I appreciate your feelings Terry.

I truly do.

But this forum is indeed were we discuss these things rather than going out and protesting in front of a church. (Which I would NEVER do in real life!)

In fact, face it Terry, even organized Christian CHURCHES have protested at the FUNERALS of our soldiers publicly making a scene and condemning them in Jesus' name for being GAY!

That is something that I would NEVER do to anyone!

These forums are where the religion is discussed, debated, argued, and so forth.

You point to people like me, but from my point of view people like Cowboy aren't any different at all. All Cowboy ever does is attempt to condemn people in Jesus' name.

~~~~~

There is a SAFE HAVEN for Luv2rocknroll.

It's the CHRISTIAN SINGLES FORUMS!

Here: http://mingle2.com/forum/forum/188

It's not like luv2rocknroll doesn't have a sanctuary where she can share her Christian views with like-minded people.

Neither is anyone putting her down here.

This is the "real world" where hardcore Christian fundamentalism clashes with people who don't care for that kind of heavily dogmatic and "condemnatory" approach to religion.

Luv2rocknroll stated that several people wrote her emails explaining to her about the nature of the "General Religion Forums". I hope they also provided her with a link to the "Christian Singles Forum".

I most certainly never post in that form EVER.

I don't know about other people.

~~~~~

And for whatever it's worth I'm glad that luv2rocknroll has found spiritual enlightenment, in whatever form she has found it.

I hope that "Christianity" itself does not become a 'burden' for her as it did for me when I was a Christian.

Although when I was a Christian my greatest source of aggravation and condemnation did not come from outside of Christianity, but rather from within. From other Christians like Cowboy who refuse to tolerate a loving picture of Jesus.

And unfortunately, as Cowboy vividly continually demonstrates, the New Testament is filled to the brim with extremely condemnatory verses that can indeed be used as fodder to feed a very negative view of Jesus.

~~~~

If anything, I hope that luv2rocknroll recognizes that these arguments don't really have anything at all to do with Jesus himself, but rather with differences of opinions of precisely what different people think that Jesus should represent.

~~~~

She may even learn something from these conversations that will help her to strive to portray Jesus in a more loving way than say, someone like Cowboy does.

Well, like I say Cowboy, Christianity is just a cult that threatens emotional and spiritual condemnation to anyone who refuses to cower down to it.

All you're doing is confirming these negative threats.

I don't believe in gods that make such threats Cowboy.

It's as simple as that.

I prefer to believe that Jesus was a Mahayana Buddhist Bodhisattva who truly taught love, and was unfortunately crucified morally in the writings of the New Testament as they used the rumors of his crucifixion to create the Christian Cult. Using him as a dead marionette doll to shove their words down his throat.

I have absolutely no reason to trust the writings of the New Testament to be the verbatim words of Jesus. Yet you keep shoving that filth in my face as though it's respectable.

And you flatly refuse to allow for a truly respectable interpretation of Jesus.

You refuse to allow it.

It's that simple.

You prefer your condemnatory view of Jesus.

I can't help but believe that this is what attracts you to the religion more than anything because you are apparently so obsessed with condemnation in Jesus' name that you can never seem to move beyond that. Even when loving interpretations are offered to you. You just keep coming back with a condemnatory picture of Jesus.

That's truly sad Cowboy.

Truly sad indeed.

It's people like you that contribute to the growing rise in atheism. And I don't blame the atheists at all. When you're done portraying Jesus even atheism actually looks inviting.

If that's the case then why do you constantly preach that there are extreme conditions placed on this love?

If there are no conditions on Jesus' love then there cannot be any requirements to receive it, and that would most certainly include worship any specific dogma that contains endless lists of requirements.



For a Christian to say that Jesus' love is "unconditional" is an oxymoron unless they are prepared to recognize that everyone has obtained Jesus' love no matter what they believe.

But then it would be silly to speak of being "saved" by Jesus, since that implies that they had been "saved" from not being loved by Jesus, which cannot happen if his love is truly unconditional.

