God's law is our law. If a government gives you a law to abide by, it is the government's law and the law YOU are to follow, thus it's your law.



John 1

1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
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John 1:14

14And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

Matthew 5:17
17Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.
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Thus of course he wasn't teaching what was in the torah, the old law. The torah, the old law was fulfilled, completed, finalized.

Actually, I am thinking about starting my own religion. I already have plans for a pagan nunnery.

Cowboy, it does absolutely no good at all to continue to quote from a text that someone has just told you that they see as being nothing more than hearsay rumors.

I have no doubt that the authors of those texts were indeed attempting to convince people of precisely what you have been convinced of. That's a given.

I renounce their claims. It's that simple.

From my point of view their claims simply don't hold water and don't justify the differences between what Jesus taught and what was written in the Torah.

So for you to continually rehash what I've already seen and read countless times is just a total waste of everyone's time.

I've already seen all that and I simply don't buy into it. Period.

Moreover, unless you want to claim to be a "Paper Pope" you have no right to even argue with my interpretations.

You're entitled to your interpretations, and I'm entitled to mine.

And that's where it necessarily has to end.

I accept that your interpretations are valid for you.

All I ask is for the same level of respect from you in return.

How so? Jesus completed, finalized, finished, and or fulfilled the old testament... the tora. So of course what he taught, the laws he gave us wasn't going to be the same as the old, less there would have been no reason to have an end to that law. So how is it not justifiable?

The orthodox view doesn't stand up to reason, IMHO. Besides, I had already observed a myriad of contradictions and absurdities within the Old Testament alone even before the appearance of Jesus. So the original story is already standing on impossible quicksand by the time it even gets to the New Testament, IMHO.

My interpretation of these texts remove all contradictions and problems instantly.

From my perspective the Old Testament is nothing more than mythology that has no more merit than Greek Mythology. That solves all the contradictions and absurdities associated with that doctrine because it recognizes all of it to be nothing more than a work of fiction.

Jesus was a Mahayana Buddhist Bodhisattva. This explains Jesus perfectly as far as I'm concerned. It explains his teachings, the things he said about being one with the father, and pointing out that "Ye are gods". As far as I can see he was expressing a pantheistic view of reality all the way. And his moral teachings are in perfect harmony with the teachings of Mahayana Buddhism and are in total conflict and contradiction with the moral teachings of the Torah.

Thus it makes sense to me to conclude that the entire New Testament is simply a gross misunderstanding of what Jesus stood for. Or worse yet, a purposeful and methodical attempt to use the rumors of Jesus to support the very doctrine that Jesus himself rejected (i.e. the Torah)

To be perfectly honest with you I don't trust the authors of the New Testament. The things they try to push onto Jesus make no sense to me. All of it flies in the face of an intelligent all-wise God, IMHO.

There is no way that you will ever convince me that a supposedly all-wise and all-intelligent God would devise a scheme in which a person's spiritual fate would depend upon which religious myths they buy into. As far as I'm concerned there is no wisdom in that ideal, and thus it cannot have come from any supposedly all-wise God.

So it doesn't stand the test of divine all-wise knowledge, IMHO. Therefore it can only be the creation of devious men.

My interpretations resolve all paradoxes and contradictions with no problems. And they remove the need to believe in an insane God who would command people to kill heathens and then turn around and send his son into that very same crowd to blaspheme himself and leave himself open to being crucified for blaspheme just as the Biblical God had commanded people to do.

As far as I'm concerned any God who would command people to kill blasphemers and then send his "only begotten son" into that same crowd to disagree with his previous teachings would be an insane God.

Since I don't believe that God is insane, I feel that the biblical fables cannot stand. They necessarily must be false. Thus the scenario I offer solves all these problems. It saves Jesus and God from the absurdities of the ancient Hebrew folklore.

What better picture could you want?

If I were to accept your interpretations I would need to conclude that God is either totally insane, or totally inept, neither of which is acceptable, IMHO.

So you can keep your interpretations for yourself, and I'll keep mine for myself.

That's reasonable, don't you think?

Outside of judgment, care to share the differences in morality between the old and new? Cause there isn't any that I'm aware of.

Jesus didn't disagree with the tora's teachings. He completed the tora, finished it, finalized it, so it held no more power. He gave us a new one. Not because he disagreed with the old law, but because the old law was fulfilled.

