I have no sins to atone. So I have no need for anyone who is offering to atone sins. The gospels claim that Jesus himself said that he did not come for the righteous but for the sinners. So Jesus wasn’t here for me anyway by his own proclamation according to the gospels.

None the less, I do agree with most of what Jesus supposedly taught. Although, since all we have from the man is extremely biased hearsay of attempts to paint him as the sacrificial lamb of Yahweh, as you describe above, then it’s really hard to say how much of the gospels actually came from Jesus, and how much of it is made up gobbledygook. This is why I must reject the Bible as even being a reliable representation of Jesus.

The best I can do with regard to Jesus is to recognize that he probably was a really nice guy and he probably did stand up for moral values that I would personally support.

Buddha, on the other hand did not ask for any followers. He ever proclaimed that he has any desire to be the King of Kings or Lord of Lords or that every knee shall bow to him or that every tongue shall confess that he is LORD.

So Buddha isn’t even asking anyone to ‘follow’ him. Buddha is simply sharing his insights into the human condition and the secrets of life itself. And of course he’s doing this in a way that is compatible with the philosophical and spiritual belief system of the culture in which he was raised. Not unlike the way that the authors of the New Testament painted Jesus into the philosophical and spiritual belief system of their culture.

First and foremost Buddah taught spiritual sovereignty, if you ‘follow’ the teachings of Buddha one of the first things you’ll begin to realize is that he is telling you that you should not follow him, but rather you should follow your own inner spirit. He then goes about sharing with you his own spiritual journey in the hope that his experiences may help you in your own quest for spiritual sovereignty.

The truly interesting thing is that both Jesus and Buddha taught the very same path. Yet one man is said to have taught a path to spiritual sovereignty, whilst the other man is said to be lusting to become the King of Kings and Lord of Lords to rule over you.

However, in all truthfulness Jesus NEVER SAID that he wants to be the King of Kings and Lord of Lords and have every knee bow to him and ever tongue confess that he is Lord. But somehow that absurd notion got into the Bible and therefore becomes the “Word of God” in Jesus’ name we pray.

This is why the Bible is so full of baloney, IMHO. It contains so much contorted trivial and blatantly egoistical crap, that truly never even came from the mouth of Jesus. Most things that are actually attributed to Jesus are far more in line with what Buddha taught, and not at all in line with all the rest of the crap that’s in the “Holy Bible”.

For this reason (among others) I personally believe that Jesus was indeed a Mahayana Buddhist who was actually attempting to bring the wisdom of Buddha to his own people, but was unfortunately crucified by a mob on charges of blaspheme after only a few short years of attempting to teach the wisdom and love of Buddha.

I don’t believe for one second that Jesus was the “sacrificial lamb of Yahweh”. I personally find that whole notion to be quite unattractive and ignorant on many levels. I do not believe that Jesus was born of a virgin. I do not believe that a voice came from the sky saying, “This is my beloved son in whom I’m well pleased”. I do not believe that Jesus rose from the dead.

Jesus was a mortal man, not at all unlike Buddha. He probably had the very same message to share. It is extremely unfortunate for everyone that Jesus was crucified for his efforts and ended up being used as a patsy by an uncouth religious regime to create a doctrine claiming that Jesus was the “sacrifical lamb of Yahweh” just so they could use him to prop up the very same religious doctrine that Jesus himself obviously disagreed with.

That’s my conclusions about what happened to poor innocent Jesus.

And it truly saddens me to see people falling for that tale and support it to use Jesus to prop up the bigotry, ignorance, and prejudices, of the Old Testament. The very things that Jesus himself tried so wisely and cautiously to renounce.

IMHO, Christianity is about as anti-Jesus as anything can possibly be.

that faith is required to not believe in something is another way for a believer to pull others into their God delusions

To have FAITH that the universe came into being from nothing by pure random accident is really no different from having FAITH that it came into being from something for a reason.

To believe in either scenario requires FAITH.

then that would mean that you believe that God didn't pop out of nothing and therefore had a creator

You have no sins to atone? Am I corresponding with Jesus himself in this forum? That's an outlandish statement that comes crashing down in light of God's law (the 10 commandments) which is also the generally accepted moral code for most any functioning society. You indeed have sinned just like all of us on this site. Furthermore, the reason Jesus has not come for the righteous but for sinners is because there is none righteous; no, not one. All are sinners. You're in the same boat with the rest of mankind. This verse is not an endorsement of your own personal righteousness, but your own personal sin, and need for a savior.

