did jesus teach.....

the truth of all religion? or did he teach that the world was under the 'spell' of spiritual deception and corruption?

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Guess it all depends on the perspective, eh, andrew?

Happy New Year, buddy!

Peace,

Nicole

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hey there budette! best wishes to you and everyone on the god pod in 2009………

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…I recall that Yeshua taught of only two commandments…


…Love God with All your Heart…

…and…

…Love your neighbor as yourself…

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hi will, that might imply that all religion is unnecessary and redundant, and perhaps even deceptive and corrupt……..surely the worlds religions are not following those 2 injunctions………

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and also will, on a planet where one has a worldwide monetary system as the only means of survival then i tend to think that it's near impossible to fulfill the first injunction, because one will by necessity have to place a very high priority on money, making it most difficult to serve two masters, so to speak. and also, when the monetary system is combined with capitalist ideology then the 2nd injunction is near impossible to fulfill also. one will eventually look at their neighbors as objects to be exploited for profit, at least that's how it seems to me…….

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Hi andrew,

The Judeo=Christian Scriptures state the LOVE of money is the root of evil.

Money itself is just a representation or more functional way of exchanging goods or services, a smarter barter system.

Seen in this light, money itself is worthless unless people see value in it and are prepared to use it as an exchange.

It is beyond me how people can mistake it for a 'god'.

an eccentric Aussie

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hello Andrew….

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' if you look at a man or woman with lust in your heart you've committed adultery.'………….

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Jesus taught quite a few things that don't fit into the daily comings and goings in our lives unless we make it so.  You don't have to love money to make money.  You don't have to withold love of your neighbor in order to work and be successful.  Our society just encourages love of money and competition to a level that is immoral according to scripture.  We make the choice as to if we will live our lives in this way.  Remember another verse “Be in this world but not of this world.” 

I admit that given the whole scale corruption in all of our institutions, it is difficult to be Christ like and to survive.  For instance, in my field, part of my job requires that, if I do it correctly, I approve corporate activities as set out in contracts.  It has never failed that, if I looked closely enough, I found where someone was up to no good in some form and I was asked to sign on the dotted line anyway.  Failure to do so just isn't being a “team player”.  Well, I can't do that.  Not just because of the regulations that could come back and get me, but because of my own sense of morality and ethics which are derived from my love of God.  So, I have lost a few jobs and have been what they call “black balled” a couple of times.  This makes chasing the almighty dollar a bit difficult.  Then, again, I am reminded of another verse, “what good does it do me to profit and lose my soul?” 

Like another verse says “it is more difficult for a rich man to make it into heaven than it is for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle”.  It all depends on where you place your priorities, here, in this world or in the Next. 

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Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, the Son of the Living God, Yeshua Ha Mashea taught many things.

Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they?
    So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit.
    Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then, you will know them by their fruits.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind and all your strength, and, love your neighbour as yourself.

In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets.

But he taught a number of other things as well.

Resist not evil.

If someone asks for your coat give them your shirt as well.

If you have faith the size of a mustard seed you can move mountains.

Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

Do not judge so that you will not be judged. For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you.

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Why do you speak of the dead, when the Living One is here before you?

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Hello all, I am new to this site so let me introduce myself quickly. Rusty is the name. I'm in South Africa, Cape Town. Grew up here in the sixties/seventies and lived for 24 years in a small coastal town but was divorced last year and am now back in a deeply urban setting.


Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, the Son of the Living God, Yeshua Ha Mashea taught many things.

Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes nor figs from thistles, are they?
    So every good tree bears good fruit, but the bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, nor can a bad tree produce good fruit.
    Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. So then, you will know them by their fruits.

Yes, I agree with that. The fruits of modern Western Capitalist culture are nuclear waste, pollution, war and scabrous cities. That false prophet is as I read in this thread, MONEY!

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind and all your strength, and, love your neighbour as yourself.

In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets.


The second sentiment doesn't accurately reflect the first because as you would love your neighbour as yourself you would treat him the same way you would yourself, and not how they would treat you. This is a small distinction but I think its significant.

But he taught a number of other things as well.

Resist not evil.

What? and give in to temptation? I'm all for it! No, there is something more to this than that superficial reaction. If you actively resist something than you put energy into it. That energy is received by the dark elements and turned back on you making it more and more dominant. However, if you tolerate it it loses its shock value and reflects the axiom; “Ignore it and it will go away.” Evil wants your attention, It dies when you you give it a cold shoulder.

If someone asks for your coat give them your shirt as well.

If you have faith the size of a mustard seed you can move mountains.

A mustard seed was in biblical times not quite the delicacy it is today. It was considered a weed. So what is being taught is that even the most worthless believer has the potential to perform a miracle. He speaks of the raw potential in mankind. I have seen mountains destroyed and new ones created by mining operations but that is not what I think he meant.

Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

Do not judge so that you will not be judged. For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you.

And yet that judgement is rooted in religions (a seperate entity from faith) We not only judge, but make judgements in ignorance. This has become ingrained in our society. How many atheists are there who have judged my and others beliefs, without sincerely (!!!) experiencing them. This is as a result of the moral values imposed by society (church, school, corporate expectation) smothering our own inbred ethical values.

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Each of us will, according to our preference, pick on our own biblical quote which we think is the most definitive teaching of Jesus. I have always liked his “The Kingdom of Heaven is on Earth and only those who can see it will appreciate that.” Naturally that is a paraphrasing, I haven't memorised the bible. I also found that particular spin in the Gospel of St Thomas (an apochryphal gospel) but he mentions the Kingdom of Heaven or sometimes God as being on Earth in the regular gospels.

I love this because it suits my opinions and validates them. Christians/Jews/Islam all have the tradition of heaven, but its location is always a question to be avoided. Neither they nor I have much faith in stories of aliens, so we can dismiss right away that heaven isn't skywards. (In fact the relationship between Heaven, Hell and Earth reflect the shamanic Tree of Life) Yet everyone who believes knows it exists.

From the time of the Industrial Revolution to date mankind has immersed himself in a mechanical existence (Allied to this was a rise in prudery, but that's another debate)  Already your existence is recorded in numbers, from the national ID no to the number you get while waiting in line at a McDonalds and I've heard rumblings that the injected chip is on its way. Your environment from the moment you were born has been in the rigid world of rooms each with their dead straight walls and (supossedly heheh) right angle corners. Towns are laid out in rigid grids. Your world is the symptom of too much order. its mechanical. Mankind however is organic and has had to sacrifice some of its organic nature to squeeze into it. Part of that sacrifice has been from the spiritual aspect of our lives. As we progressed along into the industrial age we became less and less concerned with the needs of the spirit because the demands of work took it all away. The ethic of honesty has become whatever we can get away with. The ethic of honour has become a stylist and a spin doctor. We have moved very far from the days of the Spirit guiding our everyday lives. In the last while though there has been a resurgence in that Spitiuality, (and I'm waiting for someone to blame it on the baby-boomers and they would be right I reckon I was and am part of that. ) This is expected, not because of prophecy, but because it is part of the pattern of human experience, from one extreme to another in a cycle.

However, there are those that have experienced the Earth on a level other than the physical. Who have had direct contact with the Spirit world. Part of the middle world that is Earth, the tangible Universe and everything is also a spiritual existence (another dimension if you prefer) which we with our five senses cannot be aware of. We can but again that is another story. Jesus was referring to this. If you allow yourself to open up to the Earth you will discover the Kingdom of God. The thing is that you have to really give of yourself, to open up to the experience completely. to make yourself humble and vulnerable. Its not easy. That's Jesus' message, I reckon and one of the important ones.

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From the Thomas Gospel:

Jesus said,> “It will not come by waiting for it. It will not be a matter of saying 'here it is' or 'there it is.' Rather, the kingdom of the father is spread out upon the earth, and men do not see it.”

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Luke 17:20-21 (New International Version - UK)

The Coming of the Kingdom of God

    21 nor will people say, 'Here it is,' or 'There it is,' because the kingdom of God is within you.

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yes and there is the crux of the whole paradox. If the kingdom of god or that which we call heaven, is “within” then it would seem to make sense that it makes absolutely no difference what you do 'outside.'

Obviously if your are “within” then that makes externalities inconsequential since the only real consequences are 'there.' “So go ahead and hate your neighbor, go ahead and cheat a friend, do it in the name of heaven, you can justify it in the end” LOL!

Here is a great link exemplifying religion's most recent justification of murder: Rabbis sanction the murder of civilians. Ya gotta love those biblical religions, don't ya!

Do we really think in our abject devotion and idolization of the 'world” that we can ever change the world? And as long as we have the bible burned into our brain then there clearly is no hope!

Hallelujah brothers and sisters!
mikeS

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From The Course In Miracles regarding idols:

III. Beyond All Idols 
T-30.III.3. Behind the search for every idol lies the yearning for completion. 2 
Wholeness has no form because it is unlimited. 3 To seek a special person or a 
thing to add to you to make yourself complete, can only mean that you believe 
some form is missing. 4 And by finding this, you will achieve completion in a 
form you like. 5 This is the purpose of an idol; that you will not look beyond 
it, to the source of the belief that you are incomplete. 6 Only if you had 
sinned could this be so. 7 For sin is the idea you are alone and separated off 
from what is whole. 8 And thus it would be necessary for the search for 
wholeness to be made beyond the boundaries of limits on yourself. 

