A Christian re-examining Christianity

reply to post by boncho

You can't cherry pick your context to justify creation. This is either something that is or isn't. And in this case, christianity is saying it's a certain way, which by default makes god responsible. (You can't have an all knowing god who didn't know the answer)

It was a test. He gave them 2 choices and allowed them to pick. Genesis was written using prophetic language and unless you know the cipher you're never going to get the message because you're not meant to. You need Yeshua to show you the meaning of what is written there. You would be surprised how many people take scripture written by prophets and put a literal interpretation to it and get it totally wrong.

I'll tell you this much, the tree of life and the tree of knowledge were not literal trees. The rest of it? You can ask Yeshua to show you when you pray to him, if that day ever comes.

reply to post by dominicus


I would say your perspective reminds me much of myself. I am gathered a study of events in history at least to some degree, my conclusions are based on the overall picture.

Jesus appears to be a person who was killed for doing good, he made a mark in history and people remember him for it, why not acknowledge that?

Moses did kill people, but the times were so different back then - a written book which will remain in the minds and homes of many is there for a reason, it is a chronological account of events in history and not to be taken literally in all cases. It is to be examined in full order and conclusions are to be made of the overall picture. At the time people were make sacrifices to animal gods. Moses appears to have witnessed a miracle and tried to teach the people about what he learned.

Muhammad also killed people, but he was a figure for his people, not other people. So right away you are segregating yourselves from the world - and they cover there faces, the only kinds of people that cover there faces are island tribes people - not a whole metropolis. He also got his base information from Moses.

The East too far away to have developed a Christ religion and who would get judged eternally on something they were exposed to? I recall Jesus himself prophesying that he was going to be remembered in the western world.

Basically it does not make sense to make that people don't acknowledge simple things in all religions, they go deeply into line for line and they don't look at the overall picture - which is love and unity in the world. Humans have obviously not taken steps to becoming unified and we have no control either, the powers have been working in the opposite direction since the 1950s.

reply to post by jheated5


Here's an excellent read for you to answer those questions:
The Evolution of God by Robert Wright.

That link ^^ has excerpts from it, reviews, and is worth a Sunday morning's perusal at least. Then buy the book and read it.

I recommend this book to ALL people who read and contribute to this forum and the Conspiracies in Religion forum. Indespensable, easy to follow, respectful and brilliant look at "God".

@OP: good for you. Keep looking.

reply to post by autowrench


1 Corinthians 2:14

King James Version (KJV)

14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

1 Corinthians 1:18

King James Version (KJV)

18 For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God


Honestly, I prefer to let God speak for me, when possible,

Why use words of my own feeble mind when I can use Gods Mighty Word?

reply to post by jheated5

.... I see the value of the messages and knowledge inside of NT but I get dumbfounded as to how God could be the same within the OT and NT.. Did God evolve? Was the old hateful God defeated by a new and loving God? are there multiple Gods? or was God just bipolar?

I think it is a version of God (the O.T.) presented by a priest class concerned with the perpetuation of the system they were connected to.
Jesus told that same class, in the Gospel, that they did not know God.

reply to post by Snoopy1978

We're on the brink of quantum computing yet we still have regressives that cling to iron age, supersticious woo.

What are you talking about regressives, iron age, woo? We have timeless universalities that we live with. You can bring to this world all the quantum computing you want and it still wont solve ego, wars, rapes, disease, philosophical questionings about life/death, psychological issues, etc. This is where a Spiritual Path comes in and gives people Enlightenments, direct experiences of a transcendental nature. As an Atheist/Agnostic back in the day, I was empty, something was missing ....seeing this planet and the atrocities, I saw us humans as a parasite on this planet. Then as a Christian and having direct spiritual experiences, I found my inner self, my soul, am now whole, complete, content, it all makes sense. I have even remembered pre-existing prior to taking on a body and human life.

Sadly, no matter the logic, reason, fact or evidence they're presented with, these individuals will continue to take an old fairy tale book at face value.

Thankfully we all agree that we can use logic & reason to conclude that logic & reason are limited, and therefore how can you fathom an unlimited infinite God. You can't fathom, but you can experience this God and that's one of the things Jesus was taking about ...how to get to a direct experience of the Divine. I have gotten quite a few Atheists to admit that direct experience of everyday reality, is prior to logic/reason/mind. When you wake up in the morning, that waking up happens so quick, so fast, that there is a lag in the logic/reason/mind stage to grasp and label the event as "I have woken up."

