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Christless Christianity

Everyone lives forever regardless, the historical Jesus just said if you know it, you won't know death.

How do you reconcile your posting with the words of Jesus?

Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life. - John 5:24
 
by this logic natives in Borneo are going to hell, as they have and never will read the bible or learn about Jesus.

Such ideas are literalistic idiocy.....

But that is literalism for you

One can work out a better solution if one examines what Christ is, and the simple fact that Christ transcends Christianity and can be found found in many places..... even in Borneo....

But that is what happens when people worship their religion not God

Unless I am mistaken about my assessment of your statements:sad:

Are you saying that you can know Christ apart from hearing about the person and work of Jesus Christ for sinners to reconcile them to God? If so, what's the great commison all about? Is missionary work, proclaiming the good news of God about the person and work of Christ unecessary to bring sinners to God?

The Great Commission

Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."
- Matt 28

 

Mr Cheese

Well-Known Member
Are you saying that you can know Christ apart from hearing about the person and work of Jesus Christ for sinners to reconcile them to God? If so, what's the great commison all about? Is missionary work, proclaiming the good news of God about the person and work of Christ unecessary to bring sinners to God?

The Great Commission

Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."
- Matt 28
missionary work is about spreading
1)dogma
2) the idea of the christic principle, which far transcends a book or religion

Christ is the unification of all opposites.
This transcends any dogma of mankind.
This is how Christ is the Tao.

'I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.'

"He who understands both the manifest and the unmanifest together, crosses death through the unmanifest and attains immortality through the manifest." -The Upanishads

..................
The Marriage of Spirit Chapter Two; Alchemy of The Marriage of Spirit


The historic origin of this principle is still evident in various forms in a great number of different religions and traditionsalthough it is more conspicuous in some than in others. Lets take a look at a few:

In the ancient Chinese Taoist tradition, the principle of opposites inherent in the teachings is revealed very clearly in the diagram of the yin-yang symbol (Fig. 2-1). In this wonderfully explicit symbol, the black and white sides wrap around each other in perfect balance, conveying the feeling of the opposites belonging together as one unified whole contained within the circle of eternity. As Carl Jung said, When yang has reached its greatest strength, the dark power of yin is born within its depths. For night begins at midday when yang breaks up and begins to change to yin.
02-01Fig.jpg

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Fig. 2-1.The Taoist yin-yang


[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]In Tantra, which means the balancing of opposites, the ideal of unity is symbolically expressed in the union of Shiva and Shakti, being and manifestation, and masculine and feminine. In the traditional practice of Tantric yoga, the unification of opposites is usually lived out in a physical way. Figure 2-2 symbolizes the manner in which the separations that exist within the physical realm are able to reunify in gesture and action.[/FONT]
02-02Fig.jpg

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Figure 2-2. Masculine and Feminine unity is a Tantric symbol of the unification of opposites.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]In the Bhagavad Gita, which is the primary scripture of Hinduism, Krishna speaks of the unification of opposites to Arjuna. He says, You must be free from the pairs of opposites. Poise your mind in tranquility.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]In Buddhism, one of the principle tenets is that of the Middle Path. The Buddha advocated that walking between the extremes of the pairs of opposites is the path to enlightenment, or Nirvana.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]An example from Christian literature is in the Gnostic text, the Gospel According to Thomas, discovered in 1945 in Nag Hamadi, Egypt, which is believed to have been produced in about ad 140. Jesus said to them: When you make the two one, and when you make the inner as the outer and the outer as the inner and the above as the below, and when you make the male and the female into a single one, so that the male will not be male and the female not be female then shall you enter [the Kingdom].[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Although the teachings of the Christian Bible do not emphasize the principle of the unification of opposites, there are still references to it. One of the more explicit references is in Isaiah 11:6-10, which implies that the knowledge of God comes when opposites are unified. The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. The cow and the bear shall graze; their young ones shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. The nursing child shall play by the cobras hole, and the weaned child shall put his hand in the vipers den.For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]In fact, although all three major monotheistic religionsChristianity, Judaism and Islamdo not emphasize the reconciliation of opposites, their belief in the one God over the many is in itself an acknowledgement of God as the absolute state of unity.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The teaching of the unification of opposites is also clear in Islamic mysticism, or Sufism, and in Jewish mysticism, or Kabbalah. As Sufi master Hazrat Inayat Khan is quoted in Universal Sufism: Mental purification means that impressions such as good and bad, wrong and right, gain and loss, and pleasure and pain, these opposites which block the mind, must be cleared out by seeing the opposite of these things. Then one can see the enemy in the friend and the friend in the enemy. When one can recognize poison in nectar and nectar in the poison, that is the time when death and life become one, too. Opposites no more remain opposites before one.[/FONT]

