If you believe the Bible literally, then you have to believe that God is Love because it says so in the Bible.

God manifests, It does not create anything. It manifests.

Love is not an emotion at all. Love is a feeling and a force.

Emotions are: Fear, anger, passion, envy, lust, happiness, etc.

God is the creator by definition??? Whose definition?

Everyone has their own concept of the term "God." Nobody and no religion owns that word or that concept.

We don't create, we manifest. God does not create, God manifests.

We are God. We are life. We are Love.

..ha, who do you think I am GOD?


YES YOU ARE.

a tiny little piece anyway...

ZPicante,

I never finished reading your post becasue all of your supposed justifications are just as contradictive as the Bible. It's no wonder you don't see the Bible as being conflicting. You seem to be quite happy with contradictions.

You say:



But Job did serve God and live according to his laws. That's one of the major themes of the story.

Also, who was it that God had to prove a point to? Satan? God has to prove something to Satan? That's a contradiction as well. The very idea that God has to prove anything to Satan, expecially at the expense of an innocent loyal human is utterly absurd.

There's no righteousness in that. If God knew that Satan was wrong all he had to do was tell Satan to go jump in the lake. He wouldn't need to prove anything to Satan at Job's expense.

You say:



Well, there's your blatant contradiction right there!

Why would God have "a hedge of protection" around Job? Well, supposedly the reason why God would do that is because Job was indeed a loyal faithful servant and follower of God.

So why raise his "hedge of protection" from a totally faithful loyal servant?

All that implies is that God can't be TRUSTED!

All this would say is that it is useless to put our faith in Yahweh because Yehweh is an untrustworthy God.



Again, you seem to have lost the whole point. If God already knew that Job was loyal to him then he should have never lifted his "hedge of protection" because God would have failed Job by doing do. God would have been untrustworthy to Job.

And again, for what purpose? To demonstrate Job's loyatly to Satan? Why should God need to demonstrate anything to Satan.

This implies that Satan can make God jump through hoops by simlpy making God prove everything to him.

The very idea that God has to prove anything to Satan is a contradiction of what God is supposed to represent, IMHO.

You're giving Satan POWER over God!

You're having God jump through hoops for Satan.

That's no justification, IMHO.



So now you're talking like as if Job's family was just Job's toys that God blessed him with.

You missed the whole point on this one. What you suggest is an extremely egocentric mindset placed onto the story and focused on Job.

This would imply that his family's SOULS don't matter. That they aren't individual SOULS in their own right, each having their own relationshiop with God.

The whole story is a total sham as far as I'm concerned. It flies in the very face of what God is supposed to be. All this story does is have God jumping through Hoops trying to prove something to Satan. Poor Job and his family are just innocent victims in the whole thing.

It's one of the most disgusting stories in the Bible as far as I'm concerned. Although many others are right up there as a very close second.

None of your explanations justified the situation, IMHO.

All you've been doing is confirming what I already said and acting like you've justified it as far as I can see.

The rest of your post was just more of the same, but I don't want to waste time responding to every detail.

You also said:



I don't think so. I think Greek mythology came first.

Christianity is the cult that has borrowed from many other mythologies to piece together their story. Not the other way around.

There are many stories that parallel the story of Jesus. In fact, Christian clergy don't even deny this. It would be pretty hard to do since it's been confirmed historically.

Their explanation is that Satan knew of the coming of Jesus and so he had these other people write those previous stories just to confused eveyone when Jesus actually came.

This also files in the face of the whole thing because this implies that Satan knows what God is going to do before he does it. This would require that Satan himself knows the future, but that would fly in the face of of so many other things.

The whole story is an utter absurdity that can't possibly be a description of a genuine all-wise God because there's no wisdom in the stories at all.

I could go on and on an on pointing out the absurdities.

God leads the Israelites to the "Promised Land" and lo and behold there are heathens living on the land! So God instructs his children to murder all the heatens including their women, children, and babies!

This is an extremely inept God!

A God who can't even deliver a prime piece of real estate as a 'Promised Land' that isn't already inhabited by heathens.

A God who commands people to murder all the heathens including their women, children and babies. Is this the same God that commanded "Thou shalt not kill"?

The whole story is clearly a manmade myth that a culture wrote to try to pretend that God is on their side and all the people they steal land from are "heathens".

It's disgusting.

You actually believe that a God would do such a thing?



If you truly believe that our creator is as ignorant, untrustworthy, and as heartless as the Bible demands, then maybe I'm the one who should be feeling sorry for you.

What sad God.

If our creator is truly like the Bible demand then I truly feel sorry for our creator. He's truly pathetic. I could never look up to such a being or worship it, I would be too busy feeling sorry for it.

