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Avoiding closing churches, world war and total annihilation.

Started by David Pinnegar, December 28, 2015, 07:45:09 AM

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Paul Duffy

David,

I urge you and people on this forum to read the Book of Truth. After much soul-searching and a great deal of thought and introspection, I believe this book to be, indeed, the truth. It is corroborated by other non-Christian sources. Our planet will shortly separate into New and Old. Your wish to preserve the continued existence of churches is commendable, but it is immaterial. Planet Earth is beyond repair and has to be made into a New Earth. The situation is much worse than man thinks it is. From what I have read, one wouldn't want to remain on Old Earth when this separation occurs. The Book of Truth mentioned a coming global vaccination back in 2010. We now have the Zika virus which has suddenly been declared an international emergency.  We shall see if this indeed results in such a vaccination.

Best wishes,
Paul

David Pinnegar

#61
Dear Paul

Thank you so much for the directions that you're exploring.

To say that I'm confused is an understatement - although to be honest, I'm not confident that anyone who says they're certain isn't mistaken.

It's for these reasons that personally I put a measure upon the conflicting philosophies in terms of results - "by their actions shall ye know them".

I too find the Book of Truth interesting, but am not entirely trusting about it. The reason for this is that it could easily be written from the point of sources of deep south "conservative" America where, to be blunt, religion is causing people not to be very happy or even very "Christian".

There is great focus upon the evils of sin, and mortal sin. Perhaps I am one of the progressives that the source considers to be one of the current evils of this world - but I don't think so. The origin of these things has been the ascetic cults which predate Christianity and go way back to Plato and before and relate to the image of the eternal soul. They have resurfaced in the Marian cult and these writings very much follow that line.

The problem with the run of the texts is that they perpetuate exactly the problems that we see in the world causing division and discord, indeed railing against a "one world" single religion.

Perhaps that's the importance that I place in suggestions above of losing nothing but gaining everything by retaining traditions of services but welcoming in others for the second reading to read from their texts what accords in the world of the creator. This does not create a new religion, preserves the identity of the Church, but promotes mutual understandings, friendship and harmony.

A book that anyone will find helpful in navigation through these ways is by Jonathan Black (Mark Booth) "The Sacred History" - "How angels, mystics and higher intelligence made this world". He was the author who put me onto the Moravians, and the concept of the rebirth initiations in his book "A Secret History of the World". Both are worth reading.

Another is Dolores Cannon "Jesus and the Essenes".

Cannon is an interesting author, a past lives regression therapist. I don't put whole belief behind everything she reports but her subject reporting on his life in the Essene community has a very interesting and shockingly radical approach on the subject of adultery.

This leads one back to the conservative view on mortal sin and what is presented by the ascetics in relation to non reproductive sex.

The problem is that when we view our creation from the very mechanistic understanding of matter coming together (what is matter . . . where does it come from . . . some would argue a spiritual manifestation - in which this mechanistic view becomes less so) and we look at evolutionary process at every level in the creation of us . . . we cannot avoid having manifested in the animal realm rather than the purely spiritual realm.

In order to achieve paradise, heaven in our minds in this life, perhaps which others might refer to as Nirvana we cannot achieve that in states of frustration.

Our daily bread is necessary to our stomachs . . . and in relation to our spiritual food to our minds and the breath of God breathing through that. But our stomach food is referring to our animal food, that which keeps our animal senses content and not interfering with our spiritual life.

It's a matter of balance. When that life is thrown out of balance - which I perceive to be a serious flaw in the ascetic view of "sins" in contrast to the concept of tresspasses, wrong steps which don't create, - then the human psyche can go seriously wrong.

Priests denied marriage, denied sex . . . go off their heads and go astray in secret.

Wives convinced of the distastefully animal nature of sex simply send good husbands astray elsewhere in secret. How can the keeping of the human animal sensuality contented be a sin?

This of course is a distraction, but is important to consider when some voice or text is telling us in absolute terms what is "right".

The only rules are that we should love the creator, and love one another. The structure of "sins" in absolutes by the "Book of Truth" goes way beyond that, and indeed is a set of limitations circumscribing contentment way beyond the reports of the old souls documented by Dolores Cannon.

It's important to avoid voices promoting fear as this is often for the purposes of control.

With regard to the absolutest interpretation of Jesus' voice in the messages of the Book of Truth, Barbara Thiering reported that all four gospels in their Pesher code reported _exactly_ the same story in all four books. That raises issues about in what sense Jesus "died" and in what senses the Son of God was resurrected.

There are helpful signposts among all manifestations of belief in the Creator.

To take some examples, in the text to which you point -
Soul
http://mybookoftruth.com/people-dont-know-what-their-soul-is-the-answer-is-simple/

This is the reason why it is the Church that must take on its responsibility to bring its relevance back to people in the widest sense. It must not pursue an increasing format of self isolation in any sort of personal cult worship. The concept of the Creator is the only way of enlightening from the spiral of mindless pursuits of materialist satisfaction. That concept can be explained to Atheists from a mechanistic point of view, but when one finds that events become Created, one finds the mysterious Hand of God, influence of the hand of the Creator, manifesting, as I related above in the story of the train journey in this thread. But discernment is necessary to distinguish the random and the delusory, castles in the air, from the active result of the Mind of God which is built upon the firm foundation of stone in knowledge of the Creator process and its application.

Prayer - http://mybookoftruth.com/prayer-can-avert-disharmony-in-the-world/
Not just in moments of danger - that's merely superstitious reliance on a cult personality and a hipocracy, as a friend of mine puts it. It's active in seeking the path of the Creator.

The second coming - http://mybookoftruth.com/mother-of-salvation-beware-of-the-man-who-declares-himself-to-be-the-son-of-man/
Jesus Christ is not returning to earth in a bodily form. Interpretations of the Book of Revelation are flawed and dangerous. Barbara Thiering's Pesher research applied to Revelation "Jesus of the Apocalypse" puts a very different understanding on the book and documents how it is part of the story of the creation of the four Gospel texts.

Perhaps people like Thiering might be vilified http://mybookoftruth.com/among-the-evangelists-there-will-rise-many-false-prophets/ but the reality is that one must guard against all, and measure up by actions.

The Book of Truth is in a line of End of World prophecy, which Thiering identifies as a process from 50BC to 70AD. God's intervention was expected to be manifest - an earthquake, a sign in the sky, something that none of humanity could ignore. Excuses were found, priests were demoted or killed, false prophecy was blamed.

