Can i make fun of God?

[The Avon Lady]

Originally Posted by scandium

Wrong. They are all 3 Abrahamic religions with similar roots and the same basic concept of their deity.

You are also wrong about the role of Jesus in Christianity (no surprise there ), since not all branches of Christianity believe that Jesus was the "divinity incorporated into a physical form" (Unitarians, for instance, generally reject the divinity of Christ).

I am quite aware of the fact that not all Christians believe in the Trinity nor in Jesus having any divinity. Those, concepts, however, are still Christian in nature and conflict completely with Judaism and Islam.

And the fact remains that each religion has its own very different claims of what G-d said and wants.

[scandium]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Being Christian means being a follower of the Christ of which there has been only one. and the chruch has never been the christ. Thus you can be a member of the church - and be no Christian nevertheless (when ignoring or violating the Christ's teachings).

Skybird here you reveal your very simplistic understanding of Christianity. Christ - above all else - represented forgiveness and redemption.

[scandium]

Originally Posted by The Avon Lady

And the fact remains that each religion has its own very different claims of what G-d said and wants.

Yup they do, that's what makes them different, their interpretation of what God says and wants (and not their shared conception of the deity itself).

Originally Posted by Skybird

The deciding criterion here is what the centre of Christianity - the Christ - has preached on this matter. And Jesus did not allow or encouraged to leave penalties like this to the justice of man. The medieval was not an age of christian faith - but the absence of true Christian faith.

You have this all wrong. Christ preached that man should obey the laws of men, and those Christians who support Capital Punishment (and who also believe this support is in accordance with their Christian faith) cite that passage I gave from Romans as proof that it doesn't violate His teachings.

You are also wrong historically, as well as theologically, since Capital Punishment was practiced long after the Enlightenment began and only began to become less widespread very recently. Here is part of a very good essay by a Professor of Theology at Taylor University:

"Even the so-called left wing of the Protestant Reformation (from which domain modern religious opposition to capital punishment is said to derive) endorsed the death penalty. The Schleitheim Confession (1527), an exemplary document adopted by the Swiss Brethren, reads: "The sword is an ordinance of God .... Princes and Rulers are ordained for the punishment of evildoers and putting them to death." This Anabaptist declaration concurs with the Lutheran Formula of Concord (1580), which prescribes for "wild and intractable men" a commensurate "external punishment."

"In light of penal excesses during the late medieval and early modern period of England’s history, not a few influential eighteenth- and nineteenth century thinkers called for the abolition of the death penalty. Among its opponents were Montesquieu, David Hume, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, Caesare Beccaria, Voltaire, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Benjamin Rush, Jeremy Bentham and Karl Marx. Widespread use of torture and the inadequate state of criminal law gave rise to a growing movement in western Europe to abolish the death penalty or greatly restrict its use. The abolitionist argument, however, was fueled not by the Church but by Enlightenment thinkers who were notably secular in their worldview."

http://pewforum.org/deathpenalty/res...reader/19.php3

[Skybird]

No. He did not die for our sins, and we are not forgiven our sins by his deed. He died for the sake of showing us the path that everyone of us, each one by his own, must go himself if he wants to find freedom and enlightenment. I laugh about the soft and comforting marshmallow-man that one can so easily nestle up to, these trivialized understandings have turned Jesus into. No wondert that Islam sees most Christians as a community of weaklings.

If I may quote myself from an old script that I am currently translating for reasons that have nothing to do with this board and it's discussion:

Originally Posted by What it's about

Buddha once was asked how many people live a precious and valuable life, in his opinion. He answered by showing some small particles of dirt under one fingernail and saying: “Compared to the weight of all sand and dirt of the world – only that many.”

And Jesus gets quoted like this:
“Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to. Once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading, 'Sir, open the door for us.' But he will answer, 'I don't know you or where you come from.” (Luke 13, 24-25);
“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters - yes, even his own life - he cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14,26);
“But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” (Matthew 7,14);
“Another disciple said to him, ‘Lord, first let me go and bury my father.’ But Jesus told him, ‘Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.’ (Matthew 8,21-22);
“Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father's glory with the holy angels." (Mark 8,34-38).