Plus this same Jesus whom you say doesn't proclaim you as a sinner also said, "If you do not believe that I am who I proclaim to be, you will die in your sins." There are various references throughout the Old & New Covenant in regards to the reality of sin in every one of us.

And this is one of the big problems with the teachings of Buddha. He may have been a great psychologist, but he did not deal with the root problem in regards to the human condition, namely, sin. He didn't teach it because he didn't believe in it. But him not believing it doesn't change reality. So Buddha's words, although having a measure of accuracy, are incomplete in regards to truth because he misunderstood man's real problem of alienation from our creator due to sin.

"If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us..." 1st John 1:8

You mentioned how Buddha's teaching fit the culture, compared to the new testament author's who apparently weren't sensitive to their culture. The kingdom of God transcends culture. God is not called to change His ways to fit our philosophical concepts of how or who we think he should be.

Buddha and Jesus did not teach the same thing: Buddha taught to follow your own inner spirit; Jesus taught that man was spiritually dead in their sins and needed to be spiritually reborn from above; unless a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Neither did Jesus teach about following our own quest for spiritual sovereignty. There's only one Sovereign and that is God, and even Jesus throughout his earthly ministry always pointed people to his heavenly Father.

I agree that Buddha did not "Lord it over people" but neither did Jesus. His motivation for making the claims He made was not so He could "lord it over people" and get a quick high through a spirit of control: He said to people, "Follow Me" because His main motivation was to save people for their sins....to "seek and save that which is lost, as He Himself said. Thus the name "Jesus" which was given to Him, which means "the Lord saves."

Your reference to "every knee bowing and every one confessing He is Lord" has to do with the day that each of us will have to give an account to God.

Sorry to say, but Buddha is not the way, the truth, and the life. That is reserved for Jesus Christ alone. Salvation is found in none other than Jesus, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

Also, I can't understand why you think that the Bible writings can be so inaccurate, and even refer to it being myth. The truth is, what we know about Buddha is enshrined in legends and myths since the texts containing his words were not written until about two centuries after his death by an anonymous author. Meanwhile, much of the new testament was written only decades after the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and even the stories in the old testament that many conveniently label as myth have been confirmed by scientific discovery (the walls of Jericho, the cities of Sodom & Gomorah, to name a few). There is also the writings of the historian Josephus. Your "myth analogy" doesn't stand up under scrutiny.

"

Well of course this is what the dogma claims. This is indeed the whole obscessive focal point of the religion.

It's a dogma that is utterly OBSCESSED with SIN.

That's one of the things that makes the religion so disgusting. It's so obscessed with sin that it's unhealthy.

Even the crucifixion of Jesus to pay for the salvation of man is a gory sick idea.



Oh no, I'm not Jesus. I wouldn't go around losing my temper overturning money tables in a public square. I don't even have that sin to confess. No, I'm even more free from sin than Jesus was.

I guess that's just another reason why the story makes no sense to me. How can a man who wasn't even as free from sin as myself offer to die for my sins? That makes no sense at all.

I can understand why you may feel that way, but it really isn't the case. God offers us a relationship with Himself through Jesus, and in this relationship sin is not at all the focal point; God's grace is. A relationship with God is meant to be satisfying, enjoyable, full of life & purpose, and that's what Jesus offers. It's just that when the conversation focuses on the topic of salvation, or of what it means to be in right standing with God, the whole issue of sin does become an important issue and can't be ignored, because one must first understand the reality of sin in their own life before they can be in a position to receive the grace of God extended toward them in Christ. So I speak in these terms not because of an obsession with sin, but out of a sincere hope that you will open your heart to the grace of God available to you.

Let me just say again that I enjoy the discourse with you. You have obviously thought and studied much on spiritual topics; much more than the average person. The questions you raise are legitimate questions. And although we have mostly disagreed thus far, the tone of our discussions has been civil and respectful. Can't say that about a lot of forums like this where people get downright nasty and vehement, and that includes Christian ones.

Well, there was a time when I believed in Christianity and was even sincerely thinking about the possibility of becoming a preacher. After all who wouldn't want to teach the "Word of God" if that's truly what the Bible is?

However, I must add here that in truth, I didn’t truly believe in “Christianity”, what I believed in was my parents and the adults around me. They were the ones who told me that this is the true word of God and they were the ones I “believed in”. I simply didn’t know enough about what was actually in the Bible to even say whether I actually believe it or not.

