How so?

I don't have Jesus or God condemning anyone for anything as superficial as merely not believing in a specific person's interpretations of things.

Have I ever tried to convince anyone that Jesus or God might condemn them if they fail to suck up to my views?

Hardly.

No, my views are quite positive.

I don't claim that people who believe in Christianity will be condemned. On the contrary I suggest that a truly righteous and all-wise God wouldn't care about such petty crap.

I try to draw a picture of a truly positive God who would create a system that is truly fair and just for everyone no matter what they might believe.

Where is there any negativity in that?

I even allow that God loves atheists.

In fact, I argue that it makes perfect sense that God would be more pleased with a "good" atheist than with anyone else, because a "good" atheist would be showing the purity of themselves without being influenced by ulterior motives, such as trying to avoid the wrath of a God, or trying to please a God in an effort to obtain a gift of eternal life.

A "good" atheist would be the ultimate "Perfect Child". A child who is just naturally "good" on their own without superficial motivations.

~~~~

Of course Cowboy had previously suggested that if there is no God then he sees no reason to be "good". So clearly he would not make a "good" atheist. That's quite telling right there, I think.

Obviously he feels that the only reason to be good is either to avoid punishment or seek a reward. He can't seem to comprehend the concept of just being good for goodness sake alone.

So, as long as he holds that ideology I certainly hope he continues to keep his faith, as derogatory as it might be.

How so?!?!?!

Do you ever read what you type? Predicatable as always...

Yes but do you? You're as predictable as you claim he is.

Where does he ever say if you don't believe as he does, you will burn? Tell me where.

That does not come from the spiritual, it's the religious sect that does that.

But Peter, I refute that the Bible is the "Infallible Word of God". I claim that it has no more merit than Greek Mythology!

So pointing out the fact that these texts have horrible things written in them is not the same as supporting that these notions came from any "God".

On the contrary this would be like pointing out gruesome things in Greek Mythology. Even if you don't believe in Zeus, if someone tries to claim that Zeus was a "nice God" and you can find things in the fables of Zeus that show otherwise, you can still point these things out to people.

The bottom line is quite simple. For "Christians" who want to take the stance that these texts are some sort of "Infallible Word of God", then they are STUCK with this kind of gory stuff whether they like it or not. And their "denial" that this stuff is actually contained in these stories is futile.

That's all I'm saying.

I do NOT support that these text are the "Infallible Word of any God". So by pointing out the gory baloney that is within these stories I am in no way supporting that these ideas should be associated with any "God".

All I'm pointing out is that if someone wants to support these texts as the "Infallible Word of God", then they are stuck with this horrible stuff. To pretend that it doesn't exist in these stories is futile.

It's right there in print!

~~~~~

So what was this post? Deflection?

My point is that you use your evil Jesus marionette while simultaneously accusing others of doing exactly what you do...

That's called "projection"






and hypocrisy....

He's simply saying it how it is Peter. He's not gonna lie and say it's something is isn't.

Deflection from what? Your inability to comprehend my position?

I don't have a Jesus marionette doll, because I don't support the "Biblical account" of Jesus as having any validity at all.

All I did was REPORT what's actually in the book. I don't even support that position. I'm fully aware that the Jesus marionette dolls can be made to say anything a person wants them to say. The Bible is riddled to contradicting verses.

I point out that the "Jesus Marionette Dolls" don't even actually work!

Take Jesus' dying breath, "Father forgive them for they know not what they do!"

This very verse flies in the face of so much of these stories.

First, these stories claim that the Father judgeth no man and all judgment has been committed to the Son (i.e. Jesus). Yet here Jesus is asking the Father to forgive people. Why bother if all judgment had been given to him?

Secondly, these stories have Jesus proclaiming that if any man denies him before men he will deny them before the Father. Yet, here Jesus was pleading a case for men that were currently crucifying him and mocking him.

Thirdly, why would Jesus feel a need to ask God to forgive people and offer God the logical reasoning that "They know not what they do"?

Did Jesus feel that God isn't bright enough to figure that out on his own? Did Jesus feel that God might judge these people 'unjustly'? Did Jesus not TRUST God to do the RIGHT thing on his own?

