You must be thinking that you are talking to some sort of simpleton.

It's not anything at all like you portray it to be.

First off, I DID trust what I was taught to believe is "God's Word".

I was brought up to believe that the Bible is the Word of God. And I didn't question that in the least. I was THAT naive!

I went to church like a good little boy, and I even accepted Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. I repented all my sins, and I gave myself over to God.

After all, who wouldn't? That was my thinking. I'm a decent person, I want to do what's right. Nothing can possibly be a higher honor than to serve my creator.

But then the problems started. You need to understand that a large part of my extended family were involved with the church and several of my Uncles were Ministers. They were all Free Methodists. And I think this is very important to realize. All these ministers were of the precise same faith and denomination. And because several of my uncles were ministers they often brought other ministers over for dinner. So I got a lot of exposure to ministers discussing religion with each other. Now they never argued as such, but even THEY were often in disagreement about how certain things should be interpreted or what they actually meant. And these are all ministers of the very same denomination!

You can imagine what I would have been exposed to at that time if I had ministers from many different denominations around me. They would have been in HUGE debates with each other. Not to mention all the other Abrahamic religions (which I didn't even think about back then).

Ok, so these few ministers of a single Christian denomination were apparently having difficulties agreeing on a lot of issues and interpretations. I became interested in teaching the "Word of God".

After all I was completely naive and innocent! I believed my parents, these preaches, and other Christians I knew, when they said that the Bible contains all the answer. I took that literally! After all, if it's not the literal truth, then what else would it be but a big fat lie?

So I decided to look into the Bible myself and FIND the answers to these difficult question (not the EASY questions). The EASY questions are EASY! If I'm going to be teaching this stuff to other people I had better be able to answer the HARD questions, not the easy ones!

So I started searching for the answers to the HARD questions. Questions that the very ministers of our church had. They should know the answers, but apparently they don't. In fact, it's become crystal clear over the years that no one knows the answers and this is precisely why there are so many diverse denominations of this religion.

Hey, if I'm going to teach God's WORD, I want to make sure I got it RIGHT!

So my investigation into the Bible wasn't an investigation of doubt, it was an investigation that originally started with the sincere and honest BELIEF that I would indeed FIND all these answers and set these confused preachers STRAIGHT.

Well, to make a long life story short, as time went on I discovered two extremely vivid and powerful TRUTHS!

#1. The Bible does NOT contain answer to everything.

#2. The more you search for answers in the Bible the more conflicting contradictions you will discover!

In fact, if you go into the Bible with one troubling question chances are real good that you'll come away with no answers and about a dozen or so even MORE TROUBLING questions!

Of course that obviously depends on what your original question was. If it was an easy question like "Is it ok to steal", you'll probably find a reasonable answer to that question quite easily.

However, if you have a far DEEPER question like "Why is God appeased by blood sacrifices, and why did he ask people to do this?"

Well, if you can answer that question more power to you! As far as I'm concerned there is no answer to that question in the Bible anywhere. You just have to have FAITH that the Biblical God must be related to Zeus somehow, or something like that.

These kinds of question are extremely important to someone who seriously wants to understand and teach the WORD of the deity they are claiming to LOVE.

Sure, a person could just toss their hands up and say, "Hey that's not up to us to ask". A LOT of ministers will take that stance. God just does what he does and it's none of our God damned business!

Well, personally I feel that's utter bull crap. If you're going to claim to LOVE a God you had damn well better know just what it is you are LOVING! Otherwise you might be claiming to love a demon!

Moreover, how can you TRULY claim to love anyone that you neither can know, nor understand? Especially when they are appeased by sadistic acts of blood sacrifices. I'm mean that's RED FLAG right there. Why should blood sacrifices appease a loving creator? Why would God want to see you slaughter an animal of its very own creation for the sole purpose of atoning your bad behavior? What does the poor animals death have to do with your bad behavior?

