The Mistakes of Christianity

reply to post by TheComte


God also commanded the Israelites to bury their poop with a paddle so that he wouldn't step in it. Sounds like a corporeal problem to me!

Originally posted by BriGuyTM90
reply to post by Siberbat

 

I am not an Atheist. I don't adhere to labels and don't appreciate being labeled. I think for my self and I am not cold or lonely. I personally think we are our own gods seeing how we make conscious decisions as to how we live our life.

You are correct. You are your own god. Note that the Christian's God tells them not to worship any other gods - so then there must BE others of some sort, right? Therefore you can be your own god if you like. For you, there is nothing outside yourself, no external dieties. In your case, the universe does not care, one way or the other. Nothing out there has your back. When your time comes, you will be allowed to do all that you are able, exercise all of the power your dietyship has at it's command, to save yourself. I don't wonder very much what the result of that will be. It seems to me that it will be an awful lot like trying to lift yourself by your own bootstraps.

Good luck with that.

Can I watch?

Originally posted by BriGuyTM90
The christian god is a contradiction in its self. One can not be omnipotent and omnipresent yet there be a Antigod, devil, or hell. Also you can't say that the Antigod or devil is gods way of testing people because if he was truly omnipotent he would already know the out come.

Of course he already knows the outcome. The test isn't to educate him, it's for YOU. After all, as your own god, shouldn't you know everything about yourself that it's possible to know?

How else would you know how to worship you?

Originally posted by JiggyPotamus

But Christians do NOT follow Judaism. They are Christians for a reason. They believe that Jesus came as the ultimate sacrifice for mankind's sins, and as such the laws of Moses were nullified.

No, they were not nullified or done away with, they were fulfilled. In other words, the ledger is still there, but their accounts are paid up.

There do seem to be some unpaid accounts still outstanding, however. I guess that's why the ledger is still there.

Originally posted by amazing

Originally posted by Theophorus

Originally posted by Revolution9
reply to post by allenidaho

 

There are NO mistakes in Christianity. It is perfect as Christ was perfect. The only mistakes are those of theology by the hands of men who don't read their Bibles properly.

how is the proper way to read the bible?

Good question. I'm fairly intelligent, well read, many college credits under my belt, but apparently, I'm too dumb to understand the bible? Why would a god create a book that is so open to misinterpretation?

Well, the obvious answer is because he doesn't love everyone. See, this is one of the things that most Christians get wrong. They'll run around claiming that God loves everybody, when a cursory reading of the Bible would tell them that simply isn't true. For example, it says he loved Jacob, but hated Esau. That doesn't jive well with the claim that God loves everyone.

So, since he doesn't really love everyone, it says elsewhere that he will give some over to a "reprobate mind", whatever that is. I take it to mean that he'll let them have their head and do as they like, and the accounts can be settled later. Since they can do as they like, and clearly, as evidenced in this very thread, there are some who are not gonna like what it says in the bible, well, he'll just let 'em read it any old way they DO like, and take away from it whatever they want to.

It's a "play now, pay later" sort of plan, I guess.

Originally posted by clairvoyantrose

Originally posted by Revolution9
reply to post by allenidaho

 

There are NO mistakes in Christianity. It is perfect as Christ was perfect. The only mistakes are those of theology by the hands of men who don't read their Bibles properly.

Oh this is so sad to read...
The bible has been manipulated, edited and re-written so many times they have it so people are worshiping the wrong god. There is no ONE GOD for us to bow down to, nor should we put Jesus above any King or Pharaoh that came before him. He was ONE messenger throughout one period of time. They have EVIL prevalent in the bible over GOOD and the bible is but a mere distraction from the real truth. We give up all our spiritual, ether power to some false god perched on a throne in the clouds... all for what?

Everything we need, could possibly ever need, is right within us. We are all the power needed to guide us through life.

Christianity was set out the the Evils That Be to keep masses distracted and dissociated from each other.

