You cant do that, it is not possible. Once you know, you know, anything other than that is a lie. If you don't know you don't know. If you know, you can't un know. But I like your sense of humor.

There are key phrases that people that have had the experience say, that just make the hair on my neck stand up. I have a good idea of when someone is speaking from experience.

I met a goddess and had a relationship with her. I guess I'd have to call myself a polytheist. I've had relationships with many goddesses.

If you really want to hear what an actual experience sounds like, this man sounds like the real deal.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGpxfoF3SYg...feature=related

"God Hit on Me (Last Night in a Honky-Tonk)"---- Kelly Fitzgerald
http://www.kellyfitzgerald.net/

Believe me, I am rotten, and you can make all the fun out of this you want. It won't change me, but I will have the last laugh... that is inevitable. We are all very lucky our maker has a sense of humor. We have free will, no one can make you talk to him or her, but you really are blowing a good thing. Its not that hard to talk to the maker of all things. Ignorance is bliss. Once you know, it does put ya in a weird position here in this reality.

Now thats a babe, is her music any good?

I too am an atheist but the person who called Randi was just a rude person; his belief system is not even germane. He called her NOT to discuss the topic seriously but to gain a forum for a stupid rant about his personal non-belief system.

Randi was EXTREMELY nice to him...giving him subtle and sometimes not so subtle hints that he was OFF TOPIC but he continued talking like the fool he was.

As an atheist, he falls into the category of people who make a “non-belief” into a personal religion and wish to canvas the neighborhood with their tracts...in his case, I bet they're called “Asleep!”

Oh, Grow Up Already! Judge not, lest ye be judged!

A polytheist. Sounds like you're going to need a pantheon. Unless you're a serial polytheist then maybe not. I don't know exactly what pantheons are running these days but the folks down the street built one and I don't think it was cheap. Course they also built a basketball court for their kid so they have bucks.

I think there's an interesting point in there in that people who belong to cults get really annoyed when you try to tell them that that's what they belong to. And religious people are as guilty of cultophobia as atheists are.

Adam, you are a rebel and the road you travel is not necessarily conducive to religious practices or admissions of faith and fervor on a day to day basis. You may have given up Catholicism in 1985 but did you give up God? Did God give up you?

Bullshit baby, bullshit! A Cult is a Cult but Faith is Faith! I ain't never belonged to no Cult (and I've known plenty who truly have) but I am a Jesus freak!

Hey. I'm an atheist. I don't have to prove anything. All I've gotta do is not believe. Knowing and believing are not the same thing. In the case in question, I believed but as it turned out I obviously didn't know. Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

How did you know it was a cult? And what if it was? Christianity was a cult back in the day. A religion is just a cult that's either gotten respectable or has so many members that even though you think it's a cult you'd better keep your mouth shut. Are you reeealy a Jesus Freak?
Are you a good Jesus Freak or a bad Jesus Freak? Based on what you've posted I think the former but you can never be sure.

I totally agree, belief is not knowing. Knowing is knowledge of experience. Once one interacts with the maker, you will never be the same. I will admit, I did start out a believer with a child like faith.

Shhh ... Jesus would prefer that you didn't freak out at all:

'
I'm a very good Jesus freak because it's evolved in my bloodline over generations., including ancestors who were tossed out of Boston Colony for refusing to go along with the bullshit of the day in good ole Salem. I love the Jesus who doubted, I love the Jesus who spent 40 days and 40 nights in the desert being tempted by the Devil. I have friends who've spent a good portion of their lives living for a "Living God" (ain't no such thing except in your heart) or along the lines of an obscure and irrelevant living "prophet". This is not the thread to delve into it, but Faith is faith, it is what is it is. As are false prophets and false idols and too many people get suckered down the wrong path for emotional reasons.

Let me though, give you a little food for thought (some may call it the "bread of Christ") - Obama is a religious man for many reasons, reasons that he may never share with We the People. Reasons that he doesn't have to share with We the People because they are too personal to him. And that is how it should be.

'
I'm a very good Jesus freak because it's evolved in my bloodline over generations., including ancestors who were tossed out of Boston Colony for refusing to go along with the bullshit of the day in good ole Salem. I love the Jesus who doubted, I love the Jesus who spent 40 days and 40 nights in the desert being tempted by the Devil. I have friends who've spent a good portion of their lives living for a "Living God" (ain't no such thing except in your heart) or along the lines of an obscure and irrelevant living "prophet". This is not the thread to delve into it, but Faith is faith, it is what is it is. As are false prophets and false idols and too many people get suckered down the wrong path for emotional reasons.

