Joseph
Thanks for responding. Since so many here gave their opinions, i didn't think it wasn't too much to ask for yours also.
SS
Do You Still Believe a God Cares for You?
by JosephAlward 58 Replies latest jw friends
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JosephAlward
R. Rodriguez affirms, "I believe the Bible can be harmonize[d] from Genesis to Revelation..."
RR, I don't want to unravel my own thread, so if you would take your beliefs over to the "Bible Research" forum, I would be happy to try to disabuse you of this notion. After I send this post I'll start a thread called “Does God Really Want to Save Everyone?” over there which concerns the contradiction between 1 Timothy 2:3-4 and 2 Thessalonians 2:11-12.
Joseph F. Alward
"Skeptical Views of Christianity and the Bible" -
GentlyFeral
Hi, Joseph...
The first thing I did, after I realized I had to unjaydub, was to question the Bible itself. I'm not a science geek, or even a really disciplined history buff, so I didn't feel qualified to assess those types of errors in the Bible.
I went after the *ethical* quality of the Bible stories and preachments, and when I was done, there was nothing left standing but the Golden Rule. Not even "thou shalt have no other gods before me."
Then I read as much of the Secular Web as I could stand, and decided the atheists were right.
At that point I heard God laughing; S/He thought my unbelief was cute.
Since then I've had lots of guaranteed non-replicable pagan adventures, which have convinced me that there are spirits who care for me. But none of them is connected to the bible-god, and none of them created the universe.
My personal theory -- when I'm in a theistic mood -- is that the gods came into being at the Big Bang, just like the material universe; so, although there may be gods, none of them is a Creator. Recently I've been investigating a Pagan tradition that worships the Big Bang as a goddess, without being too damn literalistic about it.
GentlyFeral
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Unclepenn1
REM wrote- There is just as much evidence for the Invisible Pink Unicorn and Thor as there is for the Christian God (none). . May I ask on what evidence this decision was based?
[Me] When's the last time you saw someone with a PhD give a dissertation on the historical evidence of this Pink Unicorn? You are living in a fantasy world rem. Go read 'Evidence that demands a Verdict' by Josh McDowell. See if there is any evidence in there. He, along with others (Harvard Law Professor Simon Greenleaf) became Christians based soley on *historical* evidence. Greenleaf wrote the book on evidence that will hold up in court. Where is the evidence for this unicorn? You commit so many logical fallacies in your statement I pondered whether I should even oblige you.
Saint Satan said-I used to have all the answers. They ended up not fitting reality.
Then you go on to say that you believe in reincarnation. Doesn't make much sense to me SS. How is that fitting reality? Where is the evidence for reincarnation? So you *do* believe in a judgement day, but just hundreds of them over and over right?
Penn
Mohammed- 'My teachings lead to the attainment of truth'
Buddha- 'The truth has been revealed to me'
Jesus- 'I am the truth' -
Satanus
Unclepenn
In a situation of total freedom and unconditional love, there is no judgement. When the body dies, the spirit can go where it wants. It's direction depends a lot on how the person lived, what were his/her heartfelt desires. If this is true, then it is possible that spirits w the same desires could go to the same places. For instance, fundamentalist christian spirits w the same heart desire will all go to one area, creating their own hell or heaven. The spirits of people whose heart is fixated on sex would all meet and continuously have or attempt to have sex w eachother. The spirits of those who centre on spiritual things to the extent of not seeing material or ideological stuff as that important would be more free in the afterlife. Where do the spirits of atheists go?? Good question.
In my view, the spirit decides whether it wants to reincarnate or not. If it has desires to fulfill in the flesh, then at some point it could live another life.
Evidence for reincarnation has been studied quite a bit. Raymond moody wrote about his studies of it. Hypnotherapists commonly run into it. Monroe institute has encountered a lot of it. Froeyd (spelling?) and jung believed in it. Actually, the majority of the world believes it. There are traces of it in the bible. Jesus preexisted, then incarnated. Some thought he was elijah or another prophet. Some of the apocraphyl books such as the gospel of thomas have it. Some believe it was quite popular in primitive christianity, but was crushed after constantine.
If you studied it, your confusion would dissappear. Of course i don't have that many answers, but i'm looking. I know atheists disagree w all of this.
SS
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tyydyy
Not a God but a goddess cares for me. The Goddess Xena. I kneel before her every night. I give her oral tribute. She takes me into her wings and comforts me. I worship on her sacred mounds. I could go on but I think you get the idea.
An intangible god who lives everywhere who watches and decides when he wants to help? No way!
TimB
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Unclepenn1
>In a situation of total freedom and unconditional love, there is no judgement.
That is not love. Love is being upset when injustices are made. When Hitler killed 10 million people (6 mil being Jews) you hear that and get upset, because in your heart you have a sense of justice. If you make up a god or higher spirit that has no problem with the extermination of millions of people that is not God but rather the devil.
>The spirits of people whose heart is fixated on sex would all meet and continuously have or attempt to have sex w each other.
The spirits of those types that all want to blow up the World Trade Center can all go and hang with each other and talk about how they wish they could do it again. Man you are living in a fantasy world SS! I know why you think this way. You have to try and appease you conscience so you can look at filthy magazines and do sinful things wihtout having to be bothered by guilt. You appease your conscience, that God gave you as a warning system, knowing that you are crossing into a territoty that you shouldnt and you feel guilty. You attach yourself to a belief system that lets you freely be devious and not have to sweat the guilt. I was there man. I know it all too well.
