Posted by Sir Hoagy on February 25, 2001 at 22:35:50:
>>Why don't you read the book of John in the new testament and
>>give us four different translations of that?
The Book of John is viewed with the most suspicion than any
of the other "gospels." It contains references to "miracles"
performed by Jesus that are not mentioned in other books.
John's gospel, in simple terms, is considered to be the
most dubious of the four gospels.
On that note, it is interesting to point out that the gospel
writers could not agree on simple things. I point you
to a website:
http://members.aol.com/ckbloomfld/bepart35.html#ref351
>>That's the book that basically says that the two greatest commandments
>>from God are to Love God and Love Thy Neighbor.
Yes, but such are not found as actual commandments.
The Decalogue (Ten Commandments, and there are
three versions, so be careful...not to mention hundreds
of *other* commandments found in Exodus and Leviticus
that are not followed by Christians/Jews to this day)
does not contain any such reference to loving God or
loving neighbors.
The first commandment deals with this particular
god establishing himself as the primary god
("You shall have no other gods before me.")
In the Old Testament, Exodus 7:8-12 discusses
the staff to serpent transformation. It's very
plain that the Pharaoh's wisemen were able to
transform their staves to serpents -- all in the
name of *their* god, *not* the god of Moses.
It is true that Aaron's staff was also transmuted
to a serpent and this same serpent devoured
the other transmuted staff-serpents. This
is a *very important piece of evidence*, as
it proves *other* gods existed. This was
not the work of the devil/satan/etc., as
*no such diabolical being* is mentioned
anywhere in the Old Testament prior to this
time, so we cannot assume it was the work of
the devil.
The god of Moses, being a jealous god, would not tolerate
any other gods being worshipped *before him*.
The god of Moses never says, "You cannot have any other
gods.";rather, the god of Moses says don't put any
other god in a higher rank than me. I'm more
special than they are.
>>If everyone in Sumaria had have behaved that way
>>they wouldn't have had anything to worry about.
...and if everyone followed the laws of Islam,
we'd all be happy and gay....and if everyone
followed the Hindu tradition, we'd all get
along just peachy...and if everyone followed
what the Buddhists had to say, no one would be
at odds with each other...and if we all worshipped
the Greek gods, we'd all be in harmony...and I
could keep doing this forever....
If you accept the teaching of God you mentioned
(i.e., love and love thy neighbor), you could toss
out the entire Bible and the Christian religion.
We all could live on that alone. Love your
neighbor- we could build
and entire religion or secular philosophy
around such.
The point is, it doesn't matter what religion
you choose to follow, for if everyone followed
the same religion and followed it perfectly,
no problems would ever crop up - well, human
to human problems, that is. We could all be
Christians, Muslims, Hindu, Pagan, et cetera.
We could all follow a secular/atheist
philosophy and do good deeds and live decently
(i.e., love each other, treat each other really well, et cetera)
It's not necessary to promote any one religion over
another as being more superior or better than another one.
If everyone acts the same as everyone else, everyone
would get along just fine. Therefore, monotheism
is no more evil than polytheism or pantheism.