586 posts shown.
silenthound4 said:Benjamin Taylor6, look, the whole point of everything boils down to love. Jesus did it all because He loves us. It wasn't some forced obligation—if it had been, it wouldn't have been just, right? But He stepped up and said He wanted to settle the debt on our behalf, and He saw the path ahead and ACCEPTED it. That’s why God is love; He did this for us. And honestly, it isn't my will to write such a long-winded post, it's His.
So, Christ sacrificed Himself to wipe away the stain of original sin that humanity has been lugging around since Adam and Eve. Now, mind you, God could have handled this in a much less agonizing way—just a simple decree. Just like He wiped away original sin for the Virgin Mary by divine decree, He could have done the same for all of mankind. But He didn't. Instead, He chose the harder road: the sacrifice of His own Son.
What kind of hellish willpower does it take to sit down and write something this long? Honestly, I’m still scratching my head over the whole "why" behind the death of Christ. I mean, how does one person actually pay the debt for someone else's sins? In any normal sense, redemption is just money you hand over to clear a tab—it's a transaction. But in the case of Christ, the ransom is his life itself... so, who exactly is collecting? Is it the Father? And if He takes this ransom, is He really not going to send people to hell? Even though, if we're being honest, most people probably deserve it.
ruggedeagle10 said:In short:
It is because when you follow His example, you effectively kill the evil within yourself while nurturing the good. This leads to a spiritual rebirth that grants you a level of strength, peace, and joy far greater than any hardship, suffering, or pain this world can throw at you. When you eventually look back—whether later in life or at its very end—and assess where you stand and who you have become compared to who you would have been without the example, guidance, and strength provided by Jesus, you realize He has redeemed you from sin and all its consequences (the agony, the suffering, the emptiness, the lack of purpose, the self-condemnation, and so on).
Those are beautiful sentiments, really—lovely phrases—but they often drift quite far from reality. I could go to Mass every single day, take communion constantly, and yet find that absolutely nothing in my life has shifted. It raises the question: what exactly am I supposed to be changing? To become a "better person"? But what does that even mean? And better for whom? Am I trying to be better for my own sake, or for someone else? My boss at the firm seems to think a "better person" is someone who doesn't bother asking for a raise or a holiday bonus. My wife thinks a "better husband" is the one who makes sure dinner is on the table every single night—even if she's home all day and I'm the one out working. Then there's my brother, who seemingly thinks my only job should be changing my bedridden mother's diapers, all so that once she passes, he can inherit the entire house. In his twisted logic, the less I get and the more he keeps, the closer I'll be to God. 😍
So, "goodness" is a pretty questionable category, isn't it? How much "goodness" can a person practice before they simply turn into a fool? And honestly, being a fool might actually be a bigger sin than being selfish. Being a fool is a sin against oneself. Even Christ didn't go on a hunger strike just because he saw merchants setting up stalls in the temple. If he were just looking to be a "holy man" through self-deprivation, he would have starved himself to teach those merchants a lesson. Instead, he went in there and flipped the tables.
Taylor Reyes3 said:If we want to grasp why Jesus died—to truly wrap our heads around the weight of His sacrifice—we first have to understand why He lived. We need to see what His actual purpose was on this earth.
God said, "I have spoken to you through the prophets, but now I am here among you." If we just look at how
Scripture describes Jesus' life, isn't it clear? He spent every moment teaching His followers how to live in a way that leads to the Kingdom of Heaven. Through His own life and His intense
struggles, didn't He show us that even the most devastating hardships—which, let's face it, pale in comparison to what He endured—can be survived if you stay true to yourself and remain steadfast? He led by example, carrying all our burdens to the cross, so that through His resurrection, He could conquer every evil on earth. It’s almost as if He’s saying:
"Go ahead, you tortured me, beat me, humiliated me, stripped me bare, and finally killed me—yet, here I am, living again." He died to defeat evil once and for all, providing strength and salvation to anyone currently walking through suffering. There are many of us who have already found that peace, and for those who haven't quite reached it yet, please don't give up. Just believe that you can find strength in
Him. One day, you might just find it too.
