Here, in "Out of the box", is where I'll deposit a *world view* to try and answer a question why I come down hard on Christianity and/or the Bible, and yet, support the authenticity of the "historic" Jesus, or at least his teachings...the way I understand them.

This way, no one can ever say I haven't contributed enough to the group, as this is my own version of "the holy grail", having nothing original to contribute to the actual game of roulette , but plenty to contribute toward a knowledge of reality, and able to explain it in an almost, may-as-well-be original way.

Hopefully this won't be moved to a "Padded Room" within a secret 'Psychiatric Ward" section, as it would be, if it was deposited at a certain online forum run by Apostolic Creed citing Christians. 

That speaks to just how much animosity this message stirs up amongst the culture of traditional, mainstream depositories of religious sentiment.

For one thing, I appropriate, and redefine pretty much all terms oft used by Christians, much to their annoyance, just as their use of those terms annoy me. 

I come down hard on all three of the "Abrahamic" religions, who trace reverence back to the faith of a man who would have knifed his own son in obedience to voices in his head, until some other voices talked him out of it at the last minute. I come down hard on anyone who would value that kind of "faith", and try to use it as some kind of currency with which to buy a stairway to heaven.

I OWN all their terms, and in owning all their terms, I own them, so-to-speak, as they would be more than happy to disown me and my message. This statement of separation should satisfy them as my message sounds like theirs, but utterly differs to the point of total contradiction. 

If anything, I can prove that it's possible to use the same terms, but have a completely alternative, if not original, world-view.

I offer an alternative to the traditional theology of theists, the intellectual diet of deists, and the faithless faith of athiests.  I will bug pretty much everybody but agnostics and gnostics, even upsetting "new age" and "magic" minded minions.

But despite owning all their terms, I only ever really talk about what I'll call *Reality*, as if it was some kind of trademark.  Better said, I only ever compare Reality to unreality, in hopes of getting my point accross.  As such, this is a "reality check", if you can stop and consider my version of it.

Yes, this is my version of reality, just as everybody has their own version. I claim to represent Jesus' version of reality, which I call Jesus' Christ. 

Yes, to me, the term Christ, and Reality, mean exactly the same thing! Yes, I am aware of the traditional notions of the etymology of the term, as well as traditional notions about the term.  But to my way of thinking, Christ is not at all the Jewish notion of "Messiah" anymore than Reality can be. 

For some evidence of that, just ask any Jewish scholar, lawyer, or priest/rabbi who know the details of their own ethnic literature as well or better than most Christians.  The answer is "No!", not the "Messiah".  This echoes Jesus own analysis, "No, I am NOT the 'King of the Jews' ['My Kingdom is not of this world']".

I ask, why won't "Judeo-Christians" accept these two, authoritative sources?

On the other hand, Jesus is said to have said, "I am the truth".  All I'm saying is truth and reality are the same thing, not just by my own definition, but by any thesaurus you can find, and yet, Christians will argue this point with me. 

All I can say about that (argument) is they don't like the implications.  It implies they, and everything they stand for, is invalid.  After all, if you are not Christ, then what are you?  And if there is any one doctrine that all assorted Christians can agree on, it's this: I/we are NOT Christ!  At the very least, if Christ is the truth, then Christians are not.  So why would we listen to anything they had to say about Christ?

Personally, I would only stop to listen to a discourse about truth from "Christ", and visa versa, I would only listen to a discourse about Christ from someone who called thier self "the truth", and/or "reality" itself.

Personally, I would never listen to someone who called their self a "sinner", in any way, shape or form...or to any person, be they male or female. 

So, to make a long story shorter, I have a gate that guards entry into my mind that stops and frisks the term "reality" as it tries to pass over the border. I am hyper-sensitive to the term, always note the way it is used, and never let it pass unharrassed. 

It should be obvious just how much, how often the term is used in everyday parlance...but does anybody ever really stop to challenge the context of its usage? I do...every time I hear it.  And every time, i remind myself that reality belongs to Christ, and visa versa. And so, as everybody has their own version of reality, they also have thier own version of "Christ".

I will explore this further in my next post.

There one reality
more real than reality
this is the reality of the Spirit!

link:s://:.rouletteforum.cc/index.php?topic=17267.msg160684#msg160684

Quote from: Mortagon on Mar 25, 05:23 AM 2017
There one reality
more real than reality
this is the reality of the Spirit!

link:s://:.rouletteforum.cc/index.php?topic=17267.msg160684#msg160684

In keeping with the vigilance I described in my opening post, I would ask,who says so?

