Well there you go!

There's your train-wrecked religion!

It started out being a story about a need for obedience and remorse and morality and now Christianity has somehow twisted the whole thing into being about what a person believes!

You say, "It is the unbelievers choice for not believing, it is their decision, it is them that is condemning themselves"

So now we're condemned for merely not believing in a specific collection of fables?

As far as I'm concerned this just shows how utterly absurd the whole religion has become. It's become thing more than a cult that tries to proclaim that anyone who doesn't believe in it will be "condemning themselves". They refuse to even allow their God to be credited with the condemnation.

To be perfectly honest with you Cowboy when it comes down to the wire this religion truly does make me extremely angry with the jerks who created it. Because they created a truly hateful cult that condemns everyone who doesn't suck up to its religiously bigoted views.

To me this is the most hateful religion ever devised by mankind.

It's a religion that basically teaches that if you refuse to accept it God will condemn you and it won't even be God's fault because they twist it around to even make it like as if you're condemning yourself if you reject this CULT.

It's a CULT. And a truly nasty one at that, IMHO.

It's downright NASTY!

It condemns everyone who refuses to suck up to it.

It's basically a religion that preaches hatred in the name of a jealous God toward all that refuse to support it.

It's the epitome of the "Jealous God Religions". It's takes the jealousy factor of God and uses it to condemn everyone and anyone who refuses to suck up to this religion.

It's a hate organization if you ask me. It basically preaches hatred in the name of God to all "non-believers" of the CULT.

What does any of that have to do with sin, salvation and sincere remorse?

Absolutely NOTHING!

It's clearly just a man-made brainwashing cult that condemns everyone who refuses to join and support it.

It's about as far from being "divine" as a religion can possibly be.

It started out being a story about a need for obedience and remorse and morality and now Christianity has somehow twisted the whole thing into being about what a person believes!

He sacrificed himself and felt the pain of death for you so you could have ever lasting life.

Cowboy wrote:

You're a man of a million excuses. Does NOT matter if they knew it was good, bad, evil, wrong, or anything. They would told not to do it, bottom line. Needs no reasoning on why they weren't to do it.

Cowboy,




I'm sorry I have not read the very lengthy conversation between you and Abracadabra, but I would like to comment on the above statement.

Everlasting life? That's nice if its true.

However I am still extremely skeptical of the entire story, and I can't really say I believe it. There are too many things that cause me to mistrust the Church and how they picked over all the ancient scriptures and chose what they would allow in the Bible and what they would throw out. Seems very political to me.

I don't think God wrote the Bible anyway. Men did. I also suspect that the entire new testament is a plagiarised forgery.

If indeed a savior died to save mankind on earth, I thank him very much.

Excuse me?

So let's put this in your HUMAN analogy that you so love to use.

You're the father and you command a very young baby not to stand up in the crib. You leave the room and when you return you find the baby standing up and you start screaming at the baby, "YOU DISOBEYED ME! YOU MUST DIE! THERE ARE NO EXCUSES FOR DISOBEDIENCE!"

Yeah right.

The story claims that Adam and Eve did not have the knowledge of good and evil before having eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Therefore according to this story Adam and Eve could not have been aware that eating from the tree was evil or wrong because they didn't yet possess that knowledge.

This is a clearly a logical flaw in the story. A flaw that I would expect to be there had this story truly been inspired by some all-wise all-intelligent being.

I mean, if we're going to assume that God is all-wise, then we need to support that theme, and the Biblical stories don't support that them, IMHO.

But they do support the conclusion that they are just man-made fables. We'd expect man-made fables to contain these kinds of flaws.

Cowboy wrote:

You're example doesn't work. A baby doesn't have the mental capacity to even know what you're saying when you told that child not to stand. You could have talking in Japanese for all the child knew. Adam and Eve were grown people. And God didn't do this anyways. If you were a parent and your child was say 20. This child was disobedient to you, would you continue to allow this child to live with you? Or would you get them out of the house? Get them out of the house and still have a relation with them in hopes to build a stronger relation?

Excuse me?

So let's put this in your HUMAN analogy that you so love to use.

You're the father and you command a very young baby not to stand up in the crib. You leave the room and when you return you find the baby standing up and you start screaming at the baby, "YOU DISOBEYED ME! YOU MUST DIE! THERE ARE NO EXCUSES FOR DISOBEDIENCE!"

Yeah right.

The story claims that Adam and Eve did not have the knowledge of good and evil before having eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Therefore according to this story Adam and Eve could not have been aware that eating from the tree was evil or wrong because they didn't yet possess that knowledge.

This is a clearly a logical flaw in the story. A flaw that I would expect to be there had this story truly been inspired by some all-wise all-intelligent being.

I mean, if we're going to assume that God is all-wise, then we need to support that theme, and the Biblical stories don't support that them, IMHO.

But they do support the conclusion that they are just man-made fables. We'd expect man-made fables to contain these kinds of flaws.

