I could imagine that such brilliant thinkers as Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Carl Sagan, and Richard Feynman have put in considerable time and thought about the writings of the bible as of other theologies to come to the conclusion of denouncing the bible as nothing more as a fairy tale book.

In the end if one needs somekind of faith or belief system then there are many other faith systems that are far more peaceful for the mind and heart then any Mediterrenean Mythology or its predecessors has to offer put together.

The best I can ever do if one is interested is to suggest to travel more exploring this world and seeing the cultures and lifestyles that have shown peaceful coexistence as a whole.

If one cannot travel to take the opportunity to research and study other belief systems that show promise of peaceful coexistence without the use of judging, relaying confusing messages, or adding a tainted history with the organization that represents the religion one follows.

I prefer a clean conscience with honesty to enhance a pleasurable and rewarding life experience.

I'm starting to think that the whole Jesus incident was intended to put Jesus on the throne. There is a lot evidence pointing towards the fact that Jesus intended to overthrow the Roman government and establish himself as King of the Jews. The prophesies he put some effort into fulfilling said the Messiah would do so. My understand from what I have read is that the Jews did not consider a Messiah to be a divine being but a religious and military leader. Maybe his plan got a little screwed up somewhere preventing from leading the military revolt.

I have a documentary here on Issac Newton. They clearly state that he actually spent more time studying the Bible than he spent on physics and mathematics!

That's truly hard to believe since he basically invented modern physics from scratch as well as caculus!

He's the one who first discovered that pure white light is actually made up of all the colors and can be broken into the rainbow through a prisim. Other people were semi aware of these, but they didn't understand how it worked. He wrote it all out in great detail. He also figured out that gravity holds the solar system together. People didn't know that before Isaac Newton. They thought the planets were all held up by large crystaline spheres that encompassed their entire orbital paths!

He figured out all the mathmematics of motions, inertia, momentum, force, and acceration. And he invented calculus to describe it all!

But they say that all of this pales in comparison to his work in theology!

He is said to have owned 200 Bibles. These all would have been various versions. In other words he owned 200 different versions of the Holy Bible! And he studied them ALL!

He deperated wanted to make them work!

He wanted to KNOW God!

This was extremely important to him. Historians suggest this may have been because his own father had died before he was even born. So he wanted to know his heavenly father.

After a lifetime of extreme theological study, he concluded that Jesus could not possibly have been the son of the God of Abraham.

I can't help but feel good that I'm not the only one who has come to this conclusion.

I'm not sure if he totally rejected the God of Abraham though. He might have clung to that just from the simple fact that he had been brought up to believe that the Bible was the word of God. I think he might have just rejected the New Testament. I'm not sure of the details of his conclusions.

I worked the other way around. I realized that the God of Abraham couldn't be real first. Then I was stuck with having to figure out who Jesus was.

Albert Einstein rejected the whole shebang. He supported Buddhism, although, I think he supported it more as a philosophy than a religion. I'm pretty sure that God was king of an atheist.

He was famous for refusing to beleive that God throws dice. But his notion of God was a pantheistic notion not a biblical notion. He made it perfectly clear that he did not think of God in the sense of having a persona. So that would negate anything like Zeus or the jealous egotistical God of Abraham.

One thing is for certain or at least it seems to be is that the Roman Emperor who thought he was a god and the Jews who followed the old testament where threatened by Jesus's questioning of the old testament and how one could live that contradicted Roman rule.

I mean why else such a commotion right? It had to be something that the government and its followers didn't like of Jesus.

Very interesting and mysterious to tell you the truth. So many possiblities in the end.

Some believe Jesus never even existed and that it he was just invented to create an extrodinary story for people to follow.

So go ahead and shake that magic 8 ball and take your pick for there are many possiblities of what could have happened and I am sure many will give you their opinion on the matter also!

I skimmed through one bible awhile back and found it tremendously boring and also contradictive, which didn't at least for me answer any questions I would need in my lifetime. I can't imagine going through 200 bibles! That is crazy, but I can imagine with such a vast mind as Isaac Newton that such curiosities led to deeper questions and research.

For me personally I think Albert Einstein's conclusion is something to embrace, well at least for me it is. I like the idea that he embraced Buddhism as a philosophy. I mean it is in my opinion a much more peaceful practice in general.

So yes such scientists who spend alot of time asking the hard questions to only come with nothing in the end is probably the right answer in general.

