maadmax

My problem is with the people who say that they are the only ones who KNOW how God wants us to live.Quote You will get no argument on that. For me to experience the transforming power of God , I first must understand and then have the freedom to believe or reject what I have heard. Someone telling me what I have to do, doesn't work. ...

LOL I am sorry I just can't read that sentance with out laughing. Now you have imaginary laws to go along with an imaginary all powerful being! And you expect to be taken seriously???!!!! Well I guess we will share a laugh together. If you think our consciousness is just a systematic firing of neurological tissues causing the exchange of psychoactive compounds, then that is equally as funny. I would have loved to hear your opinion 1000 years ago of why skin felt warm when the sun shined on it, since electromagnetism was yet to be discovered. How ever you want to define it we are physical and spiritual beings. The universe has to be full of the energy of self-awareness, otherwise we wouldn't be here having this conversation. Convince me otherwise. Show me a chemical reaction that can produce just 0.01gram of love or compassion and I will sign onto your bah-humbug manifesto. ...

Jesus was a tyrant on many levels, but probably the worst of all of Jesus's ideas is the teaching of hell. And who could think he was wise? The teaching of Jesus includ these pearls of wisdom; Quote As we have found unraveling the physical laws of nature, Truth can be stranger than fiction. The same appears to holds true for the laws of spirituality. What would be worse, telling people about Hell or waiting until they found themselves there and then explaining it to them? I am kind of thankful that Jesus gave us a heads up. Who knows how bad a place like Hell will actually be. One thing is for sure it is separation from God, and that will probably feel like an unquenchable burning of lost opportunity. And as far as the "Pearls of Wisdom"; it they don't make any sense to you , don't worry about them. Passages that appeared to be nonsensical at one point in my life, held profound Wisdom when reexamined after the accumulation of additional life experiences and wisdom. The Bible continually amazes me in that way. Keep searching you will find the Truth.

The value of your cat is the emotional value your family members have placed on it. If your family's emotional well being is of no value to you then I guess the cat has no value either. By the way what is wrong with your cat? Total hip replacements don't cost that much. ...

I'm afraid you missed the point. The purpose of both the Bible and the Driver Handbook is to set up the rules, not to enforce compliance. And from the Driver Handbook it's pretty obvious what the rules are, and those running red lights or driving drunk clearly understand that what they do is against the rules. From the Bible it's not clear what the exact rules are. This is the reason there are multiple different branches of Christianity, which interpret the Bible differently. All of them consider their own interpretation the only true one, which implicitly means that any other interpretation is false. If you look for example on Catholics and Jehova Witness, you'd find their interpretation of what IS the proper way to show your acceptance of Jesus as your Lord and Savior is very different among different Christians. This is why I'm saying the Bible as a guidance is a complete piece of crap. It is really not that hard. You can start with two simple rules and if you never progress from there you will still be way ahead. #1 Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all with all your soul, and with all of your mind. #2 Love your neighbor as yourself. ...

And that's what makes Christianity so hard to believe. The Bible can be interpreted so many different ways that there is no way to know what the correct interpretation is. That is probably true if you are an academic. But if your are a miserable sinner and hopelessly lost like me. You know what you need to find, and you damn well know it when you find it, irreguardless of how you interpret it. ...

And that's exactly why the Bible as a guidance is a complete piece of crap. Look on the Driver's Handbook, which was prepared by the least perfect form of already imperfect humans (i.e. government, who according to some people is inferior in managing things comparing to Private Industry). No parables, no bullshit, no kidding. And somehow everyone reading it gets pretty much the same message. Why a supposedly perfect God was not able to produce at least something like that as a guidance, is beyond my imagination. Interesting point. I wonder if people believed half as much in obeying the laws mentioned in the Bible as they do in adhering to those from the Driver's Handbook ,if there would still so much strife in the world? ...

Entertaining, but regretfully lacking in the insight against which he rails. Lame.Quote One of the things I have found amazing about the Bible is that when someone reads it, they seem to find what ever they are looking for. Reasons not to believe, reasons to believe, justification to sin, forgiveness from sin, reasons to exclude, reasons to include, and on, and on, and on. For me, I have found God and am humbled and thankful for the experience. ...

