You have done no such thing.

I have told you that I assign values of "truth" or "falsehood" to statements.

You simply disagree that statements themselves are what is being evaluated for a "truth" value.

You have some obscure notion of 'truth' in your mind that you feel applies to something ELSE. Yet you are unable to clearly define what this something ELSE is.

You keep referring to truth as a "correspondence", as if that concept itself has some absolute objective meaning on its own whilst you completely ignore the actual things that are being corresponded.

So you refuse to accept my position that it is indeed the statement or description of a state of affairs that is being assigned a value of "truth" or "falseness".

And then you set about proclaiming that my definitions and processes for determining truth are "Logically Flawed" because they don't match up with your esoteric ideas of what you think truth should be.

Well duh!

If you are attempting to apply my definitions of truth to YOUR concepts of truth, then of course they are going to appear to be illogical to you. They don't apply to YOUR IDEA of what you think truth should mean.

It's that simple.

My idea and interpretation of truth is an assignment that we give to a description of a state of affairs.

You reject that very idea.

However, if you were to accept that idea, then you could see how it is indeed totally logically consistent.

Truth is nothing more than something that mankind assigned to descriptions of states of affairs. It's an entirely man-made concept.

You refuse to acknowledge that this is indeed a valid way of defining truth.

So you run off and define truth differently and then proclaim that my logical fails by your definition of truth.

Who cares?

My logic applies to my definition of truth. Not to yours!

Until you acknowledge that I am assigning a truth value to a description, and truth is nothing more than a property of that description, then you are not understanding or accepting my definition.

And by the way this is the same definition that Webster gives:

From Webster's Dictionary"

Truth - 3. the property (as of a statement) of being in accord with fact or reality

They are on the same page I'm on.

They recognize that truth is a property of a statement.

It is something that we assign to a statement when we have agreed that it is in accord with fact or reality.

~~~~~~

So, if you want to claim that I'm wrong, then you must also claim that Webster's Dictionary is wrong as well.

Not to mention the entire scientific and mathematical communities.

So at least I'm in GOOD COMPANY!

Here is the introduction to Wikipedia's explanation of truth:



According to #1 Truth has a variety of meanings

I agree. This is why it is wise to listen carefully to which concept of truth a person it using when they use this term.

According to #2 Truth must have beneficial use to be retained within language.

I agree. If you can't explain what you mean in a pragmatic and comprehensible way when you refer to your concept of truth, then you have a useless term.

Crying that everyone else is 'wrong' simply because you can't explain your ideals of truth in a practical meaningful way is a futile position to take.

According to #3 Various theories and views of truth continue to be debated among scholars and philosophers.

So proclaiming that any particular view of truth is the only correct view has no more merit than proclaiming that a particular religious dogma is the only correct truth.

It's just a personal view and personal interpretation of what some individual would like to believe is the "correct philosophy".

~~~~

From Webster's Dictionary:

1. sincerity in action, character, and utterance

2. a judgment, proposition, or idea that is true or accepted as true <truths of thermodynamics>

3. the property (as of a statement) of being in accord with fact or reality

~~~~

Notice that #'s 2 and 3 from Webster's dictionary are in accordance with my view that descriptions and statements themselves are considered to be "truhts" once they have been accepted as being 'true'.

So clearly the people at Webster's dictionary agree with my interpretations and views of on the concept of truth.

~~~~~~

Here are some other views and interpretations of truth at this website.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15073a.htm

They break truth up into different types of truth as well.

They speak of Ontological Truth, and Logical Truth.

I used different terms. I used "Zen Truth" and "Analytical Truth", but I explained what I meant by the term that I introduced.

This website also breaks Logical Truth down into quite a few different interpretive camps:

1. The Scholastic theory
2. The Hegelian theory
3. The Pragmatic theory
4. The "New" Realist's theory

I'm sure that other organizations and institutions offer their own interpretations of various ways of viewing the meaning of 'truth'.

I didn't bother reading all of these different views because I'm simply not interested. I have my own practical view which works quite well for communicating what I mean by 'truth' to anyone who has an open mind and is willing to actually take the time to understand what I mean by 'truth'.

The views and definitions that I use for the concept of 'truth' are both logically consistent and easy to understand and apply in a meaningful practical way.

So even if you personally disagree with how I use the term 'truth' that doesn't make my use of the term 'wrong'. It simply means that I use the term differently from your own personal philosophies concerning the concept.

~~~~

As I have pointed out, you have not been able to show me how your ideals of this concept could be applied in a meaningful and useful way.

Even Wikipedia had recognized that any concept of truth that has no beneficial or practical meaning can hardly be retained within language since such an ill-defined concept would have no meaning to anyone.

Language that has no meaning is a meaningless language.

~~~~~~

So until you can lay out a specific practical method of how your views and interpretations of 'truth' can actually be used in a meaningful way to determine whether something should be considered to be a truth or not, then you have no meaningful concept of truth.

