Knowing everything and allowing evil

[tackattack]

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I didn’t say acts would be impressive.

Well, you offered it like as if it should convince me of something.

You still haven’t established that Jesus in scripture spat in the face of God as you claimed earlier. You’re theories are fine and dandy, if you’re ok with picking and choosing which scriptures fit in with your belief and ignoring others.

I don't need to make a case for it. It's right in the scriptures and cannot be denied.

• The Torah teaches that God directed us to judge others and to stone sinners and heathens to death.
  
• The Gospels have Jesus teaching that people should not judge others and that they should not stone sinners to death.
  

Why do you think the Jews were stoning sinners to death in the first place? Where do you think they got that idea from?

Jesus was clearly rejecting the teachings of the Torah (i.e. The commandments of the God of Abraham)

It's right there in the gospels.

• The Torah teaches that God directed people to seek revenge as in an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
  
• The Gospels have Jesus teaching that people should not seek revenge but should instead forgive others and turn the other cheek.
  

This are complete polar opposites.

There's no question that this man Jesus was rejecting the teachings of the Torah and the God of Abraham as being immoral and unhealthy. And the moral values that Jesus taught were clearly in harmony with the teachings of Mahayana Buddhism.

Why should anyone think that the "son" of the God of Abraham would disagree with his commandments?

I find it surprising though that you can so blatantly hate on Christianity (you’ve obviously had some bad experiences and for that I’m truly sorry) yet skew it to fit your newest flavor.

This isn't a personal hatred. Christianity has been used to hate on people for centuries. Christianity has been used to persecute and belittle anyone who refused to agree with the religion. Christianity was used to destroy and renounce Pagan spirituality, and burn pagan holy sites to the ground. Christianity. Christianity is responsible for the torture of tens of thousands of innocent women and even had them burned alive at the stake. The thought is horrific. Christianity has been (and still is being used) to impede the intellectual achievements man humanity. Christianity interfered with scientific progress all throughout history and continues to do so to this very day by renouncing evolution and the true age of the universe and Earth.

It's teaches ignorance and fear. Fear of God even. It uses the notion of a supposedly all-loving God to instill shame and guilt into same-gender lovers.

In short, Christianity uses Jesus as a weapon of hatred in the name of a supposedly all-mighty God.

Christianity creates hate in the name of Jesus and the God of Abraham. The hate is on their shoulders not mine.

You don’t find it odd, that when you were a Christian Jesus was Christ, and now that you’re a Buddhist, Jesus is a Buddhist.

First off, you're making huge assumptions.

I was born into Christianity, I did not chose to believe in the religion. Moreover, it would be a lie to say that I believed that Jesus was the "Christ" at any point. What happened is that my parents, extended family and society, and the clergy of our church all told me that Jesus was the "Christ".

When I finally decided to look into the matter myself and read the Bible I quickly discovered that the claims are utter nonsense.

So I can't say that there was ever a time when I actually "believed" that Jesus was "The Christ". All I did was accept what my parents were telling me and presumed that they wouldn't lie about something like that. What I realized later is that, in truth, they had no clue. They were just going along with the crowd and doing what their parents had taught them, etc.

I don't think any of them seriously looked into the matter. They were probably content with just believing in the religoin and weren't truly interested in questioning it. In fact, they were probably taught that to question it would be to question God, and that's frowned on as being 'arrogant'. Question the Bible too much and you'll quickly get that utterly stupid saying, "Who are you to question God?"

I may not agree with everything considered by the majority to be standard Christian belief, but I don’t go around tearing off the stickers of rubics cubes, and solving things that way either. I'll get to reading the study when I have a free moment.

I have absolutely no respect for a religion that has a history of ruthless and relentless proselyting and "in-your-face" evangelizing. If the religion were truly as meek as Jesus taught people to be then it wouldn't be a problem. But face it, it's not meek at all. It's constantly in the face of others accusing them of "rejecting God", or "refusing to believe", or whatever.