Oooh! Another godling in embryo! Another god unto them own selves! Seems to be a lot of those these days!

May I come visit you after you've deified yourself enough to save yourself?

We can play cards!

Let's talk about the story of Lot, shall we?

There is so much wrong with that story. An all knowing God, would have known that it was a bad story. How did that, make it into the bible?

Originally posted by allenidaho
Let me start out by saying that I am an atheist. I do not share any religious viewpoint with any single religion. And with that said, I do not mean to single you out. But in this case, I am doing just that.

The thing is, Christianity in America has evolved over the years in such a strange and outlandish way. But with so many different offshoots and sects of the same religion, they all tend to have the same set of beliefs that are actually wrong, based on the very book that they worship.

What do I mean by that? Good question. Lets see some of the highlights.

1. The Ten Commandments. I'm sure everybody knows them, right? Wrong. Thou Shalt Not Kill. Thou Shalt Not Steal. Yeah? Only problem is that those are NOT the ten commandments. Don't believe me? Read your bible.

You see, in the Bible, Moses was given two stone tablets on which were inscribed the real ten commandments. But when he came down Mount Sinai in Exodus 32:19, he found many of his followers worshipping a golden calf idol. So he smashed the tablets. So he was sent back up the mountain with two fresh tablets to get the ten commandments again. In Exodus 34:13 the real ten commandments are listed which go something like this:
1. Don't worship any other Gods. For I am a jealous God.
2. Don't make treaties with those who live in the land.
3. Don't make any idols. (like, say a dead guy hanging on a cross)
4. Celebrate the Festival of Unleavened Bread
5. The first born of every womb belongs to God. And you must redeem them by sacrificing a lamb.
6. Rest on the 7th Day.
7. Celebrate the Festival of Weeks and Festival of Ingathering.
8. Do not offer God a blood sacrifice with Leavened Bread.
9. Bring the best of your first crops to the house of the Lord.
10. Do not cook a young goat in it's mother's milk.

Great stuff, right? Those commandments end at Exodus 34:27 which reads:
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Write down these words, for in accordance with these words I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.” 28 Moses was there with the Lord forty days and forty nights without eating bread or drinking water. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant—the Ten Commandments.

What else do Christians usually get wrong? How about:

2. Jesus is not named Jesus.

Wait, what? That can't be right. Can it? Yes it can. For the last several centuries, Christians have been worshipping Christ under the wrong name. His real name was Yeshua. The name Jesus came from the Greek translation of the New Testament in the first century in which they wrote the name as Lesous due to a difference in phonetic pronunciation. And in the medieval era, Lesous became Jesus.

I could go on, but I get his nagging feeling that some of the less rational members of this forum may get a little butt hurt. So I'm just going to end this article right here. I could point out a few more of these items if you like. But we'll see how these two go before we continue.

Thats all surface level stuff and really not that jaw dropping.

Read my thread in my signature, the op and the halos on page 3. That's where we get real deep

Originally posted by amazing
Let's talk about the story of Lot, shall we?

There is so much wrong with that story. An all knowing God, would have known that it was a bad story. How did that, make it into the bible?

Why would you want to discuss it?

You don't believe it, do you?

If not, what's to discuss about it?

I guess we would first have to determine what you think is "wrong" about it, what makes it a "bad" story.

Failing that, we could just say that an all-knowing God would know that you need something to be pissed off at him over, or else you might not act according to your nature - so he had it written up in such a way that you could find fault in it, and feel justified in your ire.

Nice of him, huh?

Originally posted by nenothtu

Originally posted by amazing
Let's talk about the story of Lot, shall we?

There is so much wrong with that story. An all knowing God, would have known that it was a bad story. How did that, make it into the bible?

Why would you want to discuss it?

You don't believe it, do you?

If not, what's to discuss about it?

I guess we would first have to determine what you think is "wrong" about it, what makes it a "bad" story.

