Why do you have to believe in fantasy to believe in God?

interesting..this line kinda sums it up in a nutshell:
(5) But if you do not come to know yourselves, then you exist in poverty, and you are poverty."
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to know why/how you believe what you believe, is important to figuring out the whole God thing..
 
Greatest I am said:
Why do you have to believe in fantasy to believe in God?

Before you jump all over me, remember that I am not an atheist.
I believe in a Godhead that is of this world and the reality we see around us.
Mine is not the God you believe in because to believe in that one, one must buy into fantasy, miracles and magic. This I have no need or desire to do.

The O T, the base of the Bible, is a document that the original writers, the Jews, do not believe in a literal way.

http://www.raceandhistory.com/historicalviews/doubtingexodus.htm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGrlWOhtj3g

Further, believers tend to believe what is written about God even as whoever is doing the writing admit that God is unfathomable and unknowable and works in mysterious ways. A catch 22.

As an adult, do you not think it strange and immoral that you would preach to and teach your children that there are real talking snakes and donkeys, that people can walk on water, turn staffs into snakes and that a loving God would use genocide against humans?

This being after nearly all of his perfect works have somehow become imperfect and thus showing a creator God who just cannot create creatures that will do as programmed.

These things that are impossible to believe unless you have bought into fantasy, miracles and magical thinking.

As far as the non believing world is concerned, there is no such thing as miracles and magic. No believer has ever been able to show or prove that any miracle has ever been performed and it would seem to me that if God wanted us to believe in them, he would have left one here for us to ponder. He did not.

If your God did not do all of the miracles shown in scripture, is there anything left that shows a real God?

God would always want what is best for him as well as what is best for man.

Note that 6 million of us starve to death yearly. A yearly holocaust.
If God does have all of these miracle making powers, how can things not be exactly the way he wants for both himself and man?

Now I know that many will point to free will, but because the Bible shows God ignoring man’s free will to live when he kills us all over the O T, this negates that argument so I hope no one bothers trying to use it.

If you believe in reality instead of fantasy and magic, does your God disappear?

Does God have to be able to do miracles to be your God?

Regards
DL
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Well, consider this...

To be a Christian you have to believe in 3 things:

1) That Jesus lived.
2) That Jesus died.
3) That Jesus was resurrected.

Now, is the fantasy of a dead people coming back to life after 3 days more or less credible than the fantasy of a talking snake (or any of the other "miracles" presented in the Bible?

So, in the case of Christianity, yes, believing in a fantasy/miracle is necessary for the belief in God.
 
MZ3Boy84 said:
Well, consider this...

To be a Christian you have to believe in 3 things:

1) That Jesus lived.
2) That Jesus died.
3) That Jesus was resurrected.

Now, is the fantasy of a dead people coming back to life after 3 days more or less credible than the fantasy of a talking snake (or any of the other "miracles" presented in the Bible?

So, in the case of Christianity, yes, believing in a fantasy/miracle is necessary for the belief in God.
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What is your belief?
 
NMSquirrel said:
i was actually meaning a site that you could read them,not buy them..
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http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/nhl.html

In that website you can read all Gnostic Gospels for free, but also you can buy a copy of them with the original text. The Gospel of Thomas if the most accepted because it is dated even before the canonical gospels, and for me is the most beautiful one. If you go the the link I provided, there is a menu with buttons on the left where you can see "Thomas Gospel" blue button, you click on that one and it offers 3 different free tranlations of the gospel.
Here is a direct link to one of the 3 translations:

http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/gthlamb.html
 
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NMSquirrel said:
thank you..i read a bunch of it,but stopped reading after i realized it is just basicly a rehash of matthew, mark, luke, and john..

most all verses start with 'jesus said'..
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On the contrary, matthew, mark, luke, and john are a rehash of Thomas Gospel (dated before the canon); but this last one has many things that were removed from the canon. It doesn't seem you have studied the canon much; since some statements in the Thomas Gospels may come as a shock to biblical scholars of the canon.

This is what "gnostic gospels" have that the canon doesn't; many statements were removed or changed in the canon because those were the accepted scriptures for the romans. All gnostic scriptures were reject by the political stablishment of the moment, and they survived due to the efforts of preserving them from early christians.

Statements such as (among many others):
"14. Jesus said to them, "If you fast, you will bring sin upon yourselves, and if you pray, you will be condemned, and if you give to charity, you will harm your spirits."

-Thomas says to the other disciples about what Jesus has told him in private:-
"If I tell you one of the sayings he spoke to me, you will pick up rocks and stone me, and fire will come from the rocks and devour you."

Jesus said, "The Pharisees and the scholars have taken the keys of knowledge and have hidden them. They have not entered nor have they allowed those who want to enter to do so."

