My Jesus Challenge

the iconoclast said:

Hey hey ananda sorry my friend, i had a back log..thank you for your patience.

John 3:16
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

1 John 5:13-14
I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.

1 John 5:13-14
I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life. This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.

For those who find me find life
and receive favor from the Lord.
Proverbs 8:35

And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.
1 Peter 5:10

The world and its desires pass away, but whoever does the will of God lives forever.
1 John 2:17

What say you my friend?

Also how do you know you have increased your life span?

Im curious. Are you aware of anyone who hasnincreased their life span?

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No, I have not. That is the challenge for Christians to fulfill, since eternal life is one major end-goal. Increasing their life span as a result of practicing the Christian path would be major evidence that the Christian path could be effective & true.

A major end-goal of Buddhism is the cessation of suffering. I've observed in myself and others that the practice of the Buddhist path does result in great reductions in suffering.

What are stratas of reality? Could you give me an example?

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Physical, mental, emotional, imagination, consciousness, subconsciousness, jhanic states, etc.

Excellant, then we know it was from the Christian God as you cannot supply an alternative. It was acheived using the Christian formula, at church (but doesnt always have to be), while i was being prayed for by 2 Spirit filled Christian women and while i was focusing my attention to God in deep prayer.

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I can suggest many alternatives.

How? You can enage someone, dont pay a bill, randomly hug someone, seek out someone or just plan talk to them. Why? Interest, curiousity, attraction, anoyance, desperation, loneliness, pity, boredom, hunger, thirst, protection, jealousy. That was 10 seconds worth My friend, you can start your relationship with God at any time. What benefit is it for you to become nothing - dont say less suffering - give me something else?

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My end-goal is not to achieve a relationship with deity nor to become nothing, but the cessation of suffering.

So you cannot interact with a deva. See you just proved there was no alternative for my experiences.

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No, I stated that we don't normally interact with bacteria; in Buddhism, devas don't normally interact with the human realm, as it is compared with a human being jumping into a cesspool of filth.

Why is that question irrelevant? What is suffering and what is its cessation?

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The question about "who created the earth" is irrelevant to my end-goal of cessation of suffering. Anything I crave & cling to which is impermanent and not-self is suffering; its cessation is the cessation of that craving & clinging.

Why does evangelism, faith and scripture become irrelevant?

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Because you need a personal, direct encounter with your deity, as you yourself claim you possess. No amount of evangelism, faith, or scripture will substitute for that direct encounter.

What kamma do i need to experience a human state?

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It results from an admixture of skillful and unskillful causes.

But they are lesser beings like bacteria. How can we know them? Brahma is lesser than bacteria. You are greater than he, how could he create the world? A thing that may happen or be the case. Sounds like someone is not certain. So the earth was created by a lesser being called brahma. Why was it irrelevant before?

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I don't recall ever claiming this, so I don't understand your questions.

Is it true, If im bad kamma may dictates i could be a coakroach in my next life? How does one judge a cockroach as bad?

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It's not bad. It's simply the result of unskillfulness. Unskillful kamma (actions & behavior) produces unskillful results, like a roach, which has lesser abilities to escape suffering, ignorance, and delusion.

What does it mean 'to blow out the candle' or 'to blow away'?

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From a Buddhist perspective, the allusion refers to nibbana - the unbinding that cools the heat of suffering. The flame arises as a result of multiple causes (fuel, air, etc.), just as the being arises as a result of multiple causes (food, air, water, thought, etc.). Blowing out the flame causes the flame to cool as it ceases its clinging to its causes, just as the cessation of clinging and craving in a being causes the being to cool from its causes and sufferings.

AV1611VET said:

No, It can't.

And anyone attempting to do so would be attempting to do so in spite of the Bible, not with respect to It.

They might justify it to YOU, but those who actually know their Bible won't be fooled.

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I don't agree, but let's say for the sake of discussion your premise is true, how many Christians know their Bible? America is about 70% Christian, how many of them know it inside out?

