Those who never heard about Jesus?

[shazeep]

Originally Posted by Antipas

Unitarian Universalists place emphasis on spiritual growth and development. The official statement of Unitarian Universalist principles describes the "sources" upon which current practice is based:

this seems much more...benevolent than Universal Dominion, for sure.

[shazeep]

Originally Posted by Antipas

Since you're so absolutely correct...

Knowledge inflates with pride, but love builds up. 2If anyone thinks he knows anything, he does not yet know it as he ought to know it.

[Jito463]

Originally Posted by Antipas

Since you're so absolutely correct about what it takes to be saved and to know God (at least, your conceptualization of him), perhaps we should all drop what we have believed and experienced and sit at your feet for further instructions? That way we might SEE. Is that what you desire?

Why should I heed you over Blume?

And perhaps it would be of value to know why Blume might admonish me to heed himself over you....

No response to my query?

[Antipas]

Originally Posted by Jito463

Oh, so Jesus didn't come to save us all, He came to tell the Jews that they wrong. And He had to die on a cross in a horrible manner, just to tell them they're wrong? Wow, seems there'd be an easier method than that.

Consciousness is a creative force. What we perceive, we experience. You perceive that I'm saying these things, when I'm not. Let's use the creative force of consciousness to shift this into a more real perspective so that you might truly understand what I'm saying.

Jesus (the One in Jesus) has come to save us all from alienating ourselves from him. While yes, Jesus testified that ancient Pharisaical Judaism was tragically errant, Jesus revealed the way of love that transcends all religious laws and traditions. This path of love is comprised of loving God and loving others. This raised the bar from religious rule keeping to having to evaluate all that we do through the lense of love, a superior ethic compared to any form of law keeping. Christ's death upon the cross has much theological significance for Christians (Atonement and Propitiation). But from a broader more global perspective, we see that God is willing to suffer anything to set us free from religious bondage that we might be our true selves under the umbrella of his unfailing love.

You see, you created a false reality that no doubt got your blood pumping and your fingers feverishly typing away. You created a problem, just to attack it. You really didn't contemplate the realities I was trying to explain to you. Frankly, you should have written this to someone else. Because it certainly didn't pertain to anything I had said.

Heck, He told Saul/Paul he was wrong, just by shining a bright light on him, and shouting at him from Heaven. Why couldn't He do that for the whole of Judaism?

If Jesus' death wasn't for salvation, exactly why did He have to suffer on the cross?

What I wrote above addresses this question also. I'll paste it here so that you don't have to scroll up to read it again....

Jesus (the One in Jesus) has come to save us all from alienating ourselves from him. While yes, Jesus testified that ancient Pharisaical Judaism was tragically errant, Jesus revealed the way of love that transcends all religious laws and traditions. This path of love is comprised of loving God and loving others. This raised the bar from religious rule keeping to having to evaluate all that we do through the lense of love, a superior ethic compared to any form of law keeping. Christ's death upon the cross has much theological significance for Christians (Atonement and Propitiation). But from a broader more global perspective, we see that God is willing to suffer anything to set us free from religious bondage that we might be our true selves under the umbrella of his unfailing love.

[Antipas]

Originally Posted by Jito463

No response to my query?

I apologize, I missed your post. I posted my response above.

[Antipas]

Originally Posted by mfblume

That's an excuse to not actually deal with what I asked.



You are taking an accusation that specifically dealt with Levi and Reuben's sin of murdering Shechemites, and applying it in some mystical way to how we handle religion?

Nope. You missed it entirely. Let's look at the text again....

Genesis 49:6
O my soul, come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly, mine honour, be not thou united: for in their anger they slew a man, and in their selfwill they digged down a wall.

That phrase is an error in translation. The phrase is largely based in a misinterpretation of the Hebrew "aqar" and "showr". While "aqar" can mean to "pluck up" or to "root up", it can also mean "to hamstring". Since what is being "digged down" is "showr" meaning "ox, bull, or cattle", the term "hamstrung" is obviously the correct translation of "aqar". As a result the text should read:


Genesis 49:6
O my soul, come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly, mine honour, be not thou united: for in their anger they slew a man, and in their selfwill they they hamstrung oxen.

This is a clear error that scholars admit to. It has been corrected in most more recent translations. This is only one example of limited human understandings of language contributing to errant translation within the text. Others have been found. And as with anything, if we know we have an error here and we know that we have other errors that have been corrected. Certainly, there may very well be more.

The translations we have of the Bible are not inerrant and neither is our understanding of them. I'd concede that if there ever were any "inerrant" Scriptures, they would only have been the autographs. And I'm sad to report, all original scripts are lost. All we have are the best translations of those original texts human translators and scribes can produce.

[thephnxman]

Originally Posted by Antipas

Since you're so absolutely correct about what it takes to be saved and to know God (at least, your conceptualization of him), perhaps we should all drop what we have believed and experienced and sit at your feet for further instructions? That way we might SEE. Is that what you desire?
Why should I heed you over Blume?
And perhaps it would be of value to know why Blume might admonish me to heed himself over you....

You should heed the words of the Lord Jesus, as well as the apostles
and prophets that the Lord has chosen, as Brother Blume, others here,
and myself have done.

"And some of the Pharisees which were with him heard these
words, and said unto him, 'Are we blind also?'
Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but
now ye say, 'We see'; therefore your sin remains."

[Antipas]

Originally Posted by thephnxman

You should heed the words of the Lord Jesus, as well as the apostles
and prophets that the Lord has chosen, as Brother Blume, others here,
and myself have done.

"And some of the Pharisees which were with him heard these
words, and said unto him, 'Are we blind also?'
Jesus said unto them, If ye were blind, ye should have no sin: but
now ye say, 'We see'; therefore your sin remains."

