Jump to content
Goodbye Jesus

Fundamentals


freeday

Recommended Posts

To me - love and compassion and wisdom are as much laws of the universe as are the law of gravity. So... there definitely are very natural consequences for going against the law of love or compassion or wisdom.

 

And like you, I also believe anger is a part of it - and that it can be a productive part. I just don't think that some being is sitting on a throne in the far reaches of the universe getting angry because I do something to violate the law of love. If I do violence to the law of love - then I do violence to my own soul, my own spirit. I also do violence to creation and to other people. There doesn't need to be a supernatural being to "correct" me, or to "discipline" me. The correction and discipline comes in living itself - and either we choose to learn or we choose to ignore the natural laws that will enable us (as a human species) to survive the evolutionary battle.

 

:)Open Minded, I was just pointing out how Freeday had come to understand these concepts as "pissing off God." You seem to have spent a lot of time dwelling on these spiritual concepts from many angles and have a mature deep meaning of them, IMO,... after all, you even meditate! :notworthy: However, IMO, these OT teachings were initiated to a group that had not been exposed to much inductive and deductive reasoning which only became introduced 300 years before "Jesus" with Aristotle or Plato. IMO, since the predominant mythology from which the OT emerged, was a perception of a God outside of us... therefore one that looked upon us condescendingly dispersing his/her/its anger. Hence, Obedience by fear of retalliation. Obviously much of this lingers, even in the present teachings of Pat Robertson and the ilk. :rolleyes: IMO, the evolution of deeper insights that emerged from the NT teachings seem to point to the conclusions you've said in your post, which I agree.

 

 

Here are some good links on the Old Testament.

 

Ugarit and the Bible

 

 

An Anthropologist Looks at the Judeo-Christian Scriptures

Thanks. I read them and there were some really cool stuff there. Finally I got an explanation to the difference of El (sing) and Elohim (plur).

:thanks:Wow, thanks to both of you! How did I miss this! :eek:

 

Lots more reading left, yet, what I have read was very informative and makes a lot of sense!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 262
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

  • freeday

    69

  • Antlerman

    38

  • Ouroboros

    29

  • Amanda

    21

Top Posters In This Topic

Posted Images

Amanda...I have read that Moses studied in the mystery schools of Egypt. Maybe Moses was misunderstood also???

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Antlerman: you know the full difficulties of looking at the word from a different perspective. i have believed my whole life that it was the infallable word of God. logically, you should probably look at it that it was written by men, thus man's influence was applied to it. then i think that if i don't read it litterally that i am displeasing God. not that i am in fear of going to hell, but i pray every night for knowledge and how God wants me to live my life. its almost like it is easier to accept it as the exact word from God. and what about the gospels accounts of Jesus. if you don't accept that as the word, what guidance do you have. these are very difficult issues to deal with.

 

OM "I believe that God exists - but it would be rather silly of me to believe I had any real way of fully comprehending God."

 

i agree completely with this. it would make our lives so much easier. i try so hard to read verses, look up greek and hebrew meaning, look up resources and what not. maybe i should be content with the knowledge that we just don't know.

 

"What if you CAN'T "piss God off"?" thank you. i needed that. maybe your right. maybe if we read and interpret the bible differently it doesn't piss Him off. i believe this to a certain extent allready. i have said before that i think it ok to have a variety of different sects of christianity, that the interpritation of the small stuff doesn't matter. just the big stuff.

 

your thoughts are always welcome and much appriciated. :thanks:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here are some good links on the Old Testament.

 

Ugarit and the Bible

 

 

An Anthropologist Looks at the Judeo-Christian Scriptures

 

very interesting read, not sure what to make of it. it brings up some interesting ideas, some of the biblical refferences it made i had some questions about. (some of the verses were not translated the way i know them). but the jer. verse reffering to the queen of heaven raises some questions, and it was exact in its translation. will do some research on it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If we honor love and compassion and wisdom and then we do something against that which we honor, there are repurcussions. I think there are even spiritual repurcussions if we don't honor these things.

 

To me - love and compassion and wisdom are as much laws of the universe as are the law of gravity. So... there definitely are very natural consequences for going against the law of love or compassion or wisdom.

 

>snip<

 

Our "salvation" as a species will depend as much on the laws of love and wisdom and compassion as it will depend on the laws of logic. God - IMO - is intimately connected with all of this, not a being so much as a universal, infinite intention of love, wisdom, compassion and logic working in and through all of creation. :shrug:

Now we are talking about how I “serve God”, so to speak. I know there are spiritual repercussions if we don’t honor these things. It is all in how we honor our own souls. To act against those principles of love, compassion, and wisdom is to diminish the honor we hold ourselves in. To do this is to diminish our experience of ourselves in the universe and to diminish those principles that benefit all of humanity’s experience of itself and life. That is in essence “dishonoring both ourselves and God”.

