So, in other words, in order to believe in your religion we must believe that God is illogical and irrational.

That doesn't work for me MorningSong.

An irrational God would be an untrustworthy God, IMHO.

How could I trust an irrational God?

Actually the Greeks had a monotheistic view of God really. They viewed Zeus only, as the "God of Gods". All other gods and goddesses would necessarily be secondary to that. So really how is that any less monotheistic than the Hebrew religion that claims that a single Godhead proclaims that no other gods should be placed "before" him?

Both Zeus and Yahweh were recognized to be the "God of Gods".

They could both be referring to precisely the same God as far as I can see.

Both of these Gods were associated with being appeased by blood sacrifices being made in their honor.

Both of these Gods were associated with having "sons" that came to help people get to God. In the case of Zeus that son was Apollo who himself was a God (i.e. Born from a union of Zeus and Leto who was herself a Goddess, not a mortal woman). In the case of Yahweh it was Jesus who as a demigod (born of a virgin human female that had been miraculously impregnated by Yahweh)

Both of these Gods were associated with giving birth to demigods. In the case of Yahweh it was Jesus (as I just mentioned), in the case of Zeus it was Hercules, who had a different mission from Apollo).

Now compare both of these religions with things like Eastern Mysticism, Buddhism, Taoism, Wicca (or the ancient beliefs of the Celts), and even the American Indian's Wanka Tanka.

All of a sudden Greek mythology and Hebrew mythology almost look identical.

That's totally irrelevant as far as I'm concerned.

So you have one culture who views "god" as being multifaceted and taking on many different personas.

And then you have another culture that has created an extremely jealous egotistical view of god.

From my perspective this only tells me that these two cultures were wildly different in the way they decided to view the supernatural.

I don't buy into the whole idea of a single jealous godhead who won't tolerate any other images of god anyway. As far as I can see that was just the Hebrew's way of trying to gain a "Copyright" on God. Only their view of "god" is valid, and all other views of god are "false".

That's clearly a sign of a man-made religious propaganda to me.

This is why I much prefer the Eastern Mystical views of "god". They typically did not personify "god". Although this most certainly isn't true of all Eastern Religions. But it's true of Buddhism. It's quite false to think that Buddhists view the Buddha as a "god". They view Buddha as a mortal man who had become spiritually enlightened.

Taoism stays as far away from personifying "god" as is possible. And that is my own personal preference. (not necessarily Taoism, but the idea that "god" should not be personified or made into an idol image of any kind physical or mental)

The ultimate concept being that "god" is unknowable.

Wicca uses a concept of "gods" and "goddesses", but this is different. The "God" in Wicca is not the ultimate creator of everything. Neither is the "Goddess". They are both viewed as psychic manifestations of "god". The actual "god" remains unknowable just like in Taoism.

It would be grossly wrong to think that Wicca is polytheistic. It's not. I don't personally think that Greek Mythology was polytheistic either really. They recognized ZEUS as the "God of Gods". So they did personified the main Godhead, but all the other gods and goddesses after that were clearly not the "Main God". How could they be if Zeus is the "God of Gods".

Zeus would be equivalent to Yahweh in that sense. You might even think of all the other "gods and goddesses" in Greek mythology as being more like "Angels".

Even Christianity has their fair share of angels, archangels, saints, demons, and whatnot. It's hardly "monotheistic" either really. Yahweh is truly nothing more than the "God of Gods" in that religion too. Even he had a demigod son in Jesus born of a mortal Earthy human woman.

So in spite of you efforts to proclaim that the Greeks and Hebrews were far apart in their religious views, I disagree. They just used different terminology, etc. But the basic concepts were the same, right down to a main God who is appeased by BLOOD SACRIFICES.

How ironic would it be that the "real creator" of the universe should just coincidentally happen to deal in blood sacrifices, having a demigod son, and everything else that is so closely related to Greek Mythology.