In http://www.organmatters.com/index.php/topic,2037.msg9387.html#msg9387 I pointed out how Nero's reaction to the mistaken Zealots is no different to our situation with ISIS today, people driven by the same forces.

2012 was the year of recent expectation.

12 July 2012 http://mybookoftruth.com/the-warning-for-many-will-be-a-frightening-event-when-it-will-seem-like-the-world-has-come-to-an-end/ should be borne in mind if and when it happens and then readers will know.

Jonathan Black's book does document manifestations which have been witnessed by thousands at once.

The Book of Truth is very much a singular point of view. It however warns of the peril of a singular one-world religion.  Black opens his Introduction to Sacred History with a quote from Blake
"God save us from single vision"

Indeed, it is that exclusive singular vision that the religions each have followed that have turned all but the modern zealots away from them. *

Best wishes

David P


* Postscript In his preface, Jonathan Black quotes Ibn Arabi, a Sufi mystic "No single religion can fully express the Reality of God". There will be numerous claims by religious quarters frightened of losing their hold on power that they are the only truth. It is for that reason that I consider the messages of the Book of Truth having truth only in part and coming from human rather than purely divine source. Black explains writing his book upon the premise "what if the claims of the world religions are true?" and he explores them in their pluralism. From this we gain a wider view of the Creator.

In reference to mentions of Bacchus / Dionysus in the thread above he shows a frieze from the vase of Salpion, not dissimilar to that known as the Borghese vase. He understands the Greek pantheon in a manner understood in the 18th century and wholly mistakenly presented in the ignorance of Christian supremacy of the 21st. I referred above to my friend in the south of France relating Hebrew meanings by numbers and he tells me that numbers were the common lingua between all the ancient languages, Sanskrit and Greek too. Black refers to this in Greek, commenting "Adding up the numbers attributed to letters in a word or name could yield a significant number, and it is astonishing but demonstrably true that the names of Apollo, Zeus and Mercury yield mathematical constants according to which the natural forms of the world are constructed". The only ones who seek to suppress such understandings and say that their's is the only way are those who wish to preserve the states of ignorance causing isolation discord and war so as to hold on to their own particular lines of earthly power. This is obvious as the world has become joined up and it's why people have turned their backs on such institutions. Those who say they own the only exclusive route to salvation are not in understanding of the divinity of the universe.

Paul Duffy

Sorry David, I won't post trash like that again. I don't know why I did it. I am cursed by a restless searching mind. A trepanning procedure would do me good.

I was reading a Dolores Cannon book last night (The Three Waves of Volunteers and the New Earth) before I read your reply this morning. Odd, isn't it?

Best wishes,
Paul

David Pinnegar

#63
Dear Paul

No need to apologise. We live in very confusing times in which it's really rather difficult to find our way. The response for many is to retreat into the safety net of what they know whilst for others it is to reject any idea of creation and swim in the materialist mindlessness of wastefulness and consumption. The problem is that the safety net of known has gone in the directions above and past being fit for purpose.

We're beset by many voices and in this confusion finding discernment is no easy path. In raising things here that others have not been brave enough to mention, we have been able to explore ways to sweep aside the autumn leaves to find the foundations, even to look at the archaeology of our faith without which our religion is rather much at sea.

So I hope that you'll continue and perhaps that others might contribute too. The Church is suffering a cold winter for which it failed to gather fuel, relying only on the colours of the autumn leaves to keep it warm. It needs to apply mental exercise if it's not to die before Spring.

The Church has an important part to play and a large challenge to embrace. And there is no other way.

Best wishes

David P

Postscript - Whilst the mechanistic "process" by which I describe "The Creator" can in itself be capable of Atheist interpretation, such that by creating we appear to work a mechanistic model of merely our own intentions, this is far from the case. The process requires our harmony with others and all of other forms and nature of creation, and to respond to it, putting the other first and ourselves subordinate to it. By referring to the PLUS between 1+1 we are not necessarily engaging in a self initiated construction into 2 - that might in the course of life be in the wrong direction and not what the Creator wants. The PLUS is that which brings one alive, alive to the possibilities of constructing at all times and in whichever direction the Creator process desires at the time. This is a relationship with a living system and one in which different religions and faiths describe merely in different languages words and concepts. The Sea of Circumstances is always alive and always changing.

It's reported that Terry Wogan lost his faith after his young son died. This is the sort of failure which the worship of a cult personality type of religion produces when the cult figure fails to provide the personal benefits promised. The point of this thread is in seeking directions in which the Church might be encouraged to promote "grown up" understandings of the Creator to grown-ups, and then it will win back all.

David Pinnegar

It's not only the Church of England that's under threat - the Ecclesiological Society warns not only of the impending collapse of rural CoE churches supported by congregations of 10 people or less but also the same phenonomen for Roman Catholics:
http://ecclsoc.org/2016/02/02/roman-catholic-diocese-to-halve-number-of-parishes/

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/salford-catholic-churches-close-shortage-10483208

In this thread I'm suggesting that the Church needs to attain relevance in people's lives, with focus
- on God, "The Creator",
- defocussing from the personality cult of Jesus as "Son of God" in the current limited point of view that it has become and
- with more openness to exploration of different meanings which are possible.
- Focus on "the Creator" as a process can lead to more constructive ways of viewing how people live, how they can live holistically and in harmony with others around them and the earth and therefore offers the benefit that people missing something from their lives seek. Offering the religion as teaching how to create rather than how to consume is the only way of solving the environmental issues critical to the survival of humanity
- inviting into our services people of other faiths to read from their texts demonstrating common understandings. This welcome would pull all together and set the scene for human accord defusing discord and violence.

In the latter, our services, traditions, music, heritage would be retained and promoted whilst demonstrating usefulness to whole swathes of people who would never otherwise have come into a church.

Best wishes

David P

David Pinnegar

#65
In witnessing the collapse of rural churches with so many churches supported by less than 10 people nowadays, the Church seems emasculated in doing anything other than licking its wounds and curling up to die.

It's like a gypsy seller wandering round the streets of a well populated tourist destination with no more than clumps of heather goodluck charms. "Surely the world must want my bunches of heather", says the gypsy, mortified that the world doesn't - and then when the customer says "I don't want your bothersome useless goodluck heather" the Church fails to see that the punter has more need for red roses.

