the bible has many TRANSLATIONS,

and EARTH, whether capitalized or not has many meanings in our culture,,,,

to suggest that filling the earth meant killing is completely ignoring the express commandment not to murder

being fruitful is also not exclusiviely synonymous with being promiscuous as it does not speak to the process but to the result and being promiscuous flies in the face of all the teachings to turn from lust and to cling to one spouse,,,,

"He who has seen Me has seen the Father;
how do you say, 'Show us the Father'?" (John 14:6-9) "

I've seen some Gods, and once, when the Dalai Lama gave a televised speech to a bunch of American billionaires in some gala or dinner, a Lesser lama was standing beside Him, and gave Him words when He was stuck. Often, well, at least twice I caught Him say, "how you say in English".

The Lord Jesus was the same way, and please don't say that interpretation is needed to figure out what it means, "how do you say, "Show us the Father."?"

Clearly, this is a reference in which God through Jesus says, "I am going to foresee the difficulties arising from language issues in many years to come, as right now I can't think how to say this, so I am asking someone here to help me with this," just like the Dalai Lama.

Gods, as a group, have generally the same strengths and weaknesses, and it looks like that notwithstanding the strength of omnipotence, They have the weakness of the diffculty of expressing Themselves clearly, and understandably; and They are the first to admit to that. In speeches, and on pages of the scriptures.

Yes, I am literal; there is no reason to be not when you read, "how you say it".

The Lord Jesus was the same way, and please don't say that interpretation is needed to figure out what it means, "how do you say, "Show us the Father."?"



thats how you see it,, to each their own,,,, I see it differently

I need to learn the language of Jesus, not the other way around, he speaks perfectly as far as Im concerned

Wow, I can be litteral too...
Since you have seen some Gods, ask them to teach you how to read or ask them your questions directly.

There are things that are used in English called "punctuation marks", learn how to identify them.

Yes, I agree, it does that. One commandment is contradictory to another, and that is a very prominent and oft recurring theme of the Bible. God can't keep track of His statements, He often contradicts Himself in the Bible. There is nothing new about your discovery there, young lady.

For instance, please consider the following, and please take note of the highlighted parts:


Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth,
and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through Me.
If you had known Me, you would have known My Father also;
from now on you know Him, and have seen Him."
Philip said to Him, "Lord, show us the Father,
and it is enough for us."
Jesus said to him, "Have I been so long with you,
and yet you have not come to know Me, Philip?
He who has seen Me has seen the Father;
how do you say, 'Show us the Father'?" (John 14:6-9)


"All that the Father gives Me shall come to Me,
and the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out.
For I have come down from heaven,

not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.
And this is the will of Him who sent Me,
that of all that He has given Me I lose nothing,
but raise it up on the last day.
For this is the will of My Father,
that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him,
may have eternal life; and I Myself will raise him up
on the last day." (John 6:37-40)

The Jews gathered around him, saying,
"How long will you keep us in suspense?
If you are the Christ, tell us plainly."
Jesus answered, "I did tell you, but you do not believe.
The miracles I do in my Father's name speak for me,
but you do not believe because you are not my sheep.
My sheep listen to my voice; I know them,
and they follow me. I give them eternal life,
and they shall never perish;
no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father,
who has given them to me, is greater than all;
no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand.
I and the Father are one." (John 10:24-30)


"Your father Abraham rejoiced
at the thought of seeing my day;
he saw it and was glad."
"You are not yet fifty years old,"
the Jews said to him,
"and you have seen Abraham!"
"I tell you the truth,"

Also Jesus says:

John 3:16 "For God so loved the world,
that he gave his only begotten Son,
that whosoever believeth in him should not perish,
but have everlasting life."
Edited by CeriseRose on Tue 11/16/10 02:35 PM

This is one other instance in which God shows his inability to track His own thoughts and logic.

On one hand, Jesus says His Father and He are one and the same. That is acceptable. But Jesus also says that he is not doing His own will, He is doing His Father's will.

This second claim can only make sense if the two are not one and the same. If they were one and the same, then there would be no way to have different two wills. And yet there are. So Jesus and The Father are one according to a direct statement of Jesus, and Jesus and The Father are not one, according to another statement of Jesus. All on the same page.

This does not weaken for me the credibility of God, it means to me that He is not very well versed in Language, He may be senile, He is uncultured and uneducated, He thinks we are sheep, He thinks we are stupid for taking His obvious and irrefutable contradictions and smooth them over for the sake of belief; He can't express himself, and despite all this, He is convinced that we will still believe every word He says. No matter how stupid, illogical and impossible his claims are that He wants us to believe.

But then again, some people ARE stupid, sheepish, sheep-like, follow the leadership in a complex world of a God who is incapable of leadership, for He talks gibberish and He can't keep even one story straight.