Yes, you are blind also.

Please entertain this scenario with me. What are you going to do when you die and the Light beckons to you to surrender ego and abandon all religious pretense and enter in? The reality before you will be so alien from what you believe the Scriptures to teach. What will be your response to the Light at that moment?

[Esaias]

Originally Posted by Antipas

I agree. Maybe I should have worded that better. Perhaps I should have said - Religious dogmas mean nothing when you have an experience.

Thank you for pointing that out.



Who is to say that we must agree? Might your truth be true for you and my truth true for me?

If something is true, it is true regardless if any, some, none, or all acknowledge it to be true. There is no such thing as relative truth, as in "true for you but not for me". 2+2=4 for both of us, even if I believe with all my heart that 2+2=5. In that case, I do not have an alternative truth, I simply have an error, ie a falsehood.

The word truth implies objectivity, not relativity. So "true for thee but not for me" is inherently a contradiction and a non-possibility. We may have different even contradictory opinions, but not truths. If something is a truth, that simply means it is factual and corresponds to reality. And therefore cannot differ from one person to another. Facts are, after all, facts.

Religion and metaphysics and ethics and philosophy and theology are a searching out of the facts, and drawing conclusions from those facts. If truth is relative, then there is no such thing as knowing - of any kind, except the delusional, illusory, non-reality kind.

For example, let's assume that your experience leads you to embrace reincarnation. Yet, my intuitive sense lends me to not embrace reincarnation. Should we battle it out over reincarnation, or might there be a reason why you were intuitively led along that understanding? Might the Divine Reality have reincarnation in store for you and not for me? Or might the topic be of more importance for you to examine at this time than it is for me?

Who determines the importance of a particular "life topic"? Who determines what life topics are to be explored, as you put it? Either reincarnation is a factual reality... or it is not. Even if reincarnation were selective (only certain people reincarnate) it would still be a fact. So either it exists... or it does not.

If it does, and I believe it does not, then I am deceived. And deception is inferior to knowing reality. If reincarnation is false, and yet I believe that it is true, then again my knowing does not correspond with Reality, and I am under a spell of delusion. And since knowing things as they are is superior in every way to "knowing" things as they are not (ie knowing truth is better than not knowing truth, and being deceived), then it follows that if we desire to know reality we will begin with the assumption that some things are true and their opposites are false, and that falsehood is to be rejected.

Why is a mistaken idea bad? Do we not learn many lessons from our mistakes? What if a mistaken idea is necessary for one of us to learn a series of very important lessons for our soul's development?

My previous paragraph answers that question.

[Antipas]

Originally Posted by Esaias

If something is true, it is true regardless if any, some, none, or all acknowledge it to be true. There is no such thing as relative truth, as in "true for you but not for me". 2+2=4 for both of us, even if I believe with all my heart that 2+2=5. In that case, I do not have an alternative truth, I simply have an error, ie a falsehood.

Being able to do simple math doesn't mean one is capable of proper spiritual discernment.

The word truth implies objectivity, not relativity. So "true for thee but not for me" is inherently a contradiction and a non-possibility. We may have different even contradictory opinions, but not truths. If something is a truth, that simply means it is factual and corresponds to reality. And therefore cannot differ from one person to another. Facts are, after all, facts.

Let's say that you're a painter painting a commissioned work outside a field and I'm the farmer who happens to own that field. Suddenly we're confronted with a summer rain storm.

Question:
Is it a good day or a bad day? What is the "truth"?

You might look at your ruined canvas and say that it is a terrible day. I may look at my crops and say it is a good day. And indeed, we're both right. The rain was bad for you and your canvas, but it was good for me and my crops. There is your truth and my truth.

Perception is reality. You can alter your reality by choosing to perceive it differently. For example, what if I told you that there is no such thing as "death"? In fact, I don't believe there is such a thing as death. I see what most of our society calls death is a moment of transformation. It is when our soul leaves the body a butterfly leaves a cocoon. We do not die, therefore, there is no death. However, if you firmly believe in the dark and dreary concept of death that is so prevalent in our society, that is what you will experience as you die. I will be filled with joy at my transformation.

Religion and metaphysics and ethics and philosophy and theology are a searching out of the facts, and drawing conclusions from those facts. If truth is relative, then there is no such thing as knowing - of any kind, except the delusional, illusory, non-reality kind.

Truth and fact are two very different things. For example, let's look at the story of, The Boy Who Cried Wolf....

There was once a shepherd-boy who kept his flock at a little distance from
the village. Once he thought he would play a trick on the villagers and have
some fun at their expense. So he ran toward the village crying out, with all
his might,--"Wolf! Wolf! Come and help! The wolves are at my lambs!"

The kind villagers left their work and ran to the field to help him. But when
they got there the boy laughed at them for their pains; there was no wolf
there.

Still another day the boy tried the same trick, and the villagers came running
to help and got laughed at again. Then one day a wolf did break into the fold
and began killing the lambs. In great fright, the boy ran for help. "Wolf!
Wolf!" he screamed. "There is a wolf in the flock! Help!"

The villagers heard him, but they thought it was another mean trick; no one
paid the least attention, or went near him. And the shepherd-boy lost all his
sheep.

What truth is taught here? That if you are given to lying and exaggeration no one will believe you, even if you're one day telling the truth. Now, the story is filled with moral truth. But this story is not based on "fact". This boy probably never existed, nor the wolf, or the villagers. It is expresses truth, but not fact. For just a moment, imagine if God Himself inspired the story. Would it be any less sacred or it's truth any less important, even though it is not a "fact"?

I'll address the rest of your post as soon as time permits.