One problem here though is that Christianity is not based solely on the teaching of Jesus. If it were that would be great, but it's clearly not.

Jesus is inextricably tied to the teachings of the Old Testament. Jesus may have changed some obvious things, like he was against the stoning of sinners which religious people were clearly still doing in his day as commanded by the God of Abraham. He also rejected an eye-for-an-eye and preached turn-the-other-cheek.

But Christians still root around in the old testament for reasons to be bigoted. Like being against homosexuality for example. That's certainly not something that Jesus taught.

Far too many people claim to be following the teachings of Jesus, but they also don't stop there, they are constantly rooting around in the Old Testament to find things to be judgmental about.

A lot of people tried to pull Jesus out of the Bible. A religion based on Jesus alone would not be a bad religion. But that's not the way it is. The very fact that Jesus was nailed to a cross to pay for the sins of man also nailed him to the Old Testament. His blood sacrifice would be meaningless if the God of Abraham had not previous demanded blood sacrifices to pay for sins.

Christians keep trying to claim that Christianity is "all about Jesus". But that very ideology can't fly. Jesus is permanently moored to the Old Testament. He cannot fly on his own.

I often see the term "Chruchianity" as an being nothing more than a feeble attempt to disassociate Jesus from the ancient ways and bigotry of the Old Testament. But that can never work.

Christianity is not all about Jesus and can never be all about Jesus. It's a religion that is based on the entire biblical picture. A picture of a God who once demanded blood sacrifices to pay for sins. In fact, the very idea of the crucifixion of Christ "paying" for the sins of man has not meaning outside of that original blood-thirsty God.

People can't seem to realize this. The crucifixion of Jesus makes not sense outside of the concept of the God of Abraham needing to be appeased by blood sacrifices. And therein lies one of the biggest contradictions of all. The very idea is that Jesus is this God of Abraham, or at the very least his Son (but not entirely a separate God in his own right). So ultimately this is a picture of a God who send himself as a blood sacrifices to appease himself.

Place on top of that the very weird idea that God could not forgive mankind his sins unless mankind was willing to sin at lease one more time by murdering his son in a very horrific and gruesome manner.

I very honestly can't see how anyone can make sense of such a twisted story.

I very honestly can't see how the creator of this universe could possibly expect any intelligent person to believe such a demented story much less get peeved at them for not believing it.

If I'm guilty of anything I'm guilty of not believing in something I see as being totally absurd.

Woe is me! I guess I deserve to be cast into eternal damnation for that terrible sin!

How dare I think that God should be reasonable.

I should be sorely ashamed of myself, but for someone reason I'm not.

I seriously don't believe that the creator of this universe is like this biblical story. From my point of view life would be a nightmare if he was.

I would rather hope the atheists are right than the biblical picture of God!

Fortunately there are other pictures of God to believe in. Pictures of a truly wise and wonderful God.

How did my rant about the perception some have about christians turn into a "jesus" thread?

Because in your rant thread, you accused me of bashing Christians.

I would hope you could realize that is just not the case.

JB

Because that's the perception.

The perception is that Christianity is all about Jesus.

Wouldee said that to bash Christinity is to bash Jesus.

That's actually the post I was responding to. I believe I did quote him.

(edited to add)

I think the bottom line is that a lot of people try to claim that to question the Bible and point out potential flaws or inconsistences in it utlimately equate to insults.

If they can't claim that "Christians" are being insuted, then they try to claim that it is an insult to Jesus.

Neither claim is valid. Questioning ancient stories should not be considered to be an insult to anyone. It's just an intellectual inquiry and not intended as an insult to anyone.

Abra.....That is your preception not mine.

JB okay I understand it was not your intent to bash Christians. I find that you said Christians a whole lot without stating SOME Christians in the thread that started this rant, and that you just stated Christianity at the end.

I was always taught that Christianity is about forgiveness tolerance and a belief in God. I never saw it as the belief in Jesus. GOD gave Jesus. Not Jesus gave himself.

Actually I was just responding to a particular post. So it was more like a reponse than a perception.

Oh okay

I don't have anything against individuals who call themselves Christians. Most of my cousins are Chrsitians, as well as many of my friends. I used to be a Christian at one time but I never held radical or pushy views.

