Does the Quran support Theocracy?

[Ferrocyanide]

 While Jesus too made this separation between divine and earthly power or kingdom 
 

Show me the lines from the Bible.

What do you mean by separation?
Do you mean that Jesus wants a human run government with no religious rules? I don’t think so.
The expectation that the jewish people had was that the royal class was going to come back. The savior was going to be someone sent by the jewish god to save Israel.

Besides, in ancient cultures, there was likely a tight integration between the king and the high priest and at times, they were the same person playing the role of king and mouthpiece of the gods.

This is an example of that kind of tight integration. This is how they did crime scene investigation back then:
Deuteronomy 21:1 KING JAMES VERSION
If [one] be found slain in the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee to possess it, lying in the field, [and] it be not known who hath slain him: Then thy elders and thy judges shall come forth, and they shall measure unto the cities which [are] round about him that is slain: And it shall be, [that] the city [which is] next unto the slain man, even the elders of that city shall take an heifer, which hath not been wrought with, [and] which hath not drawn in the yoke; And the elders of that city shall bring down the heifer unto a rough valley, which is neither eared nor sown, and shall strike off the heifer’s neck there in the valley: And the priests the sons of Levi shall come near; for them the LORD thy God hath chosen to minister unto him, and to bless in the name of the LORD; and by their word shall every controversy and every stroke be [tried: ] And all the elders of that city, [that are] next unto the slain [man,] shall wash their hands over the heifer that is beheaded in the valley: And they shall answer and say, Our hands have not shed this blood, either have our eyes seen [it. ] Be merciful, O LORD, unto thy people Israel, whom thou hast redeemed, and lay not innocent blood unto thy people of Israel’s charge. And the blood shall be forgiven them. So shalt thou put away the [guilt of] innocent blood from among you, when thou shalt do [that which is] right in the sight of the LORD.

^^^^^These are the words of a people who are afraid of an invisible force, an invisible personality: the jewish god. They are worried that the jewish god will make the weather worst or will bring disease to their people if they don’t tell the jewish god that they had nothing to do with the murder.

The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2 Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. 3”

(Book of Paulus; Romans 13/ 1-7) 
 

A christian once mentioned to me these lines.
I agree. It is essentially saying that you should obey your government.
These lines conflict with the jewish view that Rome is an evil and foreign empire that worships false gods.
It is quite probable that at this point in time (when Romans was written), some wars have taken place between Rome and Israel and Israel lost repeatably.
It is possible that Paul had accepted that they can’t beat Rome. It is quite possible that some romans and greeks had joined this new jewish sect and so, Paul had to accommodate them, make peace with them.

To sum up: There is no “divine ruler” As Jesus has said “My kingdom is not of this earth” +   “Then give to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and give to God the things that are God's.” (Luke 20:25) 

We discussed this in these forums once.

I think some said that Jesus or whoever wrote that line did not wish to start a war with the Romans. Some think that the text is written by clever roman spies who want to cool down the hot heads that are in some sects. I think one person said that Jesus is acting as a sellout, as someone who isn’t going to truly save Israel from Rome.

[Leonardo17]

1) John 18:36 Amplified Bible (AMP)
Jesus replied, “My kingdom is not of this world [nor does it have its origin in this world]. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would be fighting [hard] to keep Me from being handed over to the Jews; but as it is, My kingdom is not of this world.”
 
“The expectation that the jewish people had was that the royal class was going to come back. The savior was going to be someone sent by the jewish god to save Israel.”
 
- Which is why they murdered Jesus instead of trying to understand his teachings. Which is why they are stuck where they are stuck right now
 
“Besides, in ancient cultures, there was likely a tight integration between the king and the high priest and at times, they were the same person playing the role of king and mouthpiece of the gods.”
 
I see spirituality as a dynamic phenomenon that has to adapt and be reshaped accordingly with the reality of whatever time were are living in. If you look around you can see that there are things that worked perfectly for the generation before you that are totally passé for the people who are 18 year old or so today.
 
So in that perspective. In 1250 BC (and this is an approximation) Jews were made into a nation of priests and they were “chosen” in some way because their religion was the only monotheistic religion in that time.
 
Than if we go as far as the Bronze Age (old or middle Kingdom Egypt) for instance. A God-King wasn’t that bad. Pharaoh was not a Kim-Yong-Un or anything like that. First: he was not above the law. Second: He was seen as the incarnation of Horus and is duty was to make the rule of Maat (the principle of Justice) rule upon the two lands. And yes, I am ready to give up all forms of “election based system” to have something like that instead. But again, those days are gone.
 
We did discuss that back in the days when I had Cultural Anthropology classes. I think it was Claude Levis Straus who said that each culture has its own way of perceiving the very fabric of reality. So that was then and this is now.

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On integration
 
- There are similar verses in the Koran too. From 630 to roughly the middle of the 19th century that was something called Islamic Law. And when it first came it was a legal system that was more modern and effective than the Justinian Law (the only other complete legal system at the time).
 
Than it became obsolete as well. With stuff like the need for 2 female witnesses for each male witness etc. In the late 19th century, the Ottoman Empire was still using this legal system for Muslims and Westernized legal systems for strangers and minorities. And in 1923 we had to leave it all together. + What Arab countries are using are Western-Style legal systems with some arrangements that are inspired from the Old Islamic System. And that’s what Western Legal systems are as well. Medieval Legal systems that were based on biblical teachings gradually became modernized with a more rational and practical approach to legal matters.
 
So the only way to do what you are saying today is to start living like the Amish and completely isolating ourselves from the realities of the 21st century. SO what you say is true, but it doesn’t work in our time anymore. And the Koran is asking many times “Don’t you ever use your reason? Don’t you ever think about the reality of the situation you are in right now?”.
 
2) No I was trying to say that Political-Islam has its roots in Christianity (which is an older religion / therefore a spiritual teaching that was subjected to more misinterpretation by scholars etc.). It was the Emperor Constantine who first unified the Church and the State with is ideology of “One God one Emperor).
+ The headscarf has also its roots in Christianity:
 
“every wife[c] who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered dishonors her head, since it is the same as if her head were shaven. 6 For if a wife will not cover her head, then she should cut her hair short. But since it is disgraceful for a wife to cut off her hair or shave her head, let her cover her head. 7 For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man. 8 For man was not made from woman, but woman from man. 9 Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man. 10 That is why a wife ought to have a symbol of authority on her head”
Corinthians 11:2-16
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?se...ersion=ESV
 
But we are talking history here. I am talking about practical issues here and now. As a theist I see God as an inner reality (something like “the Force” in George Lucas movies). And there is a path (meaning sustained effort) to walk in order to get there. And that path is a solitary path because it involves changing yourself and evolving into something “better” (like going to the Gym on a regular basis). So you can have like-minded friends / yes you can have teachers / Gurus. But the path is still a solitary path because you and you only is the one who is going to get there.
 
So this is completely unrelated to how the mundane things are being done. Yet, a religious / spiritual person can and should (according to me) be involved in political issues as a responsible citizen trying to make things shift for the better. (Like Dr. King for instance).
 
3)
Well, I don’t think we can see religious texts as historical accounts. Even in the Story of Joan of Arc for instance, people are speculating on what parts of the story actually happened and which parts of it where invented (because people loved this saintly character so the church had to romanticize some of the things we know today were half-truths or complete decorations of the original story).
 
For spiritual people (like myself) it is the symbolics that matters.
 
Ex: The Koran says that Jesus simply walked away after The Last Supper. The man who sold him to the Romans was crucified instead.
 
Hindus even have him travel to India and continue spreading his teachings there. (Yaggadish Vassudev said it. I don’t know )
 
But For Christians there is a deep meaning when Jesus said “Be with me in my darkest hour” during the Last supper. And then he is crucified. Than he is resurrected.
 
Just like the Story of the Exodus. Jews were slaves (like the crucifixion), than they escape and wander in the desert for 40 years (like the 3 days during which Jesus was dead) and than they get to the Promised Land (like the resurrection).
 
To you all of this is probably some blah blah blah, to me it’s a symbolic narrative on us being a save to the ego (the crucifixion), on us dying to the reality of the Ego (the three days before the resurrection) and then our freedom from our Ego self and our life identified with our higher self (the resurrection).
 