So which is it?

Are there conditions to be "saved" by Jesus, or not?

If there are, then his love cannot be "unconditional".

Amen to that!

Sure they do Cowboy.

To begin, you are NOT a "Christian". You are a follower of a religion called "Christianity".

The actual "Christians" were the ones who actually wrote the New Testament.

And they did give threats to those who do not believe:


John.3:18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.

There's the psychological emotional threat right there Cowboy.

Fail to believe that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God and you are condemned already.

That's the cult that you support and follow.

You, as an individual person, really have nothing to do with it, beyond that. You are a merely follower and supporter of the cult. You did not create or design it. Neither are you the spokesperson for it, even though you certainly ask as though you are.

This cult threatens everyone with condemnation if they fail to believe that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God.

~~~~~~

Just as an interesting side note, I would like to point out that these kinds of claims didn't even come from Jesus himself. This particular verse is not even being written as a "quote" from Jesus. This is just a narrative opinion of John.

There aren't even any quotes in these texts that have Jesus proclaiming any such thing. And even if such quotes did exist, it would certainly be reasonable to question them since they are clearly hearsay rumors after the fact, and were not even written by Jesus himself.

Surely if some God wanted to "condemn" people for not believing in him he would have, at the very least, written this stuff up himself.

~~~~~~

Ironically even within these very scriptures we actually find places where these same people claim that Jesus has stated totally opposing views:


John.12:47 And if any man hear my words, and believe not, I judge him not: for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world.


Here we have a quote that John is actually attributing to Jesus himself where Jesus is saying that he will not judge a man for not believing his words.

That's a far cry from proclaiming that he will condemn someone for merely not believing in his name.

So who should we believe? John when he speaks for himself? Or John when he claims to be quoting Jesus?

~~~~~

And yes, I fully realize that you can and will argue endlessly for the condemnational interpretation.

Because that's truly what the CORE of Christianity has become. Nothing more than a viscous argument that "The Christ" will see to it that anyone who refuses to join the cult will indeed be condemned.

Keep that emotional threat alive and well!

Don't let it die!

No one comes to Jesus out of LOVE, they absolutely must cower down to Christianity via the emotional threat damnation. No other interpretation is permissible.

Very SAD indeed.

It's not even permissible to create a truly LOVING Jesus. That will get you banned from the cult forever!

Assimilate, or be condemned!

It's an emotional threat Cowboy.

The very essence of a CULT.

People like you especially will not tolerate a truly LOVING FORGIVING Jesus.

In your hands, he's an extremely hateful dead marionette doll subject entirely to your ventriloquism as you interpret scriptures on HIS behalf in the most condemnatory way possible.

You stand between Jesus and LOVE. Refusing to allow anyone to LOVE Jesus without your specific permission according to your specific hostile and unloving interpretations of scriptures.

This is the hallmark of fundamental Christianity, unfortunately.

How do you define a "cult".

A cult is often defined as a religious organization that basically threatens their followers with bad things if they leave it or refuse to support it.

But that's basically what Christianity does. Disagree with the Christian interpretations of the Bible and you'll quickly be condemned by the cult as being a "non-member".

Christianity is basically an acceptance of the Christian-specific version of the Abrahamic cult.

Deny that Jesus is "The Christ" and you're out on your butt!

In fact, deny almost any aspect of their interpretations of the dogma and you'll quickly become an "OUTCAST"

I've been condemned and expelled by the "Christians" for no longer believing that Jesus was the son of God. You're not allowed to do that.

You can't view Jesus as a human being and reject the rumors of the New Testament and remain in the "Christian cult". It's not acceptable.

Christianity is indeed a cult. An extremely exclusive cult at that.

They will socially crucify you in the name of Jesus if you refuse to cower down to their "graven image" of him.

And by "graven image" here I mean precisely their specific interpretations of scriptures.

Disagree with those interpretations and you're out on your butt.

No exceptions!

Christianity is basically a cult that demands that Jesus is the sacrificial lamb of Yahweh who died to pay for your sins.

No other interpretations will be tolerated!

Couldn't that potentially come down to how you define 'love'?

I mean, if you even feel any pity or sorrow for a sick demented person, perhaps you might have more "love" for them than you realize.

Maybe what you 'hate' is the mere fact that their mental sickness exists at all.