As a side thought, The bible has been used to justify anti-Semitism, homophobia, and slavery but it's also been used to build arguments against all of those things. The reader can take away whatever they want with most readings of the Bible, especially if they have a robust theology that helps them tear it down in a way that prefer. Honestly I think that's a strength, Christianity can have 50,000+ denominations that all believe radically different things and still somewhat exist under the same banner. That's why you can have Antebellum Southern Christianity and radical left-communitarian Christianity and they're both Christianity, even if they look radically different.

AV1611VET said:

You're a true academian though.

That is, you don't make a distinction between what is done with respect to the Bible, and what is done in spite of the Bible.

All you're concerned about is the fact that it is done.

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Hey, thanks! In many ways that's probably true; especially since the Bible is used for all sorts of justifications, correctly or otherwise. There are still outcomes, and not a lot of great ones either.

AV1611VET said:

The counterpoint to the point you just made is that, despite these "30,000+ differences," every Christian that ever lived and ever will live believes IN THE BEGINNING GOD.

So if our similarities, which are a whopping ONE HUNDRED PERCENT agreement, don't make a difference -- (if it did, you wouldn't be a pagan) -- then don't harp on our differences as if they mean anything.

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If you change your goalposts on what constitutes a Christian then I think it is easy to come to that conclusion. Would you say, for example, that your similarities make you in 100% agreement with Mormons?

AV1611VET said:

I'm convinced that it's not what we say or do or believe that academians don't like -- it's what we are.

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Hmm, well that's hard to say. Everyone has their own opinion. I think for me, I am in opposition to Christian political goals more so than the religion itself. In the United States, conservative Christians have majority control over the government, so I am very mindful and politically active where it concerns the chipping away of secular rights. In the past couple of years I've become more politically active and aligned myself with non-theistic groups that align with me politically, since pagans are much fewer and less organized.

Not liking Christians for being Christian would be going too far for me; most of my family is Christian, my best friend is a Christian who first introduced me to the occult and true skepticism (and he remains Christian) and one of the few people in person I can have serious philosophical discussions with. There are lots of (often left-leaning) Christian organizations that appreciate the separation of church and state, scientific advancement and equality. I have nothing against them specifically because they are Christian. In fact, some of them have been very accommodating in entertaining my openly heretical beliefs, while being very polite. Heck, some of them are even on this forum. I don't dislike any of them or wish them ill will. That would run contrary to my own ethics.

AV1611VET said:

You have NEVER placed a curse on someone? or had it done?

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I do not believe in curses, though if I did I would not use them because they would betray my ethics. If they actually existed and had been done to me, I assume I would have had some measurable effect but so far nothing. I'll stick with continuing to believe they don't exist.

AV1611VET said:

I feel like I have to watch what I ask, or I'll get moderated like I did the last time.

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Yeah it's not fun, I try not to report posts since its not fun when it happens.

AV1611VET said:

I really don't like this section anyway, and I think I need to move on.

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Whatever is best for you, I wish you will.

AV1611VET said:

Wouldn't that be considered an exception to your law of three-fold reciprocity?

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The Rule of Three applies to the individual themselves, its somewhat comparable to karma. There's no exception to it because its not a rule to be broken, more like a principal to remind people that their actions have consequences.

AV1611VET said:

In other words, wouldn't it be okay to place a curse on me under those circumstances?

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Good ethical question, the answer is still no, because I do not believe in curses and if I did, I would think it is wrong. I would be angry, enraged, frustrated with the justice system, but I would try to channel this anger into political direct action. The American justice system is a disaster and needs reform as it is.

If I believed in curses and also adhered to my ethical system, it would be wrong for me to curse someone. Believe me, I would want to in moments of anger, but if I thought curses existed and actually did harm, I wouldn't do it. It wouldn't make me better than anyone else who seeks vigilante justice, even if it feels justified. Ethics systems have to work even when they make me personally uncomfortable. Nobody said that would be easy.