However, once I began to consider preaching “God’s Word”, I began to ask the hard questions. Not because I was challenging the truth of the Bible, but because, if I was going to be teaching the story I should have a full grasp and understand of precisely what the story is so I can answer and clarify these tough questions for others.

Well, it was when I began to actually read the Bible and search for answers to hard questions that I began to realize the answers simply aren’t clear. Not only did I begin to realize that answers aren’t clear, but I also starting becoming quite ‘turned off’ by some of the things I that are actually in the Bible. The more I read, the more “Hard Questions” kept popping up. I found contradictions, and situations that I personally felt that were not handled well by “god” at all.

By this time I’m having very little difficulty in questioning the ‘wisdom’ of God in these stories. And I’m also becoming ‘suspicious’ about whether these stories truly are the ‘word of God’.

I might stop and tell you at this point that while my family was quite religious and even some of my uncles were preachers, they weren’t ‘fire-and-brimstone’ preachers. No one in our family was a religious ‘fanatic’ or ‘fundamentalist’. Religion was never a ‘problem’ for me in terms of my family. It wasn’t ‘shoved’ onto me in a mean way, or anything like that. It was always presented to me in a very loving way, and questions about it were embraced, not discouraged. Even if they couldn’t be answered. Often times the answer was quite simply, “We just have to have faith”. However, for me, that answer is a non-answer.

It soon became vividly apparent to me is that the answers to the hard questions are not going to be found in the Bible. And that reading the Bible is only raising far more questions than answers.

Now whilst some of my uncles were preachers, others were actually atheists. This did not tear the family apart. On the contrary the preachers and atheists would often sit down and have very civil philosophical discussions about these things. It wouldn’t even be correct to refer to them as ‘debates’ because no one was attempting to convince anyone of anything. They were merely sharing their different views and why they each feel the way they do.

Like you, I’m not an atheist. I’m totally convinced that there is something going on that is far grander than just a mere freak random accident that occurred haphazardly out of some cosmic junk. And I might add here that I’ve been a physicist all my life, I’ve taught physic and mathematics both, and I’m fully aware of all the scientific theories. I fully understand those theories (at least as well as any physicist) and I have no problem with them in general. However, all that science does is describe how this universe behaves. It looks at the universe ‘behaving’ and it describes that behavior. But that is not an “explanation” of why it behaves the way it does. All that science amounts to is a description that explains things “after the fact”.

I like the way that Stephen Hawking put it: “What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to describe?”

He fully understand that science is nothing more than a description of what we see happening all around us. Science can say nothing of how it truly came to be in the first place. Sure they can go back to the Big Bang and describe how it ‘unfolded’ but that’s still just a description of what’s happening. It doesn’t explain why it came to be that way.

In any case, I didn’t mean to go off on a tangent into science. But my point is that science does not, and cannot, replace theism. I’ve always believed in spirituality. However, I’ve always intuitively felt that I have always existed and always will exist. So that is also an innate intuitive feeling I have. That feeling is so profound I can intuitively say that I know that it’s true. But obviously there is nothing ‘logical’ that I can offer to support it.

Now getting back to the Bible. I’ve always agreed with the moral teaching of Jesus. In fact, I agree with them so much that this in itself is a bit problematic. In other words, I have nothing to ‘learn’ from Jesus. As I read his moral position on things I simply nod my head in agreement and acknowledge that I agree.

But isn’t that strange? Why should I already have the same moral values as Jesus? Could it be that he was simply offering wisdom that any sane wise person should already know?

This raises the question of why there are genuinely sick people in the world. Are their truly ‘evil’ people? Or are their just ‘sick’ people?

My mother was a saint. I mean, seriously. My mother didn’t smoke, drink (not even socially), or do anything like that. I never hard my mother swear or cuss. The closest she would ever come to cussing would be to say something like “Oh darn”, and even then she’d put her hand over her lips like as if she has said something wrong. My mother went to church every Sunday and to Bible Studies every Wednesday night for as long as I can remember. Even at times when we were financially hurting she would scrap together her little pile of change and take it to church to put in the tithe plate. My father died when I was nine. My mother never remarried or even so much as dated another man. She never had a harsh word toward anyone.

