This is absolutely correct.

People who believe that religion in general is a detriment to humanity, or that any specific religious dogma is a detriment to society, have every right to speak their thoughts on why they feel that this is the case.

Discussions about religion don't need to support religious beliefs. On the contrary, they can be observations of precisely why a person feels that such beliefs are totally unwarranted and/or potentially harmful to society.

Those are perfectly valid point to make about religions.

And this is especially true of ancient religious doctrine the accuse all of humanity of "falling from Grace" from their God and needed to appease the God by supporting the religion.

That's an accusation against everyone and therefore everyone has a right to state why they feel that such accusations are totally without merit and/or appear to be utterly absurd.

Those are certainly valid concerns about religions.

We all have to live in the same world with the "Jihadists".

So we all have a RIGHT to speak out against this foolishness.

Yeah right.

I think I'll accept the knowledge gained by the Human Genome project and dismiss your religious propaganda that is obviously false.

There was no God that cursed women with painful childbirth as a form of punishment.

There was no God that instructed some guy to build an ark to save all the animal species on Earth whilst the God drowns out all the "sinners" with a great flood.

Get real.

These fables don't have any more merit than the fables of Greek mythology.

And then you expect people to believe that this God had his son nailed to a pole to pay for the sins of men?

It just goes from utterly absurd, to intensely insane.

All for what? Just to support a religion that worships the EGO of a dastardly jealous God who will be mean to anyone who doesn't obey him and worship his EGO.

What truly amazes me more than anything is the fact anyone actually still believes these ancient superstitions today.

These fables were invented by people who believed that the gods controlled the weather, natural disasters, disease, plagues and all sort of things (including painful childbirth). And when they don't feel like attributing these things to the God they blame them on a demon.


~~~~~

The very story of the flood alone proves that the fables are false in a general sense. We don't even need to show that the flood never happened. It's a contradiction to the central theme of the story.

This God is supposed to know what he's doing and be unchanging in character.

Well, if he knew that he was going to have his son nailed to a pole to pay for the sins of men he would have never needed to create a flood to flood out sinners. He should have sent Jesus long before things ever got that far out of control.

In fact, if he were truly a consistent God who had an actual plan he would have had Jesus appear directly before Adam and Eve and give them the choice right then and there whether or not to repent.

These stories don't even stand consistent on their own merit. There's not even any need to speak about looking at external events to see if they warrant serious consideration. We can see just by the stories themselves that they are grossly inconsistent with the character that their "God" is supposed to have.

So they don't merit anymore consideration than the fables of Zeus, etc. They are clearly nothing more than a collection of totally incompatible fables.

I mean, if someone wants to believe in these things for themselves in some hope that they might be true, then I could understand that to some degree. Perhaps they feel that if the stories aren't true they'll naturally die and they can't handle that, so they need to believe in a religion to believe in "eternal life".

I can understand that kind of personal desperation.

However, to go around implying and suggesting that other people are refusing to believe in these stories when there is tons of evidence to support them is truly lame.

The evidence that they are false superstitions is overwhelming.

And far more importantly, the behavior and character of the God that these stories ultimately depict doesn't even remotely match up with the "righteous" or "wise" character that this God is supposed to have.

Cursing all women with painful childbirth is nothing short of cruel and mean.

Asking people to atone sins by killing animals is utterly stupid, IMHO.

Condoning and supporting male-chauvinism is far from a quality that I would personally consider "divine".

A God having his son butchered and nailed to a pole as part of his plan to "pay" for the sins of mankind is nonsense. With this God ALL THINGS ARE SUPPOSED TO BE POSSIBLE. Well if that's the case, then this God could surely forgive people without having to have his son beaten raw and nailed to a pole.

It's just one contradiction after another endlessly.

Nothing adds up.

The God depicted in these stories would be an absolute insane mess.

If we're going to place FAITH in something, let's have FAITH that these Hebrew stories are absolutely false.

As I've often said, a purely atheistic universe would be far more SANE than what these ancient fables require of their God.

I would much rather just die at the end of my physical life anyway, than to be offered eternal life worshiping a male-chauvinistic God who is quick to delve out crude punishments to anyone who fails to obey and agree with his insane desires.

Just close my eyes, lights-out, and the show's over. That would be FAR BETTER than the Christian story.

So even atheism is a prettier picture.

~~~~

Fortunately, the truth of reality doesn't need to come down to being between atheism or some glorified human-like judgmental Mediterranean godhead.

Fortunately, there are other possibilities. The Eastern Mystics have come up with some truly wonderful spiritual philosophies that offer both eternal life and a sane picture of God.

It's a highly intellectual picture that is hard for many humans to wrap their minds around. But actually that's in its favor!

After all, if our creator truly is that far above us in intelligence, power, and wisdom, then it should be a difficult concept for us to grasp. So that makes sense.

There's nothing hard to grasp about the Hebrew God, he's got more flaws that most mortal men. In fact, you constantly compare him with mortal parents and act as though he should be just as lame and helpless as mortal parents.

Perhaps that's why the Hebrew religion is easy for you to accept. You don't seem to expect God to be much more intelligent, powerful, or omniscient than a mere mortal human. So it's not hard for you to imagine a God doing things pretty much the way mortal humans might try to handle them.

