I totally agree.

In fact, that's precisely what I'm saying.

I agree that there are hints of mysticism in the Bible. There is *some spiritual truth* in it. Let there be no doubt about that. There are actually many pantheistic statement all through the Bible.

The bible is also filed with shamanic visions. It clearly states on many occasions that people were given spiritual wisdom though dreams and psychic visions. The Bible even has a King going to a witch who contacts a dead spirit for him.

There are many elements of spirituality in the bible in places. But there is also a LOT of what is obviously nothing more than the opinions of men. Often times those opinions are clearly self-centered on what those men wanted to be true at the time.

I have no problem with recognizing that there are *some* spiritual truths peppered throughout the biblical writings. But to take the whole thing literally in every detail and call it the "Laws" of God, is just utter nonsense, IMHO.

And that's precisely what it's being held out to be!

I can see the pantheistic spiritual truths in the bible. I even see them clearly in the teachings of Jesus. But all the rhetoric that he was born of a virgin, was the only begotten son of the God of the Old Testament, and was the sacrificial lamb to pay for this sins of man, is where the thing goes sour.

Abra wrote


And there isn't a logical reason to believe in this religion at all.

None whatsoever.

Abra also wrote


But the bumbling biblical God is nothing but an idiot.

Abra wrote this yesterday

I don't give out any insults. That's your delusion.

You're delusional if you don't think that is an insult...

The fact that you are insulted because of my views of an ancient biblical fable is truly hilarious Peter.










Why should you be insulted by that?

Did you write the fable?

I can't be held responsible for your delusions of having been "insulted" by someone's views of an ancient fable.

No wonder you're always calling me a liar. You're insulted when no one is insulting you. You make up your own delusional paranoid world and then blame others for your paranoia.

Cowboy wrote:

That law was fulfilled, completed, finished with the coming of a saviour. Jesus was that saviour which then he gave us a new law, new prophesies.

And God is infinite. What makes you think he's not?

If you were to hold that view with any sincerity you'd need to toss out the laws of the Old Testament entirely.

But you refuse to do that. You use the bible to support bigotry against same-gender love and marriage.

So you're being a two-faced hypocrite with this claim and you aren't truly honoring it.

In order to honor this claim you'd need to toss out the entire Old Testament as being "laws" that are no longer valid. And you'd also need to toss out about 75% of the New Testament that was written by Paul. You'd end up with a very tiny Bible of about four short books, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

Anything short of that makes your claims hypocritical invalid, because on the one face you use Jesus to preach love, and on the other face you use the Old Testament or Paul to preach hate.

So no, it can't be made to work, unless you actually HONOR your claim and toss out the entire Old Testament Laws.

Otherwise your claims are hypocritical and contradictory.



For one thing the solutions to the problems presented in the bible weren't even close to reflecting infinite wisdom.

For the other thing the biblical God is viewed in the masculine, and therefore he cannot be infinite because he already lacks the feminine.

It's a very poorly written mythology. Not very well made up at all. It reflects the extremely limited thinking of mortal men, not the infinite wisdom of a supposedly infinitely wise God.

I've already pointed out the fact that if Jesus truly had been the son of an all-wise God who came to Earth with such a hugely important message to mankind he would have written down in his own words.

Leaving it to become the gossip of extremely belated, ambiguous, and highly questionable hearsay would not merely be unwise, but it would be utterly stupid, IMHO.

Look, even the Jews didn't believe the hearsay baloney.

So your "all-wise" God would have totally failed in convincing his creation of his message. That can only be seen as an inept God, and could never be claimed to be a display of infinite divine wisdom.

So there's no question at all that the fictitious God portrayed in the Bible is far from infinitely wise, and very much closer to being completely inept.

If you were to hold that view with any sincerity you'd need to toss out the laws of the Old Testament entirely.

But you refuse to do that. You use the bible to support bigotry against same-gender love and marriage.

Telling someone they are delusion and or have delusional beliefs is telling someone they are arrogant, not intelligent, and all around allowing themselves to live in a dream world. Which in turn is an insult. People's beliefs are what makes them who they are. It's one thing to say "on the contrary...." and show some evidence of the contrary then to just straight out say "you delusional idiot, that isn't true".