AV1611VET said:

Well it's certainly been nice chatting with you and awitch.

You guys are friendly chaps, and I didn't feel threatened at all with your replies and rebuttals.

I just wish though, you two wouild at least give this passage of Scripture ... my "life verse" ... a read.

Thanks to both of you!

Galatians 3:26 For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.

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Hey, thanks! It's been good discourse. Take care and be well.

Zoness said:

The Bible can be used to justify the same sort of extreme violence that the Quran is used for. Luckily, Western thought has largely stamped that out of Christianity but it could always resurge, especially in the global South with Christianity is growing. Presently we're contesting it with the Islamic world and it'll take generations to change but I'm hopeful over a long enough timescale it will.

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Hey hey zoness my dear

I see you like janes post quite alot, even ones which include logical fallacies! Show me how the bible can justify extreme violence?

Cheers

the iconoclast said:

Hey hey zoness my dear

I see you like janes post quite alot, even ones which include logical fallacies! Show me how the bible can justify extreme violence?

Cheers

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I generally agree with Jane's worldview, if not always the specifics, but definitely in a broad sense.

There's so many to address, and many of them deal with Israelite history. Man, I would not want to be neighbors with that country....

The men of Israel withdrew through the territory of the Benjaminites, putting to the sword the inhabitants of the city, the livestock, and all they chanced upon. Moreover they destroyed by fire all the cities they came upon. (Judges 20:48 NAB)

Anyone arrogant enough to reject the verdict of the judge or of the priest who represents the LORD your God must be put to death. Such evil must be purged from Israel. (Deuteronomy 17:12 NLT)

You should not let a sorceress live. (Exodus 22:17 NAB)

“If a man lies with a male as with a women, both of them shall be put to death for their abominable deed; they have forfeited their lives.” (Leviticus 20:13 NAB)

A priest’s daughter who loses her honor by committing fornication and thereby dishonors her father also, shall be burned to death. (Leviticus 21:9 NAB)

They entered into a covenant to seek the Lord, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and soul; and everyone who would not seek the Lord, the God of Israel, was to be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman. (2 Chronicles 15:12-13 NAB)

But if this charge is true (that she wasn’t a virgin on her wedding night), and evidence of the girls virginity is not found, they shall bring the girl to the entrance of her fathers house and there her townsman shall stone her to death, because she committed a crime against Israel by her unchasteness in her father’s house. Thus shall you purge the evil from your midst. (Deuteronomy 22:20-21 NAB)

From there Elisha went up to Bethel. While he was on his way, some small boys came out of the city and jeered at him. “Go up baldhead,” they shouted, “go up baldhead!” The prophet turned and saw them, and he cursed them in the name of the Lord. Then two shebears came out of the woods and tore forty two of the children to pieces. (2 Kings 2:23-24 NAB)

I can hear from this distance the clattering of keyboards preparing the defense of "the old testament does not matter" or "these passages are taken out of context". My quick rebuttal to the first if that the OT obviously matters for historical grounding on the NT, if you believe that Jesus is the messiah. To the second point I would say that it is not uncommon to build sermons on a single passage. Our congressmen regularly side defending Christian culture as a just cause for war. Regularly is it a case that hawkish foreign policy can be determined from a Christian grounding, especially when it comes to ideas of preserving a Christian identity.

I see you're from Burkina Faso, how is Burkina Faso? Africa would be an interesting travel destination.

The Catholics in Rwanda seemed to have quite a bit of blood on their hands, at least they apologized for it...

George W. Bush said that God told him to 'end the tyranny in Iraq' and of course we know that war caused more damage that anticipated and largely the reason Iraq is the way it is today.

Plus I don't think we need to talk about the Balkan wars where Catholic Croats, Serbian Orthodox and Bosnian Muslims all killed each other, I'm sure they were plenty capable of defending their choices with Biblical or Quranic texts.

