If a person were to cast out a demon in the name of Jesus Christ......... I couldn't fathom what the demon would do. Might as well cast out the demon in the name of Bob Zucherman. If there is anyone out there with the name Bob Zucherman please do not take offence at any coinsidance. I just made up that name and do not wish to be affiliated with any new religon that worships Bob and not Yahweh.

I do believe in Yahushua, but not the new testament

oden: If you're going to copy, copy from the best.

great white: practice what you preach.

oden: If you're going to copy, copy from the best.

Actually, I am doing some original thinking here.

Not sure what u are talking about Ling?

great white: I do believe you were reading my response to Ras/gnosis. However, if you are identifying with it, or taking a defensive stance, perhaps you'd best first find the correct source.
Your belief in angels is commendable but it is wise to remember that not all angels are God's messengers. Some are fallen angels who follow satan. I am aware that you don't believe in "satan" as some anthropomorphized man/beast with horns and glaring eyes but willyou concede that evil exists in the world as well as good? Mankind has given God a gender for many reasons, not the least of which was that many societies are patriarchal. Also because Scripture tells us that "God created man in his own image and likeness." Many theologies, polytheistic or monotheistic, have actually created God in their own image and likeness. It is difficult to believe that God could "take human form" in His only begotten son, Jesus. I believe that we, too, are the Sons and Daughters of the Most High God. Kahlil Gibran once said, "Your children are not your children; they are the sons and daughters of life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you..." If we love, we have spiritual roots. Who could conceive of "love" (that cannot be scientifically proven and yet how many millions of people believe in love and believe that they are in love with someone? How do we know that love exists any more than we know that God exists? When children are born to a loving couple, people will often say that they are the blessings - the gifts - of their parents' love for each other. Then why is it so difficult to believe that we are not God's gifts to one another and that our spiritual Father is none other than God? I don't have a problem with that. I believe that God taught us several valuable lessons when He sent Jesus into the world through a woman. Think about it.
I also come to do my Father's bidding. I am a Mystic - my Father's Daughter. Like the prophets before me, I was asked to pass on what was given me and to warn the Children of God not to worship false idols nor lead the flock astray. They are precious in the eyes of God and suggesting that they live and practice polytheism doesn't set well with the one true God. It never has and it never will. If your angels are telling you otherwise, you'd best look up the history of the nephalim.
We cannot interfere with the Free Will of others. God has never done it nor have his angels or His Son. But to set forth a warning to those straying from the Good Shepherd, that is what I have been asked to do. It is neither mine to judge nor to bear the responsibilities for the errors or sins of others. Maybe it's time for LGod's children to grow up and take responsibility for their own words and deeds. If you don't believe in a "devil," at least concede that everyone is not always doing their best. In fact some people make it a practice of doing their worst by hurting others. By their fruits you will know them. What are the fruits of a murderer - good or bad? What are the fruits of a healer - good or bad? I rest my case.

oden: It was a quote you posted.

The fruits of a tree are defined by those who judge the fruit based on their beliefs. I happen to like broccoli and think it tastes good. Others don't like the taste of broccoli and say it's bad. The fruit parable you mention is very applicable, but indeed it is based on perspective. Knowledge does not equal wisdom. A person's knowlege is limited to their beliefs. It is ideal to question everything as a skeptic to validate ones beliefs. If we all did this people wouldn't be killing others because they don't agree with the.

for example, I do not believe in islam but i am not going to kill muslims because I don't agree with them. But I would have to protect myself from someone who would kill me because they don't like my opinion, for my own preservation and love of life and all there is to learn.

SUPER-SIZEDpaleBUFFALO:


YES... i can "feel" the love... groovy!

HOWEVER, from a logical, ontological perspective, your god construct seems a bit fluid, plastic, rather "all-purpose", but suffers from shizophrenia. On the one hand, you seem to embrace the pantheistic god of Spinoza as "the one"... and "god is all"... but on the other hand, devolve into musings of jesus and angels.

BUT who am I to comment on what you have need to believe, at this point in your life, eh? YOUR personal beliefs should be kept personal, and if you fact you kept them as such, you have my complete respect.

HOWEVER, as for your imagined notion of having free will, this is an area I have studied somewhat extensively:


THE religions based on monotheism: christian, islamic and jewish, shamelessly promote and indoctrinate the concept of "free will". Why? Simply put, it frees their allegedly righteous, all-knowing, all-powerful creator god from the ensnaring thicket: "EVIL" in all its thorny manifestations and implications.

