Ab...wrote: 2. The whole 'sacrificial lamb' thing actually depends upon the God of the Old Testament being appeased by blood sacrifices.

I can post many scriptures to the contrary, here is just one of many ;
Psalm 51:16
You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it, you take no pleasure in burnt offerings.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart,O God you will not despise.


Remember Ab... context of the passage, context of the book, context of the Bible.....all must agree, if they do not your interpretation is incorrect.

The problem is Sparrows, that if you take the entire Bible as a collection of "God's Word", then the entire Bible becomes the context.

In other words, you can't go around finding places in the Bible where God is appeased by blood sacrifices and then other places where God is not appeased by blood sacrifices.

Either it's true, or it's not.

All you're demonstrating to me is what I already know. The Bible is nothing more than a bunch of independent stories that aren't even in agreement with each other.

Besides, if you claim that Jesus denounced the God of the Torah (The Old Testement), then he most certainly could not have been the Son of that God.

So much for the whole religion then. The whole thing falls apart and you end up with nothing.

The Bible is the context....didn't i just say that??? Which is excatly why your interpretation that God is appeased with blood sacrifice is incorrect!

I (presume) the reason you think this is a personal matter rather than a matter of exegesis.For if you researched the matter with a broken and contrite heart the truth might be revealed to you.

>2sparrows<

Are you suggesting that God is decietful and would hide the truth from those who seek him?

You're just convincing me that the Bible necessarily must be written by some sort of Satan just as Jesus had said in the verse you posted by John.

A loving God would not pull such deceiful trickery on those who seek his love. Thus the Old Testament cannot possibly be the inspiried word of any loving God. Hench Jesus could certainly not have been the Son of the false God depicted in the Bible. In fact, as you have shown, even John shows that Jesus rejected this God.

But I already knew that.

God hides nothing, that is why he said things such as if you draw nigh to God he will draw nigh to you. You have to put forward the foot towards the knowledge first then God will reveal anything you are seaking.

No; I am NOT suggesting That God is decietful.... but I will say your quotations of scripture and other posts are decietful.

Oh but sir, you already have.

You have stated before that my view of the Bible is wrong and distorted and that I can't even see the truth.

Well, if that's true, and this is because God has built into the Bible a "sifting" mechanism as you have suggested, then God has indeed deceived me into believing that he is different from what he is actually like.

Even you have suggested that I'm not truly rejecting God, I'm merely rejecting the false picture of God that I have because of this deceit that is built into the Bible as a "sifting" mechanism.

In short, you are demanding that God has deceived me!

Moreover, if you believe that God has 'sifted' me out of being able to understand his word, then why should you even remotely interested in attempting to explain his word to me? After all, if God has made a decision that he doesn't want me to understand it, who are you to defy God's wishes?

In fact, that would go for all Christian evangelists and proseyltizers who attempt to explain the Bible to people who don't understand it. They would all be interfering with God's "sifting" mechanism!

Ah yes... but as you say, "some" may not believe in God. That does not make the God of Abraham different from the Father of Jesus.

I am not talking about sinners. I am talking about those who follow Gods ways with true and sincere love. That does not require rejection of the Old Testament.

As Jesus loved God the Father so do the Jews and the Muslims. There may be those who have lost the way but that does not mean that their God is different - just unrevealed.

For those who are living a good and righteous life, their God is the same - Christians, Muslims, Jews and others who believe in one eternal God alike....

The fact that there are sinners who do not love God does not change who God is.

It is sure a less self conflicting way to think that all people worship my god even if they don't know they do.

No; I am NOT suggesting That God is decietful.... but I will say your quotations of scripture and other posts are decietful.

>2sparrows<



you are correct



correct again
.

INcorrect....you have decieved yourself or let yourself be seduced by another enity



1/2... right see above


Again, you decieve yourself or allow youself to be decieved by another enity or enities


you make the decsion daily


good logic...that is if anything ahead of it were true..therefore the conclusion you draw is incorrect because you base it on faulty facts, which you seem to have a 'natural talent' for.

I agree, there are religions who worship the God I worship,, but I thought the question was whether ANYONE worshiping one God worshipped the same one I do,,, to which I have to say no...

1. Do you believe in ONE God?

I believe in one existence/being/life (what I think of as 'the all') of which we and everything that exists is just a very small part...much like the various cells of our bodies are each and all part of us. Example: You and I may be 2 of 'The all'/this being's brain cells, while other creatures are cells in the being's liver...and the planets are groups of cells in its skeleton. We don't readily see our connection to everything, just as our own liver cells may not see a connection to the cells of our toes. The connection exists, nevertheless.

