I really need to comment on this one again:



Even here you are talking about a need for God to "punish" his children for simply not believing that the ancient Hebrews speak for him.

That's utterly stupid. Why should anyone believe the ancient Hebrews speak for God?

Also, by your own confess here, then God would be viewing "ceasing to exist" as a form of "punishment". Since you reject hell.

But in what way could ceasing to exist be considered 'punishment'?

If someone ceases to exist they no longer have any consciousness of anything. They wouldn't even know that they had ever lived at all. Therefore they wouldn't lose anything. They would just cease to exist.

Ceasing to exist can't be seen as a bad thing.

In fact, the only thing to truly fear would be eternal life!

If you make it into your God's heaven can you ever leave? Can you ever chose to cease to exist after that? Or are you stuck living forever whether you like it or not?

Sounds like some pretty heavy questions.

If this life is ANY CLUE AT ALL as to what God's "Heaven" might be like then ceasing to exist might be a blessing in disguise!

Will there be competition in heaven?

Will there be a hierarchical social structure? Will there be great people in heaven and lesser people?

According to Jesus their most certainly will be a hierarchical social structure in heaven.


Matt.5:19 Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

This is supposed to be Jesus speaking.

Here you have Jesus proclaiming that heaven will be a hierarchical social structure not much different from what we have here on Earth.

It's just going to be more of the same social crap.

Therefore ceasing to exist would be a blessing!

I would much rather just cease to exist, then go to a place where Earthly egos are just going to be perpetuated for eternity.

What if you got to heaven and discovered that you're the 'least in heaven'?

That would be HELL.

You'd be far better off just ceasing to exist than to end up in that eternal situation.

So if rejection of the idea that Yahweh is God and that Jesus is the son of Yahweh guarantees that my existence will indeed be 'atheistic' then so be it.

That would be my FREE WILL CHOICE.

Tell your God he can keep his 'gift' of eternal life. It doesn't sound very inviting to me if it's just going to be the same social crap perpetuated for eternity.

And when you get there tell Jesus I said, "Thank you" for allowing me the choice to cease to exist.

That's the BEST GIFT he can offer to me.

And isn't that ironic?

A religion that makes atheism more appealing.

Just tell your Jesus I said thanks for giving me the right to cease to exist.

I really do appreciate that, and it's nice to know that I won't ever need to bow to anyone confessing that they are King of Kings or Lord of Lords because I won't be around to see that absurd nonsense.

I've been excused from class.

What a screwy religion.

Heaven and eternal life is a gift, it's earned my friend. It's not freely given to whom ever. It's earned.

Your hypothetical question is meaningless to me.

First it assumes that I'm as horrible of a parent as your God.

Why should my child deny that I'm their parent if I'm not playing hide-and-seek?

If I gave some utterly stupid drunkards my instructions for my child, and then left, only to come back and hear that my child didn't believe that those instructions came from me, who would I have to blame for that but me?

But that's precisely what you supposed God did. He gave his instructions to humanity to a socially sick society and then expects the rest of us to believe those instructions came from him?

I don't think so.

In fact, going by your "parent analogy" that's a very good reason why I should be totally convinced that the Bible cannot possibly be the word of any parent-like God. Because even as a mere mortal man I wouldn't do anything THAT STUPID.

So why should I believe that an all-wise cosmic creator would?

You're just proving to me that the Bible can't possibly be the word of any Fatherly God.

Although, I already KNOW that.

That's fine with me.

I wouldn't be interested even if they were giving it away for FREE!

I'll gladly choose the option to simply cease to exist in your religion.

NEXT RELIGION PLEASE,...

I've already made my choice with this one. I'll pass on the expensive 'gift' of eternal life that needs to be 'earned'. I'm simply not interested. Thank you very much.

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First it assumes that I'm as horrible of a parent as your God.
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Who said God is a horrible parent? And what evidence do you have of such? What has God done so horrible?