Entertaining, but regretfully lacking in the insight against which he rails.

how is it possible that assholes that wish to overpower the masses are allowed to do so, are rewarded with lavish lifestyles and live as the please. the christian message is faulty, wrong and in many cases criminal. Maybe what is important to God concerning our experiences on earth is different that what you envision. Who can give the exact details about how everything works out in the big picture. But for now: "Blessed are the meek for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of the needle gate than for a rich man to get into heaven." "But I say to you love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. In order that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He allows the sun to shine on the evil and the good and sends rain to the righteous and the unrighteous." "Judgement is Mine, I will repay says the Lord" ...

Time for the litigation aganst god, he is a law breaking cunt! What is your point? Apart from seeing that these criminals get the justice they deserve, how do their actions have anything to do with the Christian message. They obviously used the goodness and sacrifice of some to hide their evil actions. The ultimate wrong of this crime would be using their rejection of God to justify your own.

Again, there is a lot of people calling themselves Christians, from Catholics to LDS to Jehovah Witnesses. All of them believe their way of learning Jesus is the only right way - pretty much same as you do, and most of them claim that if you adopted another Christian religion, you will not be saved. And all of them read holy bible - so apparently "god's will" means different things for different people! What anybody calls themselves or claims is unimportant to anyone except themselves. When someone uses the Word of God like a club to beat others with, where does the blame fall? On the club or the person wielding it? The Christian message fulfills its destiny when it answers deep emotional needs and opens the door to a personal intimate relationship with God. Anybody spewing hate and oppression do not reflect the God that I know.

Spirituality for me, is setting aside preconceived ideas of self and embracing a higher power that shapes reality with a different perspective. Skydiving definitely does that for me.

--- But as soon as you understand that this connection is artificial and it's not required, you'll see it yourself that "belief" in evolution and belief in god have no connections, and you could easily "believe" in both. Agreed, that is what I was trying to say. Knowledge of evolution does not support the belief that God is a mythical construct. Rejection of God is from an inner rebellion not from knowledge of scientific facts. ---"and you could easily "believe" in both." Interesting, do you believe in both? ...

If a person believes in evolution . . Evolution is not a "belief" any more than the non-flatness of the Earth is. In any context, including this one, when "fact" and "understanding" are labeled "belief", the starting premise of the entire discussion is already skewed. True, but a majority of those who understand the evolutionary process seem to use that knowledge to support a belief, based on faith, that there is no God. It is obvious that a series of events have transpired to produce us and the world we live in. Our spiritual self awareness is the crowning achievement of that process. The matter and energy that makes up everything in the universe is eternal. The self directed evolution of our spirits to become eternally one with God is our ultlimate purpose. ...

They are a mixed bag. Some have perceived the presence of God and are trying to remake their lives into a transparent fulfillment of His Word. Other are just a bunch of con artists.

I am sure we would be if we ever met, as you and I would be. You have an interesting way of gathering information. Attack what you don't understand and if you can't destroy it, give it a brief look then attack again.

Very very insightful, which makes it even more interesting when all of the angry people that post in here refute His teachings as if they had any idea about what He was trying to say. The more things change, the more they stay the same. ...

If they really believed in the whole Hell thing, they wouldmake some solid statements about how dangerous theother religions are. It's pretty much God/Satan, no middle ground. Pick a side and have some conviction. Exactly. If someone was about to get hit by a bicycle, I'd shout a warning, and a bicycle would only bruise you. Hell is an eternity of torment. Far more important. Anyone who was from the Legions of Satan and leadingmy friends/family/country towards eternal suffering wouldhave to be dealt with. Christians seem to be fairly unconcerned about it. Alrighty then ,consider this your one warning. ...

--For things that are knowable; critical thinking, logic, investigation, experiment, etc are far better tools. For things we can only ever guess at, any answer is as good as the next. For logical things, logic works just fine. For illogical things logic falls flat. Such as the heart of man that is more deceitful than all else, and is desperately evil, who can know it? ________________________________________ --Reason for existence? Strawberry jelly of course. Prove me wrong. No argument on that one. ...

There is one big difference between religion and a personal spiritual relationship with God that is being ignored or is just incomprehensible to a lot of you. Personally, I agree with about everything I have heard said here about religions. They are man made, have helped some people in need, but have also caused a lot of harm. Spiritually engaging in a personal relationship with God is a totally different experience, and has more to do with the awakened awareness within your soul than your culture.

