Why I'm not a Christian

I am not Christian because I see that all spiritual paths lead to the same place. For some people, it takes a little longer.

When I say this, I do not mean that I am awakened. I deal with my self constantly. However, I see the light through these cataracts, and I am drawn closer.

Peace and love

 

Hi Hippie-chick666,
You are right in stating that there are two paths. There is always a right and a wrong. One path actually leads through a small gate that only few will be able to discern. The other which is larger is where most will end up. Unfortunately this is the wrong path which leads to distruction. Jesus made a claim, which was rightly His being the Son of God (born of Holy Spirit and virgin), of being the only Way and this Way leading to His Father. He backed it up with willfulling and lovingly giving His life so that we would not have to endure the dreaded wrong path for eternity. My hippie friends, that is enough for me to make a foundation for my faith. When someone loves me enough to die for me than I am willing to listen and believe in Him.

 

She did not state that there are two paths,
she was implying that there are many, and
that she doesnt tie herself down to one
religion in which members claim to hold the
only key to heaven. Of which, there are
many.
In reality, there is only two paths, either
you are going to God or your going to
yourself, one is eternal and the other temporary.
But either you misunderstood her post, or
you are putting words in her mouth by agreeing
with something she only meant in a vague way,
which you put in your own black and white.
Aum(en). -

 

Jesus is not the only way to reach the place you want to be. The place is right here, where you are now. Jesus was a messenger who told people to follow his lead and wanted all people to recognize the basic truth: The journey is the destination. Don't wait for a savior, but be your own, just like Jesus was for himself. Use Jesus's life as a model to help you reach the point he was at. Jesus was a son of god, just like we are all sons and daughters of the same god who lives within. Some call it god, others tao, while others simply call it an energy, the force behind life.

I believe that Jesus died for mankind's ignorance. Many people have, both killed by people who claimed to be one with Christ and by those who hated the idea of Jesus. It's too bad that people are still dying for the ignorance of mankind...

Peace and love

 

Very true Hippie_chick.
It's funny, because we all (well, not all of us) love
Jesus, and think of Him in our own ways, and preach
about Him and praise Him and all this nonsense, when
in reality, Jesus would tell us to forget about loving
Him and turn our attention towards God and our love
towards our fellow man.
No need to argue about the Christ, that is not even
the point of His past existance and teaching. -

 

To Relayer and Hippie_chick666,

Was not meaning to start a discussion. Was just stating my beliefs as you all have been doing for many pages. And yes Hippie_chick followers of Christ are children of God (joint heirs with Christ I believe is the term). Again not trying to argue just stating my beliefs. I will not waste time arguing when there are others out there who are seeking Christ that I can be of service to. Peace and Love to all. Again I will say that Jesus proved His love for you and I by His death and obedience to His Father.

 

I thought that was the point of stating your beliefs. When I say something, I hope it turns into a discussion. What are discussions but an exchange of ideas? If you have a different idea, then express it and I will get back to you with my idea. This is how we learn.

Peace and love

 

I guarentee you that myself and hippie are
not here to hurt anyones feelings or to
bash your beliefs Fedora. There are members
here who would love to tear your post to
peices, but what is wrong with a peaceful
open minded discussion?
This is a forum message board, not a writing
on a wall. -

Tell you what, if you want to just list your
belief, would you mind explaining to me your
conception of the Holy Spirit?
Because I LOVE reading what other people
have to say about that subject.
Much love friend. -

 

I do not believe I could save myself. Jesus was able to do this because He unlike us remained sinless the whole time He walked the earth. I understand and believe there is an original sin but even beside that I will admit that I have sinned as all of you have sinned or done wrong things. This is why we need Christ and His death on the cross. The unblemished lamb upon the slaughter table (the cross) bearing the sin of the world so that we could be forgiven and delievered from our sin is the compass I use for direction along the path I tread. I understand that Christ gave His life for us but His Father also gave His
Son so that our civilization of people would have the opportunity to live in eternity with Him. Yes God gave us a free gift just like the present you receive on a special occasion. Yet He also gave us the free will to open the present He gave us. It is our decision as to whether we open the present, accept the gift and have eternity with God or not.

