I would like to point out one thing. The earliest gnostics, were not called gnostics in the days, weeks, months, and years following the death of Jesus, they were called Christians. It was not until later, at one of the Councils in which they were termed "gnostic".

Tsk! Tsk! Lingal.
Who is the one attacking the Children now? Not I.
Hatred exudes from your words. It was not my intention to pluck your feathers dear eagle, but it does seem that you are in a state of molting.

Why do you hate Gnostic's so much when you own Master taught not to hate? That is mystifying. Are you a mystic?

Please don't confuse the belief of Gnostics with the Druids! May that is your confusion.

My claim to fame is none. You are I'm sure more educated than I with all your degrees and such. I am mere a person seeking the truth.

Right on Benni

spin: Please do investigate ALL sides of the issue before discussing just the gnostic position. At best it's a more objective argument and at least it presents Christianity in a more authentic light. Once again we are regaled with more gnostic heresy and Bible bashing by those who know nothing - and I do mean NOTHING - about scripture scholarship much less Sacred Scripture whose Author was God, not the humans who wrote the accounts down. As to the authors being "unknown" you betray your ignorance. Do you know anything about the "Q" source? Eisegesis? Exegesis? The oral tradition? Midrash? Unless you do, please do not tread in unfamiliar waters with those who dell in Living Water.
You wuote sinners when you better be quoting saints. The authorities you question are the same ones whose credibility is without question. Do your heretic authors share the degree of credibility? Then why don't they share the same fame as the Doctors of the Church? Who can "test" doctrines who doesn't believe in them? It's like asking satan to edit the Bible.
Faith, by its very essence, does not require proofs. Faith is born in the heart, not in the mind or in the mouth. How "puffed up" the author of your quote. Sounds like some rebellious teen with an authority figure problem. Must have had issues with his father.
This proves nothing more than that there were heresies against the church from its inception. This makes of the author no more than a blood-thirsty advocate of the bread and circuses of the Romans. As Jesus warned us, "The world hated me and they will hate you...my kingdom is not of this world...these and greater things than these you will do in my name." Hence, I'm exercising my right to exorcise a few demons herein.
Your words have convicted you; your quotes have exosed you and your heresy condemns you. Feel free to continue in your sin but be advised that I have done what needs to be done - tell you that you are sinning against God. I am not responsible for the abuse of your Free Will. You have chosen and now you alone will bear the responsibility for your choice. All that you say here is of no use to anyone, even yourself. If you canot convince yourself, you will never convince others. Misery loves company and you seem to have found it amongst the heretics. So be it! Live as a heretic and die like one.
Your Father is the Father of Lies and so his spawn are liars too. I prefer the Truth to lies. The Source of Truth is God not satan. Better choose your sides wisely, the End of Days is at hand.

sajmbi: If you're going to copy, copy from the best! <LOL>
I don't hate you, the gnostics or anyone else simply because I defend the Truth and the Christian faith from your attacks upon it. Such as you crucified my Lord. It saddens me to think that He died for your sins as well as ours.
You know, satan, all of your patronizing and familiarity will get you no farther with your temptations than they did when you tempted Jesus.
I have confused nothing. It is the Temptor who confuses, even going so far as to use Sacred Scripture to his supposed advantage. A devil by any other name still smells as foul. That's not hate - that's fact.
If you seek the truth, then try getting an education in it. Start by reading the Bible, the Source of wisdom. If you are a seeker of truth, telling telling fewer lies.

benni: "A rose by any other name..." and it doesn't matter in what century. Heretics are heretics.

great whtie: did you take a fall for me? I apologize. Thanks for your post in response. I appreciate the fact that you love Jesus s we do and that all you really want is to learn more about him. That is why his followers formed communities of believers - to share their love for him and learn more about him. There are many beautiful books, especially those written by the saints, that will tell you more about our Risen Lord. He did send His Holy Spirit - the Paraclete (the Comforter). Many of us hve been touched by this Holieest of Spirits. I would hate to see you miss an opportunity to get to know Jesus better in this day and age because you focus too much on when He walked among us physically. He still walks among us in spirit and he is still very much Present to us. The whole study of "presence" is an epiphany in itself. Don't worry about lost books or manuscripts and dont be fooled by gospels that weren't included in the Bible. I had to read them as part of my studies. They don't portray the real Jesus the way the Gospels do. If you want to know him, you have but to open your heart and he will come to you. You really don't have to go searching for him. He will come and abide with you.

