What Gods or Goddesses do you believe in

But my point is does it matter. Uneducated or not, a biased opinion is limited and just that, an opinion.

If the story happens to be just made up, manipulated, and or presented inaccurately in the "holy" texts then any argument on the subject becomes rather silly regardless.

"The Greatest Enemy of Knowledge is Not Ignorance, It is the ILLUSION of Knowledge. Stephen Hawking"

I think it is like watching a movie. In another thread someone said it reminded them of startrek or perhaps stargate. Funny thing their statement brought the saying ' there is nothing new under the sun' and if anything Dune was more relative to me. I read Dune then saw the show=> ok, I had also read Shogun & delighted in it. Watching the movie, I found it was different but still It captured the cultural values well. On the other hand having read the Lord of the Rings trilogy, I was disappointed in the movie. The character of the hobbits just didn't match with my perception of them from reading it.

"Terrorist or tyrant, few may come to the Truth that both are poor choice."

i agree with you leftwood that religous doctrine can be manipulated and augmented, but at the end of the day its there to provide us with moral and spiritual guidance, regardless of whether a story is fictitious or entirely true, if it provides us with a usefull moral, social and spiritual (all things positive) outlook then in my opinion it is something worth studying - what i tried to point out is that most of the conflicts in religion are caused as a result of people bending the rules and dogma rather than actually reading whats there - (regardless of whether its valid or not)

"If you know the candle is fire then the meal was cooked a long time ago"

What its there to provide depends on the intentions of those writing, creating, and or manipulating it. None of which I would assume to know but can attest to differening claims and historical accountings.

The fact that it has some valid and decent morals in it is irregardless.

And I agree some or most of the represented morals are worth following or looking into, just not without question, like anything.

"what i tried to point out is that most of the conflicts in religion are caused as a result of people bending the rules and dogma rather than actually reading whats there - (regardless of whether its valid or not)"

Yep. But there is negative and violence in the bible and people enforce it through blind faith without needing to bend rules.

And this is why its an important distinction between being a book, or the word and demands of God.

"The Greatest Enemy of Knowledge is Not Ignorance, It is the ILLUSION of Knowledge. Stephen Hawking"
[  Edited by Ironwood at   ]

quote:

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And this is why its an important distinction between being a book, or the word and demands of God.

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"Terrorist or tyrant, few may come to the Truth that both are poor choice."

At one point we mentioned the validity of the historical accountings, then also got into the existing good morals of the bible, but I reminded of the negative as well and we both spoke of missenterpretations and manipulations etc.

But with that quote I was I was referring to dangers of the negatives, war, violence, anything like divine race or chosen people talk, anti gay, things in and or misconstrued from the bible when followed and enforced as gospel.

Too many people shrug off the negativity of the bible like they do corruption of their governments as an example, they point out the good and simply ignore the bad.

Otherwise its a quote stating that I think that knowing whether the Bible is just a book or the word of God, or even just accurate in all of its claims is fairly important.

"The Greatest Enemy of Knowledge is Not Ignorance, It is the ILLUSION of Knowledge. Stephen Hawking"

Ah, yes I see the Bible as a fairly accurate account. If for no other reason than the OT contains both the positive & negative acts in reguard to Jewish Traditions.
As it is highly symbolic, it is readily misunderstood as GOD.
As to the dangers, I too am well aware of them from experiences. Had this Christian follow me around binding my words, etc.
The building I use as a church is a little round hut covered with canvas, it is called a sweat lodge or inipi.

"Terrorist or tyrant, few may come to the Truth that both are poor choice."

Firstly, I am Pagan (notice the capital). This is a shortening of Neo-Pagan. It is also a lot easier and generally more descriptive in general conversation than saying Celtic Reconstructionist. Sorry Rajpal, you will just have to get used to it, like it or not, words evolve into different meanings.

Concerning whom I look to, I look to the pre-Christian God of my Irish ancestry. Concerning “who is right”, everyone is in my opinion. All Gods and Goddesses have equal standing in the Universe, being created by Man to help explain his self and the Universe, and to help utilize the Universe to affect change in our lives.

