Look at this....

What is Atheist? Certainly not this : http://www.atheistagenda.org/porno-for-bibles/

Well said Deepak!

My daughter 5 years of age, once asked me of Jesus. And I was telling her how he was crucified.

But Dad, if he was loving why did they kill him?

I thought.. and all I could say was - because they hated love!

If He was to come today, Deepak, I am convinced that those who swear by Him, will be the first to quieten him.

Man does not fight man. Hatred fights Love. Love just is.

Jesus was complete love. And in his Love you cannot "love" one and hate the other.

Desh
Drishtikone.com

That’s the Deepak many of us like and maybe even need!

It is a sad fact that Christianity holds such intolerance towards other religions. It must get changed. But when I spoke against the idol worship (of any kind, in any religion - for that matter eveb Christianity has a form of idol worship), in my blog it was seen as an attack on Hinduism and someone even called me a 'fundamentalist'. :-) I do not understand when did people start taking one's opinion on the basis of his/her religion.

We live in a society where everything is seen in the basis of religion. Its getting deeper and deeper, day after day.

nice post !!!
most of the religions are hijacked ..fundamentalists search for gods who demand vengence and holy wars..god who punishes the non belivers and sends them to hell..
may be when we start lookin at the founders of the religions as spirutual people with lots of love in their hearts who wanted to share their knowledge ...we can shape the world into a more liberal and less threatened place

Deepak,

Great topic. Jesus the divine one Being a compassionate radical opposed to the status quo and the finite minded.

I suppose you did not read.

Sirius The FBI Agent and The Fish Company

http://iamblogging.net/Urgo/archives/2004/10/sirius_the_fbi.html

Will a divine minded revolutionary return?

It starts like this and was published of course almost a year ago to date by that mysterious Urgo Diamu character.

Disguised as the computer guy, Sirius worked diligently as an agent for the FBI, that would be the Federal Bureau of Instigation. (read that twice). An organization established by the universal federation for the enhancement of conscious experience wherever it may find it’s Self.

There have been many agents through time. A couple thousand years ago, one showed up on the scene and found ....

Laughing out Loud.

Where do you think Jesus has Gone Dear Brother?

If I throw a hand full of dust outside on my path and go back 2 days later the dust is no longer there, where has that gone?

The Body of Jesus has gone just like the dust goes, but that which is really Jesus, the spirit has gone nowhere, it exists everywhere.

If you meditate for long enough you will experience a sensation of none location, this sense of none location is an awareness that you get when your conciousness expands wider than that of the Body Mind, when in this state there is no question of where you are because location is not relevent any longer. Jesus the man was just Dust and water, Jesus the enlightened one is everpresent and is not bound to location.

The idea of Jesus returning is not relevent because Jesus has not gone anywhere, he just got up on the stage to act out his scene and now he is back in the audience watching the play.

I have to sort of disagree with you.

I don't believe in Bible or any religious text for that matter. Let us say we take bible literally and let us assume that Jesus is coming. I would say it will be the best thing to happen. he should come and tell all the evangelicals that their interpretation of Bible is wrong. As long as it doesn't happen, these guys are going to continue in the same way.

Deepak,

The phenomena that you describe in fundamentalist Christiantiy is no different from fundamentalist Islam or fundamentalist Hindusim . Fundamentalism itself seems like a politically driven agenda, no matter which religion. Its an effecive way of controlling the masses, and it seems have worked for the rich and the powerful. Whats happening in the US is no different.

In this context the book by Dan Brown on Da Vinci Code, speculates a probably scenario of what may have happened after Jesus Christ's death.

Your basic assumption, that Jesus was an actual person who lived on this Earth, is the one most flawed here. At this point, even if he did exist (which is highly unlikely), Jesus is merely a symbol with different meanings to everybody. Look at all the different religious groups that worship Jesus - from truly benevolent caring people to fanatical killers. If Jesus was real, and his teachings were real, then there would not be so many radically different ideas about his teachings.

The problem is, no one in the mainstream media (including this blog) even entertain the idea that we MAY have created the gods, and the religions that they are founded on, and that there is nothing out there to worship. Everyone (for fear of retribution from the religious/political machinery) panders to all the religious groups, always afraid to offend.

Well, the truth is that organized religion is the cause of most of the pain and suffering in the this world, past and present. You can talk about the love you felt from Jesus as a child, but someone else can read the same bible and decide that it is necessary to kill doctors and discriminate against homosexuals. This is what organized religion brings - a rock solid tool for causing hatred and war between people who ARE ALL ESSENTIALLY THE SAME! The people of this world all experience the same feelings, have largely the same needs, yet we destroy ourselves and our future because of an imaginary man in the sky. How insane is this?

I wish that the media would, when discussing religion, at least acknowledge the fact that it could all be just invented by us to alleviate our fear of the unknown. In many cases, religious practice gets in the way of people doing good things. Just think; what would happen if everyone in the US went and did one hour of charitable works a week instead of going to church? What a difference that would make to our country, not to mention the billions of dollars that would be put back in the consumer's pocket and not in the collection plate.

My point is, religion is at the core of many of the world's problems, and we should be addressing that instead of lending them credibility by assuming they are all true. Remember, there were thousands of gods that were worshipped before the current crew - where are they now?

EricJP

"The dike, the boy, the sea of truth" is very interesting.

http://iamblogging.net/Urgo/archives/2004/10/the_dike_the_bo.html#comments

So are all the posts here,

http://iamblogging.net/Urgo/archives/2004/10/index.html

obviously one caused the rise in gas prices when "they" realized Americans paid more for sugar water than gas.

Santosh, very well said. I just echoed similar views in the open thread.

Dear Deepak:

I'm glad you wrote this today, can't really say I disagree with it a lot. I do disagree with the premise, that if a person is a fundamentalist they are a narrowminded, bigoted, warmongering person. On this premise, you're putting on the mantle of those you're chasitising, intolerant...and so forth...but that's OK...it's your blog!!

The reason I'm glad you wrote, I've been wanting to write a farewell note today, and wasn't sure where to post it. Since I usually write in response to your posts, I'm really glad you posted this today.

I've enjoyed much of the time I've spent here on intentblog, reading, writing, yelling, :)....
Today is my last day of participation for a while, possibly forever. I'm in a period of my life where I'm very busy, trying to build 2 businesses at the same time. Because of that, I need to be 'on' almost all the time. Staying in contact with this blog is keeping me from doing that. I came here for help spiritually, primarily from your writings, but you have chosen to go a different direction than I anticipated, and that's fine, everyone needs an outlet, and I respect your right to search out yours. Since you've decided to turn this into 'huffpo' lite, I'm finding myself becoming emotionally invested, in dissenting opinions. That, is my fault, no one else's....but since it seems to be hindering my focus on what I really need to be focused on right now...I'm signing off.

Deepak, thanks for your wonderful books, I read them and will continue to. I love you man, just vehemently disagree in political matters.

Gotham, I've enjoyed your humor, thanks.

Mallika, who wouldn't love you, sweetness personified.

David, out in the Washington woods, if you read this...you're great...good luck in your searching.

Scott and Kristin...what a great couple, wish I could meet you personally...stay balanced...Scott, I'm pretty secure in who I am, but sometimes I envy your intellect and ability to project your thought processes...

Ron, I've enjoyed our 'repartee'...take care of those beautiful babies...

Krish...I didn't like you at first, now I do... kinda like coffee...an acquired taste!!!:) Wish I could meet you also....we'd probably like each other....

Richard Thomas...when I see your name...my head starts spinning!! You're either brilliant or nuts!!! I mean that affectionately!!

Divya...if I had your intelligence...I'd run for President myself!! I've hung on your every word, even that with which I've disagreed. I believe I remember you saying that someday you want to go back to India to do charity work, good luck with that dream! (if that wasn't you, I apologize!)

Kavita Chhibber....I love your writings, I check out your website often. Sweetness, beauty and brains...what a combo!!!

Dulcie, love your voice of reason!! Keep it up!

Ruth, we are on opposite sides of the spectrum, but I enjoy reading what you write, thanks..

I've left out a lot of people, but have attempted to name those that I've engaged on here or who have been around since the beginning. I believe I came here the first or second day, some of you were already here, I've enjoyed it!!

Hope y'all have a Merry Christmas!!! If you're ever coming through northern Kentucky, and see a big, homely fellow, with a big smile on his face... stop and talk to him....it just might be....

Norm

EricJP

"The problem is, no one in the mainstream media (including this blog) even entertain the idea that we MAY have created the gods, and the religions that they are founded on, and that there is nothing out there to worship. Everyone (for fear of retribution from the religious/political machinery) panders to all the religious groups, always afraid to offend."

Very well said.

Exactly Simon,
Ramana Maharshi while dying told his devotees,
"Where will I go?"

Krish, I think you will like this:

After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with colour, bountiful with life. Within decades we must close our eyes again. Isn't it a noble, an enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it? This is how I answer when I am asked -- as I am surprisingly often -- why I bother to get up in the mornings. To put it the other way round, isn't it sad to go to your grave without ever wondering why you were born? Who, with such a thought, would not spring from bed, eager to resume discovering the world and rejoicing to be a part of it?
-- Richard Dawkins, excerpt from Chapter I, "The Anaesthetic of Familiarity," of Unweaving the Rainbow: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder (1998)

norm,

I am feeling really sad that you are leaving. All the best with your ventures. I am sure you are going to be successful. One day when you get spare time, I hope to see you here. Good Luck once again. take care buddy.

Dear Deepak....it's people like you, Dalai lama and many others who have shown to the world the dark side of religion and human mentality as such, which has always existed and will.

You've been a MASTER on this subject really. When you know it all thoroughly well what lies at the roots of human nature (Your htkg being a Classic). Why wud you think Dear Deepak that history will not be repeated time after time? It's another story that "Do we fold our hands and watch nature unfold its cycle?"

I remember you pointing out what Real christianity was and how it was tampered on its way since its inception. How many wud even give you an ear for that? The third Jesus which the Spiritual people are so fond of, wudn't we want to see that Awareness in most of us? But religion has deep roots and is mostly about Ownership and a rigid path. My God and your God, mine is better than yours..oh sorry only mine actually exists and yours is a fake one! Right? Wars in the name of religion!! Who better Dear Deepak than you to know at depth and talk about that Subject. How deep rooted it is in the mass human population, you've talked at length in your earlier yrs of teaching. Btw Deepakji...I still remember some of your lectures of your earlier yrs, it comes to my mind often. I simply Love that Deepak!!! The things which you talked about then...They were/are just golden principles of Life, which would hold good for very long time, if not ever.

Time will show us clearly which of the three Jesus would reign over the other two.

Love...Sachin

Jesus was obvioulsy waiting for the Internet to happen which 2000 years.

Jesus said he would return from the Air.

Perhaps the Internet is "The Air" intelligence?

http://infiniteplaythemovie.com/from_the_air.aspx

Suppose that could mean that his "Essence" would be found in the communications of the world.

Or perhaps he did pop down again from an intersteller craft.

Or maybe there are multiple instances of the Divine Mind walking.

Thanks Skeptisch. A nice one indeed.

Hi Deepak,

U sure know how to rake up people's peaceful minds with attention grabbing Titles...Is Shekar Kapur's or ShahRukh's influence rubbing off on you ;-)

Nice write up and a nice blog. Any updates soon on the progress of your Games JV venture or is it s stealth project?

Regards,
Madhu

Dear Deepak,

This is a fascinating topic for me. I have been slowly working my way through Paramahansa Yogananda's "The Second Coming of Christ: ressurection of the Christ within you". It's a wonderful two volume set. Basically it is the New Testament interpretted through the eyes of Yogananda. A wonderful book that has reinterested me in the beliefs of my youth, but allowed me to see those beliefs that I had rejected, with softer eyes. The books really look at the return of CHrist as the awakening of the Christ within each of us...it has nothing to do with a physical reappearence of Jesus the man. Which in light of where the world is today is a wonderfully hopeful image.

Fundamentalist Christians have "wielded" Christ like he was some kind of a weapon and the personal property of a "select few" that know his "secrets". I've always been confused by the support of the death penalty by people that worship a man who, while in the Garden of Gethsemane healed a man that was bringing him to his death. The message of Jesus the man and Jesus the archetype has never been anything but one of peace and love.

Peace,
Scott.

Hey Norm!

Sorry to see you go. Maybe stop in now and again and say 'hi'. I understand your need to refocus your attention of Spiritual matters. We all have a need to do that at different times in our lives and this is yours.

Kristin and I would love to meet you and your family some day...maybe it will happen, who knows?

God bless and much love to you and your family.
Scott.

EricJP,

We know that Jesus was a real person the same way we could find out if you were real, by things like Birth and death records as these were recorded in his time as they are now.
Also without going in to to much detail as there are lots, there are many sources of information found all over the world some of it eye witness testement that there was a man called Jesus who lived in the time scale relevent and who had a great deal of spiritual awareness.

I dont think there are many people who would disagree with you about what this mans teachings and his beliefs have been used for by others over the last couple of thousand years. It is fairly obvious to me that religion and the people whom the religion is based around are completly seperate thing entirely.

I am about to say something and this may offend or make a lot of people laugh or become very angry but it is true..... There are people today alive on this planet now who are the same way that Jesus is described in the bible. Enlightened beings are all over the earth right now.

Good luck Norm, you have shown us how to “agree to disagree”!

Norm,

The word is Eccentric, but not so much that I couldn't work for a large CPA firm doing technology consulting and wearing suits with the oxygen deprivation based neck attire. They would bill me out at $180.00 hour at one point. Of course that ended when the economy tanked, and I only got a small portion. IBM would quote 10 million I would get it done for 1 million.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eccentricity_%28behaviour%29

Dear Deepak,

Thank you for this post. We are lucky to be living in an age where information like this post is available to anyone and everyone. One advantage of modern society and the Internet is that information and Truth is readily available and spreads relatively quickly. Thus, making it much easier for the "third" Jesus to emerge. (I do concede that falsehood is also more available). However, now it is much more difficult for people and some sects to continue to propagate lies and to "own" Jesus.

Additionally, books like the DaVinci Code, A Course in Miracles, Disappearance of the Universe etc. (whether you agree or disagree with their ideas) are at least causing people to rethink what Jesus' role really is, the deeper meaning of his life, and what his true teachings are.

I think that because of the spread of new information the third Jesus will eventually become more prevalent and over time people will begin to see Jesus as a great teacher and healer who came into the world to show humanity its beauty and potential, rather than He just being a source of dogma to be owned. This shift in consciousness may be part of "Jesus coming back".

I have noticed recently Bob Fisher that you have a great deal of real understanding and you have named some truely enlightened teachers.

It is tough isn't it?

LOL

Oh and Norm, it has been nice reading you. I should actually apply the discipline you are, because I am neglecting things I should really be doing. I would love to write and generate revenue someday but that is not the case today.

I wish there was a save the world job position.

There are many fine minds here and everyone has at some time made a very good point and it is a bit addictive.

I am not ready to go cold turkey yet but I can feel it coming.

Cheers,
Norm

(I know you will be back)

Simon_Freeman

Actually, there is virtually no historical record at all for Jesus having ever existed, and those that do exist have been discounted even by the Vatican.

I don't have all my research here with me, but here are a few facts:
1) There is no record of a city called Nazereth existing during the time of Jesus.
2) Mary and Joseph were allegedly travelling for a census, yet there is no record of either of them in in this census information.
3) During the time of Jesus, there were many scholars and historians in Jerusalem - it was the mecca of intellectualism of the time. Why is there no historical record of Jesus at all until over 40 years after his alleged death?
4) Pontus Pilate was a meticulous record-keeper, especially regarding criminals and executions. There is much historical information proving this. If this were true, why is there nothing at all in his writings about crucifying the 'king of the jews', which would have been a significant issue in his day.
5) None of the gospels are a first-hand account of Jesus' life. If has been proven that all of them were written at least 50-75 years after his alleged death.
6) Jesus was supposed to have performed incredible miracles in front of many people. Why is there nothing at all in any historical record that corroborates his alleged acts? The sermon on the mount & the loaves and fishes should be the stuff of legend, yet it is not mentioned anywhere, and there aren't even any oral accounts to follow.

So, no agreed upon historical record, anywhere, no physical evidence, nothing but the bible which was written a full generation after he was supposed to have lived. This is not evidence in any way, shape or form.

But, as I said, it doesn't matter if he lived or not because even if he did, his message has been lost, and his image used to sell everything from salvation to commorative plates.

EricJP

He you guys should check out the sample Marianne Williamson's sample video, it actually is more than a sample it is 8 minutes and actually has the answer to Deepaks question if we keep in mind perhaps Christ rather than Jesus.

Go to her home page and click Video Sample.

http://marianne.com/

See if there is an insight in there for you, and Norm the thing you were looking for might be there in the Video.

Okay I am out of here.

Norm,

It has been short but sweet, wishing you the best in everything you do. Leave the door open and take a peek in the blog once in a while...peace and love to you..ruth

Hello Deepak and Everyone,

Jesus, what hasn't been said about him..The world longs for...everyone longs for.....the "Saviour". It is understandable. I longed for...I longed to be seen, to be understood, to be loved and then something wonderful happened...I saw, I understood, I loved..MY SELF, the SELF that Jesus referred to when he said "Love thy neighbor as thy SELF", if only he could have been a little clearer on that SELF part is would have made things a lot easier on us ..I long no more, I enjoy. The world has the longing part right, it is what they are longing for that is trippin them up! They'll get it, someday!..ruth

From what I've gathered about Jesus, the more you believe in him the less tolerant you are of those who don't believe in him. This is the fundamental flaw in the religion. What the west has managed to carve out for itself, via secularism, is the concept of civic tolerance. But Christianity is incapable of tolerating rival religions. If the Church was to take the offical stance that Ramana Maharishi is equal to Jesus, it would in effect commit suicide. The religion is built around one God and his only son and there is no room for other objects of worship. Notice the careful choice of the word "tolerance". This is the best they could come up with. They are not allowed to express "respect" for other religions. That would be sacrilege.

The other basic flaw with Christianity is its assertion of "truth" claims. The Bible is the word of God and it is God's truth. Everything else is mythology. Challenging the bible is equal to challenging God's word. By contrast, Hinduism does not make any truth claims about the world so it is wrong to suggest that all fundamentalism is the same. For every assertion in a Hindu story, there is an opposite assertion as well. Which of these can one consider the fundamentals of the tradition?

It is quite useless to hope for the Jesus of your dreams. The best we can do is spread awareness of the nature of religion and the limiting effect it has on one's life.

“Well, the truth is that organized religion is the cause of most of the pain and suffering in the this world, past and present”.

EricJP, there are many of us who think like you do and we do have some pretty impressive company!

"Faith is powerful enough to immunize people against all appeals to pity, to forgiveness, to decent human feelings. It even immunizes them against fear, if they honestly believe that a martyr's death will send them straight to heaven".
-- Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene

Norm - I know what you mean as I often feel I too am in alien territory here at Intent but it's worthwhile to offer dissenting opinions, imo. Now that the traffic has increased on this site, I just read and participate in a few of the blogs - that's one way to manage.

Thank you for your good wishes and I wish you all the best too.

Jesus was as rebellious as you can get. He rebelled against the norm and befriended lepers and outcasts. Upon rising on the third day after his death, who is the first person he appeared to? Mary Magdalene. We can see the deep bond that they shared. Yet it took the Catholic Church until sometime in the 1960's to apologize for LYING and saying that Mary Magdalene was the same "Mary" who was a prostitute--even though they were two different Marys. My opinion--when people twist religion to suit their own purposes and to support the hatred of others, they are doing so quite consciously--just as the church lied about the true identitiy of Mary Magdalene so that they could have men take over the church.

Jesus was Jesus--a true noncomformist--you can't "use" his teachings to support status quo bullshit, and yet it is done all the time. The world needs to take a closer look at Jesus and things would improve drastically. The church is full of so much crap I can't believe it--to imply Jesus did not find a near spiritual equal with Mary Magdalene while insisting that his cowardly disciples (who were all men) should set the precedent for the priesthood (only men allowed) has driven me away from the religion. Yet I still like Jesus!

EricJP,

There are plenty of agnostic or even atheist scholars that might disagree with you concering the existence of an historical Jesus.

Having said that, I would completely agree with you that man has created God...or at least the many images of God. Those images are static, manifest archetypes that allow individuals to momentarily let go of their individuality and surrender to the Universe. As space/time events, or manifest beings we cannot conceive of the infinite so we "lock" down some aspect of God as an image to surrender to.

The REAL God is impossible to codify and impossible to see. Even those that say that they see God in their mirror are flawed because the mirror too is God, the light that refracts from the mirror to the eye is God, so too is the mind that interprets it all the way down to the sub-atomic particle. Everything that is and especially that which is not is also God. God is unmanifest and therefore indefineable. Science can't prove the existence of God because Science can only define the rules...it can't explain why the rules are there. So we use SPirituality or religion to attempt to answer that question. That is the the only hint at the existence of the Divine; without Consciousness the rules could not be there to be defined by science. Without binding Consciousness the Universe would be chaos.

Religion, Spirituality, Philosphy...all of it is an attempt to explain to a finite mind the infinite. Of course once one attempts to codify the infinite it is now finite...it becomes a Space/Time event and is no longer unmanifest.

God can only be experienced, never explained.

Simon_Freejohn -

"There are people today alive on this planet now who are the same way that Jesus is described in the bible. Enlightened beings are all over the earth right now."

I completely concur.

Peace,
Scott.

Divya, as you can see, I am a Richard Dawkins admirer. Here is one of his thoughts on religion.

My last vestige of "hands off religion" respect disappeared in the smoke and choking dust of September 11th 2001, followed by the "National Day of Prayer," when prelates and pastors did their tremulous Martin Luther King impersonations and urged people of mutually incompatible faiths to hold hands, united in homage to the very force that caused the problem in the first place.
-- Richard Dawkins, The Devil's Chaplain (2004)

Christians in America, as in, people who predicate their lives upon the teachings of a man named Jesus Christ?

Sorry: ALL SOLD OUT!

EricJP,

I have always wondered if Santa clause was a real person any chance you could research that for me aswell?.

The fact is that the descriptions of Jesus are obviously not concrete as it was so long ago and the storey of his life have became long since diluted.

The Bible is Historicaly Inacurate in a lot of places, it is also very accurate in many places and could well stand up as evidence of the existence of Jesus.

Pontius Pilot is documented as being a man who would not tolerate any political uprisings of any kind against Roma and dealt with people swiftly who may cause any form of upheaval.
It is thought by many scholars that Pilot had wanted Jesus out of the picture very quickly and him out of the minds of the people, which ovcourse did not happen EVENTUALLY.

Jesus is spoken about in Eygpt, India, The Middle East, and even in China during his life time or recently after his death and eventually he is known the world over. This man had such an effect on the people who he came into contact with that his name spread to the furthest reaches of the known world.

all the research in the world can not dispute the existence of him, Jesus was not the Son of God he was an Enlightend man, he was someone who had discovered the truth about the Human condition. Many of the people I have practiced with and learned from over the years and have known the energy of Jesus, say that Jesus traveled to India some time in his 20's and there he recieved something which is some times refered to as "Shaktipat" from a great sage that was teaching there at the time. Shaktipat is when an enlightened master/teacher touches their student or looks at them and the student gains immediate enlightenment from the masters grace. This is how Jesus had the understanding and love he displayed, he had been enlightened in India.

GReat posts...Hundreds & thousands of Jesuses have come and gone, Rabbis, saints, artists, poets, nobodies, just had different names & looked different, but spoke the same language. The language of Love and kindness, compassion & forgiveness..

We're just too pre-occupied to notice, pre-occupation the occupation of our entire civilization.

www.swaroopkanchi.blogspot.com

Scott,

Yes, there are strong arguments for and against a historical Jesus, but even if you can prove that he was a man, it is still necessary to prove that he is god as well. The point I am attempting to make is that the religious are so damn sure of themselves and their faith when it all sits on such fragile foundations.

