The Anti-Christian conspiracy

Originally posted by SomewhereinBetween
Okay, let us assume for a brief moment that your position is correct. How honest will you be in responding?

Originally posted by dbrandtGod created Adam and Eve in His image.

What exactly is meant by this? What was his image, is it that we look as he does?

You asked alot of questions. I'll have to answer a few at a time. God is a triune being, so are we. We have a body, soul and spirit. God is eternal. People once created will live forever somewhere. We were also created to have certain attributes that God has. We have a mind, will and emotions like God does. But we are not God nor ever will be.

Dbrant,

Have you ever stops to think that because the bible was written by men that actually we were not created in the image of "God" but that men created the Image of "God" to look like human?

The pursue of the human species to be different to any other species in earth have prompted the people to make themselves above any other animal species adding a divine touch to it.

In my personal understanding with my creator, we are only in his image when we shed our human body, the only thing that can look like the creators will be our spirits or soul.

This is a natural state in which we have not binds to the emotional ties that our human brain made us to be.

This natural state of pure energy in which we have not gender, because gender comes with the human body.

Can you for one moment Just imagine this?

No . . . you can not because you have never experienced before what it is to be outside the body, only in its pure essence if you ever do your religious believes will be thrown out of the window.

But you have not problem with having God looking like a man and a women all in the same body.

She-male.

[edit on 6-6-2005 by marg6043]

For someone who claims English is not your first language you can sure lay it out. I believe,no I KNOW, that you are 100% correct on this one.

Originally posted by madmanacrosswater
For someone who claims English is not your first language you can sure lay it out. I believe,no I KNOW, that you are 100% correct on this one.

Thanks, I have my worst days, he,he,

Originally posted by marg6043
Dbrant,

Have you ever stops to think that because the bible was written by men that actually we were not created in the image of "God" but that men created the Image of "God" to look like human?

The pursue of the human species to be different to any other species in earth have prompted the people to make themselves above any other animal species adding a divine touch to it.
[edit on 6-6-2005 by marg6043]

I don't know if millions is too big, but millions of people have created God to be what they want Him to be. They make the attributes of their "god" suitable to themself and some even make statues of "god" and place that "god" on a table so they can control it. The Bible tells us the truth. Man is a special creation of God. God is who He is and we can know Him.

God made humans different than other things. God breathed into man and gave us a spirit so we could relate to our creator and know Him. We are not a random accident at the top of the food chain.

And the energy thing if I think a it for a moment simply doesn't add up and feels like a lie and because I'm saved the Holy Spirit dwells in me and His spirit testifies to my spirit so that I won't be led astray.

Originally posted by dbrandt
Originally posted by dbrandtGod created Adam and Eve in His image.

What exactly is meant by this? What was his image, is it that we look as he does?

i have seen you state this several times, I would think you have an answer ready, but you offer no response. Repeating what you are told?

You asked alot of questions. I'll have to answer a few at a time. God is a triune being, so are we. We have a body, soul and spirit. God is eternal. People once created will live forever somewhere. We were also created to have certain attributes that God has. We have a mind, will and emotions like God does. But we are not God nor ever will be.

Yes, I did, because you make a lot of statements without supporting them. As with the above.

Why is God a triune because your NT scriptures say so? I will save you the trouble, that answer would be no, they do not. That belief came from the elders within the early Catholic Church, from which all Christian denominations stem. Likewise with your claim of everlasting life. As to having attributes of God, where is this stated, in the verse that speaks to his image? Why would God need a will exactly, since this is suggestive of being subject to good and evil?

Originally posted by marg6043
Dbrant,
Have you ever stops to think that because the bible was written by men that actually we were not created in the image of "God" but that men created the Image of "God" to look like human?

Originally posted by SomewhereinBetween

Originally posted by dbrandt
Originally posted by dbrandtGod created Adam and Eve in His image.