PARADOXICALLY, frail, "god-created" humanity, must have this mysterious free will (FW), in order to shoulder the complete responsibility for all those acts which result in human suffering, or "sin". Thus, the imagined "omni-god", who is "perfection"... receives a celestial 'get out of hell free' card, and feeble, mortal and infirmed humans are not only threatened with eternal damnation, but are left holding the proverbial bag of guilt as well! The harsh moral judgement proclaimed by the dogma of these religions: eternal suffering for stubbornly and willfully, "freely choosing" the sin and wickedness of reason and freethought!

FURTHERMORE, christianity is wholly dependent on the notion of FW in order to assert that the self-proclaimed "disciples of christ" freely chose the "one true faith", as if the repetition of bible indoctrination beginning in early childhood, reinforced with overbearing mega-church-social-clubs with their towering illuminated crosses... legions of organized priests, preachers and missionaries..."holy lands"... "holy relics"... creeds, prayers, hymns... not to mention the drone of evangelical media bombardment, and obvious cultural factors, were somehow completely inoperative and irrelevant. Is it simply a matter of sheer coincidence or unfettered moral conviction that essentially all poor, uneducated Southern Appalachian children who are saturated in their critical formative years with the incessant rantings of some preacher at their local "holiness church" and "tent revivals" turn out as pentacostals, believing, among a host of improbables, that "speaking in tongues" and ''snake handling' are divinely sanctioned? Why do the children of jewish, islamic, hindu or buddhist parents make vastly different "choices" and hold vastly different beliefs? It is simply brute fact that in general, one's culturally acquired religious beliefs are no more autonomous a "choice" than one's language.

BUT what of FW you ask... surely we all have it.... how can it not be true? Are we not perfectly free (if not threatend or coerced) to choose whatever we wish... just as we please... exactly what we will? Are we not free to will anything... anything at all? However, common wisdom reveals the thin veneer covering this FWing self, with phrases like: "creatures of habit"; "can't teach an old dog new tricks"; "he's a natural born ___ "; "she'll never change"; etc.. Also revealing is the grammatically incorrect habit of people referring to themselves (both in thought and deed) in the third person, as "one does" or "you do" this or that in a given situation... and even using "we" or their names as in "Jim Smith is no fool"... anything other than the correct pronoun: "I".

HOWEVER, there must also be a supernatural, immaterial 'soul' as well, to be this 'free-willing agent'... an uncaused priviledged entity, exempt from the constraints of natural laws and somehow residing in and supervening on our physical minds: the absurd paradox of Cartesian mind-body dualism.


GREATWHITE,butNOTshark: DID YOU CHOOSE:
1. the time in history of your birth... or exactly where... the community?
2. your parents, and thus most profoundly, your genes?
3. your siblings, role models, peer grougs?
4. whether or not you were educated or indoctrinated into religious dogma and supernatural belief?
5.did you choose to be nutured or neglected as a child and young person?


AND on and on it goes...

DO persons freely will...freely choose, to become: morbidly obese; compulsive gamblers; obsessed with taboos like child pornography or pedophilia; addicted to tobacco, illicit drugs & alcohol; heinous serial killers & rapists (sociopaths & psychopaths)... or engage in other criminal or antisocial behaviors? Do they, thorough sheer force of "will", decide to become the objects of society's scorn & loathing and perhaps, ostracizing hatred... not to mention 'willfully' risking harsh criminal penalties or death? Do you consider it an act of FW to be schizophrenic, bipolar, chronically anxious... or indulge in delusional paranoid thoughts, behaviors and even suicide? Did you simply choose your gender identity & sexual preferences? Can you control the fundamental influence of hormones on your sexual function and behavior?

FOR FW to be relevant...for people to deserve some profound BLAME for their 'wrong' choices, then the following must be true: we must be fully cognizant of not only all possible choices available to us, at every conceivable moment, but we must also be FULLY AWARE of ALL the possible consequences... and likewise be FULLY CAPABLE of applying some moral calculus before choosing among them, while having absolutely NO PREDISPOSTIONS or COMPULSIONS to act a certain manner. Whew! Only then, can we "freely willingly", and most puzzling of all, illogically make bad choices anyway! Further, on a more fundamental level, we must somehow be the ultimate 'cause of ourselves' (causa sui), in order to be fully responsible for ourselves: our choices and actions. This premise, though necessary for true FW to apply, is prima facie absurd!



>>>EINSTEIN'S insight: "Everything is determined, the beginning as well as the end, by forces over which we have no control. It is determined for the insect as well as for the star. Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible piper." ... or this: "If the moon, in the act of completing its eternal way around the earth, were gifted with self-consciousness, it would feel thoroughly convinced that it was travelling its way of its own accord on the strength of a resolution taken once and for all. So would a Being, endowed with higher insight and more perfect intelligence, watching man and his doings, smile about man’s illusion that he was acting according to his own free will."