Why should Jesus have to plead with God to judge people in a particular way? Are Jesus and God not in agreement on what constitutes FAIR and JUST judgment?

Jesus seems to fear that God will judge these people harshly whilst he personally feels they are innocent via ignorance in not fully understanding what they are doing.

There's a major conflict here.

Rather than believe that Jesus and God have different views on how people should be judged, doesn't it make far more sense to just realize that the stories are obviously flawed?

Why would Jesus even be concerned at all about asking the Father to judge people a certain way if the Father is "all-wise" and "all-righteous" and could never possibly make the error of judging people unfairly?

Something is grossly WRONG with these fables.

~~~~~~

I solve all these problems by offering the "Jesus stories" were probably sparked by a Jewish Mahayana Buddhist who tried to introduce a pantheistic view of "God" to his fellow Jews and unfortunately wound up getting crucified for blashpheme.

Then all these rumors that he was "The Christ" came out, and these superstitious stories were written thus creating the "biblical Jesus" from these superstitious rumors.

The Bottom line is that we have no reason to believe that anything is true in these stories when it comes down to "verbatim quotes".

So there's no need to try to justify all of these verses. Most of them are probably just made up or exaggerated rumors, and other things make sense if this Jesus guy was indeed just a mortal man.

A mortal man screaming out for God to forgive people makes sense.

A demigod who was assigned the task of judging all of mankind, ends up asking God to forgive people on the grounds that they don't know what they are doing, makes absolutely no sense at all, IMHO.

Tell me....


WHY would man write a book , and in that

book, call himself a sinner.


Would mortal man say such things about himself,

like that ?


IF the words of the bible , indeed , were

not Inspired by God ?

Here's a better question, what would be the purpose of putting people down like that, if not for control? What good loving parent is going to tell their kids that they are sinners without them? None.

See here's the thing, the writers KNEW it was BS, but they also knew people would fall for it. It's just like a lot of politics, they know they are spouting a lot of crap, but they also know the power they hold and how they can manipulate in saying what they do.

They are smarter than they appear in that sense.

GOD is SPIRIT.

Not INTELLECT.


Spirit must connect with SPIRIT

in order to begin to fully understand and know God and the bible .



Trying to understand God and the bible thru our limited


intelligence, never will make sense.


Reading and studying the bible with our Intellect ,

helps us begin to

UNDERSTAND GOD

as we continue to hear about Him and His Word...

but

reading and studying the bible with our born again spirit ,

helps us begin to both

UNDERSTAND AND KNOW GOD

as we continue to hear about Him and His Word.

Yes but if God is spirit, and that spirit is supposedly higher than we are, He's surely not going to do something that even WE wouldn't do. That makes no sense!

Are you kidding me? The authors of the book are immune to this stuff. They are in CONTROL. They're making it up to begin with so they know it's not even true.

It's easy for them to simply say, "Yes we have sinned, be we are now in the grace of God, and we run the church and take in the money too".

Surely you can't be serious MorningSong.

Instead of asking if men would call themselves sinners, why not ask if a God would have any serious interest in blood sacrifices?

A God who can't forgive people unless his own son is crucified to "pay" for their sins?

That should be enough right there to dismiss the whole charade.

What kind of a God would be appeased by such a gory act?

That makes no sense.

I agree.

So

Either man is missing it somewhere , or God is.

Which is it....

But if God is Who He says He is, then we are missing it..

so therefore ,

there has to be much more to God,

than what we have

tried to figure out thus far.

That's just part of the brainwashing scheme MorningSong.

They realize that the bible is filled with contradictions and absurdities and so they claim that you can never "understand" God through intellect alone. And all of that apparent contradictions and errors in the bible only appear to be errors because of our inability to grasp God's awesome plan.

No. That's not it at all. They just want to take your attention away from all the absurdities and try to get you to believe that there are explanation somewhere ELSE (i.e. not in the error-ridden Bible).

If they can get you thinking that way, that's a LOAD off of them to have to explain all the absurdities that are actually in these texts. Just have FAITH that God has the answers!

Well, gee whiz, if I'm going to do that, then what do I need their convoluted religion for?

I can just imagine an all-righteous God myself and I have no need for their pathetic religion and error-ridden book.

He's right. It's a convenient way to pass off any arguments against the Bible. If you have doubts, it's not the book that could be wrong, it's that you haven't fully understood it yet.