Of course the Church has tried selling heather perfumed with red roses. It's tried simple baby language, it's tried happy clappy music, it's tried this and that but it's still selling goodluck charms and in the modern age, that's not red roses.

Selling the story that putting a bloke on a cross and killing him 2000 years ago to save me from my wrong steps 2000 years later really simply doesn't make sense. It's a superstition.

In the exclusive interpretation that the bloke bodily magicked from the state of being medically dead to be alive again in the same body, and that on a wonderful day in the future all bones in coffins beneath the ground all our bodies are going to be reconstituted and live again, is no more than a vain hope that we might want to believe in but we know to be a vain hope and really rather infantile. It's no surprise people have turned against the 20th century church.

But there are other interpretations of the texts which are entirely envigorating and life giving, and which enrich us as Christians if we can be brave and adventurous enough to explore them.

Doing some marriage counselling before Christmas with an infuriatingly superstitious sort of Christian was incredibly constructive. The lady loved Jesus as her brother and her teddy-bear dearly, and could not love her husband. Everything the husband did hurt her feelings and bruised her emotions and everything he did was so unfair. She could do no wrong because she loved Jesus.

I counselled her upon God as The Creator, offering the process by which all is created. By hearing the father's words (the process), and doing it, becoming brothers and sisters of the son and mother of the process, means we are saved from our sins, because then we don't do wrong steps, and we turn them around as part of the process too. So this offers a much more helpful view than killing the bloke 2000 years ago to save us from our sins now. It's a rationality that anyone can understand, that actually becomes useful to modern people.

However, this had no sway upon the difficult lady, at the time.

Eventually I walked away telling her what she wanted to hear. I told her that she was always right.

Phew! What a difference it made - it was the first thing she couldn't argue about or excuse herself for, nor blame her husband about.

The problem with the religions is that they go around saying they are always right too! Utter any criticism, and it's our fault for being a heretic, an atheist or a gnostic! Or a Pagan or an infidel!

No - the religion's always right. Each of them. All of them. And we are always wrong and out of order daring not to believe every nonsense they proclaim in their ignorances.

The 18th century and discovery of the interior of the pyramids, and the enlightenment and studies into Greek and the ancients, and the understandings of the secrets of the Egyptian priests of 9000 years ago . . . suggest a life after death that the Church will need to find after its own death.

The initiation chamber, the womb, the tomb, into which one is shut, confined, and dies - whether one fears one will die or thinks one has died, one descends to death in one's mind, descends to that torture of hell in which one wishes one had done things better . . . "I wish I had done this; I wish I had not done that; loved whoever, worked with whoever, had not broken relationship with so and so, not missed the opportunity to do whatever, taken advantage to construct, create. . . . " "Oh I promise Lord that if ever I have the chance to do it again I'll do it right this time . . . " and so one emerges from the tomb, one emerges from the womb, and one is reborn.

The old life has died, and a new life is resurrected.

One's animal reactionary emotional gut impulses are quelled, killed, and instead one's new life is within the Creator consciousness, the rational understanding of how to Create.

The religions are still in their animal consciousness where they are always right and all those who have turned their backs upon them are wrong. It's not until the Church understands the real life after death, beyond that of superstition, that Christianity will find its proper place in a creating world.

Whilst the Church is always right, adhering to the superstitious doctrines of bodily resurrection despite literal resurrection passages being added to Mark, the Church gives the flag to Islam to be right.

Both religions wanting to be right cause the problem.

If we as Christians can have faith in our faith, in the knowledge explained above that we can throw away and crucify Father Christmas and find Father Christmas again in doing so, in the knowledge that our faith resurrects, then our faith can work its magic.

The point of the initiation chamber, and so much of Jesus' teachings, is that we can throw away our own selves to find ourselves. Instead of going around saying "we've got heather to sell" we might find out what others want to buy . . . and in that way instead of us being the problem we become the solution. It's more intelligent. The world of commerce embraces and understands it. If we find out what other people need, then we find out how better we fit in to their world, not our world, the real world, the holistic universe. We have to stop being so egocentric, egoimportant, and work out how we fit in to create.

Currently our religions go forward to block creation rather than to be part of it.

Bodily resurrection and life after death when we're bones in the ground has been responsible for so many nutters in this world causing death and destruction, from the Zealots who Nero had to suppress tarring more peaceful manifestations of Christianity with the same brush, to the whacky Waco cult of Branch Davidians https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waco_siege, to those going to any means today to bring about a Caliphate. It's all blocking construction and causing death rather than creating and bringing life.

So just as Christianity wants to be right, in talking to committed Muslims Islam wants to be right too.

In the spirit above of the difficult wife, who couldn't understand until she realised she was always right, and perhaps wasn't . . . as Christians we can be more Christian, and more understanding, by telling Islam that it's right.

According to Islam, Jesus wasn't the magickal result of a biologically virgin birth or a manifestation of the anthropomorphised ectoplasmic Holy Ghost of God coming down in bodily union with the Virgin. Jesus Christ was just a man. According to Islam, Jesus didn't die on the cross, or most certainly wasn't resurrected in body. Jesus was just a man just like any of us, but a special one who was a prophet who taught about God.

Instead of Priests going about cursing the other religion with insults, what can we learn by being more enlightened in our behaviour? Killing the animal reaction and instead adopting the learning of the Creator. What happens when we say Islam is right?

Perhaps Islam is right! As soon as we are able to say that Islam is right, then what power of superiority does Islam hold over Christianity? It gives militant Islam something less to be militant about. What's left then? And what's left of Christianity? What is there for Christianity to be miliant about? Can we be more Buddhist in our Christianity?

Can our faith survive crucifixion of the Virgin Birth? Can our faith survive Cruxifiction of bodily  Resurrection? Does our faith and understanding of the Creator have to rely in fairy stories? Or is it something more?

Of course it is, and it's this that the Church must find in order for it to become useful again in society, binding people together, binding all of all religions who understand that there is the work of the Creation to do together, and necessary for humanity, and the planet, to survive.

In going on such journies as outlined above, as Christians and as the Church, I'm sure that we will witness the ability of faith, God and it's usefulness, to resurrect. With us will come many friends from all parts of the world and who will be amazed at the miracles that can happen when we abandon that which we love most in the faith that it will be found and all the stronger again.