 

The difference we always run into between us is that I view these things, not so much as laws of the universe such as gravity, but that they are laws of being human. The end result pretty much gets us to the same place, since in fact we are human. There are consequences for going against the laws that are “written on our hearts”. I see the whole Biblical effort as a way to keep people mindful of these “laws”, as it becomes easy in the daily grind to follow after impulses to serve self, and not community. (This is in no small part why I see these as much more being laws of humanity, rather than laws of the universe. If they were, then our “morality” would be manifesting itself elsewhere in the natural world, which it really doesn’t. Though I suppose you could say these are God's laws for a moral consience, to be consistent in that language system and not violate the observable world. Ahh yes, language.... ;) ).

 

 

Antlerman: you know the full difficulties of looking at the word from a different perspective. i have believed my whole life that it was the infallable word of God. logically, you should probably look at it that it was written by men, thus man's influence was applied to it. then i think that if i don't read it litterally that i am displeasing God. not that i am in fear of going to hell, but i pray every night for knowledge and how God wants me to live my life. its almost like it is easier to accept it as the exact word from God.

I am very happy for you freeday. You are going to be defining these things for yourself for a long, long time to come. I still am to this day, but that road is an exciting one of new discoveries of insight and knowledge, both of others and who we really are inside as an individual. It’s going to bring about tremendous growth in you. My having been trying to explain these things in conversation with you has been very much part of my own exploration of these things. In other words, even if you struggle to explain to yourself or others what you are “feeling”, breaking through those barriers of habitual thought, or misconceptions is an extremely liberating experience both intellectually and spiritually. You’ll find it gets easier the more confidence you gain in yourself.

 

Just follow what is in your heart, not the fear and intimidation of others, socially or otherwise. As I was talking above with OM about honoring ourselves and the higher principles of human love, etc., to be “sincere” to our own self in pursuit of honoring the higher principles of human existence is the first “truth”. If you serve life sincerely, “there is no condemnation to those that are in Christ Jesus”, so to speak using that language. In other words, these are all paths and tools to promote and encourage people to aspire to and embrace those principles that benefit our human participation in society, and our personal experiences of life itself. If you act contrary what is in your heart and are insincere, you fail to bring to the world your own unique value. In essence you honor life and the name of “God” by being sincere. In my language, “insincerity” is sin.

 

and what about the gospels accounts of Jesus. if you don't accept that as the word, what guidance do you have. these are very difficult issues to deal with.

Good questions. Why does someone have to accept those words as coming from the mouth of a god for them to have great value? “This above all: to thine own self be true.” These words always resonate in my mind on a number of levels, yet it was the words of Shakespeare, and not a “holy prophet”. You see my point? Personally I see the words of Jesus being very likely a collection of sayings that were part of various religious communities as “spiritual axioms”, and became part of the words of Jesus in the Gospels. But even so, “love your neighbor as yourself”, was said by Plato over 400 years before Jesus, yet those words are very much a principle I embrace as of “sacred” truth as part of those principle I spoke about above.

 

Bottom line, what guidance do you have? Your conscience: which I would define as your reason and your heart. Honor love; honor peace; honor compassion, by esteeming them as the highest principles of the human experience, and acting upon them in your daily actions. In this “setting your mind on those things which are above,” comes a natural outpouring of them to others and Love is served, humanity is honored, your soul is honored and you experience freedom of spirit and life itself. What system you choose to obtain that goal, is up to you. One size does not fit all when it comes to that.

 

Does this help?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

But even so, “love your neighbor as yourself”, was said by Plato over 400 years before Jesus

 

It was also part of the Hebrew Bible btw

 

Leviticus 19:18

'Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD.

 

There is even a verse in there, where the Jews are told to respect the stranger, as they were once stangers in Egypt.

 

And check out this comment by Jewish Rabbi Hillel(70 B.C.-A.D. 10),

"Whatever is hateful to thee, do not unto thy fellow man: this is the whole Law; the rest is mere commentary".

 

I do have to check the context and his other writings, but I find this strikingly similar to Jesus said in the NT....."So then, whatever you desire that others would do to and for you, even so do also to and for them, for this is (sums up) the Law and the Prophets"

Link to comment
Share on other sites

OM "I believe that God exists - but it would be rather silly of me to believe I had any real way of fully comprehending God."

 

i agree completely with this. it would make our lives so much easier. i try so hard to read verses, look up greek and hebrew meaning, look up resources and what not. maybe i should be content with the knowledge that we just don't know.

 

"What if you CAN'T "piss God off"?" thank you. i needed that. maybe your right. maybe if we read and interpret the bible differently it doesn't piss Him off. i believe this to a certain extent allready. i have said before that i think it ok to have a variety of different sects of christianity, that the interpritation of the small stuff doesn't matter. just the big stuff.