If, as you said, science explains what and spirituality/religion/philosophy explains why, my question is this; what if there is no why? What if things are the way they are because things happened to occur that way? Why does everything have to be explained? Enlightenment is not about knowing everything about god and the universe; it is about learning about yourself

If there is a god, i am sure that he would more respect a person who openly questions his existence while leading a good life than the person who is devout and commits all sorts of atrocities in his name. In that context, I feel that we humans have, in general, diverted from the true path to enlightenment and instead are moving towards our own destruction. Any god that would have created this world for us, his alleged 'children' would not want to see us destroy it in his name.

I like the way you believe that everything is god. If you replace 'god' with 'universe' or some other similarly non-theistic name then you and I are very much on the same page.

I don't claim to have all the answers, but like a baseball umpire, I call 'em like I see 'em. And to me, organized religion is no different than the snake oil that the traveling salesmen hawked years ago.

EricJP

Okay I am powerless I admit that. One more comment.

dulcie, I agree with you.

Hey what if Jesus came back as a female? God is quite clever.

Or what if Mary a female played the star role this time around and Jesus just did a supporting role?

Would that get the church upset?

How would they crucify Jesus today?

Would it be like the attacks on Deepak?

Again I suppose it is the Christ in us that has returned.

~Richard Thomas

Simon_Freejohn,

You state nothing that proves or disproves the existance of Jesus. How do you know that people spoke of Jesus during his death and recently afterwards? The only evidence is the historical record, which shows NOTHING until many years after his death.

You made one statement which proves my point completely; 'all the research in the world can not dispute the existence of him'. With this statement, you have shown that you are not willing to listen to any reason or rational thought, that your ability to reason has been corrupted.

This pattern of thought, that the bible (or any other religios book) is inerrant is what causes great wars and the death and suffering of millions of people.

EricJP

Eric,

I agree with you. In fact I use the term Universe interchangeably with God all the time. I am not attached at all to the label. And I agree that much violence has been done in the name of religion. My post also attempts to point out (probably poorly) that the Universe/God is completely unexplainable by a finite mind, only that religion and spirituality etc. attempt to do so...that is a human trait.

Actually, your question is a correct statement more than a question: "Things are the way they are because things are the way they are" (that's very Tantric...you would enjoy reading Osho I think).

We're on the same page Eric.

Peace,
Scott.

Eric,

One more thing I forgot to add. Religion, or philosphy or money or whatever is not responsible for the worlds suffering. Attachment to those things is responsible. The devil is in the details.

Peace,
Scott.

Hello All,

Here is my opinion of what Dr. Chopra is bringing to this blog, that is an alternative to western based Judeo Christian values. His arguments are couched in terms of the most basic and frankly most viceral terms. By saying "Fundamentalist", this is meant to invoke a strong response, almost like saying look who we are dealing with -vigilante gun toting bigots, see how awful they are. The truth is "fundamentalists" at least in the U.S. are mainstream Christians who cherish a value system based on the teachings of Jesus from the New Testament and in most cases the values found in the Old Testament.

The Jesus of the east that many have discussed here is as I see it, an overlay of eastern perspective, which is quite admirable, but it's just that. We can love a Jesus as long as he is looked at as some sort of benign Yogi, hey who wouldn't enjoy that view?

I would like to share a quote from someone I greatly admire who brings a lot of clarity regarding what exactly is going here, a great battle, even a war of ideologies. Dr. Chopra has taken on a mantle to fight for his brand of ideology, and perhaps this is what he is all about, below the surface , below the teachings of Love and Light, and everything nice is someone who to his own admission understands Power. We all read that, and now he is asserting this power with these very interesting blogs.

Well enough preaching, I hope you enjoy Pragers' perspective, Amba

"I would like to constrast Judeo-Christian values only with leftist values: secularism, liberalism, socialism, humanism, environmentalism.

I have done so for two reasons.

First, secular and leftist values are the dominant values of most of the world's elites. If the editors of the major newspapers of the world assembled, they would agree on almost every moral and social issue. The same holds true for the world's academics, whether from America, Latin America, Europe or Asia.

Second, secular/leftist values are the only viable alternative to Judeo-Christian values.

At this moment, there are three ideologies competing for humanity's acceptance: secular and leftist, Judeo-Christian and Islam.

But Islam is not currently in the battle for men's minds. Outside (and even inside) the Muslim world, it gains power largely through force. There are non-Muslims who convert to Islam out of sheer conviction, but in general, when Islam gains a foothold or actually attains power in a non-Muslim society, it is either through force or threats of force -- e.g., Sudan, Thailand, the Philippines, Nigeria; or through a large immigration of Muslims -- e.g., Western Europe. Its contemporary spread is not due to the power of its intellectual appeal, let alone the record of its contemporary social and moral achievements.

There was a time when Islam appealed to non-Muslims' intellects, and it may one day again. But today, it competes with Judeo-Christian values and leftist ones primarily because of the power of its numbers and of its violent elements.

In our time, only secular/leftist values compete with Judeo-Christian ones on the intellectual battlefield. There really are no other viable doctrines to guide mankind at the beginning of the 21st century. And this is unfortunate. For one thing, despite my belief in the superiority of Judeo-Christian values, competition is always healthy. For another, I am worried that a vast segment of mankind does not have any strong moral code.

One theoretical alternative is Eastern religion. Having studied Buddhism under a prominent Buddhist, I came to respect Buddhist and related Eastern thought. Some of its insights (such as having few or no expectations) have benefited me greatly, and I cite them in my book on happiness.

But Buddhism and related Eastern value systems are not contenders for shaping humanity. On the practical level, Buddhism is losing ground to secularism even in Asia. And in the West, a minuscule percentage of the population takes it seriously and in a form often so Westernized as to be unrecognizable to its Asian practitioners. On a philosophical level, Buddhism is more of a philosophy designed to enable the practitioner to achieve enlightenment than a societal way of life to combat evil and promote good.

Then there is -- or was -- Communism, Marxism, Marxism-Leninism and Stalinism. They seduced much of the West's intelligentsia, just as leftist ideas do today. That seduction is what led George Orwell to write that some ideas were so stupid only intellectuals could believe them. But since the collapse of the Communist regimes of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, they hold much less attraction than they once did. Some in Hollywood still idolize Fidel Castro, and Che Guevara is chic among the morally neutered, but Marxism is not a viable alternative for humanity.

So we are we left with Judeo-Christian values and secular left values. The latter, as noted, hold sway among the world's elites. But they are personally so unfulfilling and morally so confused that they cannot work. Western Europe will hopefully awaken to this fact as its socialist economies fail and as it realizes that you cannot fight faith (radical Islam) with no faith (secularism).

That leaves Judeo-Christian values.

It is urgent that the case be made. Much of humanity has little by way of a religious/moral foundation. Many of the more than a billion Chinese, for example, have some ancestral emotional ties to Confucianism, but with each passing year, those ties weaken. And a combination of strident nationalism and a rapacious money-making ethic are replacing it. That is a frightening amoral combination.

The Judeo-Christian value system is not only the best value system for humanity; it is the only viable one. If we do not promote it, moral chaos will ensue. And we can't promote it if we don't know what it is."

Scott,

I have not read Osho, though I think I shall.

Thanks,
EricJP

Hey Norm,

You should never say "never" my good, affable Kentucky pal! As Mr. Richard Thomas says, you will be back. And I have no doubt about that.

This premature exit from Intent, Norm, is like a trial baloon! Or like a guy trying to be a fly on the wall at the eulogy of his own funeral. (hoe!hoe!hoe!)

Like Richard says, I am confident that you will be back. And I am not trying to sound like that Arnold guy in Sacramento, either.

Anyway Norm, thank you for mentioning my beautiful babies. They are indeed very beautiful in every sense of the word. Maternal grandma, Stefania, who lives in Poland, is beside herself whenever she receives new pictures of my angels. Filip turned 9 months yesterday.

Today is parent-teacher interview day for my 7-year-old princess Oxana and she is off from school for an extended weekend.

Happy holiday season, Norm.

P.S. Jesus was just a regular guy, just like you and I. And he will be coming back when 'hell freezes over.' Don't hold your breath, bud. They will be saying this #$%^ one million years from now, privided we have not self-destructed or anihilated life forms on the planet as we know them.

Ambasteve - I do not see much difference between the Judeo-Christian value system and the Liberal/secularist value system. Both are in the "we are right" game and equally fanatical. For all practical purposes it makes absolutely no difference which side of the divide you are on. Many philosophers classify secularism and communism as religions, and rightly so.

Moreover, the author you quote is right in suggesting that Buddhism as it has been popularized by the west is almost indistinguishible from Judeo-christian thinking. With globalization, the world is indeed becoming monolithic in its thinking.

I do not agree that we need religion for moral guidance. Human beings had moral guidance before the emergence of religion. Goodness is innate in humans just as badness is. It is up to us to foster societies that nurture goodness. Religion is not the answer but part of the problem.

There are references to Jesus traveling through India and Tibet, wonder what he might have picked up there. This would explain those missing years.

Seeing the debate about whether he was really a physical dude in our history.

Well he may not have really existed in the past, it doesn't really matter, but he exists now because you all are talking about him. : )

Teachers don't really look to me remembered as much as what they teach.

Does it matter “as what or who” JC lived or even if he did live at all? Maybe we could agree that his teachings, as recorded, were noble, just and good and if more of us would treat others the way we would like to be treated, we would be a big step ahead.

Any Religion that claims to be the only “right one” has to be wrong!

Steve,

Assuming you believe that the New Testament was actually the transcribed teachings and words of Jesus, the main problem with the Bible and the way that it is interpreted is that it is a teaching that is Eastern. Judaism/christianity is NOT western... it's eastern. It has been interpreted, however, by western thought. Western thought is wonderful. It is a left brained ideal that has brought improved science, medicine and deepened our understanding of the mechanics of the natural world. However, Eastern thought, particularly religious/spiritual thought tends to be right brained. It is intuitive, creative and expresses itself in stories. Fundamentalism uses the left brain to interpret a story meant for the right brain and comes up with the belief in black and white morality; absolute right and absolute wrong. It creates "enemies" out of those that simply have a different perspective.

In other words rather than using the story to teach a moral lesson that can be a guide to living and an aid in getting "the big picture", left brained thought interprets the story as literal. When that happens the story is at best confusing and at worst nonsense. It is neither moral nor scientifically verifiable when the left brain is used and leads to the murder of our brothers and sisters.

At the heart of conflicts are those who think that they hold some sort of morally superior postion and therefore use that "superiority" to kill "lesser" people.

Suicide bomber justify their killing and sacrifice because they see themselves as warriors in a "just" cause, killing those that are the enemies of God. By making the claim that Judeo/Christian morals are superior then you are buying into that idea and making it increasingly difficult to understand one another. If you buy that idea then you are no different than those that you profess to be against.

Peace,
Scott.

"I do not agree that we need religion for moral guidance. Human beings had moral guidance before the emergence of religion. Goodness is innate in humans just as badness is. It is up to us to foster societies that nurture goodness. Religion is not the answer but part of the problem."

Dear Divya,

Before the Ten Commandments and teachings of the Old Testament, child sacrifice was the norm, slavery was the norm, the infinite value of a human was NOT the norm.

So are you saying Religon is not good? Which religion is not good, all religions?

Just curious,

Ambasteve

1st Jesus: He came into a country where the Pharisees ruled. They focused so much on individual piety and obedience to the Law of Moses that they did not realize that the lesson to be learned was that the Law dealt with outward actions and were a reflection of the inward heart. Jesus, on the other hand, was concerned with the heart. So, when He saw people who were broken, He comforted them. When he saw the proud and arrogant, He reminded them of their sin and need of repentance. They could not accept this rebuke, so they allowed Him to be killed by Pilate. This is also the 2nd Jesus.

2nd Jesus: He is the head of the church because He taught that the Law brought no one to salvation, but rather proved to us that we are ALL fallen. This is why He had to die on our behalf. The Son of God (sinless) died for the sins of men. He was the fulfillment of the Old Testament. He was the sinless son who died (drawing from the picture of Abraham almost sacrificing his son). He was the lamb of God (reflecting the blood placed over the doorposts before exodus from Egypt). He was the King paying for the debts of the poor and weak in spirit (reflecting the call of the prophets to take care of the widow, orphan, and needy). I agree that the church has come very far from this example. The problem is this. The church has become like the Pharisees that tell everyone that they reap what they have sown. When in actuality Jesus teaches that he reaped (death) what we had sown (sin) and He allows us to reap (eternal life) based upon what He has sown (obedience to the Law and the Father). This is also the 3rd Jesus.

3rd Jesus: Includes everyone and is concerned with peace and love. The true Jesus is concerned with peace and love, but He is also the personification of justice. How this works is that God has to make sure that justice is handed out, but because of His love for us, He took the punishment on Himself and died in our place. He can then offer us peace with God through His atonement. This applies to everyone. I believe that the Christians I know start in the right place, but they forget that if we are to be like Christ, we should be willing to sacrifice ourselves for others. If Jesus died for His enemies, so should we. If Jesus forgave our eternal debts, we should mirror that by forgiving others who are indebted to us. Granted this is very different from the Republican Christianity that exists everywhere in America. But I must say to non-Christians as well as my Christian brothers who I believe are misguided: Lord forgive them for they know not what they do.

Good article.

Ambasteve - How do you want to measure good and not good? If you go by the number of people murdered then Christianity is absolutely the worst abomination of all. It is in a class by itself and the rest, except perhaps Islam, are not even worth mentioning in the same context.

You do not need to evoke the Ten Commandments. Our grandmothers in all their simplicity taught us not to lie and steal and to be gentle. And surely you are not suggesting that the "infinite value" of humans is the norm these days or ever has been. Religion did nothing to foster such a feeling (except pay lip service to it).

Slavery and child sacrifice were not norms but practices. These have been rectified by laws not religion.

Skeptich - I agree it should not matter what form Jesus comes in. But to religion it does matter as there can be the one and only, so we're stuck with the problem.

Hi Scott,

I am just trying to clarify what is going on in the world these days. I do believe their is a battle taking place, I'm sorry that I bring this up and I guess you can accuse me of buying into the madness, however, as a Jew, when the leaders of Iran want to wipe Israel off the map, and pray for the same fate for all Jews, what am I suppose to do? Just pretend it's all an illusion, Maya? Neti Neti, oh well it's just Kali Yuga, that's just the way it is, get above all this silliness.

I'm just making a case, believe me Scott, I pray for peace, every day, throughout the day. I frankly would like to live and enjoy this planet and yet I see what I see.

Love, Amba

Deepak,

Great discussion! I love the idea of 3 Jesuses. The first one, historical Jesus, is just as you described if he, the man, ever lived. I have had to come to terms with the idea of his only being a fantasy and have concluded that it really doesn't matter. The teachings are alive and well and guide me each day. So, without a doubt, he lives in Spirit.

I think the second and third Jesus may be combined with some Christians though. I've heard them say that Jesus was a loving, forgiving, benevolent type on one hand and then to make a point describe him as just the opposite if you don't follow the "rules." So, it's not so much that they haven't heard of the 3rd Jesus as they just pick the one that suits their side of a discussion at the time.

The 3rd Jesus is the only one that makes sense to me, most importantly because he taught me about grace. some of this came through your teachings, Deepak. Love Bev

Dear Norm,
You will be missed! Blessings on your ventures, and as you navigate through the journey of Life unfolding.

Please return one day. If Jesus can, then Norm surely can! Smiles!
~~ Kate

Divya,

I agree what Christianity did 1,000 years ago was an abominiation, however, it pales in comparision to what Communism did by murdering over 30 million of it's own people. Who championed the cause against Communism in the late 70's? Pope John Paul 2nd.

"I do not agree that we need religion for moral guidance. Human beings had moral guidance before the emergence of religion. Goodness is innate in humans just as badness is. It is up to us to foster societies that nurture goodness. Religion is not the answer but part of the problem."

How can anyone argue with this statement?

"Before the Ten Commandments and teachings of the Old Testament, child sacrifice was the norm, slavery was the norm, the infinite value of a human was NOT the norm".

Ambasteve, if you haven’t noticed, all those terrible things are still with us and I am sure some religious freaks are even scarifying a child some where in the world today! For examples by not letting their sick child get a blood transfusion.

Skeptisch,

Freedom is a bummer :)

Ambasteve - The way I look at it is this. There is a religious mindset that can be summed up as follows - "What I believe is right, what you believe is wrong." This manifests itself in many different forms - communism, liberalism, vegetarianism, whatever - with varying degrees of power. Just because communism turned out to be worse than Christianity does not redeem or elevate Christianity. If Christianity took a stand against communism, it was partly because commies are the natural enemies of religion.

The wholesale spread of the religious mindset was brought about by Christianity. It is now a poison that has infected almost all forms of thinking. In pagan societies there was far more intellectual freedom and diversity. Asian culture even to this day carries traces of this diversity although it is fast disappearing. There are no commandment-like rules but rather social convention and traditions forumulate behaviour and thought and this is manifested differently depending upon the context, person and time.

Such societies will still display negative traits and fight for power or land but they do not believe in harrassing others simply based on their lifestyle. Things like abortion, homosexuality, idol worship, etc. are (were) not issues in these societies like they are in the west. Indian thought for example runs the full range from liberal sexual expression to strict celibacy. It is up to an individual's social circumstance to find his place in the spectrum. Such freedom is not allowed by religious societies where things are considered either bad or good.

Divya,

I need to tell you that abortion, homosexuality, idol worship,liberal sexual expresion, even celibacy are indeed allowed in the the so called religious societies of the west. Are you saying that their is no such thing as good or bad in asian cultures?

I get it, you are not a fan of Christianity, however, I think you are doing some major projecting here, I have yet to meet a Christian to told me that "I'm right and you are wrong". I may be in the minority in this. Even if they did say I'm going to Hell, that's fine, just as long as they don't treat me like Hell.

Amba

Norm,
I'll miss you too. :(
But I certainly understand where you're coming from. Take care. And do stop by once in awhile... maybe it doesn't have to be all or nothing?
Good luck with your businesses. And many Blessings to you and your family!

Love, Kristin

Ambasteve,

""Before the Ten Commandments and teachings of the Old Testament, child sacrifice was the norm, slavery was the norm, the infinite value of a human was NOT the norm"."

Child sacrifice is still a norm in some rural parts of many countries around the world. Also, I thought slavery was abolished in USA only in 1865 through 13th amendment. Even then equal rights were not there till the sixties. How can you claim that Ten Commandments abolished these shameful acts. It didn't stop such acts at all. So your argument that religion made humans sane is not a valid argument.

"Are you saying that their is no such thing as good or bad in asian cultures?"

Don't worry. Indian "religious society" is also equally bad on such issues.

Dearest Deepak,

Thank you so very much for sharing your thoughts on Jesus, as I so love him ... I relate more to the one that you explained in your third analogy. When I try to love Jesus, I get thrown to God, and then God throws me to the people.

I hear .... I LOVE YOU. DO YOU LOVE ME? LOVE THE PEOPLE. GOD LOVES EVERYBODY. I LOVE YOU.

It's all about LOVE and not just a little LOVE, but a lot of LOVE, and then some more LOVE, and if that's not enough LOVE, LOVE again and again until one becomes that LOVE.

GOD is LOVE and LOVE is GOD.

Love,
Char

Dear Amba -

Through the march of time human beings have come to understand the importance of certain events in a human life - birth, death, graduation, marriage, harvests, etc. In most cultures humans have solemnized and ritualized these events and celebrated or mourned them. This is not based on a *belief system* but it is just an expression of human experience.

Through the march of history, humans have also come to understand the importance of certain codes of conduct in order to live a safe and secure life. Out of this understanding have emerged precepts like honesty, kindness, faithfulness. This is also not based on a *belief system* but rather is based on human experience.

Religion came into the picture with nothing but a belief system. There is one God. He has one son. His son died for our sins. Accept his son and you will be saved. Otherwise you will rot in hell. None of these ideas have anything remotely to do with human experience but are just concepts sucked out of someone's thumb and forced down the throats of humanity. These concepts have been superimposed on an already-existing structure of ritual and celebration on one hand and codes of conduct on the other. All of this hodge-podge gives you religion.

I can understand that people find it hard to give up their cherished belief systems but if one is on a genuine quest for knowledge this is a necessary step. The difference between east and west lies mainly in this. There may be all sorts of weird superstitions and strict codes of conduct in the east but there is no weird belief system that is considered to be God's truth.

Hi Krish,

I would like specifics about where child sacrifice is practised these days?

Also regarding abolition of slavery, it took a great religious man named Abraham Lincoln who lived the principals of the Ten Commandments and brought abolition of slavery. Yes you are right Krish it's not the Ten Commandments themselves that stopped slavery, it took some great wonderful humans to start living these principals. America was founded in 1776, on these principals, and in less than hundred years we have abolition.

It was an ideal that took time to manifest, same with equal rights. Remember who championed civil rights in the U.S.? Dr. Martin Luther King jr. a Christian reverend. Many people forget that many great changes in the world were also religious people.

I think we should weigh the pluses and minuses here Krish.

Amba

Hi All.

Wonderful post Deepak.

One thing that always has bothered me about this virulent strain of fundamentalist Christianity is that it is not really Christianity. Jesus gave two and only two commandments: Love thy neighbor as thy self and love thy God. Now why do fundamentalist love to run around quoting the Old Testament and the 10 commandments? Are they just ignoring what Jesus said?
This seems to be the idea that they cling to " I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me". Does this really mean, that the only way to heaven is to become a Christian, even though there was no Christian religion at the time? To the Fundamentalist mind, I think that is exactly what it means. Naturally if the God you worship is the one of the Old Testament then his literal son is as well. These are not insane beliefs, just sort of ignorant.

As for the rapture, I think this idea comes from a cryptic interruption of the already cryptically written Book of Revelations. I think this single belief, in the rapture, has been very detrimental to politics and the consciousness movement as a whole.

If Christ is coming back it would be in the form of Christ consciousness, I believe in a mystical Christ. I have to come to think of Christ as an eastern teacher, lost in the malaise of the Roman Empire and the literal minded west.

"God is Faithful."

I've come to understand this to mean that I can trust God and s/he never gives up, even when I do.

Dear Divya,

I'm very thankful that people have the right to believe, not believe, worship, not worship, or just be a witness to the march of time of human existance.

Amba

Ambasteve,

I can give specific instances in the form of link or something. But I have read about it in the last decade or so. It has happened in very rural parts of India. It has happened in Africa. It may have happened on other places but I don't have any specific.

Also I wouldn't agree with the fact that the religious side of Lincoln and MLK played the role. It may have played a role. But it is not the only reason for their greatness. They are great because of the "humanity" in them. It is not necessary to have religion to have such a "humanity". The same christian religion has produced Bush, Cheney etc. Even Gandhi was a devout Hindu. But it is not just his religion which played a role in his greatness. The only thing that makes Gandhi, Lincoln, MLK kinda people stand tall in this whole world (which consists of various religions and subsects) is their "humanity". It is not their religion. Even Mother Teresa's prominence is due to her human side not her religious side. the catholic church gave her importance only after she achived greatness due to her humanitarian work. I would't agree that religion is what is keeping this world sane. in fact, I might even agree with the contrary.

Also I wouldn't compare US's slavery abolition as landmark. India too had slavery. India got its independence from British only in 1947. From day 1, they had equal rights. They didn't get it due to ten commandments or due to hindu version of it. They could only do it because their founding fathers had "humanity" ingrained in them.

I do agree that we need to see the positive side of the religion. I am for religion as long as it stays as a personal belief system. The moment it comes out of the household to the streets, it stinks badly and it is the culprit for many of the problems from islamic terrorism to ku klux klans to Hindutva.

Ambasteve,

Typo. It should be

I can't give specific instances in the form of link or something

Hi Krish,

We may be seeing the same thing but from different perspectives, however, I must say what came first the humanity or the religion? The common thread to all the people you mentioned were religious, I don't think you can say their religious upbringing had only a small role to play in their lives.