What exactly is meant by this? What was his image, is it that we look as he does?

i have seen you state this several times, I would think you have an answer ready, but you offer no response. Repeating what you are told?

Marge & SomewhereinBetween being created in the image of God means we have an eternal spiritual component. It does not mean this physical body. As far as there being any gender, I doubt it since there would be not use for gender once you’re in spirit form anyway.

Now to be honest there are some things, especially in the Old Testament, that the Bible is not Crystal clear on, and what Adam and Eve were like at the time of their creation is one of them. You must also remember that the Old Testament came from the Hebrew Torah and back then there were other books that added to this explanation some, which would have been read and studied by the Ancient Hebrews and are no longer part of the accepted Christian Bible. These books were not deemed to be significant enough, their authorship verifiable, or not of Divine inspiration to be included in the Christian Bible, but some of the things that non-Christians bring up can be answered only by those writings. The Church does not consider those few missing answers to be significant to salvation, and so they simply fill in the blanks by telling people that they should have faith. I will give the following by way of example:

What the Church deems the main points of the Creation Story and Adam and Eve

1) God created the Heavens and Earth in its present state in 7 Days. (Though mans sin alters it some)
2) God created man, and did so in his image.
3) God used to directly commune with man.
4) God gave man a basic set of rules.
5) Satan tempted man.
6) Man ate of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and forsook the Tree of Life, to become as god. ( chose Law over Grace)
7) Man realized he could not live up to the Law and he was naked.
8) The world became altered as sin now entered the world of man. (He no longer had the grace of God)
9) Man was expelled from the garden.
10) Man was given a promise of salivation through grace with the coming and death of the Son of God.

If I missed any please let me know...lol, But I think this pretty well sums up what the main points that are supposed to be gleaned from this chapter of genesis are about, and what the Church feels a believer needs to know. They are not concerned with all the little details that they do not feel most are going to know, understand, or will ever even think to ask. Then if they bring in these other books of a more questionable authorship, they open up a whole new can of worms to have to deal with and train people on, and for what gain? Just so that someone knows exactly what is meant by being made in the image of God?

If a Christian is truly interested in finding this information it is readily available with the warning that it does not HOLD THE SAME AUTHORITY AS THE ACCEPTED INSPIRED WORD OF GOD.

But lets take a look at one anyway and maybe you will see what I mean.

The Book of Adam and Eve, The Forgotten books of Eden.

] History:

That the Adam and Eve story pervaded the thoughts of ancient writers is seen in the large number of versions that exist, or whose existence may be traced, through the writings of Greeks, Syrians, Egyptians, Abyssinians, Hebrews, and other ancient peoples. As a lawyer might say who examines so much apparently unrelated evidence--there must be something back of it.
The version which we give here is the work of unknown Egyptians (the lack of historical allusion makes it impossible to date the writing). Parts of this version are found in the Talmud, the Koran, and elsewhere, showing what a vital rôle it played in the original literature of human wisdom. The Egyptian author first wrote in Arabic (which may be taken as the original manuscript) and that found its way farther south and was translated into Ethiopic. For the present English translation we are indebted to Dr. S. C. Malan, Vicar of Broadwindsor, who worked from the Ethiopic edition edited by Dr. E. Trumpp, Professor at the University of Munich. Dr. Trumpp had the advantage of the Arabic original, which makes our bridge over the gap of many centuries a direct one.

earth-history.com...

Chapter 2 - 4 And because, when they were in the garden they were filled with the grace of a bright nature, and they had not hearts turned toward earthly things.

Chapter 3 - 6 Then God in his mercy for Adam who was made after His own image and likeness, explained to him, that these were 5,000 and 500 years; and how One would then come and save him and his descendants.

Chapter 4 - 2 And indeed, when Adam looked at his flesh, that was altered, he cried bitterly, he and Eve, over what they had done. And they walked and went gently down into the Cave of Treasures.

