Jesus and He never took anything He always gave.

Why would man write a religion that teaches he is evil in his natural state?

It would have to be a way of drawing them in and controlling them huh?

Why would a god say man is sinful as he is born?

Doesn't anyone ever question these things?

And no the answer is not in the bible, that is the problem not the solution.

Hi Loverofheart,

I appreciate your concern. I truly do. I feel confident that you have nothing but the best of intentions.

First, allow me to agree with you. I agree that we all come from God, and we must all return to God. In fact, if you stop and think about this long enough you may eventually realize that there is never a time when we are not "God".

Now immediately you may want to nit-pick here and say something like, "We are all a part of God, but we are not God himself".

Well that's all very interesting but that brings us to a major question, "What is God?"

Is God an "ego"? (i.e. an individual separate and independent personified being?)

And are we nothing more than "little egos"? (i.e. individual separate and independent personified beings?)

In other words, "What constitutes the soul?"

Is a "soul" truly nothing more than an ego? (i.e. an individual separate and independent personified being?)

These are quite interesting questions because these are ultimately the questions that must be addressed when considering the biblical scenario that you have just outlined in your post above.

You're basically talking about the idea of God who creates individual egos (human souls) and then promises to either preserve those egos for eternity, or snuff them out again if they supposedly are incapable of maturing to a particular level of "moral maturity".

That's the basic biblical picture in a nutshell.

I'm not even going to attempt to try to describe the Eastern Mystical picture of "God" in this post, but allow me to say here that they too see us coming from God and returning to God. The only thing they object to is the concept of the 'ego' having any validity. They argue that the ego is an illusion and trying to save or preserve the ego is actually the anti-thesis of understanding spirituality.

Now, I'm not going to dwell on that, other than to simply point out how their view differs from the biblical picture. I'm also not going to say that I necessarily agree with every detail of the Eastern Mystical views. Whether or not "egos" can be preserved is an interesting concept to be sure. The thought that they could be preserved is quite attractive (at least to our sense of ego) which the Eastern Mystics claim is nothing more than a mere illusion to begin with.

In any case, just for the sake of sane conversation on the subjects that you've mentioned in particular, let's assume that egos can be preserved and that some supreme ego (i.e. God) has the power to decide when and if this should be done for any particular ego (i.e. human soul)

Ok, that sounds good.

So that brings us to the Abraham religions and the concept that God created man in his own image (i.e. as an individual sovereign ego). And now he's going to pass judgment on every ego to decide whether it should be preserved or extinguished.

Ok, first off let me be a bit blunt here. This is not what the biblical stories begin with. They begin with Adam and Eve falling from grace. They do not begin with a God explaining that he is going to create little egos to see if they are worthy of preserving or not.

So we're already starting off with a collection of fables that don't truly even match this scenario. But just for fun let's continue on with it anyway.

In the early going these fables have God making commandments and directives for people to follow in order to earn their eternal life supposedly. Although it's not placed in those terms. On the contrary it's placed in precisely the opposite negative terms. It's framed in the idea that eternal life is the given, but if you sin you will die. So now it's not about earning eternal life, but rather it's about loosing out on that natural plan.

As the religion evolved, it became a story that claims that all men are loosing out on that plan. All men are sinners and falling short of God's moral expectations and thus they will all be extinguished rather than being "saved" by having their egos perpetuated for eternity.

Things aren't looking good. But then Jesus comes along to save the day. Jesus becomes the sacrificial lamb through which souls (egos) can be preserved. All that is required is that they accept Jesus as their "Lord and Savior" and they will be forgiven of the fact that they have not reach a level of moral maturity.

I don't know about you, but that already sounds pretty fishy to me.

Do egos need to be morally mature or not?

If they can become morally mature in their own right, then what do they need Jesus for?

On the other hand, if they can't become morally mature on their own, then they'll will supposedly be 'saved' if they merely ask to be saved. That evidently qualifies as at least a desire to want to become morally mature, I suppose.

Well, I personally feel that this whole fable is nothing but a train-wrecked mythology.

It started off being all about morals, and ended up being about a mere belief in some particular fable and a desire to be morally mature.

But wait!

If it's truly all about moral maturity then shouldn't a desire to be morally mature be sufficient? Why bother sticking it the added criteria that a particular religious dogma must be supported as the "True Word of God".

And truly that's really all that Christianity amounts to. It truly amounts to nothing more than supporting a particular dogma as the "Word of God".

It's not good enough for the Christians for me to merely accept the moral teachings of Jesus and respect his wisdom as being "divine". Moral values that I personally already value myself even without Jesus. In fact, I think that most people do! Why do you think they like Jesus so much? They like him because they already agree with the things he supposedly taught. That's why.

As far as I'm concerned, I do accept the moral values of Jesus. In fact, they are my very own moral values, so all I need to do is be myself and I satisfy the moral teachings of Jesus. I don't even need to 'accept' anything. All I need to do is be me.

And if this kind of moral value is what's truly important to our creator then my 'ego' will evidently be 'saved' from being extinguished.

It's only the Christians who are unhappy with this situation.

