I can agree with you that there is a lot in the bible that is both hateful and ugly but we have come a long way since then even though some are still highly mysogynistic, racist and homophobic, either because it gives them an excuse to be that way, because of their faulty thinking or because they are not capable of questioning these beliefs.
So because you assumed that Ierrellus was a Christian, you automatically insulted him. Do you find anything “Inquisitor”-like about that?
Do you look to the Christian, the kind of human being he or she is and the way in which they live their life or are they automatically “anathema” to you? I am asking because I really want to know this. Look what you said to Ierrellus.
Why do you keep “lumping” everyone together? I am not so sure that a Christian, one who actually practices his religion and is self-aware, automatically does this. If a person does not take responsibility as you say for their sins, it has a lot less to do with their religion and a lot more to do with them simply as an “individual”. They are the type of individual who does not want to see his own guilt and responsibility.
I am not understanding what you mean here. Can you please clarify it. According to Catholicism Jesus as the Son of God, cannot sin though he has a human nature along with His Divine nature. So, what is Christ asking them to do by their perception?
So you are the poster child who is going to clean up the world by your attacking and insulting. Have you ever heard that you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar? I am not saying NOT to respond to these kind of people who spread this kind of ugliness but you need to figure out what is actually ugly and what is just beliefs which help get one through the night and do not harm others.
"
I would have let out the word “scapegoat” but I have seen it in many posts in this forum. According to Christianity though, God the Father did not force this mission on Him. Together they both agreed to it. It kind of changes things when viewed in that way; that is, if you can take the time to think that out.
Supposedly it was the act of a loving compassionate God, not one who was pressured, and not a slave.
I realize that a lot that is in the bible is just myth and belief and just in case you may not have noticed, there are also some beautiful "pearls there. There was a time as a Catholic, and one who was raised in a Catholic Orphanage, that I also believed a lot but there was also a lot that I disregarded because it did not make sense and because some of what was in the bible was hateful and ugly. I have since shed that “skin” but you yourself do denigrate a lot of peoples’ beliefs simply because you do not understand why some of those, for lack of a better word, I will say better beliefs, mean to people.
You mean God the Father and Son ordaining that Christ would come to earth and die for our sins and open the gates of heaven? If you give this some thought, is this necessarily such a terrible thing to believe if it does in fact allow people to take responsibility for their actions and to love this God and to do His will? After all, Christ stripped himself of his full Divinity and became Man.
Would you condemn a Christian or a Catholic for their beliefs because you do not go along with some of them?
Why are you more entitled to your own beliefs than others are to theirs?
A cure is not invented before the disease is. That is how stupid the Christian theology is.
I can agree with you that there is a lot in the bible that is both hateful and ugly but we have come a long way since then even though some are still highly mysogynistic, racist and homophobic, either because it gives them an excuse to be that way, because of their faulty thinking or because they are not capable of questioning these beliefs.
So because you assumed that Ierrellus was a Christian, you automatically insulted him. Do you find anything “Inquisitor”-like about that?
Do you look to the Christian, the kind of human being he or she is and the way in which they live their life or are they automatically “anathema” to you? I am asking because I really want to know this. Look what you said to Ierrellus.
Why do you keep “lumping” everyone together? I am not so sure that a Christian, one who actually practices his religion and is self-aware, automatically does this. If a person does not take responsibility as you say for their sins, it has a lot less to do with their religion and a lot more to do with them simply as an “individual”. They are the type of individual who does not want to see his own guilt and responsibility.
I am not understanding what you mean here. Can you please clarify it. According to Catholicism Jesus as the Son of God, cannot sin though he has a human nature along with His Divine nature. So, what is Christ asking them to do by their perception?
So you are the poster child who is going to clean up the world by your attacking and insulting. Have you ever heard that you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar? I am not saying NOT to respond to these kind of people who spread this kind of ugliness but you need to figure out what is actually ugly and what is just beliefs which help get one through the night and do not harm others.
