why thankyou.... and they're still arguing, lol...look at em go! that really is some people's happiness.....arguing

God does live up to his standards and beyond. It's not a do as I say or else though. We aren't "punished" for disobedience. We just aren't rewarded for being disobedient.

The problem is that what we're truly talking about is a CULT. Not a God.

We're talking about a man-made CULT that condemns everyone who refuses to join it.

You're analogy with a doctor who merely gives warnings doesn't work here as an analogy for God.

For one thing typically your doctor would explain the situation to you, so that you understand precisely what it is that you are attempting to avoid, and then the doctor will usually give you options of various things you can do to avoid it.

Besides, that's not the biblical picture. The biblical picture has everyone condemned as a "sinner" and in dire need of repentance which can only be achieved by joining the CULT.

I can't just say, "Sure Jesus can be my savior if he wants, it's not a problem".

That won't do!

Oh no, that won't do at all.

No, no, no. In order to be "saved" by this CULT you must join the CULT and agree to all of its INTERPRETATIONS of scriptures including dredged up crap from the Old Testament, and the teachings of Paul. A man that Jesus himself never even prophesied to come on his behalf!

In fact, to believe that Paul speaks for Jesus we must conclude that Jesus himself never had a chance to finish his own mission. But that would imply that God is inept in his planning.

So no, this CULT does not speak for any God. It's just a man-made brainwashing scheme to get people to cower down to the CULT lest they be condemned by God!

But the problem is, that in order for this CULT to be true, God would need to be seriously screwed up on many levels.

Besides, not we're moving from a "Parent/Child" analogy of God that clearly fails, to a "Doctor/patient" analogy of God that implies that humans are sick and in need of instructions for the betterment of their own health.

But that leads to the ultimately conclusion that the creator created a bunch of SICK people.

So you'd have a doctor who actually created the illnesses in his very own patients and then expects them to cure themselves via his prescriptions.

None of these analogies actually work.

If there exists an conscious personal Godhead who can actually intervene in human affairs and freely speak to any human being any time he so desires as the Bible demands, then this God is seriously screwed up.

Obviously if there exist a spiritual nature to reality it necessarily must be "mystical" (i.e. a mystery to the human way of thinking). It can't be reduced to an over-blown jealous egotistical human-like Godhead who has all the same flaws as humans.

It has to be something beyond that. Something that we can't even comprehend. Something far beyond anything that can be made as a human analogy. And that's the idea behind Mysticism. It confesses that spirit is a mystery beyond our ability to comprehend. And then it sets out to speculate what qualities this infinite and indescribable spiritual essence might have.

That's truly the best we can do when it comes to spirit.

This idea that "Yahweh", a jealous egotistical judgmental Godhead had the ancient Hebrews write a book to tell all of mankind how to behave is just nonsense.

Even if we were going to believe in such a entity, why would that entity not do with with ALL human culture? Every religion on earth should be a message from this very same God, because in theory, there are no other Gods to interfere with this God's communications to mankind.

Of course, in the Biblical account of God you supposedly have this demonic angel running around trying to toss a wrench in everything that God is trying to do. But that idea is even beyond absurd. Why would any all-powerful all-wise God allow some stupid powerless demonic angel to run around screwing up his entire creation? That makes no sense at all, IMHO.

Also, why would this God bother creating beings who have a FREE WILL spirit in the first place if his ultimate goal is to have beings serve him who are totally obedient? Why not just design obedient puppets if that's what he wants?

Also, why create so many "Children", if he only wants a few good servants? A much more efficient way to do it would to simple come to earth himself and be the actual father of the children he wants and raise them himself. Then he can assure that they would be mentored properly.

Then we have the extremely troublesome question of what would constitute failure?

We already know that many human mental characteristics and personality are due to mental and even physical illness.

Well, an all-knowing God could be the ultimate doctor and simply cure any child who has such mental or physical "defects".

So what's left after that?

Then you'd finally be weeded down to having to deal only with those children who are seriously unruly (i.e. basically evil or rebellious) without any mental or physical cause. Only then could you claim to have a "spirit" or "soul" who is clearly unwilling to go along with the plan.

And that brings up a HUGE QUESTION. How did such "defective" souls come to be in the first place? If God creates "souls" then clearly God is creating "defective" souls in some instances.