I would be the supreme compassionate superior to such a pathetic lost God.

No, I would not want to put my faith in such a pathetic inept God.

Let's all pray to the powers that be that the Bible is a total farce.

Of course, like I say, if you truly read it you can see that it has to be. No all-powerful and all-wise supreme being could possibly be as inept and stupid as the Bible demands.

Maybe the mythology of Wiccan Moon Goddess might be true, at least she's intelligent and compassionate enough to actually be a supreme being.

At least the book got one thing right!



That's true, and this can be seen through physics actually. Energy is always concerned. Nothing is created or destoryed. Only form is changed. And that's what is mean by manifestation. To be manifest in FORM.

In fact, this is the basis of all spiritual alchemy and witchcraft. Witches never created anything, they perform TRANSFORMATIONS!

You never hear about a witch making a prince disappear. They always transform him into a frog.



Witches aren't dumb. They know the craft.



Absolutely. Love is definitely not an emotion.



God manifests love.



Truly, the whole thing of 'creation' is an old-fashioned idea. We see now that nothing is 'created'. Everything is a manifestation of what alredy exists. Therefore if we call the thing that already exists "God", then clearly we are a manifestation of God. Not a 'creation' of God.



Right on all three counts as far as I'm concerned.

It can't be any other way really.

Double.

Jeanniebean, I will respond to your post shortly. Thank you for your decent, thoughtful, demonstrative-that-you've-actually-READ-what-I've-Written response. Thank you. Now, onto the opposite...

Abracadabra,

Your name may be a "magic" word, but that does not mean that if you say something, it magically becomes true, without explanation, justification, or effective thought for that matter. Calling something contradictory (thanks, Captain Malapropism, but "contradictive" is not a word) does not make it so. You have failed in every sense to convince me in the slightest of such claims, for sheer lack of evidence and valid, coherent explanation. Fail.

Also, I don't usually do this, but I will condescend to over-simplify and condense my thoughts hereafter, so that you might overcome your rudeness and illiteracy to actually read my response. Apologize; because I have read all of your horribly-wrought, stream-of-consciousness-esque responses. Why? Perhaps because I am a masochist; but at least I am a decent enough human being to listen to what the philistines (you, for example) have to say. Believe me, I will only give your ape-like scrawlings a cursory read henceforth.

A contradiction is saying two opposing things are true. Now,

THE POINT, THE REAL POINT, OF THE STORY WAS TO SHOW TO EVERYONE THAT JOB DID NOT SERVE GOD BECAUSE OF HIS POSSESSIONS. THAT IS WHY GOD ALLOWED SATAN TO DO AS HE DID.

(I could not be blunter if I beat the point in with a hammer.)

A contradiction is saying two opposing things are true (in case you did not read it the first time; will repeat until acknowledge).

Of course, Job was a loyal servant. THE POINT WAS PROVING THAT HE WAS NOT LOYAL AND FAITHFUL BECAUSE OF ALL HE HAD. HENCE, GOD TOOK AWAY WHAT HE HAD, SHOWING JOB'S FAITHFULNESS WAS GENUINE.

(Not that you would understand this, either, but the book of Job is a didactic story (meant to teach); the lesson is faithfulness, despite suffering.)

First off, you are not clever, witty, or effectively condescending. Just to dispel those lies straightaway!

*God does not need to prove anything to anyone.
*Satan approached God and accused Him of putting a "hedge of protection" around Job.
*God ALLOWED Satan to test Job.

The End.

(Hand puppets next time!)

Well, you didn't read them; that would make my explanations very diffcult to understand, philistine!

You take what you like of the story, allowing your extreme, comprehension-blinding bias to cloud an objective reading of the story.

You say "poor Job and his family," boohoo, but fail to recognize the validity of anything else. How much of it is true? That is inconsistent thinking.

God did not "jump through hoops," God ALLOWED Satan--i.e. gave him permission--to do as he did. Not that you will understand that difference.

Uhhhh...before the Old Testament? Don't think so!

It's not about who wrote it down first. Christianity holds that believers existed from the beginning, though they weren't called "Christians." It started with Adam and Eve, who knew God, and an oral history followed.

You humanize God, imagining that He did not know what was coming. God is in control and does as He will.

Said before, God gave the "heathen" nations innumerable chances; they refused, so he had them killed. Their fault! God is perfectly just.

Your bias and self-confusion seems irreparable. THAT is terribly sad and pathetic. You see things as you like, not as they are. Hopefully, one day God will break through your delusions.

How's that sound, pumpkin? ;)

I started reading the post and thought, "ok this is a reasonable post and should shed some light on the issue."

And then the personal attacks started...

and continued...

and continued...