In fact, when we’d be watching the News and some horrible rapist or serial killer was caught and other people in the room would say things like “Good, I hope he gets the maximum punishment!”, my mother would say, “Awe, I feel so sorry for him. He must be sick”. In a way, I think she was a bit like me (or I guess I should say that I’m a bit like her), instead of thinking in terms of sin, we tend to think in terms of being either healthy or sick. How can a genuinely healthy person do such horrible things? They must be sick.

Sorry, I keep getting off on tangents. Getting back to Jesus. I agree with the teachings of Jesus. But isn’t it a bit ironic that I simply agree with him? I haven’t truly learned anything NEW from his teachings. All I do is nod my head in agreement, and it’s quite refreshing too after having read the Old Testament picture of “God”.

So this brings up an interesting question. Why do I find the Old Testament God so unwise, and disagree with his ways, and yet I find the New Testament God to be in perfect harmony with my thinking?

Well, here’s a thought. Maybe they have nothing to do with each other? Maybe Jesus isn’t the Son of Yahweh and was instead something else?

Well this weighed on my mind for many years. This was a long drawn out process for me. It didn’t happen over night. However in the meantime I had given up on becoming a preacher (mainly due to two reasons). 1. Because I couldn’t justify many of the things in the Old Testament. And 2. Because I couldn’t explain nor justify* why it was necessary for Jesus to be crucified to pay for our sins.

* Well, actually I could ‘justify’ Jesus as a ‘sacrificial lamb of God’, IF I actually believed in and agreed with the behavior of the God of the Old Testament. Because that God apparently was appeased by blood sacrifices. However, I could never even find a decent explanation to even justify that. Moreover, it ‘smelled’ too much like Greek Mythology and many other mythologies. Gods being appeased by blood sacrifices was a common theme in mythologies. Why would the “REAL” creator of the universe just coincidently also be appeased by blood sacrifices? Also why would God need to ‘sacrifice himself to himself” that makes even less sense. Plus having men angrily nail him to a pole does not constitute a genuine ‘sacrifice’ anyway. So the whole “sacrificial lamb” thing just can’t be justified, IMHO. At least not in a way that I can sincerely and genuinely support.

Let’s also not forget that Jesus did not even teach the same moral values as Yahweh. That’s pretty clear to everyone. Even the Christians LOVE Jesus. I’m not so sure they are all that happy with Yahweh. It’s JESUS they love, not Yahweh.

So as I continued on my own spiritual journey I discovered things like Buddhism and Hinduism, and so forth. They were difficult to understand and often confusing. Especially things like Zen Buddhism which is quite popular today. Zen Buddhism is almost a form of glorified atheism. However it’s a far cry from the original Buddhism of Siddhartha which was far more spiritual.

I studied Buddhism for quite some time. Both, “practicing” the various techniques as well as studying the history of it. What I found is that Buddhism is as diverse as the Abraham religions. It has many different ‘sects’ and ‘denominations’ (if you want to call them that). Then I ran across something quite profound. And that is called Mahayana Buddhism. Mahayana Buddhism teaches moral values extremely similar to what Jesus taught. It also emphasized the importance of a concept called “Bodhisattva”. A bodhisattva is a person who dedicated their life to helping others find their enlightenment. In fact, it was a tradition of Mahayana Buddhism to not even taken in students unless they vowed to become a bodhisattva after they had reached enlightenment. The most interesting thing about all of this is that this particular style of Buddhism was actually at it’s peak just around the time when Jesus would have lived and taught.

Armed with this new insight, and realizing the following two things. 1. India isn’t all that far from Israel actually, and 2. Jesus was actually missing from the New Testament story from the time he was 12 until he returned at about 30. More than enough time to travel to India, and become a Mahayana Buddhist Bodhisattva.

I’m not saying this happened. In fact, Jesus could have actually learned Mahayana Buddhism at home. Even the Bible mentions “wise men from the East” quite often. So the Buddhism could have come to Jesus.

In any case, with this new insight and understanding. It makes far more sense to me that what Jesus was actually teaching was the moral values of Buddhism. It makes perfect sense actually because the teachings of Jesus were totally different from the teachings in the Old Testament, yet they are in perfect harmony with the teachings of Buddhism (especially with the teaching of Mahayana Buddhism).

So today, that is my conclusion. Jesus was not the son of Yahweh. He was a man who taught far better morals than had been taught in the Torah. And he probably did say things like “I and the Father are One”, and “Ye are also gods”, etc. Because Buddhists believe in Pantheism (.i.e. All are God).

