Jesus Christ

lol

 

I think Darrell Kitchen, in his gentle Buddhist manner, is giving us a warning that our discussion is getting off message. What could he mean by that? Possibly, that we're devoting at least as much time to personal jabs and insults as we are to the topic at hand. So I'll repent and try to sin no more. Possibly other Christians might try it, too.

 

I was laughing at OWB's reply to you is all, not anything else.

I get what you mean, and I understand Darrell Kitchen's reply.

What else would we like to discuss that concern's OP topic message?

Overall, I have no idea how Jesus' message is in anyway dogmatic. It has to be the least dogmatic message we have to date. Every other message has us live in a fixed way, while Christianity offers a lot more personal freedom while at the same time keeping us focused on what's important in life and giving us the tools to avoid consequences that we need to avoid. But that is only when we take Jesus' message and integrate it with the messages of the prophets and look at the Bible as a whole while at the same time using the Bible as a reference guide. This will give further grounding on Jesus' message and will leave little to no room for the creation of personal interpretation. Without personal interpretation, we can avoid the dogma.

I can't think of any other religion in the world that is ridiculed and misrepresented as harshly as Christianity. I guess those that call themselves Christians and are not as having something to do with this, and that's an understatement. Instead of 3:16 being the 'most important' verse, maybe it should replaced with Acts 17:11.

Austin 17:11 instead of Austin 3:16.

 

This point still stands tho.

I don't even know where you Christians got this idea of God being this massive controlling possessive jealous being in the sky. It's like y'all volunteer to live in fear of everything especially common sense.

 

Actually, no.

You have taken a statement out of context and have blown it out of proportion.

For example, a person may own a tiger and may even love that "tame" tiger but that does not change the fact that they should have a healthy fear of that tiger and what it can do.

Isn't God more powerful than any tiger? Why do you consider God any less worthy of our fear?

If you truly knew the God of the Bible, you would know that he is not the being you describe.

 

I fear God in the same way that I fear hurting my mother.

 

Good point.

 

To say that there is a supreme all knowing infinitely wise being controlling every aspect to existence in all it's forms is a bold statement.

To say that the best idea it came up with to spread word of it's love and indeed in some cases existence was a crude human sacrifice in bronze age Palestine is embarrassing in my opinion.

 

It comes from understanding genesis 1-3. I would say that this is one of the most important parts of the Bible because it gives precedent for the rest of the faith. Everything follows from it, which is one of the reasons why it's in the beginning of the Bible and not the end.

This assumes that you have a better way.

Also, it's not just about showing love. People have understood God's love before because many have walked with God before Jesus' arrival.

If we love others as we love ourselves and focus on keeping our actions and intentions kindly and gentle then we are very good candidates in understanding God's love.

Jesus' sacrifice was about paying a debt of sin brought on by Adam and Eve. That despite the evils being used against Jesus, he remained true to himself till the very end and continued to have faith in God's plan. Jesus had to be that pinnacle of humanity to save us. We're dealing with a spiritual existence and it runs on this essence.

Maybe crude, but it was crude due to the sins of man. The crudeness came from our sins, it didn't come from God.

That may not provide the answer that you're looking for, but it may be something closer to an answer. The idea is that we let the Bible speak for itself. If we look at the Bible as mere ramblings of man then that's all it'll be then we'll look at it in that perspective. If we look at it with this perspective then it lessens our ability to consider ideas that we could not otherwise because we have already assumed that it was written by God rather than man. If we look at the Bible as a whole, rather than focusing on parts, and we consider the possibility that it was written by God then it leaves room for an understanding that we could not have arrived at otherwise. We don't read parts of Shakespeare to understand Shakespeare. Why would it be any different for any other book? Why would it be different for the Bible? Because it was written by different men through the years? So? What about it? That assumes so much.

We are dealing with a different kind of reasoning here. A different kind of evidence. That's hard to consider because many would be fearful of the possible consequences. We think, "Maybe if I give in, then my reason dies along with it and then I am entrapped?" I went through those thoughts so I have an idea of what that is about. I can safely say that my reasoning abilities have not dwindled. The Bible never asks for blind obedience anyway. Just like the Buddha, it asks us to question everything unless it follows our reason. I personally found that it does. It's just not necessarily the kind of reason most people think up. That's not to say that other ways of thinking are untrue, they are just parts of the same coin and they are both useful. What would be better? A chariot with one horse or two?