Chapter 4 - 8 And Adam said to Eve, "Look at your eyes, and at mine, which before beheld angels praising in heaven; and they too, without ceasing. 9 But now we do not see as we did; our eyes have become of flesh; they cannot see like they used to see before." 10 Adam said again to Eve, "What is our body today, compared to what it was in former days, when we lived in the garden?"

Chapter 5 - 1 Then Adam and Eve entered the cave, and stood praying, in their own tongue, unknown to us, but which they knew well.

Chapter 8 - 1 Then Adam cried and said, "O God, when we lived in the garden, and our hearts were lifted up, we saw the angels that sang praises in heaven, but now we can't see like we used to; no, when we entered the cave, all creation became hidden from us." 2 Then God the Lord said to Adam, "When you were under subjection to Me, you had a bright nature within you, and for that reason could you see things far away. But after your transgression your bright nature was withdrawn from you; and it was not left to you to see things far away, but only near at hand; after the ability of the flesh; for it is brutish."

Chapter 10 - 6 But now that you have transgressed My commandment, you can not do without water, wherein to wash your body and make it grow; for it is now like that of beasts, and is in want of water."

Chapter 11 - 6 And she said to him, "Look, I am standing in this darkness." 7 He then said to her, "Remember the bright nature in which we lived, when we lived in the garden! 8 O Eve! Remember the glory that rested on us in the garden. O Eve! Remember the trees that overshadowed us in the garden while we moved among them. 9 O Eve! Remember that while we were in the garden, we knew neither night nor day.

Well anyway I can go on with these quotes all day, but the point is it appears that man was originally created with a body such as we are promised in the after life. We are now trapped, so to speak, in this “flesh like that of a beast”, which was not the state that man was initially supposed to exist in. But in adding all these quotes, other then clarifying this point to someone, what does it really add to a normal Christian believers understanding of the events of Genesis?

Nothing but added fluff and details that distract from the true message of the Genesis account… Which truly come down to this: Man forsook the Grace of God to try and become like God by deciding to live under the Law. Man cannot live up to the perfection of God under the law, so he immediately sinned and failed, even in the act of accepting the law which was in direct disobedience to God. Because of that we now live in this veil of tears world, which we put ourselves into. However; we have the promise that God would send his Son to give people a chance to accept the Grace of God once again and live under that grace.

Look at this post, this is what I mean about someone that is trying to live under the law:

Originally posted by BlackGuardXIII
I would only differ in outlook in these two ways, first I see only one race, the human race, and second, I would not have Jesus take on my sin debt. I feel that if it is not possible for me to make it right, that is too bad for me, but I would refuse to pawn the responsibility for my wrongs onto another person, especially him.

As long as Animists, atheists, Buddhists, Hindus, Jews, Moslems, Shamanists, Sikhs, Wiccans, and Zarathustrans are allowed to come to heaven too, I am with ya. There are many rooms right? All good souls belong together. I'd even forgive ol' Satan, and give him a second chance.
Maybe he'd see the light, and return to the good side of the force.
Of course, if only Christians are allowed to come, I must sadly decline, and stay behind with other non Christians like Rabbi Hillel, M. Gandhi, the Dalai Lama, the Aga Khan, etc.

Somehow he feels that he can do works to gain forgiveness for even one of his sins. He also feels that someone that is a good person is free of sin. Unfortunately a Christian knows this is not the case. By way of our very existence, man is a sinful creature and none of us, Christian or otherwise, is free of sin. It’s only through grace that man can be redeemed and not through any work or action that he may perform. To think otherwise is to live under the Law. But someone that accepts this and accepts Christ, is granted mercy and forgiveness by God.

Man by his very nature tends to think he can do things, and change things on his own. So the concept of being saved by grace is a difficult thing for even Christians to try and remember and accept.

It seems, from reading these pages, that some think that God/Creator only speaks his truth to one person. That one person has been kind enough to share with us the truth imparted to her by God/Creator.

