TOPIC: The Bible’s Malicious Mind Game of Sinning and Salvation

Ugh wrote:
On the contrary, ALL of the Abrahamic religions are about disempowerment and enslavement of the masses.

Religion is designed to focus people's attention and energy on a single uncompromising and invisible supreme being who allegedly created an inferior human race in sin. Only to foist a set of oppressive laws and rules on them as a solution. Which when broken are met with unimaginable cruel punishment. A set of severe and extreme punishments which keep it's followers in a continual state of fear and compliance. How is that empowerment or liberty? It's not. it's the complete opposite, disempowerment and enslavement..

People then become too afraid and too brainwashed to even question this ''invisible supreme being'' and are told to just have blind faith, regardless of the intentions of this ''God.'' Religion also constantly degrades and humiliates its followers with heavy backward thinking dogma, which puts a huge amount of guilt onto the whole of humanity, in order to glorify and elevate its one god.

Any divine, conscious, and all wise creator in the universe would unlikely want, or need to, impose cruel and inhumane laws, or indeed demand to be worshiped with blind unquestioning obedience. It just wouldn't. Blind obedience with the threat of severe punishment is the system of power mad and malignant dictators. No divine creator would impose such a cruel system. It's absurd to even think or believe so.

That's just primitive and backward insanity, as far as I'm concerned. Any divine creator would most likely be the complete opposite to the angry, jealous, cruel, and genocidal ''God'' written about in the Bible.

Truthspoon wrote:
Well, I never said I don't approve of or dislike some of the moral teachings of Christ. However, that doesn't mean I'm a follower or believer of biblical doctrine, or follower of all that messianic and biblical dogma. I'm not. Indeed, I believe the moral teachings of Jesus etc to be universal human qualities, that most of us inherently have inside us as humans. That is to say I don't think we need messiahs and saviors for us to be good people, or to show the better qualities of being human.

Return of Zorro wrote:
1- no "enslavement" here..-
"Unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit...Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care, watching over them, not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be; not pursuing dishonest gain, but eager to serve; not lording it over those entrusted to you.." (2 Cor 2:17,1 Peter 5:2-3)

2- A beggar woman was sitting outside the grocers the other night but people were ignoring her and passing her by, but I gave her a £20 (24 USD) handout, so if the passersby are slung into hell it serves 'em right..
Stephen Hawking was an atheist but he says in WIKI- "If you like, you can call the laws of science 'God..’"
So if we break the "laws of the universe" (like snubbing beggars) the universe might not like it.
The Bible sets out those laws and we ignore them at our peril..

3- True Christians don't do "blind faith", we hang with Jesus because we like what he said and did, he's a great anti-Estab role model..

4- "Primitive and backward insanity" as you call it is to adopt the unscientific illogical decision to ignore an alien visitor (JC) who said straight out "I'm not of this world, I've come to clue you in about a few things, so regard my miracles as my credentials"..

5- Sure, the God of the OT was one tough cookie, heathen tribes messed with him and got their asses busted, sounds good to me, but then I'm not a bleeding heart liberal lefty snowflake..

Return of Zorro wrote:
Think ROLE MODEL..
JC was one of the best and only wants people with balls in his gang like his young cousin John who was an anti-estab rebel living rough in the wilderness, sometimes going in town to yell insults at the snooty priests and corrupt rulers.
Jesus said "John is the greatest man ever to be born" (Matt 11:11)
Below: John in action against Herod and his tart-

Return of Zorro wrote:
This is true.

Several earlly Christian sects even warned about following the God of the of Israel. They said, the God of Israel was in fact the demiruge, the very Satan that Christianity was supposed to be fighting against. The Christian Cathars, and Gnostics Christians were two good examples.

peacenik wrote:
Nutty "christian" sects were Estab plants to put people off Jesus, that's how the Estab works, that's why Christianity warns us not to get sucked into the world's mire, despite the Estab trying to make people neurotic by telling them "You MUST get involved in world issues, you MUST fret and worry!"
But true Christianity says "Fuck the world", hmm I like that..

"Jesus saved you from the empty way of life handed you by your forefathers" (1 Peter 1:18 )
"Don't conform to the pattern of this world" (Romans 12:2)
"Don't love the world or the things in it, otherwise the love of God is not in you" (1 John 2:15-17)
"Set your mind on things above,not on things on the earth" (Col 3:2)
"You were bought at a price,don't serve men" (1 Cor 7:23)
"A friend of the world is the enemy of God" (James 4:4)
"You were dead when you followed the ways of the world" (Eph 2:1/2)
"You died with Christ from this world, so don't keep submitting to its rules" (Col 2:20)
"Don't let anything bother you, and the peace of God will come" (Philip 4:6/7)

Below: Jesus just a-chillin, what a man..