I can't even view it like that because I've met far too many mortal humans that even appear to be far more intelligent than the Hebrew picture of God. So the biblical God doesn't even appear to me to be as intelligent as many mortal human's I've met. And clearly that's not going to fly as a model for the creator of this universe and all humanity.

~~~~~~

But evidently it works for you.

I hope you get your "gift" of eternal life since that seems to be the major factor that draws you to this religion. It would be a real shame if you missed out on that after all your dedication to supporting this idea.

I don't believe you Cowboy. You had previously held the position that you are a "servant of God" out to spread his word. You have claimed to have "personal discussions" with God on a regular basis, etc.

And you also continually "argue" with people about what God supposedly expects from them. You even argue with other Christains about this.

You constantly speak as though you hold the LAST WORD for what Jesus and God expect from people, and on how things from the Bible should be interpreted.

You also continually accuse people of the FOLLOWING:



So you are indeed out to PROVE to people that they are simply dismissing evidence, that you claim exists.

~~~~~~~



Exactly.

And a lot of people disagree with this conclusion, including myself.

There is no scientific evidence to back up any such thing as a world-wide flood during the time when humans existed on this planet.

Moreover, the human genome project shows the evolution of mankind out of Africa. They have collected enough DNA samples from bones of dead humans to see how humans have migrated out of Africa and have evolved to become technological beings.

There is no possible way that a world-wide flood could have existed during the time that humans were capable of building cities and writing stories. Such a catastrophic event would have shown up in the DNA evidence of humanity in a profound way, yet there is no break in the DNA evidence.

Therefore no such catastrophic world-wide flood could have possibly occurred during this period of time. The DNA evidence would have been profound and striking.

So that story is necessarily a fable.

Some Christians would like to argue that maybe it was just a local flood. But then there would have been no need for an ark to save the animal kingdom. So it's not even a salvageable story at all.

If anything, there exists evidence that proves that the Bible is false, not the other way around.

~~~~~~

Death, disease, and thorny plants also existed long before mankind appeared on the planet. Thus the idea that mankind's "Fall from Grace" is what brought death and imperfection into the world is also clearly false.

The bible is as false as Greek Mythology.

Period Amen.

There was no God who cursed women with painful childbirth to pay for Eve's sins. Giving birth is simply a naturally difficult process. It's even painful for many animals. Not just humans. We see this in our pets and in farm animals too.

So this is just baloney. No God cursed women with painful childbirth as a punishment for Eve's sins.

The Biblical God is as false as Zeus.

That's where the "evidence" points.

If the Bible is "God's Word" to humanity and a human isn't impressed by what's written in the bible then who's fault is that?

Clearly the God would have failed to impress his very own creation. That would be a failure on God's part. So if you're complaining about people not being impressed by the Bible then you're actually complaining about God's failure to communicate with the objects of his own creation.

~~~~

Moreover, what "evidence" are you talking about?

There is no evidence that Jesus was born of a virgin. That's hearsay nonsense.

There is no evidence that Jesus was any promised messiah. He was never handed the throne of King David, and therefore it's meaningless to try to claim that he fulfilled that prophesy.

There is no evidence that Jesus "rose from the dead", or that a multitude of saints were jostled from their graves and rose from the dead at the same time.

There is no evidence that Jesus went around the countryside healing all manner of sicknesses.

There is no evidence that any of the outrageous things that are being claimed in these biblical stories ever happened.

You keep claiming that there is 'evidence' but I don't see it. As far as I'm concerned it makes far more sense to believe that the fables about Jesus are nothing more than superstitious rumors, or even outright lies created by a very few authors for the purpose of trying to use rumors about some guy (possibly named Jesus or something along those lines) as fodder for their religious agenda.

~~~~~

I have countless solid sound reasons for rejecting the biblical stories. And no good reason for believing them.

There's no evidence that any God spoke from the clouds saying "This is my beloved son, hear him".

Moreover, why should I believe that the creator of the entire planet Earth would do this with just a single culture? If a creator of humanity had a message for humanity surely he could find a way to deliver that message to ALL of humanity, not just some sniffling male-chauvinistic society who claims to be "God's chosen people". That's a dead give-away right there that these fables are the creation of an arrogant society of humans.

~~~~~~

Why should I believe that some supposedly all-wise, all-perfect, all-intelligent creator would lower himself to becoming associated with the brutal crucifixion of someone for the purpose of trying to communicate ideas of LOVE and MORALITY.

To be perfectly honest with you Cowboy that very idea right there is truly utterly absurd to me.

Why would an all-powerful, all-wise, all-perfect, all-intelligent being be associated with such ignorant stupidity?

That makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever, and is an extremely profoundly powerful reason to reject these ancient myths as being utterly absurd.

~~~~~~

If you're going to go through your entire life judging other people to be "rejecting" God without sufficient reasons simply because they refuse to buy into Christianity, then you will forever have problems "discussing" religion with anyone.

Because all you keep doing is basically "accusing" everyone else of simply "choosing" to not believe something that you claim has more than enough 'evidence' to be believed.

~~~~~~~

That seems to be the bottom line right there Cowboy.

All you're basically doing is trying to convince (or arguing) that everyone has more than sufficient "evidence" to justify believing in the biblical picture of God. And thus you are basically "judging" them to be rejecting God simply because they "refuse" to accept this evidence.

But everyone does not agree with you on that point. Other people simple don't agree that there is sufficient 'evidence' to support the outrageous claims made in the biblical texts.

You continually claim that "evidence" exists, and other people are telling that this they disagree. What you call 'evidence' is simply not acceptable to them.

In fact, what "evidence" are you even talking about?