Lingal

You commented 3/3/2007 to Greatwhite that the great struggle mentioned in the Dead Sea Scrolls of good vs evil, light vs dark, right vs wrong - is always at odds never at peace. These concepts of opposites, which dates back to the Phoenicians are really very much like the directions East and West. It is a matter of perspective as to which of the pair you are engaged with. By traveling East you eventually can end up in the West and conversely traveling West can bring you to the East. Remember the earth is not flat nor is the universe.

Your universe is a sphere of existence to which you are at the center looking out and the rest of us are outside looking in. (another opposite). Please don't take that as egotism, I am merely reflecting upon the way we all perceive everything around us.

My sphere of existence is uniquely different than yours with a different center, and a different perspective. We both have different perceptions of any event because we exist in different spheres. Thus good in your eyes can be evil to me and vise versa.

We get into trouble when our spheres collide, a disc of intersection puts our perspectives at odds with each other. That is where the conflict lies. To eliminate the conflict we must find a common point that both our spheres can exist coincidentally.

It is also a conflict with God when our sphere is not coincident with God's. Our biggest problem is locating the center of God's sphere--the truth what ever it may be, in written scripture, intuition, self reflection, acceptance of a Savior as in Jesus Christ, Mohammad, Buddha, Hindi, or the Native American Great Spirit. We all get bogged down in the trivia of fact finding and miss the point that we are all seeking good, what ever our perspective.

As for light and darkness, a blind person is not aware of either. They have no bearing upon his life, even though they exist. And so we should be with rightness and wrongness. Only then will there be no contradictions, no conflict.

True Christian ethics demand that we not judge others lest we be judged. People judge others all the time, that is our sinfulness! If we do not forgive others, how can we expect to be forgiven? That should be our prayer. That is the prayer of Jesus! That's the knowledge we should be seeking!

And please! Self examination of conscience is not the same as Catholic Confession. The later involves a priest not God! The former is good for the soul and God is a witness to it!

You are right, it is difficult to bless someone who is undermining your very origins. But then no one said the path to heaven (notice I did not say righteousness) was easy! Bless you any way!

Good Night or Good Morning. What ever your perspective of right now is.

