Some Key Areas Where I'm Stuck

[Joshpantera]

On 10/16/2022 at 5:40 PM, TruthFollower said:

At the moment I'm not understanding the necessity for a blood sacrifice for the remission of sins.    Since Jesus blood was holy and only a tiny amount could have saved the population of the world, why did he have to die?     

 

There was no necessity, it's a fiction. And while you can find allegorical and metaphorical dynamics involved in the fiction, that doesn't make the story not fiction. It's not historical and factual at all. And many argue that it wasn't ever meant to be from the outset and that that was a much later development. That went astray and then became all of the popular christianity of today. 

 

On 10/16/2022 at 5:40 PM, TruthFollower said:

Also, it's seems exhausting to try and prove everything in the Bible is true.   Yet many things in the Bible do seem to have been proven.   Has anyone disproved completely accounts that have been given?    Is tackling the bible that way too unwieldy a task when much of it does record, with some errors, historical events?

 

What do you think is true about the bible? It starts off false from the beginning. Days and light before the existence of the sun, moon, and stars. Grass growing before sunlight existed. A geocentric earth. Plural "gods" coming down to create humans in "their" image according to "their" likeness - just like every other polytheistic religion of the near east. There's no historical Abraham or Moses. No historical slavery in Egypt. No historical wandering the desert for 40 years. No sweeping conquest of Joshua. In fact, the sites mentioned in the bible fell at widely diverse points in history and disproves the stories of one sweeping conquest by Joshua. 

 

Nothing historical until a foggy type of possible history takes form for the David monarchy. But even that is shaky. An inscription from a 1,000 years after the supposed time of David that reads, "...house of David." That would be like finding an inscription to do with the 'house of Zeus' and concluding, based on that fragment, that Zeus must have really existed in order for their to be something called the 'house of Zeus' is Greece. Which looks pretty silly when you look at it closely. But that's what we're looking at. Academics have latched onto something that silly because they literally have nothing else to try and latch on to. 

 

It's religion, not history. And it's not science. Anyone who tries to force fit the bible into either two fails miserably. That direction is ill advised. 

 

On 10/16/2022 at 5:40 PM, TruthFollower said:

 Also, some things in the Bible just don't make any sense as they are without additional explanation.   For example honour your parents, but next to nothing is mentioned about abusive parents.   Or, love thy neighbour as thyself, but what if he doesn't appreciate the same things you do?

 

It's also homophobic, misogynistic, racist, narcissistic, ego driven, dualistic, and basically non-spiritual when you really get down to it. All of which I've argued around here in debate. What the bible represents are religious writings that at one point in time and place - the bronze age and all that goes along with the mind sets of the bronze age - these where allegorical and metaphorical tales. Most of which were not original to the jews. But were re-telling older stories that go back further to the Egyptians and Sumerians.

 

That's why it's polytheistic from the outset in Genesis. And remains so right on through to Psalms at least. The bible was the result of jews being released from Babylonian captivity (that part has some history to it) by the Persians and then the bible as we know it emerges afterwards - ripe with influence from Zoroastrian Persians and Sumerian myth Babylonians. 

 

Academics have shown that biblical monotheism came about as a political move during the reign of King Josiah. It was just a political move to consolidate power to the priesthood of YHWH. And then after time it became a process of historical revision that ran on through to the present day. With most christians having no clue what any of this actually is or what really happened, unless we break out on our own and research these things objectively. And put truth seeking ahead of emotional attachments to an ancient mythology from another time and place that we don't immediately understand at all. Not without work, and extensive personal researching. 

 

[Joshpantera]

On 10/17/2022 at 1:36 AM, TruthFollower said:

There is something else at work though that keeps drawing me back.   I think it's the notion of someone loving you that much.    So still I need to think more about this.

 

This is the emotional attachment that generally draws people right back in. But need not, if you gain an intellectual and even better spiritual understanding of the landscape involved. 

