I was brought up in a denomination where we were encouraged to read the bible ourselves with denomination policy that no member had the right to tell another member how they had to understand what they read. After various periods influenced by materialism, atheism, the occult, Joseph Campbell, and modern theology like "On Being a Christian" by Hans Kung, and a lot of my own independent experience and thought, I settled on the above encapsulation of my personal beliefs. As no one in my childhood denomination had a right to tell me how I had to understand Christianity, I'm certainly not going to let you tell me what Christianity is or isn't.

You ought to at least study some modern Christian theology before going on and on and on with your bashing of one theological version of it. I recommend the aforementioned, "On Being a Christian".


PairTheBoard

Now you are very much talking about the gnostic path, which is where I'm coming from all along. If there is a non miracle, non-magic, non-dogmatic, non-supernatural, non-superstitious version of the religion, sounds pretty cool. At that point is it even Biblical?

You want me to read 720 pages of explanation. Maybe. Since it's published on my birthday, I'll take that as a possible synchronicity and consider it. Is it into magic and superstition? Give me the Cliff's Notes on that.

Yes, as I described above, according to my approach to reading it. I'm also informed by the various types of analysis of it by secular scholars.

There's been a lot of work done in modern Christian theology. It sounds like all you've ever heard about is the petrified theology of fundamentalism. The main point of the Second Vatican Council was Pope John declaring modern theology ok for the Catholic Church. Do a little research.


PairTheBoard

Is the resurrection real?

Was there a virgin birth?

Does the action of the supposed first man and woman cast original sin and a fallen nature on the human race?

Does torturing and sacrificing some other being grant righteousness to these fallen creatures?

Are there witches, and is the command to kill witches in the Bible okay with you?

Did Moses part the Red Sea?

Is the mimicking of popular miracles of the time in the stories about Jesus fictional or literal?

Was the bullshyt walking on water trick a borrowed wives tale to sell the religion, or did it actually happen?

Did the illiterate omniscient (a bit of a contradiction) savior create the quantum field and the Andromeda galaxy?


Let's see where you stand. My replies are no, no, no, no, no, no, fictional, a borrowed wives tale to sell the religion to the supersitious magic believing masses, no.

Have you done any research into the history of the Catholic Church? Not to mention the present.

There is no evidence whatsoever that FellaGaga-52 has a clue about what Christianity is. He paraphrases a Bible verse here and there, provides no context for the verse, then goes into rant mode.

And he still for some reason wants to claim that Jesus was illiterate, even when verses suggesting the contrary are cited.

.

Sorry FellaGaga-52, I thought PTB was asking you that question.

Someday I might learn how to read.

Having said that, my observation about you still stands.

You think these are yes-no questions. They're not.
Is an idea real? Is Truth real? What is Truth?
What is "real"? What is "reality"?
Is materialism reality? yes and no.
Do you understand that scientific theories are actually metaphors?
Are subatomic particles really "particles"?
Is the impact of a poem real?
Is the impact of Faith on History real?

Love is Reality

People come from many directions in relation to my questions above. They may have extraordinary experience which they express in a way that points to the Reality of Love. Some may hear that expression and be impacted by Faith and choose the Way it puts them on. Others may not relate to the direction from which the expression comes. Understand these things with charity and in that light. Then seek your Way to choosing Love.


PairTheBoard

1. Except for the last three of his questions (which are of the "have you stopped beating your wife?" variety) , I believe they are yes or no questions.

2. But I think that where you and I would agree is that the personal APPLICATION of a given fact or story is what gives it life in our personal lives. William James once defined truth as "what happens to an idea." Truth is the "cash value" of an idea in our lives.

A point often made in Bible studies that I've attended is that a given verse or passage may have only one valid INTERPRETATION, but may also have a multitude of APPLICATIONS.

Having said that, it is either true or false that Jesus was born of a virgin.

Love is not contaminated by Hate
Love is not contaminated by Revenge
Love is not contaminated by Greed
Love is not contaminated by Envy
Love is not contaminated by Death
Love is pure from beginning to end
Jesus was born of a virgin
Raised from the dead
And carried up into heaven


PairTheBoard

Evil has to be redeemable if love is reality. Otherwise, love is not reality. However, we have to use the same experiential framework to redeem evil that we use to know that love is reality.