sjambri: Your observations are very interesting and I don't consider them egotistical at all but most perceptive. Let me share with you my own observations, in retrospect, of what I have personally experienced while on my "quest."
God has taught me the value of positive and negative and the necessity for BOTH co-existing rather than warring. In much the same way that opposites appear to repel one another, they can actually be more like the Chinese symbol of yin-yang - black blends with white - they don't compete.
I had one lesson in particular that will always fascinate me. Jesus told me that we need a negative in order to have a positive. For instance we need a negative photo image that with developing becomes a positive. We don't really "get the picture" until that dark negative is flooded with light. So, too, the human soul. So too is the negativity of the "ego" (also referred to by some as the "shadow self") and the enlightened "Higher Self" (that some psychologists refer to as the fully actualized person). Rather than separating the ego from the Higher Self, it is best to learn to blend the two and appreciate the unique aspects of each. What comes from the inside manifests on the outside. The enlightened Self glows; the lower self glowers. They are both aspects of the same Self. When I find myself able to align myself and center everything at one time, I have felt a sense of empowerment that is beyond belief. I truly do feel "at one" with the universe. I have had many epiphanies and mystical experiences while in such a state. It isn't a trance, nor even a state of altered consciousness; it is to the best of my ability to describe it, as sense of One-ness where I feel a part of all that IS. Heaven and earth merge into one and there is no separation. I finally achieved a state in which I feel "I am that I am" - almost a sense of suspended animation. Maybe that's why I get so upset with people who put mind over matter. The mind can present a real distraction to such a state of blissful peace. Eastern religions have always recommended the stilling of the mind. Even psychologists recommend it to ease stress. The words from Scripture come to mind "Be still and know that I am God." Then you really feel that "The Father and I are One...I am in the Father and the Father is in me." The kingdom of Heaven is within us. When in such a state of "existence" (for want of better word) whatever separates us one from the other, be it time, distance, philosophies, religions, whatever it may be disappears. Then Presence is a reality - the unseen is manifested in time and space. Maybe it doesn't have form or substance as we know it but there is an unmistakable sense of Other being with you. Past, present and future merge into one mystical moment. There is no separation only union.
When you mention that our greatest problem is an inability to locate the center of God's sphere. In truth it is one and the same with ours BUT we have to stop the mental conflict before we can reach it. The mind tells us that it isn't possible to communicate with God - to walk with Him as Adam and Eve once did in the Garden of Eden. It not only IS possible, it is probable IF we stop permitting ourselves to be sidetracked by "the things of this world."
When we sin - we get farther and farther away from our center and thus from God's center. The guilt and shame we inevitably experience causes us to fear loss of His love. Just as Adam and Eve had never known guilt or shame whenthey walked naked in the Garden, afer they ate of the tree of good and evil, they experienced shame at their nakedness. God asks them, "Who told you that you were naked?" Isn't that ever so reminiscent of some people who undermine us or what we believe? God would answer, "Don't put your faith in men, put your faith in me. I created them. Are they greater than I, their Father, am?" How often do we have to experience lies and decptions before we realize that they are not coming from God but from men? We are all tempted but we have Free Will that enables us to resist those temptations that would cause us to be separated from the love of God. A description of Hell given me by a priest was, "Hell is the absence of God" and to be in Hell is to be without God.
Jesus said that there were many roads that lead to Heaven. He also said that He is "the way, the truth and the life" and I can honestly say that for me that is an essential Truth. That is not to say that He is that for anyone else. We each must walk our own Sacred Path and take our own cosmic tests.
Jesus did not judge the money-changers in the Temple. He got angry and overturned their tables because they had turned His father's house into a den of thieves. He was angry that they turned the Sacred into the profane. Instead of a love of lGod, they chose a lust for money. It was necessary that He practiced what he preached: love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy life, and your neighbor as yourself. He preached it; he lived it.
"Forfiveness is the scent the lily leaves on the soul of the one who crushed it." Think on that one for a while. Don't accept the burden of other people's bad behavior to poison you. Forgive them - give them back their sinfulness and let them, not you, be responsible for it.
If you have never experienced the power of the Sacraments, don't disparage or confuse them. "A sacrament is an outward visible sign of God's Presence in the world." I love that! Viewed in that light, confession is a sacrament because the Priest IS God's Presence. He forgives our sins - gives the back to us so that we might repent and not repeat them. Confession IS good for the soul - very good! God witnesses the transformation of the soul. When there is no genuine repentence, but only lip-service, God knows whether a priest is hearing confession or a sinner is examing his/her conscience. The transformation comes in the surrender. We surrender our will to God. Father knows best and we place ourselves in His hands.
REmember that "the road to hell is paved with good intentions." One thing that Christianity teaches if faith plus works (works of both corporal and spiritual mercy). Don't just say it; do it! It isn't enough to just say "I love you" you have to put that love into action. "Actions speak louder than words." But when you pray, pray in private...that's another whole lesson in itself!
I canot see my brother falling into a pit and not extend a hand to help anymore than I can watch a sinner continue in his sin and distance himself/herself from God who is love. Scripture asks us to let the sinner know and then leave him/her to their repentance. "To take another's cosmic test under your name is cheating and bad karma will be incurred by all." That was some of the best advice I ever gleaned from Eastern philosophy. We can't take another person's cosmic test or walk their path but if we see them stumbling, we should try to help them to see why so they don't stumble and fall again. In my heart I know that the proponents of Supreme Mind vs Supreme Being will ultimately be the losers. They will miss the love to which they are entitled as Children of God.
Today is yesterday's tomorrow. In love, with love and for love - Linda

Linda:

Did you still not understand what I stated about preconceptions? (American Heritage Dictionary)
pre•con•cep•tion (prē'kən-sěp'shən) Pronunciation Key
n. An opinion or conception formed in advance of adequate knowledge or experience, especially a prejudice or bias.
When it comes to Zeus there is as much evidence that he exists; the fact more people agree on your God who was known as Samael by the Gnostics have nothing to do with it.

