Health The Value of Jesus/God in Your Life

[Gough]

In no particular order? How about-

1- DMT
2- Nando's
3- Blow job.

Posh w***er

 

[William Wonka]

In no particular order? How about-

1- DMT
2- Nando's
3- Blow job.

Lets just keep things simple.
Three blowjobs.

 

[Procrastinator35]

The Geebus thread has morphed into the Bay.

 

[darthbards]

Is this the bay now?

 

[Exe Gesis]

The Geebus thread has morphed into the Bay.

those posters, and they know who they are, have dishonored the thread creator
but hey, it's all free will
i do appreciate those who have properly contributed -- be they for or against God/etc. Giving a genuine opinion

 

[darthbards]

those posters, and they know who they are, have dishonored the thread creator
but hey, it's all free will
i do appreciate those who have properly contributed -- be they for or against God/etc. Giving a genuine opinion

It would be interesting if the same behaviour would be tolerated if the thread was about topics such as Muslims,Jews,homosexuals,transgenders etc.

Often it seems people are happy to forfeit their responsibilities purely based on personal opinion.

 

[Exe Gesis]

i really don't belong on this planet, tho i wish i did.
there's inherent beauty in it
and i love earth women
but i'd be better off dead
my life has been off the charts grief-stricken, torturous, and beyond coping, super-being resilience to drag myself thru it all
but i wish i wasn't better off dead
wish i had something
the jesus trip is real, and i appreciate the nod, but it still only adds to my Weltschmerz
i'm living on fumes, the tiniest things, milliseconds, to derive happiness from
where all others are feasting and can count years instead
i continue to TRY to find peace, purpose, love
but i'm not sure how much longer i can try

 

[darthbards]

i really don't belong on this planet, tho i wish i did.
there's inherent beauty in it
and i love earth women
but i'd be better off dead
my life has been off the charts grief-stricken, torturous, and beyond coping, super-being resilience to drag myself thru it all
but i wish i wasn't better off dead
wish i had something
the jesus trip is real, and i appreciate the nod, but it still only adds to my Weltschmerz
i'm living on fumes, the tiniest things, milliseconds, to derive happiness from
where all others are feasting and can count years instead
i continue to TRY to find peace, purpose, love
but i'm not sure how much longer i can try

Interesting the website runs a token thread for beyond blue etc when personal opinion seems the overriding factor in what is generally allowed to go down.

 

[Exe Gesis]

It would be interesting if the same behaviour would be tolerated if the thread was about topics such as Muslims,Jews,homosexuals,transgenders etc.

Often it seems people are happy to forfeit their responsibilities purely based on personal opinion.

it's hip to deride religion, especially christianity and the jesus figure
i understand, but it's poor thinking to not realize life is created intelligently
that there is a power, force, connecting and binding it all -- the material to the material, but also to the ethereal
there's physics, a pragmatic system, but theres metaphysics
that is ever-present and communicable, tho it eludes the intellect, being captured and boxed and given a label
the brain is just a bunch of materials, chemicals, a physics, but given that special construct is able to now have a mind
that is a device granted to sense and communicate with the metaphysical

 

[Exe Gesis]

Interesting the website runs a token thread for beyond blue etc when personal opinion seems the overriding factor in what is generally allowed to go down.

beyond blue, etc cannot help
i have tried in the past and they admitted they cant help
because i dont have a disorder, i cant be fixed because i am not broken
i simply see thru everything, myself, the self, included
i am under no illusions
i just dont belong, more like a tourist here purely to document
not meant to belong, to stay, tho i wish i did

 

[darthbards]

beyond blue, etc cannot help
i have tried in the past and they admitted they cant help
because i dont have a disorder, i cant be fixed because i am not broken
i simply see thru everything, myself, the self, included
i am under no illusions
i just dont belong, more like a tourist here purely to document
not meant to belong, to stay, tho i wish i did

I'm unsure whether it can or can't help,but I still feel it's disappointing when companies/organisations use it as tokenism to come across as politically correct when it's pretty clear they have very little genuine interest.

