God cannot be institutionalised

The problem with the Christian religion is that it tends to institutionalise, literalise and concretise what is meant to be a metaphor. The whole bible can be seen as an allegory, being a collection of myths. The Christ principle revolves around Jesus Christ as a metaphor. 

The moment people literalise Jesus Christ, they idolise him and become attached to their idol. They get emotional and sentimental about their idol. This may appear harmless at first, but this religious mindset may create divisions among people because as long as religion makes Jesus an exclusive historical figure, there will always be an "us versus them" mentality - "Jesus followers" and "non Jesus followers".

But in reality, there is no us or them. Christ as a metaphor unites us all as one. Christ can be seen as a representative of humankind. We are the Christ, and we are the begotten Son of God. As Christ is, so are we in this world. 

Trying to institutionalise God only results in turning religion into a mental institution. People can go crazy when they think god is mad at them or they think they must fight and kill in the name of god. 

There are other metaphors similar to Christ principle, such as Tao, Buddha, Krishna, and Great Spirit. Each is a finger pointing to the moon. Each can be the way to lead us to the universal truth of our oneness with God or higher self, and oneness with one another.

Thoughts on the book "Who was Jesus?" by D.M. Murdock

I was scanning through the PDF book "Who Was Jesus? - Fingerprints of the Christ" by D.M. Murdock which I downloaded recently. Some of the questions raised in the book are valid and thought-provoking - here's sharing a few excerpts that resonated with me.

"In consideration of the numerous, detailed and remarkable
correspondences between Elisha ("God saves") and Jesus
("God saves"), and between Joseph and Jesus, as well as
many other "types of Christ" in Jewish and Pagan literature,
as remarked upon even by the early Church fathers, it is fair
to ask whether or not the gospel writers had in mind closely
reproducing in Jesus these other esteemed figures. Such a
suggestion, of course, would imply that the gospels are not
necessarily biographies of actual occurrences in the life of an
historical figure but could represent a fictionalized compilation
of characters." (p. 122)

Yes, the early century writers could well have borrowed elements of Jewish and Pagan literature to make up a fictional character called Jesus Christ.

"On the surface of it, if taken literally the New Testament
seems to record the advent of the messiah, as prophesied in
the Old Testament. However, there may be a different
reason for this appearance. In scrutinizing all of the Old
Testament "prophecies" that purportedly relate to the
coming messiah, it is evident that the gospels were
deliberately designed to show that these scriptures had been
fulfilled in Jesus Christ. When these and other OT scriptures
are studied and seriously considered, therefore, it is logical
to ask if they constitute "prophecies" and "prefiguring" of the
advent of a historical Jesus Christ—or if they were used as a
blueprint in the creation of a fictional messiah." (p. 138)

Yes, the so-called fulfilment of prophecies could have been cleverly devised by writers who were familiar with the Jewish literature to write in such a way that it appears as if the messiah managed to fulfil the prophecies.

"If God is omnipresent, wouldn't
that mean that everything is God, including us? The
significance of this last assertion cannot be understated: If
God is everywhere present, then we are "him," and "he" is
us. God is everything, and everything is God—doesn't that
sound like pantheism as well? The word "pantheism" comes
from the Greek, "pan" meaning "all," and "theism" pertaining
to God/divinity. Can something be monotheistic and pantheistic
at the same time? If not, how do we separate out the
omnipresent God?" (p. 187)

This is a good point - if God is omnipresent and if God is everything, wouldn't it be logical to say that God is also us, and in us, and around us? Like what Carlton Pearson stated too, God is not a christian or a jew or a hindu or a jew - God is in us, around us, as us. In God, we live and move and have our being.

"While reading certain apologies and apologetics texts,
one may frequently receive the impression of desperation to
reconcile and harmonize at any and all costs, because
fundamentalists are compelled through conditioning to
believe in the evidently irrational and indefensible position
that the gospels represent the inerrant and literal Word of
God. Once we discard this indefensible position, however, we
may be able to make more sense of the Bible as a "human
book," i.e., manmade and containing allegory, rather than
serving as literal and inerrant Holy Writ." (p. 215)

This is also the conclusion I have come to at this point - that the Bible is man-made and contains allegory, and not meant to be literal. It is definitely not inerrant due to the many mistranslations, translation bias, and inconsistencies in the narratives throughout.

