historical Jesus also a myth?

[Berzerker]

It wasn't their land that they were trying to get to. Again. The Amalekites did not live in the land that the Israelites were trying to get to. They lived in the land that was between the desert and where the Israelites were trying to get to.

The Israelites asked for passage through the lands of the Amalekites. The Amalekites seeing a weak people decided to attack and try to exterminate them.

You're ok with this, apparently, since I've never seen you actually admit this.

I'm okay with genocide now? Thats your bag, man... And I dont believe for one second that BS about the poor innocent Israelites asking for permission to walk thru to their promised land where they just happened to slaughter a bunch more people who were in the way. Oh please Mr Amalekite, allow us your humble servants to traverse your beautiful desert so we may enter the land promised us by god and cleanse it of heathens such as yourselves.

Yes, you are. You support Obamacare. You're a statist who pretends to be a libertarian when it comes to dope. When it comes to stuff you don't like, you believe in shutting it down as fast and as hard as possible.

I dont support it and I never voted for Obamacare or the politicians who created it

Stop picking my pocket and then we'll talk. See, I'm an actual conservative who rejects the argument that there should even be a medicare. Pay for your healthcare yourself.

I'm not on medicare and your party supports it, even your newest hero Ted. And what about all those presidents you claim are conservative? Shrub Bush expanded medicare with a drug program. Would you have voted for him?

You're ok with 60 million people dying in your own country because it aligns with your 'morality'. Why?

My morality didn't design nature, your "god" did and you're ok with it... and you aint losing any sleep over abortion - you just use it to change subjects when your strawmen get torched

No, Berz. You just don't give a tinker's damn. Until that changes you have no authority whatsoever.

I have more authority than someone who joined a state subsidized church of child rapists

[Kidlicious]

that is rather my point. jesus, the carpenter and preacher who lived in palestine some 2000 years ago, the historical figure, is very clearly dead. he is not here now, and he is not hidden, like the 12th imam (though of course there are some similarities). however, jesus the mythical, supernatural figure, is alive, he is with us; he is a god and performs a god's role, as a reflection of man.

I think that Jesus is not a very good reflection of man, not the Jesus of radical Christianity.

[kentonio]

Stop picking my pocket and then we'll talk. See, I'm an actual conservative who rejects the argument that there should even be a medicare. Pay for your healthcare yourself.

SO STOP PICKING MY GODDAMN POCKET

a) You get paid about a dollar an hour, so you're not paying for anyones healthcare you ****ing ******.
b) Clearly only a true Christian would want to go back to life before Medicare when old and vulnerable people used to die in large numbers because of their inability to afford basic healthcare. Why don't you just admit you're a ****ing satanist who gets his rocks off on the idea of people suffering and dying, because that's quite clearly your end game.

[Proteus_MST]

If you don't mind me asking, what do you believe now? All of us find things offensive in the Bible, but something in there made us believe in the first place. But it seems that you let the parts that offend you make you not believe that part which made you believe. Why should the part that offended you make you stop believing the part that made you believe in Jesus Christ?

Well, the problem for me is:
Christ clearly identifies as the Messiah of the god YHWH of the jewish faith.
This also means that he identifies himself with all the content of the old testament. Which also means that you cannot separate Jesus and the old testament. If you accept Jesus divinity you also have to accept the truthfulness of the major stories of the old testament (and the character of YHWH as he is depicted there).

One could compare it to a building ... the old testament is the fundament of the building ... and the new testament are additional stories of the house build atop of this fundament.
If the fundament is weak (equal to parts of the old testament that can be disregarded as false/myths/folklore) then all stories of the house above of this fundament also lose their stability and become threatened by collapse.