The Greek material is in fact coming back to us. We saw their science was correct whereas your superstition regarding the Angels that took care of the workings of the sun and moon was Bronze Age superstition. The pillars of earth that you replaced the Greek round earth which was held up by Gravity also collapsed as did all your OT fables.

Have you learned anything about the Shasu yet? A good book is Prof Robertson and "Egypt, Canaan and Israel in ancient times".

When it comes to your scriptures, Gospels they are all post Constantine so you do not even know what version of material it was agreed that Jesus spoke. The falsification of material which was here exposed and you earlier agreed on indicates there is no reason to believe anything which went through the hands of the Christian which was not altered.

When it comes to what I read why do you insist on questioning where I get the material from? You have no defense of anything only accusations.

I am not the one which have rewritten scripture; you are, my credentials is quite unimportant, your opinion that people have to present their degree before they can perceive the falsifications regarding biblical material and early history is absurd.

I will divulge however that I have studied with greater theological, historical and archeological personages than you have.

My refutation of the OT and NT is met only with hostility which is a clear indication that there is no other defense. A few years ago you did not have to defend using words for you slaughtered anyone that exposed you fraud. These day's you can no longer get away with that and I see your squirming as similar to a fish out of water.

The fact that those people who have no education regarding scripture and very little education in history can tear the soundness of the Bible apart has nothing to do with their education only with the absurd notions of your material.

Ras

It is interesting to me lingal, that in accepting Jesus as your Savior, you ignore one simple fact. Jesus was a Jew. He practiced that religion, studied it, taught it. At the time of Jesus, there was an oral tradition which was accepted by the Jewish, that which we call today Kabbalah.

"According to most segments of Orthodox Jewry, this esoteric Kabbalah dates from Adam and is an integral part of the Jewish tradition. They believe that this esoteric knowledge has come down from a remote past as a revelation to elect Tzadikim ("righteous men"), and for the most part, was preserved only by a privileged few. According to contemporary scholarship, the various schools of Jewish esotericism have arisen at different periods of Jewish history, each reflecting not only prior forms of Jewish esotericism but also the intellectual and culture milieu of that historical period. Questions of transmission, influence, and innovation vary and cannot be summarized with a simple doctrinaire claim."

One would think that as a Jew, Jesus would have had insight and would have adhered to the unwritten laws of his time of the religion he practiced. Many of the words Jesus spoke contain many elements of these unwritten laws of his time. "I am the Way, the Light..." Within gnosticism, or Jewish Mysticism, the "Light" is what is visible to the single eye "If thine eye be single, they whole body be full of light", or what is called "The Third Eye".

The gnostics that were called Christians, were those Jewish that chose to follow Jesus. There weren't called heretics, heretics were those that didn't believe in Jesus as the savior and did not teach scripture accurately. BTW, do you think that the leaders of the church wanted to teach that God was easily accessible within you, and that the church was not needed? There was a political agenda for the acceptance of books within the Councils that cannonized certain books. There were certain things each book must contain, but more importantly, there were things the books must not contain. Of that is anything that threatened the authority of the church or priests, women as teachers/masters, etc. and so forth. They had a very ego driven reason for the acceptance of certain books and the denial of others, not divine inspiration, but power driven greed.

So while you state that "a rose by any other name is still a rose" regardless of the time period, I state that if you truly want to know what Jesus taught, you would have to fully understand the religion, oral and written, from which he had been reared, and from which he himself taught, practiced, and followed. Gnostics were Christians plain and simple lingal, and I'm sorry if you are threatened by that. But there isn't a book within the NT that does not bare out these esoteric teachings.

Oh and btw, Revelation is so totally gnostic. John was "in the spirit" (meditating) when he wrote that and the visions he writes of, are visions that people throughout the ages have received while meditating in different ways. One can see dragons, candles, serpents, chalices, flaming swords, etc and so forth in meditation. You just have to let go of the mind and get to the heart of the matter.

