talloulou said:
The old testament God is not likeable to put it nicely. I don't know how anyone can reach enlightenment from the bible. I'm not being disrespectful either....just honest.
A sample:
*The bible shows me a piece of information which connects other pieces of information. This results in an "ah-haa" moment.
*The stories represent tried and true moral practices.
The new testament is better. Jesus seems like a cool guy in the new testament. It's hard to grasp that he is the son of that mean god from the old testament. However even the new testament has it's faults. It was written so long after Jesus lived and the four gospels are so contradictory to one another that I don't know how you could make heads or tails of it.
Writing styles can present apparent contradictories, yes. There are two ways to over come this is:The first is to learn the original languages and read the original documents for your self, spending a lifetime of study and contomplation on the subject; or second you could simply put all such things in a "God-box" and ask for guidance relevant to your life.
I tend to go for the second option. Personally, I don't feel the need to understand scripture completely in order to live a righteous life and be a good person.
And the revelations and what not in the end.......well there's that mean god again.
So mean is He that we are all with Him in the end.
We all have a way out of truble. All we need to do is live by God's law.
Plus I could never understand why God would only allow people into heaven after they brutally killed his only begotten son. What's up with that?
Basically, God stayed everyone's "death" sentence until Jesus came and served it for them.
What if we didn't kill Jesus and we let him live? Then God would be pissed and we wouldn't get into heaven?
The millennial kingdom would've begun at that point.
And whats up with original sin? How can be babies be born anything but innocent?
People are not born with criminal guilt of having committed a crime, but with a criminal nature and intent. It is not until a child reaches the age of accounting, traditionally marked with a bermitsfa, that they are held accountable for any sin that they commit.
Basically, if you don't know better, God gives you a pass.
When I try to imagine a God....I don't want imagine an egotistical maniac whose even a jerk to babies, doesn't let them into heaven if they aren't baptized, and demands their foreskin! What's up with that?
Institutionalized propaganda and spiritual blackmail committed by the church.
Christianity could be a cool religion except that soooo many christians are judgemental.
I here you.
If you believe the new testament Jesus wasn't too down with judging others. My other problem with Christianity is that much of their religion has obvious "pagan" influence yet they adamently deny this.
I've seen all sides of that. I've seen christians who deni it, christians who don't really care or don't mind ("
were worshiping the God of Abraham, not a pagan god"), and christians who shun non purist symbology.
Denial. For some reason they psychologically need at least one thing to be substantial enough to believe in. Most diehard reborns I know have had some traumatic event in their life. They choose to be addicted to God rather than crack.
eople who are really in to studying the Bible refuse to research and discuss the way the Bible stories share so much in common with the ancient stories of other cultures.
Folks who do that, again, just need a crutch to keep them off of substance abuse or a psyc-brake, or similar.
re egyptian gods whose stories are almost identical to the story of christ. There are sumerian texts that the Bible almost seems plagerized from. Yet Bible believers generally refuse to acknowledge anything outside the Bible as if God hand picked the stuff that made it in there.
My contention is that all of these stories reflect onto the same God/event.
I accept the idea that mine is simply another way of looking at God.
e nothing more than to have a definition of God that I could embrace.
I see God as a blinding white light of truth, love and knowledge.
e to be enlightened. But I don't think that will come from man, their religions, or writings. So many religions sound great up to a point.....but there is always something.....one little thing that makes me go "oh good heavens that can't be right!"
You will find that that will allways be the case. No official religion will ever feel just right. Tools of faith are customizable, and by proxy so is your individual practice of your faith. So you have options.
Near death experiencers who say that have a story of meeting God, or similar, come back and have their own abstract view of God. Such people often find that they, also, don't fit well into any official religion.
Hope my views and opinions help. Feel free to accept or reject any of it as you see fit....as if one needed permision.