Definition of infinite. Has nothing to do with genders.

having no limits or boundaries in time or space or extent or magnitude; "the infinite ingenuity of man"; "infinite wealth"



No, the 10 commandments are through Jesus' teachings. And yes we have tossed out the old testament entirely, it is pretty much just there for history. A smart person learns for his/her own mistakes a wise person learns from other people's mistakes. Therefore the old testament is there to let us know what people had gone wrong in the past so we can avoid doing the same thing.

Really?

Well, this is the basis of what Christianity has been doing for millennia.

They constantly tell everyone that if they aren't worshiping the Bible as the word of God they are having delusional false beliefs.

Sure, they may not actually use those words, but what's the difference? They say the same things.

You yourself constantly tell me that I am "Refusing to acknowledge and obey OUR FATHER".

Well, that's the very same thing as saying that my spiritual believes are delusional nonsense.

So I have absolutely no sympathy for this proselytizing gimmick.

All you're basically saying is that if I disagree with the fables that Christianity is based on, I'm insulting Christianity.

Well, so what?

You disagree with all the spiritual philosophies that I believe in.

Thus you would also be insulting me by that SAME STANDARD!

The problem with you Christians is that you're out to HARD SELL your religion to other people, and then you complain when they EXPLAIN why they are NOT BUYING IT!

That's bull ****

If you want to shove your religion down the throats of other people then you can't be screaming "PERSONAL FOUL" when they tell you how utterly STUPID they think the religion is.

You really have NO CHOICE, but to LISTEN to why they feel it's STUPID.

Because YOU are the one who is trying SO HARD to proselytize it as the "Word of God".

QUIT SHOVING it down people throats, and people will quite SHOVING BACK!

Face it Cowboy, you aren't here to discuss GENERAL RELIGION, you are here SOLELY to FIGHT TOOTH AND NAIL for the ideal that the BIBLE ONLY is the "Word of God" and no other explanation or religions will be TOLERATED!!!!

This is the epitome of Christian Religious Bigotry.