Cowboy wrote:

You're example doesn't work. A baby doesn't have the mental capacity to even know what you're saying when you told that child not to stand. You could have talking in Japanese for all the child knew. Adam and Eve were grown people. And God didn't do this anyways. If you were a parent and your child was say 20. This child was disobedient to you, would you continue to allow this child to live with you? Or would you get them out of the house? Get them out of the house and still have a relation with them in hopes to build a stronger relation?

Cowboy wrote:

Absolutely not. It's not hateful nor is it a cult, nor does it condemn anyone. We know not who specifically will be denied heaven/condemned till Jesus returns. Just because you don't believe in it today, does NOT mean you won't go to heaven, for you may some day in the future turn your heart over to the lord. Not saying you will, not saying you won't, just hypothetically speaking. There is no hate in Christianity. Only love for one another. No matter what the other believes, thinks, or has done in their life, we are to treat them with the utmost respect and love. We are to do for them as we would do for ourself. There is no greater love then that. Impartial love for everyone in the world, EVERYONE. Not just for the Christians, not just for a specific race, not for a specific gender, but for EVERYONE.

It's only hateful and only a cult between your left and right ear. It's entirely about love and for everyone.

What you would like for the religion to be, and what the religion actually represents are apparently two entirely different things.

You say it's entirely about love for everyone, yet at the very same time you're demanding that it's entirely about a God who demands obedience. Which is it? Love or obedience? These are drastically different concepts.

Moammar Gadhafi can demand obedience. Clearly that has nothing to do with love.

And love has to do with understanding and compassion and sincere mentoring, not a cold-hearted demand for blind obedience. That's not love.

So you're picture of God seems to have a lot of conflicts and contradicting concepts.

I personally prefer to view God through the eyes of the Wicca traditions. From my perspective this is a very beautiful picture of God, and I view it as a human archetype, not as a verbatim representation of God.

In this way I can see love in God. I see no love in Christianity. It's all about sin, salvation and the need to condone blood sacrifices on our behalf. That's not love and I see nothing loving about any of that.

I don't buy into the concept that I'm at odds with God and need to appease God by jumping through hoops of man-made religions.

Why make it so sick and demented?

If it's truly about LOVE and God is truly a LOVING entity, then why not just approach God with LOVE and be done with it. Why drag in all the gory crap from the ancient Hebrews?

It's just not necessary.

Either God is LOVE, or God isn't LOVE.

If God is LOVE, and you are a loving person, then that should be sufficient right there. No need to appease any religions or cults.

Why bother bringing religion into the picture at all. Just appreciate life and your creator abstractly. If there exists a truly LOVING God that should be more than sufficient right there.

You can uplift God and life, and your brothers, by allow them to view God however they like.

I'm pretty sure I've already told you that in my spiritual paradigm I include Jesus. Once as Capricorn, and then again as one of the Heirophants. So if you came into my spiritual garden you would see two statues of Jesus. He's recognized twice over.

But I don't recognize the entire doctrine of the ancient Hebrews. I don't see where there's any need to worship that culture as the voice of God.

By the way, a 20 year old person is no longer a "child", they are already a sovereign adult.

If I had raised that person and they still didn't know right from wrong or how to properly conduct themselves by that time I could only conclude three possible things:

1. I was a lousy mentor and a horrible parent.
2. The child is mentally ill and/or has some other medical problem.
3. The child truly is "evil" in some fundamental way.

As a mortal parent it's my responsibility to do the best I can at #1.

As a mortal parent it's my responsibility to try to provide the best medical and or mental health help for a child who may be suffering from some malfunction.

In the case of number three, as a mortal parent there would be nothing I could do about that, nor could I even truly know that this wasn't also do to a medical condition that I was unable to detect or help in #2.

Not let's turn to God.

Does God provide his best resources for mentoring all of his children on a one-on-one basis.

Well, I can assure you that no God provided me with that kind of mentoring, not even in the form of human mentors sent to me by God. So God would fail miserably as a parent in the case of #1, IMHO.

In the case of #2 an all-powerful God could surely cure his children of any and all medical or mental defects or abnormalities. So in that sense there would be no excuse for any human to ever become mentally ill in any way, whey they do. So God fails at #2.

In the case of #3, God is the only entity who could know if a person is genuinely "evil" whatever that might mean. Only God would have the knowledge and power to deal with that situation. If his way of of dealing with it is to kill the individual then I can only conclude that even God cannot remove "evil" from a person since his only option for that problem is to apparently kill the infected person. So even God cannot "cure" evil apparently.


Now, looking at it from the point of view that I'm the child and God is the parent here's my following assessment:

I know for a fact that I'm not an "evil" person. So #3 is moot in my case.

Now all that's left is for God to step up to the plate and take on his responsibilities as the parent to cure me of any physical or mental problems I might have (as I would certainly do for my child if I could cure them of these things).

Then in sound mind and body God could begin to mentor me using wisdom and intelligent methods of education. I'm actually a very good student and would more than welcome such an infinitely wise teacher!

I would be a model child! A child that any good mentoring parent would love to raise.

So now you're trying to tell me that if I don't believe in the ancient Hebrew religious stories this God would condemn me without a second thought?

