I've Been Here Before (split)

[Joshpantera]

On 3/10/2022 at 8:44 PM, Weezer said:

And growing up christian, the words attributed to Jesus, "...I am come that they may have life, and have it more abundently", kept echoing in my mind.  And also that "love" for self and neighbor Is in the interest of the universe.  It looks at what is in the best interest of "WE".  If you value life, you do what you can to promote it.  Not tear it down, or thwart it's growth, which the doctrine of original sin does.   Love/respect is a step up in moral evolution from "original sin" and "eye for eye" thinking.  HA! the eye for eye thnking is the one I have trouble leaving behind!

 

The love message from "Jesus" stuck with me throught the years, and then in my professional studies of human development it occured to me that the concepts were evidence based.  I agree that the "baggage" of christianity (especially that tacked on by the Catholic church) shoud be left behind, and sell a new mode of thinking based on it's evidence.  

 

This outlines something that I was just focusing on closely. I was imagining all of the verses about love your neighbor as yourself, and love your enemies. These obviously make sense in the philosophical idealist and pantheist sense. You and the perceived other are one at the core of your being. Everything can be reduced down to what is called substance nonduality - everything is one substance interacting with itself at all times. 

 

But monotheism, in full, pretty much from judaism to islam, has no follow through with those ideas. The Vedic is much older. But it's much more evolved at the same time in terms of follow through. The ancient eastern tradition is incredibly more evolved than the newer western traditions. Because the Vedic suggests that all is one, and the lowest reduction of monotheism seems to be two - god and satan. Two different things. Not one and the same thing at the core. And it boils down to eastern nonduality contrasted against western duality. 

 

And it can be made very demonstrable.

 

Collect all of the verses about loving your enemy, specifically. List them all out on the right. Then to the left list every verse about YHWH or yeshua hating their enemies. Laying waste to their enemies. And threatening those who are perceived as the enemies of YHWH and yeshua. Right on through the NT into revelation.

 

The "love your enemies" teaching does not and cannot ever add up to anything except a blatant contradiction the monotheist way. You love your enemies, but god, well, god doesn't love gods enemies at all! But if we're to aspire to be like this god, and conceive of this god as love, why is it that the love god can't simply forgive and forget, turn the other cheek, and essentially "love" the gods enemies???

 

We're being preached at to love our enemies while at the same time the god of the myth is constantly framed as hating his enemies. As we're being preached at to aspire to be like the mythic god. But again, the mythic god at no point loves his enemies. He's playing a long game to destroy them. The enemies are the devil, his angels, and anyone on earth who simply doesn't believe in or rejects the mythic god. This god is all ego and pedal to the metal narcissistic. Opposite of the absolute, transcendent, omnipresent, ontological foundation of the whole of existence. 

 

Somehow the fact has to be driven home that this is merely self-contradicting mythology from the minds of egoic, narcissistic oriented, western bronze age thinkers listing their own beliefs in self contradicting form. And in need of updating, in need of revision according to modern intellect, and not very relevant to here and now. It's an idea that popped up in the west which has to be further evolved to the point where it it's no longer a blatant contradiction.

 

So that the west isn't so much lesser evolved than the more sophisticated thinking from the east. That means dumping monotheistic thinking for a larger scale type of focus. And essentially admitting that these old myths are short sighted and incorrect. That may need to be the forefront of debate just as much as debating Genesis 1. Or at least becoming the second part to the Genesis 1 debates. Western thought needs upgraded to the 21st century. Taking into account what the east has long since known. 

 

Which is it god? Do you love or hate YOUR own perceived enemies? Are you really merciful to the ungrateful and wicked or are you not?

 

Example: 

 

Love for Enemies

²⁷ “But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, ²⁸ bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. ²⁹ If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. ³⁰ Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. ³¹ Do to others as you would have them do to you.

³² “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. ³³ And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. ³⁴ And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. ³⁵ But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. ³⁶ Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

 

 

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Revelation 21

 

 

⁶ He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life. ⁷ Those who are victorious will inherit all this, and I will be their God and they will be my children. ⁸ But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.”