And these are all universal spiritual themes. You can spot them in Taoism, you can spot them in Egyptian mythology too.
 

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So to me what matters in terms of religion is my personal relation with God (basically). And I want politics to work correctly (just like I want the economy to work correctly, or the environment to be clean and the legal system to be just). So I am not “above” earthly issues. But theocracy is not today’s reality. Today we have systems that are more adapted to the current reality. Older legal / political systems are simply obsolete. Just like medical approaches that doctors had 50 years ago that have been abandoned today.
 
There is no spiritual approach that can exclude the usage of reason. The French philosopher René Descartes (who was a deist in the philosophical sense) describes reason as the Signature of God (in a world that was written in a mathematical language)

[The Grand Nudger]

Think about how what you just said ties back into your opq. You're a theist, you're ready for a totalitarian dictatorship run by a god-king. You would trade this for that.

Do you think that your islamic upbringing might have had some effect in shaping that part of you that openly desires a theocracy? This is one of the reasons that an an anti-theist. I don't think that it's possible for a person to genuinely believe in theistic gods without inevitably affirming dictatorships, as theism envisions the entire cosmos as a dictatorship with gods at the head. This is the right and proper organization of the word as per that genuine belief.

[Brian37]

   My first critic to this idea is a spiritual one. It is always easier to start criticizing other people instead of doing the spiritual work ourselves. If we do that on a local level we end up fooling ourselves and if we do that on larger scale we end up harming ourselves and others. Any spiritual practitioner will reaffirm this idea: The spiritual quest is an inner quest; the spiritual work is an inner work because the spiritual truth is an inner truth. Anyone who denies this fact is either deceiving you or is being self-deceived.
 
And the religious perspective on that is even more radical than that. See God’s reaction to idolatry (Go to 3:10):
 



 
The symbolic meaning here is very strong.
 

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As of the Quran, here is what is says in Al-Baqarah 213:
 
“In the beginning all the people followed the same way. (Afterwards there came a change and differences arose). Then Allah sent Prophets to give good tidings to those who followed the Right Way and warnings to those who swerved from it. And He sent down with them the Book based on the Truth so that it should judge between the people concerning their differences. (Differences arose not because people were not given the knowledge of the Truth in the beginning, nay), differences arose between those very people who had been given clear teachings, and (for no other reasons than that) they wanted to tyrannize over one another. So Allah, by His leave, guided those who believed in the Prophets to the Truth about which they had differed; AIIah guides whomever He pleases to the Right Way.”
 
https://myislam.org/surah-baqarah/ayat-213/
 
(Abdul Ala Mauduli Translation = very Similar and even better than the Y.N. Ozturk translation I am using here)
 
So the Lord / Allah is giving a religious teaching to mankind. People agree with this teaching. But some people want to misuse these teaching for their ego-based / selfish behaviors. Yet Allah still guides the faithful to the truth = He destroys the Golden Calf in them and still keeps guiding them to the Ultimate Truth.
 

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Other elements are also present. Theocratized religion is an idol. God does not like idols.
 
Also: the Quran includes warnings on fake teachers or fake Guru’s who will lead us away from the path of God.
 
(Fatir 5)
 
“O mankind, indeed the promise of Allah is truth, so let not the worldly life delude you and be not deceived about Allah by the Deceiver.”
 
In my Turkish Translation it reads: “May no one deceive you with Allah” or “May the Deceiver (the Devil) not deceive you by my teachings.”
 
(Al-Araf 3)
 
“Follow what has been sent down to you from your Lord, and do not take others as guardians besides Him. How seldom are you mindful!”
 
This is a huge theme in Islam (and in Reformed Christianity). There is no Guardian or authority or intermediate person other than God himself. (There are other verses in that direction but I will keep it short).
 
More on this (more spiritual) definition of idolatry:
 
In Luqman 13 it is said:
“And ˹remember˺ when Luqmân said to his son, while advising him, “O my dear son! Never associate ˹anything˺ with Allah ˹in worship˺, for associating ˹others with Him˺ is truly the worst of all wrongs.”
 
https://quran.com/31
 
There are many other instances in which the Quran warns us on Idolatry. The simplistic definition of Idolatry is paganism and/or atheism. The deeper definition is more different that:
Y.N. Ozturk has three definition of idolatry.
1) Believing in divine beings that are different than God himself (we all know about that).
2) Surrendering to a being other than God himself (what I have been talking about in this post until now).
3) Worshiping a being that is other than God himself. That’s the deeper / more spiritual definition that we use in spirituality. Like worshiping power. Thinking that money is the solution to everything. Seeking happiness / salvation in something other than God. Like body cult, obsession with material things like cars for instance, being obsessed with food, or seeking comfort in superficial sexual relations for instance.
 
To sum up: There is no “divine ruler” As Jesus has said “My kingdom is not of this earth” +   “Then give to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and give to God the things that are God's.” (Luke 20:25)
 
The meaning of “There is no God but God Himself” in Islam is very deep in that sense. Even a Monarch or a pope or any other institution are either human beings (like us) or institutions that were created by men or women (like us). So what happens if you say either of these things are “divine by nature”?
- It will not work. Not in the spiritual way of seeing things.
 
+ Atheism is not even mentioned in the Quran. So accusing atheists of “waging war on God” by entities like the IRI has absolutely no spiritual basis.
 
So I think we all agree on that.
But, is there an intermediary (institution or individual) with God?
 
I already shared my view on this. And here is what the Quran says (zumer 3):
 
Indeed, sincere devotion is due ˹only˺ to Allah. As for those who take other lords besides Him, ˹saying,˺ “We worship them only so they may bring us closer to Allah,” surely Allah will judge between all1 regarding what they differed about. Allah certainly does not guide whoever persists in lying and disbelief.
 
- So no one can “bring you closer to Allah”. There are teachers and/or masters in many spiritual traditions. Yet the word “Guru” in Hindu means just “teacher”. In India the kids call their primary school teachers “Guru”. These are people you can have spiritual discussions if you want to. You can E-mail them your questions if you are a novice of medium level learner. You can feel sad or cry after them when they leave this mortal plane. But that’s the only thing they are. Human beings with whom you have a teacher-pupil relationship.
 
   So there is no class of “intermediaries”. Not in spiritual terms. And even less in Political terms.
 
But what I said here did not stop Earlier Ottoman rulers from having some spiritually advanced persons as their advisors and personal spiritual teachers (yet that was in the better times of the Empire. All of that disappeared in the regression era of the empire).
 
In Rum-31 it says:
 
˹O believers!˺ Always turn to Him ˹in repentance˺, be mindful of Him, and establish prayers. And do not commit idolatry —˹like˺ those who have divided their faith and split into sects, each rejoicing in what they have.
 
This is understood as an opposition to sectarian divisions. God being singular, we are called to respect the belief of EHl-I-Kitap people (other Abrahamic [+ perhaps other] religions). The egotic sense of superiority toward other groups is not approved of. So there cannot be no clergy or religious caste. There cannot be special sects, sheikhs, Gurus etc. to divide us and give us a “better form of religion” either. This obviously includes Al-Qaida, Hamas, ISIL, the IRI and any political party claiming a monopoly on faith, a “Caliph” or other divine ruler, divine monarch, and anything like that.
 
Here is E-Nam 153
 
Indeed, that is My Path—perfectly straight. So follow it and do not follow other ways, for they will lead you away from His Way. This is what He has commanded you, so perhaps you will be conscious ˹of Allah˺.”
 
   This means that sects and religious institution have the potential of creating more than one path. Yet the path to God is singular. So again: There is no intermediary between God and the individual.
 
The discussion can be dragged on and on. But I will end this with a mention of the Prophet Mohammad. He is said to have cursed 3 types of people in his lifetime:
1) Those who value material things (money) more than their own humanity.
2) Those who destroyed the earth toward “The end of times” (us).
3) Those who misuse his teachings for their own ego-oriented purposes.
 

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Conclusion:
 
The Quran talks about the integration of Political / economic / religious power in a rather negative manner (see my thread on “The Pharaoh”).
 
