The Bible and The Quran

[Saint Frankenstein]

In order to get through all the dogmatic crap that has been superimposed over Jesus' real teachings you have to cherrypick in my opinion. As far as the hellfire thing, look at the context of the language in the hellfire verses vs. the parable/teaching type verses. It is easy to tell that one or the other was added in, as for which I agree there is no way to know. I just choose to think the hellfire verses were added in, it aligns much better to state controlled religious doctrine to that of a rogue rabbi.

So basically you're choosing to believe what you want because it feels right to you. You want Jesus to be a certain way so you choose to ignore the parts that you personally don't like. Why? What is the point of that? Instead of creating a personal patchwork Jesus, why don't you just throw out the whole thing and look for better inspiration? There's much better choices out there. There's real people to look up to who actually wrote their own words.

Can you quote some verses where Jesus says if you don't follow me you'll burn in hell? And the petty temper tantrum when people don't agree with him verses. Where he promotes the end of the world. Where he says he is the ONLY truth, light, and the way.

The examples are listed in the links I posted.

As far as the leaving the families, it wasn't neccesarily that he said for them to leave their families, but more so not to worry about their old lives. I agree with you it is a little audacious, I never said he wasn't audacious. I don't think his philosophy was follow me or else, it was more akin to follow me and your life will change. Do not follow me and your life will most likely stay the same, the choice is yours. The culture and time period was very different at that time. You can't compare it with the life that American's live today in any way, shape, or fashion.

That is just your opinion. Nowhere in the text does it say that. The Jesus character, or whomever was putting the words into his mouth, could've made him clarify whatever it was he was really saying but they didn't. The writer chose to leave him saying vague things that we still can't figure out to this day. I wonder why they was.

Totally agree. But are you really exposing them, if you are just bashing the ideals that have been attributed to them over the years by the elite and the masses, ideals they may not have even held themselves? I think exposing them would be portraying them for who they were most likely to be, and if you find the person to actually be that which has been attributed to them, and not care for it then so be it. But simply bashing the "idol" because of the representation that has been given to him that may or may not have been his own is not exposing the idol, but simply giving in to the status quo, by accepting that the idol was actually that way.

Unlike you, I'm looking at the Jesus character as a whole and not as I'd like him to be, which is what you are doing.

What's more LHP than presenting a logical assertation, that the main western centerpiece of the RHP was nothing more than a good ole fashion LHP adherent lol.

Choosing to ignore aspects of this character that you personally don't like while others dump the parts that you like and make use the ones that you don't like and harm themselves and others because of it, isn't a solution. It's the same games that people have been playing for centuries - patchwork Jesus in conflict with each other. "Oh, you have your Jesus and I'll have mine", "Oh your Jesus thinks I should burn in eternal hell because I'm a wicked person who doesn't believe". The Jesus character did say that he was going to bring division. He tears apart families all the time. Kids get kicked out of their homes all the time over the words of Jesus. But you just want to play games and ignore the nasty part so you can cling to your idol.

I don't blame the religion, I blame the herd. The religion, nor the man that it was based upon, cause people to join the herd. People cause people to join the herd. I totally agree that is prudent for one to criticize cults that banish critical thinking and harm many, and to question and chisel away at the power that and "idol" has over society.

You're contradicting yourself. You say not to blame the religion or the man but to blame people and criticize cults? Where exactly do you think these cults are getting their teachings from? What is Christianity based on? Jesus! Jesus is the foundation of Christianity. When you criticize Jesus, you're getting at the root of the problem.

That's not my point, my point is, did the idol actually possess the ideas of harming people, and suppressing ideas himself. If I started a movement tomorrow about free thought and self impowerment, and someone took it and made it a religion of oppression and control, would you accuse me being a patron for these ideals, because others used it as a tool of oppression?

The reason why Christianity has been able to stand as a religion of power and control over the masses is because it presents a savior and a god who has a split personality. That makes it convenient for the leaders of the religion to emphasize certain aspects when the situation calls for it. It also has an atrocious side effect of causing people to psychologically link violence and punishment with love. You have a god that kills people and tortures them eternally yet this same god is said to be a god of love, mercy and compassion. So people link the two. By punishing and mistreating people, you're actually "loving" them.

