Have you fully read a religious text?

[Greatest I am]

Examples of these sacred texts would obviously include the Bible, Quran, Torah, and so on... Also, by "speak" to you, I obviously mean if you felt some religious feeling or felt moved by them.

Personally, I have only read some of the Bible and some of the Quran. While I found them fascinating from a philosophical and historical perspective, there was nothing in those texts that "spoke" to me or moved me in any way. I can appreciate some of the beauty in their message and especially how revolutionary they were for their times, but they caused absolutely no religious/spiritual feeling in me. Honestly, I have never had that and largely believe it is solely a particular psychological experience with no greater explanation or meaning. But, obviously, I could be wrong.

Some years ago now I read about 8 different bibles and holy books from various religions and they left me cold due to their lack of moral teaching or even worse showing how immoral some of their tenets were. Near the end of my reading and research I came across Gnostic Christianity and soon afterward I was rewarded with my apotheosis.

You will not find God in a book but you might follow the path that one of the Jesus' taught, the more esoteric mystical Jesus, and I would advise it because the church never will as it frees your mind from an idol worshiping religion and mind set to that of a perpetual seeker after the best God you can possibly create for yourself.

This following is how you can find your God.

Matthew 6:22 The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.

John 14:23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.

Romans 8:29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

Regards
DL





 

[Greatest I am]

Yes.

Tao Te Ching (a few times).
Bhagavad Gita.

Have started the Qur'an.

Currently doing the New Testament.

Reading of the Eastern wisdom promoting religions I can understand.

I cannot understand, unless it is just for straight knowledge, why anyone would want to read about Christianity or Islam.

Both Christianity and Islam have basically developed into intolerant, homophobic and misogynous religions. Both religions have grown themselves by the sword instead of good deeds.

Jesus said we would know his people by their works and deeds. That means Jesus would not recognize Christians and Muslims as his people, and neither do I.

Read those religions if you want to improve them or change them to a more civilized form but I would not suggest you join either.

Let your morals guide you and I am sure you wont.

Regards
DL

Are you sure you want to read

[Greatest I am]

I've read every book of the bible at one point or another, but there are several that I haven't read in a long time. As far as being "spoken to", well, with stuff that has a clear commandment or moral message  to it, I've definitely felt like god is teaching me something. But with stuff that's more history-oriented and either has commands that aren't for us or no commands at all (Genesis, Deuteronomy, Acts), no, I don't feel "spoken to", but that doesn't mean we shouldn't read that stuff. The more Christians know about the bible, the better.

I agree with your last as the more Christians learn of their genocidal son murdering God, the better.

That teaches them that they should be looking for a moral God and reject the Christianity's satanic God.

Count the kills that God and Satan are said to have done in that myth.

God does not look good.

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

No, but I want to change that soon.

If you want to be a slave to God, then the idol worshiping religions like Christianity and Islam are there for you.

If you, like the esoteric mystical Jesus, want to make God serve you the way he should, then I recommend the Gnostic Christian Library.

Most think we weak people should bew serving the powerful Gods on offer but consider that in your family, you follow natural law where the strong serve the weak.

If God cannot follow natural law then he is not worthy of us who have to do so.

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

I read the Bible in its entirety during my sophomore and junior years of high school.  Certainly it spoke to me.

It's been some time since I studied Scripture at length, though.

What did it tell you?

Was it showing a loving God or did you notice how that loving God did a lot of innocent baby and children killing?

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

I'm looking for guides to help me think deeper about a number of issues, especially regarding morality. I've gotten a lot of fascinating insights from studying secular moral philosophy, but there's something about it that I've found missing - I'm not quite sure what.

Nice. Morality should be what the Gods are judged on. Not the gifts that are promised by lying priests, preachers and imams.

I try to speak to moral issues with theists and it is like pulling teeth because they cannot argue intelligently for the morality of their Gods and always try to deflect to useless topics like the reality of their God that they cannot prove or argue for.

Do not take my word for this. Try any O.P. that deals with moral issues that paints God as immoral, like the 6 day torture of King David's baby, before finally killing it, that God killed all because he was angry with the King.

