A3

Can I join?
There is no proof for the secular person that the Bible is written by the devil, or by God for that matter. It says it is God’s word but anyone can say that. The devil does indeed play a very important role in it. Personally I believe it has been inspired by God (not dictated). People have written their interpretation into it. God is angry, he punishes, he has us kill etc etc. This, however, is the same as a child thinking that a parent (who loves him) is mad at them for doing something wrong. In short, it is written in appearances.
Many people complain, when they do read it, that it is loaded with evil, violence and fraud. Churches have stopped using it because to them it is just history and thus not applicable to anyone that is not Jewish.
All this outward appearance is there for our protection. Just like your car has been designed with a “crumple zone” to protect you in case of an accident, so the Bible has also a crumple zone to protect the truth that’s in there so no one can profane it. (The worst thing we can do).
We all have our own history. We can have all the figures you read about inside of us too. We can have Moses, Joshua and even Goliath and the Philistines in us. The good side in us can (and hopefully will) fight with the other side to develop us into the person we are as a “nation.”This means there is a lot of violence in us too and that is what the whole story is about, our spiritual development. Sometimes we really do have to kill all the women and children of our bad side
Another very important function of the Bible is that it is a medium between God and us.
If there were no Bible, you and I wouldn’t be here either. It is the only connection this planet has with God and thus Life. The fact that we don’t understand it, think that it is ridiculous, incomprehensible, needlessly repetitive and outdated makes no difference. Unless everybody starts thinking that way, which happened 2000 years ago but that’s another story.
Many today are void and empty, not knowing which way to turn. Well, guess what, that could be the start of the oldest story ever written. For more info <a href="http://www.newchurch.org" target="_blank">www.newchurch.org</a>
A3

hinduwoman

A3's post began as a liberal one. It ended up as a fundy telling us the Bible is the WORD and the WAY.

A3

Hi,
A3's post began as a liberal one. It ended up as a fundy telling us the Bible is the WORD and the WAY.
Sorry to sound like that, it is not the whole picture. We strongly believe that whatever religion a person adheres to, if that person actually and honestly lives a life according to that religion, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. It would be highly presumptious to think that only one religion has all the answers. Having said that, I also believe that some religions are better than others. It is not what we know, it is what we do with wat we know. In other words attitude is everything.
This is the hardest with very intelligent people (or those that think they are) Their camel is so heavily laden it will not pass through the gate called "the eye of the needle".
A3

Jonsey3333

How about flying planes into towers?

Better according to god(s)?

Meaning that we have to be ignorant to pass through the gate? Shall I have a lobotomy?

-Mike

A3

Hi Mike,

quote:
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Sorry to sound like that, it is not the whole picture. We strongly believe that whatever religion a person adheres to, if that person actually and honestly lives a life according to that religion, there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.
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How about flying planes into towers?

Which religion was it that caused that? Anyway the qualifier is in the honestly. They were not really honest about it, were they?
The US is honest about it, it says we are coming to get you! They also tressed the fact that it was not a religion they were after.

quote:
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It would be highly presumptious to think that only one religion has all the answers. Having said that, I also believe that some religions are better than others.
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[b]Better according to god(s)?]/b]

No, according to me. If I thought another religion was better than Swedenborgian I would rather switch than fight.


quote:
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It is not what we know, it is what we do with wat we know. In other words attitude is everything. This is the hardest with very intelligent people (or those that think they are) Their camel is so heavily laden it will not pass through the gate called "the eye of the needle".
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Meaning that we have to be ignorant to pass through the gate?
Absolutely not! When Jesus refered to the little ones he refered to their innocense (the willingness to be lead) NOT their ignorence. We didn't just get our intelligence to be smart shoppers. A church that commands to believe without understanding (even without thinking it is the truth) is shooting itself in the foot.
A3

Jayhawker Soule

Are you suggesting that people have a flawed interpretation of what is written in the Bible, or that those who wrote/transcribed the Bible had a flawed interpretation of God's intentions?

Jonsey3333

Why, a militant, fundamentalist, anti-American form of Islam.

They honestly believed their suicide-terrorism acts would get them into heaven. They may not have given anybody a warning, but they were honest with themselves. Or is the claim that religions must be honest with the external world?

Relativism. Agreed.

So trust is what is valued? How about naïvete? Agreeableness? So, it's okay to be intelligent, but not skeptical? You may very well need to be skeptical to be intelligent.

I wish that were true. I don't know about Canada, but here in the states we have this ugly thing called "Fundamentalism" and it's on the rise. Scary.

