The truth will set you free............
sent in by Barry
Hi ~ I did the christian religious thing on and off for about 4 decades of my life in my search for the truth of reality. I went through all of the usual christian symptomotology....guilt, fear, worry, anxiety, all of which was directly attributable to christian indoctrination. But I "believed" in Jesus all along, even if the teachings of church, ministers, pastors et al were bereft of any apparent understanding of Love or the true meanings of His words. So I stuck with it as best I could, but the best I could was never good enough, which circled right back to guilt, fear, worry, anxiety which are self-perpetuating indoctinal aspects of christianity.
For me, the words echoing around the church from the pulpit never seemed to be filled with any loving understanding of christ or the christ message. The words were hollow. Empty of any knowledge, feeling, or understanding. I drifted off, but held my convictions about jesus, while turning my back on church. That my uncle became a minister of the Church of England but before doing so signed all of his considerable wealth over to his parents before he was ordained so that the church couldn't claim his worldly possessions may have signalled to me that something was amiss thereabouts.
Time went by, and I went to India 5 times to an ashram where a guru lived. He was as much a fake as my uncle and other church ministers, so I sought to find the truth on my own, given that no one else was capable, or even knew what the truth really was.
So I studied. On my own I searched to understand the bible without the indoctrinal clap-trap. And in reading the New Testament, the "red letter' words stood alone, whereas the rest of the words lacked any real cohesion with the red letter words. One day the words "know the truth, and the truth will set you free" literally (almost!) jumped out of the page at me. It made sense that if these red letter words were true, then they could be put to the test. So I began seeking the truth under the auspices of "ask and it shall be given, seek and ye shall find, knock and it will be opned unto you..." If the words were truth, then I would find that which I was seeking ~ truth.
This led me to enquire as to who wrote the New Testament, as I'd already read the Book of Thomas, books on the Dead Sea Scrolls and Nag Hammadhi Library deciphers etc etc, all of which were not included in the bible, and I wanted to know why. That the Catholic Church withheld these from the public for over 50 years seemed suspicious to me. And it was. Turns out the Church has been withholding the truth for quite some time now!
What I then found was that the entire christian religion & 75% of the New Testament is based upon the works of Paul (St Paul ~ Saul) who was a Roman spy who led persecutions of the contemporary jesus christians. This same Saul claimed to have had vision of christ 5 years post crucifixion in the absence of any witness. Yet every miracle of Jesus was witnessed, if not by multitudes then by at least a dozen at any given occasion. And this Roman spy Saul tells the contemporary apostles what he says he saw and what he says jesus said to him, but what he tells them contradicts what jesus had told them while he was still alive. There is tense disagreement.
Saul is then escorted to Rome under the protection of 200 Roman soldiers where the Roman church begins as a result. Saul writes letters to his connections in the Mid_East, and strangely enough each of the apostles begin to disappear into oblivion, as do all of their teachings. Except ---- Saul and his letters.
Well that struck me as odd. Very odd indeed. That contrary to the appointments made by the living Jesus, Saul appoints himself. And from this a church appears that was never intended to be.
So I looked at the bible with a view of checking authority and authenticity, and basically the books of the bible were assembled by the Roman Emperor Constantine at Nicea in 325AD, after which he had destroyed all people or texts that were contrary to his opinion - the purging of heresy/heretics. So who was Constantine? Well Constantine was a Pagan who professed christianity and made it the Roman State Religion (wherefrom comes the Roman Catholic Church). But Constantine remained Pagan until his death-bed so that he didn't sin as a christian, and then on his death-bed took baptism. An each-way bet you might say, suggesting he had little faith in his chosen religion/god.
It is estimated that the Dead Sea Scrolls and Nag Hammadhi Library were secreted away around the same time that Constantince was purging heresy (ie anything he chose not to like). And that struck me as significant.
So basically I have come to believe that the christian chuch is based upon lies, murder, and deceipt. It really hasn't changed much at all over the past 1700 years or so.
I am still researching and studying. Why, I don't know. But there is a wealth of information available now in such books as
The Bible Fraud ~ http://www.joshuabooks.com/bushby/biblefraud/internalgif/fraud.htm
The Jesus Mysteries ~ http://www.jesusmysteries.demon.co.uk/
I now doubt that jesus was real at all, and that if there is a "satan", then it is epitomized by the christian church in all of it's guises. But that is great, because knowing the truth has set me free. No more lies deceiving me.
Life is now a beautiful continuum, and for me, God is the living principle that permeates throughout all of creation and reality, absorbing our each sensual interaction through the Love that God really is.
Know the truth, and the truth will set you free!..........
URL: www.cdsubliminal.com.au
City: Sydney
State: NSW
Country: Australia
Became a Christian: youg school age
Ceased being a Christian: 49-ish
Labels before: searched fro truth in christianity, bible, religion
Labels now: God is love
Why I joined: cultural mindset ~ paradigm
Why I left: truth is not to be found in christianity
Email Address: mindworks4u at hotmail dot com
Hi ~ I did the christian religious thing on and off for about 4 decades of my life in my search for the truth of reality. I went through all of the usual christian symptomotology....guilt, fear, worry, anxiety, all of which was directly attributable to christian indoctrination. But I "believed" in Jesus all along, even if the teachings of church, ministers, pastors et al were bereft of any apparent understanding of Love or the true meanings of His words. So I stuck with it as best I could, but the best I could was never good enough, which circled right back to guilt, fear, worry, anxiety which are self-perpetuating indoctinal aspects of christianity.