While Jesus too made this separation between divine and earthly power or kingdom. It was one of his disciple who said that:
 
“The authorities that exist have been established by God. 2 Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. 3”
(Book of Paulus; Romans 13/ 1-7)
 
   And many Islamic “scholars” did not fail to follow suit, seeking for ways to integrate the will of their powerful and wealthy patrons with the teachings of the prophet Mohammad.
 
   I do not agree with anything like this at all. Something that is irrational cannot be a spiritual truth. As Descartes said: “Reason is the signature of God”. The Quran ask perhaps more than dozen of time “don’t you use your reason? Don’t you ever cogitate on this?”.
 
   So those who claim otherwise are deceivers or the “Friends of the Deceiver”. I could go deeper into this but this “Friend of the Deceiver” or “Preacher of the Deceiver” is also a major theme of the Quran.
 
   The main idea here is: A spiritual path is a spiritual path. And politics is politics. It’s not like we don’t care about politics. In fact many of us do care a lot about politics. But there is no “divine rule” or “divine regime” or “divine regime” or anything like that. It doesn’t exist.
 
 
 

This was long winded and convoluted. 

The God/s of Abraham, the big three, are written as an immovable figure. A being you cannot remove from it's position, or vote out of it's position. It doesn't need our permission to rule over us. It can do anything to us at any time without our consent. The God of Abraham is an authoritarian and 100% antithetical to western democracy and pluralism. The God of Abraham is more akin to the likes of Kim Jong Un.

[Ferrocyanide]

1) John 18:36 Amplified Bible (AMP)
Jesus replied, “My kingdom is not of this world [nor does it have its origin in this world]. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would be fighting [hard] to keep Me from being handed over to the Jews; but as it is, My kingdom is not of this world.”

Just a few things:
1. Anyone can speak those words. No need to be a god or son of god or alien or alien-god.
2. Jesus can’t say something like “Ok, I am going to snap my fingers and my army is going to deal with you.” The moment he does something like that, his followers would understand that he is not capable and half would abandon him. I say half since the level of delusion varies from person to person.
The author who is writing those lines also understands that he would lose a lot of followers by writing something like that. That option is not available to him.
People would be asking “Well, wouldn’t that generate a major war between us and the Romans?” “Wouldn’t we be victors now?”

Imagine if I said I colored Joe Biden’s hair blue yesterday and now, you will all see that his hair is blue. Anyone can turn on the TV and check out Joe Biden’s hair color.
If I say that I walked on water, you aren’t going to see that yourself. All you’ll have is ink on paper.

I’m sure the jews have gone through that a bunch of times as other saviors came and went and non of them had the firepower to deal with the Roman army.

3. John 18:36 is basically nonsense.
Jesus doesn’t need to talk about servants and an army.
He can just snap his fingers and he can come down from the cross or he can erect a force field around himself and no one can catch him or torture him.
No need for an army. No need to harm any roman or jew.


4. There is certainly a pretty strong push to convert everyone into a christian. For example:

Matthew 10:33 KING JAMES VERSION
But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven.

^^^^^In other words, you better convert and you better convert fast or you don’t get the keys to heaven.

5.

Matthew 10:34 KING JAMES VERSION
Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. {10:35} For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. {10:36} And a man’s foes [shall be] they of his own household. {10:37} He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. {10:38} And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me. {10:39} He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.

^^^^^In this one, Jesus seems to be talking about taking action.
The roman army dealt with him quickly so he never got to reach the level of Mohammed.



6.

Matthew 10:37 KING JAMES VERSION
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

^^^^^I’m not sure what prompted Jesus to say this. How exactly do you compare your love level between your son and Jesus?
Is there something that the believer needs to do?
What does he need to do? Get rid of his possessions and follow Jesus? What is the point of that?

7.

Isaiah 9:6 KING JAMES VERSION
For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.

^^^^^Maybe this one will interest you more. He will be the government.
Some christians mention Isaiah 9:6 to me saying that the jews were waiting for Jesus. I am pretty sure that the jews were waiting for a savior but I have no idea for how long


8. In Revelation, it shows that the ultimate plan is to kill most humans and all animals. He is going to either save his followers or certain jews, which comes out to 144,000 people. These guys are going to be transported to space.
The other saved followers will be on a new Earth, in new Israel, which is shiny and new and it is daylight all the time and most likely, you will have a theocracy since this is the final plan.



CONCLUSION:
It is possible that other saviors reached the point of gathering enough listeners, formed an army, and they went to war with the Romans and they were slaughtered.
I don’t know if the NT is based on a real person, but if it is, it is possible that Jesus did not reach that point. He was not able to get the attention of enough jews and was not able to form an army.
Either that, or he decided at some point that other saviors tried the war thing with Rome and failed and he decided to take the peaceful route.
The problem is that Rome is pissed off with this rebel savior stuff and probably puts a lot of pressure on the priestly class to rat out such people. So, when Jesus and such people are hung, the rest are spared. Life goes on until the next savior pops up.

Which is why they murdered Jesus instead of trying to understand his teachings. Which is why they are stuck where they are stuck right now

I think there were multiple versions of christianity. Different sects formed with different ideas. The christianity that we have today seems to be Paul’s church where the goal is to be more global: bring in the europeans, no need to circumcise and forget a bunch of the jewish god’s laws. Paul ends up arguing with other sects.

It is normal. All religions evolve and split into new sects with new ideas over time.

We did discuss that back in the days when I had Cultural Anthropology classes.

It is good that you mention Anthropology.
One of the books that I have touches upon a very important concept in science. Not many books on chemistry and physics do it.
The concept is called Occam’s Razor.
It basically means go for the mundane explanation before going for aliens and gods and alien-gods and such.

In other words, jews were not chosen by any god. It was their leader that at some point in time decided to switch from polytheism to monotheism.
Who that person was and his reasons are lost through time but in terms of Occam’s razor and history, it is 99% certain that such a person existed. It is guessed that the reasons would be that worshiping an all powerful god makes the people more confident in their god. Secondly, when the priest made that change, was there a very terrible consequence or did something good happen? Again, we don’t know but if nothing terrible happened, the priest would interpret that to be a positive. If something good happened, he would interpret that as the god being pleased with him.

Medieval Legal systems that were based on biblical teachings gradually became modernized with a more rational and practical approach to legal matters.

Modern science took control by around ~1700. Some people noticed that they were getting somewhere by playing around with observation, with telescopes, with microscopes, with taking measurements, with playing with chemicals.
Since various people joined in and they formed a SIG (Special Interests Group), they feed on each other’s work, they encourage each other to push more.

I think it was during the 18xx that there was one major case. The cop noticed a footstep in the mud. He compared it to the footstep of a suspect. There was a match.
The bullet, diameter 1 cm, was stuck in the victim. Around the bullet was a piece of paper from a music sheet. The cop compared it with the music sheets of the suspect and there was a match. The shape of the teared paper was identical.
This was a case of having 0 witnesses. It was encouraging for them.
Another breakthrough was fingerprinting in the 18xx. This was hard to do.
At some point, they started using blood types to catch criminals.
By the 198xs, you have PCR to make a lot of copies of a DNA molecules.
Computer technology helped make fingerprint matches, DNA matches quickly.

^^^^^The above is a quick run down of some history of science.
Why would anyone not use such tools?

Always shave with Occam’s razor. It is normal that a priest from 1500 BCE is not going to develop such forensic techniques. His gods don’t exist. His gods don’t have advanced knowledge so, they can’t teach science.

And the Koran is asking many times “Don’t you ever use your reason? Don’t you ever think about the reality of the situation you are in right now?”.

That is something subjective. Some people reason that the universe is 6000 y old. Some reason that islam should evolve and some rules set by their god need to go to the trash.
Besides, the Koran author can’t say “Use your reason and figure out that the notion of gods is bullshit.”
If the Koran author said “Don’t use your own reasoning”, he is basically calling you an idiot and he also would have to make a much thicker book to cover all circumstances.

So the only way to do what you are saying today is to start living like the Amish and completely isolating ourselves from the realities of the 21st century.

Wait. What did I say? Which realities of the 21 st century are a problem for christianity or islam?