What remains if we disregard the old testament and only see Jesus and the NT as separate from this?
That is, if we cherry-pick the good things from the bible (the concept of a loving god) and disregard anything that stains our picture of this loving god (like the numerous bad/morally questionable things this "loving god" has done (or ordered) in the old testament).
We get a lot of nice stories/parables ... but we have to cast into doubt the theology, i.e. Jesus as the son of god (as, how can we believe that Jesus is the son of the god of the old testament, if we don´t believe that the stories written in the old testament about this same god are true)

Even more so, what remains if we don´t even care about the historicity of Jesus (and whether the miracles attributed to him are true or not)

How can we call us christians if we believe that the stories written about "his father" in the old testament are (partially) just fiction? Jesus AFAIK never claimed that any part of the Tanakh is untrue.
And even more so, how can we call us christians if it doesn´t matter to us if Jesus ever existed or not.

What difference (in the latter 2 cases where we disregard part of the bible) would it make if we would just create new stories about a benign god (who doesn´t carry with him the ballast of of morally questionable/atrocious actions in the past) and call him Mithra, Azathoth or Flying Spaghetti Monster?

IMHO that leaves me with 4 possible ways of thinking:
1. Believe that the whole bible is true, ilcuding the stories of an atricious god and either
a) accept god as my master with full consequences, despite he ordered atrocities that are worse than those of a Hitler
b) be against the biblical god as my morality cannot stand the atrocities he commited in the past
2. stop believing in the biblical god and
a) become an atheist
b) still believe that there is something higher towards which the abrahamic raligions (but also other religions) point

Well, my choice more or less is 2b

I cannot believe in the "all too human" abrahamic god even more than I can believe in the hellenistic pantheon or the norse Aesir.

What I believe however comes near a few versions of the gnostic faith and also resembles elements of buddhism ... I believe that we all carry some kind of immortal divine spark within us, that connects us with each other and forms some kind hyper soul into which we return after our death (a hyper sould that is not judgmental ... you won´t get cast into hell or purgatory for not believing into it )

I also believe that all religions (including, but not limited to, the abrahamistic ones) are a mix of real insights into spritirual things, human wisdoms/knowledge, but also stories that are just twisted expressions of human greediness/whises to rule over others/gain followers (by trying to make people believe, that "our religion" is superior to other religions, that followers of other religions will get punished in afterlife and that "our god" has helped us in conquest in the past)

Therefore I would identify myself more with Unitarian Universalism than with christianity or any other specific religious brand.

[Sava]

I gotta agree with DaShi.

It's technically correct to say he's an accused child molester.

The credibility of the accusation is a whole 'nother matter.

I really don't see how it's any different than calling him a donkey raping shit eater.

If I think long and hard enough on it, as a former victim (whatever weight you think that holds), I think false accusations are horrendous... if they are real... if someone did that (legitimately), they would be on my: if nobody is looking and you can't prove anything, i'm going to cause you physical pain... list

We spend all day ripping on each other, this is just par for the course.

All of you are pedophiles.

There. Now you are officially accused pedophiles. EVERYONEEEEE

[Sava]

although maybe in the UK, that post would cost me around $15,000

what a stupid ****ing policy that is

moronic country

[Sava]

****ing brit nazi ****s getting their dicks hard thinking about killing and violating the sovereignty of other people

eat ****

[Sava]

#notallcitizensoftheUK

[kentonio]

****ing brit nazi ****s getting their dicks hard thinking about killing and violating the sovereignty of other people

eat ****

I.E. no British posters here then. Dumb****.

[Sava]

is this about the whole using the right one: UK/briton/britain/english

?

otherwise, I dunno what the **** you could possibly be talking about

have you masturbated to thought of dead falklander children yet?


....today

[kentonio]

Feel free to explain how a NATO member conducting live fire exercises IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ****ING SEA has anything to do with dead kids, you ridiculous ass.

[Berzerker]

2. stop believing in the biblical god and
a) become an atheist
b) still believe that there is something higher towards which the abrahamic raligions (but also other religions) point

Well, my choice more or less is 2b

whatever is higher still created a brutal existence even if we reject the all too human "god" of the bible

[Sava]

Feel free to explain how a NATO member conducting live fire exercises IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ****ING SEA has anything to do with dead kids, you ridiculous ass.

that's phase two of your plan

well

not "yours"

[Kidlicious]

Well, the problem for me is:
Christ clearly identifies as the Messiah of the god YHWH of the jewish faith.
This also means that he identifies himself with all the content of the old testament. Which also means that you cannot separate Jesus and the old testament. If you accept Jesus divinity you also have to accept the truthfulness of the major stories of the old testament (and the character of YHWH as he is depicted there).

