Nothing.

But what does that have to do with anything?

Who's asking you to not live a life full of love?

Are you only living your life full of live because of your faith in Christianity?

I'm living my life full of love without any need for Christianity.

So I don't see what that even has to do with Christianity?

The only reason that you might view me as "less than a loving person" is simply because I voice views about the Hebrew writings that you don't particularly like.

Well, gee whiz. You support those writings as being the "Word of God" and, IMHO, those writings contain messages and ideas that I personally see as being detrimental to society and humanity in general.

So from my perspective there is nothing 'loving' about going around trying to convince people that those ideas came from "God".

On the contrary I feel that it's more loving to show them why those writings are most likely not from any God.

I truly believe that humanity would be far better off if everyone converted to Buddhism. Although I'm certainly not trying to get anyone to do that. But I do sincerely believe that it would be a positive thing if the Abrahamic religoins were abaondoned by everyone as being nothing more than Zeus-like myths.

Not just the Christians, but the Muslims and Jews too!

So yes, I feel that exposing myths for what they are is a positive loving thing. It will help us to finally come out of the dark ages.

Since you're aiming this at the forum in general as always, I'll offer you my reply:

To begin with, I don't claim to have an absolute firm belief in anything. I believe in truth and honesty. And that includes being truthful and honest with myself.

Do I know for a fact, that any religion, spiritual faith, or any ideas of a potential 'everlasting life' actually exist or are even possible?

No I don't, I'd be a fool to even claim that I knew such a thing. I would be dishonest even with myself if I pretended to have such supreme knowledge.

I also don't believe that any mortal human has knowledge of any such things. It's my conviction that all humans are ultimately agnostic whether they are willing to be honest with themselves about this or not.

So in that sense I have no absolute closed-minded beliefs about anything. There may or may not be a spiritual essence to reality. I have no clue, and neither do you.

So the very concept of "belief" has a totally different meaning to you than it does to me. What you have is faith, which is really quite different from belief, IMHO. Although I'm fully aware that you cannot understand that. By the very way that you speak it's clear that you can't differentiate between faith and belief. You have convinced yourself that they are one in the same thing. Probably so that you can "believe" that your faith has merit beyond the mere faith that it actually is.

Evidently your faith is so utterly important to you, that you can't even handle the idea of other people not supporting it.

I'm nowhere near that dependent on faith. In fact, I have no need of faith at all. I can accept an atheistic world, if that's reality. So be it. If that's the truth of reality then that's what it is.

Would I prefer that there exists a spiritual essence to reality?

Well, maybe I would, and maybe I wouldn't. That all depends on what that spirituality entails.

I am not so terrified of death that I'll grasp at anything to avoid having to face death. I've told you countless times that if the God depicted in the Bible is the reality of spiritual truth, then I would actually prefer to die.

I'm not kidding when I say that an atheistic universe is more appealing to me than the idea of a God who is so extremely lame concerning his communications with humans.

And yes, I realize that your obsessive impulse will be to argue there there is nothing lame about the way that the biblical God communicates with people, etc.

Well, that's a totally fruitless argument to attempt to have with me, because I will never agree with you on that point. I'm telling you that for me the biblical picture of God is so lame that it's totally inexcusable and there can be no justification for it, IMHO.

That is my own personal observation and conclusion concerning that religious doctrine. It's futile for you to argue with me about that, because I'm just telling you how I see it. I'm not asking you to try to change my mind on that point.

You claim that you are just here to share views. Well it's my view that the biblical picture of God is neither inviting to me, nor does it appear to be an intelligent way of attempting to communicate with me.

That's my final word on that matter. That's my view.

I would rather the universe be totally godless and non-spiritual than for the biblical picture of God to be true.

So I have absolutely no desire to even consider that picture of spirituality. Neither on pure faith nor based on any arguments that attempt to make out like as if it's a reasonable story.

Thus, if there is a spiritual essence to reality (which may or may not be the case), I'm convinced that the Eastern Mystical picture of spirituality has far more merit and chance of being true, than does anything that came out of the entire Mediterranean region.

