this is some great stuff.
do you genuinely believe that jesus was an alien implant baby? if yes, what alien(s)? Are these aliens still around today?
Starting My Religion
- Thread starter What Would Jesus Do?
- Start date
this is some great stuff.
do you genuinely believe that jesus was an alien implant baby? if yes, what alien(s)? Are these aliens still around today?
If a Zoroastrian believes in God, or has some conduit to the supernatural, or the after life, or the Big Electron, or the Alternate Plane of Existence, or The Universe, or even The Flying Spaghetti Monster... that's fine with me. I don't need him to explain it to me or convince me. I'd be more disturbed if he were trying to talk me out of my beliefs. Being aware, or trying to be aware, of more than what our 5 senses can take in is all that matters.
Atheists is also a subjective, indistinct reference. People say George Carlin was an atheist. I think he, and many like him, simply have a more sophisticated perspective of what is beyond our 5 senses. They may not call it, or refer to it, as "God." The bastardizing and corruption of religions by the church and their power-hungry leaders has turned them off. As I've said before, I often wonder if Jesus (or the amalgam of Jesus, if you will) was a humble man that didn't want some religion started-up out of his presence in this plane of existence, but his followers were convinced otherwise.
It's interesting to me that you aren't seeing your own bias here.
I would argue that my position is not biased, as described in your definition. Two reasons.
First I posed it as a "which came first" question - the religion or the corruption. Which leaves open the possibility that either could be true.
Second, I then looked at the evidence. We have plenty of evidence of people being delusional (hearing voices and such), and we also have evidence of people being corrupt. Facts. And we have plenty evidence of cases when those formed the basis for religious belief and behavior. Facts. What we DON'T have evidence for is any actual God or even a sufficiently clear description of God that we could use to try to verify the existence of any god or supernatural power. To recap, we have evidence of people making claims about God and claiming to be authorities on what God wants but we don't have any evidence of God.
All the evidence is on my side of the equation. When you have all the evidence on your side of the equation, you might still be proven wrong (by more or better evidence) but your position is NOT biased. Your position is evidence-based.
Now you're just making stuff up.
Or are you? Tell us more about these other senses. Show us the evidence that they are real. Failing that, explain to us logically how they could be real. I'm perfectly willing to consider things that could be real.
For example, it could be real that people have telepathy. It's possible that brain or body structures could have evolved to broadcast and receive radio waves or electromagnetic patterns. Some fishes do this and use it for locating prey, or other things. I'm pretty sure we would have discovered those structures by now if we had them, but they could exist, so something that we might call telepathy could exist.
I give up. You refuse to be reached. You already know everything there is to know. And, what you don't know is only considered, or defined as even being knowable by your limited capacities. These guys are right about you. You worship Science. Your trust, faith, absolute beliefs literally come from the source you call Science. Science/God, tomay-toe, to-mah-toe. You will insist "but Science PROVES it to be real." Hey, dude, I got news for you. Faith and spiritual experience proves a great deal that you've discounted to be real. It's no less real to the person experiencing it just because you can't, or won't, or refuse to acknowledge that they are experiencing and knowing something.
You're not very different from the simple minds of religion at all. You think you're smarter than them, when you're just more certain about your own belief system that you are certain it is superior to theirs. There is a much, MUCH bigger picture. I've given you several sources to consider. You refuse to listen. When you refuse to listen, you're no different than all of these Christians you love to deride. By the way, deriding them only makes them more firm in their resolve. If you think you're expanding their understanding based on your comments, and how you typically deliver them... you are sadly mistaken.
The problem is you just keep repeating that there is something, without any proof or even plausible explanation how it could be true. And you don't even try to explain.
You keep saying that you have supplied sources, but (based on those I know about) none of those sources prove the reality of anything supernatural. So what's the point? If there is prove in them, you should be able to summarize it for us. Or provide illustrative examples.
Before we let this go, let me ask you this.... You say "I got news for you. Faith and spiritual experience proves a great deal that you've discounted to be real." How about some examples?
Give me an example or 2 of something that you feel is proved real by faith and spiritual experience but not by science or reason. And then explain how faith and spiritual experience has proved them real.