And this why the religion is so harmful to humanity as a whole. Along with all the other Abrahamic religions.

~~~~

I take a look at an ancient fable and offer a very realistic scenario that Jesus was a Mahayana Buddhist Bodhisattva and he was grossly misunderstood and made into a demigod via superstitious gossip.

That, my friend, is a very reasonable and possible scenario.

You keep demanding that the Christian view of the Bible MUST STAND.

Thus I keep pointing out whey I feel that it's far too unreasonable and unwise to stand.

Then you scream "FOUL! That's an insult to my religion!"

No it isn't. It's my REASON why I feel that those ancient fables can't be from any all-wise God.

If you are going to be offended by people's reasons why they don't believe in your religion, then QUIT trying to proselytize it as the only true "Word of God" and go back over to the Christian Forums, where everyone will support your Christian views.

It's that simple.

If you are going to be offended by people's reasons why they don't believe in your religion, then QUIT trying to proselytize it as the only true "Word of God" and go back over to the Christian Forums, where everyone will support your Christian views.

I think the hypothesis that Jesus was a Mahayana Buddhist Bodhisattva who was simply misunderstood makes far more sense.

And the entire Old Testament was just another Zeus-like man-made fable. Not really all that much different at all. The idea of a male Godhead who's chomping at the bit to cast people into a lake of fire for refusing to believe in him just seems absurd to me.

That's really the bottom line for me.

The fact that you are insulted because of my views of an ancient biblical fable is truly hilarious Peter.










Why should you be insulted by that?

Did you write the fable?

I can't be held responsible for your delusions of having been "insulted" by someone's views of an ancient fable.

No wonder you're always calling me a liar. You're insulted when no one is insulting you. You make up your own delusional paranoid world and then blame others for your paranoia.

Cowboy wrote:

If you had children and they refused to recognize you as their parent, would you continue to support them? Continue to give them gifts? No matter what you try to prove that you are their parent this child continues on denying you, would you again then allow him to abode with you and give him everything he ever possibly could imagine including unbounded love.

First of all, for me to feel "insulted", I'd have to respect the person "insulting" me. You lost that respect when you lied and said I denied be a Christian...

If I had children I wouldn't play stupid hide-and-seek games with them in the first place and then BLAME them for not recognizing me.

The Biblical God's problems with his children are entirely due to his own ineptness at communication.

I mean let's face it, if YOU feel that you need to argue with me in order to convince me that the Bible is the "Word of God" then clearly God himself did not do a very good job of convincing me on his own through that very cannon of stories.

That would imply that God NEEDS you help to translate and explain HIS MESSAGE to me!

The whole thing just utter ignorance.

Your very FAITH depends on you believing that your God cannot properly communicate with his own children without YOUR HELP.

Evangelism itself is an insult to God because it presumes two things:

1. God cannot communicate with people efficient on his own.

2. The evangelist is more concerned with the fate of human souls than God is.

Both of these assumptions imply that God is both inept and uncaring.

If you don't TRUST your God enough to believe that he can deal with his own children in a perfectly righteous and just way without any help from you, then you can only believe that your God is totally inept and completely untrustworthy to do what is righteous and just on his own without your help.

Evangelism itself is an insult to your very own God.

1. God cannot communicate with people efficient on his own.

2. The evangelist is more concerned with the fate of human souls than God is.

Cowboy wrote:

He does. It's not his fault you don't listen and or ignore him and what he has said.

You forget God works through people. That may be why I have such a drive to come in here and defend our father while people like you try to give him a bad name, a very horrible attempt at that.

Sorry Cowboy, but the ancient Hebrews do not impress me as speaking for any God. Their folklore is far too Zeus-like.



And so now you confess again that you are indeed an evangelist who is out to defend the Christian myth to your death.

Besides, anyone who's intelligent enough to actually understand what I'm saying would know better than to suggest that I'm giving any God a bad name.

If you renounce the ancient Greek religions base on Zeus as being mere myth, are you giving "Zeus" a bad name?

Hardly. All you're doing is saying that the fables are indeed a myth.
And therefore there is no "Zeus" to even be offended.

Well, that's all I'm saying here.

The Old Testament fables are necessarily a myth, IMHO, because they are far too absurd to be an account of any genuinely all-wise supreme being.

That's not giving anyone a 'bad name' that's just stating a rational view that the stories can't be true.

I also point out that even the gospels have Jesus disagreeing with the moral values of those ancient fables. Thus even Jesus himself appears to be agreeing with me that the moral values of the Old Testament are not wise.

So I'm in good company there I think.

Then I show that the moral values that Jesus actually taught are indeed the same wisdom that is taught by the Eastern Mystics, especially with respect to Mahayana Buddhism which was at its peak at the time Jesus was supposed to have lived.

Totally contrary to your claim that I'm trying to give someone a bad name, I'm actually suggesting that Jesus was a dedicated Mahayana Buddhist Bodhisattva. That's an extremely honorable thing to suggest.

Then I suggest that the New Testament is nothing more than highly exaggerated myths based on rumors, extreme exaggerations, and even lies. Well, mortal men have been known to write that sort of gibberish all over the world and all throughout time, so that's a reasonable suggestion as well.

