• husbandhater said on Jul 04, 2007....

  By the way I am currently a non practicing Catholic. I don't practice b/c time is a constant issue for me. But I pray that one day God will answer my prayers and I will find that job that is good enough to stand on it's own and I will not need to juggle so much. I do read my bible from time to time and I pray often if even just to say THANK YOU LORD!
   
  And note we are all going to respect eachother's views or risk the wrath of my delete button!

• silverwhisper said on Jul 04, 2007....

  um...catholic isn't synonymous with christian, HH. :>
  
  agnostic, pretty familiar w/ the bible, i think literal reading of it is for the birds.
  
  ed

• husbandhater said on Jul 04, 2007....

  They say that the fanatics in the Muslim religion are due to those that take a literal interpertation of the words of the koran. I think everything has to do with interpertation as no one person perceives anything the same ed.

• SeanRenaud said on Jul 04, 2007....

  Catholics are close enough to Christian when you don't belong to either denomination.  They aren't synomous but honestly no two sects of Christianity are.  That said I'm an Aethiest.
   
  I believe that the Bible is a combination of Historical Facts, and fantasy interwoven largely because the ancient people didn't know what they were seeing and also needed to make their own people look and seem more powerful and important than they actually were. 
   
  A lot of the things we learned positive from the Bible were also present in other cultures, without the inherent prejudices that are found throughout the entirety of the Bible also.
   
  I think a non-literal reading of any book that doesn't claim to be speaking in parables (the Bible and Koran are quite clear about the times that they aren't speaking in literal terms) is just cherry picking.  If your not a fundamentalist you really have no bussiness calling yourself a member of a given religion.  If we can pick and choose what makes sense or is applicable in our lives I could make the Jedi religion work.

• GrapeKoolaid said on Jul 04, 2007....

  " um...catholic isn't synonymous with christian, HH. :>"
  
  It is if you're Catholic(Which I am not).  :D
  
  The basic tenets of all religion ask for empathy, compassion and love towards others.  It;s when these faiths become political institutions that strict interpretation of dogma sets in, accompanied with fear and distrust of those outside the circle. 
  
  This is a huge topic that could take the rest of our lives to discuss.  I do have lots of time, but how much?  I don't know. 
  

• StupidGenius said on Jul 04, 2007....

  The bible is a mix and match or maral direction. This one of the reasons I think it is one big collection of short fictional stories set in the times of the said stories author. Lets look at some of its "Moral Guidence"
   
  "Deuteronomy 20 contains Yahweh's instructions about war. If a city does not accept Israel's offer of peace and open its gates, then "when the Lord your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it" (verse13). With regard to other cities, the command is (verse 16), "Do not leave anything that breathes."
   
  Kill everyone that dosnt believe in your faith... nice way to live. Also It always amazes me how many times this god orders the killing of innocent people even after the ten commandments said "thou shall not kill". For example God kills 70,000 innocent people because david orders a census of the poeple (1 chronicals 21). God also orders the destruction of 60 cities so that the Israelites can live there. He orders the killing of all men, women and children of each city and the looting of everything valuable. (Deuteronomy 3).
   
  In Judges 21, he orders the murder of all the people of jabesh-gilead, exept for the virgin girls who were taken to be forcibly raped and married. When they wanted more virgins, god told them to hide along the road side and when they saw a girl they liked, kidnap and forcibly rape her and make her your wife!!
   
  In Kings 10:18-27, god orders the murder of all the worshippers of a different god in their very own church. In total God kills 371,186 people directly and orders another 1,862,265 poeple murdered. 
   
  Not alot of moral guidence there.

  I have more instances should I continue?

  SG

• StupidGenius said on Jul 04, 2007....

   SeanRenaud
   
  I thought this might interest you... speaking on the U.K's fourth largest religion...Jedi!! lol
   
  "The unconventional pair are calling for the UN to acknowlegde what has become Britain's fourth largest ‘religion’ with 390,000 followers."
   
  May the force be with you all.

• shiningstar said on Jul 04, 2007....