You continually claim that Jesus "fulfilled" all the prophecies. I strongly disagree with you on that point for the very same reason that the Jews disagree. Jesus was never handed the throne of King David or officially pronounced the King of the Jews by God or anyone else. Therefore he failed to satisfy the most important requirement of the prophecy for the messiah.

Without that, there is no case, for Jesus having been any messiah.

And what other "evidence" is there? There's no evidence that Jesus was born of a virgin, or rose from the dead, or healed all manner of sickness, or anything else.

It's all just in the biblical stories. In fact, there isn't even any other independent historical accounts of any of these outrageous things.

In short there is no 'evidence' at all, really.

Sure some guy named "Jesus: may have existed, became popular butting heads with the Pharisees on spiritual matters, renounced the ugly immortal teachings of the Torah, and was unjustly crucified for his views.

But even if that happened, that doesn't support the rumors about this guy that ended up becoming what we call today the "New Testament".

It simply doesn't follow.

So where is there any 'evidence' that the God of the Old Testament was "real" or that Jesus was the sacrificial lamb of that God?

There is no 'evidence'.

If you want to believe in these things you must do so on pure faith.

It's that simple.

~~~~

And I've already made it clear that I truly have no desire to believe "on pure faith" that our creator is as rude and crude as the biblical stories require.

So I personally see no reason to believe these stories on 'pure faith'.

To be perfectly honest and sincere I would much rather they be false.

And that's the truth.

So I'm not about to believe in them on "pure faith", it would be silly to place my "faith" in something that I would actually prefer is not even true.

If I'm going to have 'faith' in something I may as well believe in something that's worthy of believing in. So Eastern Mysticism wins my attention for that purpose. It's a far prettier picture of "god" if you ask me.

I'm just not impressed by a male-chauvinistic God who punishes women with painful childbirth because of Eve's mistakes, and who thinks that having his son nailed to a pole is going to impress someone. That might have impressed you, but it certainly doesn't impress me.

That's all I know to tell you.

There are those who claim that we are the children of Satan until we become "saved" at which time we become the children of God.



It's no wonder there are so many different denominations of Christianity.

A lot of Christians to believe that Satan is the "ruler" of the physical world. It belongs to him, and this is why almost any physical pleasure is considered to be "sinful".

But that actually flies in the face of the Biblical story that God created the Earth and "Saw that it was GOOD".

How did it suddenly go from being "GOOD" to being the sinful?

It's crazy.

All these "sins of the flesh", and sexual hangups about God supposedly frowning upon any sensual pleasure that isn't specifically associated with a purposeful intent to procreate is truly sad.

And this God supposedly even made childbirth a painful ordeal as a form of punishment.

If people saw this in a horror movie instead of being taught these things in churches they'd think this God is truly creepy.

Seriously.

If you went to a movie and saw a plot where some God was doing all these terrible things to the objects of his creation you'd think you were watching a Frankenstein movie or something.

They way they make out God to be so nasty sometimes it wouldn't surprise me at all if they were worshiping Satan.

I read somewhere that the Cathers actually believed the Satan wrote (or inspired the Old Testament). They believed that the New Testament was a story inspired by God to renounce the Old Testament.

They didn't believe that Jesus even existed. Instead they believed that Jesus was just a parable in this story by God. They didn't believe that God would truly lower himself to becoming incarnate in physical form, this is why they felt that it was just a parable.

It doesn't really matter what the Cathers believed though because a Christian Pope gave the order to have all the Cathers murdered, and so it was written and so it was done. No more Cathers.

At least that's ONE VERSION of the Cathers that I've read. I've read other versions that were quite different. So it's all rumors and who knows what really happened. There does seem to be a consensus that a Catholic Pope had his army kill the Cathers though. That seems to be a common thread in all the stories about the Cathers.

Maybe the Pope at that time was Satan himself?

Who knows?

Exactly.

And I personally see no reason to have "Faith" that some angry God has to appease himself by having his only begotten son nailed to a pole.

Why would I even want to have "Faith" in such an absurd idea?

If I'm going to have "Faith" in something, I'd rather have faith that God is REASONABLE and SANE.



Why waste faith believing that God is one sick puppy?

If Christianity is a "Faith-based religion" (which is most certainly is) then I see absolutely no reason at all to want to place faith in it.

I would be far happier if Eastern Mysticism is true. So why not place my faith in that? It's a far more reasonable picture of God, IMHO.

Why place my faith in a derogatory picture of God when I can place my faith in a really great picture of God?

What would be the point to that?

Truly.

Besides, who is Cowboy to say who wrote these stories?

How would he have a clue who wrote something that was written almost 2000 years ago.

I think it's crystal clear that Cowboy assumes to actually "know" far more than he could ever possibly know. He's being totally unreasonable to claim to know things that he can't possibly know.

Anyone could write anything and evidently Cowboy will believe them.

That's a matter of pure FAITH, and has absolutely nothing at all to do with "knowledge".

Cowboy needs to learn to say things like "I have FAITH that they were all written by legitimate people"

But instead he states his faith-based beliefs as if they are absolute truths, which is nonsense. He can't possibly know that. He simply has faith that it might be true.

Yes, as a symbolic parable it's acceptable.

I accept Jesus as my symbolic parable savior.

How's that?

He can save me from my symbolic parable sins.

Well, if God didn't tell people to write things down, then why would anyone assume that this stories constitute "God's Word"?

Moreover, the New Testament really only contains TWO gospels.

The book of John is one gospel.

The three books of Mark, Matthew, and Luke, or the other. Most scholars are in agreement that writings of Matthew and Luke are just rehashing the writings of Mark. So Matthew and Luke were simply re-teaching, the rumors of Mark.

Finally, the BULK of the New Testament was written by Paul, and Paul never met Jesus in person. Paul was supposedly converted to Christianity when he had a vision of Jesus in his mind.

So really this whole religions is basically based on the writings of John and Mark. Two flimsy rumors that were repeated by others and elaborated on by Paul.

The whole religion is basically based on a very few rumors, just retold in and elaborated on by other people who heard them.

In fact, some people believe that the entire New Testament was actually constructed by a single group of people who had an agenda to give "life" to these particular rumors. These weren't the only rumors that existed about Jesus. These were simply the rumors that eventually GREW to become the religion we today call "Christianity".

It's perfectly reasonable to dismiss these writings as being undependable.

Yet the authors of these writings claim that there is "no excuse" for not believing them. But then LOOK at who is making that claim!

In fact, I'm sure that Paul wrote that somewhere in Romans.

But how arrogant is it for an author to write that there is "no excuse" for not believing his position. That's baloney and totally unconvincing. Why should we believe him?

Especially when we can clearly see that there many sound rational reasons for dismissing these rumors as having no merit.

It also states in the Bible that no "good" can come from non-believers because all "good" comes from God. We know that's a lie too. There are a lot of "good" people who are atheists, or who simply believe in other spiritual views of creation, etc.

So the book clearly contains falsehoods.

Hi Luv,

Yes, this is a major concern for many theologians.

I realize that you don't know me very well so perhaps I should explain a little bit about my history. I'll try to keep it short.

As a very young child I always felt close to God. Not in a religious sense, but in a very natural sense. I simply sensed the love of a supreme being that is watching over me and have always felt close to God in that way. I've also very that God is my ultimate "friend" and would never become my enemy.

Could I become God's enemy? Sure. I could. But that's not the point. The point is that the God that I naturally sensed would never become my enemy without deliberate provocation from me.