I’m saying this because it’s a common trap to tell ourselves that evil is now redeemed (instead of evil is redeemable) when we start to believe that love is reality or that ultimate reality is good. This trap is especially prevalent in the New Age community. Pointing out that good and evil are human constructs is changing the frame or the perspective from which we are interpreting reality away from the one we used to discern that love is reality.

So much of spiritual development is being able to hold contradiction even though part of us hates to do it and is constantly trying to avoid it. However, holding contradiction in the name of truth will keep us on the right path.

This is coming from someone that got stuck in all the traps that I point out on this forum, so I’m sharing to hopefully aid others.

The preceding sentence to your quote of mine is important to my view and I think relevant to your very instructive post.
-------------------------------
I believe we live in a state of nature. Love is a real experience but good and evil are human constructs which other creatures in nature are not bothered by.
=================

That "we live in a state of nature" and that "good and evil are human constructs which other creatures are not bothered by", addresses the Problem of Evil, and the doctrines of original sin and redemption. Prior to humans there was no good or evil in Nature. The introduction of humans did not change that fact (The Problem of Evil). The first humans lived in nature like other creatures, with no concern for questions of good and evil because those humans had not yet any such conceptions.

But humans aspired to reach for something other than life like other creatures. So they began to identify parts of their nature that stood in the way of their reach and those that favored their reach. They used every means of expression to point towards the direction of the reach they only dimly understood. Thus was born the tool of religion.

Humans are not at blame for their nature (original sin) any more that other creatures. What sets humans apart is their reaching to escape its control (redemption). This reach by humans has come from many directions and in many stages (religions). I believe the culmination of this progress is in the realization that what we reach for is the Reality of Love. Choosing Love is the Revolution of Jesus.

The things in our nature that stand in the way of our reach remain. Choosing Love does not nullify their power to exert control. But like the parting of the Red Sea it sets us on the way toward freedom. Will the time come when these things are extinguished and our natures become new. I don't think so. Would we still be human? Like Captain Kirk said about one of them. "I need it". The Journey is the destination. And the Kingdom of Heaven is the Journey.


PairTheBoard

I’m with you on the vast majority of your post.

Agree basically.

I would say human consciousness evolved to the point in which we can challenge this. For instance, I am challenging it now. Still, challenging this idea through argumentation is not what matters. Anybody can do that. Truth requires that we embody it, and I’m not going to underestimate the uphill battle in trying to convince someone to actually embody this belief. I’m not in a position to do that productively enough right now.

The idea is that our direct experience of reality, guided by intuition/faith/love, is more truthful than a rationally guided approach. It’s my position that rationality didn’t lead you to the idea that love is reality. Rationality only clarifies using language.

Every human being has the ability to challenge the primacy of death, evil, and chaos. I believe that evolution is life’s strategy against death. Survival, preservation, and replication are aspects of Game A. Confronting and taking leaps of faith against death/evil are aspects of Game B. Religion is supposed to straddle A and B, gradually shifting to B as humans evolve.

Luke 1:26-38 makes it clear that Mary was to become pregnant with Jesus even without having "known any man.". Your list of statements, though thought-provoking and some of them no doubt true, are not deducible from the actual content of the text. Interpretation must precede application.

I agree with what led you to this then it seems to be a huge jump to the bolded (at least the initial bolded). Religion was a tool developed by humans to try and better understand the larger world beyond their grasp. It also was a social construct used for the betterment of communities,etc as recently as 100 or so years ago.

But where you lose non-believers (or at least this non-believer) is that Choosing Love is the Revolution of Jesus? I don't even know what that is meant to symbolize. Is it that without YOUR god love wouldn't exist in it's modern form?

I guess the upshot is when religious types use religious texts and anecdotes to support their belief structure it all becomes kind of silly and circular.

But perhaps I'm missing the more nuanced point here.

So honest question...when you read that text you believe it quite literally I assume?