I highly doubt that if you started a movement and made yourself completely clear about your intentions and thoughts, you wouldn't have that problem. Jesus never made himself clear.

Nice accuser reference there .

Thanks.

But what if in all actuality, these people preached for humanity, human spirit and the human will? What if their image has been used over the years to oppress these ideas. Would you hold the person responsible for how their image was used, or would you hold the people that perverted their image responsible? Then if you accuse the person of holding these ideals, when in actuallity they didn't, does that mean that oppose the ideals they held of promoting humanity, human spirit, and human will as well?

You're just repeating yourself. Those points have been addressed above.

LOL, indeed I agree that you should call it into question. But what better way to call it into question than to logically promote the idea that Jesus promoted personal growth, human liberty, and growth of mind and spirit, rather than reliance of an outside entity to provide these things for you?

Because there's no reason to believe that he did, if you would actually bother to read the gospels. It's time to stop twisting the Jesus character into something we think is palatable. It's been 17 centuries. It's time for us as a society to move on to new inspirations instead of looking to a 2,000 year old dead Jew who never wrote anything down and whom we can't be sure actually said or did anything attributed to him in the Bible and who may not have even existed.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

When you say Jesus character, do you mean Yehoshua or the character that has been created over the years? All leaders can be qualified as megalomanical charismatic cult leaders in my opinion, the only difference between the lot of them is the ideals they promote.

I mean the character in the gospels. That's the only Jesus we have. All the others are the result of guesswork and cherry picking.

And you're wrong about all leaders. They don't all fit that personality type.

I can't neccesarily hate on him for suggesting people leave behind their old lives. My view would be that he was telling them to leave behind lives of long hours of hard manual labor, extreme poverty, and little chance for self growth and empowerement, for a life of relative ease, plentiful food, and a high chance of self growth and empowerment. Not to mention some great parties with plenty of wine and a general good time.

That's your opinion. The text doesn't say that at all.

I dunno bout you, but raising people from the dead isn't a two-bit magic trick.

Don't tell me you actually believe that he went around bringing corpses back to life?

Have you ever tried to win a person over with reason and logic? The fact that you made that statement makes me think you haven't because if you had, you would have realized that it is an effort in fututility. Especially when your dealing with someone who is uneducated in the first place. Trying to win over someone who is illogical with logic is illogical in and of itself. Hell, even generally logical people aren't usually won over by logic and reason. People for the most part, whether uneducated or not, follow charisma not logic, otherwise we wouldn't be in the mess that we're in right now. A charismatic person can teach logical abilities to the illogical, a non-charismatic person can not in my opinion.

I know that. You're appearing to be an example of that, I'm sorry to say. But I'd rather honest rather than a sophist.

Yeah it had nothing to do with Jesus' generally benevelont attitude toward the poor? I don't think Christianity weaseled it's way up to the top, I think those already at the top realized that the rise of Christianity was inevitable, and rather than fight it, they chose to contort it into a religion that would better suit their needs.

That's not how Christianity came to be. There was no one Christianity in the beginning. It was a bunch of different sects. It apparently started off among mystery school sects who didn't accept Jesus as a historical character. Then later on, the Jesus story was evolved into being an historical narrative. The Roman power structure picked it up because it was a good way to strengthen control over the masses.

Nice guys finish last, and morals are relative. What is your criteria of what the ideals he actually promoted verse the ideas that were attributed to him?

Are you asking me what I think Jesus actually said as opposed to what others put in his mouth? Personally, I don't think there was an historical Jesus or at least I don't have a reason to think so. The only Jesus we know of is the one from the gospels, so there's no way of judging what an historical Jesus would've been like in the first place.

I was that at one point, but now I do not view Jesus as an idol, nor do I view anyone as an idol other than my mom, but do you not view Satan as an idol? Do you view him as an idol because the things the masses attribute to him, or because of what you things you attribute to him?

Everyone has an idol of some sort. However, I don't rely on what the masses think of Satan to form my conception of Him. I do my own research into myth, theology, literature, etc. and make up my own mind. But the difference is that Satanism is not a religion or philosophy that seeks conversions so I don't care what people think of Satan as long as they leave me and those like me alone. It's a completely different worldview from that of Christianity and the one promoted by Jesus. What I'm concerned about is beliefs that harm people.