The Christian attempt to use this idea that they are defending attacks against "God" when people question the validity of these ancient fables, but that's utterly silly.

If it truly is a faith-based religion (which it necessarily must be), then to accuse those who don't believe in it to be 'slandering' God is itself absurd.

You would be far better off if, instead of creating an enemy in me, you simply acknowledge my views as being the respectable views that they are, and simply retain the simple position that you disagree with them.

There is no need to accuse me of trying to give "Our Father" a bad name, because that shoe doesn't even fit at all.

I don't recognize those myths as being the word of "Our Father", therefore I am in no way claiming to even attempting to give "Our Father" a bad name. That would be like saying that if I say something bad about Zeus, I'm giving "Our Father" a bad name.

On the contrary, I'm saying that "Our Father" is more likely "Our Creator" without the patriarchal bigotry of the Hebrew male-chauvinism.

I lift "Our Creator" up out of the mud of male-chauvinism, and glorify "Our Creator" to the highest.

From my point of view, you are the one who insists on giving "Our Creator" a bad name by insisting that "Our Creator" is as stupid and ignorant as a bunch of male-chauvinistic Hebrews.

So touché.

We both feel that the other person is the one who is belittling the divine creator of life.

I also point out that even the gospels have Jesus disagreeing with the moral values of those ancient fables. Thus even Jesus himself appears to be agreeing with me that the moral values of the Old Testament are not wise.

Cowboy wrote:

Of course Jesus' teachings weren't the same as the old testament laws. They are TWO different forms of laws and Jesus fulfilled what we now call the OLD testament. So no he wasn't agreeing that they were unwise, just they were fulfilled, completed, finished.

Yes, I understand that this is your theory. But it doesn't ring true for me. You'd still have a problem with an overall "God" who changes his mind on what is 'wise' at different times throughout the biblical history of mankind. At one point he deals with sin by drowning people and at another he's sacrificing his son to pay for the sins of man. That an overall "God" who is a bit too schizophrenic and unstable for my taste.

So your theory simply doesn't work for me. I see no value in it.

My theory that Jesus was a Mahayana Buddhist Bodhisattva avoids these contradictions altogether. The Old Testament fables were merely man-made myths and need no explanation beyond that.

Besides, I have problems with the story of Adam and Eve. I have problems with the idea that mankind is responsible for bringing evil and imperfections into the world and the cause of thorns growing on plants. I have problems with the "Great Flood" (both moral problems as well as physical problems concerning)

So for me, the Old Testament is far too problematic to even bother trying to 'salvage' it. Why bother when the theory that Jesus was a Mahayana Buddhist Bodhisattva avoids all of these contradictions and problems entirely.

It's a far less complicated theory. And it WORKS!

Occam's Razor.

Yes, I understand that this is your theory. But it doesn't ring true for me. You'd still have a problem with an overall "God" who changes his mind on what is 'wise' at different times throughout the biblical history of mankind. At one point he deals with sin by drowning people and at another he's sacrificing his son to pay for the sins of man. That an overall "God" who is a bit too schizophrenic and unstable for my taste.

Cowboy wrote:

He didn't change his mind nor did anything change. He sent Jesus to fulfil what we call the old testament and give us the new covenant. And man rejected our father once more crucifying his child. Before Jesus people sacrificed things to show their remorse of their sins and seek forgiveness. Jesus came and allowed himself to be the ultimate sacrifice so we no longer have to do that. But all in all nothing changed. The biggest and main difference between the old and new testament is when and how we will be judged of our sins.

We're still judged by the word and always have been judged by the word. Just now the word has been made flesh and can carry out the judgement on it's own, not needing man to carry out the judgement. So again all in all not much has changed.

I see no reason to believe in any personified egotistical judgmental God who is going to judge every single individual personally.

That whole idea comes from those Zeus-like mythologies in the first place.

From my perspective a truly all-wise creator would simply set up a creation where any need for any 'judgment' is done automatically. Thus, for me the concept of karma makes far more sense than to imagine a egotistical personified Godhead who judges people individually.

Moreover, it makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever that any God could judge people poorly for simply believing that God is wise.

The God you appear to believe in would need to chastise people for merely thinking that he's better than what he actually is, and that makes absolutely no sense to me at all.

I'm saying that God must necessarily be far greater than the Biblical picture portrays God to be.

If I'm wrong, then guess what? God truly is a jerk then. Because that's the only way I could be wrong.

Think about it.

From my perspective a truly all-wise creator would simply set up a creation where any need for any 'judgment' is done automatically. Thus, for me the concept of karma makes far more sense than to imagine a egotistical personified Godhead who judges people individually.

Cowboy wrote:

So you're saying it would be much more justified if bad things happened to us just because we had a bad day and was in a bad mood so in turn we accidently treated other people poorly? How is that righteous? Or a point in our life when we were down on life and in a poor mindset so we didn't behave in the most loving way for that time being, and in turn bad things came upon us? How is it a better idea and much more righteous to have no forgiveness of mistakes? Where's the compassion? How is that more justified then a judgement? Remember, it's a JUDGEMENT, it's not a sentencing or anything of such..