This has HUGE philosophical and scientific implications. Everything around us, all of reality is prior to what we think of it and exists devoid of what we think about it. We are merely taking it all apart and labeling it as "air, soil, people, towns, countries, etc". So how do you take apart God to study and Infinite Beingness that is Immaterial? You can't because science is not there yet, no instruments sensivitve enough yet to measure the soul and God. We'll get there one day, and science will confirm God, then what will you have to say when what you thought was woo, is actually official fact?

Hmmm, shall we choose proven scientific studies or contradictory tales written by ignorant sheep herders? It is near impossible for some of these fanatics to shake off years of indoctrination. These people WANT to believe. Plus, they are afraid of mythical punishments and too greedy for divine rewards to stop doing so. Keep believing your woowoo and keep being fleeced by the mega churches. With the availability of information nowadays, there is no excuse to continue willingly drowning in ignorance. By the way, devil's gonna getcha. Wooo!

Please provide these contradictions. I see none. Ignorance is truly not walking w/ God and not knowing God. You think you got it all figured out, but that's folly. We have all this info handy these days and I see the same crap and more crap being stirred up in the world and nothing is getting solved. A big difference now is that we can annihilate the whole world with the push of a button!

We are parasitic creatures operating from selfishness thinking that all there is, is this physical realm and so we fight, kill, claw our way in selfishness, greed, corruption. Look at monsanto, lehman borthers, its all about the $ no matter what the cost is. The World is sick and human nature is pathetic.

At least in Christ we work to transcend selfishness, we get direct experiences of divine nature, we reach a place of Love, loving others, non-judgmental, we work to change ourselves and make this world a somewhat better place amidst the sky high BS we see happening. Your quantum comps and Gazillions of bits of info are doing ZERO to work out and fix the brokenness inherent in parasitic humans and no matter how much it increases, it still wont fix the BS

reply to post by wildtimes


Thanks for that, could you just give me a quick summary of the what the book is about please? Too see if I would be further interested...

reply to post by lonewolf19792000

It was a test. He gave them 2 choices and allowed them to pick.

If I create a test where I know the result of the test. It is not a test.

Originally posted by boncho
reply to post by Murgatroid

 

Slapchop

Harold Camping.

I don't see a difference.

What is it you were LOOKING for, "SERIOUSLY"?

Discerning between "prophets" and false prophets is NOT rocket science. IF you want the truth, you are going to have to "seriously" seek it...

"You can't wake a person who is pretending to be asleep."
Navajo Proverb

reply to post by jheated5

Thanks for that, could you just give me a quick summary of the what the book is about please? Too see if I would be further interested...

Sure...here's part of one of the reviews on the website:

God has mellowed. The God that most Americans worship occasionally gets upset about abortion and gay marriage, but he is a softy compared with the Yahweh of the Hebrew Bible. That was a warrior God, savagely tribal, deeply insecure about his status and willing to commit mass murder to show off his powers. But at least Yahweh had strong moral views, occasionally enlightened ones, about how the Israelites should behave. His hunter-gatherer ancestors, by contrast, were doofus gods. Morally clueless, they were often yelled at by their people and tended toward quirky obsessions. One thunder god would get mad if people combed their hair during a storm or watched dogs mate.
....

In his brilliant new book, “The Evolution of God,” Robert Wright tells the story of how God grew up. He starts with the deities of hunter-­gatherer tribes, moves to those of chiefdoms and nations, then on to the polytheism of the early Israelites and the monotheism that followed, and then to the New Testament and the Koran, before finishing off with the modern multinational Gods of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Wright’s tone is reasoned and careful, even hesitant, throughout, and it is nice to read about issues like the morality of Christ and the meaning of jihad without getting the feeling that you are being shouted at. ....

reply to post by Murgatroid


There are no prophets. There are sociologists, anthropologists, biologists and slew of other scientists that make far more prophetic statements than the religious groups, and they are doing it off of existing data and projection models.