He leads me, I am far from stupid, but I wish you the best in choosing your own leader(s),, or leading yourself,,,

it makes perfect sense to me,,,,and I wish not to get into a lengthy pedantic conversation about the complexities of english language or of God

You have already got into a lengthy conversation... you are retreating in defeat by logic (not by force)... you claim you are not stupid, in a defensive way, without proof, since you need to preserve your ego strength after this irrefutable set of logical barrage of the contradictions in the Bible which you yourself have helped identify... you try to minimize the force of the arguments by belittling them via calling it "pedantic" ... God is in the details.

Retreat, young lady, but take the lesson with you what you learned here, consider it logically, meditate over it, and do not stop doing that until you have come to a conclusion that you yourself can accept both with your heart and your mind. Do not retreat in a hurt huff and puff, do not let your hurt reject the power of the argments, which are nothing but mere juxtaposing of the parts of the words of Jesus and thereby showing how impossible it is what he claims is the truth.

Sometimes the truth hurts, but it liberates.

Maybe by your seeing that the Bible is full of lies and deceit, you will be able to see the reason why it is so. Maybe you will find a different leader. Maybe you will go insane. I don't know. But if your claim is true, that you are intelligent, then you can't retreat without admitting to a failure of your ways as far as believing the Bible the way you beleived it until today.

Now that I think about, be litteral.

Be fruitful - fill yourself with fruit.
Multiply - Do the math.
Replenish the earth - Hey, since you're being litteral, it never says with what. But if you really want to use humans, start with old, fat adults, it'll accomplish the task quicker.

LOL, try this one then.

1 Thessalonians 5:21 (King James Version)

21 Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.


Noone has to believe anything which is not good.

16 Therefore, I say unto you, thou shalt not believe the Bible, for it is not good;

17 For the essence of Good includes no lies and no deceit; the essence of Good does not force a man to think Gibberish is good;

18 Therefore I say unto you, go forth, and throw the pulp you call Bible in the nearest trashcan.

1 Protaronians 6:16-18 (Pretachranuan version)

Sorry, don't believe that gibberish for even a second.

I am not hurt, just disinterested in what I find to be a debate centered around circular logic

we may as well start a debate opposing those who oppose pedophilia on the grounds that the declaration of independence assignes them their inalienable right to 'pursue happiness'

neither of us will change what we believe, so I choose to leave it as an agreement to disagree,,,,but thanx for assuming you had something you were teaching me,,,,perhaps we both taught each other,,,,

peace

Thank you Davidben for recognizing truth.

I have no come to destroy the "word of God" but to expose the fallacy of it.

Jesus himself expressed views similar to mine. Jesus did not support the bigotry and ignorance of the Old Testament. Neither did he support it as the "Word of God". On the contrary, he referred to it as "Your Law" when speaking to the scribes and Pharisees that he also proclaimed to be hypocrites.

So I'm actually supporting the teachings of Jesus far more than the Christians did. The Christians adulterated the teachings of Jesus and used him as an excuse to prop up the very things that Jesus himself renounced.

Paul used Jesus' name to drag all manner of bigotry and male-chauvinism into the New Testament. Of course he had no idea that his filth would end up in the biblical cannon, but none the less it has.

I personally don't believe that Jesus would support Christian bigotry, nor would he support religious bigotry.

Hate is hate. And Jesus did not support hate.

The Christians defiled Jesus when they proclaimed him to be the son of the God of Abraham. I don't believe a word of it.

After they had him nailed to the pole, they proceeded to nail him to the Old Testament via the Gossips they wrote about him.

So no, I absolutely will not tolerate or support such a heinous act.

Jesus clearly stood for love and peace, and for not the bigotry and hatred that the Christians have used him to create.

Therefore I accept the moral values of Jesus.

I reject Christian bigotry and hatred.

I reject the Christian religion as being ungodly and spiritually sick.

If Christianity ever become holy, let me know and I'll consider it. But as long at it preaches bigotry, hatred and divisiveness I reject it.

And I personally believe that Jesus would feel precisely the same way.

I stand up for all that is Good and Holy. And this is why I reject Christianity and the Old Testament to which they have nailed Jesus' crucified body.

Exactly.

The Bible as a complete cannon cannot be divine because it's clearly not all good.

That's all Christianity teaches....... love. We are not to judge one another, we will be judged in the same manner we judge other. We love our neighbours just as much as we love ourselves, no egos, no pride, nothing of such.

We aren't greater, most important, smarter, or anything of such just because we've chosen to follow the laws of our father. We are ALL in the same boat we call life.

David Ben is perfectly correct, and you just said it right here:

"just because we've chosen to follow the laws of our father"

You claim to not be judging others, but you are. You're judging everyone who doesn't accept the Bible as the "Word of God" to be rejecting the laws of "Our Father".