2. I’m not sure what your comment about Emperor Constantine and 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 is about.
Are you saying that rule was set by Emperor Constantine and he injected those lines into the Corinthians book?

As a theist I see God as an inner reality (something like “the Force” in George Lucas movies).

What is a god for you? Does a god have a brain or some kind of data processor? Does he think? Can he communicate with human languages?

Than it became obsolete as well. With stuff like the need for 2 female witnesses for each male witness etc.

Why was that an important rule before? Why was that rule eliminated?I don’t know every rule in Islam. Has the rule about eating pork been eliminated? Has the rule about praying 5 times a day been eliminated?

Ex: The Koran says that Jesus simply walked away after The Last Supper. The man who sold him to the Romans was crucified instead.

I watched Stargate the other day.
The army had a nuclear weapon. They went through the stargate. The plan was to blow up the stargate that was on some foreign planet. I guess they did not want aliens to come to Earth.
The alien master leader though that their plan was to kill him.
At one point, the nuclear bomb was activated. The alien took his space ship and went into space. The army guy was not able to deactivate the timer since the alien had modified the timer.
The army guy put the bomb into a teleporter and the bomb was teleported to the spaceship and boom. All the slave humans on that foreign planet were happy.

These are nice stories.
Some asshole dies and the good guys win.

[Leonardo17]

Think about how what you just said ties back into your opq.  You're a theist, you're ready for a totalitarian dictatorship run by a god-king.  You would trade this for that.  

Do you think that your islamic upbringing might have had some effect in shaping that part of you that openly desires a theocracy?  This is one of the reasons that an an anti-theist.  I don't think that it's possible for a person to genuinely believe in theistic gods without inevitably affirming dictatorships, as theism envisions the entire cosmos as a dictatorship with gods at the head.  This is the right and proper organization of the word as per that genuine belief.

You are distorting what I am saying. I am saying that Ancient Egypt was a state of law. Their version of “theocracy” was actually very similar to our modern society. That’s what I wanted to say.

---

---

Brian37:

 
“This was long winded and convoluted.
 
The God/s of Abraham, the big three, are written as an immovable figure. A being you cannot remove from it's position, or vote out of it's position. It doesn't need our permission to rule over us. It can do anything to us at any time without our consent. The God of Abraham is an authoritarian and 100% antithetical to western democracy and pluralism. The God of Abraham is more akin to the likes of Kim Jong Un.”
 
…and if you thing that best-selling religious in the world is portraying a man who is being tortured to death you can start asking questions about how sincere right-wing people can possibly be about violence in the movies for instance
 

---

 
- That’s not my way of seeing things. I am almost 100% that there is no God as a cosmic persona (and no such devil either).
 
Yet there is a deeper meaning in that too. That deeper meaning does not just come to you through some book or religious indoctrination. It’s a reality that can be understood intellectually (on some level). But it can only be known by direct experience. That direct experience is what I call genuine spirituality. That’s my way of understanding it.
 

---

---

 
1-3: See “Exodus, Gods and Kings” (2014). This story also conveys a struggle between absolute earthly power and Religious / spiritual power. Or even better: 1976 Movie called “The message”.
 
This later is better. Because our prophet did not display some “miracles” like the prophets before him. My conviction is that the Universe simply realigns itself and most of the time it does so through real people (like you and me) and in this way his will is done no matter what.
Because of that the Etymology of Islam is not to put bombs everywhere and murder whoever you can murder but to surrender meaning that His will is going to be done no matter what.
 
4) There are different ways of understanding these lines. Unfortunately many “religious” people seem to understand it the same way as you. “Let’s convert everyone to our way of seeing things so in the end we will be the ones inheriting the world”.
 
My way of understanding is this. The thinking of the World is the exact opposite of the thinking of God. If you choose the Ego’s path, than you will be following the Ego’s path and live according to that. But if you bring in real spirituality (in this case God) in to your life. Than you will be on a whole different path. And that’s just how things are made. And there is no threat of Hell or whatsoever. From a spiritual perspective, “Hell” is our current situation in this world Being unaware of the true potential which is present within every one of us.
 
(So I’M not calling you a liar and/or sinner or anything like that I’M just explaining the spiritual approach here).
 
5) I think he is talking about:
“Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell. 29 Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. 30 And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. 31 So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.
 
Again: the thinking of the world is 180 degree the opposite of God.
 
Then he says:
“40 “Anyone who welcomes you welcomes me, and anyone who welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. 41 Whoever welcomes a prophet as a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever welcomes a righteous person as a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward.”
 
This echoes the Hadith of the Prophet who said “If you take one step toward God he will take 10 steps toward you / If you start walking toward God, he will come to you running”
So that’s the spiritual path. In a way it’s the opposite of Western Capitalism. But before anyone asks: We do not just give up everything. It’s more like we start prioritizing those “spiritual issues” more than how we used to prioritize earthly issues in the past.
 
And again: there are deeper meanings. You don’t just “do” these things, there needs to be a gradual understanding of these things (that will appear as a result of sustained effort in the spiritual path).
 
7) As far as I know the Jews murdered Jesus because they decided that he was not the Messiah they have been waiting for. Just like today with their attitude of extreme Zionism, back in the days they expected a different more earthly “Messiah”. So when Jesus came with his teachings of love, and compassion, and forgiveness, and “Kingdom of heaven” they just hated him
 
Again: This is my interpretation as a person who knows a bit about how the human ego works. It’s not a theological statement
 
8) That’s another deep issue that is being debated for centuries’ by people who have faith.
 
My understanding is this: That’s something I know since I read about the Kyoto Protocol back in the 90’s when I was a teenager. The world as it is not sustainable. That’s because humanity is not in its right mindset. We are literally insane (destroying our own planet, corrupting our own food chain, building nuclear bombs in a way that can destroy the earth many times over etc. etc.)
 
So many religion have this concept of “The end of days / the end of time” Spiritual people says that this is a massive change of attitude that can happen before we annihilate ourselves. Or that can happens after a great event that will leave most of us dead so the remaining one will try to it differently after we have failed so enormously before them.
 
Other Comments:
1) Absolutely. Look at the stuff I am talking about here. Do I look like a Lin Laden to you?
2)
“That is something subjective. Some people reason that the universe is 6000 y old. Some reason that islam should evolve and some rules set by their god need to go to the trash.
Besides, the Koran author can’t say “Use your reason and figure out that the notion of gods is bullshit.”
If the Koran author said “Don’t use your own reasoning”, he is basically calling you an idiot and he also would have to make a much thicker book to cover all circumstances.”
 
Again: the thinking of this world is 180 degrees the opposite of the thinking of spiritual approaches. Saying that the earth is 6000 years old is the same thing as political Islamists claiming that (for instance) that men and women should all look in one way and not in any other way. These are deeply superficial and materialistic approaches.
 
21st century spirituality is not about superficial appearances or even ideologies. It’s about energies. Some schools of Yoga call this the Dwapara Yuga. (or the era after the dark age or iron age). It’s a dark age in terms spiritual understanding.
 
The Bible states that some prophets live 500 years the other 400 year, so they add all the prophet and they obtain a number like 586 (or something like that). That’s not how I read the scriptures. Scriptures are there to explain subtle spiritual realities. Determining the age of the planet is the area of Geology.
 
I know it’s not entirely the case right now. But religious people need to understand this the sooner the better


 
“Wait. What did I say? Which realities of the 21 st century are a problem for christianity or islam?
 
2. I’m not sure what your comment about Emperor Constantine and 1 Corinthians 11:2-16 is about.
Are you saying that rule was set by Emperor Constantine and he injected those lines into the Corinthians book?”
 
 
Last phrase. I don’t know about that. Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity in his deathbed. And before dying that was his legacy “One God / One Emperor”. So this was the origin of the unification of Church and state (in the Western world)
 
“What is a god for you? Does a god have a brain or some kind of data processor? Does he think? Can he communicate with human languages?”
 
Hindus believe in one God “Brahma” (He wo is not). All the other Gods are actually “aspects” of that Singular Reality. The Religion of Akhenaten (1350 BC) was also that. The Sun disc was the origin of all the other Gods. In other “pagan” cosmologies. There is always this “All-father” (the God who created all the other Gods).
 