In fact, even back when I was a Christians when someone would tell me that the religion if full of holes I'd just say, "Fine, if that's your impression I'm not going to argue with you"

Even back then I firmly believe in the teachings of Jesus which I believed him to have said that we should shake the dust from our shoes and walk away from people who are not interested in hearing the word. He never said to argue with them, and clearly said not to. This is what I was taught as well as my own impressions of reading the the New Testament as well.

So I would have never argued with anyone about Christianity anyway. What they believe has nothing to do with my beliefs and/or faith.

I came to my own conclusion that the biblical story was nonsensical when I decided to teach it and realized that I wouldn't be able to answer serious questions about it.

Once I realize that I wouldn't be able to answer those serious questions for other people, I had to ask myself the very real question, "Why am I believing it then?"

And that's when I quit believing it.

And it wasn't an easy thing to do. I kept going back and revisiting it over, and over, and over again to try to justify it and make sense of it. But the more I went back to justify it, the more absurd I realized it is. At this point in my life (actually long before this point) I had come to the realization that it can't be made to work no matter how hard I try.

And so this is my Testimony.

Ever notice that in churches people always give testimonies of why they believe it? But no one is going to get up and give a testimony of why they don't believe it. Even if they tried, they would either be sympathized and prayed for, or they would be called non-believing skeptic and asked to leave. Or at the very least asked why they are still there (which would be a good question!). In fact, most people who don't believe just leave rather than standing up giving their testimony of why they don't believe it.

However in the "real world" (outside of church) testimonies of why people don't believe it should be just as valid as testimonies of why people do believe it. But instead of being seen as testimonies they are called "Religion Bashing".

I believe in good or bad. I think of "bad" as simply harmful actions. I don't understand how something is bad if it injures no living creature. E.g. There have been Christians who have told me sex is a "sin". I don't understand this at all.

And I definitely don't agree with the concept that babies are "born bad" = original sin. To me that is a horrible start to give an innocent baby. And the word "sin" is a judgement by the speaker. I have never asked these random people to judge me.

As for things only offending if they are true; I have never understood this saying. Truth may distress me if I have done something I am not happy about (I am far from perfect so this does happen) but truth would not offend me or upset me nearly as much as lies do. I hate when people say things about me that are not true- it is harder to deal with lies than the truth.

Peace and joy.

:la now you see how some of these thread get to where they do!

PEOPLE you chance to rectify the "Christian label" problem is at hand. I have created a thread JUST FOR YOU, to let us ALL know the differences between Christians.

If you are tired of whinning about it, than fix it. Go the the thread called What's the difference

and let us know when and why there would be a difference between you and other Christians.

Is this a joke,???????

Sadly I started the same type of thread for discussion about the differences in how atheists view their beliefs and it was deleted because nobody had the balls to answer the questions or even comment on the OP but simply bashed, ridiculed, and discounted the thread because I am not an atheist. This is an interesting tun of the table indeed. I hope your thread doesn't go the same way.

This is not true Star-tin

That is not why the thread was deleted. It was a hateful thread dominated by Christians making rude condescending and disrespectful remarks. The OP was you and all you said was "Have at it!"

So what "questions" are you referring to that no one had the "balls" to answer?

I have asked and asked questions in this forum that no Christians have had the balls to answer. I'm still waiting.

JB

Do your own research. You will find that it more enlightening.
The end of my thread was non-Christians bashing Christians but you will never see that so if you you look back in the posts of everyone who was involved. It is all still there.
I was at work when the mob arrived.

Evidently he doesn't have the "balls" to ask them now.



Although, even if he did, I don't understand why you would want to take a shot at answering them, you're not exactly what I would think of as an 'atheist' are you?

I guess that's a wide-open definition.

I'm not even sure what an atheist is. I don't think pantheism even states that there is an entity you can pin down and call "God" existing anywhere in this universe because for a pantheist this universe itself IS GOD.

So how can we expect to sit down at some table and talk to or identify this entity people want to call God?

I don't think that is possible. So does that mean that a pantheist is an atheist? I don't know.

Does that mean a pantheist thinks they are God? I don't think so, but we do understand that we are connected hence part of the universe which is the body of God.

