The real question is why do so many people throughout the ages have such a need to have an answer for comfort, based upon faith, not upon truth ??

Interesting what we grasp onto….
In a book written 1500 years ago by primitive hut dwellers…
(500 years and approximately 25 generations of verbal passed down myth-stories after Jesus may or may not have lived)
God tells man not to eat an apple, but a talking snake tells man to eat it, so.. man listens to the talking snake…. God is upset (a loving, forgiving god ??), so he immaculately inseminates a woman (if not by her choice–rape ??, if she was married to Joseph at the time—adultery ??) and she gives birth to him/his son so he can suffer and die for us (Jesus chooses to die for us–suicide ??) because we sinned when we listened to the talking snake and ate an apple.. what a strange story…

I contend that we are all atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than religious people do. When religious “believers” understand why they dismiss all possible gods and religions except for their one “true” god , they will understand why I dismiss theirs.
The day people lose the fear of the threat of burning in hell will be the first intellectually free day of their life. Christianity and its rules and threats and prejudices was created by hut-dwellers thousands of years ago in order to gain power over their fellow human beings. New religions continue to crop up constantly in much the same way Christianity originally did- look at the Mormons, Scientologists and other less-successful religions. Christianity actually is like many religions, resurrection, virgin birth, god lives in heaven, etc….
The basis of religion and believing in Jesus is fear…. fear of going to hell (another man made myth–hell)
fear of what happens to us when we die. fear of God punishing us… (many examples especially in the old testament)
all of the stories, myths, fairytales about Jesus, including Jesus is God, were written hundreds of years after his death by primitive hut dwellers….
look at the big picture, Jesus is just another God in a long line of man-made Gods… during Jesus time, mankind was moving from polytheism to monotheism…. there were many “messiahs” ( 7 or 8 major ones) during Jesus life… Constantine helped Christianity become the big religion by making it the official religion of Rome.
Again, think about how ridiculous and unbelievable all of the other gods and religions are to you, and you will see why the Jesus myth is just another imaginary… (another word for faith) belief system.

Two things are needed to become a religious person….
1) exposure to religion… you are a Christian because you are surrounded by it, if you lived in a Hindu community you would gravitate toward.. I think you get my drift
2) a personal need and weakness…. religious people are less responsible for their actions and consequences, they lean on religion to help them deal with life, and use it as an excuse for their actions (religion is imaginary, a delusion, therefore actually a type of psychosis)

The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud

Well, there was a time when I believed in Christianity and was even sincerely thinking about the possibility of becoming a preacher. After all who wouldn't want to teach the "Word of God" if that's truly what the Bible is?

However, I must add here that in truth, I didn’t truly believe in “Christianity”, what I believed in was my parents and the adults around me. They were the ones who told me that this is the true word of God and they were the ones I “believed in”. I simply didn’t know enough about what was actually in the Bible to even say whether I actually believe it or not.

However, once I began to consider preaching “God’s Word”, I began to ask the hard questions. Not because I was challenging the truth of the Bible, but because, if I was going to be teaching the story I should have a full grasp and understand of precisely what the story is so I can answer and clarify these tough questions for others.

Well, it was when I began to actually read the Bible and search for answers to hard questions that I began to realize the answers simply aren’t clear. Not only did I begin to realize that answers aren’t clear, but I also starting becoming quite ‘turned off’ by some of the things I that are actually in the Bible. The more I read, the more “Hard Questions” kept popping up. I found contradictions, and situations that I personally felt that were not handled well by “god” at all.

By this time I’m having very little difficulty in questioning the ‘wisdom’ of God in these stories. And I’m also becoming ‘suspicious’ about whether these stories truly are the ‘word of God’.