I believe that all who pray, or speak to God, can share His truth. It does seem though that His truth is not always the same from person to person. How can this be?

:shk:

Originally posted by SomewhereinBetween
[i have seen you state this several times, I would think you have an answer ready, but you offer no response. Repeating what you are told?

I answered that question at the top of page 26, you must have missed it.

Originally posted by SomewhereinBetween
Yes, I did, because you make a lot of statements without supporting them. As with the above.

So do you want me to use Bible verses to show my points?

Originally posted by SomewhereinBetween
Why is God a triune because your NT scriptures say so?

Yes it does, do you want the places where it states this?

Originally posted by SomewhereinBetween
[Why would God need a will exactly, since this is suggestive of being subject to good and evil?

I don't take it that way. Here is one definition of will-Diligent purposefulness; determination:. God cannot sin, He has plans that He carries out. One part of His will was that He was determined that mankind would have a Savior so any who wanted could escape eternal seperation from Him and choose the Savior and have eternal life.

Originally posted by Mahree
It does seem though that His truth is not always the same from person to person. How can this be?

:shk:

Because some people are believing lies. People have a choice to make. Believe what the Bible says or don't.

It seems, from reading these pages, that some think that God/Creator only speaks his truth to one person. That one person has been kind enough to share with us the truth imparted to her by God/Creator.

I believe that all who pray, or speak to God, can share His truth. It does seem though that His truth is not always the same from person to person. How can this be?

I know of at least two within this thread that had an experience with GOD. I, for one, listened intently and did not converse back. The other I don't know about.

However, the message both received was basically the same and if more would listen we would all be in a much better place. Same message- a different way of contacting with GOD knowing the way the individual would accept him and his message.

In fact, GOD speaks to everyone, however many ignore what he says to one. The right thing to do vs. the other. GOD tells one the right thing to do.


[edit on 7-6-2005 by madmanacrosswater]

Because some people are believing lies. People have a choice to make. Believe what the Bible says or don't.

That is certainly a statement that needs clarifying. "Believe what the Bible says or don't". Are you speaking of the Bible written and interpreted by man?

I believe GOD's word.

I wish many of the preachermen would believe what the Bible says. It is hard to speak of love without a smile.

I do have a personal relationship with God. I do pray and God does answer. However, I don't believe that I am the only one who God speaks the truth to.


The Bible is God's word and helps me to understand God so that I can have a personal relationship with Him. We know by the NT that Jesus is our Savior and Brother and that we are sons and daughters of God the Father.

Why is it impossible for some to believe that God could not inspire the men who wrote the Bible to keep His Word for everyone? The powerful and glorious God Who created the universe has no trouble keeping His words straight in the Bible.

Originally posted by Mahree
I do have a personal relationship with God. I do pray and God does answer. However, I don't believe that I am the only one who God speaks the truth to.


The Bible is God's word and helps me to understand God so that I can have a personal relationship with Him. We know by the NT that Jesus is our Savior and Brother and that we are sons and daughters of God the Father.

Why is it impossible for some to believe that God could not inspire the men who wrote the Bible to keep His Word for everyone? The powerful and glorious God Who created the universe has no trouble keeping His words straight in the Bible.

I would have to agree with you. I have a personal relationship with God also. I don't understand why its harder to believe in God, who has never been wrong. Then it is to believe in Santa Clause who clearly doesn't exists. God has never lied to us, every. Their is over 5,000 manuscrips that were recorded over long periods of time. Yet not a single on of them changed. Which is not possible. Something will always change. Like for example the telephone game. You start of with the original saying and by the end you get something completely different. Yet with the Bible all of it is the same. It ends up perfectly. Plus there are so many eyewitness accounts of everything that happened. They saw first hand Jesus dying on the cross and rising again. And the their archealogical finds that prove the bible is right too. I just don't understand why its so hard to believe that has so much concrete evidence that is true.

