Just thought this may be interesting to people of religion

[Dr. Quack]

I typed this up out of an Old Wyndham Lewis book.

THY WILL BE DONE ON EARTH…

WHAT stranger prayer could be uttered than this: ‘Thy will be done on earth’? The meaning of the phrase is that the will of God is not done on the earth.
In spite of this, religious people usually imagine that what happens on earth is always God’s will, and they seek to comfort and strengthen one another with this thought, even in the face of the most senseless and fortuitous accidents, disaster and death.
People who are not religious take it as evidence that there is no God.
There is something strange here, a lack of understanding or a misunderstanding, some strange confusion of thought.
People judge of the existence or non-existence of God from what happens on earth. Every decade books are written proving that the existence of God is impossible in view of the fact that there is so much evil in life, and so much cruelty and waste in nature, while most people in the privacy of their own thoughts come to a similar conclusion.
They witness an accident in which harmless people are suddenly killed, or an epidemic which cripples and destroys scores of children; volcanoes erupt, flood and famine wipe out their millions; they see the cruelty of nature - animal feeding on animal, while ruthless laws regulate the whole creation.
In the face of this, and arguing from the standpoint of the visible world, is it possible to believe that God – exists? This problem is the first that confronts any person who begins to think seriously, and, as a rule, the result of his thought is doubt or pessimism.
The Atheist, who bases his conclusions on the visible world with all its tragedies, is quite right in judging that life as seen does not teach God’s existence.
People do not understand that what happens on earth simply happens; they go further, they even want to read into disasters that happen to humanity a special meaning, namely, that they are in the nature of a punishment inflicted by ‘God’. They see the will of God acting on earth.
But this is denied in the New Testament. When the disciples reported to Jesus that Pilate had murdered some Galileaens (Luke XIII. 1-5), Christ replied: ‘Suppose ye that these Galileaens were sinners above all other Galileaens, because they suffered such things?’ Clearly the disciples must have thought that the murdered Galilaeans had been punished by God for their sins. That was their explanation of the catastrophe, and that is how we are sometimes inclined to take misfortune to others. They saw the hand of God punishing evil on earth. So it followed, from this way of reasoning, that the murdered Galilaeans must have been especially wicked. Christ asked the disciples if they really believed that and then answered them: ‘I tell you, Nay: but except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.’
What does this answer mean? It means that the important thing to grasp is not a question of sin and punishment in life or try to explain what happens in life every day. The important thing is to ‘repent’. Life proves nothing. People who die atrocious deaths are not sinners any more than others. What we see is not the point. If we always look to visible life for evidence of the existence or non-existence of God, nothing will come of it.
That is what the disciples were thinking and they are told that the answer does not lie there, but in something called ‘repentance’ – a word, which, as we shall see, does not convey the real sense of the original Greek.

The disciples’ attitude to life and their attitude to the teaching to which they were listening were both wrong. They were mixing their ordinary ideas, derived from life, with the ideas of which Christ was speaking. So Christ continues to explain and goes on to ask them whether they imagine that an accident which had happened recently in a suburb of Jerusalem also meant that those who had been killed were especial sinners. He asks: ‘Or those eighteen upon whom the tower in Siloam fell, and slew them, think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, Nay: but except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.’ (Luke XIII.4-5) To both questions the same answer: the evils that happen to people in life have nothing to do with divine punishment for sin and must not be taken in that way. Searching for God in life, questioning life anxiously, starting from outer life and its events as a basis, and so being always influenced by what happens in out life, by all the incidents taking place every moment in the world is to miss the whole meaning of what Christ was teaching.
Source: Maurice Nicoll.

The mistake we possibly make is thinking that what happens on earth is the will of God.

G_d responsible for the message of Jesus is not of this world:

John 7:7
The world cannot hate you, but it hates Me because I testify of it that its works are evil.

Greek word for repent - "Metanoia" – actually meaning a profound, usually spiritual, transformation; conversion.
The term derives from the Ancient Greek words μετά (metá) (meaning "beyond" or "after") and νόος (noeō) (meaning "perception" or "understanding" or "mind").

And the Greek word for Sin ~ Hamartia (Ancient Greek: ἁμαρτία) Meaning "To miss the mark"
The phonetics used for the word Sin resounds a negative connotation ~ The Greek word for Sin is "Hamartia" (Ancient Greek: ἁμαρτία) Meaning "To miss the mark"

No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.
Albert Einstein

I Hinuism - Sat Chit Ananda – is Truth Consciousness Bliss

In the Zohar, the greatest kabbalistic work, the Torah is interpreted in reference to the Sefirot - They are Keter (Crown) proximity to the divine super-conscious of the soul.

[oldpink]

Someone asked me the other day when we were talking about religion " are you a Christian"
I answered No after a couple of seconds thought
I'd never pondered this before but as I don't believe in Christ or God I can not be a Christian

they replied but I know you and you have Christian values and are a good person ( I blushed at that)
they said but you live by morals like thou shall not kill / steal etc my reply was but coveting your neighbours Mrs depends on if she's hot or not, that brought a Laugh

I don't believe in any God or higher being
so can you have Christian values without being a Christian ??
____________________
I have become comfortably numb

Theory & hazard 24-may 2016, CBT 8th June 2016, MOD 1 2nd Aug 2016 Mod 2 2nd-Nov 2016 - Current bike CBR 600 RR

[bazza]

[nowhere.elysium]

[Spudly]

If you have a look at those commandments, they basically boil down to one simple rule:

Don't be a cunt.

I'm sure that was said by some comedian or other, but I can't remember who.

What boils my piss about the situation you describe is the assumption by good churchgoing folk that it is impossible to not be a cunt without following the convention of chanting at a torture device while a man in a dress reads from a mistranslated and politically compiled book and twists the meanings of the stories in that book to promote a vague sense of guilt and obiesance.

After all of that, you might still be a cunt.

Personally, my faith is a complicated but personal thing. It boils down to that statement above though. And you don't need to be a Christian to do it.
____________________
The Old Apprentice

[Ariel Badger]

[Llama-Farmer]

The majority of religions live by the same moral values.

The majority of civilised people who aren't religious tend to follow the same kinda values too. Its the way we live life as humans now.

Of course there are exceptions, but the majority of sane people know right from wrong, and that's all most of the 10 commandments are really (thou shall not commit murder or bang thy neighbours wife).

[Polarbear]

[Tomzo47]

can't be arsed to read all that, anyone want to summerise?
____________________
Ybr 125 > Bandit 650SA > GSXR 600 > Triumph Sprint St1050 > CB1300 > Z1000SX + FJ1200 (written off) > VFR750 >FJ1200

[soforene]

[soforene]

[Dr. Quack]

nowhere.elysium wrote:

[Spudly]

[soforene]

[Llama-Farmer]

[oldpink]

[oldpink]

[Spudly]

[soforene]

Oh Wow !!

It's all getting Heavy, Man !!
https://anenglishwomaninsalem.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/neil-youg-ones.jpg

[Spudly]

[Dr. Quack]

Lol soforene, the trouble with planet pugatory is we hate the mirrors down here.

[oldpink]

[Kradmelder]

Many so called christian values and morals existed before christianity. Christianity only usurped them to have a moral high ground.

Marriage existed before christianity. So why does a marriage have to be in a church before civil ceremonies were allowed?

The message the church teaches is a good one, but they are not the owners or founders of moral values, nor have a monopoly on it.

These are the kind of things that make me a christian but a non-believer in the church. How does having my arse in a pew on sunday make me a better christian?
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2011 KTM 990 Dakar
2009 BMW 1200 GS

[Spudly]

[oldpink]