Terry 53 et al.,
“Hello ikabod,I’m a bit confused, if god could save the beggar sat on a street in Latvia then why is the beggar still sat there .. “

Dievturiba was practiced by simple agrarian people living in a climate where winters are harsh.  Dainas, and relatet stories, tell to be kind to beggars and orphans. especially in winter..  Ikabods likes to call this christian charity.

There are stories that God likes to walk among his people in the guise of a beggar.  You walk, meet a beggar, walk past him, turn around , and the beggar is gone. Your future depends on how you treated the beggar.

To me dainas compliment my beliefs.

Visu labu,

Hello Bruno, the point I was trying to make to Ikabods is that the beggar and the drug addict will remain just that, until a mere mortal, and not a god , decides to lend a hand, whether that person is a christian , a moslem or a person whom worships the sun is immaterial.
Millions of christians walk past beggars , prostitutes and drug addicts and somehow fail to notice them, are these people still christians ? Can there be such a thing as a rich Christian?

According to the Bible, Christians are justified by faith, not by works.  That means that you do good works because you believe.  Faithful Christians have no difficulty in helping the needy.  Rather, they welcome any chance to help someone who needs help.  However, that doesn’t giving his wealth away indiscriminately.  For example, a kick in the shins may be more beneficial to a beggar than a hundred dollar bill.  A wealthy Christian prays to God for wisdom, so that his resources will be spent in a way that results in maximum possible good.

Isn’t there a saying, “a camel has more chance of passing through the eye of a needle than a rich man has of going to heaven “

Some comments -
Do Latvians believe in God? I’d say yes, most do. 
Is there only 1 God?  Yes, I’d say there is, but the paths to God, the understanding of God may be many.
Is Jesus a necessary coefficient in the belief of God?  Nope. 
To some people, certainly, but certainly, by no means, to all.

“Dievturiba” is a fairly modern designation for a religeon, developed in the 1920’s-1930’s.  It was a time (post 1918) when Latvians were exploring their independence from other nations and cultures for the first time.  Most countries had their own money, stamps, language, and many countries even had a ‘national religion’.  For awhile, some folks tried to implement a latvian religion composed of gods called ‘Peerkons, Piikols & Potrimps’ - your grandparents may have mentioned them in passing.
Ernests Brastins, on the other hand, looked to the culture itself to see if latvians had ever had some sort of religeous expression.  He found plenty.

Brastins put together the dainas (folk songs) from Barons’s collection that mention God or Godesses - Dievs, Laima, Mara, Perkons, Usins, Jumis, Martins, Janis, dieva deeli in general, and came away with a large body of work that explained much of the spirituality and faith, morals and ethics that have guided the latvian culture for over 3000 years. 

Brastins encouraged latvians to look to their own past - historicaly & culturaly to reconnect to our own faith & spirituality that he dubbed “Dievturiba”.

As such, the faith & spirituality of the latvian people, as with many indigenous peoples, is far older than the Jesus-based faith and the religion that its followers developed.

The “Cerokslis” and his other books are a product of Brastins’s life & times & his growing understanding of his own culture and the immense wealth found in our heritage.  I certainly think some of Brastins ideas could use updating, modernizing.

Ilze Kļaviņa et all,

“Brastins put together the dainas (folk songs) from Barons’s collection that mention God or Godesses - Dievs, Laima, Mara, Perkons, Usins, Jumis, Martins, Janis, dieva deeli in general, and came away with a large body of work that explained much of the spirituality and faith, morals and ethics that have guided the latvian culture for over 3000 years. 

There is no mention of godesses (dievietes) in the dainas and only one God (Dievs), who has seven sons and seven daughters. Talking about “godesses ?” arises from sloppy resarch claims, usually by non latvians.
Visu labu,

A good conceptual summary Ilze (post # 35). Hallejujah and amen.

Cheers, Ivars

Please Ika, there’s no need to use weasel words if you can not respond affectively. Do believe and have faith in whatever hits your fancy. There’s no one stopping you, but behind your smoke and mirrors don’t try to sell us a bill of goods that you can not support or explain.

~*~

Ika seems to have taken fencing lessons, en garde: “A final retort, as I can see you are set in your understanding of things, I suppose we can can go back and forth til Jesus returns.”