That's one hell of an accusation and judgment.

How can you possibly look at your brother, see him as refusing to acknowledge your father's authority, and claim to be seeing him as equal to you in terms of showing respect to your father?

You can't.

Yet this is what you are doing with the Bible.

You basically using the Bible to judge other with. Anyone who refuses to acknowledge that the Bible is the "laws of Our Father" is rejecting Our Father's authority and refusing to obey Our Father.

That's the judgment that you are making on everyone who refuses to acknowledge the Bible as the "Word of God".

Thus you are automatically proclaim, not only to everyone else, but even to yourself, that you are necessarily BETTER in God's eyes than those who refuse to acknowledge his authority.

This is because you equate the "Bible" to being equal to "God's Authority". They are one in the same for you. Thus to reject the Bible, is to reject the authority of "Our Father".

But where your judgment of others grossly fails is that many people simply do not believe that the Bible has anything to do with "Our Father" since you seem to love that phrase to refer to the creator of life.

Thus your judgment of them is false. It's a false judgment. And this is true even if the Bible were was the "Word of God". This judgment would still be false.

Because disbelief does not equate to rejection.

This is the fallacy that you have bought into.

If you see someone worshiping some abstract form of God that you don't see as being the same as the Biblical God, it would absolutely wrong of you to suggest that they aren't worshiping the very same "Father" that you think you are worshiping when you worship the Bible as the "Word of God".

Because as even you point out, it's not the BOOK you are worshiping but rather GOD!

Well, if that's true, then why can you not see that these other people who view God differently are also not worshiping the images they have created, but rather they are worshiping the eternal spirit behind them (i.e. the ONLY GOD THAT EXISTS)

When I worship God through Cerridwen, for example, it's no different from you worshiping God through Jesus.

You might object and say, "But the Bible says that no one can get to God but through Jesus"

But that brings us full-circle once again. You're worshiping the Bible, not God. You're demanding that the Bible is the final say for God.

Thus you have no choice but to judge everyone who rejects the Bible as the "Word of God" to be rejecting God. Unless you, yourself recognize that the Bible itself might not be precisely true in every verbatim detail.

~~~~

As long as you hold out the notion that the Bible is the infallible word of God then this leaves you with no choice but to Judge everyone who rejects the Bible as refusing to accept the authority of God.

~~~~

This is precisely why this issue is so important. Not only to Christians, but maybe even more important to non-Christians. So that Christians will quit using the Bible to pass judgment on others as rejecting the authority of Our Father.

Just as David Ben points out so clearly in his posts. It necessary creates a "Better Than" mindset.

It absolutely necessarily has to. For how could God view a person who is dedicated to obeying him, and one who refuses to even acknowledge his authority, as being equal in HIS EYES?

Thus if you view yourself as being a loyal 'Servant of God" whilst you view others as being disloyal rebellious heathens, how could you possibly see yourself as being equal to them? Or vice versa?

How could you possible recognize that people who worship God through Buddha as being just as loyal to God as you? When your Bible tells you that only it speaks for God and the only way to God is through Jesus?

How could you possible recognize that people who worship God through one of the many Wiccan Goddesses as being just as loyal to God as you? When your Bible tells you that only it speaks for God and the only way to God is through Jesus?

How could you possible recognize that people who don't even believe that there is a God at all can be just as righteous as 'worthy' of a God as you, when the Bible tells that Heathens cannot be righteous, and that the only way to God is through Jesus?

You'd have to be kidding yourself to claim that you could view any of these people as being the SAME AS you in God's eyes, when according to the Bible all heathens are rejecting God without excuse, and that the only way to God is through Jesus?

In fact, you even necessarily must see yourself as BETTER THAN, in God's eyes, than people from other Abrahamic religions that have not accepted Jesus as "The Christ" and as their "savior".

Because your Bible teaches you that no one comes to the father but through Jesus.

And also, how could all those other people possibly be 'obeying' God if they are reading the wrong religious doctrines? Or worshiping the wrong forms of spiritual philosophies.

Christianity necessarily demands religious bigotry. It's an absolute must (if your going to take what the Bible says LITERALLY).

"No one comes to the Father but through Jesus"

That forces the religious bigotry right there. And of course, the whole idea is that Jesus is the son of the God of Abraham, thus the 'laws' that you continually refer to as "Our Father's Laws" must necessarily come from (or at least AGREE WITH) all of the laws set out in the Old Testament.

You might allow that other religions might also have similar "laws", but the Bible will be the TEST to see whether or not THOSE LAWS are the same as "Our Father's Laws".

Because for you the Bible is the "Word of God".

