Black and White

[Sriram]

Reply to message 3.... From Siriam.

Who is unreasoning enough to suggest that man made laws are Black and White too ..... just like Gods.

Anyone who sins against or knows not Gods law. Will burn in hellfire forever. Just, loving, forgiving?

There is no appeal from Gods sentence, no time off for good behaviour.

Anyone who breaks mans law is likely to be treated differently; A first offender armed bank robber (a thief) is likely to receive a punishment of 25 years in prison. A homeless and destitute person who takes food from a supermarket because he is hungry (a thief) is likely to receive a punishment of a supervision order, which may help to resolve the long term problem. A man who abducts a child and rapes and kills it (a murderer) will get life imprisonment. An 85 year old man who suffocates his wife of 60 years with a pillow because she is dying of a incurable disease and is in excruciating pain. (a murderer) will be likely to get a non custodial sentence. Just, loving, forgiving?

See the difference Siriam? God sends all sinners to burn forever regardless of the nature of the offence. Just, Loving, Forgiving? I don't think so.

Meanwhile on an undiscovered atoll in Polynesia a man who has never heard of Jesus has a prawn for lunch, he will burn in hell for eternity!!!

No..John. You don't get it.

Religions are created in specific groups and communities. They evolve and develop over time as the community develops.  While most major religions will have a spiritual philosophy at their base, all religions are cultural and social in origin and largely cater to these requirements primarily. 

As I have mentioned above, in many communities in earlier centuries, religions were the courts and the police and the law. Even kings ruled under religious authority.    Religions provided the norms for marriage, child birth, health and hygiene, upbringing of children, sexual behavior,  behavior towards parents and siblings, murder....and every other form of social interaction. 

Religions primarily maintained social control and discipline....(which indirectly is believed to also help in spiritual development of the people). 

Religions therefore reflected the nature and character of the society in which they developed.  If in a particular community, it was necessary to be rigid, their God was rigid. If it became necessary to be liberal, their God became liberal.

[john]

Siriam

A lot of what you say is true.

That is why religion is dying and we will be better off when it has totally gone.

If God's laws are as you say variable with time and cultural change, wherefore is God?

[Sriram]

Siriam

A lot of what you say is true.

That is why religion is dying and we will be better off when it has totally gone.

If God's laws are as you say variable with time and cultural change, wherefore is God?

God's laws are decided by men...based on the needs of the community at any point of time.  Religion is just an institution of authority that enforces control and discipline.  Indispensable in most communities even today!

In today's world of civil courts and policing and a globalized environment, specific religions may seem irrelevant because they no longer cater to the same communities as before.  But certain beliefs and life styles would have become memes and they will continue to influence people for some generations.  In fact religion will never die out completely because most people across the world need it in some form or the other.

All this however does not detract from the spiritual angle and the need for self development in individuals. Religions provided a means for this in earlier times (and still do) but today we  may have to device secular philosophies and measures to ensure  continued spiritual development in the right direction if religions begin to lose their hold more and more.

[john]

Siriam

So what you are saying then is that God is a product of mans own intellect.

Fine I agree.

[Sriram]

Siriam

So what you are saying then is that God is a product of mans own intellect.

Fine I agree.

Mythology and religious gods are products of mans imagination, no doubt.  Religions are products of local culture, legend and myth.

However that does not mean that there is no real God or that there is no real Intelligence or Consciousness regulating the world.   Seeking the inner Self is quite another  thing. 

[SusanDoris]

May I just politely mention that some people are spelling Sriram's name incorrectly. I can tell this is so because of the way Synthetic Dave reads it!

[Sriram]

May I just politely mention that some people are spelling Sriram's name incorrectly. I can tell this is so because of the way Synthetic Dave reads it!

Yes indeed! Thanks for that Susan. I wanted to mention it but thought I would let it pass.

My name is Sriram (real name btw). Sri pronounced as Sree rhyming with tree. Ram pronounced as Raam rhyming with balm.

Thanks.   

[Sebastian Toe]

Yes indeed! Thanks for that Susan. I wanted to mention it but thought I would let it pass.

My name is Sriram (real name btw). Sri pronounced as Sree rhyming with tree. Ram pronounced as Raam rhyming with balm.

Thanks.

From now on I will be thinking of you as Treebalm!

[Bramble]

My name is Sriram (real name btw).

Thanks.

So you are the seventh avatar of the god Vishnu! Apparently you are a rather fetching blue colour and the repetition of your name can resolve all earthly problems. Respect.

[Dicky Underpants]

John - see #10 and #12 - I told you what was coming!

You MUST NOT question the Christian's belief nor may you criticise their god!

