Hi everybody;

I was grew up a Southern Baptist. But as I grew I saw the fundimentialists coming. Like an old Testament phrophet I raised the warning. But if I wasn't ignored, I was kicked in the ass. I didn't leave the Southern Baptists, they left me. I don't equate belief in Jesus with being a Baptist so I am a Christian to this day. Except for a brief period where I was an athetist. I soon lost faith in atheism and now I don't believe in "nothing" lol. That began a long journey back to Christianity that included an investigation into the Nag Hammadi Library. These are a number of early Christian writings that were banned by the Latin professional religionists who tried to reshape Christianity to save the Roman Empire (or to reshape it). From these writing I've become convinced that the Holy Trinity is the Father (Creative Being), the Mother (Goddess Sophia, the Queen of Heavenly Wisdom) and the Son, Logos (Jesus Christ). I address Sophia in my prayers. I also found evidence that Mary Magdalene was a rival leader of the early church to James, the brother of Jesus and to Peter. I now believe that Mary Mags is the author of the Gospel of John. She is the Beloved Disciple in that story but wasn't married to Jesus. Sorry Dan Brown fans. I not only think for myself but rely on the Inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Goddess Sophia. She has appeared to me and I feel Her Presence many times throughout the day. I have a Wicca friend who finds this significant that Sophia has reveled Her Image to me and that I feel Her Presence. I was also surprised to find other people on the web who  worship  Sophia.  They report some  of the same  types of experiences  I've had. A strange otherworldliness when  She speaks to me. Goddess Sophia often tells me things I don't expect to hear. I may think a solution to a problem is one way or another, but She tells me of a 3rd way and She is correct.

Well, it is hard to explain in a short time but this is the most important thing I've ever come across. Thanks for letting me share. Also, I don't hate anyone for their beliefs, I have respect for all the various beliefs of men and women. There are some bad ideas out there. Be careful everybody. 

Richard  

“Ficta pro veris accipti” --Tacitus

The question, I think, should not be, “What are your religious beliefs?”, but rather: “What is true?” 

Anybody can believe anything, regardless of  its truth or not.  And one does not have to look very far to realize that there are  worldwide efforts of long standing to muddy the waters of truth, often rendering it impossible for some --very often the poor,  the deprived, the uneducated-- to know what is and what is not.

Look long enough, and you will eventually find people who believe anything and everything.  There is a book published by Feral House entitled Kooks: A Guide to the Outer Limits of Human Belief, whose list of contents gives a good example of what I mean.  National Public Radio’s recent series, “What I Believe”, in which listeners were invited to call in and record their various  religious beliefs, is another good example of the problems one finds in the current debate.  By framing the issue purely in terms of personal opinion, i.e. “What I Believe”, NPR abrogates their commitment to the facts, and instead  capitulates to the wide range of individual belief and democratic error.  The purpose of the news is to report the facts: sift true from untrue, and draw conclusions.   And, unfortunately, all beliefs are not equal when it comes to truth.

When it comes to Christianity in particular, one sees a long and consistent pattern of lies, censorship, and deliberate alterations of the historical record.  Indeed, Christians themselves have long been aware of this.  In one early account of the writing of the New Testament’s gospel of John, for example, called the “Muratorian Fragment”, a “poorly transcribed” text written --according to scholar Bart D. Ehrman-- in “truly awful Latin”, the various glaring alterations in the Christian narrative of salvation  are explained away as making “no difference to the faith of believers”:

"When his fellow disciples and bishops exhorted him [John], he said, ‘Fast with me for three days, and what will be revealed to any of us, let us tell one another.’  The same night it was revealed to Andrew, one of the Apostles, that they were all to certify but that John should write everything down  under his own name.  And therefore, though various beginnings are taught in the several books of the gospels, it makes no difference to the faith of believers, since by one guiding Spirit all things are declared in all of them, concerning the nativity, the passion, the resurrection, the life with his disciples, and his double advent, the first in humility and lowliness, which has taken place, and the second in royal power….and glorious, which is to come.”

In other words, since the gospels all conform to each other ideologically “concerning the nativity, the passion, the resurrection, etc.”, the deliberate overwriting, alteration, and censorship of previous sources in order to make them conform to this previously-existing dogma simply does not matter.  Propaganda seldom gets as simplistic and transparent as this.   The truth is, and I think the author of the “Muratorian Fragment” illustrates this very well,  Christians do not, and never have, respected the truth very much. 