It's just another way to keep the people in line.

See that's just it, THERE IS. But man has put God into this little tiny box. It creates a system upon which the thinking is extremely rigid. There's no room for spiritual growth, when you are so limited in what the truth can be. It stunts it, because anything new you learn is automatically compared to what you've been told the truth is, be it consciously or subconsciously. If it doesn't match up, it's rejected without a second thought.

How can you really learn anything new, if you don't take the time to actually think about what you hear first strictly on its' own merits, before accepting it or not?

I will close with this, Abra.....


that was GOD HIMSELF on that cross.

Nite now.

Whether it was God or not, why exactly is that neccessary? If you are a parent, are you gonna tell your kids, that in order to save themselves from sins that other kids before them committed, that they must sacrifice say a cow or something?

Firstly, it makes no sense at all that we people alive now would be or should be responsible for what others did before us.

Secondly, to say that because we are, if we don't accept this sacrifice done for us, that we will die, is just sick. It is totally illogical.

No, that's not the only two alternatives.

You're still looking at it as if the Bible is the "Word of God". Therefore either man has misunderstood it, or God as made a mistake.

Before you can truly understand what's going on, you need to realize that the Bible is not the "Word of God" in the first place. Only then can you realize why it doesn't need to be "either God or man".

Just like it didn't need to be either Zeus or Man in the case of Greek mythology. The third possibility was that the whole thing was just mythology to begin with.

Now, MorningSong, I would NEVER want to be one to try to convince you to stop believing in "God". And if you need to believe in God through the Bible, I would say to just continue to do that. There's really no reason for you to try to think of God in some other way. You're personally happy with the biblical picture of God and it works for you. So just leave it at that. And don't worry about it. God is real and it all will work out in the end.

The Hebrews where humans, so their stories surely contain at least some of God's wisdom. And if you're interested in doing God's will then I'm sure you'll get what you need even out of the Hebrew history. It's not critical nor necessary for it to be any verbatim precise truth. You have an innate desire to do that RIGHT THING and so you will do the right thing no matter which religion you chose. You can't go wrong on a personal level.


Now with that in mind I'll continue my argument.



Even in the biblical scriptures they have Jesus telling his very own disciples that they aren't understanding him. Yet we're supposed to believe that these authors of the New Testament understood him well enough to record his words "verbatim" decades later?

I think it's wise to take everything you read in the biblical texts with a grain of salt. Accept what feels righteous to you, and be leery of the rest.

If you have no problem with God requiring a crucifixion to pay for your sins, then by all means, accept that this was done on your behalf.

But why demand that anyone else believe in those stories in the same way. If someone else tells you that they don't feel "good" about these stories and they just don't get good 'vibes' from them, then accept that.

Let everyone find their own relationship with their creator.

I argue with the hardcore proselytizers who use the name of Jesus to spread religious bigotry relentlessly with no love associated with their agenda at all.

I really have no desire to interfere with people who just want to have a 'personal walk with God' via any form of spirituality or religion.

I'm in an extremely special situation. I personally have absolutely no problem at all believing in a "God" without nailing God to the Bible.

But I realize that for many other people, they need to believe in some particular religion or else they lose all faith entirely and become embittered atheists feeling cheated by both man and God.

I certainly wouldn't want to convince anyone to become an 'atheist'.

But at the same time, I really can't stand this idea of a God who condemns people who refuse to believe in him and can't even forgive people unless their "sins" have been paid for by some gory brutal act.

For me, that just reduces God to the mentality of a barroom drunkard. If such a God has no choice in the matter, then that God would be powerless and pathetic. On the other hand, if the God had a choice and actually chooses to do this sick sadistic thing, then that's not good either.

So the religion simply can't work for me.

And I just get sick of being labeled a "heathen" or someone who is 'rejecting God' simply because I prefer to believe that God is far ABOVE the biblical portrait of a God.

If I'm going to be condemned for holding out a belief that God is actually BETTER than he really is, then I can handle that.

I have no problem being cast into eternal hellfire for believing that God was better than that.