http://www.facebook.com/home.php?react=1301171655%3A723a47ffc726fa72752549cd9743bf5d#!/profile.php?id=597370211

auto link posted by Milesoftheusa in previous post

Sure, I hope this works.

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?react=1301171655%3A723a47ffc726fa72752549cd9743bf5d#!/profile.php?id=597370211



I agree with the spiritual essence of these ideals.

Just keep in mind that words like "Yahweh and Elohim" simply meant "God", and did not specifically mean to imply that the Torah itself should be accepted as the "Word of God".

In other words, if you allow for abstraction here, I totally accept the spiritual teachings of Jesus, just as I accept the spiritual teachings of Buddha, Confucius, Lao Tzu, and many others, even including modern day Buddha's like Deepak Chopra.

I don't discount spirituality.

What I argue against is Fundamental Christian Extremism.

I understand the TRUTHS that Jesus spoke of. There's no need to demand that anyone accept him as their personal 'sacrificial lamb' to appease a God who would otherwise cast them into a place of everlasting punishment. That's totally uncalled for.

It's one thing to understand the spiritual teachings of Jesus, and a totally different thing to support Fundamental Christian Extremism.

As I often say, I agree with the famous quote of Gandhi:

"I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."

It's one thing to teach the teachings of Jesus. It's a totally different thing to support Fundamental Christian Extremism.

I see no reason to support the Old Testament. I see no reason to support the idea that Jesus was the sacrificial lamb of God sent to pay for the "sins" of man.

None of that is key to the moral values that Jesus taught.

The problem is that I cannot "Spread the word of Jesus" without CLASHING head-on with Fundamental Christian Extremists!

They absolutely refuse to allow me to "Spread the word of Jesus" because they are in total opposition to what that even MEANS!

As soon as you mention Jesus to a Fundamental Christian Extremism, you had damn well be prepared to accept all their religious bigotries in Jesus' name, or be proclaimed to be a HEATHEN who has it all WRONG!

They have a one-track-mind. You must accept Jesus as the sacrificial lamb of God who died to pay for your sins, and you must "Obey" the commands of Jesus, which THEY then proceed to dictate precisely what that supposedly means.

They are as far removed from what Jesus was about as a person can possibly be, IMHO.

So Christianity actually PREVENTS me from teaching the TRUTH of Jesus, because it is Christianity that has it all WRONG.

Thanks Di, I didn't see your post.

By the way Miles,

Why should it be important that I believe that God not only condones WAR but would even actually participate in one?

In what way does that relate to anything that Jesus taught?

The only thing that this kind of thing could help support is the nasty ideals of the Christians that God can be quite nasty when he wants to be. Basically supporting the fear that if you refuse to accept Jesus as your 'sacrificial lamb' this nasty God will likely cast you into a place of eternal torture.

I don't see where any of that should be important to an understanding of what Jesus taught. That kind of thing actually represents the polar opposite of the moral values and behaviors that Jesus taught.

The Christians have stripped Jesus of any clout or power of HIS OWN.

If they don't have him propped up on the shoulder of the Old Testament God, then they have NOTHING.

That's their problem.

And it makes perfect sense too.

After they crucified Jesus by nailing him to a pole, they then crucified him a second time by nailing him to the Old Testament in an effort to use him to prop up that old religion.

However, in doing so, what they actually did was create a situation where Jesus has no clout of his own because by using him to prop up the Old Testament, they inadvertently created a situation where the Old Testament must also be retained in order to prop-up Jesus!

That's where the problem truly lies with Christianity.

Jesus is utterly meaningless without the Old Testament to prop him up, because their whole PREMISE is that Jesus is the sacrificial lamb of the God of the Old Testament.

I don't buy into that picture.

What Jesus taught is best understood via the wisdom and teachings of Eastern Mysticism, and not via the crude and rude teachings of the Old Testament stories!

So I personally have no need to "save" the Old Testament at all cost.

As I often say, I agree with the famous quote of Gandhi:

"I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."


I agree with that wholeheartedly.. what people have a hard time understanding is i refuse to be called chr-stian for that very reason and also that name came from people making fun of them.

I am a Yahwist.. Thiers a huge difference.. Blessings..Miles

Miles posted...

"Matt 22:37-40

37 Yahshua said to him, "'You shall love Yahweh your Elohim with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.' 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' 40 On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets."
NKJV"...

Miles this cannot be the first and greatest commandment of God to mankind.
One must simply read Genesis to see without a doubt the FIRST commandment given by god to mankind...

For in Genesis (which predates Matthew) it states quite clearly the first commandment of God to man.

'Go forth and be fruitfull and multiply and fill the earth'...

Remember that it is written... Moses did not bring forth all that god had given him on the Mount... For Moses was angered by the antics of his wandering tribes and destroyed a portion of gods 'words in stone'... But did Moses destroy the first tablet or the second?

Oh but it is the first commandment as shown below.

========================================
ONE: 'You shall have no other gods before Me.'

TWO: 'You shall not make for yourself a carved image--any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.'

THREE: 'You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.'

FOUR: 'Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.'

FIVE: 'Honor your father and your mother.'

SIX: 'You shall not murder.'

SEVEN: 'You shall not commit adultery.'

EIGHT: 'You shall not steal.'

NINE: 'You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.'

TEN: 'You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's.'
=============================================

This is a list of the 10 COMMANDMENTS. The first commandment is not to have any God's before God our "father"

NOt if you read your own book.

The first commandment as given by MOSES is as you have stated.

