The beliefs of Christianity aren't anything like what I would say if I were to create a relgion to fool the masses.

1. Christians are the bride of Christ. What guy wants to be called a bride? If I were trying to get men into the Chruch, why would I call them brides?

"Hi, my name is Jesus, I would like you to be my bride"
"What the hell? I don't care what you do, but I don't swing that way."

2. Christians don't have a description of heaven. Every other religion that offers the possiblity of a heaven also offers a description. If it's offered as a reward from men to men...wouldn't they describe it? Honestly, Islamic heaven sounds pretty nice, why wouldn't the writers of the Bible use that as the description for heaven? They aren't creative enough? Dragons, miracles and the dead coming back to life they can imagine, but not a vision of heaven? Nothing? They must have fallen down on the job right there.

"According to the priests of Zeus, I will go to the "Elysian Fields" and induldge in pleasures for all eternity, what do I get if I worship your God?"
"We don't know, but we think it will be pretty neat"

3. Why would they make Jesus say "I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you" When Jesus said that, most of his followers left him. The spiritual meaning just goes right over the head of so many and drives them away from Christianity, why would the authors put that in there?

"All you have to do to go to heaven is eat Jesus' body and drink his blood"
"First I'm not allowed to eat pork, but now you tell me I can eat some dude's corpse?"

4. Turn the other cheek. Wouldn't it attract more people if they were allowed to get revenge? Who wants to be wronged in this life and not get justice?

"So what happens if someone hits me?"
"You have to forgive them and leave it in God's hands"
"What will God do, like strike them with lightening or something cool like that?"
"No, he will wait patiently for them to repent"
"Yeah...um...well let me know how that works out for you, I'm going to go stone a prostitute"

5. No rewards on earth. While people are worshipping the "corn god" to bring corn and the "fertility goddesses" to bring children and so many other gods who all give you something in life, the authors of the Bible decided that people would rather receive nothing in life? Why not promise them health or wealth or happiness? Seems a tad strange that all the gods of that time offered some earthly reward for worship, but the authors of the Bible decided to offer nothing.

"Hey, what do I get for worshipping your God?"
"You get to be happy after you die."
"No thanks, I'll go down to Dionysus' temple and get drunk"

I suspect the religion and Bible/rule book, would look very different today, to back when all the different books were written as eyewitness accounts...(you know a collection of journals)..

Especially depending on who edits what stays and what goes...(the Nicean Council)..

Well, if you want a sincere response, the idea wasn’t to make the religion attractive, but rather to put the fear of God into the people.

It works two-fold. First they try to attract you with God’s love and promise of eternal life. And then, if that doesn’t work, they claim God won't love love you and he’ll reject you and send you to hell.

It’s a very effective system for intimidation.

For me, the important question is just the opposite,…

Why would a real God be such a jerk that he needs to threaten to beat people up if they don’t love him?

Just my honest thoughts on the topic.

You are too smart for that, you are doing yourself a disservice by posting that comment. We have thousands of copies of the books of the Bible from before the Council, so we know they weren't changed. The meeting minutes of the council are public information and are available for free on the internet. The main point of discussion was about a Heresy that Jesus was a minor god created by God. There were two votes in support of that belief and between 250 and 318 votes against.

Maybe you didn't read my post...Um...the promise of eternal life is common to many religions. But they also offered earthly pleasures like sex in "heaven". But Christianity offered no sex, no marriage and no description of heaven itself. Completely different from all other religions of the time that offered the idea of a heaven.

How would Christianity work as a relgion designed to attract followers? Wouldn't the promise of an afterlife filled with food, wine, sex and whatever else made you happy be more attractive to the masses? That's what Muslims are promised, as well as 300+ slaves. I don't see how Christian heaven is all that tempting compared to eternal life with sex which was offered by so many other religions.

In that vein of thought Spider, that nothing changed within the Nicean Council's meetings, where would Mary Madgelane's thoughts, and eyewitness accounts have gotten to, then?

Spider
Where are these books. The oldest I know of was when the dead sea scrolls were found and all they could get a complete copy of was the book of Isiah. Which was almost exactly as we have now. But then again thier was never a reason to change the OT. The earliest bible I know of is from around 1000ad. Not available to the public. So can you point me in the direction where these 1000's of manuscrpts are? Shalom.. Miles

I dont believe that these opinions apply only to christianity, but all religions, in general. Man made weapons to keep people in check and give them some reason to behave and keep faith in something. Some people need that to keep their heads straight, leave them alone...to each his own.

The Gospel of Mary is a Gnostic writing. We don't even know that it is supposed to be Magdalene, because that name isn't present. The Gnostics were fond of taking their beliefs and making it appear that they were of Christian origin. Historians have determined that the teachings in that "gospel" didn't exist until the late 2nd century. The earliest copy of the "Gospel of Mary" is from earth 3rd century and we have another copy that is from 5th century. Two copies of that particular book, but thousands of the others.