~~~~

A very long time ago, I realizes that if I view certain behavior as being "sick" then it only makes sense for me to also assume that the person who is behaving that way must also be "sick".

So this has been a view I've adopted. Even though the person may appear to be in full control of their anger, and hostile behavior, that appearance my simply be a symptom of their underlying sickness.

So in a sense, I've started to "judge" evil people as simply being "sick" people. And in this way I am able to exonerate them for their crimes in a way.

Just the same, I cannot deny that their "sickness" must be dealt with one way or another.

This is why I would renounce capitol "punishment" in favor of capitol "euthanasia".

In other words, don't even think of it as "punishment", but rather just think of it as basically doing them a favor. And doing everyone else a favor by removing the harmful to society.

It doesn't need to be done in a spirit of anger or hatred for them.

I guess this is basically what I'm saying.

Oh absolutely. If a person can be healed, mentally or physically, by all means, that should be the path taken.

Unfortunately that is not always possible. And what do you do when you think you've 'healed' them and they turn around and go berserk again? How many times to do you take that chance, all the while innocent people are being harmed every time you give the sick person another chance?

Obviously these are the most troublesome questions when it comes to "unconditional" love. This wouldn't even be a question in a world where there no harmful people.

And "harm" can take many forms. It can simply be extreme oppression, constant emotional abuse of others, etc.

Those are the people who are hard to "love".

If everyone was harmless and non-oppressive, then it would be easy to "love" everyone.

It's only the harmful oppressive people who cause this concept to even become an issues.

I personally do not pretend to practice "unconditional" love. I do require "conditions" for my love. But I personally feel that they are quite reasonable and mild conditions.

Simply don't be oppressive or harmful to other people and you've won my "love".

Start becoming "oppressive" toward other people, and you'll quickly lose both my love and my respect.

And perhaps this is why I have such a dislike for religious oppression being spread around in the name of a God.

Either cower down to our religion or God will hate you!

That is already a very emotionally harmful and spiritual oppressive act, IMHO.

So ironically, many religious proselytizers are actually quite emotionally harmful and oppressive people in my eyes.

They basically act like they own God and everyone must cower down to their oppression to be accepted by God and the rest of their "religious society".

That's a form of spiritual fascism in and of itself.

I personally find it very hard to "love" those kinds of people.

That certainly depends on who's portraying Jesus does it not?

There certainly seem to be a lot of Christians (or at least a very loud few) who would have Jesus condemning anyone who refuses to acknowledge that he is "The Christ", the only begotten son of God, and the sacrificial lamb of God.

That is certainly NOT unconditional love by an stretch of the imagination.

If you are required to acknowledge that someone is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, before he will love you, then that is a very highly conditional so-called "love".

Truly, and unfortunately that's precisely the mindset that a lot of Fundamentalists have. They "define" what it means to be a "Christian" and then pass judgment on others as to the "validity" or "maturity" of their Christian status.

As far as I'm concerned, that's about as anti-Jesus as it gets.

A LOT of Christian fundamentalism is about as anti-Jesus as things can be, actually.

I sincerely beleive that if Jesus were alive today he would be saying

A Modern Day Jesus in Matt.23

[13] But woe unto you, Christian Fundamentalists, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in.

[14] Woe unto you, Christian Fundamentalists, hypocrites! for ye devour widows' houses, and for a pretence make long prayer: therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation.

[15] Woe unto you, Christian Fundamentalists, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.

[23] Woe unto you, Christian Fundamentalists, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.

[25] Woe unto you, Christian Fundamentalists, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess.

[27] Woe unto you, Christian Fundamentalists, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness.

