The error in logic is the fatal mistake of Christians. Either God exists outside the boundary of time and thus knows ALL,

or God does not exist outside that boundary and is therefore limited in ability and power.

As far at time goes - Our 'free-will' exists a very tiny and limited frame of reference. If God's existance precedes and surpasses human existence, then God MUST KNOW the outcome of our free-will actions.

In other words, even if he allowed for free-well - HE READ THE BOOK OF LIFE ALREADY. His existance is supposed to be eternal. The Alpha and Omega, only refer to beginning and end - which is a human concept, because humans have a beginning and ending.

God is supposed to be OUTSIDE that boundary which he is all-knowing and all-powerful.

Christians cannot have it both ways. Free-will or their belief, because for Christians Free-will is an oxymoron - the concept of free-will only exists in your mind because if God is what you procliam Him to be, he knew the outcome of every action of every human to ever exist - BEFORE, he created anything.

Truly.

Besides the whole Satan thing doesn't even make any sense anyway. It implies that mankind would not have fallen from grace if left own his own.

Why would Adam and Eve need an instigator? That very notion implies that Adam and Eve were truly innocent and would not have fallen from grace had it not been for the intrusion of a satanic con artist.

This is why I don't buy into Cowboy's version of Christianity. His version simply isn't consistent with the actual story. He's trying to turn the story into something that it was never intended to be.

He may as well just write up his own brand new Creation Story. What he's preaching doesn't appear to be "Christianity" to me. It's an extremely watered-down version that doesn't even fit the original story.



This is true, and I agree that we need some new titles. Maybe "Designer Christianity" should become one of those official new titles.

The only irony there, is that even my views of the Christian mythology would fit under that title.

In other words, my view is simply that the Old Testament was never anything more than man-made mythology no different from the mythologies of Zeus. And then I view Jesus as having been a real man who attempted to teach a pantheistic view within the context of that old mythology. He could just come right out and reject it, that would have never been accepted. So instead, he tried to use the positive aspects of it to get people to see the pantheistic nature of God.

Slowhand recognizes that many Jews at that time viewed YHWH in a pantheistic sense. In fact, this is how many early magi used the the Kabbalah, to invoke the mystic power of YHWH. I've heard quite a few authors of occult works claim that the Jewish letters YHWH (which is the original of the God name Yahweh), actually stood for Earth, Air, Fire, and Water and had it's origin in a magickal sense.

In any case, it's my believe that Jesus was of a pantheistic mindset. Whether it was a purely Jewish pantheistic mindset, or whether Jesus was also influenced by the teachings of Eastern Mysticism and Buddhism, it's hard to say. But clearly that Eastern wisdom would have been available to Jesus in his day.

So my view is that Jesus was a mortal man who tried to teach a pantheistic view and he was crucified for blaspheme by an angry mob (probably incited by the Scribes and Pharisees that Jesus was constantly calling hypocrites in his popular ranting sermons).

Then those same Scribes and Pharisees, later wrote up the rumors of Jesus to their advantage to prop up their original personified God of Yahweh. They actually twisted the words of Jesus around to make it appear that Jesus was claiming to be the Son of Yahweh, etc.

That's my "Designer Christianity".

And in my "Designer Christianity" Jesus becomes a mortal Buddha and not the son of any personified mythological godhead.

Was Jesus the "Son of God" in a pantheistic sense? Well sure! We all are!

I also don't believe that Mary was a virgin. Either Joseph was the biological father of Jesus, or Mary was already pregnant by another man when she met Joseph. But I don't believe that Jesus is a demigod. That's too "Zeus-like". That just goes back to those old false mythologies again.

Let's try to keep it REAL.

But we can still believe in spirit in a pantheistic sense. And in that sense both Jesus and Buddha were "God" as is everyone.

So my "Designer Christianity" would be as valid as a religion as Buddhism is. Although in truth, I really have no desire to preach it. I would rather preach Faery Lore.

The problem is that very few people are intelligent enough to grasp the abstraction required to genuinely understand "Faery Lore" as a serious religious philosophy.

For most mainstream Christians, having the answer to the 'basic quesitons of our existence' is NOT ENOUGH. They feel the need to declare thier righteousness to the world - a rather subordinating move that must make them feel superior to others.

Of course that kind of complex requires uniqueness in order to have the same satisfying effect.