How is that God is inept? He delivered the knowledge to us. The world is who killed the messenger. God got the message here, how is it that God is inept just because you won't believe? How is it the father's job to get YOU to believe? Heaven is a REWARD, it's not a given. So how is it our father's job to get YOU to believe and or obey?

Sure. The seeking of revenge. The Old Testament teaches an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Jesus teaches forgiveness and to turn the other cheek. This has nothing to do with any judgments.

Besides, just because you ignore a major difference surrounding judgments between the Old and New Testament doesn't mean that I need to. As far as I'm concerned the Old Testament was a farce to begin with for the very reason that it had God directing people to morally judge each other and stone each other to death as sinners, heathens, or even as unruly children.

As far as I can see, no genuinely all-powerful God would have ever done such a thing. The mere fact that the authors of these fables had their readers judging each other in God's stead is because they knew that there is no judgmental God to conduct his own judgments and executions. Therefore, the simple fact that the authors of these fables asked their readers to do this reveals to me that these fables are indeed nothing more than the made-up lies of men.

At least you have acknowledge that there are indeed major conflicting differences between the Old and New Testaments. As far as I'm concerned you've just acknowledged that they are not in harmony in terms of how God deals with the judgment of humans. So you've just confirmed what I already know to be true.

My views totally eliminate and resolve that contradiction with no problem whatsoever.

If what you say were true, then Jesus would not have said that he did not come to change the laws. On the contrary he would have said that he did indeed come to change the laws. Why would he lie?

He also would not have said that not one jot nor one tittle shall pass from law, if the old laws had been completed, finished, finalized, etc.

So your views make no sense to me. They are conflicting and riddled with contradictions.

My views on the other hand explain everything.

Jesus was a Mahayana Buddhist who was teaching far better morals that had been taught in the Torah. He was ultimately crucified for his views.

Later, the people who wrote the New Testament tried to use the rumors of the Martyrdom of Jesus to tie him back onto the Torah, the very doctrine that Jesus refuted.

This is why the New Testament is riddled with contradictions. They have Jesus saying that not one jot nor one tittle shall pass from law. Well, since Jesus never wrote anything down those "jots and tittles" could only be referring to the Torah. So this was their attempt to nail Jesus to the Torah.

