Abracadabra, you are obviously a pagan (not a personal attack) and that has to be allright, there has to be room for us all. I appreciate the fact that you are willing to speak your mind and question our beliefs, I think that education and dialog can come from a spirited exchange of ideas. I do not want to silence you, or kill you, I am pleased that someone is challanging me, and that someone is challanging the way things are. That being said, I think its fair to understand that we are on opposite sides of this argument, and that maybe someone can benefit from the things that we are saying. I didnt call you a coward, I dont know you to make such a judgement, but I did call your attacks cowardly as I thought they were. However you are entitled to your viewpoint, especially because you share it, but I respctfully dissagree. I am certainly a believer in the ressurection of Jesus, and we can go back and forth respectfully in the name of truth, I have nothing to hide.

One more thing; I dont need you to point out my problems.

Jesus

Living in My heart

makes me just Luvs

Everyone...

even

Abra

((((((DDejon))))))

Havent you heard yet Abra?

Its the end of the world!

At least,thats what a bunch of church people are saying.

Mirormiror, who the hell are you? Are you a boy or a girl? Why is it that you seem to have nothing to say other then to sit on the sidelines and steal the last word?

Ok Abra.......maybe this will help:

Abra.....man can READ the Bible ...backward and forward....

but

WITHOUT God living in His Heart (thru accepting Christ Jesus as His Personal Saviour)...

all that man has is RELIGION!!!



But by the same token, Abra ,


a man can READ the Bible ......

backward and forward....

but also KNOW God ...
(thru accepting Jesus into his heart)....

and what that man NOW has...

is NO LONGER JUST A RELIGION

anymore......

but Now

Has a

RELATIONSHIP!

WITH GOD!!!!



Now Abra..........

that man

WHO NOW HAS A RELATIONSHIP(and not just religion) WITH GOD ....

STILL studies God's Word....

STILL may assemble together in fellowship with other believers(as a body of believers should)......

BUT THE DIFFERENCE NOW IS......

THAT MAN'S HEART HAS BEEN FOREVER CHANGED WHEN JESUS CAME IN......

AND THAT MAN'S STONY HEART
HAS
NOW BEEN REPLACED
WITH A
HEART OF LOVE FOR GOD
AND
FOR ALL MANKIND!!

Now sure....a new born person in Christ, is still involved in the so called christian religion.....

BUT.....

the born again christians are not practicing just a so called christian religion anymore....

they INSTEAD....

are now developing and growing
in their RELATIONSHIP with GOD Almighty now!!

Cause the gap between man and God was Forever closed .......

when that man accepted JESUS into his heart....

thus allowing for that man
to
have
FELLOWSHIP with God now
( whereby man can now cry out "Abba Father") .

Abracadabra I am not finished with you yet. You called christianity a cowardly religion; where are you?

DDjon... Everybody Loves MirrorMirror.



MirrorMirror Is My Friend

Even if he is a monkey.

Yes, I guess I am a pagan. I never use that particular word to describe myself. I prefer "Pantheist", but that's trival semantics I suppose.



Well, "our beliefs" were my beliefs at one time too. I was born and raised a Christian. And my family were very devout Christians, but not fantatical or fundamentalists at all.

I know all about the Christian faith. I know all about Jesus. I know all about the Old Testament.

So it's not about "My beliefs" versus "Your beliefs". Neither one of us made up the biblical story. It was sold to us one way or another.

At one time I was actaully considering becoming a minister. This forced me to ask the hard questions. After all, if I'm going to teach a religion I need to be able to answer the hard questions.

What happened was that I discovered that the story can't be true.

Yep, that was the final conclusion.

It didn't break me spiritually because I had known God from early childhood, even before I was old enough to understand what religion was.

So when I discovered that the Bible was false it didn't rob me of God. It merely made me realize that the Bible is not of God.

It also didn't rob me of my repsect for Jesus, because I suddenly realized that Jesus was used as a patsy to revitalize a dying religion.

When I read the gospels I don't take them to be the 'verbatim' word of God.

I had already recognized that this can't be true. What the gospels must necessarily be is a distorted version of what the man, Jesus, stood for along with much added demagogurey to support the dying Old Testament.

So this is how I view the Bible now. I don't believe that Jesus was born of a virgin, or that he purposefully died to pay for anyone's sins, or that he rose from the dead.