So I'm supposed to believe that the Greeks made up a bunch of fairy tales that just accidentally happened to be almost identical to describing the behavior and character traits of the "real biblical god"?

Wow! Imagine that!

I don't think so. It's far more reasonable to recognize that all of these ancient fables are just very similar superstitions being created by mortal cultures.

Also why would the "Real God" ignore the Greeks?

That makes absolutely no sense at all to me.

Exactly.

When I say that I "believe" something I don't mean that I'm closed minded about it and could never be convinced to believe otherwise. That attitude right there is one that I see as being rather confined and unproductive.

Also there are things that don't require "belief". Cowboy used the idea that 2+2=4 as an example of something someone might "believe". That's not a belief. That's simply the result of a logical formalism. Change the definitions and rules of the formalism and obviously that result is going to change as well. In the meantime, as long as the formalism retains it's current rules and definitions then there's nothing to "believe" it's just a fact that 2+2=4 under those rules and definitions.

Getting into something far more abstract as to whether or not there is some form of spiritual consciousness associated with human existence is a totally different matter. Trying to put that into a concrete box like 2+2=4 is truly an oversimplification of the concept.

Talk about putting God in a BOX!

God would need to be truly mundane and limited to fit into a rigid mundane box like that.

Absolutely. Why are you even asking for "proof" of anything Cowboy when you just got done proclaiming that everything is faith-based hearsay?



I feel much the same way. In fact, I would even hesitate to say that I actually 'believe' anything. I simply see where some things appear to have more credibility than others, or simply make more sense to me than others.

My spiritual views are not orthodox. There is no "religion" that reflects my spiritual views precisely in details. Certainly not Buddhism, although it's far closer than many other religions. Taoism would be even closer to my views.

Wicca is also a very abstract spiritual system that does not even support a dogmatic approach to spirituality. Although I study a lot of aspects of "Wicca" and more accurately of "Witchcraft and Shamanism", my own personal views concerning these topics are definitely unique. There can be no question about it. I've designed it that way on purpose. That was the whole point to it.

I view "Wicca" not as a "religion" but as a collection of rituals, practices, information, etc., from which I can draw upon for insight and spiritual growth and creativity.

These kinds of highly abstract spiritual views are difficult for people who depend upon very concrete dogmatic approach such as, "The Lord said this,....", and therefore you either do THIS or you are disobeying "The Lord".

I don't believe in that approach to spirituality. That's a very dogmatic approach to religion, and IMHO, it's not even a healthy form of spirituality.

I'm not either. With emphasis on the word "most".

However, I am quite interested in the views of some. I specifically find the views of atheists to be quite interesting. But we don't see a whole lot of that here.

There are also the standard "orthodox" views. Which I have no interest in at all. Often times I see atheists giving what I consider to be "standard atheistic views" which I don't find impressive.



She didn't say that she isn't interested in other people's views. She said she isn't interested in most people's views. The interesting views are rare.

