also not I’m not a priest or theologian, I’m just a guy who was raised Catholic.
      Creation, simply by definition, will necessarily be flawed. For creation to be perfect, it would need to have no flaws whatsoever. It would need to be of one mind in perfect unity, and that one mind would have to be omniscient; nothing would be impossible, it would be omnipotent, and it would have to be eternal, without beginning or end. It would have to be unchanging, as any change would imply an imperfection.
      Of course, it would also have to be uncreated. It would have to be God. Not a god, not partially God, but God.
      What I’m describing though isn’t creation, but what Christians call begetting. God the Father didn’t create God the Son, He eternally begets Him from eternity past to eternity future.
      You might say in response to this post “so God can’t create anything perfect? Isn’t that a limit on His power?” The answer is no. This isn’t a limit of God’s ability, it’s a limit of language. We cannot use the word creation to describe God’s ability which He has demonstrated from eternity.

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        So is heaven flawed too?

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          That’s a genuinely interesting question, and I’m not certain what the answer is. I move between two possible answers, and should clarify again that I am NOT a priest or theologian. If I knew everything I’d shill books here instead of anonymously posting
          1) heaven is not perfect, it is a place. Heaven, like earth, will pass away. There will be a new heaven after the apocalypse.
          2) heaven is perfect. Heaven is not to be understood as a place, but rather as merely the presence of God, who is perfect
          You genuinely made me think though, I’m honestly not sure

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            >There will be a new heaven after the apocalypse
            Will that heaven be perfect?

          • 1 year ago
            Anonymous

            Maybe I was not clear, I was saying those verses could be evidences of it not being perfect. If heaven will pass away and there will be a new one, that proves it isn't perfect. To be perfect it would need to be eternal and unchanging.
            But some interpret those verses ("heaven and earth will pass away"/"there will be a new heaven and a new earth") to refer to the sky above earth, and not the afterlife "heaven," which is the heaven you were asking about. If heaven, the afterlife, is to be in the presence of God, then it is perfect. If heaven is just a created place, like earth is, then it's necessarily not perfect.
            At least, as I understand it.

        • 1 year ago
          Anonymous

          Clearly, as one third of the angels rebelled in the Christian mythos. Heaven, the angels are one step below God in the hierarchy of goodness, and proportionally imperfect in this sense.

          I know Sufis are Muslims, and I’m a Christian, so my take on this is going to be necessarily different from theirs. Specifically, it’s dependent on my belief in the trinity. I should also not I’m not a priest or theologian, I’m just a guy who was raised Catholic.
          Creation, simply by definition, will necessarily be flawed. For creation to be perfect, it would need to have no flaws whatsoever. It would need to be of one mind in perfect unity, and that one mind would have to be omniscient; nothing would be impossible, it would be omnipotent, and it would have to be eternal, without beginning or end. It would have to be unchanging, as any change would imply an imperfection.
          Of course, it would also have to be uncreated. It would have to be God. Not a god, not partially God, but God.
          What I’m describing though isn’t creation, but what Christians call begetting. God the Father didn’t create God the Son, He eternally begets Him from eternity past to eternity future.
          You might say in response to this post “so God can’t create anything perfect? Isn’t that a limit on His power?” The answer is no. This isn’t a limit of God’s ability, it’s a limit of language. We cannot use the word creation to describe God’s ability which He has demonstrated from eternity.

          Interesting. The Neoplatonists used a similar argument with regard to the One. First they established that the highest principle, the Good, be one and not many; then they established that it emanated the intelligible world out of abundance of his goodness and then, and this is where the argument similar to yours come in, they asked whether the Intellect would equal to or less than the One. If it were equal then one of two things would happen: 1) it would be the One itself, then the Intellect and everything that follows it (Soul, World) wouldn’t exist; or 2) there it would be two highest principles, which contradicted what was established first. Therefore, necessarily the Intellect would be lesser than the One and so on every step of the way leading down to matter, which is absolute formlessness and imperfection. (Note: matter is not to be confused with nature and the world: the three are separate concepts. Nature and world still have degrees of perfection in them). Anyway, cool Christian perspective. Thanks for sharing.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      get a job Black person

  6. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    Reminds me of Kundry from Wagner’s Parsifal.

  7. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    How are sufis so based while mainstream islam is so base?

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Sufism is creole Neoplatonism. Muslim apologists will try to deny it (just like Christian’s deny that pseudo-Dionysus blatantly plagiarized Proclus), but it’s transparent. That being said, it comes down to psychological and spiritual predispositions. The majority will always gravitate towards exoteric, dogmatic religion. Only differentiated individuals ever want to climb the top of the mountain and no wonder those who meet there are like-minded. The Christian mystic, the Neoplatonist, the Sufi, the vedantist are soul brothers.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Sufism used to be mainstream Islam. Salafism and all the other legalistic interpretations used to be fringe. After the Mongols ended the Islamic Golden Age people started to have doubts; "maybe God is punishing us, do we have to change our ways? Become more strict in our faith?" Such a thought process was only reinforced tenfold with the colonial rape of Muslim lands and the ongoing troubles caused by outside (primarily Western) interference.
      I'm not justifying fundamentalists, I think they're moronic and coping, but that's the rationale behind the movement's prominence.
      Sufis are indeed based.

  8. 1 year ago
    Anonymous

    lmao I love how Jesus keeps burning her while he pretends to be genuinely interested in what he's asking her.
    >Yes but, dumb b***h, tell me why [...]
    >Do tell, Black person, what is [...]
    >I'm curious to know, you disgusting moron, how do you [...]

    Pity Jesus isn't this cool in the bible.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Jesus is quite severe in his words for the Pharisees.

    • 1 year ago
      Anonymous

      Kek. That would make the Bible top tier literature.
      >who, dimwits, do men say that I am?
      >Render, filthy israelites, unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s

      • 1 year ago
        Anonymous

        >everyone places so much spiritual importance onto the "render unto" verse
        >it was really just Jesus yelling at his groupies to stop being so fricking israeli about money
        He came not to bring peace, but with a sword, after all.

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