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Re: Modern Christianity's Greatest Enemy [Re: Ravus]
    #6198225 -

Ravus.....where are those quotes found? I'd like to read them in context....especially that last one.

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Re: Modern Christianity's Greatest Enemy [Re: TameMe]
    #6198260 -

They come from the Gospel of Thomas, though the problem is the Gospel of Thomas often takes individual sayings and quotes from Jesus without putting them in context. That last quote, however, does have at least some context to work with:

Jesus asked his disciples: Make a comparison, what am I like? Simon Peter replied: You are like a righteous messenger. Matthew replied: You are like an intelligent lover of wisdom. Thomas replied: Teacher, I cannot possibly say what you are like. Jesus said to Thomas: I am not your teacher, you have drunk from and become intoxicated from the bubbling water that I poured out. Jesus took Thomas and they withdrew. Jesus said three things to him. When Thomas returned to the other disciples, they asked him: What did Jesus tell you? Thomas replied: If I tell you even one of the sayings that he told me, you would pick up stones and throw them at me, and fire would come out of those stones and burn you up.

This is the saying immediately preceding the saying, "If you fast you will bring sin to yourselves, and if you pray you will be condemned, and if you give to charity you will damage your spirits," leading to the implication that these three sayings are what Jesus told Thomas, whom the Gospel is named after.


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So long as you are praised think only that you are not yet on your own path but on that of another.

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Re: Modern Christianity's Greatest Enemy [Re: Ravus]
    #6198269 -

Anybody know what Jesus was talking about here?  :wink:


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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Re: Modern Christianity's Greatest Enemy [Re: Ravus]
    #6198270 -

why do you think he would say those things? I don't understand how any of those could be true or why he'd even say such a thing.

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Re: Modern Christianity's Greatest Enemy [Re: Icelander]
    #6198272 -

The connection between the mind and all of existence, clearly. The Kingdom is within and outside you, and Jesus also said that to realize what was right in front of you was to realize the Kingdom of God, so what else could it be besides the unity of these two?


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So long as you are praised think only that you are not yet on your own path but on that of another.

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Re: Modern Christianity's Greatest Enemy [Re: Icelander]
    #6198276 -

maybe he was speaking directly to Thomas alone and knew what his intentions were.

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Re: Modern Christianity's Greatest Enemy [Re: TameMe]
    #6198286 -

TameMe said:
maybe he was speaking directly to Thomas alone and knew what his intentions were.


Ultimately, I think he is stating that engaging in these actions are not the path. :wink:

:levitate:


--------------------
:redpanda:
If I should die this very moment
I wouldn't fear
For I've never known completeness
Like being here
Wrapped in the warmth of you
Loving every breath of you
:heartpump: :bunnyhug: :yinyang:

:yinyang: :levitate: :earth: :levitate: :yinyang:

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Re: Modern Christianity's Greatest Enemy [Re: TameMe]
    #6198292 -

TameMe said:
why do you think he would say those things? I don't understand how any of those could be true or why he'd even say such a thing.


Seeing as I didn't know Jesus personally, I'll have to go with one scholar's interpretation of this quote:

"The prohibitions of fasting, prayer and giving in charity are logical, from Thomas' perspective. If one's principal religious duty is to seek and find the hidden Kingdom, when you succeed and return successfully to the condition of the Beginning, turning to God in prayer or repentance is irrelevant or misguided. You exist in a mythical time before sin came into being.
"Thomas consistently expresses confidence in the human ability to discover hidden truth without any direct divine help or intervention. If you rely on divine help through prayer, or on repentance through fasting, or on obedience through acts of charity, you are going in the wrong direction."

Like any one of Jesus' quotes, though, it could very easily be interpreted thousands of different ways, or not understood at all.


--------------------
So long as you are praised think only that you are not yet on your own path but on that of another.

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Re: Modern Christianity's Greatest Enemy [Re: TameMe]
    #6198296 -

I like what Ravus says.

It seems obvious to me that the others were missing the message of Jesus and looking to some kind of works and actions to achieve spiritual goals. Spirituality consists of understanding your mind IMO. When you truly understand your own mind you understand everything.


--------------------
"Don't believe everything you think". -Anom.

" All that lives was born to die"-Anom.

With much wisdom comes much sorrow,
The more knowledge, the more grief.
Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC

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Re: Modern Christianity's Greatest Enemy [Re: TameMe]
    #6198298 -

TameMe said:
why do you think he would say those things? I don't understand how any of those could be true or why he'd even say such a thing.


Perhaps he was saying that these activities are not the path to divinity, but rather distractions from the divine experience available in the present moment? Those who prefer to pose and posture in their attempts to achieve righteousness are ignoring the Spirit they claim to worship.

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Re: Modern Christianity's Greatest Enemy [Re: Veritas]
    #6198325 -

Precisely.

:levitate:


--------------------
:redpanda:
If I should die this very moment
I wouldn't fear
For I've never known completeness
Like being here
Wrapped in the warmth of you
Loving every breath of you
:heartpump: :bunnyhug: :yinyang:

:yinyang: :levitate: :earth: :levitate: :yinyang:

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Re: Modern Christianity's Greatest Enemy [Re: Ravus]
    #6198341 -

but wasn't Jesus praying himself, like on the Mount of Olives ?
and didn't he feed the poor, like with the bread miracle ?

just riddling for consistency.


