Now, on the God/Hitler thing; “YIKES” dude . I’m not sure I can comment on that.

I don't blame you for not touching it.

But seriously, look at the similarities. Some dictator wants to weed out undesirables by tossing them in fiery furnace whilst trying to create a supreme society based on only the people the dictator determines are worthy.

If a human being tries to do this we consider him to be the most despicable personal we can imagine.

However, if a God does basically the very same thing then we praise the God and worship it as being all-wise, all-loving and all-merciful.

Just seems strange to me is all.

That's all I'm saying.

It's quite a bit different then that, you're comparing something done at the will and wishes of the person doing the weeding out. We will be JUDGED for our actions, it won't be like Jesus sees you and says "nah this guy's got to big of a head, he's gonna burn". It's a righteous judgement, not just who Jesus chooses at his will.

If what you say is true, then Jesus cannot condemn a righteous person because he cannot violate his own righteousness.

That being the case, then he can not condemn non-believers because there is nothing unrighteous about being a non-believer.

So it always comes full circle.

Those who try to use Jesus as a battering ram to pass judgment on others will always fail, for it cannot be done. It's the epitome of hypocrisy.

What is righteous? Is righteous not someone that does exactly as he is to? Someone that does good dead for others out of pure love? Basically does as he/she is suppose to. So with that being said, how can one be righteous if he refuses to accept Jesus as lord and saviour for he is. So if you do not accept Jesus as lord and saviour you then would not be doing as you are to do, thus you would end up not being righteous.

That's the bottom line right there Cowboy.

When it comes to a truly righteous God, I couldn't care less about your opinions. Because who are you to say what's righteous?

I only need to deal directly with my creator. I don't need to justify anything through you.

You are neither God, nor to you speak for God in spite of what you may think.

This is precisely the kind of judgmental crap the people start to get into when they become obsessive about the Bible.

You're trying to use the Bible as a means of judging my relationship with God.

I'm telling you that I'm perfectly happy with my relationship with God because I see God as being far more intelligent than you.

So I don't need your approval. And I'm quite certain that God doesn't need your approval either.

Cowboy wrote:

So be it. Again no judgement passed towards YOU. I never said you were not righteous nor did I say I was righteous and or better then you. You seem to take this stuff quite personal like someone's attacking YOU when nothing has been directed at YOU.

Abracadabra,
Forgot to follow up on one more point with you; you wrote the following: “The funny thing is here that from a purely biological point of view, even a fungus multiplies on a piece of fruit until the entire orb is totally covered with fungus and the fruit dies along with the fungus.”
I just wanted to point out that the “fungus” does continue. I think it creates spores that find the next piece of fruit to dine on. It’s sole purpose is to reproduce. Anyway some food for thought

CowboyGH, why is your interpretation of god better than Abracadabra’s? Why does he have to accept your god to feel righteous? Sorry but it does feel like your judging him. You wrote, “So if you do not accept Jesus as lord and saviour(sp?) you then would not be doing as you are to do, thus you would end up not being righteous.” Sounds like judgment to me? Maybe I misunderstood your intentions.

That's the bottom line right there Cowboy.

When it comes to a truly righteous God, I couldn't care less about your opinions. Because who are you to say what's righteous?

I only need to deal directly with my creator. I don't need to justify anything through you.

You are neither God, nor to you speak for God in spite of what you may think.

This is precisely the kind of judgmental crap the people start to get into when they become obsessive about the Bible.

You're trying to use the Bible as a means of judging my relationship with God.

I'm telling you that I'm perfectly happy with my relationship with God because I see God as being far more intelligent than you.

So I don't need your approval. And I'm quite certain that God doesn't need your approval either.

So you can make posts attacking atheism but no one should defend them, is that right? Atheists can be attacked but don't say anything bad about christianity?

Gotta love the people that can dish it out but can't take it...

Kudos to you for catching that.

I actually thought of that when I was typing it in, but didn't want to get side-tracked into covering all the bases.

Yes, the fungus would become ripe, give off spores and infect other pieces of fruit.

