Oh blah blah blah.

I would never deride another person's honestly held religion. I think that Judaism is a beautiful religion and love my Jewish brothers and sisters dearly. Almost all Christians love Judaism and strongly support Zionism. I don't deride the religious beliefs of the Muslims either. You just can't get away from smearing Christians. When you talk about Christianity, you get so busy making straw men and burning them down that you can't let reality get in your way.

I'm not saying that an all-powerful God couldn't have caused a flood. An all-powerful God could have also used giant birds to cause storms. But you used that as an example to dismiss Greek mythology. So, again, where's the difference.

I reject the flood story on two counts.

1. Our current scientific knowledge shows that it could not have occurred.

However, for me, the following is even a more powerful reason.

2. I don't personally believe that an all-wise being would have used such an archaic and crude method of dealing with sinners. It just doesn't seem very wise to me. And God is supposed to be wise.



Yep.



I have no problem with Jesus having actually existed. On the contrary, I imagine he did.



Are you kidding me? You can find tons of people today who only believe this on pure faith who would be willing to do the same.

Moreover, you speak about those tales as though they are fact, when the truth is that we have no clue if any of those stories of the disciples hold any truth at all. So you're attempting to use something we can't know is true as an attempt to support something as as being 'true'.




I don't believe that for one second. Can you show me in the Bible where is states that Mary denied Jesus' god-hood?




If Mary denied that Jesus was divine, then clearly the whole fable is dead in the water. Supposedly God had sent angels to ASK Mary for her permission to have his only begotten son.

Who did Mary think was Jesus' father? Joseph?

If Mary herself rejected the divinity of Jesus then clearly the whole story is an obvious fake.



I don't think Jesus was concerned with fame, fortune or respect. You need to remember that I see Jesus as a Mahayana Buddhist Bodhisattva. So Jesus would have no desire for egotistical gain at all.

As far as his cleverness and wise insight into the usage of spiritual teachings, again I'm not surprised in the least. I would expect as much from any well-educated Buddhist.

You also say, "His insight into life after death was earth shattering." How can you say that without knowing yourself what life after death is like?

Hey if you respect Jews and Muslims to be on the right path with God then you're probably a "Designer Christian" and just don't realize it.

Keep in mind, I have never personally attacked you, or made any accusations about your personal faith. All I've been doing for the most part is explaining why I don't believe the constant sale-pitch that the Bible is the "Word of God".

I point out why I feel that Bible is utterly unwise and absurd, and full of contradictions.

This is my response the Bible Thumping Salesmen.

Evidently you take personal exception to this.

You can tell me why you feel that Wicca or Buddhism, or anything like that is utterly unwise and absurd, and I'll just say, more power to you!

I'm not trying to SELL anything to you. But I WILL suggest that IMHO, these other spiritualities make far more sense that the Abrahamic picture of God.

But tell me that I'm "turning away from God", or SINNING because I don't obey a bunch of male-chauvinistic Hebrews, and I'll jump all over the book that is used to pass this judgment on me.

I don't see Christians as "turning away from God". But I do see them worshiping the rumors of an ancient sick culture and calling that "God".

Find me one person who is willing to be put to death for a lie and then come back to me. Those who claim that Jesus didn't return from the dead, must explain why his disciples were willing to die for a lie.



You have "Studied Christianity for nearly 50 years", you show me.




Mary and James (Jesus' brother) both did. Jesus appeared to be a normal human to them, their familiarity with Jesus caused them to doubt the supernatural and miraculous nature of Jesus' ministry. James is recorded as becoming a follower of Jesus' post-crucifixion, when he met he risen Jesus.



You missed the point completely.

If Jesus didn't teach that, why would someone attribute that teaching to Jesus when that teaching would have (without the other trappings of Christianity) brought fame and fortune to any other Rabbi? If Christianity was created for wealth or power (as some have claimed), that was the ticket there, why give it away to a fictional character? It's obvious for this fact that it was a correct attribution. And that lesson disproves your assertion about Jesus being a Buddhist. The lesson in question answered the age old division between the Sadducees and Pharisees: Is there life after death? Jesus showed through the clever juxtaposition of two scriptures that those who have faith in God as their savior will know eternal life.

This is a huge challenge to your gratuitous assertion that Jesus is a Buddhist on two fronts:

1) The argument wasn't "Are people reincarnated", but do we live on as the same people after death.

2) Jesus taught that those who are faithful to God will have eternal life, not that everyone will have eternal life.

That's ignoring the fact that a Buddhist wouldn't have been allowed to teach in a synagogue and Jesus frequently taught in synagogues. And the minor detail that you don't have any evidence whatsoever to support your claim.

Your word would have more weight, if you had actually read the Bible or studied Judaism or Christianity to any degree.