LINGAL epitomizes the proverbial echochamber of a very sick, indoctrinated mind.... pontificating nothing but the vacuous musings to which he must cling... to maintain the facade... the charade... the diametrically opposed views of truth regarding his own life and the Natural world, the Cosmos... and his Theater of the Absurd, his Faith Biased delusions.


AS a sad reminder, this thread's topic was SUPPOSED to be on the "believability" of the NT. SOME of us have posted either arguments of fact or arguments from positions of authority (scholars and the like), why the NT is not credible as anything other than literature... and to my mind, there is far better literature than the patchwork of the NT.


WHETHER it be the numerous factual errors in the "inerrant word of god"... or the politically driven redactions, and rank interpolations... or the numerous inconsistencies among the disjointed narratives... or the intractable "synoptic problem"... combined with the deafening SILENCE of the extra-biblical record, and the early critics of such unoriginal nonsense like CELSUS and PORPHYRY, whose writtings, like all those (e.g. Gnostics and the Essences) whose positions threatened the bogus dogma of the authoritarian bishops seeking absolute power, were confiscated and destrolyed... it is crystal clear that the NT is threadbare as a "wholly" credible source of anything except religious musings.

NOT to mention the fact that every facet of the christ-myth can be found in precursor Pagan Mystery Cults of Osiris, Dionysys, Attis, Adonis, Mithras... etc.. SIMPLY stated, there is NOTHING unique about the resurected god-man jesus tale... not even it's absurdity.


HERE is an unimpeachable source for myopic, arrogant sophists like LINGALberry to ponder, as they choke on their own dark, stale bible-dogma:


ALBERT SCHWEITZER (1875 - 1965), the iconic medical missionary, theologian, doctor of philosophy and Nobel Peace Prize recipient concluded in the final chapter of his exhaustive, defining theological work "The Quest of the Historical Jesus" (1906): "There is nothing more negative than the result of the critical study of the Life of Jesus. The Jesus of Nazareth who came forward publicly as the Messiah, who preached the ethic of the Kingdom of God, who founded the Kingdom of Heaven upon earth, and died to give His work its final consecration, NEVER had any EXISTENCE. He is a figure designed by rationalism, endowed with life by liberalism, and clothed by modern theology in an historical garb."

Schweitzer went on, in Chapter 11, to comment on the scholarship of German theologian, historian and philosopher Bruno Bauer (1809- 1882), who wrote extensively on the origins of Christianity: "The question which has so much exercised the minds of men - whether Jesus was the historic Christ (= Messiah) - is answered in the sense that everything that is said of Him, everything that is known of Him, belongs to the WORLD of IMAGINATION, that is, of the imagination of the Christian community, and therefore has nothing to do with any man who belongs to the real world." ... "At the end of his study of the Gospels, Bauer is inclined to make the decision of the question whether there ever was a historic Jesus depend on the result of a further investigation which he proposed to make into the Pauline Epistles. It was not until ten years later (1850—1851) that he accomplished this task, and applied the result in his new edition of the 'Criticism of the Gospel History.' The result was negative: THERE NEVER WAS ANY HISTORICAL JESUS."

Schweitzer "regarded the Gospel of Mark not only as the first narrator, but even as the creator of the gospel history, thus making the latter a FICTION and CHRISTIANITY the INVENTION of a single original evangelist" (Wikipedia). Bauer's "Christ and the Caesars" (1877) exposes many literary parallels between NT teachings, Stoism and Greco-Roman sources (esp. Seneca and Cynic), versus jewish scripture.

INDEED many "bible scholars" have tried to establish a historical, rational foundation upon which the mythical god-man, jesus, may be viewed, yet not only has no one succeeded, most, upon honest reflection, admit the futility of such a pointless pursuit. Strangely, there were no eye-witness accounts in the edited bible or elsewhere. Stranger still is the obvious fact that although christians claim that jesus's teachings are the same as the word of god, not a single word was recorded for his fawning followers by this apparently illiterate, itinerate preacher. The startling fact is the total number of accounts of jesus written during his alleged life total exactly: ZERO! All that is left, at best, is HEARSAY for evidence.