And thus far you have been unable to do that.

So even if I accept that you have your own esoteric interpretation of truth, your interpretation is still quite meaningless to me because you have been unable to communicate how your idea of truth can actually be used in a meaningful way to determine the truth of anything.

A meaningless idea of truth that cannot be applied in a practical way is indeed meaningless.

Well that seals it right there.

Since truth ultimately comes down to a human's definition of the concept. And different people have different interpretations of that definition, then it quite naturally follows that truth is necessarily subjective based on that simple observation alone.

Exxman and Creative simply have different interpretations of how they view the concept of truth.

Just as Exxman has explained.



Exactly.

Clearly I have a totally different interpretations of the concept of truth from Creative as well.

But he can't seem to comprehend this.

He appears to be under some extreme delusion that only his interpretation of the concept of truth is correct, and everyone else's interpretations are "wrong".

Because the Hebrews modeled their God after Zeus. They also used their fables of God to support their male chauvinism and belittle their wives and daughters.

They couldn't do that very well using a female Goddess.



Well, don't take it too seriously. Jesus was never handed the throne of King David like the prophecy of a messiah requires and so it's not realistic to believe that Jesus was "The Christ".

This is one reason why the Jews have never accepted those rumors.

~~~~

I always point out that Jesus taught against the immoral teachings of the Torah and instead taught the wisdom that is normally associated with Buddhism. Therefore Jesus was most likely a Jewish Mahayana Buddhist Bodhisattva who actually rejected the Torah as being ungodly. Even the rumors about him have him proclaiming the Scribes and Pharisees to be hypocrites.

The Torah taught people to seek revenge as in an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Jesus renounced that and taught people to forgive each other instead and to turn the other cheek.

The Torah taught people to judge each other and stone sinners to death. Jesus renounced that as well and clearly taught people not to be judging other and not to be throwing stones.

Clearly Jesus was teaching the far superior moral teachings of Buddha. So the New Testament is most likely nothing more than grossly superstitious and misunderstood rumors about the teachings of this man named "Jesus".



I don't know, but since Jesus could not have been the Christ the question is moot.



Again, it's a concern that needn't worry anyone. Jesus couldn't have been the Christ in any case. Moreover, it's most likely just hearsay rumor that he rose from the dead anyway.

Do you realize that in the Bible it wasn't just Jesus who had supposedly rose from the grave, but at that same time a multitude of saints had been jostled from their graves and resurrected in bodily form like zombies. And they supposedly when into the Holy City and showed themselves to the people there.


Matthew 27

[50] Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost.
[51] And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent;
[52] And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose,
[53] And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.


So Jesus wasn't the only one rumored in the Bible to have been resurrected at that time.

However, there is absolutely no independent historical evidence of anyone in the holy city having ever seen these zombie saints. You'd think if such an event had actually happened someone would have mentioned it independent of the Biblical gossips. But it was never mentioned in normal history.

Thus you can rest assured that it's quite safe to recognize that these biblical stories are indeed just exaggerated superstitious rumors at best, or completely false fabrications at worse.



Well, again, Jesus could not have been the Christ since he didn't fulfill the necessary prophecy.

He probably was a spiritual leader leading a civil rights movement and trying to get people to quit doing the horribly immoral things that the Torah had taught them to do (not the least of which was to instruct them to crucify heathens for blaspheme against the Torah).

The fables claims that Jesus said something alone the line of:


Matt.27:46 And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?


If the man Jesus actually did cry this out he was probably talking to the crowd themselves wondering why they had forsaken his civil rights movement.

He probably mean, "My God! My God! What have you people forsaken me?"

In other words, why didn't they stand up against the authoritarians in support of the brotherly love and compassion that Jesus had taught.

After all, why would a demigod who had been born of a virgin woman and who had claimed to be ONE with the Father suddenly believe that the Father had forsaken him?

That doesn't even make any sense at all.

~~~~~

Also, according to these biblical gossip rumors all judgment of mankind had supposedly be handed over to Jesus.

John tells us this:


John.5:22 For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son:


But then when Jesus is dying on the cross these rumors claim that Jesus cries out:


Luke.23:34 Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do


Well, if the Father judgeth no man and had committed all judgment unto the son which is supposed to be Jesus, then why would Jesus be asking the Father to forgive these people?

Clearly these fables are riddled with inconsistent rumors.

Here's another one based on this very same idea:

Matthew has Jesus proclaiming the following:


Matt.10:33 But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven.


Well, Jesus is not only supposed to be a man of his word, but he is supposed to be the WORD of God made flesh.

Well if that's the case then we would expect that he should say what he means and keep his word,

But like was already shown above they later have Jesus supposedly saying:


Luke.23:34 Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do


So here is Jesus pleading a case before the Father for people who are clearly denying him. But he supposed gave his WORD that he would not do that.