2. Do you admit that it must be the same ONE God
that other monotheists believe in?

I'll admit that I think there is one being that we each perceive in our own way...often a different way. There are bits and pieces of all religions and philosophical beliefs that give my beliefs validation...to me, anyway. Again, I think it a matter of not feeling/seeing/understanding the connection to 'the all'. (I don't claim to truly understand the connection to 'the all', either. I find it difficult to clearly describe what I think of as 'the all'. In my heart, though, I believe 'the all' exists.) Is my 'all' the same as other's 'God'? I'm not sure. but it must be. In my mind it is 'the all'.

3. Do you admit that it then does not matter what
religion you are as long as you follow the rules
for good and ethical behavior - amounting to
charity and kindness described in various ways
by different religions?

Perhaps it doesn't matter, but what muddies this water is each person's concept or understanding of "good and ethical behavior" and "charity and kindness". Those seem to be different from person to person and religion to religion...even from time to time. Example: How those inflicted with various illnesses were treated (with the encouragement of religious leaders) 100's of years ago. We now understand that those inflicted were not demons or harboring demons within. How those people are treated has certainly changed with understanding and knowledge...also a change in charity and kindness or good and ethical behavior? I don't know.

I do believe the world would be a better place if everyone truly followed the teachings of good and ethical behavior and charity and kindness from their religion of choice. Not perfect, certainly. There would still be many disagreements and much discord, but it would be better than it is now. Seems the ugliness that has arisen from religious beliefs has occurred when people stepped away from the most basic moral tenants of their own religions. Inconvenient and difficult to follow those. Self/ego/our own agenda gets in the way at times. Human nature, I think.

I must say, I am not convinced there is a prize for living well at the end of this life...nor a punishment. Living as an appropriately functioning part of 'the all'/behaving as we should within the confines of our purpose is in itself the reward. When this life/purpose is done, we (our energy, matter, etc.) are off to serve another purpose within 'the all' . What that may be, I haven't a clue,. Something different for each of us, maybe. But following the law of conservation, I believe we are changed at the end of this life - not destroyed.

Precisely the opposite. I refuse to allow other people to decide for me. This is why I demand that the Bible must make sense to me. If it doesn't make sense to me I would be fooling myself to pretend that I actually understand it.

Not only would I be fooling myself, but I would be fooling God!

You would have me LIE to God!

You would have me pretend to accept the Bible and ignore all of its gross contradictions and obvious absurdities in favor of LYING to God in some pretense that it actually makes sense to me.

Perhaps you didn't fully understand my previous explanation about my history with the Bible.

I was taught as a child that the Bible was the word of God and that Jesus was the Son of God. I accepted that because I saw no reason for my parents to LIE to me about something so profound!

However, later I discovered that they had indeed LIED to me! By their own confessions, later in life they confessed that it's a matter of FAITH and that in all honesty they can't say with absolute certainty whether it's a true story or not. In short, they confessed that they honestly don't know whether the Bible has anything to do with God or not. Of if there even is a God!

Moreover, I quickly discovered that preachers have their struggles with their FAITH. I also quickly noticed that the preaches even within a given denomination don't agree on every interpretation and in some cases actually disagree about major issues!

So I finally decided to read the book myself and discover the TRUTH. In other words, if the book truly is God's Word and has answers to all our questions they the book itself should be able to straighten out the whole mess once and for all.

So I went into the book naively believing that is was the word of God and that I would get to the bottom of all these apparent inconsistencies, etc.

However, what I found was just the opposite. Instead of clearing things up I realized that the book was far worse than even the preachers were willing to confess.

Taking my head out of the book, I then looked around at all the different denominations of Protestantism, and then at Catholicism, and finally to Judaism and Islam, and I realized that nobody can make sense of these stories. Not even the most learned theologians! Clearly these stories are extremely ambiguous at best, and totally absurd at worst.

That my friend, is the Gospel Truth or perhaps I should say, "The Truth of the Gospels!", they are totally ambiguous at best, and utterly absurd at worst. Certainly not clear enough for me to believe that YOU could have a handle on them.

I later discovered that the Great Isaac Newton studied the Bible even more than he studied physics and his conclusion was quite simply that Jesus could not possibly have been the Son of Yahweh. That was his conclusion (the same conclusion I came to I might add)

More over, all of the most brilliant minds in science have recognized similar things about these stories. Albert Einstein also rejected them as being utterly absurd and suggested that humanity as a whole would be far better off turning to Buddhism as a spiritual philosophy of life.

So I'm in GREAT company. And I made my conclusion before I even realized that so many other great minds had come to the very same conclusion.