Job is also a good one and shows how Christians have developed a double moral standard where they forgive their God for doing what they condemn men for doing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mJCCARjyNM

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

The Christian and Jewish Bibles, and the Quran.

Yes, all three of them "spoke" to me.

Did you rate them by your moral standards?

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

I've read the New Testament in its entirety, but I don't think I've finished Numbers or 2nd Chronicles in the Old Testament.

What do you think of Jesus and his no divorce policy and his substitutionary punishment policies?

Did you also note that there seemed to be more than one Jesus type in the N.T.

One is though to be rather wimpy. That would be the Rome invented one. Another is an esoteric mystic type that places man above God. There is also the angry Jesus who flips tables and uses the Jews to help him with his suicide. We know that one for the last super when his diciples encouraged Judas by not even trying to stop him as Jesus planned when offering Judas the sop, which is more or less a bribe, to turn Jesus over.

Many do not separate the Jesus' but the divisions are rather clear.

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

I was rewarded with my apotheosis.

A Y Y L M A O
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Many do not separate the Jesus' but the divisions are rather clear.

I really don't think they are. I always found this assumption sort of odd that, to be convincing, a historical Jesus model has to be simple enough that He'd be criticized as flat and one-note if He were a fictional character.

My assumption is more learned than your assumption. :-)

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

The Christian and Jewish Bibles, and the Quran.

Yes, all three of them "spoke" to me.

Did you rate them by your moral standards?

Morality is for philosophers: I read religious texts for their poetical value.

And here I thought morality was for everyone. Oh well.

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

The Christian and Jewish Bibles, and the Quran.

Yes, all three of them "spoke" to me.

Did you rate them by your moral standards?

Morality is for philosophers: I read religious texts for their poetical value.

And here I thought morality was for everyone. Oh well.

Regards
DL

There's a time and a place for morality, and it's not when you're reading a religious text. The reason is that morality is an abstraction, an inference, a conjecture, and is thus, like a demiurge, capable of error. By contrast, religion speaks of life directly, in the same way that poetry speaks of life directly, which is why both poetry and religion (properly so-called) are irrefutable.

I do not see a text that begins with a talking serpent and ends with a seven headed monster as speaking to life, as those fictional characters have none.

Myths have lessons we can use in life but they do not represent life.

Mother Goose is a children's myth, and quite useful, but it also does not represent life.

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

I do not see a text that begins with a talking serpent and ends with a seven headed monster as speaking to life, as those fictional characters have none.

Myths have lessons we can use in life but they do not represent life.

Mother Goose is a children's myth, and quite useful, but it also does not represent life.

I'm genuinely sorry to hear you say that.

Nice argument to show why. Oh wait. Not.

What do you have against Mother Goose?

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

Pffft.

The same garbage as your other post.

Take your swollen head and go away.

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

The bible does speak to many but they mostly end in ignoring what the Bible really shows.

This link shows the proper conclusion lo what theists should see but many ignore it and end in adoring a genocidal son murdering Yahweh.

https://vimeo.com/7038401

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

Greatest I am, serious question: Why do you feel the need to be such an insulting, abrasive asshole to everyone? Is this how the vaunted superior morality of ~Gnostic Christianity~ leads one to behave?

Regards
NT

I do not feel that need.

I give what is deserved.

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

I just don't get how someone can dislike a book with such fantastic stories. Who can forget Gideon, the least son of the least family of the least tribe of Israel, being the one to drive off the Philistines? Who can forget Joshua's spies in Jericho, in danger of certain death upon discovery, surviving only because a common prostitute named Rahab hid and sheltered them, only for Rahab and her family alone to be exempted from the general slaughter of the people of Jericho after the battle? Who can forget Korah rebelling against Moses, arguing that Moses didn't have a better theological justification for rule than anyone else in the tribes, only for Moses to have God literally open the ground beneath Korah and his followers and drop them straight into Hell? The stories are fantastic and vivid and compelling.