"In consideration of all the various discrepancies,
problems and patent proganda, it can be logically wondered
whether the New Testament represents a "historical record"
or "factual biography" of a stunningly miraculous life, or
simply a propaganda tool for the priesthood to lay down its
doctrines and dogma as they developed over the centuries.
If the latter is true, even if the priesthood was under divine
guidance, could we honestly claim that the New Testament
as it stands constitutes a reliable biography of the Lord and
Savior Jesus Christ, who purportedly walked the Earth 2,000
years ago? At most, we could say that the NT represents an
inaccurate portrayal based on the best or worst wishes of its
composers. At the least, we would have to entertain the
thought that the gospel story is fictional. Indeed, examining
all these discrepancies, problems and errors in what is
supposed to be an accurate and inerrant portrayal of actual
historical events, one is prompted by honesty and logic to
ask whether or not the evangelists and later scribes were
just making it up as they went along!" (p. 253-254)

The last part is especially significant, as it deals with the possibility that the new testament was written with a political and religious agenda in mind. While I think some parts may be beneficial in terms of teaching people to love one another and love one's enemies, other parts of the new testament, such as the writings of "Paul" to establish a church hierarchy of pastor/deacon/elders, could have been concocted and compiled by early church fathers to control the masses. So, these are my thoughts for now.

The Divine is beyond any label or myth or name

After coming to see the bible as a collection of myths and legends, I feel a sense of aversion whenever I come across blogs or comments that still hold on to the idea of Jesus as a historical figure, and talking about sin and hell. In my mind, I was basically cursing and swearing at such religious ideologies.

I actually think it is very normal to react like that. To me, this belief system is unfortunately not only based on ancient mythology, but also creates divisions among people, discriminating against those people who do not profess to follow "Jesus", and propagating the illusion of separation.

That's the reason I have decided to read the book "Who was Jesus - fingerprints of the Christ" by D.M. Murdock. It was written by the same author whose books were used as a basic resource to produce the movie "Zeitgeist", which sought to debunk the whole Jesus hoax. My curiosity has been stirred to want to find out more about how the whole Jesus myth came about, and what motivated the early century writers to come up with such a compelling myth. My conclusion for now is that it was meant to serve the purpose of rebelling against the Roman authority back then. It would no longer serve that purpose in our day and age.

People are awakening, and leaving the institutional church for good. Hence, evangelical preachers are getting nervous. Even progressive christians appear to be making last ditch attempts to "save" the idea of a historical Jesus, and tries to make him the ruler of everything through their latest books and blogs. But the truth be known, the Source or Divine, as I understand it, is beyond any label or myth or name. As long as people are attached to a person or deity or ideology or label, they are still bound in some ways to pledge allegiance to a particular group or dogma or denomination. This mindset goes against the grain of universal love and unity and brotherhood.

Waking up from the mythological world of the Bible

I was reflecting that the more I come to see the bible as a collection of myths, fables and legends borrowed from different cultures and belief systems such as paganism, Egyptian folklore and so on, I began to see a parallel between my journey in understanding the bible and the story in the movie "Inception".

In that movie story, the people entered into a dream world, and then in that dream, they entered into another dream world, and again in that second dream, they entered yet into another dream world. After some time, it can be hard to tell what is reality and what is imagination. So similarly, in the bible, we see one fictional character (eg Moses) being mentioned by another person (eg Jesus), who turns out to be a fictional character who was mentioned by another person (eg Paul), who himself turns out to be fictional too. So I can see how this realisation can create a mini spiritual crisis for people (including myself) who have all along been taught that these characters are real, even as they came to grasp that these characters are merely archetypes borrowed from some other religions, fables and myths.