Milesoftheusa,

Please note that I said "We have thousands of copies of the books of the Bible". I am not claiming that the Bible existed in it's current form since 34 AD. I am saying that we have thousands of copies of the "books" of the Bible (not the whole Bible in it's current form, but the individual books).

http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/bib-docu.html

I call myself a Christian, however that is mostly for the sake of claiming a religion. I believe in Christianity more than any other religion. However, I am more spiritual than religious. My personal beliefs are an amalgamation of religions and evolution. I believe in the bible, however I don't take any of it literally. For example the earth being created in 7 days. Well seriously who is to say one of those seven days was really a 24 hour period as we know it today. One of those days could have been a thousand, ten thousand, even a million years or more.

As for most of the books of the bible, they are books of men, written by men. So really I have no doubt there are flaws, exadurations, cover ups, and possibly even lies. However that doesn't change the fact that the bible gives alot of good points on how to live life.

For me personally, I just believe if you live your life well, and acknowledge your mistakes and learn from them, then you are on the right path for the afterlife. As for this life and the next, I believe we live this life to prepare us for the next. Whatever it may be.

I thought the Christian heaven was suppose to be a paradise beyond human comprehension.

Are you saying that it’s not?

Are you suggesting that the Christian heaven is an undesirable place?

I never heard that one before to be perfectly honest with you.

Thanks Spider

I was referring to anything really. I will check out who runs that site and see where they get thier info from. To me at least it does not ring true since the Dead Sea Scrolls were such a big deal even still today. Hard to see why they would be if thier were all these manuscripts. Thanks again though for the link.. Blessings of Shalom.. Miles

Spider writes:

"2. Christians don't have a description of heaven. Every other religion that offers the possiblity of a heaven also offers a description. If it's offered as a reward from men to men...wouldn't they describe it? Honestly, Islamic heaven sounds pretty nice, why wouldn't the writers of the Bible use that as the description for heaven? They aren't creative enough? Dragons, miracles and the dead coming back to life they can imagine, but not a vision of heaven? Nothing? They must have fallen down on the job right there. "

Oh for Pete's sake, Revelations describes heaven as a place where the streets are paved in gold. Jesus himself told his followers "In my Father's House there are many mansions...."

Now, I fully suspect you're going to attempt to word lawyer your away around this contradiction of your theory, but it's that very tendency among militant Christians to claim the Bible never says what it _really_ means that makes dialogue between we unwashed heathens and The Elect virtually impossible.

Kerry O.

Man, you have reading comprehension issues. I have made it clear that heaven is not described in the Bible. We are promised that it's great, but told we will not be married or have sex. The religions of those times promised a heaven with sex and drugs and alcohol. I am not questioning Heaven, I am simply pointing out that the unknown, but sans sex heaven wouldn't be as appealing as a heaven where you have sex whenever you want.

Why do I waste my time making posts? Did anyone even read what I posted or just the title? READ THE POST! Why would a heaven with no description, other than a promise of no sex be appealing? Why would you think that men made up the Christian heaven, when it doesn't sound that appealing? I wish I could delete my own thread, I am so tired to talking to people who only want to find a fight and have no interest in hearing what I have to say.

Personally I feel that this is a very healthy view of the religion and one that God would certainly approve of.

I believe that God expects us to be reasonable. And it is perfectly reasonable to expect that the Bible contains error and possibly even content that God did not intend for it to include.

I also agree with the idea of not taking any of it literally. I too believe in evolution and would expect the biblical account of creation to be a mere allegory.

I also believe the great flood to have been an allegory. I believe that the story of the flood was not about a vengeful god who felt a need to destroy all of mankind, but rather the real point of it was to assure us that we can be like Noah, and that we should always hold out hope that God will save us even when the rest of the world appears to be in ruins.

So I’m in complete agreement with you!

Except I actually prefer a pantheistic view of God instead of the biblical view. But that’s a minor detail.

The heaven described in Revelations is not possible under natural laws. But who would slog through all the talk about ten headed dragons with seven horns and then take the depiction of heaven as being literal. At a point in Revelations, an angel explains to John what some of the things he is seeing means.

You are right, there is a very unrealistic description of heaven, which Christian almost universally agree is actually a cryptic way of describing what heaven is really like.

Thank you for reading my post! You are possibly the first one to do so.

But that’s not true. It did have a promise of being paradise beyond human comprehension.



But that’s not true, they do claim that it is the greatest thing that humans can imagine!



Why do you think that people who have different views than you are ‘fighting’?

What do you expect people to do on a public forum? Just agree with everything you say?

Yes.



You just contradicted yourself. You said that heaven is a "paradise beyond human comprehension" and now you say "it is the greatest thing that humans can imagine"

The truth is that we are told that heaven is beyond human comprehension. But tell me, why is a description of heaven "It's great, but I can't tell you about it" better than "It's great, you have sex all the time and it's perfect sex. You can get drunk, eat all you want and you get anything you want, even silk clothing and a couch." Do you not see that the second description is going to appeal to more people than a heaven that can't be descibed, but it definitely lacks sex.



I am just annoyed that you obviously didn't read my post, but you are commenting on it. You haven't in the past, you only skim them looking for something to jump on (just like you did on the paradox posts in another thread). You still don't get that paradox argument, do you? Too bad, it was worth understanding.

spider, i for one read your posts and enjoy them. im sorry so many ppl whether here or in any other thread argue with you so much. God bless.