Cowboy wrote:

Jesus fulfilled, completed, finished, finalized the prophecies of the old testament/old covenant between man and God. Jesus then gave us a new one.

No one finished Jesus' work. Jesus' has never finished. Jesus is still working miracles everyday. And what does Saul or Paul have to do with anything?

Jesus wasn't teaching a "religion". It wasn't ment to be put into a "religion". It is the laws our father in heaven has given us. It is only put in the "religion" category as to appease other people of different beliefs.

Abracadabra writes:

"Unless a person has absolute knowledge that (a) God exists; and (b) He grades on a HUGE curve, then clearly their belief in this is based on blind faith. Or a belief in unverifiable ancient stories."

Not at all. In fact, blind faith is not really faith. Think about it.

Singmesweet writes:

"From what I've seen, it tends to be the more religious people who can be angry and insulting when someone doesn't agree with them about religion and God."

I've seen both sides from the religious and the atheists, and that is why I created this post. To simply have an open discussion, without being judgmental.

Thanks,
Shiki

That's YOUR BELIEF, not mine.



I reject the idea that Paul speaks for Jesus. That's about 75% of the Christian New Testament right there!



Why do you then insist on shoving it down the throats of other people as a dogmatic religion?

If Jesus wasn't teaching a religion, then my views of Jesus should be perfectly acceptable to you.

There is absolutely no need for me to recognize or condone your ORTHODOX RELIGION then!

I've already TOLD YOU COUNTLESS TIMES that I totally accept the moral teachings of Jesus.

So if you believe in Jesus and NOT RELIGION, then you have no choice but to accept that I have indeed "accepted" the teachings of Jesus.

How many times do I need to tell you that they are precisely the same teachings that had been taught by Buddha, Confucius, Lao Tzu, and many others?

I do not reject the moral teachings of Jesus. But I do reject the bigotry of the orthodox CHRISTIAN RELIGION.

So what exactly is your problem?

I accept the moral values that had been taught by Jesus!

According to you he supposedly "fulfilled, completed, finished, finalized the prophecies of the old testament/old covenant between man and God. Jesus then gave us a new one."

Well DUH?

Then according to you the teachings of Old Testament no longer apply anyway. So my rejection of it is moot.

You also say, "what does Saul or Paul have to do with anything?"

Well, if that's the way you feel, then my rejection of the writings of Paul should be moot too as far as you are concerned.

So if you're not demanding that I accept any orthodox DOGMA, then you need to recognize that I have indeed accepted the moral teachings of Jesus.

So again, what the hell is your problem then?

I don't need to CONVERT to Christianity or support Christianity in any way. According to you RELIGION is totally unimportant!

So you should be praising God right beside my brother!

Instead of supporting dogmatic religious bigotries!