Speaking of standard orthodox views and explanations Cowboy, I would definitely lump your views into that category. I never saw you post a view that I would recognize as being original. Every argument you make sounds like a recording from a typical orthodox Christian Evangelistic camp. So how can that be interesting? It's just the same old stuff being rehashed over and over again. I've already evaluated all of those arguments and explanations and found them to be lacking in reason.

~~~~

Note to Slowhand,....

Speaking about ancient myths and religions it's quite possible that if there is any truth to any of them, then their may very well be some truth in all of them.

In other words, if the Greeks were convinced that some supernatural entity was involved in creating a storm that destroyed an entire navy, and the Hebrews were convinced that some supernatural entity freed them from slavery, they could both be referring to precisely the same supernatural entity.

The fact that one culture called this entity "Poseidon" and the other called it "Yahweh" is really totally irrelevant.

To renounce a "God" simple because one culture gave it a name that isn't being recognized by another culture would be rather silly don't you think?

If there is a supernatural entity or "god" that intervenes in human affairs, then probably all the myths of interventions by a "god" are true. Why limit them by the names people chose to give them?

Also if some supernatural entity or consciousness was communicating with the ancient Hebrews via visions, dreams, burning bushes, or speaking from clouds, then why not accept that this same spiritual consciousness was also communicating with the ancient Greeks, the Celts, the Eastern Mystics, the American Indians, etc.

Why would the creator of all humanity limit himself to becoming exclusively obsessed with the Hebrews? Based on the biblical stores the Hebrews themselves were not so great.

In fact, King David, was supposedly an adulterer and murderer according to the Christian Bible. Gee whiz, that's not good.

I think even Islam tossed that part out when they created the Quran. They weren't about to accept that God would be supportive of King who had blatantly committed adultery and murder in the name of lust for a woman.

So even according to the biblical stories, this King David wasn't so righteous anyway. Why should some supernatural entity even bother with him? Much less make him a king and promise to offer his future descendant (i.e. supposedly Jesus ) his throne?

That part of Christian prophecy was clearly never fulfilled anyway.

Jesus was never awarded the throne of King David by God.

That's exactly the point.

To Cowboy,...

If you truly believe that all views are indeed on equal faith-based footing, then when I tell you that I believe that the Old Testament is nothing more than Zeus-like fables, and that Jesus was most likely a Mahayana Buddhist, and that the New Testament is most likely superstitious religious propaganda,....

Then you should say to me,....

Well, that's as valid a view as any other view.

~~~~~

In fact, this is all I have ever asked from you since we met on these forums.

Just acknowledge that my views have just as much credibility and are on just as equal footing with all other views.

Evidently you've already just done that without even realizing it anyway.

I personally don't believe you Cowboy.

You've clearly stated in the past that you are a "Servant of the Lord" seeking to spread his word.

That totally conflicts with your current claim that you are merely here to discuss.

You have also stated in the past that you are attempting to convince people of the truth of the Bible because you "love them" and care about their spiritual fate.

Again, that doesn't sound like you are merely here to discuss.

So your previous claims conflict with your current claims. So which should I believe?

In the end it really doesn't matter. Even if you are here to merely discuss religious views, etc, your current position that everything is on equal footing as far as being faith-based hearsay is concerned still supports the idea that all religions (and even those considered to be mere mythologies) must also be on equal footing.

So that's were your views lead.

Whether they be an attempt to proselytize a particular religion, or merely "just discussion".

The final conclusion is the same. What you are basically saying is that there is no more reason to believe in anything over anything else. So just choose what you'd like to believe on a whim.

Just like Jeanniebean said:


That's precisely the argument you have just given Cowboy.

All things are equally faith-based, there is no credible evidence for anything, it's all hearsay. Therefore believe whatever you like because it's all just a guess.

That's basically what you've just argued for, whether you realize it or not. Whether it was intended as a means to argue for a particular religion, or just discussion. It matters not.

You've just basically said that all beliefs are on equal footing.

Well, according to Cowboy there is no more reason to believe in Christianity than any other religion. They are all faith-based hearsay according to him.

That's the only place he can go with his current argument.

Cowboy,

You are pursuing a truly futile line of argument for the purpose of attempting to support your religious views.

To begin with, even if I were to concede that nothing can be known beyond pure faith, where would that bring us?

Can you figure that one out?

I'll tell you exactly where it would bring us.

It would bring us to the conclusion that everything must be taken on faith and that there is no more evidence for anything than there is for anything else.

If that's the case then all you have accomplished is to show that there is absolutely no more reason to believe in the Abrahamic religions than there is to believe in the religious beliefs of the Ancient Greeks and Zeus and company.

You'd also need to confess that Wicca, Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, and even things like Satanism have precisely the same worthiness and merit to be believed on FAITH as does your version of Christianity.

So all you are saying when you argue that everything must be believed on pure faith is that there can be no special reason to believe in Christianity over anything else.