"
I would have let out the word “scapegoat” but I have seen it in many posts in this forum. According to Christianity though, God the Father did not force this mission on Him. Together they both agreed to it. It kind of changes things when viewed in that way; that is, if you can take the time to think that out.
Supposedly it was the act of a loving compassionate God, not one who was pressured, and not a slave.
I realize that a lot that is in the bible is just myth and belief and just in case you may not have noticed, there are also some beautiful "pearls there. There was a time as a Catholic, and one who was raised in a Catholic Orphanage, that I also believed a lot but there was also a lot that I disregarded because it did not make sense and because some of what was in the bible was hateful and ugly. I have since shed that “skin” but you yourself do denigrate a lot of peoples’ beliefs simply because you do not understand why some of those, for lack of a better word, I will say better beliefs, mean to people.
You mean God the Father and Son ordaining that Christ would come to earth and die for our sins and open the gates of heaven? If you give this some thought, is this necessarily such a terrible thing to believe if it does in fact allow people to take responsibility for their actions and to love this God and to do His will? After all, Christ stripped himself of his full Divinity and became Man.
Would you condemn a Christian or a Catholic for their beliefs because you do not go along with some of them?
Why are you more entitled to your own beliefs than others are to theirs?
Well, one way I can answer that is to say that according to those who believe in God, one of the attributes of God is that this God is Omnicient…All Knowing. Ergo God would have known ahead of time that humans would eventually evolve into imperfect, faulty beings.
Something that is not understood, even if it is not quite “real” is either feared or thought to be stupid.
Re-read what is in quotes there above. How does that really sound to you?
You missed the point here. The “lumping” together referred to your judgment of all Christians, no matter what kind of an individual he/she is. They are all evil/vile to you. Again, you believed Ierrellus to be Christian and so your trigger caused you to insult him.
Would you persecute, torture and murder Christians as the Nazis did the Jewish community? It was a rhetorical question. I am not saying that you would but we have a deep, dark shadow side to us where we may be capable of things which we might never have supposed. We needs to be watchful of that side.
I do not understand your use of the word “ride” here. What does that even mean?
So the answer to my question above is a YES?
Is seeing the truth, the real truth, such an easy thing to you?
Many a doctrine is like a window pane. We see truth through it but it divides us from truth. Kahlil Gibran
We agree on the above but I was speaking of your judgment of all of the Christians, et cetera who do no harm and try to live a good life.
Okay, maybe I am misunderstanding you because of that one remark you made to Ierrellus. Do you, in actuality, believe that all christians are wrong, vile and are morons, as you said to me?
Do you?
I do not think that those two actions are contradictory to each other. Give it some thought. At any rate, that might depend on the situation/circumstance. Some may also volunteer and because of that, ARE chosen. Their will is not taken from them.
At any rate, though Christ was the Son of God, he was equal in all ways. He took it upon himself to become human.
lol What do you mean by “forgiving outright”? A man continues to rape and murder without any feeling of guilt and/or remorse and God is to forgive him outright? What about the victims?
Compassion at times, human compassion, has to be balanced with intelligence and reason. We have to take responsibility and show that we have learned something. Are you a father? If so, do you simply forgive your child without teaching him that there are consequences to his actions and sometimes taking something away to teach him?
Anyway, let us not forget that according to Christian myth, the Gates of Heaven were closed so there HAD to be a redeemer to come and open them. That is supposed to show God as a loving, forgiving Father to His people. Tje OT God supposedly was not such a loving, compassionate God.
A lot of people, including Christians, sometimes have a problem with that part - God sending His son to die for us. People are still trying to understand The Holy Trinity. We cannot fathom that as human beings, God would sacrifice His Son or allow the Son to sacrifice Himself. So much has to be taken on faith and not questioned in order to work. Human beings make God into their own image without realizing that there is so much mystery there which cannot be understood. Maybe delving deeper into the meaning can be helpful. You know, thinking out of the box.