Analogies always break down, darn it.

But I think you get the idea. Imagine that the earth is a piece of fruit. There just aren't any other pieces of fruit around to be contaminated by the 'fungal spores'.

Unless, of course, you imagine humans gaining the capability of space travel to the point of being able to traverse long distances to potential other solar systems with via 'pieces of fruit' to infect.

And then what happens if we get to the "Promised Land" and it's already occupied by another culture?

Interesting thoughts.

I also wonder about humans sending out their DNA in a space craft. That's a possible way to propagate the human species.

In fact, they wouldn't even need to propagate actual DNA, just send off the numerical sequences, and another culture could reconstruct the human species from that.

Amazing isn't it?

By the way, I just watched a course on genetics and the human genome. In those lectures the geneticist claims that we basically have the entire genome of the Neanderthals. In theory would could "Bring them back".

Of course, I seriously doubt that any sane person would want to. But it does bring up the question of whether any culture should try to bring back any other culture.

What would we do if we found a space capsule entering our solar system and when we retrieved it we discover that it's the genome for some other intelligent species with a plea for us to "bring them back".

Would we do it?

Would we even want to?

It would just be yet another species to compete with.

Strange questions but questions that we may actually face at some point in the future.

I absolutely agree with you sweetestgirl11. If Christianity could indeed represent the moral values of Jesus alone it would be a beautiful religion. In fact, it would basically be Buddhism.

The problem with Christianity (and I'm speaking of the doctrine itself, not the followers), is that the authors of the New Testament are basically claiming that Jesus is the only begotten son of the God of the Old Testament.

So here you are proclaiming that even you think the laws of the Old Testament were horrible. What does that say? It can only mean that if it wasn't for Jesus you wouldn't like the biblical God either.

But how could Jesus be the complete opposite of the Biblical God and still be his son? That makes no sense at all.

This is why it makes sense to recognize that Jesus most likely was indeed a Buddhist who was either simply misunderstood, or horribly abused by the authors of the New Testament in an attempt to use his martyrdom to prop up the very religion that Jesus preached against.

I personally feel it was actually the latter. I think the New Testament was indeed written on purpose to make it appear that Jesus was the son of the God of the Torah, just so the scribes and Pharisees could regain religious power.

In any case, recognizing that this is a very possible scenario should not offend anyone. It should also be a far more popular theory. The Christians don't want it to become a popular theory. They don't want to have anything to do with anything that doesn't support the biblical picture. They really couldn't care less whether it holds any truth or not. They don't seem to care about truth, all they care about is keeping the "Christian Myth" alive and well, at all cost.

It shouldn't be like that. People should be able to offer alternative views without being pushed aside as "Christian bashers". That's just silly.

You can't even voice an honest opinion that the bible might not be the word of God, or that Jesus might not have been the only begotten son of God, without being called a "Christian basher"

That's wrong.

A person should be able to voice why they feel the Biblical stories may not be from a divine source at all, and not have that opinion be considered to be "Christian bashing".

After all, the Christian organizations don't own the Bible, and even more to the point they try to PUSH the bible onto everyone else as the "Word of God", and that's all the more reason that people should be able to voice their reasons why they do not believe that it's the word of any God.

That's a valid reaction in the face of Christians constantly shoving the Bible at everyone claiming that it's the "Word of God". Well, gee whiz, if you simply try to explain why you don't believe them, they start screaming "Your Bashing Our Religion!"

Well DUH!

If they quit shoving the Bible down everyone's throat as the "Word of God" then maybe they wouldn't need to hear why people don't believe it.

They want ONE-WAY proselytizing and evangelizing rights. They want to be able to go around preaching to everyone that the Bible is the "Word of God", and at the same time they want to dismiss everyone who holds an alternative view to be silenced as nothing more than a "disrespectful Christian basher".

Well I guess they would LOVE that.

Then they could go about pressuring people to convert to Christianity and no one could say a word against their claims because to do so would be considered, "Christian Bashing".