It seems to me when you have a creator who is creating entities from scratch, how those entities turn out can only be the full responsibility of the creator himself.

Eastern Mysticism solves this problem in several ways. I won't go into that here because I'm not going to try to teach anyone Eastern Mysticism, it's far too abstract and requires a sincere desire to consider it. It's not worth trying to 'argue' for it.

In fact, atheism even solves these problems better than the biblical fables do. If there is no conscious divine supreme consciousness then the question of "rebellion" is moot because there's truly nothing to rebel against. Whatever is is. And that's just the way things are.

So both Mysticism and Atheism solve these problems far better than the Biblical picture of God. In fact, the Biblical Picture of God doesn't solve them at all, it "creates them". It's creates these problems by trying to make out like God is a conscious knowing entity who has a PLAN.

The problem with that scenario is that he necessarily turns out to be either a horrible planner, or if you accept the demonic fallen angel thing, his demonic angels are really playing havoc with his creation efforts.

Either way seems extremely limited and inept to me.

If "with God all things are possible", then why did he choose to allow demonic angels screw up his creation?

That makes no sense to me.

And that also brings up the huge question: "Would mankind have fallen from grace on his own merit?". In other words, if there didn't already exist a demonic serpent to coerce Adam and Even into considering disobeying God would mankind have "fallen from grace on his own merit"?

This is a major flaw with these fables too as far as I'm concerned. The mere fact that a demonic serpent was required to entice Adam and Eve to "fall from grace" implies to me that without that external evil influence they would have never thought of it on their own merit.

So mankind was "seeded" with evil thoughts from an external source.

Kind of like the "doctor" inoculating his patients with "evil" and then instructing them on what they must do to get well. That doesn't sound like a very righteous doctor if you ask me.

The problem with this CULT that demands that we worship its doctrine as the "Word of God", is that its doctrine is filled with highly questionable absurdities.

That's a serious problem right there, IMHO.

When do you stand back and take the initiative to separate your own personally feelings of spirituality from the dogma of "The CULT".

Can you separate God from "The CULT", or has the cult become your "God"?

That's my question.

Well, you're story isn't consistent Cowboy.

You've already held out the postulate that we are living in a dog-eat-dog world that is filled with disease and natural disasters because God is "punishing" us for our disobedience.

Now you're trying to renege on that concept.

You're story is like a carpet that doesn't fit the room you're trying to install it in. When you try to tuck in one corner the other corner that you thought you had tucked away pops back out.

You need to have your cake and eat it too in order to make this highly inconsistent religion give the appearance of making any sense.

Besides what constitutes "obedience" in you cult?

Can I be "obedient" to your God without joining your cult or supporting your cult in any way?

If the answer is no, then I don't believe your cult has anything to do with any God, it's clearly focused solely on the cult and nothing beyond that.

You will untimely demand that the dogma of your CULT is the only place we can find the "Word of God" that needs to be "obeyed".

It's entirely about the dogma.

Take away the dogma and you have no rules to "obey".

All you can do at that point is follow your heart and accept that God speaks to you though your heart.

Well, I already do that!

I don't need to join any CULT to do that.

And others find their happiness laughing and feeling superior than others.

My story is consistent. As an individual person from day to day we are not punished for sinning. As in, say I stole something from the store. No punishment would come to me from God for doing as such. And I do not know of any cult you speak of. You can keep your offensive words to yourself. No need for insulting another person's belief.

Look who's talking about insulting other people's beliefs.

According to you, anyone who doesn't believe like you has willfully chosen to reject God and be disobedient of God. You thoroughly renounce everyone's spiritual views as being "false" if they don't align with your beliefs, and your choice of doctrine, and your personal interpretations of that religious doctrine.

For some reason you feel that they should not be insulted by your blanket accusations that their spiritual and religious beliefs are false. However, let someone suggest that perhaps it's your religious views that might be false and you take offense?

That's the epitome of arrogance isn't it?

Speak out against your religion and a person is accused of "insulting" your religion.

Yet for some strange reason you can make blanket statements that all other religions and spiritual philosophies that don't agree with your religion are all false. And people aren't supposed to be offended by that?

That's utter baloney.

If you want me to respect your beliefs, you must respect mine.