In the end, much of this is difficult to describe in words. That sounds like a cop out, but there will be those out there that have an idea of what I mean when I say that. Try to express the experience we have when we bite into an onion then put that into words. We can give a good description, but in the end, only a description. It says nothing about the experience itself.

 

I'm not sure which "God" you are talking about but although the God of the Bible is infinitely wise, he has no desire to control "every aspect to existence in all it's forms" if he had a desire to do that he would have never given us free will.

As def zeppelin so nicely put it, the purpose of Jesus "crude human sacrifice in bronze age Palestine" was to help mankind get back what it once lost. That purpose is still being worked out by God.

But people continue to think that they can do things better than God, the trouble is why aren't they?

Please take a good look around you. What do you see? A world at peace? A brotherhood of Man? Or do you see pollution? Global warming? Hatred and violence? War after war? Mankind on the edge of extinction?

You seem to believe that God doesn't exist so who can these problems be blamed on, wouldn't that be man himself?

According to the Bible, man thought he could do a better job than God in running things and God has given man the time to prove it one way or another. How much more time do you want God to give man? Should God allow man to become extinct just to prove the point?

 

Yes.

Our frontal lobes are to small and our adrenal glands to large, we make rash judgments without thinking ahead and we are afraid of death and some of us will believe in anything to sate our terror of the unknown.

 

Actually, I was ok with death before becoming a theist. I didn't use theism to shield anything.

Some theists believe in God and no afterlife. Same goes for deists.

 

Fear god in the same way you fear taxes.

 

Because you feel that it is oppressive?

To you, is Jesus' message oppressive?

 

What gives you so much comfort in death?

 

Yea because the Bible pretty much describes God as evil. You're right, I have no clue who that being is.

LMAO @ being "worthy" of fear. LMAO even harder @ "healthy fear".

God is Love and only a fool would fear Love. Fear is actually what keeps people away from God. Look at your religion for example, it is based much more on fear than it is on Love. Do you communicate with God directly, or do you have your priest/pastor/etc pass the word for you? Your religion teaches y'all that God is a being other than yourself that you will meet when you die if you're lucky. You get "lucky" by following what the Bible says otherwise there will be hell to pay, literally. I learn at least 95% of what I know directly from God, while taking bits and pieces of information from other people. You get just about 100% of your information from the Bible, a book written by other men. Whether you realize it or not, you place your faith in the words of other human beings, not God. I'm not saying you don't Love God, I'm sure you do. But loving God through words written by other people that cannot tell you how to verify those words for yourself just keeps you in the dark. You find God by looking within yourself, not opening up a book and remembering some verses out of it.

And terrible analogy btw. You're comparing God who is all knowing and all loving to a wild animal who's level of intelligence is nowhere even close to humans, let alone God.

 

Can't suffer if you're dead. I always had that view and accepted that since there is nothingness in death then it isn't really bad. It might be bad right before death but after that, nothing. You can't worry about being dead if you're dead.

And yes, I believe in the resurrection. But to say that I use it as a shield to comfort my fears just assumes much. Because like I said, death didn't bother me before and does not bother me now.

 

I for one am not scared of death.

However...

Even before I had my spiritual awakening, I wasn't scared to die. I mean the pain of being murdered (I come from a wild neighborhood, that's the way I figured I'd die if it weren't from old age) is some shit I wanna avoid at all costs but death itself was always the shit to me. It sound fucked up because you can't feel pleasure, but I look at it like you can't feel pain. Not to mention sleeping is prolly the most peaceful times of our lives (mine anyway) which is the thing we do in life that most resembles death.

I'm personally not sure what happens when we die. I tried to find out but I decided that I'll focus on making the most of this life and cross that bridge when I get there. Maybe the answer will be revealed to me along the way but I can promise you my belief in God has absolutely nothing to do with a fear of death.

 

If no one suffers after death what point is there in a life following christ or any other delusion?

 

Because death is an illusion. When we "die", we lose nothing but control of this physical body. None of us have to walk the path of Christ, some of us choose to. If you choose not to, that's fine. I'm personally not in the business of trying to get people to accept what I say as Truth. I simply tell people to find the Truth in themselves and leave the rest up to them.