Life itself can be "GOD'S WORD".

Originally posted by Taoman
Somewhat pointless repeating this here, but out of a sense of compassion I tell you again and again, and sorry, blunt I must be...

You (Christians) are all projecting onto the historically conditioned collection of Jewish and Christian writings, and onto the concept of "God" what you want and desire, arising out of your existential anxieties. Liberal belie ...[text shortened]... burblings of your child, or the deep message in a film...

YOU are the CHOOSER.

The convenient, warm fuzzies of Relativism and Existentialism; the labeling of Christians as Hitler supporters and racists; we've heard it all before. Nothing new under the sun.

As for the projecting of one's ideals upon others... it seems to me that you are the one doing so -- and in a dishonest, hateful fashion to boot. But again, nothing new under the sun.

Originally posted by Suzianne
"And the LORD God said unto the woman, What [is] this [that] thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat." -- Genesis 3:13, KJV

Come on, you can do better than that small-minded sniping.

Think for yourself for a change, something original will come...you are unique, there is only one of exactly you in the whole flipping universe, past present and future, with a view that only you can see, and for us to share it, you need to say it, in your words, in your way. STOP HIDING PLEASE.

Don't just parrot Bible verses, have a go, Suzianne! Have a go!

Originally posted by sumydid
The convenient, warm fuzzies of Relativism and Existentialism; the labeling of Christians as Hitler supporters and racists; we've heard it all before. Nothing new under the sun.

As for the projecting of one's ideals upon others... it seems to me that you are the one doing so -- and in a dishonest, hateful fashion to boot. But again, nothing new under the sun.

What utter rot.

I have clearly not equated Christians with Hitler, I have gone out of my way to make that clear. The point about Hitler is that he could use the Bible in his way as "God's Word", so what about others use of that vaunted authoritarian approach to other religions and ways of seeing spiritually? And what of the warm fuzzies of living in the now, open to the eternal way? You substitute with cold pharissaical philosophical terms. You denigrate life! YOU DO SIN AGAINST 'THE HOLY SPIRIT'! Do you know why? And it is why I am being very confronting. There is reduced hope for those that do so. How can you ever flower with a closed attitude like that? HOW?

In what way have I been dishonest? That is another false and distorted claim so often made by the small minded and prejudiced being confronted with their own small mindedness and rigidities..

Back up your claim - what exactly have I said that is dishonest? I will discuss it in detail. Which sentence or phrase? Just because you don't like to hear something or be confronted by someone else's viewpoint does not make it dishonest! Kindly stop being faudulent and distorting of others views. I find it quite offensive and not at all in a so-called charitable Christian spirit at all.

Confrontation and difference is not hate either.I do not practice hate, you silly one. I care deeply about your entrapment. I want to wake you up, and soft words will not do. What an overblown response you have given. Can you please participate with some intelligence and respect for other's viewpoints instead of blind stupidities and accusations such as these?

Then I will discuss with you your stated viewpoint with respect.

This attitude is exactly why I have posted. Thank you for the illustration. Wake up.

You call my words "utter rot," call me "small-minded," and "prejudiced," and scream that I'm sinning against the Holy Spirit. Then you claim not to practice hate.

I likewise thank you for making your intentions and distortions so clear for everyone to see.

Have a nice day and God bless. I hope your condition improves.

Originally posted by sumydid
And I thank you for making it clear how hateful and bitter you are.

Have a nice day and God bless. I hope your condition improves.

*sigh*

Originally posted by Taoman
*sigh*

I edited it to make it crystal clear with examples.

Originally posted by Taoman
Somewhat pointless repeating this here, but out of a sense of compassion I tell you again and again, and sorry, blunt I must be...

You (Christians) are all projecting onto the historically conditioned collection of Jewish and Christian writings, and onto the concept of "God" what you want and desire, arising out of your existential anxieties. Liberal belie ...[text shortened]... burblings of your child, or the deep message in a film...

YOU are the CHOOSER.

You would be right if Jesus was still dead.

What you fail to understand though, is the Word of God. While it's true that we project upon the Word of God our own notions and conceptions of what is true, we nevertheless must allow God's Word to project into our spirit what it intends for us to understand and know.

First and foremost is the resurrection. If it is true that Jesus rose from the dead, then we must reexamine our whole life-view.

Originally posted by josephw
You would be right if Jesus was still dead.