My belief is that the Old Testament is nothing more than Zeus like mythology. Jesus was most likely a Mahayana Buddhist Bodhisattva and the New Testament is either just confused exaggerated heresay rumors, or an outright purposeful attempt to use the rumors of Jesus to create the religious Cult that it has indeed become.

My belief that this religion has indeed become a "cult" should not offend you. After all, it's just my own personal view.

And if you expect me to respect your personal belief that the religion has some sort of 'verbatim' merit, then you should also respect my believe in Eastern Mysticism and the idea that Jesus was indeed a Mahayana Buddhist.

Can we not simply agree to disagree without the need for any Holy Wars?

How many times have I told you that I respect YOU PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP with God?

I don't question that at all. Not one bit. It doesn't matter to me whether I believe that the doctrine you worship is the "Word of God" or not. That's totally irrelevant. I still believe that you are doing whatever you are doing in GOOD FAITH.

I GIVE that to you my friend.

Now if you would just give me the very same respect in return for my beliefs we could finally live in peace without the need for any Holy Wars.

You're the one who's trying to push your dogma onto me, not the other way around. And you do this by continually demanding that if I reject your dogma, I'm rejecting God.

I don't do that to YOU!

I'm not asking you to believe anything.

You're the one who continually insults me by refusing to respect my spiritual views of our potential creator.

You reject my views as being "false", and expect that I should not take offense to that.

But when I reject your views as being "false" you take offense.

That's one-way street there buddy.

You need to learn how to live on a two-way highway.

Christianity is a cult.

Islam is a cult.

Buddism is a cult.

If you follow a ritual as listed in a book you are following a cult.

It is not an insult... It is but a written truth.

However Christians have spent years calling every other religion 'cults' in such a way that TO THE christians that word has become a way to 'insult' others.

rather than what it actually is...

A discriptive word for sub-sects and religions ritualistic belief.

I guess that all depends on how we define a "cult"

Recently the US government defined a cult to be an organization that threatens it's followers in some way if they refuse to join, or if they attempt to leave.

Well, by that definition all of the Abrahamic religions would fall under the definition of a "cult" because they all threaten that God will not like you and will abandon you if you refuse to join their cult or if you attempt to leave their cult.

I'm not so sure that Buddhism would fall under this criteria. There is nothing in Buddhism that threatens anyone who refuses to accept it, believe in it, or follow it. In fact, Buddha himself taught that we should seek our own spiritual destiny via our own deepest feelings and intuition. So in that sense, Buddhism would not be a "cult".

Of course, there are many different definitions for a "cult".

The Christians define a "cult" to be a "false religion".

So according to the Christians any religion that isn't Christianity is a cult. So yes, Christians have been 'insulting' all other religions for centuries. Then when the word is turned on them they get all upset.

distorting the bible, I think, is a condition of a cult
usually for the personal gain of one PERSON at the expense of others

but, by my friend webster, gives broader guidelines of the word
: formal religious veneration : worship
2: a system of religious beliefs and ritual; also : its body of adherents
3: a religion regarded as unorthodox or spurious; also : its body of adherents
4: a system for the cure of disease based on dogma set forth by its promulgator <health cults>
5a : great devotion to a person, idea, object, movement, or work (as a film or book); especially : such devotion regarded as a literary or intellectual fad

by definition five, then, I guess most political groups could be considered cults,,,,,DEVOUT liberals, or conservatives, or republicans or democrats,,,,having a great DEVOTION to a person or an idea,,would be rightfully categorized as being part of a cult


I can see where this is another one of those words which is not INHERENTLY 'bad' or 'negative'

This is why the Catholics and Protestants view each other as "cults" because they both see the other as distorting the bible.

That isn't exactly what was/is insultive. Calling Christianity a cult, and all your other statements trying to put it down is what was/is insultive. If you do not wish to believe, that is your prerogative and again is not what is insultive. Two people may have different beliefs and not be insultive to one another. They can feel their belief is the right and the other wrong and not be insultive. But when it comes to demeaning another's belief is when it becomes insultive. Spreading lies about the other's beliefs is inultive. Regardless if the lie is unintentional, it is still insultive. People shouldn't speak of what they do not know.