I'm not even convinced that Jesus ever said those exact words.

~~~~

One thing that you need to realize is that once I've recognized that the New Testament is just hearsay rumors that are either a gross misunderstanding of Jesus, or a purposeful propaganda to use the rumors of Jesus to prop up the Torah in his name, then I no longer have an reason to accept verbatim quotes that these texts attribute to Jesus. They are no longer the "inspired Word of God". They now become a belated propaganda machine that uses Jesus as a dead marionette doll to make him say whatever they like.

Although, having said that, they probably did have restrictions based on what the masses knew that Jesus stood for. There were probably a lot of rumors about how such an innocent man had been wrongfully crucified. So most people were probably aware of the moral values that Jesus was associated with (i.e. the basic moral values of Mahayana Buddhism)

So the authors of the New Testament use those things to try to make their writings sound convincing. But I personally don't buy into any of it. I don't buy into either the Old or the New Testament.

To do so raises a myriad of contradictions and conflicts. None of which you have resolved in the slightest. Even though you apparently have convinced yourself that you have. You aren't convincing me of anything. All you are doing is being grossly disrespectful of my right to have my own interpretations.

Like I say, if the idea that Jesus was the sacrificial lamb of the God of the Old Testament works for you then more power to you!

Believe it!

It doesn't work for me.

My theory that Jesus was a Mahayana Buddhist solves all problems and resolves all contradictions completely. I see no problems with it at all. None whatsoever.

Moreover, it's not even disrespectful. My theory elevates Jesus, God, and all of mankind to a far higher level of intelligence and moral values. It wins all the way around and even supports Eastern Mysticism in process.

Besides, the biblical account of God has God losing the vast majority of souls that he creates by it's own confession. It's a picture of a loser creator. A creator who loses the vast majority of souls that he creates.

Why would I even want to place my faith in a picture of a loser God?

I just see no value in it whatsoever.

That would be an interesting and welcome occurrence, as it would challenge the all-too-frequent partriarchal territorialism present in so many of today's religions.

I noticed recently that a more recent translation of the Tao Te Ching refers to The Master as She/Her. I found that interesting, too.

-Kerry O.

I just came back from an interesting excursion into various catholic beliefs. I originally went the to official Vatican web site to see if I could find a firm position on whether or not it's important to believe that Jesus is the only begotten son of God. I was unable to find a clear stance on that particular point.

However, during my travels I did run across some information on hell. It appears that the Catholic Church's position on hell is that it absolutely exists and is indeed a place of eternal damnation. They point to several places where Jesus basically states as much, as well as John in Revelations.

They also say that many other Christian religions downplay the concept of hell, and there is a growing trend among many Protestant evangelists to refute it altogether claiming that evil people will merely perish and lose there chance at eternal life. But it's the position of the Catholic Church that hell exists and is indeed a place of eternal suffering and endless torment.

I think most rational people see that whole idea as being "ungodly". After all, how would a righteous loving God benefit by sending unsaved souls to a place of eternal torment and suffering? In what way would that be useful for God? And if it's not useful for God, then why even bother with it? The whole idea seems to imply that God is a sore loser and if he can't have your undivided attention and obedience then he's going to be mean about it and cause you to suffer torment for all of eternity. That would hardly be a "just and righteous" loving God.

So most sane people look for ways for this concept to be false.

I think even the Catholics themselves recognize that absurdity of such an idea and have created the idea of Purgatory. A place where "unsaved" soul could somehow be redeemed after death. Although, I'm not sure how a person could be "unsaved" and still worthy of being "saved". In other words, if being "saved" requires a belief in Jesus first and foremost then the only people who could even be saved through Purgatory would need to be people who have actually accepted Jesus as their Savior, but for some reason didn't quite measure up to having their sins forgiven entirely.

That's a highly questionable and problematic scenario right there if you ask me.

In any case, I guess for anyone who doesn't believe that Jesus was the son of God even Purgatory would be out. So in order to believe in this religion a person must believe that being tormented day and night for all of eternity with no rest from the torment is somehow justified for the horrible crime of simply not believing that these ancient Hebrew stories came from God.

I don't know about anyone else, but from my perspective that's totally unjust and if that's what this religion holds to be true, then I don't see how their religion can have any merit. The God would need to be totally unreasonable and have a mean streak and desire for vengeance that would make Hitler look like a humanitarian in comparison.

The more I read about what these religoins believe the more convinced I am that they can't be anything more than totally absurd Zeus-like fables. The God they depict would need to be a totally unrighteous demon. There's just no two ways about it.

Especially if people are being sent to hell for mere disbelief which is in no way a "hostile" or "criminal" act.

There's just no way that these fables can be true unless it's true that our creator is Satan himself. That's about the only way they could be true. Because no righteous God would be sending decent innocent people to suffer eternal torment simply because they didn't believe in a religion that demands that he's a jerk.

If he did such a thing he would only be proving that he is indeed a jerk.