But I do believe that he tried to get people to stop stoning each other to death. And he taught them to be forgiving, and not to seek revenge like the Old Testament had taught them to do.

I respect the moral values the Jesus taught. In fact, if I could to back in history and have a conversation with Jesus it would be a very boring converstation because he would just talk and all I would say is, "I agree".

I also realize now that Jesus didn't teach anything different from what Buddha taught. In fact, I'm convinced that Jesus was familiar with the teachings of Buddha. I'm also convinced that he went to the far east and learned of eastern mysticism during his 'missing years' (from the time he was 12 until he returned at 30)

I see no reason to preach or support the Old Testament in the name of Jesus. It's crystal clear to me that Jesus himself did not support the Old Testament.



Well, that's fine with me. But the point I'm trying to make is that if you want to believe that Jesus died for your sins, then you must also believe that the God of Abraham lusts for blood sacrices before he can forgive sins. Because without that need for blood sacrifices to forgive sins the crucifixion of Jesus would be meaningless.

Also you must believe that the God of Abraham wanted Jesus to be butchered on the cross. This was his PLAN and the reason for the virgin birth.

Therefore the men who condemned Jesus to the crucifixion and the men who nailed him to the cross were actually doing God's WILL.

Anyone who would have tried to prevent the crucifixion would have been rejecting God's PLAN and interferring with God's WILL.

It truly makes no sense to talk about the 'love of Jesus' with respect to the crucifixion. Because Jesus and the father are one! So this is a story of a God who needs to appease itself via it's own crucifixion.

It truly makes no sense at all if you stop and think about it.

Moreover, this would be a God who created a universe with rules that turned out to require that it would need to have itself nailed to a pole to save it's own creation.

This would be like an engineer who designed a machine that will only work if you nail the engineer to it.

It's not a picture of an all-wise God by far. It's a picture of a God who shoots its own self in the foot.

And then there's the whole Satan thing.

This God is supposely in competition with a fallen angel for the souls that it creates.

God creates souls and this fallen angel has a chance to win the souls that God creates.

And win he does!!!

God loses big time. At the Great Flood God lost his entire creation save for a few poeple in boat. Satan wins all of the souls that God created.

Later in the New Testament, Jesus is quoted as saying that the path to the kingdom of God is straight, and the gate is narrow and few will make it. That means that the vast majority of souls will be LOST to Satan.

In this religion, God loses many more souls than he creates. Satan is the bigtime winner in this religion. God is the bigtime loser by the Bible's own proclaimation.

I'm telling you this as a former Christian myself. A man who wanted to learn this religion and preach it to others.

What I discovered by trying to understand it is that it truly has no merit. It can't be true. This is a story of a totally inept God who loses the vast majority of souls He creates and even has to have his only begotten son nailed to a pole to try to save the few souls he does win.

Yes, I decided this cannot be a valid picture of God.

Now I choose to put my faith in a truly beautiful picture of God. A picture that most Christians do not understand at all. It's called 'Witchcraft'. That probably sound satanic to you, but witches don't even believe in Satan. That's a Christian concept.

I worship God in all His and Her spiritual form. God is both yin and yang. God is genderless, and yet gives rise to both the feminine and the masculine.

Yes, I worship a "Goddess" and a "God", but they are one in the same. The Yin and Yang.

I haven't moved away from God. I have always been true to my creator. The only creator.

Christianity was merely a distorted mythology distracted me from God's true slendor.

Now I worship God in all Her splender and His splendor. As He and She are one.

I'm actually standing up for Jesus when I denounce the horrid biblical story. Jesus was used and abused, not just when he was crucified, but for millennia after that.

Christianity is a disgrace to the name of Jesus. And the whole Bible is a disgrace to the real creator of this universe. God never told anyone to stone anyone to death. And God was never appeased by blood sacrifices. This I believe.

That's where I'm coming from.

And this is my testimony as a former Christian. The bible is corrupt.

I was typing up my previous lenghty post.

Man, that was the best one yet from you, I really have to give you your props on that last one, you really shared for the first time.
Well, there are alot of similarities between your story and mine. I also almost became a preacher, and I reached some of the same conclusions as you. I studied and studied and you can see that I know the Bible better then anyone I know. I also left the church, for some of the same reasons you did, and many of the things you say need to be said. However if you attack with such anger at the people you claim to be trying to reach then your message is wasted, your experience is lost, and the only christian who is educated enough to talk to you on a level you can appreciate is probobly me, someone who has shared some of your experience.
Paganism is a big part of my family and I was confronted with it at a very early age. I know lots about paganism, cults, closed communities, freemasonry and wicca. I made the journey the other way. I left paganism and found my way to christianity, Jesus the risen savior.
I still dont go to church although at first I went 7 days a week, I left the church but I can never leave Jesus, who I know to be GOD. Jesus, GOD. I know and have seen things, I know what I am talking about.