Regarding India, and I'm not an expert, however, I have visited on 7 different ocassions, the Independence was modeled after something, some governmental system say the British Parliment?

India has it's own unique equal rights issues that had to worked out over time. Even though by law everyone had equal rights thankfully, it took time to work through caste issues. Things just don't change on a dime Krish.

Btw, I did enjoy the Sai Bhajans being chanted on the streets at 5am in Chennai. Would that be tolerated in your ideal world?

Enjoying your posts.

Amba

Dear Divya,

You are in the zone, as they say!

I find your views exceptionally brilliant, exhilarating, enlightening, wise and intellectually honest. With this kind of savvy perspective on things, there is certainly a glimmer of hope for humankinds that one day they will divest themselves from ageold transcended, religious bondage and closedmindedness and start looking at the universe anew.

Ambasteve,

"India has it's own unique equal rights issues that had to worked out over time. Even though by law everyone had equal rights thankfully, it took time to work through caste issues. Things just don't change on a dime Krish."

Fair enough. I was only talking about the delay in giving equal rights by law. I would say that Indian society still has some remanance of slavery issues.

"I must say what came first the humanity or the religion? The common thread to all the people you mentioned were religious, I don't think you can say their religious upbringing had only a small role to play in their lives."

I think we both are taking opposite views on this issue. It is my argument that the common thread is humanity. However, I am not saying that religion didn't play a role in shaping the humanity. I am just saying that if religion is what made gandhi, Lincoln and MLK, why do we have only a handful of such people. If your argument is true, the world should be filled with Gandhis and MLKs. The current day "normal" people should be in the minority then.

Ron

"One day they will divest themselves from ageold transcended, religious bondage and closedmindedness and start looking at the universe anew."

Sounds totalitarian if you ask me. If only everyone had your enlightened attitude then the world would will be wonderful?

I perfer freedom to choose one's beliefs whether they are unenlightened or not.

Your world sounds too scary to me. Btw, I had spent many many years in various consciousness raising enlightened groups, including much time with Dr. Chopra, so I'm not coming from closemindedness as you would say. Maybe I'm too dimwitted or just didn't get the group think but I enjoy a more conventional world at this time.

Deepak, The soul that was Jesus, Krishna, and Siddhartha is back. He is now aware of his heritage thanks to a little known prophecy that Catholics used to teach called 'The Sacred Mystery of the Holy Roman Catholic Church'. I witnessed its fulfillment. I couldn't remember the latin prayer I'd been taught back in the 60's to say. From his perspective, it didn't matter anyway. Namaste.

Krish,

I agree the world has too few Gandhis and MLK's, not sure if anyone living today has that stature, but I will say that many charitable yes even religious based groups came to the rescue during the Tsunami, hurricane, and earthquakes. Many millions of dollars were donated, including good decent folks who took in the homeless, volunteered to cook meals, provide much aid. Good people are everywhere Krish, it's not necessary to be in the limelight, just open your eyes and see how someone was kind to you today. You can call them great humans or religious, doesn't matter, goodness is goodness.

I am willing to go beyond the labels, are you?

Love, Amba

Deepak,
You have presented the essence of Indian spirituality and did it so well.
There are Christians, who would eagerly look for the coming of the third Jesus but I have not had a chance to meet one such.

Amba,
I agree with everything that Divya said about Christians and it is not because I am not a fan of Christianity. Actually, I even pray to Jesus along with my Christian friends. But I also go to my temple and worship to God using the Hindu names (and get smeared with sin again!). That is a fundamental difference between Hinduism and other religions. Hindus accept all names and and all forms as belonging to just one and only one God. Hinduism has no problem with any of Jesus's teachings about an individual's relationship with God or the relationship with another human being or the universe. Hindus do not have a problem if Christians pray to God in the name of Jesus but that is not enough to please Christians; they say all non-Christians are in the dark and need to be saved and they try to push their religion on Hindus and others by charitable acts or force. India was on the list of Pope Paul II as a country in need of convertion to Christianity.
Leaders of most churches are against secularism. Both the late Pope and present Pope advocated tolerance towards Jews and Muslims but they preach elimination of secularism. I simply cannot understand that. Isn't secularism tolerance towards all religions? I cannot understand why the Pope who delivers the message of love and compassion all over the world is anti-secular.

Ambersteve,

Definitely. Good people are everywhere. I was just arguing against your point that this world is sane because of the religion. I never underestimated its positive effect. I only argued against the point that religion is the one that brought in sanity in this world.

Syamala,

"Both the late Pope and present Pope advocated tolerance towards Jews and Muslims but they preach elimination of secularism"

I always thought that many hindus in the current day Hindu society also wanted to get rid of secularism. Well it is off topic so it is not worth proceeding any further on this. Just a curious remark.

Dear Syamala,

You are projecting as if all Hindus are as tolerant or as broad minded as you are. Just one look at all kinds of discrimination that is rampant in India would suffice to negate your argument. We discriminate based on color, caste, language, dialect and whatnot.

If your argument is that Hinduism has broadmindedness codified in it, I agree. But that's what even other religions claim. It is the fault of the practitioners, not the principles, according to them.

Instead of painting people in black and white, we should try to find goodness in each other and see how we can eradicate bigotry.

Regards,

Ravi

Namaste Syamala,

"I simply cannot understand that. Isn't secularism tolerance towards all religions? I cannot understand why the Pope who delivers the message of love and compassion all over the world is anti-secular."

I think that one has to look at the context of where the Pope was coming from. He lived under Communist rule, the most logical extension of secularism, he perhaps saw what could happen if religion was outlawed or banned in society and felt that was indeed shall I use the word- evil.

No Syamala secularism isn't particulary tolerant of religions, look at Europe, very secular world, not very religous and has little use for it. I'm sure many people would laud that ideal.

India is a very tolerant country, a great quality. Athough let's me honest Syamala, I do notice some friction at the Kumbha Melas regarding the different sect status, some feeling a little higher than others. Shaivites and Vashinites do fight :) Human nature.

Goodness is what counts.

Amba

Krish,

Divya made a good point, humans are born with the potential for good and bad, so that means the parents must teach or bring out the goodness in the child right? So I would ask, where did this teaching of good and bad come from? Please don't say from the humanity, because to me that would mean from a closed loop. I say and I know you will eternally disagree with me (I did peek at your blogsite Krish :) that these teachings had a divine source. Humanity left alone will only have ego, take a look at the tower of Babel story in Genesis, didn't quite work out the way humanity wanted it to.

Amba -opening up a can of worms and with that wishing all a great weekend.

If in a debate the participants don’t understand, hear or listen even though you tried honestly, it is time to move on. All we can do is try.

Divya, you are indeed in the zone. The patience you show with some of us who obviously are not, or do not want to be, on your page, is remarkable. Keep on informing, enlightening and delighting (some of) us!

Ravi,

"It is the fault of the practitioners, not the principles, according to them"

Very well said.

Ambasteve,

If your argument that teaching of good and bad come from religion is to hold true, siblings of people who don't believe in religion should be terrorists and goon. However it is not the case. Your argument falls flat in this case. Also if you take the reverse of this, the parents of terrorists and goons should be non believers of science. This also falls flat.

The good and bad taught by parents is based on their experience. This experience may come from religion, from education, environment, etc. Religion is only a part of this. In some cases, the influence of religion may be more and in some cases, it will be totally zero. So I would still say that the role played by the religion in making the society sane is only a part. it may be a huge part or zero part based on families and individuals.

Before I post my "official" post next, I must say, everybody, I mean everybody, posting on this thread is just incredible!

It has been a pleasure reading all of the afore posts. . .

Typo

the parents of terrorists and goons should be non believers of science

should be

the parents of terrorists and goons should be non believers of religion

"So I would still say that the role played by the religion in making the society sane is only a part."

I'll accept that from you Krish.

Amba

3 is a charm. We must first all become Jesus-like in our hearts, and outward actions, then mayhap we can fashion a kingdom here on earth like that which we would imagine to be like in heaven.

No accepting Christ as your personal savior or go to hell stuff, no, I hate you because you are an unbeliever, in fact, I shall love and honor you even more, and no crusades against the “infidels.” As a matter of fact, I bet I could even kill Jesus and he would still love me, at least, that is what I believe his teachings say. I will “put the farm” (if I had one) on that, as I likewise strive to emulate his teachings through my physical actions. But, I do not go to church, I do not attend any sort of fellowship or anything, my belief system just does not seem to jive with that of “my” fellow Christians. I guess, after having had the privilege of going to Whitworth College, and finding out that I have neither the money, nor the same predestined status, as the “saintly” ones, I guess I have just lost THEIR religion. . .

“My” thinly veiled political philosophy is based entirely upon the teachings of Christ, hence my constant themes of “do unto others,” and “no private property.” I do try to do unto others, and if I was any poorer I would, literally, be on the street, and actually, maybe that is where I belong. Anyway. If I want to preach the gospel first let me practice it, and as Dr. Chopra mentions, here in Christian American, the major religions I see dominating our politics and policies, are as far away from my understanding of Scripture, as I think could be possible. It seems almost evil, if true evil there be, that the primary force keeping us apart, me and you, US, is the intolerance this nation of “believers” has for anybody else’s belief system.

God makes himself known to all in his own way. Nuff said.

Anymore I just have to call it as I see it; greed justified in the name of Jesus. They say Jesus forgives, but can a convict get a job, well yeah, milking cows for fifteen cents an hour when he goes back to prison. Does this loving Christian nation empower the poor, well yeah, they empower us hastily unto death as more and more social programs are cut to make room for more military “projects.” Does this Christian nation love their fellow man, yeah well, that depends, do you have any natural resources our rich people can exploit?

That a truly Christian nation could be a capitalist state is a contradiction by definition is it not?

Revolution man. Rev – o – lu – tion !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The fact that Jesus is factious or not factious makes no difference what so ever to my understanding. You speak from the point of view, you speak from the enquiring mind. In fact Eric your research into the Validity of Jesus’ Life is a search that has it’s meaning rooted in your own life, I have no need for to disprove the existence of Jesus or prove his existence because I am not the one in search of a reason. Tell me brother what is it that drives you to search for an answer to an unanswerable question?
I was christened a catholic but I have maybe visited a church less than five times in my life, it is not important to subscribe to religion for the love of God is not in any place it is in every place.

I am not proving your point by anything I have said because there is no point to what I am saying nor is there any point to what you are saying or what you profess to know. It is interesting to look at history and see if there is any evidence that is still present in this day. A lot of the evidence we can say is beyond doubt over two thousand years ago is just an educated guess. The influence that Jesus sparked all those years ago is just an influence that was waiting to happen, it is like an electrician trying to figure out why a fuse keeps blowing on an electrical circuit and eventually he stumbles across a shorted wire. Jesus of his time had a realisation and that realisation was that we are all connected to the divine and the divine is the source or the father of everything and that religion is just ritualistic crap.

Two thousand years ago does not matter because it does not exist, it is interesting but only now exists, the now is the living divine, god is in this moment, he is the doubter, he is the researcher, he is the thinker and the thought. Jesus Christ lives in the heart of many in the world and he exists and did exist as sure as your next breath will exist and did exist because it is a happening that was and is an endless possibility.

I maintain that Jesus existed as a person as an entity and as an enlightened being the need or reason to dispute or disprove that such a thing or person exist or existed in any time or any place is your garbage not mine. You search and look because it is you who is the searcher. Jesus is one of many Human beings who has reached a level some times known as the seventh stage of realisation where by the Ego is no more and their understanding has gone beyond the mind and is of an understanding without the need of fathom.

At this level they become the divine, the witness, the knower of all things without thought. The mind is like a busy highway with all the vehicles racing up and down clear the mind of the thoughts and be still in the void in between the vehicles and there are no more questions.

Dear Craig,

"3 is a charm. We must first all become Jesus-like in our hearts, and outward actions, then mayhap we can fashion a kingdom here on earth like that which we would imagine to be like in heaven."

Question, How do we became Jesus in our hearts and outward action? I am asking in all sincerity.

Also you say " That a truly Christian nation could be a capitalist state is a contradiction by definition is it not?"

Can you give me 5 examples of nations that are truly Christian if U.S. is not one of them?

I am curious because I want to get a real world sense of what you mean when you say these things.

Thanks,

Amba

It is always sad to see individuals put their trust in their own opinion without knowing, and even acknowledging fact. The fact is, that the same Bible that Deepak Chopra refuses to believe states that this would occur in the last days. The question then begins: When are we in the last days?
Quite frankly, I can understand how people can question when Christ will return. Through the past two millenia, individuals have been testifying to the coming of Christ, his return to earth. This would be the one, true Christ; the Son of the Living God, not the blasphemic interpretation that many on this page believe.
The fact is that He will come back- we just do not know when. Why should we? Since we are imperfect beings, why should we know when He will return? We can choose to be blasphemic individuals, and run on the rage to do away with any truth, thereby pretending to be intelligent gods, or to be submissive to the Loving God that He has always been.
Deepak Chopra has continually attempted to prove himself to be equal to God. Deepak Chopra has yet to provide one bit of proof that his practices can heal individuals- especially after the recent suicide of some of his extreme believers. He can not deny that they were his believers, after all, if there is no other god, and Deepak himself will die, eternally, then these individuals are now equally at peace as he will be.
Since God DID become flesh, and DID lay down His own life, (there is the answer for your five year old, no one took Christ's life, He layed it down), and since God DID rise from the dead, and that is witnessed; then it is us who should believe Him, and Him alone!!!!

Before someone says it I know Jesus was a carpenter and not an elctrician!

LOL

:-)

Sometimes, the "return" of The Christ; is misconstrued by fantasy-visions people imagine about the re-coming of the Christ.

Sometimes; one cannot see the forest for the trees.

Sometimes; the "return" could imply a re-surgance of believers; after all; it has been a few thousand years AC.

Sometimes; it's as simple as that.

Sometimes.

North

Is Jesus Coming Back?

I hesitated to write this but here goes...

Jesus never left.

This experience moved me to the edge of illusion and took me over to realness...the witness.

On the day of my Mother's funeral, 8 years ago, I wanted to go to the funeral home earlier than everyone to spend quiet moments with her before anyone else arrived. So, we pulled up into the parking lot and got out of our car and started walking down the sidewalk. Hardly anyone was in sight. A voice from behind echoed "excuse me", as I turned around, there was this man, humble and yet there was something indescrible about him also...he said nothing and held out his hand, but as I looked into his eyes...
my hand reached into my purse and pulled out a ten dollar bill, I handed it to him. He looked my eyes again and said "I'm sorry"...I shook my head in a 'no gesture' thinking...why are you sorry when I'm the one giving you the money? I said 'no it's okay'
In all my life I have given countless people on the streets money and none have done what this man did. As I turned to walk to the funeral home, I immediately turned back to see him again, except there was no one there, not any where near us...and I know I had not imagined it because my husdand and daughter were with me at the time and they saw the whole event unfold also. The message that kept running through my mind was, this man was Jesus.
The experience was so powerful, I included it in the eulogy for my Mom...just an hour or so later.

I believe, there was a message for me on the day of my Mom's funeral...it was a passing of the torch, for me to carry on the immense compassion she had for others...especially those who lived on the streets. This Being was not in need of money, it was His way of offering me the oppotunity to give, on behalf of my Mother.

You see, when my Mother was dying in the surgery room, a clergy from the hospital was sent to comfort us and be with her also, as we were not allowed in the surgery area. So this strong and towering individual kept going back and forth to give us updates. He was informed that my Mom had lost her baptism papers in Trinidad and months before her sickness she was preparing to be baptized again in order to receive new papers. He came out from the surgery room with an eerie look in his eyes and asked....would you like me to baptize her? there was a pause and then YES! He dashed from the room and minutes later, two doctors in white coats came into the room where we were waiting, their heads were hanging and so the inevitable news came....."we're sorry to say..."
When the clergy emerged, he informed us that moments before my Mom died he had baptized her. What was his name? John, and he baptized my Mother.
The man at the funeral home? the TEN dollars I gave him? From that day to the present and on going...all the members in our families have been finding TEN cent coins. in the laundry, grocery, movies, malls, hospitals, school, side walks, work...etc. even in other countries! Not that we're looking for them, they're just there!

My Mom was a devoted believer in both Jesus and the Hindu Deities...I feel it in my heart that they were present for her journey to the next realm.

So to answer the question, is Jesus coming back?
My personal view, I don't believe He left...I beieve we met the day of my Mom's funeral.

Namaste,
Cinda

Dear Deepak,

The true identity and purpose of Jesus is a very important religious and spiritual matter!

Relative to Jesus returning, the 14th chapter of John the 2nd and 3rd verses says "I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also."

This seems to indicate he will come back.

The problem, as you correctly pointed out, is which Jesus is really coming back?? And I would like to add, Is it at physical return, or a Spiritual return?

Most Christians believe that Jesus is the only path to God! They get this idea from the same chapter of John verse 6 which says: " I am the way, the truth, and the light, no man cometh unto the Father, but by me."

This belief in my humble opinion, is a semantics problem at worst. It goes like this:

If I am one with God already, and you come to God, you will have to come by me, since I am already there.

The most difficult Christian belief, for other religions to deal with, is the belief that "JESUS IS GOD!

They get this idea from verses like the one that says "I and my Father are one" but they fail to balance it with his statements in other verses like Luke 18 verse 19 where Jesus says,

" Why callest thou me good? None is good, save one, that is God."

I believe that Christians by and large have made Jesus Devine, in order to escape responsibility!
They say humans can never be perfect, but all they have to do, is believe on Jesus and ask his forgiveness every time they do wrong and they will be saved. Hockey puck!

What about Matthew 5 - 48 which says,

" Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect."

I like your third Jesus, the one who says, "We are all children of God." It's high time we started acting that way.

To your love and Honor,

Stan

More than happy to attempt to answer your questions Amba.

1) The "dispossession" theme rampant throughout my posts means exactly that: a freeing of the mind, and body, of the need to possess, the need to own "stuff." I believe there will be a day, soon, perhaps very soon, when we will overcome the need for greed (a.k.a., self-interest). When, a body of believers, much like everybody that has posted on this thread, can get this message out to the "common man" in a way that does not immediately invoke the image of Stalin, the day of revolution will be all the closer. The man said, "Sell all of your possessions and follow me. . ."

In other words, we must dispossess ourselves spiritually, mentally, and, most importantly, physically, before peace shall ever truly be possible.

I can give no examples of a nation that is truly Christian. Communism tried, but they were overrun by greedy lunatics, and, they had not the technological know-how we do today.

A truly "Christian" nation will be a nation comprised of people of all faiths, of all ethnicities, and of all races, living amongst each other peacefully and actually cherishing the differences between all men.

The military industrial elite keep us divided, they want us to be divided, and yet I sense in most of us "common folk" we want the same thing: to love and end suffering.

So why are we fighting, because they want us to stay distracted (whilst also the rich get immensely richer), so people do not realize they are being played, as they have been generation after generation.

But, they can no longer keep us divided. They are going to try to start a war with Iran and China, it is then we will all have to make a choice; continue dying for the rich man, this time on levels unimaginable in the history of humankind, or put an end to these tyrannous and "evil" elitist governments that look upon our children as no more than body bags.

We have to get the message to the masses at large in China, India, and the United States, and we will, and then, in a day

The Republic shall be born!
Oh yeah! The time is near. . .

Eric JP:

So nice to have your voice here. It is refreshing to hear a coherent dialogue between you and Scott. Perhaps it will inspire people here to look beyond there fixation on point of view and learn what the act of listening produces. True forward movement .

Divya:

As always thanks for an honest articulate point of view. You are so real. The above comment includes you.

Kevin:

Thanks for a necessary opening.

Wow, Cinda! Powerful epiphany! I got goose-bumps.

Yes, the Invizible One, is indeed everywhere; and wears many disguises! What a wonderful blessing you recieved.

North

Craig, Very well said.

Laurence Peter Brown, are the Swiss still in delirium over the successes of their soccer team and has their Coach and my pal Köbi Kuhn gotten an honorary degree in “Fussball” yet?

If you are not the one who lives in Switzerland please disregard this post!

Thanks Krish,

You know, it is funny, but really it is not, is that there is nobody here, there, or anywhere whom I do not love. . .

And I get the same feeling from many people here at intentblog.

So the question is, "what the hell is going on around here?" ('here' being OUR world)

peace and love always

I somehow get the feeling that the world is at a certain stage where it is ready to embrace peace totally. If you see the history, every major peace movement was preceded by violence and hatred. Probably it is the way the world adjusts itself. Based on what is happening in the world now, I somehow think that we are in for a big peace movement. A movement which will seal this "hatred as a way of life" forever.

Skeptish:

The funny thing about the Swiss, unlike other European countries is that they took to the streets that night and celebrated with almost uncontrollable abandon (without the destructiveness that follows many football victories) and then went to bed at a rather reasonable hour (the unwritten law said the bars could be open all night yet by 03:00 they were shut) and the streets were empty and the volk were up and alert for work the next day as if nothing happened.

Yes they are thrilled but the Swiss don't show it like most of the rest of the world and unless you get to know the Swiss you would never know that they were thrilled by the news the next day.

It was more about the fact that a player had been sent to the hospital by some Turkish guy in the back rooms of the stadium in Turkey then the coverage of the rather somber home coming at the airport in Kloten.

The Swiss are a very funny people. Practical. They don't get out of their minds and out of control like the "hooligans" in most other European countries over football (or any other thing for that matter). The long of the short of it though is they are very proud of the achievement. It's just hard to read it as delirium.

Krish:

Amen!!!

Larry King Live. Right now!!!

Larry King truly hilarious.

The pastors "church" is definitely making real contributions to his community.

But all his answers are bible based.

Larry asks him when is god coming back.

Answer: the bible says god is patient.

Avoidance in my opinion.

Larry asks is god a man or a women.

Answer: the pastor thinks god is a man. Then back pedals. The bible calls him a man so the pastor will use the same term. Then he quotes the bible. God made man in his image, (Sorry I'm watching and typing so I'm missing the comedy) and that means god is made in the image of man and woman. God has aspects of man and woman.

Larry responds: god sounds like a homosexual to me.

I couldn't help posting this.

Didn't mean to offend anyone

HAHA LBP: God is Daivd Bowie circa 1974.

LBP - That's hilarious!! It's actually quite sad too.

Even sadder is he's closing the show with 10 minutes to go with Donald Trump talking about the "Apprentice". And this is after the last segment closing with acknowledging Larry's foundation for paying for two heart transplants of young Asian children.

Am I missing something? Am I to cynical?

I mean I've never seen the "Apprentice". Maybe these rich people are doing great things and the "don't haves" like me that can't save young people with heart disease are just blind with envy.

Go figure. I'm lost.

Considering ol' Larry has had so many wive's; not judging at all, just stating a fact; so what else could he respond with?

LK does not think in technical terms; rather those of one side, or the other; which leaves a gap/gape/mal-balance of his obvious sexual-nature; rather than of spiritually inclined? SighhH!

Sometimes; the wrong people have the voice and image; to sway a single, even minute thought-suggestion out into left field; and succeed.

I wish I had his power.

Listing to Sly and the Family Stone - I wanna take you higher

North

Most donations the weathly give in lieu of abundance and overflow, however; ARE tax deductible; so again; WE, the socially dependant; are nothing but tax burdens and tax deductibles!

Politics, small-itics!(did I make up a new word, did I? did I)

ONE day; before my eyes close too soon; It is my desire to taste wealth at least, once; pass it onto my son; so he can taste it too; and then, to his son's to come future-forth.

I mean; I start christmas shopping in like; January! I have a big fam! And still; I am crunched beyond my means; trying to "give" my loved ones; just a simple "thing."

Bah, HumBug, anyone?

North

North:

I'm not equiped to know.

I do know that what ever his marriage status or sexual leanings and his tax deductible status at least two young children are alive because of his money.