Yes, those who are, are. But I was speaking of your perception of Christians. Did you not say above: “That sounds as retarded as a Christian”.
Sounds more like revenge to me, not justice. I was never one to follow “an eye for an eye” although at times I have to admit it might feel quite yummy to. Apparently you do.
What do You see yourself as doing?
You have Jesus breaking the laws he said he came to fulfill which say that our sins can only be forgiven us, not some innocent victim.
[/quote]
Which laws do I have Jesus breaking?
I do not understand what you mean by what is in color.
Unjustly closed? If your child does something which is really wrong and you take away a toy or a privilege of his, who do you think has really taken away that privilege, yourself or your child? Actions have repercussions to them. Adam and Eve disobeyed God. Somewhere in the bible it says that the “sins of the fathers (parents) shall be visited upon the children”. Would you give that privilege back to your child so easily?
When you say you, are you referring to me the Christian? I am not one anymore. If I was, I would certainly not deny it.
I suppose that you are speaKing only of those beliefs which would attack gay people, women, those with diseases, et cetera…those beliefs which state that it is God who is punishing because someone has Aids, et cetera? Attack THOSE beliefs and teach.
Ah, but these people are those who live in faith and do believe. They practice their beliefs. They harm no one. I think that you see things too much in simple black and white. There are colors and shades of colors.
Perhaps not in those exact words. But I intuit that you are certainly believing and living those words in spirit. I see it.
Which laws do I have Jesus breaking?
I do not understand what you mean by what is in color.
Unjustly closed? If your child does something which is really wrong and you take away a toy or a privilege of his, who do you think has really taken away that privilege, yourself or your child? Actions have repercussions to them. Adam and Eve disobeyed God. Somewhere in the bible it says that the “sins of the fathers (parents) shall be visited upon the children”. Would you give that privilege back to your child so easily?
When you say you, are you referring to me the Christian? I am not one anymore. If I was, I would certainly not deny it.
I suppose that you are speaKing only of those beliefs which would attack gay people, women, those with diseases, et cetera…those beliefs which state that it is God who is punishing because someone has Aids, et cetera? Attack THOSE beliefs and teach.
Ah, but these people are those who live in faith and do believe. They practice their beliefs. They harm no one. I think that you see things too much in simple black and white. There are colors and shades of colors.
Perhaps not in those exact words. But I intuit that you are certainly believing and living those words in spirit. I see it.
[/quote]
Nice apology that shows that your assumption made an ass of you and you are doubling down on it.
Your post has way too much foolishness for me to deal with all of it so I will cherry pick.
Tell us, when you see Christians, let’s say Catholics, all putting their cash in a collection basket while knowing that some of it will go to pedophile victims and air fare to move those pedophiles to new hunting grounds, how do you pick out the good Christians?
When some prick of a preacher is sermonizing about how women and gays are inferior with his homophobic and misogynous sermon, how do you pick out the good ones who disagree?
“We agree on the above but I was speaking of your judgment of all of the Christians, et cetera who do no harm and try to live a good life.”
Supporting a homophobic and misogynous church is doing harm to those the church targets and if they are good people, as you say, they will leave that vile church.
“though Christ was the Son of God, he was equal in all ways. He took it upon himself to become human.”
Supernaturally based idiocy that Constantine forced down Christianity’s throat. Read your history.
“What about the victims?”
Glad you asked. The victim has the right to forgive while god does not.
If your wife gets raped, would she feel justice was done if god forgave her rapist?
" Are you a father? If so, do you simply forgive your child without teaching him that there are consequences to his actions and sometimes taking something away to teach him?"
Sure I believe in punishing a guilty child.
Now compare that wisdom to what that prick Yahweh did.
Instead of punishing the guilty, he punished his innocent child.
Why do you praise what you would not do yourself?
“That is supposed to show God as a loving, forgiving Father to His people.”