He would just be proving that their rejection of the religion was indeed a SANE action on their part! And yet he condemns these people to eternal suffering and torment?

That wouldn't be a God.

That would be a Demon!

The way I understand it is that Heaven is being with God and Hell is being seperated from God. It's like God is the light source heaven would be the light, and Hell would be the darkness.

As far as where Protestantism is headed, I'm not sure.

He changed nothing. Changing would be like writing something down on a piece of paper, then erasing it and writing something else. That would be changing it. The laws from the old testament *which are fulfilled* and the laws from the new testament *the ones Jesus gave us* are two totally different sets of laws. Two completely different sets.



If you're gonna quote, quote it all.

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Matthew 5:18
18For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
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Notice till all be fulfilled. The prophecies in the old testament were all completed, finished, fulfilled. That is why we were given a new set of laws.



You've not shown even ONE contradiction that held any water. Every contradiction you've tried to show has been shown not to be as such. And you brush that off with "well that's your interpretation" or something of such.

How can one be tormented in hell for eternity when hell is destroyed in the end of times? Hell is destroyed and Satan along with his minions will be cast into the lake of fire. So with that said, again how is it even possible to have eternal damnation in hell?

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Revelation 20:14

14And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.
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Notice hell is cast into the lake of fire as well. Hell is merely a holding place for Satan as of now. No person will EVER go to hell.

Well, that's precisely what this would have amounted to for God.

God supposedly wrote down all his laws on the "paper" of the Torah via his divine inspiration to get men to write this stuff down. And then he supposedly sent Jesus to erase it and write something else.

You need to look at this from the BIG PICTURE of an eternal God.

So, since you recognize that Jesus did indeed bring a totally different set of laws then you are actually confirming the contradiction here.



All of the contradictions I've shown hold true. You even help to confirm them all the while thinking that you're somehow refuting them. But you're not. You're just confirming them.



No, Cowboy, you notice this! ---? "Till heaven and earth pass"

Not one jot nor one tittle shall pass from law till all be fulfilled. And when will that occur? Not until heaven and earth pass!

It's right there in the same sense for crying out loud.

Besides, you keep speaking about laws as though "laws" can be fulfilled like prophecy. But that's not true. Prophecy is what can be fulfilled, not laws. Laws can only be changed. And Jesus supposedly said that he did not come to change the laws, but throughout his teachings he did precisely that. So that's a contradiction right here.

Besides, most Christian Clergy and Theologians confess that Jesus did not yet fulfill the prophecy. On the contrary, they argue that prophecy will be fulfilled when Jesus returns.

Therefore, even if I were inclined to accept your notion that Jesus was somehow implying that the laws of the Old Testament will be changed "when all are fulfilled", then they would still be in effect to this very day.

In other words, your scenario doesn't even work at all, in any case.

It contains major contradictions and problems no matter how you try to twist it.

I've been there before Cowboy. There was a time when I too tried to make sense of the Biblical picture. I finally realized that it simply isn't possible. Even with the very best of intentions there's just no way to rectify the problems and contradictions associated with these myths.

First off, you're totally obsessed with Jesus. But before you can even begin to get that far, you need to go back and justify the whole entire Old Testament. I've got a tone of irresolvable problems just with the Old Testament alone. And these are just self-inflicted contradictions of the stories themselves. Add to those the conflicts with observed physical reality and you end up with fables that don't merit anymore consideration then Greek Mythology.

There's just nothing there worthy of trying to resurrect.

And all for what?

Just so you can have a religion that belittles all of mankind and proclaims that they are all unworthy sinners who can only find their way back to God through GRACE, and no merit of their own! And even in that scenario only FEW will make it, and those FEW must accept that this God sent his only begotten son as a blood sacrifice to PAY for their unworthy behavior.

Why would anyone even want to believe in such a horrible picture of creation. Really?

Only FEW will make it?

That also implies that the vast majority of souls that this God creates will end up in hell and suffer torturing for all of eternity.

That's supposed to be "Good News"?

I could only be "Good News" for the very FEW people who are arrogant enough to believe that they are going to make it into this God's heaven.

Of course, I realize that you reject the notion of hell. You have at least recognized that such a notion would indeed be totally unrighteous and would be utterly insane. So you have become one of those people who have changed that to an idea that evil people and non-believers merely perish and do not suffer eternal damnation.

That's one saving grace I can grant you for your version of the religion. You at least see the absurdity of condemning non-believers to eternal punishment.

You've rejected the "bad half" of the religion and merely hold out hope that the "good half" might be true.

The Catholic Church points out that Jesus himself spoke of eternal suffering in hell where the worm does not die and the fire is not quenched:



So you just pick and choose what you'd like. You're what many would call a "Salad Bar Christian". You just turn the religion into something that fits your appetite and leave what you don't like on the bar.

In my view of these ancient fables I don't have any of these problems. The Old Testament is just Zeus-like fables. Jesus was a Mahayana Buddhist, and the New Testament "Gospels" are nothing more than hearsay "Gossip" that warrants no serious consideration.