Again. Go figure.

Daer Amba,

One thing I have learned from most religion is that they thrive on retarding our collective will and desire to think independently, to postulate beyond the status quo, to challenge establihed dogmas and beliefs, and so on.

By maintaining this method and stratagem, they have effective duped the masses through out history, as they continue to embellish thier fairtale and myths about the icons (seminal founders) of their 'faiths'. By so doing they have become very wealthy whilst elevating their icons to the larger-than-life status in which they are still viewed today.

As history so eloquently shows, anyone whose views appears unconventional often was ridiculed , persecuted and prosecuted and, in many cases, executed. This is a main paradoxical hallmark of a religion such as Christianity.

An unconventional thinker must always be prepared to face still challenges to his views. Such views usually tend to disturb the comfort zones of staunch believers. Often those views are exonerated only with the discovery of the truth. The Roman Catholic Church has executed or chastised many great men who held seemingly radical views in their day. Case in point, Giordano Bruno. This Italian philosopher strongly advocated the right to think, to challenge conventional wisdom, etc. He coined the phrase " Libertes philosophica," which essentially made the Church saw 'red'.

Anyway, to cut to the chase, he was repeatedly asked to recant but adamantly refused. Thus, in February 1600 the Inquisition burned him at the stake, as he uttered his last words, "Perhaps you, my judges, pronounce this sentence against me with greater fear than I receive it."

Thank goodness we have the First Amendment in America.

My views, Amba, are mine, they are not totalitarian. That is your choice of word.

Respectfully,

Ron Saywack.

Please excuse any typos as I have no time to edit or spell check as I have to answer the doorbell.

Good point Laurence; but, for the sake of unconditional compassion; I wonder, if LK would do this; without the tax breaks?

I suppose, I'm always looking for angles and obstacles, to see if there is obvious hidden diversions; such as detuctible wealth trading systems.

but, alas; I am a bah-hum-bug at christmas time for obvious reasons; but, will bounce out of the shlump, forth-wit!

Ooh, goody!! Thunderstruck by: ACDC is ON! I am really tripping down memory lane here; gotta get my son MORE, blank CD's!

Another, timely song, as I type tonight...

North

Ron:

Your post brings to mind the idea that Christianity is BORN of religious persecution.

A religion born of the factual or mythical crucifixion of it's founder.

Ultimate pre-religious/religious persecution.

And now I hear the "Christmas tree" this year in America, must be called a holiday tree.

What is going on in America Ron?

I think I need to withdraw for a moment.

North:

I really am clueless. I do love ACDC.

But whether it's a tax right off or not I think the kids and there families are very happy. Merry Christmas.

In fact if Larry did it just for a tax right off (which I can't blieve as I agree that as has been stated here humans are basically leaning towards the good) it doesn't change the fact that two children that did not have the capacity to live are alive because of his greed.

I used to be quite offended when Larry brought these “the bible says guys” back on his show but now I watch them as a comedy hour that shows what joke religious fundamentalism really is! Of course the real tragedy is that so many Americans including their president think it isn’t a joke but the truth.

LPB, I haven’t seen a delirious Swiss either and I spent the first 22 years of my life in that beautiful country.

Ron, as always respectfully and truthfully said.

Deepak, Jesus Is Coming
---------------------------------------------------------------------

Who are you kidding?
What Christmas joke you are playing?
Making three Jesuses out of one!
How sacrilegious! What a blasphemy!
Never heard something so weird.
(Your Intentblog I am quitting,
No, no, just kidding)

I know of only Jesus,
The son of Holy Father,
The only one born of virgin Mary,
By immaculate conception,
My Jesus looks like his Father
His Father looks like his son.

He rode a donkey in Jerusalem.
This time when he comes,
He will come by Air Force One,
Landing his plane in the Pentagon,
President will not go there to meet him,
He will come to see the President.
Where? In the White House of course,
He will be greeted by the President,
The First Lady and the Republicans.

Jesus will then raise from the graves,
All the dead Republicans,
And all the living Democrats,
Men, women, children, young and old
Will go into the empty graves.

Everybody then Republican,
Everybody then Bible blabber,
Everybody then righteous and pious,
Everybody then religious and sane.

No more Democrats, no more nuisance,
The poor will become poorer and poorer,
And die of sickness and starvation,
The rich will become richer and richer,
Living happily in the nation.

Rest of the world? Who cares!
They are not even Christians,
They are heathens.
My Jesus, the son of virgin Mary,
The only beloved son of his Father,
Handsome, white, long hair, blue eyes, tall,
Is coming soon, maybe this Christmas
Maybe be next Fall.

Come he will, wait and see,
Don't tell us it will be some
Jesus the second or Jesus the third,
We want the original Jesus,
The Jesus in the holy Bible,
The one born of immaculate conception
Of holy mother virgin Mary,
The one who's Father's only son.

Hallelujah! Amen! Amen!

Merry Christmas
Tanzan Senzaki

PS: I am reminding you to run for the senate.

Dear Ron, thank you for your view of religion.

I will share mine with you via a Shabbat Prayer chanted every Friday Night by Jews all over the world:

Hashkivienu

Shelter Me with Peace

I imagine your Presence
as the gracious majestic,
rich-green canopy of a tree
stretching upward, outward,
with me nestled quietly against the sturdy trunk,
resting on sweet smelling leaves and soft moss.

Keep me dry from the rains of sadness,
Save me from the cold winds of doubt.
Protect me from the darkness of the unknown,
so that I may rise and venture forth and touch Your World.

Your sacred Breath whisks away
all but the purest Presence in me;
Angel wings brush my face.

Watch over me
as a parent peers on a sleeping child.
Be the Presence I feel,
soft,sheltering,strong,
cradling me to safety,
Your canopy over me,
under me,
surrounding me,
sheltering me with peace.

6 million died because a certain dictator was threatened by Jews who take shelter in this Presence.

You're right thanks goodness for the First Amendment, giving me the right to chant these words without threat and harm.

Peace, Ambasteve

Okay about the tax write offs, it is amazing how it is not understood that you usually would only get 25 cents on the dollar depending on your tax bracket.

Larry King has done a lot of good in my opinion, he has had Deepak and others on his show. I suspect he would do more if his producers allowed him to. I think he is learning how to answer the power questions to destroy the Illusions.

While we can blame systems and institutions yet our own collective ignorance is a contributing factor in conjunction with their efforts and failures. That is why we strive to create a collective awareness.

Since none of us have always been perfect, and I doubt anyone is even now, perhaps we should work together to give each other strength and support to overcome our weakness and temptation.

Here is an exmaple of a mutual problem. People look for the cheapest price, manufactures then try to create an appearance product as cheaply as possible. So we end up with stuff that breaks and ends up in the landfills.

If we looked and paid for quality that is what we would get.

I think that a good solution would be to include the cost of materials, labor, and profit margin on every product.

This is part of the notion of transparency.

Then we would know what we were getting and what we were paying for and what size margin was being taken.

This would allow us to evaluate the quality for the price.

There is a good chance that if Jesus did come no one would listen and he would just leave and go to some other planet that would pay attention.

That should be "ask" the power questions.

that is because a question can trump a statement which can be without meaning.

Skeptisch, I agree there is a good purpose to having all the views and the people representing them on there together it sheds a lot of light.

Jesus the Christ I have experienced is LOVE and that LOVE transforms lives.

From a believer,

Aradhana

Aradhana,

That is the kind of statement that changes the world. There is not a soul labeled by any name that could truly find a fault with it, because of where it came from.

Jesus
======

I saw Him in the fallen twig today,
In the smile of my kid..
the stones of a Texas Highway..
And the torn shoes of the homeless.

They say he will come again.
But my Jesus never went.
He never could;
Where could he?

Cheers,
Desh
Drishtikone.com

Richard,

The movie that you referenced in another thread looked very cultish with a Key and a player,inter-galactic space ships etc.Can you clarify on this?

Do you believe in all those Aliens and UFO stuff or all those elements in the movie fictional?

Aradhana,
People who believe in Jesus, believe in the person Jesus with a distinct soul and body.
You cannot sell your Jesus is LOVE to a typical Christian.

Experiences are a projection of our own desires and hopes and so you cannot rely on experiences.If your prayers are getting answered, they are answered by your own subconscious and unconscious mind,and I think these have no relationship to what we call God.

We tend to become emotional and romantic when it comes to God.

Do you think that a saviour will come and somehow save us from this Hell?

Please question all the age old beliefs without fear.
Realise that the present condition we are in is the culmination of all our efforts, beliefs,hopes,desires etc. and there is no hope in the future if we still continue on this path.

Jesus tried to break this continuity but we put him on the cross and later claimed that He died for our sins.

Jesus also is claimed to have said that 'It is finished'.If this is so, when why should He come back again?

prabhakar,

It seems to be designed with filters to keep the wrong minded out until they become right minded.

An unmanaged ego might keep you from delving deeply I suppose and participating.

They do use the term facetious. Playfully jocular; humorous: facetious remarks in referance to 144,000 and space ships.

You see your mind will project and you will see an appearance and not what is really there.

As far as a cult, well they don't tell you what to think, and they don't isolate you from your family or friends.

As for the Extraterrestrials, I was born while my father was stationed at Bentwaters AFB in England.

My father had top secret clearance.

They were spoken of, and one officer in particular talked to me about them.

My dad never said much at all other than what was reported in the papers about lights in the sky. After he passed away I found some stuff.

The Officer who shared with me said.

1. They know the craft are there, and no country has this technology.

2. They have no contact with them and do not know their purpose.

They apparently have good intentions. : )

There is much more but a lot of what you hear about conspiracy and such is fabrication.

One time in my neigborhood, in Cincinnati one burned the tops of trees and was seen. The Airforce investigated. That was when we were visited by this Officer and his family as they were passing through having transferred from Bentwaters to somewhere out West.

So yes, I believe they exist.

Andy F, i am completely with you in your last sentence. I saw this video of Marianne Williamson, Richard mentioned in another post. It is this (sub)conscious in us that is going to make us more and more aware of the Jesus or Christ within as the star that shines the brightest. The Christ or Buddha consciousness is coming back to us as a remembrance of who we really are.
Namaste, Mieke

My father was the type of person that would, if he committed to it, keep a secret. Even from me.

At least while he was alive. After that he no longer was obligated

Although I did learn what he was involved in when working at the Pentagon, there were these special groups, one of them was the astronauts.

You know I never thought about it, till now but after they walked on the moon, they showed up in my third grade classroom and talked to us.

I was very inspired, they talked about achieving great things.

I assumed it was a normal part of school getting to meet the astronauts after they walk on the moon.

I think that sums it up well Mieke.

I bet as our consciousness raises this new technology will become available because we can handle it.

Then we won't be fighting over Oil, and then that cheap desert land will become priceless.

Swami Paramahansa Yogananda talked about the second coming of the Christ.

Christ consciousness.

I have visited the site of the Alliance for a New Humanity again and read their intention again. Boy they really are ambitious this time, they are going to launch a campaign to bring Peace into the market as a branch, just like Coca Cola and actually enlisted the help of the former Coca Cola president Jeff Dunn.

Now if this ain´t going to work :)

This reminds me of the last 3D Virtual World i made in the 3D Construction Kit with a good friend of mine in England: A real virtual Roller Coaster that really worked!

Now let´s all jump on this Roller Coaster and start it rolling, rolling towards the true Peace in the world. Lots of success to the Alliance!

Mieke

Amba, Ravi, and Krish.
I heard the argument that all Hindus are not tolerant many times. Of course, all Hindus are not perfect. I did not say all Christians or all Muslims are intolerant either. Right here on this blog we find Christians like Craig who say "A truly "Christian" nation will be a nation comprised of people of all faiths, of all ethnicities, and of all races, living amongst each other peacefully and actually cherishing the differences between all men."
That is not my point.

Amba,
Secularism is not atheism. Atheism is an essential part of communism. Secularism tolerates atheism along with all religions but does not preach imposing atheism or any religion on non-secularists. In fact, secularism opposes such imposing.
But I see your point why Popes are against secularism. In Indian history, Shankaracharya tried to eliminate Buddhism when it was leading to atheism (he built temples over some Buddhist shrines) although Buddhism is a religion of compassion and Shankara taught onneness of God and Adwaita. Still I do not see why Popes want to convert India to Christianity because most Indians are still very spiritual; they are secularists but not atheists.
Some Shaivas and vaishnavas may still fight but as a rule, every Shiva temple has a Vishnu deity and vice versa. Traditionally, priests memorize well known verses which state that Vishnu and Shiva are one and the same.

My point is: there is a fundamental difference between Hinduism versus Christianity or Islam. In Gita, the Lord says "No matter in what form or in what name you worship Me, I am pleased and I will respond". He DOES NOT say "if you do not worhip me as Krishna and Krishna alone, you are doomed".
Actually, I find Jews in general, like Hindus, do not have agendas to go and spread their religion although there is such a thing called "conversion" in Judaism. They value their religion and are just quiet about other religions with no comments of respect or disrespect. They oppose Christians when Christians try to impose Jesus on them.

Ravi,
Yes, my argument is that Hinduism has broadmindedness codified in it. I am not talking about discrimination based on color, caste, language but discrimination based on religion. All discriminations exist in all nations of the world.

Krish,
Secularism is part of Hinduism and when some Hindus fight for Hinduism, they are fighting for secularism but not against secularism.
As I said before, secularists tolerate all religions but when religious fanatics keep pushing their religion on secularists, secularists cannot help but fight back. But then people say "you are not saints, you react too, why are you all not Gandhis?" I do not think that it is being impartial or fair.

Hello Deepak and Everyone,

Isn't this a post fun?

Jesus said" Love thy neighbor as thy SELF"

Most people interpret this to mean "love thy neighbor the way you would want to be loved and treated," but it really means...Miss Expert here(that's me)..
Love thy neighbor because he is your SELF. We all have an individual self but we also share a larger SELF. I love you because you are me and I am you. I hurt you..I'm hurting me. I murder you..I am murdering myself.

The trick is to really be able to feel that truth with all our body, mind and soul..

"Love thy neighbor because he/she is your SELF.

Hide and Seek..the number one game played in the universe...I'm counting to 10...where are you?

You cannot hide behind that personality, forever, pretending to be separate...I see you!

God I hope so.

Love to all

Very Interesting .. Thanks so much for this ;-)
I read the replies before your Posting Deepak, only then did I return to yours feeling if something called to me I would write too...

who used to be the mainstream of the religion, won't it take the return of the third Jesus?

What alternative is there? Loss of faith and a slide into deeper and deeper meaninglessness. that would be a terrible fate for all of us, not just the Christians.

Love,
Deepak

Posted by Deepak Chopra at December 2, 2005 09:46 AM

Course I see I'm 24 hours behind you now. And I must agree with RUTH most of all. Jesus IS ALREADY HERE, NOW. and Never left us. Here in my Heart and Yours. So if I can Love you anyway, even if you try to hurt me... then I can see Jesus Living every day...

Course I must also be respondsible and try to lead those who hurt me to the truth... even if that means they must suffer the under the law or something else... My place is to see Jesus Iin everyone...
THanks again
Namaste'
er;-)

Dear Prabhakar,

You affirm: " Please question all the age-old beliefs without fear. Realise that the present condition we are in is the culmination of all our efforts....."

Very well said, my friend.

Ron.

wow...Deepak...I had never actually thought about this reference of the third Jesus as being a call for 'evolution'...

how amazingly close to awareness these Biblical stories are really to us!

thank you for cracking open the conceptual box of all possibilites which was simply not examined yet in my personality's mind...

love, Carolyn

Dear Syamala,

Great post, makes sence.

You are right I overreached about the logical extension of secularism, I just think that the Pope may have seen the threat of reasoning alone trumping God, or in other words the contunual shrinking of the role of religion in society.

You are correct about conversion in Judaism, or in the religion's jargon, welcoming the stranger. It's not given easily however, it's said when one has the desire to convert, the rabbi will pretty much reject the request 3 times before accepting to test the sincerity of the convert.

I understand Christianity is growing rapicly in certain parts of India, Is that true? I also don't understand why the Pope pushed for conversion in India, maybe because the "market potential" is so great.

Namaste,

Amba

I suggest that a majority of people who call themselves Christians have a lackluster belief of all three of these types of Jesus.
They are fidesists. They have blind belief. They don't dig too deep. Who has the time, really?
Montaigne, the father of the essay, had this paraphrase from Ecclesiastes, the Preacher, incribed on the ceiling of his library:
"Receive things thankfully in the aspect and taste that they are offered to thee, from day to day; the rest is beyond thy knowledge"
More of today's preachers and ministers should be like this. When a question is asked, the most common answer should be "I don't know. Lets pray".

(I must name a source. A great book I am reading. "Doubt: A history" by Jennifer Michael Hecht. Funny, when I brought this book I thought it was how figures in history over came personal doubt. Turns out it is about figures in history who had doubts about God and Gods. Same thing really? Jesus's doubt is covered.)

About the return of Jesus: Ask and you shall recieve. I believe in all possibilities.
(Must I name my source for that?)

Also, I am reminded of The Church of the Kidnapped Jesus which was in Vonneguts 'Breakfast of Champions". Some believers of Christ thought that since he had not returned yet he must have been kidnapped. They were constantly looking for him. For example, during a meal they would look under their plates every 20 seconds of so to see if he was there.

Yes Ruth that is the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

I had said that about a year ago that Peace needs to be marketed.

You know the selling points and benefits.

http://www.newswire.pro/peace_it.htm

It actually will put dollars in your pocket what more incentive does one need?

Many are fixated on the annual rite of skewering Jesus. We want to see God resuscitate him like a poked bug on our front porch.

I think, MY GOD, what if I'm the returning Jesus? I didn't arrive in a chariot amid lightning bolts to Amy Grant music played with trumpets. And I nearly faint at the sight of blood. I lack proper identification and I'm unqualified and I'm mostly mute.

What if there are a LOT of us terrified that we are the returning Jesus (that there are ought to be more than one)?

Sometimes I fear that Christianity is mostly about making darned sure he never has the balls to show up again and start stirring up the dust.

And did I mention that I'm also scared of death?

Prabhakar,

One's faith in Christ is based on one's approach to the Bible. This can be debated and have been debated from time immemorial - and we all have the freedom and the free will to do that and we should. I have come to believe that this is a personal choice - and that choice and reflection has set a "transformation in motion" in my life.

Thanks Richard - without LOVE, all is but a clamoring noise. To LOVE is a tall order!

Aradhana

Mieke: Thanks so much for your comments.

I am so glad for this discussion. Growing up a Catholic Jesus was for me, steeped in church rituals, but he was never unkind. And not long after I put Catholicism aside I discovered what Deepak has called, the third version of Jesus.

I have been feeling, over the past few years that Jesus had been "high jacked". Deepak nailed this one, and to his credit.
I'm so happy to discover that a lot of people don't buy into the idea of this new and hostile Christ.

So Option 3 is perfect.

I have sat here, and read most of the articles, and find three things very interesting:

1) Most individuals who has contributed to this blog knows very little, to absolutely nothing about Christ.

2) Most individuals who has contributed to this blog does not really believe in Christ.

3) Most individuals who has contributed to this blog has found it necessary to absolutely blaspheme Christ in an effort to promote their own unproven and shallow postmodern thoughts.

The fact is that Christ can not be found here on the earth in person at this present time. He can not be found in trees, He is not, and never has been, a spirit running free through the breeze as propagated earlier yesterday; and He is not one of three as propagated by Deepak Chopra.
The fact is that Mr. Chopra has led many astray, and is leading many of you astray as well. It is interesting, is it not, that Mr. Chopra would state that we should not judge another being, however, he certainly has judged many ideas and idealogies on national programs, and has an enormous group of followers that does the same.
The Bible, which is the Word of God, states that we are to "judge righteously", meaning that there is a right and a wrong. There is a truth and a lie. There is an eternal reward and an eternal damnation. Most importantly, THERE IS A GOD.
Nicholas of Myar, now known as Saint Nicholas to Catholics, Santa Claus to pagans, attended the first Ecumenical council in 325. There was a discussion about Arianism, which was taught and promoted by Arius at the time.
After Arius spoke announcing his doctrines and proposing that the church deny the deity of Jesus Christ, Nicholas jumped up, and hit him in the face. The thought of one denying the deity of Christ was so offensive to him that he hit a man.
I do not promote the violence of such an act, and honestly, Christ did not either, nor is it taught in the Bible. I do, however, understand. Here is a man, Emmanuel, God with us, who was seen by many; recorded in texts by the ancient Jewish historian Josephus as actually being a citizen, healing a great number of individuals, and being put to death by the Romans, reported as the form of punishment by crucifixion as recorded by Josephus, Justin Martyr and others, and raised from the dead, witnessed by over 500 people and recorded in history outside of the Bible as well. And we should deny that He is deity? How dare we deny that He is indeed God? How dare we doubt that we deny that He is coming back?
We should not play around with the facts, as Mr. Chopra so often does, (interestingly enough, he does not provide even one fact to back up any of his opinions, nor can he), rather we should accept the facts, and label individuals who have their own pious egos on display for the world as nothing more than mere man.
Mr. Chopra is no more intelligent, spiritual, or intuitive than anyone else. He also does not have fact, history, or any other method to judge his opinions. He has nothing. Why should we believe one word that comes forth from his mouth?

just like that.

Champ Claussen: Interesting that you wrote, "How dare we doubt that we deny that He is coming back?"

A comma is a vital grammatical symbol ;)

Champ Claussen:"The Bible, which is the Word of God"

Well that pretty much sums it up. The Almighty has spoken. All of our problems...solved.

If I had known that the Word of God was going to appear here today I would have penciled in more time with you because cause I have some questions. I am a little busy today however, due to the fact that my neighbor is working on the Sabbath and needs to be put to death, Exodus 35:2, so I have that to attend to.

But hey you must already know that.
Peace Brother.

Andy F:

You crack me up.

LPB: It was tongue in cheek. Some topics just rub me the wrong way however.
I am aware of my reactionary nature to some topics (which you pointed out to me) and I swear I am working on it.

Champ:

I am actually using this blog site to practicing "turning the other cheek" when slapped. I was hoping you were gonna say that that is what Arias did after Santa Claus slapped him.

And I wish your acts here (in word) would have shown me that you truly believed Santa Claus was wrong in slapping Arias in the first place. Unfortunately your blanket condemnation of all here shows your true colors.

As I said I am using this blog to learn how to turn the other cheek when slapped and you certainly have slapped mine. And this time I ain't gonna just turn the other cheek. I will however attempt to limit the hostilities I am feeling at your outright unrighteous condemnation of those you don't even know.

In or around 1982 the now much maligned post modern "Christian Fundamentalist" movement was born. Back then we were called "Born Again Christians"

I was one of them. I used to hang out on street corners on the weekends in ill fitting suits I bought at the local thrift store hammering "Jesus Loves YOU" into the ears of every passerby that had no interest. Of course to their backs as they rejected the "word of GOD" coming from my lips I added, "you'll burn in HELL".

Champ. I spoke in tongues and I knew the bible inside and out. The greatest credit I give to the bible as a "living word" (which by the way can be assigned to every word ever written by anyone about anything in this universe) is that it actually starting speaking to me and told me to run away from these false prophets. And you know who they are? They are people that condemn other people in the name of Jesus.

My friend. Check your self before you wreck yourself.

I have no problem admitting that I can, and do err with grammatics at points in time, Ms. Shields, but I am human, and all humans error. The question is, to whom should I go when I do error?
As far as the comment on the Sabbath, that is just ridiculous. Andy, you have utilized one verse in the entire Bible to draw a radical conclusion in which to sum up all who believe in the Bible. I also find it very interesting that you would suggest a violent act when I directly opposed one in my writing. Interesting.
I also find it interesting, that as of yet, not one can mention individual in history, or historical facts to support their opinions. That given, what credibility do you have? What is the worth of your opinions in the face of facts?
If you believe that your opinions are legitimate then why are you so willing to mention things such as grammatical errors, or attempt to attack me personally? Why don't you just stick with the facts?
As far as getting a hold of me, I do not mind that, as long as we carry on a dialog that is beneficial to all parties involved: You state what it is you have difficulty understanding, or disagree with, and I will listen. Then I will state the reason, and the facts necessary.
At my URL, you will learn about some of my background, as well as my imperfections, I do not keep those secret.
Christ, who is coming back, forgives all who call upon Him. I am no different.