Failing that, we could just say that an all-knowing God would know that you need something to be pissed off at him over, or else you might not act according to your nature - so he had it written up in such a way that you could find fault in it, and feel justified in your ire.

Nice of him, huh?

edit on 2013/5/23 by nenothtu because: (no reason given)

I don't think God would do such a thing. Why be so, again, hard to understand?

The story of Lot, to me, shows the flaws of the bible and thus Christianity, in a very glaring way. For example:

If it is such a bad place to live, why does Lot live there? Why raise your family there? He even went out and looked...there wasn't one other person worthy of living there, apparently including the children.

Why did lot offer to have his daughters raped?

Why did Lots daughters commit incest with him?

The list goes on and on. There is no moral to this story. If you believe that the bible is the word of God you have to believe all of it. You can't just pick and chose, and you can't say, this verse is literal and this one is not.

reply to post by amazing

The list goes on and on. There is no moral to this story. If you believe that the bible is the word of God you have to believe all of it. You can't just pick and chose, and you can't say, this verse is literal and this one is not.

The Bible is a number of books combined, all supposedly inspired by God.

Of all the sections, the closest to God of any of the Character's, is Jesus himself, so for myself, personally, I've seen the words in Red attributed to Christ, as the most important, coming from an Enlightened Individual who was One with God ("I and the Father are One")

All the other characters are works in progress and not on the same level as Jesus.

The OT just shows how things "used to be". Many of the things written there, may be man, attributing things to God. Just like each army that goes to war believes that God is on their side, so to with the author's of the OT.

Plus the OT is a combo of poetry, geneology, historical records, biased opinion, and symbolism. When Jesus shows up in the NT, he's basically saying that everything in the OT, just forget about it. The NEW way, easy way, Enlightened way, is that all the most important things that you need from the OT will be written in your heart with Love and Enlightenment.

That's why I, as a Christian, do not mess with the OT. I see it as a book for Judaism and one that does not really produce Enlightened Saints like Jesus and NT (though that's rare these days too and usually only happens in the Monasteries

Originally posted by amazing

I don't think God would do such a thing. Why be so, again, hard to understand?

First, and as a disclaimer, let's realize that I've got no more valid answers than you do. I'm not a preacher, or even approaching it.

As such, I don't think it's my place to write policy for a deity - in other words, I can't really claim to know the mind of God, or why he does what he does. I can only offer speculations. I do not have a direct line to God, and he hardly ever feels a need to explain himself to me.

Perhaps God's mind is so much bigger than ours that we cannot hope to grasp it in it's entirety.

The story of Lot, to me, shows the flaws of the bible and thus Christianity, in a very glaring way. For example:

If it is such a bad place to live, why does Lot live there? Why raise your family there?

I don't know. I can only speculate - why do people live in bad places NOW? Some things never change, so we can impute some reasons for it by observing people now. Maybe that's where the work was, and it's as simple as that. Maybe (and this is my own pet theory) that's what his wife insisted on - "honey, you WILL buy me some new shoes and pretty dresses, or I'll leave your ass in the dust", and cites were the best places to find those things. Women can make men do some really stupid things if they have a mind to, sometimes.

I personally spent 30 years living in gawdawful places simply because I don't like farming.

He even went out and looked...there wasn't one other person worthy of living there, apparently including the children.

Yeah, I gathered that it was a pretty rough place - maybe like modern New York, LA, or Bangkok. That's MY main difficulty with the story - those places exist now, and they are certainly no better than the Cities of the Plain, so WHY? Maybe God just hasn't got around to zapping them yet. Who knows?

Why did lot offer to have his daughters raped?

1) They were women, and the crowd was apparently looking for some buck-skinning. How much danger were they really in?

2) Customs of the times may have dictated it. Even today, in some places, it would be an honor-bound, cultural thing. In Afghanistan, you can show up at your worst enemy's door and claim "nanawatai", and he is honor bound to feed and protect you, even at the cost of his own life, for as long as you are under his roof. I do not recommend leaving town limits under those circumstances without a LOT of backup, though. Once beyond the city limits, you're fair game again, and someone WILL be waiting.