  Many appear to profess believing in a religion but they accept the interpidation of the books that are said to represent  it instead of actually studing them for themselves. Apparently most do not bother to read them at all let alone the history of where they have come from and how they were created.  People go to their religious place of worship supposedly to follow their chosen god who mostly is said to be good.  Yet these same people go out and do horrible things.  They evidently have no "firm foundation" to stand upon or they would do the things that they say that they believe. It is this duality that works against people who might be the good that they want to see in the world if they only could stand on one principla instead of two.  How does one say they love and kill or condone killing in any form?  How does one claim to be compassionate and give to the poor if it is their beliefs and their religions that created the poor?  When we end the duality and choose one thing,  one principal to stand upon and live our lives earnestly by then we will be the good we want the world to be.

• boyzmom said on Jul 04, 2007....

  I am Christian. I was baptised in a southern baptist church and found that too much structure was impeding the word of God and found a good non-denominational church that focused on a relationship with God.

  I think the Bible is shunned now for several reasons, one being that people are willing to push the limits of what is acceptable and they aren't willing to accept that there are things that are not acceptable- I mean look at the adult entertainment industry. They rationalize things- like saying the girls aren't strippers if they come on stage topless, they are just dancers. They say some shows are tastefully done, so they are okay.

  Mostly, people don't like taking responsibility that believing in the Bible puts on them. People would rather blame God for putting them in a bad situation rather than admit that they made bad choices. It's important to remember that Christians are called to love people but not the sins of those people. People want Christians to turn away and not speak out against sin and they want Christians to be better people than the average sinner, in short, people are too unreasonable to understand and they refuse to make the effort required to be better people.

• anonymous said on Jul 04, 2007....

  To Shining star: You can only serve one master. Or you will love one and hate the other. This sums up your argument nicely and rings true.
  I agree that people allow and make excuses to justify their actions, sort of like bending the rules of religion to suit their own morals. I can see how King James could tamper with the bible to make excuses for his own misdeeds and those of his noblemen.

• robtard94 said on Jul 05, 2007....

  I for one am an athiest-agnostic
  It basically means that until shown proof of a god, the concept doesn't exist.
  As for the bible, it's probably the best use of bourgeoisie control ever created
  from the first two chapters, it contradicts itself (in Genesis 1 god creates Adam  and  Eve simultaneously, but in Genesis 2 god creates adam, waits a while, then adam asks her for eve.)
  It's been used as a tool for the past 2 thousand years for leaders to control people by fear of eternal damnation. 
  And it's been used to justify the eradication of millions of innocent people (crusades, spanish inquisition, American attacks on Native Americans, etc.)
  
  For the past 2000 years it's also been used to brainwash children into a "jesus freak" state, most evident in the past 50 years.  False senses of morality are installed and attitudes toward those with different beliefs have been nothing but hostile.
  
  Everyone blames the Muslim faith for causing World War 3, but watch the movie "jesus camp" and you'll start to think differently.
  

• kelly said on Jul 05, 2007....

  "I think religion started out as a good idea and man just took it and turned it into some of the ugly things that we view today"
  
  
  I think you've put the cart before the horse here.  Religion was invented by men (surely not women, given the short end of the stick they're often dealt in religious matters).  It didn't pop up de novo.  It wasn't mans to ruin, it was created by men in the first place.

• jadestar said on Jul 05, 2007....

  I'm a 'happy clappy'. That's what they call 'charasmatics' here. I don't like boxes & type-casting. I believe in Jesus & the Holy Spirit. But I don't discuss religion, not because I'm ashamed of the gospel but because..............what do I say in a sentence or two.  I don't blame people for criticizing Christians...the church doesn't have a good history (the Crusaders etc), some church-goers are worse than the Pharisees that Jesus confronted & some are flaky wierd; some live double standards - preach one thing then we hear they're hiring prostitutes, some are just in it for the money - yes, I did just go there, too. Then some are like me, loving the Lord but not setting a good example (issues issues)..........and a lot of us come off as sounding judgemental......The Lord appointed one day at the end of time for judgement, so who are we to judge (not my words - Abraham Lincoln's - but very ad lib)
  I am what I believe & that's what comes out my mouth (I hope) but I try to be a repecter of persons.....

• jadestar said on Jul 05, 2007....

  Thanx for the post HH..really cool....sorry I'm so long winded as usual (drama queen)

• lfbno7 said on Jul 05, 2007....

  What am I?  None of the above.  I was raised Jewish but I don't believe in the Bible.
  
