Religion vs. Spirituality READ FIRST

[Oneironaut]

I just realized how similar the Christian God is to Hitler. Not only is he a brutal totalitarian dictator, but he's going to burn all the Jews just for not believing what they are commanded to believe. It's no wonder Hitler was such a fan of him.

I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord.

My feeling as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter.

In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was his fight against the Jewish poison.

Today, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed his blood upon the Cross.

As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice...

And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly, it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people. And when I look on my people I see them work and work and toil and labor, and at the end of the week they have only for their wages wretchedness and misery.

When I go out in the morning and see these men standing in their queues and look into their pinched faces, then I believe I would be no Christian, but a very devil, if I felt no pity for them, if I did not, as did our Lord two thousand years ago, turn against those by whom today this poor people are plundered and exploited.

[beachguy in thongs]

Hey, Ermontito, I'm Christian, Roman Catholic to be exact, and my God isn't going to burn any jews, in fact, he allowed one to live in a house with six others, including me, when I was up at college in the North Country of New York.

[mrdevious]

oh man, last week I got a good laugh. I was at the gas station and this family in a minivan is in front of us (every member of the family grossly obese too), and it was covered in some pretty extreme relgious bumber stickers. the first one I saw was a simple "jesus saves" which automatically made me think of the Slayer song by the same name lol. then I was kind of disgusted at the biggest bumber sticker that said "why worry? god is in control!". I mean damn, if you want god in your life then go for it, but we're not abdicating all responsibility to him. I can't believe how people can't see that religion was innitially developed to give us spiritual insight and what they percieved as a clear path to attaining it, but was soon and innevitably enough used as a means of control. it's perfect, you have a supreme dictator, his knowledge is perfect and unquestionable, you'll suffer in eternal agony if you do question, and whatever the leaders say is the word of god, so not only do you have a dictatorship, you have one that everybody actually believes in!

Just to be clear to everybody (as it seems I wasn't), the above post wasn't a description of the general populace who believe in god, I was referring to the more fanatical branch, and more particularily, the church officials throughout history (not just in christianity) who controlled the masses through such means. I know there's a lot of christians who don't think like that, i used to be one of them.

[Oneironaut]

Hey, Ermontito, I'm Christian, Roman Catholic to be exact, and my God isn't going to burn any jews, in fact, he allowed one to live in a house with six others, including me, when I was up at college in the North Country of New York.

I was referring to the God as represented in the Bible. You know, the one that 2 Thessalonians 18 refers to when it says "In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ". If you don't want to believe in the Bible, that's great. But I still don't understand how you can reject all the various parts of the Bible that say all non-Christians are going to suffer eternal punishment, yet accept the equally ridiculous claims in it that say Jesus is the son of God. Which parts do you think are fiction, and which parts are so undeniably true that to reject them would be unthinkable? Would you care to enlighten me?

[Oneironaut]

Oops, that should read "2 Thessalonians 1:8", not "2 Thessalonians 18".

[beachguy in thongs]

I was referring to the God as represented in the Bible. You know, the one that 2 Thessalonians 18 refers to when it says "In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ". If you don't want to believe in the Bible, that's great. But I still don't understand how you can reject all the various parts of the Bible that say all non-Christians are going to suffer eternal punishment, yet accept the equally ridiculous claims in it that say Jesus is the son of God. Which parts do you think are fiction, and which parts are so undeniably true that to reject them would be unthinkable? Would you care to enlighten me?

Well, this Bible I have doesn't even have a 2 Thessalonians 18. It ends with 2 Thessalonians 2:17 (...comfort your hearts and give up strength in every good thing you do and say.)
2 Thessalonians 1:18 and 3:18, don't exist.


1 Thessalonian 2:18 is "We wanted very much to come, and I, Paul, tried again and again, but Satan prevented us."

Again, I'm not sure what types of Bibles everyone's reading with all these extra words, The King James Bible, or something?

edit: OH, OKAY

[beachguy in thongs]

Well, the letter, reportedly from Paul, speaks to the people who are being persecuted and those that God will punish are the ones doing the persecuting.

That is a rather strong passage.

[Oneironaut]

I still can't see an interpretation of this passage which allows for a universe without everlasting punishment. Especially when the very next verse says "Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power". In any case, there's no reason to take any of this stuff any more seriously than we take Greek mythology.

[beachguy in thongs]

I still can't see an interpretation of this passage which allows for a universe without everlasting punishment.

I got one, I got one, let me try...

Umm, okay.


What's the passage, again?

Well, Paul wrote that story after he'd ran away from Thessolonica, when he went to visit, because of intense persecution and he was kind of pissed, that's what I think. But he still had to convince the others that those who had died, before Christ's return, wouldn't miss out on the resurrection and that believers would be the first to rise from the dead.

Eh, that's my bible study session for today, has the sun came up, yet?

[opiuser]

there is no such thing as a collective spirituality. nobody beleives the exact same thing.

even in a christian church, a buddhist monestary, an Islamic temple, etc... everybody may describe their god the same way and refer to the same scriptures, but in their head, they all see a different face when they think of God. They all take the meaning of a certain passage a different way.

and since they dont all think of it the exact same way, that would mean that only one man knows the true god.

FUCK THAT. i beleive god is the combined gods, philosophies, and beleifs of every person, living or dead. God could possibly be a concious being with a "soul", "entity", or whatever you want to call it... but higher than all, god is everything combined into one, all the "good" and the "bad", yin and yan... The devil and jesus... If god created this, we are part of her and he is part of us.