Thus this brings into question the reliability of the Jesus' WORD.

Or more more realistically, it brings into question the reliability of these biblical gossip rumors.

I personally accept that it is the rumors that are flawed and false, rather than blaming it on the actual man named Jesus. He probably never said half the things that are being put into his mouth in these rumors in the first place.

So there's no need to call Jesus a liar. Just realize that these biblical rumors are nothing more than exaggerated rumors, and potential outright lies (or misunderstandings) of what the man named Jesus actually said or meant.



See Pantheism and the Eastern Mystical views of spirituality. There are indeed many ideas of how each of us could be a facet of a supreme consciousness, where we each are having a unique "Dream". Yet we are able to share this in a larger framework of a shared "Dream" called "Humanity on Planet Earth".

There are many interesting possibilities in those philosophies.



So?

Make an appointing for a hearing aid. Or maybe it was a moss-covered forest floor? Trees don't make a lot of noise when they fall over into deep moss.

No two people can agree on what the "laws" are Cowboy.

The Jews don't recognize any "law" that says that we have to obey the teachings of Jesus.

Neither do the Muslims.

The Christians don't obey the Laws set out be Mohammad in the Quran.

Where do you get off proclaiming that Christianity represents the "Laws of God" whilst rejecting these other scriptures that proclaim to be the "Word of God"?

Clearly you are rebelling against those.

To not believe that specific fables are the "laws of God", cannot possibly equate to "rebellion", because of that were the case you could never know whether you are rebelling or not.

It would be a crap shoot of which scriptures to believe.

Even if you decided to believe in Christianity, by your logic you could still be rebelling against God by merely choosing to be a Protestant and not honoring the Body of Christ in the Catholic Church and the Pope as God's spokesperson.

You could be grossly violating God's laws by preaching your horrible misinterpretations of scriptures to the masses on Mingle.

So you could be in gross rebellion and disagreement with the teachings of Jesus.

Maybe that's why God set up the Catholic Church with the Pope.

You were supposed to be rebellious against that and follow the Protestants. But you did!

Shame on you!

~~~~~~

Do you see how your absurd claims can easily backfire on you?

~~~~~~

If sincerity alone is sufficient, then clearly everyone who is sincere is in good with God no matter which version of scriptures or other spiritual philosophies they have chosen to accept as being "Divine".

I've personally chosen to believe that the Eastern Mystics have the truth of Divine Knowledge.

I sincerely believe that the Old Testament is the rude and crude ignorance of mankind. Not really much different from Greek Mythology at all. They even have God being appeased by blood sacrifices which I have absolutely no reason to believe that any truly supreme being would ever be associated with.

Therefore I have no interest in what "laws" might be in the Old Testament. You have personally claimed that the "Old Covenant" is not longer valid anyway. So you should have no problems with flushing the Old Testament down the toilet too.

I've already told you my views on the Christian New Testament. I sincerely believe that Jesus was a Mahayana Buddhist Bodhisattva. Which already corresponds with my belief that Eastern Mysticism is far more divine than the fables of the Hebrews.

As far as I can see Jesus taught the same things as the Buddha including notions that we and god are one. I have no reason to believe that Jesus supported the Old Testament. He was crucified for blaspheme. Had he not spoken out against the immoral teachings of the Old Testament he would not have been charged with blaspheme in the first place. Had he not renounced the Scribes and Pharisees of that religion he would not have been crucified for his objections.

So it's crystal clear to me that Jesus actually spoke out against the God of Abraham and renounced the immoral teachings that you continually support in his name.

You should pack up and move to Afghanistan and join the Taliban if you want to support those kinds of horrible things.

~~~~~

By the way, are you "rebelling" against Zeus just because you don't believe in those fables?

Is that your attitude toward Zeus?

Or do you simply dismiss the Greek religion as being nothing more than mythology like everyone else?

Well, that's all I'm doing with the Hebrew mythologies. I'm just dismissing them as being unworthy of consideration.

That is most certainly not "rebellion" against any God. There is no God behind those fables to begin with.

That's your belief, not mine.

You keep referring to these fables as "scriptures" like as if they are sacred and special and cannot be denied.

But all religious doctrines are called "scriptures". Scriptures simply means "writings".

The Eastern Mystics have "scriptures" too.

They just don't claim them to be the Word of God. Instead they recognize them to be a collection of the wisdom of spiritual men.

They did not go so far as to lie about their "scriptures" like the Hebrews did.

Of course, we can't blame the Hebrews themselves for claiming to speak for God. They no doubt got their ideas from the Greeks. Their scriptures of Yahweh are not all that different from the Greek stories of Zeus, even including the idea of blood sacrifices.

In fact, if you read about all the different religious superstitions all through the Mediterranean region you will see that these kinds of stories of Gods, demigod (sons of Gods being born of mortal women) and "saviors" and "healers" and all of that stuff was quite common mythology in many different forms.

Christianity is just a collection of those kinds of stories that survived from those ancient superstitious times.