But the question is what was he in reality? And why is what I construct him to be a false construct? What logical basis do you have for this? The key word that use in their is "purported" to have said and done.

Answered above.

You're just choosing to ignore the parts that you don't like.

Rejecting Christianity and Jesus are two different things in my opinion.

Wrong. Jesus is the root of Christianity. Without him, it wouldn't exist.

Anyway, this is getting far off from my original point about Jesus not having anything to do with the LHP.

 

[psychoslice]

I am sad to see some of the nasty generalizations of the Quran, and the assumptions of how Muslims generally intepretate the scripture. Also the attitude of "my religion is better" is pretty sad too.

Yes i agree its sad, but can you blame them, what we see happening around the world doesn't paint a very good picture of Muslims.

 

[Assad91]

Yes i agree its sad, but can you blame them, what we see happening around the world doesn't paint a very good picture of Muslims.

Yes, the much higher amount of Muslims being killed by terrorist "muslims" paints a bad picture of Muslims

 

[Assad91]

Terrorist who use Islam as a disguise are as much an enemy to Muslims as they are to non Muslims. They are an enemy to humanity.

 

[psychoslice]

Terrorist who use Islam as a disguise are as much an enemy to Muslims as they are to non Muslims. They are an enemy to humanity.

I agree with that also, but someone has to wake up.

 

[Assad91]

I agree with that also, but someone has to wake up.

Whats that suppose to mean?

 

[psychoslice]

Whats that suppose to mean?

Well if both parties are going to kill just for revenge, how can there ever be peace, someone has to swollow their pride, and someone has to realize that this is all childish and stupid not to mention down right dangerous. As long as their are those ho believe they have the right religion and every other is dirt there will never be peace in this world, we will distroy this world for an imaginary world in the future, if your god supports this thinking then he or she is nothing but an evil imaginary friend, be that Musilum or Christian or whatever.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Well if both parties are going to kill just for revenge, how can there ever be peace, someone has to swollow their pride, and someone has to realize that this is all childish and stupid not to mention down right dangerous. As long as their are those ho believe they have the right religion and every other is dirt there will never be peace in this world, we will distroy this world for an imaginary world in the future, if your god supports this thinking then he or she is nothing but an evil imaginary friend, be that Musilum or Christian or whatever.

:yes: We must move beyond these mindsets.

 

[Pegg]

Terrorist who use Islam as a disguise are as much an enemy to Muslims as they are to non Muslims. They are an enemy to humanity.

why doesnt Islam create a governing body that controls its muslim teachers in all mosques?

wouldnt that help stop the fanatical preachers who promote jihad?

 

[psychoslice]

why doesnt Islam create a governing body that controls its muslim teachers in all mosques?

wouldnt that help stop the fanatical preachers who promote jihad?

Yes I think that would be a good start, but it must also be applied to all belief systems.

 

[Pegg]

Yes I think that would be a good start, but it must also be applied to all belief systems.

Isnt there only one Quran which is exactly the same for all sects of Islam?

If thats the case, a governing body could set the standard interpretation and keep it all uniform so that every muslim teacher has the same understanding and preaches the same message. (so long as that message is not one of jihad)

 

[psychoslice]

Isnt there only one Quran which is exactly the same for all sects of Islam?

If thats the case, a governing body could set the standard interpretation and keep it all uniform so that every muslim teacher has the same understanding and preaches the same message. (so long as that message is not one of jihad)

Yes you would think that was the case, but take a look at Christianity and their sects, which is right and which is wrong, or are they all wrong ?.

 

[Pegg]

Yes you would think that was the case, but take a look at Christianity and their sects, which is right and which is wrong, or are they all wrong ?.

most of them are wrong

But at least they are not wrong to the point where they are terrorising the neighbourhood with bombs and killing people for a cause. Like Muslims, we believe in judgement upon the wicked, but we are waiting for God to bring his judgement, we are not doing the judging and executing ourselves.

 

[psychoslice]

most of them are wrong

But at least they are not wrong to the point where they are terrorising the neighbourhood with bombs and killing people for a cause. Like Muslims, we believe in judgement upon the wicked, but we are waiting for God to bring his judgement, we are not doing the judging and executing ourselves.

