DL,
Thanks for clarifying! You say a central reason you reject the Bible’s Jesus is because of his “forgiveness policy.” To what policy are you referring? I’ve found extending forgiveness to be freeing, and I am happily thankful when others forgive me. What is it you so dislike about it?
Blessings to you,
Bob
God does not change his mind and neither do I.
Regards
DL
As a Universalist, the notion of needing salvation or forgiveness is silly to me. If all are destined for heaven, what do we need with salvation or forgiveness. The doors of heaven are always opened to all and none of us are ever condemned by God. Do you agree?
I recognize the benefits you speak of in forgiving and in the seeking of forgiveness but that seeking should be directed at the victim. Not some God or Jesus that cannot be victimized by sins that are man against man.
I like the Jewish thinking on this.
thepowerofforgiveness.com/pd … veness.pdf
Once a victim forgive the offender, that is it. To suggest that the sinner must now also beg a second forgiveness for only one offence is to ask for double payment and that is not a moral way to go.
Regards
DL
Well, you did ask to which question I was referring, DL, which seemed a bit puzzling, since you’d already said you wouldn’t be answering my questions. And that’s okay. Honestly, if you don’t know the answers it’s perfectly honorable to say so, or if you only know how to answer this or that one, that’s also fine. Or if you just don’t think the answers would not further your goals, well, I guess you gotta do what you gotta do.
They were honest questions, not in any way meant to trip you up. I do not already “know the answers” as some do when they ask pseudo-questions that are really challenges in disguise. It just seems strange that you keep saying things we already agree with (mostly) and then you seem to think we need to change our minds and become gnostics. If we already agree with just about everything you stand for, what’s to change? Just a label? On the other hand, if there’s more on offer and we don’t yet know about it, and we need to know and accept it in order to become gnostics, and you’d like us to become gnostics, then maybe you’d like to lay it on the table?
It’s interesting that you’re not open to changing your mind, DL. I think you might want to reconsider that (change your mind about not ever changing your mind 
). I can’t count the number of things I’ve been wrong about and because of that, have had to change my mind. Changing your mind when you see you’re mistaken is a time-honored, much repeated, interchange in the road toward wisdom. And actually, scripturally, you’d be hard pressed to defend the view that God doesn’t change His mind. He doesn’t CHANGE, but we have quite a few accounts of Him (apparently at least) changing His mind about this or that, based on changing circumstances – such as the population of Nineveh repenting at Jonah’s preaching, for one.
Hi DL! I really like your beautifully clear explanation of why “needing forgiveness” seems for you “silly!” It stimulates my own reflection.
We agree on the “benefits of forgiving and seeking forgiveness” in relationships! Indeed, I find this blessing of releasing our vindictiveness toward those who hurt us is what Jesus emphasizes, often encouraging us to do it generously out of receiving God’s gracious love in which we live. Of course, it is precisely the logic of enjoying this ‘forgiveness’ of ‘God’ which makes little sense to you.
You speak of everyone going to heaven, and God presenting no barriers to that. I actually find Jesus uninterested in us going to heaven, desiring to see people really experience “life” now (and later). And he appears to see what most religious folk see (Jew, Moslem, Hindu, Buddhist, etc), that the Reality in our universe appears to involve a law of cause and effect, where our (moral) choices make a difference in what kind of ‘life’ we experience. And like him, I do not find enjoyment of this blessing to be universal, but that many experience painful alienation from it.
For Christians, ‘God’ refers to this transcendent Reality behind everything. They see God as a Power that pursues goodness (hence the imagery that God is like a good father). Yet God’s goodness is perceived to also imply opposing the evil harm we do to one another. And this is their conception of what is behind the universal experience that our choices seem to lead to reaping and sowing different consequences. This also explains the sense in which Christians would say that when we violate one finite creature, we also transgress the transcendent Reality called God. We are saying that our destructive choices do not foster a healthy relationship with that Ground of our being (or God).