 

your thoughts are always welcome and much appriciated. :thanks:

 

Hello Freeday….

 

I don't think anything "pisses God off". I don't think of God as having ego, so therefore God having emotions that we connect with ego is a mute point.

 

To me God is beyond comprehension. My father told me something once, that has stayed with me all these years.

 

When I was a young teen he left the Christian church and Catholicism. Throughout my teen and young adult years he considered himself agnostic/atheist (always wavering between the two). Around my mid to late 20s he began to believe in a God again.

 

Freeday - I've always believed in God - even as I watched my own father struggle with his belief I've never struggled with this myself. So, after all those years when Dad started to believe in God again, I asked him about it. I asked him about those years when he wavered between agnostic/atheist and then coming back to a belief. He told me that when he left Christianity he gave up on the God he'd been taught about in his culture, family, church, etc… He stopped believing in that definition of God. To him no God existed because the only way he'd ever been taught to view God was not valid. As he started to believe in God again, it was because he had discovered a God that was different from what he had been taught.

 

Now, I'm not saying there are multiple deities floating around in space that we can choose from. What I'm saying is that we always have to be responsible enough to realize that what we believe of God is a perception. And that our perceptions of this which is incomprehensible can change (and should change).

 

 

I practice a form of Christian meditation called Centering Prayer. Father Thomas Keating teaches this form of meditation. He says that when we go into Centering Prayer we are going in with the intention of opening ourselves up to the presence of God in our life - as God is - not as we've been taught about God. This is very important. Our culture throws many different ideas at us about what God is. And after awhile, our understanding of God becomes lost in cultural imaging. To take time every day to simply rest and open oneself up to the presence of God as God IS - allows us to perceive the presence of God in our life beyond what the way the Bible has been interpreted to us, beyond the way ministers and churches have told us we should believe. We come to know the presence of God in a very simple and silent way. Within the Christian meditative tradition there is a saying, "The language of God is silence".

 

If we honor love and compassion and wisdom and then we do something against that which we honor, there are repercussions. I think there are even spiritual repercussions if we don't honor these things.

 

To me - love and compassion and wisdom are as much laws of the universe as are the law of gravity. So... there definitely are very natural consequences for going against the law of love or compassion or wisdom.

 

>snip<

 

Our "salvation" as a species will depend as much on the laws of love and wisdom and compassion as it will depend on the laws of logic. God - IMO - is intimately connected with all of this, not a being so much as a universal, infinite intention of love, wisdom, compassion and logic working in and through all of creation. :shrug:

 

Now we are talking about how I “serve God”, so to speak. I know there are spiritual repercussions if we don’t honor these things. It is all in how we honor our own souls. To act against those principles of love, compassion, and wisdom is to diminish the honor we hold ourselves in. To do this is to diminish our experience of ourselves in the universe and to diminish those principles that benefit all of humanity’s experience of itself and life. That is in essence “dishonoring both ourselves and God”.

 

The difference we always run into between us is that I view these things, not so much as laws of the universe such as gravity, but that they are laws of being human. The end result pretty much gets us to the same place, since in fact we are human. There are consequences for going against the laws that are “written on our hearts”. I see the whole Biblical effort as a way to keep people mindful of these “laws”, as it becomes easy in the daily grind to follow after impulses to serve self, and not community. (This is in no small part why I see these as much more being laws of humanity, rather than laws of the universe. If they were, then our “morality” would be manifesting itself elsewhere in the natural world, which it really doesn’t. Though I suppose you could say these are God's laws for a moral consience, to be consistent in that language system and not violate the observable world. Ahh yes, language.... ;) ).

 

Antlerman … there really is no way to concretely prove either of our positions one way or the other. So, please do not think I'm getting into a debate. I accept your position and the following is merely some pondering on my part. 

 

Why would "our morality" manifest itself in the rest of the natural world - it is "our" morality is it not?

 

Wouldn't it be more appropriate to say if love, wisdom, etc… were natural laws than love and wisdom would be manifesting itself in the natural world?

 

For my own part I do believe love and wisdom manifest themselves in the natural world. When I use these terms I am not speaking of "love" and "wisdom" in the everyday sense of saying these words. These are the only words I can think of that even gets me close to what I believe. To me "wisdom" is an innate knowing or awareness - that we are part of something larger than ourselves. To me "love" is this awareness in action. If we are aware that we are part of something larger than ourselves than "loving" and "compassionate" responses to the world are natural by-products. It can be awareness that we are all part of ONE human family, that we are all part of ONE creation, that because we are part of this same ONENESS our actions impact others, etc….

