Relda (re: Dec.4 post)

Jesus/God was faced with a Eurasia populated by
Kurgans (Indo-Europeans) who believed
l) the world was kept "alive" through human sacrifice
2) that the death of others = life for the Kurgans
3) females were part of the plunder due the Kurgans
(theft as their right), as such females were things.
Indo-Europeans were notably violent, believed in violence,
thought violence was "proof" of masculinity.

This was and is a society that believed the blood
(subordination) of others was necessary for "success"
i.e. "life."

When he or his disciples came to teach an alternative,
they took small steps. Jesus spoke to the Samaritan woman
("plunder") at the well, something none of his disciples
would have done then.The first witness of his resurrection
was a female who, in that society, did not have standing
to testify as a witness in court (no credibility/just for sex).

Martin Luther, if he did advocate genocide, was expressing Kurgan/worldly values.

The Bible says love your wives as Jesus loved the church
(he gave his life for the church, putting the latter's interests
before his own).

What you may be reading is an underlying Kurgan interpretation
of the Bible which would mistakenly suggest that females are just
for sex.

The "value" of murder, glossed over as "life" or
a "right" exercised exclusively by Kurgans for Kurgans, is
a worldly value.

The "value" of rape, glossed over as the right of a warrior
(successful Kurgan), is a worldly value.

The "value" of theft, glossed over as a Kurgan privilege, is
a worldly value.

The "value" of all the above equals violence, and sums up
worldly values.

Jesus came to overturn these, displace these from the hearts
of men/women:

l Thessalonians 4:6 That no man go beyond and defraud his brother in
any matter: ...For God hath not called us unto uncleanness....
He therefore that despiseth, despiseth not man, but God....

Acts l8:And he began to speak boldly in the synagogue:
whom when Aquila and Priscilla had heard, they took him
unto them, and expounded unto him the way of God more
perfectly.

The only correct answer to the question, 'How does God exist?' is 'We don't know!'

God cannot be proven or disproven empirically, philosophically, or metaphysically. The question remains completely open until further scientific evidence is bought to hand.

What we can say is that the monotheistic religions as revealed in their sacred texts are completely flawed. They are unreliable as true historical documents. The Old Testment / Torah shows a cruel and petty God, the New Testament is illogical in the extremem, and the Hadith (the contextual foundation of the Koran) is so bad that even some Muslims are choosing to disregrad it. In historical terms it is little more than a joke.

In short, the statistical odds of either the Bible or the Koran being true is less than 1%, but not completely zero.

Hawaiilawyer,
Nice to know you can look beneath the literal and guess at other layers of interpretation.

TL,
Similar thoughts have crossed my mind. It true that all religions witness to some sense of the sacred. But it is not true that in their dominant theoretical expressions they all witness to a sacred reality significantly analogous to the Western God. It seems that belief in God (if we have one at all), as we might understand that in the West, has arisen chiefly from the Jewish and Western experience, not from a universally human one.

In the context of the history of religion we see that in our own traditions there are diverse aspects of reality. It is no longer clear that the God of metaphysics and the Father of Jesus Christ both present the same 'reality'.

Today we speak more readily of altered states of consciousness. This perhaps provides us with much better access to the understanding of Buddhism. Although in the nineteenth century such talk was rare and difficult for Westerners to understand, the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer did grasp Buddhism in this way.

The Buddhist imagination can populate the universe with Buddhas who function very much as gods, and it can even speak of gods in distinction from Buddhas, but these Buddhas and any deities there are must be Empty, that is, their true nature, like the nature of all things, is Emptiness.

The Buddhist rejects belief in God not primarily for theoretical reasons, but because it is a form of clinging. To become Empty is to be free from such clinging. But this does not mean that the realization of Emptiness is being cut off from the rest of reality in a self-enclosed moment. On the contrary, to be Empty is to be filled by all that is without prejudice or distortion.

The Christian tradition has it that “Christ emptied himself” – a formless entry into ‘reality’, free of distortion. Simply put, the idea of God or God ‘himself’ cannot be contained – I’d prefer to retain this mystery and remain fully appreciative of Buddhist practice.

A quick perusal of the postings on this subject confirms to me the great advantage of atheism. The subtitle definitions and complex arguments of the theologians can be cast in the dustbin labelled, “meaningless nonsense.”
Unfortunately “meaningless” does not necessarily imply “harmless.” The Wars of Religion provide all the historical evidence required to dam the believers in the god myth.

Relda,

By all means relate to anyone who is not aware, like you and I, of the generally vague connection between Moses, Christ and Muhammad (they were all Semites by birth, all believed in the one true God).

I am still waiting any kind of justification for your statement: 'the Koran and the Bible sprang from the same culture'.

Freudian and Jungian psychoanalysis sprang from the same 'culture' (to a far higher degree than the Koran and Bible did) as Hitler's ideas for the Third Reich but i would not go making much of an issue about it (on second thought, it might make for an interesting comparison... anyone up for the challenge?)

I claim the Koran 'culture' (early 7th century AD Arabian peninsula) the Christian(Jew) 'culture' (first centuries AD Roman Empire Palestine) and the Jewish 'culture' (1500 - 300BC Egyptian/Judaic/Persian/Greek eastern mediterranean coast) were all vastly differing cultures and had only their rough source of evolution, and not even language, in' common'.

I also find a problem in defining Judaism as a 'Great' religion as it currently lays claim to a meagre 14 million adherents and owes, almost exlusively, it's pre-eminence in our modern society and remaining existance to Christianity (differs markedly to Judaism even though Christ was indeed born in Judaea).

If Christ had not tried to give the Jews a message from their own God (and thus had to rely upon the 'old' testament) they refused to acknowledge (they in fact had him executed because he threatened the Jewish religious leader's control over the people) we would have no reason to claim to be a Judeo-Christian community or culture in places like the UK, Europe, America and Australia and would just be known as 'Christians'. Quite clever how such a tiny minority have held onto such influence today, isn't it? A Great Religion?
Cont.

You have an intersting understanding of mediterranean 'stability'. Five entirely differing cultures (Egyptian, Persian, Greek , Roman and Ottoman/Muslim Empires all intermingling through violent war/succesive conquest and destruction/slavery of anyone (eg.Jews) who got in their way) You do remember three hundred years of bloody conflict called the Crusades I assume?

Rahman was almost right - Free thought and thought are not always permitted - Bias often imposes itself on anyone's thought and so cannot truly be described as 'Free'. Anti-green is a case in point. America is another one. Might is Right is not a 'free thought'. Just being free in a society does not make one's thoughts by any means 'Free'.

Closing one's mind to what one is incapable of understanding is no substitute for intelligent 'free' thought. (I am not actually claiming you do this but it is clear some here do).

But we wander from topic now.