 

[Exe Gesis]

I'm unsure whether it can or can't help,but I still feel it's disappointing when companies/organisations use it as tokenism to come across as politically correct when it's pretty clear they have very little genuine interest.

par for the course
there's precious little around that is genuinely interested and vested in the thing they're there for
organizations, governments, etc
there ARE a few around, but more individuals (or small groups of) themselves making a difference

 

[darthbards]

par for the course
there's precious little around that is genuinely interested and vested in the thing they're there for
organizations, governments, etc
there ARE a few around, but more individuals (or small groups of) themselves making a difference

Yep.
When one constantly sees people with responsibility forfeit those responsibilities due to self interest or to appear 'hip' to current trends or the masses,it certainly makes you ask questions regarding whether you want to continue.

In some ways God can help some,tokenism I'm certain helps no one.

 

[William Wonka]

The Geebus thread has morphed into the Bay.

Its a miracle!

beyond blue, etc cannot help
i have tried in the past and they admitted they cant help
because i dont have a disorder, i cant be fixed because i am not broken
i simply see thru everything, myself, the self, included
i am under no illusions
i just dont belong, more like a tourist here purely to document
not meant to belong, to stay, tho i wish i did

Seriously mate I wish you all the best.
Im actually not being totally facetious when I suggest a joint and a blowjob.
Think of it this way- cannabis has been used as a sacrament in many religions for millennia and a blow job sure feels like heaven.

 

[The Speaker]

Evidence for what? You're well aware of the Q and Mark and how much more "gnostic" Jesus is in those compared to Matthew and John.....which were written long after Q and Mark were. There's a book I read, where gospel scholars poured thru all the ACTUAL things Jesus said in all the gospels, and using Q for reference too, pointed to how the message of Jesus was perverted with the newer gospel books, and Mark is most comparable to Q....and how what's purported to be Jesus' actual words --- he speaks with much more poetic quality, very clever brief turn of words and such. Whereas in John/Matthew his ACTUAL words (especially those describing the exact same scenes/incidents in Mark and Q) there is heavy addition by the Church/Paul, where he doesn't have that "gnostic"-like quality, lacks that clever poeticism, and is suddenly very "paulian".

Eg...in Q/Mark he says something like....if the kingdom of god were in the sky the birds would be there first, if it were in the ocean the fish would be there first, no the kingdom of god is within you. That quoted passage in Matthew or John or Luke is vastly different. In Q/Mark he says often how he is the "Son of Man"...as in, more a prophet or representative of Mankind, just like us, etc i guess the interpretation. But in the latter gospels it's "Son of God".

Q does not exist today, so I do not know why you are referring to it as something scholars are pointing to. They have no text to go off of, just guesstimates on the contents of what the content of Q would be. The alleged 'Q source' is a hypothesised source text for Matthew and Luke, due to the similarity of their texts. However, each chooses to emphasise different things, meaning that Q would not be the only source for either.

Mark is not 'similar to Q' - in fact, the opposite is true. Mark is regarded as one of the other major sources for Matthew and Luke, covering things that Q perhaps did not.

Furthermore, there was no institutionalised church in the style of today at the time John was written, and Paul certainly had no authority to go around changing gospel texts - no Popes, no patriarchs, just people gathering together because they believed what was being told to them. Paul lived contemporaneously with people who saw Jesus and proclaimed his death and resurrection, and even told the Corinthian church to go and ask these eyewitnesses about what they saw.

The quote about the kingdom of God you claim is from 'Q/Mark' is from the Gospel of Thomas, except for the last part (which is a classic technique of apocryphal texts to make them appear legitimate). The last part is most accurately translated as "the kingdom of God is in your midst" - ie., Jesus is the coming of the kingdom of God, because he is the king of all creation. This is very similar to his repeated refrain in Mark, where Jesus proclaims that "the time has come, the kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe the good news" - the kingdom of God is at hand, because Jesus has come, and this is good news, because we sinners can have salvation through him.