It's disgusting and I make absolutely no apology at all for my strong stance against it. I would even personally vote to have Christianity taken off the list of "valid religions" and instead have it listed as a hate cult.

I my personally opinion there is nothing more despicable than using a historical character like Jesus in the pretense that the religion stands for what he taught all the while using him a hate weapon to support their religious bigotry.

Just like Jesus called the Pharisees hypocrites, I call the Christians hypocrites. And as long as they use Jesus as weapon of hatred I will continue to condemn them as hypocrites.

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Having said that I'm fully aware that there are a lot of sheeple who view themselves as "Christians" yet they do not hate anyone, nor do they use Jesus as an excuse to hate others. In fact, thank God, (not the God of Abraham obviously), that the vast majority of "Christians" are indeed sheeple. They are just trying to get through life the best they can. They have accepted Jesus as "The Christ" because they were taught that this is what they should do and they want to do the right thing. Bless their souls.

It's not the "followers" of this religion that I have beef with. Those sheeple "Christians" are just victims of the cult. I was born into a family of sheeple and basically became one until I decided to look into the doctrine more thoroughly myself.

My entire family of extremely devoted Free Methodist Christians were the nicest people you can imagine. They were friendly, they'd give you the shirt off their back if they thought it would help you. They would be the last people on Earth to buck science, or harass same-gender partners, or to even evangelize or proselytize their religion to other people. If all Christians were like the Christians I grew up among no one would have a problem with the religion. But let's face it, that's not the case.

In fact, even when I was a Christian and I was trying to make sense of the Bible every time I would try to interpret things in a "good" way, hardcore fundamentalists would argue for a more hateful interpretation. Hardcore Christian Fundamentalists became the greatest obstacle in even trying to salvage anything "good" from the religion.

And that's still the case today.

Just like my sig line indicates, clearly the Bible has Jesus forgiving people "for they know not what they do". And these are people were were denying his divinity, mocking him, physically beating him to a pulp, and nailing him to a pole.

I point to that and show this as evidence that Jesus does not require anyone to worship him or ask him for forgiveness. Yet the hardcore hateful Christian fundamentalists won't stand for a truly forgiving Jesus who offers unconditional grace and love.

They demand that Jesus will hate you if you don't kneel down and worship him and repent your sins in the name of the "Christ Almighty". And then after you're done doing that you had better get up and start supporting the entire Christian religious bigotry scheme proclaiming that the entire Old Testament is the "Word of God" and that God hates homosexuality, etc. etc. etc.

These people are just using Jesus as a patsy to support their religious bigotry and hatred.

Show anywhere in the Bible where Jesus might forgive someone without them supporting Christian bigotry and the Christian fundies will be quick to renounce it with a vengeance. They will not tolerate a loving Jesus who offers unconditional love and Grace, because that would defeat their use of him as a weapon of hatred.

Do you think it odd to go ahead and throw in a falsifiable to those of the time genealogy of Jesus’ lineage if there wasn’t a point to them proving He was born of the line of David?

They didn't "prove" anything. All they did was write down a bunch of gibberish claiming that they could prove it.

Moreover, why would linage to King David be important for a demigod who was supposedly born of a mortal woman who had been impregnated by God?

Obviously Jesus wouldn't be a descendent of King David anyway. He would be a demigod. These superstitious fables are utterly absurd.

You don’t find it odd, that when you were a Christian Jesus was Christ, and now that you’re a Buddhist, Jesus is a Buddhist.

By the way I forgot to mention, I was never a Buddhist. I studied Buddhism. I don't claim to have ever become a Buddhist or to have taken on Buddhism as my own personal religion.

I did meditate and practice many of the things that Buddhism teaches, but I can't say that I did those things as a 'religion'. In fact, from my perspective they were simply wise things to do even if a person is a totally convinced secular atheist. Buddhism contains a lot of wisdom even if a person isn't interested in spiritual beliefs. Far more than the Hebrew mythologies for sure.