I enjoy arguing with you. I haven't meant very many Christians who can argue as far as you have and who can accept the logical even if it might contradict certain religious teachings. Thank you.

-Mike

A3

Hi ReasonableDoubt,

quote:
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Originally posted by A3:
Personally I believe it has been inspired by God (not dictated). People have written their interpretation into it. God is angry, he punishes, he has us kill etc etc.
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The Bible is one stage in a string of revalations, God doesn't change, we do. Revelation is adabted to us and is (mis?)taken by each person, or group, differently. And sometimes show this bias in their translations. Parent-child relationships are a very close parallel. (I have many things to say to you but you cannot bear them now....)

Yes, I think they wrote how things appeared to them, even in the New Testament. They wrote down what they saw and heard, often not comprehending what they saw and heard. Also, don't forget the first books were even made-up history but with a layered internal meaning. What came after that was written in appearances that fit the stages of our spiritual journey, full of wars, fights, evil, heroism and much more that we are going through in our, lifelong, personal process of rebirth (if we choose to).
This process the Lord went through on His level and that is why it is said that He fullfilled or symbolized all the Scriptures. He didn't play-out the day to day struggles of the Israelites, this was a process He had to go through, and for several reasons.
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Hi Jonsey3333,

quote:
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Which religion was it that caused that? Anyway the qualifier is in the honestly. They were not really honest about it, were they?
The US is honest about it, it says we are coming to get you! They also tressed the fact that it was not a religion they were after.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Why, a militant, fundamentalist, anti-American form of Islam.
They honestly believed their suicide-terrorism acts would get them into heaven. They may not have given anybody a warning, but they were honest with themselves. Or is the claim that religions must be honest with the external world?
That last is indeed the case, people will and can justify anything. Every day people kill, hurt, steal etc. while thinking, at the time, they have every right to do so. If they see the keys in a car or a housedoor unlocked, there they go "because the other persons were so stupid, they asked for it". "If you are going to divorce me so I can't have our baby! then neither will you, bang!" "The sales staff was so rude, I have every right to shoplift."
Basically, these people believed a lie which fed right into their hatred for the US.

quote:
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Absolutely not! When Jesus refered to the little ones he refered to their innocense (the willingness to be lead) NOT their ignorence.
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So trust is what is valued? How about naïvete? Agreeableness? So, it's okay to be intelligent, but not skeptical? You may very well need to be skeptical to be intelligent.
Only trust in the Lord or God or Allah (I don't think He cares). Naïvete or agreeableness are fine (depending on where you are) just be open-minded enough that you might learn a lesson here or there.("Be wise as serpents and harmless as doves) You can be skeptical but in a possitive way, as you know where there is smoke, there is fire. You have to develop a sixth sense that gives you the feeling: this is right or this is wrong.

quote:
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We didn't just get our intelligence to be smart shoppers. A church that commands to believe without understanding (even without thinking it is the truth) is shooting itself in the foot.
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I wish that were true. I don't know about Canada, but here in the states we have this ugly thing called "Fundamentalism" and it's on the rise. Scary.
It is scary! If the message is not one of love, it is from misunderstanding and thus not from God. Every person is a potential angel, but we have a choice. As Swedenborgians we say, take it or leave it. Whatever you don't take in freedom is not yours.

I enjoy arguing with you. I haven't meant very many Christians who can argue as far as you have and who can accept the logical even if it might contradict certain religious teachings. Thank you.

Very kind of you to say so Mike, thanks. We think that science and religion came from the same Source and thus should make sense.
Adrian

Jonsey3333

Yes, and they are illogical rationalizations. Anyone who is intellectually honest, be they Christian, Atheist, or Wiccan can see that.

In a part of the brain called the limbic system, we store emotional memory (specifically in the amygdala). It is used to activate the famous "fight-or-flight" system (the sympathetic system). When we sense things through our eyes, ears, tongue, or tactile receptors (for whatever reason, smell bypasses this and goes straight to the cerebrum), the message goes to the center of the limbic system, known as the thalamus, which is the relay center of the brain. The message is then sent (1)to the endocrine system and produces suitable hormones and (2) to the cerebrum for cognitive processing. Our pain vs. pleasure and emotional ideas of right and wrong come into play in 1. Our abstract intellectual ideas of right or wrong come into play in 2.

We all develop a "conscience", though it may be faulty and/or not a factor. Our pre-frontal lobe, the major brain area that humans have but is lacking in less inteligent primates, can override decisions (some, not all) made in different areas of the brain. This is our will. If there is a such thing as "free-will," it operates through the prefrontal lobe.

And what can be done about it? Counter-evangelization? How does one do this without becoming fundamentalist?

