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Old 05-20-2017, 01:52 PM
 
Location: S. Wales.
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I said I was Out, but I think I'll have to come back and give my thoughts on that....

No. I'm Out. This is Mystic's thread on his ideas and my views on the Gospel Jesus are off topic.

Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 05-20-2017 at 02:20 PM..

 
Old 05-20-2017, 02:11 PM
 
Location: Pacific 🌉 °N, 🌄°W
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MysticPhD View Post
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.
Why do you assume this? You have no knowledge of the people who were alive during the supposed Jesus era. How do you know what the people of this era could, or could not achieve consciously? How do you know that humans prior to the supposed Jesus era had not achieved higher states of consciousness? Until you invent a time-machine and travel back in time you honestly cannot make such claims.

Timeline of religion
Quote:
Originally Posted by MysticPhD View Post
Our sins (failures) became irrelevant.
Failures are relevant to us. Failures help us learn, failures provide opportunities for deep introspection and inner self reflection. Failures are relevant for personal growth and conscious evolution.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MysticPhD View Post
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).
This is the problem I have with Christianity as well as other religions that promote this message. Why do you believe it necessary to follow these specific instructions? Why promote others to be constrained to a very narrow path with one teacher? There are many other methods, teachers and daily practices that one can follow to achieve higher states of consciousness.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MysticPhD View Post
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.
This is simply false. People can read other inspirational words of wisdom from other great teachers that walked this earth: Teachers such as Gautama Buddha, Gandhi, Paramhansa Yogananda as well as 100's of other inspirational works of spiritual wisdom and practices. People find spiritual inspiration and ways to elevate their consciousness towards peace, kindness and love without having to be constrained to what your beliefs are.

Most humans are born with the innate qualities of compassion, kindness, peace and love...the existence that has been slowly carved out over 1000's of years for us to exist in has created a block for many to exercise these innate qualities. Those who have the realization/awakening that they want to undo the conditioning's that bury these innate qualities, usually embark upon their own journey of what works best for them. They don't have to follow the instructions that you are promoting in order to advance consciously.

I hope you can openly understand what I am saying vs. getting angry at my words as you typically do when I offer an alternative view.

Peace
 
Old 05-20-2017, 02:27 PM
 
Location: S. Wales.
50,081 posts, read 20,502,115 times
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Yes..Ok I know but just this once....My main objection to the learning curve theory was that Buddhism was earlier than Christianity but in terms of peace and tolerance it beats Christianity, and Islam comes later and frankly it is as bad as the less edifying bits of the Old testament.

That's on top of the really wild reach of the hole crucifixion for pretty clear reasons (sedition) actually being a song and dance to teach us to love each other. Well....it screams starting with the faith and fiddling the facts to fit it. Even if one is going to argue that it is just a fable as a teching metaphor - that doesn't work as it is surely true. Jesus was crucified. The fact of an execution for mundane and non -education purposes is plausible, but to turn it into a way of making us better humans requires some really adroit mental gymnastics.
 
Old 05-20-2017, 03:24 PM
 
9,588 posts, read 4,992,318 times
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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.

What you believe and what the scriptures actually say, are two different things. I won't bother with the bulk of this, but instead will zero in on the error that permeates the whole of your thinking. For instance, you seem to think that the veil is ignorance, and that this ignorance is the "sacrificial mindset".

What it actually is, is the pattern of man component's, his FLESH (all that he is or thinks apart from Christ) is the veil, and that veil is what is opened or rent when man lays down his life to accept Christ. It's a type of going from the outer court through the veil that separated it from the inner court of the priesthood.

Because blood is attained by the death of the sacrifice, for this reason there is no remission for sins without the shedding of blood, and this veil being rent therefore is as the death of the sacrifice. The ministration of this death was declared GLORIOUS by G-d, not the failure of men you deem it to be. Which is why we are told to make of ourselves a living SACRIFICE.