They are often right, sometimes wrong. Depending on the quality of data.

reply to post by boncho

None of these folks u mention operate in spiritual matters. If i want to know something about God or about the future of mankind, i wouldnt go to a mechanic or biologist. Yet even science is wrestling w the possibilitythat remote viewing could be true. Prophets could have simply been real good remote viewers

Originally posted by boncho
reply to post by Snoopy1978

 

I think the real question, is where are all the divine messengers nowadays? Did god say to himself, "once computers are invented the people don't need my guidance"...

Seriously.

Is that it? We get some age old prophets a couple thousand years ago and god just has a long nap...

Where is modern Jesus?

Exactly. Also, why does god need an intermediary? Supposing sea monkeys could reason, how effective would it be for me to transform into a tiny sea monkey, go into their mini aquarium and try to spread my messege by being tortured and murdered? Wouldn't it be a lot more effective and simple to hover over their tank in giant man form and say my message?

How come Moses and Abraham would speak to god only in secret? People that do that nowadays are labeled schizos. Was that woman that killed her kids by supposed divine command a modern day over-achieving Abraham?

Where are the signs? In the old testament, god would even physically wrestle with people and, check this out, cheat when being beaten, beg for mercy and LOSE! (Genesis 32:23-34)

Where is mediocre lucha libre god now?

Come at me, godbro!

The OT system of animal sacrifice was to teach us that our sins cause the death of the innocent, and the death of our innocence.

Keep in mind that God has promised the Restoration of All Things, a new Heaven, a New Earth, humans perfected and glorified. In light of those promises, and we can depend on them, the present horribleness is simply a trifle. As a Christian, the OP should be aware of all this. Most Christians need to experience the liberation of the doctrine of the Restoration of All Things, aka Universal Reconciliation.

reply to post by dominicus


Your avatar is a phoenix, am I right? Hoping it is not a self-immolating angel, I commend you on this choice. The phoenix will reduce itself to cinders and hatch itself out of the ashes anew. This shows a subconcious willingness on your part to keep an open mind and hopefully will transition from the realms of woo and fantasy to the firm ground of reality.

That said, you want examples of contradictions in the bible. Well, you have a bloodthristy, genocidal, narcissistic god being passed off as benevolent and "loving". The rest, which are MANY, you can google or actually open up your bible and read them by the truck load.

Also, you state of actual PROOF to the christian claim. What proofs are these? Would I be able to recreate these proofs by owning a four-leaf clover or having a black cat cross my path? Are these tangible, verifyable facts we're talking about or do you have to "visualize them" in your soul/mind/thirdeye/whatever? By internal, cranial, visualization we are of course talking about imagination. Lets be honest here, we cant visualize with the hair on our big toe or inside an eyelash, for example.

So, if you are resorting to imaginative proof, then you're trying to sell fantasy as fact. I implore you to state objective evidence and not this "feels like" thing or third party anecdotes. Worst of all, dont start shooting bible verses as is the case of most christians. That is akin to saying the bible is correct because it is written in itself. Ridiculous. That's like someone attempting to sell a fake van gogh, but writing in small letters right on the painting that it is legit. How can you say fake if the painting says it is real? You get my point.

Anyhow, your story sound as if you were not truly an atheist in the classical sense which expects religion to back its claims by providing recreatable, certifiable evidence proven through the scientific method. You seem as someone, faced by small and large scale sociopathic and animalistic human tendencies and actions, in need to believe in something beyond this and, more importantly, to belong to a higher state of conciousness be it real or not. Something or someone to liberate and take you away, or to the margin at least, of this cruelty and injustice.

Sadly, cruelty and injustice are here to stay while people remain people. You see, humans are as humans have been when it comes to basic instincts be it sloth, lust and violence stemmed from fear and greed. There is nothing new under the sun when it comes to humanity's inhumanity towards humans and their surrounding. Even the bible gives people a free pass to plunder the earth and the vulnerable "unchosen" (a talking point used by religious political fascists when it comes to not protecting the ecology, btw).

Fearing an imaginary god, wishful thinking to the point of hallucination or mercilessly beating your chest while feeling righteous will not change the human truth. Be it the romans, vikings, aztecs or whatever, humans will plunder the earth and the weak. Why? Because of the predatory, tribal nature that is latent within us, in varying degrees of course, but still there. Further, there are extreme cases and amongst these terrible predators are religious creators, enforcers and officials.