THUS, there is good reason that belief in such unsubstantiated, supernatural, para-normal phenomena cannot be rational or coexist within the edifice of reality, as revealed by science... but must be relegated to "otherworldly faith". The conclusions of Schweitzer alone, who is an unimpeachable scholar and spiritual man of great stature, should be enough to disabuse any honest inquirer of the notion of an historical jesus of the bible, but for those whose indoctrination in christian faith runs deep, let us continue to dismantle this House of Cards.

THE brute fact is that the jesus-story arose in the fertile minds of late Iron-Age jewish desert tribes (tip of the hat to E.O. Wilson), desparate for a 'savior-messiah', conveniently before the advent of science... and in a shadowy, murky myth-world devoid of the stark light of telecommunications and skeptical, professional journalism. However, we cannot ignore the fact the human memory is notoriously fallible, prone to exageration and error. Natural human tendency is to follow the pressures of society, especially an authoritarian one, and embrace the stories heard since childhood, especially ones that are interwoven with the groups identity and "special status" as a community of believers. It is well known that oral (religious) traditions which are passed among people in communities... and on to other generations are always embellished and edited to fit the particular needs of the audience and inevitably take on mythic qualities.

FINALLY, it is clear the "story of jesus" as "the awaited messiah" only makes sense in the context of ancient jewish tribal prophesy (i.e. wishful, magical thinking), but yet, was clearly rejected by an overwhelming number of them. This is strange, is it not? Afterall, jesus was supposedly a "god incarnate, in the flesh"... a miracle working, resurrected spirit-savior, in their very midst... the epitome of their messianic musings! It is therefore reasonable to conclude that either jesus was utterly unconvincing to the very people whose deepest aspirations he was supposed to fulfill, or ... he never existed. Schweitzer, quoting Bauer, also makes this hugely telliing point: "Could there indeed be a more absurd impossibility? 'Jesus,' says Bauer, 'must perform these innumerable, these astounding miracles because, according to the view which the Gospels represent, He is the Messiah; He must perform them in order to prove Himself to be the Messiah—and yet no one recognises Him as the Messiah! That is the greatest miracle of all, that the people had not long ago recognised the Messiah in this wonder-worker.'"
On the other hand, "Yeshua" or jesus certainly did have a pedestrian existence, since approximately 1 in 20 of the 2.5 million jewish males living at that time had that name! However, there is just not a shread of evidence an immortal "god-man", like alien-abductors, has ever roamed the planet.


I HAVE posted some of the mnay reasons why the NT is a sham... a fiction... while lame apologist have only ranted, twisted and whined with their empty rhetoric and pontifications of faith. I will leave it to the less indoctrinated, one way or the other, to decide who is in possession of the truth.

[quote]Oh, sorry - the Sermon on the Mount is now inspired by the Greeks. Even more intersting. And you can prove this how? Maybe you'll conclude that those missing years of Jesus' ministry were spent studying with the Greeks?[/quote]
this was way back in the posts and I am no scholar. But tell me this..if the years are "missing" who is to say that Jesus was NOT studying and ministering to the Greeks. Not that I believe it but I have read the Bible, yeah it does say that Adam & Eve were the first people....does it say anywhere at all that they were the ONLY people? I think if the Bible is true at all you have to think about what is left unsaid as well as what is being said. But wait ..that is not in the Bible......

Thanks to gnosisq2 for your historical knowledge and perspective and to spin-no-za for your ability to point out failed lines of logic. You have brought out the best in the apologists and have made it quite easy to see how one can evade all logical thought when one has to face and defend the inconsistencies of their own closed beliefs.

INSEARCHofSIGHT: as opposed to your moniker, it seems that your sight is in fact, 20-20.

I must admit, it saddens me that so many are so lost in dogma... and cannot see how utterly twisted and rotted are the roots of christianity... in a "fundamentalist" literalist sense, of course.

PERSONALLY, i could really care less what any individual must adopt to cope with the "slings and arrows" of mortal existence... but the way UNConstitutional way in which church and state are melding in america behind misguided evangelicals, is truly of grave concern, something our Founding Fathers did their level-best to prevent.

I further realize, that like language, religious beliefs are more akin to a social more... a cultural accretion... than a true ontological perspective, that can be defended logically, through the prism of science and reason.