[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]As Daniel C. Matt states in The Essential Kabbalah in his discussion of absolute undifferentiation: At the deepest levels of divinity, all opposites and distinctions vanish, overwhelmed by oneness.[/FONT]
[/FONT]
 
missionary work is about spreading
1)dogma
2) the idea of the christic principle, which far transcends a book or religion

Christ is the unification of all opposites.
This transcends any dogma of mankind.
This is how Christ is the Tao.


Do you believe in some form of universalism? If so, can you explain in your own words what you believe? Do you believe in some form of divine perfect justice?
 

Mr Cheese

Well-Known Member
Do you believe in some form of universalism? If so, can you explain in your own words what you believe? Do you believe in some form of divine perfect justice?

Justice?

Well yes, but I think the "will" of God is a wee bit complex to be black and white....

I think this says it all!:

“O God, If I worship You for fear of Hell,
burn me in Hell without end.

And if I worship You in hope of Paradise,
Forbid it forever to me.

But if I worship You for You,
do not hold back from me Your everlasting Beauty.”

- Rabi a al-Basri

..........

The Allegorical story of the Chemical wedding is the story of a man attending a wedding, not realising it is his own. CRC goes on a series of adventures over a series of days, notably including interaction with 7 “maidens” or as the Jocelyn Godwin translation calls them (much to my preference as it has much more meaning) virgins.

Eventually CRC finds his way underground to his bride..the rose maiden. Within the Rosicrucian vault crc is transformed with the unification of himself and his bride…A chemcial wedding is a unification of 2 opposites to form a 3rd whole: sperm +egg=zygote

Thomas Aquinas stated that there are ONLY 3 movements in the universe
straight line.. masculine..the penis the rod..the sword..air and fire
circular vagina womb cup..shield water and earth
and
obtuse..a unification of male and female changing direction mid-flow serpentine .the kabalistic lightning flash..the chord quintessence aether..the Christ..
SO we see the idea of the alchemical unity..

http://www.religiousforums.com/forum/other-religious-movements-practices/82471-rosicrucianism.html

Thus Christ IS the universal Principle
 
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Justice?

Well yes, but I think the "will" of God is a wee bit complex to be black and white....

I think this says it all!:

“O God, If I worship You for fear of Hell,
burn me in Hell without end.

And if I worship You in hope of Paradise,
Forbid it forever to me.

But if I worship You for You,
do not hold back from me Your everlasting Beauty.”

- Rabi a al-Basri

God is the gospel. Jesus Christ was sent to this fallen world to live, suffer and die to bring us to God, so our joy would be made complete in God. We worship God because He is the everlasting beautiful One... that none can compare with. Idols are lies that replace our joy in the Supreme Being for false temporal happiness found outside God Himself. Even Christians have many false religious idols which robs them of their joy found in God alone. So, we are really on the same page. But how do you know that you are enjoying the One True God, and not enjoying the beauty of a false god that you created in your own mind?
 

Mr Cheese

Well-Known Member
God is the gospel. Jesus Christ was sent to this fallen world to live, suffer and die to bring us to God, so our joy would be made complete in God. We worship God because He is the everlasting beautiful One... that none can compare with. Idols are lies that replace our joy in the Supreme Being for false temporal happiness found outside God Himself. Even Christians have many false religious idols which robs them of their joy found in God alone. So, we are really on the same page. But how do you know that you are enjoying the One True God, and not enjoying the beauty of a false god that you created in your own mind?

because that God far outstrips anything I or anyone thus far has conceived of....

not negating that which has already been conceived of, just saying there is more, and always will be....
 
because that God far outstrips anything I or anyone thus far has conceived of....

not negating that which has already been conceived of, just saying there is more, and always will be....

But how did you determine how God is like? Did you conceive your version of God through the creation of your own finite mind? Or, did you receive outside revelation from God to determine how He is like? Do you consider yourself to be a prophet in some way to nullify the Judeo Christian God revealed in the Bible? Of course, God in infinite, and there is always more. But how do we know what you consider to be more... to be true?
 
