Faith

[Ouroboros]

Whoever Jesus really was or wasn't it seems he was indifferent to the publishing of the NT. The book of rules, as it is in effect for some people, makes no mention of Jesus sanctioning such a thing but rather a church. If it was so important why is it not referenced in the Gospels? I just wonder if xtianity would have survived longer in my heart if there was a book of stories that complemented the basic teaching of Jesus instead of the INFALLIBLE WORD OF GOD that MUST be obeyed RELIGIOUSLY. If this was the case Hell would never have survived as a doctrine nor a lot of the other patently obvious contradictions.

I have asked a question several times now to one of our visiting Christians on this site, why didn't Jesus pick out a disciple that could write down the message, word by word, to get it right and complete? It's a very serious question, considering that Jesus was supposed to be son of God, have the ultimate and final message to humanity, the only time in history where all the answers were given, and everyone would be saved, etc... Jesus is supposed to be the climax of existence, that's the maxed out level of event, ever, beyond infinite time, blah blah. ... so Jesus knowing this, didn't even bother to make sure we knew exactly what the message was? He had to take a person (Paul) years later, that had never heard the message to hear the message through dreams, to write it down... huh?

 

The Jesus we know is mostly known through Paul's delusions. The real Jesus is lost. So the real Jesus was not a real messenger from God, since God wouldn't have allowed it to happen.

 

Faith has to overcome the fact that God is a screwup.

 

Good illustration.

 

There's a lot of Sci-Fi books, and the Bible have more fiction than most Sci-Fi books I've ever read.

[Antlerman]

Any person, upon reading the bible without prior indoctrination, would say "yeah, sure - those things really happened. Right.

 

It's only after being told over and over again by someone they trust that "yes, this is God's Word to humanity, every word is true, just believe" that people learn to ignore their common sense and cover the eyes of reason and swallow this nonsense whole.

You raise a point in this scenario. I see another scenario that would likely happen without prior indoctrination is that they would read it and think, "What an interesting book of mythologies and spiritual truisms". Then after being told it's all absolute fact straight out of the mouth of God Himself, they would read it, and re-read, again and again, forcing out all the rational thoughts out of there minds that would be flying up in their faces questioning the legitimacy of this teaching; until finally, not able to take it any longer, they are true to themselves and declare as you say, "yeah, sure, right!" and toss it aside completely.

 

This is how literalism kills everything it touches. It is religion’s greatest enemy.

[Golden Meadows]

Any person, upon reading the bible without prior indoctrination, would say "yeah, sure - those things really happened. Right.

 

It's only after being told over and over again by someone they trust that "yes, this is God's Word to humanity, every word is true, just believe" that people learn to ignore their common sense and cover the eyes of reason and swallow this nonsense whole.

You raise a point in this scenario. I see another scenario that would likely happen without prior indoctrination is that they would read it and think, "What an interesting book of mythologies and spiritual truisms". Then after being told it's all absolute fact straight out of the mouth of God Himself, they would read it, and re-read, again and again, forcing out all the rational thoughts out of there minds that would be flying up in their faces questioning the legitimacy of this teaching; until finally, not able to take it any longer, they are true to themselves and declare as you say, "yeah, sure, right!" and toss it aside completely.

 

This is how literalism kills everything it touches. It is religion's greatest enemy.

 

Yes, this reminded me of one of the 3 saying which were carved on the entrance to the Temple at Delphi: "Know Thyself". I think there is much wisdom in recognising who Adam and Eve are and taking any taking any spiritual truisms that can be gleaned but literalism poisons it. A poet understands this without any elaborate explanation. Take a flower petal and put it under the microspcope and its gone. Take Beethovens ninth and see it on an oscilliscope and it's gone.