That would be like a FREE TICKET to run proselytizing campaigns without ever having anyone QUESTION anything, because as soon as people start questioning the Bible, they'd will quickly be labeled as "Christian Bashers". How dare they be so disrespectful as to question the Christian religion!

I'm not about to get into that baloney.

As far as I'm concerned I'm just giving my views on an ancient book, as well as some of the affects it has had on people throughout all of history right up and including today. It may as well be Moby Dick as to be the Bible as far as I'm concerned. And I'm not saying that to offend anyone, I'm just telling it like it is.

abra u are overthinking things. Jesus was juxtaposed to the pharisees - they did not get along. Jesus was sent by God to correct the folly of man. This may explain some of the contradiction that confuses you. It confuses me also, abra. Are u Bhuddist? How lovely, perhaps once I am knowledgeable enough to ask some questions, I will seek You! I just love the interest in God of the people on this thread!

I don't believe that Jesus was sent by any God. Especially not the God of the Old Testament.

And besides, there's no way that I'm going to believe that some all-wise supreme being would have been so clumsy with his "New Covenant" to mankind to allow it to become nothing more than second-hand hearsay rumors. If Jesus was sent by God to present a New Covenant to all of mankind, why not write it down in his own words and handwriting?

There is absolutely no excuse for an all-wise, all-powerful God to leave something as important as a totally New Covenant with mankind to nothing more than belated hearsay rumors that are highly questionable. And then to top that off, suggest that anyone who refuses to believe it is rejecting God?

No way am I going to buy into that.

The idea that Jesus was a misunderstood Buddhist makes far more sense to me. And this should be acceptable and respectable to others as a wise choice of possibly hypothesis to explain the New Testament. No need to get defensive about it, or claim insult and injury just because the ultimate conclusion is that Jesus wasn't God anymore than Buddha was God.

People get all bent out of shape at any suggestion that Jesus might not have been God (or the only begotten son of God).

As for Buddhism, I'm not actually a Buddhist, or a Taoist, but those philosophies best reflect my views on spirituality.

I have studied Buddhism in much depth, so I have some understanding of the various forms of Buddhism. There are many different forms of Buddhism from the original form of the tale of the life of Siddhartha Gautama, to Mahayana Buddhism (which was at its peak about the time when Jesus supposedly lived). And Tantra Buddhism, various forms of Chinese Buddhism, all the way up to the modern Japanese form of Zen Buddhism.

I personally like Tantra Buddhism the best. I think Tantra Buddhism is closest to the kind of Buddhism that the Dalia Lama represents. Although I think they have another name for it too.

I prefer those earlier forms of Buddhism over Zen Buddhism which has almost become a glorified form of atheism or animism at least. It was heavily influenced by Taoism. Which is cool. Taoism is a great spirituality too.

In fact, when I studied Taoism I also learned much about Shamanism, which was part of the early roots of Taoism. These are both closely related to Tantra Buddhism by the way. They were all near Tibet. At least in general terms.

I personally believe that Wicca (speaking of the ancient Celtic forms of it, and not necessarily the new age form) actually came out of a form of Shamanism, Taoism, and potentially parts of Tantra Buddhism.

So I find spirituality associate with Wicca to be quite beautiful and resonate with much of Eastern Mysticism, at least for me. In my studies of the ancient spiritual concepts of Europe I also become aware of various forms of Faery Lore, or "Faery Teachings" as they are referred to. I find them to be quite interesting and beautiful as well.

Anyway, I like Jesus as a Mahayana Buddhist Bodhisattva and I think that's a very respectable thing to be.

And besides, there's no way that I'm going to believe that some all-wise supreme being would have been so clumsy with his "New Covenant" to mankind to allow it to become nothing more than second-hand hearsay rumors. If Jesus was sent by God to present a New Covenant to all of mankind, why not write it down in his own words and handwriting?

For God to do as you say he should, God would have to tell us EVERY time a new generation is on this earth... so bout every day. Other wise it will be just handed down from the previous generation and would obviously be hearsay rumours. Why can't God just tell us one time? Why would he have to repeat himself for EVERY generation to avoid the accusations of hearsay rumours?