The Only Way To Read The Bible To Find God - An Acceptable Experiment?

[Lionel Refson]

This is what I did, how I got to where I got to what I believe what I have posted in other threads.

I allowed my child- like self, who thought God beautiful, wondrous and kind, and took yet another look at the Bible. I started it in 2000, when I broke free from Falun Gong and returned to the teachings of my strictish jewish upbringing, which I rejected and started to think for myself again )spent years studying the tao and buddhism before)

I started to read and held my child like heart in wonder. But I also remembered to switch on my rational adult thinking brain and kept both in mind at the same time. This quote says it all and I am not christian
Matthew 18:2-3 And he said: "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

So every time I thought "God, that was cruel", or "God that was nasty of you", or "what and why why did you drown, what you drowned and also why did you use the words you used for the Blessing etc and why did you not say what you did not say in The Blessing and so on (Did I really just type that !!)

I stopped at the question and reminded myself I was NOT looking for a human I was looking for GOD, Perfection, omnipotent, omniscient, all-knowing all-'seeing divine the ONE,
So whatever the question I could find a feasible explanation for it. And there are many, some very hard for us to understand, In the end I found what I found, I found a God that I could happily live with or perhaps I found myself, either way what's the difference? It is unprovable to anyone but me!

Mark Manson in his simplistic but good book Everything Is *EDIT*: A Book About Hope refers to much scientific work about us having two brains, a rational brain and an emotional (child-like brain)

People who analyse every word, every letter are only using their rational brain, people who believe all the fanciful unprovable content are only using their emotional brain

I have a theory that if everyone used both parts of their brain, or both brains, whatever, and remember to look for God in wonder (ie reminding the emotional brain a childs awe and wonder of a Perfect God we would reach conclusions about God that we did not have before.

The only way to prove or disprove this is for people to re-read say Genesis and state what new thins/meanings they have found and whether their view of God has changed in any way ....

Are You Willing To participate? If so what have you found?...

 

[The Reverend Bob]

Are You Willing To participate?

No.
I prefer using the Historical/Source/Textual critical methods available.

 

[Nakosis]

This is what I did, how I got to where I got to what I believe what I have posted in other threads.

I allowed my child- like self, who thought God beautiful, wondrous and kind, and took yet another look at the Bible. I started it in 2000, when I broke free from Falun Gong and returned to the teachings of my strictish jewish upbringing, which I rejected and started to think for myself again )spent years studying the tao and buddhism before)

I started to read and held my child like heart in wonder. But I also remembered to switch on my rational adult thinking brain and kept both in mind at the same time. This quote says it all and I am not christian
Matthew 18:2-3 And he said: "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

So every time I thought "God, that was cruel", or "God that was nasty of you", or "what and why why did you drown, what you drowned and also why did you use the words you used for the Blessing etc and why did you not say what you did not say in The Blessing and so on (Did I really just type that !!)

I stopped at the question and reminded myself I was NOT looking for a human I was looking for GOD, Perfection, omnipotent, omniscient, all-knowing all-'seeing divine the ONE,
So whatever the question I could find a feasible explanation for it. And there are many, some very hard for us to understand, In the end I found what I found, I found a God that I could happily live with or perhaps I found myself, either way what's the difference? It is unprovable to anyone but me!

Mark Manson in his simplistic but good book Everything Is F*cked: A Book About Hope refers to much scientific work about us having two brains, a rational brain and an emotional (child-like brain)

People who analyse every word, every letter are only using their rational brain, people who believe all the fanciful unprovable content are only using their emotional brain

I have a theory that if everyone used both parts of their brain, or both brains, whatever, and remember to look for God in wonder (ie reminding the emotional brain a childs awe and wonder of a Perfect God we would reach conclusions about God that we did not have before.

The only way to prove or disprove this is for people to re-read say Genesis and state what new thins/meanings they have found and whether their view of God has changed in any way ....

Are You Willing To participate? If so what have you found?...

What I've found is that the brain is a lot more complex than that. In fact people are only aware of about 5% of what is going on inside their head.

The reality you experience is an interface created for you by the unconscious part of your brain. The conscious self is a very small, almost insignificant part of the brain. It has been proven over and over again that the interface created by the unconscious mind which you, your consciousness uses can't be trusted.