Speaking of the alleged gospel of Thomas...

I'd of thought the edited out Gnostic Gospels to be proof enough....The Gospel of St.Thomas for starters.

Thanks for the help. Yes the Apocryphal Gospels are very interesting too. I've read a bit of that book compilation of those. Some very interesting stuff in there. Which I wont go into, but people can google it -- "the lost books of the bible and the forgotten books of eden"

some of the stuff is WILD stuff, telling the story of jesus from the age of like 5 to the age of 33. in the official bible he goes from being born, to suddenly being 33. the church removed all those books because there's some VERY VERY WILD stuff in there. Quite shocking.

The Apocrypha weren't 'edited out' of anything. Even the most critical of Biblical scholars acknowledge that there are a few texts which are clearly a) early and b) authentic. They are Mark, and some of Paul's letters, and that combination is very significant, because it affirms that both the basic gospel story about Jesus, and the teachings that followed, both as recorded in the Biblical New Testament, were the teachings of Christianity from the time of Jesus.

Non-scholarly critics often like to claim that there were 'lost books of the Bible' that 'the church chose not to include' and 'edited out' because it didn't fit their narrative, and that they did this at the Council of Nicaea. This is simply untrue. The First Council of Nicaea is not recorded as discussing the New Testament canon, and the churches across the Christian world had already mostly decided what were relevant texts of Scripture and what were not. Their method very closely resembled what I mentioned before: testing the spirits. They tested the texts that were up for debate with Scripture and teachings that they already knew to be true (eg. Mark and Paul's letters, as mentioned earlier), which were clear definitions of the teachings of Jesus. By every measure, the gospel of Thomas failed such testing. It was not an authentic text written by its claimed author, it did not reflect the teachings known to come from Jesus, and it did not reflect something that would have been the work of the Holy Spirit in the author. So it is with the rest of the apocrypha - they generally come later, are clearly forged, and do not match with what was already known to be true.

Notice that this isn't some institutional authority deciding this once and for all. These are individual churches and groups all testing and examining the texts being presented to them, and they all came to the same conclusion - the alleged Gospel of Thomas, among others, is a forgery and a fraud.

but it's not like i buy it either. i don't buy anything as such. there are some very curious questions (like all the virgin birthed resurrected figures predating the jesus story). how does that fit in? i dont know. there's no way to know. all i can go on is what I experienced with my Jesus/God Trip. It's been tailored TO/FOR me. And hence why I say the whole Jesus/God/Spirituality thing should be private and personal, because every person is individual and God wants of us individually. There's a basic universal truth, and it's simple. And then we individually should work around it, within it. Kind of like how Jeet Kune Do is one's OWN style of martial art based around our individuality, but it has a basic universal foundation that is simple.

Yes, Muhammad thought his experience was the only way he could truly understand life too, although he actually (probably correctly) thought he was demon-possessed when he had his first revelation, and wanted to throw himself off a cliff. His (first) wife convinced him that no, he must be a prophet and the revelation he was receiving must have been from an angel, as the spirit claimed to be.

As Paul puts it in 2 Corinthians 11, "Satan disguises himself as an angel of light."

i'm not scholarly like you are The Speaker about Christianity, Bible, etc. So I can't go toe-to-toe with you on this topic in GREAT depth.

All i know is...
1. The "jesus" story (virgin birth/resurrection) is a common tale in many cultures pre-dating the era of the Romans for thousands/hundreds of years, with the deity/figure going by many different names. It could be Jesus of roman era didnt actually exist, but was just a re-telling of all those passed down stories. That doesn't mean that figure never existed, perhaps he existed thousands of years before the year 1 AD. Perhaps God kept sending himself in human form every thousand years (hence those other figures) and ALSO Jesus existed in Roman era as another one of those. I don't know. But I reckon there IS a figure that was God sending himself in the flesh to give us a path to redemption, to follow that figures lead, etc.