That pretty much blows away any idea that this God is intelligent, wise, or righteous, as far as I'm concerned.

Cowboy wrote:

Love and obedience is the same thing. It's not obedience out of a dictator forced form of obedience. It's obedience out of love. it's doing the will of God out of love, cause you want to be obedient.

Well, like I've told you many times before, there's very little, if anything, in the moral teachings of Jesus that I disagree with anyway. So there's nothing there for me to "obey". All I would need to do is be who I am and I would naturally satisfy all of the criteria. So there's nothing there to "obey".

If I became a devout Christian I wouldn't need to change a single solitary thing about my behavior or lifestyle.

So if the religion is about "obedience", or being in "harmony" with the moral values taught by Jesus, then I'm already in harmony with that. From my point of view these are the same things moral values that were also taught by men like Buddha, Confucius, Lao Tzu, and many others, long before Jesus was ever born.

So there's not need to "obey" when I'm already in natural harmony with these moral values.

If I had a child who just naturally had the same moral values as myself, would I complain? No of course not! On the contrary, I would be well pleased.

Well, then why should I think that God would not feel the same way about me?

I have always said that if I were a God and wanted people to have good morals, and I looked down on my creation and saw atheists who had good morals I would be extremely pleased with them. Look at them! They behave precisely as I would like and they don't even believe that I exist! What better children could a God possible wish to have?

The idea of having children who would rather do something else but only "obey" God out of fear of his wrath or in hope of receiving a reward in turn would be cheesy if you ask me.

I would be far more pleased by the atheists who are just naturally good people. They would be the greatest of all my children to be sure.

Your obsession with this concept of obedience is just something that's totally alien to me. I see no need for it unless the people in question would rather do something OTHER than God's will. That's the only people who would need to "obey" God.

People who are already in harmony with God would have no need to "obey" anything because they are already of like mind with God. There would be no need to "obey" because they simply wouldn't be interested in doing anything else.

So your total obsession with obedience is something that's totally alien to anything I would even need to consider.

Cowboy wrote:

What you say doesn't make sense. You state that you already are like the teachings Jesus told us, but then you say you see no need for obedience. If you're doing as one is suppose to do, you would then be obedient. So yeah people that are already in harmony with God are already being obedient.

Well, if that's your view then clearly you can see that a lot of people could coincidentally be in "obedience" without even being aware that they are "obeying" anything.

So once you've reached that level then you can see where "obedience" is the wrong concept to begin with. A better concept would simply be to recognize that anyone can be in "harmony" with the source of all life.

This could include atheists, Wiccans, people who believe in things like the "Law of Attraction", and all manner of spiritual and/or secular philosophies.

This is what people like AdventureBegins, Jeanniebean, myself and many others have been saying for months now.

These people can't be said to be "obeying" anything since they aren't attempting to "obey" anything. They are simply doing what calls to them naturally.

I personally feel that this is a far better picture of God than a picture that turns everything into some sort of mandatory obedience. I think most people will agree then when you are out of harmony with the spiritual essence of the universe you'll know it.

In fact that's the fundamental idea behind Lao Tzu's Taosim. Ever hear the term "Flow with the Tao". That's basically the same thing as saying "Being in harmony with God", if you prefer that term.

This is also the main teachings of Buddhism. Right action, right thinking, right speech, etc. It's just an attempt to become spontaneously aligned with the source of our being (i.e. "god" if you want to call it that).

So almost all religions and spiritual traditions recognize this need to be in harmony with the divine source of our being. That's pretty much a given.

From my point of view to put this in an "obedience-orientation" seems to taint it with unnecessary oppressive connotations. I typically don't think about achieving harmony with something as being 'obedient' to it. That's just not the way I would personally view it.

And you don't seem to think of it that way either. You prefer to view it in terms of "love" rather than "obedience". If you do something for someone out of love you're not typically going to think of that as being "obedient" to them. You're giving to them your devotion freely. In a sense you're giving God the gift of your devotion every bit as much as God is giving you anything in return. So it's a two-way exchange as anything that is in harmony must be.

If the 'law' god has given me to understand is not the same 'law' you have pulled from the oft quoted book...

am I to follow the law as god has given me understanding of it?

Or the law as you have hammered it at me?

Which is the proper way...

Cowboy wrote:

What you say doesn't make sense. You state that you already are like the teachings Jesus told us, but then you say you see no need for obedience. If you're doing as one is suppose to do, you would then be obedient. So yeah people that are already in harmony with God are already being obedient.

AB wrote:

am I to follow the law as god has given me understanding of it?

Or the law as you have hammered it at me?

According to who's religious beliefs and doctrine?

I agree with AB.


I prefer to follow my intuitive understanding of god as well.

If Cowboy wants to dictate to people how they should behave and demand what directives they must obey then he'll have to find his own followers who can accept that he speaks for God as he seems to like to do.

I'm not interested in anything from the ancient Hebrew texts because I've already made it clear that I don't recognize their writings as having anything to do with god. So no sense in shoving that crap in my face. I've already totally renounced all of it.