No you did say anything about condemnation, I thought maybe you would've said more about what I said early about the involutionary and evolutionary arcs and our place in those arcs, but I suspect you didn't understand it. It's ok, it's not for everyone.
There are many warnings in our scripture about reading the Bible literally, i.e. to the dead letter. Paul suggest in 2 Corinthians 3:6 that the real New Testament is not one of the letter, "for the letter killeth" but rather one of the Spirit. See also
16 Scriptural Reasons NOT to take the Bible Literally!
Without the wisdom which lay in and behind the literal words, the words mean little. You accused me of being ignorant of scripture but really it's a matter of how we differ in our interpretation of scripture. I suspect that most of your beliefs are restricted to the outer and most mundane interpretation of the Bible , i.e. the "orthodox" and "
generally accepted" interpretations. Which is fine, I understand why people have their own views and beliefs, we're all at different standings in life. Eventually the orthodox beliefs catch up with the new beliefs, but today is not one of those times. Yet.
I personally believe that we've been hoodwinked by western religion in the last two thousand years. The real truth, I believe, is so lost in our churches and institutions now that we don't even what we've lost. Our dogmas have us so afraid that, for instance, just the consideration of a doctrine like that of reincarnation or karma can cause us to "lose our way". '
It's the devil's work' they'll tell you. And God forbid that Christians ever talk about the constellations or the stars in relationship to God because we all know that astrology is an occult art that should never even be thought of, let alone entertained and investigated. But the irony with astrology is that it's all through the Bible, from Genesis to Revelations. I doubt if there's a page in the Bible that has doesn't have some astrological reference on it. But to see this one has to look in and behind the symbols in the Bible. Christ appeared 2,000 years when the Sun "appeared" to be passing into Pisces, the Sign of the Fish. Christ knew this and that He would always be with us, "even unto at the end of the age", see Matthew 28:20. He hinted at when he would reappear, again at the end of the age when He told his disciples to look for the man with a pitcher of water and wait for Him there for the great passover. See Luke 22:10 and Mark 14:13. "Follow that man into the house that he enters" which is where we are today, at the dawning of the age of Aquarius, the Man Bearing the Pitcher of Water. All of this is highly symbolic and was put into the Bible for a reason. The evidence is right in front of us but orthodox Christian religion refuses to see it or accept it.
So is it with the Bible being the
only word of God. Clearly in John 1:15 where it's written that the "Word became flesh", it is not referring to a written scripture, especially one that hadn't even been written yet. The concept of the "Word" is in all likelihood of Hindu origin as in the sacred, three syllable word "
AUM". In the esoteric teachings each letter this Word represents respectively the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In the Hindu religion the syllables of the great AUM represent Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Preserver and Shiva the Destroyer. Three sounds in One and One sound in Three, a Trinity of forces as fundamental to creation as the trinity of the Atom being made of the Proton, the Neutron and the Electron. Now whether the early authors of Bible knew about this Holy Hindu Word or if God gave them a unique vision of the same, it doesn't matter, we have now two great cultures sharing the same concept of the Word.
Yes, God is Love. In fact, says the ancient wisdom, the Solar Logos, the God of this System, is the Heart Centre of an even Greater Being. Like a Great Heavenly Man stretching out across space, our Sun is the Heart Centre.
I'm not sure about that "God didn't and doesn't' coerce anyone into hell". In many ways we're in hell now, trapped in space and time like Prometheus destined to repeat his hell while chained, day after day, to a rock, hoping and praying for a saviour like Hercules to break him free.
Satan's job is to continue to build the forms that are we are to inhabit in time and space. We are, as physical beings with physical bodies, very much subject to time and space. (Obviously) There are many corollations between Satan and Father Time. Think about this. Hell is like the circumcision of the eternal. Only through sacrifice and service can we ever have hope of release from this bond.
Yes, I totally agree with you on this point.
Unsafe, I don't mean to antagonize you with stories of Astrology, Vishnu and Hercules, I do so because we can all learn so much from our myths and the fables and allegories of other religions. I thought maybe you could learn something, (doesn't it ever get boring high-fiving other Christians with the same ideas?). There is a silver lining of truth running through all our religions, it's up to us, as JRT said above, to prospect for the shiny nuggets in each of them, and string them all together. These are the silver and the gold lined nuggets of wisdom. But then again, perhaps I'm just casting pearls that no-one will see...
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