[GJM] Bible is not Dark--there are various narrations

[Steve Consilvio]

It seems to me far more likely that every society needs its prophets,  
and one is provided.  Why would God abandon his love of man for any  
one society?  That does not preclude the possibility that one prophet  
is above the other prophets.  Jesus worked miracles, but there have  
been other magical healers as well.  How does the narrative fit  
together from Adam and Eve (or the giant turtle) until today?   
Perhaps in ways which we will never understand rationally, but can  
accept spiritually.  It is too much information for the human brain.   
We are all connected.  The people of the past struggled with all the  
same issues we do, but are there turning points?  What is truth and  
what is misinterpretation?

I am of the opinion that history is linear, not cyclical, so  
therefore there is an event evolving of which we are a part of.  We  
are born into an ever greater tale of history, not as observers but  
as participants.  That is the shift from the rational to the  
spiritual that occurs both as individuals and collectively.  Some  
ideas are a dead end; "it can't be true because it is the same  
story," rather than "it must be true because it has happened  
before."  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Think of how much joy it is to watch our children grow and develop.   
Should God deny himself the same pleasure?  Or really, is it  
something that a parent can control?  The children make their own  
way, and while it may be new to them, it is not new at all.   
Religious bickering is not "meaningless," but the method of exploring  
and discovering ourselves.  The Truth thousands of years old is still  
the truth, and errors thousands of years old are still errors.  The  
challenge (struggle, jihad) is the same as it has always been, to  
separate the light from the dark from within ourselves and others.   
Paganism makes sense to the pagan, Christianity to the Christian, and  
so on, but where is the dividing line between truth and created  
fiction?  We bicker because the truth is important.  Getting it wrong  
has dramatic consequences.  Our "rituals" of habit are not benign,  
even more so than the unpleasant bickering. We are never a label,  
just as a book (Bible, Quran, Torah) is not just a book.  We are not  
pages and ink and word symbols, we are the meaning; the spirit and  
the flesh combined.

Is there any single concept more crazy than "love your enemy" and  
"give your money away."  Governments are instituted on the exact  
opposite theme:  hate your enemy and "create and control" money.  As  
long as there has been governments and money there has been a need  
for prophets to challenge the system.  They challenge the first  
assumption of every society, just as Paine challenged the legitimacy  
of the King, but there is a huge difference between a revolutionary  
and a prophet.  The prophet reveals, whereas the rebel destroys.  A  
rebel may have a vision, but not a strategy, and falls trap to "might  
equals right."  All bickering generally revolves around avoiding this  
question.  If you take upon yourself the power of force and the love  
of money, then how can one deny others the same right?  The rebel  
seeks to change places within the current system, whereas the prophet  
seeks to change the system by changing the people.  The religious  
disputes are essentially the same hierarchy of pride and control,  
where everyone wants to sit directly by God's side.  There can only  
be one in the first seat.  But Jesus is full of surprises.  He  
doesn't sit down, instead he washes everyone's feet, including those  
of Judas.  Like a lamb to the wolves, we get to choose which we shall  
be: the lamb or the wolf.  Both read the same books, live in the same  
world, but what they understand is very different.

peace,
steve


On FridayJun 6, 2008, at 8:55 AM, discussion- 
request at globaljusticemovement.net wrote:

> Dear Muhammad, et al,
>        Freke, and Gandy are highly respected scholarly authors, and  
> check, and double check their information.I am sure they have read  
> the Quran . What they have been trying to do is to get to the  
> "hidden" truth of certain religions.
>
> The book which they wrote about Christianity was quite fascinating.  
> It was called the Jesus Mysteries. It revealed that the Bible  
> teachings concerning the life of Christ were clearly copied in the  
> main from specific tales about Osiris, and Dionysius. However, such  
> claims have been known for decades amongst many Christian scholars.  
> What Freke, and Gandy did was merely to popularize this  
> "revelation". In other words, Christianity is largely a re-hash of  
> pagan, or "heathen" thinking, and beliefs under a different name....
>
> As far as I am concerned this does not undermine a personal belief  
> in Christ. It merely expands it into something more extraordinary,  
> and wonderful. The Real Christ is the PURE HIGHER INNER SELF. It  
> does not matter (eg. Allah, Krishna, Ram, et al)what name you give  
> It because what matters is your FAITH, AND BELIEF in It. The SELF  
> is nothing but a projection from God, and is WHO, AND WHAT WE  
> REALLY ARE without all the negative mental/emotional baggage. So,  
> all this religious bickering about who has the real ultimate  
> spiritual authority becomes essentially meaningless in the light of  
> all this.

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