No, sorry, the virgin birth as recorded in the Bible is widely regarded by scholars at every end of the Biblical spectrum to be unique to the Christian gospels, with no parallels in any other sources of any other texts at any point in history prior to Jesus. Similarly, there are today very few scholars who dispute the existence of a Jesus in Roman times, and even a Jesus that was crucified. Furthermore, the idea that dying-and-rising gods were common place in mythical/pagan texts has also been roundly criticised and mostly discredited, as the examples pointed to do not follow the same pattern as Jesus - either they don't die, or they don't rise, or they weren't gods to begin with, and so on.

If God was sending himself multiple times and failing to be recognised, that would be a) an incredibly stupid plan, b) make him very weak and not at all Godlike and c) make no sense given the promises he made repeatedly through the prophets.

2. I don't trust the Church....nor any organized religion. People get together and clique, make up their own rules/guidelines/dogmas based on societal/political leanings as well as their own little think-tank where they embellish God/spirituality. Many different cultures twisting and embellishing, adding and subtracting. Even in each actual religion there are many branches where cliques did this. Look how many "christian" branches there are for instance.

Good, I'm glad you have a critical eye towards religion. So do I. 'Religion' is about doing things to gain something.

The good news about Jesus, however, is not 'religion'. When Jesus says 'repent, and believe the good news,' that's not religion. There's requirement to act in a particular way to earn salvation off of how well you do this tradition or that. In fact, such things are contrary to the Christian message, and you will find many, many sermons have been preached over the years, reminding congregations all over the world that it is Jesus who saves, for we cannot save ourselves. Trying to save ourselves is yet another way that we try to be God, and therefore actually sin by doing so.

For all the different branches of Chrisitanity, you will struggle to find too many differences when it comes to the actually important question of salvation. Generally, the differences have historically come over matters that are much less significant.

3. I trust myself more, my own observations and impressions GIVEN that I had those experiences with Jesus/God. From what I observed and got told etc, how I interpret God/Jesus is much simpler. Basically -- we are on earth to attain freedom/redemption from this plane, we are not to abstain from life, like pious monks, we are to enjoy it and live it, but HONORABLY. The aim of life is to achieve genuinely honorable happiness with our SELF. If we achieve such, then we are rewarded with an afterlife of happiness. If we fail, culminate in misery, dishonorable gain, etc, then we are rewarded with an afterlife of pain. Basically, just like in life....if you put good work into something you are rewarded with an outcome, a promotion, etc. What you reap you sow kind of thing. Honorable happiness---there aren't a billion rules about what is sinful etc. There's just honorable and dishonorable acts. There's a bit of leeway in there in regards to what we can do to be happy, as in, what Catholicism or Islam would say is SINFUL, isn't at all. I don't want to give specific examples, but use your imagination. Things like say, making money, sex, etc. Whilst this life is fraught with pitfalls that can lead to dishonorable acts and dishonorable happiness (eg, at the expense of others), and whilst this life is the Devils Domain as such, a testing ground, we as humans are put here to TRY to enjoy life, honorably because then that honors our creator.

4. No, i'm not saying I'm a messenger of God. I'm just saying Jesus/God exists, but...from what I gleaned from my experiences, it's not how we know it now. All fire and sinfulness with tons of rules about how to pray, don't swear, dont do this, be pure like a monk, etc. And there's leeway to life, acts, we are here to enjoy it and try to generate love and compassion and help around, but we are certainly allowed to live it, as we are conduits for god himself, him vicariously experiencing life THRU us.

So you trust what you think God has revealed to you because you trust yourself. That's a very circular way of saying that you believe that you are the best arbiter of right and wrong, because you cannot actually be trusting God. Your trust of the revelation you have received is entirely dependent on your own judgement of yourself, rather than of the character and actions of the one who has (allegedly) revealed these things to you.