All belied by his killing instead of curing all over the bible. You are rather selective in your reading habits.
“which say that our sins can only be forgiven us,”
I wrote this for Christian. If you happen to be one take it as is. If you are not, stop supporting immoral people.
You have swallowed a lie and don’t care how evil you make Jesus to keep your feel good get out of hell free card.
It is a lie, first and foremost because, like it or not, having another innocent person suffer or die for the wrongs you have done, — so that you might escape responsibility for having done them, — is immoral. To abdicate your personal responsibility for your actions or use a scapegoat is immoral.
You also have to ignore what Jesus, as a Jewish Rabbi, would have taught his people.
Ezekiel 18:20 The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.
Deuteronomy 24:16 (ESV) "Fathers shall not be put to death because of their children, nor shall children be put to death because of their fathers. Each one shall be put to death for his own sin.
Psa 49;7 None of them can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him:
There is no way that you would teach your children to use a scapegoat to escape their just punishments and here you are doing just that.
Jesus is just a smidge less immoral than his demiurge genocidal father, and here you are trying to put him as low in moral fibre as Yahweh. Satan applauds you though as you are doing her work.
Define what to you is foolishness because I see some of your own.
Aside from that, that is your perception. I can certainly understand your need to cherry pick. I suppose, like many, you also do that when you scan the bible (that is, if you do that) looking for what suits you on that particular day. Many people do that.
I have not been to church for the longest time except for a funeral. You and I have something in common. We both hate pedophiles and want them put away.
I think that, for some reason, if you were to go to a church and saw the collection, this would probably come to your mind. I do not think that the majority of people would be thinking in those terms though. They would be supporting their church. It might be say for its physical upkeep and other sundry things.
But I can agree with you that it might be a good idea if more of them had that kind of awareness.
I have never heard a homily like this spoken. I did call a priest out once for saying that women who have abortions are all going to hell and I reported it. This was an exceptionally intelligent human being who taught at a university though he was an idiot. Our beliefs can do that to us. I have seen the faces of a number of women who just had abortions and they did the deed with many tears.
As I said, I have never heard that but you can point me to where you have. If I had ever heard that, you can be sure that I would have made a big stink about it and I am sure many other members of that church would too.
I suppose that somewhere some antiquated priest/minister/church may be like that. That is a church, the doors of which, I would like to chain up.
…and you need to read my words. I told you that I do not believe this stuff anymore. Much of it is superstition and christian myth. I was explaining christian belief.
No one actually HAS to forgive. It is up to him or her. This is all christian belief. Sometimes it is conducive and healthy emotionally and spiritually for a person to forgive but only if he/she is honest about it and knows that the other party is sorry/remorseful. They can still forgive if the person is NOT sorry but it would be a good idea to cut him loose.
Perhaps the church taught forgiveness as a way for the people to also realize that God is capable of forgiveness. I wonder what kind of a world we would have if no one ever forgave anyone else. I wonder how long the human species would last.
Prick? lol You have a way of making God so real.
That is your perception. Let us say that you were to take this as a fairy tale, could you not come to try to understand what the Story is trying to convey, to dig a little deeper for its real meaning? You are incapable of seeing Christ as being equal with the father and coming to his own decision about this in this scenario.
Actually you do not really need to but if you are going to put your own spin on it, make it a more fair and balanced one.
I do not ready the bible anymore. You keep thinking in human terms. I myself also could not think of giving up my children for the sake of the world.
Unfortunately, there was a time when many in the church, the hierarchy, did just that basically I think to preserve the church but also to protect their own which was absolutely immoral and vile. They did not see or even consider the victim and who would have even believed that such a thing could go on. Many people basically worshipped their priests, just second to their God. They were taught to do that by family and Church.
So you are speaking here of the christians who you believe support the pedophiles, et cetera, because they are still a part of the Church.
