my favorite compliment of the day.
what a lot of assumptions people have about what makes an atheist tick..
It's easy to be controlled by the human ego where we need to feel superior over other people. The ego needs to feel special whether it be found in a Christian who thinks he is morally superior to an atheist, an atheist who thinks he is intellectually superior over a believer in god, or because someone believes that their political beliefs are superior.
We are not our beliefs or non-beliefs we are so much more. We need to stop judging.
but the understanding is affirmed in the revelation climax book, albeit with less detail.
the events are as follows (& i'm keeping the quotes really short) :.
1st angel - "it all began during the bible students cedar point convention in september 1922. there gods people enthusiastically adopted a resolution entitled "a challenge.
All the Cedar Point nonsense is quite silly. But hardly any JW pays that stuff much attention nowadays. The rare occasions when it comes up in an article most probably shrug as if to say "whatever" and never give it a second thought.
I didn't believe it when I was a JW but I thought "new light" would be right around the corner.
My brother told me that one of the things that strengthens his belief that the JWs are God's org. is how perfect the organization's history matches up with Revelation. Man, did I roll my eyes!
i think we all know the reason millions of less hours.
when i was in we went to a rv by the kingdom hall then drove 30 minutes out to the country to knock on a door then back to the city for one more door.
god must be so proud!
Whenever I aux. pioneered I was as inefficient as possible. I'd take one RV on one side of territory then go do some chronic not-at-homes on the other side of the territory then go take a break. Hopefully there'd be an unbaptized pub. in the car who I could talk with for a little bit to keep the time going during break.
now we have to answer...... 1) is there more than one god?
how do you choose the most senior god?.
2) if you chose religious texts to make this desicion, how do you know they are not purposfully misleading by an ill willed god?.
Hi tec, I appreciate your latest answer and there is matters that we agree on as well as disagree on. I have some questions for you. You mention following the Christ, do you view the Christ as confined to the person of Jesus? Or is the Christ something greater than the person of Jesus which Jesus came to be united with? Did Jesus by raising his consciousness come to be the personification of the Christ on earth at that time?
If Jesus came to be one with the Christ consciousness this would make it easier to understand Jesus' many statements such as "I am the way, the resurrection, and the life." "I am the light of the world" "I am come that all might have life and that they might have it more abundantly"
I believe that Jesus exemplified the Christ consciousness when he was on earth. Others such as the Buddha and Krishna and others had exemplified Christ consciousness earlier. I believe these individuals were the same as us and therefore every human alive today has the ability to exemplify the Christ consciousness. This of course is not easy and requires possibly many reincarnations to accomplish.
I respect the bible for it's teachings but as you mentioned one has to use discernment in accepting it's veracity exactly the same with any other book or teacher. Teachings such as Christianity is the only way to God or the ransom sacrifice as understood by mainstream christianity simply can not be made to make sense.
firstly, it is not my intention here to offend anyone so if you are likely to get upset at reading 'blasphemous' statements or criticism of jesus then perhaps you should go to another topic.
also, i am not in the habit of making personal attacks on other posters, if you decide to stay and read this - don't attack me!
by all means rip my post to pieces and explain where i got it all wrong, but don't shoot the messenger.. and remember, i come from the same place as most of you, i was one of jehovah's witnesses for over thirty years.
Comatose, I think Jesus was God's son the same way you and I are God's children. Jesus' main concern was lifting up the consciousness of 1rst century palestines. Most of what he was recorded as teaching was well above the average person's thinking of that time. We're his teachings the highest possible? No.
Cofty, as you know the gospels were written well after Jesus passed from the earth. The jews were awaiting a Messiah that would come and deliver them. This idea of a divine deliverance could have easily influenced the disciples and gospel writers to misinterpret what Jesus was saying. One of Jesus' teachings was that the kingdom is within us, so perhaps the disciples were misunderstood when they thought Jesus would physically come back for "kingdom" power.
If you find interesting things in Jesus' sayings then ponder over those sayings. If you find other spiritual teachers more comprehensible then it would better to concentrate on their teachings.