 

Relayer,

I believe the Holy Spirit was given to us when Christ left the earth as one of the Trinity (Father, Son, Holy Spirit) and I believe that the Holy Spirit is our guide in the world we hike through giving us direction. He is there to utter our prayers when we are unable, to help us understand the Bible, discern a godly lifestyle from an ungodly lifestyle, and live in our hearts (body being the temple) when we commit to be a follower of Christ. Oh and by discussion I meant arguement sorry for the wrong use of the word.

 

Ok, Fedora, would you mind copying and pasting this
a new thread I just started called Holy Spirit in
the very same Christianity forum?
I should not really have brought up this question
and ran the thread off topic.
Im sorry! -

 

Would anyone care to agree or disagree with my post #47?Yes?No?

 

Yes, I don't think that Jesus wanted to be worshipped.

Peace and love

 

You say this, and then you say:

So you're saying some people WANT 'unwholesome' results? Nope, sorry... coming up with some metaphor about planting vegetables (almost as if you're saying 'you reap what you sow'!) isn't going to change the fact that it's all about making people feel guilty for doing things they 'shouldn't' do-- like if you kill someone selfishly and you believe in karma, then you probably believe that something horrible will happen to you, or that you are a horrible person, or something... it's remarkably similar to 'eye for an eye', isn't it?

Also, if bad things happen to a person, they'll think it's because they're working off some debt they incurred in a former life-- so instead of fighting what could very well be their own exploitation and suppression by a ruling class, the 'bad karma' victim (or untouchable) would just accept his role in society, and accept the oppression as though it were payment owed for some horrible misdeeds in a former life.

To me it seems likely that the concept of karma is about maintaining the social order and the caste system-- you create this notion of reincarnation and then add in karma and suddenly everyone is freed from their will to struggle against oppression... they passively accept their role in society and acquiesce to their position, attempting to redeem themselves from that distant, unknown cause of their suffering.

 

If you kill someone selfishly, wether you believe
in karma or not, something most definitley will
happen to you, and chances are it wont be all
that comfortable.
Eye for an eye?
No, that would be revenge, karma is natural
order.
Revenge is a personal matter, whereas karma
is Nature dealing with us for flowing against
Her natural design.

 

Thanks for explaining it better than I can, Relayer.

Peace and love

 

Thanks for liking my explanation hippie

 

That wasn't the point... in fact, you selectively quoted an aside which was admittedly probably the weakest part of that entire post... though I still think even that point is valid-- basically, instead of a 'hands on' approach to retribution, it's a 'hands off'... intended to discourage the potential perpetrator from attempting the crime in the first place-- probably a better means of control, however a means of control nonetheless...

My point is that believers want to AVOID bad karma, which means they are just as GUILTED as Christians... for fear of cosmic retribution, the wrath of unseen forces, or basically, God's revenge...

Eastern religions are just as much about social control as Christianity was/is... and sin and karma are remarkably similar tools.

Furthermore, I object to the tendency here to view Eastern religions as 'right' and Western ones as 'wrong'... especially when they're both intended to induce psychological states that limit the thoughts and actions of their followers.

Someone here has mentioned that Eastern religions are about escaping the physical plain-- an that also means that believers are apathetic and uninvolved in what's transpiring around them... and I honestly think that the popularity of these religions on this site has less to do with a desire to 'transcend the bonds of physicality',
and more to do with an unwillingness to accept certain worldly responsibilities... or possibly it's appealing because everyone wants to achieve some abstract personal pleasure, identical to the effects experienced through the recreational use of psychedelic drugs.

In fact, I would guess all that you really want is to feel good, or alive. Human beings need to justify themselves and have pursuits... they need to feel like they're moving forward... so Eastern religions offer that feeling-- but of course, they delay the actual result indefinitely, confining it to some distant abstraction...

The truth is that nothing is certain, and nothing can be known. We're all just people, and nothing more, and that's just a word, really. No one is more special than anyone else. If you can help society move forward, then maybe you will be held in high regard... but there's nothing really special about moving society forward. Not really.

You don't want to suffer or sacrifice, even though you've probably never known either a day in your lives... I mean, not really. You can dramatize the events of your existence all you like, but at the end of the day someone always has it worse, and none of it matters.

Honestly, we can all keeping talking until the bullshit leaks out of our ears, and it's not going to bring any of us closer to anything.

I think the best way to take our existence is by realizing that nothing has weight-- it's all just meaningless, unimportant fluff... and it should be treated as such. Nothing you do has any bearing on anything whatsoever. Nothing you say or believe could possibly be true. It's not even a start. It's not even a step in the right direction. In fact, there probably are no directions. Or there are, but they don't go anywhere.

