I put this up again so you all can see what was meant by dark. I'm not for going around in circles so if you don't get the meaning you can ask me directly or keeping taking things out of context. Totally up to you.

As some have emailed me privately some of you are just showing that you like to argue. That brings no one closer to love.

To define god, is to limit her. It is to put god in a box..god is EVERYthing NOthing....the Big Zero. IMHO

A have no problem stating that I believe in God because my concept of God is "love" and I certainly do believe in love.

I don't know where God or Love comes from except from within me.

I don't much understand why people feel they have to remake "God" into an image outside of themselves and make things so complicated.

I think people can find that roll model within themselves and reach for that higher ideal of self, the one that is true and perfect and strive to become that.

We, as humans, have a long way to go before we reach perfection. We will never reach it, because that expansion of life and the universe is infinite.

But we tend to make things so complicated and we get overwhelmed. It really is not complicated. There is only one path to focus on. That path is love.

There is only one light. That light is love.

Hey if we did not "argue" how would we come to understand each other?

If we all thought and felt exactly the same way, how could we learn from each other?

What is 'wrong' with argument? Exchange of ideas is what people crave. Otherwise we would not have much to say to each other would we? Exchanges of perceptions and perspectives help us to expand our minds and our experience.

In the alternative, if everyone completely agrees and thinks alike you will basically have a hive mind that lacks imagination and creativity. Not to mention how boring is that?

Diversity and conflict is good fodder for growth and experience. It helps people exercise their brains.

It is what causes the universe to expand.

You just did by referring to God as "HER."

In my mind that gives God a box.

To go further on who you are?

After my conversion I worked and studied with 4 main theologians. I honestly do not know how this happened but I hit the jackpot of brain power. Me being an audio video guy put me right in the middle of many scientist, historians and biblical scholars.

1) D. James Kennedy scientific biblical historian. Founder of Coral Ridge Church Ft Lauderdale Fla

2) T.M. Moore president of NIBS

3) Bruce Wilkinson founder of Walk Thru the Bible

4) Charles Stanley In Touch Ministries

These four men introduced me to countless opportunities of study. As I was doing technical work for all of them I had the chance to view many angles of biblical studies from way out side the box as well as mainstream. I guess it pays to learn how to run a TV camera.

well, gee, thanks for offering your definition of the word "dark" but if your aim is to get a message across you might converse with words as they're universally accepted and used. as you're so into dictionary definitions when it pleases you:

dark   /dɑrk/ Show Spelled
[dahrk] Show IPA
adjective, -er, -est, noun, verb
–adjective
1. having very little or no light: a dark room.
2. radiating, admitting, or reflecting little light: a dark color.
3. approaching black in hue: a dark brown.
4. not pale or fair; swarthy: a dark complexion.
5. brunette; dark-colored: dark eyebrows.
6. having brunette hair: She's dark but her children are blond.
7. (of coffee) containing only a small amount of milk or cream.
8. gloomy; cheerless; dismal: the dark days of world War II.
9. sullen; frowning: a dark expression.
10. evil; iniquitous; wicked: a dark plot.
11. destitute of knowledge or culture; unenlightened.
12. hard to understand; obscure.
13. hidden; secret.
14. silent; reticent.
15. (of a theater) offering no performances; closed: The theaters in this town are dark on Sundays.
16. Phonetics .
a. (of an l- sound) having back-vowel resonance; situated after a vowel in the same syllable. Compare clear ( def. 24a ) .
b. (of a speech sound) of dull quality; acoustically damped.


i'll be damned but i don't find "buddhist" or much else that agrees with what you mean when you say "dark".

Language is an art. It belongs to the people.

I will take number 13.
13. hidden; secret.

He lives with darkness who is not open to truth.

You won't be receiving any personal emails from me mg, at least not with the intent to argue with you. I have absolutely no desire to argue with you on a personal level.

You need to realize the BIG PICTURE here.

Clearly you out to make a case that Jesus is the "only begotten son" of the God of the Old Testament and that this is the "only way" to God.

You need to understand that this religious scenario is highly political. And I'm not speaking about any specific politics. I'm speaking with respect to humanity in general.

This religion was originally designed by men for the purpose of creating a religion that will trump all other religions.

I truly and sincerely do not believe that any genuine all-loving, all-perfect supreme being would stoop the dastardly tactics that are described in the Bible.

The whole idea of a God who would have his son crucified in a gory way to make some sort of statement should truly make anyone's skin crawl. That is simple disgusting IMHO.

I would never even consider a God that would be so sick and demented as that.

I'm sorry if you find my views to be "negative". But from my point of view the very religion that you are supporting is extremely "negative".

Sure. Jesus himself certainty stood for some great moral values. I won't deny that. But so did Confucius, and Lao Tzu, and Buddha. There was nothing special about Jesus. Nor did he have anything to offer that hadn't already been offered before, at least in terms of moral conduct ect.