Best wishes

David P

Paul Duffy

David, your point of view becomes more offensive to me with each new post. And now, Jesus, the God-man, is relegated to a 'bloke' who perhaps didn't even die on the cross at all. I sympathise with your yearnings to get beyond the often divisive walls of religion, but now you are insulting the gods themselves. You seem to be totally embarrassed by the idea of a Virgin birth, so I suggest you make a thorough study of the religious traditions of ancient Greece, because that it is where the idea seems to originate. It seems that divine beings are coming down to Earth to inhabit human bodies at regular intervals throughout history, and such events are usually accompanied by advances in human thought, skill and behaviour. You deplore the Titans, but you have seemingly and wholeheartedly took on the Titanic mantle of materialism. The Gods created us. Without the energy of the gods we cannot move or do anything. Perhaps we wouldn't have advanced as much as we have without their help. You might think it odd that a Christian should be espousing polytheism, but if you substitute the word 'Angels' for 'Gods', you might better understand my point of view. And now you wish to airbrush them from history and relegate it all to a fairy story.

You seem to want to avoid church closures, but you attack Christianity at every opportunity. And now you regard the crucifixion as mere superstition, despite it being recorded by four different writers, and supported as a concept by the World Tree of Norse mythology. ("I knew I hung on a wind rocked tree, nine whole nights, spear-wounded, to Odin offered, myself to myself"). Can't you see that there is something greater at work here? The Christian faith, although it cares not to admit it, has remained faithful to these old sacred truths and believes them. Islam and Judaism do not believe them. And neither, it seems, do you. If you think you are somehow going to bring people back into churches by ridiculing the faith which they profess then you don't know human beings very well. They will just feel affirmed and vindicated by their non-attendance if it is all just 'mere superstition'.

Best wishes,
Paul

David Pinnegar

#67
Dear Paul

;-) We have to be prepared to sacrifice what we hold dearest in order to find it. It's as the testing of ore. We have to put the ore in the furnace in order to find the precious stuff within.

I'm leading through the process of asking what our religion is really about. Is it really about the clothes or the body therein?

In the post in which you find great offense I have actually junked one meaning of death and rebirth and found another.

The Church achieves paucity and abandonment because it has abandoned the rich heritage of multiplicities of meanings that were inherent in Elizabethan understandings and to which Sir Francis Bacon and his circles give hints.

It may well be that the literal meanings about which I have uttered blasphemies actually need to be junked in order to find the deeper and more profound areas of meaning and communication with which Christianity can enrich.

Words are inadequate descriptions.

When we are able to junk the clothes of our religion and find its naked core then we will share the work of the Creator naked with the other religions capable of doing the same.

Is our religion only clothes? Of course the work of the Creator doesn't need clothes, and indeed can be obstructed by them.

At times we have to shred our clothes, rend them, burn them. Only then can we see 1 Corinthians 13.12 "through a mirror in a riddle". The clothes obstruct our view in the mirror.

Often I speak in another voice, an exploration of self and other. Our problem between religions is that one provides a mirror to the other and then we don't like what we see. And as soon as we say that our religion is right, we get it wrong. And as soon as we start to say that the other religion is right, only then can we understand our own all the better. The first shall be last and the last shall be first. What we see in the mirror is left to right reversed.

Gospel of Thomas:
Quote37. His disciples said, "When will you appear to us, and when will we see you?"

Jesus said, "When you strip without being ashamed, and you take your clothes and put them under your feet like little children and trample them, then [you] will see the son of the living one and you will not be afraid."

Best wishes

David P

revtonynewnham

Hi

I'm pretty much in agreement with Paul.  I've kept out of this discussion in the main, because I really don;t want to spend time researching ancient writings - I've got more interesting things to do.  However, your post yesterday, David, is virtually supporting syncretism - a heresey that was problematic for the Jews in the Old Testament, and the Early Church.

As to the resurrection and you're throwing doubt on the reality of it, words fail me.  Paul's words to the Corinthian church are very relevant here:-

"12 But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith." (1 Corinthians 15:12f)

It looks to me as if you are over-intelluctalising something that in essence is simple, yet profound.  "Christ died for ou sins".

Christianity is not a religion, in the sense of other faith systems, it's a relationship with the Creator Himself, through faith and BELIEF.  It seems to me that the church needs to stop looking inwards, and get back to the core business of "making disciples" as Jesus command us - but that's really another discussion. 

The bottom line is "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16)

Every Blessing

Tony

David Pinnegar

Dear Tony

Thanks

Perhaps those who have advocated elimination of the mystical in churches, doing away with angelic symbolism, splendid robes and sung psalms, might now appreciate the errors of having done away with the splendid resulting in the paucity of my vision.

However, humanity faces a bigger problem, that of survival itself.

Conflict between religions is leading into violence at its worst, and lack of cooperation at best. This is not the work of the Creator.

Likewise it is not the work of the Creator to put a man on a cross to die to save me from my wrong steps that I take 2000 years later. For the Church to insist on saying so as a basic tenet of Christianity will not bring the population into Church because it's a patent nonsense. But what Jesus taught about the Creator is not nonsense- it's common sense that people will welcome and support.

That's why I recommended above services which focus not upon what the Church teaches about Jesus but what Jesus teaches about the Creator.

In the FT Weekend Magazine today Simon Kuper writes "Lessons in listening" opening with an example of a ladyfriend who does a lot of online dating and is baffled by the seduction techniques of the men she meets. Most, apparently, merely boast at great length. Few of them, she says, stumble on the winning formula: to ask her about herself, and actually listen.

This is the point that the religions haven't learned yet either. They want to tell each other how they are right and how they are the only truth.

But what does true Christianity say? Love your enemies! That means listen to the opposite number! Learn from the skills of seduction. If we want people to come in to the Church, by free will rather than force, we've got to welcome them and actually operate the skills promoted by Jesus that we've forgotten and that the secular world is now doing better.

Islam denies the Virgin birth in the language in which we are given to understand it. It denies variously that Jesus died on the cross and or that he rose from the dead and as a result Christianity hurls insults at Islam in varying degrees of the perjorative - just as factions in the Qumram community referred to Jesus as the Wicked Priest, the Anti-Priest and as according to Thiering Jesus referred to some of them such as Simon Magius as Satan.

Appreciating myself that there may be other meanings by which "Virgin Birth" and "Raised from the Dead" can still hold true without contradiction of general standards of common sense about such events I ask the questions
"What happens when we listen to Islam?"
"What happens if Islam is right and we remove from our belief the clothes in which the Church wraps up Christianity?"
"What is left of Christianity when we do away with the physical interpretations of Virgin Birth, Bodily Resurrection after medical death, and concepts that putting a man to death on a cross can save us from trespasses 2000 years afterwards?"