 

Now back to these things manifesting themselves in the natural world. The first question that must be asked is what capability do particular aspects of the universe have to perceive this "love" and "wisdom". As human beings - we can only perceive certain ranges of light and sound. So… when we look at the action of "love" and "wisdom" in the natural world we first must take into account that not everything in the universe can perceive the full range of this "love" and "wisdom" and act upon it. Even humans are not capable of perceiving "love" and "wisdom" in full.

 

Having said that, I believe animals can perceive and act upon "love" and "wisdom". Ask any one who owns pets, if their pets "love" them. Once I read a book about Alaska, my brother lives there and so I've read a lot of books about Alaska. But, in this book the author was traveling through Alaska and staying with folks along the way. One family he stayed with lived out in the wilderness and he stayed with them all winter. They had supplies stocked up for the winter, knowing no one would be able to get to them until spring. They also had several sled dogs.

 

Now in the spring, the sled dogs were out quite a bit as the weather was starting to warm. One evening everyone in the house woke to a terrible fight outside between the dogs and a mother bear and her cubs. In the ensuing violence one of the cubs was killed by the dogs. The mother bear and the other cub got away. But all night long, the mother bear circled the cabin - on the outer edges away from the dogs. The author wrote about her response to the death of her cub, about her wailing response. He had never heard anything like it in his life. But, his description was of a wailing mother in agony.

 

This mother had another cub to protect from the dogs, but something kept her circling that cabin all night long wailing at the loss of her first cub. This is not instinct; instinct would have told her to take her remaining cub and go.

 

I don't know - I can't prove that there is a love independent of the human experience, but I believe there is. And I do believe it manifests itself in all of creation, although in very subtle ways.

 

Plants take the energy of light and process it differently than humans. Why shouldn't it be possible for plants to take the energy of love and process it in different ways than humans? Why shouldn’t it be possible for every cell and atom of the universe to process the energy of love in a way that we can't perceive? Why do we assume that on some level a plant, or a forest, or a planet does not have the "wisdom" that it is part of something larger than itself and respond to that which it is part of in a way consistent with this "wisdom"?

 

Like I said, just pondering in public…. ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

antlerman/OM :thanks::thanks::thanks:

 

you are right, i think i will reread the bible for myself, stop accepting what other people believe and devolope my own beliefs of God. i still believe thier is a God and will always. and i do not see any reason why it would be bad for myself to start from scratch. now i just have to read, damn, took me like a year to read it last time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

"Doubt is the origin of wisdom" - Rene Descartes

Link to comment
Share on other sites

antlerman/OM :thanks::thanks::thanks:

 

you are right, i think i will reread the bible for myself, stop accepting what other people believe and devolope my own beliefs of God. i still believe thier is a God and will always. and i do not see any reason why it would be bad for myself to start from scratch. now i just have to read, damn, took me like a year to read it last time.

 

The only thing I would suggest, Freeday, is NOT to sit down and read the Bible the way you read a novel.

 

The bible was written over 1000s of years at the hands of many and varied writers. Study the WAY it was written as well as the Bible itself. Study the cultures it was written in as well as the Bible itself. Study the world view it was written from as well as the Bible itself.

 

That is all that I would suggest. You are on the right track, I look forward to more conversation with you as you go through the process of learning about these things. :grin:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

"Doubt is the origin of wisdom" - Rene Descartes

Doubt, the origin of wisdom, is probably the initiation of progress too.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

"Doubt is the origin of wisdom" - Rene Descartes

Doubt, the origin of wisdom, is probably the initiation of progress too.

Absolutely. The world of knoweldge and insights we have today is predicated on doubt. I bought this book when it first came out after hearing an interview with the author on NPR. I highly recommend it on many levels: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/006009795...TF8&s=books It's an "upside down" look at history from the perspective of the inovations brought to the world through the great doubters, ironically including Jesus.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

antlerman/OM :thanks::thanks::thanks:

 

you are right, i think i will reread the bible for myself, stop accepting what other people believe and devolope my own beliefs of God. i still believe thier is a God and will always. and i do not see any reason why it would be bad for myself to start from scratch. now i just have to read, damn, took me like a year to read it last time.

I agree very much with OM's suggestions about approaching reading the Bible.

 

I respect that you feel you will always believe there is a God. I used to feel the same way myself, but for who I am and the negative experience I had with the whole approach to religious faith, it became easier for me to go with the purely naturalist/materialist point of view and move forward from there. Hanging on to the hope I could reconcile my feelings with any human understanding of God was actually hindering me is moving forward in myself. But this may not need to be the case for you.

 

Don't get me wrong, I certainly do not feel more distant from that feeling because of not accepting the existence of a god. On the contrary being outside that sort of limiting understanding for me has allowed me greater room to explore that human sense of "being". Like I laugh to myself sometimes, that I feel more a Christian now that I don't believe, then in all the years I struggled to believe. In other words, don't sweat it. Just be true to yourself and follow what's in your heart.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Guidelines.