I don't understand what you are chatting about, but the reality is that the Flavian Caesars invented Christianity to pacify the rebellious Jews and at the same time begin feudalism. As for Abraham and the Patriarchs - they were actually the Hyksos kings of northern Egypt. But rather than admit to their Jewish subjects that they came from the "silver pharaoh" (Google him) they reworded most of the Torah and removed almost all names of the pharaohs who had interactions with the characters in the bible, etc.

Quote from: falkor2k15 on Mar 25, 07:49 AM 2017
I don't understand what you are chatting about, but the reality is that the Flavian Caesars invented Christianity to pacify the rebellious Jews and at the same time begin feudalism. As for Abraham and the Patriarchs - they were actually the Hyksos kings of northern Egypt. But rather than admit to their Jewish subjects that they came from the "silver pharaoh" (Google him) they reworded most of the Torah and removed almost all names of the pharaohs who had interactions with the characters in the bible, etc.

I'm talking about Reality, about which, everyone who is at least a person, has at least an opinion. And what is an opinion? It's basically a belief backed by faith.

Even if not talking directly to the dominant theme of Reality, pretty much every statement anyone makes is about an opinion about Reality, and is rooted in who and/or what they think they are. 

It's why I asked Mortagon 'who says so', and why I ask you the same thing.

So in stating that R/reality  (I prefer a capital R ) is the dominant theme (even more than politics, roulette, and survival) and that every statement about Reality comes from some sense of identity, I'm also stating that perceptions about Reality are driven by an agenda, and usually not an honest agenda, if not always.

All statements about Reality are motivated by a sense of self, some sense of identity, and most importantly, about establishing that identity as 'real'. This is the agenda driving the phenomenon of human existence, indeed, the existence of any type of sentient being that abides upon a planet, be it flat or round. Again, such an agenda is fundamentally dishonest, and not to be trusted.

I prefer a capital "R" when spelling Reality because I think of it more like a pronoun (rather than a place or thing),  something that lives, but not anything that needs to breath to live.  I characterize Reality as a Self, also spelled with a capital, to distinguish it from any and every other self that is trying to establish itself as 'real', but isn't.

I also characterize this Self as only one type or kind of Self.  I mean, that if there are multiple Selves, all these Selves are the same. So this is the meaning of "one", and why there is only "one" Reality. Likewise, there is only one "God", and not many.  If there are many, they are all the same, so whose counting?

"Many" is a term that supports differences. Difference is a concept alien to anything that is "one", and so, differences belong to the realm of imagination, and NOT the realm of Reality.

So the reason I come down hard on Christians is because I don't think anything I'm saying is that difficult to understand and/or "accept"...unless you are motivated by a dishonest agenda. 

But I also come down hard because I too, once considered myself at least a couple different brands of "Christian", which is ultimately an undefinable term, unless you understand it to mean someone who emphatically denies they are Christ as if that were some kind of blasphemy.

I come down hard because I know, from personal experience, that it is not that hard to break free from that sort of mental prison, if you are willing to take seriously a famous teachers advice to "fear not".  But while it is fear driven, it will never learn.  While it is fear driven, it will drive fear, and reap what it sows.

Five out of six of my immediate family members identify as some kind of Christian, holding on for as much as 30 to 50 years.  It took me two years to dismiss Bible-based Christianity as fundamentally dishonest, and ten more years to dismiss the Catholic oriented brand as also illegitamate. 

I think I had a relevant view from the inside, and so, can relate to the feelings and motivations.  There is much chatter about love, but I also sensed how fear (superstition) motivates and debilitates any kind of learning process. 

I walked out free, having taken a firm and resolute stand against any kind of fear-mongering as completely illegitamate, and invalidating of any source that would use it, in any way, to motivate. This extends to governments also, but that's another story.

Aha, so how did I ever get involved in a Bible-based faith operation to begin with?  There was initially some fear, yes.  But there was also some curiosity, which led to an overwhelming experience that I'll describe in my next post.

Quote from: Still on Mar 25, 12:19 PM 2017
I'm talking about Reality, about which, everyone who is at least a person, has at least an opinion. And what is an opinion? It's basically a belief backed by faith.

Even if not talking directly to the dominant theme of Reality, pretty much every statement anyone makes is about an opinion about Reality, and is rooted in who and/or what they think they are. 