>Evidence for reincarnation has been studied quite a bit. Raymond moody wrote about his studies of it. Hypnotherapists commonly run into it. Monroe institute has encountered a lot of it. Froeyd (spelling?) and jung believed in it. Actually, the majority of the world believes it.
Unfortunately, truth is not a popularity contest. And no, the majority of the world does not beleive in reincarntaion.
>There are traces of it in the bible.
No there is not. Unless you twist scripture. Jesus said you must be born again. Not again and again and again.
>If you studied it, your confusion would dissappear. Of course i don't have that many answers, but i'm looking
SS I truly hope that you are searching for truth. If you do then you will run right into Christ. Not religion, not church, but Jesus.
Penn
Mohammed- 'My teachings lead to the attainment of truth'
Buddha- 'The truth has been revealed to me'
Jesus- 'I am the truth' -
rem
Unclepenn,
Which logical fallacies have I committed in my post? If you remember, the first half of my post was your quote with just a couple of names changed. If you found a logical fallacy, it was probably in your own words - and that was the point of my post! :)
I've read all of the supposed evidence for Jesus' historicity and I'm not completely convinced. If you really look into the evidence you will see that there are no first-hand contemporary accounts of Jesus existence. Also, Paul never mentions a physical Jesus in any of his writings. To Paul, Jesus is a spiritual being like a pagan mystery god. There is some convincing evidence that the Gnostic Christians were actually the first Christians, and literalist Christians came later.
You are the one that committed the logical fallacy of an Appeal to Authority with this statement:
When's the last time you saw someone with a PhD give a dissertation on the historical evidence of this Pink Unicorn? You are living in a fantasy world rem. Go read 'Evidence that demands a Verdict' by Josh McDowell. See if there is any evidence in there. He, along with others (Harvard Law Professor Simon Greenleaf) became Christians based soley on *historical* evidence. Greenleaf wrote the book on evidence that will hold up in court.
People with PhD's also give dissertations on the existence of UFO's and ESP. People - even intelligent people - believe in all kinds of crazy things because they want to believe. You need to educate yourself on logical reasoning.And just because someone says that the evidence would stand up in court doesn't mean it will. All the evidence for a historical Jesus is hearsay and second, third, fourth, etc. hand. More importantly, even if there did happen to be a real Jesus, there is still no evidence of any resurrection or of any of the supposed miracles that he performed. I suggest you do more research because there is a lot you don't seem to know.
By the way, have you picked up any of those books on Evolution yet? I suggested a few for you in another post. You know, Proverbs 18:17 and all. I don't suppose you'd also want to read some of the many books that provide evidence *against* a historical Jesus to round out your research? Nah, fundy's never do.
rem
P.S. Why would someone become a Christian just because they find evidence of a historical Jesus? Should someone become a Muslim because they find evidence of a historical Muhammad? Sounds like pretty ridiculous reasoning to me.
"We all do no end of feeling, and we mistake it for thinking." - Mark Twain
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Moxy
Also, Paul never mentions a physical Jesus in any of his writings. To Paul, Jesus is a spiritual being like a pagan mystery god.
altho paul certainly cares or knows little of jesus' earthly life, and the question of what paul thought jesus' life was is far less clear than biblical literalists would like to think, methinks thou dost go too far here.
2 Cor 5:16: "Therefore from now on we recognize no man according to the flesh; even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer."
Acts 20:35: In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: `It is more blessed to give than to receive.'"
mox -
rem
Moxy,
You are correct - Paul does mention a physical Jesus - I didn't explain myself fully.
I probably should have said that it could be interpreted that Paul only saw Jesus as a mystic - a mythical one at that. In the ancient pagan mystery religions these mystics (even thought they were clearly mythical) were flesh and blood men who became gods. These were the outer mysteries - the outer interpretations. The inner mysteries showed the deeper spiritual meaning of these myths - and the initiated ones of the inner mysteries did not really believe that those god-men were real flesh and blood (even though that is what was taught to the outer mystery initiates).
The Gnostics claimed that Paul was referring this change of perspective through initiation into the inner mysteries in the passage you quoted in 2 Corinthians. This makes sense when we take into account that Paul never claimed to have known a historical Jesus "in the flesh" - he only knew Jesus through revelation.
So to summarize, Paul did speak about a physical Jesus, but from a Gnostic or mystery religion point of view, this was just the outer mysteries - not the real mystical inner mysteries.
As far as Acts is concerned, well, again, this may be a reference to the outer mysteries. There really was a mythical Jesus - and the outer mysteries portrayed him as a physical being, but Paul didn't necessarily believe in a physical Jesus any more than pagans believed in a physical Osiris or Dyonisis (the inner initiates, that is - the outer initiates most likely believed they were physical persons who said and did real things).
Of course all this only makes sense if you find the evidence that Paul was involved in spreading a Jewish mystery religion convincing. I have not come to a final conclusion on this yet, but I do think the evidence is interesting. Anyway, the real point of my post was that the historicity of Jesus is in question, and there is no real evidence of Jesus’ resurrection. Unclepenn steered this discussion toward evidence for Jesus when my original post did not even broach this subject. I was talking about evidence for God – as in Jehovah, big daddy in the sky – not the historicity of some man named Jesus.
rem
"We all do no end of feeling, and we mistake it for thinking." - Mark Twain