Perhaps you need a different pair of glasses, but I stated: “I can respect your views if you can justify them, but merely by saying you have faith in them, there is no reason to respect them.”

To this Ika makes a half baked senseless parry: ”You want want what? Proof? God to throw down a million dollars at your feet every time you ask for it”? Now that’s a silly weasel word response to avoid giving an answer!

He follows his parry with a riposte that’s off the mark, but: “You can’t justify your views of Dievturiba to me either, really all you’re saying is that you have faith in them.

You are really confused. At no point was there an attempt to justify Dievturība or claim to “have faith in them.” There was no justification called for. Thus far we have merely talked about the history of Dievturība as a way of life for Latvians. It’s a fairy tale, a fable, and the ancient Latvians were happy with it. Dieturība does not go out and recruit converts. It’s quite clear that your personal Christian practices have created a mindset where you assume that everyone else does the same thing to conquer the world. Besides your configuration of Jesus can wait until we connect with God objectively, the scientific way and not subjectively and blindly the emotional way.

~*~

Ika tries to justify himself with the next three paragraphs as to why he labeled Latvians anti-Semites:

Taken my comment on his quick judgment: “Consider how quickly you tried twist the mention of Jews and Germans into a Latvian anti-Semitism issue. That’s false judgmentalism, a contradiction of your own convictions. You merely knocked them without even trying to understand what is being stated.”

And Kristine’s translation of Arvids Brastins’ catechisms: “What’s wrong with Christianity? Christianity began with the Jews and was forced upon us by the Germans---it does not fit with knowledge, nationality and being Latvian) Brastins gives much more history on this than I can post here.“

Ika conceeds some reading apprehension: “If I am reading it correctly, it’s says What’s wrong with Christianinty? Christianity began with the Jews. Lets leave the Germans out for a second. Because Christianity began with the Jews, that makes it wrong? Sounds a bit pre WWII to me.”

You’re showing your own mental bias Ika. Had “Greeks” been substituted for “Jews” you would never had a knee jerk reaction to substitute that Latvians are anti-Greek in place anti-Semites, just as you did not say anything about anti-German. If you were to think logically you would simply recognized the Jews and Germans were foreign to Latvians at that time and the issue simply was that Christianity from this foreign source “does not fit with knowledge, nationality and being Latvian.”

~*~

My initial comment: “Besides Dievturība is lot closer to science via its cosmological and biological ties with the nature of things. In Christianity you ride the brakes when it comes to science”

To which Ika responds out of context with: “If your faith in Christ is non existant, or has come to a halt, then it’s you who have put on the brakes. Science, doesn’t really matter to me, my brakes are not engaged, I am learning more and more every day about my faith.”

Let me help you weasel out of this one. Having made your lackadaisical comment, I suppose you do not know who Galileo Galilei is? He was a world reknown scientist, the father of physics, among many other things. To make a long story short he supported the heliocentric theory of Copernicus after his own findings. The fact that the earth moved and the sun stood still contradicted the Bible: Psalm 93:1, 96:10 and Chronicles 16:30 stated that “the world is firmly established, it cannot be moved.” Furthermore Psalm 104:5 states “the Lord set the earth on its foundations; it can never be moved.” In addition Ecclesiastes 1:5 says that “the sun rises and the sun sets, and hurries back to where it rises.”

Guess what, an inquistion was held, Galileo was threatened with torture, stood trial for heresy, forced to recant his heliocentric ideas, his works were banned (and those of Copernicus), he spent the rest of his life under house arrest, died blind on January 8, 1642.

350 years later on October 31, 1992 Pope John Paul II expressed regret how the Galileo affair had been handled.

“Thanks to his intuition as a brilliant physicist and by relying on different arguments, Galileo, who practically invented the experimental method, understood why only the sun could function as the centre of the world, as it was then known, that is to say, as a planetary system. The error of the theologians of the time, when they maintained the centrality of the Earth, was to think that our understanding of the physical world’s structure was, in some way, imposed by the literal sense of Sacred Scripture....”

You are not alone Ika, in saying: “Science, doesn’t really matter to me, my brakes are not engaged, I am learning more and more every day about my faith.” There plenty of folks like you who bury their head in the sand and let others search the truth for them. Some folks still believe and have faith that the earth is fixed in place and that the sun circles the earth.

Btw Ika, the Bible was wrong.