So if I wanted to place faith in anything at all it would be Eastern Mysticism.

~~~~

Having said all of the above, I do have both intuitive and intellectual reasons to lean toward "believing" that a spiritual essence to reality is indeed a possibility.

I find that possibility compelling enough to place my faith in that possibility. And so from there I act upon that faith and imagine that it could indeed be true.

That's what faith is to me. Imagining that something could be true.

I have faith that a spiritual essence of reality may indeed be true.

But I don't need other people to believe that. It doesn't bother me if someone is a firm believer in atheism. I believe that whatever will be will be, and it doesn't truly matter what we believe. If reality is spiritual, then all are spiritual. If reality is non-spiritual then it's non-spiritual for everyone.

~~~~~

The doctrine that you constantly preach, and you do indeed preach it in spite of your denial. Is an extremely egotistical doctrine (not egotistical in terms of you personally), but rather egotistical in terms of religious dogma.

The religion itself is designed to "OWN GOD" and basically condemn everyone who doesn't believe in the religion to a state of spiritual death or eternal suffering and torment, and only those who accept the religion will become full-fledged spiritual beings who will experience everlasting life.

From my perspective such a religion is clearly man-made politics created in the name of a "God". Designed to put out a carrot of everlasting life to draw people in, and to condemn those who refuse to be drawn in to everlasting suffering and torment. It's lust-driven and fear-based.

~~~~

If I believe anything at all, I believe that we are either all spiritual beings, or we aren't. This idea of Gods who judge individuals souls and who will even condemn people for merely not believing in them is totally absurd, IMHO, to put it mildly.

That very brainwashing scheme is a 'hateful' scheme IMHO. And therefore since the religion is based on this scheme it is a 'hateful' religion.

Again, that's my own personal view that I'm sharing.

I'm not asking for you to argue with me to try to convince me that I'm wrong about my conclusions.

You asked me about my beliefs, and I'm telling you how I believe.

I don't expect an argument in return if all you are here for is to share beliefs.

All you should being saying to me is, "I understand your views".

You don't need to accept them, agree with them, or argue with them.

We're just sharing our views.

Right?

I do.

Well, I certainly wouldn't argue with your view. That could very well be the truth.

I have reasons for believing that an actual person sparked the stories of "Jesus". And that he actually did renounce the moral teachings of the Torah, call the Pharisees hypocrites, and was ultimately crucified for his religious views.

I could see how rumors would have evolved out of that naturally.

I also tend to agree with you more than you might think. Even though I believe that the New Testament writings were sparked by rumors about a real person, I too believe that they were purposefully crafted with intentional deception on top of that.

In other words, I believe they are mixture of superstitious rumors, along with intentional religious propaganda.

I don't give the New Testament writings any serious merit as representing the word of any God.

I do however believe that they probably do contain some potentially true tales about the man who sparked the rumors, especially in terms of some of the moral values he taught, things he renounced about the teachings of the Torah, and claims he made about being "One with the Father" which, I believe is a pantheistic view representative of what a Mahayana Buddhist might teach. I also believe that he probably did point out that there are even passages in the Torah that support the pantheistic view (i.e. "Have I not said, ye are Gods?"

So that all fit in with the scenario I propose.

Is there any truth to my 'theory'? I have absolutely no clue.

But I can say with absolute certainty that I find the verbatim claims of the New Testament to be totally unbelievable. So as far as I'm concerned there must be an alternative explanation.

Whether these stories were sparked by some actual person, or whether they were totally fabricated fiction, I have no clue.

All I know, is that they make absolutely no sense to me at all in terms of the verbatim biblical stories.

Sorry Jeannie.

I don't know much about Messianic Jews. Just from what I do know it appears to me that these are just Jews who have caved into Christian proselytizing pressures and are trying to create a version of "Christianity" that both Jews and Christians can find common ground on.

Proselytize pressure is a serious force, and has been historically.

There's this Celtic Church that I think is so sweet. I lost the link to it. They claim to be a "Christian Celtic Church of Jesus Christ".