Customs of the times, I suppose.

Why did Lots daughters commit incest with him?

I started to say "because they were horndogs", but got jerked up short. That is the simplest explanation to me, but sometimes simple is not always best, I guess. Recall that during the flight from Sodom, Lot's wife was allegedly turned into a pillar of salt for looking back. Note that she is the only one to look back, which meshes pretty well with my theory above on why Lot may have been there in the first place - because honey said so. She was gonna miss that rowdy town, which doesn't say a lot for her, I suppose. Got zapped into a chunk of salt, which freed Lot from her reign of feminine terror. Yay God! Practical demonstration of "freeing the captives", that sort of thing.

Anyhow, They had all just escaped from under a cloud of massive destruction. I'd not be eager to go anywhere NEAR any more towns after that, if I were Lot. So where are they gonna find him another wife to bear sons? And, well, teenage girls are not known for their brilliant flashes of wisdom or grand decision making abilities.

Some times, stupid just rolls right out and puts itself on display. I bet there were even stupid episodes back during Bible times, just as there are now. Humans don't change all that much over time. Traumatic events (like having your entire existence erased in a big ball of fire) will often cause people not to think straight until they get back to equilibrium. Interesting to note birth rates nine months after earthquakes.

The list goes on and on. There is no moral to this story.

There is. Probably several, in fact. One of them could be "don't be a milquetoast and let your wife lead you around by your tender bits". Well, unless you like salt and don't mind massive explosions. Another could be that God will always have your back, and get you out of stuff that you're too wimpy to get yourself out of. Another could be that just because the majority is doing something, that doesn't make that something right. Possibilities are endless if you look for them. Key is looking for them.

If you believe that the bible is the word of God you have to believe all of it. You can't just pick and chose, and you can't say, this verse is literal and this one is not.

I'm not sure why you believe that an entire book has to be entirely one or the other, nor am I sure why you don't believe that one passage can't be both - did you miss out on all that "analysis of stories" crap that I had to put up with in high school? Do they not teach that any more?

reply to post by dominicus


Good thoughtful reply. Thanks!

Being not a Christian (he says in Yoda voice) I get not a say, I suppose, but...why not a movement to simplify the bible? Remove the Old Testament, most things by Paul and revelation, and keep all that stuff in a separate book called "the history of our religion". This new bible is thin, easy to read and mainly just about Jesus. This would clear up a "Lot" of confusion. Pun intended.

New Testament was a byproduct of Josephus , he played with it in the favor of the Romans. It is true that "True Knowledge" was lost or hidden. Kingdom of God is within us /outside us ..this is what they do not want you to know and Christianity managed to erase it . Read Cesar's Messiah Book by Joseph Atwill

Caesar's Messiah: The Roman Conspiracy to Invent Jesus

History is written by the winners -- and Titus' falsified scriptural pseudo-history (aided and abetted by Josephus' pro-Roman propagandistic works) was no exception. The DEAD SEA SCROLLS were those writings that reveal the undiluted views of the losers of that conflict: the Zealots, the "Sons of Light". Their texts were hidden away in jars in caves inaccessible to the world's scholars for 1,900 years.

What did Titus do? He created a religion that was intended to domesticate the 'wild animal' that was Militant Judaism, the Zealot/Sicarii movement that sought to revivify the spirit of the Maccabeans, who succeeded in overthrowing Antiochus Epiphanes' pagan forces. The new religion -- a New Judaism -- would have a 'savior' who would preach SUBSERVIENCE to the ruling authorities (Rome). If it accomplished that, then that would be reason enough for him to do it. Unfortunately, for the world, this new religion also gave us a legacy of religious-based and governmentally-enforced dogma that kept Europe stagnant for over a thousand years. The Dark Ages.

reply to post by nenothtu


Thanks for the detailed thoughtful reply. I appreciate it.