Eli, Eli, Lama azavtani
(Walt Whitman)
A little verse:
He died upon Golgotha
And the world knows it well
But from that ancient sacrifice
No fruit has yet swelled
Something like this was written:
casualmaker13 said:Look, don't sweat it. You aren't the only one who’s felt let down by gurus and the specific techniques they push. Seriously, there are tons of people out there feeling exactly the same way. Then, of course, you have the other crowd—the ones who actually stuck with those exact same methods or followed that same guru guidance and somehow found themselves. They claim it made them better, happier, more successful, or gave them all these massive breakthroughs. It's a mixed bag, I guess.😉
Just keep moving. Maybe you'll get lucky. Maybe you'll finally figure something out, or stumble upon the perfect guru, a specific technique, or even some priest who can actually give you exactly what you're looking for. Who knows?
Maybe you’re just a lost cause. I mean, maybe your whole purpose in life is to try everything, fail at every single one of them, and then spend the rest of your days making fun of it all because you just couldn't get it right.🤷
Maybe that old saying about "use it or lose it" is actually the most important thing you’ll ever wrap your head around. I mean, maybe that should be the ultimate goal in life—just holding onto what you've got. At the end of the day, I guess we're all just chasing the same thing anyway.😁
So, to wrap this all up—you went looking for answers in a few places and came up empty. That doesn't mean they aren't out there somewhere, I guess, but you’ve made up your mind based on what you've found so far. You're moving toward your own conclusions now, heading straight toward death, which, let's be honest, is a path we're all on. Whether it's someone jumping off a skyscraper in Chicago, a freak accident on the I-95, or just losing the battle with some disease, the end of the physical body is pretty much unavoidable. It's just how it goes.🙂
If you don't nail it this time, hey, maybe things will go smoother the next round.🙂😲👍
It really begs the question: can anyone actually give you anything? And what is this thing that humans spend their entire lives hunting? Enlightenment? Jiddu Krishnamurti once remarked that if people truly had the experience he had, they would flee from enlightenment like a devil flees from holy water. Perhaps we are all just drifting toward a new kind of realization: namely, that there is no such thing as "realization." As one Zen Buddhist put it: the Tao belongs neither to the world of knowing nor to the world of not-knowing. Knowledge is an illusion, and "not-knowing" is a nonsense term—kind of like calling a straight line a curve!😲😍
In the end, all we're left with is sacramental copulation. But my old boss used to say all the time:
I'd love to just go out and f***, f***, f***, but I'm always missing one of the two essentials: either I don't have the gear, or I don't have the partner. 😂
silentviper19 said:Benjamin Taylor6 I didn't catch what was said there! It looks like the message got cut off or maybe I missed the memo. If you were trying to share something, go ahead and drop it again—I'm all ears!
I mean, look, a billion people believe it! It’s just like how you know snow is white, right? It's an absolute given. Total fact.😲
See, that’s exactly where they trip up. It’s like, look, even a regular believer can look outside at a blizzard and say, "Hey, that snow is white," right? That's just common sense. You use your brain, you see the color, you move on. But when it comes to the big stuff—like knowing for a fact that Jesus rose from the dead—that's not something you just stumble upon by looking out a window. Nobody actually *knows* that through pure logic or observation alone, except for what's written in the New Testament. And yet, they just take it as absolute gospel without a second thought! It's wild how that works.
Look, if you look at things from my perspective, most Christians around here don't actually buy that the whole world was just whipped up in six days about 7,000 years ago. You know, that idea where God takes a breather on the seventh day after finishing everything in Genesis? It’s just not what most people think. I remember talking to a buddy of mine over coffee last week—we were sitting in this little diner in Chicago—and we were chatting about how much science and faith overlap these days. Anyway, whenever someone tries to throw that literalist view at them, they usually just shut down and say...Don't take that too literally, honestly. It’s really just symbolism. It belongs to an era where people weren't exactly raised with the kind of formal education we have today. I remember my old history teacher back in high school used to say something similar about how we interpret old texts—it's all about the context of the time, you know? Just look at the big picture.!!