They say that they believe in the divinity of Jesus as the only begotten son of God. They view Jesus as are "brother" who came to be an example of how he should live. The recognize the biblical God as our "Father". However, they also believe in a Mother Goddess, and that the "Father" God also appears as Hermes, Cernunnos, etc.

In other words, they are basically a Celtic religion that has also caved into Christian proselytizing pressures and have designed a religion that basically melds their original Celtic beliefs in with the Biblical picture of God.

How can it work?

Well, it works for them because they recognize that the "Father" God also appears as male gods in other religious cultures. Therefore so recognizing Hermes and Cernunnos, etc., is not a violation of placing any other gods before "The Father" because all male God are equally "The Father". And there's really nothing in the Bible at all that outright denies the existence of a "Mother God". So they hold that there must be a feminine aspect to the divine, so worshiping a Mother God in now way violates the Bible either.

I think it's a "sweet" religion because it tries to appease the hardcore Christian fundies whilst salvaging the Celtic Gods and Goddesses.

I've shown this church to some hardcore Christians though and they have totally renouncing it as having absolutely nothing to do with real Christianity.

I wonder if there are also a lot of Christian denominations that reject Messianic Jews as being "false" Christianity as well?

I imagine there are. It's hard to appease Christian fundamentalists by trying to incorporate Jesus into non-fundamental religions. They refuse to acknowledge "acceptance" of Jesus in that way.

But that's not what you've been doing. You've been accusing me of insulting and bashing your beliefs by stating what I believe.

That's not agreeing to disagree. That's making an accusation.

No one on planet Earth today should be insulted or offended in any way by someone suggesting that they don't accept the Hebrew writings to be the word of God. Or by suggesting that they believe that Jesus was most likely just a mortal man like the rest of us who ended up becoming the fodder for superstitious rumors.

That should in no way be 'offensive' to you.

It doesn't matter if you believe in the stories. That's totally irrelevant. The fact that someone else has reason to suspect other, more mundane and secular explanations are also possible should in no way be offensive to you.

When I offer such explanations, you quote my posts, and "argue" against them. (i.e. You try to make a case why you feel that the Christian story carries more merit).

I naturally address your 'arguments' explaining why I feel that they have no merit.

That's all fine and dandy.

But you don't stop there. When you become frustrated about this you start to accuse me of 'bashing' your religion, or 'insulting' your beliefs. Or you even accuse me of spreading 'hatred' simply because I refuse to accept your 'arguments' and point out why they don't impress me.

You even ignore all of that, and turn around and accuse me of 'not listening'. Like as if the only way I could be 'listening' is if I were to agree with you or something.

Also when I point out the fact that any religion that claims that people are in need of a savior must necessarily be suggesting they have something to be 'saved' from. That's a fear-based religion.

You've even argued against that, and tried to make out like my mere suggestion that this is the case is somehow 'hateful' on my part.

I personally think that I just bring up rock solid points and issues that you recognize cannot be refuted, and you become frustrated about that. So in your frustration you strike out trying to imply that I'm being hateful. When in fact, all I'm doing is making valid points to support my views that Jesus was most likely a mortal human being just like the rest of us, and these ancient rumors are just that. Superstitious rumors.

That's a valid belief in itself.

There is nothing anymore 'hateful' about people coming to the conclusion that the ancient Hebrew stories are just as outrageous as the ancient Greek stories and most likely just as false.

There is absolutely nothing 'hateful' in that conclusion at all.

You view it as being 'hateful' simply because it doesn't support your religious views. But that's your own assessment there.

There's no hatred coming from me.

I truly believe that the Hebrew stories and claims about Jesus are genuinely false superstitious rumors.

That's what I truly believe.

If anyone finds that to be 'insulting' or 'hateful' that's there problem, not mine.

There should be absolutely nothing 'insulting' about someone having a sound secular explanation for how these rumors came to be.

You just don't like it is all.

Well, I don't like the Hebrew rumors.