Ugh wrote:
How "Christian' of you, to care so little about the plight of other Christians.

Every time you post to this forum, you prove the "jesus-rejecters" are more Christian, than you.

peacenik wrote:
Whoa Jack, I got no beef with true Christians, it's only the phoney "spiritual perverts" who get on my tits..
"If anyone preaches a perverted gospel they're accursed" (Galatians 1:6-9)

You're just another gate keeper. trying your best to keep any spiritual knowledge from being revealed. You're no different than any medieval Inquisitor.

peacenik wrote:
What "spiritual knowledge" exactly?
Jesus said "I am the way", so why shouldn't we believe him?
You described yourself as a "Gnostic Christian", but how can you be any sort of Christian if you don't believe JC?
Anyway what ARE your beliefs, I know you believe in reincarnation, but how does that make you more spiritually advanced than the rest of us poor slobs?..

Ugh wrote:
I believe in everything the Christian church believed in, prior to the Second Council of Constantinople in AD 553, when the church successfully condemned any belief in Man's immortality.

Prior to AD553 the Christian church believed in, "Pre Existence". Pre Existence is the catch-all phrase that included such things as, 'past lives', 'reincarnation', and 'rebirth'.

You will notice, a belief in Pre-Existence, is a belief in your own immortality. By definition, one cannot "Pre Exist". in a mortal life. To Pre Exist literally means to exist beyond mortal existence. "Pre Existence" like, "past lives", "reincarnation", "rebirth", all have the same thing in common, they all require more than just mortal existence to accomplish.

It is impossible to believe in, "Pre Existence" w/o a corresponding belief in your own immortality.

Try it yourself, Try to imagine living before this life w/o a belief in your own immortality, ...you cannot do it.

Hence, all reference to Man's immortality was crushed in AD553 when the belief in "Pre Existence" was condemned as heresy

The condemnation of Pre Existence was the first historical proven example of the Church taking an active role in suppressing Man's spirituality.

It's as though they think morals didn't exist until Christianity came along.

The way I see it, they say 'Jewsus died for our sins' then we better keep on sinning or he died for nothing, That has to be their default position, it's why they joined the cult, it's a licence to sin.

peacenik wrote:
God said to Jeremiah- "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you", thereby indicating we existed before we were born, see, there's no "suppression" there.
Even Jesus said- "Father you loved me before the creation of the world", which again indicates we all existed before we were born, no big deal..

Frothy wrote:
Ever since caveman times bad vibes (sin) had been building up via heathen tribes and snooty priests etc, so Jesus came to wipe the slate clean by sacrificing himself for us, soaking up the bad vibes to give us a fresh start.
However the bad vibes/sin has been building up again over the past 2000 years, it's like an invisible mass of spiritual pollution sloshing around the world tainting weak-willed people..
"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this..to keep oneself from being polluted by the world" (James 1:27)

Ugh wrote:
Historical facts trump biblical quotes.

Quotations from fantasyland will NEVER measure up to facts.

It is a historical fact, Christianity believed in Pre Existence prior to AD553.

peacenik wrote:
Christians (including me) still believe the soul is immortal, they always have done, no big deal..
Our souls were inserted into our bodies here on earth as a "test" to find out who are tough enough to qualify for that Big Supper in the sky when our bodies die..
"We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God" (Acts 14:22)

Ugh wrote: So ,if you have a soul and the soul is immortal, what does that make you? You talk about a soul as if it's one of your many posessions like,a body, a pair of shoes or a shirt. So, If you have a soul and it is immortal, what are you in relation to that soul?

Ugh wrote:
According to the bible 'caveman times' didn't exit.

The only way you can feed into Jewsus is by sinning. The whole premise is about sinning and seeking forgiveness.

peacenik wrote:
Our souls are "spirits", and our fleshy bodies are "spacesuits" that our souls wear in order to get around on this planet.
Remember when Jesus rose from the dead as a spirit and that woman went to give him a big hug, he said "No luv, don't touch me, I haven't yet ascended to my Father!" because he knew he was just a spirit and it'd have freaked her out when her arms went through him.
Later, after he'd ascended and got a new repaired body ("spacesuit") and returned to earth, he welcomed people touching him to prove his soul was in a solid flesh and blood body again..

Thomas- "Is it really you boss?"
Jesus "Course it is you numbnuts, feel where the Romans jabbed a spear into me"