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Wonderful selection, Timothy!

It seems it is not so much the “world” we idolize, but that which makes up the world, all the pieces we invest with, and demand, significance. We then assume this 'value system' is of the world when it is really of ourselves. Sad, but true.

Peace Angels,
mikeS

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I am currenlty working on a piece about New Years resolutions and “purpose” and how our purpose can become our idols.

More good stuff to come!

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thx. everyone for all your passionate heartfelt responses…….

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For me, churches, religion, are not where God is found.  Attending church feels good; and, so I do it.  It helps me to remember and to hear of God's work in the context of life on this Earth.  Yet, when I really want to do work with myself through God, I have to take the time to be alone with him.  In Matthew this is what Jesus directs when he says to go alone into an inner chamber.   Within is where I speak to God and feel him move in me.  I also feel this at times when out in nature, when looking at my son, when playing with my dogs.  God is everywhere and in everything.  

It amazes me when people point out all the wrong in the world that has been perpetrated by various religions and think that God is somehow to be held accountable for those acts. 

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     That is because religion is not God. Religion is mankind's way of trying to explain God. Christ did not found a religion. Others did after him. Prophets do not found religions. Others found them in their name. Religion is a beautiful framework on which to base a belief in God or have a way to communally worship. God communicates with everyone. Few take the time to listen.

     Jesus taught us many things. But so did Muhammad and Buddha and countless others. You don't need priests or prophets to teach you. People and events in your life can teach you.

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And The Lord speaks to you through them as well.

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i would imagine that no one is going to offer me a seat on the ecumenical councils:)

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Come join the ranks of the pan-milleniests andrew

It will all pan out in the end.

an eccentric Aussie

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The Russians(? East European at any rate) use the nested dolls here as a metaphor. You know the dolls that break open to expose an identical doll within it and theres an identical doll within that etc.

In order to discover what lies outside us, which we cannot see we need only look within to find that what is 'out there' is the same within.

Makes sense?

In fact because we see ourselves as seperate from the spiritual world we do not grasp that we are it. What is outside of us is within us completely fused together. This is why we create our reality. A mean spirited person will find a mean spirited world while a loving person draws other loving people to them thus filling their lives with what they are.

The Kingdom of Heaven is within you and without you because you are an integral part of it.

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Timothy Paul, thanks for bringing in the Course of Miracles.

Rusty, I never thought of that interpretation of the Russian dolls,  in looking it up I found some neat historical background here - apparently they are called matryoshka.

Ok! small digression, carry on :)

Peace,

Nicole

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     Andrew,

     This stuff isn't really all that confusing. Merely change your perspective. The religions established after various prophets not looking at things from the perspective of a puzzle that is revealed a little at a time and each step has new revelations, thereby making each of them a continuation of the same lineage but they instead look at this all as being competitive, my version of God is better than your version of God. The contradictions are from the interpretation (often changed by councils of clerics long after the prophet has come and gone). Each is selfishly guarding their own self interest instead of respecting those that came before and the original message.

     It is like that game telephone. Give someone a message and have them whisper it to another and another and so on. The message changes. Now multiply that change by various regimes running a religion and various translations into different languages and you begin to understand how humankind has adulterated God's messages and why prophets have to keep coming to refocus humankind of God's message not some people's version of it.

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thx. Andrew, i think i like the pan-millennialist perspective…

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reading through this discussion I can only take that certain deep breath - and hold it a second…….. there are millions of words that can be spoken, thrown back and forth like a football, accepted, rejected, 'agreed with' (my favorite)…..

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Those are very interesting quotes, Patty. I was curious about the sources, do you have them handy?

Blessings,

Nicole

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forgot to include that :-) … .penned by Walter Lanyon

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I found a lot of his works here - The Best of Walter Lanyon

Are the ones you quote included there?

Intriguing,

Love,

Nicole

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I use this link:

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yes he did and the most amazing message ever taught. Jesus taught about the kingdom of god. Yet to day most of what we haer is about jesus himself. This was not the purpose of jesus on this earth. His purpose was to spread the gospel ( good news ) of the kingdom of god. Yet some fo the people of his day were thinking he was a crazy man for what he was teaching. Even to this day people still think in their decieved minds that jesus was sent to save the world. NOT TRUE… he was sent to tell of the kingdom of god to come. Which when it was to come he would be the king of by the power of god almighty. And now the time of jesus is at hand. It has been almost 2000 years since jesus was on earth as a man and now the 6000 years god gave to man for self rule is at end and jesus will come to teach the whole world how to live in god kingdom.

             Peace and love to all and may god be with you.

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Thanks so much for the link, Patty.

I will, peace to you too!

Nicole

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Will said,