[29] Woe unto you, Christian Fundamentalists, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous,


I don't believe for one second that Jesus would support half of the crap that is passed off in his name through "Christianity" today.

This is why I don't care for Christianity. It has very little to do with Jesus, if anything. They abuse his name to preach their religious bigotry and damnation toward anyone who doesn't cower down to their, often quite anti-Jesus, sentiments and blasphemous religious bigoted interpretations of scriptures.

~~~~~

Luv2rocknroll,

You talk about "praising Jesus", well, I personally find it to be far more uplifting toward Jesus to think of him as having absolutely nothing to do with modern day Christianity.

This is why I become very saddened when I see people falling for the "Church and Dogma" in the name of Jesus.

It can be a very sad thing indeed.

I think it's great that they have decided to believe in a God.

But it's sad that they have ultimately fallen for "religion" that is based on a jealous dogma and the exclusion of anyone who refuses to cower down to that dogma, and especially to the specific interpretations of it that are often being held out by hateful fundamentalists in the name of Jesus for the sake of supporting religious bigotries.

That's where my problem lies.

Not with Jesus himself. Far from it.

When I think in terms of "unconditional" love, I don't think in terms of the kinds of affection that we normally associate with loving someone closely, intimately, and it most certainly doesn't need to be a romantic type of love.

Basically all "unconditional" love would amount to from my perspective is a willingness to not wish or cause harm to another, and potentially even help another if it is within your means to do so. Not necessarily because you 'like' them, but simply because you love them in the sense that you do not want to see them harmed. This would include even helping them from situations where they are facing potential harm.

I do place "conditions" on my love. For example, I may or may not risk my life for another person. That can indeed be dependent upon how motivated I am to save the particular person in question. There are people whom I would not go out of my way to save, especially if it required that I place myself at great risk. So my 'love' for others is not totally unconditional. Nor have I ever claimed that it might be.

I'm not sure why anyone would even consider "practicing" totally unconditional love. Even the gods in the major world religions do not profess to offer unconditional love. On the contrary for the most part there are tons of conditions required to obtain their love and favor.

Christianity itself, for example, requires that a person be 'saved' from the very wrath of God himself. That's hardly an unconditional love since the God himself will see to it that you are indeed harmed if you do not meet certain conditions.

So if our "gods" cannot even live up to an ideal of unconditional love, then why should we?

Having said that, I think there are spiritual philosophies that do indeed exhibit spiritual ideas of a 'god' that does exhibit totally unconditional love. However, as ironic as it may seem, many people reject that ideal. They do not like the idea of a God who actually practices unconditional love. They much prefer a God who will condemn people for a myriad of reasons. And many people have no problem at all embracing gods who will condemn people for merely not believing them.

That's certainly not "unconditional" love there.

So I'm not sure why we would even necessarily want to practice "unconditional" love. If someone is truly a mean despicable person who is violently harming others and arrogantly putting themselves above everyone else, then is there truly a 'reason' to "love" them.

In a situation like that putting them out of their misery and preventing them from harming anyone else, may actually be the most loving thing to do, both for them and their victims.

I know that if something horrible happened to my brain and I became a crazy madman who was running around killing people randomly I would actually hope that someone would put me out of my misery and save innocent people from my illness too.

So there may be more than one way to actually "love" someone.

Putting a rabid dog out of it's misery can certainly be an act of love, as an example.

I don't profess to practice "unconditional" love. But I do have compassion for everyone. Even hideous criminals.

For example, I would much rather see a hideous criminal be put to death via a lethal injection than via some horrific method such an an electric chair, or gas chamber, or hanging, etc.

So in that sense, I have "unconditional" love even for criminals. Don't be mean to them, just put them out of their misery and simultaneously make the rest of society safe from their harmful ways.

Killing them softly might actually be an act of "unconditional" love.

Well, "Creation" is not a 'theory' anyway. Typically it's associated with some specific religious myth.

Evolution is almost always misunderstood and way over-simplified.