AndyF:

Do you are doing a great job. And I mean it. Your humor made the point with out having to resort to any mud slinging. You truly cracked me up. I just read it again and when I come to the part about the put to death my daughter has to ask, What's so funny?" I literally laugh out loud.

Next time I suggest you say your going to a stoning.

Do should read "dude"

That was no mere grammatical error, my friend. It belied you and defined the crux of what you're doing.

Sometimes our mistakes ARE IMPORTANT.

Read the sentence until you understand it. Read it ten times if you have to.

And it's Mister, Claus.

You wrote, "How dare we doubt that we deny that He is coming back."

Please read it.

Dana:

Before I got side tracked I had wanted to say hello and like what you had wrote before.

Also I suggest that Champ read evrything he wrote over and over again. He really needs to see the repressed hate he has towards people that don't believe as he does.

It is refreshing to see that Deepak actually was able to manifest a living example of religious intolerance right here on this thread. Amazing.

Liked what you had wrote before Mister Claus showed up here.

Thank you, Laurence Peter Brown. You're very kind.

Fascinating that Mr. Brown can state that I am judging individuals while judging me.
The fact is, Mr. Brown, that I am not offering blanket condemnation of unrighteous acts perpetrated in the name of Jesus Christ. Eric Randolph was absolutely wrong in doing what he did. Though I do understand what, and why Nicholas of Myar did what he did, I do not approve of that approach either. Neither does the Bible.
As far as verbally slapping you in the face. Wrong again. If you feel condemnation, that can only come from God, not from me. I am imperfect. I am a sinner saved only by grace.
As far as for checking myself, I don't need to. That is what God is for. That is what He does. He convicts, He judges, He saves.
I can not make you feel anything. God loves you Laurence. He loves you too, Andy. He loves you as well, Ms. Shields. He loves you. You are left with a choice. Do you love Him, and therefore decide to follow Him, or do you love yourself and follow yourself? One leads to salvation, the other to damnation. You decide, and do not blame those willing to tell you the truth for the choice that you make.
Look guys, I love you. I don't have to know you. Because I love you, I am going to state the things that I have stated and stick by them.
The fact is, Mr. Brown, that I can not condemn anyone, God does. But it is not exactly as you would think. Why should God allow someone to be with Him for all eternity if they made it clear that they have had no desire for Him in life?

Champ,

God said that if there was a Heaven as a physical place he would not let people in that were good out of fear of going to hell or being punished.

You see God can talk through anyone, anything, anytime he wants. He is not limited to people that wrote 2,000 years ago. It is up to the individual to discern if it is really divine in nature.

He wants people that are good for the Hell of it, because they see their self in others.

“Why should we believe one word that comes forth from his mouth?” ~Champ regarding Deepak.

Why should we believe one word that comes out of your mouth?

Deepak is not trying force anyone to believe a certain way. He offers up thought and it is up to people to validate it through their own experience.

Perhaps these words are inspired by God.

You're beautiful, Claus. Take your mistakes to Jesus and you'll never, ever, ever have to learn from them, never, ever, ever have to look back and review, and never, ever have to call me Mister Shields and amend.

You wrote, "How dare we doubt that we deny that He is coming back?"

Please read it.

three...the son, the father, and the holy ghost...

They, the three embodies of christ ever-after, are what have been forgotten? The true feeling of spirtuality and oneness. Not so much about christianity as a religion, but christianity as a spirit and the soul of our creator. First we need a body to be born to have a spirit and a soul. And when it dies the spirit and the soul have matured in strength, enough to live without the body.

Look Champ. YES I AM JUDGING YOU! YES I AM JUDGING YOU! So what?

And I'm not trying to hide it so don't act like your exposing me

I'm not going to get into it with you. I had my years of fundamentalist banter. I was you.

If you read what I wrote I said I was NOT going to turn the other cheek. YES I AM JUDGING YOU!

I have a question; Why, if I am the one that hates others, are you belittling my name when I have been respectful to you? Why can I not make grammatical mistakes, like you do? Why can I not state my beliefs as well? Why can I not be respected as I have respected you?
As far as hating individuals who disagree with me, why do you judge me though you do not know me, (which is consequently the argument that Mr. Brown attempted to make of me)? Lastly, why can you condemn my points, yet still offer not one fact. I will continue to pray for you.

Champ:

This is what I acused you of

"Unfortunately your blanket condemnation of all here shows your true colors."

I never said:

"The fact is, Mr. Brown, that I am not offering blanket condemnation of unrighteous acts perpetrated in the name of Jesus Christ. Eric Randolph was absolutely wrong in doing what he did."

Those are your words. The next are also yours and as such condem us to hell.

"1) Most individuals who has contributed to this blog knows very little, to absolutely nothing about Christ.

2) Most individuals who has contributed to this blog does not really believe in Christ.

3) Most individuals who has contributed to this blog has found it necessary to absolutely blaspheme Christ in an effort to promote their own unproven and shallow postmodern thoughts."

Good day sir.

Champ, I called you Claus,and I cleverly referencing your earlier post citing Santa Claus.

Sorry for being a jerk and being disrespectful.

Champ:

I am concerned for you. That is all. If you think it is direspectful then all I can offer is sorry buddy.

But I will not reverse my opinion.

Is that a wrap?

Dear Champ,

I don't know nothing bout' the bible, but I know if you look within you will find all the heaven you ever dreamed of, it's just waiting for a second of your time and lovely attention in which to reveal itSELF..peace ruth

That's a wrap.

Thanks, Laurence Peter Brown. I'm looking forward to continuing our interchange!

Is that a wrap, Champ Claussen? Because I'm tired of acting like a jerk here.

It was said that that which claimed to be of the light was really the darkness. That which was said to be darkness was really the light.

In other words watch out for that claiming to be the word of God.

Some might agree Christ is Love therefore the antiChrist is the opposite.

Which would be fear, judgment, hate and attack.

So anything that uses fear (wise caution aside) and judgement, anger, and hate is the AntiChrist.

Perhaps God inspired these words.

Dana:

Just getting dinner on the table for my little angel.

Ruth's totally right.

St. Paul wrote, "There are in the end three things that last: faith, hope, and love, and the greatest of these is love."

By the way Richard. I do hope you will soon be able to generate an income from your writing. What you said about Deepak was genuinely spot on.

Or anyone for that matter. Dinner calls.

Right on, Deepak. As a Catholic Christian, Namaste.

xoxoxoxo
Ann

Guess that's a wrap. I love you too, Champ Clausen.

You have a BIG heart.

Dana:

Yea I started feeling like a jerk.

It's amazing how quickly I reacted as if someone had said, "Jesus was not the son of god".

It's not that I believe that he was.

And I'm not saying he wasn't.

At this point I can honestly say that I just don't know.

This is a refreshing place for me to be

I spent so many years thinking he must be and that I had to convince all those lost souls that he was.

And then when I left structured christianity behind I had to first reject all of it's tenets including the idea that Jesus really existed.

Now it's just not that important to me one way or the other.

At one point I was a christian just "incase" there was a "hell".

Not a good way to find peace.

Anyway the real point of what I just saw in myself is that I defend my point of view that Champ is "wrong" just as vehemently as I defended my point of view that people like Deepak were wrong oh so many years ago.

What is that about? Psychological trigger? Past karma manifesting as a sankara? The fact that my dad beat me on a pretty regular basis for some years?

Anyway I'm glad that one was short lived. I usually go on for days if not weeks when I feel "wounded".

Mr. Shields, Mr. Brown, Andy, et al.;
Look, I do not mind it being a wrap at all, however, if you choose to contact me, just click on my name, and it will lead you to the appropriate source for further contact.
I have no problem with those who disagree with me. I simply stated facts.
As far as being a jerk, I never believed that you were one. I do love you. God loves you. That is important, but so is the truth of God's love.
I do not mind what anyone thinks about me, as stated, I am a sinner saved by God's grace. That means that I am not prone to human judgement, I will receive mine when Christ returns, as will all others.
As far as calling me Claus; no problem, I understand being quick to quip. All humans have issues that they deal with.
Heaven is the place where God is. It is a perfect existence with God. It is where I am going to go; not because I am good, but because of God's grace. I will be there either when I die, or if Christ returns before then.
The peace that I have in my heart is a direct response to the spirit of Christ which dwells within me.
I love y'all; I will continue to pray for y'all, and as stated, if you wish to have contact with me, simply click my name, and you will receive the information necessary to e-mail me.
May you seek God, His mercy, His grace.

Here's a bizarro one for ya: it's possible that we're ALL right.

Alright.

Dana:

Anyway the thing I liked about your first post was the idea that any or all of us could be Jesus returned even though we didn't feel we had the right qualifications.

Sort of like Pythons "Life of Brian".

Or if I'm not mistaken "The Last Temptation of Christ".

Which remends me some one earlier had asked why if Jesus's last words on the cross were, "It is done." christians are still waiting for his return.

I'm sure there are as many answers as to what Jesus meant as there are people on the planet.

My take is that Jesus meant, "It has begun."

Laurence,
I would add that this post from Deepak helped expression of views from many true and enlightened Christians that are out there (I am not mentioning names lest I should miss one). I thank each of you because your comments helped me understand who true Christians are.

I checked out your website, Champ. You have a beautiful family!

Please keep returning here. (I feel like I have a bunch of new-found friends!)

Dana:

In what way? I simply don't buy that idea that if you don't know the name Jesus you are damned in some way. I wish I had a bible right now.

I used to regularly quote the words of Jesus where he tells his disciples that he has a whole other flock that none of them know about. They are his children as well.

To me that was all the people living in places that did not speak of Christs or Yahwehs.

In what way can saying there is eternal damnation right?

In what way can saying there is eternal damnation be right?

Because we're alright.

Also there are plenty of historical references to the fact that early christians believed in reincarnation. That early christians didn't believe in the virgin birth.

The very catholic church that fundamentalist christians rail out against gave them these foundations of modern christian belief.

Why wouldn't I spend the time supplying the "facts".

1. Even the facts could be wrong.

2. I really will not engage fundamentalists in a round and round conversation.

The Jesus that I worshipped got his teachings in India. How am I suppose to bring that to the fundamentalist christian table?

Dana:

Now you lost me.

An Inequitable Quote at Intentblog
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Mr. Chopra is no more intelligent, spiritual, or intuitive than anyone else. He also does not have fact, history, or any other method to judge his opinions. He has nothing. Why should we believe one word that comes forth from his mouth?

~Champ Claussen

Laurence, when I was twelve, I was poked by my pastor.

On Sundays, the pastor-poker would say, "Gird yourselves," or something like that about armor, "...against sin."

So I was sure I hadn't done that correctly.

But you can't walk around girding yourself for the rest of your life. Sometimes, you're going to get poked, and you aren't going to like it.

The trick is, though, to see yourself.

We're like dogs. Ears up. Ears down. That's pretty much it. We complicate it, but those are the two basic emotions. Ears up. Ears down.

The difference between us and the dog is that I can see myself in a mirror (ever notice that a cats & dogs refuse to look at themselves in the mirror). And I can say, ah. There's Dana. Ears up.

So what do we all have in common? You, me, Champ?

We're all righteously indignant. Then we desire to reconcile. Can you see it? If you're girded, you can't. Ears up. Ears down.

So if we can reconcile ourselves absolutely to Champ's message, which is one of love, then we can be willing to risk a poking.

We're alright.

And you can take that to the bank, everybody.

Dana:

I do very much understand the point you are making.

Non the less I also visited his site and must say that the fact is my sister has raised two "illegitimate" sons and they are fine young men even after it is suggested that "broken homes" produce less then satisfactory results still leads me to ask how can that be "right"?

Yes we're alright. By all right?

Laurence, I'm pretty sure that if you can reconcile yourself to this, you're going to be one unstoppable dude.

Ears up. Ears down.

Dear Champ Claussen,

Quoting you: "Most individuals who (have) contributed to this blog (know) very little, to absolutely nothing (,) about Christ.

Champ, this assertion applies to all Christians, as well. You have, at best, sketchy bioghraphical data on this Jewish rabbi, and you do not seem to be bothered one iota by it.

Christians theologians, through out history, have always found ways to rationalize the irrational. Your assertion, therefore, is disingenuous and thus will fail badly under academic scrutiny.

Respectfully,

Ron Saywack

Ears up. Ears down.

Laurence, do you see it now?

You will if you read the past five posts in earnest.

Dana;

Alright, now we have something that I can, as far as I understand what you are saying, agree with.
We must take a look in a mirror. We must see ourselves for who we are. The question that I have raised, and attempted to answer is thus; then what?
You and I have obviously disagreed on various points in the discussion. I do not have a problem with that. I believe that disagreements, when done properly, helps build relationships, character, and even friendships.
True it is that my closest friends are christians. That is not what all of my friends are.
Honestly, from what Mr. Brown is reporting earlier, he and I have much in common.
As far as my family, that wasn't them! I have yet to update that part of the site. (I am laughing as I type this). I do thank you, however, I do believe that my family is a great group of individuals.
I am sorry to hear that Mr. Brown does not feel comfortable getting involved in a communication with me, but I understand that as well. I told you, we have a similar background.
Here is an interesting thought:
What is the authority? If it is the self, then how is anything eternal possible, when none of us has gone to, or returned from eternity in order to state what it is or has been like? If it is Christ, then why don't we take His word, (without misinterpretation)?
May I state to you the biggest problem with Mr. Chopra's statement: paragraph 2.

Shoot. My wife wants to watch a movie. I have to go.

I think I've played my part, and God has richly provided the playground.

Blessing!

Thanks Dana. Enjoy the movie.

Ok Champ:

It is not that I don't "feel comfortable getting involved in a communication with" you. Just don't see the point of discussing something that is very personal to each of us. Each person has a belief in what jesus represents to them. I don't want to mess with yours. You keep it and be happy.

I have been down that road many a time and the truth is it will lead no where.

It does cause me, as I have noticed, to get hot under the collar.

What set me off was the very thing that Ron Saywack so articulately pointed out.

And unlike myself he was able to do it with out getting personal. Damn do I have so much to learn.

You see as soon as I began to read what you wrote I saw this coming. I should have just read it and moved on.

In all the years of my being a "born again" I only observed hate masked as love towards those that reject the "belief" that Jesus is our savior.

One can hear it in the argument. Once I left the born again scene I used to be approached by fundamentalist christians on the street.

Like you they didn't know me from Adam. Like you they assumed that I needed to know about Jesus. And when you made the statement/assumption that most on this thread did not know Jesus, you reminded me of my encounters with these well wishers.

The thing is I am a very malicious person. Armed with the knowledge of the bible I used to drive some of these loving christians to try to beat me up. All to show myself that in fact professing to love god and me through their relationship with jesus was all smoke and mirrors.

So no I'm not uncomfortable. Just don't see the point of discussing something that is very personal to each of us. Each person has a belief in what jesus represents to them. I don't want to mess with yours. You keep it and be happy.

Mr. Clausen, I know I haven't been involved in this discussion, and I stated above that I agree with Dr. Chopra completely, but I just have to comment on your remark about paragraph #2 being the biggest problem.

I agree - - - with Dr. Chopra. It's one of the biggest mysteries to me, why, if we have been "saved," do we have to wait for he second coming? If we have been "saved," and we live a decent life, according to Christ's word, we can expect to join him with the Father in heaven. So, what's the big deal about the second coming?

Let's assume that I'm a member of the "righteous." As a "righteous" person, I have no need to smite anyone who is deemed NOT to be righteous. What good will that do? If I am concerned with my own "salvation," how would it serve me to see those who are not "saved" punished? What's the point of that?

Jesus gave us plenty of examples of how to live a good life. To love one another and to honor one another, and God. Beside that, He didn't say anything about US doing more than that. If there's smiting to be done, even HE won't do it. That's God the Father's work. So ????

Jesus also said that he would be with us always, even until the end of time. There's a teaching in the Catholic Church that WE ARE the body of Christ. That it is our job to find, respect AND REFLECT God in everyone and everything. By so doing, we serve as the body of Christ. Here. Now. Warts and all. Which, again, causes me to wonder what ELSE can the second coming do?

That Body of Christ teaching is well-represented in the concept (as I understand it) of Namaste.

Peace

Ann

Religion is like Underwear:What you wear is your business.If you choose not to wear any,it still remains your business[makes the atheist happy].
Civic existence demands that there be decency and dignity in our presentation and inter-action with each other.This may be the outward reflection of us as 'humans' wearing the outer garment of tolerance,acceptance,diversity,compassion,accomodation and love.
The other option of going naked immediately relegates us to the animal kingdom and exposes the beast in us.
The word 'secular' as used by the religious zealots takes on as being an invective or vituperative connotation,whereas it truly should be defined as being equidistant from all religions/beliefs.

Mr. Brown;
It is good to see that you do wish to have some sort of dialog with you.
Let me agree with you on one thing: All christians do not practice all that they profess to believe all the time- that includes me. As stated previously, I am a sinner saved by grace. It is grace alone, through faith, in Christ Jesus, my Lord and Savior.
Ron has not articularly pointed anything out. He only stated that Christ was a Jewish Rabbi, I pointed out that He was, and is more than that, and provided the evidence as such.
As you can well see, I am not getting into personal attacks as much as I am stating that if any individual wishes to be viewed as on worthy of an audience then they need to provide facts, not mere opinions.
I can understand why, and how you would become turned off to christianity, but may I suggest to you one thing: That was not even christianity in so much as it was ego.
The tenets of Christianity require that we speak the truth in love.
Individuals can, and do, become offended by that truth, and even learn how to hate that message.
I love you Laurence, not because I am good; but rather because God, (not a propositional God that has been pointed out by others in this blog), loves you. I know that it can be difficult to understand, and even accept.
Look, I am willing to discuss this with you via personal communication. I don't believe that you are as malicious as you claim, otherwise you would continually attack me. If you wish to continue, fine, punch on my name and you will receive the information necessary to do so.
Honestly, I believe that I am done with this blog site. Not certain, but I believe so.
The only thing that I have gotten out of this site is that individuals who claim to be openminded about spiritual manners, and willing to discuss them, really aren't. Why should I hang around that?
The fact is that Christ is coming back; it is not the Christ upon which Mr. Chopra speaks; we know that He is coming back, because He is the only one in history that has a perfect track record with written prophetical evidence as well as historical references.
Laurence, (may I call you that), I have no animosity towards you. I wish you well. You know how to contact me.

LBP: As always well stated. I was going to reply to all of this, but why stir the pot. I feel the point was made.

To sum it up: Matthew 65-68 ..."he has blasphemed. What need witness have we now? There! You have heard the Blasphemy. What is your opinion?" They awnsered "he deserves to die." Then they spat in his face and hit him with their fists; others said as they struck him, play the prophet, Christ! Who hit you then?"

Peace.

NORM:This blog has maintained the decency of allowing free expression and venting of ideas.It affords an impersonal forum for discussion and reflection of opinions.Sure our ego can be bruised at times but that only balances out the gloating it feels when it is stroked.So get over it and remain with us.
The fact that you posted that you are leaving shows that you care AND the fact that we have written back to you shows that we care too.
Consensus all the time can lead to a peculiar kind of dullness and mental fatigue in the same way as a horribly one-sided game.

Brief Commercial Break:

Several years before her passing away, my Christian grandmother, whom I love very much, had dinner with my wife & me.

I was asked to say prayer. I happen to like the prayer that Jesus taught, "Our father who art..." because it means a lot to me.

Midway through the prayer, she screamed at me. She said ragefuly, we WILL NOT RECITE PRAYERS in this house (which was our house). She said, you will say a prayer of your own, using the brain the Lord gave you.

And so I said, "Dear Lord Jesus, we thank you for this food and thus to our bodies. In Jesus' name, Amen," which was my very best recitation of the prayer we'd said a quadrillian itmes growing up that meant absolutely nothing to me.

My grandmother sighed with relief and smiled and I passed her the potatoes.

Remember:

Socrates: To do is to be
Sartre: To be is to do
Sinatra: Do be do be do

Vonnegut

And there's also this:
On this planet, there is exactly one human being that I have converted to Christianity. It was at summer camp when I was about nine, I did it according to the textbook when he and I were alone, and I felt like I was going to vomit right around the time I got him to fold.

I mean, he totally caved for me.

Back to the movie.

Ta.

Ann;
Your questions are great ones, and I have no problem answering them for you. If you wish to have them answered then just click on my name and you can get in contact with me that way.
I thank you for being kind.

But at least I didn't poke him after I was done getting him to accept Jesus as his personal savior.

Champ:

I would like to save you a bit of time. I really meant what I said. I did not read your last post addressed, at least in part, towards me.

It is not because I am uncomfortable with you.

It is for the reasons I've already stated.

As sid stated, "Religion is like Underwear:What you wear is your business.."

In light of the current discussion I will repost this with a few changes and additions:

The true identity and purpose of Jesus is a very important religious and spiritual matter!

Relative to Jesus returning, the 14th chapter of John the 2nd and 3rd verses say "I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also."

This seems to indicate he will come back.

The problem, as Deepak correctly pointed out, is which Jesus is really coming back?? And I would like to add, Is it at physical return, or a Spiritual return?

Most Christians believe that Jesus is the only path to God! They get this idea in part from the same chapter of John verse 6 which says: " I am the way, the truth, and the light, no man cometh unto the Father, but by me."

This belief in my humble opinion, is a semantics problem at worst. It goes like this:

If I am one with God already, and you come to God, you will have to come by me, since I am already there.

The most difficult Christian belief, for other religions to deal with, is the belief that "JESUS IS GOD!

They get this idea from verses that say "I and my Father are one" but they fail to balance it with his statement in other verses like Luke 18 verse 19 where Jesus says

" Why callest thou me good? None is good, save one, that is God."

I believe that Christians by and large have made Jesus "Devine", in order to escape responsibility!

They say humans can never be perfect, but all they have to do, is believe on Jesus and ask his forgiveness every time they do wrong, and they will be forgiven and saved.

This is how they try and escape responsibility!!

What about Matthew 5 - 48 which says " Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect."

If Jesus would tell us to be perfect why would we need him for anything other than an example?

And by the way if he was the "Only begotten Son of God" how would his overcoming temptations here on earth, be relevant to us "mere humans"

Doesn't make sense to me.

What makes sense to me is, : He was just like us and tried to show us how to recognize our own Divinity, and our true relationship with God i.e. That we are all his children.

Respectfully,

Stan

Stan:

I would label what you have said critical thinking. Nice post.

I was raised with the second Jesus, and read about the first Jesus. At this point though me and the second Jesus aren't on speaking terms, but maybe the third Jesus won't deny me simply because I love differently.

:)~

adontai: For what it is worth adontai. i don't think he deny you or anyone.

Laurence, I've intermittently been searching for an email I'd sent about a year ago, encapsulating a vision I had. I couldn't find it, so I'll try to recall it from memory:

There was a man in an early Christian settlement who'd been exposed as a pervert, dressing like a women. He'd gotten caught red-handed.

He was a man who'd been highly regarded by his community. He was forthwith dragged out onto the high street by several men he knew and the entire town laughed and mocked him as the elders kicked him. Friends, business associates, his whole life revolved around this settlement. He was destroyed in that moment. The really sad thing was that he didn't have the "sickness" of homosexuality they thought he had. He just loved women a LOT. I know it's a little weird, but true.

I could see that God loved this man (this man was was my forebear). God made a pact with me as the observer: all could be forgiven. We just needed to release our desire to assert dominion over each other, and bam, we could be free. All of us. Easy enough, right? Peace, Love and happiness!