Of course, if you’re confident that no such transcendent Reality exists, it would indeed be “silly” to have any positive interest in this. But the desire of many spiritual people is to know that despite their transgressions of the Ultimate Reality underneath our existence (God), and the lessons they may need to learn, that they are still able to be in a blessed relationship with this Ground of all being. And God’s “forgiveness” refers to the assured provision of such a gracious relationship as we acknowledge our failures and seek to align our life with the way God intends for us.
For me, the way that Jesus manifests this divine love and grace, or forgiveness, despite my common & stubborn weakness, is not silly at all, but encourages me in my confidence of great blessing & growth. I realize my efforts to describe a Christian view of forgiveness may be unclear, or sound quite problematical to you, and I’d welcome any reactions or questions you may have to my sense of why such grace is just plain terrific.
Bests regards to you,
Bob W.
All fiction and myth and we likely cannot interpret them well anymore thanks to all the re-writes. That is partly why I do not care which myth one uses.
I do not care to convert anyone particularly. I sell a message to seek God internally using whatever myth or belief you have. It is the activation of your pineal gland and your higher mind that I seek and God does the rest.
God makes people Gnostics and Gnostic Christians. Not me.
Regards
DL
If you wish to believe in a sugar daddy throwing grace around, go ahead.
But then you would have to wonder why God would fix a hangnail on someone while allowing 10s of millions to die needlessly.
I don’t care how you see God, transcendent reality or whatever. I just sell the idea that you can find him internally if you seek him there.
Regards
DL
DL,
Thanks. You do have an curious perception. If I too perceived Jesus as selling a “sugar daddy,” I’d totally reject him too. I’m fine with you selling your own Deity who’s apparently without the ‘crazy’ grace that Jesus “threw around.” I am glad that what you find inside you, or as you said to Cindy, what is in your pineal gland, brings you such satisfaction. But since I experience that the rich grace Jesus spoke of has brought rich joy into my life, I can’t see what would attract me toward seeking what your say that you are selling.
All the best to you,
Bob
If you cannot see it in Jesus’ words then I doubt that I can do better.
youtube.com/watch?v=alRNbes … r_embedded
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.
Luke 17:21 Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.
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.
I am a brethren of Jesus. I just think all should be. You see grace as coming from without and Jesus nor I see it that way.
Regards
DL
DL, I’d disagreed Jesus saw God (the Ground of our being) as a “sugar daddy,” but argued he reflected a wonderful sense of grace toward others.
Your response complains that I don’t “see it,” and offers three of Jesus’ wonderful sayings. I have no idea what is the “it” is here that you think contradicts what I said? I don’t see these verses as saying at all that God is a sugar daddy, nor denying that Jesus reflected divine grace.
I certainly agree with you that “all should be brethren of Jesus.” You did close by critically declaring that I “see grace as coming from without.” Where are you seeing me say that? Do you mean that you assume that I think God is found as spatially “outside” of us? Wouldn’t my term, “Ground of our being” imply that Ultimate Reality is not ‘outside’ at all?
Since I had emphasized that “Jesus displayed divine love and grace,” which you dismissed as “throwing it around,” I can only guess that you are not drawn to such grace. But I love your citation of John 14, that if you will keep Jesus’ teaching, his “Father will love you, and come to you, and make His home in you.” Maybe we can unite on finding a promising heart of our faith in this text that you beautifully cited.
Blessings to you,
Bob
Not if your Jesus is the usual bible Jesus. That one’s morality is poor. Not surprising since Rome invented him. His no divorce policy is especially anti-love.
youtube.com/watch?v=j4QXOgV … r_embedded
Regards
DL
DL,
I see the same impasse as I’ve had with other critics of Christianity here who tell us how we should interpret what the Bible means, and then criticize us for that view. I keep clarifying my views, and just asked you if there was any shared ground. You only respond, “Not if your Jesus is the usual Bible Jesus,” meaning the immoral one that you despise! And that’s right after I again clarified that my understanding of Jesus is NOT what you see as the “usual” Jesus. I’m concerned that you depend on defining yourself adversarily in terms of what you oppose, and are not comfortable enjoying the common ground that you may share among those with whom you dialogue.