Let me though, give you a little food for thought (some may call it the "bread of Christ") - Obama is a religious man for many reasons, reasons that he may never share with We the People. Reasons that he doesn't have to share with We the People because they are too personal to him. And that is how it should be.

Would you care to define the difference? Stating it does not make it so.

You know what? I don't know how old you are, but if you know the difference between Jesus Christ and Jim Jones, you know your question is bullshit.

Long as you keep your Jesus out of my government , no problem.

Like I asked......"Would you care to define the difference? Stating it does not make it so."

Well.....................

And if you don't know the difference, as Jesus said on the cross "Forgive them for they know not what they do".

The problem is they don't know they are a cult.

You can't answer, can you?

Nice Jesus-like response....ehh?

Maybe Jesus was speaking about the future of Christianity.... a lot of colorful quotes and much hypocrisy.

Don't be a fool. Whether or not you care to acknowledge it, this is a Country whoselaws and civil rights are based on Judeo-Christian ethics. End of b.s.

It's not up to me to answer, it's up to you to realize the truth. I can't help you. That's your own path. You chose your incarnation. You make it what it's worth.

Slight contradiction there.

Wanna bet, would you like me to quote Jefferson for you?

Where? Under the table? Don't be so petty. Life is far more interesting than you make it.

I choose reality!
In other words you don't know.


You talk about cults in a negative fashion, yet you can't define what a cult is.

Don't forget John Adams!!

Jim Jones was a Christian. Hitler was a baptized Catholic Christian. GWB is a Methodist Christian.

Jim Jone's brand of religion is called a cult because it was viewed as a negative outcome. The same with the Branch Davidian (David Koresh).

Hitler had many Catholic clergymen that backed him. Should Catholicism be considered as a cult? Remember "Gott Mit Uns"?

GWB claimed that God told him to invade Iraq. Should the Methodists be considered as a cult? Condeleezza Rice (A former Sunday School teacher) lied about WMDs in Iraq. Is she a cult member?

he was next...

Why didn't you answer the post concerning the sermon on the mount? Just curious.

I'll tell you about it. I got an "A" on that in Sunday School. But later, I was suspended because I told them they didn't follow the Beatitudes. Blessed are.......etc,etc.
I also told them that they were followers of Paul, who was a self-appointed Apostle and was shunned from the Pharisees and Sadducees. The Essenes didn't want his ass either. Paul wanted to do away with the Jews version of God's laws of diet and circumcision. But Paul was marketer of his version of Christianity, and did so very well. And the early and later organized church was based on Paul's version....probably a false prophet. They call it, "The New Covenant". It's so easy to conform to, also. All ya gotta do is say is, "Jesus forgive me" before you croak...and you go to Heaven.
Some sales gimmick...eh? And sadly not in line with Jewish tradition, which Jesus(Yeshuah) was.


The End

But ... the Pharisees were bad ... shouldn't being shunned by them be a good thing?

LOL, just kidding - I'm a lapsed Catholic, we had to learn all this ... stuff ... in school ...

The way I understand it, the old testament is the hebrew faith and the new testament is the Christian faith, am I correct?

Yes, you are.

Thanks, its nice to see I am keeping up with something here.

I would just like to remind everyone that, when we Christians make a mistake, its because we are human. We don't have all the answers, just more questions than an atheist has. It is the old adage, the more you learn, the more you realize the less you know.

But like John Hagee and Rod Parsely, it could be that Strang's support will be a mixed blessing, since Strang also recently backed a controversial Canadian evangelist who, as Richard Bartholomew reports at Talk to Action, boasts of raising the dead, making tumours drop off, meeting angels and Biblical figures, and of being told by God to heal a woman by kicking her in the face.

The views of religious right leaders can range from the merely odd, to the wildly anti-democratic, profoundly bigoted and even horrific, as we saw in the case of John ("McCain threw me under the bus" Hagee.

How far such things will continue to be an issue in the campaign, remains to be seen.


http://www.talk2action.org/

Here is a link to an interesting lecture by John Dear, who is a Jesuit priest, and very much against war. He delivered this speech at a Baptist college in 2005. He was not very well received ...

No, I don't find it confrontational at all. I always enjoy a good debate or discussion, but it seems like there are some people around here who can't do that without taking it personally or making personal attacks against others for different beliefs. I agree with what you're saying and I am very careful what I do with my "donations" - not that I donate a whole lot, because I don't. Literally, it's about five dollars every time I go to church, which is probably once a month. If I donate at all, I donate to what we call second collections which are exclusively for charity or local community groups.