But I couldn't help noticing that some of the communities more prominent elders were absconding with nuggets of power that were on the ground--like gold--sort of like you'd see a shoplifter swipe something. Shoving little pieces of it into their pockets when they thought nobody was looking.

I was a lucid participant in this vision, and as such, became really distressed with their selfishness and the Catch-22 THEY were creating with their greed. Grace was extended by God, but so many were absconding something diminished and refusing the ultimate.

After about ten minutes of this foolishness, I got very upset with myself, and said, enough is enough. Just as suddenly, I realized that it was I in fact who was the problem.

I was judging them in the same manner that they had judged this poor cross-dresser and it was I who was hindering the miracle of grace that God bestowed.

With absolutely nothing left to do, I mean nothing, I forgave them.

Suddenly, their austere black and white dress (man they dressed funny back then) magically transformed into colorful dashikis. No pockets. No problem.

God loves color. It's his gift to us. When we can't forgive, things begin to re-dress themselves in black and white and you begin to see things like that black and white W sticker everyone has.

Forgiveness for that black and white thinking is hard. But I an also see a lot of value in what Champ is saying. He talks about the occult. I got that same putrid feeling in my stomach when I was asked to recruit for an occult. Same as when the church asked me to do it. No different. Now I leave it to others to sort out their dharma.

Laurence I know you're working very hard to divine Right Path.

I intended this post to be sent with love. Toward you. Toward Champ.

Peace, baby, and don't get your dashiki caught in your bicycle chain!

Dana:

Love you a lot and thanks for your vision.

I don't know if forgiveness is necessary as I kind of got your message earlier in tandem with Andy F.

It's all cool.

We people will be people and Champ is a people.

He didn't offend so no need to forgive. Except maybe myself.

A constant on going job.

what did I miss?

I was not going to post this, however I cannot let this go by. I don't think it's healthy to let things sit inside of me.

Champ said:" As far as the comment on the Sabbath, that is just ridiculous. Andy, you have utilized one verse in the entire Bible to draw a radical conclusion in which to sum up all who believe in the Bible."

Hello again all: I simply wish to write a follow up to my earlier post. As I recognize my role in this Tête-à-Tête.

I stand by my original thought and it is this, Champ and I quote “The Bible, which is the Word of God” Well needless to say (I am going to anyways) I have a huge problem with this.

I don’t believe it is Champ, and I have lots of examples I can give, because I think your premise is flawed. In fact if even one of those examples proves it is not the word of God, then that means it is not. Do I really need to point out simple logic? I had hoped not. I guess I was wrong.

Then came this line” We should not play around with the facts, as Mr. Chopra so often does, (interestingly enough, he does not provide even one fact to back up any of his opinions, nor can he), rather we should accept the facts, and label individuals who have their own pious egos on display for the world as nothing more than mere man.

I am aware that Deepak is posting his opinions. However your "fact" that the Bible is “the Word of God” is just an opinion as well. And like I said I have a huge problem with people/religions who claim to speak for God.

Remember Jesus before the Sanhedrin?

That being said, I am not dismissing the Bible as a whole, after all is contains the story of Christ. Not the entire story mind you just the official version. There is the matter of the Dead Sea scrolls. Why are they not in the Bible? Guess they were not considered “The Word of God”.

I tend to think of the Bible like this: It starts with a creation myth and evolves towards Christ consciousness.

Deepak asked just last week I believe, and I am paraphrasing, “How long should people who practice tolerance put up with intolerance”? Well, Good question Deepak. I guess I found my limit and I will have to work on expanding my level of tolerance.

However, I find it difficult to tolerate it, when people proclaim that my soul and the souls of the wonderful people I have met here is somehow condemned, unless everybody follows their dogmatic, narrow view of the world.

Oops I see that my uncle has gone and planted two different crops in his field, looks like I have to go to a stoning. Too bad. I love the guy a lot.

Peace out.

LBP: Let me just say, I am up late on Saturday night, a ritual for me, and I am re-reading your posts and I have to say there are a number of things you said that ring true with me.

Just two of those things: Jesus was most likely spiritually educated in the East. And the idea, that just because you are not familiar with Jesus = eternal damnation.

Right on! I hear you loud and clear.

Dear Andy,
Thanks for bringing this statement of Deepak to my notice, I had missed it in the original post:

"How long should people who practice tolerance put up with intolerance?"

My answer: Not for a single moment.

Dear Cinda,
That was an amazing story!

Cheers!
Navin

PS: I found this thread to be a very interesting one and liked the views of EricJP, Scott, Divya, Laurence, Craig, Syamala, Dulcie, Desh and some others.

Can someone answer why it is that I like pickles so much?

Dub,

It could be that you are gay. I have a gay friend who craves pickles everyday.

AJ

LOL, AJ

Divya,

Do you have a blog of your own?. May be U should start one at blogger.com or something.

'..What alternative is there? Loss of faith and a slide into deeper and deeper meaninglessness. that would be a terrible fate for all of us, not just the Christians..'

Here we go..!

I'm from that camp, the 'Christian hypocrisy' corner, Polish, as the former Pope, brought up with the Bible, as well with spirituality,

Let's kick..(i)t h e Q!

Jesus!, the man!, one and only!,
and the writings, holy and true...
and the practise..,
through the centuaries..,

Let's do the Unforgiven! (*Metallica ;),
Church Law? you make me sick!
Hierarchie? in Spirit? you make me laugh!
Love? Solidarity? What's the Vatican worth(s)..
in currency..in blood..or love..or Euro's..?
what is it giving?
rules? customs? secrets? my ass!

I have been to church today, no kiddin'!
and it wasn't just for the girls..
no kiddin'!

I would sue the whole christian maffia if I could, and then ask Robin Hood to ...
for the ...

*(fill the (legal) dots for yourselfs..)

'..deeper and deeper meaninglessness..'

Yes!, big problem! (re)solution?

Law of Giving..
or was that Neverland..

in the next level in the game(s) people play,
in the non/virtual domain..
and then they ask for forgiveness,
for they know not what they do(ne),
though, the diagnose or verdict,
is a self-fullfilling prophecy or label,
in the mind of the beholder..

What's the Game behind the Game..?
but that song is by Public Enemy,

no.1..!,
the Spirit behind the Ego,
or was that..love..?

..Peace, Passion!

Jesus is Just one of the many great spiritual beings who have came to be here on earth.

Talks with a teacher whos name in translation means "Mr Natural"

Questioner: are you not immersed timelessly in abstraction master?

Mr Natural: Abstraction is mental and verbal and dissapears in sleep, or swoon, it reappears in time; I am in my own state (swarupa) timelessly in the now. Past and future are in the mind only --- I am in the now.

Questioner: The world to is in the now

Mr Natural: Which world?

Questioner: The world around us.

Mr Natural: It is your world you have in mind, not mine. What do you know of me, when even my talk with you is in your world only?
You have no reason to belive that my world is identical with yours. My world is real, true, as it is percieved, while yours appears and dissapears, according to the state of your mind. Your world is something alien, and you are afraid of it. My world is myself. I am at home.

Questioner: my own feeling is that my spiritual development is not my habds. Making ones own plans and carrying them out leads nowhere. I just run in circles around myself. When God considers the fruit to be ripe, he will pluck it and eat it. whichever fruit seems green to him will remain on the worlds tree for another day.

Mr Natural: You think God knows you? Even the world he does not know.

Questioner: Yours is a different god to mine. Mine is merciful. He suffers along with us.

Mr Natural: You pray to save one, while thousands die. And if all stop dying, there will be no space on earth.

Questioner: I am not afraid of death. My concern is with sorrow and suffering. My God is a simple God and rather helpless. He has no power to compel us to be wise. He can only stand and wait.

Mr Natural: If you and your God are both helpless, does it not imply that the world is accidental? And if it is, the only thing you can do is to go beyond it.

Mr Natural: You have no knowing of the world, you are completly wrapped up in a world of your own making.

an article from a spiritual constitution ;)

Public Enemy
WHO GOT GAME?

IF man is the father
the son is the center of the earth
In the middle of the universe
THEN WHY is this verse comin
Six times rehearsed
Don't freestyle much
but I write a lot such… word
Amongst the fiends
Controlled by the screens
What does it all mean
All this shit i'm seein
Human beings scream vocal javelins
Signs of a local nigga unravelin Uh huh
My wandering
Got my ass wondering
Where Christ is
In all this crisis
Hatin Satan
Never knew what nice is
Check the papers
While I bet on Isis
More than your eye can see
And ears can hear
Year by year
All the sense disappears
Nonsense perseveres
Prayers laced wit fear
Beware
2 triple 0 is near

CHORUS:
It might feel good
It might sound a lil somethin
but Damn the game
If it don't mean nuttin
What is game who got game
Where's the game
In life
Behind the game
Behind the game
I got game
She got game
We got game
They got game
He got game
It might feel good
It might sound a lil somethin
But fuck the game
If it ain't sayin nuttin

Damn was it somethin I said
Pretend you don't see
So you turn your head
Race scared of it's shadow
Does it matter?
Thought of reperations
Got em playin wit the population
Nothing to lose
Everythings approved
People used
Even murders excused
White men in suits
Don't have to jump
Still theres 1001 ways
To lose wit the shoes
God takes care of ol folks and fools
While the devil takes care
Of makin all the rules
Folks don't even own themselves
Payin mental rent
To corporate presidents

1 outta 1 million residents
Being dissident
Who ain't kissin it
The politics of chains and whips
Got the sick
Missin chips and all the championships
What's love got to do
Wit what you got
Don't let a win get to your head
Or a loss to your heart
Nonsense perseveres
Prayers laced wit fear
Beware
2 triple O is near

CHORUS

Ya that's right everybody got game
We just here to let u all know
that PE is in full effect till the year 2000 Joe
My man sing it.

There’s something happenin here
What it is aint exactly clear
There’s a man with a gun over there
Yeah that’s right HA HA
Telling me that I got to beware
Its time we stopped children
What’s that sound everybody look
What’s going down

Hey yo...
I don't think they heard ya Steve
sing it again kick it to them again
One more time

Its time we stopped children
What’s that sound everybody look
What’s going down
Its time we stopped children
What’s that sound everybody look
What’s going down

That's right boy PE in full effect boy
Till the year 2000 Joe

BACKGROUND:
Stop look what's that sound (come on sing it)
Everybody knows what's goin down (Here we go again yo)
Stop look what's that sound (Hey hey)
Everybody knows what's goin down
Background continues...

These are some serious times
That we livin in G
And our new world order
Is about to begin
You know what I’m sayin
Now the question is…
Are you ready for the real revolution
Which is the evolution of the mind
If you seek than you shall find
That we all come from the divine
You dig what I’m sayin
Now if you take heed to the words of wisdom
That are written on the walls of life
Than universally we will stand
And divided we will fall
Cause love conquers all
You understand what I’m sayin
This is a call to all you sleepin souls
WAKE UP and be in control of your own CYCLE
And be on the lookout for those spirits tonight
Trying to steal your light
You know what I’m sayin
Look whats inside yourself and
PEACE, give thanks, live life and believe

Dear Deepak,
Thankyou so much for your sharing. You are truly inspiring! Love Richard.

Dear North and Navin,
Thank you for your encouraging replies to my experience.
This is the road I travel, experiences so mind bending, you wouldn't think it to be true...you just have to be there!

Today, for the first time, I decided to put out small chocolates along with the regular place settings on the lunch table. Our guests were 2 friends whom we last saw 11 months ago, when my Dad passed on. It may not seem important about the chocolates but they were Ferrero Rocher. When our friends arrived, they also brought with them an heirloom from their Mother, who passed away some years ago. It was a beautiful side table, wooden, hand carved with some special sort of inlay of intricate designs of flora with a magnificent peacock in the middle...made in India. When I first saw it, it took my breath away, I hugged it and said how much I loved it. Later on, after lunch and eating the chocolates, I went over to this precious table again to closely look at it. To my amazement! The peacock in the middle had something stuck just around the neck, like a pendant...when I brought it up to my eyes it was...a sticker from the Ferrero Rocher chocolates. My friend told me that her Mom had stuck it there a long time ago.
OH, the joys of connectedness, in AW we laughed and laughed and laughed.
I had no idea she was bringing that particular gift for me.

...and so we journey on, I am sure I will meet some of you on here in time to come.

In love,
Cinda

Syamala says: "In Indian history, Shankaracharya tried to eliminate Buddhism when it was leading to atheism (he built temples over some Buddhist shrines) although Buddhism is a religion of compassion and Shankara taught onneness of God and Adwaita.

In Gita, the Lord says "No matter in what form or in what name you worship Me, I am pleased and I will respond".

**********

Is there a contradiction here? Why should one try to eliminate Budhism if it leads -purportedly - to atheism? Did Lord say that you have the freedom to choose any form you like but you MUST worship Me?!! If not, why can't atheist be tolerated?

Are there any other reasons to eliminate Budhism? Lokayatha is said to be that part of shad darsharns, which espouses atheism. Why was there no particular campaign to eliminate it, as it leads to atheism too ? Was there something else that Budhism stood against ? Did that cause some fear - fear of extinction of certain ideologies - in the mind of the orthodoxy or the class that enjoyed social prominence? Did that prompt them to campaign to eliminate Budhism?

Dear Deepak, yes it's me again, Oz boy, I know you all remember, ha,ha, God Deepak what's all this talk of juggling balls with your laughter which you've sent me via my e-mail hotmails site, brother sounds like so much fun, maybe you can give us a demo one day via the net and this intent blog,brother I don't know but it sounds like you've got your hands on some secret weapon that maybe even the USA may have to lay down their arms in surrender to you, man and what better person to surrender to? I say step it up from Deepak to president of the US to Deepak leader of the world and Universe Etc. Etc. Ha, HA, how's that for juggling mate? I don't know how you do it all brother I just get really tired and sleepy after doing the washing and laundry and some hoovering by the way that's not Hovering. Ha,Ha,Ha. God Bless you all Amen, to that about Jesus. Jesus loves you whatever it was about.
Gary.

Najeeb - I don't know where Syamala got her facts from, but it is common knowledge that it was the Islamic barbarians that were responsible for the elimination of Buddhism from India. Buddhism was well organized with a hierarchy of monks, monastaries, universities etc., and the jihadis descended upon these institutions and razed them to the ground, slaughtered the monks, burned the libaries and generally destoryed the entire culture in the name of Allah. Since hinduism was not structured in a similar manner it was spared this cruel fate. The Islamic hordes were not able to go to the length and breadth of India to elimiate every single Brahmin who was a custodian of the vedas, nor could they crawl into every cave and kill all the yogis.

Shankaracharya was responsible for the revival of hinduism and he achieved this through sheer logic and argument. As was the custom in those days monks from different schools publicly argued their philosophies with each other. Naturally if you lose you have to concede that the other person is right and accept their philosophy. Shankaracharya did not accept the Buddhist concept of shunyata and there was no Buddhist monk who could out-argue him. Therefore he was able to convince entire sects to accept his philosophy of advaita.

There is no concept of atheism in Buddhism. This is a western misconception. The word in Sanskrit and Pali is nastik as opposed to the vedic concept of astik - and it roughly means "is not" and "is".

Dear Stan,

Thatz a good post. I have been thinking in that way too.

I would like to add few words: What is God? God is the most cherished idea in one's mind. Some may have money as the most cherished, some may have a longing for fame and these are their gods. IN order to be perfect in the respective area, you need to cherish that particular idea. This is the meaning of the belief in one god.

So when Jesus says I am the way, he is pointing to certain ideas or practices that lead to certain states of mind. And to reach there, you will have to keep that aim and related ideas as the most cherished ones in your mind. And once you do that, you are using Jesus as your way. You may be going to a Hindu temple and pray to Lakshmi, Saraswathi or Ganesh or Muslim mosque, or you might have never heard of Jesus in your lifetime, but if you are keeping these ideas as your most treasured ones, you are on the way, the way that is called Jesus.

He is leaving. Kavita, Stop him. Gautam, Stop him.

"Honestly, I believe that I am done with this blog site. Not certain, but I believe so.
The only thing that I have gotten out of this site is that individuals who claim to be openminded about spiritual manners, and willing to discuss them, really aren't. Why should I hang around that?"

~Champ Claussen

Sorry. Gotham Stop him. Not, Gautam Stop him.

TS

Whispers in the Wind ....

"God's calling.

God's calling.

God's calling the whole wide world.

Faithfully."

Dear Najeeb,

Thanks for your sharing! I agree with you that the "way" Jesus spoke of is related to a state of mind and spirit, that Jesus demonstrated with his life, as opposed to a personal belief or attachment to Jesus himself.

I personally like to relate to God as my only spiritatual Father.

Respectfully,

Stan

Spot on as ever Deepak, and timely too...

I think the world is enduring something of a spiritual crisis, with religion having been hijacked by conservatives and fundamentalists, and a widespread loss of faith amongst those who are more secular minded.

I personally believe that the Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas is the true Jesus: an enlightened spiritual teacher who taught that the Kingdom of heaven is within you and around you, and crucially, that we are all the children of God. As in he wasn't the one son! If only the message of this Jesus would become widely known think of the difference it would have on the world?

Most people have seemed to have lost faith in ideology. Working together in this age we could genuinely achieve world peace, an end to famine, and happier and more spiritual times for all... utopia on earth, a return to Eden if you like. All the resources are now in place, we are incredibly rich and have developed such amazing technology, that this utpoia is something which could actually now be achieved.

Of course there are major obstacles to reaching this utipoia. The major obstacle is people's beliefs. People's beliefs about themselves, their beliefs about the world, and also their beliefs about each other. If they could just get over the idea of speration, and rather embrace oneness and unity... who knows?

But of course any change on that scale would require leadership. And that kind of world leadership would need to come from an icon. A figure people have been expecting and praying for. And we live in a time of global media...

If we assume there is a God, a loving universal conciousness, vastly intelligent and incomprehensible to man, what is to say that God doesn't see the problem (and the opportunity) and do something about it.

Queue the second coming of Jesus no.3

My money is on the third Jesus coming back.

When? Next year.

How do I know?

Because I think it's me.

I'm writing a book at the moment about my travels in Asia. It could be very big news next year... Deepak, if you read this feel free to contact me.

Jules

Nostradamus Century X

The year of the great seventh number accomplished,
It will appear at the time of the games of slaughter:
Not far from the great millennial age,
When the buried will go out from their tombs.

Long awaited he will never return
In Europe, he will appear in Asia:
One of the league issued from the great Hermes,
And he will grow over all the Kings of the East.

Whispers in the Wind ....

"Jesus is God's Will.

Jesus is a miracle of Love.

Celebrate My Love."

Nazeeb and Divya,
I did not mean to say Shankaracharya was responsible for eradication of Buddhism. When I reviewed my earlier post, it looks like that interpretation is possible. I apologize to Sankara. However, for example, Shankara built the Shiva temple at Amaravathi in Andhra Pradesh, where archaeological explorations revealed that a Buddhist monastry existed there some hundreds of years ago. The shivalinga in that temple is very very tall and is believed to have been a Bouddha stoop.
Again, I did not say Buddhism is atheism. It is not but since Buddhism emphasizes mind control and purification and says very little (or nothing) about God, communism spread in many nations which were once Buddhist. This is not my theory but this remark was made by Swami Vivekananda. I do not remember well but it might be Vivekananda also who said that Shankara built Shiva temples next to or over Buddhist shrines in some places in India because he was concerned about the spread of atheism where Buddhists were turning into atheists. Shankara did not do it out of hatred for Buddhism or by violent means. He was the personification of "all paths lead to the same end" principle. I mentioned this example in the context of trying to understand why Popes are against secularism. I did not mean to put Shankara on the same level as Islamic rulers who butchered people to spread their religion. There is simply no comparison.

As Ravi said it so well, often, religions get perverted not because of teachings in scriptures but because of people's lack of understanding in practising those teachings. Regardless of how carefully scriptures might have been written, the truth is they are written by human beings. Like Deepak said, each and every statement there should not be interpreted literally or out of context.

Talking about atheism, secularism, and philosophies which do not refer to God: they tend to cause concern among even very tolerant spiritually inclined communities. One example: today, Sri Ramakrishna Mission (followers of Ramakrishna Paramahansa, again a "personification of all paths lead to the same destination") do not allow J.Krishnamuthy's books and tapes in their library. They discourage their groups from following Krishnamurthy's teachings because they are afraid that those teachings may develop negative attitudes and atheism in followers. Krishnamurthy does not teach anything bad! For sure, Swamijis in the Mission know that. But that is the way it is. Unfortunately, our languages are not adequate enough to express spiritual truths completely and accurately and the spiritual truths are so abstract to describe in words that no matter how one presents them, listeners may easily misinterpret them.

Syamala - There is absolutely nothing wrong with having personal convictions about your own path to divinity. There is nothing malicious about the RK mission not keeping Krishnamurthy's books. Why should they? It is important to keep this important distinction in mind when discussing Hinduism. Other traditions killed you for not believing in their particular God. India, on the other hand, had a vigourous tradition of debate and each tradition held the other in intellectual contempt. How can you believe in shunyata and poornata at the same time? How can you believe in dwaita and advaita at the same time? It is a logical impossiblity. Most of us, of course, do not know the difference one way or the other so it is an academic issue. For the academics, however, it is very important and back in the day if you lost a debate the head of the shramana and his entire discipleship had to "convert" to the winner's point of view.

As for the Hindu temples on buddhist maths - why would buddhist temples continue to flourish when buddhism no longer existed? Temples are built in accordance with all sorts of calculations. Moreover there are pre-existing foundations that can be made use of. It is logical to build on the same spot. There is no malice involved in this. If you are implying that there was malice involved in this you should tell us your basis for saying so.

All paths lead to God is an overblown and often misused cliche. There is no way I could find God through Vipassana meditation, or Deepak's teachings or sannyas. The paths I have chosen are those that are suitable to my own nature. I have no problem what paths others follow and in that sense I concede all paths may lead to God. Some of them, as you may be aware, do lead to insanity and depravity as well. Let us keep this in perspective.

Syamala, you are one of the few people on this blog who I agree with on most issues. This is just by way of clarification. The biggest issue facing hindus today is that we are learning our culture through the english language. There is a distinction between how Vivekananda addressed a western audience and how he did an Indian one. How do we know what Vivekananda understood theism and atheism to mean? I only found out the inaccuracy of this translation when I began studying Sanskrit. Most hindu swamis still use these words.

AJ, Just the kind of sophist deduction I've come to expect from the world, lately. I have a craving for peach cobbler, also. Does that mean I'm in need of a shoemaker from Georgia?

Don't know if Jesus is coming
But he is leaving, he is leaving
Is he not worth keeping?

He is leaving this note on leaving:
"Honestly, I believe
that I am done with this blog site.
Not certain, but I believe so.
The only thing that I have gotten
out of this site is
that individuals who claim
to be openminded about spiritual manners,
and willing to discuss them,
really aren't.
Why should I hang around that?"

When someone else leaves
Kavita and Gotham are rushing
To keep him from leaving
But when Champ Claussen leaves
No body is wondering

Is he telling the truth?
Is the truth hurting?
How sad, how sad
When Christmas is coming!

You do have a way with words, Tanzan.
When you can't confront directly, it's great to couch honesty in poetry.
Then again, you have been upfront and direct too. Sometimes, nasty. Biting, and occasionally, sweet.
Champ, it can be mean here at Intent. You have discovered that.
Come back anytime.
Or stay away.
Sometimes, it's the addiction of being here, that is the worst of all.
Good luck, buds

Telling couching honesty in poetry,
Is this your way of judging?

And too, occasionally sweet
But mostly nasty and biting

Perhaps someone was right
You aren't doing Bible reading

I tell the way it is
Take it or leave it

TS
in an another response to CH

Dub,

You are one strange dude, my man. What are you craving now? Peach cobbler?

Dude, I know of a great therapist here in SouthCal.

If I can be of help, please let me know.

AJ. LOL!