Which explains the thousands of Christian 'sects' which all claim to have the one and only truth - thereby finding uniqueness in their smaller numbers and maintianing their superiorority over others.

Are all spiritual philosophies 'religions'?

I think religions clearly come in two quite distinct flavors.

1. Religions that claim to speak for a personified Godhead.
2. Religions that simply offer spiritual philosophies and don't claim to speak for any Godhead directly.


For example, Christianity clearly falls into category #1.

However, pantheism (or Buddhism, for a specific example) falls into category #2.

I personally feel that all religions that fall into category #1 should be required to give absolute proof of the existence of their personified Godhead, as well as proof that the doctrines that claim to speak for their godhead can be verified to be perfectly untainted.

Short of any such proof, they should be labels as pure fantasy.

Religions based on category #2 are indeed nothing more than "philosophy" and are often recognized as such. Even if the follows of those philosophies belief there is a spiritual essence behind them.

When does a philosophy become a 'religion'?

Atheism could be seen as a philosophy which basically holds the view that there is no God. Should that "philosophy" be considered to be a "religion" if people are actually "believing it"?

Interesting questions.

It's the religions that beat people over the head with their make-believe personified God that I have a problem with. Especially when they make out their personified gods to be jealous and hateful toward everyone who refuses to believe in him.

That's when "religion" becomes truly ignorant.

Jealous Gods who hate everyone who refuses to believe in them.

Those kinds of religions are the types of religions that cause wars and divisiveness, and that's been confirmed time-and-time again historically, and continues to be confirmed daily even in our modern times.

Truly.

Christianity has gone far beyond asking philosophical questions, and instead it has moved into a position of dictatorship demanding how people must live.

They don't "question life" they claim to DEFINE IT!

And as Redy points out, every Paper Pope defines it differently, and even the Catholics and Protestants are constantly at verbal war arguing who "truly" represents the "Word" of their dictator!

Is that philosophy? Or just a form of religious dictatorship that simply lost its political power and is just lurking in the wings awaiting a chance to seize political power again should the opportunity ever arise?

For the most part, I agree with msharmony. It never occurred to me personally that non-existent or even unknown creates were never mentioned in scripture. It rally has no bearing on the message.

HOWEVER, The omission has certainly thrown a lot of light into HOW, interpretation has rendered the Bible useless as a tool to guide humanity in a single ideology.

First, the omission was used and is still used today as supporting evidence for the Young Earth claiments - becasue their ideology, also supported through scripture is that the Earth was created for human existence and within the same time frame in which all creatures were created. Therefore, if dinosours did not exist with humans - they simply never existed.

BUT THEN came the more enlightened Christians who accepted the fact that Earth is billions of years old and supported life many millions of years before humans appeared.

Of course they could had to reconcile that fact with the omission in the Bible. So they scoured all of scripture, in all it's languages for references to creatures so inadequately defined as to declare "Here, here is where reference to a dinosour is made."

The eveolution of religions, makes it impossible to declare any validity within them.

Yes, I see your point.

When we consider the alternative religion which co-existed, often referred to as gnostic, even at the time of and after the time of Jesus, we can see the extreme difference.

Thomas was never mainstream and even his end was spent apart, both in ideology and lifestyle, from the others. His, would seem to have been a pantheistic view. While others with that view also included more of the Eastern mysticism.

But the other deciples and their followers were able to rise the aire of the government against them and their 'new' religion was squashed and many people died.

it sounds as if the objection is to who is dominant rather than why. IF non christians were 'dictating' the laws, why would that be any better,,? they would still create those laws around their concepts of 'right' and 'wrong',, on some level,,,wouldnt they?

I don't think anyone should 'dictate' the laws. I personally believe in a free democracy.

The problem I have with "organized religions" that claim to "speak for God", is that they tend to draw congregations who then blindly support the status quo under the false belief that they are 'supporting the will of God'.

For example, the phrase, "I'm not judging gays, that's God's law!", is a perfect example. People have been brainwashed into believing that some fictitious personified God wants something and they are merely supporting that directive.

I personally don't feel that pantheistic religions in general cause people to behave that way. The pantheistic religions actually tend to be more "democratically oriented". More along the lines of "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you". Not "support blind bigotry because some doctrine claims it's the will of God"

People should vote their own conscious, and not hide behind the idea that they are supporting some "personified God's will".