~~~~

I personally believe that a Mahayana Buddhist named "Jesus" (or something close to that) probably did spark the specific rumors that became the Christian "Christ". But that doesn't make the rumors themselves true.

So no. To not believe in religious superstitious fables and myths does not equate to rebellion against "God".

Is just means that a person recognizes the stories to be myths is all.

Husbands aren't the "Savior" of the body.

There is no reason why the Husbands have to be a fascist dictator just because the Christ is like that.

This is just more justification for the Taliban.



Who said anything about giving men the right to be pigs?

We're talking about dictatorship, male-chauvinism and AUTHORITY here.

If Hitler treated you with what he considered to be "love" would that justify his demand to be your dictator?

I've seen many women on these forums post to you that they do not consider your views to express what they consider to be "love".

All you are attempting to do is condone fascist dictatorship in the name of love.

No Cowboy, it doesn't work like that. If two people LOVE EACH OTHER there is no reason why one of them should be the Taliban over the other.

That's not love!

That just ignorant blind fascist authoritarianism based on the bigoted idea that men are more "Christ-like" than women in terms of being a factious dictators.

Which probably is true when it's put that way.

It's just patriarchal ignorance.



Jesus didn't love any "Church" on the contrary Jesus sat around complaining about the "Church" and calling the Scribes and Pharisees hypocrites.

Jesus even renounced the immoral teachings of their doctrine the Torah.

See what I mean Cowboy? These fables are filled with lies and you are blindly supporting them by posting these scriptural lies like as if they should be believed.



Well, if your not going to be bitter against them then don't degrade their authority just because of their gender.

That very act would be a BITTER act!

If you want to love your wife you should do everything in your power to find consensus with her and not attempt to dictate over her.



If men love their wives they won't be authoritarian dictators over them.

Again, these fables attempt to claim that Jesus had something to do with a "Church" which is completely false. Jesus had nothing to do with any "Church" that whole idea was arranged much later after Jesus had died.

Jesus was just a Bodhisattva with a handful of disciples. That does not constitute a "Church".

Well, if that's the definition of an "Evolutionist", then most of the people you've been talking with in this thread aren't "Evolutionists", They aren't students or adherents to a theory of evolution.

Instead they are just people who are attempting to explain the actual evidence that is already known about evolution. No "theory" required.

I was just commenting on the dogma Cowboy.

I'm not attempting to "blame" anyone for anything. That's the business of the dogma itself. The dogma itself is attempting to "blame" humans for turning against God.

I don't "blame" anyone for anything.

I was just pointing out the absurdities of these ancient fables.

In fact, I personally have no desire to be the ultimate egotistical authoritarian dictator over anyone.

I don't even agree that a man should be the ultimate authoritarian in a marriage as these male-chauvinistic scriptures proclaim that God condones.

I have no desires to be the dictator of my lover, best-friend, and partner in life. On the contrary, I think we should either come to a consensus on how we want to live life, or we should simply part ways realizing that we are incompatible.

I have no desire to dictate over anyone.

In fact, this is a huge reason why many people do not believe in these Hebrew fables called "The Holy Bible".

The Bible claims that all people are egotistical pigs who are out to rebel against the authority of God in favor of dictating how things should be done on their own.

But the problem is who is truly doing the dictating?

Some genuine all-wise, all-sane, intelligent God?

Or some male-chauvinistic idiotic Hebrews?

I don't recognize the authority of the Hebrews as being the authority of God.

I refuse to worship the Hebrews. They are the egotistical pigs who are attempting to be the ultimate authoritarians in the name of some supposed Godhead.

But the Godhead that they portray would need to be utterly stupid, ignorant and basically utterly foolish (just like the Hebrews were).

~~~~~~~

To allow the ancient Hebrews to dictate to you what they believe God expects from us would be like allowing the modern day Taliban to speak for God.



I'm no FOOL Cowboy.

I know better than to believe that some supposedly supreme all-wise God would support and condone the Hebrew's male-chauvinism and bigoted degradation of their very own wives and daughters.

Reading the way those ignorant Hebrews treated their women is disgusting. It's really no different from how the modern day Taliban treat their women. And every sane person alive today totally rejects and discourages that nonsense.

But here you are preaching that we should embrace the idea that this kind of ignorance originated from some supreme God.

I don't care who you think came up with these disgusting ideals.

I personally don't believe that any genuinely divine God would be associated with such disgusting ignorance.

~~~~

And all of that stems from the basic idea that someone should have AUTHORITY over someone else.

God has AUTHORITY over men.

God gave men AUTHORITY over women, and so on.