I find the more I invest consciously into any belief the more the unconscious mind tries to accommodate that belief. The more I read the Bible fo example, the more likely the unconscious mind is likely to take that information and create a living experience for me. One of the easiest ways to go about this is to consciously suspend any skepticism.

We do this all of the time when we watch a movie. We know these are actors and none of the drama portrayed is real, still we get emotionally attached to the story.

I've no doubt that if one consciously chooses to suspend their skepticism the unconscious mind will help to integrate the stories into the the Bible into your conscious experience.

This is the way the mind works and I'm not going to say this is good of bad. Everyone enjoys a good story once in a while. It affects your feelings, emotions, your outlook on life. Not really a problem except when someone takes it to far. When the story becomes a person reality that it overshadows actuality and becomes a problem for themselves and others.

The God one consciously imagines can be made into a real experience by the unconscious mind. This God can seem and feel separate from you because it is. You are separated from the majority of your brain by the conscious barrier. It is quite capable of creating a autonomous God for you to experience.

Pretty much pick any God, any concept of God you like, think you would like and start investing belief into it. The unconscious mind will take all the information you feed it to create a God you can experience as a reality. Like an app added to your conscious interface.

 

[Jim]

Are You Willing To participate?

Yes.

 

[Brickjectivity]

I have a theory that if everyone used both parts of their brain, or both brains, whatever, and remember to look for God in wonder (ie reminding the emotional brain a childs awe and wonder of a Perfect God we would reach conclusions about God that we did not have before.

The only way to prove or disprove this is for people to re-read say Genesis and state what new thins/meanings they have found and whether their view of God has changed in any way ....

I allowed my child- like self, who thought God beautiful, wondrous and kind, and took yet another look at the Bible.

I allow the term 'God' to be nebulous and distinct from 'Lord', since they are two different words. More recently I have found a deep contrast between Genesis stories and the doppelgangers of those stories found in other ancient cultures. The ancient Egyptians perceive moral authority to come from their politicians and believe they have the divine ability to be just. All of their stories reflect this. In Eden this is the initial state, but Adam steals the power of divine judgment from the gods when he takes the fruit that has been forbidden. In doing so he accepts death in exchange. The story represents a movement away from dictators who like to say that everyone needs them for moral judgment and that the world can't get along without themselves. It views Adam and Eve's descendants as being like gods having no need for a royal judge. In addition Adam's name means 'Red' alluding to his red blood, the same blood as all people everywhere. Genesis continues, also putting forward the idea that we are made in the image of the gods, so then in a childlike way I ask what difference is there between me and a god? Further Genesis puts forward that the gods are mortals when Moses is placed above them and when the plagues upon Egypt kill them and the first son of Pharoah. Again it causes me to ask "Well then what is the difference between a god and I, since we are both mortal and since we both have moral powers of judgment?"

 

[dianaiad]

Are You Willing To participate? If so what have you found?...

I do...I did.

What I did was reread the Bible (and the scriptures of other groups, as well) with a couple of things in mind: if God exists, then He IS, if not omnipotent, then certainly more powerful than I can envision, and if not omniscient, He certainly knows everything about the universe He is supposed to have created, ...and there IS an afterlife He is in charge of. There is absolutely no sense in worshiping, or obeying, a God if there isn't such an afterlife; we can find our own moral centers. What could He do about us, if there is no afterlife?

So, with those things in mind, I read the Bible, figuring that there must be some explanation/reason for what's in it that the critics hate...oh, like that flood in which everybody but Noah's group drowned, or the folks in Sodom and Gomorrah, or....

I didn't find it a bit difficult to do this.

I prayed about it as I read, and it just wasn't that hard to figure out what His teachings were all about, as written in the Bible...or the Book of Mormon, or other scriptures.

Belief in God is a very personal, very subjective, very emotional thing. Those are not swear words.

I wouldn't use the way I addressed scripture to figure out whether the rock in front of me is granite or ryolite, or to measure the PH of the acid lake at Kawah Ijen, but then, that requires an entirely different approach.

 

[sun rise]

My view of the Torah is:

"People think the Torah is all about laws and rituals and quaint stories, with a mystical side as well.

In truth, the Torah is entirely spiritual. But when you cannot perceive the spiritual, all you see are laws and rituals and quaint stories."