I agree with this general idea. We tend to recognize objects formed from complex DNA molecules as being somehow different from the basic chemical elements. And in a sense they are different, but only in terms of complexity. Period.

That's the only difference.

The DNA itself is nothing more than a conglomeration of the basic elements of "star dust".

So it's no different really. Other than it's complexity. That's the only difference.

And yet that complexity stems from the original complexity of the original elements which are not exactly 'simple' in their own right.

We are made of the very same stuff that rocks are made of. Especially if you want to think about coal or diamonds. It's all just carbon, and a few other elements which are themselves nothing more than metals, gases, and so forth.

In a very real sense we are just "rocks" that have evolved into fleshy beings. Even water is nothing more than "melted rock" (i.e. ice). Everything become "rock solid" at a low enough temperature so in that sense everything is ultimately made of rocks really.

We're just taking rocks.

Even our blood is nothing more than a flowing river of molten rock filed with carbon gravel. (i.e. mostly just melted ice carrying cellular corpuscles made from carbon rocks)

I find it interesting what you said here: "when it came to science and the Bible, i just couldn't believe a lot of the stories which led to my atheism."

I too used to be a Christian. Although, I didn't 'turn' to religion for the purpose of believing in a god. I just accidentally happened to be born into a Christian family.

However, from an extremely early childhood I always innately felt that life is essentially spiritual. Even before I was old enough to seriously consider these things as actual 'topics'. In other words, my innate feelings of being a 'spiritual' being go back to far before I even knew what the word 'spiritual' even mean.

In other words, I just innately knew that the true essence of my existence was something far more profound than just this physical existence in this life. I didn't even need to put 'words' to it. I learned the words much later as I grew up.

So in any case, when it came to my attention that the biblical stories of God could not be true, that didn't really bother me in terms of continuing to believe in a spiritual essence to reality.

However, your statement above actually serves to help me to understand why so many people who believe in specific stories, such as the biblical story of a God cannot even remotely consider giving up those stories. For them that would mean that "god does not exist" and the only alternative to that would indeed be atheism.

In fact some of these religious people (perhaps far more than a few) desperately believe that the biblical story of a God is associated with a gift of eternal life which cannot be found anywhere else.

Thus, for them, giving up the biblical stories would be forfeiting the idea of everlasting life.

I have to seriously laugh at that because that truly is a silly idea. To think that a story is the only thing that stands between a spiritual or non-spiritual existence is truly funny.

I've been discussing the bible on another web site, and we were discussing King David. This is the very King from which Jesus was supposedly descended, even though that very thought is utterly silly since Jesus was suppose to be the son of God born of a virgin, and not the decedent of David. Even making out like Mary was a decedent of David would be silly. That would be totally irrelevant if Jesus was ultimately a demigod as the New Testament demands.

Moreover, this King David had committed both adultery and murder over that very same adulterous act. Yet he was supposed to be the King from which Jesus was a bloodline? That would be horrible. I confess that I never really caught that detail before.

So Jesus (and Mary too!) would have been the decedent of a King who was an adulterer and murderer.

That's the best that God could do in terms of finding a bloodline for his "only begotten son"?



I mean, these stories aren't even realistic.

They are every bit as screwed up as Greek Mythology. Riddled with absurdities. Who would even want there to be a God who would have been associated with such ignorant and criminal people?

King David was a MURDERER!

Surely an all-wise God could have done better than that!

Let's not forget too that this God was supposedly appointing these Kings into their Kingly positions. And he couldn't find a better person than a murderer and adulterer to choose to be a King?

I don't think you need science to recognize that these story are utterly bogus.

Trust me, if there's a spiritual essence to this universe it has nothing to do with some bozo jealous God who is appeased by blood sacrifices himself, supports male-chauvinism, and chooses adulterous murderous kings to ultimately be the bloodline of his "only begotten son".

You can rest assured that these fables are fake without turning to science for reasons to reject them.

