Something that just crossed my mind; I just thought thanks to the index of philosohpy and religion that there are alot more religions than Christianity. Naturally I already knew this, but I just realised the differences between all of those religions: different god's, different saviour's, different ways of living. Not only god's, but also spirituality with or without a true God as the most powerfull being. Now... how do we know which religion is right? Hindu's? Christians? Atheists? Who will know and how can we know, your thoughts?
My thoughts= that you are an idiot and so is your mom..Have you ever heard of the word realized?... "Now...how do we know which religion is right?".....Look up your ass, I'm sure you'll find the answer.. :toetap:
I think al religions have some form of truth in them. It's just a matter of filtering the bullshit out, and what remains then is something called theosophy.
Have you ever heard of the phrase: "Suck my cock or reply in a normal way"? I'm sure you heard off it. I couldnt find it, so could you be so kind to give me a anal inspection, or can you just reply to the question in the first post rather then making a utterly pointless post that does not contribute anything at all.
If you figure the bible as truth, then indeed it doesnt. Oh and with Noah's ark the animals do have to shit, dont they.
You try to go back to the origin or roots of a religion. take for instance Christianity, it all started with the Gnostici who created their own version of the story of Osiris, Dionysis, Mithras etc. in the form of Jesus Christ, and basicly kept the essence of these stories wich where allegoric and ment for spiritual enlightment. The Gnosticti weren't prepaired that so many people actually took these stories litterly and eventually this resulted in Christianity as we know it today; a totaly different 'religion' as it was ment to be. I could be more detailed on this but i have a fucking headache at the moment.
That's more like I am thinking aswell: A way of life that someone suggested that has gone far out of control
The one thing that is always true is simple... it's called love. Any religion with an inch of truth is based on love.
What people should realize but most fail to do is that all religions are born out of a cultural/historical context. This has been touched on in a theistic sense, but i will bring about a more theoretical response. I will answer your question with a paraphrased statement from Emile Durkheim who states that "all religions are true for the believer", meaning that to an adherent to a faith, their religion is true. Pondering on this point as someone of faith, but to believe in a religion that claims to be "the Truth", must the adherent explicitly deny the other faiths?
I have to disagree that Christianity was born out of a Gnostic movement in the 1st C. There is little doubt in scholars mind that a Jesus of Nazareth did exist and taught about "the kingdom of god" to people in Roman occupied Palestine. That is all the historical information we "know" about him as aman. What we can reconstruct is the various groups and sect and communities that grew out of the so caleld "Jesus Movement". The earlies document we have for the Jesus movement is the Q Gospel, which is a reconstructed selection of saying that 3 different groups attributed to Jesus (not Christ, but Jesus). These included Cynic sayings, Miracle stories, and Pronouncements all related to a specific group of people. To make big leaps, we can use Paul's letters as a window into Chrsit communities to see what problems they were facing and it seems that more often than not their problems are things that many Chrsitians take for granted, like what happens when we die and the like. The last major shift that takes place is the "Christ bios", or "lifes of Christ" which is what the gospels are. The gospels cumlulate the Chrsit myth drawing on the writings of the Jesus movements to create an ideal life of their savior, each pandering to their speific cultural/historical (post 2nd Temple) context. For example, in Luke, Jesus seems to be preaching to the poor, so perhaps the Luke community was a poor community and in Chrsit they saw the ability to be "rich" in spirit. Also, gnostic cults are not meant to be symbolic? Also, Christianity isn't that gnostic? Also, why would more gnostic gospels be supressed in the canon of the NT while these gnostic stories allowed to flourish? Also, Why would gnostic writers about a Jewish movement identify Yaweh as the demiurge when Jesus says pray to the Father? Also, did you know that acctualy gnositicism is from mainly the 3-4th C. and not the 1st. The cults you refer to are death-erssurection cults.
You mean in the mind of prejudiced Christian theologians. What historical information? There is no such thing as the Q Gospel. I don't know what you are trying to say here, but it's interesting that you mention Paul because he was most likely a Gnostic. Again i don't know what you are trying to say. These are very vague questions. That depends on how you define gnosticism. Exactly.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burton_L._Mack Wouldn't call hi a Christian theologin trying to promote Christianity though. Well gathering from what the early movement must have been like, all we can know "for sure" (note quotations) is that jesus taught something about the kingdom of god, whatever that means. The writings of Paul seem to try to explain what that entails. How do you explain the Synoptic problem then? If they do not share a common source then they can be multiply atested and used as evidence to verify each other. How was Paul a gnostic? More then anything he was a Jewish reformer. He never denied the old faith, just that you cannot "get in" to Israel by doing/performing specific acts, only by faith. Yes he does have some gnostic elements, such as a symbolic death and ressurection with baptism, but h isn't pervasivly gnostic. He seems more concerned about how to live in a Roman world as a Gentile Christian. I am trying to say that the first shift in the formation of Christianity was the shift of thought from jesus to Christ, and the second is to writing down a Life of Chrsit as a narrative in their own cultural/historical context. I am sorry. Many of those question marks aren't supposed to be there, it should read: Well that is how i define it Exactly, so with my definition, they aren't gnostic, but cults that follow a similar narrative pattern. Maccabees follows a similar pattern too where the brothers are martyrs for the cause and their death leads to a salvation.