JB

When a person says there are no gods then isnt that person saying that humans are the highest form of life and if thats the case then humans are basically the gods. Hence the phrase, "God helps those whom help themselves".

I don't know.

Like I said these are loose definitions. I just looked up the following definition for atheist (one that I would use myself to define the word)

Atheists are people who do not believe in a god or gods (or other immaterial beings), or who believe that these concepts are not meaningful. ...

I chose this one because it specifically says, (or other immaterial beings). In other words, this by this definition atheism denies any form of spiritual or non-physical existence. I personally would define atheism to be the belief that we are the physical bodies that we possess. And when those bodies die we die and cease to exist.

I would say that an atheist (by this definition) believes that we are the form and not the thing that is taking the form. In other words, you come into being when you are born. You die when your body dies and that's that.

To me that's what atheism means. (All atheists may not agree with this definition though)



I agree, in fact I would go further to state that there are many possible definitions for pantheism in the details.

However, overall, the idea of pantheism is that all is one. Or maybe better stated, all is connected. Which is really just a different way of saying the same thing. Not only is everything connected, but nothing can be separate, or ever separated from the whole.

So that's the idea behind it. It is the 'whole' that is considered to be God. Does this 'whole' have an egotistical self? Egotistical here simply means a self-awareness as an individual. It's not meant to be a derogatory term like as if having an ego is a bad thing or anything like that.

Typically the pantheistic view is that there is not central godhead. However, we can still speak of "God" it's just not an egotistical God in the sense of like say, the God of Abraham. The God of Abraham is seen as being an individual deity with thoughts and a sentience all his own. That's an egotistical godhead (again, not meant to be a derogatory term, it just means that the God thinks as an individual being or entity.

So while the God of pantheism is not an individual egotistical being. That doesn't mean that we can't speak of it as the collective whole. In some views of pantheism (one that I personally like) there is a time when the whole returns to the state of being ONE. So in a sense God is an individual but in a way that is so totally alien to our human experience that it's really not even meaningful to speak about it. The real fun is when this entity takes the form as many (as we are now experiencing it).



No. At least not for me. I suppose that all depends on how you think of the word "God". If you demand that God have an ego (an individual self), then yes it wouldn't make sense for a pantheist to speak of "God". When a pantheist speaks of "God" they are speaking of the being that has become manifest as many.

At least his is my understanding of pantheism. Like I say, the very term pantheism is open to interpretations. It's a loose term itself. These are all just words.



Well, my answer to that question is yes. As a pantheist I do view myself as God. But again, it's not in the sense of an egotistical authoritarian. I certainly don't think I'm God in the Christian sense of God. In fact, I'm not 'all of God'. I'm only part of God. But God is all of me.

Did that makes sense to you?

Maybe,... Everything that I am is God. But I am not everything that God is.

God is everything. I'm not everything.

I don't know if these are making sense to you but they make perfect sense to me.

Let me try it one more time.

I am all of my finger. But my finger is not all of me.

In the same way,...

God is all of me. But I am not all of God.

I like a finger of God.

But the analogy to finger breaks down. Because a human has a central brain in their head and no brains in the fingers.

Now imagine a being that is all fingers. And each finger has a brain. That's more like what God is. We are all brainy fingers of God.

I think that's a good way of thinking about it.

Does this pantheistic god retain a central brain too? Personally I don't think it does. However, I do believe that when minds are put together (everyone focuses on the same thing) collectively they can manifest things. This is really the idea of getting a lot of people to pray about the same thing.

The more minds that concentrate on something, the more likely it is to happen.

So anyway, a bit of ramble there as usual.

I do believe that the term "God" is a valid term for pantheists. If only because they believe that they arise from God. In other words, unlike atheist who believe that they are the form (the human body) pantheists ultimately believe that we are the spirit (that is taking the form of a human body).

Pantheism in this way is a spiritual (or mystical) religion. It's not just thinking that we are made of the stuff of the universe. It's the actual belief that the universe is a living entity and we are that entity. The universe isn't just empty space filled with atoms. Its underlying essence is our underlying essence.

So with all that said, I would say that pantheists are not atheists. At least certainly not the way I think of pantheism.