Originally posted by lisa2012
New Testament was a byproduct of Josephus , he played with it in the favor of the Romans. It is true that "True Knowledge" was lost or hidden. Kingdom of God is within us /outside us ..this is what they do not want you to know and Christianity managed to erase it . Read Cesar's Messiah Book by Joseph Atwill

Atwill is an idiot and known fraud.

Try reading a real academic work -- I'd suggest Jesus and the Eyewitnesses by Richard Bauckham, who uses statistical analysis of the cultural elements of the Gospels (such as personal names, place names, biology) to demonstrate that whoever wrote the Gospels was intimately familiar with Palestinian Judaism in the time of Jesus, and most likely were actual eyewitnesses to the life and actions of Jesus.

Romans did not write, and could not write, the New Testament.

reply to post by amazing

Being not a Christian (he says in Yoda voice) I get not a say, I suppose, but...why not a movement to simplify the bible? Remove the Old Testament, most things by Paul and revelation, and keep all that stuff in a separate book called "the history of our religion". This new bible is thin, easy to read and mainly just about Jesus. This would clear up a "Lot" of confusion. Pun intended.

It wont be simplified because too many fundies and dogmatics run the show, for now at least, though that too will fall be the way side and only the Christian Mystic will remain.

There's a reason it's kept as a whole, because OT shows the beginning, how things progressed, where things went wrong, predictions of a SPiritual Saviour in Christ, and so forth. So OT & NT are connected in a way, but Jesus makes OT irrelevant.

The Bible itself even says that letters kill, but direct experiences with the Spirit give life (i.e. Enlightenment) but people seem to skip over that.

As far as Paul, he was basically a work in progress. Going deeper into the Enlightenment experiences and being Spiritually perfected. So what is attributed to him is not on the same level as what Christ teaches.....but still applicable because in him we find many of our own battles with the lower self animal nature, the ego, mistakes, short-comings, sins, etc.....

ALso OT was specifically Jew based. It's important to keep in perspective what all cultures in the world have for their philosophies/teachings and compare it to what Bible has to say. If you do so, you will find Buddhism, Hinduism, Greek Philosophy, and even various Native Cultures speak of Enlightenment and experiential Truth with a capital T ...or Jesus' Oneness with the Father...... there can be found many universal factors if you can uncover the meaning behind words (semantics) and meanings.

I see a lot of youth in the States (I live next to the third largest city in US) ....many of them, their parents are evangelical with fundamental leanings, and the youth want to try yoga, meditation, tai chi, etc.....and all these older Christians are saying that all of that stuff is "of the devil" and so these kids reject Christianity and go looking for Eastern Spiritual knowledge.

However there is a super RICH Christian Mystic culture that is still going strong in Monasteries in the East where meditation and going within to map out and know yourself is vital towards Spiritual Enlightenment.

And so regular Western watered down CHristianity, is dying. I see and hear about the Churches dying out more and more because they stay dogmatic and fundie. That one's that grown are the mystical branches, the patriotic branches (a new movement) and even Athiest Christians are emerging who don't believe in God but like the service as a family activity to instill morals/values based on Jesus the Man teacher......

Lot's of interesting changes are taking place that are destroying the status quo.

Must get sleep now ...its late here

the common problem among monotheistic religions is ignoring the concept of monotheism.
1- being servant of The One God, not the elites, not the egos, not the corrupted clerics.
2- to withstand the Pharaohs, like what Moses did, to withstand the corrupted leaders of Israel (tribe) like what Jesus did and to withstand the elites (of Mecca) like what Muhammad did.
3- what if all the humanity (even Buddhists ) are awaiting an one occurrence, a common Messiah or Messiahs !

reply to post by nenothtu


I like the cut of your gib, sir. Stars.

reply to post by nenothtu


Double post