First, everything that they say Jesus said can be questioned...whether or not he even said it. That said, these two commandments are not exclusive if the interpreter first realizes that god and the self, and/or God and the Self are the same. The relationship between the god (whatever) that makes this world and people is one...more like a pact or conspiracy. Beyond that there is a good God which is one with itSelf. "Love your neighbor as your self" is a response to the paradigm i've just described. Its a call to recognize the good God beyond the god that makes man, and to see that beyond false appearances (humanity) is the good God. This may be considered an "eastern" point of view; a possibility and a likelihood. Anyone who thinks Jesus extended a Jewish point of view is gravely mistaken, and should be evident from the narrations of friction between him and those who knew the Jewish scriptures the best (ie, Pharisees, lawyers).
i think stu only responds to the nonsense believers of superstition use to rationalize what they have been indoctrinated to believe. i am more aggressive. i actively attempt to educate superstition out of the minds of the deluded. why: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPs_j1EEplI We Have A Responsibilityâ¦as unbelievers, we have a responsibility to the future of our species to do whatever we can to disseminate the science and eliminate the myth.
One man's Educate is another man's Preaching.... Since belief is something that is internalized, it is personal. What you have an objection to (and what is evident in the political use of belief systems) is the forced externalization of what is a personal, internalized thing. I have no quarrel with being against that. But it is a mistake to think that "religious" people are the only ones guilty of such behaviour. Secular religion is real. If your belief system does not harm others, then who is to condemn it? Someone who claims to know better? On whose authority - their own? It is the politicization of belief systems that is the issue. The rest is about someone's ego. Hence, the Preaching from "authority".....
Re: Atheism I'm not going to address this to any specific person, you know who you are. I can think of a really good God that is better than the god that is proposed in the Bible. Upon describing this God to believers in the god of the Bible i am more likely to run up against unbelief and rejection. Assuming the good God that i describe is the actual God, that would make the believers in the Bible god atheists...if that god is no god at all. For example, if the god of the Bible does not really exist and people believe in it, they would be atheists...especially when a description of a good God comes knocking on their door and they keep it closed. These are unofficial atheists. Official atheists are actually similar, as has been suggested here already. No man can excise himself from the need to believe...unless he knows everything already. These are the only two alternatives. So, it's not the kind of non-participation that we would be led to believe. It is active believing, just as believing in the god of the Bible is active...but fruitless...if it is not directed toward a good God. Each, the official and the unofficial, extends myths about human origin/genesis. By fruitless, i mean that the official atheist and the unofficial atheist share the same future. On a positive note, however, they also share the same destiny.
this is where people like you start off wrong. something that believers are taught to do. belief because of the evidence is not the same as belief in spite of the evidence.(faith)
why is it necessary,in your mind, to invent a god a little bit better than bible god so you dont feel uncomfortable believing in him. why not just follow all available evidence that says there is nothing up there?
Actually, this is where "people like you" (translation = "I am better than you" - that ego thing again....sigh....) get stuck in the idea of time (which Einstein showed is relative....) You know what you know....for now. I would not place my belief solely in what is known - now. Nor would I place my belief solely in what YOU know as of now. No offense, but you do not hold that kind of authority or sway over me. In what may turn out to be an infinity of multiverses, all things are possible. You would stop the search. I would not. It is a personal thing....
This was not about appending anything to anything. You have hierarchical commandments. They constitute real conflicts by their own wording and the way many people take and have taken such superstitions literally. I explained why and you went off on one. I notice it very soon gets to the point where so many of ET theists will say anything but address the actual point put to them. But then as Mark Twain said - Faith is believing what you know ain't so. So you are another theist who reverts to kind. Desperately struggling with any old illogical comment to try and defend the indefensible.
no, you dont because if you did you would not believe in an invisible man in the sky. instead you are placing your belief in what ignorant superstitious men who had no concept of science believed 2000+ years ago.
Incorrect. The first defense of someone who wishes to dodge the evidence of their own bias is to attack the other. "Bible blocked?" Yes, it is clearly evident this was the attempt. I have said your opinions are your own - and that's ok. You continue to Preach however. This places you in the company of religious Preachers, who attempt to externalize their own belief system. They tend to do this based on their own self-attribution of superior authority. Sorry, but not taking any pamphlets today.....