Concerning the Bible, all I will say is that there is no existing originals of the OT or NT, so who is to say they were not “adjusted” by Clergy in ancient times before the printing press made it feasible for the average person to own a Bible? Who can say that some ancient Clergy had not imprinted their psychoses into the Bible, to reflect some sort of paranoia, homophobia, sexual hang up, or one of the many dark emotions that bother the average human being from time to time? In my opinion, to put any form of Faith into the Bibles as not having been adjusted and having remained in its original form, is to put a faith into those ancient stewards of the Scriptures as opposed to any divine intervention.

"Oops, it appears I have run over your dogma with my karma."

Celtic Reconstructionist, by that I would assume u are saying wiccan?

"Terrorist or tyrant, few may come to the Truth that both are poor choice."

If we look at the scriptures as a way to describe human behavior and the human relationship between man and God. I would call it pretty accurate.

If the scriptures where to be used as history, science and religious dogma, I would throw it out. As I would be so confused by them, I would not know where to turn.

Poetry can be writen and rewritten in all languages. Add a word here and remove a word there, the original intent still remains. But if you do that with science, history and religious dogma, one word changes everything. Fundamentalists have always believed that religious dogma could be found in scriptures. Jesus threw it all out with one simple explination. Love God with all your heart soul and body AND LIKE THAT Do unto others as you would do unto yourself, and you will follow all the laws and the prophets. Imagine that, you really don't have to go to bible school to become more perfect. If you can love God by loving others as you would want to be loved, hey - you don't even need scriptures.

"A fool says I know and a wise man says I wonder."

Amen, I forget which movie it was, Stigmata or The Body, that spoke about Jesus specifically wanting no formal churches because of inevitable corruption and the ensuing conspiracy by the vatican to hide the particular scripture that said so.

"The Greatest Enemy of Knowledge is Not Ignorance, It is the ILLUSION of Knowledge. Stephen Hawking"

I saw that movie too - and there are scriptures that only the Vatican knows about.

There's an historicle group claiming that no group has claim to history and forcing the Vatican to share.

However, the book I read that in was awfully old, so I don't know if it's still true or not.

"A fool says I know and a wise man says I wonder."

Well, what we can be certain of is that the control of information is the control of people, knowledge, judgement.

Its the trapping and manipulation of our minds, and its in our face and its forced on us against both our wills and our cries.

"The Greatest Enemy of Knowledge is Not Ignorance, It is the ILLUSION of Knowledge. Stephen Hawking"

"what we can be certain of is that the control of information is the control of people, knowledge, judgement."

uhm - has it ever occured to you that people dont nessesarily follow belief systems blindly? Some study and access whether what is at hand has signicant meaning in their life and is a useful ideal to follow (if you can that is).

You seem to give the impression that religion and other belief systems are some sort of continueing conspiricy - ONCE AGAIN LEFTWOOD THIS ISNT WHAT I BELIEVE ABOUT YOU BUT THIS IS THE IMPRESSION YOU GIVE - AND BY THE WAY YOU SEEM TO FIND MANY IDEAS AWFULLY SILLY - DONT YOU! LOL. NEVER MIND ITS NICE TO HEAR SOMEONE USE A WORD LIKE "SILLY" WHICH HAS BEEN LARGELY REPLACED BY OTHER MORE CYNICAL TERMINOLOGY - BLESS YOU.

"If you know the candle is fire then the meal was cooked a long time ago"

Well actually, I was commenting on a "conspiritorial" point made by okcitykid... which was in referrence to a movie, he is the one that added the reality based point.

"There's an historicle group claiming that no group has claim to history and forcing the Vatican to share."

But my point was not about any information in particular, but controlled information period. I have great issue with secrecy, lies, deception because information is vital to making informed judgements and decisions. And these things are the foundations of all corruption.

And I haven't met someone that deserves to know the truth more than anyone else. And I happen to be passionate about it because I'm sick of people acting high and mighty when preaching of sharing common love and respect while not practicing or giving the same curtousy. And this applies to everyone and everything, religion, government, people in general, work, etc.

And as for you personally, most people don't study these things, and that is just a fact, you would be more of an exception to the rule, and this is just based off of my own experience, most religious people I've met haven't fully read their own bibles let alone researched anything.

And a conspiracy is an abused term that people often overreact to anyway, and usually with preconcieved defensiveness, while being far more common than people give credit.

"The Greatest Enemy of Knowledge is Not Ignorance, It is the ILLUSION of Knowledge. Stephen Hawking"