In fact with regard to the latter, if our religion cannot survive being stripped naked, then it's a worthless faith and belief.

But there are many interpretations which bring very significant wisdoms to those willing to tease through their riddles. Christianity is all the stronger when we are able to focus on what Jesus taught and how he taught it, and when we do it. In my belief, Christianity grows all the stronger.

It's like pruning a vine. The more you prune it back, the more vigorous it grows and the sweeter the grapes.

In the lesson of marriage counselling which I experienced, the transformation of the lady concerned upon being told she was always right was miraculous.

So it will be with Islam.

One of the lessons that Jesus teaches us is strength within weakness. By saying that Islam is right gives Islam no strength - it removes its self justification in being right. It then has nothing to fight against and no reason to acquire self righteous strength in the need for the suppression of Christians.

In seeing ourselves as Christians through the Buddhist mirror there is much to see in what Jesus taught and perceiving Buddhism through the Christian mirror Islam has much to gain. This is the work of the Creator.

Best wishes

David P

David Pinnegar

#70
Quote from: revtonynewnham on February 06, 2016, 09:49:34 AMPaul's words to the Corinthian church are very relevant here:-

"12 But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith." (1 Corinthians 15:12f)
. . . .

The bottom line is "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." (John 3:16)


Perhaps we should ask "From what death was Jesus raised?"

Was it death of the flesh and blood?

Was it death of the mind?

Death of the ego?

Death of the animal instinctive reaction? Recent research has suggested that the human concentration span has been reduced . . . I thought that the concentration span used to be about 20 minutes. Then I heard people feared it having been reduced to two minutes. Apparently in 2000 it was 12 seconds. Microsoft Canada researching 2000 Canadians determined in 2013 that it was then just 8 seconds. Apparently that is a concentration span one second less than a goldfish.

So human beings are currently operating on a feedback mechanism of concentration that is as animal and instinctive as goldfish.

This is far from the intelligent understanding of the coordination of working out the processes of cause and effect that the process of Creation requires.

So yes, it's all the more imperative to bring death to the instinctive emotional response and find the eternal life of the Creator process in governing our lives. In doing so we bring life to the eternal.

In what sense was it that Jesus died? Who? Or What? Jesus Son of Man or Jesus Son of God? The bible makes these distinctions but in reading it, we do not.

Is Jesus Son of Man the same as Jesus Son of God? Who, or What is Christ? The anointed one. Barbara Thiering identifies that Christ was a title of, within, the Community, the Mission and that the title was not therefore a singular one. Is Christ Son of God a product of ectoplasmic manifestation or is it a title Christ Son of the Creator whose brothers and mother are those who hear the Father's words and do it? Is Christ a concept, an idea rather than a physical singularity?

One and only God. One and only Christ?

In what sense?

The Creator that creates is the only means by which matter comes together to produce quantities of useful matter. 1 and 1 are useless without PLUS between them. There is only one sort of PLUS and its the magic that brings 1 and 1 together to work with each other to make 2. There isn't a red plus and a blue plus and an evil green plus that entangles ectoplasmic wickedness to break the process. There is only PLUS. And in understanding PLUS and carrying out the process, as Jesus asked us to in being His brothers and sisters and mother, now being 2 we add together with other 2 and discover that, 2+2 being also 2x2, the X is the magic between them. There is only one son of PLUS and that is MULTIPLY. There isn't green multiply nor orange multiply, but only one. PLUS is God and MULTIPLY is the Son of God. There is only one MULTIPLY. There is only one Son of God, which in doing it is something in which we all share. Though we are many we are one body.

It's in this way that lifting ourselves above the paucity of singular meanings we can rise with Jesus from the dead - the dead of mind.

It's in this way that we can feed of the Creator of the bread that gives life, life to the mind. The mind in which the instant reaction, the instant insult, the instant gut emotion is killed, dead, and we, with Jesus rise in our minds to embrace what is the work of the Creator.

The texts are dead texts. It's only when we explore them with our minds in fullness of questioning that they become alive and through their image in our minds can come to life. He who searches finds.

In not searching we do not find God. Only dead texts, things that defy common sense, trenches of mud into which we dig, and shoot missiles across no-man's land to others who have done the same. The religions have dug their graves, fire insults at each other and forgotten to listen as Jesus asked us to. People have turned their backs upon the Church doing so, and walked away from the war between.

In what way did the Virgin Mary "conceive" of the "Holy Spirit"? Conceive - conception - the idea - the idea of God the Creator?

The Goddess of Peace, a Virgin, had been conceived by Emperor Augustus in 13BC.



The Virgin in the manger with cattle lowing and heavenly babes . . .

In what sense was Mary a Virgin? In what sense did she conceive?



We experience so much enrichment as Christians when we ask these questions. Abraham tells us that we can do so, that in order to find God we have to be prepared to sacrifice that which we hold most dear to us, and that when we do He will find a goat in the thicket so that that which we feared we would lose would not be.

Perhaps we can love our neighbours, and love our enemies too. Perhaps we can listen to the other voice and tell them that they are right. And in doing so then they might too find another language in which they discover something else and unexpected. This is the work of the Creator.

We have to throw away the language of being right. We have to throw away our goodluck Heather charms that we insist on pressing upon the tourists. The successful ones aren't the gypsies touting heather, nor the red rose sellers either, but the restaurants selling food to eat that people want to eat. And it's no use selling steak and chips to vegetarians, nor selling curry for breakfast to those with a delicate stomach. It's not that heather is good nor that red roses are evil, but that food sustains the energy to create. It's not that steak is evil or that curry is the work of the devil and that green organic vegetables are great.

In order to Create we have to find the +, the PLUS universal to all, and the X that multiplies the work of the Creator. Singular descriptions with plural manifestations.

We have to throw away the animal insults and human distinctions, perjorative words about words, heretic, gnostic, synchretic, pagan, gentile, infidel, all things that divide and feed the ego separated from others, and instead embrace the work of the process of Creating.

When the religions do so, they will thrive, and so will the human race.

Best wishes

David P

Paul Duffy

David, the language you are using is not even Gnostic, it is Atheist.