I am a Christian who have come to the conclusion that much of modern day Christianity is a Christless Christianity in life and doctrine. I would like to hear from Christians and non-Christians alike to see if you think if Christians tend to practice a form of graceless Christianity or Christless Christianity in more ways than one. Please feel free to discuss things in general or specific.

Spot on. Christianity has nothing to do with Jesus of Nazareth except for a remote tenuous spider web fibre that borrowed a name falsely linked to Jesus.

Jesus was a human man, wise, compassionate, and a reformer. He was never a god and never claimed to be a god. He distinguished himself from God in many different verses of the gospels.

Original Jesus followers were Jews who followed the teachings of Jesus but did not worship him as a new God, which is blasphemy. The first commandment of JHWY commands "I am the Lord thy God and will have no other gods (including Jesus) before me."

It was Pagans of the Roman Empire who deified Jesus into a new God, apotheosis. Christ was another Greek idea borrowed from the Greek speaking Mithraists who had a similar "son of god" named Mithra and a Holy Spirit named Spenta Maingu, a bread disc (solar disc) in eucharistic communion. Mithraists had baptism with the Jews did not have.

Christianity borrowed the word Christ (Annointed one) from the Mithraists and Zoroastrians. They made him into a god person in a rather irrational concept of the Trinity as did Mithraists.

Apart from occasional mention of the name Jesus in sermons, and the repeated claim of the mythical resurrection after crucifixion, belief has no connection to the Historical Jesus.

Interestingly 16 other god impregnated, virgin born, human beings were believed to have been slain, died, and resurrected in 3 days to save the world. The most famous were Mithra, Osiris, and Apollonius of Tyana. It is obvious that the Pagan myth of the Jesus-God dying and resurrecting is plagiarism. Unfortunately the Mithraists never filed a copyright.

There are some Christians like you who are not really Christians (a Pagan Cult founded on a false Jesus). You are really followers of Jesus not Christ. You value his moral teachings, his parables, his compassion, his emphasis on healing, emphasis on forgiveness, and his clear elevation of the status of women.

Christianity as most of us know it, (Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, Evangelical, and Pentecostal) is fully, structurally, ethically, and superstition based Pagan.

Calling Jesus Followers, Christians, is slander.

Amhairghine
 
Spot on. Christianity has nothing to do with Jesus of Nazareth except for a remote tenuous spider web fibre that borrowed a name falsely linked to Jesus.

Jesus was a human man, wise, compassionate, and a reformer. He was never a god and never claimed to be a god. He distinguished himself from God in many different verses of the gospels.

Original Jesus followers were Jews who followed the teachings of Jesus but did not worship him as a new God, which is blasphemy. The first commandment of JHWY commands "I am the Lord thy God and will have no other gods (including Jesus) before me."

It was Pagans of the Roman Empire who deified Jesus into a new God, apotheosis. Christ was another Greek idea borrowed from the Greek speaking Mithraists who had a similar "son of god" named Mithra and a Holy Spirit named Spenta Maingu, a bread disc (solar disc) in eucharistic communion. Mithraists had baptism with the Jews did not have.

Christianity borrowed the word Christ (Annointed one) from the Mithraists and Zoroastrians. They made him into a god person in a rather irrational concept of the Trinity as did Mithraists.

Apart from occasional mention of the name Jesus in sermons, and the repeated claim of the mythical resurrection after crucifixion, belief has no connection to the Historical Jesus.

Interestingly 16 other god impregnated, virgin born, human beings were believed to have been slain, died, and resurrected in 3 days to save the world. The most famous were Mithra, Osiris, and Apollonius of Tyana. It is obvious that the Pagan myth of the Jesus-God dying and resurrecting is plagiarism. Unfortunately the Mithraists never filed a copyright.

There are some Christians like you who are not really Christians (a Pagan Cult founded on a false Jesus). You are really followers of Jesus not Christ. You value his moral teachings, his parables, his compassion, his emphasis on healing, emphasis on forgiveness, and his clear elevation of the status of women.

Christianity as most of us know it, (Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, Evangelical, and Pentecostal) is fully, structurally, ethically, and superstition based Pagan.

Calling Jesus Followers, Christians, is slander.

Amhairghine

Thanks for sharing. Just for clarification... I am a Christian who adheres to the historical creeds and confessions of the church. I defintely believe that Jesus is God incarnate and is the 2nd person of the godhead defined within the doctrine of the Trinity.
 