Yes, I take that text literally.

Love keeps no record of wrongs, according to the Bible, yet its god, which 'is love," also according to scripture, killed continuously over people doing wrong. And no one will comment on that fact here choosing to deal with all kinds of manufactured irrelevancies. What one chooses to debate and chooses to blithely ignore tips one's hand a little bit.

So where else does everyone believe in magic and in sacrifice of the innocent?????? Just their religion, right? In no other religion and in no other walk of life.

For instance, someone commits murder. To rectify this, we sacrifice someone innocent of murder. Maybe a virgin. Probably a woman or child. Good thinking. More of the same in the good book.

For instance, a new religion pops up claiming all kinds of magic and miraculous stuff. We know its BS. We know this for every religion and walk of life except for our privileged religion. We then presupp "philosophically" for all this.

No one really believes any of that is valid. They just look the other way and talk about other things, less fraudulent things.

A thousand years after being taught about perfect love, the religion begins the Inquisition. Two thousand years after all kinds of financial fraud abounds, the priests are raping children, the other priests, men of god, are allowing it ... and we don't conclude that just maybe, just maybe, a loving, just god was never behind any of it.

When is the time to consider it isn't god, it isn't just, it isn't love ... it might be mythology? Obviously never for some.

The "sin" is irrational faith that defends the indefensible. Except that there is no sin really, it's all just being human. That's where supernatural religions kick in with their supermen.

What the words for sin, virgin, resurrection, lord, savior, even camel, and thousands of others probably actually mean before supernaturalized by magic believing peoples, leaves no actual orthodoxy substrate underneath it all. Just fantasy, just fiction.

The orthodoxy is massively corrupted, believers in it have been asleep for 2000 years remaining invested in magic instead of self-responsibility, Jesus subbing for me in my life instead of me being my own "son."

The magic taken literally or life as natural? The old testament as a brutal primitive legend. The new testament as a poem of sorts. Gnosticism as a path that doesn't sacrifice the mind for the belief in ancient magic tales.

I'm close to through, I hope. Of such are my beliefs about it. A good bit of it is influenced by people in the pulpit who are waking up and talking about it, to their great credit.

As one of the many religions trying to understand things ... okay. As the one true religion and you're going to hell if you don't believe -- that is Machiavellian manipulation in the attempt to garner market share. You don't get to excuse religious behavior from the gamut of all other human behavior (as history proves in the utter ungodliness of so many of the adherents).

Christianity: just another expression in the evolution of the "perennial philosophy" ... and certainly valid in that respect. But when it sent people to hell and made human nature born evil to gain market share, it went evil itself. For any other religion that did that, that would be the position. No presupping allowed, no special pleading. It's one of the religions, period. And they all claim they are true.

As I've stated before:
"As soon as you start talking about God, you're talking about something else."

That's not just a quip. It's fundamental.

There are many who "Choose Love" who have never heard of Jesus, or if they have heard of him don't know what to make of Christianity. They are just as much friends of Jesus as those who say they follow him. They are just as much part of the Jesus Revolution of Love. What Jesus gives us is the opportunity to recognize that our Choosing Love makes us part of his Revolution.

Everyone who Chooses Love can recognize that it sets them on a better way of life. However, With Jesus we can recognize that Choosing Love sets us on a Journey that is the Kingdom of Heaven; A revolution not just within our personal life but as part of a profound movement of humanity, an Historical Revolution for the Future of Humanity. With Jesus, we can recognize that Choosing Love makes us revolutionaries. With Jesus we can recognize that our acts of Love, Live and resound through the ages, marking The Way for every generation to come.


PairTheBoard

As I've said before, I don't believe in magical intervention that breaks the laws of nature. When people were told the good news of the Kingdom of Heaven, the Jesus Revolution of Love, they wanted to know it was something they could commit their lives to. I understand the expression in Luke above, as well as others of its kind, as an expression of Faith that the Jesus Revolution of Love has a solid foundation, without corruption, built on rock rather than sand. Jesus gave his life to prove it, three days later the Resurrection Faith was born and the Revolution lives on.


PairTheBoard