I was thinking that those people in the olden days thousands of years didn't have modern day conveniences such as computers and cars, so life was very slow-paced. No wonder they had a lot of time sitting around and telling stories, and comparing one's culture's stories with another culture's stories as they traveled and interacted and traded with one another, and they inevitably added and modified some elements from one another's stories, and formed new stories. I suppose that's how we have many religions containing a mixture of elements today, since they all borrowed some plots and characters from one another, and created their own characters' names and backgrounds.

Truth fears no questions

Yes truth fears no questions as truth is self-evident and is not threatened by our questioning. Truth can stand up to scrutiny on its own. It reminds me of a similar quote which goes something like "Unanswered questions are far less dangerous than unquestioned answers".

It is good then to live life with a free spirit of inquiry as we get to learn new things and new perspectives, and while we may not always be able to find satisfactory answers to every mystery, we can become better informed and gain a more well rounded knowledge and understanding about various subjects. If not for questioning, for example, we would probably remain in the dark ages of religion and live in fear of an "angry god in the sky". But with questioning and exploring, we discover many ways of looking at the Christian religion and realise it borrowed many different ideas from many different ancient traditions, and there goes the idea of an angry god out of the window. Instead, we realise the truth is not in a book and is in our heart.

The truth that sets us free fears no questions, and the truth of perfect love also casts out fear. There is no fear in love, just as there is no fear in truth. Truth and love goes hand in hand, and is always on our side.

What does it mean to be "spiritual but not religious"?

I have listened to Rob Bell's video on "Rediscovering Wonder" again, and somewhere in the middle of the video, he mentioned about people calling themselves spiritual but not religious. To him, spirituality is about having a childlike wonder, and being free to question, discover and explore (the mysteries of life) with a sense of awe and wonder, and being open to different ways of looking at things, whereas religion is about being dogmatic and fundamentalist. This view sits well with me.

On another note, it is perhaps no surprise that many people in the christian circles, such as evangelical preachers in general, choose to equate spirituality with Jesus because Jesus has been a central figure in christianity for so long (about 2,000 years or so) that people in mainstream christianity have all along assumed (including myself in the past) that he was a historical character - after all, the idea of Jesus coming to save, love, heal and comfort us and to set us free from religion is a comforting and compelling thought itself. It may explain why the recent video "Why I hate religion but love Jesus" is so popular among those in the christian circles.

To me, after coming to see the bible as a collection of myths and legends, I now see spirituality in a broader perspective - for example, native Amercian spirituality to me is considered spirituality, which revolves around the concept of our oneness with the Great Spirit and with Mother Earth and all living things. Music is spirituality too. I think anything that enables us to keep in touch with our soul can be considered spirituality.

In my recent blog "To be spiritual is to be amazed", I concluded:

"For me, I would say any belief that does not cause harm to oneself or others and instead produces the fruit of love, peace and unity is of the truth because the truth always sets us free."

 I have also read the article "Spiritual, But Not Religious", and I can relate especially to this observation.

"Forsaking formal religious organizations, these people have instead embraced an individualized spirituality that includes picking and choosing from a wide range of alternative religious philosophies. They typically view spirituality as a journey intimately linked with the pursuit of personal growth or development."

I agree spirituality is meant to be individualised, since everyone has a subjective view or opinion about God/Divine, which is influenced by a person's upbringing, culture, experiences and so on. Each person's experiences in life are unique, and it has been suggested by some inspirational sources that we all have our own unique spiritual DNA, so to speak.

I also believe we are already spiritual beings on a human journey, so there is no need for people to become more spiritual (in the sense of becoming more holy or moral or perfect, which itself is a form of legalism). The fact that we are moved by music, art, beauty and love is testimony that each of us is spiritual, and yet at the same time, we also need to connect with our humanity, in terms of our emotions.

I suppose the general idea I have at this point of my journey is that spirituality has to do with experiencing a sense of inner bliss that is unchanging, whereas humanity has to do with our emotions and thoughts (such as those of fears, worries, anger, disappointment, hurts as well as happiness, peace, elation, excitement, passion) that are fluctuating and everchanging - I would say both are equally necessary and normal and natural parts of our human existence. We all need to embrace both the spiritual and human sides of ourselves.

Is "original sin" a christian theology?