No I do not. If someone else has a different interpretation of a certain scripture(s) then that person and I could and should sit down and see where one of us has misinterpreted something. I do not know everything, nor do I profess to.

Who see's the Catholics as a cult? And who see Protestants as a cult? As the definition says Cults are along the lines of ritual(s) and things of that nature. There are no "rituals" in Christianity, there is no sacrifices done, there is nothing along any of those lines. Christianity is all about uplifting our father in everything we do and loving one another.

Oh I'm trying to push nothing. If you do not wish to believe, that is your choice. Nothing personal take, you think it's all a fairy tell, then that is absolutely alright. I speak my mind, you speak your mind, we then walk our seperate ways. Nothing gained, nothing loss, nothing hurt. If you wish to believe in what ever you believe, that is absolutely up to you and is alright. Doesn't make you any less of a person, doesn't make either one of us any greater.

"Father" in this sense needs no 'uplifting' is allready 'uplifted' by simple fact of existance as I am.

Eating and drinking of the 'blood of christ' - cult ritual. Crossing oneself - cult ritual.
praying to Saints, intermediares, or other men than GOD is a cult ritual.
Praying to a cross, a man on a cross, a statue, or a book - cult ritual.
Confessing ones 'sins' to anyone other than god - cult ritual.

By simple fact that I am...

I cannot lift up that that is I AM (HE IS GREATER THAN i).

BUT HE CAN LIFT ME UP.

Eating and drinking of the 'blood of Christ" is figurative speaking, it's a parable. We don't literally drink of any blood.

Matthew 26:26-28

26And as they were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples, and said, Take, eat; this is my body.

27And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, Drink ye all of it;

28For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.

And not sure what you're talking about crossing oneself, we don't get on crosses or anything. Not sure what that was suppose to mean.

We do not pray to saints. We have been told that when we come to the father to do it in our closet in secret and he will reward us openly. We pray in private, not to someone else. What we ask of God is between him and the person praying.

And we do not pray to a cross, a man on a cross, or any statue. We pray directly to God.

Well I certainly don't spread lies about anyone's beliefs.

All I do is give my views on why I feel that the ancient Hebrew fables, and the ancient Biblical cannon that was constructed from them, does not impress me as being the word of any all-wise God.

It's a personal opinion and a view.

You say:


Maybe so, but I was born and raised as a Christian. I studied the Bible for years, and was even hoping to actually preach it at one point. However, over time I finally concluded that it necessarily has to be nonsense. So I have plenty of knowledge of what I speak.

The Bible is PUBLIC DOMAIN. The authors of these stories claim to be speaking on behalf of the creator or all humanity. Well, I got news for you. I'm a human!

That gives me the right to have an opinion on these ancient fables.

There's no need for you to be insulted simply because I don't buy into these stories. That's nonsense. You're just trying to use that as an excuse to silence me because you don't like the fact that I don't believe that these stories came from any all-wise God.

You'll just have to realize that you're going to need to live on a planet where everyone doesn't agree with your point of view is all.



I have totally different interpretations from yours. Clearly.

You and I have discussed different interpretations. Your conclusion was that you are right and I am wrong.

Well, I feel just the opposite. So we'll just have to agree to disagree then. That's all.

There are plenty of "rituals" in Christianity. And certainly within Catholicism.

Rituals don't need to have anything to do with sacrifices.

And they most certainly do ritual eat the blood and body of Christ at communion. I used to partake in that Christian ritual quite often in my youth.



Well, you refuse to allow me to uplift our creator. Because you refuse to acknowledge my spiritual views. If I'm not worshiping your dogma, and acknowledging Jesus as the sacrificial lamb of the God of Abraham, then you refuse to even recognize my view of God at all.

I uplift God every day. But I'm not about to support religious bigotry and pretend that amounts to "uplifting God".

I separated man-made religions from God a very long time ago, and I'm not about to make the mistake of worshiping a religion ever again.

That's not what is insultive. Your continuous statements along the lines as "Hebrew FABLES" and things you say of that nature is when it becomes insultive. When you state it in an insultive way. If you don't believe in the scriptures that is your prerogative, but there is no need to say insultive things along the lines of "Hebrew fables" or folklore or many other things you have said.

Turn the other cheek...

Perhaps it will be a better ear forward.