Rabbi Tzvi Freeman

 

[Twilight Hue]

This is what I did, how I got to where I got to what I believe what I have posted in other threads.

I allowed my child- like self, who thought God beautiful, wondrous and kind, and took yet another look at the Bible. I started it in 2000, when I broke free from Falun Gong and returned to the teachings of my strictish jewish upbringing, which I rejected and started to think for myself again )spent years studying the tao and buddhism before)

I started to read and held my child like heart in wonder. But I also remembered to switch on my rational adult thinking brain and kept both in mind at the same time. This quote says it all and I am not christian
Matthew 18:2-3 And he said: "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

So every time I thought "God, that was cruel", or "God that was nasty of you", or "what and why why did you drown, what you drowned and also why did you use the words you used for the Blessing etc and why did you not say what you did not say in The Blessing and so on (Did I really just type that !!)

I stopped at the question and reminded myself I was NOT looking for a human I was looking for GOD, Perfection, omnipotent, omniscient, all-knowing all-'seeing divine the ONE,
So whatever the question I could find a feasible explanation for it. And there are many, some very hard for us to understand, In the end I found what I found, I found a God that I could happily live with or perhaps I found myself, either way what's the difference? It is unprovable to anyone but me!

Mark Manson in his simplistic but good book Everything Is F*cked: A Book About Hope refers to much scientific work about us having two brains, a rational brain and an emotional (child-like brain)

People who analyse every word, every letter are only using their rational brain, people who believe all the fanciful unprovable content are only using their emotional brain

I have a theory that if everyone used both parts of their brain, or both brains, whatever, and remember to look for God in wonder (ie reminding the emotional brain a childs awe and wonder of a Perfect God we would reach conclusions about God that we did not have before.

The only way to prove or disprove this is for people to re-read say Genesis and state what new thins/meanings they have found and whether their view of God has changed in any way ....

Are You Willing To participate? If so what have you found?...

It takes a God, to acknowledge a god.

That clearly hasn't happened.

The Bibles only a book that people read in all actuality. Not anything past that.

 

[SugarOcean]

This is what I did, how I got to where I got to what I believe what I have posted in other threads.

I allowed my child- like self, who thought God beautiful, wondrous and kind, and took yet another look at the Bible. I started it in 2000, when I broke free from Falun Gong and returned to the teachings of my strictish jewish upbringing, which I rejected and started to think for myself again )spent years studying the tao and buddhism before)

I started to read and held my child like heart in wonder. But I also remembered to switch on my rational adult thinking brain and kept both in mind at the same time. This quote says it all and I am not christian
Matthew 18:2-3 And he said: "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

So every time I thought "God, that was cruel", or "God that was nasty of you", or "what and why why did you drown, what you drowned and also why did you use the words you used for the Blessing etc and why did you not say what you did not say in The Blessing and so on (Did I really just type that !!)

I stopped at the question and reminded myself I was NOT looking for a human I was looking for GOD, Perfection, omnipotent, omniscient, all-knowing all-'seeing divine the ONE,
So whatever the question I could find a feasible explanation for it. And there are many, some very hard for us to understand, In the end I found what I found, I found a God that I could happily live with or perhaps I found myself, either way what's the difference? It is unprovable to anyone but me!

Mark Manson in his simplistic but good book Everything Is F*cked: A Book About Hope refers to much scientific work about us having two brains, a rational brain and an emotional (child-like brain)

People who analyse every word, every letter are only using their rational brain, people who believe all the fanciful unprovable content are only using their emotional brain

I have a theory that if everyone used both parts of their brain, or both brains, whatever, and remember to look for God in wonder (ie reminding the emotional brain a childs awe and wonder of a Perfect God we would reach conclusions about God that we did not have before.

The only way to prove or disprove this is for people to re-read say Genesis and state what new thins/meanings they have found and whether their view of God has changed in any way ....

Are You Willing To participate? If so what have you found?...

This is what I did, how I got to where I got to what I believe what I have posted in other threads.

