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Old 05-20-2017, 04:59 AM
 
63,431 posts, read 39,686,809 times
Reputation: 7786

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This is a dangerous post because of the recent reaction to my views leading me to leave this forum. Unfortunately, religious beliefs are the ones most directly connected to the social-psychological needs that drive selective perceptions and cognitive dissonance. They are also very emotionally volatile and tend to be a source of spark and tinder in social settings. My experiences on this forum over many years led me to expect intelligent, non-violent, and open-minded reactions until recently. My complete views have been thoroughly presented in my many existing posts, but I personally find the retention of magical thinking and ancient ignorance about Christ and His role sufficiently troubling that I want to provide a concise alternative narrative summarizing the Christian aspects of them.

Perhaps an anonymous example of a somewhat irreverent summary of the magical thinking typically passing for faith in Christ will make my concerns about the prevailing Christian narrative clear. Under Christianity we are to believe that God essentially said:

“I'm going to create man and woman and they will commit original sin. Next - I'm going to impregnate a teenage girl with myself as her child so that I may be born as a human. Later - I will kill myself as a blood sacrifice to myself so I can forgive them and save them from the sin I originally condemned them for.”

If this actually makes any intellectual sense to anyone, I would be astounded. I am fairly certain, though, that the fundamentalists among us will simply quote:

1 Corinthians 1:18
For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.

Intellectually, I have no problem with the cross but the current magical interpretation of its significance is simply preposterous, IMO.

To summarize and repeat my view of things Christian, I believe that Christ came to fix a deficiency in US as a species. We were NOT achieving anything remotely like agape love for life or one another. Jesus was our "designated hitter" and He achieved a Grand Slam demonstrating pure agape love under the most egregious circumstances even up to His death. He told us that God IS Spirit and that God IS agape love so God's Holy Spirit IS agape love. Christ brought God's Holy Spirit of agape love to His HUMAN consciousness. His teachings about the TRUE NATURE of God were so contrary to what our ancestors' religious leaders believed about God that they rejected Him and demanded His crucifixion.

Jesus had already said when you see me you see the Father so He used the opportunity to UNAMBIGUOUSLY reveal and emphasize the TRUE NATURE of God.

John 10:30 King James Version (KJV)
30 I and my Father are one.


He voluntarily submitted to the brutality of our ancestors. He endured their brutality because "they knew not what they did," (also known as ignorance). He loved them and all of us including His torturers and murderers (and smote no one!). "No greater love . . ." This was supposed to be unambiguous proof of God's TRUE NATURE if you had faith and believed that Jesus embodied the true nature of God and was the Son of God.

But our ancestors were too steeped in the beliefs about blood sacrifices to appease a wrathful God. They interpreted His loving sacrifice of His life to our ancestors' brutality as a blood sacrifice to God!!! This was not really their fault and was fully expected by God and Jesus. Knowing what they would do to Him is what made it a sacrifice for Jesus. The sacrificial mindset is ancient and crosses generations and cultures. It is a primitive and long-standing belief in the need to assuage God and was practiced frequently by our species' ancestors, not just the ancient Israelites. This mistaken belief about God’s motives and actions in Christianity is the result of reading the OT under the veil of ignorance (blind minds) Christ came to lift.

2 Corinthians 3:14-17
But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which vail is done away in Christ.
15But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart.
16Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away.
17Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.


It was this very spiritually immature and primitive belief about appeasement through sacrifice that was described in the fable about Noah. According to the flood story, Noah actually sacrificed the very animals he was told to save from extinction!! That caused God in frustration to acknowledge that our beliefs were the result of our species' evil imagination and spiritual immaturity (Youth).

Genesis 8:20-21 (King James Version)
20And Noah builded an altar unto the LORD; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.
21And the LORD smelled a sweet savour; and the LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth


God is God is God, period, but the ONLY TRUE REVEALED GOD for Christians is the one revealed by the example and teachings of Jesus Christ, NOT the one described by our ancestors in the OT. The OT told us to expect Christ who would reveal God to us. It is the God that was believed in by our ancient ancestors that is the problem corrupting Christ's Gospel. It is why Christ’s loving sacrifice and shedding of His blood to their brutality was mistakenly thought to be a blood sacrifice to appease God.

