Who fell in Eden? Man or God?

[French Patriot]

13 minutes ago, JamesHackerMP said:

God certainly deserves his share of the blame. Like I said, he knew the outcome. Why? Because as you pointed out, he created man to sin just like that. It was his choice to create a species (probably many species) with the ability to sin. He wanted Adam and Eve to grab the fruit (or the key to the liquor cabinet as I put it).

You wrote above of God's rather harsh treatment of his own son. I thought the Christians believed that it's a trinity (Father, Son, Holy Spirit are the same thing). So really, God, if he made himself incarnate on Earth, was really allowing his body a sort of passive aggressive suicide, right?

Then again, there was that rather curious incident from the OT where he tells Abraham to sacrifice his own son and then pulls Abraham's hand back at the last minute, oh, just kidding, I just wanted to see if you would do it.

If read literally, you are bang on.

If you want to get the wisdom out of the bible you have to go into allegory and esoteric mystical thinking and recognize how smart the ancients were before Christianity spoiled the soup with literal reading.

Evolution has designed us to be both good and evil from our human POV and we must embrace the fact that we must sin in order to evolve.

I have no problem with evil and neither does nature.

Cooperation is good, competition is evil from the losers POV.

We default to good, but use evil as a part of our growth, in terms of evolution.

We would have it no other way, or we would go extinct.

Perhaps Martin Luther recognized that and said it this way.

“Be a sinner and sin strongly, but more strongly have faith and rejoice in Christ.”

Martin Luther

 

Regards

DL

[French Patriot]

5 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:

1) Yes, but I posted this definition: "Gnostic doctrine taught that the world was created and ruled by a lesser divinity, the demiurge, and that Christ was an emissary of the remote supreme divine being,"

That's two supernatural beings to start out with...

2) Look.  I looked for a definition and found it.  What's your definition ?  Should be able to provide that in one paragraph, I would think.  I will even read it, which is more of my attention than I give to street preachers.

"Trust me, this religion is GREAT" isn't an effective recruiting tool to those who have heard it in the past and passed on by.

Recruit?

Students seek the teacher. The teacher does not chase down students.

Gnostic Christianity is a religion of free thinking esoteric ecumenists and naturalists. It is a good man ideology that has no need of a savior or hero as we do not see a God, if he exists, as loser enough to need to condemn his creations then stupidly turn around and die to forgive it instead of just forgiving it outright. The only salvation we seek is from such stupid and immoral thinking.

The archetypal Jesus we know and follow is not the immoral and vile Roman creation that the church sells. He is there to slave men to religions and governments while the Jesus Gnostic Christians try to emulate is there to free us from religions and governments and create moral men instead of immoral children who are forever looking to others to do their thinking for them.

I am likely the worst teacher for Gnostic Christianity due to my passion for truth and freedom and disrespect for the vile and immoral mainstream religions but I am what I am. Being French does not help. We are passionate by nature.

To be a Gnostic Christian you have to both want to be the best possible person you can be. The elevated Cathars called themselves Parfait, and you also have to have the desire to bring the immoral and vile mainstream religions to heel as we also live by the notion that for evil to grow, all good people need do is nothing.

Oop. This is more than one chapter. Part of being a lousy teacher I guess.

Then again, not having much of a formal education and being self taught, I am happy to be able to stich more than 5 words together.

Regards

DL

.

  

[Michael Hardner]

22 minutes ago, French Patriot said:

 1) Students seek the teacher. The teacher does not chase down students.

 2) To be a Gnostic Christian you have to both want to be the best possible person you can be. The elevated Cathars called themselves Parfait, and you also have to have the desire to bring the immoral and vile mainstream religions to heel as we also live by the notion that for evil to grow, all good people need do is nothing.

1) Yes they do.  This is called "Student Recruitment"

2) Ok, it sounds like you want to be Christian but you don't like the church.  Many in the Church also just ignore it and follow the teachings.

[French Patriot]

33 minutes ago, Michael Hardner said:

1) Yes they do.  This is called "Student Recruitment"

2) Ok, it sounds like you want to be Christian but you don't like the church.  Many in the Church also just ignore it and follow the teachings.

On student- teacher.

Jesus said, seek God. He did not say let God seek you.

 

On Christianity.

I do not ignore the church as it is evil in it's present form.

I wish to reform it and make it more like Gnostic Christianity which is a much better form.

Note how Christianity is trying to take God out of man while we want to put God back in man where he belongs, given that we create all the Gods.

Regards

DL

Edited May 23, 2018 by French Patriot

[jbg]

If mankind stayed in Eden we would have been little different for a dog fed every day by his master. While Edenic life was no doubt pleasant there was nothing "human" about it.