In fact, the very moment that you attempt to argue that you might be able to produce a reason to believe in Christianity over anything else, you've blown away your very own stance that everything must be believed on pure faith, because at that point you would be attempting to give a REASON to believe in something over something else.

So your very approach is totally fruitless and serves no one any good including yourself.

You can never "support" Christianity by simply trying to reduce everything else to be nothing more than "pure faith-based belief".

In fact, when you attempt to go down that road all you are doing is confessing that you can't support Christianity beyond pure faith, therefore the only means you have to try to give it merit is to REDUCE everything else to pure faith, in the hopes that now Christianity will be on a LEVEL playing field.

That is truly a futile approach for attempting to support a faith-based believe.

~~~~~~

And as I've already told you many times before, if EVERYTHING is reduced to merely a faith-based belief then in terms of spirituality I would choose to believe in Eastern Mysticism because it's far more positive and uplifting than the Abrahamic picture of a God who condemns people to eternal damnation for trivial reasons like not even believing in him.



So where does your approach lead?

It leads to convincing me that even you confess that there is no more reason to believe in Christianity over something like Eastern Mysticism because they are both purely FAITH-BASED beliefs.

So that's where we'd end even if we bothered to go down that road.

Personally I don't accept your delusions that scientific knowledge is faith-based. I've been educated in the sciences, and with a good education you quickly learn that no one is asking you to believe anything that's merely in the book. On the contrary you had better pass the LABS too! Get in there and do the experiments yourself.

You can observe for yourself the phases of Venus even with a small telescope. I had a 10" Newtonian telescope and saw the phases of Venus for myself. I've seen the curved shadow of the earth on the moon. I don't need to take anyone's word for these things.

So you're not even making any sense.

Clearly, you have never had a rigorous education in the sciences, if you had, you'd know that it involves far more than just reading books.

Obviously you are both obsessed and desperate to support your religion. Even to the point where you will attempt totally fruitless forms of argument to try to REDUCE all human knowledge to being nothing more than "pure faith" just in an attempt to bring your unsupportable religion onto a level playing field.

But like I say, that's not going anywhere anyway because that automatically puts ALL RELIGIONS on a level playing field.

All you're doing with your argument is telling people that they have just as much reason to place their faith in Wicca, Buddhism, Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, or anything other than Christianity, because according to you they are ALL faith-based and none of them has any more credibility than any other.

They can't, because according to you ALL KNOWLEDGE is "faith based" and that would certainly need to include your choice of religion as well.

So you lose with that argument anyway.

You are wrong on all counts Cowboy.



No, it's not taken on faith. There is overwhelming evidence that this is indeed the case.



No this is not true Cowboy. We have overwhelming evidence that the Earth goes around the sun and not the other way around. In fact, the phases of Venus seals the case. As well as many other scientific observations.



No, again, you are totally wrong. You don't need to take anyone's word for it, you can prove this fact to yourself if you truly care to do it.

Clearly you don't understand science at all. Do you honestly believe that these things are merely believed on "faith"?

If you do then you are far more naive than I had first imagined.



Go on and on doing what? Proving your absolute complete ignorance of the scientific method of discovery of truths?

You're not merely a religious fanatic obsessed with supporting a faith-based mythology at all cost, but you are also in complete denial of human knowledge and intellectual achievement.

In truth you are actually supporting and propagating falsehoods Cowboy. The claims that you make in an effort to support your religious views are actually false. No one needs to believe that the earth is round on pure faith. They can easily prove this to themselves if they have the desire to do so.

You're actually spreading intellectual ignorance in your quest to support your religious beliefs.

Although, I personally don't believe that you do this with malice. You've probably been taught these falsehoods and you have come to believe them yourself. So in your mind you think that you are speaking truth, when in fact you are not.

This comes as no surprise to me at all since clearly you are under the belief that you are FREE to believe or not believe anything you so chose on a whim.

Therefore you CHOOSE to believe that scientific knowledge is nothing more than pure faith-based guesses. You've CHOSEN to believe that. But in truth, there is no rational reason to support that view.

Yes, I'm sure he meant to use the words he used for effect. But certainly not to imply that Jesus was "The Christ"

I personally don't accept your statement here. It's my understanding that there are much historical evidence to support many of the Greek Myths. It's really no different from the Hebrew stories at all.

