MsHarmony wrote:

I believe God is unchanging, it is our perception of him that changes, but I believe he has been, will be, and always was complete and just,, unchangably just

If that's all that Christianity stood for, nobody would have a problem with the religion.

I personally have absolutely no problem at all with a genuinely righteous and just God. In fact, I would have absolutely no reason to be "SAVED" from a genuinely righteous and just God, because such a God wouldn't be out to superficially condemn me in the first place.

Are you so superficial that you jump to conclusions about people based on a few check-boxes on a dating forum?

Besides, this isn't about me, or you. It's about religious myths and the affects they have on humanity as a whole.




I'm a spiritual person and have always been a spiritual person.

Religion is man-made.




I was born and raised as a Free Methodist Protestant. Several of my uncles were preachers. Most of my extended family were very strong believers in the biblical picture of God and Jesus. There were some exceptions. Some of my smartest uncles were atheists, and ironically they were recognized without question to be the smartest members of the family.

The uncles who were preachers would often discuss biblical matters and often disagree on various interpretations of things.

Being a naive child who wanted to do what is RIGHT I turned to God myself and accepted Jesus into my life. I started reading the bible in the hopes of discovering the TRUTH. After all, if the preachers themselves were having trouble agreeing on things maybe I could find the answers in the Bible and help them to better understand the Bible.

I BELIEVED because I was taught to believe, that the Bible contains answers for everything. As it turns out that itself is a big fat lie. The bible does not contain answers to most of my question, on the contrary the more I read the bible the more unanswered question I found myself with.

It's no wonder the preachers can't agree with each other. The bible is extremely vague, highly contradicting, and even utterly absurd in places.



Spiritual answers are not to be found in books.

I've found the best books are those written by men who actually think. Mostly scientists. In fact, it quickly came to my attention that the most brilliant men in all of humanity have rejected the bible as being absurd and mostly like just cultural myths. These include people like Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, Carl Sagan, Richard Feynman, Stephan Hawking, and the list goes on and on.

So I find myself in great company.



The original language of what?

Some of the rumors and superstitions that were eventually incorporated into what we today refer to as the "biblical cannon"?

No, I don't even bother with that nonsense anymore. I've learned enough about it it to know that it has no worthy merit.



There's a video course on that put out by the Teachings company, you can Google them if you are interested in looking it up.

I was actually thinking about buying that course just out of curiosity, but fortunately the outline syllabus was all I needed to read. The translations that we now call the "Bible" actually evolved over battles between the early 'Christians and Jews'. The Christians held out that Jesus was the divine son of God, and the Jews rejected that conclusion.

The early "Christians" continued to build their case as they created these stories via editing until they evolved to become the stories we know today. So it's clear to me how they came to be and that they have no divine authority.

Of course, I'm not going just by that one syllabus, but clearly the Teaching Company Course basically supports the conclusions that I was already aware of from previous knowledge.



You're too concerned with trying to address the PERSON.

You're attempting to find ways to belittle or discredit "Abracadabra", thus allowing you to simply "wave him off" as being uneducated or whatever.

I'm actually quite flattered by your choice of tactics. It only goes to show that you can't address the issues that I actually bring up and thus you feel a desperate need to try to change the focus toward a personal level of "Credentials".

I don't need any "credentials", the topics I address should be available to anyone based on pure common sense. This is true because I address the common sense issues.

Talking about "Original Scriptures" etc, is a moot point, unless you are going to claim that the biblical story is WILDLY DIFFERENT from the King James Version of the religion.

If that's your position then you're basically renouncing King James Christianity too.

Perhaps, in your interpretations Jesus isn't even the "only begotten son" of God. I have no clue what distorted version of the religion you might be referring to.

The Christianity that I object to is basically the Christianity that is based on the King James Version of the Bible.

1. God requires blood sacrifices before he can forgive sins.
2. God instructs people, "Thou Shalt Not Kill".
3. God instructs his favored people to mass murder heathens.
4. God doesn't play "favorites".
5. God is UNCHANGING in his ways.
6. God drowns out all sinners save for Noah and his family.
7. All sins are equal, and no man is without sin! What about Noah?
8. God is UNCHANGING in his ways.
9. God changes his mind about drowning out sinners and makes a rainbow.
10. God now sends his only begotten son to put forth a NEW COVENANT
11. God is UNCHANGING in his ways. (except when he makes a New Covenant)
12. Jesus rejects the ways of God as taught in the Old Testament.
13. Jesus rejects the judging of others to be "sinners".
14. Jesus rejects that stoning to death of "sinners"/
15. Jesus rejects an eye for an eye, and teaches to turn the other cheek.
16. Jesus changes everything.
17. God is UNCHANGING in his ways.