And so he was cruficied for blaspheme. For claiming to be “god” and for teaching things that weren’t in harmony with the Old Teachings of Yahweh.

It makes perfect sense. Far more sense than the idea that Jesus was the sacrificial lamb of Yahweh.

At least that’s my conclusion.

I still believing in “god” and spirituality. I was never an atheist at any point in my entire life. I just no longer believe that the Bible is the “Word of God”. But Jesus is cool. Nothing wrong with the moral values he taught. It's a shame he met with such a horrible death. But I seriously do not believe that was any surpreme plan of God to 'pay' for the salavation of men.

I will agree with your last couple of sentences. If the religious believe that they will turn into the wolfman on a full moon without their religion to control them, we need more bibles to let them beat themselves over the head with.

I do know where you stand on the idea of a god though.

Of course Christianity is a man made religion.

Who else could have created such an abomination to man and god?

I know for a fact that a creature who is so encompassing of the universe that they could create at the level claimed in Christian religion would never ever ever write anything as terribly written and with all the awful sides of man showing in itself throughout.

Man shows himself to be the writer of the religion at every turn of the page from the incestuous beginning to man to the greed and wrath of god at the end. It is all mannish in nature. Not goddish at all.

I have yet to see a religion that is not man made.

Truly.

To believe that Christianity is anything other than a man made religion is nothing more than an act of blind faith on the part of the believers.

Christianity is itself truly nothing other than a belief that the Bible represents the word of God. Moreover, Christianity in particular is a belief that the Kings James version and collection of the so-called 'biblical stories' is the word of God.

The story itself is indeed an abomination to both mankind and God. There can be no doubt about that whatsoever.

The Bible has God drowning out the vast majority of the souls he created. Well over 99.9% of all humans on planet Earth (assuming there was significantly more than a mere 100 people living at the time. Only a very few individuals were saved from the flood.

This is a picture of a creator who loses the vast majority of souls that he creates. (i.e. a loser God).

In the King James Version of the Bible even the New Testament has Jesus verifying that God is indeed a major loser of the souls he creates. Jesus supposedly said that few will make it into the kingdom of God. That can only mean that most will not make it.

Therefore the entire biblical picture from the Old Testament and even including the New Testament is a picture that paints mankind as being a horribly deficient creation, and God as a totally inept creator. A loser God.

A God who plays craps with human souls and loses far more often than he wins.

The story is an abomination to both God and man. There truly is no reason whatsoever for a human being to actually place their FAITH in such a horrible pathetic picture of a God, UNLESS they have absolutely no choice but to do so. And even then they should be grossly disappointed that this is the way things are.

Even if they make it into the kingdom of heaven (Fat chance of that even according to Jesus!), but even if they do make it, they only do so as pathetic miserable sinners who were so lame and miserable that they had to be "allowed" into heaven only via the "Grace" of God, because this picture does not even allow that these people our worthy to even be there on their own merit.

What kind of a picture is that?

Why would anyone want to have FAITH that this is the way things are if they have absolutely no proof of evidence that this story is true, and they have a gazillion reasons to believe that it is a mere sick fable?

I certainly wouldn't want this story to be true. So why should I place my faith in something I don't even want to be true?

That would be utterly stupid of me, wouldn't it?

I see no reason to believe that the creator of this universe should be as ignorant and inept as the biblical stories demand.

Moreover, if there is such a creator and he's going to be peeved at me for merely not wanting to believe that he's a totally inept unwise jerk, then wouldn't that just PROVE that he is indeed just that?

A God who would reject my love and cast me into eternal damnation for simply not wanting to believe that he's as screwed up as some man made mythology claims?

What kind of a God would that be anyway?

The story PROVES it's own absurdity as far as I'm concerned.

What more PROOF do we need to see how utterly false it necessarily must be?

But that doesn't mean you know The Builder's Son, what his plans were for the building. Or even if he OWNS the building. Or has any say whatsoever in how it's administered.

For all we know, The Builder could have died bankrupt years ago and was cremated.

When evangelical Christians use this analogy, you can be pretty sure they think they know all these answers as it applies to their God having built the Universe.

That's an important distinction and that's where your theory breaks down.





For all I know, someone could have gotten a monkey to throw paint at a canvas that someone else signed with a French-sounding name. And then that same somebody started a myth that it was inspired by some fake tribulation and that the viewer has to be A Special Chosen Person to 'see' the 'Order' in that chaos.