What you fail to understand though, is the Word of God. While it's true that we project upon the Word of God our own notions and conceptions of what is true, we nevertheless must allow God's Word to project into our spirit what it intends for us to understand and know.

First and foremost is the resurrection. If it is true that Jesus rose from the dead, then we must reexamine our whole life-view.

Persons project, books don't. However I have nothing against reading the Bible reflectively. There is some fine passages for reflection.

The resurrected god-man myth is straight out of Hellenic history. Such stories were a dime a dozen then. However the mythology can be a spiritual message too. To admit it's a myth does not destroy credulous faith, it develops it, more richer and deeper. We have all believed things erroneously. Its ok, we can develop and grow.

Why cannot one say to oneself, "Well I did believe in a god-man resurrection from the dead, but now I don't. But self-sacrifice and forgiveness and grace are still very real in that message. The triumph of the living spirit over a dead view of life is a message I can celebrate still.

Humans do not literally mate with gods and produce god-men children, but they do in Greek mythology, full of all sorts of rich meanings. Books do not project. Dead people stay dead. Hope lives on. The truth of a person's life lives on.

And times and understandings of these things are a-changing, we need to move on.

Originally posted by sumydid
You call my words "utter rot," call me "small-minded," and "prejudiced," and scream that I'm sinning against the Holy Spirit. Then you claim not to practice hate.

I likewise thank you for making your intentions and distortions so clear for everyone to see.

Have a nice day and God bless. I hope your condition improves.

Wow man. Take the blinders off and get ye to a correspondence course in reading comprehension.

Originally posted by Taoman
Persons project, books don't. However I have nothing against reading the Bible reflectively. There is some fine passages for reflection.

The resurrected god-man myth is straight out of Hellenic history. Such stories were a dime a dozen then. However the mythology can be a spiritual message too. To admit it's a myth does not destroy credulous faith, it dev ...[text shortened]... es on.

And times and understandings of these things are a-changing, we need to move on.

"The resurrected god-man myth is straight out of Hellenic history."

Can you site an example of a Hellenic myth that tells of a resurrected "god-man"?

How do you know that the resurrection of Jesus is a myth?

Originally posted by josephw
[b]"The resurrected god-man myth is straight out of Hellenic history."

Can you site an example of a Hellenic myth that tells of a resurrected "god-man"?

How do you know that the resurrection of Jesus is a myth?[/b]

"...Christianity's biggest rival during the first few centuries of its existence was Mithraism. Mithraism, the most popular of the mystery religions, had Persian roots and involves the worship of the Sun God, Mithra. During this time, Mithraism was virtually the official religion of the Roman Empire, being very popular especially with the military.

Many rituals and beliefs of Mithraism seemed so closely related to the Christian one that it becomes impossible to deny its influence on nascent Christianity. The Mithraists had a special day dedicated to their god. It was the first day of the week, which they appropriately called Sun-day, the "day of our Lord". Mithra was the God of the upper and nether world and it is he who will judge men's deeds. The Jewish thinker, Philo had already identified the Logos with the Sun, it was therefore natural and inevitable that the early Christians should identify Jesus with such a symbol. Sunday became established as the Lord's Day for the Christians as well. From this observance of Sunday, the myth eventually evolved to connect the rising of Jesus with that day. It is worth noting that the Mithraist ritual involve the liturgical representation of the death, burial (also in a rock tomb!) and resurrection of the god Mithra.

Other contemporary mystery religions no doubt contributed to the evolution of Christian mythology. The Syrian cult of Adonis also had a large following during the time of early Christianity. Adonis, which means The Lord (Hebrew: Adonai), was represented in the liturgy as dying and then rising again on the third day. And in this liturgy it was the women who mourned his death and who found him risen on the third day.

The Egyptian cult of Osiris had a similar belief; for it was Osiris who was dead and rose again on the third day.

Early Christian liturgy was also clearly absorbed and imported from the mystery religions. The Greco-Roman cult of Dionysius had their God, born of the virgin, Semele, being torn to pieces by the Titans. He was then resurrected by his mother. In commemorating his sacrificial death, the devotees ate bread and wine to represent his body and blood. The Mithraist too had a eucharistic celebration very similar to the Christian one. And it was also Mithraism who first came up with the sign of the cross, made on the forehead. It was the supreme symbol of their belief. The worship of Osiris too involve veneration of the Osirian cross, the emblem of their god.