I can't prove that TO YOU! No one can. That is your problem! You're just as chained to the finite as anyone can possibly be. I kinda feel sorry for you. This is way too esoteric for you. I cannot prove my beliefs and understandings of physicality and life to you or anyone. I'm experiencing them through my own self! I only prove things (or have them proven) through MY experience! I can share things with you, or others, but that doesn't guarantee belief from you or them. But, it makes it no less real to ME.
Science, reason, faith, spirituality are all encompassed in this universe and in our realm of experience and understanding. I use all of them, not just a certain pairing of them. I'm sorry if you choose not to do it my way, and if others choose the same. That's their choice.
Oh brother.
This is the same age-old scam. The spirits won't appear if there is a skeptic in the room.
Still waiting for even one example, even one explanation that isn't circular in the sense of relying upon prior acceptance of the very thing that is to be proved.
Perfect. Because here's what you said:
"From my perspective, the first guys who set themselves up in the religion racket were either delusional (as in hearing voices and such) or absolutely doing it to gain power and wealth (and chicks and whatever)."
Congratulations, you just nailed yourself. Like I said, you stepped in a stinky.
I can't prove that TO YOU! No one can. That is your problem! You're just as chained to the finite as anyone can possibly be. I kinda feel sorry for you. This is way too esoteric for you. I cannot prove my beliefs and understandings of physicality and life to you or anyone. I'm experiencing them through myself! I only prove things (or have them proven) through MY experience!
Science, reason, faith, spirituality are all encompassed in this universe and in our realm of experience and understanding. I use all of them, not just a certain pairing of them. I'm sorry if you choose not to, and if others do the same. That's their choice.
I'm afraid you'll wait your entire life to be shown proof and never actually look for it. Good luck to you.
Strum, it is no use that is why my first reply to WWJD was he already had a religion.
The only way WWJD will be convinced is if a space ship lands in his front yard and two beings walk down the ramp and say "I am God and this is my son Jesus". Of course it will take awhile since WWJD will keep them busy passing his litmus tests.
Well, the thing is, I'm not really trying to push the idea that God is a man and has a"son." I think that story is more conceptual and from an ancient time when the entire human understanding of the known world was COMPLETELY different from what it is now.
You can try to absorb the Bible (and other Holy manuscripts) literally, but I think that would be somewhat difficult to do, and transpose it to present-day context with 100%-perfect-accuracy. Those stories were told for at least a hundred to hundreds of years before they were every written down. Then translated, re-translated and so on. Then I dunno how long before the church (whichever church) compiled them and chose which ones were legit and which ones weren't. Then the Protestants chose to cut out a huge portion (The Apocrypha). Then there are the teachings of all the other spiritual "masters" from other cultures that are incredibly wise and really powerful. That is why I prefer to read and learn from every source possible because I feel they are all legitimate. Science, reason, knowledge, faith, spirituality, are all tools for better understanding our own existence and that we're, basically, all one thing. There is some really amazing and fascinating information out there and for me to restrict my understanding to just one book is just not logical to me... it lacks reason! But, I'm using my faith, my spiritual "soul", if you will, and my active physical brain to seek as much knowledge as I can. Science is also a huge help! It's given us massive strides in progress. But, I fail to see how Science absolutely refutes a Higher Consciousness or that something beyond our 5 senses, in this finite physicality, exists.
The other side of worshiping an unknowable deity is usually not worshiping yourself (let alone asking others to worship you). At least not any more than worshiping an unknowable deity is worshiping yourself. Believing is one thing, but practicing is asserting the concrete ideas you've adopted about what's right and wrong. Most believers I know struggle with the nuances they observe in life which often differ from parts of the set of concrete ideas they've adopted nominally. Their religion is not any more selfless than someone who identifies as a humanist.
Edit: I screwed up my first sentence with the original version of the post. It previously read "The other side of not worshiping an unknowable deity is usually not worshiping yourself (let alone asking others to worship you)." It's now written how I intended it (still written poorly, but slightly more accurately).
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Tell me about it. . . I saw his segment and my wife and I actually called his number and had a laugh at the recording.
Christians have been fighting this prosperity heresy for years, Because it has become a way for people to take advantage of others and it turns on it's head everything Christianity has taught for millenia.
Christians are suppose to give because of what has already been given. . . not give with the expectation that they will receive something more in return.
If you want your money to give back to you invest it.
My sister has a friend who subscribes to some "think it into existence" religion. Or something like that. Probably someone here can clarify that. Sounds sort of like the power of positive thinking (which has some merit) turned into a magical religion.