I might stop and tell you at this point that while my family was quite religious and even some of my uncles were preachers, they weren’t ‘fire-and-brimstone’ preachers. No one in our family was a religious ‘fanatic’ or ‘fundamentalist’. Religion was never a ‘problem’ for me in terms of my family. It wasn’t ‘shoved’ onto me in a mean way, or anything like that. It was always presented to me in a very loving way, and questions about it were embraced, not discouraged. Even if they couldn’t be answered. Often times the answer was quite simply, “We just have to have faith”. However, for me, that answer is a non-answer.

It soon became vividly apparent to me is that the answers to the hard questions are not going to be found in the Bible. And that reading the Bible is only raising far more questions than answers.

Now whilst some of my uncles were preachers, others were actually atheists. This did not tear the family apart. On the contrary the preachers and atheists would often sit down and have very civil philosophical discussions about these things. It wouldn’t even be correct to refer to them as ‘debates’ because no one was attempting to convince anyone of anything. They were merely sharing their different views and why they each feel the way they do.

Like you, I’m not an atheist. I’m totally convinced that there is something going on that is far grander than just a mere freak random accident that occurred haphazardly out of some cosmic junk. And I might add here that I’ve been a physicist all my life, I’ve taught physic and mathematics both, and I’m fully aware of all the scientific theories. I fully understand those theories (at least as well as any physicist) and I have no problem with them in general. However, all that science does is describe how this universe behaves. It looks at the universe ‘behaving’ and it describes that behavior. But that is not an “explanation” of why it behaves the way it does. All that science amounts to is a description that explains things “after the fact”.

I like the way that Stephen Hawking put it: “What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe?”

He fully understand that science is nothing more than a description of what we see happening all around us. Science can say nothing of how it truly came to be in the first place. Sure they can go back to the Big Bang and describe how it ‘unfolded’ but that’s still just a description of what’s happening. It doesn’t explain why it came to be that way.

In any case, I didn’t mean to go off on a tangent into science. But my point is that science does not, and cannot, replace theism. I’ve always believed in spirituality. However, I’ve always intuitively felt that I have always existed and always will exist. So that is also an innate intuitive feeling I have. That feeling is so profound I can intuitively say that I know that it’s true. But obviously there is nothing ‘logical’ that I can offer to support it.

Now getting back to the Bible. I’ve always agreed with the moral teaching of Jesus. In fact, I agree with them so much that this in itself is a bit problematic. In other words, I have nothing to ‘learn’ from Jesus. As I read his moral position on things I simply nod my head in agreement and acknowledge that I agree.

But isn’t that strange? Why should I already have the same moral values as Jesus? Could it be that he was simply offering wisdom that any sane wise person should already know?

This raises the question of why there are genuinely sick people in the world. Are their truly ‘evil’ people? Or are their just ‘sick’ people?

My mother was a saint. I mean, seriously. My mother didn’t smoke, drink (not even socially), or do anything like that. I never hard my mother swear or cuss. The closest she would ever come to cussing would be to say something like “Oh darn”, and even then she’d put her hand over her lips like as if she has said something wrong. My mother went to church every Sunday and to Bible Studies every Wednesday night for as long as I can remember. Even at times when we were financially hurting she would scrap together her little pile of change and take it to church to put in the tithe plate. My father died when I was nine. My mother never remarried or even so much as dated another man. She never had a harsh word toward anyone.

In fact, when we’d be watching the News and some horrible rapist or serial killer was caught and other people in the room would say things like “Good, I hope he gets the maximum punishment!”, my mother would say, “Awe, I feel so sorry for him. He must be sick”. In a way, I think she was a bit like me (or I guess I should say that I’m a bit like her), instead of thinking in terms of sin, we tend to think in terms of being either healthy or sick. How can a genuinely healthy person do such horrible things? They must be sick.

Sorry, I keep getting off on tangents. Getting back to Jesus. I agree with the teachings of Jesus. But isn’t it a bit ironic that I simply agree with him? I haven’t truly learned anything NEW from his teachings. All I do is nod my head in agreement, and it’s quite refreshing too after having read the Old Testament picture of “God”.