--------------------
Though lovers be lost love shall not  And death shall have no dominion
......................................................
"Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men."Martin Luther King, Jr.
'Acceptance is the absolute key - at that moment you gain freedom and you gain power and you gain courage'

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Re: Modern Christianity's Greatest Enemy [Re: Ravus]
    #6198362 -

Quote:
Isn't it ironic that the people who almost always proclaim that the "Kingdom is in the sky" are Jesus' self-proclaimed followers? Jesus clearly did not believe in the Christian Heaven or the Christian Second Coming supposedly linked to the "Kingdom of God," because he continuously asserts the Kingdom of God is in the present and that those are lies.


Nietzsche came to a similar conclusion in The Anti-Christ, which is quite interesting since he wrote this before the Gospel of Thomas was re-discovered in Egypt.

Here is something I previously wrote about Nietzsche's view of Jesus for anyone who missed it:

Quote:
Nietzsche thought Jesus was a revolt against the Jewish church, priests, "higher men", caste, theologians, hierarchy, etc. His view of Jesus seems similar to the Gnostic's view, although he views Jesus in a less favorable light.

"Sin, every kind of distancing relationship between God and man, is abolished - presicely this is the 'glad tiding'. Blessedness is not promised, it is not tied to any conditions: it is the only reality - the rest is signs for speaking of it... It is not a 'belief' which distinguishes the Christian: the Christian acts, he is distinguished by a different mode of acting... he knows that it is through the practice of one's life that one feels 'divine', 'blessed', 'evangelic', at all times a 'child of God.' It is not penance, not prayer for forgiveness, which leads to God... The Kingdom of Heaven is a condition of the heart - not something that comes 'upon the earth' or 'after death'."

He thinks the true message of Jesus, a message expressed by his actions rather than his words or death, was distorted by his Apostles in order to create a Church. Jesus was turned into the very thing he was against: a priest, a theologian, a 'saviors', a 'higher man', etc. That is why he says: "in reality there has only been one Christian, and he died on the Cross... What was called 'Evangel' from this moment onwards was already the opposite of what he had lived."


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Re: Modern Christianity's Greatest Enemy [Re: BlueCoyote]
    #6198383 -

BlueCoyote said:
but wasn't Jesus praying himself, like on the Mount of Olives ?
and didn't he feed the poor, like with the bread miracle ?

just riddling for consistency.


I don't think he was saying that these are bad things in and of themselves. What he was trying to say is that if you rely on them as a path to God, they will only impede your progress.


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Re: Modern Christianity's Greatest Enemy [Re: MushmanTheManic]
    #6198381 -

Quote:
he knows that it is through the practice of one's life that one feels 'divine', 'blessed', 'evangelic', at all times a 'child of God.' ... The Kingdom of Heaven is a condition of the heart -


Amen.

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Re: Modern Christianity's Greatest Enemy [Re: Silversoul]
    #6198387 -

Or perhaps that they should be performed without an ulterior motive?

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Re: Modern Christianity's Greatest Enemy [Re: Veritas]
    #6198418 -

That quote is probably the hardest to decipher in the whole book, but Thomas seems to think of people as having the ability to find enlightenment or see "The Kingdom of God" on their own without any God-issued repentance. For those searching for the Kingdom of God, to say that, "If you fast you will bring sin to yourselves, and if you pray you will be condemned, and if you give to charity you will damage your spirits" may be true, but notice the language. You bring sin to yourself, your damage your spirits, you become condemned- by doing these actions to search for the Kingdom of God, it is you that distract yourself from the path, not God or anyone else. You have to open your eyes first before you can act without sin, and even if those acts are acts of charity or prayer, you will be able to perform them, like you said, "without an ulterior motive."

Not that I agree with Jesus on any of these, but his quotes on existence I do tend to appreciate.


--------------------
So long as you are praised think only that you are not yet on your own path but on that of another.

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Re: Modern Christianity's Greatest Enemy [Re: Icelander]
    #6198429 -

Icelander said:
I When you truly understand your own mind you understand everything.


one of the wisest things you've ever said imo.

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Re: Modern Christianity's Greatest Enemy [Re: Ravus]
    #6198435 -

Yes, I agree.  Jesus (or those who wrote under his pseudonym :wink:) seems to have grasped some essential truths about creating Heaven or Hell through one's actions.  As is my policy with most spiritual teachers/teachings, I take what seems true and useful, and leave the rest.

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Re: Modern Christianity's Greatest Enemy [Re: Silversoul]
    #6198438 -

Ok, I agree that if what one practices is the union with god, like Jesus did and that 'automatically' leads to some kind of 'prayer' or 'charity' involved, it does not necessarily work the way around.
Good point !
And a good reason why the churches won't agree with this :grin:


--------------------
Though lovers be lost love shall not  And death shall have no dominion
......................................................
"Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men."Martin Luther King, Jr.
'Acceptance is the absolute key - at that moment you gain freedom and you gain power and you gain courage'

Extras: Filter Print Post Top
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