 

 

[TABA]

It’s significant that the Christian Bible provides “bookends” of the vengeful jealous god around an interlude of a kindler gentler deity that Jesus sometimes seems to reveal.  Old Testament tribal god ordering the defeat and killing of Israel’s enemies.  A relatively brief reprieve with Jesus singing Kumbaya around the campfire.   But then finally the return to fire and brimstone culminating in Revelation.  
 

There was probably a chance for a while in the first century CE that western monotheism would evolve beyond the bronze-age tribal god of Yahweh, but that’s not the version that came to dominate the western world, no matter how much liberal apologists might wish otherwise. 
 

For at least seventeen centuries now, Christianity has portrayed its god as both Good Cop and Bad Cop.  The angry vengeful stuff is too entrenched - right there in scripture - for Christianity to ever be successfully reformed, in my opinion.  It needs to be set aside.  

[Joshpantera]

9 hours ago, TABA said:

There was probably a chance for a while in the first century CE that western monotheism would evolve beyond the bronze-age tribal god of Yahweh, but that’s not the version that came to dominate the western world, no matter how much liberal apologists might wish otherwise. 

 

If it were the case that some eastern influence crept in via western Gnostic's enough to have these seemingly pantheistic gestures added in, such as identifying yourself with others and acting according to a unity premise, then it could have gone in a different direction. But within the gospels themselves there is still this sense of hating unbelievers, hating the devil as the enemy, and keeping to this dualistic premise of reality. 

 

9 hours ago, TABA said:

For at least seventeen centuries now, Christianity has portrayed its god as both Good Cop and Bad Cop.  The angry vengeful stuff is too entrenched - right there in scripture - for Christianity to ever be successfully reformed, in my opinion.  It needs to be set aside.  

 

I agree completely! And I'm in the mood for quite the Polemic! 

 

Here is a link to an easy analysis of jesus throughout the NT and how he and his apparent disciples and writers treat people like the "unbelievers": What Does the Bible Say About Unbelievers? (openbible.info)

 

Just that topic alone blows away any sense of putting the "love your enemies" preaching to practice.

 

A more well thought out, well devised myth, could have easily taken a very passive attitude to anyone who doesn't believe the same as you. And never once threatened people for not believing the same and treated as a situation where it simply doesn't matter if everyone doesn't believe the same thing. In fact, a much more well thought out myth could have encouraged people to be diverse in their beliefs and fully embrace diversity. Which would be more akin to the status of 21st century life. At least in the sense of what people are aspiring towards as an ideal right now. Back then, it wasn't even on the table as a possible ideal. There's no sense at all of encouraging empathy and tolerance across the board. 

 

That is only reserved for a small few who fit into a tribal type of in-group. All else completely excluded. While at the same time preaching around to "love your enemies."

 

I can imagine another 100 years into the future how absolutely nonsensical these gospels tales will likely seem. Being that further removed from the generations who grew up with strong emotional attachments to the bronze age myths. Just between Boomer's and Gen-Z's we're seeing a radical departure. Which is for the best, obviously, considering the factual nature of the argument. That these myths lack in X ways is completely demonstrable and objectively laid out. They literally contradict their own message over and over again. 

 

The other great point someone raised around here a while back is what sort of sacrifice is dying for three days and shooting off to bliss? To actually take on the sins of the world would be to burn forever in torment so that no one else would have to, including your enemies - the unbelievers, the sorcerers, the sexually immoral, the vulgar, the evil, etc., etc. 

 

That's a much more powerful myth to have conjured up and written down. But it wasn't written anywhere near that clever.

 

Because the people writing these myths back then were not very clever people when compared against the standards of the human mind today! They weren't very clever, they weren't very empathetic, they weren't nearly as kindhearted, they were nowhere near as forgiving, they were much more conditional as opposed to becoming less and less conditional when it comes to things like "love," and their myths and religions are a direct reflection of their own personal subjective minds and the lack of human insight during that time and place in history! Going head long into what we regard now as the "Dark Ages." 

 

1) Genesis is demonstrably false! 

 

2) The NT is not any better!