Moreover, the things that Jesus taught totally fly in the face of the things that were taught in the Torah under the guise of the "God of Abraham". Why would the son of the God of Abraham have such a totally different philosophy of life and moral expectations?

The idea that Jesus was the son of the God of Abraham simply holds no merit, IMHO.

I realize that you find that conclusion to be repulsive and "negative" for YOUR AGENDA, because you would like to hold Jesus up as the divine "Only Begotten Son" of God who gave his life to make salvation possible for us.

But for me, that whole scenario associated with a supreme all-wise entity simply makes no sense. And that's my passionate conclusion.

~~~~

It NOT ABOUT JESUS mg!

If I were to tell you that I totally agree with the moral teachings of Jesus, but I simply don't believe the superstitious rumors that he was the only begotten son of God sent to be the sacrificial lamb to pay for our sins, would you accept that?

In fact, I've already told you as much.

So Christianity it's NOT about Jesus at all.

It's about trying to convince people that they are sinners and have turned against God and are in dire need of repentance, blah, blah, blah.

Jesus is just the BAIT that is used so suck people into this religion, unfortunately. I see Jesus as a VICTIM of this religion!

First he was nailed to a pole for his views that were quite contrary to the original religion. Then after he was dead and out of the way, rumors were written about him that nailed him right back onto the very doctrine that he taught against.

So he was crucified twice. Once physically, and the second time he was crucified spirituality because they basically crucified the spirit of what the man actually stood for, IMHO.

That is my sincere honest view mg.

You may see it as being "negative". But from my point of view the whole Christian facade of holding Jesus up as an excuse to support the dastardly things that were taught in the Old Testament is far more 'negative' from my point of view.

Christianity is an EXCLUSIONARY religion. They want to proclaim that everyone who doesn't believe and accept that Jesus is the LORD and SAVIOR of all mankind is simply "rejecting God" blah, blah, blah.

And to be perfectly honest with you mg, I'm sick of hearing that 'negative' crap.

Even if this story were true it would be the most pathetic situation I can imagine. You take about DARK?

If this story were true, then the ONLY WAY to obtain the LOVE of our creator is to CONDONE his methods of using blood sacrifices to pay for OUR SINS, and to confess that we are indeed guilty of being pathetically disgusting creatures who could only be "Saved" from our own pathetically inept state of being, by accepting that God had to have his only begotten son butchered to pay for are disgusting attitudes.

And then what? Then we're going to be accepted into a paradise that we were not worthy of on our own merit? And FOREVER live in the disgrace that the only reason we were allowed in is because God's Son paid for our pathetic sins that we ourselves were not worthy of redemption on our own merit?

You talk about DARK? From my point of view that's an utterly sick situation right there! I sincerely would rather God just struck me out of existence altogether with a lightening bolt. I would want no parts of any such "heaven" under those terms. If it's no obtainable under my own merit, then I want no parts of it.

If the ONLY WAY, to get to this God's LOVE, is via a bloody crucifixion, then forget it. That's just totally sick and demented, IMHO, and totally defiles any notions of "LOVE".

Moreover, I'm supposed to be expected to believe that this God actually condemns people and rejects them from his paradise simply because they don't believe this gory absurd crap?

That's even more unrighteous IMHO.

In order for me to believe in the religion that you are supporting I would need to believe that our creator is a totally unrighteous sick demented maniac.

I'm sorry if that sounds repulsive to you, but this is indeed precisely how repulsive this whole religion is to me. And it make me sick to my stomach that people try to use a pristine idea of Jesus as being the ultimately examples of "LOVE" to support the REST of this gory sick demented religion.

I truly believe that Jesus was a pantheistic-minded Jew (which was actually quite common in those days) and that he was well educated in Mahayana Buddhism, and that he probably even became a Mahayana Buddhist Bodhisattva. His behavior is modeled right after that as far as I can see, right down to the idea that he would have "disciples" that he would teach.

He taught that he and God are one. That's pantheism. He even tried to use the Torah to support his views by pointing out that even it says that "Ye are Gods". In fact, when he was accused of blaspheme when he claimed that he is the son of God that's precisely when he pointed out the fact that this is true of EVERYONE!

He also taught that whatever you do to your brother you do to him. That's pantheism.

I'm totally convinced that Jesus was trying to instill in people the far better moral values of Buddhism, whilst very cleverly rejecting the horrible moral values of the Torah.

The Torah had people judging each other and stoning sinners to death, and accusing people of being heathens, etc. Jesus renounced all of that. Jesus cleverly renounced the stoning of sinners. Jesus taught not to judge others. The Torah taught people that to seek revenge was expected by God, "And eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth". So people had no problem seeking revenge. Jesus taught forgiveness instead, and to turn the other cheek.

Jesus was the anti-thesis of the teachings attributed to the God of Abraham. He did not support those teachings at all. But obviously he had to work around them because he couldn't just come right out and renounce the religion. So he was trying to find clever ways to teach around it.

From my point of view, when the metaphorically nailed Jesus to the Old Testament as the "Only begotten Son" and "Sacrificial Lamb" of the God of Abraham that was almost a far WORSE crucifixion than when they had physically nailed him to the pole.

When they did that they ended up undermining everything that Jesus stood for, IMHO.

So in a very real sense I see "Christianity" as the anti-thesis of Jesus.

I truly do.

It ends up being a religion that merely uses Jesus as an excuse to shove the God of Abraham down everyone's throat. A fictitious God that Jesus himself did not even agree with in terms of moral teachings!

That's my sincere view of Christianity mg.

I have no problem with Jesus. But I have tons of problems with the rest of the crappy religion.