And you have that right, it's your choice, no one can make you feel any different. Just wish you the best in life and hope all your dreams in life come true.

Can you not read?

He gives his instructions for humanity to a bunch of bozos in a sick culture and then expects his children to believe that those idiots speak for him whilst he runs off and disappears.

If I did that to my children I'd confess to being a horrible parent myself.

God is not hidden though, nor has ever been hidden. If a child did not know his/her dad, you think that child would find his/her dad if that child only look in their closet, only under their bed, and so on? Or would they have to open up their heart and mind that their dad really loved them and wants to know that child? And now should that child look for their dad, or just roll over and say he must not love me.

What's it matter "who" he gave the instructions? We are all equal, regardless of ethical culture, race, sex, physical appearance, tall, short, and so on.

You talk like they were lower then you are, well i'm sorry to tell you, but no one is lower and no one is higher. We are all sinners, and fail our father. All sins are equal except one. So therefore everyone regardless of what they have done in their lives, are just as much of a failure as the next. No competing, no comparison, no nothing of such. We are ALL equal.

Jesus would never punish a good person even if they didn't believe
he was God and did not like the bible. Such behavior would not be
kind to an otherwise good person.

So, you are covered.

Cowboy...are you sure it's God you feel and not gas

because claiming that you know God personally when you know that God can't be proved to exist beyond the bible is part of the same delusion in believing that a character called God in a book loves you because you read it in a book ....

making claims that you know god personally when you know that you never met god is called "lying"

Peter_Pan...sure no problem ...glad I could get you to finally see the light, because if a pagan wants to call paganism christinity then it's called a "religious belief" and no matter how many phony definitions you try to conjure up from the dictionary in an attempt to contradict it is not going to change that fact....

for those that believe that Jesus is God also have to believe that Jesus is capable of evil behavior because he clearly went on a murderous rampage during the Old Testament ....Jesus drown practically everyone on the entire planet during the great flood....Jesus also killed innocent babies under Pharoah ...Jesus also punish "JOB" a supposedly good and faithful person by allowing his entire family to be killed

if Jesus is God then perhaps the true reason he came to earth as a man was to pay for the sins he committed as the god of the old testament "In The Beginning"

That's the overall impression I get too, even based on what the gospels have to say about Jesus.

But the Christians aren't happy with a nice Jesus. They prefer to make him out to be a monster who will hate you if you don't worship him.

The problem with the Bible overall, is that it contains so many contradictions that it can be used to support just about any view. For some reason a lot of so-called "Christians" prefer to use the ugliest verses and interpretations they can find to try to make out like God and Jesus will hate anyone who doesn't support their sick views and interpretations.

I'm actually in agreement with you to a very large degree Slowhand.

You have suggested the the "True Jews" were actually pantheists, and did not view God as being a Zeus-like male godhead, but rather as a mysterious undefinable entity much like Easter Mysticism. Of course, the problem with that is that the biblical stories simply don't reflect that view, IMHO. For the very reason that they claim to be the "Word of God" which implies that God is an egotistical Zeus-like individual who has specific wants, needs, and even rules or commandments that he expects us to OBEY.

So the biblical story of a judgmental God who carves commandments into stone and turns people into pillars of salt, and directs people to judge each other and stone each other to death, doesn't fit in with the idea of a pantheistic "god", IMHO.

So for the Jews to actually view God in a pantheistic way they would need to truly also recognize that the bulk of the Bible is not the "word of God" at all, but rather just the opinions of men who maybe thought their inspiration came form "God".

Of course, the Jews back in the days of Jesus didn't have a single dependable "Torah". There were no printing presses back then and most of what they believed at that time was passed around via oral communication. Everyone probably had a drastically different idea of what 'god' expected from them, etc.

This nasty collection of stories we have in print today that we call the "Holy Bible" can, at it's very best, be nothing more than various opinionated shreds of what some people might have believed back in the days of Jesus.