It's all based on egotistical authoritarianism.

~~~~~

I'm personally not interested in having authority over anyone other than my very own self. That will take responsibility for, thank you very much.

And I don't need any God commanding me to become a male-chauvinistic pig in his name!

That mentality belongs to the Taliban!

It's not even remotely a godly concept, Cowboy.

And those ancient Hebrews that you worship as the "Voice of God", weren't all the much different from the modern day Taliban.

The bible is not knowledge. It's a collection of superstitious fables.

Moreover you do worship the Bible as the "Word of God".

To worship something simple means to revere it highly.

You certainly appear to revere the Bible as being the verbatim infallible "Word of God".

That would indeed be worshiping the Bible as the "Word of God".

You may not be bowing down and paying homage to the actual doctrine.

But by revering the Bible as the verbatim infallible "Word of God" you are indeed worshiping that doctrine as the "Word of God".

And that's what Christianity is. It is nothing other than worshiping the Hebrews as the "Voice of God".

Without their scriptures, Christianity would not even exist.

It's just like Zeus. Without Greek Mythology Zeus would not even exist.

Same thing is true of the Hebrew fables. Without those stories the content and claims of the stories would not even exist.

There is no difference at all.

You choose to reject the fables of Zeus, and embrace the fables of Jesus.

That's all that Christianity amounts to. It's a believe in ancient stories. It is the worshiping of stories as though they represent the infallible story of "God".

Actually this is one of the few things in the Bible that actually makes some sense.

If God is a jealous egotist who wants to be the ultimate authority, and he created man and woman in his own image and likeness, then it shouldn't be any wonder than human men and women want to be jealous egotists who have ultimate authority over their own existence, and possible even authority over the existence of others.

That would have been where humans got there egotistical traits from. God himself. They were made in his image and likeness and this is why they are like him and they all seek to become the ultimate jealous authoritarians.

But then this God wants to put all these humans in their place, which would be mere lowly subjects to HIS AUTHORITY.

So evidently all he has done is create beings who have the same ambition to be FREE as he does, yet he expects them to all cower down under HIS AUTHORITY.

In other words, he refuses to do unto them how he would like people to do unto him.

He violates the very teachings of Jesus.

He wants to be treated as the ultimate jealous authoritarian, yet he refuses to treat anyone else as the ultimate jealous authoritarian.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Well, clearly this God would become extremely upset if anyone did unto him what he has done unto humans.

He would be extremely upset if he were placed into a situation where he had to cower down to the authority of someone else. That would burst his bubble altogether.

So this is just yet another example of how utterly absurd these stories are.

Why would God make us like him, if he didn't want us to be that egotistical?

Perhaps that was his fatal error.

Christianity has nothing to offer but doctrine.

It is necessarily a belief in doctrine.

If it weren't for the doctrine there would be nothing to believe.

It's nothing more than a belief that a specific canonized doctrine is the "Word of God".

That's what it is.

In fact, there are different versions of the doctrine and if you believe in a slightly different version of the doctrine then you would believe in Judaism or Islam, etc.

For someone who claims to not worship a doctrine you sure do post excerpts from the doctrine often enough, and you act as though the doctrine itself should be accepted as the verbatim perfect infallible "Word of God".

That certainly looks to me like someone worshiping a doctrine as the verbatim word of a God.

In fact, most Christians I know confess that their religion is indeed a faith-based belief in doctrine. This is why most Christians do not keep shoving the dogma in the face of non-believers. They fully understand that their religion is indeed a faith-based belief in doctrine and if someone else has no faith that the doctrine is true it would be silly to keep shoving it in their face.

Even most Christian clergy confess this to be the truth. They don't even attempt to deny it.

After all, why should a Christian be expected to deny the truth?

Many Christians hold the position that being truthful is the higher moral ground.

Christianity is a belief that a specific version of doctrine is the correct "Word of God". That's the truth.

Why deny the truth?

Yes you do respond to me. I'm a real person that you are talking with.

Besides, I'm not taking it personal as Cowboy versus Abra. I realize that you feel this way about all non-Christians.

I also realize that it is indeed the religion that is causing you to judge other people to "have already been told".

That's the lie of the religion itself. The doctrine itself proclaims that anyone who refuses to believe is "Without Excuse", which itself is a bogus claim.

There are plenty of rational reasons why everyone is perfectly justified in rejecting these stories as nonsense.

1. The stories contain utterly outrageous claims.
2. The stories are inconsistent with the character traits that their God is supposed to have.
3. The stories are only an arbitrary collection of stories to being with.
4. The stories themselves do not even proclaim that they will be formed into a single cannon.
5. The stories of the New Testament are confessed by the authors to be hearsay rumors.
6. Jesus neither wrote any of this stuff, nor did he even instruct anyone to write it down for future generations.
7. Even these stories themselves have Jesus proclaiming that all his prophecies will come to pass before the generation that he is speaking to live has passed:


Matt.24:34 Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.

Mark.13:30 Verily I say unto you, that this generation shall not pass, till all these things be done.

Luke.21:32 Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass away, till all be fulfilled.


So modern people today, even if they were willing to believe these stories, would be perfectly justified in believing that God has already taken whatever souls he wanted and we are nothing other than the decedents of the rejects.

There is absolutely no reason for anyone to believe that Jesus would be coming back some 2000 years later, or more.

8. The very behavior of the God in these fables is totally ungodly. He allows things to get way out of control before he acts to correct the problem and every time he goes to solve a problem he uses violent gory methods, and/or crude punishments as the solution.

There is nothing "all-wise" about that kind of behavior.

In fact, these fables teach people that the "all-wise" and godly way to solve problems is via ignorant crude violent methods of punishing people.

That's a horrible thing to be teaching people in the first place.

The idea that this God is being portrayed are our "Heavenly Father" makes it all the more disgusting. This implies that his behavior should be seen as a perfect and divine model for parenting.

I certainly disagree that crude punishments (often in the form of physical pain) are an "all-wise" approach for teaching and mentoring children.

Women are supposed to "learn a lesson" from painful childbirth that disobeying God is a bad thing to do and that they shouldn't do it?



Non-believers of these fables are supposed to believe that a perfect all-wise cosmic parent would resort to such a disgusting form of "punishment" just to make a point?