Actually, I think the sin theology was derived from the Jews, and the early Christians probably borrowed (and adapted or modified) the idea of original sin from Judaism. I have come to see the bible as a collection of myths borrowed from various ancient cultures, and somewhere along the way thousands of years ago, the sin concept was probably borrowed by the Jews from some of the ancient traditions that revolve around sin, atonement and sacrifices.

Until the day Jesus arrived in the scene, the Jews were still hung up about sin and sacrificial system. The Pharisees especially looked down on others as sinners. Although I have come to see Jesus as a mythological character, I do see his purpose in helping people to see themselves not as sinners but beloved children of God. He told them the kingdom of God is within them. If they were sinners, then this statement makes no sense. The fact that the kingdom of God is in us means we are all beloved and innocent children of God. While Jesus have used the term sinner in his parables, I believe he was only using their lingo to speak their language. But essentially Jesus wanted everyone to know that we and the Father are one, and we are already blameless and without spot, wrinkle or any such thing. 

Blessing opens us up to greater healing

"Blessing may be defined as a quality of thought/feeling/emotion that allows us to redefine our feelings about something that's hurting us now or has hurt us in the past. Stated another way, blessing something is the 'lubricant' that frees our hurtful emotions, opening us up to greater healing, rather than keeping our emotions stuck and unresolved within the body. To lubricate our emotions, we must acknowledge

(bless) all aspects of those hurtful things: such as those who suffer, the cause of the suffering, and those who witness the outcome.

"I often find at this point in any discussion of what blessing is that it's important to be very clear about what it is not. When we bless someone who's hurt us, clearly we aren't suggesting that what has happened is okay or that we'd like it to happen again. Blessing doesn't condone or make excuses for any atrocity or act of suffering. It doesn't put a stamp of approval on a hurtful event, or suggest that we would ever choose to re-experience it.

"What blessing does do is free us from our painful experiences. It acknowledges that those events, whatever they were, have occurred. When we do so, our feelings about those experiences move through out bodies instead of getting stuck inside them. In this way, blessings is the key to reaching Rumi's field beyond wrongdoing and rightdoing. Blessing is the key to accessing the space between. It temporarily suspends our hurt long enough so that we can replace it with another feeling."

Secrets of the Lost Mode of Prayer, pages 100-101, Gregg Braden

I think it is a sensitive and balanced description about how blessing and acknowledging all aspects of hurt and suffering enables us to be free from the hurtful emotions and experience greater healing. It allows us to feel the emotions and not suppress them, and at the same time, it moves us beyond Rumi's field of right doing and wrong doing, as aptly described by Gregg Braden, and see things for what they are. While we are in no way condoning the hurtful things some people have done to us nor do we want to re-experience them, we begin to see a bigger picture that those who hurt us are hurting themselves and many a times they know not what they were doing. I think this is how Jesus was able to bless those who hurt him.

Be Free to Love Ourselves

The following posts by Joshua Guild resonate with me. It reminds me of this picture message.

 

http://www.openhandweb.org/

 "I am going to say something that goes against what many are brainwashed into believing... There is a toxic lesson taught by religions, parents and other people we give positions of authority... Here is the GREAT LIE that causes life to be sucked out of your life, transforming life into a blood sucking vampire... At some point you were most likely and most subtly taught to love others MORE than you love yourself... Listen closely... Loving others more than you love yourself sets you up to be used... abused... to feel guilty... ashamed... and inadequate. It is impossible to love others when you feel as if there's not enough of you to go around... Loving others MORE than you love yourself leads to a downward spiral into a severe form of depression... known as despair... You are only capable of loving others AS MUCH as you love yourself and not a measure more... So what ever you need to do on this day to be happy... DO IT! Happy people make the best friends, best parents, best lovers, best employees and the best bosses... Never consider it selfish to put your happiness first... Happy people contribute by far the most to society... so give yourself permission to be happy... set yourself free... it really is not as wrong to be happy as you might have once thought... I give myself this speech often... so today I decided to share my speech with you..." Joshua Guild

