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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sidney Reilly who wrote (27350)	12/27/1998 8:36:00 PM
From: Dayuhan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

Bob, You seem to look for anything that fits your preconceived ideas and that doesn't upset your apple cart. You seem quite devoted to your own preconceived ideas. Have you given fair consideration to outside ideas that might upset your apple cart? Steve

To: Sidney Reilly who wrote (27350)	12/27/1998 8:44:00 PM
From: Grainne	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

Bob, there are scholars of all sorts who have studied the history of Christianity and come up with a totally different reading of it than you do. Because it is your belief system your version is real to you, but that is only your reality, not objective reality. Obviously, if you wanted to argue on a rational basis, you might even agree that if someone who spends his time preaching and yet says absolutely nothing about a particular subject, it might mean that it is not something which he finds objectionable. You also might come around to the point of view that since Jesus was compassionate, he might not agree with a culture of hatred and violence where homosexuals are murdered simply because of who they are. But we are not in the realm of logic here. There is no objective proof that you can offer on Jesus being the Son of God, or the Bible being the word of God. Strangely, several books like the Gospels of Phillip and Thomas, which reveal Jesus as more introspective and Buddhist in his beliefs, were omitted. But I am sure you would argue that God did that, even though I know that ordinary men fought to the death over which idea of Jesus should go forward. <Through Jesus we have everlasting Life. Through Jesus the debt that was being held against us is paid. The debt we could not pay has been cancelled. God said He will raise up a people for His namesake. The true christians are those people.> This seems to indicate that Christians are actually selfish people interested in preserving their own existence. Is there something holy about that? I can't really find anything. <You seem to look for anything that fits your preconceived ideas and that doesn't upset your apple cart. Being born again is too upsetting to you so you reject it even though Jesus said plainly "you must be born again".> I don't have any preconceived ideas. I read a lot, and particularly am intrigued by some contemporary professors of religion at major universities. The reason that I am intrigued is that they are piecing together a history of the early Christians based not on blind ideology but on the archaeological evidence, recently discovered scripts, etc. I don't think we really know very much at all about Jesus, yet, although we may discover more. Do you know his real name, incidentally? "Savior" is obviously not the one he was born with. I am not anxious about any religious issue, except the damage the Christian religious right is doing to America. Certainly, my apple cart does not hinge on eternal life. It seems to me that people who do believe in eternal life have a lot more to lose; my expectations are for a life that ends in death. Why do you think I am upset? Could you quote the exact chapter and verse where Jesus says "you must be born again?" I am not familiar with it, and in fact am under the impression that born agains are a relatively recent phenomenon. The Jews in Palestine when Jesus died were apocalyptic--they thought everyone was going to heaven almost immediately, that the world would end shortly after Jesus' death. As the centuries kept on coming and that didn't happen, they had to create a new mythological explanation. Certainly, any Christian sect which holds that good and decent fellow believers in Jesus who do not believe in the born again theology are not REALLY Christians have themselves proved that they are not carrying on any of Christ's teachings, and from my point of view should be thoroughly discounted.