I confess that I am angry with the religion. Not with God, because I don't see the religion as having anything to do with God.

But yes, I am angry with the religion. Or maybe frustrated is a better word. So many people supporting it not realizing what they are actually supporting is truly negative in many ways.




I will always have a relationship with Jesus. As far as I'm concerned he's my brother.

Is he God? No more and no less than we are. In fact, Jesus himself said, "Ye are Gods".

I don't buy the virgin birth (because, to me, that would imply a a very nasty God)

I don't believe that Jesus died to pay for anyone's 'sins'. Again, to me, that would imply a very nasty Father God. In order for Jesus' crucifixion to have any meaning as a 'savior' requires that God, the father is a blood thirsty God who can't forgive unless there is a blood sacrifice, and I don't buy that.

Finally, I have no need to believe in any resurrection. I knew I was immortal as a very young child. I didn't Christianity to promise me eternal life. My true nature is eternal. I didn't come into being when I was born, and I won't cease to exist when I die. I need to believe in a resurrected savior to know that I'm eternal.

I'm not at odds with my creator and I never have been. The whole idea of repentance is asburd to me. It just makes no sense to me personally. I've always been in favor with my creator.

This is one thing that angers me about this religion. It teaches young children that they are out of favor with their creator, or that they have done something bad, or that they are unworthy of God's love and can only go to God in SHAME begging for forgiveness.

That's just a very negative thing to teach young children. And I truly don't believe that it's true.

This is one thing that I truly hate about the religion. It teaches everyone that they have failed their creator. That is just downright negative and uncalled for.

I don't believe it and it's just a guilt trip created by a bunch of controlling people who used Jesus as a pasty to revigorate a religion that Jesus actually tried to bring people away from!

Christianity is truly a religion that is anti-Christ.

That's where I stand on the issue today.

Yes, I have a relationship with Jesus, but it's the same as my relationship with Buddha, and with Mahatma Gandhi, and with Martin Luther King Jr.

Jesus wasn't any different. He's wasn't sent by any 'heavenly father' to be butchered on a pole to pay for the sins of man.

I personally feel that that story is actually a gross insult to Jesus.

That's not at all what he was about.

He was most likely crucified for blaspheme. But not for claiming to be the God of Abraham. He was more than likely talking like Buddha.

IMHO, Jesus was most likely a pagan.

I seriously believe that if he came back to earth today he'd probably be more pleased with the witches than with the Christians.

I'm off to bed.

Nice talking with you.

It will be exciting passing over and seeing all the questions we ask, or have asked answered.

MorningSong, we agree on this.

I love you too Ruth, you turkey you.

I hope you do know I am just kidding around , and being a silly goose now, Ruth

(((((((((RUTH)))))))))))

can see that your true colors are coming out. I did insinuate without saying it that you were a coward, because you insinuate without saying it that I, and all other christians (as if we all agree on everything) are murderers who kill everyone who doesnt get with the program. You claim that history is on your side but you only tell one side of history, your side. I dont care what you think, but you are attacking strangers (you dont know any of us) from a safe position and I find that cowardly.


DD you're contradicting yourself and speaking for a whole lot of people in your assumptions. Speaking for myself- I do not believe that I agree with all the other christains out there. And continuing to type honestly if you were to actually look at history many people were murdered for religion by lots of different groups (who had many different beliefs but would still be considered "christains" because they "preached" or taught from the Bible).

Does the Bible have merit? I think it does to those who want to believe a lot of things that people wrote about what they THINK God MIGHT be like. We don't truely have proof. Just think about how many times things were likely changed from translating the Bible alone. How many teachings we might not know about all because of religion and MAN's need to controll people with it.

People please refrain from getting antsy and calling people cowards. Remember when you point a finger you've got three pointing back at you.

Abracadbra needs a exorcism.

No, I am not saying any of those things. And, everytime you post you change the direction of the conversation so, I'm done with this one. Blessings to you.