It's why I asked Mortagon 'who says so', and why I ask you the same thing.

No... a lost sheep is somebody who is unsure of reality... somebody who has an opinion about whether he/she can cross the road safely based on the distance to the other side, speed of the vehicles, any hazards, and other factors. He may not be sure of his abilities - yet he crosses the road safely time and time again. So when somebody fails to evaluate the obvious or use his senses effectively then - by playing reality "safe" and as merely an opinion - this automatically makes you a slave, giving the shepherd who knows more about reality, more power over you and the other sheep. If you choose to rely on faith then you put yourself at risk of exploitation - but if you know what to look for in the Old Testament and the New Testament then it's no longer faith or an opinion - it's reality. Our guide to our limited time on this world amongst so much deception is the effective and proper evaluation of evidence with our own senses and then joining the dots - never outsourcing your thinking. Probability comes into it too... don't have to be 100% - but you can avoid slavery and losing control of your mind and regain confidence in your self-judgement by sticking to the 99% as truth.

Quote from: falkor2k15 on Mar 25, 02:49 PM 2017
No... a lost sheep is somebody who is unsure of reality... somebody who has an opinion about whether he/she can cross the road safely based on the distance to the other side, speed of the vehicles, any hazards, and other factors. He may not be sure of his abilities - yet he crosses the road safely time and time again. So when somebody fails to evaluate the obvious or use his senses effectively then - by playing reality "safe" and as merely an opinion - this automatically makes you a slave, giving the shepherd who knows more about reality, more power over you and the other sheep. If you choose to rely on faith then you put yourself at risk of exploitation - but if you know what to look for in the Old Testament and the New Testament then it's no longer faith or an opinion - it's reality. Our guide to our limited time on this world amongst so much deception is the effective and proper evaluation of evidence with our own senses and then joining the dots - never outsourcing your thinking. Probability comes into it too... don't have to be 100% - but you can avoid slavery and losing control of your mind and regain confidence in your self-judgement by sticking to the 99% as truth.

So whatever statements you've made about reality, they are motivated by what motivates every person, the survival of a self identity.

The various statements are secondary, and so, don't really need to make sense or stand up to a standard of logic.  They only need to reinforce, through repetitive affirmation, some earthly identity.

  In this case you've at least identified as a person who needs to navigate some unsafe and treacherous spaces...and take credit for any success.  The unsafe, treacherous spaces are characterized as reality, but more importantly, the thing that must navigate those spaces must also be as real. 

Evidence is a can of worms...a kind of Pandora's box.  There is no evidence, in a world built upon unreality, for anything that is actually real.  I'll explain the reasons for that soon enough.

This is because evidence, far from being the Lord of reality it is thought to be, is rather the slave of faith.

Faith will produce evidence for anything you want to believe.  For those with great faith, even the flimsiest evidence will suffice. 

The material world's are faith-based, even the very dirt your self identity stands on.  The dirt suggests the firmaments are real, providing evidence...but evidence for a faith in all that is unreal.

The "lost" are those who don't understand the self-deceptive nature of faith, and what faith has already produced, for example, "galaxies".

In such a world, faith replaces knowledge, and passes for knowledge.  When faith is taken for knowledge, that mind is "lost".

Anyone who would live by faith will die from it, and in between will be slave to it. 

Before disclosing something about an experience I had, I would like to clarify the differences between faith and knowledge.

I hope it is self-evident to any lover of wisdom (philosopher) that faith and knowledge are like water and oil. They don't mix well, and never really coexist. It's always going to be one or the other. There's a built-in animosity between these two. 

Likewise, Reality and imagination can't, and so, don't  really coexist.  It should be abundantly clear to any philosopher that these are like mortal enemies. 

Reality would utterly displace any realm built upon imagination. Likewise, any realm built on imagination must extinguish any evidence of reality, lest it succumb to its power. 

While knowledge serves reality, faith serves the domain of imagination.  Faith would demonize knowledge, given a chance. I offer the first few chapters of Jewish folklore (the "Bible"), as some evidence of this enmity.  Conversely, knowledge would demonize faith, and expose it for what it really is and does.

Man exists on 99.99% faith, and if there is any knowledge at all, it is buried deep in a "subconcious"  sort of "mind". 

As such, man is a slave to faith, having no other choice. Faith is very much like a sword, something weaponized, and dangerous.  To be of any use whatsoever, it must be beaten into something else...something useful.  If it can be directed toward a useful objective, it can be called "converted".   This is the truest meaning of "conversion".

