Understanding the Lords Prayer

[jonesboy]

A great article.

Why a Hindu Accepts Christ
and Rejects Churchianity

http://hinduism.co.za/jesus.htm

A snippet on the history of the church and the bible.\

The popular history of churchianity begins from 325 years after Christ, the 20th year of the reign of Constantine the Great, when the famous Council was convened at the City of Nocea. Those who have read the life of this august Roman Emperor will remember how remarkable was the character of this so called pious supporter of the church dogmas. He put to death his own son and his wife Fausta on groundless suspicion, cut off his brother-in-law Licinius and the unoffending son of Licinius and massacred everyone of his rivals. Nevertheless the Greek Church has canonized him, and adores the memory of St. Constantine.

It was Constantine the Great who issued a decree in 321 A.D., for the general observance of Sunday, instead of the Jewish Sabbath. He hated the Jews and everything connected with the Jews, and said: "This day shall be regarded as a special occasion of prayer, because it is the Sun’s day, the day of our Lord". Since that time, the church has accepted that decree, ignoring the fact that this was the day for the worship of the sun among the pagans.

It was Constantine the great who decided what should be the creed of the church and commanded the assembled bishops to receive the decrees of the Council of Nicea as the dictates of the Holy Spirit. Since that time the church has given authenticity to that creed, which is repeated almost every Sunday in all the orthodox churches in Christendom.

The horrifying accounts of fraud, political wire pulling, theological jugglery, ecclesiastical scandal-mongering, passions breaking forth into curses and anathemas, bloody massacres and inhuman assassinations in the ecumenical councils, show that these were the principal instruments in the building up of the creed of Churchianity. Readers of ecclesiastical history will remember that in one of the disputes following the great Council of Nicea, maidens were insulted and scourged, the holy temple was profaned, books were thrown into flames, and the church and baptistery were burned and monks were trodden under foot. Such were the deeds of the pious bishops and founders of Churchianity.

In the Council of Ephesus, which was held in 431 A.D., monks and bishops screamed: "Whoso speaks of two natures is a Nestorius, and let him be cut asunder". A bishop was kicked to death by another bishop in course of their arguments, and 137 corpses were left in a church to attest the convincing reasons by which the most ruffian side proved its orthodoxy.

Such were the assemblies of saints who formed the pillars of the structure of Churchianity. We can easily imagine the nature of the guiding spirit of those councils, which established the creed of the church. From the beginning of the history of churches, down to the present day, freedom of thought and freedom of speech, that are the most essential characteristics of true religion, have been suppressed; and fanaticism, bigotry, curses, anathema, religious persecution, tortures of inquisition and diabolical crimes have been committed in the name of religion. Hatred, cruelty and fighting have reigned in the place of love, mercy, kindness, peace and goodwill. The creed of the church would have vanished from the world if swords were not drawn and innocent blood was not shed in the name of religion. The deeds of Churchianity are written indelibly upon the pages of the religious history of the world. Shall we wonder, then, if the humane, kind, gentle, peace-loving hearts of the Hindus, that are ever ready to send forth blessings, good-will, benediction and a current of love toward humanity, nay, toward all living creatures, reject Churchianity? Shall we wonder that the Hindus, who recognize Divinity in the souls of all, should refuse to accept a system that was founded upon the barren soil of dogmas, fertilized with the vital forces squeezed out of the hearts of innocent humanity; and nourished by the blood of martyrs?

[sky]

Originally Posted by django

You're quoting Jonesboy as your source for saying the Pope denies the existence of hell/satan. Hell and Satan aren't lumped together under the word hell, and whether the Pope said any such thing is debateable.

Jesus, Hell, Satan are pre-medieval beliefs, but I guess I agree with you that the church has sometimes done more harm than good. Nonetheless in making the bible story known so widely I think it has done a good thing, even if it is falling out of favour in a cynical and scientific age.

Jonesboy is not my source regarding what the Pope said but as he had already mentioned it I was spared from repeating it.
From my Christian upbringing hell and satan were always lumpted together, thankfully I woke up I believe the Pope did say that hell and satan do not exist but it caused such a stir it was denied, the Vatican are experts in coverups.

[jonesboy]

Ok, a little more :)

A missionary preaches in India that the New Testament is the revealed scripture, or word of God. The educated Hindus, however, know that Jesus did not leave any writings of his own, nor did any of his direct disciples write any of the Gospels, which were accepted by the church as the infallible and revealed word of God. They are also familiar with the fact that there are absolutely no contemporary records or accounts of the life and teachings of Jesus, either in the Bible itself or outside of it; and that the earliest of the writings, in the order of their composition, were the genuine epistles of Paul. Out of the fourteen epistles attributed to Paul, four only are held to be authentic; they are these: Epistle to the Romans, First and Second Epistles to the Corinthians, and the Epistle to the Galatians.