If this is some sort of "Instruction Book" for humans then this needs to be explained in detail.

I mean, excuse me if this sounds crazy to you, but if I'm going to preach that the Bible is the WORD OF GOD, I would expect people to ask me these sorts of questions. And so what am I going to do? Just say, "I have no clue. God is just weird I guess"

I may as well just confess that I know nothing about God. I don't know anymore about God than the clueless person who has turned to me for answers.

Moreover, you can't dare dismiss this question lightly in light of the central role that the Crucifixion of Christ plays in this religion.

You had damn well better know precisely how this works and why it is necessarily. Otherwise you may as well be asking people to believe in Zeus!

I wouldn't ask someone to believe that Zeus is God. Would you?

Well, if you don't have a better reason for asking them to believe in the biblical God, then you may as well be asking them to believe in Zeus.

I could go on and on and on, but it all falls on blind eyes.

The entire Old Testament makes no sense to me. Sorry but that's just the TRUTH. There are no explanations at all of the truly important question. It's all superficial bull. Just TRUST GOD to be right. (like you say)

Just believe it and don't question it!

Well, like I say, if you're going to do that then why not just believe in Zeus?

Or Wicca, or Buddhism, or anything. May as well believe in atheism if you're just going to blindly believe in anything for no good reason.

I wanted to know why Jesus had to be crucified to 'save' my soul. That is a very valid question in a religion who's major theme is that Jesus is the sacrificial lamb of God given to pay for the sins of men.

If you can't answer this SIMPLE question, then the whole religion is utterly meaningless.

And it all starts with asking why blood sacrifices where required in the first place. This is ZEUS-LIKE mythology! There's no difference between Zeus and the God of Abraham when you get right down to it. They are extremely similar myths.

Why should the real creator of this universe just happen to be the same as Zeus? A totally fictitious man-made myth that almost no one will dispute as such.

As I continued to study I also began to realize that Jesus was not teaching the same moral values that were taught in the Old Testament. On the contrary he was teaching basically the opposite moral values.

Why should the "Son of God" be so totally different in character than his supposed "Father"? That's another question that has never been sufficiently addressed. Cowboy keeps claiming that God simply changed his covenant with humans, but that flies in the face of the Bible's stance that God is dependable and unchangeable. You can't have God running around changing his mind all the time without giving sufficient explanations and reasons. And Jesus most certainly did not give anything like that at all. On the contrary the scriptures have Jesus denying that he came to change any laws, they even have him proclaiming that not one jot nor one tittle shall pass from law. Well, jots and tittles refer to writings, and the only writings Jesus could have possibly been referring to would have been the writings of the Old Testament.

So Cowboy's theory doesn't even begin to address my concerns. I'm not the least bit impressed with his interpretations. All he's doing is demanding that God is either schizophrenic or has dementia.

Moroever, after I had finally recognized that the biblical version of God cannot possibly be true, I still didn't abandon the idea of spirituality. Not in the least. Why should I? Just because one fable is false doesn't mean that there can't be a spiritual essence to life.

So I looked into other philosophies, not "Searching" for spirituality, (I already had that without any need for an attached dogma). I was simply looking at other philosophies and religions to see if I might find TRUTH in some of them.

Well, I did find TRUTH in other religions and philosophies. Not the kind of "Absolute Truth" you would expect from a book that is supposedly the "Word of God", but instead I found truth in the wisdom of great religious philosophers and spiritual leaders.

Eastern Mysticism makes so much more SENSE! In fact, it's so sensible that it can almost be called "Logical". It also conveys the innate things that I know to be TRUTH.

Far more interestingly, I discovered something truly grand. I discovered Mahayana Buddhism and the concept of the Bodhisattva. This fits in with precisely what Jesus was like, and with what Jesus was actually teaching. In fact, once you learn the tenets of Mahayana Buddhism the teachings of Jesus makes a LOT more sense. Of course, you need to also take into account that most of the quotes we have of Jesus were actually written by men who had an agenda to turn Jesus into their Abrahamic Messiah. So you can't truly trust the rumors of the authors of the New Testament to truly convey what Jesus might have been trying to say. I mean, even those authors themselves have Jesus telling his own disciples that even THEY aren't truly understanding him.

