so?!

i wish i were a bible scholar, but i'm not, but if i were i would love to engage you in some counterpoints to see what would come of it...any bible scholars out there?

i do wonder though, if it weren't the "god" thing causing strife among we humans, what else would we come up with? (not to stray from what you were saying but you know what i mean)

(any more words seem to have gone for now..sorry!)

it's just that i sometimes wonder, what really is the purpose of the bible. have we mis-taken it? (i mean in terms of understanding it)

agnes a;; humans are fruity when it comes to talkin bout God or the Bible..

Too much enphases is put into the good book. And which God is the most popular. I like Arlo's philosophy of 'Bring your own God" but even that can be a little confusing. My Mother taught Bible school, and she drove us all freakin nuts, with her storys....

My Mom went to Church EVERYDAY for the last 10 yrs. of her life... It was good for her, cause it gave her something to hang on too... ( I guess ) but she still drove us all nuts!!!!

Twords the end of her life, she sorta put her religion on the back burner. & really opened up her human side to us all..... ( I guess she had figured she had done enough praying for 10 people on her 80 yrs on the planet, whey waste anymore time praying ----- altho she died with her rosery beads clutched in her hands )

But I guess what I'm trying to get at, is the last few wks, she opened up a side of herself, that none of us got to see enough...... She was having this sence of humor, even telling a blue joke on occasion.... And she would say, Church, or her Rosery could wait..... It was like, we had found, a liberal, and funny, radical Mom, underneath all that 'Sunday Shcool teacher that drove us nuts. She was now telling storys, that she wouldn't dream of telling, before she got sick... Wierd really, and hard to put into words... I'm just glad we all got to see that side of her, before she died... We all said, we'd of never of believed it, coming from her....

It makes my memory of me Mom that much sweeter. I sorta wish she could of always been so liberal, and down to earth...

Piece out agnes
Rob

to me the bible is an interesting collection of stories, the old testament is the introspective conciousness of an entire race of people based on some truth and some fiction with a mythology and interpretation that helped them survive. but lets face it, their God was a War God, an intolerant War God, a jealous War God that grows sad and a bit vindictive as he loses War after War and the people blame themselves, and they point out over and over again their failures and inadequacies. Jesus turns that around and offers freedom from the struggles of life by lifting the religion to a different realm, a more Buddhist inspired God from the way I read it. A little less materialistic and Earth based alittle more enlightenment based. but that type of freedom was pure disaster and controls were imposed and standardization and eventually calcification into the Church of the Monarchy. then reformation, some enlightenment and still more war. Islam sprang from structures of Christianity modified slightly to conform to the needs of a different people and it evolved similar path.

To a huge percentage of the believing population HE is still a WAR God with the ability to sort the chosen out in the end, and he is still a jealous God! But to be fair, he is not the only source of mischief in the world. THere are other contributing factors that can cause War and Terrorism and Stuff. It is just that Judeo-Christian_Islam religion is such an influential confusion factor that makes me write these sad pathetic words today! Nothing I can do about it! President Bush says his little War will fix it if we just stay the course, he said it on TV last night (I didn't watch it but I heard about it).

rb and psb, i was so glad to come here and find all you've said...i really do appreciate your thoughts.

I too appreciate your thoughts and the fact that they are yours and not mine. Psychosis is a terrible condition to have, but fortunately, it is not contagious. Proximity to it can cause hysteria, which is easily transmissable, thus leading to mass hysteria, bloodshed, famine and war. Which kind brings us back to where this thread started, doesn't it?

Maybe we need to call the CDC before this get's outta hand...

P-

uh oh, Hostility, I don't want to fight! Later!

well, I'll bite a bit as long as it stays civil (people get emotional on this subject), exactly what leads you to psychotic diagnosis?

Well for one thing, the paranoia. I am not hostile.

Another point is your lack of a sense of humor .

P-

we could do this all day...no, you got no sense o' humor! no you don't! obviously you don't! i know I got no sense o' humor! me either! neither do i! i never said you did! did too! did not! did too! not! too! not! not! too!

where were we? don't anyone move!

it's cool!

i was talking today with folks about the miracle in stairwell B. how them firefighters in the tower slowed their progress to help that woman, and how when the North Tower collapsed they found themselves alive in a section of stairwell and in a moment the sunshined through and they had found that whole tower fell around them and they pulled themselves out on to the mound into the sunlight. One of the people I was talking to said "why, it is proof of God exits!"

paranoia will destroy ya!

But she is all forgiving, so not to worry.

hmm...can't help being a little paranoid...did you see the GWB/Matt Lower exchange...one of those guys is supposed to be the leader of the free (I use that term loosely) world...sorry...I guess I am dreaming...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephesus
http://www.ascension-research.org/mary.html
http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~gloria/Goddess.html

Shel, good to hear from you, the SHE reference was well, I expected it from you. If you noticed when i was writing i wrote HE a few times. It is because I am partial to the theories that the HE War God dominated conceptions of God developed as a replacement or alternative to the SHE dominated Goddess cults (like the one that built stonehenge to look like a giant Earth Vulva waiting for the sun to PENETRATE it on Miidsummer morning in a great fertility ritual (along with a grand procession that I will bet included some vestal virgins). But all is not bliss with the Goddess cults (the Black Kali in India and a tendency toward human sacrifice in the name of a death/birth cycle appeasement. Christianity is the only religion of the big three to accept an alternative feminine alter ego (Mary Cults) because of the Greek influence on its early development (Ephesus, the center of the Diana (Artemus) and later Mary cults. THe Catholic Church pronounced her direct ascension from Ephesus, the center of the Greek and Roman Goddess cults). If you think this is all old time hoo eee, it was only a while back that a stain created by a water leak into the cement of an overpass in Chicago created a huge media event because it looked like Mary (and in a different perspective a Giant Vulva or as I commented at the time around here, amazingly Georgia O'Keefian).

I found the Stairwell incident interesting and my colleagues remark interesting as well because I sat around watching miracle survival stories from that horrible incident and I would say 90% of them had survivors talking of last minute prayers and pacts with God right before a key incident that contributed to their survival. Now I am not doubting the sincerity with which these pacts and prayers were made nor any elation or feeling that they were answered and I am glad they were answered. But, the men who took control of those aircraft and flew them into those building also made a pact with God and their prayers were answered and my problem is that the explanation is that there are two God's involved and we are the pawns in a great God struggle or there is one God involved and who are we to question Gods purposes? And you can say God is not the issue but Gods name is thrown around by everybody involved including the playing over and over again of GOD Bless America sang on the capital steps on 911 2001.

Then their was GW and Matt on the TV. I thought that was highly entertaing television Goofus and all comments and opinions expressed were well reasoned and insightful!