 

If you take a completely different approach, then you don't have to lose the emotional attachment simply because you lose literal belief in the bible.

 

The god in ultimate form represents existence itself. And you are something that exists. So, the larger picture is that you ARE the very thing (existence itself) which the god of the myth represents at large scale, as an omnipresence. The love that goes along with the concept of a unitary, omnipresent existence, which is all things, remains for it's worth. The mystical point of all of these religions is to look past the material world of forms and see through to the inner reality beneath all forms. The unitary reality that interconnects everything which appears to be separate and different. 

 

You move away from duality to the underlying non-dual aspect of existence. 

 

Now this type of language is completely foreign to most christians, because, as I've pointed out, christianity has taken many mystical allegories and metaphor and read them literally and historically. If you want to understand this problem in depth, read Joseph Campbell's book, "Thou Art That: transforming religious metaphor." It will explain within the first few chapters what is wrong with "denotation versus connotation." This rabbit hole runs deep. 

 

I've been going down the tunnel for over 30 years. 

 

I'll try and help you along if you want to know what I know about where all of this leads. 

[TruthFollower]

Hi, apologies for not replying to earlier posts before now, I kept losing the connection.   Thanks so much for everyone's input and helpful advice.

 

I got caught up with other religious thought for a while and then I realised it was fear based again.    

 

Is all religion fear based and controlling ?

 

 

[TruthFollower]

15 hours ago, Joshpantera said:

 

This is the emotional attachment that generally draws people right back in. But need not, if you gain an intellectual and even better spiritual understanding of the landscape involved. 

 

If you take a completely different approach, then you don't have to lose the emotional attachment simply because you lose literal belief in the bible.

 

The god in ultimate form represents existence itself. And you are something that exists. So, the larger picture is that you ARE the very thing (existence itself) which the god of the myth represents at large scale, as an omnipresence. The love that goes along with the concept of a unitary, omnipresent existence, which is all things, remains for it's worth. The mystical point of all of these religions is to look past the material world of forms and see through to the inner reality beneath all forms. The unitary reality that interconnects everything which appears to be separate and different. 

 

You move away from duality to the underlying non-dual aspect of existence. 

 

Now this type of language is completely foreign to most christians, because, as I've pointed out, christianity has taken many mystical allegories and metaphor and read them literally and historically. If you want to understand this problem in depth, read Joseph Campbell's book, "Thou Art That: transforming religious metaphor." It will explain within the first few chapters what is wrong with "denotation versus connotation." This rabbit hole runs deep. 

 

I've been going down the tunnel for over 30 years. 

 

I'll try and help you along if you want to know what I know about where all of this leads. 

Hi @Joshpantera,

 

I'd be very grateful for any help, as it's been a similar length of time for me too - in fact more if I think about experiences when I was young.

 

Id also like to ask about praying.    For me there's been a compulsion to and I'm questioning why now I am.

 

Thanks to everyone else who has replied, I am reading them, but as explained I lose the connection.

 

 So, these are the things I'm looking at right now:

 

1. Spirituality without the compulsion to pray to a prescribed deity.

 

2.  The different religions contradict each other so they can in effect  disprove each other.

 

3.  Religion seems to be about making myths literal and holding you to the past.

 

 

[TruthFollower]

Hitchens may have been right when he said that religion poisons everything.

 

But I think you can have spirituality and your own personal belief in good. but some people try to control others through religion and use it to enslave people.

 

As I write this, maybe I'm wrong, but I have a sense that what we say is monitored and that some people want to shut down freedom of thought.     

 

 

 

[freshstart]

On 10/16/2022 at 5:40 PM, TruthFollower said:

At the moment I'm not understanding the necessity for a blood sacrifice for the remission of sins.   

Me either. Especially since Jesus forgave sins in person while he was alive and walking the earth (so the story goes). [LUKE 5:20, LUKE 7:47]

 

So. . . .if he could just forgive sins by saying so. . . why did he have to be crucified?