Some people may vote the same way in either case. But my point is that "organized religions" that attempt to sway mass opinions based on the idea that some personified God demands that they believe a certain prejudice is just wrong.

I think it should be obvious that the Abrahamic religions in general were indeed invented by men to try to sway the behavior of the masses. Not so much in terms of morality, but rather in terms of supporting the opinions of the authors.

My question is quite simple. Would an all-poweful God have ordered people to judge and murder sinners and heathens? I don't believe so. An all-powerful God could deal with sinners and heathen directly himself.

The reason the authors of the Bible wrote that in there is because they needed their readers to do their dirty work. Even the authors who wrote this stuff knew there was no God to enforce their made-up laws and predjudices, so their only hope to have them inforced was to convinced their readers to do their will under the belief that they were acting under the authority and direction of some personified Zeus-like godhead.

Those religions were indeed basically nothing more than political tools. And they continue to play that role to this very day, albeit not with the power they once had, but still, they influence the masses into believing that they are doing "God's will" by supporting these religions.

When people give tithes to a religion, they BELIEVE they are contributing to the WORKS and WILL of a personified God. They wouldn't give a penny if they realized that they had been duped by nothing more than a man-made bigoted political machine.

And it's so powerful that when people like me suggest that this is precisely what it is, the religious people become offended and say, "How can you speak about God's Word like that? Have you no respect for God's authority?"

They're totally sold on it. They bought into it hook, line, and sinker.

i care cause it would of made the bible more exciting if a T-rex invaded rome and the t-rex started grabbing and eating roman civilians then the mighty god created the messiah "godzilla' to fight off these satanistic creatures....lol

the book of RKISIT 13:13

i'm laughing so hard i think i'm gonna shart


the book of RKISIT 2:2

again it seems like broad and in my opinion inaccurate generalizations about believers

where is the evidence that believers only believe because they think it is the will of God,,,,,,that seems a condemnation of the intelligene of believers and their ability to CHOOSE what makes sense to them the same as anyone else

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

follow 2smileloudly for he is the way

book of RKISIT 21:12:good Rush album

The evidence is in the very claims they make. They continually claim that the Bible represents the Word of God, and thus the Will of God.

After all, what would even be the point in "believing" in an ancient mythology if they didn't "believe" it was the Word of God?

These same people reject Greek Mythology as not having come from God. It's the "belief" that the Bible represents the Word of God that gives it power.

In fact, Christians often argue, "Why bother listening to Buddha? Buddha was just a mortal man. Jesus is the Son of God!"

That is the core central belief of the Christian religion. Reduce Jesus to being just a mortal man and most Christians would quickly drop the religion and potentially become atheists. Although, I'll grant you that some wouldn't, like me. I simply realized that although the Bible is just man-made myth doesn't automatically mean there is no spiritual essence to reality. But many Christians do indeed feel that way. For them either the Bible is true, or atheism is true. They allow for only a very narrow range of possibilities for spirituality.

You also seem to be suggesting that Christians CHOOSE to believe in the Bible because it makes sense to them? I very seriously doubt that many people have chosen to believe in the Bible on the initial bases that it makes sense. Most people get there either by being raised into it, or falling for the constant proselytizing of the evangelists. They often also look around to see what the general masses are doing and tend to follow what the majority do thinking that if the majority does it, it must have some validity.

The biblical picture of God truly doesn't make any sense. It's entirely a faith-based religion and even the most devout preachers and priests (when having moments of genuine honesty) will confess that they are deeply troubled by many parts of the stories. They confess that they just toss their hands up and resign to having pure blind faith that somehow "God" can explain these utter absurdities and/or he simply works in mysterious ways that simple don't make any sense to them.

Even you have confessed this yourself in the past. You have often made statements that perhaps God knows things that we don't and that "explains" why things seem so absurd to us. With that mindset you are already just glossing over anything that doesn't make sense to you in favor of claiming that "overall" you feel that it does make sense. But, in truth, it only makes sense because you are willing to ignore the parts that don't make sense. You've made a CHOICE to have pure blind faith. You didn't truly CHOOSE the religion because it makes sense.

In fact, I seriously doubt that you had been properly educated in all the religions of the world to be able to judge which one of them genuinely makes the most sense.

I was born and raised under Christianity. I quickly noticed that even Christians don't agree won what "makes sense". This is why there are so many different denominations.