~~~~

Ok that's my extreme childhood background innate feelings about "God". This precedes any religious teachings. It's just an innate intuitive connection with a supreme presence.

~~~~~

In the meantime I was raised into Christianity by a very nice Free Methodist family. They did not preach fire and brimstone, nor where they strong evangelists or proselytizers of the religion. Similar to you, they believed that God can have a relationship with anyone whether they are Christians or not. They weren't firm believers that God would condemn someone for simply not believing in Jesus. They basically believed that "goodness" counts. And that God is indeed fair and righteous. So they weren't obnoxious about their Christianity toward non-Christians.

None the less, my family was highly religious for the most part. And some of my uncles were actually preachers. So this exposed me to the religion from the "inside" of at least this one denomination.

In other words, I would see the preacher sitting around discussing their concerns about various biblical concepts. They weren't always in agreement either. In fact, they often held considerably different views on things. They never became irate or argumentative with each other, but they did politely discuss how they view things differently.

In the meantime, I'm thinking that there should be precise answers in this Bible. After all, I had been taught that the Bible contains answers to all our questions. Possibly that's a false idea right there, but none the less I was told that this was supposedly the case.

So I turned to the Bible to seek the answers to these questions myself. Why was it necessary for Jesus to be crucified to "pay" for our sins? In what way do bloody sacrifices appease God?

If this is the basis of the religion I would think that these things should be explained within these stories in clear and understandable terms. However, when I went looking for answers I came away with far more questions than answers.

As far as I can tell, the idea that "gods" are appeased by blood sacrifices is simply taken for granted that this is the way gods are. Back in the days when the Old Testament tales were written it was a common believe that gods need to be appeased by blood sacrifices, etc. This is interwoven into Greek Mythology and just about every other mythology ever written by human cultures. So this is a common thread in myths and superstitions. People "paid homage" to the gods because at that time they believed that the gods were responsible for natural disasters, disease, mental illness (which they saw as being possessed by a demon), etc.

So that's the origin of this whole idea of blood sacrifices to appease the gods. It was just a common human superstition common to just about every culture imaginable.

The more I read the Old Testament, the more I'm convinced that it is just another mythology. It doesn't represent anything significantly different. It even has God turning Lot's wife into a pillar of salt, etc. It contains a lot of silly things no different from any other man-made myths.

~~~~~


But getting back to Jesus being the ultimate blood sacrifice made by God himself to "pay" for the sins of man,... well,... this becomes extremely problematic for me on many different levels.

First off, what sense does it make for a God to make a blood sacrifice unto himself? How can a God appease himself in this way?

It also makes no sense that his had to be "paid" to Satan to appease Satan. We can't very well have God offering up his son as an appeasement to Satan to pay for the sins of man.

So the only way the appeasement can even work at all is if it is indeed made TO God. So that's highly problematic for me. An appeasement made TO God BY God makes no sense to me.

~~~~

It also makes no sense in terms of two wrongs somehow making a right.

In other words, let's say that some guy raped and murdered someone's young daughter. Then after that he has a change of heart and asks Jesus to forgive his sins.

So what does Jesus say to him, "No problem, I got you covered. I was brutally beaten and nailed to a pole to PAY for you having raped and murdered that nice little girl".

What?

How would that pay for having raped and murdered the little girl?

So it makes things alright as long as some totally innocent perfect person is beaten and nailed to a pole?

What sense does that even begin to make?

This whole idea seems to be based on an idea that as long as someone "pay" via some sort of brutal painful beating, that's going to make everything just fine and dandy.

This whole idea is extremely problematic for me.

And to be perfectly honest with you, it's just totally unacceptable, as far as I'm concerned. There's got to be something wrong here.

And to make matters worse, the Christians keep badgering people with things like, "If you refuse to believe that God is like this then you are the scum of the earth because you are refusing to acknowledge God's GLORY"



So now I'm the scum of the earth because I don't believe in a God who requires gory bloody sacrifices to "pay" for sins.