So I see that as “The Ultimate reality”. I think people simply switched to monotheism because of this. Polytheism made everything more complicated (that’s my theory).
 
“Why was that an important rule before? Why was that rule eliminated?I don’t know every rule in Islam. Has the rule about eating pork been eliminated? Has the rule about praying 5 times a day been eliminated?”
 
I tried to explain these stuff to Grandnudger before you: People (meaning the Ego) likes to travesties everything it perceives as a threat. True religion is the ultimate threat to the existence of the Ego. So the Older a religious teaching, the more artificial stuff will be added and the more real stuff will be extracted from it. Many spiritual paths require us to meditate or pay at least 2 times a day (in the morning and in the evening). Praying 5 times a day is another option. It help us to refocus our Ego-based perception back toward our True-Self (this in turn does help us in our day to day issues) Again: Deeper issue.
 
What I said is that the Sharia Law started as a great invention in that time. But in todays world it cannot answer to the needs of our post-modern era. It’s as simple as that
 

---

 
Final Comment:
 
Kurt Russel really looks cool in that movie. And I remember falling in love with Mili Avital too.
 
But I will tell you what I told Grandnudger before: Being an atheist is perfectly fine. Why?
 
- True spirituality wants us to present an empty bowl to God. We have to “know that we don’t know” so most of the time it’s a process of unlearning than a process of learning. (Another deeper subject)
 
An Atheist is someone who has given up all mythology. And that’s (actually) better than most religious people who are involved in all sorts of Dogma and misunderstanding and fear / guilt based interpretation who are (according to several important spiritual teachers) completely false and misleading.
 
So I am not here to “spread the word”. I am mostly here to demonstrate that nobody has a monopoly on spiritual teachings and that my way is different from the greater part of monotheistic believer and that it is still very real too.
 
 

[The Grand Nudger]

Think about how what you just said ties back into your opq.  You're a theist, you're ready for a totalitarian dictatorship run by a god-king.  You would trade this for that.  

Do you think that your islamic upbringing might have had some effect in shaping that part of you that openly desires a theocracy?  This is one of the reasons that an an anti-theist.  I don't think that it's possible for a person to genuinely believe in theistic gods without inevitably affirming dictatorships, as theism envisions the entire cosmos as a dictatorship with gods at the head.  This is the right and proper organization of the word as per that genuine belief.

You are distorting what I am saying. I am saying that Ancient Egypt was a state of law. Their version of “theocracy” was actually very similar to our modern society. That’s what I wanted to say.
 
 

Who's society......? I don't live in a totalitarian dictatorship run by a god king. At least not yet. I do not yearn for it, and would not trade what I have for it.

[Ferrocyanide]

Yet there is a deeper meaning in that too. That deeper meaning does not just come to you through some book or religious indoctrination. It’s a reality that can be understood intellectually (on some level). But it can only be known by direct experience. That direct experience is what I call genuine spirituality. That’s my way of understanding it.

 

If you mean direct experience, such as vision, various other sensory data and emotions, yes I suppose you can call that as spiritual. There is a sense of an “I am a conscious being”.

This later is better. Because our prophet did not display some “miracles” like the prophets before him. My conviction is that the Universe simply realigns itself and most of the time it does so through real people (like you and me) and in this way his will is done no matter what.

Because of that the Etymology of Islam is not to put bombs everywhere and murder whoever you can murder but to surrender meaning that His will is going to be done no matter what.

 

There is no way to tell who is a prophet and who is not.
Obviously some people though that there was something special about Mohamed.
I’m guessing he impressed his friends by saying some sentences, the kind of stuff that you find in the Bible.

It is possible that the universe aligns itself and the people place bombs since that is the will of the jewish god. How would you know that it is not the will of the jewish god?

So, there needs to be some kind of test established that a person takes to determine if he is a prophet and we can print a license for him.
The better solution is for the alien to just talk to everyone.

5) I think he is talking about:
“Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell. 29 Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. 30 And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. 31 So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.


Again: the thinking of the world is 180 degree the opposite of God.

 

The above comes into conflict with

Ecclesiastes 9:10 KING JAMES VERSION
Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do [it] with thy might; for [there is] no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.

^^^^^A dead person goes to the grave.
Jews believe that they don’t have a spirit. That the soul just means a machine that functions.

Of course, religions evolve over time. New leaders come along and have new ideas.

“40 “Anyone who welcomes you welcomes me, and anyone who welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. 41 Whoever welcomes a prophet as a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever welcomes a righteous person as a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward.”

 

I am not going to welcome random individuals to my house.
The idea of going to some random person’s house and just knocking and they let you in and you eat their food and take a bath and use their stuff sounds like idealism but who wants to open their door to some random person and let them use their stuff?
There are hotels and motels for that. If someone is homeless, there are government programs for that and we pay taxes so that those programs work.

There are other idealistic comments in the Bible, such as turn the other cheek.
That is pretty bad advice.
You would accept being violated, raped, your things stolen, your land conquered?
Would your god accept that? Can I rape him and beat him up and he would turn the other cheek?

At one point Jesus says, don’t worry about what you put in the body. Worry about your soul.
Unfortunately, reality demands that we eat properly, we exercise. The body is a machine and you have to take care of it.

I have seen what that leads to. I had a family member that would not bathe, would not look for a job.

I understand their POV. These guys have this notion that the “material world” is not good and they want to go to some other utopean universe.

7) As far as I know the Jews murdered Jesus because they decided that he was not the Messiah they have been waiting for. Just like today with their attitude of extreme Zionism, back in the days they expected a different more earthly “Messiah”. So when Jesus came with his teachings of love, and compassion, and forgiveness, and “Kingdom of heaven” they just hated him

 

That would be part of the reason. If you are claiming to be the savior of Israel, then you better be good at it.
Like I said, Israel was probably conquered by Rome for a long while. They probably executed the jewish soldiers and along with it, probably the entire royal class.
There was a need for a savior from their god. Their was an expectation that a savior would be sent one day.
Probably that happened a bunch of times. The savior came, motivated the people, and the roman army put them in their place.
After a while, the priestly class are going to get accused of instigated disorder.
The priestly class in order to survive, would have to cooperate with the Romans, point out who is a trouble maker.
The new messiah gets killed and peace gets kept but how would the followers of the messiah feel about the priestly class?

So many religion have this concept of “The end of days / the end of time”

 

Think about it. Isn’t ancient man going to ask some of these basic questions?
How did it start?
Was there an Earth forever or did the gods make it?
What was the sequence of events? (See Genesis for the jewish version for this)
Why do I exist? What is the meaning of like?
Why does stuff exist?
What happened to my son when he died? Did he turn into worm food?
What happened to my dead parents?

Is it going to be like this forever? For the tanakh, the original ending might be this:

Malachi 4:5 KING JAMES VERSION
Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD: {4:6} And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.

^^^^^Apparently, the author didn’t have much to say about the end of days. I know that other jewish priests have written a lot of text but I have not read them.
Anyway, for the Bible, someone decided to stick Revelation in the end of the Bible.
Apparently, the author lacks talent or something. The europeans did not find it enjoyable and most did not want Revelations to be included in the Bible.
Or maybe Revelation makes Jesus look like a psycho and it doesn’t fit with the peace & love Jesus.

Saying that the earth is 6000 years old is the same thing as political Islamists


 

I disagree. That is not about politics. It is about deciding that the holy text is perfect, crystal clear, a text that tells us real history and science. It also has to do with tradition.

The Bible states that some prophets live 500 years the other 400 year, so they add all the prophet and they obtain a number like 586 (or something like that). That’s not how I read the scriptures. Scriptures are there to explain subtle spiritual realities. Determining the age of the planet is the area of Geology.


 

The Bible describes a chain of events starting from Genesis 1:1, so it is the reasonable thing to do, to add the ages of the people.
After all, the info is suppose to come from an all knowing scientist (the jewish god) so, maybe he has some info in there about the age of the universe, and more.
What is wrong in believing that you can populate the Earth with 1 female and 1 male? The stuff written in Genesis would sound reasonable to a primitive human.
Some people ask, why does god take 6 days to create stuff? So what. He can do whatever he wants.
In other words, there isn’t anything in there that contradicts the science of the 1200 BCE.

Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity in his deathbed. And before dying that was his legacy “One God / One Emperor”. So this was the origin of the unification of Church and state (in the Western world)

 

You mean this Constantine?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantine_the_Great

He became a christian at age 40, year 312.
He died at age 65.
It is said that his mother converted him to christianity.
At one point, Constantine went to war and he saw an omen. He saw a cross in the sky, a voice that said in my name, conquer. They one that war and so, the soldiers took it as a sign that christianity is the correct religion and they converted to christianity.

Hindus believe in one God “Brahma” (He wo is not). All the other Gods are actually “aspects” of that Singular Reality. The Religion of Akhenaten (1350 BC) was also that. The Sun disc was the origin of all the other Gods. In other “pagan” cosmologies. There is always this “All-father” (the God who created all the other Gods).
 
So I see that as “The Ultimate reality”. I think people simply switched to monotheism because of this. Polytheism made everything more complicated (that’s my theory).

 

Sounds like you are saying that the god has a brain. It seems to be popular to believe that the god has a personality (brain).

I tried to explain these stuff to Grandnudger before you: People (meaning the Ego) likes to travesties everything it perceives as a threat. True religion is the ultimate threat to the existence of the Ego. So the Older a religious teaching, the more artificial stuff will be added and the more real stuff will be extracted from it. Many spiritual paths require us to meditate or pay at least 2 times a day (in the morning and in the evening). Praying 5 times a day is another option. It help us to refocus our Ego-based perception back toward our True-Self (this in turn does help us in our day to day issues) Again: Deeper issue.
 

Sounds like you are saying the rule about pork is just nonsense and should not have been there since day 1.
The rule about praying 5 times a day is not a requirement anymore.

[Leonardo17]

Yet there is a deeper meaning in that too. That deeper meaning does not just come to you through some book or religious indoctrination. It’s a reality that can be understood intellectually (on some level). But it can only be known by direct experience. That direct experience is what I call genuine spirituality. That’s my way of understanding it.

 

If you mean direct experience, such as vision, various other sensory data and emotions, yes I suppose you can call that as spiritual. There is a sense of an “I am a conscious being”.

This later is better. Because our prophet did not display some “miracles” like the prophets before him. My conviction is that the Universe simply realigns itself and most of the time it does so through real people (like you and me) and in this way his will is done no matter what.

Because of that the Etymology of Islam is not to put bombs everywhere and murder whoever you can murder but to surrender meaning that His will is going to be done no matter what.

 

There is no way to tell who is a prophet and who is not.
Obviously some people though that there was something special about Mohamed.
I’m guessing he impressed his friends by saying some sentences, the kind of stuff that you find in the Bible.

It is possible that the universe aligns itself and the people place bombs since that is the will of the jewish god. How would you know that it is not the will of the jewish god?

So, there needs to be some kind of test established that a person takes to determine if he is a prophet and we can print a license for him.
The better solution is for the alien to just talk to everyone.

 5) I think he is talking about:
“Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell. 29 Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. 30 And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. 31 So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.


Again: the thinking of the world is 180 degree the opposite of God.

 

The above comes into conflict with

Ecclesiastes 9:10 KING JAMES VERSION
Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do [it] with thy might; for [there is] no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.

^^^^^A dead person goes to the grave.
Jews believe that they don’t have a spirit. That the soul just means a machine that functions.

Of course, religions evolve over time. New leaders come along and have new ideas.

“40 “Anyone who welcomes you welcomes me, and anyone who welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. 41 Whoever welcomes a prophet as a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever welcomes a righteous person as a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward.”

 

I am not going to welcome random individuals to my house.
The idea of going to some random person’s house and just knocking and they let you in and you eat their food and take a bath and use their stuff sounds like idealism but who wants to open their door to some random person and let them use their stuff?
There are hotels and motels for that. If someone is homeless, there are government programs for that and we pay taxes so that those programs work.

There are other idealistic comments in the Bible, such as turn the other cheek.
That is pretty bad advice.
You would accept being violated, raped, your things stolen, your land conquered?
Would your god accept that? Can I rape him and beat him up and he would turn the other cheek?

At one point Jesus says, don’t worry about what you put in the body. Worry about your soul.
Unfortunately, reality demands that we eat properly, we exercise. The body is a machine and you have to take care of it.

I have seen what that leads to. I had a family member that would not bathe, would not look for a job.

I understand their POV. These guys have this notion that the “material world” is not good and they want to go to some other utopean universe.

7) As far as I know the Jews murdered Jesus because they decided that he was not the Messiah they have been waiting for. Just like today with their attitude of extreme Zionism, back in the days they expected a different more earthly “Messiah”. So when Jesus came with his teachings of love, and compassion, and forgiveness, and “Kingdom of heaven” they just hated him

 

That would be part of the reason. If you are claiming to be the savior of Israel, then you better be good at it.
Like I said, Israel was probably conquered by Rome for a long while. They probably executed the jewish soldiers and along with it, probably the entire royal class.
There was a need for a savior from their god. Their was an expectation that a savior would be sent one day.
Probably that happened a bunch of times. The savior came, motivated the people, and the roman army put them in their place.
After a while, the priestly class are going to get accused of instigated disorder.
The priestly class in order to survive, would have to cooperate with the Romans, point out who is a trouble maker.
The new messiah gets killed and peace gets kept but how would the followers of the messiah feel about the priestly class?

So many religion have this concept of “The end of days / the end of time”

 

Think about it. Isn’t ancient man going to ask some of these basic questions?
How did it start?
Was there an Earth forever or did the gods make it?
What was the sequence of events? (See Genesis for the jewish version for this)
Why do I exist? What is the meaning of like?
Why does stuff exist?
What happened to my son when he died? Did he turn into worm food?
What happened to my dead parents?

Is it going to be like this forever? For the tanakh, the original ending might be this:

Malachi 4:5 KING JAMES VERSION
Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD: {4:6} And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.

^^^^^Apparently, the author didn’t have much to say about the end of days. I know that other jewish priests have written a lot of text but I have not read them.
Anyway, for the Bible, someone decided to stick Revelation in the end of the Bible.
Apparently, the author lacks talent or something. The europeans did not find it enjoyable and most did not want Revelations to be included in the Bible.
Or maybe Revelation makes Jesus look like a psycho and it doesn’t fit with the peace & love Jesus.

Saying that the earth is 6000 years old is the same thing as political Islamists


 

I disagree. That is not about politics. It is about deciding that the holy text is perfect, crystal clear, a text that tells us real history and science. It also has to do with tradition.

The Bible states that some prophets live 500 years the other 400 year, so they add all the prophet and they obtain a number like 586 (or something like that). That’s not how I read the scriptures. Scriptures are there to explain subtle spiritual realities. Determining the age of the planet is the area of Geology.


 

The Bible describes a chain of events starting from Genesis 1:1, so it is the reasonable thing to do, to add the ages of the people.
After all, the info is suppose to come from an all knowing scientist (the jewish god) so, maybe he has some info in there about the age of the universe, and more.
What is wrong in believing that you can populate the Earth with 1 female and 1 male? The stuff written in Genesis would sound reasonable to a primitive human.
Some people ask, why does god take 6 days to create stuff? So what. He can do whatever he wants.
In other words, there isn’t anything in there that contradicts the science of the 1200 BCE.

Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity in his deathbed. And before dying that was his legacy “One God / One Emperor”. So this was the origin of the unification of Church and state (in the Western world)

 

You mean this Constantine?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantine_the_Great

He became a christian at age 40, year 312.
He died at age 65.
It is said that his mother converted him to christianity.
At one point, Constantine went to war and he saw an omen. He saw a cross in the sky, a voice that said in my name, conquer. They one that war and so, the soldiers took it as a sign that christianity is the correct religion and they converted to christianity.

Hindus believe in one God “Brahma” (He wo is not). All the other Gods are actually “aspects” of that Singular Reality. The Religion of Akhenaten (1350 BC) was also that. The Sun disc was the origin of all the other Gods. In other “pagan” cosmologies. There is always this “All-father” (the God who created all the other Gods).
 