But look, when you start talking about the Resurrection, the whole "it's just a metaphor" argument goes right out the window. There's no more debating symbols or deep meanings for them—it’s just a straight-up, undeniable fact. I mean, that's the entire bedrock of their faith! Without it, the whole thing just falls apart. It's the one thing they won't budge on.
The reality is that the Church is now embracing evolution. But I’ve noticed they’re also willing to bend over backward regarding the whole story of Adam and Eve and Original Sin. These poor souls don't realize that using allegory for one thing completely dismantles their entire Biblical framework. Eventually, the Bible is going to turn into an allegory of an allegory of an allegory. At that point, why even bother? It'll just be some glorified bedtime story for adults.
silentviper19 said:If you want to talk about something that’s totally irrational and defies all logic, we have to talk about Jesus’ death and resurrection!
I mean, think about it. You’ve got an almighty God—someone who is supposed to be all-powerful—choosing to send Jesus, who is actually Himself, just to carry out a suicide mission to pay for human sins!🤣
To me, these are just plain facts, and honestly, it’s where the whole argument ends right there. It just goes to show how incredibly imaginative the human mind can be, fueled by these wild hallucinations about an all-powerful God who, for some reason, felt the need to pull off something so nonsensical!
But hey, billions of people believe it, just like you believe snow is white!!!😲
rowdyhawk10 said:I suppose I understand that this is what the church teaches. However, I suspect it isn't actually the teaching of Jesus himself, given that he wasn't crucified.
People die regardless, and I don't think anyone actually dies for anyone else.
As for this whole "atonement for sin" concept, it feels like something the church invented just to implement a tax on faith.
It essentially forces you to hand over money to a priest just to be told you're going to heaven.
The system works quite efficiently, I suppose, simply because so many people want to get into heaven.
One just accepts the lie that someone washed away their sins, and that's that. 🙄
God becoming man... 🤣
🙏
All we're missing here is one
Jehovah's Witness to make this whole circus complete. 😂
Of course, any Muslim is going to have an official stance from Islamic theologians regarding death and the atonement of the sins of Jesus of Nazareth. And their take is basically: "What kind of atonement is this nonsense?" It makes Allah look like some pagan deity demanding a child sacrifice just to show mercy. In this version, Allah gives his own only son as a sacrifice!? All to pay for a sin that Adam and Eve committed back in the Garden of Eden—a sin that spread through humanity like a genetic disease! 😲
So, which God became human?
In Christianity (though not their specific version): Jesus of Nazareth.
In Hinduism (again, not their version): Krishna.
There are plenty more, but they aren't really worth discussing since they fall under ancient mythology, and frankly, most people today couldn't care less about that stuff.
neonscout5 said:The whole point of meditation is to quiet that internal chatter by simply letting thoughts pass without grabbing onto them—just letting them drift by. They flow through one by one, becoming less frequent until consciousness settles into the void. If you went into the session with a specific intention to realize something, once you hit that stillness, the insight follows naturally.
I’ve been practicing Transcendental Meditation regularly since 1980—including the more advanced techniques, too. Did I actually achieve anything? Honestly, barely anything at all. But then again, what was anyone supposed to expect? Usually just whatever is promised during those introductory seminars. Was I expecting much? No, I kept my expectations pretty modest. I actually ended up documenting my own observations on my blog.
Those are my DEEP INSIGHTS 😍 And I even picked my avatar based on those deep insights!!!
1. My first cousin managed to reach this state:
2. Some friends and I reached this:
3. My cousin's wife and an acquaintance achieved this:
Henry Williams said:Real genius right there.
But honestly? I’d much rather spend my afternoon watching soap operas than reading the Quran.
I’d much rather read the Quran than sit through a soap opera—it's just that I don't have a copy lying around at home.
velvetmaker39 said:There is a crucial element missing from this discussion, though: will the actual BELIEVERS ever reach a consensus? It might not matter which specific denomination you belong to, but rather whether you actually hold the faith in your heart or if you're just going through the motions.