What I find interesting about my sister's friend and some others I've heard talking about this odd superstition is that they are often hard-working, successful people. OK, OK, you probably aren't going to hear about the failures, so that doesn't mean a lot. But what strikes me is that they give credit to their "religion" for their success rather than recognizing that it was their own intelligence and hard work that got them there.
Well there are a lot of issues that come into it though. Positive thinking is great, but ordinary Christianity can encourage positive thinking.
The problem comes in 2 things. . . one is that in many cases you are suppose to receive these "blessings" after and only after you plant your "seed money" by sending it to some prosperity preacher as a donation.
The other problem is when you fail. Now in an ordinary Christian church your worldly failures arn't that important. We would just encourage you to get up, dust yourself off and try again. And if you fail bad enough we would help you and your family out. Our image of God does not guarantee success in anything but he is always there and always loving.
In the prosperity gospel if you fail then the only logical explanation is that you didn't believe hard enough or that for some reason God is angry with you or does not love you. Possibly because you did not give enough. That can lead a person down a pretty dark path. And as John Oliver stated it can cause people to give money they can't afford to give because under the prosperity gospel.
Basic difference is that with us, if you succeed it may be due to your own intelligence abilities but you got those abilities and gifts from God and built them up.
With prosperity gospel you succeeded because you helped your pastor buy a private jet.
yes, they, or it, is still around. see, I think natural and I got two different things from the zeitgeist movie. I think he got from it that all religion is fraud, he got that from the movie. and maybe he believes that in general. what I got is that most religion, invented by man, is indeed fantasy, but there is a real force, a god, an alien, something, and we are to worship that force and only that force. the movie does not identify it, I cannot identify it. hagee identifies it as God, but I'm not sure, yet.
most liberals worship the god of government, mankind is king. so they worship themselves.
There is good evidence this is just what the Bible writers (some of them anyway) intended. Gnosticism is all about self discovery or worship. Seeing as you aren't a biblical literalist either, this esoteric view might be just what you are looking for.
I will admit to not being much of a biblical scholar, but I doubt some of the writers wanted mankind to worship evil governments and to be self absorbed and to worship themselves
the bible writers actually got the word from god, or so the story goes
There is big conflict within Christianity between the gnostic, esoteric inner mystery and the exoteric literal interpretation of the story. The gnostic belief was people were all divine and you needed to learn to get in touch with your inner godlike qualities. God wasn't a divinity outside of the person, but was a quality we all possessed if we awoke to our potential. Paul was pretty gnostic, Mark somewhat, Matthew was more literal. This conflict was the big issue of the early church which the literalists eventually won through force.
how do you know about "big conflict within Christianity", seriously, I'm not being mean or anything, I'm just seriously asking the question. what is the source of this? never heard of it personally, but maybe you've been studying it
It's not controversial that the conflict existed. Just google conflicts in early Christianity and you will find that gnosticism was a major one. Its a fairly interesting topic you might enjoy with tentacles reaching into secret societies and revolutions.
One theory holds that the Jesus was never a man. Jesus was the personification in allegorical form of the gnostic ideas. Mark wrote his gospel to help explain gnosticism to the masses. Then literalists got stuck on the idea that the story was historical and the whole thing got away from the gnostics who eventually got killed by their own invention.
oh, I knew about it happening in the past, I thought you meant now. If you are talking about the documentaries I've seen where davinci might have actually been against god and the catholic church and may have put anti-christian things in his artwork, yes, seen that documentary.
I thought you meant right now- there's a battle. I cannot explain the love of the current pope amongst catholics right now. he's a communist and a Jesuit, and a truly horrible individual politically, but they love him
I don't think that conflict is very obvious today. But IMO the religion was invented based on these mystical esoteric ideas, so inherently that conflict is built into the religion. Its one of the reasons so much of the Bible is bizarre. Some of the biblical writers are literally writing their story to refute the very origins of the faith they claim to be a part of.
And in fact as one studies the New Testament, one discovers that the writers, often the Apostles themselves (and we could go deeper into who really wrote what but for the purposes of this comment I don't see a need) are always getting Christ's message wrong.
I don't see a reason to be surprised that later conflicts arose about everything including what belonged in The Bible.
Think about it, The Book pretty much made it clear that would happen!
