Reading The Bible Properly Can Improve One's Reasoning Skills.

My claim, you changed the original quote.

 

Your claim is, IMHO, invalid. So invalid that you refused to make a report to the Moderators for violating the TOS.

 

These cult leaders I believe never experience real happiness just as Hitler was probably unhappy that opposition grew against his immoral ways (genocides, eugenics etc).

Jesus was tempted by devil but resisted during his 40days in ?desert? A pious Christian (follower of Christ) must thus have a charitable heart an read the bible BOTH proactively as well as reactively for the word to guide his/her ways: that I he only way to avoid the distraction (being waylaid by) of the devil.

 

Reality IMHO is what individuals subjectively perceive. E.g. : The pain of hunger may be reality to a poor family but not the rich one even within the same city/society.

Truth is the deeper undercurrent occurring REGARDLESS of what individual observations are: e.g. pre 2008 Lehman crisis: reality was that property market was booming because housing loan derivatives made $$$ easily available to all, but truth was that it was calm before the storm of investors coming to their senses that CDO were just a sham: thus the crash in property prices (+++ foreclosures) and the near collapse of USA financial system if not for the USD$5trillion package that the USA treasury spent to replace bank (etc) capital lost.

Truth is that God created everything from planet earth to the tiniest microbe. Reality is our individual (subjective) experience(s) thus far...

 

As mentioned, '99%' is probably a statistic of your creation without proper substantiation. In any case, being merely a bumper sticker Christian or just lover of Christian artifacts will probably not count.

King Soloman (in story about 2 woman disputing the parenthood status of one child) was able to arrive at a decision nobody would deny were in the best interest of the neonate: likewise, God I feel would be competent to choose as his angels, those able to serve the good of His creation as a whole. Those adept at japanese cosplay skills who try to game the system by dressing up as catholic priests or Christian pastors: I don't think such disguises would in any way count...

The God of creation is an able God: I have no doubt in His ability to act in the best interest of the enduring beauty and stability of the universe He hath created...

 

As stated, I read the bible (more than once) in a neutral frame of mind. love/charity are big features of my own life, so frequently direct my thoughts - and these are the reasons I loathed your bible. I can live love/charity without recourse to a reward/punishment scheme expressed by men on behalf of an utterly awful deity. In fact I submit that love/charity is purer without it.

I can sleep easily without the need to imagine an invisible superhero has taken a special interest in me and will reward my awesomeness with immortality.

 

such vanity ....

 

how do you think YOUR cult has survived these two thousand years? by terrifying children with threats of damnation for the 'sin' of distraction. calling rational enquiry and unbiased critique 'being waylaid by the devil', in other words.

 

I guess your god is okay with ebola and childhood cancer

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I guess your god is okay with ebola and childhood cancer

 

The bible is a very expansive book, like encyclopaedia Britannica: much of the content not of immediately relevant to oneself at the start.
In any case, one cannot deny that many if not all the deeds of Jesus benfited the poor/lame/ outcast in society and the parables He taught are sensible and of steadfast moral value.

For those really committed to a life of love and charity, I believe that Jesus Christ is a good example to follow. Of course the life span of everyone is different, so the levels of enlightenment attained will differ: however, having an example to follow is a very good start.

PS: one could also possibly get upset with the bible because Jesus Christ has set a high standard to follow and almost everyone I know or read about cannot meet up to His standard (suffer 'needless' pain to solve other people's problem): so unless humble many will see Jesus Christ as a rival/ reminder of their own inadequacy: thus the reflex aversion to Jesus Christ until one finally correctly recognises Jesus as God: and then the relationship blossoms...

U can call Jesus imaginary if U wish: I have Previously mentioned that I consider all mainstream religions true to a certain extent. Just like transportation journey routes: some are circuitous, some fall a few miles short of final destination, some are plagued by jams and delays: whatever floats your boat...

 

I'm sorry to say you've crossed the line between reasoned defence of your position to flat out comedy.

perhaps you're unaware if how funny it is to have someone suggest that the reason you don't adore and worship Odin, or Zeus, is because you see them as rivals ... reminding you of your own inadequacy. think about this for a minute ... you may then gain 'enlightenment'. if not enlightenment, at least some understanding that your jesus has precisely as much relevance and power in our lives as Odin does in yours. we spend time addressing christianity primarily not because it's stronger medicine (which is what you probably believe) but because it happens to be the brand of woo right in our faces. as for the vast majority of believers, the religion most prominent is merely an accident of birth. nothing whatsoever to do with merit.

 

He is not okay with it but just like an ill maintained car breaks down frequently, cancer and Ebola are just symptoms of a lack of enlightenment amongst men consequent of the fall (genesis chapter 3)...e.g. If people were less greedy/selfish, Africans would be better educated and have both knowledge and facilities to prevent Ebola outbreak in the first place (contact precautions), not least developed a vaccine etc by now.... Cancers are largely he product of pollution if not bad genes (some of which may be due to mutations in parents genetic code due to environmental pollution suffered by generations before).
HIV is made more virulent by homosexuals (etc) continually doing unsafe sex etc...