I hope you noticed that NearlySane pointed out that I'm not a Christian. How on earth you could read into my post that it expresses some kind of traditional Christian ideas totally baffles me. They like to take the Bible as being totally uniform throughout, expressing exactly the same ideas about God. This is totally the opposite of what I was saying.
And I spelled that out perfectly clearly. I don't think the Bible expresses a unified view of God, nor do  I think John is right in saying that it's a matter of black or white. It's a bloody sight more complex than that. Though of course there are many believers who will say "either you're for us or against us". And that, by the way, seems to be the kind of attitude that you're taking.

[Dicky Underpants]

Out of interest, Dicky, and since you refer to Christians as being of a different religion to St Paul, could you enlighten us as to which religion St Paul started?

A pagan religion, based on the familiar ideas of a dying and rising god. He only linked this to Judaism via the idea of Abraham being justified by faith. Other references to Judaism that he makes are pretty specious when you examine them.
I believe it was probably 'Luke' who tried to fuse Paul's ideas onto those of the Judeaising early Christian groups around. Both Luke and Paul had their eyes on the wider world of the Roman empire, and the strategy Luke employs in Acts was very skilfully brought about (he completely contradicts what Paul says about what he (Paui) did after his conversion, and mentions a Jerusalem conference where the varying ideas were aired and supposedly reconciled). St Paul himself says that he was away from Jerusalem for about 15 years after his conversion.

St Paul, of course, had some interesting and often worthwhile things to say. But so does 'pagan' thought and religion. (Hope you're paying attention, Owlswing - if you're there)

[trippymonkey]

Jai Sri Raam !!!!!

[Sriram]

So you are the seventh avatar of the god Vishnu! Apparently you are a rather fetching blue colour and the repetition of your name can resolve all earthly problems. Respect.

Bramble...you seem to be aware of some aspects of Hindu religion & mythology. Great! 

[Sriram]

Jai Sri Raam !!!!!

Jai Sriraam!   

[trippymonkey]

Namaskar bhaiya !!! Good morning.
Yehi hai, board mein, sab bevkupf aadmi hai !!! Kuch nahi malum hai, nah?

Nick

[Sriram]

Namaskar bhaiya !!! Good morning.
Yehi hai, board mein, sab bevkupf aadmi hai !!! Kuch nahi malum hai, nah?

Nick

LOL!!  Sahi hai. Kuch logg vaise hain.   

[Owlswing]

A pagan religion, based on the familiar ideas of a dying and rising god. He only linked this to Judaism via the idea of Abraham being justified by faith. Other references to Judaism that he makes are pretty specious when you examine them.
I believe it was probably 'Luke' who tried to fuse Paul's ideas onto those of the Judeaising early Christian groups around. Both Luke and Paul had their eyes on the wider world of the Roman empire, and the strategy Luke employs in Acts was very skilfully brought about (he completely contradicts what Paul says about what he (Paui) did after his conversion, and mentions a Jerusalem conference where the varying ideas were aired and supposedly reconciled). St Paul himself says that he was away from Jerusalem for about 15 years after his conversion.

St Paul, of course, had some interesting and often worthwhile things to say. But so does 'pagan' thought and religion. (Hope you're paying attention, Owlswing - if you're there)

Oh, I'm here. Just no so often and not for as long ech time.

I regret to say that reality and religions other than my own have decided to take an unwanted and unpleasant hand in my personal affairs.

I'll be back as soon as I can get myself back to (what, for me, passes for) normal!

[NicholasMarks]

All...

As you are all discussing your own take on religions I thought I would like to express my views too.

Paul was a deep and unreserved believer in the teaching of Jesus Christ. He was trained in the scriptures before Jesus came on the scene and saw Jesus as the promised and expected Messiah. This is proven by his statement that Jesus was of the same order of Melchizedek...who he recognised as being the personification of Almighty God. It was Jewish teaching that Almighty God had been born as a man and had lived freely amongst his people incognito and Saul had worked out (rightly or wrongly) who this was.

All religions are usually the result of despots wanting a kinder face and their priests were just used as an extra frightener to keep an unpaid work-force and army in place and held under oppression until needed. Image-craft describes it best because lies, deceit, sacrifice and reaching out for impossible deity rules via rigorousness rituals kept everybody under control.

Jesus Christ is something different. Not the Jesus who is held by image-craft but the accurate Jesus who despised repetition, ritual and oppression.

This isn't a religion it's a faith and it is delivered to us via a very advanced and loving Deity and who should be taken very seriously indeed. This Deity says that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life and that by bringing his teaching alive in our daily lives we can reach above the dummy ceiling that hangs over all our lives and see the real cause of all distress and it is all summed up as evil with an owner and that owner's name is known by a number and that number is 666.