The little-known miracle of Jesus levitating between two donkeys, which is (understandably) seldom mentioned by Christians in support of their faith, goes a long way toward explaining the process by which false Christian claims were justified based upon little-understood Hebrew prophecies --as well as illustrating how slipshod and haphazard the Early Christians were with the facts. 

Mark (11: 1-7) describes how Jesus, riding on a colt, entered into Jerusalem, Mark saying, “And they bring the colt to Jesus, and they cast on him their garments; and he sat upon him.”  Matthew, however,  alters Mark’s earlier account to make Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem the “fulfillment” of a prophecy in Zechariah.  Zechariah, however, reads, “and riding on an ass, even upon a colt the foal of an ass” --and  Matthew, apparently not understanding the repetitive nature of Hebrew poetics, makes the mistake of thinking that Zechariah, in his verses, means two separate animals.   And so Mark, which originally had Jesus riding  on one animal, is altered by Matthew to depict Jesus as riding into Jerusalem upon two animals simultaneously, thus making Jesus ride upon both “a she ass tethered and her colt with her”.  So it is that, in Matthew, Jesus’  disciples “brought the ass, and the colt, and put on them their garments; and he sat upon them.”  Matthew therefore has Jesus sitting upon the garments on both asses.    Perhaps the garments were strung between both animals, and Jesus sat in the middle, either levitating, as was his wont, or being dragged upon the ground.   As scholar Frederick Conybeare writes, “if Jesus sat on the clothes, he sat on the asses as well.  Here, as often, the revisers [of Mark] were barely honest.”

Nor were the alterations of the New Testament limited to the moment of their initial compilation, but rather continued over time, passages being successively altered by scribes and communities to conform to the changing theological tenets of the faith.  The text of the epistle  I John, for example, was rewritten by later editors to reflect a later belief in the Catholic doctrine of the “Holy Trinity” --this passage, with its “holy witnesses”,  then conveniently being cited by later theologians as the source for this belief.  The passage,  as cited by Jerome, Augustine, and the oldest Gospel manuscripts, originally read: “There are three which bear witness, the spirit and the  water and the blood, and the three are one.”   The later “holy witnesses” are absent.  The altered version of I John (5: 7-8), however, reads: “There are three which bear witness on earth, the spirit and the water and blood, and these three are one in Christ Jesus; and there are three who bear witness in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Spirit, and these are one.”  

Perhaps the most glaring example of Christian alteration of the historical record, however --if one chooses to ignore the burning of the pagan library at Alexandria by Christian zealots, who were attempting to erase the whole of human history before “Christ”-- are the various alterations to be found in the writings of the Jewish historian Josephus, particularly the passages regarding the common Jewish belief that Jerusalem was destroyed in retribution by God for the death of James the Just, Jesus’ brother. 

Josephus’ account of Jerusalem being destroyed due to the death of James the Just was noted by some of the earliest Christian historians, for whom this fact caused considerable embarrassment.   Origen writes:

“This James was of so shining a character among the people, on account of his righteousness, that Flavius Josephus, when, in his twentieth book of the Jewish Antiquities, he had a mind so set down what was the cause why the people suffered such miseries, till the very holy house was demolished, he said that these things befell them by the anger of God, on account of what they had dared to do to James, the brother of Jesus, who was called Christ: and wonderful it is, that while he did not receive Jesus for Christ, he did nevertheless bear witness that James was so righteous a man..  He says farther, that the people thought that they suffered these things for the sake of James.”
 

Elsewhere, Origen goes on to cite the missing passage from Josephus itself:

“The same Josephus also, although he did not believe in Jesus as Christ, when he was inquiring after the cause of the destruction of Jerusalem, and of the demolition of the Temple, and ought to have said, that their machinations against Jesus were the cause of those miseries coming on the people, because they had slain the Christ, who was foretold by the prophets, he, though as it were unwillingly, and yet as one not remote from the truth, says; ‘These miseries befell the Jews by way of revenge for James the Just, who was the brother of Jesus, that was called Christ, because they had slain him who was a most righteous person.’  Now this James was he whom that genuine disciple of Jesus, Paul, said he had seen as the Lord’s brother, which relation implies not so much nearness of blood, or the sameness of education, as it does the agreement of manners and preaching.  If, therefore, he says the desolation of Jerusalem befell the Jews for the sake of James, with how much greater reason might he have said, that it happened for the sake of Jesus?….”