So if I was to take your stance, then I should find your beliefs to be 'insulting'.

And I DO, when you act like I should actually BELIEVE them.

I don't care whether you believe my views or not.

But if you're going to quote my posts and argue against my views, then don't be screaming 'foul' when I give a rebuttal to your explanations.

Well, there you go. Your fear was death, and now you believe that you have been saved from what you fear.




No you don't spread love. On the contrary you spread the idea that people should fear death and that they have a need to be saved from death.

You also spread the idea that there is only one way to be saved from death, and that entails believing in your entire religion as you interpret it to be.

When people attempt to share alternative spiritual views you argue with them endlessly until you eventually accuse them of being hateful people for refusing to be assimilated into your belief system.

That is far from love Cowboy.

But yes, I do believe that this is your idea of love. That much I do believe.

There's no hatred here Cowboy.

I'm just pointing out the truth.

You preach that people need a savior, then you act like there is no threat to be saved from.

You become emotionally distraught over this because you know I'm right and you can't deal with that.

So then you accuse me of hatred and all sorts of negative things.

The religious scenario that you continually support and preach is fear-based.

Period amen.

Call that "hatred" if you must, but it's just the TRUTH.

You are indeed a model proselytizer Cowboy. You take your own proselytizing tactics and try to twist them around to shove them in the face of your victims.

Your constant harping for the need for a "savior" is fear-based.

If I have nothing to fear I have no need of any "savior".

And I don't have anything to fear. So I have no need for any "savior".

The need to fear something is paramount to your religion.

It has nothing at all to do with me. So why are you shoving your fears in my face?

You are the one who is obsessed with a need to be saved from something, and that amounts to fear. A fear of not being saved from whatever it is that you fear.

Death evidently is your greatest fear.

I have no fear of death. And I wouldn't fall for any religions that claimed to have the patent rights to save people from death anyway. Such religions could only be the superstitious fabrications of men who themselves fear death.

I won't hesitate in the least to point out TRUTHS about the Hebrew fables, including that it's fear-based. Including the FACT that Jesus is portrayed as being a demigod, conceived by a mortal woman who was impregnated by a God.

And so on and so forth.

As long as you are going to continually argue with me trying to convince me that the story has merit I'll point out the absurdities that I see in these fables without the slightest hesitation.

The more you argue to support the story the more arguments I'll give to reveal why it's totally without any merit at all.

That harder you PUSH, the harder I'll PUSH BACK.

I'm not about to cave into your religious proselytizing.

You keep refusing to confess that the Christian religion is fear based, yet you truly have no choice in that at all.

It's totally meaningless to speak about being 'saved' from something that doesn't pose a threat that needs to be 'feared'.

So Christianity is absolutely a fear-based religion. You can deny that until you're blue in the face, it won't do you any good.

There would be no need for a "savior" in a religion where no threat was being posed.

Christianity is necessarily a fear-based religion. There's just no getting around that one.

Well you keep talking about people having a need to be 'saved'.

If there is nothing to 'fear' then what would anyone need to be 'saved' from.

You can't be 'saved' if there is no threat to be 'saved' from.

So obviously you must have at least had a fear about something before you felt that you were 'saved' from it.

You must also believe that other people have something that they need to 'fear' since you keep talking about a need for them to be 'saved'.

If there is nothing to fear, then it's meaningless to speak about a need to be 'saved'.

If that's true Cowboy then why to you accuse me of "bashing" your religion?

It's my belief that the old testament is nothing more than Zeus-like fables. That's my belief and I'm just sharing it. Why do you try to make out like I'm attacking your beliefs just because I hold different beliefs?

I believe that Jesus was most likely a Jewish Mahayana Buddhist who actually rejected the immoral teaching of the Torah.

Why should it upset you that this is my belief?

I believe that the New Testament is nothing more than superstitious rumors that have no merit whatsoever.

Again, why should you be upset about that in anyway if you claim that all we are doing is SHARING our beliefs?