[TheRedneckProfessor]

6 hours ago, TruthFollower said:

Id also like to ask about praying.    For me there's been a compulsion to and I'm questioning why now I am.

 

Spirituality without the compulsion to pray to a prescribed deity.

There is absolutely no reason you cannot pray, if it is something that helps you or brings you comfort.  Many of us have gone on to adopt new and different approaches to spirituality since leaving the christian religion.  I have adopted certain Buddhist practices and philosophies in the past few years, which play a part in both my spiritual journey as well as my practical approach to life.  There are no rules or regulations involved in deconversion from christianity, nor in your post-christian life.  You are perfectly free to decide what you believe and how you practice your beliefs.  You do not need to become a militant atheist or a practicing satanist.  You can declare yourself as "undecided" and no one else has any qualification to say you are otherwise.  And if prayer is something you decide to hold on to, then there is nothing whatsoever wrong with doing so.

[pantheory]

On 10/21/2022 at 1:07 PM, TheBluegrassSkeptic said:

......... For example, the extensive Council of Nicaea biblical edits in the 4th Century AD conducted by the Romans under Emperor Constantine. Was this inspiration? Was this manipulation? Is it still the word of an alleged god? We have no way of every knowing for sure.

 

I encourage you to rethink what a god is. This for me answered a lot of my doubt and gave me a surer footing in the world. Like many on here, I grew up a devout believer (Pentecostal then Baptist). But, when I sat down and tried to define God, envision what that concept means, I realized it isn't a thing, but a title conferred. This made me dive even deeper into my personal understanding. I put scripture aside, because as mentioned in earlier posts, believers are never truly given an independent approach to evaluating their relationship with the divine. It's all spelled out in obscurely interpreted bits and pieces to fit the preferred lifestyle and faith structure of our leadership. Putting all that aside and simply imagining what a god would be, I realized I came up with a lot of characteristics that contradicted, made no sense, and ultimately made me realize I would be highly skeptical of any being that showed up claiming that role.

Ultimately, I came to accept that fact and went a step further to say that if such a being showed up, I'd have to treat it as an alien. Too much scifi? Perhaps. But if you've ever watched Q on Star Trek the Next Generation, you'll catch my drift. There's so many things we don't know, and science offers more reasonable possibilities than a god of the gaps approach. I've come to enjoy saying "I don't know" because it gives me an opportunity to learn more. And the more I learn, the more I know for certain the bible is simply a history of an ancient culture that was later bastardized by the Romans and continually throughout time.

 

Howdy Bg Skeptic,

 

Constantine's mother was a Christian. She came from a very poor and humble background. The poor as well as the slaves were the breading grounds of Christianity, especially the women. Since there were countless religions in the Roman empire when Constantine took power, many believe Constantine adopted Christianity to partly make his mom happy. He also could have seen the political benefits of adopting a single passive, state sponsered religion involving "turning the other cheek."  By promoting a passive state religion by mandate maybe Constantine thought he could have better control of the empire with fewer rebellions, costing less money and lives. 

 

As far as the historical accuracy of the Bible, none are known to exist in the old testament excepting for some of the names within it involve historical people. In the new testament, there are no known writings of Jesus during his lifetime. There is however some evidence for the existence of Paul who never met Jesus excepting in his dream -- according to the Bible. Some modern bible scholars have written that the character of Jesus is an amalgam of a number of stories written about several itinerant preachers in Israel and Judea that lived during the 1st and 2nd centuries B.C. and the 1st century AD -- that do not involve a single person, and that the miracles alleged were like the miracles claimed today, mostly stories to legitimize the bible, based on oral tradition, imaginations, scams, based on dreams, slight of hand magic, etc.