~~~~~

If I saw a human parent inflicting those kinds of punishments on their children for the purpose of teaching them "lessons" I would call the child abuse center. And I wouldn't think very highly of that human parent.

Yet the dogma that you support as the "Word of God" expects me to believe that this is the mentality of God?

~~~~~~~

So when I say to you, "Don't tell me that I have been told God's laws", or that I have no excuse for not believing in these utterly absurd and often quite disgusting fables, I'm stating that in general.

It is this dogma that put that into your head. That's where you got these ideas from. All you are doing is regurgitating the dogma.

All I am doing is regurgitating it right back onto you.

As long as you (a supporter of this dogma) are going continually accuse people like me (someone who flatly rejects these absurdities) as having "no excuse" for not believing that these hideous stories are the "Word of God", then I'm going to take personal offense to that.

I am not taking personal offense from YOU specifically. I take offense from the very authors of this dogma. I am offended by the claims of the dogma itself.

It claims that I have no excuse for not believing that its utterly absurd and hideous stories came from an all-wise divine being.

I am more than rationally justified in rejecting such absurd and hideous stories.

The authors of these fables may have somehow convinced you that you have no excuse for not believing them. But they haven't even come close to convincing me of such nonsense.

I am not afraid to look OUTSIDE of the claims being made by those authors to the bigger picture of humanity. And when I do that I recognize the following things:

1. The Old Testament isn't any more believable than Greek Mythology.
2. It's a lie that Jesus fulfilled the prophecies of the OT.
(even the Jews didn't fall for that one)
3. Even the accounts of Jesus have Jesus renouncing the immoral teachings of the OT or Torah.
4. It's clearly that the New Testament itself was quite belated rumors about the life of Jesus.
5. It's unreasonable to expect that any second-hand quotes of someone could be retained to the degree of perfect verbatim accuracy that the New Testament authors claim.
6. The idea that Jesus was actually rejecting the immorality of the Torah and instead trying to replace it with far higher morals from other spiritual philosophies such as Buddhism actually makes PERFECT SENSE.
7. The idea that the New Testament is nothing more than superstitious rumors and false claim about his man named Jesus also makes PERFECT SENSE.

8. And finally, the idea that some all-wise God would be party to having his only begotten son nailed to a pole by humans for the sake of proving a way for humans to obtain forgiveness for their sins, is IMHO, utterly unbelievable and utterly absurd.

~~~~

So not only do I have perfectly rational and reasonable excuses to reject these superstitious rumors about Jesus, but it actually makes far more sense to me to reject them rather than to accept them.

Just because these fables have convinced you that there is no excuse for not believing in them doesn't make it so.

And the "you" in the previous sentence applies to everyone who has been convinced that there is no excuse for not believing in the biblical fables.

That's just part of the brainwashing technique that is included in this dogma itself.

The dogma itself has been chosen when it was canonized to only include stories that are designed to try to convince the reader that to refuse to believe in the dogma is itself one of the greatest offenses that can be committed against God.

This is precisely what religious authoritarians were trying to create. They were trying to create a religious dogma that would trump all other religions.

Believe in our religion or you are an offense against God!

There is NO EXCUSE for not believing in OUR religion!

Baloney!

This religion was created by humans in an attempt to create a religion that would trump all other religions.

It starts out commanding: 1. "Put no other God's before OURS!"

And it ends up proclaiming: 2. "You are without excuse to not believe in OUR religion!"

These are both nothing more than man-made religious propaganda.