Believers have to follow their theologians. If they don't, they face excommunication.
And why am I even participating in this? It reminds me of something Jim Morrison once sang:
Everyone expects me to dig into the core essence of things, but even Aristotle—God knows if he ever did—never really touched on the actual substance of it all. And yet, here we are, still breathing.
velvetmaker39 said:Well, I’ve got to head out now. Honestly, people, God gave you all a sense of reason—so when you actually find yourselves in a position to use it, for heaven's sake, stir things up a bit and put that blessing to work. As Jesus said, "for whoever has will be given more, and whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken away," so please, just watch yourselves; don't end up losing even that tiny shred of common sense you have left. Anyway, I'm off.
👍
I am in complete agreement with you. Our ways of thinking are remarkably similar—truly. If I may be so bold as to add one thing: I highly doubt the Christians (or even the Muslims) are going to see eye to eye with you on this.
Angela Martin20 said:I honestly think the biggest mess we deal with is just people failing to distinguish between an ABSOLUTE GOD and a RELATIVE GOD.
The God you read about in the Bible is definitely a RELATIVE GOD—the one who brought life to this earth—but he isn't the ABSOLUTE GOD. You know, the creator of the entire universe and all of reality? In my view, He’s the Father of that RELATIVE god... okay, now things actually start making sense.
There is one thing we simply cannot overlook here: we are the ones who essentially invented the concept of God and assigned Him specific characteristics.
The whole saga regarding Jesus and His death on the cross is really just a continuation of some adult fairy tale that started being spun back in the Book of Genesis. In the beginning, a perfect God created angels to serve Him—which, if you think about it for even a second, reveals a massive logical hole in the narrative. If God is truly perfect, ideal, and all-powerful, He doesn't actually *need* anything. Period. He certainly doesn't need a fleet of angels acting as cosmic housekeepers. What exactly were they supposed to be doing? Polishing the celestial floors, scrubbing the heavenly windows, vacuuming up stardust with divine vacuums? When God gets hungry, does He need someone to whip up lunch or dinner, or maybe a little mid-afternoon snack? Does He need His bed made before retiring for the night? Does He need someone to set His alarm clock?
And if God felt like pampering Himself, he’d need someone to trim His beard, clip his nails, or tidy up His hair. Some angels would probably have been tasked with telling jokes to cheer Him up when He was in a mood, or singing songs all day long—since, you know, heavenly record players hadn't been invented yet. When one of the few somewhat clever angels, the one known as Lucifer, realized how exhausting this repetitive singing was (he practically lost his voice constantly shouting "glory of God"), he decided to stage a rebellion. And just like that, one hoarse throat—long before God even created Adam and Eve—sealed the fate of humanity. So, here is the setup: Lucifer rebels, loses the war, and gets tossed into hell. But how on earth was he supposed to escape from there!? Not much time passed before God created Adam and Eve. Lucifer managed to sneak out of paradise by camouflaging himself as a snake. He tricked Eve, who then ate the forbidden fruit right along with Adam. This infuriated God, so He kicked the first couple out of the Garden of Eden and made them mortal. Still, God was supposedly kind enough to promise He would send His son to rescue them from sin—or rather, the eternal death of the soul. But honestly, God could have fixed that without sending His son at all. He did something similar for the Virgin Mary while she was still in the womb of St. Anne, Mary's mother. That way, Mary was born without original sin. And that was all before the birth of the redeemer, Jesus. (Which makes sense, assuming she gave birth to Him twenty years later).
It is easy to conclude that this is nothing more than a common fairy tale that bears no resemblance to reality, though it serves as a very convenient way to present certain ideas to simple-minded people. The catch is, those simple people aren't allowed to think for themselves or ask questions. That is DANGEROUS for any RELIGION. That is why theology exists—to provide explanations for everything. They call it: THE MYSTERY OF FAITH.