~~~~~

Is there a better answer?

Well, for me there is. And I don't need to turn to atheism to find it. Although, in a sense even atheism would be a 'better' answer to reality than a God who is appeased by bloody sacrifices, IMHO.

~~~~~

But what about another spiritual answer?

After decades of thinking about this, and learning other religions and philosophies "outside the box of Christianity", I came to realize that there may very well be a better explanation for how the Hebrew fables came to be.

Here's my personal conclusions:

1. The Old Testament was indeed just another mythology not much different from Greek Mythology.

So I dismiss the whole Old Testament, as least as a "verbatim" account of God and man. It may very well contain some spiritual truths. I'm not saying that it doesn't contain any spiritual truths at all. I imagine that even Greek Mythologies contains some spiritual truths as well. So I'm not saying that just because something is in the Old Testament it's necessarily false or wrong. But what I am saying is that it shouldn't be viewed as the perfect infallible "Word of God", and instead it should be taken with a huge grain of salt and anything that seems ungodly probably is ungodly.

In short, it can't be trusted to be the perfectly infallible "Word of God".

~~~~

So that brings us to the Christian New Testament and the question of who Jesus might have been (if not the only begotten son of the God of the Old Testament).

Well, without conveying everything that I've learned about other religions, let me just say that it makes perfect sense to me that Jesus was well-educated in the philosophy of Mahayana Buddhism. This form of Buddhism was at it's peak right around the time that Jesus would have lived. This particular form of Buddhism was quite "spiritual". Unlike some of the more modern forums of Buddhism that are almost glorified forms of atheism.

What I noticed is that many of the teachings that have been attributed to Jesus fit in with this Mahayana Buddhism, and especially with the concept of a Bodhisattva, which was very popular right around the time Jesus lived. A Bodhisattva is a person who takes on disciples and teachings them the spiritual teachings charging them to then go out and become Bodhisattvas themselves (i.e. to teach others the same things that he taught them)

So this fits in perfectly with the idea of Jesus having disciples and teaching them spiritual things.

~~~~

From this I suspect that the Christian New Testament is a gross misunderstanding of the things that Jesus taught. Or worse yet, a purposeful attempt to use Jesus as a means to prop back up the Torah, which Jesus clearly did not agree with.

Even according to the gospels Jesus renounced the judging of others and the stoning to death of sinners. Jesus renounced an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, and instead of seeking revenge, Jesus taught people to turn the other cheek and forgive those who trespass against you.

In short, Jesus renounced that moral fabric of the teachings of the Torah and replaced them with far more sane and more intelligent ideals. I deals that were being taught by Mahayana Buddhism long before Jesus had ever been born.

~~~~~

So I reject the notion that Jesus was "born of a virgin", or that he was the only begotten son of Yahweh to sent to pay for the sins of man and offer salvation though his crucifixion.

Instead, I see Jesus as a highly spiritual man who simply tried to teach far better morals to a society whose religion had them judging each other and stoning sinners to death (not to mention crucifying heathens).

Unfortunately that tendency was quite profound and Jesus himself ended up being crucified by the very people he was trying to teach better moral values.

~~~~~

Do I need to become an atheist now?

Of course not!

I've been close to God in spirit since I've been a child. That's never going to change. I don't need a specific religious fable to be true in order to believe in God.

The Buddhists, had a very deep insight into highly spiritual moral values and ethics too. In fact, as far as I'm concerned they had far better moral values long before the Hebrews did,.

If the teachings of Jesus appear to be "divine", when then clearly the teachings of the Torah were not. Because Jesus taught totally different moral values than had been taught in the Torah.

So you might even say that Jesus "led me to Buddhism".

Although, having said that, I don't require any "religion" to be close to God. I was close to God when I was a very young child. I had no religion then. Why would I need religion now?

I've realize that religion and God are two entirely different things.

Religion is the babblings of men.

God is God.

Religion becomes nothing more than an excuse to become "defensive" or even possibly "offensive" about God.

Either believe in my RELIGION, or you're rejecting GOD!

That's nonsense and is about as ungodly as anything can be.

Exactly.

The New Testament writings are hearsay rumors. Period amen.

That would not be the case if they had actually been written by Jesus himself. Of course, it doesn't automatically follow that if they had been written by the man they are supposedly about that this would automatically make them true and correct. Anyone can lie or be mistaken, even the original claimant.

However, my point is that it is uncharacteristic of a supposedly "all-wise" being to leave such an important message to humanity up to nothing more than hearsay rumors.

If Jesus truly was our creator incarnated (or his son sent specifically with such an important message to humanity) then Jesus himself should have written this down in his own words and style.

In fact, his style of writing (being of such divine origins) should have been so profoundly crystal clear and unambiguous that it would blow the socks off anyone who reads it. After all, if God himself can't impress mere humans with his writings then who could?

The mere fact that the bible is nothing more than hearsay rumors proves to me that this is all that it is. Period.

I stand firm in my belief that any truly all-wise supreme being who wanted to communicate with all of humanity would simply know better than to allow that message to fall into the ruins of convoluted and often conflicting hearsay rumors.

After all, if Jesus was supposed to be the "WORD" made flesh, then he should have been able to write in a way that would blow the socks off any and all literary scholars. He should have been able to write up a document that was so perfectly stated and organized that it everyone who read it would be extremely impressed by the perfection of his writings.

But clearly that's not what the Christian doctrines are. Instead they are convoluted hearsay rumors, that often even conflict with each other.