Not to mention the temptation of rooking people for a buck and a half just to behold the work of the renowned ChimpPaint. :)

-Kerry O.

I've so enjoyed where this has gone, and to see some actual thinking and truths being discussed here on this page alone. Thank you, I'm not as good as a written conversationalist but am in agreement totally with Abra and Dragoness, my beleifs hold strong along yours Abra, have done the same thinking, same research, and you've shown some points to ponder that I hadn't yet taken.

I know. My question here is always but who created the builder or the creator? Then who created that creator? Then who created that creator into infinity?

One of Dali's last paintings was one where used recursive images of himself painting himself.

Who knows-- maybe the Creator is stuck in a infinite recursive loop of his own making and is much too busy extricating himself to be bothered by the likes of few billion minor beings on a backwater planet in a far-flung galaxy?

-Kerry O.

So everyone has sin - EVERYONE HAS SIN - there is none without sin - NO ONE IS WITHOUT SIN.

Ok, I get the picture - do you?

If you believe that bible verse, then you believe EVERYONE HAS SIN - NO ONE IS WITHOUT SIN....

It follows then, that sin is an intrinsic part of our nature. Natural as in, we all have it, natural being, we were meant to have it.

If we were created with sin as part of our make-up and if the creation is perfect - What need is there to be saved from that sin? Why would we bother asking our parents forgiveness if we were born with a genetic defect - something that could only have been there to start with becasue of who are parents are.

So why do we need a savior again? I mean if god is the god you think he is - why not just fix the genetic defect? Why all the drama?

Not exactly. We sin because we are weak and seek the things we desire rather then what is right. And yes the flesh is weak, the flesh is what desires sinful things. If you'll nottice most sins involve the body or a feeling of the body in one way or other. There are many but these are just examples

1. Drinking, because it makes our body/mind all loopy/drunk
2. Sexu because it is physically pleasing
3. Drugs, the high it gives our mind and body
4. Killing, the rush it gives the body

Life without temptation and or sin would be heaven. Our life on earth is nothing but a long run of trials and troubles. Not specifically to test us, but to make us stronger or break off the weakest link(s)

Wow, what an incredible story.

Well, there are a few more items that we actually agree upon: 1) I also believe we will live eternally, 2) the Bible doesn't answer all our questions, and 3) your mother was indeed a saint.

Which raises the question: When Jesus died on the cross, where did his spirit go once his physical body died? If he was indeed the sacrificial lamb of God who was to bear the penalty of sin on our behalf, wouldn't that mean he would have to experience "hell" in our place? Personally, I believe this is exactly what occurred; when the Bible refers to Jesus "tasting death" I believe it is not only referring to physical death but spiritual death (separation from God). This brings to light statements such as

"My God, My God, why has thou forsaken me?" (Jesus on the cross)

"Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last; I am the living one; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever...and I hold the keys of death and Hades" (Revelation 1:18-19)

How could the Christ possess the "keys of death and hades" without first descending there to take them?"

There are also several references in the New Testament where Jesus is referred to as the "first-born from the dead" or the "first begotten from the dead."

My thought: Jesus suffered even in hell on our behalf, totally satisfying God's justice against man's sin. He was the first to ever be spiritually reborn.

As I said before, I am in agreement with you that the Bible doesn't have all the answers to life or whatever. But I don't believe this serves to prove the illegitimacy of the reality of God, and I think we are in agreement with this. Plus there will always be a degree of faith necessary when dealing with the subject of God; you simply cannot escape it.

One final note: As far as the Old Testament Yahweh thing; it's a fair argument that many have made for centuries. And the topic of "reconciling" the image of Old Testament Yahweh and New Testament Jesus will probably always be a subject of debate. In spite of these difficulties, Jesus Himself was raised in and worshipped within the Yahwehistic tradition. So, either Jesus was very confused, or there is something he understood that we don't. It would be difficult to admire the moral teachings of a man who would be that "mentally ill" to miss the supposedly great contradiction.

Yet if we come to believe a few propositions; namely, the holiness of God and the reality and heinousness of sin, it begins to make sense, and the finished work of Christ can be seen for what it is; the most incredible gift ever offered to mankind.

Jesus overcame our greatest enemy; death itself. And now he wants to share his victory with us. This is good news to all.

AMEN!!! With Jesus we can do ANYTHING.