Notice the logic here: if James’ preaching was the same as Jesus’ preaching, then Josephus “may as well have said” that the destruction of Jerusalem was due to the death of Jesus, who was “the Christ”.  But Josephus didn’t say that.  He said that Jerusalem was destroyed because of the death of James, who “was a most righteous person”.  And by altering  the basic sense of what Josephus said, Origen is also altering the sense of an original Jewish tradition: namely, that a “righteous” person, a so-called “pillar”,  can act as a “bulwark” to save the people from God’s wrath.  When James, whose nicknames included “the bulwark” and “the pillar”, was killed, this “pillar” was removed, and God was enabled to destroy Jerusalem.  Clearly, this tradition predates the later Christian tradition which says that Jerusalem was destroyed because “the Jews” killed “the Christ”, since Origen is countering a pre-existing argument which conflicts with later Christian theology.  History is being altered to bolster a later Christian theological tenet.

As scholar Robert Eisenman  observes in his book, James, the Brother of Jesus:

“Of course, one man’s logic is another’s unreason.  It may seem to Origen reasonable to attribute such catastrophes to the death of Jesus Christ, which according to official church documents occurred some forty years before.  But Josephus, who lived through the events in question, said, according to Origen and Eusebius, that the majority of Jews attributed these catastrophes to another event --the death of James.
"This would be a far more logical attribution, since the death of James occurred, if Josephus can be relied on upon, in 62 CE, about seven and a half years before the appearance of the Roman armies before Jerusalem and the final destruction of the city in 70 CE…  …To have attributed the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple to Jesus’ death, except retrospectively, would be something like people today attributing the Second World War to the assassination of President McKinley or the election of Theodore Roosevelt to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.” (398)

As for what I, myself, personally believe, that is hardly to the point.  As I have said, I could believe anything.  It is what a person does not believe, I think, which is truly important.  And though Christians often label their critics “skeptics”, this is a misnomer, as you’ll never find that I am skeptical as regards the truth.  With regard to lies, of course, you’ll find I am very skeptical: but one should not call this distrust of lies “skepticism”.   Rather call it, a confidence in the truth. 

My own personal feeling, however, if it is relevant at all, is that the deification of Jesus which we see in the gospels is no different from that other , equally well-known deification of men which was a familiar feature of the Roman period --the Roman Caesars and emporers being regarded as God-kings, or demi-gods on earth.  What Paul simply did was to transfer this typical aspect of the period from Roman royalty to an unknown Jew, adapting  Jewish Messianic ideas regarding “perfection” and “Righteousness” to a Roman context.  And indeed, we would naturally expect that Paul, being both a Roman citizen and  a Jew, would be peculiarly qualified to make this theological leap between the two cultures.  The unusual thing is not that Roman converts regarded this “Jesus”as a God, but rather that this peculiarly Roman notion of a God-king, or Christ Pantocrator, has persisted even unto the present day.

Even on its own terms, Christianity makes absolutely no sense at all.  Indeed, it never seems to have occurred to Christians today the extent to which their worship of a dead man’s body and blood is a violation of those supposed “Ten Commandments” which Jesus was supposed to fulfill, and which begin with “Yahweh” saying, “You shall not have other gods beside me.”  One cannot worship Jesus as God without violating the Ten Commandments at the same time.

Why should “God” be supposed to have an “only-begotten son” at all?  Why not two sons?  Why not a daughter?  Why not an entire brood of children, in all ages and climes, with a house and a family business to go along with them?  We could call them the “pantheon”, and they could make their home….on Mount Olympus. 

One can only imagine, too, what Jesus, a pious and religiously-orthodox Jew, would think today if he but knew that his graven image were to be found dangling just above the breasts of thousands of crucifix-wearing young women --or what he would do if he were but conscious of the various and complicated entanglements which must necessarily ensue from such a dangerous and compromising proximity…..  The Last Temptation of Christ, indeed!

 "There are no hereditary kings in America and no powers not created by the Constitution."--US District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in her ruling against the Bush administration’s warrantless surveillance program

"My French is poor, but my heart is rich.  I love France- the art-making, art-loving, and art-supporting people of France." -David Lynch

From my first post:

"If you don't have any, just mention your background (if any) and where you sorta stand personally (no need to go and attack other beliefs) - just personal beliefs on spriituality, etc.....Just a simple paragraph should be good." 

Guess it's hard to follow some basic rules....oh well, what would I expect from someone who called me a racist at one point...

Jordan .

x-ray
if your back's against the wall, turn around and write on it...