~~~~~~

In addition to all of that, if Jesus himself was sent to give humanity a "New Covenant" with God then there would be absolutely no reason at all for the writings of Paul or any others.

Jesus should have been able to fulfill his purpose completely without the need for anymore elaboration by mere untrustworthy mortal men. Yet the New Testament is mostly the babbling of Paul. Paul wrote about 75% of what's actually in the New Testament. And most of his writings are just using Jesus as an excuse to dredge up crap from the Old Testament which actually flies in the face of the things that were supposedly attributed to Jesus himself anyway.

Why would God need Paul to FINISH the job of conveying his New Covenant to humanity. Did Jesus not do a good enough job?

~~~~~~

This whole idea that God is "The Word" and that Jesus was "The Word" made flesh is utter nonsense if Jesus didn't even bother to actually use the POWER of the written WORD himself. Leaving "The Word" to nothing more than hearsay rumors and the babblings of other mortal men like Paul would not be "wise", IMHO. And therefore it's safe to conclude that these hearsay rumors about Jesus are totally false superstitious exaggerations.

Whoever Jesus was (assuming he even existed at all), he was clearly just a mortal man who was objecting to the teachings of the Torah. He was not the "Divine Word" made flesh. That's nonsense. His behavior doesn't fit that role. If he were truly "The Divine Word" made flesh then he would have understood the power of "The Written Word", and he would have also understood the dependability of hearsay rumors. And like I say, why bother with Paul at all? What would Paul have to do with "THE WORD" and what would Paul have to do with bringing God's "New Covenant" to mankind?

If Jesus were truly GOD he would have had no need to lean on Paul to continue his message. He would have been able to complete his message convincingly the first time via his own writings.

So we clearly have fables here that have no more merit than Greek Mythology.

That's my personal conclusion, and it's all based on very sound principles.

I'm not the slightest bit interesting in proving anything, or obtaining proof for anything.

I'm telling you that I'm simply not convinced by the stories that they came from any God.

The only people who are concerned with "proof" are those who are trying to convince me.

I'm quite happy with dismissing these fables based on the reasons I give. They simply don't represent the behavior that I would expect from a supposedly all-wise being.

I wouldn't expect an all-wise being to allow such important information to even be conveyed via hearsay rumors. And I'm using the term technically in the legal sense that Jeanniebean described.

Heresay is second-hand information. And that's precisely what these Hebrew stories are. They are "RUMORS" about a man called Jesus.

If Jesus was God's messenger, I would expect at the very least to receive the message directly from him, at least in the form of his own writings. But there are not writings by Jesus. Either Jesus was illiterate, or if he did write things down those scriptures have long since been lost or destroyed by people who don't want us to know what Jesus truly had to say.

My bet is that he was indeed teaching a pantheistic view of "God", along the lines of Mahayana Buddhism, and if he did write anything down the so-called "Christians" would most certainly want that destroyed because it wouldn't match up with their claims about that man.

I see no reason to believe that an all-powerful, all-wise creator who supposedly maintains "His Holy Word" in scriptures would not be the scribe of those very scriptures. Especially if he went to all the trouble of actually becoming incarnate as a human male.

To become incarnate as a human male only to be associated with highly questionable hearsay gossip would be utterly absurd, IMHO.

This is why I say that the very fact that these scriptures are indeed hearsay rumors, we can be certain that they are indeed nothing more than the superstitious exaggerations of men. Or worse yet, the purpose religious propaganda using a dead Jesus as a marionette doll.

Clearly some guy was horribly crucified for teaching LOVE, and that became a highly controversial thing. There were many rumors about who this man Jesus might have been. The idea that he was some sort of messiah sent specifically by God is merely the Christian rumors. The Jews themselves clearly did not accept these rumors either.

And no one truly should, IMHO.

It's not about "proof", it about the mere fact that these rumors aren't even remotely reasonable.

By the way, you're missing the point.

I'm not saying that I would necessarily believe it if it had been written by the Demigod.

But that's not the point.

The point is that I don't believe that any God, or Demigod, would leave such an important message up to hearsay rumors. If the message was that important he'd write it down himself.

Therefore the fact that this message was not written down by the Demigod himself, that proves to me that it could not have been an all-important message from God.

Whether I would have believed it if it had actually been written by the Demigod is a moot point because that never happened. I still might not believe the author's own claims.

But that doesn't change the fact that any REAL ALL WISE GOD would have known better than to leave his message up to hearsay rumors.

~~~~~

So the fact that it got to us as hearsay rumors basically proves that it's nothing more than man-made exaggerated superstition or outright religious propaganda.

It doesn't leave open the "possibility" that it could be a message from God. Because a REAL God would have written down his own message.

The reason I don't believe in this religion is because it's based on a God that is depicted as being a male-chauvinistic pig, who can only solve his problems using ignorant forms of punishments, (which have never even WORKED to solve any of his problems anyway).

And he's supposedly a God who is appeased by blood sacrifices. Like as if having his son (or himself) beaten and nailed to a pole is going to "pay" for something.



It's a sick religion.