Mr Cheese

Well-Known Member
But how did you determine how God is like? Did you conceive your version of God through the creation of your own finite mind? Or, did you receive outside revelation from God to determine how He is like? Do you consider yourself to be a prophet in some way to nullify the Judeo Christian God revealed in the Bible? Of course, God in infinite, and there is always more. But how do we know what you consider to be more... to be true?

Did you conceive your version of God through the creation of your own finite mind? Or, did you receive outside revelation from God to determine how He is like?

Both...

Do you consider yourself to be a prophet in some way to nullify the Judeo Christian God revealed in the Bible?

no.....

we see things as we are
Not as they are

But how do we know what you consider to be more... to be true

see answer to question 1
And, there arent words for some things....

Worrying about truth is frankly pointless.

"Seek not the truth
Cease only to cherish opinions"

--Zen proverb
 
Did you conceive your version of God through the creation of your own finite mind? Or, did you receive outside revelation from God to determine how He is like?

Both...

Do you consider yourself to be a prophet in some way to nullify the Judeo Christian God revealed in the Bible?

no.....

we see things as we are
Not as they are

But how do we know what you consider to be more... to be true

see answer to question 1
And, there arent words for some things....

Worrying about truth is frankly pointless.

"Seek not the truth
Cease only to cherish opinions"

--Zen proverb

Interesting. To clarify, God speaks to you personally through your own mind, correct? And, he also reveals himself to you through outside revelation apart from yourself. How do you know God is speaking to you as compared to being something that you imagined at the moment? What kind of outside revelation do you consider to be from God? What do you do when outside revelation sources contradict within themselves? By your last statement, you appear to value opinions over truth because truth cannot be known, correct?
 
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logician

Well-Known Member
"Jesus was a human man, wise, compassionate, and a reformer. He was never a god and never claimed to be a god. He distinguished himself from God in many different verses of the gospels"

Can you even prove that this Jesus was anything but a myth, along the same lines of many other god myths. Nothing in the teachings of this supposed Jesus was unique or earth shattering, the golden rule had existed for at least a thousand years.
 
"Jesus was a human man, wise, compassionate, and a reformer. He was never a god and never claimed to be a god. He distinguished himself from God in many different verses of the gospels"

Can you even prove that this Jesus was anything but a myth, along the same lines of many other god myths. Nothing in the teachings of this supposed Jesus was unique or earth shattering, the golden rule had existed for at least a thousand years.

We can start wit the "I Am" statements. Here's one of them.

Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. 36 But I said to you that you have seen me and yet do not believe. 37 All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. 38 For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will but the will of him who sent me. 39 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. 40 For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

41 So the Jews grumbled about him, because he said, “I am the bread that came down from heaven.” 42 They said, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven’?” 43 Jesus answered them, “Do not grumble among yourselves. 44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. 45 It is written in the Prophets, ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me— 46 not that anyone has seen the Father except he who is from God; he has seen the Father. 47 Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50 This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

52 The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” 53 So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. 55 For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. 56 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. 57 As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread [3] the fathers ate and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” 59 Jesus [4] said these things in the synagogue, as he taught at Capernaum.

The Words of Eternal Life

60 When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” 61 But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, “Do you take offense at this? 62 Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? 63 It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. 64 But there are some of you who do not believe.” (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.) 65 And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.”
 

Mr Cheese

Well-Known Member
Interesting. To clarify, God speaks to you personally through your own mind, correct? And, he also reveals himself to you through outside revelation apart from yourself. How do you know God is speaking to you as compared to being something that you imagined at the moment? What kind of outside revelation do you consider to be from God? What do you do when outside revelation sources contradict within themselves? By your last statement, you appear to value opinions over truth because truth cannot be known, correct?


the "secret" is meditation or contemplation as many christians call it

more another time
 
"Jesus was a human man, wise, compassionate, and a reformer. He was never a god and never claimed to be a god. He distinguished himself from God in many different verses of the gospels"

Can you even prove that this Jesus was anything but a myth, along the same lines of many other god myths. Nothing in the teachings of this supposed Jesus was unique or earth shattering, the golden rule had existed for at least a thousand years.

Here's another very unique claim.

I Am the Resurrection and the Life

17 Now when Jesus came, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. 18 Bethany was near Jerusalem, about two miles [3] off, 19 and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them concerning their brother. 20 So when Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, but Mary remained seated in the house. 21 Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22 But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.” 23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” 24 Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” 25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. [4] Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” 27 She said to him, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.”
 
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