[split] "Christianity makes me afraid."

[AnthroHeart]

Thanks guys. Christianity makes me afraid.

[Lighthead]

Thanks guys. Christianity makes me afraid.

The absolute irony is that that's what they want you to feel. It would make me laugh it weren't so f***** up.

[Bluebell]

Thanks guys. Christianity makes me afraid.

a lot of it is lies. u should probably stay away from that stuff. focus on happy things. 

[AnthroHeart]

Thanks guys. Christianity makes me afraid.

a lot of it is lies. u should probably stay away from that stuff. focus on happy things. 

[Bluebell]

lol lovely

[darklight]

Thanks guys. Christianity makes me afraid.

Abrahamic religions are STS orientated. Abraham himself was manipulated bij the Orions. Abraham wanted sacrifice his own son to a God. Today, many Muslims and christians are believing that God was testing Abraham.  Many of them will repeat the 3th density cycle.

[Minyatur]

Christianity is like level one spirituality, it is a good teacher until the limits of it are seen.

[APeacefulWarrior]

Personally, Christianity today just makes me sad.  Outside of certain small sects like the Coptics or the Quakers, the faith as it's practiced has no real resemblance to anything that Jesus taught.  And it's been like that for basically a millennia at this point. (I tend to consider the start of the Crusades to be the final nails in the coffin of Jesus's original ministry.)  

If anyone hasn't read it, I'd suggest looking at the non-canonical "Gospel of Thomas."  Its provenance is still hotly debated, but a lot of the material in it feels truer to the teachings of Jesus as they're in the Bible than most of the later revised/reinterpreted materials.  I personally tend to believe it can add substantially to understanding of Christianity as taught by Christ, if someone's interested in the subject.

Otherwise, back to the original topic, I definitely believe that practice, meditation, and\or energy work can help create a closer mind/body/spirit unity and thus give people greater control over their body and its functions.  How far can such control go?  Who knows!  Personally, I like the ambiguity.  ANY growth in such areas undoubtedly aids spiritual growth, and there's potentially no real limit to how far it could be pushed, if someone wanted to dedicate their living work to gaining such mastery.  Nor would such a life be in any way wasted, I think.

[Stranger]

Personally, Christianity today just makes me sad.  Outside of certain small sects like the Coptics or the Quakers, the faith as it's practiced has no real resemblance to anything that Jesus taught.  And it's been like that for basically a millennia at this point. (I tend to consider the start of the Crusades to be the final nails in the coffin of Jesus's original ministry.)  

Christianity, like any religion, is first and foremost the teachings of the founder (Jesus) rather than the imperfect way those teachings inevitably become translated into practice by imperfect human beings.  This is almost by definition, because the followers of a religion are those individuals for whom the ideals of the religion are a goal to reach towards, so it's bound to be imperfectly translated into practice.  

It's unreasonable to single out Christianity in this regard.  I am certain that Buddhists, etc. don't translate their teachings into practice with significantly more fidelity than Christians - it's just become popular to bash the religion we're familiar with, and idealize the allegedly greener grass on the other side.

[Minyatur]

I was christian for a while because it was my most probable way to seek spirituality as I was introduced to it by a christian friend.

My christianity was very consonant with the LOO and I found many truths within the bible. Misguidance is there for those who seek to justify their imbalances and distortions.

[Bluebell]

buddhism was formed in the pits of mordor. it is the most insidious because it's so popular even atheists defend it.

[Minyatur]

buddhism was formed in the pits of mordor. it is the most insidious because it's so popular even atheists defend it.

It is said buddhists meditate in order to leave in consciousness this world as to search for their Lord of Darkness Morgoth. When Sauron's master is back, never again shall he be defeated and darkness will ever prevade on Earth for infinite ages to come. The immortal Lords of Light will be defeated one after another and thrown out of this reality by their brother they had banished.

[Bluebell]

u speak the truth, my dark brother

[Karl]

I giggled at that. Hail Morgoth!

[Monica]

Thanks guys. Christianity makes me afraid.

That's a good reason to avoid it.