We simply just don't know. Will we ever know? I don't think in my lifetime that is for sure and oddly I am fine with this! lol

So for me it just matters that I enjoy the "now" in life and be honest to everyone by saying," I don't know and your conclusion could be right regardless of how unreasonable or reasonable it can be."

Anything is possible

I just would prefer the more peaceful solution in the end.

What if all words spoken or written by every single human being were (and still are) the word of "God"? That would include all words being spoken right here in this thread. Wasn't it Jesus that said "You are gods, and all of you are children of the Most High"?

Hmmm... Each of us the sons and daughters of God. Each one of us connected to our higher selves... "God".

Wouldn't that suggest the possibility that Jesus... well... was one of us? He died... we die... And what if there was never any need for proving anyone else's words as false... if all words were seen as representations equal divinity in human form? Jesus the man or Jesus the story spoke of divinity in everyone. Millions of people took these words and interpreted them as instruction to live "right" and "good" and Gof help those that didn't. Those "interpretations" have little, if anything, to do with his philosophy.

If all humans are manifestations of a higher realm, the divinity in each and every one of us waits and whispers wisdom to us. Sometimes we hear and don't recognize it. Sometimes its spoken so clearly that it cannot be denied. Other times, we're completely blind, as perhaps intended for the human experience. Did there ever really have to be a religion in place or set instructions as to how one should interpret the higher realm / human interface in order to participate in what already is?

If we are all gods then all words are divine instruction and the holy ghost is nothing more or less than our conscience.

How are you spledid? Haven't seen you around here for a while.

You ARE a god!

Just stumbling along. Been blinded by a lot of fear.
How've you been?

As I see no higher power above humanity, that would not be an incorrect statement by definition. Though I have never sought to declare myself divine.

Unemployed, bored, frustrated, depressed, and broke mostly, but I just got a new job Thursday and should be starting this week, so all is not hopeless.

Fear is a difficult thing to overcome. I try to find strength in anything I can, even if is just winning a stupid argument here. Sometimes the it's the little things. Just don't let it control your life and you'll manage.

Especially lately, I find that any argument I attempt to win ends up leaving me even more lost.

Sometimes you can never win an argument here, even if you have the better argument. It's like peeing into the wind. lol

I don't believe in arguing.

I just tell it like it is.

So you pee into the wind often?

Actually I tell it like it is. I pee with the wind.

I just had a religious discussion with a very devout catholic friend of mine. He dropped by and just happened to notice the video lectures I have on Buddhism. So our discussion turned to Buddhism and I shared with him some insight that I had learned about the history of Buddhism.

He said that it's all very interested but he thinks Buddhism is totally off the mark. I told him that I agree and feel that all religions are off the mark.

That sparked him to go into a comentary of why he feels Catholicism is the "perfect" religion. I listened to his comments trying not to interject, but I could help but roll my eyes at some of this comments.

Catching these facial reactions he asked me to explain where my problems were stating that he is sure that he could clear up the misunderstandings.

So this is how the conversation began. I proceeded to explain why I felt that many of this premises and explanations aren't impressive and hold no water as far as I'm concerned.

He continued to argue his case, and so I continued to explain why I was not buying his arguments by givine counter examples to his points.

Now who is truly arguing here? I didn't even ask for a lecture on Catholicism, I was merely pointing out why I'm not buying it.

It does seem strange that he even went on to claim that Catholics aren't like the Protestants. He explained the Catholics believe that "non-believers" can indeed find grace with God. He also proclamed that above all, The only thing that surpassed God's love is God's mercy.



I told him, that's fine. And if this is true then non-believers have nothing at all to be concerned with because an all-loving all-merciful God most certainly isn't going to nit-pick about what people might believe or not believe.

At that point, he truly seemed to be confused. And he reluctantly agreed with me with a sort of wishy-washy uncertainty. It seems that I caused him to seriously confront some of his own paradoxes.

Even he recognized that he was simultaneously trying to claim that it's important to believe in the doman, whilst simultaneously demanding that it's not.

Yes, I'd say that the Catholics are quite different from the Protestants. The protestents are far more demanding that everyone worship the dogma. The Catholics seem to be more open to letting God decide who he's going to be peeved at and who he isn't.

In the meantime, I never truly argued for anything. All I ever did was state that I don't by the argument that the Bible is the word of God.

I'm not a saleman.

I'm just a tough customer.

That's the difference between peeing into the wind and peeing with the wind Miles.

I don't argue. I just reject sales pitches.