So I see that as “The Ultimate reality”. I think people simply switched to monotheism because of this. Polytheism made everything more complicated (that’s my theory).

 

Sounds like you are saying that the god has a brain. It seems to be popular to believe that the god has a personality (brain).

I tried to explain these stuff to Grandnudger before you: People (meaning the Ego) likes to travesties everything it perceives as a threat. True religion is the ultimate threat to the existence of the Ego. So the Older a religious teaching, the more artificial stuff will be added and the more real stuff will be extracted from it. Many spiritual paths require us to meditate or pay at least 2 times a day (in the morning and in the evening). Praying 5 times a day is another option. It help us to refocus our Ego-based perception back toward our True-Self (this in turn does help us in our day to day issues) Again: Deeper issue.
 

Sounds like you are saying the rule about pork is just nonsense and should not have been there since day 1.
The rule about praying 5 times a day is not a requirement anymore.

1) Yeah, something like that
 
But I am not talking of visions / apparitions / telepathic connection to something like “Cornelius, The Admiral of the Galactic Fleet”.
 
As we evolve in that direction, the energy flows are changing, the structure of the brain is changing. Transandental meditation is something like that. Advanced meditators are able to “experience” their True Essence like that. And they are even able to stay there.
 
But again: This doesn’t come for free and it rarely happens rapidly. Most of us are simply “on the path” of getting there.
 
2) You know when the prophet died, all clan leaders of Arabia started to claim that they were “the next prophet”. This happened just when he died. That’s the human Ego.
 
On the placing of bombs: Again: These are deeper subjects. If I knew I would be an enlightened master or something like that. But Religion does not deny the fact that we have a free will. That’s another reason why it is very personal and individual.
 
I cannot stop people placing Bombs (I am no FSB / I am no CIA). I can turn inward, and this will change the world actually. Think of it like being a positive person who is smiling to everyone and is being kind to everyone, this type of approach on a massive level can (ultimately) take down people who only see power and money in their lives and will do anything to get these things. I don’t know if you are following?
 
3) You are making me read the Bible. I think this is beautyfull:
 
“

The living know that they will die,
    but the dead know nothing;
they have no more reward,
    for the memory of them is forgotten.
6 What they loved, hated,
    and envied has already perished;
and there is no reward for them from long ago
    in everything that is done under the sun.
 
7 Go and eat your food with gladness, and drink your wine with a pleasant heart; for God is already pleased with your deeds. 8 At all times may your clothing be white, and let not oil ever lack on your head. 9 Enjoy life with the wife whom you love all the days of your vain life which He has given you under the sun; because that is your reward in life and in your toil because you have labored under the sun. 10 Whatever your hands find to do, do with your strength; for there is no work or planning or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, the place where you are going.”

 
- It says “This world is not eternal (it’s basically some sort of hallucination) so (10th verse) Do stuff when you are in this world and do it sincerely. (And that echoes the Quran too)
 
Jews and the Afterlife: I cannot tell them they are wrong. I am not like those New-Age people who would say that we just leave our body with and astral body and then we reincarnate and then it’s all La La Land. So they might be right in some way. I am reading the works of advanced Yogis while trying to understand what’s going on.
 
But true religion does not even “care” about that. It wants us to return to our true identity (as a son of God) and to live with that awareness (instead of the limited Ego-based awareness)
 
4) I think he is talking about the “Christ Consciousness”. He is meaning that if we open ourselves to the Christ / to the Holy Spirit, Than we would be allowing God (our true self) into our hearth. (I might be completely wrong about these things, I don’t know that much about Christianity)
 
- No. Jihad in Islam means just that. + You are not supposed to obey to Tyrants either. The way I Understand it, the true believer has the duty of opposing tyranny in the name of Truth.
 
Old School religion always says stuff like “Shut up. Sit down. Let them do whatever they want to you” So you already know that this isn’t going to work.
True spirituality has made me more decisive in protecting stuff I see as important. The only difference is that I am doing that more consciously now.
 
Now I don’t just hate rich capitalists who destroy the environment etc. I do sort of forgive these people on some level (I see them as Ego-Surrendered persons who actually need to be loved) and I act within my community to help things evolve toward something that is more pluralistic. And I am more decisive and assertive about these things now.
 

“At one point Jesus says, don’t worry about what you put in the body. Worry about your soul.
Unfortunately, reality demands that we eat properly, we exercise. The body is a machine and you have to take care of it.
 
I have seen what that leads to. I had a family member that would not bathe, would not look for a job.
 
I understand their POV. These guys have this notion that the “material world” is not good and they want to go to some other utopean universe.”

 
- We are not supposed to become couch potatoes for God. That’s not how it works. You seem to be a young man so you have to do your thing and find your way (whatever that is) And the Quran does mention “Those who do good jobs for the benefit of all” and does despise people who get things to brutal strength and power (Like major oil and coal companies and/or the NRA in the US for instance)
 
5) I see it more like the Ego being disturbed by the Spiritual. See the Ego is actually everything that is described as “The Serpent” in Abrahamic Books. It is there to destroy you, not just to inconvenience you. It will take you down and it will take other people down too if you let it. Just think of all the thing the Pharaoh did to himself where he could have said “If you don’t like being here just F.O. Damned!”. In the movie I like the final part when he just rushes toward the Jews not seeing or caring about anything else. That’s how all of us are when our Ego-based Narcissism has been wounded in some way.
 
So What true spirituality says there is: “Just wait… One moment. Take a deep breathe. Don’t hit that “Send E-Mail Button” or “Don’t reach out for that pack of Cigs. Just go and drink a cup of water. Call your friend. Just don’t hit that “send E-mail  Button””  
 
True spirituality is when you are able to do these thing more easily than before. It’s about mental discipline too. That’s what we do in the Ramadan. It’s not about gathering in the Temple mound and defying the Jews. We like to go to more quiet places where we can be introspective. And we don’t sleep until noon either. We wake up early (as before) then we teach our body to remain hungry for a while. Just to know how strong we are and how we can skip thing if we want to.
 
On Israel: Sadhguru says that there are thing we will understand at the moment of death. Everyone will get it at that moment. No exception: You came in with nothing / you are leaving with nothing (What do you lose? – Nothing).
 
So that’s why the Clergy was wrong. That’s where The 6th century Muawiyah I and his Son Yazid who murdered the true Khalif (Ali) in 680.  They took their “Israel” or their worldly power and domination by murdering spiritual values (the son in law of the prophet who was our true spiritual leader at the time).
 
So Religion doesn’t like that. It’s about our spiritual salvation. Not about any gain or improvement in the material world.
 
And that reflects a small personality. That is a personality that is Ego-based / fear based that is ignorant of the spiritual potential there.
 
6) One has to be very careful on these issues. There was I time when I was reading the book of someone called J.Z. Knight about the end of days and believed it.
 
My vision of the end of time is more simple than that:
 
- The Messiah being within us. We need to allow it to surface and bring us back to our true selves and save us from our limitless narcissism and Egotism. Than there will be no more 16,000 children dying of hunger every day, there will be no more Arabo-İsraeli conflict.
 
Think of this: How many people believe that world peace is possible today?
 
- Very few. The annual US budget on defense in 800 Billion Dollar / year and rising.
 
/So you don’t have a solution to anything I am talking about. I do. Humanity will take this step (one way or the other). And that will be “The end of time”. Because as Eistein puts it “Time is an illusion” we will be living “here and now”. Like in John Lennon’s song “İmagine”.
 
You may not agree with me. But that’s the sort of stuff I am into on an individual level.
 
7) Of course it is about politics. Why did Galileo and Copernicus have to hide their findings? Why was it so Had for Columbus to start his journey? Why did they Murder Giordano Bruno?” and “Why was it forbidden until the renaissance for ordinary people to even read the bible?”
 
Do not be misled. Religious zeal and bigotry and the political usade of religion (think of Narendra Mody in India) is a very dangerous thing because it’s like fascism. It creates an army of robots. It creates a completely sick society that is cut-out from reality itself. It’s pure evil.
 