The gospels and the message of Jesus are tough and merciless in their consequent single-mindedness, like is the teaching of Karma; they are no spiritual soft-washed marshmallows to cuddle with, they are nothing to lean against in the cold winter nights of our lives, to find some warmth and comfort. They compare better to a clear declaration of unrestricted war against the ego. It all is a life-or-death affair, with not one inch of space for compromises, for even in a tenth of an inch everything will be lost again. Do it with all your might and effort and gain all, or don’t. There is no consolation by second prizes. I always found the contemporary church’s attempt to turn the gospels into a teaching of mild charity and soft heartened comfort to please the crowd most disgusting, and to be the most meanest of all crimes. Because what Jesus really told people is as tough and harsh as a truth can be. The pictures of him as a smiling, mild, soft man, an overly emotional weakling, are human follies and distortions only. He must have been strong, he must have been a realist, he must have stood with booth feet on the ground, he must have loved life and man, and he must have been a true warrior by mind – otherwise a human could not gain that amount of insight, and could not bear what he sees coming to him. Telling people that Jesus died for our sins and that we already are saved by that, is ridiculous, and of the most evil of intentions: to hide the truth from people, so that they stay in dependence from an institution with its’ own earthly interests instead. Jesus did not die in our place. He died for the sake of showing us the way each one of us must go all by himself: so to hell with the Jesus of the churches! Jesus is as little a man of the churches, as he is a man of some Christian fundamentalist sects. Both do abuse him. Wake up and learn what he really was about! But possible that this will test your strengths to braking point. Which is okay, since your ego must break in order to allow you true freedom. Again: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”(Mark 8,34)

"The salvation of the soul - in plain English: The world revolves around me." (Nietzsche) but the gosples as I understood them are a message of strength, fulfillment and challenge that one can only evade at the price of spending life after life in complete blindness, forever hooked to the turning of the wheel of life, death, suffering and reincarnation. amnd all thta because one expects Jesus to have done what everyone needs to do all by his own.

[Skybird]

And on the question of what the other parts of the bible, for example the Romans, have to do with Jesus' message, I again pick up that script where I quoted Nietzsche like this:

Originally Posted by What it's about

Hard upon the heels of the "glad tidings" came the worst imaginable: those of Paul. In Paul is incarnated the very opposite of the "bearer of glad tidings"; he represents the genius for hatred, the vision of hatred, the relentless logic of hatred. What, indeed, has not this dysangelist sacrificed to hatred! Above all, the Saviour: he nailed him to his own cross. The life, the example, the teaching, the death of Christ, the meaning and the law of the whole gospels - nothing was left of all this after that counterfeiter in hatred had reduced it to his uses. Surely not reality; surely not historical truth! … Once more the priestly instinct of the Jew perpetrated the same old master crime against history - he simply struck out the yesterday and the day before yesterday of Christianity, and invented his own history of Christian beginnings. Going further, he treated the history of Israel to another falsification, so that it became a mere prologue to his achievement: all the prophets, it now appeared, had referred to his "Saviour."… Later on the church even falsified the history of man in order to make it a prologue to Christianity... The figure of the Saviour, his teaching, his way of life, his death, the meaning of his death, even the consequences of his death - nothing remained untouched, nothing remained in even remote contact with reality. Paul simply shifted the centre of gravity of that whole life to a place behind this existence - in the lie of the "risen" Jesus. At bottom, he had no use for the life of the Saviour - what he needed was the death on the cross, and something more. To see anything honest in such a man as Paul, whose home was at the centre of the Stoical enlightenment, when he converts an hallucination into a proof of the resurrection of the Saviour, or even to believe his tale that he suffered from this hallucination himself - this would be a genuine niaiserie in a psychologist. Paul willed the end; therefore he also willed the means. - What he himself didn't believe was swallowed readily enough by the idiots among whom he spread his teaching. - What he wanted was power; in Paul the priest once more reached out for power - he had use only for such concepts, teachings and symbols as served the purpose of tyrannizing over the masses and organizing mobs. What was the only part of Christianity that Mohammed borrowed later on? Paul's invention, his device for establishing priestly tyranny and organizing the mob: the belief in the immortality of the soul - that is to say, the doctrine of "judgment".

[scandium]

Originally Posted by Skybird

No. He did not die for our sins, and we are not forgiven our sins by his deed. He died for the sake of showing us the path that everyone of us, each one by his own, must go himself if he wants to find freedom and enlightenment. I laugh about the soft and comforting marshmallow-man that one can so easily nestle up to, these trivialized understandings have turned Jesus into. No wondert that Islam sees most Christians as a community of weaklings.

This is your own particular (Buddhist) interpretation of His teachings. Which is fine, since religion is a very personal thing. You seem to want to insist that everyone comform to your own particular take on this thing though, whether it be Islam or Christianity (which is ironic, since you've stated already that you're an Atheist)... your certitude makes you sound like some kind of Zen Pope .

[Skybird]

No, but I insist on people being able to found their views and opinions on thiese things by their own experiences, not by having red something here or there, being rasised in a tradition or being skilled theological debaters, and this is where most spiritual searchers do fail miserably for a variety of reasons - that I say on the basis of experience with several hundred students over the last years. Especially fundamentalists are highly skilled in quoting their texts, may it be the Koran, may it be the Old Testament, may it be Duffy Duck. And time and again you see them being completely unable to detach themselves from the dot on top of the "i" and to move beyond the written word. Simpy saying "I believe this", "I am of that opionion" is allowed by law, but by content it is worth nothing, and it certainly is not good enough for me. Encouraging people to trust in themselves and teach them how to ask questions about themselves that again they can answer themselves, by focussing on their own means, lifes and senses, is a far better job. Where someone has no doubts of what he believes to know, there cannot be knowledge, but only blindness. People do not need answers. They need to learn to ask the right questions. No doubt - no clearer insight. No clear insight - no freedom. Period.

