What is a sockpuppet ID and what benefit is there? Let's face it, you are placing yourselves as interceders in religious affairs. A Native American acquaintance of mine became a pipeholder after a long quest initiated by a spirit he encountered in nature. He now has a degreed education and he is a pipe holder. Medicine people I know have a strong ability to affect the reality of others due to their own strengths and passionate life experience.
I am new here but I can sum things up pretty quickly. Not only are you involved with religious policing but you are attacking some people's livelihood. I don't have any sympathy for those that are making money on our beliefs falsely but you have got to know that you are sticking your foot into two areas people most often hold sacred, their religious beliefs and their money and their money is usually the more sacred.
When you start a battle don't be surprised if it turns into a long war. Also, you should not let yourself become extremists. Let the other side turn to extremism it ruins their credibility. Strategically speaking it is always best if you hold the middle ground where you can remain on solid footing with yourself and others. Don't sound paranoid even if you have good cause to be paranoid.
There have been too many thousands of false prophets in the world, but if you asked them, I bet way too many of them would tell you that their belief was sincere. We now have rock stars, movie stars and Evangelical preachers who now collect most of the zeal that humans are prone. Since these prophets generate money within the social milieu they are acceptable and still they fall from grace from the sacred body that rose them up.
People that make money falsely upon our spiritual beliefs are not acceptable except to themselves or to those they delude. We live in a time of uncertainty. With uncertainty people seek always answers. The unwary have always fallen prey to bible salesmen, traveling snake oil shows and false prophets. If one is too protective, one never finds one's answers, but if one is too unwary then one must be willing to expose the truth and free oneself and others from the grips of a lie.
On the other hand, Jesus of Nazareth was not a proper Rabbi, he seemed to misquote the Bible, the elders of his days looked upon him as a false prophet. He also preached a form of radical Judaism, not Christianity as we know it. For the first several hundred years almost all of Jesus' disciples were Jews. Jews and Christians worshipped interchangeably in Jewish synagogues and Christian Churches. It wasn't until the council of Mycea 325 AD I believe where Rome denatured Christianity, split the two religions irreversably preventing them from joint worship. Rome needed to take control of Christianity because all by itself Christianity was changing Rome out from underneath the emperors. The Roman authorities took control of Christianity the belief system, it was codified, made acceptible to Rome by decree. The power of Rome forced changes upon the natural body of human beings connecting to the wounded healer, Jesus of Nazareth. Rome created a disconnect to Jesus and made the emperors Pope's. This is a fact. Before Christianity could conquer Rome, Rome co-opted Christianity. To do so it made Jews the enemy when Jews were the original Christians. Rome destroyed and enslaved the entire people of Israel.
Since this time, Rome became ardant destroyers of those that did not obey the party line. Entire religions, belief systems such as the Gnostics were erradicated because they did not comply with Roman religious autocracy or in this case Theocracy. Now we have since that time those that seek to authorize religious belief and those that seek to destroy religious belief.
My suggestion is to destroy disbelief. Disbelief is created when false prophets are given credance and true belief suffers. Our human destiny is to connect to the magical body of the universe. We may connect through science, religion or magic. Some connect from the Earth itself, some through poetry.
I will tell you this much. It is not a Native American Culturalism to destroy others beliefs based upon spiritual or religious beliefs. I hope you know that you are threading a thin needle in order to comply with our spirituality and our general spiritual belief in religious largesse and the rejection of false prophets. We all know what happens in our Native cultures when a false prophet has been exposed. He or she becomes a personna non grata!
I wish you well. I pray that you thread that needle well. To thread it poorly or to miss your mark would be unfortunate because we have suffered too long under the spell of not being socially and spritually, religiously accepted as Native Americans. The Mexicans think they are Roman Catholic when the large portion of their DNA is Native American. Before the conquest, the Mexicans chose Tetzcatlipoca and Huitzilipochtli over Quetzal Coatl who never practiced human sacrifice too. The Mexicans mistook Cortez for being the return of Quetzal Coatl. They have to wear that mistake to this day with every cross they wear.
I just wanted to remind people to be careful about trusting anyone they only know on line . Unless you know someone and their community , it can be dangerous to assume they are who they say they are without doing some research and cross referencing to make sure. I think ? most of the people who post here regularly here are probably trustworthy ( especially the moderators ) HOWEVER we have had a few regular posters who seem to sometimes create sock puppet IDs or have been found out to be promoting and running a questionable "traditional healing" buisness of their own . Obviously a forum like this , being open as it is , is going to attract some people with their own agenda. Myself , I see this as a place to provide information , not really a place to hang out and make friends .
People who have been traumatized by a bad experince with a fraud might be vulnerable to getting taken in by an offer of friendship from someone who looks to be a part of a cyberspace community opposed to frauds . Often no one really knows who people posting here are , and there are some people posting here who may have a questionable agenda . I guess this is just basic internet safety , but I thought it would be a good isea to remind people , that this forum is no different than other places in cyberspace , and people shouldn't automatically assume everyone who posts here is trustworthy .