So, once again I think what we are really discussing here, from the Oliver video, to WWJD's failed attempt at starting a religion (caught by "perception", tisk, tisk,
), to the most recent post, is the failure of half the equation of God + Man. Again, why should anyone be surprised by that?
I'm not surprised, because I think there is only one side of your equation ever represented. It's all man made story. But that presents a problem for those that think God wrote a book.And in fact as one studies the New Testament, one discovers that the writers, often the Apostles themselves (and we could go deeper into who really wrote what but for the purposes of this comment I don't see a need) are always getting Christ's message wrong.
I don't see a reason to be surprised that later conflicts arose about everything including what belonged in The Bible.
Think about it, The Book pretty much made it clear that would happen!
So, once again I think what we are really discussing here, from the Oliver video, to WWJD's failed attempt at starting a religion (caught by "perception", tisk, tisk,
Again, why should anyone be surprised by that?
I understand your beliefs and respect them. One of the many things that "gets" me about all this? I'm trying to think of books where the authors present themselves in an autobiographical setting and then continually show their own failures in such an honest light.
Much like the authors who wrote "rules" that no one, not even them, can follow without fail.
Weird.
Help me understand this. Where are you even seeing much autobiographical writing in the Bible? Paul's letters?
No, I'm talking about John, Luke, Matthew, Mark, other books.....the ones written in first hand accounts of the life of Christ. They are attributed to the apostles themselves, yet repeatedly we find the apostles in error of understanding Christ's message.
Odd, don't you think?
Not really and I thought you already alluded to knowing the answer. They are not first hand accounts written by eyewitness apostles. They aren't even attributed to those apostles in the books themselves. That attribution came about centuries later.
This of course fits the theory that Christianity started as a gnostic/mystery/esoteric religion with Jesus simply being an allegorical story useful for explaining the difficult concepts to the masses.
Oh, I don't think so.
A closer look and one finds the earliest written Gospel's that have been found aren't "centuries" old. And we don't even know for sure when they were first written. True that we have, that we can place in our hands, accounts written much later but I would have to say that just makes sense. We are talking about a very long time ago and things do tend to rot away or get lost.
A few things. First I didn't say the gospels were written centuries later. I said that is when they got attributed to the apostles. That is true. Justin Martyr (100-165AD) knew about the gospels, but didn't know they were supposedly written by Mark or John.Oh, I don't think so.
Second, research the dates of the gospels we have and you will find they are indeed centuries old. We have zero from the first century and just two fragments from the second century.
Third, the notion that the gospels weren't written by the apostles isn't actually controversial in Biblical study circles. That's mainstream scholarly thought. Mark's writer wasn't even from the holy land, he gets the geography wrong. So if you thought you were reading a historical eyewitness account all this time, you were in error.
I alluded to that in my first post today. So there is no error, except that I'm once again not communication my point to you. I think that happens because often times my points aren't the mainstream arguments you are used to hearing.
That's my guess, as it always seems like I'm getting pigeon holed (where did that term come from...did someone used to stick pigeons in holes or things into holes in pigeons?) Anyway, my point is the Books were written as eye witness and thus autobiographical accounts, yet in a very strange way tend to make the authors appear rather inept themselves at understanding Christ's teachings.
In the context of your discussion that the Christian Religion was full of conflict in the early years, these verses appear to have already said that was going to happen.
You'll get no debate about true authorship from me other than to say again, we just haven't got a lot to go on due to the 2,000 years since then and things tend to go missing. But that is, I hope you understand now, not part of the point I was trying to make.
I did miss your point, apologies. It seems you're simply remarking on the literary style of the gospel writers. I don't have the knowledge to know is that literary style of the author appearing bewildered has any great significance. If I recall my Plato correctly he also had characters in his pre-gospel stories that appeared to not understand the main point of his philosophies. Those befuddled characters served as a stand in for the presumed befuddled reader who might be struggling with the same point. So I can't say if the style is weird or not.
There may be a very good reason for this style Remember that gnostics/mystics are supposed to be about self reflection and self knowledge. So a befuddled writer might be entirely appropriate as the journey, not the laws or rules was the main point. If you read the Bible as an allegory where each of us is a son of the divine and each of us will die and be redeemed for our faults and become one with the divine nature of the cosmos, a befuddled narrator is a comfort, as its a very confusing idea. So confusing maybe that people just decided it was easier to understand it literally.