For example, I just watched a history course on ancient Greek civilization, and they told about an real historical battle where the God Poseidon caused a great storm to come up and sea destroying at entire navy in a particular batter. That historical account of the navy being destroyed in a storm at see appears to be quite true. Whether any God named Poseidon had anything to do with it is an entirely different matter.

But these are precisely the very same kinds of things that the Hebrews did. They took perfectly normal natural events from their history and inserted superstitious beliefs into them about their God intervening.

You're kidding yourself if you are under the belief that there is no historical evidence associated with Greek myths. There most certainly is. Every culture has a tendency to write their mythologies around actual events. Some historians even believe that the demigod Hercules was an actual historical person. Of course they don't believe that he was a demigod. But they do believe that there was an actual person that sparked these myths.

It really no different from Jesus. Even if we had iron-clad proof that some guy named Jesus renounced the moral teachings of the Torah, called the Pharisees hypocrites, and was crucified for his views, that still wouldn't mean that the rumors that he was a demigod then must be true.

Just because superstitious rumors are written about an actual person doesn't automatically give those superstitions merit.

I would totally expect the ancient Hebrews to write stories about their actual history. Who else's history would they write about?

So historical "evidence" for actual events is not impressive when it comes to trying to support the supernatural claims about gods.

If that were the case, then we'd have to take Poseidon into consideration as well as many other Greek Gods and Goddesses. There are many Greek historical events that are associated with interventions by various Gods, Goddesses, or demigods.

So I totally reject your claim that there is no "historical evidence" for Greek mythology. There most certainly is.

The fact of the matter is that historical associations with superstitious interventions by gods simply aren't impressive.

There is absolutely NO historical evidence for any of the supernatural claims made by any of the stories in the Bible.

That kind of evidence could never exist anyway. How could you know whether a storm at sea was a natural event, or whether it was truly caused by the God Poseidon?

The very same kind of things applies to all the supernatural claims made in the bible.

The Bible has absolutely no more credibility than ancient Greek Mythology. That idea itself is a Christian myth.

You post just goes to show how utterly silly you truly are.

2 plus 2 is 4, is a result of mathematical formalism. If you understand the formalism you can see precisely why 2+2=4. There is nothing to "believe" in that case. It's simply a matter of understanding the formalism.

Based on the opinions and views that you express it certainly appears to me that you truly don't understand anything. All you do is decide whether or not to believe things on faith.

If you actually understood things you'd know the difference between belief and knowledge.

Comparing a faith-based belief in ancient religious fables with a formal system of mathematical logic proves the point.

Exactly.

In fact, for me, the only way to make sense of the Biblical story is to recognize that the Old Testament is nothing more than Zeus-like fables with a bit more jealousy and male-chauvinism added. Jesus was probably a Mahayana Buddhist Bodhisattva, and the New Testament is nothing more than gross exaggerations based on superstitions and/or purposeful religious propaganda to try to hold Jesus up as a demigod.

The idea of demigods was quite popular back in those days. There are a whole lot of myths about men having been born of virgin women that had been impregnated by a God. That's not even an original idea. It was the basis of many myths in the Mediterranean region.

Why would the "real creator" of the universe chose to create a demigod born of a virgin AFTER mankind had already been making up these kinds of myths and legends for centuries?

For me that's a dead give-a-way that these rumors of Jesus being born of a virgin woman is precisely a man-made story.

That's the kind of fables people made up back in those ancient times. It's not even an original idea. The Greeks had lots of demigods. And then there was Apollo who was also the "Son of God", the God in this case being Zeus. However, Apollo was a true God himself. His mother was a Goddess, not a mortal human woman. So Apollo wasn't a demigod, he was simply the "Son of God".

But there were a lot of demigods in ancient myths. So that's a common theme that men have always imagined. To think that a real creator would then step in and do precisely what mankind had been fabricating in myths, is IMHO, unbelievable.

Let me just say this;

If you feel that you need to "choose" to believe it, then you really don't.

I basically go by the overall story.

Adam and Eve "Fell from Grace", this placed humans in general in hot water with God.

It had God cursing the woman right in that very story:

Genesis 3:16 Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.


Surely you are not going to argue that this was just something that God was cursing Eve with on a personal basis?

This curse and punishment extends to all women. Otherwise what would even be the point of the story?

Moreover, if every human being isn't being "charged" by God as being a sinner, then what's up with the idea that everyone needs to be "saved" by the through Jesus as "The Christ"?

Saved from what?

We are being "saved" from our condemnation of being "sinners against God".

This this is the fundamental basis of Christianity Peter.

That this dire need for repentance out of the religion and you've got a totally different story, and a totally different religion.