Jordan .

First, there's no reason to ban him.

Second - there's ways around IP banning.  

Jordan .

In the short time I've been visiting the site I've learned to ignore Gavin. I've met people like him before. Very sad, lonely people who live trapped in their own narrow world view and in inappropriate anger. Human perception is limited but why limit your ability to see even more?

 If I could I would ask him, Why do you think anything you have to say would influence anything I believe?

On a relatively-unrelated note, am I the only person who can't see anything CCC is writing lately?  I just get blank boxes...

I'm not religious and I've never been. In fact I haven't been a member of the church since 2001 and I won't ever become a member again. The only fairy tales I read is when I read bedtime stories with my daughter.

If you are referring to my post, you are way off, girl.

I decided I was an atheist at the age of 7, when I surmised through logic that Santa Clause wasn't real. I asked my parents that if, based on my inferences, if something as far out as Jesus and other stuff from the Bible should be seriously doubted, too. They said that above all else, the church taught good morals, but I was free to have whatever personal beliefs I chose.

Lots of people don't start thinking for themselvs until they're adolescents or teens, but I'd say it's a bigger challenge to stay with the faiths of your parents once you do...

"I discovered that praying does not stop cancer patients from dying at the age of 9"

And that right there is one of the biggest reasons for why people lose faith in religion and God. It's VERY difficult for people (especially kids) to come to terms why God allows bad things to happen because wouldn't a good God stop bad things from happening?  

Jordan .

I understand. I see your point, fair enough. 

" That and afterwards you learn about science, mathematics and logic."

Lots of logical, scientific and math people have believed in a God of some sort.  And of course the same can be true - lots of logical, scientific and math people don't believe in any God. And then the other is true too - a lot of illogical, non-scientific, non-math people believe in God, and vice-versa. In other words, learning about science, math and logic doesn't necessarily mean anything when it comes to belief in God or not. One of the most logical individuals in the 20th century believed in God, after being an atheist for most of his life.

Jordan .

"Learning about science, mathematics and logic can take your emotional atheism to a rational atheism"

I'll agree with you there.  

Jordan .

God allowing a 9-year-old to die from cancer even after one prays please don't let it happen, seems to me missing the point of prayer. At least the way I understand prayer.

Every human body dies. Some die younger than others. Some die in horrid ways. Some miserable souls live long and prosperous lives then die in their sleep. Human medical research has allowed for many more children to survive what once were death sentences, and still, some will die too young.

Let's say a child's cancer is due to some biological scientifcally understood causation -- say their mother was exposed to Chernobyl's fallout while pregnant -- will God hearing a "please save this child" prayer suddenly alert him to an imminent tragedy he would have otherwise overlooked with his busy schedule? Likewise, without any prayers, does God arbitrarily decide which 9-year-old cancer-stricken child will muster the strength to survive and which will die because of some "Divine Plan" we humans are incapable of understanding?

Either way, it seems to me a misunderstanding. I give God more credit. Generally, in a loose and not too specific way, I see it sort of like this. God set this human earthly project in motion. He gave humans free will. There are countless variables to what can happen. Humans may create and destroy as they so will. I don't expect God to go jumping in and intervening in human affairs like those jealous, conniving Greek gods who work to assist their mortal faves. I do believe at the end of the day, the cards are stacked in favor of those who follow God's will however. Don't ask me what "his will" is and how I know it. That's another topic, isn't it?

To me prayer is a quiet private attempt to release the earthly tethers for the moment and to convene with the God source/energy within the human ether. For me prayer is usually a request to ALLOW ME, A MERE MORTAL, TO HUMANLY COPE WITH WHATEVER IS THE END RESULT OF WHATEVER HUMAN CONCERNS OCCUPY MY MIND AND PSYCHE AT ANY GIVEN HUMAN MOMENT. And hey, just like it's nice to bring brownies to your doctor's hardworking staff or to send handwritten thank you notes to those who give you gifts, prayer can also be a good opportunity to say THANK YOU. 'Ppreciate it! In a nutshell, acceptance and gratitude. Striving to stay balanced in a state of grace.

Obviously putting out a Santa-style laundry list for this wish or that wish is not the purpose of prayer. If you are at all sophisticated and can suspend disbelief however temporarily to accept that perhaps a handful of intelligent, sophisticated people DO believe in God, then is it not obvious that those people might not cynically look at prayer as a projected "To Do" list for God.