In 1982, I experienced the initiation of some kind of conversion when I was visited with some kind of knowledge.  The visit was presaged by a call upon the name of Jesus for help in sorting things out.  I was answered the next morning, and over the next three weeks or so with what can only be called some kind of knowledge, which is not learned, but given to an open mind. 

The essence of the knowledge was simply this: This is not my home...period.  Suddenly, the world around me felt dreamy, for weeks, and I was in a pretty good mood. 

That's all it took to alter the course of my earthly time table, and set me on a path of discovery.  It took 25 years to understand, and/or "accept" the implications of what I was given to know. 

Because the call was on the name of Jesus, my first stop on the path of Self-discovery was two years invested in Bible-based Christianity.

The connection seemed logical, but nothing they ever taught shed any light on what I was given to know.  Conversely, everything they taught reinforced the opposite...that this was my home.  We all came from Adam and Eve, who come from the dirt. So this is their home, and by extension, ours. But that does not comport with what I was given to know.

I have reason to believe a lot of people within those faith based cultures were once upon a time motivated by the kind of experience I had. I had siblings touched about the same time.

I'm sure this is what initially motivates many of them, and explains the enthusiasm, centuries after the fact, so to speak.  This is why it is well nigh useless to try and convince anyone who "knows", that Jesus did not exist as much as anyone can in an unreal world. We have all the evidence we need.

But knowledge is not natural to faith based minions and it slips away from memory when it is suppressed by faith based rituals and traditions.  After 12 years, the knowledge was well-nigh quashed, and I exited stage left as an agnostic.

One theory I have suggests Christianity helps us thwart, and deny what we are really not ready for.  This would explain why it's named leader differs so much from the faithful.  The leader thought himself equal to god, and is said to have said, "Follow me"...and yet to a man, none think themselves equal to god, and even consider it blasphemy...except for the leader...who said, "Follow me".  I hope the irony is obvious.

If so, this would demonstrate one of the leaders parables which talks about different kinds of followers, one of which (kind) says, "Yes, Yes!", as if to follow...but actually does not follow.  Meanwhile there's another group that says "No no", but ends up following sooner than the self-declared followers do.

So to make a long story shorter, the "holy grail" is the seeking and finding the knowledge of Reality as Self...to the exclusion of any other so-called self. 

At this point, if fully accepted, problems are solved. The problems that money promises to solve are solved as well.  If there are no problems, there is no need for money to solve them.

As it is, a material world will always present problems demanding solutions...demanding to be paid with attention.  As such, it functions as a distraction.  This is all it takes to make and maintain a faith based domain.

Those are faith based statements, but statements that align and comport with the knowledge I was given in 1982.  Again, faith must be converted to have any non-weaponized usefulness at all.  It must conform to knowledge to lose its dangerous edge.

Even then, it is only temporary, until knowledge is fully embraced. As a rule of thumb,  that which knows believes nothing.  Conversely, that which believes knows nothing.  At best there must be some transition zone  where one must be completely replaced by the other.

So there is this sense of direction...of faith that leads away from knowledge, and converted faith that leads back to knowledge, to be abandoned for the conditions of knowledge.

People of faith are lost when they don't discern this critical difference in the nature of faith, and in its directability.  It must be pointed in a truthful direction because it naturally wanders away from reality.  It has no currency in Reality...no holiness...no sacred qualities.  Reality needs it like man needs cancer.

People die for lack of knowledge, leaving them only with weaponized faith. 

I hope I've hashed this over enough to be able to move on to related subject matter.  The discord between these mental states should be self-evident. Faith, masquerading as knowledge explains a lot of  bloodshed. Faith is firmly footed on the islands of ignorance, and it's this ignorance at the root of so much suffering...so much of what we call "evil".

Roulette forum: completed.

Quote from: RouletteGhost on Mar 25, 11:13 PM 2017
Roulette forum: completed.

Rich,
Seriously ......nowadays in terms of gambling-related topics (especially, baccarat and roulette), the discussions over at betselection.cc are more apt and relevant. The only negative feature about that forum is that there are bugs in the software and that tends to turn people off (given that Victor is a software guy, it is surprising he does not fix these bugs and instead just allows them to fester).

Quote from: Still on Mar 25, 05:28 AM 2017
In keeping with the vigilance I described in my opening post, I would ask,who says so?

The New ...