[Monica]

Christianity, like any religion, is first and foremost the teachings of the founder (Jesus) rather than the imperfect way those teachings inevitably become translated into practice by imperfect human beings.  This is almost by definition, because the followers of a religion are those individuals for whom the ideals of the religion are a goal to reach towards, so it's bound to be imperfectly translated into practice.  

I disagree. As a former Christian, I'd say that Christianity is, first and foremost, the teachings of the bible as a whole, including all the nasty, vile, evil stuff in it, rather than primarily the teachings of Jesus. Choosing to follow only the teachings of Jesus isn't allowed; in the evangelical denominations, to be a Christian one must accept the whole bible.

It's unreasonable to single out Christianity in this regard.  I am certain that Buddhists, etc. don't translate their teachings into practice with significantly more fidelity than Christians - it's just become popular to bash the religion we're familiar with, and idealize the allegedly greener grass on the other side.

We do know from Ra that there was some negative influence on the ancient texts that form the foundation of the 3 Abrahamic religions. These negative parts are easily identified by their extreme violence, bigotry, vengeance, genocide, infanticide, and blatant 'satanic' blood sacrifice.

I'm not an expert in Buddhism but I'm not aware of any such things in it...or in any other religion, for that matter. (I could be wrong though.)

[Minyatur]

Like Monica said, the main lie/distortion of the Bible is that it is supposed to be taken as a whole as the perfect words of God. Fear of anything that would contradict the Bible is instilled into the roots of the mind.

[APeacefulWarrior]

It's unreasonable to single out Christianity in this regard.  I am certain that Buddhists, etc. don't translate their teachings into practice with significantly more fidelity than Christians - it's just become popular to bash the religion we're familiar with, and idealize the allegedly greener grass on the other side.

I get what you're saying, but you actually picked the wrong guy to say that to. I've been living in a Buddhist country for several years now.

And understand, I've got nothing against Christians who are honestly trying to follow in the footsteps of what Jesus actually said to do. I wish there were more of 'em. But so much of Christianity today just has no resemblance to what Jesus taught. His ministry was too short, and his teachings were corrupted by misunderstandings (he says kindly) by the apostles and, especially, Paul that it never even had a chance to reach the mainstream in its original form.

The entire Catholic Church is an idea I have a hard time imagining Jesus approving of at all. (There's even a passage in Thomas that appears to be openly condemning organized temple-based worship entirely.) It almost immediately turned into exactly the sort of socio-political institution that Jesus DIDN'T want to see. Then it set about spending centuries inventing theology, justifications, and outright fabrications until, like I said, we got to the point that the Crusades were launched. Suddenly the theology of a pacifist carpenter was being used to justify salvation via slaughter for the sake of grabbing land.

And the really sad thing is that, in many ways, the Protestant Reformation made things WORSE. The entire concept of "sola scriptura" -Biblical textual supremacy- was completely wrongheaded, both in terms of what Jesus taught and in terms of any realistic overview of how the Bible as a text came into being. They turned Christianity from being about faith in God/Jesus to being about faith in a book. A physical object.

They de-mystified Christianity so much that they eliminated what it was actually about.

I honestly do not think there is any other major religion on the planet which has fallen so far from where it began, at least among those where we have enough of a historical record to track the beginnings. Sure, Buddhism ended up getting synthesized with other local religions and there's a lot of spirit-worship and tribal tradition that the Buddha probably wouldn't have wanted. But the core teachings and goals have remained relatively unchanged. It still centers on the Eightfold Path, and still teaches the virtues of meditation and selflessness and all that.

Or even Islam, which is heavily centered on a book, at least has a book whose text truly has survived unchanged for over a thousand years, and is agreed to still be an accurate transcription of Mohammed's teachings. Literally only a handful of individual words are in doubt, which is unprecedented for texts of its age and length, historically speaking.

And, of course, any texts which came along after the invention of printing are preserved just fine. No one doubts the authenticity of the Dao te Ching, for example.