And yes, you're right, I still wouldn't believe in Christian if Jesus had written down this same utter nonsense in his own hand.

But that's truly a moot point.

To begin with any God who wants to communicate with his creation of humanity would necessarily have to be SMARTER than to have his messages contaminated by hearsay gossip. That would be utterly stupid in any case, IMHO. Yet this is precisely what the Christian Bible is, total hearsay gossip.

So writing things down in his own hand would only be ONE REQUIREMENT that I would need to see satisfied before I would even begin to believe that the message had any validity.

The SECOND requirement would indeed be that whatever he wrote would need to be intelligent. So if he wrote down the same things that are spewed about in the current hearsay rumors then it wouldn't be anymore impressive.

The only reason I would have liked to have heard what Jesus actually had to day in his OWN WORDS, is because I'm confident that he would NOT be making all the utterly absurd claims that are being made on his behalf in the New Testament. He probably would have spoken more along the lines of Buddhism without all the superstitious rumors that he was born of a virgin, or that he was the "only begotten son" of any God.

If we had writings that came directly from him we could probably clearly see that he was never claiming to be any "messiah".

And this is precisely why second-hand hearsay rumors cannot be trusted.

I have absolutely no reason whatsoever to believe that the authors of the New Testament "Speak for Jesus".

As far as I can see they are running a dead marionette doll of Jesus and making him say whatever they would like people to believe that he supported.

I don't believe any of it.

And way don't I believe it Cowboy?

Simply because I choose to not believe it?

No, not at all.

I don't believe it because in order to believe it I would also need to believe that our creator is utterly stupid.

That's why I don't believe in Christianity Cowboy.

I'm sorry if that offends you, but it's the TRUTH.

I reject the religion because the religion requires that God is utterly stupid, and I don't believe in a stupid God.

If there's a God it has to be far wiser than these ignorant Hebrew mythology.

Or maybe there is no God at all and the atheist are actually right.

As far as I'm concerned atheism would be a far less disturbing picture of reality than to think that we were created by a God who is so utterly stupid that he thinks that having someone crucified on a pole would "pay" for something.



I mean seriously.

That's a mentality better reserved for the Klu Klux Klan.

It's not the mentality befitting of a God, IMHO.

So yes, I choose to not believe that God is an idiot.

Sorry if that bothers you.

I'm not convinced that Jesus supported a single final judgment.

On the contrary, we have NO CLUE what Jesus might have actually stood for since he have absolutely nothing that was written by him.

All we have is the hearsay rumors of people who were trying to make out like Jesus was "The Christ". It's obvious that they were thinking in terms of one final judgment.

Personally I don't trust the authors of the New Testament to speak for Jesus.

In fact, this is how I can know without any doubt that these scriptures are not from any God, and that Jesus most certain wasn't God.

If Jesus had truly been "God", or even a messenger from God, then Jesus would have known that people like myself would never believe second-hand hearsay rumors.

Why should I believe that a supposedly omniscient God wouldn't even be smart enough to know that a lot of people would not see any reason to trust second-hand rumors?

There is nothing in the Bible that actually came straight from Jesus.

Not a single solitary WORD.

So every time you quote from those rumors it's not the slightest bit impressive at all. Those people most likely had no more clue than you do.

In fact, look at you, you talk and act like as if you "know" this stuff is true and you are removed from it by over 2000 years!

Well, all you're doing is proving to me that there exist humans who will swear to anything and even claim to "witness" anything, even when they have NO CLUE whether there is any truth it something or not.

So for all I know these Hebrew fables could have been written by a bunch of Hebrew "Cowboys".

Totally unimpressive.

There is nothing in the Bible that came directly from Jesus.

Not a single solitary WORD.

It's all hearsay rumors by people who clearly had an agenda to support a myth, not really any different from you at all. Look at you, you support this stuff when clearly you have NO CLUE.

I have no doubt that this is what the authors of the New Testament were doing as well.

Jesus is not even in the New Testament.

That's the biggest Christian fallacy of all. The Christians keep claiming that "Jesus said this, and Jesus said that", but we have absolutely no clue what Jesus might have had to say, and obviously he wasn't interested in telling us, otherwise he would have written it down HIMSELF.

There is no Jesus in the Bible.

None at all.

The Bible is nothing more than a book of untrustworthy hearsay rumors. Rumors that are clearly biased toward trying to make out that Jesus was "The Messiah". This is also something that could not possibly be true because Jesus was never handed the throne of King David, so Jesus could not possibly have been the messiah prophecized in the Torah.

These New Testament rumors are clearly false.

You may as well be talking to the air.

Christianity is based on Hebrew egotism. No one shall put any Gods above ours!

Our God is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords, blah, blah, blah.

Christianity is nothing more than an egotistical Hebrew rant.

It really has nothing at all to do with anything that Jesus taught. Jesus was just a victim of Hebrew egotism.

Jesus taught the moral and spiritual values of Mahayana Buddhism. The egocentric authors of the New Testament rumors are the people who turned that into the foundation for religious bigotry in Jesus' name.

It's truly a shame. Such a shamble.

Any god who would lust to be such an egotistical dictator would be as feeble, weak, and flawed as a mortal man. The religion is the antithesis of anything spiritual.

I don't claim to know "God", but I do claim to be able to recognize religious bigotry created by humans. That's pretty easy to do actually.

That has nothing to do with the fact that Jesus himself denied charges of blaspheme by appealing to a pantheistic view of humanity.

And that's the bottom line right there.