I don't have any of the problems that you have.

I don't need to worry about a "judgmental God" who will be peeved if I don't believe the right things.

I don't need to worry about being sent to a place of eternal damnation and suffering for simply not guessing properly which religion might be true. Judaism? Catholicism? Islam? Or one of the Salad Bar Protestant versions of it? Or maybe something else?

Or maybe Zeus was the correct religion after all? Who knows?

I don't have any of these problems.

The only reason that you feel so armament about your religion is because you have been convinced that anyone who doesn't believe in it will be damned to spiritual death. No matter how nice of a person they might have been.

Well, I'm afraid I can't imagine a genuinely all-wise God who would think like that. After all, if you see that as being vitally important and you are worried about the salvation of other people, then why wouldn't God be worried about it even more so?

After all, you can't very well be the compassionate superior to God. That won't work!

And you haven't even addressed the most serious issue. The New Testament has Jesus himself saying that only FEW will make it into the Kingdom of God.

Just look at the quote from that Catholic Web Site:

"Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few" (Matt. 7:13–14)"

So here you've got Jesus himself supposedly confirming that the Biblical God loses the vast majority of souls that he creates and that only FEW will make it into the Kingdom of Heaven.

Personally I don't believe that reality is like that. I don't believe that a genuinely loving creator would be like that.

I look around and realize that MOST PEOPLE are indeed nice people. In fact our crime statistics show this nicely. Less than 2% of humans commit seriously violent crimes. Less than 10% are involved with in petty crimes that even includes things like traffic violations or parking tickets.

In other words, the VAST MAJORITY of people on Planet Earth are actually pretty darn NICE.

You expect me to believe that all those NICE people are going to be rejected by God just because they didn't buy into a particular religion. In fact, if only FEW people make it, as Jesus supposedly said, the MOST CHRISTIANS will most likely not even make it. Because that would be far more than FEW people.

So I see no value in the religion at all. It condemns the vast majority of people to either "hell", or at best mere "spiritual death". Whilst only providing salvation for VERY FEW!

It's certainly not a religion that I would believe in out of pure "Faith" of wanting it to be true.

On the contrary, as a matter of pure "Faith" I would much rather have "Faith" that it's as false as it can possibly be.

I see no value in it at all.

I should I believe that I could be one of the FEW who make it?

Moreover, why would I even want to be one of the FEW?

Am I not suppose to care about the rest of humanity?

It seems to me this is a religion that is solely about saving your own personal butt.

Like I've said many times, I'm not even convinced that I would want to serve and worship a God who would set things up like this.

To be perfectly honest about it I would harbor ill feelings toward such a God on the behalf of the GOOD people who did not make it into his heaven.

And supposedly I could not HIDE those negative feelings toward that God. In other words, the bottom line for me is that I could not worship the God of your religion even if I wanted to, because I personally don't agree with his scheme.

So even if the religion were true as you describe it, I would necessarily have to decline. Even if that God was offering me his "Gift" of eternal life OUTRIGHT. I'd have to be honest with him and tell him that I sincerely have no interest in worshiping him and I do not love him with my entire mind, body and soul.

There's no way I could love such a God like that.

So even if your religion were true I would necessarily have no real choice but to decline the so-called "Gift".

Are you comprehending any of this?

I totally disagree with the "moral values" and behavior that necessarily must be attributed to your God.

It's that simple.

There's nothing there that is attractive to me.

Given your religion I'll take the spiritual death, thank you very much.

I think this is why the hell factor got started in the first place. A lot of people would gladly just die rather than worship this unrighteous God, so hell was invented to convince people that rejection of God will end in eternal suffering and torment and therefore is not an option.

It's clearly just a man-made brainwashing scheme.

Laws God has given us can and are fulfilled. They have an ending point. The old testament/tora has an ending prophecy, the new testament has the same. The laws of the old testament were fulfilled with Jesus. That is what he came to fulfill. So with that, he gave us the new laws, the new testament which has not been fulfilled. Now the laws Jesus gave us will not pass till all be fulfilled and heaven and earth pass away. Remember, there will be a new heaven and a new earth.

NOTHING was "erased". The old testament had an ending, a prophesy of something to come. That happened, so therefore it was fulfilled, completed, finished. And Jesus gave us a new set of laws.

They can be fulfilled. Both sets of laws only held power till something happened. Jesus finished out the prophecies of the old testament.



Not true, as I've shown in previous post(s) hell is destroyed. There will not be eternal punishment, torment. You either receive the gift of heaven and eternal life or you die, you perish.



And for the rest of your post, no my friend. You've not shown even ONE contradiction that held power. All prophecies of the old testament were completed.

Must we forget God sent Jesus to inform us of how to achieve heaven? He was even crucified for you. How is it God's fault you don't wish to believe? You don't just not believe my friend, you totally refuse to believe. Again, how is that then God's fault? You continuously try to find a scapegoat.

And how is it a man-made brainwashing scheme? What would there be to gain from brain washing people into believe in the Christian faith? No one else gains anything from someone else having faith in our father.