[French Patriot]

28 minutes ago, jbg said:

If mankind stayed in Eden we would have been little different for a dog fed every day by his master. While Edenic life was no doubt pleasant there was nothing "human" about it.

U C 20/20.

That is why the Jews and us Gnostic Christians see Eden as where man was elevated. Not where we fell.

That is the Christians enhancing their misogynous potential with false guilt. Their specialty.

Regards

DL

[jbg]

11 minutes ago, French Patriot said:

U C 20/20.

That is why the Jews and us Gnostic Christians see Eden as where man was elevated. Not where we fell.

That is the Christians enhancing their misogynous potential with false guilt. Their specialty.

Regards

DL

I'm not sure I follow. It sounds like you agree with me.

[French Patriot]

2 minutes ago, jbg said:

I'm not sure I follow. It sounds like you agree with me.

Mais oui mon ami.

It is the intelligent view.

In fact there would only be two dogs as they were too stupid to even know to reproduce. None of us would be here.

The Jews and Gnostic Christians were correct. So are you.

Regards

DL

[JamesHackerMP]

Lewis Black did a comedy routine in which he commented on the OT (or to Jews, the Tanakh, call it what you will). He stated how he always sees on TV Christian preachers interpreting the OT. And their interpretations, he alleges, are typically wrong. "It's not their fault...because it's not their book!" I think this clip includes that, not sure, but it's most of his routine on the OT from "Red, White and Screwed".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlWb6HZwrU8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZ_zHwU3R20

God was kind of a dick in the OT. It's best left to Jews to explain why, IMHO. Why worry about God's behavior in the OT? The Torah/Tanakh/etc were written long after the events supposedly took place. Perhaps the destruction of Midian, for example, was a tradition that started later, to justify its destruction? "Oh yeah, God told us to do that."

As a Christian (not very devout, I do not go to church these days but I do believe there is a God of some sort, however fuzzily the Bible may describe him, but I'm sure the nuns would have smacked my knuckles with a yard stick if I had spouted it all out in first grade catholic school) I do believe that the OT is less important to us. I hear the term "old testmanent Christianity" before, and I just rolled my eyes. The OT is for the Jewish faith primarily, as Lewis Black asserts. Not irrelevant, but simply less urgent for one to read it if one is a Christian, IMHO.

[French Patriot]

On ‎5‎/‎29‎/‎2018 at 1:43 PM, JamesHackerMP said:

Lewis Black did a comedy routine in which he commented on the OT (or to Jews, the Tanakh, call it what you will). He stated how he always sees on TV Christian preachers interpreting the OT. And their interpretations, he alleges, are typically wrong. "It's not their fault...because it's not their book!" I think this clip includes that, not sure, but it's most of his routine on the OT from "Red, White and Screwed".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlWb6HZwrU8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZ_zHwU3R20

God was kind of a dick in the OT. It's best left to Jews to explain why, IMHO. Why worry about God's behavior in the OT? The Torah/Tanakh/etc were written long after the events supposedly took place. Perhaps the destruction of Midian, for example, was a tradition that started later, to justify its destruction? "Oh yeah, God told us to do that."

As a Christian (not very devout, I do not go to church these days but I do believe there is a God of some sort, however fuzzily the Bible may describe him, but I'm sure the nuns would have smacked my knuckles with a yard stick if I had spouted it all out in first grade catholic school) I do believe that the OT is less important to us. I hear the term "old testmanent Christianity" before, and I just rolled my eyes. The OT is for the Jewish faith primarily, as Lewis Black asserts. Not irrelevant, but simply less urgent for one to read it if one is a Christian, IMHO.

Well put, but Christians sure quote the O. T. when they want to reduce women and gays to second class citizens with their vile homophobia and misogyny.

It is not surprising that the Christian clergy lie like crazy to have people follow Jesus instead of the prick of a Father, who they tied Jesus to with their idiotic Trinity concept.

Regards

DL

[JamesHackerMP]

Are you saying the Trinity was invented? I mean, like it wasn't believed in earliest Christianity?

[French Patriot]

12 minutes ago, JamesHackerMP said:

Are you saying the Trinity was invented? I mean, like it wasn't believed in earliest Christianity?

The Trinity concept was only accepted after Constantine forced the Christians to vote it into place, what, 300 years after Jesus dies.

It took threats of death to get his way.  

It is a long story but if you have the time.