The FIRST COMMANDMENT as given by GOD is in Genesis... On the sixth day.

Was not a "commandment". This was an instruction. There are only 10 commandments given to us by God.

Well Shiki, I'll give my two cents worth even though I was told never to debate religion or politics. Your original question was believing in "God." Somehow it got to be a debate about Christianity. I confess I haven't read all 33 pages. However, I believe it all depends on what the definition of God is. I was raised Catholic, explored other faiths, and have come to realize that I think they all have their faults. That is why it is called faith. I believe in a God. I do not know how to define him (or her) but there has to be something much bigger than me. Evolution can not be proved because their is no missing link between the "ape" and us. Furthermore, all our organs and systems had to evolve at exactly the same time if evolution is accurate. Try taking one away. So, in closing, believing in a "God" makes more sense to me than believing in evolution.

Ps. You have some really good questions and perspective on things.

everything Yahshua said he was quoting scripture Math is quoted from..

Deut 6:5
5 You shall love Yahweh your Elohim with all your heart , with all your soul, and with all your strength.
NKJV


Lev 19:17-18

17'You shall not hate your brother in your heart. You shall surely rebuke your neighbor , and not bear sin because of him. 18 You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am Yahweh.
NKJV
teach your children this daily..

Deut 6:6-9

6 "And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart . 7 You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
NKJV

intersting we see a Mark of Yahweh satan will try and copy. Blessings...Miles

See this is why wars happen, I was born into a Mormon family. All I remember was I was a big fan of archeology and dinosaurs, then one day durning religion studies we were told that Dinosaurs didn't exist and there bones where put on earth to test faith..

So I became christian, cause I thought that was insane.
Well I almost married a wonderful girl friend but I felt my self growing distant from the church for a long time. Once I told her about that, she basically exiled me. Just like my extended Mormon family did.

I had friends that I met from the church and christian friends from school who stopped associating with me once word got around in the Religious community that I didn't believe in God.

I agree with the above poster, religion does some great things from the community. I have nothing against religious people.
But religious people have something against me. Not all, but a lot. Religious people are dangerous and arrogant. I am a sample on a small scale of why millions of people are killed over and over again through out history. Religious people see other people as less then them or different, persicute them and then eventually the other guys (normally a diff religion) say, screw this.. and everyone kills everyone.

Well I wouldn't be surprised if 500 years from now christians get evenly matched in numbers with atheists or agnostic or secularist and some other war happens.

Basically, I think our human need to identify ourselves and others into categories is the downfall of millions of peoples deaths through out all time. So my answer? STOP CLASSIFYING EACH OTHER

Mr. Price, I could not agree more with your last statement...you are right on.

I think its much deeper than classifying each other. After all, we have women and men and we have rich and poor and there is nothing wrong with aknowledging these differences and what (if any) impact they do or should have in how we live life.


I think the issue is HUMAN NATURE, some can aknowledge and embrace differences and others cannot. This is not something exclusive to spiritual faith(or religion). With billions upon the earth, its perfectly LOGICAL and reasonable for people to 'group' themself in with others who have similar interests, or beliefs, or anatomy, or ancestry,, or whatever. IT is only when those differences are required to be measurements of 'better' or 'worse' that the problems creep in.

... and they always do in most cases.

The law of attraction states that "like attracts like." Yes, you like to be around people of like mind, so you do like to have some of the same values and beliefs with people you are going to hang with or live with.

The law of allowance is the most difficult of the three active or dynamic universal laws to accept as necessary to practice. The law of allowance reflects the release of the need to control others. It allows you to transcend from the responsibility for others and recognizes the personal choice of releasing them to their own personal decisions.

This practice need not bring forth feelings of separation, but will bring forth an experience of a form of love that will have profound effects on their life.

It is difficult for most of mankind to actually have and/or maintain a sovereign attitude. The opportunity to live life with freedom of choice and be allowed to observe and learn from the results of those choices is rare.

The TEN Commandments were not givin to us by god... They were givin to us by MOSES who claimed they were from god... and he admitted at the time he gave them that he had destroyed a portion of them...

Therefore

1. How do you know they were given by god?
2. If they were so given what did the missing portion contain?
3. Was the missing portion the first part or the second of the 'commandments' alegedly 'givin' by god?

"The TEN Commandments were not givin to us by God. They were givin to us by MOSES who claimed they were from God."

Moses merely carried them down from Mt. Sinai. They were God's inspired words.

Therefore

"1. How do you know they were given by God?"
Faith, my friend.

"2. If they were so given what did the missing portion contain?"
There is no missing portion. "The LORD said to Moses, “Chisel out two stone tablets like the first ones, and I will write on them the words that were on the first tablets, which you broke."
-Exodus 34:1

"3. Was the missing portion the first part or the second of the 'commandments' alegedly 'givin' by god?"
See above.

My 'faith' tells me that god is greater than the stone moses brought to the masses.

My 'faith' tells me that Moses had to bring said 'stones' to the masses so that a form of control could be applied - that he might govern them from strength.

My 'faith' tells me that the so called 'ten commandments' were chisled by a man, presented by a man and debated by men in the centuries that followed.

My 'faith' tells me that we are destined for greater things than the small bound book so many hold as the 'only' way to god...

Mankind can not be bound.

Neither can the word of god.

Truly.

I guess that makes it "faith" against "faith".

CHECKMATE!

Every time I am reminded of the "be fruitful and multiply" part of the bible it reminds that only a man would say something like that as if the world belonged to him....lol

Thanks for the laugh.