BTW, I am a "believer" of that theory (with some well-founded indications) that during his early years as an adult, before the timecount of the Gospels set in, and with the destruction of the Indian culture by Islam still several centuries away, Jesus probably travelled to India and probably met Buddhists there and learned from them. The similarities and congruencies between their teachings are too massive and too huge in size and detail as if it wold be a reasonable thought that this only is coincidental. Both also had the same effect, reformating existing theological systems (Judaism, hinduism), brandmarking the social injustice commited by the religious establishement, and push for overcoming an understanding of the Absolute that is separated from us or from anything else, and to replace believing with experiencing and insight, and moving completely beyond idols, words, and images. So when you label me as either a Christian or a Buddhist, you miss me completely. And when you name me as both, you are wrong again. And when you say I am neither this nor that and just be myself, again you miss me completely. Your categories of thinking are wrong. Give them up. Move beyond that level.

On your referring to Atheism. you either believe in a man-made idol or tradition, then you get stuck, forever, because you eternally believe that you have alreeady gotten the best status there can be. (That is the reason why the declared end of history has led Islamic community to centuries of stagnation and stand-still). Or you give it up and start thinking yourself. then you have a chance to re-envent the wheel, you have a chance to fail and suffer, and you have a chance to move beyond the blindness that dominated your starting point. I prefer to take the risk instead of being satisfied with a guarabntee for a constant stand-still. Atheism just means the rejection of theistic idols. It is an -ism that can come along without depending on theistic Gods. Not more this term originally means.

[The Avon Lady]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Especially fundamentalists are highly skilled in quoting their texts, may it be the Koran, may it be the Old Testament, may it be Duffy Duck.

That's "Daffy Duck".

Shoot him now! Shoot him now!

[Oberon]

Old, but relevant:

A man and a vicar where playing golf one afternoon. The man was much closer to the hole than the vicar. He took a shot... and missed.
"God dammit, missed the bugger."
The vicar suddnly shrieked: Do not swear or God will strike you down!"
He took one and missed. Then the man took a second one and... missed.
"God dammit, missed the bugger!"
"Do not swear or god or god will strike you down!"
Then the man's ball plummeted into the bushes, and he went into a fit of swearing.
"Oh dammti, bugger ****, crap f*cking hell! **** b*llocks–"
Then gods face appear in the sky, and a bolt of lightning crashed down and deep - fried the vicar. God then exclaimed:"God dammit, missed the bugger!"

[The Avon Lady]

[August]

Skybird, why do you insist on making your posts hard to read?

First the lack of paragraphs, now posting stuff in blue text on a board where most people use the cool grey format making it nearly impossible to make out. Why?

[kiwi_2005]

Originally Posted by The Avon Lady

:rotfl:

One evening an old Cherokee Indian told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said “my son, the battle is between 2 wolves inside us all. One is EVIL… it is anger, envy, self-pity, jealousy, greed, sorrow, regret, arrogance, resentment, lies, false pride, superiority and ego. The other is GOOD… it is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.” The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather… “which wolf wins?” The old Cherokee simply replied, “the one you feed.”

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by August

Skybird, why do you insist on making your posts hard to read?

First the lack of paragraphs, now posting stuff in blue text on a board where most people use the cool grey format making it nearly impossible to make out. Why?

Im not aware of any trouble with colour. Formatting: I just copied the text quortes over from the existing word document, there it is printed in two columns per Din A4 page. anything else was done from this damn board software (diffrent letter size, bold print).

But if you want it I can give you the complete document - then you have it as pdf, black on white, and no dofficluty to read it

I am using silver-grey forum layout, btw. Easier to read.

[scandium]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Im not aware of any trouble with colour. Formatting: I just copied the text quortes over from the existing word document, there it is printed in two columns per Din A4 page. anything else was done from this damn board software (diffrent letter size, bold print).

But if you want it I can give you the complete document - then you have it as pdf, black on white, and no dofficluty to read it

I am using silver-grey forum layout, btw. Easier to read.

I'm with August on this one. The blue text you use is almost impossible to read on the grey background. Since I also use the grey background I often just ignore anything in blue that you type.

[The Avon Lady]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Im not aware of any trouble with colour. Formatting: I just copied the text quortes over from the existing word document, there it is printed in two columns per Din A4 page. anything else was done from this damn board software (diffrent letter size, bold print).

But if you want it I can give you the complete document - then you have it as pdf, black on white, and no dofficluty to read it

I am using silver-grey forum layout, btw. Easier to read.

The problem is you are pasting HTML tags into the message text box. Most of us here are pasting non-formatted text. This may have to do with your profile control settings for composing posts. Too advanced a setting is most likely the cause. Join us unsophisticates!