Jill's comments on the topic of God.

Jill:  I just wanted to comment that I totally agree with you about  the contradiction in the Old and New Testament in reference to God, yes!  The Old Testament "God" is made out to be some kind of vengeful, jealous, angry deity who likes to order  people to kill others human beings whereas Jesus taught (Mat 19:18) do not murder  -  love thy neighbour, don’t take revenge on anyone and said God is love! 

Many false teachings were added to the Bible manuscripts by scribes and monarchs in history.  They added many so called "moral laws" to Scripture, sadly many Christians today believe they are laws from God when they are not.  For example, in Exodus 22:29 it speaks of sacrificing the first born sons and cattle.  This totally contradicts Micah 6:6-9, just one example of contradiction in the Bible.  If Christians believe God is some angry, vengeful deity who kills people or sends those who make mistakes to some place of torment, then sadly they are believing in a God lesser than themselves.

Here is "food for thought" for all those Christians out there.  There are millions of people on the planet today who are vegetarian /vegans (myself included) who totally love and respect all living beings who would seek not  to hurt harm or kill any living thing.  Does that make us holier than God?  Wasn’t it God who created us - not the other way around?

Back in 325AD in the Nicean Council, Constantine hid some Gospels that didn’t make it to final print of the Bible - some of them are the Gospel of the Holy 12 and Gospel of Peace books 1 to 4 (the original New Testament) - online books at  www.thenazareneway.com     Those books mention how Christ taught vegetarianism and healed many animals too.  He spoke of how all life is sacred and precious for it contains the very essence of God.  He said how no living things (even plants) are to be harvested in a way so they can still reproduce), is not to be harmed or killed in anyway for if you do harm another.  "You will reap what you have sown"  in other words" What goes around comes around" which is like saying "karma". 

Thanks Mike, thought I would share that one with you. Maybe you have already heard about those gospels perhaps?

Mike's response to Jill's comments.

Thanks Jill.  It's good to find people who don't just swallow the traditional ideas of God hook, line and sinker.  I have always admired the Hare Krishnas (a sect of Hinduism) for their ethical, ecological friendliness and respect for all life.  I'm not much of an admirer of their hair doos but the Hindu philosophy does consider us as hand in hand with all of life on this planet.  I used to get laughed at when I told people that Adam and Eve would have been vegetarians.  Once again Christians rarely consider these thoughts.  I suppose they thought that God served up a BBQ each day.

I must confess that I am a hypocritical vegetarian.  I uphold many of the principles of vegetarianism simply because of the inhumane treatment of animals.  I also have grave concerns for the way we as a people rape our earth with little regard for the balance of life.  Yin and Yang!

You are right when you observe the lack of holiness described in the God of the Bible.  It is this blind acceptance which has me wondering where Christians get off.  Let's realise that Christians are the greatest knockers of other so called Gods because of their immorality.  The God of the Old Testament is diabolical, Im not sure there's any other way of seeing it.  The songs Christians sing about God being worthy and their relishing in being washed in the symbolic blood of a human sacrifice repulses me too.

I am aware of some of the pseudepigrapha (literally false writings) writings but not familiar with them all.  The construction of the New Testament is without doubt a human construction with a selective process based on political decisions.  There is a lot of debate about what books are legitimate.  The science of textual criticism has helped in ascertaining the validity of some of these writings, however it is by no means an exact science.  I think Christians have made a grave error by just dismissing these extra-testamental works.  They are interesting and of value, but true to form people often fall victim to blindly accepting the narrow views of the narrow few.  Hopefully someone might challenge these views and we can start a discussion thread on this whole topic.

I have recently added some famous quotes to a few of the topics.  It is interesting seeing what well known people have said. 

I am planning a section on "believing unbelievable contradictions" so stay tuned.