 

do you give your children sharp knives to play with?

always a good idea to consider the implications of what you're about to defend.

 

By your own claim you are not surrounded by believers living in a majority atheist country. You seek out Christianity through this forum, nobody puts any of this in front of your face, you do.

You may be unaware of how funny it is for you to constantly reference false gods that nobody on here claims to exist and somehow believe that is relevant to the discussion.

 

You didn't offer up an alternative number. So I must be close.
But very very few christians are in the category you state, enlightenment.

 

muslims do not come to my doorstep to tell me I'm doomed if I don't immediately join their cult. Hindus don't impose their strange pre-dinner superstitious rituals on me. Buddhists didn't tell my kids they'd be tortured for eternity if they didn't worship the lord buddha. and yes, I seek out christianity through this forum - obviously! because christians are the ones doing the above. oy vay

odin and and zeus are precisely as false as yahweh, so entirely relevant. that's the point !!

 

I'd bet hitler was in a state on enlightenment and purity when he started out. He was making his world a better place.

 

But here is the deal here with this enlightenment. I do think the actual teaching of Christ who was basically destroying the Judaic religion for they were wrong in their beliefs. And if you are to believe the NT we can see what happens when you go after the established religion and its authority held by its priests. And I think that his teachings was indeed showing man the way to enlightenment but they were corrupted early on words added ideas added to him by those who wanted his teachings to be more in line with jewish religious tradition which was wrong. So these corrupters gave us a Christ who kept the jewish idea of blood sacrifice alive, and turned him into a blood sacrifice. But this was not what he was teaching. What he was teaching was more in line to the teachings we see from him in the gnostic gospel, the gospel of Thomas, which contained only his teachings and not some sort of history that was turning him into something he was not. He was a bringer of light, of understanding the right understanding, but that went against the way the jews believed.

Now, if you keep that in mind, and this is what I saw when I first read the entire bible twice, it starts to make a helluva lot more sense, and it gets rid of the stupidness of modern day Christian orthodoxy, and their silly beliefs. For it is indeed silly to think that the creator of this universe needed to have himself killed, in order to save humanity. That is absurd, and no proper creator of this universe would even resort to such foolishness. Now what he might do, is to simply come down, in a human body, and show humanity that he was living in them, if only they would take the right path in order to let him manifest in them, and bring order to this world. For our own egos, run these bodies, and the ego is the problem. He wanted us to transcend the ego, which takes it out of the drivers seat, so that he might inhabit it. So that intelligence might inhabit man. And if you read what Christ was saying about the kingdom of god being within man not outside man, and one must seek it in order to be enlightened, then what he was saying is not any different from Buddhism or Hinduism, or Taoism. It is in fact the perennial philosophy that seeks to change man, which would literally bring a different sort of world. And not world of war, suffering, strife, but one of complete order. For we are society, our inner state is reflected in how society is. If we are inwardly only self interested, that will be our society. If inwardly we are a mess, full of disorder, hate, envy, jealousness, competitiveness, that will be our society.

And so this idea of Christ returning is what the orthodox Christians are so wrong about. His return will be when humanity becomes like he was not driven by an ego, and he will in a way appear again but within humanity. Not coming with his sword to wage war, to kill humans. That is sheer nonsense, to be coming from the creator of this universe.

So there is enlightenment in the NT, if you can separate the diamonds from the pile of dung, place there by ego driven men, who didn't understand the teachings of Christ. For a genuine religion will offer a way to change man, and really change him, which will require a revolution in consciousness itself, no just intellectually accepting a set of beliefs. In fact, there is no place in this change for intellect at all. Intellect, is the problem, for it does nothing but create all of these absurd ideas, and then it worships what it created. Christians are simply worshipping something men long ago created, as a belief system. And instead of following where Christ and others in history were pointing, they grabbed his finger and started worshipping it, while never changing at all. They were still infected with the same consciousness as they had before. They never changed. For if they had of, Christianity would not have the history that it has, nor would any other religion have their brutal, evil histories.

 

Are you saying Jesus is just one of the messangers? Christ isn't the only way, but other religions of enlightenment are as 'equally valid'?

 

I read the bible because as a Christian I wanted to know God better, thing was, the bible made me realize the God as described in the bible was nothing I would worship as a God, it was obviously a myth, a work of fiction... once you realize that, there is no going back..... it's like learning the truth about Santa....

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Interesting. I wouldn't think a majority Atheist country would have those problems. Maybe you just live in the wrong neighborhood.

 

unjust laws can be changed, but the bad things in the bible\koran can not...

 

What is it about the God that Jesus described that was so offensive?

 

I reference Reality, which is the force behind the Truth that manifests, one frame after the next, timelessly.
It does have "feeling" like jealousy against untrue fantasies that people use to compete with it.
And, Reality loves all life forms which have adapted to its ways, and feeds and nourishes them, continually.

 

?
You deny Reality and oppose it because you think Reality is cruel or unworthy, yet you must adapt to it or your tyope will become extinct and left to whatever other "god" you feel is better.

And, you are the product of a continuous line of adaptions for millions of years which have all adapted to Reality.