Are they supporting the pedophiles or are they simply supporting their Church, physical or otherwise, because of a sense of belonging to it and of needing it and their God. Those two thoughts can be mutually exclusive you know.
I do not believe in hell. That is a place to keep people “in tow”. I do not believe in heaven.
I also cannot live Pascal’s Wager. I am an agnostic. and what I cannot prove I will not believe.
I thought it was Jesus father who was evil and vile according to you ~~ not Jesus.
I can agree with this. On the other hand…
The church does not say that believers can abdicate their responsibility for wrongdoing and still go to heaven. You have it wrong there. That is being presumptuous and that is exactly what that sin is called…the sin of Presumption.
The Church says that a person has to be sorry and remorseful for the wrongdoing and to seek forgiveness and to vow not to commit the sin[s] again. No one gets to go to heaven just because they want to. God’s love/mercy/forgiveness does not extend to those who do not want to reform and who continually break His laws. That is the church teaching.
I do not know where you get your information but you yourself do seem to do a lot of cherry picking. You need to take some time to doubt some of the things you believe about the church’'s teachings. You are always throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Of course, having said all of that, and considering everything which has become known, it would appear to be more than a bit ludicrous to me to say what the church’s teachings are. But that does not mean that everyone in the Church is immoral or vile. There are still a great many really good priests, et cetera, who do try to and do follow the teachings.
It may seem to be one big mess and I would say that it is by far a great thing that this mess has been revealed but one does not get rid of the messy waters by throwing the baby out with the bathwater. You yourself seem to be throwing a great deal of mud at this baby.
And what is that?
No, I would not. But more to the point, I would give my life for my children with every fiber of my being in order to save them and if by chance I also did survive, there is no way in which I could ever see myself as being a scapegoat for having done that.
Well, if I actually believed in the devil and demons, I might just question which one of us is actually doing that work.
Having a belief in them is just one more way in which to give up responsibility for the things which we do and the consequences which they create. The devil made me do it.
The current human world of sin and death is actually a re-enactment of the dream Christ experienced while dying upon the cross. If, of course, only consciousness in the form of persons exist, the Judeo-Christian God exists, the Judeo-Christian God is an infinite consciousness that is the external world, and if we are imaginary characters within the mind of God whom, it turns out, has a cosmic form of dissociative identity disorder in which ‘he’ transitions into Crucified Christ, who right now is dreaming the experiences we are now having.
Too much anthropomorphism around here. Although it is human to have to name something in order to feel that it is known, Jesus is a force called Love, not a person to be accused of doing human things. God’s plan as evidenced in Nature is creative evolution of organisms. In this sense God is an active force, not a personality; and, science and religion are not compelled to balk over such spurious terms as supernatural. God is the glue that binds organic and inorganic cycles and ecosystems together. This is the way of the natural world. Our morality belongs to the active recognition that we are an integral part of the systems by which Nature thrives. Atheists and agnostics are still compelled to recognize they are part of the larger whole of nature and are obligated to seeing that the future is physically viable, not a waste land killed by ravages of ego.
That’s cool, but what if God is a person? When guessing (and that’s all we’re doing, as well as settling upon something that we find that we actually believe regardless of whether or not it is objectively true) about the nature of the external world, anything is possible (that’s logically possible).
Well if God is human then he cannot be omnipotent or omniscient or omnibenevolent or indeed any other omni
And so were this true there would be no reason to worship him and all those that are doing so would have to realise this - not that they would stop
The only thing one can be absolutely certain about him is that he represents the highest ideal of human imagination but beyond that nothing at all
While “biological” humans do not and perhaps cannot have “omni” qualities, a human consciousness qua a human consciousness perhaps can be “omni”, in a way in which a human or human-like consciousness can.
If a person has a belief that this being will provide and maintain one’s existence for all future time, and that the person will ensure the eternal existence is constantly and consistently happy, appreciation results in some that inspires or impels them to worship and adore the being.