Finally this, from "My Credo", written in 1932: "Our situation on this earth seems strange. Every one of us appears here, involuntarily and uninvited, for a short stay, without knowing the why and the wherefore. In our daily lives we feel only that man is here for the sake of others, for those whom we love and for many other beings whose fate is connected with our own. I am often troubled by the thought that my life is based to such a large extent on the work of my fellow human beings, and I am aware of my great indebtedness to them.

I do not believe in free will. ... ... The most beautiful and deepest experience a man can have is the sense of the mysterious. It is the underlying principle of religion as well as of all serious endeavour in art and science. He who never had this experience seems to me, if not dead, then at least blind."


CHEERS!

I am waiting for one of mine to be posted as well.

Arrgh,

The freewill of the eve community need an adam to make things work. LOL

How about an atomic or nuclear website.

The reason I double posted was because of a delay of course.

I wrote one and thought somehow I triggered the moderator, so I re-wrote what I was writing, because it was important.

Not as wordy as some of the other posters here who have the ability to write a book in a single post.

It is their freewill of course, but did they convince anyone that there way would lead to life and take us into a new future, filled with peace?

I see only one direction to achieve a change in the current environment that is a diabolical mess created by fabrication of information from a variety of sources.

How are you going to fix the world? The New Testament has failed miserably.

We have created too many divisions, so now we need to find a path that brings things together for the betterment of humanity all around the world.

Lingal AKA Lingal:

The group I talked about which proves Darwin correct is not the logical humans which come together; what I am talking about are the irrational people that gather to follow a leadership without logic or reason. The people which band together behind a cause which make no sense are also following survival instincts and not their own mind. That which sets people apart is their ability to employ their mind and when this is not done it is the animal survival instinct which come to the fore.

People following such people as Hitler; Pope Innocent III, avtually people following any of the three religious denominations NJudaism and it's two offspring Christianity and Islam. There is no evidence to support either one of them only superstition and lies.

The fact you do not understand the "Now" which I talked about is not surpricing; that now would exist without past or future. Irenaeus could not understand an existence apart from time/space either which is the reason for his absurdities regarding the "Apochryphon of John". You asking about time/space in regards to a dimension apart from time/space are a clear indication of your failure to grasp deeper philosophical meanings.

Your reference to me as a devil tells nothing about me but an awfully lot about you. Calling people names which do not agree with you and whose logic you can't refute is at best childish.

The logic behind your arguments are absurd; if you are the equal of your deity why the subservience?

All you do is come with absurd rhetoric; I ask for evidence that some of your material is correct and all you come with is preconceived delusions without any evidence. The entire Old Testament has been refuted is there anything at all which you claim is correct? If so please let me know and I'll refute it also.

You still have not produced the Gospel of Mark that you state was written 60 AD; until you do please don't even mention anything about misleading others. I know it does not exist, you know it does not exist so better watch how you embarrass the Church.

I gave you the definition of preconception from the American Heritage Dictionary; this was what I talked about and it is the same definition I employed.

You accuse me of not handling the truth when you claim the Gospels date from the first millennium and you don't possess any complete Gospels which are from before the fourth century and you expect us to take you seriously?

You claim to have proof, yet you have not provided any proofs yet; please do so and I may take you seriously.


Ras

Folks, I need help. First may I tell you that for a layman I am enjoying the hell out of this thread. Those of you are that are involved are hands and feet over me so please be patient. I understand what Gnosticism means based on the comments found in the THE GNOSTIC SOCIETY LIBRARY and the statement talked about on this thread. Now my difficulty. Can you be a Gnostic follower and not believe in the divinity of Christ and the concept of a God? My other problem is directed to Linda. She has written a great deal about her beliefs. I admire her commitment but I would like her or/and others of deep belief to deal with the litany of historical problems regarding the existence of Christ. Thanks for your help.

Troon:

You can absolutely be Gnostic without following the divinity of Christ; likewise there is no reason to believe in the concept of God as the source from which we all emanated is also what each and every one of us are.

The divine essence of Christ is the same as the divine essence of which you are. The only important aspect to remember is that you are not your body so it does not matter if the cells of your body are employed in the creation of other bodies in the future.

There are many different groups of Gnostics, none are right and none are wrong, they all search for wisdom. The one I favor the least is Valentinian. The one I prefer is the Sethian Gnostics. The only sect of Gnostics which is wrong is the one which has all the answers for such a group would then be incapable of experiencing the physical.