Tony (and that other Paul!) summed it all up for me:

Quote"12 But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith." (1 Corinthians 15:12f)

If there is no resurrection, churches, organs and choirs (and our faith) are indeed, useless. As an organist I serve my parish church on a voluntary level. I simply would not do this if there was no resurrection and it was all based on a lie. In seeking to intellectualise it all and treat the resurrection as some sort of superstitious fairy story you would actually take away all meaning from services and rituals.

David, you know full well you are an atheist and you are deliberately setting out to be provocative. I suggest you go onto an Islamic website and be openly hostile to their faith too, because they also believe in life after death. I suggest you post grossly offensive remarks akin to this one:

QuoteLikewise it is not the work of the Creator to put a man on a cross to die to save me from my wrong steps that I take 2000 years later. For the Church to insist on saying so as a basic tenet of Christianity will not bring the population into Church because it's a patent nonsense.

And then there are other comments you make, which frankly I can't make head nor tail of:


Quote;-) We have to be prepared to sacrifice what we hold dearest in order to find it. It's as the testing of ore. We have to put the ore in the furnace in order to find the precious stuff within.

Sorry David, I won't be sacrificing my beliefs for anything or anyone. Either you are at the level of pure materialism, scientific equations and rationalisation, or you believe there is more to our existence than meets the eye. I believe that both Jung and Nietszche had some sort of 'spiritual experience' but in the end they had to rationalise it, reason it away and intellectualise it. You are doing exactly the same. You can't do this with 'The Creator'. For 'The Creator' interacts with humans in the grey area which straddles 'spiritual awakening' and psychosis. 'The Creator' is very clever. I would even be so bold as to say 'devious'.

QuoteWhen we are able to junk the clothes of our religion and find its naked core then we will share the work of the Creator naked with the other religions capable of doing the same.

So why have you started this thread in the first place?. If religion is just clothes, then organs and choirs are certainly even more so. They are mere adornments. In this one small sentence, you have singularly undermined your argument and apparent concern for the continued existence of churches. You have essentially admitted that we don't really need them, we just need thought and reason. But why didn't this work after the French Revolution if it is such a good idea? Why isn't Notre Dame de Paris still a Temple of Reason?

QuoteThe lady loved Jesus as her brother

Please tell me where is the wrong in this? It is far better to love than to ridicule, which is what you are doing.

QuoteCan our faith survive crucifixion of the Virgin Birth? Can our faith survive Cruxifiction of bodily  Resurrection?

Mine certainly can't. And your use of the word 'Cruxifiction' is utterly disgraceful and very much the language of militant atheism. It marks you out as a deliberately provocative closet atheist. And if you insulted the faith of a Muslim person in such a manner you would find the same response coming your way. I actually think it would be a good idea for all the faiths to coming together against the rising tide of pure materialism and its proponents such as yourself, who have basically got our existence down to a cold set of numbers and a soulless body of flesh and bone.

You are not a Gnostic. You are not even an Occultist. You are an Atheist, plain and simple.

Best wishes,
Paul






David Pinnegar

#72
Dear Paul

I accept all criticism that you throw at me. But I am not an atheist. You might recall the account in this thread above relating a train journey. That account is not an account of an atheist.

What I am suggesting and trying to do is to get all from all directions to challenge their assumptions.

I think it's possible even to get atheists to start to understand that there is a process which creates which is god. Thomas Aquinas was leading in the direction that God was a process. There is merit in the perspective and one with which it's possible to get so many more people into an understanding of the Creator.

The consciousness of matter, whether inherent in the wave-structure of subatomic particles, or whether simply by the multiplication of cause and effect, leads to to an interconnexion of physical reality with a the sequence of events by which we experience time and through which we experience something more that we can better describe as something associated with the intangible and what we might call the Divine.*

Quote from: Paul Duffy on February 06, 2016, 02:50:35 PM. . .  In seeking to intellectualise it all and treat the resurrection as some sort of superstitious fairy story you would actually take away all meaning from services and rituals.
. . .  If religion is just clothes, then organs and choirs are certainly even more so. They are mere adornments. In this one small sentence, you have singularly undermined your argument and apparent concern for the continued existence of churches.
. . . .

Far from it. Organs and our traditions are where we come from. These are our roots from which we reference the rest of the world. Organs are a wonderful asset to churches as they are capable of bringing people into our churches. The rituals and narrative that the church provides preserves the teachings of Jesus which in my view are essential to humanity and to civilisation, and without which humans tend towards only the animal consciousness.

The problem arises when the narrative that the Church provides, and over the past four decades putting the Christ in a very literal series of beliefs and in front of the worship of God the Creator, becomes an obstruction to people coming to the understanding of the Creator and between others of other traditions.

Quote
QuoteThe lady loved Jesus as her brother

Please tell me where is the wrong in this? It is far better to love than to ridicule, which is what you are doing.

The point is that the lady was in love with love. Jesus she thought she loved but this was only that of a teenage crush in which one is in love with an illusion and she wasn't actually loving the son of the Creator at all. The point is that she could not love her husband. In not loving her husband she was not loving her daughters either. She was not loving. Her love-affair with Jesus was merely a loveaffair with her teddy-bear, a reflexion and invention of herself.

Only when she started to work the process of creating could she then understand her husband, find happiness with her daughters, love them, and then and only then begin to understand loving the Son of God who asks us to hear our Father's word, and to do it.

QuoteAnd then there are other comments you make, which frankly I can't make head nor tail of:

Quote;-) We have to be prepared to sacrifice what we hold dearest in order to find it. It's as the testing of ore. We have to put the ore in the furnace in order to find the precious stuff within.

When we put the ore into the furnace we lose the substance that we hold precious and we fear to lose. But we get out of the furnace the refined substance of much greater value.

At the heart of our Abrahamic faith is the story of how Abraham took Isaac out into the wilderness where God tested his faith. Because Abraham was willing to sacrifice Isaac, God spared him and instead produced the scapegoat from the thicket to put upon the altar.

Our faiths have caused us to sink below the trenches, poking our heads out only to fire at the opposite armies with insults and ununderstandings. In doing so they do not achieve the work of God. They do not enable humanity to create together, in harmony with each other nor the earth of which they are part.

It is time for faiths to put away the language of insults and perjorative terms, gnostics, syncretics, infidels, pagans, gentiles, atheists and all the rest, and instead to bring forward together the work of the Creator, creating, and which is God. In bringing all together in understandings of all meanings of creating, in doing the work of God, the Church will live and thrive, as will the human race, whilst in failing to meet the challenge the implosion will be severe.