It was during my studies of Buddhism that I learned about Mahayana Buddhism and realized that Jesus was most likely a Mahayana Buddhist. The fact that Mahayana Buddhism was at it's peak and precisely the same that Jesus would have lived seals the deal for me.

If Jesus was a Buddhist, he was a jewish practicing Buddhist.

Yes, of course. I imagine that Jesus probably was a Jew. However, that does not imply a modern view of Judaism. Many "Jews" in those days had a very mystical view of "God". In fact, I even hear modern day Jews expressing this kind of view. Just because he was a Jewish practicing Buddhist doesn't mean anything. He could have his own views concerning how he interpreted the Torah. In fact, even the Gospels have Jesus referring to the Torah as "your law" when speaking with the Scribes and Pharisees not as "God's Law". He also was quick to point out that the Scribes and Pharisees are hypocrites.

So there's really no reason at all to believe that Jesus worshiped the Torah as the absolute verbatim "Word of God". On the contrary, he may have disagreed with much it. And apparently he obviously did since he taught against those teachings.

I don’t dfind it odd either that there wa someone to speak out against the immoral practices taught about the Torah. I think where you’re argument fails though is that He wasn’t replacing the Torah, He was giving a better understanding of it.

How could you possible support such an obviously nonsensical statement?

He was not giving a better understanding of it. The Torah clearly has the God of Abraham commanding people to stone sinners and heathens to death in no uncertain terms. Jesus renounced those commandments.

That is not giving a better understanding of it. It's a flat out about-face.

Jesus was blatantly renouncing those directives.

blasphemers and idolaters were toned not hung on a Cross, btw. Jesus never taught that “Ye are also Gods”

We don't know the details of Jesus' death. All we have is the rumors of the Old Testament that could be extreme exaggerations, or even blatant outright lies.

IMHO, these authors already showed their desperation to exaggerate things. They claim that God spoke from a cloud verifying that Jesus was his son. Well, damn if you're going to believe that one, then why bother proving a linage? Wouldn't God's Word be proof enough?

They also claim that when Jesus rose from the dead so did a multitude of saints who were also jostled from their graves due to a trembling Earth. And they went into the Holy City and showed themselves to the people there.

The baloney you need to believe in order to support these fables is truly amazing.

And yes, Jesus most certainly did teach, "Ye are Gods".

When he was accused of blaspheme for having said that he and the father are one, he pointed to the Torah and said, "Is it not written in your law, I said ye are Gods".

By pointing to that verse in the Torah he was loaning his support to that notion. Moreover, what kind of a feeble thing would that be for a real demigod to do?

I mean, if Jesus was truly divine and he was attempting to proclaim his unique divinity by saying that he and the father are one, then when asked what he meant by that why would he point to the Torah and show people where it says, "Ye are Gods"?

That makes absolutely no sense at all. If Jesus was attempting to proclaim unique divinity he's not going to be pointing to the Torah where is says "Ye are Gods".

So this event actually supports the idea that he was indeed thinking pantheistically like a Mahayana Buddhist. He was proclaiming that we are all children of God equally. And that he is no different from anyone else.

For me, this is very strong evidence that Jesus was a Mahayana Buddhist. '

Yet you seem to be in denial that Jesus even taught this. But it's right there in the gospels.

John.10:34 Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?

1- Christianity nor does the Bible use Jesus or God to exclude people from Spirituality. Spirituality is a fundamental cornerstone in the belief. The fact you deny this speaks more to your exclusion from Christianity, than Christianities exclusion of you.

They most certainly absolutely do. They exude people from spirituality if those people are not Christian. That's the very basis of the religion. There is no other way to God but through "The Christ".

That is the exclusion of everyone who does not worship Jesus as "The Christ".

Moreover, what that truly means is that the person has converted to supporting the entirety of the religion including all of it's bigotries and judgements against all others who are not Christian.

The only way it is deemed "acceptable" to receive "Christ" is to swallow and support the the entire dogmatic cannon of the cult.