~~~~~

On a personal note, I can imagine that you personally may have some alternative views concerning the meanings and demands of these stories. However, if that's the case, I would have to say that you clearly have radically different views from historical orthodox "Christianity".

Christianity is all about SIN, and the DIRE NEED for repentance.

That's what it's about.

As an overall religion, it's really not even interested in anything else.

Try telling almost any Christian that you believe in Christianity but you don't believe that you need to be "saved" from having sinned against God, and they'll immediately begin to explain to you that this isn't how it works.

All men have fallen from grace with God. All men are in dire need of salvation and repentance, and there are NO EXCEPTIONS!

Exceptions will NOT be tolerated!

So to place your faith in this religion is to place your faith in the idea that you are at odds with God and you are in dire need of being "saved" by grace from your sinful ways.

That's what it's all about.

Change that, and you've changed the religion dramatically.

Just try telling Christians that you believe in Jesus but you have no need to be "saved" from anything because you aren't at odds with God.

You won't get very far with that view.

Well, not only that, be even if we just go by the biblical stories this King David was both an adulterer and a murderer. In fact, he murdered the husband of the woman he was lusting after.

So that's the heritage of Jesus?

Doesn't sound very impressive to me. Not only that by why would God favor an adulterer and murderer, or use such a person as an important element of his plan. I could never buy into the idea that God simply couldn't find any better people to work with. That's nonsense.

Why would God make such a person a KING in the first place?

There's no way that I'm going to buy into the idea that God couldn't find better people to make into Kings etc.



I see no reason to believe in this religion on pure faith.

Why would a person even want to believe it on pure faith?

There are far more positive views of spirituality to be had on pure faith.

Why would I want to have faith that I've fallen from grace from my creator and he had to sacrifice his son to pay for my sins and offer me "grace".

Seriously? What would anyone want to believe that on pure faith?

I'm sure they gave him some sort of "answers". Evidently the bottom line was that their answers didn't satisfy him.

This same thing can be seen in Christianity. I have no doubt that many religious Christians would point to web sites, etc, that "claim" to answer questions and issues that I bring up concerning Christianity.

However, the bottom line is that none of those so-called "answers" impress me.

So if the rabbis were giving this guy "standard" answers, he probably just wasn't buying into them. So he broke out of that "box" and looked to other sources for information and evidently he found other sources that made more sense to him.

I shared his story here because it fits in with Jeannie's thread, "And the Lord said,..."

Some people simply aren't impressed by that approach. I'm certainly not impressed by it.

Well, if that's true, then their claim to know the lineage of Joseph clear back to King David would become highly questionable. How would they keep track of bloodlines that closely if they weren't even using family names, etc?