  What is my take on Bible, Koran, 5 books of Moses, Buddha?  Well, the Bible is a mix of historical fact and fiction, and the miracles and stories that are about times long ago, like Noah and Adam and Eve are pure fiction.  The stories about later events may have a basis in fact, though all of the so-called miracles are just lies made up to appeal to the masses and impress them.  That's my take on the Bible.
  
  The Koran is pretty much more of the same.  The 5 books of Moses are Genesis, Exodus, and I forgot the names of the others.  Deuteronomy is another.  Is one called Numbers?  It's all incorporated in the Bible.  As for Buddha, he seems like a happy chubby guy and I wish him well.
  
  I think religion started out as a sincere guess at where we all came from and what we should be doing here.  It's a natural enough topic to explore.  But speculation turned into dogmatism.  The authors did not have the right answers and the stories they made up about the creator of the universe painted for us a very cruel creator of the universe, one not worth worshiping.  Other parts of our religions were plagiarized from older religions, like the flood story.  The people who started off our current religions were authoritarians who mainly wanted us to obey them, so they created a very authoritarian god who will punish you if you don't obey.  The whole Adam and Eve story has but one moral - obey!
  
  So I disagree that religion started out as a good idea.  Not our religions anyway.  Maybe the animist religions of Africa started out as a good idea.  Ours started out as an authority figure demanding obedience and threatening us not to think for ourselves.  I think the world would now be a better place if the Bible had never been written.  For all its "thou shalt not steals" it has a "do this and I'll kill you".  Parts of it are pretty good and other parts are psychotic.  And its insistence that it is speaking for the one and only truth as set down by the creator of the universe is just bull.
  
  Suicide bombing, cults, and excuses to be pedophiles.  Well, the Koran does encourage suicide bombings by telling guys that they will get tons of sex in Heaven so what are they waiting for?  These religions are cults.  What's the difference between a cult and a religion?  Semantics?  Size?  Not that much.  I guess you can find a definition of a cult that you are happy with, that makes it seem very different from the major religions, but they have a lot in common, such as an unwavering belief in lies and an unthinking fanaticism. 
  
  As for pedophiles, I wouldn't hang that on the Bible.  I'd hang that on the Catholic insistence on having their religious leaders remain single.  That's not in the Bible.  That's just a Catholic thing.  Protestant and Jewish leaders can get married.  So you get Catholic priests who aren't supposed to have sex with women, and naturally it builds up pressure in them, plus it may tend to attract guys who don't want sex with women anyway.  Some of them prefer sex with little boys.
  
  What about the beautiful side of religion where you see one neighbor helping another?  Well, I wouldn't give the credit to religion for that.  I'd give the credit to the people who want to help others.  You don't get your kindness from religion.  Either you are that way or you're not, and it doesn't come from a book.  No religion has the right to claim that all goodness comes from its old book of mythology.
  
  The line about a child respecting parents is one of the good points of religion.  I'd agree with you there, because the religions do teach that.  One point for religion.
  
  The thing about giving food, money, clothes, to the homeless, no I can't accept that as a good point of religion.  The only person I know who has done a lot of that is my wife, and she wouldn't know the Bible from a teacup.  If your particular church does that sort of thing, good for them.  So that can be another point for religion, if they are being activists to help others.  If.
  
  I think religion is shunned by a lot of people now for two reasons.  One - it's transparent baloney.  Two - it is too authoritarian for our tastes.
  
  We don't need the Bible to tell us to be kind to each other.  Kindness wasn't invented by the novelists who wrote the Bible.  For every time that the Bible tells us to be kind and just to each other, it also comes out with some absolute evil bullshit like telling us to kill queers and alcoholics, gossipers and whisperers.
  

• alipatemiller said on Jul 05, 2007....

  i believe the bible, the koran and the mahabharata are all great works of literature. and why not; they all have those elements that fix it as great literary artefacts - melodrama, poetry, action, sex, violence, catharsis etc. but of course there are traces of historical fact in them as well. some of the geographical places mentioned in these books are still there today. jesus i believe was a real, historical being - but a merely mortal.
   
  but being part of orature the line between the historical elements and those of the fantastic have become greatly blurred over time. hence we have wrongly taken these books as being literally of a divine-origin. and of course in those times when the world was not inter-connected and when information moved slower it was easier and more prudent to create myths and exaggerations. rumours and lies abounded. for example if mahatma gandhi had been born in the time of jesus, people would have also turned him into a god as stories passed around about his virtuous nature. from a mortal somewhere someone would have suggested a divine origin for him.

