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Old 04-21-2013, 11:08 PM
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rafius View Post
Ummm, it wasn't! 9 out of 10 Christians say 'Jesus Christ' when it is actually 'Jesus The Christ'. 'Christ' is a title not a surname and means 'anointed one'. There were many people with the title 'Christ'. It just means that the person has been anointed with oils or some such.
I suppose next you're going to be telling us his middle name wasn't Henry!
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Old 04-21-2013, 11:12 PM
 
Location: Valencia, Spain
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Originally Posted by JerZ View Post
I suppose next you're going to be telling us his middle name wasn't Henry!
His middle name was 'The'.
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Old 04-22-2013, 01:35 AM
 
Location: Hyrule
8,390 posts, read 11,555,698 times
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Originally Posted by MysticPhD View Post
Your questions cut to the chase on the issues that religions like to ignore or denigrate in self-defense of their dogma. The fundamental issue for those who believe there is a God is . . . "What does God want from us and how do we know it?" This is what accounts for the myriad "God's Words" out there. It is clear from human nature that if there were undeniable certainty about this . . . there would be little to no room for individual choice or voluntary freedom of action. The underlying theme that seems to drive some of the "God's Words" is the desire on God's part for us to voluntarily choose His ways. This is where the contradiction arises . . . between certainty and voluntary choice. This is typically the explanation for why God does not make His existence certain. This eventually leads to the belief that must God communicate with us in indirect ways and that our efforts to understand or explain God are influenced by God (Inspired) . . . leading to various "God's Words." The diversity of human thought, inspiration and interpretation accounts for the arguments . . . leaving personal experience to form the ultimate basis for each individual's beliefs or lack thereof.
Good reply Mystic! TY
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Old 04-22-2013, 01:50 AM
 
Location: Hyrule
8,390 posts, read 11,555,698 times
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Originally Posted by SuperSoul View Post
Well, put, Arequipa!

I think the core of religion is spirituality - & that spiritual feeling you feel is always within you.
How you are inspired, may be vastly different from how I am inspired, but who's to say one is better than the other - if they both motivate us in positive, healthy ways?

Still... I don't believe in human sacrifice, nor in scapegoating, nor in worshipping anything except God/Love/Truth.
I love Christ's teachings, & believe Christ was not Jesus' last name, but a consciousness he achieved & taught others to, not to worship him.

Jesus is a personification of spirituality. Just as children resonate better with Santa than the Christmas Spirit, many resonate more with someone like them (a person) than an abstract concept like God, or love or truth. I still struggle with this somewhat, but I'm realizing that God/Truth/Love is not any one thing or person I can cling to for dear life (false gods). Each moment calls for a different truth/love, so God is an ongoing dynamic process.
Motivating us in positive, healthy ways is open to judgement though. If a person was motivated by the alien he believed was following him through life and probing dangerous situations eliminating his fear would this be healthy motivation to you? Are you open to anything as long as it motivates someone? What is healthy? To me it isn't healthy to base ones existence on an imaginary dictator whom we fear punishment from if we stray from his rule or if served correctly have a chance at everlasting life.

In other words if a child is resonating with Santa that's one thing but when adults are resonating with Santa it's another. IMO. If I thought Santa was my savior, that I was to worship him and follow his word what's the harm. But, when I start teaching this to my children, I believe some would see harm. So it's pretty Jesus specific, God specific. We accept this form of imagination in society but Santa as a life long belief, not so much. IMO. I think we'd call it, "crazy" and try to fix it. Why some see a difference in this has escaped me for some time now.
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Old 04-22-2013, 03:22 AM
 
Location: S. Wales.
50,081 posts, read 20,528,855 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SuperSoul View Post
Well, put, Arequipa!

I think the core of religion is spirituality - & that spiritual feeling you feel is always within you.
How you are inspired, may be vastly different from how I am inspired, but who's to say one is better than the other - if they both motivate us in positive, healthy ways?

Still... I don't believe in human sacrifice, nor in scapegoating, nor in worshipping anything except God/Love/Truth.
I love Christ's teachings, & believe Christ was not Jesus' last name, but a consciousness he achieved & taught others to, not to worship him.

Jesus is a personification of spirituality. Just as children resonate better with Santa than the Christmas Spirit, many resonate more with someone like them (a person) than an abstract concept like God, or love or truth. I still struggle with this somewhat, but I'm realizing that God/Truth/Love is not any one thing or person I can cling to for dear life (false gods). Each moment calls for a different truth/love, so God is an ongoing dynamic process.
Thank you. I have had a bit of feedback from theists on that post and..hang I'll add it as a foopnote for reference (1) it seems to have struck a chord. Again and again I hear of religion as fulfilling a need for those who were 'looking for Something but they didn't know what'. Religion seems to fulfil something more than just having an interest or hobby. Those, the believer feels, are merely 'distractions' while the more important things in life (Why are we here? What is our purpose in life?Where do people go after they die?) are ignored.