But Christianity got broken along the way, to the point the only way I could imagine someone divining Jesus's actual intent is if they read nothing but Christ's quotes and whatever bits of the OT Christ refers to in his ministry. (The Mosaic laws, for example.) And maybe the various accounts of his death. Everything else is distortion piled upon distortion over the centuries.

Some religion had to pick the short straw. In this corner of the multiverse, it was Christianity. At least from everything I've seen.

[Matt1]

Its also important to note that Christianity as we received it came from the Roman State Government, which as far i am aware was a dictatorship. It wasn't until i believe 300 years after the accepted death of Christ that it became the official state religion of Rome. They had different councils to decide what books to include and which books to exclude, or to put it in another way, the parts of the text that would benefit the Rome Government.

Its interesting that the Gnosistics who are said to follow the direct teachings of Christ say that the God in the old testament is in fact the demiurge , who is viewed as the originator of evil. After the fall of Roman came the dark ages and only the clergy could read or write for the most part, so you could only hear the views of the Church rather than read it for yourself. Even when people could read the book for themselves, it was the standardized Kings Jame version if i recall. Another point that's interesting is that in the Hebrew texts you have different names for god such as the elohim, Jah, Yahweh etc which all got standardized as simply god in the Latin/English translations.

Many people believe it is also tied in with another sun worpship cult, that's really just a revamped style of paganism. With Jesus being the Sun and the 12 disciples being the 12 houses of the zodiac and the resurrection being the progression of the equinox. With the sun stopping on the 21st of December on the winter solstice only to start its movements again after 3 days on the 25th, until the full awakening on Easter. Which in turn comes from the word Ishtar who was a Goddess of fertility, i guess it makes sense why the Rabbit and the egg are the symbol for Easter hehe.

[Monica]

And understand, I've got nothing against Christians who are honestly trying to follow in the footsteps of what Jesus actually said to do.  I wish there were more of 'em.  But so much of Christianity today just has no resemblance to what Jesus taught.   His ministry was too short, and his teachings were corrupted by misunderstandings (he says kindly) by the apostles and, especially, Paul that it never even had a chance to reach the mainstream in its original form.  

The entire Catholic Church is an idea I have a hard time imagining Jesus approving of at all.  (There's even a passage in Thomas that appears to be openly condemning organized temple-based worship entirely.)  It almost immediately turned into exactly the sort of socio-political institution that Jesus DIDN'T want to see.  Then it set about spending centuries inventing theology, justifications, and outright fabrications until, like I said, we got to the point that the Crusades were launched.  Suddenly the theology of a pacifist carpenter was being used to justify salvation via slaughter for the sake of grabbing land.

And the really sad thing is that, in many ways, the Protestant Reformation made things WORSE.  The entire concept of "sola scriptura" -Biblical textual supremacy- was completely wrongheaded, both in terms of what Jesus taught and in terms of any realistic overview of how the Bible as a text came into being.  They turned Christianity from being about faith in God/Jesus to being about faith in a book.  A physical object.

They de-mystified Christianity so much that they eliminated what it was actually about.

I honestly do not think there is any other major religion on the planet which has fallen so far from where it began, at least among those where we have enough of a historical record to track the beginnings.  Sure, Buddhism ended up getting synthesized with other local religions and there's a lot of spirit-worship and tribal tradition that the Buddha probably wouldn't have wanted.  But the core teachings and goals have remained relatively unchanged.  It still centers on the Eightfold Path, and still teaches the virtues of meditation and selflessness and all that.

Agreed! The various flavors of Christianity are more about an entire doctrine, the centerpiece of which is salvation. In Catholicism, salvation is based on being Catholic, whereas in Evangelical Christianity, it's based on total acceptance of the bible as a whole. Either way, it's really self-serving; ie. getting one's 'ticket' to heaven is deemed most important, with everything else secondary.

Having been both Catholic and born-again Christian, I'd have to say that at least the Catholics focus more on the actual teachings of Jesus than the evangelicals. The Evangelicals say they're all about Jesus, but in actuality, they're all about being 'saved' and talking about Jesus, with very little emphasis on actually following his teachings. At least the Catholics seem to value compassion and being of service to others, whereas the evangelicals say that "good works are as filthy rags unless you're saved."