Jesus said to [her], "Lucky are those who have heard the word of the Father and have truly kept it. For there will be days when you will say, 'Lucky are the womb that has not conceived and the breasts that have not given milk.'"

For me are incredibly beautiful, full of truth and power. But they were removed from the canon for hidden agendas. For example in this quotes Jesus condems the priests, and the religion organizations saying that they do not know the truth, and they do not allow others to know it either. Or Thomas saying that if he told what Jesus said to him in privacy, that the other disciples would throw stones at him (hidden teachings).

These are quotes that no orthodox priest can answer, because these quotes are against what they teach.
 
Wisdom_Seeker said:
On the contrary, matthew, mark, luke, and john are a rehash of Thomas Gospel (dated before the canon); but this last one has many things that were removed from the canon. It doesn't seem you have studied the canon much; since some statements in the Thomas Gospels may come as a shock to biblical scholars of the canon.
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i have always been bad with remembering names and numbers, so studying the bible has always been a challenge for me, it wasn't till i was 30 till i actually read the bible completely (thanks to the study bible )

i am very interested in the pre-cannon texts,
but again i have to work twice as hard to get half as far, which is pry why i like sunday morning bible study,someone there is bound to know which verse or story i am referring to.

and i tend to look for the meaning behind the stories and sayings,to to get a feel for what was trying to be communicated, (emotional content tends to get lost in translation, when reading it)


but right away there is a conflict..

these are the secret sayings,which Thomas wrote down.
implies that Thomas wrote exactly what jesus said..
then the first line:
Whoever finds these Interpretations...
says thomas put his 'flavor' in it..
so did he or didn't he write exactly what jesus said?
 
NMSquirrel said:
these are the secret sayings,which Thomas wrote down.
implies that Thomas wrote exactly what jesus said..
then the first line:
Whoever finds these Interpretations...
says thomas put his 'flavor' in it..
so did he or didn't he write exactly what jesus said?
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Funny you ask that, because for me, this is an indicator that Thomas was the most sincere when writing.

Because other gospels say: this is what Jesus said! But this is impossible, if you hear something from a person, and the next day you write it down; you can never claim that what you are writing is exactly what the other person was saying, what you are writing is your interpretation, what you understood from what the other person said.

But Thomas was honest, and very perceptive, he said "this may not have been what Jesus was trying to convey, this is just what I understood from what he said". He was humble.
 
Wisdom_Seeker said:
Funny you ask that, because for me, this is an indicator that Thomas was the most sincere when writing.
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sincere yes, accurate dunno..
maybe close enough to count..
Because other gospels say: this is what Jesus said! But this is impossible, if you hear something from a person, and the next day you write it down; you can never claim that what you are writing is exactly what the other person was saying, what you are writing is your interpretation, what you understood from what the other person said.
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exactly. your own 'flavor'

But Thomas was honest, and very perceptive, he said "this may not have been what Jesus was trying to convey, this is just what I understood from what he said". He was humble.
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which it really helps to have several different interpretations to sort out the ultimate meanings behind the interpretations, (hmm smells of canonization)

then the question comes up as to why was it kept from the other disciples?
(don't answer under threat of fiery rock..)
 
NMSquirrel said:
which it really helps to have several different interpretations to sort out the ultimate meanings behind the interpretations, (hmm smells of canonization)
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All are interpretations; it cannot be otherwise. It is not that the disciples changed what Jesus said for their convenience (canonization took place in a political environment of the Roman Empire).

But for example, if you hear a man like Jesus speaking during 4 hours, and then you are asked to write down what he said, it will always be your interpretation. All you could do is be honest about it, and say that it is your interpretation. Never exactly what Jesus said or what he was trying to explain.

NMSquirrel said:
then the question comes up as to why was it kept from the other disciples?
(don't answer under threat of fiery rock..)
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LOL ('bout the fiery rock thing); Jesus, as any master ever, explained things differently to each disciple, because not all disciples had the same understanding.
It may well be the same teaching, but explained differently according to the understanding of the person.

IE:
Try and teach psycology to a farmer with no education, or try teach psycology to a doctor. You would be trying to explain the same thing, but your words would be different, and the farmer and the doctor will not understand the same thing. The farmer will have his interpretation and the doctor will have his own.

This is not true only of people with different profesions, but also about people with different minds, different levels of intelligence and different backgrounds.

Like the statement of Thomas, that if he would tell the other disciples the things Jesus said to him, they would throw rocks at him. The other disciples were probably not ready for this words, due to their "jewish orthodoxy", Jesus had to be carefull about this or he would have been killed before his time came.
 
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