duck

I'm with Og. Release yourself from the notion of sin and you set yourself free in ways you could only imagine...

__________________
Religion: The ultimate definition of verisimilitude

Og

What do you consider to be "the bondage of sin"?? Jesus' actions on the cross are directly referencing the fall in the garden of eden. The fall in eden is a metaphor for the rise of categorical consciousness (i.e. fruit of knowledge of good and evil, life and death, male and female, etc).

Jesus' act on the cross speaks to far more than you being mean to people or cheating on a test. Jesus on the cross speaks to categorical consciousness creating strife in the world and the illusion of separateness. This is the meaning of "hate your friends/family/life" and "love your enemies" amongst all of Jesus' teachings. Christ's message is one of freedom from the bondage that separates you from GOD! That bondage is the bondage of sin. The act of christ on the cross frees you from this bondage (it is a mental state, not literal bondage). You must be crucified as well and die to the world of categories and dichotomies. Only then will you understand what it means to love your enemies. Jesus does not say "don't have enemies."

When you truly internalize christ's sacrifice, you become one with Christ and with God. Placing yourself in humble submission to the idea of God (as you illustrate above) is a first step. If you went to identity with the divine while dragging a categorically grown ego with you, you would become self destructive because you'd be just plain incapable of understanding what you were seeing.

You're again casting your own inadequacies into the concept of God. There was no withholding of vital information. There was only ignorance on our part. There was only a lack of awareness. I'm not criticizing people in the past for thinking the world was flat. I'm certain I would have too. The world LOOKS flat. It just happens that it is not. This information was not withheld. The world didn't become a sphere the moment Aristotle saw the shadow of the earth on the moon. There was only ignorance.

My interpretation IS literal. I interpret it as if people were groping in the dark and trying to describe what they were feeling a piece at a time. We have the benefit of hindsight and forensic archaeology, paleontology, comparative mythology, and psychology applied to people all over the globe in order to form a coherent whole and shine light on this shape that has eluded us for so long.

I do not interpret it symbolically. I try to UNDERSTAND what the authors were LITERALLY trying to describe. I do not believe that people were carefully crafting symbols and stories as George Lucas crafted Star Wars. I believe that there were many authors over milenia (and before christ) that contributed to the story of Jesus' teachings. I think it's clear that the new testament, in many parts, is a direct adaptation of existing texts from before that all have been adapted over time to effectively describe what people were only getting brief glimpses of.

That flicker of light is like the initial stages of a flourescent lamp turning on. Eventually the light came on entirely, and people like you and others closed your eyes to it because it was too much and you were not ready. This is the reason that the people crucified christ. The western world wasn't capable of handling identity with the Divine. Their entire history was strengthening their egos against it.

This portion is entirely false. I have absolutely no blind faith in my belief structure. It adapts to observation and exploration. It is exactly a description of observation and study. It is NOT something I hold close and protect against criticism. I am more than willing to throw my stance out there and let people try to tear it to pieces. Historical data supports it.

Again, mine is a literal interpretation of the bible in historical context as a story written by people with varying levels of awareness. Yours is a literal interpretation of a book as if it were written by an omnipotent deity designed for constant interpretation for all time.

We both arrive at the idea of a constant interpretation. You just end up with absurdities and I end up with historically relevant contexts that paint a large portion of the picture of the age of Christ when a global state transition was occurring between eastern and western cultures.

This is the only logical way to interpret the bible. Otherwise you end up in these absurdities such as the mutually exclusive modern interpretations of Islam and Christianity as if they were somehow counter to one another.

They are stories from a culture. They are descriptions of people trying to understand their world. They describe historical events in terms of how these events effected the psyches of humans of the time.

Calling them false or contradictory is to missunderstand the source. Trying to read them as a newspaper report written by modern journalists in our current mode of awareness is absolutely the source of your nightmare and of strife and suffering in much of the world.

__________________
Vi veri veniversum vivus vici. (By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe)
The self is not a fixed entity but a dynamic process of relationships
You & I, no distinction. - Tat Tvam Asi
Become Who You Are

Og

Again, my literal interpretation is a read of the text and then a study of the attitude and perspective of the people who wrote it. This attitude is what is referred to as a transfer function in engineering terms. It describes how inputs to a system (such as a microphone) relate to the outputs (such as sound from a speaker). In terms of a microphone, a guitar input to it can be modified to sound all manner of ways different than the sound that went in. You can add reverb, chorus, etc. It's all defined by a circuit inside that little foot pedal that the guitar hooks through.

But accepting that modified guitar signal as exactly what came out of the guitar would be absurd. It simply is not. Even if it were simply an amplified version of the sound, it wouldn't be the same as what came from the guitar.

The same is true for stories in the bible. They are expressions of real events as modified by the "transfer function" of human beings. You can only back calculate the actual events by trying to understand the human beings and their environment. The humans are the guitar pedal in this analogy.

Approaching it any other way is a dishonest search for the truth.

__________________
Vi veri veniversum vivus vici. (By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe)
The self is not a fixed entity but a dynamic process of relationships
You & I, no distinction. - Tat Tvam Asi
Become Who You Are

jaej

Well said Og. Abel, I don't believe anything; Og, and a lot of other people on here, don't believe anything. You're the one who has belief. The way I think and the views I have are based on data and observation, not faith. The burden of proof is on you, because you're the one claiming there's some sort of anthropomorphic, supernatural being living in the sky.