We may agree on some things. But I am never going to agree that the Bible is the word of God or that Jesus died to pay for our so-called ‘sins’. I can absolutely assure you of this.

I’m going to respond to your comments in a different order from which you made them because it makes more sense for me to do it this way. Mainly because addressing one of your latter comments will shed much light on what I’m about to suggest.



This is a very prominent argument that is often used in apologetics. Either Jesus was God, or he was extremely confused and potentially understood some pretty profound things. However, this argument has an extreme flaw. It presumes that the quotes attributed to Jesus are accurate and true and actually came from Jesus as written in the New Testament.

It is quite understandable that an apologetic would take this view, because deep down they have been taught to view the scriptures as the infallible “word of God”. So they often create ‘explanations’ based on this erroneous assumption. And it most certainly would be an erroneous assumption if the Bible is not the word of God, would you not agree? In other words, if Jesus wasn’t the Son of God then all of a sudden the writings in the New Testament can no longer be trusted to be true and accurate.

So to make any progress at all with apologetics, we must stand back and look at the story objectively without the preexisting assumption that it is indeed an infallible account of precisely what Jesus said or stood for.

If the authors of the New Testament were indeed unscrupulous authors who were attempting to use the rumors of Jesus in a way that would support their claim that Jesus was the “messiah”, then it would be utterly foolish to automatically give them the respect of having quoted Jesus precisely correctly verbatim.

So the main thing to start with when deciding to “pass judgments” on whether Jesus was God or a lunatic is to first realize that we can’t automatically attribute everything that’s in the New Testament directly to Jesus just because those authors claim to speak for him.

This would have been an extremely different case had Jesus actually written the New Testament himself. But that’s not the case. The New Testament is nothing but hearsay. Hearsay that was written decades after Jesus had died in fact. Can you quote people from decades ago precisely in absolute detail verbatim? I personally think that would be an extremely rare ability to find in any mortal human.

So the idea that either Jesus was God, or he was a lunatic based on what the authors of the New Testament claim he might have said, is truly absurd. I personally don’t believe a lot of what they wrote. And by their writings it’s obvious that they were already heavily biased and slanted toward making their story work at all cost.



Well for me personally, it no only doesn’t have all the answers, but it doesn’t even agree with itself. Jesus did not teach the same moral values that were taught in the OT. That should be obvious to everyone. And as far as I’m concerned that’s a major issue that is no small matter indeed. Especially in a story that attempts to claim that Jesus is the Son of that same God.

I do agree with you that the fact that the Bible doesn’t have all the answer, (or that it is even morally consistent), does not serve to prove the illegitimacy of the reality of God. However, it does, IMHO, serve to show that the Bible obviously cannot have anything to do with any real God.

You seem to be coming from the view that if we denounce the Bible we have somehow denounced the existence of “God” in general. This is one thing that keeps so many people clinging to the biblical picture. They simply have nowhere else to turn. If they reject the Bible as the “word of God” then what? They are lost and begin to ponder horrible things like “Maybe the atheists are right after all?”

So unfortunately they become trapped in this idea that either the Bible is the “word of God” or there must not be any God at all. And thus they feel a strong desperation to keep the Bible ‘alive’. And of course, since Jesus has no validity on his own, he would also come tumbling down off the shoulders of Yahweh if Yahweh is dismissed. The Christians are in a bad way. They necessarily must support the Old Testament in order to keep Jesus afloat.

I personally think that most Christians would flush the Old Testament down the toilet if they thought they could do that without discrediting Jesus. But as I often say, Jesus has been nailed to the Old Testament even more firmly than he was ever nailed to the cross. And therein lies the problem.

And now with these issues of apologetics out in the open we can address the core issues.




Let me take this piece by piece:

You write:


With all due respect this truly makes no sense to me at all. What would be the point in a God creating a hell and then having his only begotten Son go there and experience it in lieu of the mortal men who supposedly deserve to experience it?

That makes no sense to me at all. If there is supposedly a penalty for sin, then the people who actually commit the sin should have to experience their own penalty. If Jesus didn’t need to experience hell for all of eternity to pay for the sins of all mankind then surely the mortal men shouldn’t need to experience hell for eternity either in order to pay for their sins. So I’m not impressed by this idea.

This would also imply that Jesus got a ‘taste of death’ yet people who get to heaven through him (i.e. everyone who goes to heaven according to the Christians) would have no real clue what they had ever been ‘saved’ from. So I see no ‘justice’ in this idea at all.