But in both cases, really in all flavors of Christianity except Gnosticism, the religion is more about the doctrine, whether that be based on the bible or the institution of the church headed by the pope, with the teachings of Jesus only a tiny part. Jesus is just a symbolic figurehead.

Or even Islam, which is heavily centered on a book, at least has a book whose text truly has survived unchanged for over a thousand years, and is agreed to still be an accurate transcription of Mohammed's teachings.  Literally only a handful of individual words are in doubt, which is unprecedented for texts of its age and length, historically speaking.

Don't all 3 religions (Christianity, Islam and Judaism) have the first 5 books of the old testament as their common foundation? Those books that have the creepiest of the creepy stuff, including jihad...found in all 3? and which predate both Jesus and Mohammed?  

And, of course, any texts which came along after the invention of printing are preserved just fine.  No one doubts the authenticity of the Dao te Ching, for example.

True. But authenticity is only a little part of the issue. Even if it could be verified that Jesus really existed, that still doesn't mean that the whole bible is 'the word of God'. It's just a collection of scrolls that Emperor Constantine decided to put together as canon. Rather random, actually. Many other books exist that got left out. It was all based on human decisions, yet people have been taught for generations that the bible is the 'complete and perfect word of God' which is just outrageously ridiculous, in my opinion. It's so deeply ingrained in the collective psyche that it's often difficult and scary to disentangle from it.

But Christianity got broken along the way, to the point the only way I could imagine someone divining Jesus's actual intent is if they read nothing but Christ's quotes and whatever bits of the OT Christ refers to in his ministry.  (The Mosaic laws, for example.)  And maybe the various accounts of his death.  Everything else is distortion piled upon distortion over the centuries.

Why the Mosaic laws? They have nothing to do with Jesus, except for historical continuity. If anything, the old testament books, including those at the time of Moses, are the most tainted of all. They have a clear STS influence.

The accounts of his death are completely contradictory. The oldest fragment of the gospels is dated several decades after his death, and that fragment is the size of a credit card. No, they aren't verifiably authentic at all!

I do agree that the words of Jesus are profound. This alone speaks to their authenticity. The value of his words stands on its own merit.

Some religion had to pick the short straw.  In this corner of the multiverse, it was Christianity.  At least from everything I've seen.

Christianity is such a mixed bag. It's an excellent example of mixed STS and STO, so people can choose. It's a tossup as to whether it's done more good or damage over the centuries. The same could be said of the other 2 Abrahamic religions too.

[Minyatur]

Catholic church, teaches compassion as it is no longer allowed to teach war, torture and murder nor to burn people.

[mjlabadia]

   Hi everyone,
     I would like to suggest, (If I may), a checking out of one or two You Tube videos by Ajahn Brahm-Buddhist Teachings.
 Nothing heavy,....just something to listen to if you're puttering around the house or doing some other work.

  The series contains talks about 45 min to 1 hour long. You don't even have to listen to a complete talk at once. 

      It might flesh out some of our notions regarding Buddhism. Even more, I think you may be very surprised how it resonates
very much with the Law of One. 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIeLuMX-2p8

The above is only one of many talks. I just posted this one as the topic of the thread is Christianity and religion in general.

 There seems to be so very many ways to keep us separated.......religion,........political beliefs,.............sexuality,.........etc. 

 We even fall victim to it here in our community,..........which I find surprising. We have such a great collection of souls here.

 All of us here,..... having such beautiful, thoughtful, seeking minds. And,........we all desire so much to have our distortions accepted by our other-selves.

 How easily We/I still seem to fall into the distortion of fear of the other,......based on what We/I perceived was the intent of their post,........

  ........based on what We/I.......perceive or have been told their societal/religion/complex represents,.............or based on what We/I perceive or have been told their political beliefs represent. 

  I can only assign this pervasive distortion as being some necessary catalyst,........important to us in this portion of our "societal incarnate experience".

 I do hope I learn to more effectively process it.
 