The latter is clearly an outright lie. There are tons of quite sane and rational reasons for not believing that these fables have anything to do with any all-wise supreme being.

So Paul wasn't special.

And Buddha probably talked with God too then.

I see.

Oh wow!

Even Paul only got to talk with Jesus.

Here you are having in depth conversations with God the father.

I had no clue!

Here I am talking directly with someone on the Internet who is closer to God than Paul was.

Gee, lucky me.

Well, of course it's my choice.

But you keep posting in response to my posts about "Obeying God".

And you keep posting in response to my posts verses quoted directly from the New Testament, as they they are the "VOICE OF GOD".

How many years have I been telling you know that I don't believe that the New Testament can be TRUSTED to be the VOICE OF GOD?


When are you going to STOP and say,...


Ok Abra, I understand now. You have legitimate reasons to believe that the New Testament is untrustworthy and that Jesus was not the only begotten son of Yahweh.

But You NEVER STOP!

You continaully keep on implying that I am REFUSING to OBEY God by how you respond to my posts, and you KEEP on posting verses from the New Testament like as if I should believe that they represent the actual verbatim WORD of Jesus and that I should accept that as being the authority of God HIMSELF?

And you KEEP on telling me You have been told the laws by God!

No I haven't been told anything by God Cowboy.

All you keep offering are the same old untrustworthy hearsay rumors

Clearly you aren't UNDERSTANDING my position, or you'd simply acknowledge, and say to me:

Ok Abra, I understand now. You have legitimate reasons to believe that the New Testament is untrustworthy and that Jesus was not the only begotten son of Yahweh.

~~~~~

If you want to believe that the Bible is the word of God more power to you

That's your shared belief.

It is my shared belief that I see no reason to believe that the Bible has anything to do with God.

So quit telling me "YOU'VE BEEN TOLD THE LAWS OF GOD".

No, I haven't. All I've been shown is totally unbelievable and utterly absurd hearsay rumors. NOTHING MORE.

Sorry, typo there.

I actually meant to add comments onto my own quote.

I went back and edited it.

I also take extreme offense when people suggest that I am 'refusing to obey God' just because I refuse to believe that our creator is as sick and demented as the Biblical stories demand.

That's absurd.

~~~~

And that is all you ever do Cowboy.

All you ever do is suggest that anyone who refuses to believe that God is as sick and perverted as the Bible demands, is refusing to 'obey God'.

No.

I'm refusing to believe that God is that sick and perverted Cowboy.

And that's all there is to it.

See, there you go again Cowboy,

Attempting to justify the condemnation of a person simply because they don't believe in Christianity.

This is all you ever do. You continually justify a God who condemns people for utterly PETTY REASONS.

Christianity is a train-wreck of a religion.

Judaism started out with Adam and Eve and was a story that was supposedly about morality willful disobedience.

But now Christianity has taken that religion and turned it into a religion where they justify this God to condemn anyone just for merely not believing in Christianity.

This is precisely the SCAM Cowboy.

They USED Jesus to build this SCAM.

Jesus himself, was probably a VICTIM of the whole thing.

Jesus was most likely a mortal man who taught against the immoralities of the Torah (which had already clearly gotten way out of hand as we well know). The Torah had people judging each other and stoning each other to death, and seeking revenges as in an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.

In fact, they often took that literally and would actually cut the hands off of thieves and so forth. They were extremely brutal back then as the Crucifixion of Jesus clearly demonstrates.

Jesus taught against all those horrible immoral teaching and instead he tried to teach morals that were far more in line with the most popular forum of Buddhism at the time which was Mahayana Buddhism.

In Mahayana Buddhism the a Buddhist monk would become a Bodhisattva, and the very mission of a Bodhisattva was indeed to go around seeking disciples and teachings the masses how to obtain spiritual enlightenment and become "Born Again".

This is what Jesus did. He taught the same things that are taught in Mahayana Buddhism. He and God are One. We are all Gods. And Jesus taught us how to be BORN AGAIN into the spirit of God, which is the Buddhist Enlightenment.

Jesus rejected the immorality of the Torah.

Jesus was crucified for his views.

After he died there was much controversy over this man who taught nothing but LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR and people were natually asking, "Who was this man who spoke with such authority" (Which is what we would be expect people to say about a Mahayana Buddhist Monk).

Rumors sprung up and the Scribes and Pharisees were having difficulty with this. Someone came up with the idea that Jesus might have been the messiah prophecised in the Old Testament.

The Scribes and Pharisees realized that they could use this to their advantage. And so they created the New Testament using Jesus as the son of Yahweh, and the final Sacrificial Lamb which everyone must accept in order to be cleansed of their sins and thus "SAVED".

And that was the birth of Christianity.

Even then the religious authorities had to actually ram their New Testament down the throats of the people via sword-point and threats of death to anyone who refuses to accept these rumors as the "HOLY SCRIPTURES".