Anything less that this is deemed unacceptable. After all, it makes no sense to accept Jesus as "The Christ" whilst denying the God of Abraham and the Old Testament. If you're going to accept that Jesus is the sacrificial lamb of the God of Abraham you've got to support that fairy tale first.

Therefore you must support a jealous male-chauvinistic pig who has cursed women with sorrowful conception and childbirth for the fall from grace of Eve, blah, blah, blah.

Christianity isn't about Jesus at all. It's about accepting the whole shebang in Jesus' name.

It's a scam.

2- Calling a spade a spade is not destructive. Rhythm doesn’t believe in God.. know what that makes him.. and unbeliever.. we call them atheists. I don’t think he or I are offended by that label in the slightest. Now I know that some Christians have a lot of fear and hatred for things they don’t understand, like atheism. There’s a difference between bigotry and identification though. Identification with segregation is bigotry, identification for clarification is constructive.

I'm personally not concerned about atheists. Christians renounce all other religions and spiritual faiths as being false, and they accuse those people of refusing to accept Christ as their savior.

In fact, if I tell Christian that I believe in Jesus as Mahayana Buddhist, that's nowhere near good enough.

If I don't accept the whole God of Abraham thing and the demand that we have all fallen from Grace and God had to send his only begotten son to be butchered on a pole to pay for my sins, then I am 'excluded' from God's love.

And to make matters far worse, "It's all my fault because I'm the one who's refusing to love this bastardy God"

That assertion and demand of people right there is extreme emotional terrorism. It basically accusing people of supposedly turning against a supposedly loving God and being either stupid or evil for doing so.

When the truth is that I reject it because it's a hateful religion. Period.

3- Christianity is a positive for all the unbelievers getting outreach from the Christian community. Some are also getting preached to, but not all. Even if they are though, it doesn’t detract from fixing someone’s car for free or paying some of their bills, or feeding/clothing them.

When I here this kind of nonsense it just makes me what to say "Fuck you and your arrogance".

Christianity is not responsible for the good will of people in general. There are also many atheists who make great efforts to save humanity, the planet, and all the animal life on the planet.

Christianity does not hold the copyright on charity. Moreover, as I mentioned before there are many good sheeple who do good things in the name of Christianity. And in the name of Jesus. Clearly all the followers of the religion on are not hateful people.

That doesn't change the fact that the religion itself (i.e. the underlying brainwashing doctrine is hateful and bigoted).

I speak to the religion. Not to the sheeple who might follow it. Those same people would most likely become very charitable Buddhist, Taoists, Wiccans, or even Atheists, if Christianity were to suddenly disappear from history.

Loving people will do loving things no matter what religion they believe in.

I think Steven Weinberg said it best, "There are good people and there are bad people, but it take religion to get good people to do bad things"

It's easy to get good people to do good things. You don't need religion for that.

But you do need religion to get good people to support bad and hateful things in the name of a God.

So we don't need religion for philanthropy. Philanthropy will take care of itself.

4- It is an extremely divisive religion, not because of the nature of the religion, but because of the nature of herding cats.

No it's the demand that no one gets to God but through "The Christ" is what makes the religion devise.

It's basically saying, "Either join and support this religion or you are excluded from the club, and this club OWNS GOD!"

5- The Bible has lots of stories of people who never knew Jesus that received “divine love”, some people only choose to see the bad things though.

Well don't look at me. Read my signature file. Jesus forgives people for merely not knowing what they do. For the Bible tells us so.

It's only the hardcore Christian fundamentalists and evangelists who demand that people receive Jesus are their terms.

They have taken charge of Jesus. He's a marionette that they operate from their lap. They decide who Jesus will accept or not. Jesus has no say in the matter.

If you’d like to PM or email me all your traumatic experiences with religion I’d be glad to listen if you’re up for it. Your hatred though is only harming yourself and doing nothing to further your hateful cause or heal any wounds you have.