Carl Sagan said in best I think, "The cosmic stage is far too big for the biblical plot". It's so true. Why bother creating infinitely many galaxies if God is obscessed with human behavior on Earth?

Finally, when you read the Bible just ask yourself the following questions.

1. Would an all-wise, all-intelligent, all-compassionate God do and say the things that are written in the biblical stories?

2. Would mortal men who are attempting to strike fear and guilt into the masses write the things that are in the biblical storties.

When I go through the Bible with asking those two questions it quickly becomes quite vivid that the answer to the first question is always a clear and easy no and the answer to the second question is always a clear and resounding YES.

I see no reason at all to believe that the creator of this universe would be as utterly stupid and ignorant as the biblical stories demand.

There's just no reason at all to believe them. And there are a myriad of reasons to reject them. Not the least of which is that the stories themselves constantly conflict with their own interests.

An unchanging God who deals with sin one moment by flooding the sinners off the face of the planet, and then in the next moment he's having his son nailed to a pole to save the sinners?

Right there is enough to have this book classified as a collection of fictional inconsistent fairytales. No need to even look any deeper really.

There is no way that the Bible can be made to make any sense at all. It's clearly as ficticious as the Greek Mythologies of Zeus and company.

I mean if you want to use it as an abstract model for an archetype of God, more power to you. But any attempt to sell it to others as a book of the "Absolute Word of God" is truly absurd. It simply isn't self-consistent enough to be any such thing.

OK - I wasn't trying to say that there aren't a few strange ones which observe some weird made-up God who glorifies violence and injustice. It's a big strange world. But I was really talking about the major movements. And it seems to me if Jews, Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, pantheists etc. all believe there is a single God uniting us in ethical beauty that this entity they all describe in slightly different ways is actually the one and the same one for everyone. Kind of like the story of the blind men seeing different parts of the elephant. One elephant.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant

Wow thank you for the thoughtful reply!

I am very much in agreement. The individual's different concepts of good and evil are certainly at the heart of religious and ethical thought. The idea of a single God - a single standard of perfection - is among the earliest attempts to come to grips with understanding and unifying a definition of "Good" (i.e. Godliness) as "The All".

There is a prize for living well though for certain! At the very least living a caring and moral life is its own reward. Is there something more after life? We know we continue in our children and in memories. Beyond that...God knows.

Ok, now we are getting closer to the truth. I do believe if a person; Christian, Jew, Muslim, or other religion sincerely seeks God out; asking, pleading, to know him, to know the truth no matter what it is; God will reveal Himself to them, even come to them. This will be no other than Jesus.There are plenty of testimonies from people out of various religions this has happened to.
Man does not uncover God, God makes himself known.

If that's true, there there would be no need for any Bible, or any ministers, or any evangelists, or anything of the sort.

That pretty much flies in the very face of the whole dogmatic religion.

Again, you decieve yourself or allow youself to be decieved by another enity or enities
>2sparrows<

you "refuse" you "demand" and "it doesn't make sense"....Remember Ab... It is to broken and contrite hearts that God reveals the truth to.

you can fool yourself, but cannot fool God, remember he sees the heart

I feel you are; you say to God (and others) you know you enough about the Bible to reject it. Even I a mere man can see that is not the case.

not at all; rather I would have you humble yourself before God (denouncing all other spiritual enities) asking him to show the what is true as you search the the scriptures for the truth.

i know how the Bible was put together, and I know that God can accomplish what he wants inspite of man

your parents, preachers, Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Carl Sagan may not understand the "Truth of the Gosples" but i do. Which proves it does not take a surperb intelligence to understand it...lol! To put it plainly. God reveals himself to whom He chooses, and many cannot see past their own arrogance, pride
, selfishness, etc...to see Him. You do not have to throw out intelligence to understand the Bible, but with the wrong heart, no matter how intelligent it will never make sense to you

Wrong Questions to be asking. Why would God reveal the truth to a person who has already discounted His wisdom,intelligence,compassion,and the Bible.
These are the questions you should be asking:
1)What is the passage really saying; dear God will you show me the truth in this passage so I may understand it.
2)How does this passage apply to me personally; dear God please show me how to apply this truth personally in life

and you wonder why God doesn't come to visit?

then don't look deeper, but don't put down others who have!

You have elected youself judge, jury, and executioner; condeming God and the Bible, and your only qualification is a superficial knowledge of the Bible. And you wonder why you can't find him???
Remember Ab... a broken and a contrite heart is what God desires; and He will reveal Himself. But it is not the surperb intelligence of man that will discover, uncover, unmask God.

>2sparrows<

*fanfare* *applause* *cheering*

We finally agree on something!!!