 

Originally Posted by animefan48

Well, the reality is most Christians do buy into the trinity doctrine because of persecution of the early Gnostics and non-Trinitarians, and the religious councils were dissenters were forced to agree to a Trinitarian theology. Many Unitarian and Universalist theologies argue that when Jesus said he was the way, he meant that he was an example of how to live to be united/reunited with God. As for the name, God does give other names for himself including the Alpha and Omega, as well as some believe a name that should not be written (or even spoken I believe). Honestly, I think using the name I Am That I Am would just be confusing and convoluted, seriously. I seriously do not believe that it is a continuation of Gnostic/mystical/Unitarian suppression. Even the Gnostic and mystical traditions within Islam and Christianity do not tend to use that name, and among the 99 Names of Allah, I did not find that one. Also, many Rastafarians believe that the Holy Spirit lives in humans and will sometimes say I and I instead of we, yet they don't seem to use the name I Am for God/Jah either, so I really don't think it can be related to suppressing mystical and Gnostic interpretations. I think that originally oppressing those ideas and decreeing them heretical are quite enough, the early Church did such a good job that after the split many Protestant groups continued to condemn mystical and later Gnostic sects and theologies.

 

Yup, the bishops voted and it was settled for all time!!1 (Some say the preliminary votes were 150 something to 140 something in favor of the trinity)

 

But then Constantine stepped in: After a prolonged and inconclusive debate, the impatient Constantine intervened to force an end to the conflict by demanding the adoption of the creed. The vote was taken under threat of exile for any who did not support the decision favored by Constantine. (And later, they fully endorsed the trinity idea when it all happened again at the council of Constantinople in AD 381, where only Trinitarians were invited to attend. Surprise! They also managed to carry a vote in favor of the Trinity.)

 

http://home.pacific.net.au/~amaxwell/bdigest/bd12bbs.tx

 

Even a Trinitarian scholar admits the Earliest & Original beliefs were NOT Trinitarian!

 

The trinity formulation is a later corruption away from the earliest & original beliefs!

 

"It must be admitted by everyone who has the rudiments of an historical sense that the doctrine of the Trinity, as a doctrine, formed no part of the original message. St Paul knew it not, and would have been unable to understand the meaning of the terms used in the theological formula on which the Church ultimately agreed".

Dr. W R Matthews, Dean of St Paul's Cathedral, "God in Christian Thought and Experience", p.180

 

"In order to understand the doctrine of the Trinity it is necessary to understand that the doctrine is a development, and why it developed. ... It is a waste of time to attempt to read Trinitarian doctrine directly off the pages of the New Testament".

R Hanson: "Reasonable Belief, A survey of the Christian Faith, p.171-173, 1980

 

The doctrine of the Trinity is not taught in the Old Testament.

New Catholic Encyclopedia, 1967, Vol. XIV, p. 306.

 

"The formulation `One God in three Persons' was not solidly established, certainly not fully assimilated into Christian life and its profession of faith, prior to the end of the 4th century.... Among the Apostolic Fathers, there had been nothing even remotely approaching such a mentality or perspective"

New Catholic Encyclopedia, 1967, Vol. 14, p. 299.

 

"The formulation `One God in three Persons' was not solidly established, certainly not fully assimilated into Christian life and its profession of faith, prior to the end of the 4th century.... Among the Apostolic Fathers, there had been nothing even remotely approaching such a mentality or perspective" (New Catholic Encyclopedia, 1967, Vol. 14, p. 299).

 

"Fourth-century Trinitarianism did not reflect accurately early Christian teaching regarding the nature of God; it was, on the contrary a deviation from this teaching" (The Encyclopedia Americana, p. 1956, p. 2941).

 

Was Jesus God to Paul and other early Christians? No. . . . .

(Source: How the Bible became the Bible by Donald L. O'Dell - ISBN 0-7414-2993-4 Published by INFINITY Publishing.com)

 

Constantine's Victory Arch says it all. 

http://www.simchajtv.com/movie-secrets-of-christianity-selling-christianity/

 

Regards

DL

 

[JamesHackerMP]

So, are the Unitarians like the Arians of old (not the Nazi Arians, the people in the 4th century and after who disagreed with the Trinitarian concept accepted by the Councils of Nicaea and Chalcedon)?

[French Patriot]

1 hour ago, JamesHackerMP said:

So, are the Unitarians like the Arians of old (not the Nazi Arians, the people in the 4th century and after who disagreed with the Trinitarian concept accepted by the Councils of Nicaea and Chalcedon)?

Given that every church and preacher have their own views, I think my best response here would be to ask you to just go to a Unitarian site and ask them that question.

Religions are changing view quickly today due to pressure from the reducing numbers of church goers.

So many tribes chasing a dwindling amount of funds to do their adherents out of who basically pay to be lied to about Gods that no one can know anything about.

Gnostic Christians can and do know their God as it is themselves.

Regards

DL