Outlaw, Slimboyfat--
I needed a little leavening. HELLO!
"Do not be called teachers"--Doesn't Jesus OUTLAW all organized religion?
by humbled 34 Replies latest watchtower bible
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Isidore
Humbled, check your PM's.
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humbled
Tylinbrando,
That's a good question:
Put everyone that believed in Christ alone without the control of religion on an island. Would it work?
Tec made an early observation-- organized religion has been operating institutional christianity for 2000 years and what we have now is big "C"Chaos for big "C"Church.
Before official orthodoxy and creed was thrashed out 300 or so years after Jesus died (not that this meant certain teachings were "right" just because the Roman government backed certain churchmen) there were Jesus stories and Jesus followers existing without authoritarian rule and without as much craziness as you might run into in any run-of-the-mill country church today. The religious dogma hadn't developed for at least the earliest decades after Jesus. After all "by this all will know you are my disciples, if you have love among yourselves."
There is an interesting description of Christian meetings around 110 C.E. by a Roman administrator who prosecuted Christians. Google Pliny and the Christians if you don't already know about his letters to Emperor Trajan about what to do with Christians.
I suspect the early christians were doing okay without the soul-crushing dogma that was going to descend from on high a little later.
Then they would find torture and death again. Only it would be because they just hadn't been able to swallow the "New Light" that the theologians kept cooking up for them.
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humbled
Isadore---I pm'd you.
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still thinking
I am trying to understand why I am alive, how best to live in a world that has been difficult to live in...humbled
Aren't we all. I understand what you are saying here. I was raised a catholic..l understand the pull of established ideas and beliefs. But that doesn't make it any more true than any other belief system out there.
Hindus were raised believing in their gods...they are just as real to them.
Are you just saying you like the teachings of Jesus that are found in the bible? Is it more of a moral guide?