So this brings up an interesting question. Why do I find the Old Testament God so unwise, and disagree with his ways, and yet I find the New Testament God to be in perfect harmony with my thinking?

Well, here’s a thought. Maybe they have nothing to do with each other? Maybe Jesus isn’t the Son of Yahweh and was instead something else?

Well this weighed on my mind for many years. This was a long drawn out process for me. It didn’t happen over night. However in the meantime I had given up on becoming a preacher (mainly due to two reasons). 1. Because I couldn’t justify many of the things in the Old Testament. And 2. Because I couldn’t explain nor justify* why it was necessary for Jesus to be crucified to pay for our sins.

* Well, actually I could ‘justify’ Jesus as a ‘sacrificial lamb of God’, IF I actually believed in and agreed with the behavior of the God of the Old Testament. Because that God apparently was appeased by blood sacrifices. However, I could never even find a decent explanation to even justify that. Moreover, it ‘smelled’ too much like Greek Mythology and many other mythologies. Gods being appeased by blood sacrifices was a common theme in mythologies. Why would the “REAL” creator of the universe just coincidently also be appeased by blood sacrifices? Also why would God need to ‘sacrifice himself to himself” that makes even less sense. Plus having men angrily nail him to a pole does not constitute a genuine ‘sacrifice’ anyway. So the whole “sacrificial lamb” thing just can’t be justified, IMHO. At least not in a way that I can sincerely and genuinely support.

Let’s also not forget that Jesus did not even teach the same moral values as Yahweh. That’s pretty clear to everyone. Even the Christians LOVE Jesus. I’m not so sure they are all that happy with Yahweh. It’s JESUS they love, not Yahweh.

So as I continued on my own spiritual journey I discovered things like Buddhism and Hinduism, and so forth. They were difficult to understand and often confusing. Especially things like Zen Buddhism which is quite popular today. Zen Buddhism is almost a form of glorified atheism. However it’s a far cry from the original Buddhism of Siddhartha which was far more spiritual.

I studied Buddhism for quite some time. Both, “practicing” the various techniques as well as studying the history of it. What I found is that Buddhism is as diverse as the Abraham religions. It has many different ‘sects’ and ‘denominations’ (if you want to call them that). Then I ran across something quite profound. And that is called Mahayana Buddhism. Mahayana Buddhism teaches moral values extremely similar to what Jesus taught. It also emphasized the importance of a concept called “Bodhisattva”. A bodhisattva is a person who dedicated their life to helping others find their enlightenment. In fact, it was a tradition of Mahayana Buddhism to not even taken in students unless they vowed to become a bodhisattva after they had reached enlightenment. The most interesting thing about all of this is that this particular style of Buddhism was actually at it’s peak just around the time when Jesus would have lived and taught.

Armed with this new insight, and realizing the following two things. 1. India isn’t all that far from Israel actually, and 2. Jesus was actually missing from the New Testament story from the time he was 12 until he returned at about 30. More than enough time to travel to India, and become a Mahayana Buddhist Bodhisattva.

I’m not saying this happened. In fact, Jesus could have actually learned Mahayana Buddhism at home. Even the Bible mentions “wise men from the East” quite often. So the Buddhism could have come to Jesus.

In any case, with this new insight and understanding. It makes far more sense to me that what Jesus was actually teaching was the moral values of Buddhism. It makes perfect sense actually because the teachings of Jesus were totally different from the teachings in the Old Testament, yet they are in perfect harmony with the teachings of Buddhism (especially with the teaching of Mahayana Buddhism).

So today, that is my conclusion. Jesus was not the son of Yahweh. He was a man who taught far better morals than had been taught in the Torah. And he probably did say things like “I and the Father are One”, and “Ye are also gods”, etc. Because Buddhists believe in Pantheism (.i.e. All are God).

And so he was cruficied for blaspheme. For claiming to be “god” and for teaching things that weren’t in harmony with the Old Teachings of Yahweh.