It's not the kind of hatred that you imagine. I hate Christianity in the same way that I hate cancer. Cancer is a deadly disease of the body. Christianity is a deadly disease of the human spirit. I don't care it around with me on an emotional level. In fact when I finish typing this I'm going to go back to jamming on the guitar and I carry no emotional baggage with me from having tried to explain these things to you.

I have no "personal trauma" associated with the religion. My concern is for humanity.

My childhood days as a Christian in a Christian family were quite pleasant. I had no problem with the religion. On the contrary I was planning on becoming a minister. Naively of course. That was before I actually read the bible for myself.

So I have no personal trauma associated with the religion. Even when I realized that it could not possibly be true I didn't even feel 'betrayed'. I just realized that my parents accepted it on pure faith and never even bothered to question it. That was good enough for them. So I didn't even really blame them. They were just trying to do what they believe to be the right thing.

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I personally wouldn't have a problem with the religion at all if it wasn't constantly being proselytized and used to belittle people who don't accept it. As well as being used to support ignorance over knowledge. Just as teaching people to not believe in evolution, etc.

The fact that we are directly related to everything on this planet is important for people to realize. Yet this religion has people thinking that they are special and animals are just lesser creatures created by a God for us to exploit.

I have a lot of problems with what this religion teaches our society in general. The very nature of this "God" is to solve all his problems via harsh punishments and threats of punishments. And don't try to tell me that this idea doesn't cause people to think that such solution are WISE. Its does. People get it in their heads that if violence and punishment are God's divine way of dealing with problems, then it makes sense that we should do that to.

That's "Divine Justice"

I just disagree with the whole Hebrew mentality. Male-chauvinism in particular. We basically have a religion that is nothing more than the myths of a sick demented culture and we hold that up as being the "Word of God".

That's sick if you stop and think about it.

It's not about me. It's about humanity.

This religion is detrimental to humanity in general.

And the tension between Islam and Christianity (both products of these same stupid myths) is going to come to a head and could indeed be the cause of some horrific war.

So these are legitimate concerns.

Don't try to reduce it to something so petty as my "personal problem".

No, these Abrahamic religions are a cancer on humanity.

It's not "my" problem, it's "our" problem.

Everyone needs to wake up and take a very close look at this Abrahamic nonsense.

"Save" Jesus as a Mahayana Buddhist if you like.

Dismiss him entirely as nothing but pure fiction.

But let's get over these utterly insane rumors that he was the demigod son of the God of Abraham.

A jealous hateful God who will cast mere non-believers into a hell fire for merely not believing in him.

Get over it.