Shunning God because a 9-year-old has died despite a prayer just seems... a little naive, doesn't it? Up to what age should God's mercy intervene insuring a person's perpetual medical well-being? Immunity up to the age of 18? Should you be invulnerable to any disease or death under a certain age? Would that make a God more convincing? Should, for instance, a child trapped within a burning automobile be invulnerable to the flames because they are a child, while his parents perish since they're past the cut-off age? Should God raise the cut-off age to 40 since many in that age bracket are providers to the under-18-year olds? We're dealing with human flesh and blood here with a shelf life.

I don't know. I've been both an atheist at times and a non-denominational believer at other times. I still find myself surprised at those hovering on the edge of believing or not believing who would pray to God to defy the scientific logic they revere in order for them to believe in God's existence.

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

No, your sentences were fine, Erwin.  9-year-old is arbitrary but the point I was making I still maintain.  I agree that a 9-year old boy's perception of God's lack of active involvement in saving a child with cancer could lead that 9-year old boy to having doubts. 

You can't have lived without doubting God.  The doubts are not what matters.  All I'm suggesting is there may have been a meaningful discussion with that boy that may have given him an alternative way of looking at the death of a child.

Susan 

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

 I was without both God and Santa Clause, so I was very much an atheist.  I was a precocious child and I felt lied to, like many adult atheists. 

Erwin, I know you are pretty consistent in your rejection of the supernatural. But don't you find it funny that the same folks who might hahaha ridicule Christianity would find it rude and in fact hateful to do the same with oh, say, Oliver Stone's "Noble Savage" types who inhabit so many of his films. Not just in the fictional sense either, many virulently anti-Christians feel a kinship to Native American mythology and cosmology. Anyway, I find that inconsistent.

Not that I have a problem with inconsistency by the way. it's human. But so is having a quotient however small for leaps of faith about the wonder of the Whole World around you. The human need to recognize we are not the top of the heap -- that there is something far greater and more powerful than we.

In this way, all historical civilizations are the same. And to me that need to attribute the splendor of the world to a higher power is something ingrained in human DNA. Now maybe it was a cosmic coincidence. Or even a joke. But that similarity that carries over from social order to social order regardless of geography or time spells something meaningful to me.

Taken a step further into the realm of organized religion, there is just too too much associated with the long history of the Jews that makes me believe their concept of One God, later shared with much of the world, was a logical and necessary development. 5657 years of continuity have meaning for me beyond an accident of geography and parentage.

It's probably as natural as believing there's a monster under your bed to cease believing in it when you're a little older. As you cast off what is a 'fairy tale' or a metaphor, you don't necessarily have to cast off all that does not add up in one's little human mind.  I mean, Erwin, you LOVED Lost Highway.  There are non-material essences, you know.  Things that have no atomic solidity. And you may just change your mind about your current mind set one day.  I just don't want you to be embarrassed about it should that time come sooner rather than later. 

Someone once said to the atheist me who had just finished describing believers as naive that he found it more naive to not believe in something greater than ourselves.

It necessarily has to be ethereal and non-specific when having such conversations. More later. I'm fixing dinner.

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

Well, I can see you feel pretty strongly about it, Bart.

Go ahead and be a young Godless curmudgeonly atheist. At least it's an ethos.

Has anyone ever told you you're a very stubborn guy? Oh, well, I didn't really expect you to convert overnight. But you know we Jews would never attempt such a thing; one reason why the prisons never produce Born Again Jews or Nation of Zion converts.

I always write Whole World in caps because it's an homage to Yasser Arafat's elongated Whole International World. Sometimes I'm Germanic with my Caps and just throw them in for Fun!  

Now, come on and sing along with me, won't ya?!

Susan

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin

I suppose I'm an agnostic as far as that term is widely understood.

 As far as what I do believe.......I believe Gavin brings the goods.  Big up yourself, Gavin.  If you do as much research as that guy, your message board time would surely be limited.

"I believe in nothing, but it's MY nothing"

As for 'background', none of my family are particularly religious, but I was never told what to believe or what not to believe.

"When people stop believing in God, they don't believe in nothing, they
believe in anything."

--GK Chesterton

I never heard of GK Chesterton until today. Or if I had heard of him, I've forgotten all about it.  An interesting character and friend of HG Wells, George Bernard Shaw and Bertrand Russell.  I would love to have been a fly on the wall during an all night debate session!

Think I'm going to have to take a closer look at GK. 

Susan 

     
“Half a truth is often a great lie.”

Ben Franklin