~~~~~

I have no problem with sharing beliefs.

I accept that you are paranoid that the Hebrew God will hurt you if you fail to confess that Jesus is Lord and Savior of all mankind. And you have a very deep-seated fear that this God will hurt a whole lot of people if you don't convince them to believe like you.

So that's what you believe.

Fine.

~~~~~


I don't believe that.

I don't believe that any God is out to harm me if I fail to buy into a bunch of Hebrew rumors and gossip.

I see no good reason to have any fear of that.

And I most certainly have to reason to believe in such a dismal tale based on pure faith.

So the whole thing seems totally unproductive to me.

It's just a fear-based religion that clearly has cause you to have great fear, not only for yourself, but for others as well.

Trust me Cowboy, you don't need to have any fear of any God being mean to me for any reason. That very notion right there is totally unwarranted, I can absolutely assure of that with complete confidence.

So your extreme fear of God based on these ancient fables is simply unwarranted as far as I can see.

Hopefully someday you'll get over that fear.

In the meantime, you aren't doing anyone any favors by preaching it as though it's some sort of absolute truth.

Like Jeanniebean has been suggesting for over a year now, why don't you just state things as "I believe this" or "I believe that".

Why do you keep stating your beliefs as though you are delivering a sermon to a congregation?

Are you blind?

Read the words below in underline and bold:



In this sense,....


You just said that Jesus was sacrificing his life for mankind in the same sense that a solider sacrifices his life for his country.

But a solider basically has no choice (other than to surrender to the enemy and refuse to fight the war all together). Solider have to sacrifice their life because mortal men are powerless to deal with threats in any other away.

An all powerful God would never need to "sacrifice" his son to anyone unless he was being threatened in a way that required a sacrifice.

Therein lies the folly of your comparison.

Truly.

More to the point, if Cowboy is paranoid that some God is out to get him if he doesn't believe in Jesus and accept Jesus as his "savior", then by all means Cowboy should do that for his own peace of mind.

But his constant attempts to spread his religious paranoia and fears of God onto others is truly out of hand.

I have no need for any religion that proclaims that their God is something to fear.

Well, that flies in the face of what you just posted:

You just posted:



Now evidently you're trying to back out of your very own analogy.

Probably because you realize how utterly senseless it was.





Exactly my point.

A God who has no threat would have no need to 'sacrifice' anything.

Moreover, the only "threat" that the people of this Earth would have would be a threat from the biblical God himself.

So in order for me to believe in the biblical religion I would first need to believe that my creator poses a THREAT to me.

I don't buy into that kind of superstitious fear mongering.

These are standard apologetic excuses that I have rejected many times over.

IMHO, it makes absolutely no sense compare Jesus with mere mortal soldiers.

That would reduce the Christian God to having no more power than mere mortal men, and being faced with a REAL THREAT to which he must sacrifice something in order to beat.

Soldiers have NO POWER and this is why they need to go to war against enemies they see as being a REAL THREAT.

You can't have a supposedly all-powerful God being forced into a situation where he needs to make a sacrifice in order to beat an enemy.

So I totally reject your comparison of God, and or Jesus, with having to succumb to the same type of 'sacrifices' that human soldiers might need to face.

Only a God who has no more power than mere mortal humans would need to make any such sacrifice.

So I don't buy it.

I reject the religion as being nothing more than a man-made superstition that has no basis in terms of any genuine all-powerful God.

~~~~

You have made the CHARGE that I don't "listen".

I do listen to your excuses for this religion. I reject them all as simply not having any merit.

It's that simple.

Your excuses for these fables simply don't hold water, IMHO.

Now you're totally changing your "explanation" from claiming that the sacrifices were required to show sincerity, to now claiming that they were a form of punishment.

So you're not even being consistent with your claims and interpretations. You continually try everything under the sun in an attempt to 'defend' a totally indefensible mythology.

I don't buy into any of your explanations Cowboy.

Again, it's not that I don't "listen" to you. I simply see no merit in anything you say. Nothing you say adds up, nor are you consistent in your claims and interpretations.

You are clearly desperate to try to come up with explanations and that make any sense or have any consistency and you're failing miserably to do so.



I disagree that in Christianity the idea of blood sacrifices and the crucifixion of Jesus have nothing to do with each other. I personally feel that they are necessarily linked in a major way.

I also don't see where Jesus fulfilled any prophecy or old covenant. Jesus disagreed with the teachings of the Torah, and he most certainly didn't fulfill any prophesy associated with King David because the prophesy associated with King David foretold of a messiah who would be handed the throne of David by God. Jesus most certainly did not fulfill any such prophecy.

Do we even need to know?

All we need to do is to quit proselytizing religion in general and the question of who persecuted whom first would be a moot point.