And about halfway through the second paragraph I simply stopped reading because I hadn't seen anything that pertained to the topic at hand.

So to the accusations of "ape-like scrawlings" I would simply say - "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone".

Yes. <:D


Well, exactly. Adam and Eve's initial disobedience was what separated them from God. In Scripture, "death" always equals some form of "separation" (whether soul from body, man from God, believers from right experience, etc.).

Love and obedience, in respect to a relationship to God, go hand-in-hand. Obedience demonstrates love. Love can be, should be, more than a feeling; it should be a way of life. (Not that I've been particularly successful at that lately, as you can probably tell!)

It may sound Big-Brother-esque (mostly because George Orwell stole the idea ) but slavery to a God who loves is freedom. Slavery to sin is death, though it may not "feel" like it. Our Americanized view of freedom and slavery has tainted what the concept means in Scripture; it is possible to serve God and be free; in fact, the actions are interchangeable.

Well, that's Karma for you. :)

But yes, God is love. God is also just and cannot tolerate sin. That is why He demands we go through his means, Jesus Christ, to be saved. Though it seems nice, the ambiguous, sentimental version of love won't save anyone from Hell, the fate for all our good intentions we all deserve.

As C.S. Lewis said (I think), "the road to Hell is paved with good intentions."

His posts are replete with condescension. Would you prefer that my personal attacks were veiled, like his? I would do, but no one on this site seems to get sarcasm.

To obey God, for me, means to respect life and love others, as my concept of God is not some "supreme being" who lays down rules and regulations like some parent or godly creator, but as part of me and part of life itself.

When you take a concept like God and attempt to make IT into a humanoid, like a parent with magical powers, or a flesh and blood man who once walked the earth, then you are putting yourself into a position to have to prove his existence to yourself and others. You can't do that. All of the things you have heard about God are simply symbolic representations.

I do understand Love. I don't believe that you can confine the concept of that (or of God) into some human looking form or being who makes rules and claim that being 'loves' me so I should serve him. I would want to see him, feel him, and actually hear him. Nobody has seen him or felt him or heard him in that form except in their own imagination.

Yes it is possible to serve the true God and be free. But the church or the Bible are not God. All they have are stories that I don't believe, therefore I serve what I know and that is Love and life and goodness.




You speak about what God "demands" and yet you have never seen or spoken to this supreme being yourself.

I understand these kinds of symbolic statements to mean that the law of cause and effect is exact, methodical, and unforgiving in this, lower world. It is the law here, and it is difficult to escape.

Repentance and forgiveness is the only thing that can break this law of karma because it brings about real change. It is rebirth of the true nature of love within each person as they allow the love to flow through them. It is the only way. If Jesus is love, then Love is the way, the truth and the light. It is the only way.

You call it Jesus, I call it Love.

"Though it seems nice?"
(I could say that about your version of salvation too, but yours does not seem so nice, it seems violent and bloody and cruel.)

I am NOT talking about "the ambiguous sentimental version of love." Why would you assume that? I am talking about the unstoppable power of all life in the universe. There is nothing 'sentimental' about that.

As far as the rumor of Hell is concerned, I wouldn't worry about it much. If you follow the path of true love... well it just does not go to Hell.

My faith is in the law, not in myth and symbolism and man-made religions.

You're not even consistent in your own explanation. One minute you're attempting to justify the story by suggesting that God needed to prove something, and the next minute you're demanding that God doesn't need to prove anything to anyone.

This is what I mean when I say that these biblical stories always lead to contradictions, it's unavoidable.



Well here's just yet another contradiction. If the bible had truly been the inspired word of an all-wise God then it wouldn't be so totally absurd and ambiguous would it?

Why should I require someone like you to explain to me what God meant? Are you suggesting that God can't communicate well enough in his own book?

If I misunderstand the Bible who's fault is that? It could only be the fault of the authors of the book!

No one understands the book. Just look around at what this book has done to humanity.

The people who worship these mythological stories all interpret them differently. The Jews rejected Jesus as the 'Christ". The Muslims took their own interpretations and called it Islam. The Christians started out with Catholicism as the "body of the Christ". But then a lot of the Catholics got fed up with the church and renounced it in favor of their own personal interpretations and thus Protestantism was born. The Protestants continued to rebel against each other's interpretations until they fell into so many different denominations it doesn't even make any sense to call it a valid 'religion' anymore.

This is how totally confused the Christians are.

Besides, why should you feel that it's sad and pathetic that I actually believe that God is far wiser than the Bible demands? The Bible clearly has God commanding people to judge each other and to stone sinners to death.

Come on? That's disgusting right there.