The more amazing and truly stunning thing is that Mahayana Buddhism was at its peak right around the time when Jesus would have lived. Whether Jesus had traveled to India, or whether he learned these things locally is hard to say. But clearly Jesus was teaching the wisdom of Mahayana Buddhism, and not the very unwise baloney of the Old Testament.

In fact, this is precisely why Christians love Jesus so much. They love the fact that he "changed" everything from the way it was in the Old Testament. Most people truly view the things in the Old Testament as being barbaric and outright "ungodly". If someone were to stone someone for being a 'sinner' today we'd think that was horrible.

So even the Christians truly don't like the God of the Old Testament. They like Jesus! Not the original God.

I don't blame them. Jesus was MUCH WISER and MUCH NICER than the original God of the Old Testament. Let there be no doubt about that!

This is also why he could not have possibly been the "son" of that God.

I mean, hey, if you think you can make sense of the "Holy Bible" more power to you. But as far as I'm concerned no one ever has and this is precisely why there are now so many fragmented religions resulting from this totally nonsensical collection of stories.

You don't need to give up on eternal life.

You don't even need to give up admiring and loving Jesus for having values that YOU also embrace!

But you should truly be reasonable about just how much of this fable you're going to bother supporting as the "Word of God".

There's just no need to support the whole mythology.

Do you honestly believe that if you're a GOOD PERSON, and you actually AGREE with Jesus and admire him for holding the SAME VALUES that YOU CHERISH, some nasty God of Abraham will smite you simply because you didn't "believe" that Jesus was his demigod?

I mean, come on.

That's where the whole thing radically breaks down for me.

Goodness, wholesomeness, and all that truly matters of the heart means nothing to this God if a person fails to believe that Jesus was his son?

What kind of a God would that even be?

Clearly there's a major fly in the soup here.

Why you can't see it is beyond me.

Perhaps you simply can't stand the idea that Jesus might not have actually been a special incarnation of God sent with a 'gift' of eternal life?

Perhaps, you simply can't believe that you are indeed spirit and have always been spirit.

I don't know why you cling to an entire dogmatic religion when all you truly need is to know that your true nature is spiritual. That's all you need to know.

I guess I TRUST our creator more than you do.

I TRUST that God is at least as wise and as caring as myself.

That's all I need to know.

Anything less and it isn't much of a God.

The idea that you need to believe that some specific dogma is the "Word of God" is just downright absurd, IMHO.

Free yourself from dogma, and know that you are one with God and always have been and always will be.

Just have a little FAITH and TRUST GOD directly. Why support religious bigotry in the name of a jealous dogma?

Jesus heals!!!

Luke 4:18

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel
to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted,
to preach deliverance to the captives,
and recovering of sight to the blind,
to set at liberty them that are bruised,"

Trust.

Ab,
Thank you for sharing your journey. I started to share my own story
which would have matched yours almost to the letter.
But I'd only be telling your story back to you.
Yes I had unanswered questions. Some I may never find the answer to. But you know what? I found that it doesn't take away my hope or my salvation. Which is the overall message of the Bible, and my free gift.

I know whom I have believed and I am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I've committed unto Him against that day.

I am saddened that your frustration led to anger and even hatred toward the Savior to which you say you once innocently committed your life to.

I don't see a hateful God...I see a loving one. who taught me the value of a blood sacrifice. It truly is a horrible thought, but it washed me white as snow.

My salvation is my pearl of great price.

I learned to let go of the million and one questions...which I later found, paled in light of that blessed hope.
After I settled down and made the decision to trust him and not doubt, many of the questions were answered. I just couldn't "see the forrest for the trees". I was trying too hard to obtain knowledge.