Again, Paul never saw Jesus the Christ except once in a vision, and only once did he quote the language of Jesus – a single phrase in connection with a reference to the commemoration of the last supper: "This cup is the new covenant in my blood; this do, as often as ye drink it, in remembrance of me." It is admitted by many of the orthodox ministers of churches that Paul introduced many of the doctrines and dogmas that were afterwards accepted by Churchianity. It is a well-known fact that Paul did not preach the religion of Christ; if he did, he could not have boasted that he withstood Peter at Antioch to his very face. To the followers of Churchianity who preach to the Hindus that the New Testament is the revealed word of God, the Hindu asks: "If God intended to reveal His word, why did He inspire so many different men to write the history of one transaction, and why is it that almost all of these writings, except four, were afterwards rejected by human beings as fraudulent and incorrect?"

We do not hear about the four canonical Gospels until the time of Irenius, Bishop of Lyons in Gaul, who lived in 178-200 A.D. He was the real founder of the Church Canon. It was Irenius who first mentioned four Gospels. His arguments for accepting four Gospels were very remarkable, though not convincing. He says: "It is not possible that the Gospels can be either more or fewer in number than four. For, since there are four quarters of the earth, four elements, four seasons and four cardinal winds, the church ought to have four pillars; for this reason there should be four Gospels". How clever was the argument of this noted bishop!

[sky]

Originally Posted by kjw47

Eternal suffering is a lie--Jesus told all--satan is the ruler of this world--its wise to believe him.

It's wise to not believe in satan or hell, or that Jesus said this. What do you gain in your life from such beliefs....... nothing.

[django]

Originally Posted by sky123

Jonesboy is not my source regarding what the Pope said but as he had already mentioned it I was spared from repeating it.
From my Christian upbringing hell and satan were always lumpted together, thankfully I woke up I believe the Pope did say that hell and satan do not exist but it caused such a stir it was denied, the Vatican are experts in coverups.

Hell and Satan are not equivalent, and it was only claimed that the Pope had said hell didn't exist. Just because you relate the two together and wish they were denied by the Pope doesn't mean the Pope said Satan didn't exist. You're being subjective.

What if the pope was musing on the idea that hell as it is currently perceived by the church doesn't exist, what if he was giving his own personal idea of hell that wasn't a strictly Catholic one, but the journalist would have been motivated to not add this for the sake of sensationalism.

Anything could have been said in their conversation, you might have written "Pope denies existence of hell and Satan" if you were the journalist, doesn't mean that's what he said.

It's hard enough to figure things out when you're being objective, let alone when your view is coloured by your own personal upbringing and conditioning.

I think there is much of value in Christianity, as well as much that is merely others opinion. Being objective can help to separate the wheat from the chaff.

[django]

Originally Posted by jonesboy

A great article.

Why a Hindu Accepts Christ
and Rejects Churchianity

http://hinduism.co.za/jesus.htm

A snippet on the history of the church and the bible.

Ok, a little more :)

The topic of this thread, the Lord's Prayer, is of course recorded in the bible that you are now so keen on dismissing - why refer to this prayer if you are now claiming the bible and all it contains is fraudulent?

Writing down what is remembered of someone's life and words after a period of time is not so unusual in olden times. The same happened to Buddha's words afterall.

[django]

Originally Posted by sky123

It's wise to not believe in satan or hell, or that Jesus said this. What do you gain in your life from such beliefs....... nothing.

What if the understanding of hell is just tweaked. From reading NDE accounts hell seems like darkness and mean spiritedness and aridity because there is no light or living water there. Numerous NDE accounts say that just saying the name of Jesus is enough to take them away from there.

[django]

Originally Posted by jonesboy

Jesus is real, one can feel him.

I have shared before how the first time I merged with him I was just stunned by the silence. Couldn't move, do anything for a good 30 minutes.

Heaven is a realization of the light that is you.

Ok, so Jesus is real, then how do you perceive the line from the prayer attributed to him " And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil"? Does this refer to illusion or delusion? Was Jesus deluded?

[django]

Originally Posted by sky123

It's wise to not believe in satan or hell, or that Jesus said this. What do you gain in your life from such beliefs....... nothing.

Satan and ego are closely related I think. Temptation by Satan does involve appeal to a person's ego, 'You can be powerful', 'You can be the most spiritual', 'You are light and perfect right now with no need to change anything', 'You are special and more advanced than those around you' etc etc.

[winter light]

Originally Posted by django

Ok, so Jesus is real, then how do you perceive the line from the prayer attributed to him " And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil"? Does this refer to illusion or delusion? Was Jesus deluded?

Hope you do not mind I shall try to answer the question.

Jesus is the shephard redeemer teaching us forgiveness. The Lord's Prayer is a way of invoking the essence of forgiveness in the present moment. Temptation began a thought of separateness from God or one another, so the sin originally began in thought before anything happened in deed. He is literally nullifying the sin at its original thought by saying "not into temptation". And in next moment adds "deliver us from evil" where we are asking to be lead in a new direction completely removed from the source of evil. So I see no delusion.