For me, the words echoing around the church from the pulpit never seemed to be filled with any loving understanding of christ or the christ message. The words were hollow. Empty of any knowledge, feeling, or understanding. I drifted off, but held my convictions about jesus, while turning my back on church. That my uncle became a minister of the Church of England but before doing so signed all of his considerable wealth over to his parents before he was ordained so that the church couldn't claim his worldly possessions may have signalled to me that something was amiss thereabouts.
Time went by, and I went to India 5 times to an ashram where a guru lived. He was as much a fake as my uncle and other church ministers, so I sought to find the truth on my own, given that no one else was capable, or even knew what the truth really was.
So I studied. On my own I searched to understand the bible without the indoctrinal clap-trap. And in reading the New Testament, the "red letter' words stood alone, whereas the rest of the words lacked any real cohesion with the red letter words. One day the words "know the truth, and the truth will set you free" literally (almost!) jumped out of the page at me. It made sense that if these red letter words were true, then they could be put to the test. So I began seeking the truth under the auspices of "ask and it shall be given, seek and ye shall find, knock and it will be opned unto you..." If the words were truth, then I would find that which I was seeking ~ truth.
This led me to enquire as to who wrote the New Testament, as I'd already read the Book of Thomas, books on the Dead Sea Scrolls and Nag Hammadhi Library deciphers etc etc, all of which were not included in the bible, and I wanted to know why. That the Catholic Church withheld these from the public for over 50 years seemed suspicious to me. And it was. Turns out the Church has been withholding the truth for quite some time now!
What I then found was that the entire christian religion & 75% of the New Testament is based upon the works of Paul (St Paul ~ Saul) who was a Roman spy who led persecutions of the contemporary jesus christians. This same Saul claimed to have had vision of christ 5 years post crucifixion in the absence of any witness. Yet every miracle of Jesus was witnessed, if not by multitudes then by at least a dozen at any given occasion. And this Roman spy Saul tells the contemporary apostles what he says he saw and what he says jesus said to him, but what he tells them contradicts what jesus had told them while he was still alive. There is tense disagreement.
Saul is then escorted to Rome under the protection of 200 Roman soldiers where the Roman church begins as a result. Saul writes letters to his connections in the Mid_East, and strangely enough each of the apostles begin to disappear into oblivion, as do all of their teachings. Except ---- Saul and his letters.
Well that struck me as odd. Very odd indeed. That contrary to the appointments made by the living Jesus, Saul appoints himself. And from this a church appears that was never intended to be.
So I looked at the bible with a view of checking authority and authenticity, and basically the books of the bible were assembled by the Roman Emperor Constantine at Nicea in 325AD, after which he had destroyed all people or texts that were contrary to his opinion - the purging of heresy/heretics. So who was Constantine? Well Constantine was a Pagan who professed christianity and made it the Roman State Religion (wherefrom comes the Roman Catholic Church). But Constantine remained Pagan until his death-bed so that he didn't sin as a christian, and then on his death-bed took baptism. An each-way bet you might say, suggesting he had little faith in his chosen religion/god.
It is estimated that the Dead Sea Scrolls and Nag Hammadhi Library were secreted away around the same time that Constantince was purging heresy (ie anything he chose not to like). And that struck me as significant.
So basically I have come to believe that the christian chuch is based upon lies, murder, and deceipt. It really hasn't changed much at all over the past 1700 years or so.
I am still researching and studying. Why, I don't know. But there is a wealth of information available now in such books as
The Bible Fraud ~ http://www.joshuabooks.com/bushby/biblefraud/internalgif/fraud.htm
The Jesus Mysteries ~ http://www.jesusmysteries.demon.co.uk/
I now doubt that jesus was real at all, and that if there is a "satan", then it is epitomized by the christian church in all of it's guises. But that is great, because knowing the truth has set me free. No more lies deceiving me.
Life is now a beautiful continuum, and for me, God is the living principle that permeates throughout all of creation and reality, absorbing our each sensual interaction through the Love that God really is.
Know the truth, and the truth will set you free!..........
URL: www.cdsubliminal.com.au
City: Sydney
State: NSW
Country: Australia
Became a Christian: youg school age
Ceased being a Christian: 49-ish
Labels before: searched fro truth in christianity, bible, religion
Labels now: God is love
Why I joined: cultural mindset ~ paradigm
Why I left: truth is not to be found in christianity
Email Address: mindworks4u at hotmail dot com
Comments
I agree with you that Paul was a Roman spy. Though not an expert in all of this, I think that Jesus was a Jewish freedom fighter who committed murder, (that is he killed at least one Roman soldier).
Barabbas was really Jesus. Barabbas means bar-son of, abbas - father, and in the old texts he was called Jesus Barabbas. So Barabbas was really "son of father" and his first name was Jesus, Jesus son of father.
Another thing, is that the prophecy concerning Jesus, says that Jesus will be called Immanuel, but Jesus wasn't called Immanuel, but Jesus.
Paul started christianity. Why? There are passages which suggest that Paul was very rich. It was a scam like every other religion that has ever been started.
But I think that Paul was a spy who was working for the Romans. Christianity was started to undercut the Nazarenes who were the real followers of Jesus. They were Jews who stilled followed Jesus, even after he died. Also, christianity is very similar to Mithras which was the religion of the Roman soldiers.