HOWEVER, as these threads illustrate beyond doubt, those whose thinking has devolved into faith-based reactionary posturing can be totally blind to the clear scholarship, that for centuries, has debunked their assertions of a historical, resurrected god-man.

THERE are "wisdom teachings" traditions that have great value and gnosis that can naturally come from humbly realizing our place in the Cosmos... but the literalist christians are more than content to stay in the "shallows" of the deep sea of knowledge and enlightenment, selfishly clinging to imagined demi-god status of immortality... and most unjustifiably, claiming "special status" among humanity, beleiving that those of us who upon examining the evidence of our lives and the Nature of Reality as revealed by science, and choose to opt out of the jesus charade, should spend eternity (that's quite a while) in some bizarro "hell".

ANYWAY, thanks for your kind words... cheers.

One very important aspect which seems to be ignored by most is that the only known supernatural phenomena which exist in the physical universe are us.

The physical universe exists in a single dimension of time moving either forward or backwards, never booth.

We can all picture a future and envision a past; we perceive from "Now" which is apart from time/space.

This is much like what was stated by the ancient Gnostics, we are all offspring of the source, and our abilities to create are directly proportional to our awareness.

The less aware any individual is the less able that soul is; such souls will attempt to follow a flock, whether it is a leader of death and destruction, a religious organization all in order to survive.

Such people survive through the group and while the Catholics and other religious organizations will not accept Darwin’s survival of the fittest the religious denominations are all evidence that Darwin was correct.

No person that could think for free from preconceptions could possibly follow a religion based on manuscripts which come hundreds of years after the alleged instigator of the religion.

A religion is dated from the time of the writing of its tenets and since the current Christians NT dates to hundreds of years after its founder Christianity is also a religion which dates from hundreds of years after its founder.

All evidence which has been found from the time of Jesus points to the fact Jesus was Gnostic. There is no evidence that he was not and evidence that he was so there is only one possible answer.

Today's Gnostics may find great inspiration from material such as "The Apochryphon of John" but since the Gnostics were a growing religion today's Gnostics are from today.

The goal of the Gnostics which was to separate our spiritual selves from the trap of the physical universe and that being a valid goal today also means we employ certain material from ages past but we in fact do not exist in time; we exist "now".

The notion we have to find a different source for life is unwarranted; we know we exist, we know we can create, we have found a creator and it is all of us. True; for any positive creation to occur we have to end our subservience to any delusion, supernatural phenomenon’s as explanation for that which we do not know and grow.

Ras


Ras

It makes me very happy to see people here which are capable of seeing through the absurd notion that there is anything substantial to the cult.

I do not need to elaborate on all the good points made by others since they all stand on their own merit.

There is one aspect of what Spinoza mentioned which is extremely important and I would like to expand upon: Jesus supposedly came as the Jewish messiah, he is not mentioned anywhere in the DSS up until 68 AD or in the material from Masada which brings the history of the Israelites forward to 135 AD. No person which fits the description of Jesus exists.

Now this is true; there is no denying this fact, yet the Christians are stating that the only God which ever existed is so weak that when he came to earth in flesh in order to save his chosen race he was incapable of making enough impact to even get any of them to notice him!

All other absurdities are still valid but this one makes the current Christians worship some God that could not even make any impact on people; he allegedly employed miracles to make them see, yet he was not even capable of making them noticed?

Anyone worshipping such a God would be worshipping the most incompetent deity ever invented.
The only reason these fanatics are still around is the lack of empathy they had for anyone other themselves. This indicates the religion was of the most barbaric nature and their only reason for continued success is the fortunes they spend on smear campaigns against all thinking people and the indoctrination they perform on innocent children whose only desire is to belong.

The tomb is obviously authentic; it does not matter if it was the Jesus mentioned by the Gnostics even though the evidence is compelling.

The savior figure the Christians peddle is an impossibility brought about through wishful thinking and delusions.


Ras

Ras, Benni, Spinoza, Thank You.

I will accept that Jesus existed and that the Israelites that were looking for a Messiah rejected the truth and expunged any record of Jesus living and then passing Jesus off to the Romans for a mock trial.

I admit that I need to read more of the texts from the Nag Hammandi how are they different and how do they compare with the writings found in the Bible.