• alipatemiller said on Jul 05, 2007....

  i believe the bible, the koran and the mahabharata are all great works of literature. and why not; they all have those elements that fix it as great literary artefacts - melodrama, poetry, action, sex, violence, catharsis etc. but of course there are traces of historical fact in them as well. some of the geographical places mentioned in these books are still there today. jesus i believe was a real, historical being - but a merely mortal.
   
  but being part of orature the line between the historical elements and those of the fantastic have become greatly blurred over time. hence we have wrongly taken these books as being literally of a divine-origin. and of course in those times when the world was not inter-connected and when information moved slower it was easier and more prudent to create myths and exaggerations. rumours and lies abounded. for example if mahatma gandhi had been born in the time of jesus, people would have also turned him into a god as stories passed around about his virtuous nature. from a mortal somewhere someone would have suggested a divine origin for him.
   
  al

• StupidGenius said on Jul 05, 2007....

  So in summary. The bible was written by man. For man. With the aim of controling men by making them fear god. I dont understand people who are christian, muslim, jewish who take the parts of the holy books that suit them and dismiss the parts that dont. Maybe one day they will wake up and smell the wonder that is natural selection!

• StupidGenius said on Jul 05, 2007....

  So in summary. The bible was written by man. For man. With the aim of controling men by making them fear god. I dont understand people who are christian, muslim, jewish who take the parts of the holy books that suit them and dismiss the parts that dont. Maybe one day they will wake up and smell the wonder that is natural selection!

• anonymous said on Jul 05, 2007....

  Well i personally belive the bible to be the word og God.
  No, i am not going to say what church i was brought up in so as to be safe.
   

• shiningstar said on Jul 05, 2007....

  My focus on the Bible is only because in order to understand what Jesus really taught one has to understand what the religious have taught the masses. This is their record of Jehovah and his deeds , be they true or not, this is what has to be addressed. In what I teach my focus is about understanding the consciousness of jehovah the Christian God of the Old Testament. He calls himself a vengeful, war-god.His deeds are comparable to Hitler's or Saddams yet religion convinces the people that he is "good". Jesus is the exact opposite. He lives a life of love, compassion and forgiveness. Unlike Jehovah Jesus did the deeds of love.But what happened was that the priest in power knew that jehovah did not send Jesus. If one doubts that they must understand that Jesus was killed for the religious sin of blasphemy which means to speak against Jehovah not for him. The words of Jehovah, straight from the OT, are purposely put into the mouth of Jesus in the first 4 books of the NT. To make it more confusing 4 versions are put into it which is like teaching math 4 ways. The difference betwee Jesus and Jehovah is in the kinds of consciousness that each lived and created. To war or to love? An eye for an eye or love ye one another? Itis easy to see where the world is at in this moment.

• SeanRenaud said on Jul 05, 2007....

  And everything he did, Jesus promises unless you want to disregard Revelations.   More than that all of the laws put down in the OT are STRICTER in the NT.  With one major exception, he died for our sins.

• shiningstar said on Jul 05, 2007....

  Once again you are confusing Jesus with Jehovah just as religions has taught. Instead try and get a grasp on what I am endeavoring to teach you here.

• Antimatter said on Jul 05, 2007....

  I'm an atheist. I think it takes a significant suspension of reason to conclude that any religious text is divinely inspired and flawless. You mentioned the beautiful side of religion. I think people do beautiful deeds in spite of their religious beliefs. Religion has no monopoly on common decency or humanitarian charity.

• robtard94 said on Jul 05, 2007....

  Antimatter I love you mate :D
  
  

• shiningstar said on Jul 05, 2007....

  I believe in a Divine Intelligence but I also know that Jehovah and Jesus did exist and still does of course.  The point is that Jehovah tricked the people into believing that he was the Creator of the world and all in it and he never was.  But because he could intimidate and murder at will the people eventually saw it his way.  No one can understand the moral to this story unless they are at least willing to take apart the Jehovah story and see that he is not who he says that he is. Then what Jesus lived,said and taught is understood and  his message of love can be understood and lived.  He said that "ye are gods".  He did not say that in order to create an argument about it.  He said it because it is true and he came to help people regain their rightful heritage as gods so that they would never be enslaved again by government,  religion or king and do the greater things that he promised that all could do.Can you not see that if people accepted this and gained the knowledge  he offered the world would not be in the shape that it is in.