On the other thread, you criticize us for conceiving of God as “good.” When I explained what I mean by good and asked your view, you agree that you too see God as good. Another small specific here is your repeated dislike of Jesus & the Bible’s “no divorce policy.” But I don’t see it as such a policy, and find many Christians I know to be blessedly divorced. Thus, when you don’t engage what I’ve detailed, but slam a view someone has defined & attacked in a video, it feels like your passion toward me involves a straw man, and we aren’t comparing our own actual perceptions.
Dear GB,
Though I did not read the previous thread to this one which I have followed, I guess you already debated God as Father and Creator, Christ as His Son, and we as His children…
Though I have no intention of entering this thread I would just like to add a voice of full support to dear Cindy and Bob.
Also in case you have any doubts, of which you seem to have plenty but seem not to unravel yourself and open your heart to Cindy and Bob’s questions and their good will towards you, I would just add that like many millions and millions of Christians around the world I have always held God as our Father.
To imply that this is foolish and an insult to we fathers here in this world surely is an insult to God.
Thankfully God the Father is all-forgiving, and, as clearly taught us by Christ and as millions of Christian fathers and mothers believe, is known to us as Love, Truth, Just, Compassionate, Merciful, Forgiving, Righteous, Good.
If only we would more often open our hearts to Him, we would be a much better lot of fathers than we try to be!
Carry on dear Cindy and Bob !!!
Affectionately, Michael in Barcelona
Because you ignore morals and accept poor ones so as not to have to take a real look at the poor morals being offered.
Sure there are happily divorced people. That is the point. They should not lose anything for seeking love yet your theology is against it.
Regards
DL
Thanks for sharing your delusion.
Ignore that God, the Father, murdered his first three children.
Father indeed. Murdering Father is more truthful. Do you deny God’s murder of his first three children?
youtube.com/watch?v=4ott15j … re=related
Regards
DL
GB
In view of my prevous post, do you really think that your question is necessary?
I would ask you please to read it again…
I would be most surprised if you then don’t come up with my answer, although, allow me to guess, your own answer would be very different to mine.
Never mind, this forum is for debate, sharing with and understanding each other.
Affectionately,
Michael in Barcelona
DL,
Everyone here (except perhaps for myself) has been more than kind to you, and you repay their kindness by intentionally (I can only assume since I do assume you possess at least the usual measure of intelligence) and persistently misreading what they say, then responding with inflammatory purjurative caricatures of their actual remarks. This is your warning. Tone down your trolling. Now. There is honesty and there is rudeness. You are rude, and we don’t tolerate that forever on this forum.
Cindy
DL,
Can you help me with your epistemology? I emphasized that I rejected a “no divorce policy” interpretation. You responded, “because you accept bad morals… your theology is against it.” What bad morals did I say I accepted, and where did my own theology take a position condemning all divorce?
I went back and took a look and think we should restart.
People keep telling me about this wonderful theology that you follow.
Show me what yours says about divorce, since you do not seem to veto it, and I will compare mine.
Less personal observation of me might make it easier for us if you stick to the issue.
Regards
DL
Since in another recent thread, GB explicitly indicated he thinks it is impossible to reason with any theist, therefore cannot be here to reason with practically all the people he writes threads and comments addressing, despite any evidence of them reasoning with him, he or she has been identified as a “troll”: someone amusing themselves by unreasonably provoking forum members in posts, thus abusing membership privileges.
Consequently, GB has been banned for a month; and whether GB is permitted to resume posting will depend on whether he or she agrees to reasonably discuss things with forum members or not.
If GB tries to get back on around this ban, his account will be permanently locked and new sock-puppet accounts identified as GB by internet tracing will be deleted as equivalent to spam.
Please be charitable to GB considering his restrictions for a month and don’t make challenges he will be in no position to answer anytime soon.