You are right to say that God has placed us here so that we may enjoy what he has given us, because doing so honours him. However, it is also true that there was only one thing that Adam and Eve were told not to do in the Garden of Eden: eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (ie. choosing what is right for themselves, rather than how God, their creator, defines what is right and wrong). They ate from it, and that decision defined sin perfectly - rejecting God's authority for our own. So although God has given us creation, he also knows (as any creator does) what is best for his creation, and given us certain moral guidelines - and a conscience - so that we can know what is good and what is not.

There is no requirement to follow these laws for our salvation, but anyone who has the Spirit of God in them will increasingly feel the desire to do so anyway, because they recognise that following God's laws is beneficial for others, even if it means giving up their selfish desires. There's a word to describe putting others before yourself: love. Jesus' death and resurrection is the ultimate example of love, in putting others before himself because he, as God, had no need to die for the sake of we who rejected him - and yet he did so anyway, so that we might have eternal life. Anyone who has the Spirit in them will, therefore, seek to become more and more like Jesus, and the only way we can know what that looks like is through his word - the Bible.

I would also like to know where exactly money or sex are defined as evil in and of themselves within God's word (hint: they're not - God gave them for us to enjoy, but, as with everything else, he has also given us laws so that we may know when these things are beneficial for us to have for the sake of others, rather than ourselves).

 

[Exe Gesis]

camel eye of the needle
but loved reading your mega response above
i cant comment, have to research before replying
maybe p35 can

 

[Exe Gesis]

sodomy

 

[William Wonka]

camel eye of the needle
but loved reading your mega response above
i cant comment, have to research before replying
maybe p35 can

Jesus whipping the money changers and calling their gathering with merchants "a den of thieves" was certainly indicative of his feelings on the matter imo.

sodomy

Feel free to indulge in place of the aforementioned blowjob.
Or just add it to the mix

 

[Private Baldrick]

it's hip to deride religion, especially christianity and the jesus figure
i understand, but it's poor thinking to not realize life is created intelligently
that there is a power, force, connecting and binding it all -- the material to the material, but also to the ethereal
there's physics, a pragmatic system, but theres metaphysics
that is ever-present and communicable, tho it eludes the intellect, being captured and boxed and given a label
the brain is just a bunch of materials, chemicals, a physics, but given that special construct is able to now have a mind
that is a device granted to sense and communicate with the metaphysical

OK you believe such nonsense. All the best in your life.

 

[Gralin]

I'm still waiting for GG to explain why he calls the higher power Jesus

 

[Gough]

I'm still waiting for GG to explain why he calls the higher power Jesus

According to Stills he was the world's first non violent revolutionary but Stephen was freebasing a lot of coke at the time so was a touch wired and unreliable.

 

[darthbards]

camel eye of the needle

Matthew 19:24 was the first bible passage that struck a chord with me,I was probably around 10 years old.

 

[FRUMPY]

Lets just keep things simple.
Three blowjobs.

Were you an alter boy as well?

 

[FRUMPY]

i really don't belong on this planet, tho i wish i did.
there's inherent beauty in it
and i love earth women
but i'd be better off dead
my life has been off the charts grief-stricken, torturous, and beyond coping, super-being resilience to drag myself thru it all
but i wish i wasn't better off dead
wish i had something
the jesus trip is real, and i appreciate the nod, but it still only adds to my Weltschmerz
i'm living on fumes, the tiniest things, milliseconds, to derive happiness from
where all others are feasting and can count years instead
i continue to TRY to find peace, purpose, love
but i'm not sure how much longer i can try

I knew being a fremantle supporter would be tough but geez.....

 

[darthbards]

Were you an alter boy as well?

Are you a parent? Uncle? Do you have family friends with children?
Pretty dodgy stuff right there,you should probably keep your hands to yourself as well?