I had never heard of the Swedenborgians before you mentioned your group. Sounds like a alien android race from Star Trek (resistance is futile).

I went to the site and checked it out. Is it basically Christian Transcendentalism?

In my Christian days, I had always thought so, too!

-Mike

Sojourner553

Most of you on the post seem to be unaware that the Gnostics who were contemporaries of Jesus thought the God of the Old Testament sounded more like the Devil.

Who were the Gnostics?
Gnosticism is generally believed to have evolved from an amalgam of
Persian beliefs, combined with a Greek platonic view of the universe. There
was believed to be a supreme divinity or God who held the highest position
in the heavens. Below him were emanations--giving rise to good and evil
"powers". In some cases, evil was viewed as the contamination of these
emanations with animated matter. Other times, evil was seen to have emerged
through gradations into lesser worlds/dimensions, separated by great
distances from the world where dwelled the godhead. The earth was held
sway by these evil emanations.

_________________________________________
Here is what the Gnostics thought when they read the Old Testament. (Gnostic Christians were later persecuted out of existance by the Orthodox.)

Prior to the arrival of Christianity, Gnostics explained the existence
of good and evil in the world by supposing that a genuinely good, all powerful
God ruled over the universe, while a lower-level demon-like God controlled
the lower regions of the universe--including the earth. When gnostics
began converting over to Christianity, they took the Old Testament stories
relating God's anger and jealously to be proof that the God of the hebrews
was in reality this lower evil divine being--known as the Demiurge. This
also seemed to explain how an "all powerful" God would create a world full
of suffering, pain, and disease.

The SECRET BOOK OF JOHN argued that because the Old Testament God
had declared to the hebrews that he was a jealous God--that this "proved"
the presence of other divine beings:

"in his madness ... he said ' I am God, and there is no other god
beside me,' for he is ignorant of the place from which he had come...
And when he saw the creation which surrounds him and the multitudes of
angels around him which had come forth from him, he said to them, 'I am a
jealous God, and there is no other god beside me.' But by announcing this
he indicated to the angels that another God does exist; for if there were
no other one, of whom would he be jealous?"

Gnostics also pointed to Genesis verses where God says in the plural,
"Let us make man in our image, after our likeness (Genesis 1:26) and
"Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil,"
(Genesis 3:22) to prove that he was speaking to other lower divine beings
such as himself.

Gnostics argued that the Old Testament God was really evil for destroying
the earth with a Flood. Their position that the God of the Hebrews was
in reality the demiurge led them to an especially heretical interpretation
of the Adam and Eve story. In the gnostic work THE TESTIMONY OF TRUTH
(found with the Nag Hammadi texts) the author repeated the story of how
God had become so angry that Adam and Eve had listened to the serpent
and eaten from the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, that He cast Adam
out of Paradise "lest he take from the tree of live and eat and live forever."

The author continued then with the following heretical analysis:

"But of what sort in this God?
First [he] maliciously refused Adam from eating of the tree of knowledge.

And secondly he said, 'Adam, where are you?' And God does not have
foreknowledge; (otherwise), would he not know from the beginning?
Afterwards he said, 'Let us cast him [out] of this place, lest he
eat of the tree of life and live for ever.' Surely he has shown himself
to be a malicious grudger.

And what kind of God is this? For great is the blindness of those who
read, and they did not know him. And he said, 'I am the jealous God; I will
bring the sins of the fathers upon the children until three (and) four
generations'. [see Exodus 20:5].

And he said, 'I will make their heart thick, and I will cause their mind
to become blind, that they might not know or comprehend the things
that are said' [see Isaiah 6:10]

But these things he has said to those who believe in him [and] serve him!"

These gnostics in analyzing the Adam and Eve story in Genesis, went on to
argue that the demiurge forbade Adam to eat from the fruit of the tree of
knowledge, to prevent Adam from obtaining knowledge (giving him enlightenment
or gnosis). The highest good God, saw what was happening and sent the serpent
to the Garden to induce Adam to eat of the tree of knowledge, thus
escaping from his bondage of ignorance to the demiurge.

____________________

I thought the viewpoint was an interesting one-- although clearly it was deemed heretical.

If you want to read more on the Gnostics, here is the link:

<a href="http://mac-2001.com/philo/crit/GNOSIS.TXT" target="_blank">http://mac-2001.com/philo/crit/GNOSIS.TXT</a>
<a href="http://mac-2001.com/philo/crit/index.html" target="_blank">http://mac-2001.com/philo/crit/index.html</a>

Sojourner

[ March 19, 2002: Message edited by: Sojourner553 ]</p>