Because religion is a totally MOOT point according to you!

~~~~~~


I have no problem at all with Jesus or God. But I have grave problems with your views of Jesus and God.

Like Mahatma Gandhi once said, "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."

Truer words were never spoken, IMHO.

Well, I hope that you can clearly see that there exists Christian extremists who refuse to "discuss" anything without being judgmental.

I'm not exactly an 'atheist', I'm a confessed intellectual agnostic, and a intuitively romantic spiritualist.

I offer views on how a spiritual essence of reality may be plausible.

I offer views on how I personally see ancient stories and what they mean to me.

I do not "judge" others. If someone wants to have a different view of ancient writings (or anything else for that matter) I'm totally open to accepting that their views are valid for them.

But what do you see in THIS THREAD?

You see a hardcore Christian fundamentalist trying to SHOVE his views down my throat as being the only "Truth".

That's hogwash.

If he doesn't want to accept my theories that Jesus was a Mahayana Buddhist, more power to him! No one is demanding anything from him.

But he sure is demanding that we accept his views as the verbatim Truth of "god".

This is why these religious zealots can be so obnoxious. They demand that only they speak for "god". And they dismiss everyone else's views entirely.

You call that an "open discussion, without being judgmental."

I'm sorry but it's clearly the Christians who are being obnoxious and judgmental of others.

You people won't cease your religious attacks against others.

You people won't even accept other spiritual people who are actually willing to entertain and accept a possible spiritual essence to life.

You people will never be satisfied until you have assimilated everyone into accepting your rigid dogmatic beliefs.

It's the crusades by Internet. Conform or be condemned as a heathen!

It's the same never-ending crap.

A simple non-judgmental open discussion?

I say that Jesus was a Mahayana Buddhist. That's my view.

I'm waiting for respect for my view. You don't need to agree with it, just respect it in a non-judgmental way, that's all I ask.

In fact, atheists should also be respected for their views that there is no God or spiritual essence to reality at all. That's a perfectly valid view as well.

Shiki wrote:

Let's look at how Christians define Faith.

Shiki wrote:

Hope this helps,

Cowboy wrote:

Jesus' teachings and buddah have absolutely nothing to do with one another. Bubbah or any other spiritual practice can not save you. Jesus is the only way to God our father. Jesus, God our father, the holy spirit, and everything else has absolutely nothing to do with "religion".

MsHarmony wrote:

it truly gets personal on both sides, from defining truth for others which is considered 'forcing views' to downright insult of anothers faith like calling their beliefs lies or bs or their God a loser

those are pretty judgemental words, and they come from BOTH sides

I'm not attempting to force any views on anyone. Nor am I judging anyone's spiritual morality. Nor have I ever judged anyone spiritual morality, or their relationship with any divine being or essence that might exist.

I have no choice but to explain why I do not accept the ancient Hebrew writings as the "word of God".

No one should be 'offended' by the fact that I view the Old Testament to be nothing more than a Zeus-like fable. That's my own personal view, I am not demanding that anyone accept this is any sort of "absolute truth".

I say that these fables are "Zeus-like" because from my perspective they are very much the same kinds of mythology. A jealous male God who is the God of Gods, and can be appeased by blood sacrifices? I see no reason to believe that the Biblical myths are even remotely original.

Why should any 'real God' just happen to be like Zeus?

So my own personal belief that the Old Testament is nothing but mythology just like all the other mythologies in that part of the world should not be offensive to anyone. There are sound reasons for arriving at these conclusions.

I do not believe that Jesus was the sacrificial lamb of the God of the Old Testament. I've already explained that I don't believe in gods that are appeased by blood sacrifices.

I have very sound reasons for believing that Jesus was a mortal man who was educated in the way of Mahayana Buddhism, and that Jesus was most likely a Bodhisattva. There are sound historical reasons why this makes perfect sense to me.

No one should be offended by that. A Mahayana Buddhist Bodhisattva is a highly respectable thing to be.

I personally believe that Jesus rejected many of the teachings and directives of the Old Testament, and so from my point of view, this only shows me that even Jesus did not accept those stories as the verbatim word of God.

Again, no one should be offended by that. It's a very sound theory.

Obviously, I'm not going to accept all the claims that are being made in the New Testament.

I call them "rumors". Well, that's what they are by their own confession. The only question is whether they are TRUE or FALSE rumors.

The New Testament does not contain a single solitary word actually written by the man named Jesus. They are entirely hearsay rumors.

Again, no one should be offended by this. It's TRUE, even according to the gospels themselves. They themselves confess that they are writing about someone else who had lived in the past. (i.e. they confess that there stories are hearsay rumors)

Whether they can be accepted as some sort of absolute truth is up to the individual.

I've given my conclusion. I believe that Jesus was either grossly misunderstood and honestly misrepresented in the New Testament by people who actually meant well, OR the New Testament was purposefully created to use the rumors of Jesus to create the Christian religion by attempting to portray him as the sacrificial lamb of the God of the Old Testament.

I don't even pass judgments on the authors. I could be honest misunderstandings, or outright lies. I have no clue which it might be. All I can offer is that I don't accept it as the verbatim truth as written.

Again, no one should be the least bit offended by this. It's just my own personal views and opinions.

There's nothing to be offended by.

I'm not suggesting that if someone doesn't believe me God will hate them.

Really, my words are what they are, no hidden meaning behind them.

You wrote, "I disagree. Faith is entirely blind, that's the very meaning of it."

I showed you a different view of faith. Not saying you have to agree with it, but that is the whole point of this post, to have people with different viewpoints, coming together, and discussing.

Hope this helps,
Shiki

You didn't show me a different view of faith.

What you showed me was an underhanded trick the Christians use.

They treat the bible as though it is clearly the indisputable "word of God" and then try to treat the concept of "faith" as though all faith amounts to is accepting this indisputable "word of God".

In fact, they turn this right around in the person's face if the person isn't willing to accept the Bible as the "Word of God".

Then the Christians accuse them of refusing to accept the "Word of God".

Like DUH?

In fact, it's precisely these kinds of truly mean underhanded brainwashing techniques that this religion uses that make it so despicable.

Disbelief that the bible is the "Word of God" cannot possible equate to "refusal" to accept and obey the "Word of God".

That very notion is the most asinine notion on Planet Earth.

That is just a really cruel and mean brainwashing tactic invented by Christianity and used with no compassion or mercy to proselytize their religion relentless.

I have absolutely no sympathy for the hardcore Christians proselytizers.

None whatsoever. They are either just cruel mean people, or people who can't comprehend the very simplest of concepts. Like a disbelief in something cannot possibly equate to refusal to obey whatever the thing is about. A person should be able to understand a simple concept like this before they even make it to high school.