God knows you have questions but He is not a man that you can take by the collar and terrorize or interrogate.
The story of the woman caught in adultery comes to mind. Those guys thought that Jesus should have agreed and prononounced a sentence against the woman. But He only doodled in the dirt. When He was ready to answer He did.

The LORD is your Teacher. If He is silent. Doesn't mean there is no answer. Your better concern should be your trust in the Almighty. After we gather enough knowledge, we'd know just enough to be dangerous. Our reasoning is foolish next to His wisdom and purpose.

I pray that you will reconsider your committment.

I hope to share more later.

Thus is the thinking of every suicide bombing terrorist.

People like you give me the willies.

A wise person once said, "Never trust anyone who says they've found the truth. Only trust those who are still looking."

Y'know, I'm getting real tired of being compared to children.
Any other adults here getting tired of that?

Congrats. You can quote the bible. Just like the devil.

Yeah, that'll surely win him over...

Excellent illustration,ja

You should copy and save that on your desktop. It'll save time in the future.

I thought Jesus saves. Moses invests, though...

So...all one has to do is turn off one's brain to be a christian.
Good to know good to know.

1Corinthians 1:4-31

4, I thank my God always on your behalf, for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ;
5, That in every thing ye are enriched by him, in all utterance, and in all knowledge;
6, Even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you:
7, So that ye come behind in no gift; waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ:
8, Who shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
9, God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
10, Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.
11, For it hath been declared unto me of you, my brethren, by them which are of the house of Chloe, that there are contentions among you.
12, Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ.
13, Is Christ divided? was Paul crucified for you? or were ye baptized in the name of Paul?
14, I thank God that I baptized none of you, but Crispus and Gaius;
15, Lest any should say that I had baptized in mine own name.
16, And I baptized also the household of Stephanas: besides, I know not whether I baptized any other.
17, For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect.
18, For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.
19, For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.
20, Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?
21, For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.
22, For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom:
23, But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness;
24, But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.
25, Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
26, For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called:
27, But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;
28, And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are:
29, That no flesh should glory in his presence.
30, But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption:
31, That, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.

Well, that's just it. Evidently you are attracted by the lure of "hope". Moreover, you've already accepted that if you fail to "keep the faith" in this hope something horrible will befall you, like you'll either just die when you did, or worse yet, you might be cast into some horrible place of damnation where there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth, as Jesus supposedly puts it.

In other word, you already feel for the damnation fear factor, so now your only 'hope' is to avoid condemnation.

This would be like believing in Zeus and then asking whether you should also believe in Apollo as your "Savior".

It's really no different. You first bought into the belief that the God of the Old Testament is real, and thus you now have no choice but to believe in Jesus to be "saved" from the wrath of the original God of Abraham.

Unlike you, I didn't start with Jesus, I started with Genesis and read the WHOLE STORY from "In the beginning". After all it's rather silly to start by accepting a "savior" when you don't first understand just what it is that you are being "saved" from.

So with that in mind, just put the New Testament away completely and focus solely on the Old Testament. Read the whole thing and before you even consider Jesus, ask yourself the following questons:

1. Does this story truly sound to you like the behavior and wise actions of an all-powerful all-wise, loving, merciful God?

When I ask myself that question my honest answer is no it doesn't. On the contrary it truly sounds utterly absurd in places. Sure there are places where it makes sense, but that's moot. If there are major parts and themes that are utterly absurd then the purity and divinity of the WHOLE FABLE comes into serious question.

2. Do these stories make far more sense if viewed as the writing of mortal men who were attempting to control the people to act in a manner that would benefit them as the ultimate authoritarians?

My answer to that question is a very powerful resounding, "Yes!".

These stories are exactly the kinds of things that I would expect mortal men to make up to control the masses. Especially the idea of teaching the masses to stone sinners to death, stone heathens to death, and never even consider doubting that these writings are the "Word of God!", for to even suggest such a doubt is to become a HEATHEN, and you will be stoned to death for even thinking of such a thing!

