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Eric-Charles
You seem to have it backwards. Having become an atheist I looked and saw that the churches teaching were very misguided as I studied them. My beliefs did not come from studying them and seeing the flaws, but the other way around. I saw the flaws thanks to my realization that there was no God.
Well, maybe that is not entirely true. I think I had a very small belief in God before I started to do research and see that there is no God, but I did not believe in the Bible, it was too obviously a set of myths having studied mythology several times in school. By studying the Bible and the teaching of various churches, I saw that there was no God and that he was created by the church fro control purposes.
The reason why the 'existence or non-existence of God' often comes up is because God is a very strong part of the teaching of organized religion. This flawed idea of God is something that has control over people and I do think it is part of the problem with organized religion.
The more I study religion the clearer it is to me that there is no God.
posted by
kooka_lives
on April 30, 2004 at 3:32 PM
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gheeghee
I talk about the things that Organized religion teaches. These greatly flawed ideas of God, Heaven, Hell and such are what I have seen taught by organized religion. So in order to show the problems with organized religion I needs to show the problems with the teachings of it.
You sound a lot like the other blind Christians here. Please show me some examples where I use 'contradictory theories that (I) don't bother to back up with any real, relevant facts.' Just one would be fine. then of course please so me where a Christians, any Christian, use facts at all. And no, the Bible does not count as facts until you can prove to me it is what you are all claiming it to be.
posted by
kooka_lives
on April 30, 2004 at 3:23 PM
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Why did you call your blog "Why I Don't Like Organized Religion?" I have yet to see you focus on it here in this forum. I've gone back and read quite a few of your posts, but I will admit that I am growing tired of your contradictory theories that you don't bother to back up with any real, relevant facts.
Your posts are not even really about God, Hell, Christ and Creationist theories, but more about Christians that believe in them. There is very little in your work here about RELIGIONS. What does Christ and Hell have to do with Hindus, or Buddhists, or Muslims? None of them believe He is God, so why not tell everybody what you don't like about them? What about Judaism? It's an organized religion. Why don't you like Judaism?
Most importantly, why do you care so much? If you hate God so much, as you've pretty clearly indicated, why waste one keystroke on Him?
posted by
Gheeghee
on April 30, 2004 at 10:44 AM
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Eric-Charles---THANK YOU!!!
posted by
Gheeghee
on April 30, 2004 at 6:54 AM
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but I disagree on one point
people aren't consigned to an eternal "outer darkness".
I'll have to find the passage about "going through the fire" where "works" are tested, whether they will burn away or whether they are of stone for the building of the "temple" -- and yet the person is saved.
I'm optimistic about the whole thing.
I see your positiveness and I salute it.
Have Faith in God's ability to save and Human ability to respond.
posted by
Xeno-x
on April 30, 2004 at 6:52 AM
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ok maybe I do agree
shawnbrantley
your thoughts closely parallel mine -- very similar.
King James is fraught with medieval Anglican images -- to get past those would be to expand thought and perception incalculably.
The "outer darkness" and such -- we've got to begin approaching these more imaginatively -- why not imagine the concept as simply the disppearance of "evil" -- I think that's what you are saying.
posted by
Xeno-x
on April 30, 2004 at 6:24 AM
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i'M SORRY i DISAGREE
As I said, I believe in reincarnation.
With reincarnation all these descriptions of what Christians call "Hell", but is not really called that in the new-testament (KJV renders Gehenna as "Hell", but that's not accurate) fit quite nicely.
This "weeping and gnashing of teeth" that occurs in "the outer darkness" 1. does not last forever. IN fact, I don't believe any of these descriptions that Christians call "Hell" last forever.
2. certainly does occur in this life -- and you can look around and you will find people whose lives pretty well fit a lot of these descriptions in the New Testament.
It all fits in with I Tim 2:3-4 -- where what is called "Hell" is merely a process of purging and "perfecting" so that all will certainly be saved -- it may take some time and some lifetimes -- but it's there.
Besides, Revelation is metaphor. period. When we attempt to make part of it metaphor and part of it fact, we are dstroying its beauty. When we take the Lake of Fire and the Holy City coming down from Heaven actual real events and not as metaphor for either destruction of bad ideas, etc., or a state of mind transcending the earthly, then we are thwarting the intent of the author.
posted by
Xeno-x
on April 30, 2004 at 6:19 AM
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ON THE CONCEPT OF "HELL" (or THE BANISHMENT OF ALL EVIL)
In my blog, I have described “spiritual evolution” as the systematic obliteration of evil from the world through the process of repaying evil with good, much as has been exemplified in the life of Gandhi and in Leo Tolstoy’s work: “The Kingdom of God is Within You”. Clearly, this spiritual evolution will eventually annihilate all evil from the world, or from the realm occupied by adherents to “the good”.
But where will the annihilated evil go. Once it is deleted, will it descend into a sort of cosmic “recycle bin”? Scripture speaks of “hell” as a “place of outer darkness” and I see it as a place that is away and distant from God, perhaps in another dimension. Such a place is reserved for those who have completely extinguished the “good” spark within them to the extent that they are inherently evil, or those who have professed a desire for darkness and have embraced the expansion of evil.
The point here is that all evil will eventually be destroyed, or banished to a place where it can no longer corrupt “the good”. You possess the ability to change the corruptible matter that is yourself into spiritual goodness (light) or, alternatively, to allow it to decay for eventual annihilation.
The order of the universe is enhanced by the removal or banishment of evil.
To be in hell is to be separated from all that is good. Scripture describes a “weeping and gnashing of teeth”. Everything evil, even more grotesque than you can imagine, will characterize hell, which will be totally void of goodness. Perhaps the descriptive writers of the past, attempting to concoct the most expressive situation imaginable, painted the picture of being burned alive, but this picture could also be presented with any number of grotesque manifestations of evil.
The ultimate horror of being separated from all that is good is not fully evident until one has begun to achieve a successful expansion of “the good” within themselves. After being cognizant of the power of “the good” within, the sheer horror of the hellish condition is clearly understood, for only then can one truly see what a catastrophic condition it is to be separated from “the good”. This results in the apparition of our horrifying concept of hell.
posted by
telemachus
on April 30, 2004 at 6:04 AM
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it's out there
either God is or God isn't.
Religion is an attempt to conceive of God.
Religion then tries to conceive of all sorts of tihngs about God and liveing and all that.
At one time, the rules from religion wree pretty well essential in helping to keep order in societies, particularly the rural, hill society of the proto-israelites, who did not have any type of government.
religion searches for God -- or should -- it shouldn't stop at archaic definitions -- a definition is an idol -- of God and the Universe around us.
Atheists search for God, also. Sometimes they find a better God than the one touted by Christianity, because they are concerned with what Yeshua taught about treating people better in the here and now.
Sometimes they know a lot more about God than do the religionists.
posted by
Xeno-x
on April 30, 2004 at 6:01 AM
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You insist on being flat wrong
Kooka I enjoy your posts. I enjoy thnking about the questions you ask. But you drive me crazy with your insistence that the misguided teaching of churches confirms your athiest approach to God. If your point is to criticize institutional-religions, that's one thing. But that has no bearing on the existence or non-existence of God.
posted by
Eric-Charles
on April 30, 2004 at 5:52 AM
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