[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> In a message dated 1/11/01 12:22:16 PM Eastern Standard Time,
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
>
> << Bush, on the other hand, credits Jesus as having helped him reach sobriety
> and actually declared a "Jesus Day" as an unofficial holiday in Texas.
> That
> Bush believes in the myth of Jesus makes me completely distrust him as it
> shows his susceptibility to magical thinking. >>
>
> i'm so shocked at this clark. i mean, what's so bad about believing in the
> magic of jesus.
I can't comment on what Clark meant. However, many have turned the story of Jesus into
a
corrupt version of it, which can justly be referred to as magical thinking.
The Xtian teaching is that ONLY those who believe that jesus died to PAY(how appalling
is
a belief that a God would require such an evil thing as a sacrifice ) for our sins will
enter Heaven. Entering heaven does not depend on who one is as a person, or ones
attitude
and beahviour to ones fellows, but in one's belief. to me that is a corrution of what
Jesus taught. Xtians also teach that people are not responsible for their sins, that
Jesus
paid for them and that Satan urged us to commit them in the first place. By believing
this, Xtians think we escape the consequences of our thoughts and actions. this is
magical
thiking.
Jesus taught about personal repsonsibilty(we reap what we sow). He didn't say we could
escape the consequences of our actions. He did say that thru prayer and meditation we
could CHANGE ourselves on the inside, thus making it less likely we would make
mistakes.
he also said that the Kingsom of Heaven is WITHIN, not somewhere else.
being 'born again in spirit' is not the ludicrous notion that one is changed
immediately
upon accepting a belief that is clearly wrong, but is the reslut of the slow process
of a
closer contact with the God within which helps one act from the spirit and not from the
ego.
Many people witter on about the 'suffering' of jesus and what a huge sacrifice he
made. As
we know, his death was horrible and he was betrayed. Horribel Yet he had parents who
loved
and cared for him. The suffering came at the end of his life. Compare His suffering
with
that a girl named Anna who was beaten and burned, starved and tied up in a bath until
she
died of cold and malnutrion. She was 6 years old. She suffered this abuse for years.
people who in their fantasy think Jesus' suffering was anything like this, have no clue
what suffering is. What about the Jews in the camps? What about the starving in Afirca?
What about the millions of children starved, beaten, raped, killed everyday in this
world?
>From what we know of Jesus and his teachings, it is descernible that he was a good
>man,
and understood that he and God(and thus we and God) were not separate beings, That God
is
a part of us and we a part of God. That God dwells IN us and is NOT outside us. Thus
Jusus
was able to to manifest the gifts of the spirit to a greater extent than most, if not
all,
people.
To believe in a God that is angry, jealous and loves conditonaly, is to believe in the
human ego, nothing more. It seems to me the great sadness is people's inability to
understand unconditonal love, to understand that our sins will NOT hold us back unelss
we
allow them to. No matter how far from the light we may wonder, the way back is never
closed off. And God's love is never withheld.