Uhhhh, I think by "ancient", Abra meant over a hundred years old. I believe it was the late 1800's in which Wicca was first recorded.

Such an "ancient", demented religion that has self proclaimed human sacrifices clearly was formed by the selfish, egotiscal, bigoted, psycopathic and deluded whackjobs of society. Absolutely disgusting fairytales that can only be supported by the delusional ramblings of the scum of the earth.

But hey, don't get mad at me, I'm just giving my opinion of the said myths, after all, if God existed, He would surely not be so unwise as to delude people into thinking that human sacrifices would work.
It's clearly a religion made up by one sick puppy that just wanted it's "followers" to end their lives early. Why else would it's "goddess" mary 7 or 8 other "gods", one of which DEMANDED child sacrifices to atone for sins.

Absolutely DISGUSTING to even consider such as a valid religion! It should be put on the shelf next to Nazism.

Wicca originated in the 1930's. Margaret Murray had a theory that the people killed during the witch trials belonged to an ancient pagan religion that worshiped a horned male god. Her theories were baseless to say the least and repudiated by historians. But based on her claim, groups of people started their own cults and claimed to be descended from the ancient pagan cults. Their claims of persecution through the middle ages have largely been discredited by historians. The trials themselves were done by small religious groups and were never condoned by the Catholic Church. According to researchers, the majority of the accused fled the trails and were burned in effigy. Modern historians believe that at the height of the European witch trials, only a few people were executed a year. That's not to excuse their behavior, it's to make the point that Wicca is based on provably false history. That was my point: We know that Wicca isn't based on an ancient religion that was persecuted nearly to extinction by Christians.

Well, if Mary rejects the divinity of Jesus then clearly the whole fable is a lie.

If the very woman who is supposed to be the virgin mother of Jesus, rejects the divinity of her own son, and denies the rumors that some God send angels to ask her ahead of time to have his child, then clearly the whole thing is a sham.

That's ridiculous.

If the supposed Virgin Mary denies these rumors then why should ANYONE give them any consideration at all?

So I guess the virgin Mary went to hell then for denying the Son of God whom SHE supposedly gave birth to?

If the woman who supposedly gave birth to this demigod rejects this notion, then it has no merit at all.

This just supports my theory all the more. Even she recognized that he was just a spiritual teacher like any other mortal man.

We have NO CLUE what Jesus might have actually taught.

You're ignoring the fact that if the New Testament is indeed just rumors as I have been suggesting then you can't TRUST the quotes in those rumors to be accurate in every detail.

I can see where the teachings of a Buddhist could have easily been misunderstood. And that's precisely what I'm suggesting. And since this is part and parcel of my theory, then it stands to reason that you can't trust everything the gospels have to say about Jesus verbatim.

That's an extremely lame charge.

The reason being that there does not exist a single solitary clergyman anywhere who can convince anyone of any particular interpretation of anything.

Therefore charging someone with not having studied the Bible is bull crap, because evidently no one can make any sense out of it no matter how much they study it.

How is this news to you?

You don't know?
I've had this conversation with him before.
All he knows is Catholicism, hence no knowledge of Judaism or early Christianity... Only what was handed to him...

That's the Christian view, and it's utterly absurd.

OF COURSE the so-called "witches" that the Christians brutally tortured and burned to death alive weren't any part of any religion.

In fact most of those poor women were probably Christians themselves!

Those idiots were just accusing people randomly based on superstitious nonsense. The actual VICTIMS of the so-called "Witch hunts" were probably very rarely, if ever, women who actually practices the spirituality that we today call "Wicca".

The foundational core of modern Wicca is actually based on Shamanism and early forms of Taoism mingled with European beliefs.

In fact, in Europe there were many religious that were a mixture of both philosophies, the Eastern Mystical philosophy and Christianity which worked its way up through Europe.

The Problem with you Christians is that you can ONLY THINK in terms of dogma. You worship writings./ Period.

The truest form of the foundation of Wicca worships nature as God and sees nature as God in a very similar sense as the Eastern Mystics.

I fully understand that these kinds of philosophies are far beyond your ability to comprehend. It's clear that you can only think in terms of trivialized dogma. If you don't have a dogma that you can claim has some sort of historical significance, then the concept of spirituality is completely lost on you.

Eastern Mysticism (which his ultimately at the heart of Wicca) is a form of spirituality the defies dogma. It simply doesn't require it because it recognizes the divine in everything. There's no need for any dogma.