"There is place in our being that Jesus said to shine... Jesus even said let YOUR light shine... He didn't call it His light, He called it YOUR light... Be a person who shines with a love that I ignites others in your presence... Be a candle that lights other candles... Achieve a happiness that becomes contagious... Walk into a room and light it up with love... I believe Jesus, Buddha and all other enlightened gurus/people have shined with this Christ-like essence... The opposite of self love is shame... We all carry a degree of shame... we all hide to a degree behind this shame... Jesus said don't hide your light under a bushel... that bushel is shame... we are afraid to dance... to strut through life with our chin up... to look people in the eyes when we speak to them... to say those things our heart wants speak, we are afraid the words won't come out right... YET... deep inside each one of us is light hiding behind that shame... in fear of nakedness... Love is the voice of God's calling out to you... asking the magical question... Who told you that you were naked? Who told you to compare yourself to others? Who told you that life was a competition? We are all uniquely beautiful, so we can all love and appreciate our being... and open the doors of our heart to let love in and our essence out." Joshua Guild

-----

 “The secret of attraction is to love yourself. Attractive people judge neither themselves nor others. They are open to gestures of love. They think about love, and express their love in every action. They know that love is not a mere sentiment, but the ultimate truth at the heart of the universe.”
Deepak Chopra

The bible is a collection of myths after all

When I was reading the book of Romans, I was pondering over the possibility that the story of Pharoah in the old testament was not a true story and only an allegory.

That thought led me to question whether Moses existed in real life, because since most, if not all, of the Bible is a collection of allegories and myths, then Moses could well be an allegorical character to symbolise an archetype of the law mindset (based on illusion of ego and separation). So, I decided to google "Did Moses exist?", and I came across several interesting websites.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Did_Moses_exist#ixzz22x2PE1GU
"There is no physical evidence of the existence of Moses (eg mention of him on pttery shards, as is common for other significant figures). Textual analysis shows that the books of the pentateuch, attributed to Moses, were not written by a single author. Some scholars believe that these books were a much later confection of stories centred around a figure with no historical basis."

This discussion forum shares similar views on the mythical nature and non-historicity of Moses.

http://freethoughtnation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=4182&start=0
"Although many scholars of the past century to today are clear on the mythical nature of the Exodus tale and the probable (to them) non-historicity of the Moses character, there are a number of historical or quasi-historical individuals and events that have gathered attention as the possible "real Moses" and "real Exodus"."

The person called Acharya who wrote the above has an interesting blog that has some links on how the christian religion came about. http://freethoughtworld.wordpress.com/


The following websites also have something to say about how the myth of Jesus came about.

http://freethoughtnation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=26401

"The question “Did the Biblical Jesus really live?” has been debated by scholars for centuries. While literalist Christian scholars prefer to seek evidence that supports their belief in a historical Jesus, impartial historians, including some Christian ones, have shown that there is in fact no evidence to support a historical Jesus."

http://mama.indstate.edu/users/nizrael/jesusrefutation.html

"The theme of a divine or semi-divine child who is feared by an evil king is very common in pagan mythology. ... Examples of myths which follow this plot are the birth stories of Romulus and Remus, Perseus, Krishna, Zeus, and Oedipus. Although Torah literalists will not like to admit it, the story of Moses's birth also resembles these myths (some of which claim that the mother put the child in a basket and placed him in a river).
..
"However, the story of the twelve apostles lost its original allegorical interpretation and the Christians began to think that the "twelve apostles" were twelve real people who followed Jesus. The Christians attempted to find names for these twelve apostles."

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20120222023136AAvYsuW

"The biblical Jesus was a composit, fictional character created by the writers from the stories of several real historical persons being put together to create the composit biblical Jesus. The legendary King Arthur and Robin Hood characters were created the same way. The first century Jewish historians Josephus and Philo of Alexandria traveled throughout Palestine in the first century and wrote about many false messiahs and miracle workers including John the Baptist and James the Just, but NEVER wrote about the biblical Jesus. "

Last but not least, I discovered that even the apostle Paul may not have existed in real life, according to some views, such as the one below.

http://freethoughtnation.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=15&p=1571
"here's what I think.