I also recognized that Christianity is actually an off-shoot of Judaism as is Islam, and it quickly became even more apparent that not only do Christians disagree on what makes sense within Christianity but overall, the foundational religion from whence Christianity sprung has taken many different paths of evolution.

When I tried to make sense of it myself using the King James Version of the Bible I quickly found that it is truly nonsense. It was then suggested to me by other religious people that maybe I should look into other version of the Bible, or the Torah, or the Quran. I quickly too just a superficial peek into all of those. A superficial peek was all I needed to convince me that those were going to be any better.

Turning to Eastern Mysticism I found a "religion" that truly does make sense. Of course, Eastern Mysticism doesn't claim to be the "Word" of any God. It's just a well-thought-out philosophy of life that continues to evolve with man's knowledge of existence. It's really more of a "science" than a religion. And the fact that it doesn't claim to be the "Word of God" truly makes it a mere philosophy, and brings up the question of whether it should even be called a "religion"

But does it make sense? Oh yes. It makes far more sense than a supposedly personified God who is supposed to be "all-wise" but continually does things that are dumber than what you'd expect from a barroom drunkard.

Finally, I also looked into Witchcraft, Shamanism and Faery Lore. What I found was amazing. There are many different views of these philosophies/religions too. And some of them are quite profoundly sane. Especially if understood in terms of abstract philosophies and not take to be concrete myths that supposedly actually happened (like the biblical picture of God is viewed)

So for me, anyone who tells me that the chose the Biblical picture of God because it's the most reasonable, it really just telling me that they haven't truly considered these other spiritual philosophies in any genuine depth or with any genuine sincerity because in comparison, there is nothing reasonable about the Biblical picture of God, IMHO.

The only reason people fall for it is because it has been made popular over the ages via threats of death, damage, or mere social rejection of anyone who refuses to believe it. There's a lot of social pressure to believe in it, and there is also a lot of pressure from within the story to believe in it and never to reject it, because rejecting the story is itself the greatest sin a person can commit.

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



not too insulting,,,

I am not needy or weak, and I am a christian.

It is tiring when the same 'atheists' who judge christianity of being such a 'judgmental' religion pass these ridiculous types of judgments against christians. My values are REINFORCED by being a christian, they arent CREATED by being christian.

I am no less responsible for my actions than anyone else,, what is that about?
why do some atheists continue to repeat such drivel...?

To the chief Musician,
A Psalm of David.

The fool hath said in his heart,

There is no God.

They are corrupt,

they have done abominable works,

there is none that doeth good.

Psa 14:1

This is just another example of the authors of the Bible being caught in their lies.

We know that there do indeed exist atheists who do good works. So Psalms is exposed as being less than truthful.

My sister is an atheist and I know that she has higher morals that most religious people I know. She's even a vegan because she refuses to contribute to the slaughtering of animals and using them for food. She clearly has moral values that far surpass most Christians who eat meat, etc.

So the Bible clearly contains lies.

Being a righteous person cannot possibly depend on a belief in a God anyway. That itself would be an oxymoron because it would mean that no unrighteous person could even become righteous. Why not? Well, because, as Psalms says, "There are none that doeth good works", and to convert to become a righteous person would be an act of "good works". So the fable was flawed even without actual conflicting examples.

This whole religion just tries to make out like anyone who refuses to buy into it is an abomination to God. That very ideal can only have come from egotistical men who are trying to sell their own personal religion onto others.

The more I read these biblical verses the more I see verification that this religion cannot possible be from any all-wise God.

In fact, wisdom tells me that if we have a Creator and that Creator sees an atheist doing Good Works even though that person does not believe in a God, that would have to please God far more than seeing religious people do good works simply because they are attempting to avoid damnation or win a trip to eternal Disneyland.

An Atheist who does good works is clearly doing them solely because it's what They Personally Desire to Do. In other words, they would have trumped the motivation of any religious person, because they would be righteous of their own accord without any need to be threatened by God or offered a prize to motivate them. The Atheists believe that they are simply going to cease to exist when they die. Yet they are righteous anyway.

Now that has to be the most impressive sight any all-wise God could ever possible witness. A child who needs no instructions, threats, or motivations to do the RIGHT THING. What could possibly please a Creator more than that?

A righteous atheist would be the epitome of a prefect child.

Hallahphuckingluyas!