2Cor 3:7 But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was GLORIOUS, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away:

Which is exactly why, right after this disclosure of the necessity of the death of the sacrifice (ministration of death) is made, He begins to talk about a different glory. And for this reason, the ONLY WAY it gets done away with, is when it has done it's job of killing the sacrifice.

2Cor 3:18 But WE ALL, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image FROM GLORY TO GLORY, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.

Now note that we ALL, change from one glory (the old/flesh governed over by the law of Moses for the purpose of killing it) TO another glory (veil done away/RENT, death of sacrifice) as we ENTER into Christ, represented by the inner court of the Tabernacle. An open face here, is the same as saying the veil was rent/sacrifice died. Peace

Last edited by Rbbi1; 05-20-2017 at 03:45 PM..
 
Old 05-21-2017, 01:25 AM
 
Location: S. Wales.
50,081 posts, read 20,502,115 times
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I really should leave it to you two to slug it out, but I'll just observe that Paul (as I recall) didn't see the death as a blood sacrifice but as an atonement or rectification of Adam's disobedience. The blood sacrifice idea was, I think dreamed up later by Christians who altered a lot of the events to occur on the passover. Indeed John is quite ridiculous about it, with everything occurring on Passovers, when the action really only covers a year or so

It might have been an apostolic idea, but it is odd then that Paul doesn't use it.

Anyway use the idea (or not) is arguing whether the sacrifice was a veiler of understanding or an unveiler, and remember, whoever wins can still tell themselves hat God was inspiring them wih the Truth. Go to it ; no holds are barred. Trust in he Lord and all things are permitted to you.
 
Old 05-21-2017, 05:08 AM
 
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Actually the crucification of Jesus Christ was abomination of injustice to God , were sin of envy was the motive for this injustice .......... So God turned it around and people who sided against sin and sided with Jesus could have forgiveness of sin
 
Old 05-21-2017, 07:24 AM
 
28,432 posts, read 11,481,504 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by hljc View Post
Actually the crucification of Jesus Christ was abomination of injustice to God , were sin of envy was the motive for this injustice .......... So God turned it around and people who sided against sin and sided with Jesus could have forgiveness of sin
I can say the exact same thing without the word god. "god' here meaning a theist type.

the crucifixion of a guy like jesus was an abomination and unjust action by the jewish leaders to maintain their power.

then the question becomes when is it "unjust" to kill a person for that person's activism that is actually revolution? In this case, I don't think so. one priest had another priest killed here. this 'activism" seemed regular to me.

same intent,
but I don't see where the line of logic we use linking the data we have can end in an omni-dude wizard.
 
Old 05-21-2017, 08:48 AM
 
Location: S. Wales.
50,081 posts, read 20,502,115 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by hljc View Post
Actually the crucification of Jesus Christ was abomination of injustice to God , were sin of envy was the motive for this injustice .......... So God turned it around and people who sided against sin and sided with Jesus could have forgiveness of sin
What?..(I swear..on the precious..I WILL stay out of this! I swears!!) you are saying it wasn't God's plan from the start? He's making it up as He goeths along? Well, that certainly accords with the story, but not with Religious Dogma.

And why on earth, if he didn' want Jesus crucified, didn't he just harden Pilate's heart so he's just let Jesus off and tell the Sanhedrin to tattle to Tiberius if they wanted.

And what about all the predictions of Jesus' death and asking to be let off and God evidently saying No?

No, old monkeynut, your explanation doesn't really stand up. Back to the drawing -board.
 
Old 05-21-2017, 09:30 AM
 
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As long as you are associated Christianity or religion you are going to come in contact with religious people.
 
Old 05-21-2017, 10:02 AM
 
Location: S. Wales.
50,081 posts, read 20,502,115 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by OzzyRules View Post
As long as you are associated Christianity or religion you are going to come in contact with religious people.
Christianity as a religion is the only Christianity that bothers me.
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