Yes that is true, religion should keeps it beliefs and opinions to itself, it has already proven over and over that it just doesn't help.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Yes that is true, religion should keeps it beliefs and opinions to itself, it has already proven over and over that it just doesn't help.

This will continue as long as people think their religion is the "one true" religion and believe that everyone needs to convert to it.

 

[nash8]

I mean the character in the gospels. That's the only Jesus we have. All the others are the result of guesswork and cherry picking.

I would argue that the character in the gospels is just as much guesswork as any other. And why would these "cherry pickings" be included in the Bible if they were not part of Jesus' teachings when the mainstream church sought to eradicate all gnostic thought?

The gnostic church was very strong in early Christianity, but lost out once Roman authorities got a hold of Christianity, and then the Christian leadership spent well over 1000 years killing, and otherwise persecuting the gnostic sects of Christianity. Why should I be relegated to studying what I view as a creation of socio-economic political machine?

Lastly, the person I admire would be named Yehoshua, rather than Jesus. Jesus came about as a mistranslation of the hebrew name YHSVH, and really does not even correlate to the name it was meant portray.

And you're wrong about all leaders. They don't all fit that personality type.

What about them being charismatic, or that they are hedonistic? I definitely agree with you on the latter, but not on the former.

That's your opinion. The text doesn't say that at all.

The text is an opinion. Then you have all the gnostic type texts that don't correlate exactly with the Bible. Secondly, I have researched my opinion thoroughly, it's not like I'm just coming up with this stuff out of thin air.

Don't tell me you actually believe that he went around bringing corpses back to life?

Maybe, maybe not. It happens on a regular basis, and I personally have done things with energy healing that I never thought physically possible, and I am relatively untrained in the art. I think Jesus was an Essene, which according to Josephus were renowned for their healing abilities.

More likely though, I think Jesus was able to heal people that would have been considered dead during those times, and in that culture, that would be easily treated today.

For example, curing the blind is nothing more than giving them some good ole' fashion vitamin A. Nothing mystical about it.
Vitamin A deficiency - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

That's not how Christianity came to be. There was no one Christianity in the beginning. It was a bunch of different sects. It apparently started off among mystery school sects who didn't accept Jesus as a historical character.

Can you cite some evidence of this, I've never seen any early sect that didn't accept Jesus as a real person. I've never seen anything that said it started this way either. I've seen that the gnostic sects didn't accept the "spiritual ressurection" which I don't either. Why would Jesus ask for physical food because he was hungry, if he wasn't physically alive?

Then later on, the Jesus story was evolved into being an historical narrative. The Roman power structure picked it up because it was a good way to strengthen control over the masses.

I could not agree with you more on this. Check out Constantines monetary policy after the institution of Christianity as the state religion. But I have to say it worked atleast from a political-economic standpoint. The Western empire continued on for almost 1000 years under Christianity, while the Eastern empire crumbled.

Are you asking me what I think Jesus actually said as opposed to what others put in his mouth? Personally, I don't think there was an historical Jesus or at least I don't have a reason to think so. The only Jesus we know of is the one from the gospels, so there's no way of judging what an historical Jesus would've been like in the first place.

Do you believe that Socrates, Plato, Buddha, and just about every other historical figure from antiquity existed? I just find it illogical to believe that the most historically attested man in history was not real.

I agree that there's no way to prove what a historical Jesus would have been like, but there are definitely ways to logically deduce how he might have been, but granted, there are logical ways to deduce many different Jesus characters.

Everyone has an idol of some sort.

Just so you know Jesus isn't my idol.

However, I don't rely on what the masses think of Satan to form my conception of Him. I do my own research into myth, theology, literature, etc. and make up my own mind.

Since my view of Jesus conforms exactly to the concpetion the masses generally have of him lol. I have done all my own research as well, into the same areas that you have and I have made my own mind as well. I don't see the difference between what you have done regarding Satan, and what I have done regarding Jesus. Hell, I even think Jesus was an advesary of the sorts.

But the difference is that Satanism is not a religion or philosophy that seeks conversions so I don't care what people think of Satan as long as they leave me and those like me alone.

I don't seek conversions neccesarily either, atleast not of the religious sort, philosphical maybe, but not really regarding Jesus in any way. And I don't really care what people think of my conception of Jesus either.

It's a completely different worldview from that of Christianity and the one promoted by Jesus.