Paul is not a real person at all.

Certainly Paul draws from Apollonius of Tyana and the works of Josephus. He appears to be a conglomerate of wise characters, that the early church wanted to assimilate under one to give credibility to their movement. Its easier to twist a history to make it fall inline, than it is to outright declare war on it. Especially when Apollonius was well respected amongst his contempories.
...
It also occured to me that there is also the possibility that Paul is meant to be the forerunner character of Jesus - but 'gnostically', he represents the struggle of a man, who has received enlightenment, but not yet reached the 'Christ' status the gnostic interpretation aims for. Clearly this would mean him entirely spiritual and not real, as in the gnostic interpretation of Jesus."

I am still chewing on these findings and I will take some time to digest the information myself.

1 John 1:9 was written to the Jews, not Us

I understand the context of the verse 1 John 1:9 in terms of John writing to the Jewish audience, so he was only speaking their lingo, since they held on to this sin theology.

For us, there is nothing to confess, because we are not "sinners". I think this sin-consciousness comes from the religious mindset, that mistakenly thinks one has failed to obey a so-called god, and that subscribes to the illusion of separation.

Hence, I don't agree with the popular notion that people are born "sinners" or use the explanation that the world is messed up because of some sin Adam committed. My take is that the world is messed up because people have forgotten who they really are - that we all are already perfect, complete, blameless, innocent and beloved.

I have come to see the bible as a Jewish old covenant book, and while I may learn some truths from it, but many of the things in the bible, such as the sin theology, do not apply to me because I don't belong to the Jewish religious system, which has already been done away in AD70.

Someone may ask, "Then why did John write that 'If you say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us?'"

My answer is: Precisely because John was writing to his Jewish brethren who were under their law system, they were counted as "sinful" simply because their own man-made laws condemned them. We learn that "By the law is the knowledge of sin", so that is how the Jews became sin-conscious. This man-made law system was put to an end by AD70, marked by the destruction of the Jerusalem temple.

We are not under the Jewish law system. When there is no law, there is no transgression of law either. That means there is no such thing as sin.

In short:

No law = No knowledge of sin

No law = No imputation of sin

No law = No transgression of law

No law = No knowledge of sin

No law = No consciousness of sin

What is our conclusion then? When we change our mind (repent) from the law mindset to the grace mindset, we realise that sin is only an illusion - the illusion of separation. Sin doesn't exist in reality.

Jesus' parable of the lost son exemplifies this truth. The younger son returned home, and before he could finish "confessing his sins", his father embraced him and welcomed him home warmly and unconditionally.

What does this tell us? Is God waiting for his children to confess their sins? No. The father did not even bother to listen to the son's rehearsed confession. As far as the father is concerned, the son is always perfect and innocent in his eyes.

Similarly, as far as God is concerned (whom I believe is our highest self), we are perfect and innocent. May we all continue to see ourselves the way our highest consciousness sees us - beloved, complete, innocent and blameless.

"A good Father doesn't think of His children as evil, and His love won't even keep a record of our wrongs. So, He sends us the Comforter to bring us a real sense of security--the very thing that our theology stole from us."- Dr Michael Jones

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The Devil Myth

Healthy People Have No Need For A Devil - Deepak Chopra

"I do believe in "casting out the devil" ... Casting out the belief, devotion and fear of such a being from your mind, from your heart, from your life rather than putting faith, belief and fundamental devotion into such a concept and empowering this being by keeping him resurrected in your thoughts and inviting him into your reality."~~~ James Peter Jandu

The Devotion To A Devil Is Quite High In Fundamentalist Religion - Carlton Pearson

 Yes I have learnt from Carlton Pearson's book that the personal devil in Christianity is a myth. I have also read other materials and discussions, some of which shared by you, that the devil is just a metaphor, which could refer to the shadow or false self. So it is just a religious terminology to describe something which does not exist in reality. The devil in the lake of fire is only a symbolic way of saying that the old separation mindset of religion has been dissolved, in the context of the end of the Jewish old covenant age, when people in that culture and era would realise we are all one family of God/Divine.