Indeed, but are they moral enough to have adherents to the bible and Christianity ablre to build an worthy ideology around?

Seems these intelligent and moral Jews did/do not think so.

 https://vimeo.com/7038401

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

I just don't get how someone can dislike a book with such fantastic stories. Who can forget Gideon, the least son of the least family of the least tribe of Israel, being the one to drive off the Philistines? Who can forget Joshua's spies in Jericho, in danger of certain death upon discovery, surviving only because a common prostitute named Rahab hid and sheltered them, only for Rahab and her family alone to be exempted from the general slaughter of the people of Jericho after the battle? Who can forget Korah rebelling against Moses, arguing that Moses didn't have a better theological justification for rule than anyone else in the tribes, only for Moses to have God literally open the ground beneath Korah and his followers and drop them straight into Hell? The stories are fantastic and vivid and compelling.

Indeed, but are they moral enough to have adherents to the bible and Christianity ablre to build an worthy ideology around?

Seems these intelligent and moral Jews did/do not think so.

 https://vimeo.com/7038401

Regards
DL

These figures aren't supposed to be moral paragons. Look at David, whom the Bible flat-out claims is a "Man after God's own heart." David is a monstrous war criminal with a con artist's heart. That is irrelevant to his status as God's favorite person in the Old Testament. Why? Because David was a heroic figure, a conquering hero, and a man of unshaking faith even when God afflicts him (having his father-in-law go mad and try to murder him, having his first son die stillborn, etc.). The biggest mistake people make when they read the Bible is acting like these people are somehow supposed to be role models. They aren't trying to set a moral example for us.

EDIT: David is one of only two people in the entirety of the Hebrew Bible given the title "Messiah," or God's Anointed One (along with the pagan king Cyrus). The title that Christians put so much stock in for Jesus was only given to two figures in the entire OT, one of whom was a pagan nonbeliever and the other of whom was David, who is a pretty terrible king from a moral point of view. I'm sure if the authors of the Bible were looking for a moral role model to be called the Anointed of God then Josiah or Hezekiah would be called "Messiah" and not David, but they didn't. It's not David's morality or immorality that is at stake, it's his wild success. Unlike Hezekiah, who gave up the doors of the Temple to the Assyrians, or Josiah, who died in combat with Egypt, David won. David conquered Jerusalem. David defeated the Philistines again and again.

I agree, if I can paraphrase your words, that Christians have decided to adore a God of war instead of a moral God.

It seems they only want the perks that that God will give them, even if he has morals that are more Satan-like than God-like.

Most religions have done the same and that is why, they, as the vast majority for a long time now, have gifted us with about 5,000 years of war.

As this link indicates, War is God.

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

If religious conflict is something you wish to understand further. This is a decent presentation of it's core.

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

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

TL;DR on the previous post:

The Bible is not for seven year olds. Its heroes are not necessarily good people or virtuous people and make no pretension to be so. There are murderers, con artists, thieves, adulterers, and liars in the pages of the Bible and it's because these people aren't supposed to be role models, they're complex, flawed characters.

True, but you forgot the worst offender. The genocidal son murdering God, Yahweh.

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

God is not nice, God is not friendly. God is a King. I fail to see how that is a problem with the Bible.

It is not. They just show a tyrannical King. My way or hell is his only option.

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

I’ve read the Book of Mormon and I’m currently re-reading it.

That being the case you will want to view this brilliant link.

https://tune.pk/video/4468309/south-park-tells-about-the-foundation-of-mormonism-and-joseph-smith

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

I've read the several versions of the Bible. Once attempted to read The Book of Mormon, but stopped like three pages in for whatever reason.

For intelligent reasons.

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

Some of it; yes.

I agree.

It is best to choose a religion without any supernatural beliefs and those are Gnostic Christianity, Karaite Jewry and Buddhism.

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

What do you agree with, exactly?

That some, if not most reasons for ignoring Mormonism are intelligent.

Regards
DL

[Greatest I am]

That was not at all what I said. My post was a response to the two questions in the poll, not to your post.

Thanks for clearing that up.

Regards
DL