There was never any price to pay. There was no atonement. There was a need for our species to achieve "at-one-ment" with God. To do that our species had to evolve spiritually enough to attain "perfect resonance" with God's consciousness (Holy Spirit of agape love) in a HUMAN consciousness which NONE of us were capable of achieving (sin = missing the mark). Our species would have remained eternally separated from God because of our sins (missing the mark). But by the time of Jesus, the "schoolmaster stage" under the Law using fear of God as motivation had produced our species' ability for self-control of our baser urges - the beginning of wisdom. Jesus pointed out that now the “fields were ripe for the harvest” and capable of being motivated by agape love instead of fear.

Romans 7:6 King James Version (KJV)
6 But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.


While Jesus was with us in physical form only those who were actually around Him had the benefit of His Holy Spirit (human consciousness), teachings and example. Upon His physical death, Christ’s HUMAN consciousness was "born again" as Spirit (as ours will be upon our death). As a "resurrected" Spirit in a spiritual body, His human consciousness became available to all human consciousness as the Comforter sent in His name to guide us to the truth God has "written in our hearts" under the New Covenant. THAT is how His Holy Spirit is available to all human beings despite their beliefs. Some consider it their conscience. Most ignore His guidance and follow their own self-interest but He is available to all of us.

John 16:7 King James Version (KJV)
7 Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.

John 14:26 King James Version (KJV)
26 But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.


Christ's torture and death were inevitable during the era in which He brought His message of reconciliation and His commands to "love God and each other" and repent when we don’t. Unfortunately, the blood sacrificing religious leaders were expecting (and demanding) a wrathful, smiting King and God as the Messiah to lead them out from under the Roman rule. Jesus was NOT who they expected. They could NOT allow Him to influence the people. Even Judas probably believed Jesus was the Son of a smiting, powerful God. He probably thought Jesus would be forced to display His Godly powers once they tried to scourge and kill Him. When Jesus didn't display His power and smite His torturers, that is probably what drove Judas to despair.

2 Corinthians 5:18-19 New International Version (NIV)
18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.


In other words, Jesus had achieved what we could not, bringing God's Holy Sp[irit of agape love to His human consciousness reconciling our entire species to God. Our sins (failures) became irrelevant. Now as long as we follow Christ's instructions to love God and each other every day and repent when we don't we obtain the cover for our imperfections (sins/failures) of His perfect agape love for us all (called Grace). If we do NOT follow Christ's instructions to "love God and each other" and repent when we don’t we will reap what we sow, but no more and no less than we sow.

God Bless you all in Christ's love.

 
Old 05-20-2017, 06:11 AM
 
Location: minnesota
15,797 posts, read 6,214,719 times
Reputation: 5033
I'll read your post later but right now I just wanted to say Welcome Back. I was worried you where sick or something. Then I thought maybe Gaylen scared you off because he knew the sciency stuff so well. Have a good Saturday.
 
Old 05-20-2017, 07:24 AM
 
28,432 posts, read 11,476,496 times
Reputation: 2070
Quote:
Originally Posted by L8Gr8Apost8 View Post
I'll read your post later but right now I just wanted to say Welcome Back. I was worried you where sick or something. Then I thought maybe Gaylen scared you off because he knew the sciency stuff so well. Have a good Saturday.

second. Forums are tough and we need breaks. "Out in the real" we "can't just hit; submit" to make it more real. Its tough dealing with adolescent brains. They have far more energy.
 
Old 05-20-2017, 08:30 AM
 
Location: S. Wales.
50,079 posts, read 20,492,491 times
Reputation: 5927
I thought you might be back (the place is habit -forming, ain't it) . And there's nothing wrong with your post as regards suitability for posting. Just as regards discarding what seems not to make sense, even to a believer and adapting the rest to what seems plausible to you. It isn't the first time sorta-Christians did that.

I don't buy the leaning Curve theory for a number of reasons, one being that it is not teaching us from the correct textbook and another that it requires an incredible mental leap of adaptation of story to theory to get your conclusion out of it.

So, while I endorse the need for more tolerance and understanding ("Love" if you like, but not Agape with eyes blank, please) but religion ain't the way to do it.

And welcome back, old mate. And provided you don't talk down to people as though they were ignorant turds in the gutter and you were the Cosmic Mind itself, you should be ok.

Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 05-20-2017 at 08:41 AM..
 
Old 05-20-2017, 09:37 AM
 
Location: Southwestern, USA, now.
21,020 posts, read 19,211,093 times
Reputation: 23653
Quote:
....I want to provide a concise alternative narrative summarizing
the Christian aspects of them....
Excellent.
Glad to see you and starting a thread no less...love it!


“I'm going to create man and woman and they will commit original sin. Next - I'm going to impregnate a teenage girl with myself as her child so that I may be born as a human. Later - I will kill myself as a blood sacrifice to myself so I can forgive them and save them from the sin I originally condemned them for.”

I would have only added if I wrote that .... a nod to '' taking pumping hearts out of chests as an offering to Myself and the virgins being thrown into volcanos...I orchestrated that, also..."

Agreed, religion is not the way to do it...ugh.
Quote:
This mistaken belief about God’s motives and actions in Christianity is the result of
reading the OT under the veil of ignorance (blind minds) Christ came to lift.
Priceless!

Just finished the op...excellent ...too much to comment on...in my mind and maybe this could
help a non-christian...when i see 'agape love' ...I read Divine Love....mega different than human love...
unconditional, just 'is'.

Last edited by Miss Hepburn; 05-20-2017 at 10:04 AM..
 
Old 05-20-2017, 09:40 AM
 
Location: Southern Oregon
17,071 posts, read 10,824,345 times
Reputation: 1869
Quote:
Originally Posted by TRANSPONDER View Post
...

So, while I endorse the need for more tolerance and understanding ("Love" if you like, but not Agape with eyes blank, please) but religion ain't the way to do it.
Truer words were never spoken (except that "agape" just means concern for the well-being of everyone) as "religion" is just about forms and doctrines. I will suggest that "faith" is the way, and I don't care if your "faith" is just in the value of that "concern" in creating a better world for everyone, not just the people we identify with most closely.

"Faith" is a commitment.

P.s. Glad you are trying again, Mystic. Keep to the positive as disappointing as some of the reactions will be.
 
Old 05-20-2017, 10:39 AM
 
28,432 posts, read 11,476,496 times
Reputation: 2070
Quote:
Originally Posted by TRANSPONDER View Post
I thought you might be back (the place is habit -forming, ain't it) . And there's nothing wrong with your post as regards suitability for posting. Just as regards discarding what seems not to make sense, even to a believer and adapting the rest to what seems plausible to you. It isn't the first time sorta-Christians did that.

I don't buy the leaning Curve theory for a number of reasons, one being that it is not teaching us from the correct textbook and another that it requires an incredible mental leap of adaptation of story to theory to get your conclusion out of it.

So, while I endorse the need for more tolerance and understanding ("Love" if you like, but not Agape with eyes blank, please) but religion ain't the way to do it.

And welcome back, old mate. And provided you don't talk down to people as though they were ignorant turds in the gutter and you were the Cosmic Mind itself, you should be ok.
it all starts at a base axiom from which your whole worldview is formed.

Your activism is not based on textbooks yet you run your mouth like it is? You ignore everything, in science textbooks, to push your anti whateverist agenda.

your claim that we are not in a system that is best described as life is a fine example of your tom foolery activism. so again, an untruth by you.

chew on this if you are so 'science based".

"anti-religion" is not the most reasonable base axiom. Its not based on an unbiased risk vs benefit analysis nor does it address the source of the real issues; Human frailty. In fact, people with such axioms are dangerous.

religions fundy's "my god or die" is dangerous because it is based on an unreal entity. Your "activism", really militant revolution, is based on "anti-religion", also a based built on an unreal entity. I keep seeing castro, idoit ameanie, Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov and others. boy did their (the one you follow) activism work out poor little innocent children..
 
Old 05-20-2017, 12:19 PM
 
Location: S. Wales.
50,079 posts, read 20,492,491 times
Reputation: 5927
Ok folks, I'm out. I just wanted to say "Hi, Mystic" and remove any doubt about whether I endorse his views or not. The hypothesis could be influential, but I think it has been sussed too often in the past by various posters, so I don't think it is as important as trying to roll back organized religion.

And Arach's half digested crud is less important still.
 