~~~~~~


I have no problem at all with Jesus or God. But I have grave problems with your views of Jesus and God.

Like Mahatma Gandhi once said, "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."

Truer words were never spoken, IMHO.

MsHarmony wrote:

indeed, and I have seen noone else suggest that either. But intentionally insulting words fly from both sides.

Cowboy wrote:

Jesus' teachings and buddah have absolutely nothing to do with one another. Bubbah or any other spiritual practice can not save you. Jesus is the only way to God our father. Jesus, God our father, the holy spirit, and everything else has absolutely nothing to do with "religion".

Jesus, God our father, the holy spirit, and everything else has absolutely nothing to do with "religion".

Face the truth MsHarmony.

The Christian proselytizers will never respect the views of non-Christians.

That's never going to happen.

For example, I've told Cowboy countless times that I totally accept that his views of God and spirituality are indeed valid for him. I don't judge his relationship with any divine creator one iota.

And I have asked him countless times to simply treat me with the very same respect.

He flatly refuses and continually bombards me with his constant Christian rheortic,...

For example:


"Bubbah or any other spiritual practice can not save you"

"Save me"? Save me from WHAT?

The WRATH of Cowboy's God?

"Jesus is the only way to God our father."

Again, that's HIS BELIEF, why shove that down my throat?

He's already told me that this is his believe and I have accepted that he believes this.

But now he's trying to SHOVE his beliefs onto me!

And then he says:


Well, DUH!

If that's true then clearly there's no need for me to believe in the orthodox Christian RELIGION.

And besides, in my particular case, I even ACCEPT the teachings of Jesus! Just because I see that the are the same as the teachings of Buddha and others, and Cowboy doesn't is totally meaningless.

Who is Cowboy to say that the teachings of Buddha, or Confucius, or Lao Tzu are not the same as the teachings of Jesus? He flatly refuses to even remotely consider or study these other spiritual teachings. He has no clue what these other spiritual teachers even have to say!

He's got his blinders on and just wants to use his RELIGIOUS DOGMA to beat down all other views of spirituality.

It's truly disgusting and totally negative and unproductive for everyone involved.

He's just out to CONVERT people to Christianity and he won't accept no for an answer.

That's precisely the kind of thing that leads to Holy Wars.

This is why many members of the UN would actually like to make against international to proselytize religions in this way. It's a hateful thing to do that can only lead to civil unrest and war.

This kind of nasty proselyting has no good qualities at all,

~~~~~~


I have no problem at all with Jesus or God. But I have grave problems with the Christian views of Jesus and God.

Like Mahatma Gandhi once said, "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."

Truer words were never spoken, IMHO.

So, what do we have here? Well, there are heated opinions on both sides. Hopefully, this is getting people to see and understand the others' point of view.