Divya,
I tend to agree with you too most of the time but to me it seems as though you get into an argumentative mood sometimes and then you tend to misunderstand.

For example, in my post on RK mission, my whole purpose was to say that RK mission has NO MALICE against Krishnamurthy when they bann his literature from their library, and that their intentions are good.
Sorry, I do not see the point in the rest of your comments also but I am not arguing any more.

Dear Dr. Chopra,

You bring up an essential point in the very fist sentence of your interesting subject. Taking the Bible literally is the only way to be a Christian. So-called moderate and liberal Christians are not Christians but merely moderates and liberals.
There is no such thing (or should not be) as a religion “a la carte”. People have been adjusting their religion and their churches according to how far they have to drive, the personality of the priest, the kind of people who attend mass, the kind of music or activities it organizes.
A religion is either orthodox (not quite the same as fundamentalist but almost) or it has no reason to be. It is not up to the candidate member to set the norms or the principles, it’s the churches role. A member must accept the dogma, the creed and the scriptures as they are or not at all. That is the nature of religious dogmas; it’ all or nothing. Religion is exclusive by nature, not inclusive. I have always been astonished to see over a dozen pages of (Christian) churches in the phone book.
As for Jesus, he is almost irrelevant in the light of all of this. Christian religion is focused on obedience and salvation and redemption of believers only (see the creed) it’s not about the Second Jesus you mention. If you admire his moral principles of the Second Jesus, create a club called the “Good People Club” but don’t go into religion. And to comment on other aspects of Jesus would take too long here. Let me just say that we know more about a man who lived 630 years before Christ himself: there is, by the way absolutely no physical, historical evidence that Jesus ever existed (Sorry Simon): curious, No!

Respectfully Yours,
Maurice Guy

PS. Great comments Eric JP

You know, this was a provocative title on the website, so i don't think it's any big shock that the comments thread would wind up with a little vim and vinegar added.

So I don't feel sorry for anybody who chose this particular topic to post and left unhappy. I was drawn to it for a reason: it looked like it might have a little friction and fire, some heat, and an exciting exchange.

Man, if we aren't rowdy sometimes, we're apt to fall asleep. And frankly, I'm sure Champ can stand it cuz he certainly can dish it out just like me.

There's a saying: if you go to the barber shop often enough, you're bound to get a haircut.

I don't believe that peace and coma are the same thing.

If there is no physical evidence that Jesus Existed then who does it matter to?

I have read many things about the life of Jesus over the years and have been involved with spiritual Groups meditation Groups and so forth whom have had members who have had contact with Jesus through meditation and known his nature and his presence.

I myself have not known his energy but I have never put my attention on any one thing in general like some seekers do.

I have no doubt that he once did exist as a man and his energy is still present here in this world now.

It is really not an issue whether Jesus was real as in a physical being, The Religion of Christianity is not in any way a spiritual representation of any one person. Like I have said before Relgion and Belief systems are like supporting a football team for the people involved in them. The religion of Omnipresence is the Understanding that there is nothing but god and that everything is God and there are no exceptions, God is not merciful, not Jealous, Not angry, Not a Guy on a cloud with a white beard stringing a harp, Not Asian or European or American..... God is all of these things and there is no question to that.

There is one that God seems to be from the point of view of the mind.... Unfathomable!

God is your Inner Nature, inside when the ego has exhausted itself and played out it's game your inner nature is all that is there just as it was in the beginning.

Ask an old person "What is it like for you inside to be an old person?"

The answer is.... I am the same inside as I was as a Young person.

This spark that is there when the person is young and that is there when the person is old is God...it is the Omnipresent one. be religious to that and know it Intimately and the need to know whether or not some one existed 2000 years ago will be not relevent any more.

That is all

Hi I'm new to this blog, curious and fascinated. I wish to relate that Christianity does not have to have this ugly fundamentalist face. All religions in the west of India had a zeal for the truth, which is understood as undivided either this is true or not. It took a long time for people to understand that you could ask the wrong question, that what you believe may not matter. To me, the Bible (or any holy scripture) is most powerful where it goes beyond the expected. Upon Jesus return he will say to many "You call me Lord, I do not know you. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you didn't give me to drink, I was in prison and you did not visit me" (Mt 25:31f of the return of Christ). The power of the Christian faith is that it has criticism of established religions and rites built into the basis of its most holy book, thus Christianity bore reformation and enlightenment and modern liberties, and we should judge no religion for its excesses.

On the other hand, we cannot build our romanticized version of Jesus. He has his rough edges, he said "I did not come to bring peace but the sword" (Mt.10:34), and other things that take time to understand, such as his elitary understanding of salvation from and for the Jews versus the gentiles. We can't sidestep that. We also can't think that we would know anything any better about the real Jesus than the canonical scriptures that we have tell us.

Some say Jesus did not exist -- How can a religion be entirely fabricated? That's impossible. Some say the Bible is stupid, and they only believe the Gospel of Thomas or some other apocryphic idea. These books had been carefully studied by the early church, and they had been fairly critical and wise in selecting the canon. Then and now there was a lot of humbuk floating about. One needs to study these decisions by the early church particularly the struggle with the Gnostic ideas to understand Christianity.

The development of the teachings of the three personae of one being God, the nature of Christ as true god and true man, and the forgiveness of sin, are our central and timeless teachings, which are ever challenging. There are many things in Christian teaching that may have parallels in Hindu teachings, such as the personae of God. That doesn't mean we can just brush over the differences. For the sake of truth, we can't simply negotiate a "deal" in which each takes away some of their believes to form a compromise. But we have to keep engaging in dialogue and learn from each other by mutual respect.

Even from the evangelicals the church has learned something good anew, which is, that in the center of our faith is the personal relationship with God. Christians are not called into the obedience to rituals, or following of a scripture, not called into literalist ignorance, but called into love, forgiveness, mercy, compassion. The call of Christianity is the call into meeting other people and serving God through serving people. Certainly no rite is greater than that, but not even personal knowledge or enlightenment is greater than that.

Man, Gunther. You sure paint with broad strokes on a BIG canvas. I've read your post three times, and new things keep popping out at me.

Thanks for taking the time to write it.

Interesting that you put in Matthew 25:31. Problem is, as is with most scripture listed in this blog; it is misquoted. Matthew 25:31 states :
"When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory."

Hey T, sorry for the misleading citation. I have not misquoted, but I should have written "25:31ff". I intentionally selected the reference to the beginning of the whole saying that starts as you say and then comes to the punch line that I quoted from my memory.

Now as you read you will also see that I conflated the quote with another eschatologic saying from Mt 7:21. Both sayings are right to the point about Jesus "coming back".

The point is: Christian salvation does not come from proclaiming a literalist law, following rites, not even from inner self-purification or from attaining divine knowledge. It is all about the love of God and my neighbor in need. There "will be" many people who are so sure about "being saved" but who will be surprized to hear that they missed the point. And many people who didn't think they had anything to do with it "will be" surprized to hear that they had served God.

Hey, Laurence: I don't know if you're still attending this thread. Looks to me like Jesus has come and gone, party's over, and everyone has moved on. (The place looks like a mess, proof that everyone had a ball.)

Anyway, if you happen to see this, I wanted to let you know that I thoroughly enjoyed our reparte last weekend. I'd also like to stay in touch separately, so if you'd like to email me at danashields@softhome.net, that'd be awesome.

I truly hope I was able to help, because sometimes I feel like it's a bit challenging to maintain my voice when I'm being pummeled by National Groupspeak. I admire you for taking responsibility for your choices and conveying your story!

God Bless!

P.S. My grandmother, mentioned above, who was a born again, fundamentalist Christian of the scolding variety told me that the Pope was the anti-christ and that the Mormans were a cult.

It's quite nice to see that Christians of varying types have mended fences among themselves. But there are more fences to be mended.

Gunther;
I would agree with the majority of what you said. The facts are the facts: Christ said that Many would come to Him declaring Him as Lord and His response would be "Get away from me for I never knew you." Christ also stated, "I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father but by me." These are the tenets that are essential. The fact is that it is a very deep, personal, real, time-tested venture, this relationship with Christ.
It is bounded directly upon the Holy Word of God, and the fact that we, as humans are incapable of being good enough to enjoy heaven, especially when we deserve nothing more than the opposite.
The Bible is to be taken literally. If it is not, then we can not be. If the Bible is not taken literally; within the confines of context, then there is no hope for anyone.
In Christianity, Christ is the focus, just as intended. That is what separates from all other religions. Either He is who He is; or He is being propagated as someone that He does not profess to be.

Hello All

Just stumbled upon this site

Taking the bible or any other writing so literally begins to boggle the mind (at least it does for my slow moving grey matter).

I think if we all kept it simple we would finally understand that the one liners are usually the ones that impact the most.

"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you” (NIV, John 1)

I think it says it all

Love and gratitude
Dan :)

Hi T, I will keep thinking about your words

"The Bible is to be taken literally. If it is not, then we can not be."

"If the Bible is not taken literally; within the confines of context, then there is no hope for anyone."

"In Christianity, Christ is the focus, just as intended. That is what separates from all other religions. Either He is who He is; or He is being propagated as someone that He does not profess to be."

Those your words are worth thinking longer about.

However, I want to challenge this notion of "taking the Bible literally" as a necessary means to salvation. And more so, I challenge what does that mean anyway?

Salvation comes from a living and souvereign God, not from the letter of a holy book. When you say "taking literally" I'd agree if that means "keep reading the words and keep asking what they mean". But if you mean that you should just take every aphorism and every metaphor and naively apply it to the next best thing, then I disagree. Jesus had no New Testament, it was written by spirited and inspired believers of the early church shortly after him. It has the strongest authority when it comes to the sources of our faith. But it is not an oracle or world-fact-book, was never ment to be. Construing it as such is ignoring what the texts really want to say.

Gunther;

You are correct when you state that salvation comes from the living and sovereign God; but let us not dismiss the Bible.
First, the Bible is not a book of tales: "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and instruction of righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works." (2 Timothy 3:16,17) The Bible is the Word of the Living God.
Second, though it is impossible for humans to perfectly follow the words of the Bible, every jot and tittle, (hence the need for Christ), it is essential to read and study the Bible for educational purposes, (the above mentioned verse is also appropriate for that point).
Third, let's keep in mind that the Living and Sovereign God continually referred to previous scriptures, in both Testament eras.
Fourth, Let us remember that we do not worship the Bible, we worship the God of the Bible. The best way that we can know God is through the Bible.
This is fundamental christian doctrine. The Bible is to be taken literally. Though there are certain word-pictures; when studied appropriately, (in the correct context), then these are understandable, and it is recognized that some in prophetic form have already occurred.
So why do I say that taking the Bible literally is necessary to salvation? It is simply because Christ is presented in the Bible exactly as He really is. He is not the individual propagated by many individuals who have already contributed to this blog. If an individual does not believe in the Christ which permeates throughout scripture, then that individual does not truly believe in Christ. That is why we must take the Scriptures literally.
If you want to see a blog where an individual has recently discussed this sort of idea; go to champ.iblogs.com.

Gunther;

You are correct when you state that salvation comes from the living and sovereign God; but let us not dismiss the Bible.
First, the Bible is not a book of tales: "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and instruction of righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works." (2 Timothy 3:16,17) The Bible is the Word of the Living God.
Second, though it is impossible for humans to perfectly follow the words of the Bible, every jot and tittle, (hence the need for Christ), it is essential to read and study the Bible for educational purposes, (the above mentioned verse is also appropriate for that point).
Third, let's keep in mind that the Living and Sovereign God continually referred to previous scriptures, in both Testament eras.
Fourth, Let us remember that we do not worship the Bible, we worship the God of the Bible. The best way that we can know God is through the Bible.
This is fundamental christian doctrine. The Bible is to be taken literally. Though there are certain word-pictures; when studied appropriately, (in the correct context), then these are understandable, and it is recognized that some in prophetic form have already occurred.
So why do I say that taking the Bible literally is necessary to salvation? It is simply because Christ is presented in the Bible exactly as He really is. He is not the individual propagated by many individuals who have already contributed to this blog. If an individual does not believe in the Christ which permeates throughout scripture, then that individual does not truly believe in Christ. That is why we must take the Scriptures literally.
If you want to see a blog where an individual has recently discussed this sort of idea; go to champ.iblogs.com.

Gunther;

You are correct when you state that salvation comes from the living and sovereign God; but let us not dismiss the Bible.
First, the Bible is not a book of tales: "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and instruction of righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works." (2 Timothy 3:16,17) The Bible is the Word of the Living God.
Second, though it is impossible for humans to perfectly follow the words of the Bible, every jot and tittle, (hence the need for Christ), it is essential to read and study the Bible for educational purposes, (the above mentioned verse is also appropriate for that point).
Third, let's keep in mind that the Living and Sovereign God continually referred to previous scriptures, in both Testament eras.
Fourth, Let us remember that we do not worship the Bible, we worship the God of the Bible. The best way that we can know God is through the Bible.
This is fundamental christian doctrine. The Bible is to be taken literally. Though there are certain word-pictures; when studied appropriately, (in the correct context), then these are understandable, and it is recognized that some in prophetic form have already occurred.
So why do I say that taking the Bible literally is necessary to salvation? It is simply because Christ is presented in the Bible exactly as He really is. He is not the individual propagated by many individuals who have already contributed to this blog. If an individual does not believe in the Christ which permeates throughout scripture, then that individual does not truly believe in Christ. That is why we must take the Scriptures literally.
If you want to see a blog where an individual has recently discussed this sort of idea; go to champ.iblogs.com.

I was born a Presbyterian in the island of Trinidad. Our ancestors had come from India in the 19th century to work on the sugar estates of the Caribbean. Larger numbers went to Trinidad, Guyana and Suriname. Today I can best describe myself as having no religion. I simply follow no path. Christianity is dying in Trinidad and they ( the Church) dont even know it. Its basicially dead in Western Europe. I beleive that fundamantalist doctrines that preach " my way is the best way" will bascially morph into irrelevence in the 21st century. In noting the death of religion, we must now examine why Hinduism ( Sanatan Dharma) has survived since the beginining of what we perceive as time. I beleive that 1000 years from now Hinduism will be around albeit not in present form..and therein lies the secret of its success. It is flexible and its teachings can be used to fit any civilizational context. Its what the business academics call a learning organization.

Dear fellow bloggers,

It's interesting to note that this subject has received over 260 comments compared to 15 or 20 on others; it shows the passion.
It's not easy to comment in brief on a subject like this to avoid putting people to sleep. If I come across as direct, brutal and cynical it's only in an effort to stay brief. Please don't think that I am intentionally harsh and by all means I hope I am not offensive.
Simon, please don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that there is no God (Christian or otherwise). I am just emphasizing the fact that institutionalized religion is not the repository of knowledge of God. It has no authority, no authenticity on God(s) for several reasons that would be too long to list here.
Therefore it is up to each individual to discover his or her own spirituality because religion has no authority to tell you what to believe, how to believe or when to believe.
I am willing to agree that there may well be an ‘omnipresent one and that God may well be our inner nature, but Christianity has but disdain for such belief; it’s paganism. There could well be out there some sort of Energy we can connect to some day, but science is not there yet. Richard Dawkins speaks of an Einsteinean Religion; concept interesting to look into.
The bottom line here is that there is an abyss between belief and religion. So I admire your courage Simon to question the world and to go on your own quest for that 'Force' you believe in. And I admire the fact that you speak of it without any hint of self righteousness or without trying to convince anybody to think like you.
Christianity however does not allow personal questioning; it's a sin to question God or the Church. Religions pretend to know all of the answers. And when religion tries to impose a vision of God that has no founding and for which it has no authority, I feel offended.
Gunther brings up interesting statements which illustrate what I have been saying all along. Gunther is probably neither a moderate nor a liberal. He is extremely orthodox when he says ‘for the sake of truth we can’t simply negotiate a “deal”… to form a compromise (on the Truth)’. This means that Christianity is holding The Truth and the only Truth and that it automatically excludes all other concepts of God. “Religion (any religion) is exclusive”; quoting me.
Religion has no problem being ambiguous, or even contradictory. Gunther reminds us that ‘we have to keep engaging in dialogue’ and that Christians are ‘called into meeting other people’. What for? If Christianity is all the Truth and nothing but the Truth then dialogue is hypocrisy. Calling people into love, forgiveness, mercy, compassion, dialogue, mutual respect is an illusion, a delusion or at best a lie, because of the fact that Christianity has the Truth, period.
Dialogue would only mean that I , the Christian, will systematically try to teach you, the Hindu, the Muslim, or the non-believer, my truth and show you your errors on which I will not “negotiate”.
That is why I say Christianity (and nay other religion) can only have a fundamentalist face; whether it is ugly or not is a matter or opinion. The only other face it can have is one of hypocrisy which leads to pseudo-dialogues, pseudo-compassion, pseudo-forgiveness and so on.
By the way, the Pillar of Christianity is not Jesus but Adam. Without Adam there is no need for Jesus, because without the original sin there is no need for salvation. So again I say, if your sole interest in the Christian religion is the moral principles of love compassion and so forth create a Love and Peace Club or a Good People Club but before you adhere to a religion be sure to do your home work and study the tenets and dogmas.
Hope I wasn’t too long.

Respectfully yours,

Maurice Guy

Dear fellow bloggers,

Hope I’m not taking up too much space here. Simon mentions that if Jesus doesn’t exist “who does it matter to?” And Gunther states “how can a religion be entirely fabricated?” This may seem obvious to some but a closer look shows quite something else.
Let us not forget that Jesus is the subject ‘sine qua non’ of this blog here. If Jesus did not exist let us look at some of the consequences: Christianity would have no authenticity (which it doesn’t), the New Testament would be based on a lie (which it is), People would have to stop saying “Jesus said” (which they should), thousands of priests would be unemployed (there is no reason for them), hundreds of thousands of innocent Native Americans, African slaves, and other people (killed in crusades) would not have died in vain (which they did) and so on.
If Jesus really existed, which is highly improbable, and if what is said of him in the New Testament is true (which is totally different from his proof of existence), he truly would have been a venerable sage. However with what is said of him (which may well be different from what he really was) we can clearly see that he is profoundly against what the Christian Church has made of him over the centuries. If Jesus were to return tomorrow, where would we find him: Certainly not in a church. They would not recognize him. You would probably have to look in an asylum; a man in strange garments saying “I am the resurrection and the light; give your riches to the poor”?
What are we to make of the Pharos religions, of the Vikings religions and of the over a thousand non-Christian religions the world has known? Were they not entirely fabricated? What makes Gunther think that Christianity could not be a fabricated religion also? What is its authority after all? It has none, nor more than all of the other religions I just mentioned.
Here again is the difference between Belief and Religion: Religion states, “here is the Truth, We have it, don’t look any further and what is more here is how it should work, obey or else”.
You have discovered freedom of religion, some of you, if you’ve gone on a quest of your own like Simon, why can’t you see that what is necessary in today’s world is freedom from religion. This does not mean that there is no Omnipresent One somewhere out there but you or any body else has no right to tell you or me what God is and how to worship Him.

Truly Yours

Maurice Guy

Good discussing Maurice

just reading. . .

Peace

Excellent comments Maurice. Do visit more often.

Maurice;

If no one has the right to identify who God is, then who are you to state that Christianity is built on a lie, (despite the facts written not only in the Bible but through Hebrew and Roman scribes that were alive during, and shortly after His time)? What authority do you possess?
You see, that really is the problem with Depak and others like him. They wish to state that they do not have any absolute authority, that there really is not any absolutes, yet Christians like myself are wrong when we stand up and profess truth.
Mr. Chopra has an enormous problem with John MacArthur, as well as defects from his "Wellness Center".
I will grant you Maurice, hideous attrocities have indeed occurred in the name of religion, but it is imperative to mention that it was in the name of a professed religion, not necessarily in the love of Jesus Christ.
As far as the coming of Christ, His second coming; if I were you, I would not worry about the slave owners who beat or murdered their slaves, nor those directly involved in the crusades, for God will take care of that when Christ returns. What you should think about is yourself: What attrocities, or wrongs have you commited that must be corrected?
As far as my faith being the only one listed that has commited wrongs: Mr. Chopra is from India. Dare we talk about the attrocities that are being commited to Christians, Muslims, and women in that culture? Dare we discuss the conferences that the Indian government was having regarding the possible manufacturing of nuclear weapons when the tension between their country and Pakistan heated up a couple of years ago?
You see, men's hearts are full of evil: yours, mine, Deepak's, all of them. We think, say, do, things that we ought not to, (for further evidence of this, one does not need to look at current events, just drive down any highway and honestly assess your thoughts, actions, and words while driving). This is the reason why Christ will come back.
You may become angry at this: No, you will become angry at that. I have seen Mr. Chopra get angry at it many times. The fact is this. It is not about me, it is not about you, nor Chopra; it is about truth. Truth can not be determined. Truth is. When Pilate asked "What is truth?", his question was a wise one.
Maurice, you have stated that there are no absolutes; then who are you to absolutely state that there are no absolutes? Who are you that questions Christianity, and the Bible? It is obvious that you are not a scholar, for secular writers and historians tell of the existence of Christ and the beginning of Christianity, and those accounts actually support the New Testament.
That then leaves this one question: Who are you to state what must be done with Christ when He has already stated what must be done with Him? He stated "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the Father, but by me."

The question "is Jesus Coming Back?" is completely off the mark. Comments such as "…if Jesus returns, there are three choices of who he will be." and "…the third Jesus might not return to them" are irrelevant and unnecessarily confusing and provocative. Why? Because what should be taught is that Jesus will not come back but that Jesus is here, now! By this I mean that "Jesus" is the inner divinity, i.e. the Christ, that is within all of us. This higher self, soul, true self, spirit or whatever you want to call it, is who we really are and it does, as you call the "third Jesus", "speak for peace and love; his morality includes all peoples." In a gentle, respectful and loving way the inner divinity that we all are needs to be taught to and realized by all fundamentalists and all that take the Bible literally.

I profoundly disagree. To state that Jesus Christ is directly within us, therefore is here on the earth, and refuse to affirm that He is an individual person, is to deny the evidence of historical facts. Historical facts recorded by such historians as Josephus, Justin Martyr, as well as Roman historians all concur that Jesus was an actual person, who performed many great works, and was crucified.
Moreover, various professors, from a plethora of fields of study have examined the life, death, proclamation of resurrection, proclamation of ascension, and the ministry of the apostles. This has led many, basing their opinion solely on fact, to believe that Christ not only was a real person, but was crucified as Roman and Jewish records show, and did indeed rise from the dead.
Since Christ was the only one to do so, and no other spiritual teacher, leader, or guide ever has, that makes Christ different.
Another thing, as pointed out previously, is the fact that I, as a "fundamentalist" must practice peace. Really? Whose interpretation?
Jesus turned over tables in a temple because they were disgracing the house of Almighty God. Jesus called the Pharisees and scribes hypocrites. He stated to a Roman governor that He is the king of the Jews. Is this your idea of peace?
It is true that Christ did not condone personal retaliation; but He stated that we should speak the truth in love. The problem is, the truth does not necessarily bring about peace.
I also profoundly disagree with you on another point... Jesus WILL come back. The same scripture that man has for thousands of years attempted to destroy has consistenly and convincingly proven itself absolutely true.
Therefore the question is not will Jesus return. Nor is the question whom He will be. The real question is this: When Jesus returns, will you be with Him, or against Him?

Dear Champ,

I would like to expand ad-libertam on this complex but touchy subject but once again it would take many pages even many chapters to exhaust the subject completely. Out of respect for other bloggers and for the initial question posed by Deepak, I don’t think it would be fitting that we do so here.

I respect your integrity and your obvious desire for peace in the world, but are you trying to say that in order for peace to exist, that one must believe in Jesus? Are you also trying to say that if we don’t then when he comes back those of us who have not believed will pay the price of eternal death and damnation?