I would not say that all Christians support this view. There are many pacifist Christians who endorsed nonviolence in the early centuries of Christianity, though the shift began after Roman Legalization. I want to make it clear that I do not think Christians are war hungry monsters, but I think a pastor tending a congregation could easily pitch a case that America is a modern Israel, a Christian nation that should war the unbelievers. Muslim extremists are all too willing to play along.

What do you think of this pastor @the iconoclast? He seems like has quite a following on YouTube. I think he is a good example of why one cannot ignore isolated Biblical passages about violence, even if they have historical context.

Zoness said:

What do you think of this pastor @the iconoclast? He seems like has quite a following on YouTube...

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Lol.. that guy is on the Drunken Peasants podcast a lot.. wish I could post some clips of them mocking him.. but they swear waaaayyy too much.. lol.

AV1611VET said:

Well it's certainly been nice chatting with you and awitch.

You guys are friendly chaps, and I didn't feel threatened at all with your replies and rebuttals.

I just wish though, you two wouild at least give this passage of Scripture ... my "life verse" ... a read.

Thanks to both of you!

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I thought it was nice, too.
Glad you didn't feel threatened; I'm pretty harmless.

Galatians 3:26 For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.

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That's OK with me.

Zoness said:

The reader can take away whatever they want with most readings of the Bible, especially if they have a robust theology that helps them tear it down in a way that prefer. Honestly I think that's a strength, Christianity can have 50,000+ denominations that all believe radically different things and still somewhat exist under the same banner.

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I think you have just uncovered the secret of Christianity''s longevity and success. Even in its most conservative incarnations, this world view has always adapted to changing socio-economic and political climates. Thus, it turned from a radical, egalitarian end times cult in the first century CE into an instrument of Roman statecraft and the powers-that-be in the 4th century.
Even its reformations and radical movements were either subverted in the long run, or else retroactively declared the face of TRUE Christianity if the change they demanded became the new status quo.
Churches and denominations that supported monarchies, slavery, the subjugation of women, anti-semitism, the death penalty, fascist regimes and many other unappetising phenomena will now gladly point to formerly maligned dissenters from their own ranks.

Let me make a prediction: fifty years from now, mainstream Christianity will embrace LGBT rights the same way it now treats interracial marriage, and insists that this was ALWAYS the face of TRUE Christianity.

the iconoclast said:

Hey hey zoness my dear

I see you like janes post quite alot, even ones which include logical fallacies! Show me how the bible can justify extreme violence?

Cheers

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I see you try to shame other posters for liking my posts.
How does the conquest of the Promised Land NOT qualify as extreme violence sanctioned and even COMMANDED by YHVH?

Jane_the_Bane said:

With such quote mining, even Stalin would look like a saint - especially if you used propaganda written by his followers to establish this. Deeds speak louder than words. The biblical deity as depicted in the Pentateuch is capricious, self-aggrandizing, and acts like an ancient middle-eastern king, brutally murdering thousands at the slightest whiff of suspected insubordination or disrespect. If Joshua's conquest of the holy land was more than a historical myth, it would qualify as the first recorded large-scale genocide and ethnic cleansing in history. They didn't even allow LIVESTOCK to live for fear of becoming "impure".

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Tell me, why is this wrong. Be elaborate, please, on how the Pentateuch God is such and such...

You are, after all, so gifted at speech; are you not?

Vollbracht said:

Tell me, why is this wrong. Be elaborate, please, on how the Pentateuch God is such and such...

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Name one reason why I should put so much effort and time into a correspondence with someone whose replies never exceed two to three sentences, tops.

Any entity who'd kill all the firstborn children of a nation as a demonstration of his "power" is a villain, *especially* outside of the realm of myth or story. Doubly so if he later orders his followers to murder even more infants in the name of "purity".

It takes an *extremely* biased and lopsided perspective to go through these books and conclude: "Yes, that is the embodiment of all that is good and just." Even philanderer Zeus never stooped to such cruelty, and he had a Titan chained to a rock and eaten alive by a giant vulture just for giving mankind the secret of fire.