I still hold to my critical thinking that there is more to the story than what we have been allowed to know as taught by the Church.

The Church has found power in the teachings of Satan and so have other religions.

Linda,

Have I fallen for you? You have not read or found the truth. Who wrote and told the truth? I can show you just follow this link and learn about the truth and justice.

http://www.mylot.com/w/discussions/842360.aspx

This will give you a path to follow, and if you follow the path you will know one truth, my truth, my testimony.

Once you know my truth, I want you to reconsider everything you know about the truth that you think you know and have been taught from the Bible.

My point is, if the Bible is telling the truth, then according to the Bible, I get to determine what shall be sown on Earth and also in Heaven, what does that make me?

If you believe the Bible to be true, then I must choose that the people lying are acting out of demonic possession and they carry the spirit of Satan. I must pray for the Justice of GOD.

If I pray starting in the East, and thank GOD for the sunrise that will always happen from the East, and pray facing the South and thank GOD for the warmth that brings us life and then face the West sending my prayers with the setting sun and into the next day to the North I turn and Thank GOD for the cool air that brings us the changing seasons the snow of winter bringing life a new in the spring. And finally I bow to the Earth looking deep to the core, breaking down elements to the smallest molecule looking in between the smallest part I find and see through the ether as I look I can see beyond out into the infinite universe, I'm looking down and out and up and beyond and I can see the stars and galaxies beyond the Sun and Moon and ALL of our Planets. We are all connected there is a source that makes this all possible and that source is with us as we are all special with love and blessings.

I haven't found Satan, Satan does not exist.

I did not fall, the Church failed.

So either I am who I say I am or I don't exist.

If you were speaking to Jesus would you speak as you have written to the others here? As to the Man and Church your religion professes to be GOD are you a reflection of that Love, pure and holy?

Have you respected everyone as if you were talking to Jesus face to face, don't you believe that in each of these children exists that light of Jesus that is the Spirit of GOD in all life?

How could I say that those that lied to and about me are Satanic? I can't! Satan can not exist.

But I can expect that people who are doing wrong are held accountable to be treated with justice according to the law of man and GOD.

GOD Loves righteousness.

The best song is the true testimony told and sung from the mind and heart that bears the fruit of GOD.

Let your words be a reflection of GOD's Love and Learn.

RAZgnosisDUDE:

ALLOW me to amplify that Inconvenient Truth which the lame apologist can neither explain nor wish away... the point I made earlier, which of course, you astutely picked up on, and the "faith based" ignored:


"Around the year 107, the Christian bishop of Antioch made a last, doleful journey. Under military escort Ignatius travelled by land from Antioch to Rome, where in its brutal arena he was to die a martyr's death. Along the way he wrote to several Christian communities. To the Trallians he said: "Close your ears then if anyone preaches to you without speaking of Jesus Christ. Christ was of David's line. He was the son of Mary; he was really born, ate and drank, was really persecuted under Pontius Pilate, was really crucified....He was also truly raised from the dead." ...

Before Ignatius, not a single reference to Pontius Pilate, Jesus' executioner, is to be found. Ignatius is also the first to mention Mary; Joseph, Jesus' father, nowhere appears. The earliest reference to Jesus as any kind of a teacher comes in 1 Clement, just before Ignatius, who himself seems curiously unaware of any of Jesus' teachings.

To find the first indication of Jesus as a miracle worker, we must move beyond Ignatius to the Epistle of Barnabas. Other notable elements of the Gospel story are equally hard to find. This STRANGE SILENCE on the Gospel Jesus which pervades almost a century of Christian correspondence cries out for explanation." -Earl Doherty, "The Jesus Puzzle".


STRANGE SILENCE indeed... but easily explainable by acknowledging that NO god-man jesus roamed our planet, pre-science, pre-technology, pre-mass-media.

cheers.

It does my heart good to see you make progress Great White.

Ras

LARGEcaucasionBUFFALOED:

PLEASE describe "talking to jesus, face to face"... i mean to say i am curious, since history records not a single word about this illusive god-man's appearance, yet you assert to some secret, special knowledge of this supernatural savior. PERHAPS you have photos?

AND