You can believe that God is like that if you want. I prefer to recognize that these are clearly the writings of mortal men who were trying to get their readers to do their dirty work for them.

No God would have ever had any need to ask people to stone sinners to death. Only mortal authors would have a motive to write something like that. I caught them with their hand in the cookie jar!

You're still worshiping them!

Who's the one who is in a sad and pathetic situation?

No me.

I don't believe in a God who commands humans to do his judging and murdering.

No thank you!

It's clearly a false mythology that has only served to turn men against men and continues to do so to this very day. It's a very hateful and bigoted dogma. Jesus was the only bright spot in it, and he was just a mortal man who actually denounced the ways of Yahewh until he was nailed to a pole for blaspheme, and then later metaphorically nailed to the Old Testament (which he had actually denounced). There's no way that Jesus could have been the sacrificial lamb of Yahweh, he didn't even agree with the ways of Yahweh!

It's a horror story from the word go. There's nothing divine in the whole mythology. It's just one contradiction after another and the stories are ugly and violent, not wise at all.

So why should you feel that it's sad and pathetic that I don't believe that God is such an ignorant idiot?

There is nothing divine about the Bible. Nothing.

All I’m saying is that I believe that the real God is actually wiser and far more compassionate than me. You’d have God being far less wise and far less compassionate than even me. To me that’s sad and pathetic.

So all you're saying here is the C. S. Lewis has no faith in God.

Apparently he belives that God would allow people who have good intentions to be cast into hell.

What kind of a God would that be?

These Christains make God out to be a truly heartless and totally insensitive jerk.

Any God who doesn't have the sense to help people who have good intentions is no God at all in my book. Such an evil demon would be far beneath me in terms of ethics or morality, I can assure you of that.

If that's what the Christians have made God into then the Christians have created a demon to worship as far as I'm concerned.

I would prefer that there be no personal attacks at all.

I think this is where people jump to all the wrong conclusions.

Just because a person feels that a particular mythology is absurd doesn't mean that they are being condenscending to anyone.

All I'm saying is that the biblical picture of God is full of contradictions, absurdities, and stories that fly in the very face of what the book claims that God is supposed to be like.

How is that being condensending to anyone? Unless of course they are attempting to claim authorship of the book.

Why should you take personal offense to someone who sees the Bible as being utterly absurd?

I get tired of seeing Jesus used to support the Old Testament and the ways of Yahweh.

Yahweh taught men to murder sinners and heathens.

Jesus taught not to judge others and not to cast stones.

Yahweh taught men to seek revenge, "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth"

Jesus taught forgiveness and to turn the other cheek.

Jesus wasn't even on the same page as Yahweh! How could he possibly have been his son?

Also, what sense does it make that Jesus was sent to man to be a sacrifice to Yahweh?

Jesus wasn't nailed to the cross in a sacrificial ceremony. He was nailed to the cross for blaspheme against the teachings of Yahweh himself!

What kind of a sacrifice would that have been?

The whole idea that Jesus was the sacrificial lamb of Yahweh makes no sense at all.

But what does make perfect sense is that authoritarians, who were lusting for power, would take the rumors about Jesus and try to use Jesus as a dead marionette doll to shove words in his mouth to claim that he was the son of Yahweh and thus prop up the very dogma that Jesus himself refuted.

They needed the POWER that the THREATS of Yahweh provided. They couldn't have Jesus taking away those THREATS!

Yet clearly Jesus had left such an impression on people they were all abandoning the old religion to follow the NEW teachings of Jesus.

So the authoritarians wrote their own version claiming that Jesus was just the Son of Yahweh to re-establish the POWER of their CHURCH! And they were as violent as Yahweh about it! They murdered anyone who got in their way and thus the Christian Crusades were born! All in the name of Jesus "The Christ".

Do the crusades sound like anything that Jesus would have condoned?

I don't think so.

I do NOT believe in the bible as it is just another book written by man .
How does God manifest ?. God by definition is the creator .
Love is just another emotion . Today I love you and after some trouble from you I will no longer love you tomorrow .
God is the creator by the linguistic definition .
This is your so called God who manifest, does not create .
Love created no one .
What is love now will be hatred tomorrow.....

There is no 'creator.' As Abra stated, everything already exists, it just changes form. Changing form is how God "manifests."

Change is constant.

Love is not 'just another emotion.' If you think that, then you are talking about what humans call love.

Tell me why you think
"God is the creator by the linguistic definition."

(Even if this is what some have said, this is not true, it is simply a commonly held belief.)

Love does not turn into 'hatred.'

But if this is what you chose to believe that is your choice.

Sounds like some pretty shallow love to me.

Are you sure we're talking about the same concept?

I'm thinking maybe not.