And that creates religious bigotry and intolerance of all other religions that do not agree with what the authors of the Bible wrote. Not to mention intolerance of atheists or "heathens".

As David Ben would put it, "My religion is BETTER THAN yours".

Because "my religion" is the "Word of God" and yours is false garbage.

That's the BETTER THAN mentality that David Ben is referring to.

Why would an omniscient being create anything beneath its own perfection?

Would it be wrong for a believer or anyone to consider this line of questioning?

What is the primary objective of a god to create beings who can procreate? Why not create all beings as the first were created?

It would seem to make sense that if a god personally created a being or beings, that the god would take interest in having a personal connection with the creations, otherwise why bother?.

By the same token it seems that if a god creates beings who can procreate, that there would be less interest in a personal connection with the many billions of 'pro-created' beings than there would be with beings of Its own making.

So why would 'pro-created' humans view god with any more interest than what has been extended to them, millions of generations away from the actual act of the original creation? Seriously, every generation after the first creation is nothing more than a matter of sex between two other, likewise, procreated beings.

Also, in regards to your analogy, what changed so drastically between those humans that you say the creator considered children and those he considered adults?

Did people suddenly begin having more knowledge at birth? Were new generation born smarter and more adult-like than their parents before them?

the most common theme between the antis and the pros is one puts PEOPLE at the beck and call of GOD(assuming people should be trying to connect to God, please God, live to revere God)

and others put GOD at the Beck and call of people,,,,(assuming God should be trying to make a connection with people, please people, create people to revere them)

From my perspective this is very limited thinking.

You offer two possible scenarios, both of which assume separatism.

You're looking at the problem solely from the Abrahamic or Mediterranean image of a Zeus-like "God". A God that is a completely separate being from humans, and has extremely human traits, wants, needs, and limitations.

The Eastern Mystic view of God is entirely different.

In the Eastern Mystics view God is omnipresent in everything. In fact there is nothing that is not God. However, there can indeed be an illusion of being 'separate' from God. That very illusion, and how to awaken from it, is what the Eastern Mystics attempt to address.

To someone who views God as a personified separate being, the idea that you can actually come to the realization that you and God are one may seem like blaspheme, or extreme arrogance. However, in truth, to think that you can actually be separate from God is far more arrogant really.

For if you were separate from God, what would you be? You would necessarily need to be a separate being in your own right.

Once you realize that you are an inseparable facet of God then questions of "who serves who" disappear. You are one in the same and you suddenly realize that all are God. (thus you have become "enlightened" to the truth)

Also once you realize the truth of this picture you can go back and read the Bible and suddenly realize how it started out based on the same picture, but quickly deteriorated into a Zeus-like mythology.

Satan would be a metaphor for the illusion of being separate from God. Satan is a metaphor for serving that illusion over "God".

In other words, you'd be serving the illusion that you are a separate being from everyone else, thus you'd have selfish goals and all your actions become self-oriented to this illusion of being separate from everyone else.

To give yourself over to "God" is a metaphor for releasing the ego. You no longer serve the things that you thought were in your self interest. You no longer view yourself as a separate being from anyone else. You now view things in terms of what's good for the whole. And you treat everyone as you would like to be treated yourself. You recognize that what you do to your brothers and sisters you do to yourself. Because they are not separate from God any more than you are separate God, and thus all are one.

To even think of God as being separate from you just reinforces the illusion of causing yourself to view yourself as being separate from God, and thus separate from everyone.

In fact, it also causes you to think that you are going to be favored by God over others on some judgment day. That just inflates the ego even more (the delusion of being separate from everyone else). Not only are you separate from others, but you're BETTER THAN others because you serve "God" and they don't.

In a very real sense, the very notion of an egotistical God who judges people based on whether or not they serve his "Word", is a spiritual philosophy that is precisely opposite from that of Mysticism.

Mysticism recognizes the ego as the problem. A religion like Christianity reinforces the ego to the hilt. Not only is the ego being pampered as "serving God", but it is also being told that it will be preserved for all of eternity.

Thus a religion like Christianity actually reinforces the illusion of the ego and elevates it to a position of being worthy of eternal life.

Whilst Eastern Mysticism is trying to get people to recognize that they are not their ego.

These two spiritual views of life are truly precise opposites of one another.

The scenarios that you have offered are both coming from the point of view that you are separate from God. Asking "Who serves who?" Like as if the creator and the created are separate.

I judged no one. For I did not say he was going to burn in hell for doing as such. I was merely stating an obvious fact, not influenced by my own mentality or emotions, therefore no judgement made. I treat him or any other unbeliever the same way I would treat a preacher, priest, or even just another Christian brother/sister. I speak these words with a pure heart of love for him, you, and everyone else that may read these words. Again, no judgement made just enlightening people with the knowledge of our father.