I will not deny that I feel the stopgap answers of religion are too easy, without any sound basis of belief and very much the inventions of me. That said, if they fulfil a need, I am cool with people believing them - I always was...so long as none are claimed as Right and all the others are Wrong, if indeed not going to Hell and so long as they are not used as a pretext for telling others what they can or cannot do.

Penn Jillette said a mouthful when he suggested that atheists, agnostics Deists and non -religious theists all belonged under the same pavilion. I even reckon that the religious theists who do not buy into organized religion are on 'Our' side and even those who DO buy into organized religion but see the value of separation of church and state are on that side, too.

Yes, of course I don't believe in the claims of ANY religion and I think it is right and necessary to argue the case that they are not, because the truth is important. It is important to humanity because wanting to know is what makes us human. Of course, wanting to shove a spear in the other guy and grab his wife and daughter, movable goods, his cattle, his sheep and his ass is a human impulse too, but the Golden rule Aka Tolerance is what says No, No, No; The Lady is Not for Burning.

Atheists could give a bit a thought to tolerance, too. The more raucous manifestations of tearing down religious objects, Zombie Jesus parades with plastic trumpets and complaining about the Church and State thing be violated if someone reads from genesis on the way to the moon alarm me, let alone the religious. The last thing I want is a sort of Atheist Krystalnacht or the efforts (seen in one or two ex - empire states after independence) to purge all traces of theism from society, art and history.

Goldenrule is right, here. You cannot do away with all of that as there would be nothing left. Perhaps religion cannot be done away with entirely as it reaches the parts that logic and reason cannot reach. But they are the best tools - the only valid tools - for chiselling out fact from the block of raw data. Guessing what's inside and insisting that it's true until disproven isn't the way to do it.

If atheism could do with being more tolerant of religions and religions can be more tolerant of other religions and certainly more tolerant about the irritating habit of science of finding out facts that don't fit in with this or that Holy Book or Religious Claim, then it might be a far happier world than it is at present.

(1) Interesting. The way it seems to be going (and not for the first time) is that a god who is deserving of worship, is just and merciful even half -way reasonable, is going to be cool with everyone who worships Him in whatever form -even in triune form of either catholic, Mormon or Hindu persuasion.

He is not going to be mad if we we worship a long -dead Jew alongside him - or even his mother. ('These humans, these ideas, where do they get them?
)

We are moving away from any particular 'right' religion, any kinds of hell-threat, any problem of evil, any kind of arguing about religion - except as one might debate the merits of curry -spicing food or just letting the natural flavours come through: nothing to fight about.


Indeed, a world where religion is more about what suits an individual than what suits God. A world where everyone can have their own festivals and anyone can join in. Where religion is about love and joy, not about hate and fear.


On an intellectual and evidential and perhaps personal level, I might not be persuaded to believe any one of them, but I'd be able to live with a world like that.
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Old 04-22-2013, 12:08 PM
 
Location: Elsewhere
88,182 posts, read 84,024,464 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SuperSoul View Post
Well, put, Arequipa!

I think the core of religion is spirituality - & that spiritual feeling you feel is always within you.
How you are inspired, may be vastly different from how I am inspired, but who's to say one is better than the other - if they both motivate us in positive, healthy ways?

Still... I don't believe in human sacrifice, nor in scapegoating, nor in worshipping anything except God/Love/Truth.
I love Christ's teachings, & believe Christ was not Jesus' last name, but a consciousness he achieved & taught others to, not to worship him.

Jesus is a personification of spirituality. Just as children resonate better with Santa than the Christmas Spirit, many resonate more with someone like them (a person) than an abstract concept like God, or love or truth. I still struggle with this somewhat, but I'm realizing that God/Truth/Love is not any one thing or person I can cling to for dear life (false gods). Each moment calls for a different truth/love, so God is an ongoing dynamic process.
ROFL, I don't think ANYONE out there believes that "Christ" was Jesus's last name...but then again, you never know! That was funny, though.
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Old 04-23-2013, 09:57 PM
 
2,469 posts, read 3,117,415 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rafius View Post
Ummm, it wasn't! 9 out of 10 Christians say 'Jesus Christ' when it is actually 'Jesus The Christ'. 'Christ' is a title not a surname and means 'anointed one'. It just means that the person has been anointed with oils or some such.
Interesting.
It seems that anointing with oil was/is associated with blessing - or endowment with higher power.
I believe that when Jesus said to come follow him, he didn't mean "Come worship me" - but rather, come and establish what I have, so you can be blessed and endowed with higher power.

There is an interesting book that I don't completely agree with, but has changed how I see Christ...
It's called, "Putting on the Mind of Christ" and involves a type of spiritual spiral dynamics...