• lfbno7 said on Jul 05, 2007....

  shiningstar you have a very original take on things.  it is interesting to read.  you take the bible at face value rather than tossing it into the mythology dustbin, and you have your own take on who jehovah was.  i like your interpretation but i'm much more skeptical than you are about the whole thing.

• SeanRenaud said on Jul 05, 2007....

  I'd be less skeptical if Shining had ANY scriptures to quote rather than just his interpretation that makes zero sense.  I mean I have my own interpretations for my fiction, and honestly it mostly makes sense, none of it can strictly be dicounted but it is still fiction.

• StupidGenius said on Jul 06, 2007....

  My money is on Natural selection, Evolution is the key to existance. Let the delusional have their god and may the strong minded have their facts.
   
  http://www.soulcast.com/post/show/76122/Natural-Selection

• shiningstar said on Jul 06, 2007....

  It does not matter if it is fiction or not.  If one goes to an island and finds a people that worship a bottle or a worm in order to understand them from their perspective one has to understand their form of religion. As I said in the Jesus or Jehovah story one must separate the two and understand both teachings in order to get the gist of the consciousness that each will produce if believed and followed.  The god Jehovah called himself evil and said that he created evil.  He called himself a jealous war god.  He wanted and forced the people to live by the laws and caste system that he created. He left the planet(for what reason?) one is that the people were getting tired of him and called him a burden which of course he was.He promised to return and deliver terrible punishment to the people for not following him.  Jesus comes along.  A man, god,  of equal power.  He lives a life of love,  compassion and forgiveness. he heals the people and promises to "set them free".  He was the exact opposite of Jehovah. The only thing the people complained about and needed to be free from was living their lives according to the teachings of Jehovah. The easy way,  after 10 yrs for me,  is to choose three words that define the word love.  Use these 3 words to read the first 4 books of the NT.  Any thing Jesus speaks or does that does not match the definition of your 3 words of love does not belong to the consciousness of Jesus.  What appears in these cases are mostly the same old words from Jehovah coming from the OT. Only these 100 or more pages create the confusion.  This is because here the words and ways of Jesus and Jehovah are purposely interwoven together. The way to create more confusion and lesson the chances for this to be understood the 4 versions of one story are given.  Once you get a grasp of this duality the parables and the teachings of the Bible for both Jesus and Jehovah become clear.  After I got clear on this revelation it took me many years to be able to put it in a context that others who had not done the orginal work could understand.I realize that it can be difficult to understand this but I say to you as I said to my self. I want to know the truth whatever it may be.  I want to understand Jesus and the Bible.  I am willing to lay down what I have been taught and believed for so long because it does not satisfy me and open my mind to receive a greater truth.

• husbandhater said on Jul 06, 2007....

  This story sounds an aweful like the story of Mohammad and the Koran and how Islam came to be. Shinning star. Supposedly he went town to town spreading inlightenment and  the gospel and held knives to the throat of the non believers and those that were hesitant and said Join me or Die! How true? Who knows?
   
  The stuff you say about Jehovah(And there is no J in hebrew it is Yahova or Yahwa) proves to be very interesting. I have to read this more in depth when I have a free moment!

• shiningstar said on Jul 07, 2007....

  I believe that one can find the commonality in all religions.  All were orginally forced on the people. That is why Jesus came.  But there is a system to the enforcement.  Those in power deprive and murder until resistance is overcome and then hundreds of years later,  when the orginal people have long been dead, no one remembers how their religion came to be implanted in their minds and grew into their everyday beliefs.  When trying to educate them they resist because,  in cousciousness,  the soul remembers the pain of those early days and and wants to keep on believing what they believe because of fear of punishment once again.

• StupidGenius said on Jul 07, 2007....

  Shiningstar... I like you. you are a funny one.

  Delusional but funny.

   

• shiningstar said on Jul 07, 2007....

    Well SG I like you too and I am so happy that I can bring a little "funny"  into someone's life this morning. You are greatly loved my friend.

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