Why did Jesus refer to his followers as sheeple?
Why did Jesus Christ refer to his followers as animals aka sheep? Jesus also made a judgment preferring sheep to goats. Is that discrimination? Goat meat is a common food in the country of Mexico. Did Jesus insult the country of Mexico/the entire goat industry of Mexico with his anti-goat remarks? The Egyptians and the Greeks and the Romans were into mixing the idea of animals with humans (Spinx, cenotaur, etc.) so why did Jesus continue the practice of human/animal gene cloning vs outlaw it?
I think he referred to the masses as sheep. He said that no one could follow him unless he first hates himself. Jesus claimed to come from the Barbelo. He said that his apostles were from the Luciferean realm, except for Judas.
He claimed that people are ruled by the demiurge or archons of Lucifer. Because we are animals ruled by these earth forces, in order to transend this we must remove our (garments) or break free from the shackles and the prison of the body. Sheep are slaves with no free will. Jesus wanted to lead the sheep toward enlightenment rather than devour them in the flesh. "It is prohibited to eat the flesh of blood". That quote can be found in many sciptures. The Jews got around this by draining the blood from animals before they ate them in hopes to appease God. Jesus sacrificed himself so that we would eat his flesh and blood instead of the sheep. Those are metaphors of course. His immortal spirit can be consumed and this will save the "sheep" and "wolves" from sin since they do not know where they sin because they are animals.
The goat is a symbol of Satan or Lucifer followers. Sheep are the innocents who are ignorant of all of this.
I never metaphor I didn't like.
I find rather alarming the rapidity with which hoi polloi [for my sake, please not THE hoi polloi] jump on the bandwagon taking every figger of spitch as hate talk, or, in some cases, posturing as if so understanding.
Of course it has always been so and the Gang of Twelve half the time did not get it. And of course absent the cultural background which clued everybody into why sheep and goats [and makes starting out with Galileans a big joke the movement tells against itself] it is harder.
Of course, I may be too much shot over in academia and your excursus on goats in Mexico may be a sincere cry of the heart for enlightenment. But you will have to wait till I chase the pigs that just flew into our yard.
Jesus had the right to insult Mexico because he was a gentile Mexican himself!
Contrary to popular belief he could not have been Jewish, because if he were Jewish why would he have a Mexican name!?
It goes back to mans origin in the garden of Eden, where man, (Adam), aet from the tree of knowledge of good and bad, then was able to make his own decisions and so was left to make his own way in the world, independant of God.
Jesus however, likens himself to a Shephard, inviting people to leave thier independant of God way of life, and return to God by following the shephard Jesus, just as real sheep tend to follow the shepard they know, whereas goats are more independant and do thier own thing.
Jesus is the good shephard, the greater Moses, just as the Hebrews, like a great flock of sheep followed Moses through the wilderness into the promised land, Christians will be like sheep, following the Shephard Jesus who will lead man to both God and the promised land.
Jesus is the good shephard, the greater Moses, just as the Hebrews, like a great flock of sheep followed Moses through the wilderness into the promised land, Christians will be like sheep, following the Shephard Jesus who will lead man to both God and the promised land.
The Israelites nearly drove Moses crazy. Getting Jews to knuckle under and behave in a unified way is like herding squirrels.
ruveyn
ruveyn
That is a funny picture to imagine. I can't post any pictures btw. I used to be able to click on the image icon and paste the link. Why can't I post pictures now?
Kiran
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to understand this metaphore you need to understand more about the everyday life in Jesus own time. For example, sheep can recognize their shephards voice and will only listen to him/her. Jesus uses this in a bible verse to illustrate his relationship to his followers. When it comes to the goats, he wasn't talking about actual goats, but was refering to the action of separating sheep from goats, just like shepards often did in those times. He used this metaphore to illustrates how bad people are separated from good people. I don't think he had anything against goats, or mexicans
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iamnotaparakeet
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The word "sheeple" is a modern invention, or perhaps mutilation, combining the words sheep + people in order to convey the derogatory opinion and presumptuousness of people who think everyone except them, and perhaps a few other "elites", are "ignorant masses" only to be controlled like cattle. However, neither did this word exist until quite recently nor did the metaphorical usage of the term "sheep" in the Bible contain the same pejorative connotations of modern elitist hyper arrogance.
We are like sheep. It's easy to sit back behind a computer and feel like a free thinker, but when it comes to reality and you are outside with a crowd of people, human behavior is predictable. Not too many would think for themselves when confronted with authorative material to guide their thinking.
Ever notice when you are in a crowd how your mindset switches to match the school of fish? I do. One time I was at Disney land and we were walking through the parking lot. Everyone was walking to the escalators. I saw some elevators that were empty, but still I thought that I shouldn't use them because since everyone was headed in the other direction, maybe they knew something I didn't? Well, we headed over there anyway and sure enough it went down to the same place that dropped off the people from the escalator. We got down there faster the rest of the crowd. But what was that hesitation? In hindsight things are more clear, but at the time it is very hard to break out of the group mentality. I call that hesitation, "swarm confusion".