It makes perfect sense. Far more sense than the idea that Jesus was the sacrificial lamb of Yahweh.

At least that’s my conclusion.

I still believing in “god” and spirituality. I was never an atheist at any point in my entire life. I just no longer believe that the Bible is the “Word of God”. But Jesus is cool. Nothing wrong with the moral values he taught. It's a shame he met with such a horrible death. But I seriously do not believe that was any surpreme plan of God to 'pay' for the salavation of men.

Well of course this is what the dogma claims. This is indeed the whole obscessive focal point of the religion.

It's a dogma that is utterly OBSCESSED with SIN.

That's one of the things that makes the religion so disgusting. It's so obscessed with sin that it's unhealthy.

Even the crucifixion of Jesus to pay for the salvation of man is a gory sick idea.



Oh no, I'm not Jesus. I wouldn't go around losing my temper overturning money tables in a public square. I don't even have that sin to confess. No, I'm even more free from sin than Jesus was.

I guess that's just another reason why the story makes no sense to me. How can a man who wasn't even as free from sin as myself offer to die for my sins? That makes no sense at all.

I have no sins to atone. So I have no need for anyone who is offering to atone sins. The gospels claim that Jesus himself said that he did not come for the righteous but for the sinners. So Jesus wasn’t here for me anyway by his own proclamation according to the gospels.

None the less, I do agree with most of what Jesus supposedly taught. Although, since all we have from the man is extremely biased hearsay of attempts to paint him as the sacrificial lamb of Yahweh, as you describe above, then it’s really hard to say how much of the gospels actually came from Jesus, and how much of it is made up gobbledygook. This is why I must reject the Bible as even being a reliable representation of Jesus.

The best I can do with regard to Jesus is to recognize that he probably was a really nice guy and he probably did stand up for moral values that I would personally support.

Buddha, on the other hand did not ask for any followers. He ever proclaimed that he has any desire to be the King of Kings or Lord of Lords or that every knee shall bow to him or that every tongue shall confess that he is LORD.

So Buddha isn’t even asking anyone to ‘follow’ him. Buddha is simply sharing his insights into the human condition and the secrets of life itself. And of course he’s doing this in a way that is compatible with the philosophical and spiritual belief system of the culture in which he was raised. Not unlike the way that the authors of the New Testament painted Jesus into the philosophical and spiritual belief system of their culture.

First and foremost Buddah taught spiritual sovereignty, if you ‘follow’ the teachings of Buddha one of the first things you’ll begin to realize is that he is telling you that you should not follow him, but rather you should follow your own inner spirit. He then goes about sharing with you his own spiritual journey in the hope that his experiences may help you in your own quest for spiritual sovereignty.

The truly interesting thing is that both Jesus and Buddha taught the very same path. Yet one man is said to have taught a path to spiritual sovereignty, whilst the other man is said to be lusting to become the King of Kings and Lord of Lords to rule over you.

However, in all truthfulness Jesus NEVER SAID that he wants to be the King of Kings and Lord of Lords and have every knee bow to him and ever tongue confess that he is Lord. But somehow that absurd notion got into the Bible and therefore becomes the “Word of God” in Jesus’ name we pray.

This is why the Bible is so full of baloney, IMHO. It contains so much contorted trivial and blatantly egoistical crap, that truly never even came from the mouth of Jesus. Most things that are actually attributed to Jesus are far more in line with what Buddha taught, and not at all in line with all the rest of the crap that’s in the “Holy Bible”.

For this reason (among others) I personally believe that Jesus was indeed a Mahayana Buddhist who was actually attempting to bring the wisdom of Buddha to his own people, but was unfortunately crucified by a mob on charges of blaspheme after only a few short years of attempting to teach the wisdom and love of Buddha.