I hope you can accept that there is no divine justice as is evidenced by mere unchecked existance of the corrupt, genocidal entities you listed. In the old testament, god destroyed two cities for corrupt practices. Why did he stop then? Was Sodom or Gomorrah any more despicable and bringer of desolation than DC, Las Vegas or, to pin point a place and make it easier for the all-mighty, Wall Street? Why would god choose to manifest himself periodically to an ancient supersticious culture which preferred the supernatural to quench the ignorance? Why, as humanity gain on scientific knowledge and questioned woo, does he hide now?

Anyway, I sincerely hope you can see that a world without religious woo delusion does not mean that existance is devoid of purposes or meaning.

To me, and I could be wrong, the meaning of life is simple.

The meaning of life is to achieve happiness without making others unhappy. All the time.

Simple to read, but tricky to put in practice. A goal worthy of your nirvana of choice for any buddha that can break through our animalistic programming.

No need of woo woo, profitable divine promises or fear based morality.

As James Randi once said,

"Enjoy the fantasy, the fun, the stories, but make sure that there's a clear sharp line drawn on the floor.
To do otherwise is to embrace madness."


Thanks for reading, phoenix.

reply to post by Snoopy1978

Your avatar is a phoenix, am I right? Hoping it is not a self-immolating angel, I commend you on this choice. The phoenix will reduce itself to cinders and hatch itself out of the ashes anew. This shows a subconcious willingness on your part to keep an open mind and hopefully will transition from the realms of woo and fantasy to the firm ground of reality.

Phoenix avatar means alot of things to alot of people. It has a universal message that can also be compared to the teachings of Christ and Ego Death.

That said, you want examples of contradictions in the bible. Well, you have a bloodthristy, genocidal, narcissistic god being passed off as benevolent and "loving". The rest, which are MANY, you can google or actually open up your bible and read them by the truck load.

You can find contradiction everywhere in anything if you look long enough by taking a fragment from the whole. This whole post was spurred on by my own seeing that there is a contradiction between OT God and NT God. I said in the original post that I follow NT and pretty much dont get involved with the OT because there is too many issues for me there, so let me re-phrase what I meant by asking you to show me any contradictions just in the NT.

Also, you state of actual PROOF to the christian claim. What proofs are these? Would I be able to recreate these proofs by owning a four-leaf clover or having a black cat cross my path?

The proof is the experience of ego death. I came to Christianity as forst an atheist then agnostic. I started practicing what Jesus taught, got re-baptised, then BOOM all types of spiritual experiences began to happen, many of which other people became aware of them (many of them non-Chirstians)

I have since been able to convert others into Christianity and see that these mystical experiences began to be repeated in them. In sense, it is a repeatable experiment. The experiences that manifest have attributes that the NT describes they would have.

Are these tangible, verifyable facts we're talking about or do you have to "visualize them" in your soul/mind/thirdeye/whatever? By internal, cranial, visualization we are of course talking about imagination. Lets be honest here, we cant visualize with the hair on our big toe or inside an eyelash, for example.

It has nothing to do with imagination. The experiences are prior to imagination and no matter what you try to imagine that these experiences would be like, when they do happen, they completely blow your assumptions out of the water. All of life is experienced prior to thought. There is a lag between experiencing something, and then the mind making sense of the experience. This is verified in science that there is a lag.

So, if you are resorting to imaginative proof, then you're trying to sell fantasy as fact. I implore you to state objective evidence and not this "feels like" thing or third party anecdotes. Worst of all, dont start shooting bible verses as is the case of most christians. That is akin to saying the bible is correct because it is written in itself. Ridiculous. That's like someone attempting to sell a fake van gogh, but writing in small letters right on the painting that it is legit. How can you say fake if the painting says it is real? You get my point.

Im not quoting the Bible. Im saying experience itself is a sort of proof. It would be like creating a scientific experiment, where the result would be measured by what the person has experienced, i.e. if one takes lsd, then hallucinations occur. I would even go as far to say that science can do studies of non-christian brain MRI's and then see changes after they convert and have experienced God. We already have studies of certain brain functions lighting up for meditators who say they experience God. It doesnt mean they are imagining God.

