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Originally posted by Greatest I am
Originally posted by Akragon
Good thread... S&F
Who or what is the true God in your opinion?
edit on 2-5-2012 by Akragon because: (no reason given)
The Godhead I know in a nutshell.
I was a skeptic till the age of 39.
I then had an apotheosis and later branded myself a Gnostic Christian naturalist.
Gnostic Christian because I exemplify this quote from William Blake.
“Both read the Bible day and night, But thou read'st black where I read white.”
This refers to how Gnostics tend to reverse, for moral reasons, what Christians see in the Bible. We tend to recognize the evil ways of O T God where literal Christians will see God’s killing as good. Christians are sheeple where Gnostic Christians are goats.
This perhaps why we see the use of a Jesus scapegoat as immoral, while theists like to make Jesus their beast of burden. An immoral position.
During my apotheosis, something that only lasted 5 or 6 seconds, the only things of note to happen was that my paradigm of reality was confirmed and I was chastised to think more demographically. What I found was what I call a cosmic consciousness. Not a new term but one that is a close but not exact fit.
I recognize that I have no proof. That is always the way with apotheosis.
This is also why I prefer to stick to issues of morality because no one has yet been able to prove that God is real and I have no more proof than they for the cosmic consciousness.
The cosmic consciousness is not a miracle working God. He does not interfere with us save when one of us finds it. Not a common thing from what I can see. It is a part of nature and our next evolutionary step.
I tend to have more in common with atheists who ignore what they see as my delusion because our morals are basically identical. Theist tend not to like me much as I have no respect for literalists and fundamentals and think that most Christians have tribal mentalities and poor morals.
I am rather between a rock and a hard place but this I cannot help.
I am happy to be questioned on what I believe but whether or not God exists is basically irrelevant to this world for all that he does not do, and I prefer to thrash out moral issues that can actually find an end point. The search for God is never ending when you are of the Gnostic persuasion. My apotheosis basically says that I am to discard whatever God I found, God as a set of rules that is, not idol worship it but instead, raise my bar and seek further.
My apotheosis also showed me that God has no need for love, adoration or obedience. He has no needs. Man has dominion here on earth and is to be and is the supreme being.
Regards
DL
cosmic consciousness.
Originally posted by the2ofusr1
reply to post by Greatest I am
I think what we have here is a complete misunderstanding on my part ...You see You call yourself a christian ..I have a understanding of what a christian is ....your post www.abovetopsecret.com... explains to me your minds thought .. You see where my confusion was coming in was thinking that you had Christianity completely up side down and backwards ..But I now think its worse than that .."Man has dominion here on earth and is to be and is the supreme being" That statement right there should make it quite clear that you are claiming to be anti-christ ...
Originally posted by Cuervo
Originally posted by Greatest I am
At one time the Christian God of the gaps may have had a role to play for us but man has moved on. Christians should perhaps do the same and seek their true God.
Regards
DL
I'm still convinced that the OT actually refers to more than one god (several just in Genesis). The contradictions are obvious. If you are to believe in Jesus, then the god of genocide and baby killing cannot be the god of love that Jesus speaks of. If you are to believe in the OT, then it's easy to see why they didn't accept Jesus as their savior since he embraced peace and love and rejected the old ways.
The bible is a primer written about several gods. Almost an encyclopedia of Judeo-Christian pantheon. This puts all faiths under that umbrella into an observation box of scrutiny that becomes more and more examined with each generation. Dogma and the entirety of the church is dangerous for modern society and I think we will soon see a huge overhaul in what people of faith accept as spiritual truth and what they will reject as religious dogma.
It will be a good thing.
In fact, to illustrate the contradictory notion that the bible is uniform in speaking about only one god, I present this illustration:
edit on 3-5-2012 by Cuervo because: coffee...
Originally posted by Akragon
[
Actually i respect that more so then i do most Christian beliefs....
Though isn't this "God head" christian terminology either way? Consisting of the God the son and the spirit? Basically the trinity without the label?
I totally agree with you on the fact that God rarely interviens within this life... We are the lords of our own body... i believe this is one of the mysteries that Jesus was attempting to tell his followers actually...
The son of man is lord... and we are all Sons of man...
personally i have little to no use for most of the bible... And i see it as an error on christians part to completely dismiss gnostic scripture as well...