Old 05-20-2017, 12:53 PM
 
Location: On the brink of WWIII
21,088 posts, read 29,060,377 times
Reputation: 7812
Quote:
Originally Posted by MysticPhD View Post
This is a dangerous post because of the recent reaction to my views leading me to leave this forum. Unfortunately, religious beliefs are the ones most directly connected to the social-psychological needs that drive selective perceptions and cognitive dissonance. They are also very emotionally volatile and tend to be a source of spark and tinder in social settings. My experiences on this forum over many years led me to expect intelligent, non-violent, and open-minded reactions until recently. My complete views have been thoroughly presented in my many existing posts, but I personally find the retention of magical thinking and ancient ignorance about Christ and His role sufficiently troubling that I want to provide a concise alternative narrative summarizing the Christian aspects of them.

Perhaps an anonymous example of a somewhat irreverent summary of the magical thinking typically passing for faith in Christ will make my concerns about the prevailing Christian narrative clear. Under Christianity we are to believe that God essentially said:

“I'm going to create man and woman and they will commit original sin. Next - I'm going to impregnate a teenage girl with myself as her child so that I may be born as a human. Later - I will kill myself as a blood sacrifice to myself so I can forgive them and save them from the sin I originally condemned them for.”

If this actually makes any intellectual sense to anyone, I would be astounded. I am fairly certain, though, that the fundamentalists among us will simply quote:

1 Corinthians 1:18
For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.

Intellectually, I have no problem with the cross but the current magical interpretation of its significance is simply preposterous, IMO.

To summarize and repeat my view of things Christian, I believe that Christ came to fix a deficiency in US as a species. We were NOT achieving anything remotely like agape love for life or one another. Jesus was our "designated hitter" and He achieved a Grand Slam demonstrating pure agape love under the most egregious circumstances even up to His death. He told us that God IS Spirit and that God IS agape love so God's Holy Spirit IS agape love. Christ brought God's Holy Spirit of agape love to His HUMAN consciousness. His teachings about the TRUE NATURE of God were so contrary to what our ancestors' religious leaders believed about God that they rejected Him and demanded His crucifixion.

Jesus had already said when you see me you see the Father so He used the opportunity to UNAMBIGUOUSLY reveal and emphasize the TRUE NATURE of God.

John 10:30 King James Version (KJV)
30 I and my Father are one.


He voluntarily submitted to the brutality of our ancestors. He endured their brutality because "they knew not what they did," (also known as ignorance). He loved them and all of us including His torturers and murderers (and smote no one!). "No greater love . . ." This was supposed to be unambiguous proof of God's TRUE NATURE if you had faith and believed that Jesus embodied the true nature of God and was the Son of God.

But our ancestors were too steeped in the beliefs about blood sacrifices to appease a wrathful God. They interpreted His loving sacrifice of His life to our ancestors' brutality as a blood sacrifice to God!!! This was not really their fault and was fully expected by God and Jesus. Knowing what they would do to Him is what made it a sacrifice for Jesus. The sacrificial mindset is ancient and crosses generations and cultures. It is a primitive and long-standing belief in the need to assuage God and was practiced frequently by our species' ancestors, not just the ancient Israelites. This mistaken belief about God’s motives and actions in Christianity is the result of reading the OT under the veil of ignorance (blind minds) Christ came to lift.

2 Corinthians 3:14-17
But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which vail is done away in Christ.
15But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart.
16Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away.
17Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.


It was this very spiritually immature and primitive belief about appeasement through sacrifice that was described in the fable about Noah. According to the flood story, Noah actually sacrificed the very animals he was told to save from extinction!! That caused God in frustration to acknowledge that our beliefs were the result of our species' evil imagination and spiritual immaturity (Youth).

Genesis 8:20-21 (King James Version)
20And Noah builded an altar unto the LORD; and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.
21And the LORD smelled a sweet savour; and the LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth


God is God is God, period, but the ONLY TRUE REVEALED GOD for Christians is the one revealed by the example and teachings of Jesus Christ, NOT the one described by our ancestors in the OT. The OT told us to expect Christ who would reveal God to us. It is the God that was believed in by our ancient ancestors that is the problem corrupting Christ's Gospel. It is why Christ’s loving sacrifice and shedding of His blood to their brutality was mistakenly thought to be a blood sacrifice to appease God.