I do agree that one shouldn't simply believe everything that Jesus purportedly said or did just because someone wrote it down hundreds of years ago. I think it's important to use a oftentimes neglected skill all humans posess which is intuition.
firstly, it is not my intention here to offend anyone so if you are likely to get upset at reading 'blasphemous' statements or criticism of jesus then perhaps you should go to another topic.
also, i am not in the habit of making personal attacks on other posters, if you decide to stay and read this - don't attack me!
by all means rip my post to pieces and explain where i got it all wrong, but don't shoot the messenger.. and remember, i come from the same place as most of you, i was one of jehovah's witnesses for over thirty years.
Is there nothing of value in Jesus' teachings? If the whole world followed what Jesus had to say on the Sermon on the Mount would the world be worse off? I certainly do not believe the bible is infallible nor do I believe that everything it says comes from a higher power but I would say there is much of value in what Jesus had to say even for us today. And Jesus' words were not directed to us living in the western world in the 21st century. His teachings were very advanced for the average person living in Palestine in the first century. Why must we rip him out of the context in which he preached and judge him according to today's level on consciousness?
There may be people who have done great, unselfish things, had high morals, and taught great lessons that have helped many to increase their consciousness. Would we judge them as evil because they were mistaken on something? Or, would we judge their whole life and everything they taught based on their weaker moments? If so, give me one person that who has ever lived that is praiseworthy.
i wrote an article on the topic of god's eyebrow-raising lenience shown to cain after killing his brother, exploring possible reasons why the account was written as it was:.
http://awgue.weebly.com/why-did-god-seemingly-allow-cain-to-get-away-with-murder.html.
questions, comments (as well as heads-up on typos, grammar, etc) welcome here, as usual!.
Adamah, thanks for the welcome. So if evil stems from ignorance than the reason we experience evil in our world has to do with where humankind is on the learning curve.
The first cause, higher power, God or whatever you want to call it of course created us with the ability to be ignorant so therefore created us with the ability to do evil things. In order to learn one had to experiment to see what works. We can see thru out recorded history how mankind has gradually raised their consciousness. As a group we are gradually leaving behind the law of the jungle or the mindset of "might makes right".
The existence of evil has nothing to do with the lack of ability of the workman (First Cause). We are designed to experiment with our freedom and abilities, how else would we gradually find out what works?
i wrote an article on the topic of god's eyebrow-raising lenience shown to cain after killing his brother, exploring possible reasons why the account was written as it was:.
http://awgue.weebly.com/why-did-god-seemingly-allow-cain-to-get-away-with-murder.html.
questions, comments (as well as heads-up on typos, grammar, etc) welcome here, as usual!.
My belief is that evil is simply ignorance in disguise. I would suspect that if you go into the minds of some of the most "evil" people such as hitler, stalin, mao zedung, Idi Amin and others you would see that they didn't consider themselves to be evil. They had probably rationalized in their minds that killing millions of people was justifiable in order to meet some idealized goal they had. They subscribed to the belief that the ends justify the means.
If a person could see all effects of their actions, long term and short term, and internalize this knowledge evil would be a rare thing.
So I believe evil has to do with ignorance.
now we have to answer...... 1) is there more than one god?
how do you choose the most senior god?.
2) if you chose religious texts to make this desicion, how do you know they are not purposfully misleading by an ill willed god?.
Thanks cofty for the welcome. I do realize that Jesus' message was not original. I also admire the teachings of Gautama Buddha. Because Jesus' message wasn't original doesn't make his teachings such as the Sermon on the mount of less value.
I don't think it wise to judge somebody on the basis of a few sayings that we may not understand because they were directed to people 2000 yrs. ago. Or perhaps he was quoted out of context. Or perhaps Jesus said those things out of imperfection. The gist of his teachings were a great step up in consciousness for the people who lived 2000 yrs. ago.
While it is true that Constantine make "christianity" the state religion, he didn't do so until the fourth century around 300 yrs. after Jesus died. It must be admitted that Jesus' teachings had an impact in order for Constantine to even consider making christianity the state religion.
now we have to answer...... 1) is there more than one god?
how do you choose the most senior god?.
2) if you chose religious texts to make this desicion, how do you know they are not purposfully misleading by an ill willed god?.
"I responded that the things written about Jesus - whether they are true of not - portray a dangerous, unethical cult leader"
You certainly have a right to your opinion on Jesus but many non-christians respect Jesus such as Ghandi. Would you say the gist of Jesus' message was negative and hateful or is it only a few things he was quoted as saying?