Its your experience that God is woo because you need something tangible because science is still initially based on materialism and measuring what can be within the realm of the 5 senses and what machinery can detect that is beyond out senses. Well God is immaterial and beyond senses and our current instruments. God is more accessible through intuition and conscience.

Anyhow, your story sound as if you were not truly an atheist in the classical sense which expects religion to back its claims by providing recreatable, certifiable evidence proven through the scientific method.

I saw all CHristianity and religion as santa claus fairy tails. However I also saw that science is not looking for God and that there are people that claim to experience "Union w/ God" which sparked interest because can we really define what this experience is and these experiencers were not saying that the experience was merely imagination based.

reply to post by Snoopy1978

You seem as someone, faced by small and large scale sociopathic and animalistic human tendencies and actions, in need to believe in something beyond this and, more importantly, to belong to a higher state of conciousness be it real or not. Something or someone to liberate and take you away, or to the margin at least, of this cruelty and injustice.

You might want to "check" your assumptions at the front door cause your way off. Most assumptions are always way off in judging character. I always have discarded belief since the very beginning. My interest was in the experience of God. I always wondered about people wo say they have experienced God and have studied what they say about it, and it had a taste of being prior to or even transcending anything that has to do with imagination, simply because in alot of the methods that these folks used to get to this God experience, required the dropping of all imagination because imagination is all illusion and not real.

My motivation was not surrounding a tendency to believe in something higher. I too looked around the world at atrocities and wondered that if God exists, why does crap happen. However I saw with science at the helm, there is still hunger and war and crap so science too is not the answer to stop the BS of the world.

Sadly, cruelty and injustice are here to stay while people remain people. You see, humans are as humans have been when it comes to basic instincts be it sloth, lust and violence stemmed from fear and greed. There is nothing new under the sun when it comes to humanity's inhumanity towards humans and their surrounding.

Happily, I have tasted that we can transcend our lower nature through reaching Enlightenment and that such a thing is real.

Fearing an imaginary god, wishful thinking to the point of hallucination or mercilessly beating your chest while feeling righteous will not change the human truth. Be it the romans, vikings, aztecs or whatever, humans will plunder the earth and the weak. Why? Because of the predatory, tribal nature that is latent within us, in varying degrees of course, but still there. Further, there are extreme cases and amongst these terrible predators are religious creators, enforcers and officials.

I dont fear God, I want to experience and know God. Love casts out fear and so far the experiences I have had have been prior to imagination. As for the animalism of humans, we are called to transcend that.

I hope you can accept that there is no divine justice as is evidenced by mere unchecked existance of the corrupt, genocidal entities you listed.

I do see divine justice built in to the laws of nature. Karma. I have seen too many times and have experienced by self this aspect of life. It may not come back the same way it was given out, but it does come back.

In the old testament, god destroyed two cities for corrupt practices. Why did he stop then? Was Sodom or Gomorrah any more despicable and bringer of desolation than DC, Las Vegas or, to pin point a place and make it easier for the all-mighty, Wall Street? Why would god choose to manifest himself periodically to an ancient supersticious culture which preferred the supernatural to quench the ignorance? Why, as humanity gain on scientific knowledge and questioned woo, does he hide now?

I dont agree w alot of OT stuff and have much of it in question. However many things can be symbolic or be the work of people attributing God as the reason for things which could have been otherwise.

Anyway, I sincerely hope you can see that a world without religious woo delusion does not mean that existance is devoid of purposes or meaning.

Im a Christian Mystic. I can never go back to anything else because it has been as if I took the red pill like what Neo took in the Matrix. My spiritual experiences have shown me reality behind the curtain and glimpses of the existence of an Infinite Beingness that is Aware. I can never deny any of that and see woo as everything else that is not that.

The materialistic view caused me to conclude that we are just synapses and nihilist based robots at mercy to our vices. All of existence here from nothingness all randomly evolved to what we have now. It just doesnt make sense logically that everything is the way Atheism says.

The meaning of life is to achieve happiness without making others unhappy. All the time. Simple to read, but tricky to put in practice.

To me happiness has come from the mystical experiences. There is contentment and I am free from desires and have tasted Enlightenments. I also know, from remembering that I have pre-existed prior to the body, that when I cast off this body, I am going into an afterlife that is secured.