Does sound like the method of an all-powerful God who could deal with sinners and heathen on his own? Or does that sound like the writings of men who are attempting to get the masses to do their dirty work for them.

Well, I don't know about you, but for me, it's utterly absurd to think that an all-powerful and all-wise God would be asking mortal men to judge each other as "sinners" or "heathens" and to stone sinners and heathens to death (especially after this supposedly all-wise God had already given a commandment Thou Shalt Not Kill)

To me, that is absolutely so utterly absurd it's not even worth discussing. It's obvious that this book is not the "Word" of any all-wise God.

Finally, ask yourself, "Do you LOVE this God of the Old Testament with all your heart, and all your soul, and all your mind?"

My answer quite frankly is no. If this God were real I think he's an idiot and a jerk. That's my honest assessment.

You can't be dishonest here and pretend to love or respect something when it simply isn't true. You got to be honest if you going to do this honestly.

So before I even get to the New Testament I'm already not convinced that the Old Testament represents the "Word" of any genuine all-wise superior being. It just looks like the every day mundane crap that I'd expect to here from mortal men, in fact not even very WISE mortal men too boot!

There's absolutely nothing in it that indicates to me that it contains any 'divine" wisdom. This God solves all his problems using the same stupid and violent methods of these ancient barbaric men who wrote this stuff.

It's truly crystal clear to me that the Old Testament is just the ramblings of mortal men who weren't all that bright themselves.

Also, if you're not totally convinced in this Old Testament God and totally in LOVE with him with all your body, mind, and soul, then why even bother moving on to the New Testament, even Jesus can't change what's in the Old Testament.



Well, this is one reason why Christianity captures the hearts and minds of so many people. They fall in love with Jesus, trust in him, and just sweep all the rest under the carpet as being irrelevant.



This is entirely your own fabrication and misunderstanding. I hold no anger or hatred at all toward the man named Jesus. On the contrary I see him as having been a victim of this whole ugly religion.

Think about it! It was actually the crap in the Old Testament directing people to murder "heathens" and "blasphemists" that ultimate caused the crucifixion of Jesus in the first place!

Jesus was a victim of the very religion of the Old Testament.

Then after they nailed him to the cross, then proceeded to nail him to the Old Testament via their false rumors about him in the New Testament.

No, I don't hate Jesus at all. On the contrary, my heart goes out to him, he was a victim of religions LIKE Christianity.

If I have any anger it's toward the authors of the New Testament for writing the things they wrote. Also toward the people who decided to put these particular writings into a cannon and call them the "Holy Bible". They created this myth themselves.

I confess that I'm also disappointing in all modern day clergy for accepting this crap on blind faith and teaching other people to accept it on blind faith. The fact is that if they took an honest look at these Abrahamic myths and assessed them with an honest open mind, at the very best all they could possibly conclude is that if these writings were inspired by some divine being they have become totally distorted and corrupt by mortal men anyway.

The Bible (or any of the Abrahamic texts) simply aren't well written. Period.




You see what you want to see. You seem to be more interesting in being washed white as snow than in whether or not the fables make any sense.



Yep, that's apparently your most prized thought.



Your clearly not interested in whether or not the story might be true or false. You're apparently just mesmerized by the idea and HOPE that it might be true.

Why you feel that way I'm not sure.

The only thing I can imagine is that you simply can't comprehend a better scenario. Since you seem to be in such dire need of "hope" that implies that you can't imagine spirituality outside of this story, and the thought of an atheistic existence is so repugnant to you that you'll believe anything just to avoid the very thought of an atheistic existence.

I guess the difference between you and I is that I can believe in spiritual scenarios beyond the mundane and ignorant fables of the ancient Hebrews. Why should our creator be a male-chauvinist?

In fact, why should our creator even be a MALE in the first place?