~*~

I have to run now … finish up later when I return.

Cheers, Ivars

Bruno the Lett says:

“There is no mention of godesses (dievietes) in the dainas and only one God (Dievs), who has seven sons and seven daughters. Talking about “godesses ?” arises from sloppy resarch claims, usually by non latvians.
Visu labu, “

Well, Dievs, Laima and Mara certainly are masculine & feminine, they each have their own ‘job to do’ in the latvian world, and I have no idea where that 7 sons & 7 daughters comes from.  Who are they? what are they?

Well, Ilse............there are seven days an seven nights in a week.
There ar pasakas about seven sons or saven daughters.........
http://www.pasakas.net/pasakas/latviesu_tautas_pasakas/g/gudrais_zirgs/?prin

Interesting
“Now we have Ilze saying: Do Latvians believe in God? I’d say yes, most do. 
Is there only 1 God?  Yes, I’d say there is, but the paths to God, the understanding of God may be many.
Is Jesus a necessary coefficient in the belief of God?  Nope. “

My first answer to this is there is no other way to God but thru Jesus.
These are the words of Jesus, not mine.

“As such, the faith & spirituality of the latvian people, as with many indigenous peoples, is far older than the Jesus-based faith and the religion that its followers developed.”

Of course Ilze wrote much more than the above extract I took, which you can read in this thread of e-mials and not necessary for me to repeat, my wonder is at this thread of “how old much olderv than Jesus is (paraprased) Dievuriba.

In the Biblical reading of it, Jesus is God, and when God created the world, including Latvia, Jesus was already there and knew what YOU in fact would be writing about today.There is nothing older, than the beginning of time, who was there? God? Who else was there? Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

Brastins: Ok,more than one of you have mentioned him. When did he walk upon this earth? Roughly date born, date died, still living? The little bit of writings posted in this forum clearly showed him to be an anti-semite. Does this offend you?

Interesting in how Bruno ends with that their are no mention of godesses in the Dainas, but goes on to say that God had seven daughters and seven duaghters.

Ai, mamulina. How many gods and godesses are there in Dievturiba? La, la, la, la.....

Ok, then we come to Ivars foaming at the mouth again like a man demon possessed. Ok, noted he likes the word weasel.  I haven’t found anything in his recent commentary worth responding to. After spewing out his ... whatever it was, he concludes by saying the “Bible is wrong”.
See the thread, I’m not making this up.

Ok, the Bible is wrong according to Ivars Graudins. What do we tell all those followers of Christ? Ivars has spoken, thrown down your Bibles, you were all sadly mistaken. Believe in Ivars. for further info his email address is.........

In fairness, I was shocked and surprised to find the strong support of Dievturiba when I first posed my question of “do Latvians believe in God”, and it has answered, to my dismay, that at least those that have responded to this forum, have not professed a faith in Jesus, but rather to, in my opinion, to Dievs, Laima, Mara, Perkons, Usins, Jumis, Martins, Janis.

And maybe others, I haven’t gone back thru this entire thread to see what others have said .. again. Sorry Ivars, crucify me if you will.

I have kept bringing up the issue of what service to humanity does Dievturiba provide. And so far all I have seen that it serves only Latvians that believe in it. So when I ask, will Dievturiba help a prosititute in Prague who is looking for a way to end her life of depravity, The answer is obviously, NO.
Dievturiba is strictly Latvian, because, if you don’t know the language, then you can’t read the Dainas, can you?

Since there are no ministers, no church, no organization to spread this “belief” in Dievturiba, it is left to what? The question is for those of you that have responded in it’s support. ( Latvian National pride?)

Unless someone knows more than what I’m “assuming”, Dievturiba has no outreach programs, no soup kitchens, no shelters for the poor and destitute, and offers no help for the beggar in Latvia. So what is it then? Sanctuary for the purists? Lock out the world, throw away the key? Everyone else sucks but me and my perfect view of the world?

Does anyone reading this thread need to know what Christians are doing in this world to ease suffering? They don’t know borders or languages. All people are our brothers and sisters and ... family. (Including Ivars.) I can send you links if you don’t believe what I’m saying are actual acts of compassionate people making a difference in this world.