Best wishes

David P

* Postscript It is in this that many might say is the value of so much of classical music and in particular the interwoven and interconnected lines of Bach

revtonynewnham

David

I pray that God will reveal to you the basic truth & simplicity of the real gospel message - "believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved".  It really is that simple - and that profound.

Your comments about choirs & organs are a red herring - they are not essential to the Christian faith - and indeed, certainly in the UK, most churches didn;t have organs until well into the 1800's.

Yes - religions can and should work together to try & bring about peace and the releif of suffering and so on - but that in no way is the same thing as saying all religions are equally valide - they are not.  "Jesus said:- I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except by me".  That's pretty conclusive - unless you say that Jesus isn't the Son of God - and in that case, you are not a Christian (by  the simple definition of the word). 

Every Blessing

Tony

David Pinnegar

#74
I do understand the dilemmas but the reality is that the monotheistic religions say the same, each of them, and then put themselves into conflict.

This is why I have written above in terms of PLUS being God and MULTIPLY being the Son of God, and that these are singular but have plural manifestations.

The only way in which the religions can be understood is to put aside those tenets that cause them to conflict until we can understand them better.

We are limited by language, by definition, and by multiple levels of meaning that we take mistakenly for singular.

Thus the questions that I have asked above

Quote from: David Pinnegar on February 06, 2016, 02:11:49 PM
Perhaps we should ask "From what death was Jesus raised?"

Was it death of the flesh and blood?

Was it death of the mind?

Death of the ego?

Death of the animal instinctive reaction? . . . .

In what sense was it that Jesus died? Who? Or What? Jesus Son of Man or Jesus Son of God? The bible makes these distinctions but in reading it, we do not.

Is Jesus Son of Man the same as Jesus Son of God? Who, or What is Christ? The anointed one.

. . . Is Christ Son of God a product of ectoplasmic manifestation or is it a title Christ Son of the Creator whose brothers and mother are those who hear the Father's words and do it? Is Christ a concept, an idea rather than a physical singularity?

One and only God. One and only Christ?

In what sense?

are not questions of an atheist.

I have deliberately set fire to the clothes in which the Church dresses Christ because in doing so the animal reaction to insult burns out. In becoming born again we take upon ourselves the mantle of the consciousness of creating. It is only when we can rise above the animal, and rise above those things that give differences between our religions, that we can access the point of view of the Creator, of God creating.

In order for people to find relevance in the Church, it has to bring the universal truth of creation to people, to atheists, to those of diverse religions and teachings, and to put aside those things that split us apart as not understood in the realm in which we are currently thinking, until such time as we can understand them.

It has to hear the father's words and do them.

It has to reflect the mind of god. Man made in God's image, has to show the face of God in reflection. That reflection is of man from Japan, from China, from India, from Arabia, from Israel and from all of those who consider themselves western. All made in the image of God, the Church has to create as the Creator.

In his commentary on Dionysus Richard Seaford suggests that 1 Corinthians 13:12 references Dionysiac practice, the Greek translating literally as "In a mirror in a riddle".

Harmony between humankind cannot be achieved in singular meanings other than the result in that which creates. Until we come through this man-made obstacle, mankind is in danger of self annihilation.

We have to hack away at the vines that grow wildly cutting out the sunlight and draining sweetness from the fruit. They will regrow stronger than before and with fruit more concentrated with sweetness, so that at Pentecost those who understand will be more drunken. It takes bravery, and faith, to take a saw to prune the overgrown, apparently healthy and flourishing vine but one hiddenly dead at its core.

Best wishes

David P

revtonynewnham

Hi

The church cannot & must not lay aside the basic truths of the gospel message.  Compromise with the secular or with other religions is a dangerous path - just read your Old Testament!

Every Blessing

Tony

David Pinnegar

The problem is that the failure of churches, their closure, indicates a failure to have got the message through to the vast majority of people who exist in a material illusion without the guidance of god, and who argue that the divisions that religions have caused are dangerous to the future of humanity.

Both absence of understanding of the Creator in people's lives and the division between religions which does not come from the process of creating but instead from human processes of division and control are equally damaging, and the attempts by the religions to hold on to power for themselves are seen to be what they are, and past their sell-by date.

Only when the religions examine their language to find the meanings in which all are compatible and illuminatory in their different ways will whichever church or religion that does so flourish.

The impending collapse of the church and its lack of presence in the countryside will be testimony to its failure to have carried out the work of God, the Creator.

The rise of proportion of human beings operating only in animal or robot consciousness will be a torture for anyone still left with a brain and with the wider vision that the Creator gives.

The Church faces a challenge which it can meet.

Best wishes

David P

David Pinnegar

#77
Both accounts of the feeding of the 4000 are very interesting.

They are most certainly a mirror in a riddle and the standard explanations make no attempt to dig at the image.

Not only did Francis Bacon insert deliberate clues as to the inclusion of code in his translation http://www.baconlinks.com/VVILL/Psalm46.html

but this pointed those with eyes to read and brains with which to observe the codes in the original.

Whilst the original Greek might be available to scholars such as Barbara Thiering and not to those of us without classical education . . . the very specific reference to both 7, twice, and again 12 in this one of 7 miracles is there to tell us that there's more than the superficial story.

The first line of The Gospel of Thomas http://gnosis.org/naghamm/gosthom.html puts eternal life into a very different context from that which is superficially taught and conceived in the interpretation of Christianity. It's very much in the spirit of that mirror in a riddle:
Quote
1. And he said, "Whoever discovers the interpretation of these sayings will not taste death."

Saying 14
QuoteAfter all, what goes into your mouth will not defile you; rather, it's what comes out of your mouth that will defile you."
is Matthew 15 - https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2015&version=NIV
Quote8 "'These people honor me with their lips,
    but their hearts are far from me.
9 They worship me in vain;
    their teachings are merely human rules.'[c]"

The teachings that what we read superficially in the Gospels are the whole and only truth are worshipped in vain and are human rules. It's only that which does the work of God, bringing Creation among humanity, which comes from the heart of God.

Mark 8 and Matthew 16 continues with Jesus now across the other side of the lake, putting the mirror in a riddle:
Quote17 But Jesus, being aware of it, said to them, "Why do you reason because you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive nor understand? Is your heart still hardened? 18 Having eyes, do you not see? And having ears, do you not hear? And do you not remember? 19 When I broke the five loaves for the five thousand, how many baskets full of fragments did you take up?"