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So what's your agenda mg?

You're going to try to back-track into ancient obscure languages in the hopes of trying to untangle this mass of contradictions and make a viable story out of this?

Moreover, do you honestly expect anyone to believe that "God's Word" was actually LOST to obscurity and translations over the course of time?

~~~~

And FINALLY, let's assume that you are indeed correct.

~~~~

Let's assume that somewhere in the lost halls of history there exit interpretations of these original stories that fly in the face of the King James Version of the Bible and somehow justify or change many of these blatant contradictions and absurdities.

Could any truly righteous God blame anyone for not believing in the current modern distortion of these stories?

Obviously not. In fact, he would be PROUD of anyone who rejects them as being the absurdities that they are.

So even if you're speculations are correct, all you are doing is confirming that my rejection of the modern distortions of the these ancient texts is indeed justified.

You'll have to write your own version of the bible based on your interpretations of the ancient texts that you feel are important and should be included.

When you have achieved that goal let me know, I'll read your bible and let you know that I think.

Until then all you're doing is suggesting that the King James Bible is wrong and that there are better interpretations to be had from some "supposed" original scriptures.

Most people would even expect you to "validate" the authenticity of any ancient original scriptures that you might reference. You'd probably get into tons of arguments with people over your interpretations of those scriptures as well. Especially seeing since you yourself would need to be translating them into English.

Personally I couldn't care less about any of that. Just write up your version of what you believe to be the "Word of God". I'll read it, and decide on its own merit whether or not I feel it is likely to be the thoughts and actions of a genuinely all-wise supreme being.

That's the ONLY criteria that I require.

I don't care where you got your sources. They could have come to you in a dream for all I care. If they make sense to me I'll grant that they may very well have come from a divine source. Or at the very least I might agree with your ideals concerning what "God" should be like.

On the other hand, if it doesn't sound divine to me, I'll pass it off as being unworthy of further consideration.

That's as simple as it gets.

I don't care whether it comes from you, or the ancient Hebrews, or the ancient Greeks, or the ancient mystics.

The source of information is totally irrelevant to me. Whether or not the information makes any SENSE is all that's meaningful to me.

Ironically even the Hebrew scriptures often say that you can tell a source by it's fruit. That's one principle I will agree with!

If it smells good it might be good.

But if it smells rotten then it probably is rotten.

You need to know something about me that maybe you don't. This might even change what you wrote above so that we can talk further. I'm truly sincere. To get to know the person is how we get to know what they believe.

all my best

michael

I believe God is unchanging, it is our perception of him that changes, but I believe he has been, will be, and always was complete and just,, unchangably just

noone has the choice of mortal death, it is a fact of life

accepting Jesus is not a function of having a mortal life, nor did the good book state such a thing,,,its a function of ETERNAL LIFE,, a gift that exists after this STAGE, this MORTAL LIFE is completed,,,

HOW we die can be affected by others and that is a function of the free will of man to treat each other as they choose,,for which there is also consequence/karma/judgment,, whatever one wishes to call it,,

so the victims of the inquisition who chose to accept jesus as their savior in order to save their own mortal life acted with "free will????"

Di wrote:

Sorry volant but your quote makes no sense. Would you please choose the proper word (to replace evil)with the most relavent word consistent with the context of your message. And if you can't find a word with a better fit - perhaps you can also replace good with something else, and then just keep replacing words until your message is clear to everybody who has concordance and the desire to put together a puzzle with a meaninful picture to the individual.

Thanks for your assistance.

coupled with the crusades,

the salem which trials and many other atrocities

committed "in the name of god"

and then pathetically excused as "god's will"

sure goes a long way in defining moments in christian history for me.

by and of course it's little different today as shown by the westborough babtist church,

the murder of family planning doctors, abortion clinic bombings,

etc. to become a klansman in the kkk a candidate must accept jesus as his savior and the son of god.

quite a well defined history here and as god him/herself has no actual history, what defining moments are there if not for the actions of christians?

Here's the problem with your logic and it's a big one. You look at what individuals or mobs have done, but you haven't taken an honest look at Christian doctrine to see if those behaviors are taught or tolerated in Christianity.

And as usual, the problem with yours lies in the story of the infanticide of Midianite children. Ordered by _your_ god, carried out by the same believers in your Abrahamic religious faith.

Oh, I suspect you'll again pretend that it was the fault of the parents because although you won't come right out and condone it, you DO try to rationalize it away as justified and by blaming the victims.

Infanticide is one of the penultimate acts our species finds repugnant, and were it not for religious dogma brainwashing people up front, virtually NO ONE would willingly worship a diety who ordered such things on a regular basis.


-Kerry O.