The Christians are peeved because I won't help them hold Jesus up as a means of supporting their religious bigotry.

And to be perfectly honest loverofheart, I have absolutely no intention of supporting Christian religious bigotry.

~~~~~

So as far as I'm concerned, when you preach to me you may as well be preaching to Jesus himself. Because that's how wasted your time will be.

You say that I call God a demon. But this is not true. I say that the biblical depiction of God depicts a God that is a demon. And what else to do say? I say that I don't believe that the Bible is the "Word of God".

Well put those two things together and you can clearly see that I'm not claiming that God is a demon.

But he certainly would be if the Christians had their way.

~~~~

I am not at odds with God loverofheart.

I'm merely at odds with the Christians who try to hold the biblical cannon up as the "Verbatim Word of God".

If "your creation of God" (i.e. the God you've created via your own beliefs and interpretations of various myths) would condemn me (a totally morally mature person) for simply not believing in a particular fable, then yes loverofheart, I would indeed say that "your creation of God" is a demon.

Yes, I would say that indeed.

I don't believe in an egotistical judgmental God who would condemn people simply because they don't believe in something, especially when the very stories that make those claims started out as a religion that was supposedly about moral maturity.

When did this biblical God quit placing value on moral maturity and instead turn the whole thing into a guessing game based on what religion or spirituality a person believes in?

~~~~

And finally, please allow me to leave you with this:

It is my honest, sincere, and most heartfelt truth that I feel that the biblical cannon of fables is truly unbelievable, inconsistent, contradictory, and even utterly absurd at times.

That is my {b]honest, sincere, and most heartfelt truth.

So what you would have me do?

Lie?

Who am I going to lie to?

Myself?

God?

Do you want me to lie to God?

Or do I only need to lie to the Christians for the sake of pacifying their obsession to proselytize their view of God onto everyone on the planet with no exception?

I can tell you right now, I'm not going to lie to any of the above.

If I can't get to God through honesty and sincerity then should I even be concerned about such a God?

What kind of a God would that be?

A demon?

Ummmm Dragoness. I sense lack of understanding. Allow me to explain.

First off NO the bible is not the solution. Your right.

Let's look at this from the position of science. Here we have bob the human. Bob has six fingers on his right hand. Lets say bob has offspring and passes this defect on to them. Now they all have six fingers on their right hand.

It's the same way with sin. Sin his passed on from one generation to the next. That's the thinking anyway.

Hope I answered your question!

I'm sorry Shining Armour but when people say things like you've just said here it only serves to confirm my conclusions that people who believe these things aren't even thinking clearly.

You analogy above implies that "sin" is some sort of substance or condition, it has a reality of its own, and can even be 'passed on' from one person to the next genetically.

With all due respect, where would you get such a notion?

Sin is quite simply "Willful disobedience of God".

Or you could even claim that it's simply "Disobedience of God", whether willful or not (i.e. ignorance of God's laws is no excuse).

However, in either case "sin" is an action performed by a person. It can't be "passed on" from one person to the next. Especially if each person is supposed to be an individual soul who supposedly has their own FREE WILL and will be judged on their FREE WILL CHOICES.

So to think of sin as something that can be "passed down" from one generation to the next is a totally bogus concept. And if the Bible implies this to be the case, then clearly it's a false fable.

And Dragoness is correct. The Bible does not contain answers to these question. Religious people often claim that the Bible has answer to all questions, but that's a false notion right there too.

The bible does not contain answers to all these questions.

In fact, if you think about it deeply enough it actually raise far more questions that it answers.

For example, Eve was convinced by the serpent to eat the forbidden fruit. Apparently Adam went along with it. What a wishy-washy guy he must have been!

I can't help but wonder what would have happened had I been in Adam's shoes? I'm not so sure I would have gone along with Eve. I think I would have just grabbed her wrist and dragged her away from the forbidden tree.

If she had already eaten the fruit and God came back to ask, I would plead with God that she was innocent and didn't know any better. I would also be TOTALLY INNOCENT myself.

If God replied that Eve knew what she was doing and did it on purpose, then I reply to God, "Well why the hell did you create a bimbo as my helpmate for then?"

I mean, later on in the Bible we Mary as being a perfect sinless woman, who is fitting to be the vessel through which Jesus can be born.

Well DUH?

Why didn't God create Mary as a helpmate for Adam instead of Eve?

If life would have started with Adam and Mary then maybe we wouldn't be in the pickle we're supposedly in right now according to these myths.

Why should the fate of all of humanity depend on the behavior and choices of Adam and Eve? Especially when we later see people like Noah and his family who were sinnless and thus spared from death when God rid the world of sinful people. Or someone like Mary who was pure enough to give birth to God's only begotten son?

These fables are chuck full of contradictions if you ask me.

I'm sorry abra but you are clearly mistaken.

Nobody is "Sinnless" Not noah or his family, Not mary, Nobody.

If you don't know what your talking about it's probably best to move to a different topic.

If all your going to do is argue against what I put here, then I see no point in explaining it to you.

What I said is the theory. The way people think it to be. Just like evolution. It's a theory.

