Quoted from: Member A

And these signs shall follow them that believe;
In my name shall they cast out devils;
they shall speak with new tongues;

They shall take up serpents;
and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them;
they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.

So then after the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into
heaven, and sat on the right hand of God.

Member B responds:

Ok two questions:

1. Christians always go on and on about evolution, noah, etc... but why
is this ignored? Why isn't there a movement for christians to drink
poisons and handle snakes. Here in America, there are a few minor
sects that do such things, but shouldn't this be like a right of
passage for young christians to prove their faith? Shouldn't they all
be able to heal people automatically? Shouldn't going to hospital be
proof of being a non-believer?

2. Ok, the whole passage is garbage, obviously. So why was it put in
at all? What was the point? I know in acts, when Paul swims to shore
onto Malta, a snake (bits him or just wraps around his arm - I wasn't
clear on this) and it doesn't hurt him. Are these two passages
related? I don't know if Ken has looked into this - was there a rival
snake cult that claimed their followers could handle snakes and not be
bitten, so christianity had to make the same claim?

Member C responds to Member A and B

It is a clear metaphore, like many other elements in the Gospels. In
fact, the history of the gospels is cleary gnostic. Originally there
were three ways to conceive or initiate them:

1. conceive as a literal story ("Christ for dummies")
2. conceive as a metaphore ("Christ for advanced")
3. conceive as a state of mind ("You are Christ yourself")

Basically what happened is that only the first concept survived and the
other two were declared heretical in the age when the roman Church
declared Jesus historical (note that was never the case originally: the
first level of initiation was necessary to better explain the ritual).

However, the gnostic tradition has not completely died out. What you
will get as a standard respons from every Christian is that this Marc
16:17 preaching is ofcourse a metaphore whereas other sayings refer to
historic deeds. Christians sects are particulary flexible with this,
taking only the elements usefull for their Faith as fact and regarding
the rest as metaphore.


*********** REPLY SEPARATOR ***********


V responds to all of above:

1. conceive as a literal story ("Christ for dummies")
2. conceive as a metaphore ("Christ for advanced")
3. conceive as a state of mind ("You are Christ yourself")

Good points you have brought up Member C


Hermeneutics is a major problem with religious thought.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermeneutics

There is such debate and disagreement as to what the scriptures really
mean and the consequences of a 'bad' interpretation will mean
everlasting torture and pain in hell? When deciphering code and hidden
meanings becomes a life or death proposition, one has to wonder about a
God that supposedly put his name on such a muddled up document. I can
also tell you that destroying another being and causing them 'pain and
torturing for eternity' will yield the provider of that pain and
torture ZERO peace. This concept of pain, eternal hell and karma all
smacks of the human touch of 'fear based' religious thought. We can see
it in a quote from a Christian list member here:

JesusForgiveThem writes:

"Do you believe in eternal suffering? I surely would hate for anyone to
consciously chose to spend an eternity in hell over some foolish pride
that they can't get over ... as opposed to opening your heart to Jesus
and see what he has to offer before writing Him off completely."


This brings up another problem. Which divinely inspired document does
one follow as there are numerous books claiming to the word of God? And
all the documents conflict with each other to a degree. It is with this
overlap of these documents that I seek to find peace with. And anything
that conflicts or cannot be substantiated I let go of as man's ego
being injected into the equation. If God wishes to make things clear
and without the need for hermeneutics then I am all ears. But until
that time, we must each do the best we can and come to peace with this
subject for ourselves.

But this problem of hermeneutics is not limited solely to the study of
monotheism. It also encompasses the history of Buddhist thought as
well. A favorite saying of the Mahayana is that of using 'skillful
means' to achieve ones goal. Skillful Means = Put a Spin On It = LIE.
Now, I am not just singling out the Mahayana as the bad boys. Lies and
imperfections are widespread throughout all spiritual thought that was
ever created my man. Man is imperfect and as such all his religious
thought it also imperfect. But within these imperfections there are
also many perfection's, as seldom is a thing all good or all bad.

With my own spiritual quest I have evolved into an empirical
spiritualist. Or maybe a more detailed description of this would be an
'Agnostic Spiritualist Moralist Empiricist' From the tradition of
religion telling massive lies intermingled with some truths (yes the
spiritual traditions of the world contain some truth) I have learned to
not believe anything that requires faith and cannot be tested and
applied as a universal law to the whole of society. I apply this form
of thought to all my spiritual traditions I draw from whether it be
monotheism to Buddhism or Taoism.

Now some of these spiritual truths are 'lesser truths' and subjective
in nature. The application of such relative truth is more or less
unimportant and up to the likes or dislikes of the individual. But the
larger truths that are universal in nature are what I try to
distinguish and then follow. If a concept is not crystal clear and
requires much speculation, I let it go. We can see what has happened in
religious history when man gets too 'enthused' about interpretation:

How do we know we have made an honest effort at this decoding business?
For one, we do not decode, we just think and test. Number two, we come
to peace by giving it the 'hell test.' We work towards moral and
ethical principles and develop what is called a good heart which also
aligns us magically with the empirical basics of religious thought in
the various documents. If we are successful at this quest and ethically
and morally sound, when it comes time to die we can be at peace knowing
we have done our best in this area. And if we find out that there is a
hell and the entity 'claiming to be God' (for lack of a better name)
has domed us to hell from 'not decoding it right' even with our best
efforts, we can be at peace with knowing God is an unjust God and not a
real God but an alien god bully of sorts.

And when it comes to dying and the title 'loving God', we as imperfect
humans that strive to develop a good heart will contain more of that
Godly nature that this 'alien bully' claming to be God that seeks to
torture those that have worked along spiritual lines to be good people.
This is the 'hell test' in a nutshell - you are at peace with your
actions and you are authentic as well about your life.

"Wherefore, O judges, be of good cheer about death, and know this of a
truth - that no evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after
death." ~ Socrates when condemned to death.

As I write this, I am reminded of aliens in an old "Superman" movies
that came to earth to tell us to 'bow down' to them or else? Yes, the
aliens in the movie had great powers but they were not God...they were
just gods to us humans. Seek truth, seek inner peace, seek the
development of a good heart and put your best efforts into finding it
and you too can be at peace with this subject. Of course, if one has
never found inner peace all that I am telling you is unmanageable to
you? Always remember...a wise mans knows what he says and a fool can
only say what he knows. Learn to say what you know and you can be at
peace with your life as well. In one word...authenticity.

One last point. If you look at the name of the Christian I quoted above
it is JesusForgiveThem it tells an interesting story in itself. If a
God needs to be told by JesusForgiveThem or any other of us humans what
to do, what is right or wrong and we can sway an omnipotent and perfect
God just by begging...then that is one scary God. For we can see what
has happened on earth when human demigods have been in power.

See:

http://www.jesusneverexisted.com/burning.html


V (Male)


For free access to my earlier posts on voluntary simplicity, compulsive
spending, debting, compulsive overeating and clutter write:
vfr44@aol.com. Any opinion expressed here is that of my own and is not
the opinion, recommendation or belief of any group or organization.