All other rumors about Jesus were quickly SILENCED and destroyed. Yet even so, many of those rumors have even survived today and historians recognize that in the very early days of Christianity the greatest arguments over who Jesus was and what he was all about took place among the early "Christians" not all of whom were prepared to accept that Jesus was "The Christ".

You believe the New Testament version of these events.

I don't.

From my perspective they are themselves "ungodly" and do not even begin represent the type of behavior that I would expect from a genuinely all-wise loving intelligent God.

I don't believe that any God could be as sick and demented as the God depicted in the Torah (even Jesus himself clearly did not agree with the morality of those teachings).

And I don't believe in a God who is appeased by blood sacrifices. Or who would ask humans to condone a bloody crucifixion of an innocent man on their behalf to "pay" for their sins.

I see no wisdom in this, nor anything divine nor godly.

It a sick perverted notion, IMHO.

I see absolutely no reason to believe than any supposedly all-wise divine God would stoop that LOW.

So no, Cowboy, I don't believe that Jesus was the sacrificial lamb of Yahweh.

No way.

If you believe that God spoke from a cloud proclaiming that Jesus was his son, then you believe things just because you were told about them or read about them in some ancient fable.

Unless you were there of course.

Which I doubt. You don't look old enough to have been there to me.

Witness what?

The religious bigotry being spread in the name of Jesus as "The Christ" by a culture that had no better moral values than the Tailaban.

No thank you Cowboy.

I would far rather tell people that I believe that Jesus was a misunderstood Mahayana Buddhist Bodhisattva who actually tried to teach FAR BETTER MORALS than had been taught in the Torah.

And that he was crucified for his views and efforts, and he was never any "sacrificial lamb" of some sick demented God that is appeased by blood sacrifices. Jesus taught against that kind of sick perverted immorality.

Then rumors emerge after his crucifixion that he was "The Christ". And the same Scribes and Pharisees that had Jesus nailed to the pole turned those rumors into the scam of the New Testament to support the very bigotry and religious hatred that Jesus himself had renounced.

You worship the enemies of Jesus. And you hold up their hateful rhetoric.

I recognize that Jesus was a victim of the whole godforsaken thing.

First they nailed him to the Cross, and then they nailed him to the Torah as the "Sacrificial Lamb of Yahweh" to support the very teachings that Jesus himself worked so hard to renounce.

Besides, do you really want any parts of a God who shoots craps with human souls Cowboy?

The whole biblical picture of God is a picture of a creator who shoots craps with human souls and LOSES far more souls than he creates.

Try a pantheistic view of God for a change. That is a picture of a God who never loses a single solitary soul.

Not one soul is lost. Ever.

If you want to talk about a "Perfect Creator" Cowboy it doesn't get any better than that. There can be no greater perfection than a creator who never loses a single solitary soul. There can be no greater unconditional love.

All of the highest ideals that you seek are in Pantheism.

All the things that you claim to hate, are in the Abrahamic picture of God.

Wake up and realize that Jesus was a victim of a culture that was no better than the Taliaban.

No decent righteous God would have his son nailed to a pole to appease himself so that he could forgive the sins of men. And then expect people to actually condone this kind of sickness on their behalf lest he casts them into eternal damnation.

Talk about something that is utterly sick and perverted Cowboy.

There is nothing divine or righteous in that picture at all.

It can't be "godly" it's far too sick and demented.

Why do you keep supporting such a sick demented picture of a God?

It can only be because you have become convinced that this is the only way that you can personally be saved from the eternal damnation yourself.

It's got to be either fear-driven. Or lust-driven in the hopes that you'll hit the Spiritual Lottery and appease this God enough to obtain the gift of eternal life that he supposedly offers.

I guess as long as you lack faith that there actually exists a truly divine and righteous God you'll continue to cling to this picture of a God who casts most of his created souls into eternal damnation.

~~~~~

And evidently even you don't want to believe in the eternal damnation part of it. You want to make it into something a little bit "nicer" where you either just win the eternal life or you don't, but God isn't going to actually harm you if you fail to qualify for the gift of eternal life.

Or maybe you are so convinced that you're holding a WINNING TICKET already you don't really need to concern yourself about what might happen to a loser if this picture of God is real.

I don't know if you remember the forum member called "Smiles" from some time ago. But he used to say, that he'll be glad to go to this God's heaven, but only if he's the LAST ONE to enter.

In other words, if anyone is going to hell, he's going with them as a matter of principle and protests.

I would feel the same way if this biblical picture of God were true.

I would become a TRUE PROTESTANT and protest against this God directly!

I have no interest in any hellish heaven that would be nothing more than an exclusive club reserved only for those people who were selfish enough to condone having Jesus butchered on a pole to pay for their sins.

I'd rather go to hell and damnation.