Originally posted by Starchild23
reply to post by Greatest I am
cosmic consciousness.
Would you define that for me? I want to understand more clearly your view of this...
Originally posted by the2ofusr1
reply to post by Greatest I am
You were the one that brought up [snipped] and said it didnt make rational sence that a god would tell you where not to put it ...I wonder about your rational decision to make that statment?
Thanks for the tall tale. Quite the imagination. Regards DL
These two stones were placed into a container and it was shaken; then, without looking into the container, the high priest would put his right hand into the container and draw out one of the lots.
The Babylonian Talmud shows that, for two hundred years before 30 A.D., the first stone to appear in the right hand of the high priest randomly fluctuated each year between the white and black stone. One would expect this type of randomness, because God selected the more perfect goat to be slain for the sins of the people. But, beginning with the Day of Atonement in 30 A.D. (the year of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ), the black stone appeared in the right hand of the high priest for the next 39 years.
The chances of the black stone (For Azazal) appearing 40 consecutive times in the right hand of the high priest is over a trillion to one according to Pascal's table of numerical odds.
The continual appearance of the black stone in the right hand of the high priest was surely a sign of God's displeasure with the House of Judah and a warning for them to repent.
The fulfillment of the prophetic black stone came after forty years of continuous warning when the Temple and Jerusalem were destroyed in 70 A. D. by the Roman Empire.
source
A Sage said: "May the curse of heaven fall upon those who calculate the date of the advent of the Messiah, and thus create political and social unrest among the people." Sanhedrin, 97b. Louis Newman and Samuel Spitz, The Talmudic anthology: tales and teachings of the rabbis (Behrman House, 1945): 277. ISBN 0874413036, 9780874413038
What is meant by 'but at the end it shall speak [we-yafeah] and not lie?' — R. Samuel b. Nahmani said in the name of R. Jonathan: Blasted be18 the bones of those who calculate the end.19 For they would say, since the predetermined time has arrived, and yet he has not come, he will never come. But [even so], wait for him, as it is written, Though he tarry, wait for him. Should you say, We look forward [to his coming] but He does not: therefore Scripture saith, And therefore will the Lord wait, that he may be gracious unto you, and therefore will he be exalted, that he may have mercy upon you.20 But since we look forward to it, and He does likewise, what delays [his coming]? — The Attribute of Justice delays it.21 But since the Attribute of Justice delays it, why do we await it? — To be rewarded [for hoping], as it is written, blessed are all they that wait for him.
Footnotes to the above:
18 [H] The verse is rendered, 'he will blast him who calculated the end.'
19 I.e., Messiah’s advent.
20 Isa. XXX, 18.
21 I.e., because we are not yet worthy of it.
22 Ibid. "Sanhedrin 97b," Babylonian Talmud: Tractate Sanhedrin.
Rabbis after the time of Christ have pronounced a curse on anyone who would attempt to calculate the dates of this chapter. - Talmud Sanhedrin 97b, Soncino ed., p. 659.
HAS MESSIAH COME?
by Avram Yehoshua
A most amazing thing occurs in the ninth chapter of Daniel: we’re told when Messiah would come. But instead of explaining it to us, our Rabbis curse anyone wanting to find it out: ‘Rabbi Samuel b. Nachmani said in the name (of) Rabbi Jonathan: ‘Blasted be the bones of those who calculate the end.’ (1) Some of our Rabbis, in a further attempt to keep us from Daniel, even state that Daniel was wrong. Alfred Edersheim, a Talmudic scholar who would come to know Messiah said, ‘later Rabbinism, which, naturally enough, could not find its way through the Messianic prophecies of the book, declared that even Daniel was mistaken’ (2).
Footnotes to the above:
1 Sanford R. Howard, L’Chayim: Finding The Light of Shalom (Thorsby, AL: Sabbath House, Inc., 1999), p. 209. Sanhedrin 97b, vol. 2, p. 659, Soncino Press. Editorial footnote #6 says, ‘i.e., Messiah’s advent.’
2 Alfred Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus The Messiah (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2000), p. 957. Bere#h Rabba 98 (a midrash or commentary on Genesis). Edersheim lived from 1825 to 1889 C.E.