I often wonder about this, "My God, My God, why has thou forsaken me?". Why did the authors write this into the Bible? I’m thinking that it might have been because Jesus actually did cry out these words (or something similar) and so they were strong in the rumors of Jesus, thus the authors of the Bible felt a need to include what the rumors already contained.

When I think of these words within the context of the story I ask myself. Really? Why would God forsake his own son? Cannot even Jesus himself trust God? Is God untrustworthy to be there when we really need him?

OR! Maybe something else entirely was going on. Maybe Jesus wasn’t speaking to God at all. Maybe he was actually speaking to the crowd who was watching him being crucified. Maybe he was asking them why their forsook him. Why did they not speak out and start a public protest against allowing Jesus to be crucified?

Personally I think it makes far more sense to just assume that Jesus was indeed speaking to the crowd and not to any imagined God.

And that’s assuming that these words were ever even spoken at all. Like I said at the beginning of the post, the whole story is hearsay, we can’t know what actually happened. And the writers of the New Testament were probably trying to used a combination of known popular rumors about Jesus along with their own personal agenda to make it appear that Jesus was somehow the sacrificial lamb of God.

As far as the verse taken from Revelations is concerned, I wouldn’t give it any thought whatsoever. It was clearly written by an author who was already aware of the previous stories and so he’s just making up his own views. In fact, the entire “revelations” is indeed supposed to just be the ramblings of a dreamer. The question then becomes a question of what is causing his dreams? Divine inspiration? Or his own imagination?



Well, I take the same stance as Redykeulous on this one. If God created man to be so horribly inept, then his act to ‘save us’ from his own ‘unholy creation’ would not be a “gift” at all, but a responsibility that he basically owes us!

The very idea that mankind is responsible for being filled with sin, coupled with the utterly absurd demand that every man is a sinner, is utterly absurd. It’s an attempt to claim that we have a free will choice to sin or not, except we have no free will in the matter because we are all proclaimed to be sinners whether we freely choose to be a sinner or not.

In terms of a divine holy God that makes utterly no sense at all. However, in terms of a truly heinousness religious dogma that is trying to insist than everyone is guilty and must convert to worship a particular religion it makes perfect sense!

In other words, it makes absolutely no sense to imagine that the biblical story came from a truly divine all-wise supreme being. But it makes perfect sense to recognize that it is a despicable attempt by mortal men to try to instill feelings of guilt in the masses if they fail to convert to the religion these men have created.

When reading the Bible, unlike an apologetic, I’m not the least bit afraid to ask, “Could this book be nothing more than the words of men trying to control the masses?”

As far as I’m concerned. If you read the Bible with the following two questions in mind, and answer them truthfully you may come to a very vivid awakening. Just write down two columns on a sheet of paper. Mark them as follows:

1. Would an all-wise God do or say this?
2. Would mortal men write this?

I’ve found that if I make a sheet of paper like this and check which column is most likely for everything I read in the Bible column number 2 inevitably become filled with checkmarks and column number 1 remains pristinely empty.



But doesn’t this contradict your original core believe that you stated at the very beginning of your post?

You said:


Well if you believe that we will live eternally then why do you view death as are greatest enemy?

On the idea of being eternal. I not only believe that we continue to exist after this life is over, but I also believe that we always existed even prior to our physical birth. Why view this question in only one direction? If our true nature is spiritual and eternal, then it’s not going to be unidirectional.

I’m not the slightest bit afraid of death. Death is not my enemy. It is the nature of life to be born and to die. It’s a natural process. I you need Jesus to pacify a fear of death, then so be it. I guess I just don’t need to believe in something like that to believe that I’m eternal. I don’t buy into the whole ‘judgment day’ thing.

As I’ve mentioned above, the whole idea that all men are sinners and incapable of not choosing sin on their own is an absurd idea to begin with. If that were indeed true then no man could be held responsible for being a sinner because according to Christianity humans have no choice in the matter.

If I had no choice to be a sinner, then I certainly can’t be held responsible for that. And if I am given the freedom to chose, then I chose to not be a sinner and there is no need for any salvation.

This idea that I have no choice can only come from a truly heinous brainwashing scheme created by mortal men and turned into a religion called “Christianity” And in that sense, it’s an evil mortal ploy that has nothing at all to do with anything divine.