8) That’s something I read from Swami Sri-Yukteswar. I have nothing got support it but I sort of believe it.
 
9) I may be mistaking. In a novel that I read he had remained a pagan until his death bed. After him there was this guy called Julianus who even tried to restore paganism to the empire. Anyway: Constantine created political Christianity. Until him it was just another religion that was being tolerated within the empire.
 
10) Yogis describe “our brain” as a mere cutting tool. It’s a cutting tool that splits everything in two. If left unchecked, it’s like a razor sharp knife in the hand of a 4 year old. So Yoga it’s like the Zen-mind. Instead of trying to solve everything with a tool we believe is all powerful, we just step aside and we “let go and let God”.
 
Because that Intelligence is the intelligence that makes planets revolve around the sun or make embryos evolve into babies.
 
Again: I am a student of these ideas. DO not think that I understand these principles fully on a personal level either. 


11) There are many separate ways that are leading to the same heaven. I know people who give money to the poor because they are unable to do fasting in the Ramadan.

 
God will not take the Mjölnir and strike upon your head with it because you are too dumb too follows his orders up to the slightest detail.  (not in my way of seeing things)

[Ferrocyanide]

1) Maybe. I can’t say much about meditation since I have not done it. If it actually does something, such as move objects around telepathically or seeing remote location via remote sensing, then it can be demonstrated.

2) I guess some people want to be the next big leader since they want to impress people, they want to feel important.
Also, it is normal that when the master leader dies, it creates a power vacuum and the followers struggle to become the next leader and this often leads to a split in the religion. Some of these organized religions go for a democratic process. The main followers vote. That’s how a pope is elected. Probably, that is how the mormons (LDS) do it as well.
Mormons have 1 big cheese and with him are 2 guys. This hits the magical number of 3.
Below them are 7 guys. This hits the magical number of 7.
Below them are 72 guys. This hits the magical number of 72.

^^^^^I’m answering that in terms of Occam’s Razor. For a smooth shave, please buy Occam’s.

In terms of believing in gods and space aliens, I have no way of knowing if Mohamed or any of his followers are talking to some non human entities.

3) I was talking about the soul. The word soul is defined in different ways. This is something that you are going to run into when you talk to a theist.
For christians, it mostly means “intellect, thought, will, psyche”.

Ecclesiastes 9:10 KING JAMES VERSION
Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do [it] with thy might; for [there is] no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest.

^^^^^Mr Ecclesiastes says that because when you are dead, you are deactivated. Your brain is off, so you have no soul.



Matthew 10:28 KING JAMES VERSION
And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

^^^^^Ecclesiastes 9:10 comes into conflict with this because when you are dead, there is no soul.
Matthew 10:28 seems to suggest that the soul can exist without a brain.

I have talked to christians that say that we don’t have a spirit, a gas thing, a blue glowing guy like we see in ghostbusters. We only have a soul and that is possible with the brain.
So, in order to have a resurrection, you would need a body in the after life.
Jewhova’s witnesses seem to believe that kind of thing.


4) The Bible has been interpreted and reinterpreted throughout the ages. Since it is open to many interpretations, your interpretation can’t be wrong.
For me, it looks like Jesus wants salemen. He wants his boys to go from house to house and do a sales pitch and convert people. I’m not interested in having long conversations with such people. I have read the same Bible as they have. Probably all europeans know how to read since the 20 th century. In past centuries, most people did not know how to read and the priest was the only educated person in town. He read the Bible for you at church. At some point in time, there were no printing machines either.
Times change but some are still stuck in the past. A few years back, jewhova witnesses would go door knowing. Christians trying to convert christians. Imagine that. Now, they stand at street corners with their pamphlets.

The other interpretation would be to offer your hospitality to some stranger in town. I have heard that a few cultures did this. These are old customs that don’t work in our modern million people population cities.

Now I don’t just hate rich capitalists who destroy the environment etc. I do sort of forgive these people on some level (I see them as Ego-Surrendered persons who actually need to be loved) and I act within my community to help things evolve toward something that is more pluralistic. And I am more decisive and assertive about these things now.
 

Yes, various people have various personality problems. From their POV, their personality is fine and they view others are defective.
The solution is not tails about Lazarus and the nameless rich man.
I think the solution is socialism. Place a high level of tax on the rich and fund universities, have public healthcare, public streets, police, firefighters, etc. All humans consume around the same amount of food for energy, so they don’t need millions of dollars.
There needs to be a few government organizations run by scientists to investigate how companies operate. Make recommendations on how to create closed cycles. Have government create policies to keep costs down, keep the pollution down, don’t ship plastic waste to foreign countries.

There was a nice show call Bullshit from Penn & Teller. I think they did an episode on the tax system and some other things.

- We are not supposed to become couch potatoes for God. That’s not how it works. You seem to be a young man so you have to do your thing and find your way (whatever that is) And the Quran does mention “Those who do good jobs for the benefit of all” and does despise people who get things to brutal strength and power (Like major oil and coal companies and/or the NRA in the US for instance)
 

Taking care of your body and also educating yourself is a long term process. Such things are discussed often in the media and schools. There is no reason to believe that concept comes from a god.
But the Bible is written the way it is written and I am commenting on it.
If the jewish god despises petrol companies and NRA, good for him. What is he doing to solve the problem?

5) Who is Sadhguru?

So that’s why the Clergy was wrong. That’s where The 6th century Muawiyah I and his Son Yazid who murdered the true Khalif (Ali) in 680.  They took their “Israel” or their worldly power and domination by murdering spiritual values (the son in law of the prophet who was our true spiritual leader at the time). 

I can’t say much about it since I don’t know who these people are and what the back story is.What’s a khalif?
A king?

6) “Think of this: How many people believe that world peace is possible today?

- Very few. The annual US budget on defense in 800 Billion Dollar / year and rising.”

It is a big world and you can find a believer in anything and everything.
Are you a believer in world peace? Do you believe that there is peace in heaven/space or wherever the gods are?

I don’t think Einstein has said that time is an illusion. He has said that time is something that clocks measure.
Also, time is a real thing. It has been demonstrated that time flows at various speed and experiments match up with the equations in physics. This is an indication that the theory has a good model.

7) Well, since the believers involve themselves in policies of the government, yes, it is about politics.
I will flip the switch from disagree to agree.

The believers of YEC in the USA try to inject their beliefs in biology classes and in the government.

Do not be misled. Religious zeal and bigotry and the political usade of religion (think of Narendra Mody in India) is a very dangerous thing because it’s like fascism. It creates an army of robots. It creates a completely sick society that is cut-out from reality itself. It’s pure evil.

I don’t know Narendra Mody, but for the YEC, their beliefs are their reality.
They don’t want the forces of evil, the devil and his friends the scientists and the atheists to convert their children to satanists. From their POV, I am involved in politics since I effect policy when I want science to be thought in school.
In other words, science is politico-science. Atheism is politico-atheism.

From their POV, evolution theory is not science and must be removed and real science should take its place, which is creationism (or intelligent design).

9) Rome had crumbled for some reason. Constantine wanted to bring it back and he decided that christianity can be used to reunite the various europeans. The problem with christianity was that there was never a singular christian religion. There were various sects that popup when a messiah comes along to save Israel and it gets disbanded. So, main issue was that they had to figure out what Jesus was. He called the big wig priests from various towns to come and work it out. It was the first council of Nicea. The 2 main ideas was that Jesus was the son of god or he was the jewish god in human form. After a month of debating, they could still not agree. Constantine stepped in and said to just choose something, so they decided on both. I think the second council of Nicea was about deciding which holy text to keep and which to burn. There were many in circulation.

Islam did not have these problems since it was not some obscure sect or a bunch of sects. Of course, the text of Mohamed ended up being shorter since he did not have the original Bible. Also, it was apparently just written by his followers and human memory tends to be faulty. Anyway, there weren’t many versions of the holy text with one conflicting with another. They sat down together and tried to make it uniform.
I haven’t combed through the Koran but I assume it doesn’t self contradict.

11) Yes, I have encountered people who try to claim that all religions are basically the same. This notion seems to be something that Hindus and Buddhists have. For the jewish flavor of religions, all other religions are false and are a mockery of the jewish god.