You’re right. “Ideal”, if you take off the “l” spells “idea”. The only thing we know for certain about God is the idea of God and the idea of his qualities, abilities, and if there are any…limitations. But the same goes for anything that is believed or entertained to exist in the external world.
A natural God cannot be described by any single aspect of creation such as minds or the supernatural mythologies about how minds extend or could be. Natural God is realized in the creation and sustaining of the known universe. Natural God is experienced by every thing that exists. Natural God is pure activity with no need of human prayers and supplications in order to act. The God of Mind, constructed by the human ego, will be unable to prevent human interference in the operations of ecosystems . The God of Mind has never prevented natural disasters or mass suffering.
And yet the God of Mind, even if idealistically constructed by the human ego, could objectively exist and inform the human mind as to its existence and qualities around the “white noise” of human ego and the “doing of x in the name of God”.
In my Pantheopsychic Theism, the God of Mind accidentally and helplessly creates natural disasters and mass suffering in a non-lucid dream. Another personality of the God of Mind rectifies these in the afterlife or by intermittent interference.
Natural disasters and the ecosystem, by the way, are actually illusions of consciousness, as only the consciousness of persons exist, and the world we experience is actually a “hologram” or artificial reality made up of one’s consciousness. There is no objective world not made up of a person behind it.
Or so I believe (to pay homage to philosophical honesty, which decries assertions regarding the nature of the external world).
Where you and I disagree, p-g, is that the whole is a matter of consciousness. Try stopping a tsunami with your thoughts. Or for that matter prevent " man’s inhumanity to man" by thinking.
Everything may consist, in my view, of first-person subjective experience, but one does not have telekinetic control over the “made up of the substance of you” reality. A tsunami, though made up of your first-person subjective experience is still unstoppable as your consciousness or subjective experience assumes the form of an unstoppable force of water washing toward your first-person subject of experience. The tsunami disappears, as it was only made up of you anyway, when you become unconscious or die due to the way this particular “matrix” affected and altered the subject of the artificial reality (you) generating the “virtual tsunami” .
The artificial or virtual reality composed and constructed of your first-person experience is not under your control, but the control of something or Someone (Someones?) outside the artificial reality.
Ergo, consciousness being an artificial reality does not imply or entail the subject having control over the reality. The truth of my belief is indicated by the existence of death and sleep (if these exist). Something (your experience) winks out or disappears that once was there, as opposed to a mind-independent reality that cannot die or fall asleep and is not a creation of the brain. I do not believe a mind-independent reality exists or that brains create consciousness, but they are excellent analogies demonstrating that consciousness is an artificial reality including tsunami’s made up of one’s consciousness, regardless of whether or not a mind-independent doppelganger of the tsunami not coming from or created by one’s brain exists when your consciousness no longer creates the “virtual” tsunami.
As in, first-person subjective experience is the only form in which existence manifests or appears?
Mind is a brain product of brains not made out of mind or first-person subjective experience?
Thought is the same thing as neurons (star-shaped, electrified pieces of meat)? Thought is the same thing as electrons playing “Musical Chairs” between star-shaped pieces of meat that at the same time is an ephemeral first-person subjective experience of, say, a view of mountains on a hiking retreat?
Thought is the interactivity of billions of neurons not made out of first-person subjective experience?
You cannot be absolutely certain that consciousness is an artificial reality which is why you can only believe it to be so and nothing else
Logically the possibility must exist that that belief - like any belief - could be false and so alternatives should also be considered as well
Don’t get the horse before the cart. The hardware of brain neuronal activity operates prior to first person subjective experiences. It lends to the software mind
mythologies based on the experience of its activity. In other words mental stuff is mythologized physical, first-hand experiences.
Halt. This is a post-cartesian logocentric reductionalistic emergent materialism operating with the same linguistic confusions the platonists are guilty of.
Mind is not a product or entity or function. These are mereological fallacies. Mind is a description of behavior, nothing more.