I don’t believe for one second that Jesus was the “sacrificial lamb of Yahweh”. I personally find that whole notion to be quite unattractive and ignorant on many levels. I do not believe that Jesus was born of a virgin. I do not believe that a voice came from the sky saying, “This is my beloved son in whom I’m well pleased”. I do not believe that Jesus rose from the dead.

Jesus was a mortal man, not at all unlike Buddha. He probably had the very same message to share. It is extremely unfortunate for everyone that Jesus was crucified for his efforts and ended up being used as a patsy by an uncouth religious regime to create a doctrine claiming that Jesus was the “sacrifical lamb of Yahweh” just so they could use him to prop up the very same religious doctrine that Jesus himself obviously disagreed with.

That’s my conclusions about what happened to poor innocent Jesus.

And it truly saddens me to see people falling for that tale and support it to use Jesus to prop up the bigotry, ignorance, and prejudices, of the Old Testament. The very things that Jesus himself tried so wisely and cautiously to renounce.

IMHO, Christianity is about as anti-Jesus as anything can possibly be.

That's clearly a matter of personal belief and faith.



This is true, but in vastly different ways. There's a humongous difference between the way that this is veiwed in Eastern Mystcism verses in Christianity. In Christinaity it is placed in terms of appeasing the desires, wants and demands of a Godhead (which includes supporting a particular religion and dogma I might add)

In Eastern Mysticism it's about coming to the realization that your true nature is divine. It's about losing the illusion of being Seperate from God. With Chrsitianity it's just the opposite. Christianity views the idea of seeing one's self as divine as 'blaspheme'. That's a big no-no.




But again, that picture is frowned upon in terms of actually becoming one with God whilst you're still in human form. Instead it's entirely focused on a "judgement day" that supposedly happens only after this life is over.

So in short, in Christianity you must WAIT UNTIL YOU DIE, before you can become one with God. But in Eastern Mysticism you can become one with God right now.




For me, this has nothing at all to do with any modern day "Christians". People who merely follow the religoin.

From my point of view, the superiority, hypocrisy, and prejudice is "Built-into" the doctrine. It's a fundamental property of the stories. It has absolutely nothing to do with any modern day "followers" of the religion.

For example you say:



I'm in complete agreement with this. In fact, I have nothing bad to say about Jesus himself either. Although I confess that I might reject some of the things that some authors might have attributed to Jesus.

But the problem I have with "Christianity" (and again I'm speaking of the actual doctrine and not the modern day followers), is that in order to accept that Jesus is the Son of Yahweh automatically uses Jesus to endorse everything that's in the Old Testament, as well as much of the writings of Paul and others in the New Tesatment who have used Jesus as an excuse to drege up nasty stuff from the Old Testament.

For example did Jesus himself say anything at all about homosexuality?

No.

Did Jesus himself make any comments that were male-chauvinistic?

No.

Did Jesus himself say antything about heathens being unrighteous?

No.

On the contrary, Jesus actually called the scribes and pharisees hypocrites.

But yet, taken as a complete doctrine, in order to endorse Jesus as the son of Yahweh a person must also endorse the WHOLE DOCTRINE. And it's in that very endorsement where the hypocricy and predjudices etc, seep in.

You can't endorse Jesus as the "Son of Yahweh" without also endoring Yahweh as God.

This is why I would much prefer to endorse Buddha. Buddah taught the preicse same moral values as Jesus, however Buddah doesn't carry with him the baggage of all the predjudices and hypocrisy that Jesus brings via the idea that he's the "Only Begotten Son of Yahweh"

That's the straw that breaks the camel's back right there.

You can't worship Jesus without also endorsing Yahweh.

That's like telling me that I can't worship Jesus without also endorsing Zeus. Only Yahweh is even worse than Zeus in some respects.

So I'd rather follow the teachings of Buddah. He may not be the son of any ficticous God. But at least he doesn't bring all the baggage of that with him either.

Jesus has not only been nailed to the cross, but he has also been nailed to the Old Testament. And that's the deal breaker for me.