I'm not an atheist. I don't know if God exists, although no one can know with 100% certainty. If I had to guess, I'd say probably not, though I'm certainly atheist regarding the christian god, or any other man made god for that matter. The fact that intelligent human beings ignore the ludicrous logical fallacies inherent to christianity is simply beyond me. I was a Christian for 12 years; I know the firsthand the fear and bondage that goes with it.

__________________
Μολὼν Λαβέ

Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate

Abel

Og
You say you don't interpret the Bible symbolically, yet you refer to the fall in the Garden of Eden as a metaphor. Am I to understand that you accept a literal view of metaphorical stories in the Bible? If that is the case, where do you draw the line between fact and metaphor?

Certainly not everything in the Bible is a metaphor. Pilate was the actual procounsel at the time of Christ. There are definate facts contained in scripture. Do you propose that everything in the Bible that cannot be verified with factual evidence is merely a metaphor? Again, this leads to conjecture based solely on what one wants the Bible to say; how they interpret the metaphor to best suit them.

I understand your position, but upon what do you base this opinion? Is this simply a result of your personal study? A "a read of the text and then a study of the attitude and perspective of the people who wrote it." (I don't know how to quote certain sections of other posts). What texts did you study to give you information on Peter, or John, or Paul, or any Biblical writer to give you this perspective on them? What is you source for these opinions. Are you relying on others, or is this simply what you believe because this is how you interpret it?

My belief is based on both the Bible and opinions of others. I do not agree with everything men (Even Bible scholars) say about certain Biblical doctrines. I look at both sides, compare them with what the Bible teaches, then choose to stand on the view that aligns closest with Biblical teachings. The Bible must be the final authority (with me). I have not posted anything that was just something that I came up with. My beliefs have been debated and defended down through the ages by men of God with much more insight and illumination than myself.

Again, upon what evidence do you base your views?

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God loves you and I'm trying.

greywolf90

thank you deb. i enjoy rolling my sleeves up and getting my hands dirty every once in awhile.

abel, try to understand that most of us are here because we have already heard this message, and we have already rejected it. i've been to church, i've read my bible, i've heard your message, and i've shared your beliefs. now i my beliefs have changed. i don't mind that you are a christian or that you are here to represent your religion (discussions would be boring without diversity). it just slightly annoys me that some of yall act like we live under rocks and have never even seen a bible. i can't speak for everyone, but i think most of us will understand you just as well as another christian would. in other words, we may not agree with you, but we at least know what you are talking about. i know about jesus being god's only son, i know about jesus dying on the cross for our sins, etc.

__________________
"for there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so."- Hamlet

GX

If you dont believe in God in exactly the way Abels interpretation of the bible specified, you will cast down to eternal torment with a supernatural evil being called the devil. And in the meantime, the devil has carte blanche to play all kinds of tricky mind games with you to prevent this. Now THATS a nightmare!

What a bunch of crap! God is love PERIOD! What you have described is a needy, neurotic, dysfunctional God. Which is WRONG!

You are telling your church's naive personal interpretation of the the truth and YOUR truth based on words written 2000 years ago. Not THE truth. Make no mistake about it abel. If this "truth" works for you and you wish to share it fine, but stop passing it off as THE truth and every other religion and belief system a lie.

Its really funny how self righteous fundamentalist christians such as Abel avoid and ignore the tough questions. They just pick and choose whatever it is that advances their insane beliefs. We posed a bunch of questions to you ast week Abel that you deftly avoided. Why not answer them? Are you afraid of your belief system being exposed for the dysfunctional myth that it is? I think so!

Abel

What tough questions did I not answer GX? I went back and looked at last weeks posts, and I did not see what you are referring to. And no, I am not afraid of anything you may ask me.

__________________
God loves you and I'm trying.

Og

I tried to paint a picture of a global state of myth leading up to the time of christ and an alternative proposition that illustrated how integration of eastern culture into the west could clearly result in someone from the east being mistaken for the son of the God of the west.

It's an ancient and central theme to the hindus and buddhists and their predecessors that we are all god incarnate. This is the prime heresy in the west. This cultural clash is what I think produced the jesus story and christianity. I tried to lay out many of the salient features above and in countless other posts on this forum.

Read my posts above again... You seemed to have missed out.

__________________
Vi veri veniversum vivus vici. (By the power of truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe)
The self is not a fixed entity but a dynamic process of relationships
You & I, no distinction. - Tat Tvam Asi
Become Who You Are

Abel

So basically you are just making guesses. Educated guesses maybe, but still just guesses based on your own personal assumptions. You stated how integration of eastern culture could result one from the east being mistaken as the Son of God. This cultural clash is what you think produced the Jesus story. You really don't know do you?

You said "my literal interpretation is a read of the text and then a study of the attitude and perspective of the people who wrote it." What did you study to determine the attitude and perspective of the people who wrote the Bible?

I would still like to know where the line is drawn between fact and metaphor in the Bible. I'm not concerned that you paint a picture. I would just like to know how you have come to your conclusions.

__________________
God loves you and I'm trying.