One other way by which you can tell if a Gnostic group is false is if they practice any base rituals or permit infringement on another. Gnostics only battle ignorance and subservience while they promote knowledge and spiritual awareness.

Ras

[quote]but I would like her or/and others of deep belief to deal with the litany of historical problems regarding the existence of Christ.[/quote]

TROONmeister... very astute observations.

HOWEVER, if you are asking the emissaries from the Roman Catholic Church to make objective arguments, based on facts... to rebut the "litany of historical problems"... good luck there buckeroo.

THIS thread in really wearing thin and i have posted not a "litany" but a proverbial boatload of intractable issues with a historical god-man jesus or a NT that is anything other than literary fiction.

WHY ask these myopic dogmatists... when you already have the verdict from an unimpeachable source of towering stature, ALBERT SCHWEITZER.

ALLOW ME TO RE-POST his stunning conclusion after many, many years of searching and top-level scholarship:

HE was an 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.


SINCE i am a Naturalist... both in the scientific and spiritual sense... and a panthesist in the Spinozan sense, i leave you question regarding Gnosticism to the RAZmastaz.

CHEERS!

GNOSISquest, aka RAZ...

DO ME a favor and head back to the main Dr. Charlesworth thread and read the document i had from CounterBlast on the annihilation of the Cathars or Albingensians in France, under the heinous pope "innocent" III... and the predictably disjointed, inflammatory tirade by LINtGAL.

LET me know your thoughts... it's on the thread: "an atheist turned".

LATER....

TROON... here are a few more insights from highly respected scholars... which might help frame your thinking:


"WE know virtually nothing about the persons who wrote the gospels we call Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John."... ..."But the gnostic Christians rejected Luke's theory. Some gnostics called the literal view of resurrection the 'faith of fools'." -Dr. Elaine Pagels, Professor of Religion at Princeton University, and receipient of Guggenheim, MacArthur, and Rockefeller fellowships, ("The Gnostic Gospels", 1979, winner of the National Book Critcs Circle and National Book awards, and acclaimed as one of the "100 best books of the 20th century" by Modern Library).

"NOW when I read the Gospel of John, I see Jesus standing there saying "I am the way, the truth, the light, I am the water," and I think "Who is he talking to? Why does he say this over and over?" New Testament scholars would say, "Well, Jesus never said these words"--and that's probably true." and "I realized that conventional views of Christian faith that I'd heard when I was growing up were simply made up -- and I realized that many parts of the story of the early Christian movement had been left out." -Dr. Elaine Pagels, from interviews on BeliefNet (by Laura Sheahen) and PBS's "Religion and Ethics" (Oct. 10, 2003).


"NOT only did the early Christians take over almost completely the myths and teachings of their Egyptian masters, mediated in many cases by the Mystery Religions and by Judaism in its many forms, but they did everything in their power, through forgery and other fraud, book burning, character assassination, and murder itself, to destroy the crucial evidence of what had happened. In the process, the Christian story itself, which most likely began as a kind of spiritual drama, together with a 'sayings' source based on the Egyptian material, was turned into a form of history in which the Christ of the myth became a flesh-and-blood person identified with Jesus (Yeshua or Joshua) of Nazareth. The power of the millennia-old Christ mythos to transform the whole of humanity was all but destroyed in the literalist adulation of 'a presumptive Galilean paragon.' Centuries of darkness were to follow." -Tom Harpur, a Canadian Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, ex-Anglican priest, professor of the NT at the University of Toronto ('64-'71), and highly respected Christian thinker, (The Pagan Christ, 2004)


THESE are again, unimpeachable sources... unlike the rather biased zealots, JAKEabf and LINtGAL.

Spinnoza:

I looked at the thread and had to reply there, the atrocities of Lingal are evidence that she has no knowledge about history and like a good Catholic assumes no responsibility for the cult’s crimes.

It was a pleasure to read your entry; it is a pleasure to see someone which is that knowledgeable about history which bothers to reply to posts at a place like this.


Ras

Jakeabf:

I do not believe that you are not aware of what caused the Gnostic material and records to be destroyed.

When it comes to the direction of this thread it has to do with the believability of the NT.

Neither you nor anyone else on this thread have as yet provided any evidence in this regard but attempt to circumvent the problem by personal attacks and attacks on an ancient people which no longer exist because of the Genocide practiced by the Church.

Please answer the question posed; is there any believability to anything in the NT?

Are there any complete Gospels prior to the fourth century?

From when is the earliest translation of the first complete Gospel as the Bible is portrays it today?