Just some things I noticed here that show ignorance on your part besides the sinless nonsense you seemed to make up.

You state that and I quote "If she had already eaten the fruit and God came back to ask, I would plead with God that she was innocent and didn't know any better. I would also be TOTALLY INNOCENT myself.

If God replied that Eve knew what she was doing and did it on purpose, then I reply to God, "Well why the hell did you create a bimbo as my helpmate for then?" "

So you would have lied to God? God clearly told her not to eat of it. He told them both! Eve told the serpent that God had told them both! So YES she did know better! She was not innocent.

Who do you think God is? some kind of dumbass?

And then you would go on and question why God gave you a bimbo for a helpmate? That's assuming God has not already struck you dead for lying to his face.

I'm sure if you bothered reading before all that you would have found that God searched for a helpmate for adam but none was found that suited him. So a new one had to be created.

I believe it was abe Lincoln who said "Its better to keep one's mouth shut and appear stupid, that to open it and erase all doubt"

Or you know you read the book!

The God of the biblical fables?

Absolutely. I personally think he's a bigger dumbass than Zeus.

At least Zeus didn't pretend to be a "righteous" God. If Zeus wanted to strike you dead just because he felt like it that would be perfectly fine.

The biblical God can't do that. The biblical God must always be righteous in everything he does, otherwise he fails to live up to the character that he is being portrayed to have by the authors of the biblical fables.

Yet, these fables have this God doing totally unwise things all the time.

You say that Noah and his family weren't "sinless". Yet that flies in the very face of what Christians hold to be true:

Christians hold that all sin is equal and it's not hierarchical at all. Therefore if Noah and his family were "sinners" then they should have been drowned out with all the other sinners.

So the fairytale is flawed. Put it on the shelf beside the fables of Zeus.

Also if Mary wasn't free of "sin" then Jesus was born of a vessel of sin. And as you, yourself had just pointed out in your previous post, sin is passed down just like genetic defects.

So according to you Jesus was born with sin. Therefore Jesus could not have have been free of sin based on your reasoning.

See where you back yourself into a corner trying to defend an indefensible fable?

It's like trying fit a carpet into a room where the carpet won't fit. Every time you run over to tuck in one corner and make that corner appear to fit the corner at the other end of the room become naked and is exposed.

The fables cannot be made to work consistently because they are inconsistent to begin with.

Like I say, the only way to win with these fables is to place them on the shelf marked "fiction" right next to Zeus and company. Then they fit pretty good.

believe what you want then! I was just trying to answer dragoness's question.

I am not usually a "yes" person, but Abracadabra, all I can say to what you have written is "amen" (which means nothing more than "so mote it be").

Nope

Respect for God's Sovereignty...

MUST precede our knowledge
and acceptance of His Laws and Judgments.
Without that respect we should expect to remain in the dark.
God is Holy. He cannot be compared to man.

His purpose for mankind was and is righteousness...

and not sin.

Unrighteousness was introduced in the garden.
Man went the way of unrighteousness.

Adam represented all men, as all men were in Adam.
Adam needed a saviour...then so did we.
Individually we must choose the way that God provides...
The way of right-standing with God...
and that "way" is Christ Jesus.

You don't get it, genetics you cannot choose, personal choices you can. To say we are suddenly responsible for what someone else did long before us, is asinine. Even more asinine is the notion that a blood sacrifice is needed to save us for said things that we never did.

It's simple common sense.

We are like children. Sometimes we just want to do it ourself.
But when we need help we call out to a greater power.

That greater power will help but only if you ask.
Because of free will, you are always the master of your own fate to a point.

But there is a greater power, your higher self, God, what ever you want to call it. It is there to help when you really need it. That is faith.

If you need help, try asking.

When you get help, be grateful. Say thanks.

yeah evolution may be a theory but there's more evidence of evolution than of a diety that's got more insecurity than a 16 year old on MTV's super sweet 16.

Not necessarily. It's a THEORY of evolution. A theory is nothing more then an educated guess. Jesus came, was crucified, and afterwards God said "This is my son in whom I'm well pleased". Now you can say oh that's just hearsay rumors, you can not prove that, or anything along those lines. But bottom line NOTHING can be proven unless one is willing to accept the evidence of it. You can NOT prove to someone that we have walked on the moon less, that person is willing to accept the evidence of such happening. Could come up with many excuses to disclaim it, could say well those videos are phoney, it's part of the governments propaganda to make them self look great and intelligent, and many many other possibilities. Any form of evidence you show for evolution I could easily show how it could be a hoax, could be made up, could be many of other possibilities. So again no there's not more evidence to evolution as their is to God. The evidence of God is all around us. You don't need a book, don't need someone else telling you, don't need anything to see it but your own will.

The key here is the term EDUCATED. A theory is much more than a guess. It is supported by a lot of evidence.

Personally I see a lot of "evidence" in favor of intelligent design but I don't believe in a creator god or his alleged son.

That's like saying you believe in evolution but you don't believe in the big bang. Or that man evolved from monkeys.