But if stories were the only reason that you believed in a spiritual existence of reality in the first place, that would have been a pretty empty faith in any case. May as well be an atheist if you're going to do that.

Don't confuse culture rumors with the word of God. That can lead to many falsehoods.

Clearly God is the ultimate magician. There can be no doubt about that.

Any cultural folklore that proclaims magic to be the work of a demon is clearly false.

In fact, that's a very good reason for rejecting a particular religious doctrine. If it makes such claims, you can know for sure that it's false.

Jesus himself, when accused of working the devil's magic, replied to the Pharisees that good works cannot come from the devil lest his evil empire be divided against itself and fall.

Thus any magic that is performed for good works can only have come from God. At least if you are willing to trust words attributed to Jesus, you can trust that this is true.

If it's is good magic, it can only have come from God. So says Jesus, the supposed Christ and Holy Son of God himself.

Therefore, if you are a Christian, and you believe the words ascribed to Jesus, you can safely perform good magic in the name of God and feel confident that it has indeed come from God. For Jesus tells us so. Good works cannot come from Satan. It's that simple.

If you trust in Jesus, you can also trust in magic.

At least if it is being performed for good works.

Well, then why wasn't this your original testimony?

That would have made things more clear.

I was confused about all the talk of being in jail and drugs, etc.

So you were an atheist who finally found God.

I understand now. Well that's great!

I've never been an atheist, so there has never been a time when I didn't know God. It truly amazes me how anyone could ever be an atheist actually. But I do know that many people feel that way, and while I don't understand how they can not know God, evidently it must be possible. In some ways I kind of envy you. At least you have had the experience of being an atheist at one point in time. I've never known that. Perhaps this is why I have difficulty thinking that it's such a big deal when people finally find God. From my perspective it's hard to imagine not believing in God.

I'm glad to hear that you have finally found God.

That must have been a quite pleasant surprise indeed.

Well that was the original question.

I originally said that I think it's great that she turned her life around and feels as though she had been 'saved' from a desperate situation.

Now all of a sudden there was no "desperate" situation.

And Cowboy comes in blasting away in ALL CAPS!!!!

EVERYONE NEEDS TO BE SAVED!!!!!

Saved from what?

That's a legitimate question I think.

So you enjoyed your vacation in jail meeting lots of nice people?

Hmmmm? Were you there as a visitor?



So may I asked just what it was that you were being 'saved' from then?

I guess you're right.

I think that if I had never been a Christian I wouldn't have such a vehement hatred for the religion today. I guess I react to it kind of like an x-smoker reacts to cigarette smoke.

I hate it precisely because it defiles Jesus.

I was actually asking for more information.

Was she "saved" by a demigod who "saved" her out of the blue?

Or did she appeal to the demigod with a request to "be saved"?

Those are legitimate questions that should be easy to answer and clarify. And there are indeed quite profound consequences to these different situations.

If the demigod saved her out of the blue, then this doesn't support the orthodox Christian stance that people must call upon Jesus to repent their sins and ask for forgiveness.

On the other hand, if she did call upon Jesus in an act of desperation to "be saved" from her desperate situation, then this opens up a whole psychological perspective that suggests that she may have been 'psychologically saved' by any number of historical spiritual archetypes and that she had simply chose Jesus as the one to appeal to because this is the culture she had been raised in.

Not only that, but she even mentioned that she had been issued a prison bible which also suggests that these ideas were being currently brought to her attention via this religious propaganda literature.

So I'm just trying to get to the bottom of what may have brought about this particular event of salvation. After all if I'm ever in a desperate situation like she describes it might be nice to know whether I should just wait to be saved by the demigod or whether I need to call upon the deity to save me.

People shouldn't be offended by this if they have natural spontaneous answers to these questions.

~~~~~

Moreover, this particular testimony has very little applicability to my life. I am neither in jail, nor am I addicted to drugs.

I don't currently have a desperate situation that I feel a need to be 'saved' from.

So whilst it may be inspirational to people who are in jail and addicted to drugs, I don't see where it would have much value to anyone else.

A person would need to be in some sort of desperate situation before they would even have need to be 'saved' from it in the first place.