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Re numbering for brevity
1- I agree with you that “Jesus was clearly rejecting the teachings of the Torah” which is different than “Jesus is spitting in the face of God”. He wasn’t rejecting the Torah at all though because he’s quoted as saying not one line of the law is to become invalid. And he also professed to following those same laws, as they could find no fault with him, other than He claimed to be the son of God. He professed many time to loving God so He wasn’t rejecting God. Perhaps, he was showing how authoritative manipulation misuses laws for their own self-righteous gain, missing the initial meaning of the words of that law.
2- Christianity has been used as an excuse to hate on people for centuries. Christians have persecuted and belittled anyone who refused to agree with their religion. Christianity was used as an excuse to destroy and renounce Pagan spirituality, and burn pagan holy sites to the ground. Christianity has been used as an excuse to impede the intellectual achievements man humanity. Christians are responsible for the torture of tens of thousands of innocent women and even had them burned alive at the stake. So were a lot of other people. However I believe it’s more to do with human nature an less on dogmatic teachings. While it’s true the Christian reformation kicked the witch hunt into overdrive exponentially, it wasn’t just Christians doing the persecuting. In fact by the time of the reformation people like King James of Scotland, judge Pierre de Lancre, and legal professor Jean Bodin were writing the most popular witch hunting manuals. Don’t forget that town mobs and even other witches also contributed to the killings. I don’t deny that religious intolerance and instability instigated and proliferated the segregation of society, condemnation and fear. But I believe the Christian Church as a whole also handed out far more penance and imprisonment sentences than death sentences. But we can play the blame game all day, I don’t deny Christian participation. Now I guess it’s up to you to establish that it’s Christian doctrine to kill people because you don’t like or understand them.
3- If you want to claim that what Jesus taught was in harmony with the teachings of Mahayana Buddhism, that’s fine. He was Jewish though and lived and spoke about the Laws of Moses though, which clearly make him not a Buddhist, but a Jew.
4- Christianity doesn’t “use” anything, it’s a belief. Christians however have used and misused Jesus for centuries.
5- Christianity doesn’t teach ignorance and fear. It teaches reverence of God and love of your fellow man. It doesn’t instill shame and guilt into same-gender lovers, it defines what Godly is and what it isn’t. If people feel shame over their own nature that is not because of some outward teaching, but far more likely from some inward insecurity. Christianity doesn’t create hate, in fact that’s the opposite of its over-reaching teachings. Christians however do create hate, or love based on their use of their own beliefs.
6- You’re entitled to your opinion that all Christians are hypocrites. Feel free to elaborate by using me as an example. How am I a hypocrite or using Jesus or God as a tool of hatred? I find it odd (and a bit intellectually dishonest) though that you admit that majority are “sheeple” that don’t use Jesus as a hate tool or hate people and still hold that Christianity as a whole is about hate. Care to revise your statements? At the very least I think we can agree that fundamentalist Christians are just using Jesus as a patsy to support their personal bigotry and hatred. Could it be that by showing that same bigotry and hatred of Christians that you’re exacerbating the issue or helping solve it?
7- To answer your question why would linage to King David be important for a demigod who was supposedly born of a mortal woman who had been impregnated by God? It wouldn’t for a demigod. It would be important though for someone who was establishing their mortal authority and the fulfillment of a prophesy.
8- Jesus didn’t say don’t stone people, he said if you’re not qualified to judge someone don’t (or more precisely, you without sin cast the first stone).
9- Psalms 82 as you’re referring to isn’t about each of us being god-like with mystical powers and immortality. Elohim is also used to denote angels and mortal judges and prefects. It’s about power and authority, not ability and nature. He was quoting the Psalm in John 10 to show them that he was given authority as the son of God. It’s not a pantheistic belief, but Trinitarian to acknowledge that He and the Father are one. He was stating that we are all chidren of God, but that He had an authority they didn’t have, as the messiah. But I’m sure you’ll read it as you like [url= http://www.onenesspentecostal.com/yegods.htm] here’s a little study if you’re interested[/url].
10- There is no other way to God but through "The Christ" is the exclusion of everyone who does not worship Jesus as "The Christ" from salvation, but not from spirituality. There are even some spiritual atheists I’ve met. Christianity is not a prerequisite for spirituality nor does it limit it, at best you can say it helps define it. A definition you apparently are in disagreement with, which is fine.
11- So Christianity is not responsible for the good will of people in general but it is responsible for their general ill will…. Double standard much?
12- If those Christian fundamentalists have taken charge of Jesus, why not just just spread your outrage to them instead of all of Christianity, since you already admitted that the majority of Christians are sheeple anyways.
13- I’m glad you hold “no emotional baggage” or personal trauma from your religious experience. You have to be able to see though, that coming from someone with such lengthy(word translated to 16 pages) posts where almost every other sentence speaks to how much you hate this or that. Why not better focus your outrage to the YEC and fundamentalists you obviously do have issues with. I wasn’t attempting to minimalize your argument by making it personal, it just seems like more your personal bias than a substantiated argument.
14- Even without Islam and Christianity, etc. groups of stupid people would gather, get more stupid, and do stupid things. I’m all for less ignorance. More hatred though I think doesn’t help that cause, but retards it and galvanizes the idiocies.
15- God solves all his problems via just punishments, while I’m aware some still preach unjust torture, I believe it’s becoming a minority view.