1. The Archaic Consciousness of Infants (extreme codependency)
2. The Magical Consciousness of Children (Egocentric/self-centered)
3. Mythic Consciousness - Pre-Adolescence (Conformist, rule abider, parents are considered perfect/godlike... religious wars are based on this thinking)
4. Rational Consciousness (most adults are at this level - reason things out, but is often only considering one possible line of reason)
5. Vision-Logic Consciousness (Considers multiple possible lines of reason)
6. Psychic Consciousness (Sensing a spiritual energy of self and others, & at times a deeper understanding of past, present & future, by reading energy)

7. Dark Night of the Senses (5 senses no longer are enough, a higher sense is more the focus)
8. Subtle Consciousness (Discovering more spiritual guidance)
9. The Dark Night of the Soul (realizing the hidden/dark parts - bringing subconscious to awareness in a loving way)
10. Resurrection from the Dark Night (Realizing we are more than the fears/shame we had previously tried to keep dark, now that it all is brought to light, we feel light)
11. Christ Consciousness - The Causal Level (True Christian love, having confronted the humanity in self, one finds compassion for the humanity in all)
12. Nondual Consciousness - Ascension into the Kingdom of Heaven (one with God - so that thoughts, feelings & actions are one with God & better flow with higher/spiritual purpose)
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Old 04-23-2013, 10:07 PM
 
2,469 posts, read 3,117,415 times
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Originally Posted by PoppySead View Post
Motivating us in positive, healthy ways is open to judgement though. If a person was motivated by the alien he believed was following him through life and probing dangerous situations eliminating his fear would this be healthy motivation to you? Are you open to anything as long as it motivates someone? What is healthy? To me it isn't healthy to base ones existence on an imaginary dictator whom we fear punishment from if we stray from his rule or if served correctly have a chance at everlasting life.

In other words if a child is resonating with Santa that's one thing but when adults are resonating with Santa it's another. IMO. If I thought Santa was my savior, that I was to worship him and follow his word what's the harm. But, when I start teaching this to my children, I believe some would see harm. So it's pretty Jesus specific, God specific. We accept this form of imagination in society but Santa as a life long belief, not so much. IMO. I think we'd call it, "crazy" and try to fix it. Why some see a difference in this has escaped me for some time now.
A lot of good points.
I think, therefore I am... but I'm more than my thoughts... I feel - & that motives me in productive or destructive ways.
If a thought is too far from reality, reality has a way of slapping us to realize it.
On the other hand, if our thoughts are too focused to the grim reality, we get depressed & hopeless.
We need a mix of both reason... and passion, IMO.

Jesus, as Savior can and has been saving! Think about those who've suffered, like in slavery, and have found comfort and encouragement in believing that there's someone who suffered even more... and for them - because he loved them so very much. That is inspiring in productive ways.

I think when a belief in Jesus is dysfunctional is when he instead of God/Love/Truth is worshipped... as a scapegoat.
I also don't like the idea of human sacrifice and don't believe God/Love would have anything to do with that.
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Old 04-23-2013, 10:18 PM
 
2,469 posts, read 3,117,415 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by AREQUIPA View Post
Of course, wanting to shove a spear in the other guy and grab his wife and daughter, movable goods, his cattle, his sheep and his ass is a human impulse too, but the Golden rule Aka Tolerance is what says No, No, No; The Lady is Not for Burning.
lol
Quote:
Goldenrule is right, here. You cannot do away with all of that as there would be nothing left. Perhaps religion cannot be done away with entirely as it reaches the parts that logic and reason cannot reach.
Exactly!
I've realized that pretty much everything we think and communicate is symbolic!
Religion is full of symbols and icons... that represent principles better than any logic can.
Quote:
If atheism could do with being more tolerant of religions and religions can be more tolerant of other religions and certainly more tolerant about the irritating habit of science of finding out facts that don't fit in with this or that Holy Book or Religious Claim, then it might be a far happier world than it is at present.
I agree!
That's why I prefer to call God in a universally applicable and more honest way... that which we worship/prioritize. Oops... I hope I didn't open a can of worms with that one.

Again, Arequipa, I'm impressed with your ability to respectfully consider multiple points of view.
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Old 04-23-2013, 10:26 PM
 
2,469 posts, read 3,117,415 times
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Originally Posted by Mightyqueen801 View Post
ROFL, I don't think ANYONE out there believes that "Christ" was Jesus's last name...but then again, you never know! That was funny, though.
I'm glad it brought some joy to you.
Seriously, though... I think that the distinction is something many Christians pass by.
I did for a while... I thought Jesus and Christ were one and the same, but Christ, as Rafius mentioned... refers to an "annointed one" - or I think of it as a higher consciousness/spirituality.
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