No arguments from me that Christianity holds a completely different worldview than Satanism lol. But from the one promoted by Jesus, different yes, completely different no, dependent upon what form of LHP you personally adhere to, most definitely.

But I am curious as to how a man that you view didn't exist can promote a worledview?

What I'm concerned about is beliefs that harm people.

As am I.

You're just choosing to ignore the parts that you don't like.

So are you everytime you accuse me of "cherrypicking".

But in all seriousness, I'm not ignoring them, I'm just making a logical analysis using language and usage comparison within the texts, historical analysis of the socio-political culture of the history of Christianity, and my analysis of the nature of the political-economic machine over the years, including that of the early Roman church. They had councils to decide what books went into the Bible, and not all of the people that decided what went into the Bible were regarded as "Christians", but as political leaders of the Roman empire. Why would they include teachings that promoted personal impowerment amongst the lower classes?

Am I biased, of course, but who isn't. And along those lines, I was raised in a traditional Christian home, totally rejected all aspects of Jesus' existence and Christianity at one point, and came around to discover my own conclusion based on nothing but research, so if anything I should be biased against Jesus, not for him. I don't believe he's the Son of God, nor some super-human, I think he was a bad ***, and he encouraged people that they could become just as much of a bad *** as he was.

Wrong. Jesus is the root of Christianity. Without him, it wouldn't exist.

I thought you said earlier that Christianity started with people that didn't believe he existed? But I agree with your statement, if Jesus didn't exist, Christianity wouldn't exist either. I just have a different view of what he actually taught.

[/quote] Anyway, this is getting far off from my original point about Jesus not having anything to do with the LHP. [/quote]

The LHP at it's core is about not opposing social norms, no? How can you seriously argue that Jesus did not oppose social norms, whether in the context of the Bible or without. That's basically all he did during the entire course of the Bible lol?

 

[nash8]

Terrorist who use Islam as a disguise are as much an enemy to Muslims as they are to non Muslims. They are an enemy to humanity.

You actually expect the masses to be able to realize this lol? You give them way too much credit in my opinion.

Well if both parties are going to kill just for revenge, how can there ever be peace, someone has to swollow their pride, and someone has to realize that this is all childish and stupid not to mention down right dangerous. As long as their are those ho believe they have the right religion and every other is dirt there will never be peace in this world, we will distroy this world for an imaginary world in the future, if your god supports this thinking then he or she is nothing but an evil imaginary friend, be that Musilum or Christian or whatever.

That is exactly the reason why they have been carried on in such a manner for so long. If the founders of their respective religions saw what the socio-political machine have done with their teaching's they would be rolling over in their graves, or in their cloud.

why doesnt Islam create a governing body that controls its muslim teachers in all mosques? wouldnt that help stop the fanatical preachers who promote jihad?

Lol, why would the people that make millions off the strife that religious conflict creates, that conversely control the public image of Islam, do something like that?

Isnt there only one Quran which is exactly the same for all sects of Islam?

Indeed there is.

[/quote]If thats the case, a governing body could set the standard interpretation and keep it all uniform so that every muslim teacher has the same understanding and preaches the same message. (so long as that message is not one of jihad)[/quote]

The problem is that Sharia, which is the form of "Islam" that is promoted by the majority of those in power, is not neccesarily based on the Quran, so it won't work, because the Quran is not neccesarily the end all be all so to speak.

most of them are wrong But at least they are not wrong to the point where they are terrorising the neighbourhood with bombs and killing people for a cause. Like Muslims, we believe in judgement upon the wicked, but we are waiting for God to bring his judgement, we are not doing the judging and executing ourselves.

They may be the case now, but I don't know if the same thing can be said about the previous 1500 years or so.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Nash, I have no desire to carry on a "debate" with you because it's going around and around in circles and there's better topics I can spend time replying to. You love your patchwork Jesus fable and that's the end of it. You're just a Christian at the end of the day.

 

[nash8]

Nash, I have no desire to carry on a "debate" with you because it's going around and around in circles and there's better topics I can spend time replying to. You love your patchwork Jesus fable and that's the end of it. You're just a Christian at the end of the day.

You can choose to define me and yourself however you feel the need to, I however, choose to define myself as everything and/or nothing.