Back in the day, theologians had an even more dangerous mechanism for banning those types of inquiries: THE HOLY INQUISITION!!
Karma is a nasty business if you take it at face value—really nasty. But the real headache is figuring out how to actually wrap your head around it. There’s this old story some Christians love to trot out whenever they want to trash-talk yoga or Hinduism: Imagine this young guy who has a little cabin by a lake, right? He spends every single morning there just meditating. One day, while he’s deep in his practice, he hears someone screaming for help because they’re drowning. This meditator—this guy is totally detached—he just says, "Nah, I'm sticking with my meditation." In his mind, this person’s karma dictated they had to drown today. Or maybe someone else was supposed to save them, but it wasn't going to be him. His karma told him to stay centered. So, predictably, the guy drowns. And the yogi? He sleeps like a baby with a perfectly clear conscience because, hey, if it was destined, it was destined. Bo decided that man had to go that day. To go against Bo would almost be a sin, wouldn't it?
It reminds me of that one joke:
About a century ago, a man goes to see a fortune teller. She looks him dead in the eye and says, "You are going to be responsible for the deaths of 50 million people!!!!????"
The man leaves, absolutely crushed by the weight of it.
Later, while he's walking along a riverbank, he spots a young boy struggling in the water, drowning.
He thinks to himself, "Well, I guess I'll save this one child, even if it means I'm responsible for those 50 million deaths."
So, he jumps in, pulls the kid to safety, and performs CPR until the boy starts breathing again.
A crowd gathers, and the boy's mother rushes over, overflowing with gratitude toward her hero.
She turns to her son and says: Quincy, honey, say thank you to this gentleman who just saved your life!😂
Adolf whom the man saved: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_kxPG6y8Qct...f+Hitler+2.jpg
Adolf, once he grew up: http://www.solarnavigator.net/histor...r_portrait.jpg
Paul Jones7 said:I don't think that really connects to spirituality at all. If you look at it through the lens of reincarnation, it's highly questionable whether the souls of those people back then have any actual link to the souls of people today; and if you aren't looking at it that way, then there's no connection at all. Maybe—and this is just a thought—the Nazis simply created a necessary karmic situation. From a purely spiritual standpoint, the soul remains protected, even if the physical body is vulnerable.
Some spiritualists argue that collective karma is a real phenomenon. It isn't just about an individual being held accountable for their own actions; rather, an individual carries responsibility for the behavior of the group they belong to. And a "group" is essentially defined by a central idea that brings people together. In the case of the Jewish community, it is a shared faith that shapes that collective consciousness.
Arthur White37 said:I have been dwelling on this very concept lately. If we are essentially pre-selecting our own karma before we even pass away, then what purpose does free will actually serve?
Whenever I attempt to wrap my head around the logic of it, I find myself spiraling into total confusion rather than reaching any sort of clarity. 😁 It feels as though everything is part of some infinite loop, yet I struggle to define its exact parameters. 😁
Is everything these spiritual gurus peddle actually the absolute truth? Maybe it works for them—maybe they've seen it firsthand. But for the rest of us, "truth" might look entirely different. At the end of the day, I honestly believe that nothing beats our own personal experience when it comes to figuring out what's real.
fadedskipper52 said:'Free will' isn't actually free at all 😁. Sure, you can choose to drink alcohol whenever you want, but after a while, you just end up becoming an alcoholic, don't you?
It is our duty, our obligation, and honestly our greatest joy to live in alignment with who we truly are—God's children, expressions of Love, spiritual beings inhabiting material bodies... everything else is bound by the law of cause and effect. You reap what you sow, plain and simple. But since Love sits above even that law, the ultimate joy is always within our reach to wipe away those karmic debts. We just have to choose it!