[nontheistpilgrim]

Pantheory: Some modern bible scholars have written that the character of Jesus is an amalgam of a number of stories written about several itinerant preachers in Israel and Judea that lived during the 1st and 2nd centuries B.C. and the 1st century AD -- that do not involve a single person, and that the miracles alleged were like the miracles claimed today, mostly stories to legitimize the bible, based on oral tradition, imaginations, scams, based on dreams, slight of hand magic, etc.

 

Not  to mention Osiris-Dionysus the pagan god of five centuries before the supposed Jesus of the Gospels who was born to a virgin, born in a cave on 25th December, turned water into wine at a wedding, had twelve disciples, died on a tree to redeem the sins of the world, descended to hell, came alive again, went up to heaven and so on and so on. You couldn't make it up - which is what the New Testament writers did not do because apparently they copied this stuff from the stories circulating at the time and pretended it was the story of a man called Jesus.

 

Pantheory, do you have a reference for modern scholars, please: I would be interested to follow it up?

[Joshpantera]

On 10/24/2022 at 2:23 AM, TruthFollower said:

So, these are the things I'm looking at right now:

 

1. Spirituality without the compulsion to pray to a prescribed deity.

 

2.  The different religions contradict each other so they can in effect  disprove each other.

 

3.  Religion seems to be about making myths literal and holding you to the past.

 

1) It's always subconscious mind. All prayer is inner dialogue with your own subconscious (I sent you an example interview). 

 

2) They contradict each other, that's the objective fact on the table. They can't all be right. No single one may be right. They could all be approximations of certain factors of reality, while none literally true. That's what you get into with the Joseph Campbell scholarship. 

 

3) Religion has made myths literal. The undertone is that at least some of the religious leaders have always known that the myths aren't literal. The deeper issue is that the literalism conceals the symbolic content of myths. The symbolic content runs in the direction of the mystical. And that's what they have been concealing from the mass audiences through reading symbolic writings, literally. The theologians who think that religious writings are literally true, are the uniformed theologians. 

[Joshpantera]

On 10/24/2022 at 2:48 AM, TruthFollower said:

Hitchens may have been right when he said that religion poisons everything.

 

But I think you can have spirituality and your own personal belief in good. but some people try to control others through religion and use it to enslave people.

 

As I write this, maybe I'm wrong, but I have a sense that what we say is monitored and that some people want to shut down freedom of thought.     

 

 

 

 

You can be "spiritually independent." And base that in a belief in good. It sounds like you feel compelled towards erring on the side of a positive attitude - nothing wrong with that! 

 

Fire away! 

 

 

[Myrkhoos]

I'm going to share a slightly different perspective, coming from an Orthodox Christianity background.

       First, historically, you reading the Bible by yourself is just some Protestant invention which has absolutely no relation to the way ancient texts, especially religious ones, were produced or intented to be consumed. It was and is not meant to be a standalone document. Neither it, nor the Dialogues of Plato, nor the Vedas, nor the Daodejing, nor the Buddhist suttas, nor the Koran, etc. So purely on that fact alone the way you're going about it cannot really yield results. 

      Transmission of knowledge was supposed to be in a community setting, where the Scriptures were an element. If you really want to get down to it, the Orthodox Christianity position is that the Bible is an instrument produced by the Church through grace, and can only be read in the Church through grace. Human/rational interpretation is either useless at best misleading at worst. 

       So the real issue for me always was - do I experience a true revelatory presence of God that puts everything in another perspective living the Church. I wasn't, unfortunately, so I kind of gave it up. Because these questions are actually pointless when you think about it. Only God can answer questions about God, not our minds pondering the linguistic meaning of the Greek Septuagint vs the Hebrew texts. That is why I wasn't even interested in the "but science says that..." that is another human endevour. At the end of the day, you either have a kind of real divine knowledge/connection, or you don't.

     Direct experiential contact was my focus and still is kind of. Truly it is the only thing that matters. The rest is pure speculation. If God wanta to reveal Himself to me, I eagerly await his arrival. If not, I feel like I'm deluding myself that if I jump high enough I will reach the stars and being dissapointed I'm not there yet.