And who is God in this case?

Yahweh?

No wonder I'm not listening.

I have absolutely NO RESPECT for Yahweh.

None. Zip, Zilch, Nada.

Well, be prepared to stand in awe because I'm about to agree with you again. Although only after I correct some major flaws in your observations.

You say:


This is actually quite misleading and basically incorrect if it is meant to be an analogy with evolution.

First off, evolution did not occur via apples, and it didn't occur in week. It would be IMPOSSIBLE to explain how apples could get into a the pattern you describe on their own in a week. But then again, no explanation is require because that NEVER happens.

On the other hand, evolution can be explained and has been explained in quite some depth. There's no problem with the theory of evolution. There is no need to have a "God" consciously guide the process of evolution.

If this universe was created by a God, that God used evolution as it's means to allow the universe to evolve on its own without any need for God to "babysit it". That's just a fact of scientific discovery and knowledge.

The REAL QUESTION is not "How do things evolve on their own?". We already know the answer to that question. The REAL QUESTION is, "Why is the universe made of just a handful of elements that CAN evolve into such complex systems sucn as self-sentient beings?"

That's the real question.

If there is such a thing as "Intelligent Design" it occurred PRIOR to the Big Bang. There was no need for any conscious Godhead to watch over the process and guide it or 'babysit' it during the evolution of the universe. Everything required for the evolution of life had already been "Designed into the universe" right at the Big Bang.

The question now becomes, "Was this indeed by design?, or did it just happen to be that way?"

I actually tend to agree with you.

I feel that the chances that it just happened by random accident for no reason is so absurd that I dismiss it altogether. That leaves the only other possibility, it was indeed by design in some way.

But again, this points to a pantheistic picture of the world. Not a picture of a Zeus-like, or Yahweh like godhead who stands over the universe as some sort of external magician guiding every little things and passing judgements on each and every little inhabitant.

Pantheism - Yes.

A Human-like Monotheistic Baby-sitting Intervening Judging Godhead?

I just don't see it.

Like I always say, if God can just speak to crowds of humans and say things like "This is my son in whom I'm well pleased", then why play hide-and-seek with us?

Obviously if this kind of God WANTS to communicate he could. Yet it never happens. Yeah sure, some people claim it happens to them. But let's face it, it doesn't happen to most people who are indeed sincere in their desire to know their creator.

And to even take that further that this supposedly personified judgemental Godhead would expect everyone to worship a religion that came out of the Middle East makes absolutely no sense at all.

Especially considering all the things that this God was said to have done! Asking people to stone sinners to death? Asking people to murder heathens? Condoning male-chauvinism to the point of actually stating that female slaves should only be worth half as much as male slaves, etc.

I mean. Come on?

I sure do disagree with the statement that more faith is required to be atheist.

Letting go of man made religions freed my mind and soul.

Illogical drives me crazy.

And then one has to believe in superiority, hypocrisy and prejudice to be a part of the Christian based religions.

Believing that man is some kind of out of control creature that needs a god to control him and punish him when he is bad is too immature of a belief for me. I have outgrown the need for a parent figure to bail me out, reassure me, spank me, etc....

I do too. But that doesn't send me running off to worship Zeus.

In fact, as far as I'm concenred Eastern Mysticism is the best spiritual "theory" we have.

The idea of an egotistical judgemental Godhead who created us to become his eternal pets is a bit absurd for my taste.



That would be an interesting "proof" to hear. I might be inclinded to potentially give it some support. Or, I might see a gapping flaw in it, in which case I wouldn't hesitate to point it out.

belief and practice arent the same thing,,,, one can believe adultery is wrong and still commit it (hence the feeling some have of 'guilt')

when we define PRACTICES we generally refer to specific religions and their rules,,,ie whether one is Christian, Buddhist, Catholic,,,etc,,

when we define BELIEF, we are generally referring to theism, atheism, or agnosticism