Originally posted by Mahree
I do have a personal relationship with God. I do pray and God does answer. However, I don't believe that I am the only one who God speaks the truth to.
....
Why is it impossible for some to believe that God could not inspire the men who wrote the Bible to keep His Word for everyone? The powerful and glorious God Who created the universe has no trouble keeping His words straight in the Bible.

With respect, I can answer your question briefly or begin writing a book that would take me 10 years to complete. It's all about history. If you study the historical relationship between religion and politics (I am not speaking of anything that has happened in the last 1,000 years), you'll see how likely it is that versions of the bible, and not just the bible but also oral traditions and such, evolved to include/delete/alter/embellish according to which group was in power. Again, don't misunderstand this as just another rant against the Church of Rome or Christianity in general - go back and study the intertwining of politics and worship in ancient civilizations and begin working your way "forward" in time.

Also, don't forget that scribes and other learned men (almost exclusively men) had to eat, too! If you could get work from high priests and kings, you could live very well. If you were told to add a little to this story or delete a little from that story by those whom were feeding you and your family then, well...I guess it really wouldn't hurt much. On the subject of "not hurting", do not ignore the facts that throughout most of the history of man, a ruler or religious leader could have you beaten, imprisoned, ostracized, or killed without any "due process" other than to say you were insubordinate or had "given insult".

I say all this to answer your questions regarding "how" it is not hard to imagine how God's word, as written and passed through generations, could be manipulated. Therefore, as you have said, I recommend going straight to the source to get God's word first hand. Take the bible with a mountain of salt and know that it contains some truth and some history but is simply unreliable in many, many parts - particularly the NT.

Disclaimer: My conclusions are my opinion. Please study and form your own.

The interpretation of god.

God is neither he or she, he may not have a physical body or qualities understandable by human standards.

Nobody can say that until this day, what or how God is. Some imagine God, with an unlimited intelligent, but we are never find an adequate concept of God.

Most people believe God real and because is not concept of God, personal interpretations through experiences and religious believes set in.

Christianity give God human attributes even refering to God as him, with a classical theology with a monarchical and absolute power.

Others religious believers give God a more power sharing attributes, By the writings of Thomas Aquinas based on the bible God is a powerful monarch called the Omnipotent. As an omniscient God knows it all from everything in the universe to every living moment of every living thing in earth.

Being above anything human being in earth God, receives nothing from us, and we can never add anything to God, God can changes the universe and affect the world without any changes to itself.

Theology calls God eternal, immutable, impassible, transcendent, soverign and self-sufficient. People tend to forget that this God in the OT of the bible is also very much the God of the people of Israel later on added as part of the new testamen when christianity needed a link between God and the christ.

Is no prove of the existence of God or what God may be or may not. So humans spend a lot of time deciding how to or believe in it, because the bible no even help much on this with so much mixed interpretations.

After all it was many writers that compiled the bible and mostly males, so the christ had to be a male son of the God.

Some say that God is with us and far from us, some say God is independent but work with us, some said he is impassible but affect the world, some say God is insensitive because it lets people suffer, some say God is determinant and coercive or persuasive but encourage freedom and free will.

The truth on the matter is that all these views of God are nothing more than personal interpretations of what religion and people wants to believe God is.

But nobody here can't actually tell what or how God came to be a manipulation of religious believes.


The reason? Because is better to believe on a God that can never be proven than looking for the truth of why humans decided to make God like humans.

marg.

I couldn't have said it better about the Bible.

Many don't seem to realize or think that once man gets hold of anything the "ballgame" changes.

Those that think the Bible is the "literal word of God, etc" are living in a utopian world that does not exist within this dimension!!!

Please ladies and gals. The Bible is a great tool, but to think you are just reading the writings of God takes a little growing up in spirituality. I have even yet to find two different published Bibles that even have the same translation!!!

GOD gives the man the cognitive ability.