Now, that rule doesn't hold up every single time. I remember Adrian Kezele once had a friend—a guy who tried incredibly hard to live this ultra-spiritual lifestyle. No drinking, no smoking, wouldn't even touch meat. He spent his entire day in meditation, just trying his absolute hardest to be a saint. And then, out of nowhere, he was hit with cancer at forty. Until his very last breath, he refused to believe he actually had cancer. He kept insisting it was just a common cold—because, in his mind, it was impossible for him to have cancer. He lived too much in harmony with nature for something like that to happen to him. But it seems Nature has no patience for people who think they can outsmart the system—even when they're "positively" thinking their way through life.😲
So, there he was, dying of lung cancer despite being the most hardcore anti-smoking advocate you could meet. Maybe God decided to punish him for interfering with the divine method of population control? 😂
Honestly, the guy should have just handed out a pack of cigarettes a day to every retiree over sixty. 😂 Who knows? Maybe that’s exactly what God intended all along.
Paul Jones7 said:says:
Karma:
John killed Mirko. Now John's karma catches up to him, so some Frank kills him. Then Frank's karma kicks in, and an Elvis steps in to take him out. Then Elvis deals with his own karma by being taken down by a Stephen. And it just keeps going like that forever.
Wouldn't it be way easier—and honestly, a bit more straightforward—if lightning just struck Jane to settle the score for what she did to Mirko? Instead, this whole chain reaction just ends up wrecking a massive pile of people in a row. 😂
.
Just picture this one sailor who passes away and finds himself standing before Saint Peter. Let's say he gets sentenced to a hundred years in purgatory. The guy—well, his soul—is pretty confused. He remembers that thirty years ago back in Washington, D.C., he killed someone during a botched robbery. Saint Peter tells him he's only looking at purgatory because he was just a common thief back in his younger days. So the sailor asks, why isn't he heading straight to hell for the murder? The answer he gets is something like: “You were sent to kill Doctor Joseph Mengel. This Nazi war criminal is responsible for the deaths and torment of hundreds of innocent civilians. He’s been hiding out in the USA the whole time. Bog sent you to ensure justice is served.”
Is something like that even possible?
It's tough, though, because I suppose God's love shows itself precisely by giving us free will—so it seems almost impossible to imagine God doing anything that would actually strip that freedom away.
That’s really where the traditional view of God's goodness hits a wall. If we think of a 'good God,' we assume He shouldn't give total free will, because He ought to reward virtue and punish crime. But, looking at the world around us, the greatest act of love we can show anyone is simply giving them freedom. The freedom to choose, to decide, and to act entirely on their own terms. Is there any greater expression of love than refusing to put conditions on someone? Not really.
If we've decided for ourselves what constitutes the ultimate act of love, and if we define God as a being synonymous with pure love, then we have to accept that allowing a universe of free will might be the choice of the highest possible love—regardless of how monstrous the consequences might turn out to be.
But, I guess, that love doesn't mean much if our conscious existence isn't protected from everything... except, maybe, from ourselves. Some kind of spiritual protection, I suppose.
Personally, I look at the world through the lens of meaning and learning. Learning is growth, and growth is the point. This world of free will is just the stage where that growth happens. I can't really take a side on how we got here. Did we evolve from basic fragments of consciousness into what we are today? Or did we split off from perfection, only to degrade and experience a fall? Or perhaps the splitting kept happening all the way down to the level of tiny fragments?
But things like learning, purpose, and life as an experience—all for the sake of learning—those things feel tangible and clear to me. They are right here, right now, which is a far cry from those abstract theories about how it used to be or what's coming next.
There’s this widespread theory floating around certain spiritual circles that the Nazis actually did a "good deed" because they eliminated the Jews. The logic goes that the Jews were to blame because they crucified Christ, who was a man of God. So, will the Germans face the same reckoning now for killing six million Jews? Does karmic retribution always have to be settled through a living or non-living event? I was actually just reading something about Sai baba—you know, how people used to bring their sickly children to him for "bioenergy" healing. He supposedly claimed he could read someone's karma and decide whether or not to heal them. Apparently, those sick children were killers in a previous life, which is why they were born sickly. But wait—couldn't they have been born healthy only to be eaten by a tiger? Or maybe killed by another person instead of an animal? What happens to the karma of that person who kills a murderer from a previous life? It gets messy.