One could compare it to a building ... the old testament is the fundament of the building ... and the new testament are additional stories of the house build atop of this fundament.
If the fundament is weak (equal to parts of the old testament that can be disregarded as false/myths/folklore) then all stories of the house above of this fundament also lose their stability and become threatened by collapse.

What remains if we disregard the old testament and only see Jesus and the NT as separate from this?
That is, if we cherry-pick the good things from the bible (the concept of a loving god) and disregard anything that stains our picture of this loving god (like the numerous bad/morally questionable things this "loving god" has done (or ordered) in the old testament).
We get a lot of nice stories/parables ... but we have to cast into doubt the theology, i.e. Jesus as the son of god (as, how can we believe that Jesus is the son of the god of the old testament, if we don´t believe that the stories written in the old testament about this same god are true)

Even more so, what remains if we don´t even care about the historicity of Jesus (and whether the miracles attributed to him are true or not)

How can we call us christians if we believe that the stories written about "his father" in the old testament are (partially) just fiction? Jesus AFAIK never claimed that any part of the Tanakh is untrue.
And even more so, how can we call us christians if it doesn´t matter to us if Jesus ever existed or not.

What difference (in the latter 2 cases where we disregard part of the bible) would it make if we would just create new stories about a benign god (who doesn´t carry with him the ballast of of morally questionable/atrocious actions in the past) and call him Mithra, Azathoth or Flying Spaghetti Monster?

IMHO that leaves me with 4 possible ways of thinking:
1. Believe that the whole bible is true, ilcuding the stories of an atricious god and either
a) accept god as my master with full consequences, despite he ordered atrocities that are worse than those of a Hitler
b) be against the biblical god as my morality cannot stand the atrocities he commited in the past
2. stop believing in the biblical god and
a) become an atheist
b) still believe that there is something higher towards which the abrahamic raligions (but also other religions) point

Well, my choice more or less is 2b

I cannot believe in the "all too human" abrahamic god even more than I can believe in the hellenistic pantheon or the norse Aesir.

What I believe however comes near a few versions of the gnostic faith and also resembles elements of buddhism ... I believe that we all carry some kind of immortal divine spark within us, that connects us with each other and forms some kind hyper soul into which we return after our death (a hyper sould that is not judgmental ... you won´t get cast into hell or purgatory for not believing into it )

I also believe that all religions (including, but not limited to, the abrahamistic ones) are a mix of real insights into spritirual things, human wisdoms/knowledge, but also stories that are just twisted expressions of human greediness/whises to rule over others/gain followers (by trying to make people believe, that "our religion" is superior to other religions, that followers of other religions will get punished in afterlife and that "our god" has helped us in conquest in the past)

Therefore I would identify myself more with Unitarian Universalism than with christianity or any other specific religious brand.

Yes, He says He and the Father are one because He does as the Father does.

I suppose I don't really get Buddhism. My sister is something like you are. I'm not really sure what her exact beliefs are.

I don't really understand Christianity either. I think it's very complicated, and God is very complicated. I believe it humbles me though, something I don't think Buddhism or liberal Christianity can do. I think it's important to become humble in order to gain wisdom.

Thanks for sharing.

[Kidlicious]

whatever is higher still created a brutal existence even if we reject the all too human "god" of the bible

What you call a brutal existence, I call a physical existence, which is temporary. It serves a purpose. I don't understand it completely, but that's what I have faith in.

There is only one way to become a spirit. That's to believe in a god that is both capable of making you one, and capable of creating the physical world which we all believe exists.

That's Jesus, since He was persecuted by men, and crucified, then overcame death.

Also, the way to heaven should not be easy, as knowing god is not easy. It's the hardest thing to do.