I saw a t-shirt a few months ago that I really really want - it said "the few, the proud, the liberal Catholics" ... and there's nothing wrong with that! Just like there's nothing wrong with being an atheist, Muslim, or whatever else. To each his/her own. I just have a hard time with people who push their belief systems onto other people.

Always kind of thought Matthew 5:17 was fairly clear.

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. 19Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 20For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.

[snip]

Doesn't sound to me like he was declaring the Hebrew scriptures "null and void". Would be weird, too, given how often he quotes them.

Jesus was a liberal Hillelist Pharisee anti-Roman Empire activist ... Paul was a conservative Sadducee pro-Roman imperialist.

http://www.liberalslikechrist.com/

Albert Schweitzer :
"Where possible Paul avoids quoting the teaching of Jesus, in fact even mentioning it. If we had to rely on Paul, we should not know that Jesus taught in parables, had delivered the sermon on the mount, and had taught His disciples the 'Our Father.' Even where they are specially relevant, Paul passes over the words of the Lord."

Carl Jung (Psychologist) :
"Paul hardly ever allows the real Jesus of Nazareth to get a word in." (U.S. News and World Report, April 22, 1991, p. 55)

George Bernard Shaw :
"No sooner had Jesus knocked over the dragon of superstition than Paul boldly set it on its legs again in the name of Jesus."

Bishop John S. Spong
(Episcopal theologian) :
"Paul's words are not the Words of God.
They are the words of Paul- a vast difference."
(Rescuing the Bible from Fundamentalism,
p. 104, Harper San Francisco, 1991)

Thomas Jefferson :
"Paul was the first corrupter of the doctrines of Jesus."
(from a letter addressed to W. Short and published in
The Great Thoughts, by George Seldes,
Ballantine Books, N.Y., 1985, p. 208)

Thomas Hardy :
"The New Testament was less a Christiad than a Pauliad."

Will Durant (Philosopher) :
"Paul created a theology of which none but the vaguest warrants
can be found in the words of Christ."
Fundamentalism is the triumph of Paul over Christ."
& "Paul created a theology about the man Jesus,
a man that he did not even know 50 or more years
after the death of Jesus, with complete disregards
for even the sayings attributed to Jesus.
Jesus got lost in the metaphysical fog of Paul's brain".

Walter Kaufmann
(Professor of Philosophy, Princeton) :
"Paul substituted faith in Christ for the Christlike life."

Carl Sagan (Scientist; Author) :
"My long-time view about Christianity is that it represents an amalgam of two seemingly immiscible parts--the religion of Jesus and the religion of Paul. Thomas Jefferson attempted to excise the Pauline parts of the New Testament. There wasn't much left when he was done, but it was an inspiring document." (Letter to Ken Schei [author of Christianity Betrayed])

Hyam Maccoby (Talmudic Scholar) :
"As we have seen, the purposes of the book of Acts is to minimize the conflict between Paul and the leaders of the Jerusalem Church, James and Peter. Peter and Paul, in later Christian tradition, became twin saints, brothers in faith, and the idea that they were historically bitter opponents standing for irreconcilable religious standpoints would have been repudiated with horror. The work of the author of Acts was well done; he rescued Christianity from the imputation of being the individual creation of Paul, and instead gave it a respectable pedigree, as a doctrine with the authority of the so-called Jerusalem Church, conceived as continuous in spirit with the Pauline Gentile Church of Rome.
Yet, for all his efforts, the truth of the matter is not hard to recover, if we examine the New Testament evidence with an eye to tell-tale inconsistencies and confusions, rather than with the determination to gloss over and harmonize all difficulties in the interests of an orthodox interpretation.
" (The Mythmaker, p. 139, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1986)

Jeremy Bentham (English Philosopher) :
"If Christianity needed an Anti-Christ, they needed look no farther than Paul." ( paraphrased. . . looking for a copy of "Not Paul, but Jesus"
in order to retrieve the exact quote.)

Very good work, Seeker 1.
My synopsis/theory was very basic and paraphrased. I was wording it as I had interpreted it from the New Testament when I was 12. As a child, I knew the doctrine I was being taught was skewed and twisted.

Just think how many lives would have been spared had the NT presented more about the peace and love that Rabbi Yeshuah(Jesus) taught, rather than focusing squarely on "ye must conform or die in Hell". The Spanish Inquisition comes to mind. But then again, Spain might not have not have had the money to finance Columbus on his voyage. Too bad it was money and gold taken from Jews and Muslims.