As for me, I have no intention of dictating to anyone what god id or who he is or when, where, or how to worship him. I have no authority on the subject. When I say that there are no absolutes, I mean that there are none in Religion. The difference between my position and yours is that you proclaim; I don’t. The ball is in your camp to prove and bring forth evidence otherwise you are the one who has no authority nor authenticity just like the Church.

For Jesus to come back, it is necessary that he lived first, then secondly that he died, and lastly that he could or did come back to ‘life’. That is a lot of ‘ifs’ and absolutes that should generate more than just words of faith and on which we could exchange chapters of debate.

Josephus wrote one sentence mentioning the brother of Jesus some 60 years after the death of Christ. On the Roman side not a scribble. Nor is there anything said by the Hebrews. Where if you please is the evidence, notably concerning resurrection? Don’t you think that an event of such proportions would have left tons of written material by the historians of the times? Or is this Resurrection something of a metaphore?

Yours Truly,

Maurice

PS; Thanks to Divya and Craig for your encouraging comments.

I am glad some of you feel the same way I do. I live in an era when there is so much pain because of religions.

I think it would be very amusing if Jesus came to the world and remained totally silent as a lesson to the Jews and Christians. I think Jesus should not come back to this world because he was silenced. God did send his only son to the world and look what the white man did.

In the same context, western society is so much into secularism and equal rights, human rights etc. And yet christians are the ones who take away the rights of children and put the burden of the cross around the neck of these innocent little ones. The way I picture it is they (the christians) are converting each and every child into a labor force to carry this huge and enormously heavy cross on their backs and shoulders. I dont think Jesus wanted a part of all this at all. Then how can we say that Christianity is about Jesus Christ? I think the present day religion that dominates the world is only about money and power.

So where did India and hinduism go wrong? Why is a hindu nation being made to carry the burden of the crucifixion when she had nothing to do with Jesus' murder? And is it not surprising that the biggest murder of the world is considered only a crucifixion with the words : HE DIED FOR US: rather than a criminal offence? The religion thrives on this fact and so do the people who follow it.

Each and every one of us has the right to believe in whatever religion we believe in but who gives christianity the right to impose this major crime on innocent human beings, using money as a major tool?

The same fact applies to Islam. There is no account of the amount of violence and murders committed by islam. Islam has changed the face of hindu society with their oppression of 1400 years. Who is asking for accountability? In fact oil bearing islamic countries are considered powerful and successful in the world and India, a hindu country, a third world country.

Why are christians and muslims allowed their own countries, and yet allowed to destroyed India, this little hindu country in this vast world?

Yes, in your dreams!

Dear Madhu,

A wise Native American (Tecusmseh; Shawnee Chief) once said to the president of the United States, Andrew Jackson, “Who can trust a people who killed their own God (Jesus) and who started worshipping and understanding him only after he was dead”.
There is a lot of power in that thought.
I don’t quite agree however that Religion is to blame for all our pains but you are certainly right when you say that the core of Institutionalized Religion is all a matter of power and money and Jesus died for nothing if one refers to the New Testament (if one believes the scriptures to be true) where it is said that Jesus was upset to see that the Church of his time and Caifas the Head priest was practicing religion for the rich and living in luxury. It’s this power of the priests of that time that killed Jesus, nothing else.
None the less there are people of all religious beliefs that strive for peace; I just don’t think that religion is the answer.

Yours Truly,

Maurice Guy

Maurice;
I am grateful that you wrote back, and I am grateful that you asked questions, and I do intend to address those issues. Before I do, however, let me address some statements that you made that are inaccurate, and therefore misleading.
You stated that Josephus wrote about the brother of Jesus, but not specifically Jesus Himself, and you also stated that the Roman scribes did not mention anything about Christ. Both of these assertions are absolutely false. Josephus did mention a man that was crucified, in Jerusalem, by the Romans, accused of blasphemy by the Jewish Sanhedrin, and he even reports that this man was claimed to be innocent of all wrongdoing. You see, Maurice, Josephus wrote of many things that are recorded in the Bible, and this great Jewish scholar gives excellent insight on various Biblical stories in the Old Testament, and closes his account not long after the time of Christ.
As far as the Roman, and other, accounts. Cornelius Tacitus is one of various sources that mentions Christ. Look Maurice, the gauntlet thrown down by you only required that I show one Roman source of information that mentions Jesus in order to back up what I stated as truth. Tacitus is one. I could go on, if necessary. To drive the point home, let me state two very important facts: 1) There is more information, and testimony, and evidence to prove that Christ existed, was crucified, and rose from the grave than there is proof that Homer wrote the Iliad, and the Odyssey. 2) There is more information written within 100 years of the resurrection of Christ that many do not even report. If you wish, I will be more than willing to discuss this with you through e-mail, and you can feel free to contact me at "fromchamp2u@lycos.com".
Now you mention my proclamation. It is not mine, it is of an authoritative source.
You know, when all is said and done, according to Hinduism, and Deepak Chopra, what you say, and think is not going to amount to a whole lot. What good is it then to say anything at all?
According to Christianity, you were created with a purpose in mind, that means you are special. That means God, who you can personally know, loves you. It does not surprise me at all that many of the individuals on this site do not like that statement. The original author of this blog, Mr. Chopra, recently did a few interviews combating those very same beliefs. But why? What is it about those statements that he can not stand? What is it about those fundamental beliefs that many on this site can not stand? I'll tell you. If we were created, then we are to be at the mercy and grace of the Creator, not creation.
Let me address something that you have recently stated, in fact, just yesterday. That is that you do not believe that religion can answer the questions regarding peace, and other travails in this world. I agree. It can not. Why? Because religion is created by man for man. It is an evidence of prideful, supposedly intelligent creation. Faith is different. You cannot have faith in Karma. Why? Because there is no proof of it. No one who came back as a sacred animal can inform you what they were or how things are going now. You have a religion based around a few beliefs.
Let's make this just a tad bit interesting. You mentioned an American Indian. Great. That's part of my ancestry, I can comment a bit about the spiritual practices of shamanism, which is essentially the spiritual practice of American Indians of old. Shamanism was, and is, built on religion not faith. We know this by the fact that they, each one of them, could not have a personal experience, or know the various spirits personally. That duty was put primarily on the shaman, or "medicine man" who would offer chants, light incense, play tribal music, etcetera.
Christianity differs from every religion in the fact that it has a man who performed great feats, more written about, and through various cultural sources, and time frames, and those are backed by geographical, arcaeological, historical, sources. These sources are all verified, all facts. When they are disputed, evidence comes forth that shows they should not be, evidence such as the tomb of Pilate which was discovered, documentation of Caeser Augustus, and Herod's tomb discovered.
With information like that, I do not need to proclaim anything other than the facts. The facts state what they state, and they state that there is only one man who should be believed, regardless of what others attempt to state. That man, is not just a man, but Emmanuel, God in the flesh.
I have seen, on this very site, many state that what I am saying these things with hatred and judgement. I disagree. The facts are what they are, and sooner or later, all will face them.
As stated previously, I am willing to discuss this further, just contact me at fromchamp2u@lycos.com and I will get back to you as soon as possible.

Thank you for your comments. I disagree with you in the statement that Christians started worshipping Jesus after his death. I do not think Jesus is worshipped at all. I think what Christians worship is the fact that they have got away with so much atrocity in the world.

I dont know what to make of blame. Even today, after so much realisation of our destructive ways, man still continues with the same destructive activity. I keep on telling my personal story on blogs as I have not been able to write my story. (I would like to remind you all of the salman rushdie affair) I was told to shut up just last week. It is not easy to make a stand on any subject in this well educated and powerful world. All I can do is tell you how I feel and maybe one day it will make a difference in this world.

Dear Champ,

Thank you for the invitation to prolong our discussion on a more private basis. However once again we are headed for a discussion that extends far beyond the context of Deepak’s subject.
Allow me to go straight to the point and just make a few quick, direct comments.
1. In lawyer’s terms, proof is fact that can be allowed as evidence in a court of law or admitted as the result of scientific experimentation for example.
2. Whomever may have mentioned Jesus in historical documents did so in a context which would not constitute proof of any kind because probably based on hearsay and because too indirect. There is no mention worthy of attention about resurrection.
3. We know more and have more direct proof about certain slaves of the time of Jesus than we do about him. How can any respectable historian be considered seriously when he writes about a man who died 60 to 100 years before their time?
4. Even texts written close to a hundred years after Jesus’ death and obviously biased by their origin, contradict each other; Matthew and Luke can’t agree on where Jesus was born; was it Nazareth or Bethlehem for example?
5. Yes the New Testament mentions historical places and historical persons such as Pilate and Herod, but that is not a proof of anything except that those who wrote it had learned about them. It’s like Homer, the legendary writer of the Illiade who mentions at least one historical place, Troy. Does this mean that the Cyclops he speaks of and the Greek Gods are real as well?
6. Even if we were to find Jesus’ birth certificate tomorrow, it still wouldn’t prove that what the New Testament (made of a hodge-podge of texts hand-picked by the early Church), nor the Old Testament is a repository of a truth or the truth in a literal sense.
7. It is easy to demonstrate that the Bible as a whole is not reliable as a literal truth. I have picked on Christianity because of the original subject, but this can be said of all scriptural religions.
8. Too many people confuse belief and religion. Religion is an institution with creeds and dogmas and dictates. Belief is an intuition of sorts, a hope to understand the world without necessarily proclaiming a truth and dictating a set behavior. Shamanism is an institution as soon as people grant one man (or woman) the exclusive power to access God, but it has at least one respectable element; it leaves God as a mystery, which he is essentially, to be discovered through a personal quest.
I hope that I haven’t been neither too general nor too long on this subject.

Truly Yours

Maurice Guy

Maurice;
I find it fascinating that you can give generalities to your argument; but once again you have offered absolutely no specifics. If you whish to make harsh claims, very well, just provide the supposed evidence that you claim that you know in order to prove your point. If you do not have it, then you have no point at all.
I have provided evidence, (and have been more than willing to provide even more in an answer to your challenge to do so personally), and I have backed up all the statements with those facts. Please do the same.
I have read the statement of the individual in fromnt of your comment as well.
I agree that individuals that consider themselves christians have committed atrocities- as have Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Swani, Buddhists; the list goes on. People are people regardless of what title they proclaim. This Blog has not dealt with the issue of morality of people, rather it has dealt with the evidence regarding the coming again of Christ. That is why, belief is not important, evidence is.
Earlier in the blog, you will see comments directed straight toward myself that are very demeaning, and I answered everyone with the hope that they would answer in facts, and I invited them to do so personally through my various availabilities- Maurice, I extend the invitation to you again.
Since I do not wish to leave those of you that have visited without substance- here is another name that historians have noted as bringing reliability to Christ and the New Testament- Julius Africanus.
I certainly hope that instead of blasting Christians, (of which I have been labeled properly), we can seek to discuss facts and deal with reality.
Good day.

Dear Champ,

What more can I say? What evidence do you expect of me? Do you expect me to bring evidence that Christ never existed? The absence of evidence for his reality is proof enough. But once again the burden of proof is in the hands of those who proclaim he truly existed.
And if need be to repeat let’s remember that the proof of Jesus’ existence is independent of what the New Testament says about him. The fundamental question therefore is not ‘did Jesus really exist but is the New Testament the literal truth about him and about God’?
It would take quite a few chapters here to demonstrate the absence of rationality in the entire Bible and the mythology on which it is based, but it has been done.
This is not about blasting Christians but about asking Religion to bring evidence of its authenticity and authority before it imposes dogma and by the same token, segregation. I am certainly not directing any animosity toward you personally but toward an institution which encourages people to go out and proclaim a truth it does not have.
I hope that I will not trouble your apparently deep rooted belief. However I can not adhere to it as long as it is sanctioned (in the proper sense of the word) by Religious institution.
The only remaining discussion we could have at this point is on the extent (if any) of the truth contained in the Bible, which seems somewhat inappropriate here. As for discussing facts that deal with reality, religion is the domain of irrationality, there is no reality in religion however you turn it.

Very Respectfully Yours,

Maurice Guy

Just so the others understand what Maurice is saying here: Maurice is stating that all religion is irrational, and he is not. Maurice is stating that he is god. Therefore, if you believe the same as Maurice, your life will end in the same manner that his will. Nothing could be more depressing than that.

Dear Champ,

I am frankly disappointed in you. I was expecting better rhetoric than this.

I do appreciate however your concern for the way my life may end but I don’t think it’s any of your business and I don’t see when and where that makes me a god of any sort. I would be interested in knowing what you seem to know that I don’t and that is how my life will end, in your opinion; it can only be your opinion of course unless you have direct access to god yourself.

Yes I do declare that religion is irrational and nothing else because it is easily demonstrated. What seams to bother you and those who have your convictions is that you cannot conceive of believing in god without religion. But it is very liberating and certainly not depressing. I don’t have to live in a world in which I have to drag my God around because of some sort of permanent guilt syndrome.

Your God menaces on a permanent basis. I ask you, how can you live in that kind of permanent guilt trip? On the contrary, I do not fear per se my God, I am in good terms with him. This is a concept that you cannot understand because you are prisoner of a dogma dictated by your religion.

The problem is, your religion does not know God any better than I do but once again I do not proclaim to know the truth, I still seek it every day. I do know that I will not find it in religion. But I do pray every day, how about you?

I believe that prayer should be an intimate and private relationship between us and God (or what we perceive as God) and not to be indecently exposed in public. Some people indulge in public prayer like some harlots indulge in public exhibition of their bodies and these people ‘wear their prayer’ as if it were a badge.

A very wise Native American, Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce nation once said, in 1873; “We may quarrel with men sometimes about things on earth, but we never quarrel about the Great Spirit. We do not want to learn that (from the Catholics or the Protestants)”.

If democracy and freedom are so important to modern man, why then do so many people still enchain themselves to religions that dictate their relationship to god(s)? The truth is, religion is the antonym of freedom and of democracy in our relationship to God. There has never been, in the history of mankind a more totalitarian institution than institutionalized religion.

No religion can be authentic if it forbids analyzing the Creator or the Creation and especially under the express threat of some sort of divine punishment. If there is a Creator of any dignity and mercy, He can certainly not punish anyone who uses the brain they were given to analyze and question the world we live in and its’ creator.

“I do not feel obliged to believe that some God who endowed us with sense, reason and intellect had intended for us to forgo their use.”
Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)

Very Truly Yours,

Maurice

Maurice;
Let me attempt to answer your rhetoric very simply. Though your comments were all over the page, covering various fields and different philosophies, I will stay true to the one that is true, for it is that one that I continually follow.
First, I am sorry that you are disappointed in my rhetoric, however, I do not quake and quiver on what is true. I have provided you with many evidences of various points of Scripture, all of which you have chosen to remain ignorant on. Your only points are that of opinions throughout history. Let's see, historical facts documented and presented in various fashions and cultures versus philosophical opinions, who should be disappointed, and whom is it that is disappointing?
Second, I do have a direct source to God. That is how I know how my life will end. It is how I know exactly what eternity will be like. It is how I find hope for today, even during the murder of a family member and the impending death of another family member, it is how I can remain joyful, and it is how I can even care enough about you to write this right now. Yes, I do indeed have a direct source to God, and I have provided evidence of that in prior instalations on this site, as well as a new site that I have developed.
Thirdly; God does not menace on a permanent basis, and I do not live in a guilt trip. I do not need to. As stated above, I have a direct source to God. I have, and enjoy a personal relationship with Him. You do not understand this, because someone has either offended you, or you have chosen to be turned off to Him in the past. What ever the reason; you have made the choice to know God: You are much more comfortable trying to judge him in a desparate effort to avoid judgment yourself. The fact is all have sinned, now we must either face the full consequences of that sin ourself at a future time, or we can accept the One who came to take on the full consequence of our sins once and for all. You have made your choice. That does not make God menacing, nor is it a guilt trip. It makes you unwilling, and arrogant to assume that you can, or will avoid what should inevitably be given to all of us, but some of us, including myself, have deferred on Christ.
As far as prayer goes, I can agree with you on some part of it, but what if the public, in one accord, raised hands and cried out to God. What if there were prayers at graduations, weddings, funerals, on the senate floor, at other public gatherings? I find it honoring to God that we take a moment to remember His goodness in the midst of our mess.
Last point, if we attempt to analyze the Creator when we are mere creation, then we are stating that we are greater than the Creator Himself. That battle has already been fought, and those who fought against the Creator have always lost, and they always will. It seems much more logical to just understand, we do not need philosophical opinions of Chief Joseph or Galileo, when there is the factual evidence of God coming down, becoming Emmanuel, paying the price for our sins, and the proclamation that He is coming once again.
Will Jesus return? You bet!Anyone who states otherwise is arrogantly stating that he is more intelligent, more powerful, greater than God. What a shame, and a sham.

Dear Champ,

I am sorry to hear that you have lost someone dear to you; what country do you live in where murder is, apparently, a common thing? I offer you my sincerest condolences. Thank you for responding despite what you are going through. Far from me to want to cause you any torment of any kind or lead you to some sort of despair.
I would simply like to point out that, if you are content with you beliefs and re-assured that you know the truth many others in the world do not have your conviction. I find it arrogant on the part of the Christian faith to want to impose on all of us its authority and its truth when it is less than evident that it has any. I will not expand any longer on the value or admissibility of the testimonies it presents.
I am neither turned away from God nor have I ever been offended by anyone in terms of religion. Nor do I feel desperate in trying to avoid judgment simply because I don’t believe that my God would ever want to punish people, his children, for someone else’s sins; namely Adam’. You speak of consequences. What consequences? Is this again a reason why we should shake in our boots in fear of our merciful and loving Father? And you dare say; “God does not menace on a permanent basis, and I do not live in a guilt trip. That does not make God menacing, nor is it a guilt trip.” Do you realize what you are saying?
I too would find it honoring to God if we would take a moment to remember His goodness in the midst of our mess and this could be done at graduations, weddings, funerals, on the senate floor, at other public gatherings? But how would we proceed? Whose prayers would you like to chant on? Muslim, Hindu, Native American, Catholic, Protestant, Bantu, Latin Vulgate? No of course not, only on the ones you know are the true ones .Because the religion that holds the truth dictates the truth.
There is absolutely no arrogance in analyzing the creation or the creator when it is done respectfully humbly and in the hope of knowing Him better, stripped of religious rhetoric and myth. You would be surprised of how much there is to discover. Dr Chopra knows this well himself I am sure.
Here is one last bit of thought that I hope won’t trouble you. One might ask; why do we need God (or several gods)? This may seem arrogant but once again we are probing objectively every aspect of the subject.
Some might say that we need him to protect us, to which was ask, ‘against what’? To which some might answer, ‘to save us from ourselves and from our sin’ (but was there ever one?), and to ‘give us hope’ (But of what, an illusion?), etc.
The absence of God however brings us to an interesting paradox. If God does not exist, (let us stay with the singular of God to simplify the text), then there are no laws of God, if there are no laws, there can be no sin if we understand sin in the sense of a breach of the laws of God. Therefore we cannot say that we need God to pardon our sins because without him there are none.
In other words, there cannot be any sins unless God exists but if God exists that does not mean the sins exist. God can exist without there being a necessity for such a thing as sins. Unless we have proof that God has established ‘Laws, divine Laws’, to this purpose, there is no such thing as a divine sin. In fact there is no evidence, (admissible in court), to this affect because there are no veridical, undisputable or accurate scriptures.
Individuals and societies have long understood the need for laws. These laws vary as the societies vary. A breach of a law is commonly known as a ‘Crime’. These laws are laid down for the welfare of the individuals of the said society. Besides these laws, there are moral behaviors which each individual respects according to their upbringing and the degree of their moral conscience.
History has shown that divine laws, in the hypothesis that they do exist, have not changed the behavior of all men and therefore these laws are not sufficient, nor even efficient for the purpose of establishing justice here on Earth. They may be directed to the mind and the heart but not to the human society and the way it functions.
However morally desirable these divine laws may seem, they must be completed by more earthly ones elaborated by men and societies. The freedoms we enjoy today as compared to those our ancestors enjoyed (or the lack there of) are due to legal systems and penal systems, painstakingly put together by myriads of pioneers. The pillar of any democracy is its legal system and more specifically the integrity and independence of its legal system. Kings, Queens, Emperors, Despots, Tyrants and, yes, Institutionalized Religions offer no freedom, only servitude.
What better way to serve a god(s) than to persevere in the quest for equality, liberty, freedom and more specifically justice for all men regardless of any categorization whatsoever. If our quest for abiding to unsubstantiated rules of conduct to please an unsubstantiated god overwhelms our quest for compassion and brotherly love, are we not doing the contrary of what any self respecting and truly loving god would demand?
I truly hope that you will find peace and that life will make a turn for the better for you.

In the mean time, I remain yours truly,.

Maurice

Theories, theories, theories.
If you would have written on history, science, ..ect... or any other topic, you would have cited fact.

Why did you not start with the origin of the theory and then lead to the differing ideas. If these ideals have an origin in a text, then start there. It is intellectually dishonest to post premises without citing a basis.

So far there are millions of books written on this topic. Unfortunately, I side more with the fundamental- because he has an origin- or basis he is coming from (ie. "The Bible"). I take this as being intellectually honest... the hardcore scientist will support his theory with facts, does not Christianity or the "Return of Jesus Christ" have a basis of fact founded in their Scripture.

-anonymous

Scriptures are not facts, they are based on myths, legends and hearsay. There is no return of Jesus if there has never been a Jesus to start with.
Science has facts, religion has stories written by people, copied by yet other people, who heard them from other people, interpreted in dozens of ways by yet other people. As for the Bible it contains its own contradications: it contains two versions of the Noachian flood, two versions of genesis, etc. How can anyone found anything of veracity and authenticity in scripture except perhaps some moral values?

Anonymous 2

It has been a while since I checked into the site, but now that I am here, I would like to quickly respond to the comments made.
First, Mr. Guy, I do not believe it matters in which country I reside in, (though I never have attempted to keep it quiet), and in fact, my residence or heritage is not the issue in this site. The issue is Christ the topic is if he will return. Though I appreciate your concern, I know that murder occurs in all lands, amongst all peoples, with various heritages. Mine just happens to be one of many.
That in mind, how do I stay focused? Is it law? No, but that does not mean that law is not sufficient. Law was meant to inform, educate, individuals of what action is right and wrong. The law states that murder is wrong, but does murder not exist?
Law was meant to provide a punishment necessary for the offense. Law was meant to govern a peoples, not change them. People change people, it is not the law that does that. People either choose to obey the law, or they choose to be punished by it.
That is exactly what Christ has done. We are condemned by the law, but Christ has come, paid the price for our willingly breaking the law, and has redeemed us. If we choose to believe.
And how do we know this of an assurety? If Anonymous 1 was reading earlier, he would already know that various cultures ranging from ancient Chinese, Jewish, Ethiopian, and others have identified a man who came and did many wonderful acts. Tacitus, Justin Martyr, Josephus, and over five others have identified this man with a name, as well as the note that he had done what none other had done before. Tacitus goes even further in depth by stating that this man was crucified by the Romans and that many stated that He had done no wrongs. Furthermore, we have the beliefs of the ancient Native American tribes that a "Messiah", an individual would come and restore a paradise that was once lost. We have through other ancient cultural beliefs that this man would prove to be the only person to bring about true, everlasting peace after all others attempting the same feat would fail.
Like it or not my friend, (Anonymous 1), both science and history prove that this man was more than just a man, He is Emmanuel. He is the Messiah, and He will return.
You say that the Bible is based upon theories, but there is an enormous amount of facts that provide evidence for it. LANDSAT images of places that only the Bible is recorded as having existed now have shown that indeed, those geographical features were there, (there is one field of science). Artifacts, papyrus tablets, and other objects have told stories confirming that which the Bible has stated.
We can believe the Bible, we can believe Christ. The question is, why don't we? What really is hindering from knowing when science and history tells us this is truth? What is really our prejudice against this truth? Could it be that we refuse to even listen to law?