I will forever be convinced that Jesus was a Mahayana Buddhist Bodhisattva who actually tried to get his Jewish brothers to move away from the teachings of the old Torah and tried to get them to see the value of the truths taught by Buddha.

It's sad that his efforts ended in vain. And it's even sadder that the Christians turned him into a dead marionette doll monster to be used to prop up and support the very dogma that Jesus himself was obviously opposed to even according to the gospels.

The Christians are the ones who created a monster out of poor Jesus.

Well, in all fairness to both Jesus and "God" let's consider the following possibility:

First, imagine that the Old Testament doesn't represent "God". Let's imagine that it's just man-made opinions that have been erroneously claimed to be the "word of God".

Secondly, let's assume that the Christian's claim that Jesus was the 'only begotten son of God' is also a bogus claim. (And when I refer to "Christians" here I'm speaking about the men who actually wrote the New Testament, not the people who follow their writings)

Let's assume that we are all children of God. That would include Jesus and Buddha and everyone else.

Now let's assume that "God" (whatever 'god' is) does indeed inspire some people to do his/her/its works and convey his/her/its desires.

In that sense then people like Jesus and Buddha and many other spiritual men and women are indeed the "Sons and Daughters" of God and they are reflection God's love.

Yahweh is a lie. The OT is a lie. The real God never had anything to do with those nasty things that men wrote about in the OT.

God also never planned to have Jesus nailed to a pole, and Jesus' untimely death was not intended to pay for anyone's so-called 'salvation'.

Just the same, Jesus did "speak the mind of God", just as Buddha did, and many others.

I can believe that. I think there are people alive today who do the same things. For example, I believe that Deepak Chopra is a modern day "Jesus". In fact, I believe that there are always many people like Jesus and Buddha living among us at all times.

The idea that Jesus was the "Only begotten son of God" is just a nasty rumor that the Christians started in their claims about Jesus when they wrote the New Testament. They are the ones who truly claim to "Speak for God". And that should come as no surprise because they came from a culture that was known for always wanting to "Speak for God". That's what their culture did on a continuous basis. So there's no surprise there.

Jesus was ok. It's the Christians (the authors of the New Testament) or are the monsters.

Kind of like Cowboy does??? Who are you addressing with this post, me or CowboyGH?


You obviously can't read, let alone comprehend the Bible.

Only a moron would believe that the things Catholicism does and believes represent Christianity. Even funches recognises that Catholicism is paganism. Perhaps you should look up the definition yourself.

And if you think I'm wrong, address just one of the first 10 examples I gave. Of course I still expect ZERO proof from you, let alone you even try to address them. For, if you were to address them, you would have to eventually agree with me that Catholicism = paganism, only a delusional imbecile would not.

Your lack of knowledge on the subject shows everytime you spew your twisted views and opinions.

LOL, I started hearing that argument after the altarboy fiascos...

"One of the clear aims of the site is to provide a reference source for “Christianity in general.” As I’m sure you know, “Christianity” encompasses many faith groups and doctrinal perspectives. My intention in presenting the denominations material is not to promote any church denomination. The material is offered as a reference for denominational studies - as the opening article explains:

“Today in America, there are more than 1500 different faith groups professing many diverse and conflicting beliefs. It would be an understatement to say that Christianity is a severely divided faith. You get an idea of just how many denominations there are when you view this national directory for Christian denominations.”

My goal is to eventually have hundreds of faith groups and denominations accurately represented on the site, and I intend to provide resources for each.

Yes, I agree, there are flawed doctrines in the Catholic tradition, but you will find this to be true in many Christian denominations and faith groups."

http://christianity.about.com/od/faqhelpdesk/f/arecatholicschr.htm

Hitler called himself a Christian and had the Pope on his side...yes, you're all together in your crimes against humanity.




Back more on topic, does anyone have an image of this "god" thing yall keep rapping about? I bet in your minds he's a middle aged white man with a long beard...ZZ TOP?...heh. The question is how will you know it's "god"?