They said to Him, "Twelve."

20 "Also, when I broke the seven for the four thousand, how many large baskets full of fragments did you take up?"

And they said, "Seven."

21 So He said to them, "How is it you do not understand?"

When we read scholars such as Barbara Thiering who understand and illuminate the codes it's apparent that we can say to Islam "Yes - there are certain things about which we can be certain that you're right".

Does this reduce Christianity to naught? Of course not. But it requires those who preach Christianity to find its heart, and not let its clothes get in the way.

If the Church will bring through the message of God rather than merely those things that humans want to hold on to which divide them, then the Church will not die and will thrive.

Our world faces ISIS driven by similar desires to that which Nero experienced with the Zealots 2000 years ago, driven by numbers, and an overruling faith requirement for the Divine to be manifest. In Islam which we find in internal conflict between Sunni and Shiite we see differences in interpretation and misery caused in mankind.

Our bible codes tell us that we must dig deeper into our meanings and understandings, beyond that promoted by men, if we ourselves are to find God. In doing so we can say to Islam that what it has said about Christianity may help us to understand it more, and instead of focussing on meanings which distract us from God, find the heart of God better through our religion stripped naked. In doing so perhaps we have something to bring to strife striken parts of the world. This is the work of the Creator.

When Jesus himself exhorts his disciples to look at the mirror in a riddle from the other side of the lake, in encouraging exploration of such meanings and their consequences does not make me unChristian nor Atheist.

The Church itself needs to heed Christ's own exhortations. Country churches then will not be closed and town and city churches will flourish all the more.

Best wishes

David P

David Pinnegar

The passage from Mark 8 above is rather interesting.

What extraordinary detail. It has no relevance whatsoever to a surface or literal reading of the Bible text.

7 miracles and 12 parables . . .

Nothing could be clearer to tell us to look for the codes.

Of course these parables were instruction manuals to a philosophy taught to the monastic initiates in the communities.

Just as we see reference to going to the other side of the lake . . . which reflects as a mirror, we see the Dionysian origins. Worship of Dionysos was organised within Chapters or Lodges . . . that we see continued or echoed in Freemasonry. The understanding of parables and miracles as instructional texts would represent steps along the way, just as the 33 degrees of Freemasonry.

The so-called miracles might read on one level as extraordinary manifestations of the power of God, but on the other hand are quite likely to have represented special meaning within the monastic orders.

The story of Peter cutting off the ear of the High Priest's servant, for instance, might not be a physical action at all but a metaphorical cutting off of communication, the sword being a metaphorical weapon rather as "excommunication".

A reality is that in both 29AD and 33AD there was intense expectation for the hand of God to be manifested. It wasn't. The chief-priest who got wrong the dates of prediction was then seen not to be God incarnate, and fell from heavenly regard, was demoted from his place in heaven, the upper echelon of the community. There was division between the Jerusalem and Qumran communities and the Damascus community as to whether to use the solar or the lunar calendar . . . and with regard to the date of Jesus' birth, the new heir to the Davidian dynasty was expected in year 3930 from Creation. Thiering identifies that the Magi, Magians identified this with 7BC whilst Herod had identified it with 5BC.

Perhaps one might see how 4000 might have been rather near to a significant number.

Corinthians 13 - the verse before that of seeing in the mirror in riddles:
QuoteWhen I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

The greater part of the population have turned their back on the clothes in which the religion is wrapped and in which the religion has been radicalised in its simplification. The church's replacement of worship of God by worship in a Jesus personality cult, such as a teddy bear who will save you - and as a result of which Terry Wogan famously lost his faith when his young child died - is a childish religion and one that the majority of people reject for its nonsenses.

It's now the challenge for the Church to put away its childish things and to teach the worship of God, to hear the Father's words and to do them.

As soon as one realises that our texts have more meanings and intent than we can understand, it begins to be apparent that we should be talking with other faiths, as our meaning we've understood to date might not be the whole picture.

Islam is finally moving towards teaching "God", in Italy on account of 40% of worshippers not understanding Arabic, now bringing teachings into Italian rather than Arabic. It's apparent that real understanding of Islam has failed to reach rather a high proportion of its nominal adherents. Islam is making the sacrifice of its love for Arabic in just the same way as the Church of old did away with Latin.

But love of God is more than love of texts. It's love of the Creator, and that means sharing and celebrating the work of the Creator which is why I advocate bringing together people of different faiths together sharing texts that teach the work of the Creator.

The Church has a job to do, and one where Islam has failed to reach its targets. The news this week of the 4 year old son of the British mother who went to fight with ISIS being used to push the button to explode a carbomb to kill three people is testimony to the ignorance of God, the Creator, caused by a failure of the religions to practice it and preach in language that people can understand and can accept.

The language of babes fails to reach all.

Best wishes

David P

David Pinnegar

When we look at what we have in common with other religions, rather than our differences, and bearing in mind what are significant alternative understandings of both birth and death, and cutting off of an ear (Have you ever "Had the Ear" of someone you regarded Important?), and of things that have been held dear in the past such as the Date of Creation - oh whoops - what was that - in 3668, 4088, 3941 and prophecies for AD60 and AD70 and the Last Judgment expected then . . . and the factions between those holding dear to such sacred numbers which have proved themselves to be superstition and valueless . . . it's a really good thing to conceive of doing away with meanings we hold dear, and to see what is left.

A birth . . . is a Bar Mitzvah - so there are perhaps other ways we might look at the Virgin Birth.

What happens when we take the Virgin birth out of Christianity? What happens when we take away the Crucifixion? Bearing in mind John 19
Quote39 And Nicodemus, who at first came to Jesus by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds.
. . . what on earth was he doing with all those Aloes? The are not part of an embalming. So what went on in that tomb? What would have been the medical effect of administering all those Aloes? Myrrh causes blood to flow, whilst Aloes are a purgative. Hyssop was an agent of sweating and attack on the central nervous system.  Whatever. Just for the purposes of academic exploration . . . what happens when we take out the supernatural from the narrative?

After all, the supernatural didn't intervene on time for the different factions of Judaism who were relying on their dates . . .

What then is left of Christianity? I suggest it's rather a lot, and in fact the pure Gold at the centre of the heart of the teachings.

And then a lot to share with others, to celebrate, to bring together, and with which to work the work of the Creator.

When the Church does this, it will have wholehearted support from so many.

Best wishes

David P