disqusnutchat

@ayin jade I have read the New Testament and while I agree with much of what it tells us about Jesus, I dont agree with it's claim that Jesus was God made flesh and that Jesus rose from the dead. Those claims became the canon of the Christian Bible in the Council of Nicea when church fathers fought over whose beliefs and gospels should become part of the Bible and whose should be denied. The main topic of the fight was over whether Jesus was godlike or was he actually God. The fact that there was uncertainty over this implies to me that there was no actual proof of that issue. It became proof because some men decided 'it should be'. For me, Jesus was a man who became godlike in his life and he believed that the path that led him to become a Son of God, could be taught to other people and lead them to the same destination. There is also some debate over the fact that most of the time, the gospels refer to Jesus as 'a son of man' or 'a son of god'....not 'the son of god'. And 'a' and 'the' radically change how we interpret the following phrase. Jesus died because he was willing to become a martyr to strengthen the faith of his followers. It is much more meaningful for me that a man chose to die.....rather than a god in the form of man. There have been later priests who have chosen to do the same. If you wish, you can see one in the streets of Saigon, who sits in the meditation pose and is set on fire. He sits calmly in that pose without a sound until his burnt corpse falls over. He was protesting the Vietnamese govt attempt to stamp out Buddhism. Type 'burning monk 1963' in Youtube. Or Google that to read the newspaper articles about it. But I dont accept something as truth just because I become aware of something that is said or written by people I trust. Trust makes me willing to listen. Experience makes me accept it as truth. My current stance on God is based on the spiritual experiences I have actually gone through in my life.

@Circuit Worry is a natural part of the human mind. But as long as you have faith in God, you can let the worry exist within without reacting negatively to do it. Being rich does not have to mean that you will not know God within. And having access to a lot of money but spending most of it to help those who do not have much, will bring us closer to God. Using it to please ourselves alone, will also feel good but only in the physical sense. Physical pleasure is easy to access with wealth but it is nothing compared to the joy of knowing God within. And physical pleasure requires renewing since it is only temporary. When we work to earn money, we can spend a good amount of it to help the Other also. Not too much money is needed to satisfy base needs for the Self like food, shelter, medical care and the occasional physical pleasure that does not require harming the Self or the Other.e.g. books, movies, eating out, technology. It is harder to sacrifice your physical rewards so that more can be given to the other than the self......but when we learn to do so, we connect with the greater strength of God within. “Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.” ~Gautama Buddha