Even what I'm saying now is total and utter bullshit. Now watch someone take that quote and use it as an excuse to ignore everything I've already said... and who cares, because ultimately, all such discussion is utterly pointless.

 

That wasnt the point? Um, yea its was, that is
what the summary of your weak perception on
karma comes down to.
And assuming we dont know what suffering is?
Obviously you know it all lol.

And your point about us avoiding bad karma is
also completley one sided, incomplete, and
misinformed. That is definitley an uneducated
guess.
The 'point' is to stop living a lie, and to cease
the machinery of your human being from generating
ANY karma, good or bad.
Karma only applies to those who have not erased
desire from their souls.
The desire to do good, the desire to do bad. They
are both selfish desires.

 

"
Certain things in your life matter to you because they're important; your acts are certainly important to you, but for me, not a single thing is important any longer, neither my acts nor the acts of any of my fellow men. I go on living though, because I have my will . Because I have tempered my will throughout my life until it's neat and wholesome and now it doesn't matter to me that nothing matters. My will controls the folly of my life.

Once a man learns to see he finds himself alone in the world with nothing but folly. Your acts, as well as the acts of your fellow men in general, appear to be important to you because you have learned to think they are important.

We learn to think about everything, and then we train our eyes to look as we think about the things we look at. We look at ourselves already thinking that we are important. And therefore we've got to feel important! But then when a man learns to see , he realizes that he can no longer think about the things he looks at, and if he cannot think about what he looks at everything becomes unimportant. Everything is equal and therefore unimportant.

We need to look with our eyes to laugh. When our eyes see , everything is so equal that nothing is funny. My laughter, as well as everything I do is real but it also is controlled folly because it is useless; it changes nothing and yet I still do it.

One must always choose the path with heart in order to be at one's best, perhaps so one can always laugh.

You don't understand me now because of your habit of thinking as you look and thinking as you think. By "thinking" I mean the constant idea that we have of everything in the world. Seeing dispels that habit and until you learn to see you will not really understand what I mean.

Our lot as men is to learn. I have learned to see and I tell you that nothing really matters. A man of knowledge lives by acting, not by thinking about acting, nor by thinking about what he will think when he has finished acting. A man of knowledge chooses a path with heart and follows it; and then he looks and rejoices and laughs; and then he sees and knows. He knows that his life will be over altogether too soon; he knows that he, as well as everybody else, is not going anywhere; he knows, because he sees , that nothing is more important than anything else. In other words, a man of knowledge has no honor, no dignity, no family, no name, no country, but only life to be lived, and under these circumstances his only tie to his fellow men is his controlled folly. Thus a man of knowledge endeavors, and sweats, and puffs, and if one looks at him he is just like any ordinary man, except that the folly of his life is under control. Nothing being more important than anything else, a man of knowledge chooses any act, and acts it out as if it matters to him. His controlled folly makes him say that what he does matters and makes him act as if it did, and yet he knows that it doesn't; so when he fulfills his acts he retreats in peace, and whether his acts were good or bad, or worked or didn't, is in no way part of his concern.

You think about your acts, therefore you have to believe your acts are as important as you think they are, when in reality nothing of what one does is important. Nothing! But then if nothing really matters, as you ask me, how can I go on living? It would be simple to die; that's what you say and believe, because you're thinking about life, just as you're thinking now what seeing would be like. You want me to describe it to you so you can begin to think about it, the way you do with everything else. In the case of seeing , however, thinking is not the issue at all, so I cannot tell you what it is like to see . Now you want me to describe the reasons for my controlled folly and I can only tell you that controlled folly is very much like seeing ; it is something you cannot think about.

Our lot as men is to learn and, as I've said, one goes to knowledge as one goes to war; with fear, with respect, aware that one is going to war, and with absolute confidence in oneself. Put your trust in yourself. There's no emptiness in the life of a man of knowledge, everything is filled to the brim and everything is equal. For me there is no victory, or defeat, or emptiness. Everything is filled to the brim and everything is equal and my struggle is worth my while." - A Separate Reality

Christianity, as with all religions, is very complicated; especially since there doesn't seem to be anyway for us all to see eye to eye on anything. It's always been that way though, and always will be.