Ras

I have to work tomorrow so I'm doing this one and done... I'm glad my last post finally went through, that gives me confidence that this post may also find it's way to the board or forum soon.

I hope the frustrating computer issues are now behind us.

As for the Believability of the New Testaments, there is one, the Book of Revelation is the perfect recipe for human annihilation. Now if that is true and it is... We have to decide if it is a good life path for human society.

I say rip the book of Revelation right out of the Bible for it is a curse to mankind.

Now let's apply the thought that if I am a part of GOD and GOD is in me, and I just wrote that about the book of Revelation, then wouldn't you have cause to say that GOD's word contradicts the will of a pure and holy GOD? I'd do more editing...

Spinoza - you're a pantheist, I'm believing in Panentheism, do you know the difference? (use Wickipedia...)

Now to make Religion Evolve...

So it be written so it be done.

Odenwalt

If "the New Testament isn't believable at all.", then your request for a scriptural notation is diatropic to this discussion, but here is one anyway.

Luke 13:34-35. Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you that kill the prophets and stone those who are sent to you! How often have I longed to gather your children, as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you refused! So be it! Your house will be left to you. Yes, I promise you, you shall not see me till the time comes when you say, "Blessings on him who comes in the name of the Lord!" (The Jerusalem Bible)

Here is another: Mark:16:16-18 And He said to them, "Go out to the whole world; proclaim the Good News to all creation. He who believes and is baptized will be saved; he who does not believe will be condemned. These are the signs that will be associated with believers: in my name they will cast out devils;...

Of course NT isn't believable so the point was mute! But then how can you say that he was not trying to create a new religion. What evidence do you have that is not NT based (since it is not believable) to prove what Jesus was or was not trying to do. The NT is the only written source we have about the life and death of Jesus, OH excuse me, "Yahushua" and if it is not believable then Jesus must not have existed.

I don't understand your logic? The NT is unbelievable but you then go on to say that Matthew has some credibility so you can introduce the Sermon on the Mount to the discussion. Which version are you referring to?

If the Jews that accepted Jesus, oops, sorry I did it again, I mean your Yahushua as the Messiah does not make them Christians, what, in your way of thinking, makes a person a Christian or not?

In my mind it is simply, "to believe in Jesus Christ and to try to follow his teachings." Where am I wrong?

allthatis360

A lot of people watch their language most carefully when they lie-- the opposite of truth? Where is the logic in that. If you speak the truth you don't have to watch your words. They flow naturally, but sometimes their meaning is hidden from lairs.

Reason is not always truth. If reason has an agenda it can become a lie, a very reasonable lie, which if repeated often enough begins to be accepted as the truth.

Language has meaning, sometimes more than one meaning. A foreign language may not have any meaning at all, its just lines drawn in the sand to a person uneducated in it. For language to have meaning it must be taught. That is why "logos" to me is just Greek not God.

Following your logic then God must have been Greek not Jewish and we should all be looking to Troy for the Messiah not Jerusalem! But wait a minute. Helen did supposedly find the true cross and hence the entire Eastern Empire became Christian. Was she from Troy? Oh no she was from Istanbul.

Here is one for you. There are no words to describe the deity we believers all worship. Being indescribable makes our deity beyond reason, etc, etc.

Language watching can be fun!

gnosisquest2:

Don't blame Lingal for the atrocities of the past two thousand years. She wasn't there dude. Although I must agree some of her reasoning is not Vulcan.

If you look at your family tree I'll bet there are some people in you DNA lineage that were Catholics too. Does that make you guilty? Are you responsible for their crimes? Not! Your only responsible for the things you have done--or not done.

Posts to a place like this? Come on, have we all descended into hell or something. Lets not fall into the Adam and Eve trap! This is not Dante's Inferno, or is it?

We are just trying to get a handle on some ancient writings and their relativity to our well being. With that in mind I think we can all agree that religion itself has been the most destructive force on the planet for the past 2K.

Whether fact or fiction there are parts of the NT that send a message to us that many historical characters have ignored. We are all the worse for it.

The irony is that more people have been oppressed, tortured, and killed in His name than for any other reason. He taught forgiveness and love not hatred and vengeance. He failed to get that message through our thick skulls!

The greater irony is that we are the ones suffering now because of our stupidity. That, we have to take responsibility for! Only if we change will there be any hope for us. Believer , Nonbeliever, Christian, Jew, Muslim, Gnostic, Agnostic or Atheist, it doesn't matter. If we don't learn to be tolerant of each other and respect each other, the killing will go on and hell will exist here on Earth.