But that's precisely what Jesus himself denied when he was charged with blaspheme. His defense is that we are all the begotten children of God, and therefore he was not claiming to be anything special.

This is the fallacy upon which the entire religion of Christianity rests. Jesus was merely one child of God, just like the rest of us. That was his very own defense.

Pilot also exonerated Jesus of charges of blaspheme after having conversed with him. So evidently Jesus convinced Pilot as well that he was not claiming to be anything special.

The only people who make these claims are the "Christians". Jesus himself renounced these claims.

Hi Miles,

I read your entire post. I have no problem with anything you've posted. In fact, everything you've posted is actually taking the view from "inside" the religion. In other words, you're trying to decipher what the authors of these texts were actually attempting to say, or what they believed.

I have no doubt that the authors of these texts believed that Jesus (or Yahushua) was indeed the messiah. There's no question about that, they clearly make extreme arguments for this, and really go out of their way to proclaim this to be the truth.

However, from my perspective, all of their writings are indeed biased by their belief and agenda to make out that Jesus (or Yahushua) was indeed the messiah. That's clearly the goal of their writings. There's no question about that.

In fact, that's the very reason those writings became the basis of these scriptures. These are the "rumors" that are being held out as the "gospel truth".

However, as you well know I personally don't buy into that conclusion and I see these writings as strongly tainted by these conclusions, which I am not convinced of.

In your post you posted the following:




This is one place where I feel that Jesus (or Yahushua), was actually rejecting the idea that he was claiming to be anything special and he was actually decreeing that he is not claiming to be any different from anyone else.

Jesus (or Yahushua) was being accused of blaspheme here. And his defense against those charges was to point to the Torah (which he referred to as There Law (not God's law), and show where even their scriptures recognize that men are God (or Elohim).

Which is the Buddhist view. All are God. Buddhism is basically Pantheism and that's precisely what Pantheism means, "All are God".

Also, there is basically a flaw in the printing of the Biblical verses that truly irks me.

As you point out is states that Jesus says, "Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are elohim?" (or Ye are Gods).


Jesus (or Yahushua), was not claiming that HE had said this, like as if the Torah represents His Word, on the contrary, if you look up the verse that Jesus (or Yahushua) was referring to it actually states right in the Torah, "I have said, Ye are Gods", (or Ye are Elohim).

Moreover, it makes no sense to suggest that Jesus was speaking about earthly judges, kings, or rulers, or anything like that. That wouldn't make sense in this context. Jesus was using this as a defense against charges of blaspheme. Therefore it would make no sense as a "defense against blaspheme" to simply suggest that other men are mere mortal judges, etc, when he is being charged with proclaiming to be something special when he states that He and the Father are One.

No, no, no, that makes no sense at all.

In order for this to have been a "defense against charges of blaspheme" Jesus would have had to been implying that ALL ARE SONS OF GOD, and that he was not making any special claim about himself.

If that's not what he had meant, then it would not have been a "Defense against the charges of blaspheme". It could only be a defense if he was indeed attempting to imply that everyone is equally God and that he is not claiming to be anything special.

I firmly believe that this particular episode in these stories actually confirms that Jesus was indeed coming from the stance of Buddhism that ALL are God. And when he states that He and the Father are ONE, he means that this is true for everyone.

He was not attempting to claim to be any special "only begotten son" of God. He was a pantheist. He was trying to teaching that we are all equally childern of God, and that he was no exception to this condition.

In fact, that's the only meaning that would make sense in the context of him using this as a defense against charges of blaspheme.

Moreover, why would Jesus lie or hide the TRUTH?

If Jesus truly was claiming to be some sort of SPECIAL son of God then why defend against those charges? Why not speak the TRUTH and say, yes, I am the only begotten son of God.

We can't very well have a demigod weaseling out of that "truth" by responding that ALL are Gods.

That makes no sense.

So as far as I'm concerned this episode where Jesus (or Yahushua) defends himself from charges of blaspheme by saying, "Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are elohim?", is extremely strong evidence that Jesus was indeed taking a pantheistic stance thus supporting my belief that he was indeed coming from a position of Buddhism.

So this actually supports my belief that Jesus was not a demigod, and wasn't even attempting to claim to be one. He was being misunderstood and he was attempting to clarify that misunderstanding.

Unfortunately he failed to clarify this misunderstanding in the end and thus the fables that he was "The Christ" have blossomed to become what we today know as "Christianity". A belief that Jesus was some sort of special demigod, born of a virgin and sent as the sacrificial lamb of God to "pay" for our sins.

That's the RUMOR that became "Christianity".

And yet in the verses that you referred to here we actually have Jesus himself denying that he was anything any more special than anyone else. That was his defense when he was being charged with blaspheme.

He denied those charges himself.

He denied it when he proclaimed that all are god and pointed to the Torah to support that pantheistic view.

Jesus was a Buddhist.

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Gotta sing your lyrics
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Lighten up! Lighten up!
Don’t be down
Write em up! Write em up!
Sing out loud

Awake your soul
Let your feelings fill your mind
Set your worries free
Till your thoughts and rhythm combine

Let it sprout! Let it sprout!
Melodiously
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Set it free

Realize your Dream
In the lyrics that you write
It's your living stream
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Let it flow! Let it flow!
It's your living spirit
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Let the whole world hear it!

Poetry and Music
Let your worries go
Poetry and Music
let the whole world know
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set the world aglow
Poetry and Music
Let your spirit flow
Let your spirit flow
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- Let your spirit flow

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