I allowed my child- like self, who thought God beautiful, wondrous and kind, and took yet another look at the Bible. I started it in 2000, when I broke free from Falun Gong and returned to the teachings of my strictish jewish upbringing, which I rejected and started to think for myself again )spent years studying the tao and buddhism before)

I started to read and held my child like heart in wonder. But I also remembered to switch on my rational adult thinking brain and kept both in mind at the same time. This quote says it all and I am not christian
Matthew 18:2-3 And he said: "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

So every time I thought "God, that was cruel", or "God that was nasty of you", or "what and why why did you drown, what you drowned and also why did you use the words you used for the Blessing etc and why did you not say what you did not say in The Blessing and so on (Did I really just type that !!)

I stopped at the question and reminded myself I was NOT looking for a human I was looking for GOD, Perfection, omnipotent, omniscient, all-knowing all-'seeing divine the ONE,
So whatever the question I could find a feasible explanation for it. And there are many, some very hard for us to understand, In the end I found what I found, I found a God that I could happily live with or perhaps I found myself, either way what's the difference? It is unprovable to anyone but me!

Mark Manson in his simplistic but good book Everything Is F*cked: A Book About Hope refers to much scientific work about us having two brains, a rational brain and an emotional (child-like brain)

People who analyse every word, every letter are only using their rational brain, people who believe all the fanciful unprovable content are only using their emotional brain

I have a theory that if everyone used both parts of their brain, or both brains, whatever, and remember to look for God in wonder (ie reminding the emotional brain a childs awe and wonder of a Perfect God we would reach conclusions about God that we did not have before.

The only way to prove or disprove this is for people to re-read say Genesis and state what new thins/meanings they have found and whether their view of God has changed in any way ....

Are You Willing To participate? If so what have you found?...

Since you're relatively new please be advised, Irreverent Bob is an atheist. The Bible is not meant to be understood by those who do not believe in God. Be aware of that if you choose to undertake a "debate" about God and Christ Jesus with them.

Your post is reminiscent of William Blake.
“The Vision of Christ That Thou Dost See”: William Blake on the Many Faces of Jesus
The Bible was complied by the wills of men. Politics had a lot to do with that.
Jesus reprimanded the temple elders when they thought to test him thinking him a blasphemer.
John 5:39-40 You pore over the Scriptures because you presume that by them you possess eternal life. These are the very words that testify about Me, 40 yet you refuse to come to Me to have life

Jeremiah 29:13 You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.

"God", which is holy spirit, is in all and the source from whence all exists. Man's politics sought to contain that power in a tome. And then they decreed that tome sacrosanct. And then their politics where church and state were intertwined demonstrated their blasphemy and their taking the Lord's name in vain when the politics of the church decreed anyone who did think outside the book should be burned, guillotined, hanged, tortured.

However, holy spirit does know people tend to believe what they see and as such the pathway to God can begin in the book. However, the doorway of God is within.

For when holy spirit, God, is the source of all that is, was, or ever shall be, there is no thing that is not of God. No matter how loudly some created things rail against that truth.

Seek outside the book. Dare read the Apocrypha, for instance, which was included in the 1611 King James Version. Do consider reading the dead sea scrolls for wisdom there. A people don't go to the trouble of preserving 800 to 900 manuscripts of nonsense.
Most importantly, be still and know God is within you.
Imagine if this worlds people lived that truth. If they each and every one knew they were holy flesh and bone. And this planet was the temple of God, from God, and within God. And the vault of the heavens was too.

Don't defend men's telling you what they believe God is. Our faith is a relationship, not a religion. You wouldn't have an intermediary between yourself and your mother. You wouldn't speak to her through that method. Why would you ask God to speak to you only through a book? When the autographs are no longer available. And what remains are copies, of copies, of copies, of what we're told are "God's words".

The bible can light a path that is true. However the road and the map for its journey is uniquely within you.

Jesus says: "I am the light which is on them all. I am the All, and the All has gone out from me and the All has come back to me. Cleave the wood: I am there; lift the stone and thou shalt find me there!"

 

[Lionel Refson]

Some very informative posts on here already!
In my OP ......
The only way to prove or disprove this is for people to re-read say Genesis and state what new things/meanings they have found and whether their view of God has changed in any way ....

Are You Willing To participate? If so what have you found?...

 

[Jim]

@Lionel Refson I read Genesis from 1:1 through 9:19. The only new thought that I had was that “gods” and “knowledge of good and evil” might have something to do with divine authority being given to kings.