[Sebastian Toe]

and that number is 666.

Why 666?

[floo]

Why 666?

Goodness knows. Revelation is a silly book of fantasy and open to all sorts of daft interpretations!

[Brownie]

It was code, floo;  Greek letters represented by numbers, Alpha-1, Beta-2, etc.  666 was, roughly translated, code for the Caesar, Nero.

The exiled John was writing in code to fellow Christians who were being persecuted by Nero.

[floo]

It was code, floo;  Greek letters represented by numbers, Alpha-1, Beta-2, etc.  666 was, roughly translated, code for the Caesar, Nero.

The exiled John was writing in code to fellow Christians who were being persecuted by Nero.

Hmmmmmmm. I reckon the guy was imbibing a substance, which would be illegal in this day and age, when he wrote the book, which nearly wasn't included in the NT. It is a great pity it is part of the Bible, because it has been used by some Christian extremists as a tool with which to scare vulnerable people into seeing religion in their unpleasant way.

[Sassy]

Black  & White

I would like to raise a question for discussion here, sorry it is a long one. For the purposes of the question whether or not God is real is neither here nor there. The question asked is based on Christian beliefs (the ones I was brought up with) but I suppose also applies equally to other religious beliefs too.

The God of the old testament was undoubtedly black and white; you were either for him or against him. No grey tolerated.

He killed everyone (but two) on Earth for not complying with his teachings (Noah and the flood).

He was extremely violent, when urging his followers to take arms against the unbelieving Babylonians he says, “Their bows also shall dash the young men to pieces and they shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb; their eye shall not spare children” Isiah 13 4-18.

He kills all the firstborn of Egypt as a lesson to those who stand in his way. Exodus 11. 4-6

Very many other instances occur throughout the Old Testament of Gods violent and murderous actions against “non believers”.

He is also violent and uncompromising towards individuals who break his laws; homosexuals, adulterers and people who eat shrimps are all condemned to die by his authority. No wriggle room, no grey.

Modern Christianity might deny that The Old Testament is a true reflection of itself, merely old myths dictated by the beliefs of the time they were collected.
The Old Testament does undeniably however infuse and inform modern belief. Not the least in the case of fundamentalists or it’s all true Bible believers.

Then along came Mk2 the new improved all forgiving all loving God of The New Testament. Amazing that something claimed to be immutable can change so radically and retain credibility but that’s not the question either.

Followers are urged to go out and spread the news of God and his rules. Anyone who listens and abides by the rules will not die but live on after death in Heaven. Non-believers (and those who haven’t been lucky enough to hear the message) will burn in agony for all eternity in Hell.

“In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that knew not God and that obey not the gospel of our lord Jesus Christ; who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power.” Thessalonians 1, 8-9.

If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha (cursed) Corinthians 16,  22.

So God is still black and white then. You are either with us or against him. There is no grey. No room for compromise. Listen to what God says obey his rules, or else!

The message here is hardly “forgiving or Loving” is it? But that is not my question either.

A large majority of people in the world are either believers or (if unbelievers) have this all-pervading Christian dogma at the very core of their psyche as a result of coming into contact with it infused, like DNA into all parts of their being, their society, its rules and the images they see around them.

You are one of us or you aint. You are either righteous and deserving of good fortune (a cure from cancer etc) or you are on your own and deserve all you get. I think this attitude in extremis is displayed quite clearly by some posters on this site.

Now this is my question; how can we ever have peace in our world whilst such entrenched attitudes persist? How can anything change whilst religious belief persists?  How can there ever be meaningful discourse in black and white?

John, Man himself does the greatest evil in every period of history there has ever been.

A loving God trying to bring back an evil people a world ravaged by sin and whose hearts are so hard they kill their own child as sacrifices to babylonian idols etc.

Throughout history man has been without any humanity at times. But God has through laws and through Christ showed them their evil, curbed their evil and brought about a time when by listening and obeying God we can live as people of goodness and light and not darkness and evil.

The bible is a whole package of what God has had to do to bring an unruly and evil people of earth to do the right thing.
The people calling God human beings have done far worse without just cause or reason to each other than God has done to bring us to be truly human, human beings.

Call it whatever you will, black and white shows that God more white and man the real black in history.

[floo]

As has been asked time and time again and never answered is:- WHAT IS LOVING ABOUT THE BIBLICAL VERSION OF GOD?

[Sriram]

As has been asked time and time again and never answered is:- WHAT IS LOVING ABOUT THE BIBLICAL VERSION OF GOD?

Anger and punishment can often be signs of love. Most children get punished. Being liberal is not always love....it can be indifference and could result in the degeneration of the child.