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  1. Vishvavajra

    Could God Exist, And Not Exist Too?

    The existence of those molecules and atoms can be challenged in the very same way. At best they're all convenient designators that refer to collections of other things. Molecules are made up of atoms. Atoms are made up of subatomic particles. Subatomic particles are made of quarks. There's no...
  2. Vishvavajra

    other religionists quote their scriptures well,what about us?

    Yes, the purpose of scripture is to keep us from having to reinvent the wheel every generation. Sometimes the way a teaching has been phrased in scripture is particularly skillful for a given context. Other times it's not. Our teacher quotes or paraphrases verses that are particularly...
  3. Vishvavajra

    It's said Jesus' sacrificed himself to save us...

    "Salvation" is a metaphor, and the original Greek has a lot of associations that aren't obvious in English. Crazy snake handlers aside, nobody actually thinks that salvation prevents bodily harm.
  4. Vishvavajra

    It's said Jesus' sacrificed himself to save us...

    Why is there a penalty to be paid? Why is there need for any of that? And most importantly, why is there need for horrible suffering and death? Why is it necessary for God to solve problems with violence? It was barbaric when ancient people did it to animals (and sometimes each other), and it's...
  5. Vishvavajra

    It's said Jesus' sacrificed himself to save us...

    My answer would be different from St. Frankenstein's here. Salvation isn't about regressing to a pre-sapient state. It's about fulfilling our full potential and being completely alive, in touch with the truth of the world, free of all delusions and defilements. The Adam & Eve myth isn't about...
  6. Vishvavajra

    It's said Jesus' sacrificed himself to save us...

    I'm thinking we need to have a serious talk about sources and standards of evidence. What you call "Internet resources" are not sources or evidence of anything. Anybody can say whatever they want and publish it on the Internet. There is no requirement of citations, no peer review. A lot of it is...
  7. Vishvavajra

    The German goddess of fertility - Eostre

    There may have been a pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon goddess by the name of Eostre whose festival month coincided with the Christian holiday. Our only source for that is Bede, and it's not clear where he's getting the information or if he's engaging in some "creative scholarship," as folks like him...
  8. Vishvavajra

    Is Religion a relationship?

    Actually, religion was originally understood as a kind of relationship in ancient times, not a belief system. The idea that religion is primarily concerned with belief is Christian in origin, in its strong form characteristically Protestant. Even in that context it's not necessarily accurate.
  9. Vishvavajra

    I want to create my own religion.

    That contemporary "paganism" amounts to a bunch of people consciously making stuff up? Seems sad to me. But maybe in the world of the New Age that's standard and even laudable. It's a radically modern way of approaching religion, I suppose. People in ancient times would find it bizarre.
  10. Vishvavajra

    It's said Jesus' sacrificed himself to save us...

    I'll refer you to St. Frankenstein's post first. Then I'll point out that Penal Substitution has only been around for about 400 years and ask you if you think Christians for the first 1600 years had just got it all wrong. Thirdly, I'll assert that murdering someone, or arranging their murder, is...
  11. Vishvavajra

    It's said Jesus' sacrificed himself to save us...

    You know good and well that there is not a shred of evidence for this. The stuff about Easter being a goddess is flimsy but possible, as at least there is a kind of source for it, however sketchy. There is no way to support the assertion that Protestant churches reached across the millennia in...
  12. Vishvavajra

    It's said Jesus' sacrificed himself to save us...

    The way people count like that is a function of the language, not an objective fact that exists outside language. In English people typically count days starting at the moment a thing begins, then counting all 24-hour periods until the moment a thing ends, even if it's in the late afternoon on...
  13. Vishvavajra

    It's said Jesus' sacrificed himself to save us...

    Not the way we reckon it in English, no.
  14. Vishvavajra

    It's said Jesus' sacrificed himself to save us...

    Penal substitutionary atonement? It's a truly awful theory, even by the standards of atonement theories, which is already saying something. And what does the "spiritual" mean in this context—i.e. what does Paul mean when he says the πνεῦμα is unborn and undying?
  15. Vishvavajra

    It's said Jesus' sacrificed himself to save us...

    Ancient Greeks counted inclusively, so Friday was day one.
  16. Vishvavajra

    Is it possible to become a shinto in the U.S.A

    I don't believe one "becomes a Shinto." It's not an identity or a set of doctrines. It's just a relatively recent made-up term to describe a bunch of native Japanese religious practices centered on shrines of a sort that one often finds there. If you go to those shrines you can leave offerings...
  17. Vishvavajra

    Jesus a magician?

    Lots of figures like Jesus have miracles attributed to them several decades after their deaths, as the stories about them grow. The Gospels are pretty typical in this regard. The question isn't how Jesus performed the miracles, but what his performing miracles means in the context of the...
  18. Vishvavajra

    I want to create my own religion.

    Sad but true.
  19. Vishvavajra

    I want to create my own religion.

    It's an interesting exercise. Has anyone created a religion whole-cloth like this and actually had it stick? Or maybe that isn't the point. In any case, one thing to consider is whether you'll make things kind of messy by design, in order to simulate a tradition that arose as a cultural development.
  20. Vishvavajra

    I want to create my own religion.

    Why not just practice Buddhism? That way you can accomplish many of the same things while benefiting from a long tradition and the wisdom of others.
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