In fact the beliefs, rituals and liturgy of the mystery cults, which antedated Christianity, so closely paralleled the Christian ones that the early Church Fathers insisted that the devil must have had a hand in these cults!

The historical origin of the central events of Christianity did not begin with the actual resurrection of a Galilean Jew. It began when Jewish religious philosophy was grafted onto Greco-Roman paganism."

Fuller references found here:
http://www.rejectionofpascalswager.net/paganrising.html

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- Believing God can literally be a man, is idolatrous (using your language). It's primitive mythological thinking these days. Meanings can be wrought from the myths and applied to life, but men do not rise from the dead. If they do revive in a short time, they were simply not dead but in a deep coma and death was incorrectly diagnosed. It happens, but rarely.

- Any one can make up a fantasy and then ask the same question you ask - how do you KNOW there are no leprechauns at the end of the garden? That's too tricky by half. One cannot and does not KNOW anything that does not happen or exist. Extraordinary claims require YOU to persuade it happened. Your evidence is very subjective and arising from varying and contradictory stories in writings that appear fully almost a century later after this supposed event happened. You may continue to believe it. I enjoy the myth and its deeper meanings but there it stops, sorry.

Originally posted by Taoman
"...Christianity's biggest rival during the first few centuries of its existence was Mithraism. Mithraism, the most popular of the mystery religions, had Persian roots and involves the worship of the Sun God, Mithra. During this time, Mithraism was virtually the official religion of the Roman Empire, being very popular especially with the military.

Many ...[text shortened]... inue to believe it. I enjoy the myth and its deeper meanings but there it stops, sorry.

I'm sorry too, but not in the same way or for the same reason.

You shouldn't be so cock sure of yourself. You've substituted belief in one myth for another is all. Your historical perspective is spurious at best. There is absolutely no way you can prove, even to yourself, based on the logic of your argument, that one religious belief system preceded another or came after. There are simply too many gaps in the record, and as you suggested, it is far too subjective.

Anyway, I'm not trying to be argumentative. We each "see" this life through our own eyes and draw our own conclusions, and I don't disrespect you for not seeing it the way I do.

Interesting though that it is I that seeks to persuade you and not the other way around. You seem perfectly comfortable that we don't see eye to eye on this matter, which could possibly be the most important issue one could find; seeing as how it might effect an eternal outcome. Just saying.

I pray you and yours are well.

Originally posted by josephw
I'm sorry too, but not in the same way or for the same reason.

You shouldn't be so cock sure of yourself. You've substituted belief in one myth for another is all. Your historical perspective is spurious at best. There is absolutely no way you can prove, even to yourself, based on the logic of your argument, that one religious belief system preceded anoth s how it might effect an eternal outcome. Just saying.

I pray you and yours are well.

Thank you.
I do try to avoid these days too much simply "believing". I do have opinions about historical and scientific facts, about correct literary understandings, historical and contextual, which accord with hopefully the main body of rational discourse and current level of factual human knowledge - not simply beliefs.

I seek your further enlightenment, as much as you seek my eternal salvation. So we both have good intentions,

At a greater level everything is as it is, and its All Complete. All is accounted for. Be at peace. I have the advantage - I have been where you are and not lightly either. Unfortunately you may never see what I eventually saw. So be it.

Your life will be your life as mine will be. I am at peace and without fear, and trust life despite its 'bad' stuff. In the Complete (The Great) 'bad' is the counterfoil of good. Beauty is unable to be without the existence of ugliness. One must have the other to maintain the completeness and their very definitions.

Peacemakers and warriors are all part of life. How can courage exist without something to face courageously? Injustice and pain simply happen and exist, wishing them away or "solved" by beliefs is comforting, but later we sometimes find ourselves in a hard place and the stack of belief cards come tumbling down. Then, faced with hard realities something more is required to handle and understand those so hard times - like injustice and pain that do not go away, are not solved and no returning "Savior" appears from the skies. A deeper understanding than what you and other simple believers have now, is then required. Apart from our own personal challenges, we, as a race, are entering very rough waters. with possible cruel social breakdown. I hope you are prepared deeply for what will occur.

Ultimately all is well, even in the midst of all that. Remember that. May you and other simple believers be as happy as you can be, now and always.

taoman.