[APeacefulWarrior]

Don't all 3 religions (Christianity, Islam and Judaism) have the first 5 books of the old testament as their common foundation? Those books that have the creepiest of the creepy stuff, including jihad...found in all 3? and which predate both Jesus and Mohammed?  

Kinda-sorta.  Islam sees itself in the same tradition/lineage as Judaism and Christianity, and all of the OT prophets are also considered prophets in Islam. (Although they often get Arabized names, like "Ibrahim" rather than "Abraham.") It shares the same basic cosmology as well, with God and Satan and angels and soforth.  Islam also sees Jesus as a prophet of the line of David, but nothing else.  One of their main points of contention with Christianity is the worship of Christ directly, which they see as idolatry, but he's discussed and his teachings are considered useful.

For that matter, the Halal dietary system is based on the Jewish Kosher laws, but is less restrictive.  

But that's about as far as the direct connection goes, because the teachings of Mohammed are (to Islam) setting the record straight as it were, so many of the stories about the prophets are significantly different.  Another amusing detail is that the Quran actually devotes more time to telling the story of Mary-mother-of-Jesus than the Bible does!  However, as I'm not Muslim and haven't studied the Quran extensively, I'm not terribly familiar with the changes.  

The whole concept of "Jihad" is tricky, and I'm not sure if my college-history-classes background is enough to tackle it, but the short version is that it's often misinterpreted in the west.  It's generally supposed  to be seen as the internal struggle to uphold personal faith, not a call for crusade or the brutal horrors that ISIS is perpetrating.  The Quran actually has very detailed rules on when it's acceptable -or not- to go to war.  Although, of course, nothing prevents the dedicated warmongers from ignoring those rules.

(It also has, afaik, the first hard rules on the humane treatment of POWs.   Which is something else that's often ignored.)

Why the Mosaic laws? They have nothing to do with Jesus, except for historical continuity. If anything, the old testament books, including those at the time of Moses, are the most tainted of all. They have a clear STS influence.

Just for context.  I personally view Jesus as a reformist, so I think it's important to understand what he's reforming.  Otherwise a lot of the material wouldn't make much sense.    I didn't mean to imply the Mosaic Laws should be studied for their own merits, but just as you say for the historical basis.  

And the same for the various "passion" accounts.  It's still important to know how\why he died, even if some of the fine details (like his exact last words) got lost over the ages.

(EDIT)

Come to think of it, have any of the major channeled sources discussed Mohammed\Islam in any depth? I'd be curious to know what perspective they have on it. Ra only mentioned Mohammed very briefly in passing at the end of 2.2, and never brought him up again. Although his comment would seem to suggest Mohammed was a Wanderer who did receive a message from higher-up, since he uses the word "delivered" in reference to Mohammed's teachings.

(And according to the stories, the first verses of the Quran were dictated to Mohammed directly via one of the Archangels -Gabriel, iirc- which would generally track with how Wanderers were contacted back then.)

[AnthroHeart]

Edited first post to post video that this thread references.

[AnthroHeart]

The thing about that OP video is that he said that a demon had to stir the fires to keep them hot. Spiritual fire would never go out, or dim. It's more enduring than a star which doesn't need anyone to stir the flames.

Also, he said he died for 3 days which really puts a damper on the believability of this story.

[AnthroHeart]

I like how he puts it.

[Bluebell]

[Minyatur]

There's probably an infinite number of hell-like time/space. And the fires would have to be thought of or "stirred" by something just like anything else.

You could probably even create you own hell and stir the fire yourself if you wanted.

[Lighthead]

There's probably an infinite number of hell-like time/space. And the fires would have to be thought of or "stirred" by something just like anything else.

You could probably even create you own hell and stir the fire yourself if you wanted.

That would be a nice job to have; stirring the fire.

[AnthroHeart]

There's probably an infinite number of hell-like time/space. And the fires would have to be thought of or "stirred" by something just like anything else.

You could probably even create you own hell and stir the fire yourself if you wanted.

That would be a nice job to have; stirring the fire.

Oh god, I can't imagine doing that to someone.