There was never any price to pay. There was no atonement. There was a need for our species to achieve "at-one-ment" with God. To do that our species had to evolve spiritually enough to attain "perfect resonance" with God's consciousness (Holy Spirit of agape love) in a HUMAN consciousness which NONE of us were capable of achieving (sin = missing the mark). Our species would have remained eternally separated from God because of our sins (missing the mark). But by the time of Jesus, the "schoolmaster stage" under the Law using fear of God as motivation had produced our species' ability for self-control of our baser urges - the beginning of wisdom. Jesus pointed out that now the “fields were ripe for the harvest” and capable of being motivated by agape love instead of fear.

Romans 7:6 King James Version (KJV)
6 But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.


While Jesus was with us in physical form only those who were actually around Him had the benefit of His Holy Spirit (human consciousness), teachings and example. Upon His physical death, Christ’s HUMAN consciousness was "born again" as Spirit (as ours will be upon our death). As a "resurrected" Spirit in a spiritual body, His human consciousness became available to all human consciousness as the Comforter sent in His name to guide us to the truth God has "written in our hearts" under the New Covenant. THAT is how His Holy Spirit is available to all human beings despite their beliefs. Some consider it their conscience. Most ignore His guidance and follow their own self-interest but He is available to all of us.

John 16:7 King James Version (KJV)
7 Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.

John 14:26 King James Version (KJV)
26 But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, He shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.


Christ's torture and death were inevitable during the era in which He brought His message of reconciliation and His commands to "love God and each other" and repent when we don’t. Unfortunately, the blood sacrificing religious leaders were expecting (and demanding) a wrathful, smiting King and God as the Messiah to lead them out from under the Roman rule. Jesus was NOT who they expected. They could NOT allow Him to influence the people. Even Judas probably believed Jesus was the Son of a smiting, powerful God. He probably thought Jesus would be forced to display His Godly powers once they tried to scourge and kill Him. When Jesus didn't display His power and smite His torturers, that is probably what drove Judas to despair.

2 Corinthians 5:18-19 New International Version (NIV)
18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.


In other words, Jesus had achieved what we could not, bringing God's Holy Sp[irit of agape love to His human consciousness reconciling our entire species to God. Our sins (failures) became irrelevant. Now as long as we follow Christ's instructions to love God and each other every day and repent when we don't we obtain the cover for our imperfections (sins/failures) of His perfect agape love for us all (called Grace). If we do NOT follow Christ's instructions to "love God and each other" and repent when we don’t we will reap what we sow, but no more and no less than we sow.

God Bless you all in Christ's love.
HUGE, SUPER-GIGANTIC HUGS!!!

LOVE. PERIOD.

One can never do wrong in the name of love.

This is why every rule, law, ritual, or book will never be as all inclusive as LOVE.
 
Old 05-20-2017, 01:06 PM
 
Location: On the brink of WWIII
21,088 posts, read 29,060,377 times
Reputation: 7812
Quote:
Originally Posted by TRANSPONDER View Post
I thought you might be back (the place is habit -forming, ain't it) . And there's nothing wrong with your post as regards suitability for posting. Just as regards discarding what seems not to make sense, even to a believer and adapting the rest to what seems plausible to you. It isn't the first time sorta-Christians did that.

I don't buy the leaning Curve theory for a number of reasons, one being that it is not teaching us from the correct textbook and another that it requires an incredible mental leap of adaptation of story to theory to get your conclusion out of it.

So, while I endorse the need for more tolerance and understanding ("Love" if you like, but not Agape with eyes blank, please) but religion ain't the way to do it.

And welcome back, old mate. And provided you don't talk down to people as though they were ignorant turds in the gutter and you were the Cosmic Mind itself, you should be ok.
Religion has never solved anything. Love (agape or otherwise) does not need t be religious based..Christ is a story for ALL of humanity--regardless of circumstances.

When Christ say BELIEVE IN ME and CONFESS and you will be saved----only humans could take that and make it a secret club complete with passwords, secret hand shakes and indoctrinations.

Mortals have fought over who posses the Christ, who was better at imposing God's will on others, would be acknowledged as the new Aaron, leading humanity int the promise land.
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