~~~

By the way, I post this here on a public forum so that other humans can also see the thoughts and view of this human.

I have no desire to send this to you as a personal email.

I have no need to "defend" my beliefs and views to you. Nor do I have any need to convince you of my view or beliefs. But I do feel that other people who read these forums may at least take away some food for thought and begin to QUESTION this religion themselves.

Because in all honesty mg, I truly feel that the world would be better off without these Abrahamic religions. Just just Christianity, but all of these Abrahamic religions.

They are based on an idea of a jealous God and that can only breed division and religious bigotry (which is CLEARLY has over the centuries).

They are also based on the insane idea that everyone is at odds with our creator. Let's get past that NEGATIVITY and start viewing God as something that we are in HARMONY with, not in OPPOSITION with!

Let's get past this negative idea that all are sinners and have fallen short of the glory of God. How sick and negative is that?

Talk about DARK?

I say that you don't need "religion."

All you do need is Love and truth.

I seek truth.

A already have love.

I will continue to seek truth.

There is a tower of lies in this world that is cloaked in religion.
That tower will fall and truth will be known.

Chip chip chip chip goes the tower.

Atheists, by definition, do not share a common belief about any afterlife. Some atheists believe in an afterlife of some kind, some don't. What atheists lack belief in is a deity.




That's weak. You quote a 16 word definition with only 3 parts and pretend this is should be taken authoritatively?

Those definitions aren't wrong, but atheist also means "without a deity".

light and love

Cheap trick mg.

So you lucked out and found a dictionary that is asinine enough to define atheist as "wicked".

Big deal.

If this is an indication as to how you go about "studying" and "supporting" your religion. If so then I think you've just lost all credibility.

You're clearly just reaching for straws to back up conclusions that you have already decided to support.

So now we understand your "study" tactics and can see that they have no merit.

You didn't write it, but you seem to think its the full story. I see no need to take anything up with webster - they are doing a great job of producing concise texts for the purpose of making money selling their product. Webster is rarely wrong in the sense of making a false assertion, but they continuously (and deliberately) leave out potentially relevant information. They are a dictionary, not an encyclopedia. Hell, even encyclopedias deliberately leave out information. Further, they are a general purpose dictionary, not a dictionary of religion nor philosophy.

The error lies not with webster, but with anyone who thinks that all of their definitions are complete.

Atheism relates to both the positive disbelief in the existence of a deity, and also the lack of belief in the existence of a deity.

That is the only necessary condition for atheism - the lack of belief in a deity. Therefore all assertions about atheists as a group which presume some other necessary condition are wrong, they are over-generalizations.

I wish you peace

I wish peace and love over you

I pray your days are blessed with peace and love

ironic how some dont think the dictionary should be an absolute authority


and some dont think the bible should be


I wonder how chaotic we might find our highly technological existence if we didnt give ANY written resource authority as a foundation,,,?



I Mean, kind of like a woman telling you she is feeling harassed by your action and arguing with her that thats her opinion,,, no kidding!..lol


how do we come to 'understanding' if we refuse to aknowledge what a speaker/writer's language is from THEIR point of reference?

I pray you have peace and love

In what way is this ironic? If anything, it seems consistent. Or were you using a non-standard use of the word irony?




This smells of fallacy, one of the fallacies dealing with absolutes.

Separately: You mention foundation, which implies a starting place, a place onto which more is built. Using a text as a starting place is completely different than using it as an ending place.




Wait... what is it exactly that is being compared to sexual harassment? Can we be specific here?



Exactly. And if someone insists that atheism can only mean 'disbelief' in deity, that is exactly what they are doing to the many people who (also correctly) use the word to mean 'lack of belief in a deity'.

Yep, I'm afraid I might have to stop using Webster and all the other materials known to define words and just make up my own meanings as I go.

I love them, but their like first graders intellectually.