So what??!? So your base for all your beliefs is faulty and contains errors even those most loyal to it can not explain. It is a very significant event and an evidence that all is not right in that book. And since there are at least some of the part that are clearly bogus and have no business in there, how about revisiting your beliefs in other parts of the text to see if "little awareness of original language, historical setting, relevant cultures, idioms, etc." maybe wasn't such a good explanation in the first place. [rant] Don't get me wrong: teaching people to be good to each other is all fine and dandy (I do it in my spare time), but honestly there is no need for any supernatural element to achieve your goal. Let alone the need for multi million dollar organisation full of (maybe not full of, but certainly has a fair share of) immoral power abusing paedophiles. It definitely does not need political presence in any country. Nor did it need the wars it spurred and fought vigorously, killed and maimed many people in process. In the name of love and faith. Having a get together of fellow thinkers is one thing, but what we have today... you gotta draw the line somewhere, wouldn't you say? Where is the line for today's Christians? [/rant] I base my beliefs on what I know and wait for more understanding on the things that don't make sense. Many times, issues in the don't understand column have become clear once I was able to see them in a new light of wisdom and experience. I agree with your rant. Using the things of God to justify brutality, power, wealth, greed is wrong. And it not His intended purpose. If you haven't noticed, as a species, we have the unique talent of taking what is perfect and recreating it into the distorted corrupted image of ourselves. The Bible teaches against that, but instead gives us a way at looking at things through the Eyes of God, if we so choose. ...

are you high? I mean really. Firstly, being from X number of authors over X years is proof of it NOT being the word of god. Its an ancient readers digest, thats all. A bunch of random stories (p.s. there were plenty of stories that didn't fit, they just ignored those) Secondly...did you even read my post? I posted two contradictions in the bible that took me all of 30 seconds to find. The bible is almost nothing BUT contradictions. But instead of at least taking the sensible route of blaming mistranslations, you just claim they don't exist? Really? that's where you're gonna put your money? Religion is a crutch for the weak minded to convince themselves that death isn't all that bad and that life has a purpose and we are all gonna go live forever and ever and 80-90 measly years on earth. classical idea of heaven: white robes, harps, sinners tortured for your enjoyment. Came about during the roman persecutions. Romans: wore white robes, played harps, watched christians tortured for their enjoyment.... If you cant see that heaven was just a fairy tale told to christians to keep them in line, you're deluded. At the very best it was a final neener neener from dying christian to their roman oppressors. Religion only "makes sense" if you suspend all belief in reality and put "faith" in something supernatural. If you called that something a toaster they would lock you up. Call it god and people just go along with it. Many apparent contradictions in the Bible are resolved when they are evaluated with a little awareness of original language, historical setting, relevant cultures, idioms, etc. But there are some contradictions that ,do indeed, defy explanation. So what. For the spiritual seeker that has come to terms with their own personal need, the Bible is a Supernatural body of Wisdom pointing the way. It contains more than enough information that is understandable. When that information is combined with faith we are able to catch a fleeting glimpse of God's plan and purpose. And that experience is truly life changing. I am one of those seekers, and for me the Bible is a profound piece of literature. ...

The term spiritual has as many definitions as there are people claiming to be spiritual. I was hoping you could explain your statement "we are condemned to spiritual death for not choosing to follow God's plan for spiritual life" by giving me your definition of the term spiritual but it seems you can't. Science has made defining spirituality easy. It is the nonmaterial part of ourselves that science has failed to identify. Such as: Self Consciousness ( I exist), Mentality( I think), Volition( I will), Emotion, Conscience(I ought). And for those who choose to embrace it, God Consciousness. "Life" simply means we have the option of interaction. Physical life means we can interact with our surroundings, physical death - BSBD. Spiritual life means the reality of Gods Truth and spiritual phenomena are available for us to experience. With spiritual death it is not, either in this life or the next. As a spiritually alive person, my relationship with God is real and intimate. As the matter and energy of my body is immortal, so is my spirit.

Why, because you base your life on and accept that the definition of the origin of life and all existence is, what others (with very high educations in alot of cases) would consider complete garbage. Do you not wonder why there are such discrepancies between the teachings of the bible and the reality of existance? Those exalted, highly educated, people should be the first to grasp the extent of what is known and what is unknown. Closing the door on spirituality is as ignorant as those who close the door on science. False information can be found in both areas but the core truth of each still remains. ...