Fables or not. No one except for a handful of Latvians know what Dievturiba is, and if you’re not Latvian, then the percentage is 0% and it’s not a surprise to me that this doesn’t matter to some of the respondants. You would rather believe your fables, revel in how they define you as a people, Glorify Latvianism and totally miss the mark in the world’s true history and your fate in making this choice. Isn’t that true?

In Jesus name
Amen

Ikabods Ozols et al.,
Nice to see you back.
I hope you all had a wonderfull Christmas.

“Interesting in how Bruno ends with that their are no mention of godesses in the Dainas, but goes on to say that God had seven daughters and seven duaghters.

Ai, mamulina. How many gods and godesses are there in Dievturiba? La, la, la, la..... “

John in the dainas is mentioned as one of the sons of God( sort of like Adam by a different name)

There are more gods and goddeses mentioned in the Bible than in the dainas.

Visu labu,

To Ivars
You put a lot fo emphasis on science. Isn’t science derived from the human ambition to understand the world in which it lives in? To a cave man, thunder was pretty awesome. They didn’t understand atmoshperic science, so to explain it, some named it Thor. Others perhaps Zues.

Sure, science as it developed has helped to decipher the many mysteries that plagued our ancestors, but… obviously they had no choice but to respond in the way they did. ( As that was the limit of their understanding.) You shouldn’t leave sociology out of the equation.

Your last post was really rambling on from one point to another and it’s hard for me to find a specific point to respond to.  Statements like “weasel words” “smoke and mirrors” “fencing lessons""different pair of glasses""Half baked senseless parry” “he labeled Latvians anti-Semites” “Had “Greeks” been substituted for “Jews” you would never had a knee jerk reaction to substitute that Latvians are anti-Greek in place anti-Semites”

Actually, maybe I thought your last post was trying to take the Science vs Faith argument, but as I cut and pasted the stuff above, I think you were wandering all over the place. You definitely have a block when it comes to the fact that “some” Latvians were undoubtedly anti semitic. I have an old Latvian friend whose father proudly kept his SS photo on the refrigerator in his home in the 60’s. And I certainly know of others who’s stories were always hush, hush. Don’t tell me you think Latvians didn’t participate int extermination of Jews in Latvia, or are you going to give me the stupid reply that the Germans foreced it upon us.,.... ? Latvians of that era were willing participates. (Not all)( and not just in Latvia, it was a worldwide insantity, I know that )
Just for silliness, “greek latvians”? Name one.

If Brastins really thinks that the problem w Christianity is that i came from the Jews, then Brastins is a fool and hopefullly dead and relegated to history’s junk heap of misguided souls. Along with Hitler and his ilk.

Your statement:
“If you were to think logically you would simply recognized the Jews and Germans were foreign to Latvians at that time and the issue simply was that Christianity from this foreign source “does not fit with knowledge, nationality and being Latvian.”

I can understand that Germans were foreign to Latvia, but Jews are not a country, it’s a religion.
Jews were born in Poland, Germany, Latvia and other places. If a Jew is born in Latvia, does that make him a Jew first,and a foreigner? or a Latvian? If in Latvia a Protestant is born in Riga one day and a Catholic on the next, and a Jew on the third, which of these has a stigma through their lives based on their religion?. Certainly not the Protestant or the Catholic,

Explain it as you wish, but this is ignorance, idiocy and the folly of mankind. Including those Latvians that follow these doctrines of anti semitism today. I’m sure it’s not ALL Latvians. But as of today, I don’t know how to quantify it, percentage in favor… percentage against, ... percentage in denial.

Ivars, I guess I got away from a lot of your Scientific reasoning., and didn’t qujite address your response to my last post. I guess I’ve spent more time on the “sociologal” aspect. People!

When it all comes dowm, the only thing that really matters is the people in our lives. Wives, children, grandchildren. And if no family.. friends, lovers and so on. Science is nice, oh we can be so brilliant, but science can be thrown in the garbage if it’s all you have.

Give a scientific explantion of Love.

I think the answer is “who cares”? As long as it’s good.

Bruno

“There are more gods and goddeses mentioned in the Bible than in the dainas.”

above is your statement.

Thew “for instance” is what?

Ikabods Ozols et al.,

“Thew “for instance” is what? “

Among others, the gods mentioned in the Bible are Molech, Baal, and the Golden Calf.  In the Bible it does not say that they do not exist.  It says that they shall not be worshipped.

Visu labu,