Just exactly how ZEUS-like is this God anyway?



That's a common psychological phenomenon that all humans share. Once they accept something on faith, they no longer have any problems with it because, guess what? They have accepted it on pure faith.

The same thing would have been true had you chose to believe in faeries, or the Wiccan Goddess, or whatever. It matters not. Anything you resign yourself to believing automatically becomes comforting to you simply because you've chosen to quit doubting it.



There is no sane explanation for the behavior of the biblical God. Sorry.



It was supposedly this God's directive that men should stone sinners to death in the FIRST PLACE! It wasn't man's idea! Unless you recognize as I have the whole fable is nothing more than the ramblings of mortal men.



That's just it. I trust the creator of this universe far more than you do. This is precisely why I renounce the biblical fables, they portray a totally ignorant, foolish and untrustworthy picture of God.




There's no way that I will ever support Christian Bigotry in the name of God. I personally don't believe that Christianity even properly reflects the moral values that Jesus taught anyway.

And I certainly don't believe the hearsay rhetoric that was written about Jesus in the New Testament.

If it's important to you to worship this myth, then I would suggest doing just that and don't bother trying to convince other people of it's truth. You'll never convinced me, I can assure you of that.

You may as well be selling Zeus. The Abrahamic God is just as nonsensical as far as I'm concerned. And Jesus was most likely a Mahayana Buddhist Bodisattva, in fact that role fits in with his teachings and actions perfectly. The idea of him being the son of the God of Abraham makes no sense at all.

So in a very real sense I have already FOUND my answers.

1. The Old Testament is total fables just like Greek Mythology.
2. Jesus was a Mahayana Buddhist Bodhisattva
3. The authors of the New Testament are full of crap.

Those are the answer I've found with respect to the Biblical folklore.

So I FOUND my answers. It's a DONE DEAL as far as I'm concerned.

As far as spirituality is concerned I'm totally sold on Eastern Mysticism, and I also enjoy very much the loving rituals of Wicca, Shamanism, and Faery Lore. They all worship God in a very highly positive way. No need to degrade God into an egotistical bigoted male-chauvinistic jealous pig like the Hebrews did.

It's just not productive for healthy spiritualism.

2. Jesus was a Mahayana Buddhist Bodhisattva




***nods sagely***


Good morning to you James...

Good morning Jess

I guess it's springtime for you huh?

I'm cutting firewood and preparing to dig in for my winter hibernation.

it is....we are moving rapidly into summer...although the world around me is so confused with climate....jacaranda trees blooming twice...(they are a winter flowerer here in the tropics)...insects hatching months out of times past...and masses of them....it's getting quite alarming, as the natural rhythms are in a different beat now...

In truth.

the flood came because that was what came in the world at that time.

Yet those that saw it coming misintrupted why they survived (because they prepared)and others drowned (because they did not) as somehow being related to relegion.

Givin that, if a dinosaur had survived the fall of rocks... Would they now be saying that god selected them because of their faith, to survive.

If scientists warn you that a volcano is going to eurpt near your home...

Did god save the ones that fled? Or kill the ones that stayed?

Sometimes the logical illogic humans are capable of amazes me.

As does that continued clinging to (what in the face of greater knowledge) appears to be a false assumption.

Moses was informed prior to the flood that it was going to happen. And was instructed to construct the ark to save his family *which were seen pure in our fathers eyes* and the animals of the planet. It's not like Moses seen it starting to flood so he built the ark, no. He was previously instructed to do as such.

Noah was the guy with the ark. Moses parted the sea and talked to a burning bush.

Apollo was the son of Zeus, and Artemis was Apollo's twin sister who assisted in her brother's birth. Their mother's name was Leto. Leto was a Goddess, so Apollo and Artemis are full-fledged gods too and not merely demigods.

Just thought I'd add some more mythological trival whilst we're on the topic of mythologies.

"Professing themselves to be wise,

they became fools,"


Rom_1:22,