I've no doubt understanding religion is simple. Or at least, so I'm frequently encouraged to believe by those who claim to want to help me understand.

But when I examine the topic with Christian friends, I'm told that the following is all false:

• Zeus doesn't sit on top of a mountain hurling lightning at naughty people
• Scientology is pure fantasy, an entirely made-up story with no basis in reality?
• The Aztecs were wrong, and there was no need to cut people's hearts out to make the sun come up every day?
• Isis didn't find 13 pieces of Osiris (except his penis, which she had to fashion anew out of gold --- cold!), nor did she used magic to put it all back together for one night so she could get knocked up with Horus. This is all fantasy.

Yet, I am also asked to understand that the following is just as obviously all true:

• Jesus died and came back to life
• Moses parted the Red Sea
• The sun stood still in the sky
• Wine and wafer transubstantiate into blood and body
• Mary gave birth parthenogenetically
• Everybody since Adam and Eve (except Mary and her little boy) is a born sinner.

My problem is, I haven't quite mastered the trick of figuring out how to the tell the true bits from the fantasy bits. Surely, there ought to be some obvious way to discern the false from the true, since discovering the true is so immensely important, and yet there is nothing in any of those stories that stands out as indicator of their veracity or inanity.

So can anybody help me?

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evangelicalhumanist: Greek "eu"=good and "angelos"=messenger. Spreading the good news of Humanism.

I always ask people what feels true to them. By your post, none of this stuff sounds true to you, and that is OK. I don't think that you need to believe everything that every religion tells you in order to get the message that we all need.

When I am speaking about Truth, I don't mean belief in Deity (even though I believe in one), but rather the message that has been passed down in many forms. The message that tells us to care for each other, try to respect each other, love one another, be kind to each other, etc. These are what are the Truth to me. If you choose to follow a God/dess in one form or another or in many forms, that is your choice, but no matter which one you choose, the truth doesn't change much.

Does this help you out, EH?

What does it matter to you E.H. if any of the things you have listed are true or not? If deep down you believe in the things that are beyond what most people call the physical law such as gravity, then you can broaden your own experience. It is always as we believe we will experience. The question: is it "real" or my imagination serves no other purpose than that which I want to experience.

Instead of asking the question is something true or not, you could ask yourself: Do I believe it is possible? Yet even if you don't believe it is possible, does not mean it's impossible, it just means it's impossible to you. There are no limitations to what a person believing can experience.

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May your awareness be perfection

Hi , evangelicalhumanist .
Thanks for the new word ,"parthenogenetically" .

Ummn lol . so you want to find God eh ?

lol

Really .

Just kidding .

Obviously, God is trying to find you evangelicalhumanist .

Personally , I feel you are not ready yet but if you continue to persue the facts etc as you do you will find 'yourself' , where God is .

If you don't believe non of them to be true, you suit yourself and go on about your business, leave others to deal with whatever little fantasies they wanna believe in.

Only some of your truth can save us if you feel like preachin' though. A little bit here and a little bit there, can go a long way in gettin' people to really began to think, you know. Really and on this I'm not joking.

However, to some believers, seein' God at work on somebody is very heart wrenching, and makes us wanna cry. I have offten thought when reading your posts that God must be working on you, as it has been in the past one who fights against God the hardest is sometimes someone God was working on to show His truth to. Justa light hearted warning for ya. I mean no harm by it.

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When a man sleeps in his bed, his soul leaves him to soar above, each soul according to its own way.......
The Zohar

" Jesus died and came back to life
Moses parted the Red Sea
The sun stood still in the sky
Wine and wafer transubstantiate into blood and body
Mary gave birth parthenogenetically
Everybody since Adam and Eve (except Mary and her little boy) is a born sinner. "
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Hi evangelicalhumanist.
Talk to me .

If you saw and experienced what l did and posted here in the thread " living with proof of God " would you evangelicalhumanist have trouble believing the things above ?

One l know occured 100% was when my deceased first wife appeared in my room and we kissed and then her going back to her destination whatever but back to dust then POOF she was gone and so on .

If evangelicalhumanist that did occur to you and l know this is hipothetical for you but honestly if all those things occured in your life would you consider that there is something going on here on Earth that is here yet not defined as fact ?


Basically evangelicalhumanist if all that occured in your life would you so easilly rule out God ?

"Another curiosity of reptile reproduction is that the females of some species of lizards and snakes are capable of reproducing parthenogenetically, even though reproduction in these species normally occurs sexually. (These species should not be confused with others that only reproduce parthenogenetically. This is not a widespread mode of reproduction in reptiles, but it is known to occur in several species of lizards and at least one snake.) Facultative parthenogenesis has only recently been discovered among captive reptiles, and there is as yet no information on whether it occurs in nature "
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'Thinking ' about my new word , and thanks for it , l remember the tadpole turning into a frog and us Human males being a little sperm that appears like a tadpole but whatever , at least one living presentation of God can reproduce without the regular way of the sperm egg nexus thing .

Do I detect just a tiny note of sarcasm?

Obviously there's no way of telling if these things really happened. Who knows about the Old Testament? And there's some evidence that many "facts" in the gospels were skewed to appeal to members of pagan religions. Even the language can trip us up - the idea of Jesus as a "sacrifice" would have appealed to the Jews of the day, and Jesus as the Logos would have made sense to the Greeks. The Bible is a complicated book even for the supposed scholars.

Whether any of these or other miraculous events are "possible" is another issue, and that is a matter of assumptions, don't you agree? If you believe that the physical world reigns supreme, is the cause of our existence and consciousness, you will dismiss any and all such accounts as myth, ignorance or delusion.

But in the face of contemporary accounts of miraculous and paranormal events, science doesn't look so "smart." It can't account for the yogis in India that send out postcards to a party because they know the exact moment they're going to die. Or their reappearance after death. How does science explain my grandmother speaking to me after she died, or my friend's out-of-body experience? If 7 years of dictation by Jesus in our lifetime is the product of someone living in delusion, why is it the most mind-blowing ocument I've ever read?

To me, arguing about whether the Red Sea was parted is old news. Christianity, as it exists now, is nuts. But there's more out there, believe me.

How does science explain my grandmother speaking to me after she died, or my friend's out-of-body experience?
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Hi angeleyes.

Please , could you tell me the story of how your grandmother came back ?

I do believe you . l must .



mooomooo

Hi mooomooo - My grandmother didn't appear to me, but spoke very clearly to me one night while I happened to be sitting peacefully in a chair, not thinking of anything. She had died many months before and I had not thought about her in some time, nor was I thinking about her (or death, or any related subject) at the time. The voice in my head said "Hi ya. I'm fine." It was unmistakingly her voice, it was strong, and it came out of the blue.

I used to joke about the way she said "hello" - it was always "hi ya," almost like one word instead of two. I've never heard another person use that phrase. It wasn't dramatic enough to scare me, but it was dramatic enough to get my attention and make me think. Why would I think a thought in her voice, with her particular greeting and be saying hello to myself? It was something I knew right away that I had no explanation for. I've had other similar experiences, but nothing quite as dramatic as yours. I'm a chicken, really!

But, what I think is that these events aren't for "show," but are given to us an expression of love. In other words, the times I've experienced such things were for a purpose. In the case of my grandmother, I was able to call my aunt who was still in alot of grief and tell her that her mother was "OK."