Many Christian beliefs are self-evident, that is deemed "Mere Christianity". Other Christian beliefs are open to interpretation. These are debated among Christians. "Is smoking a sin"? I'm sure you could find verses that both support and denounce smoking. Then there are other beliefs that are deeply theological, which are studied and debated over lifetimes. Things that perhaps mankind cannot understand. You ignore the first group, minimize the second group and insist that only the third group is important. Perhaps one day, you will sit down and read the Bible and reveal a great revelation to Christians, clarifying some piece of theology that has stumped scholars for thousands of years. But until you actually read the Bible, you are nothing but a "hater" in the common parlance. A dog who howls and barks at a stranger, without knowing if the stranger is a friend or foe.

Just a question for you, Spidercmb.
Did you read the links I posted before "howling" at me???

Because the Bible teaches that angels came to Mary and INFORMED her that she was with the child of the Holy Spirit. And even ASKED for her consent to have the Baby.

Besides, I never claimed to have gleaned over every single word in the Bible. Never once have I ever claimed any such thing.

I've skipped over a lot of it that was clearly to stupid to even bother reading through in it's entirety.

Besides, if the Virgin Mary denies that Jesus is the Son of God, the why are you even bothering to support this stupid fable any longer?

You guys keep wanting to portray the Bible as a HISTORY book, well there you go!

The very woman who was supposedly the virgin mother in these fables rejects those very claims.

So clearly the rumors are all false. They've been rejected by the "horses mouth" so-to-speak.

And that just supports my theory completely!

Jesus must have just been teaching Buddhism as I have claimed all along. And the so-called "Virgin" Mary supports my conclusions!

Even She rejects the divinity of Jesus.

What MORE do you need?

This isn't about ME, Spider.

This is about a stupid fable.

Don't even try to make it about me.

If the Virgin Mary rejects the divinity of Jesus then no one should believe that Jesus was divine. It's that simple.

Abra said...



Have you forgotten when you repeatedly accused me of abusing my daughter by raising her as a Christian? If I'm bored tonight, I'll go back through the forums and look for your post where you repeatedly wrote "puke!" and said "I feel sorry for anyone who has ever met you".

But keep telling yourself and everyone else that you have never "personally attacked" me. That's not even true for this page of this thread.

Abra said...


And as I remember it, you wrote a poem or story about "crushing the frog and killing the spider", which was a reference to me, because of my user name and my profile picture was a frog. But yeah, you have never attacked me personally...

I already have more than enough reasons to KNOW that the Bible can't possibly be true. There is nothing in the Bible that could make those go away.

Besides, if Mary rejects the divinity of Jesus and rejects the notion that God came to her and asked her to bear his child, how is that going to convince me otherwise?

That's just more absurdity on top of the absurdities that I'm already aware of.

I haven't read a lot of the writings of Paul either. I read enough of his writings to know that he's a total flake. It just isn't worth reading his BS. I don't believe a word he says.

So maybe that's where I missed these things. After all Paul is credited for having written MOST of the New Testament, and YES, I haven't read MOST of the New Testament for that very reason!

Paul's stupid ramblings just aren't worth reading.

And besides, NOTHING in the New Testament is going to make the Old Testament miraculously CHANGE. And I've already dismissed the Old Testament as being utterly silly.

You still have the MAJOR CONTRADICTION of a supposedly unchanging God dealing with sinners one minute by drowning them out, and then supposedly giving his own son (who's virgin mother refuses to verify his divinity) to pay for the sins of mankind.

This story just gets stupider and stupider.

I studied the Bible ENOUGH to know that it can't possibly be true.

If you think I'm going to find something in it that's going to suddenly change the myriad of absurdities and contradictions that I've already found I'm sure your mistaken.

And to find that Virgin Mary herself rejects these very fables only goes to show that even back then some people were trying to be HONEST.

Surely you have to be mistaken.

There must be other interpretations of her rejection of Jesus' divinity. I mean, if she just flat out denies that Jesus was divine then how can anyone else believe the rumors that he was?

And WHY SHOULD THEY?

No they don't.

Those who claim that Jesus' disciples were willing to die must prove that those stories aren't just as false as all the other crap in the Bible.

Good luck with that.

I browsed the first two or three. They were, as I noted, legalism and conspiracy theories. The Jesus name thing has been done to death and I'll just say it again: Religion isn't magic. The words have been translated, I know that Jesus' Hebrew name was Yeshua. I think the same being who created the universe can figure out that when people pray to Jesus, they mean Yeshua. And if you look at the meaning of "name" in the Commandments, you will find that the word there means "reputation, fame, glory" in this case. God commands that we do nothing to lessen his glory, not that we use one particular name when speaking of Him. In fact, the New Testament tells us that God wants us to call him "abba" (daddy). The accusations against the first council of Nicea is also ridiculous, because we have fragments of the list of the accepted New Testament books from less than 100 years after Jesus' death. The majority of the Gnostic gospels weren't even written until after the First Council of Nicea.