View Full Version : Bible Wheel study
This thread is dedicated to studying the Bible Wheel. ALL questions are WELCOME. There is no insignificant question.
PLEASE, Please, please: anyone who loves the study of the Bible is encouraged to participate in sharing in this revelation of Gods Word.
I'm hoping that Victor, Gilgal and anyone else who understands what the Bible Wheel is will post insights, and questions that others might benefit from....thus helping to spread the Good News of this magnificent discovery of the structure of the Bible.
I will start with a question: What is the Bible Wheel? (http://www.biblewheel.com/intro/intro.asp)
By going to the link posted all your questions on what the Bible Wheel is will be explained, but if you still have questions come on back here and post them....let's get a discussion going :)
http://www.biblewheel.com/intro/images/colorBW_500.jpg
Rose
One of the most significant things that the Bible Wheel shows us is that Gods hand is evident not only in the Words of the Bible, but also in its structure. The placement of every last "Jot" and "Tittle" was designed by God, using countless human hands, over a span of thousands of years resulting in a pattern that displays the very "Seal of the living God" (http://www.biblewheel.com/Art/Sign_of_Deity.asp).
Rose
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One of the most amazing connections between the Bible and the Hebrew Alphabet lies in the heart of Scripture. Psalm 119 is a marvelous example of the tightly integrated structure of Gods Word, displaying the high value placed upon the building block letters (Hebrew) that God formed His Word with, and the template upon which it is rolled to create the Bible Wheel (http://www.biblewheel.com/book/Chapters/Chapt01.asp).
Rose
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Continuing on with the Bible Wheel study......
The authenticity of a manuscript or other decree of authority is realized when its seal retains its unbroken integrity, being stamped with the mark of its author; so it is with the divine nature of the Bible; imbedded within the structure of its pages lies a 'watermark' woven through the whole of Scripture as a seal displaying the symbol of divinity, revealing proof of its authorship. Only the hand of God could have sealed His Word with such genius, integrating His 'watermark' into the very design of His Word. The revelation of this indelible mark binding together the whole of the Bible makes a positive case for absolute proof of the Bibles authorship.
The book of Revelation, which is the last book of the Bible (66th), speaks of a book in the right hand of God that is sealed with seven seals. Only one man is found worthy to open that book and He is none other than Jesus Christ, the Lion of the tribe of Judah. As Christ takes the book from the hand of God seven attributes are proclaimed to His name (to receive power, and riches, andwisdom, and strength, and honor, andglory, andblessing) by ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands voices in heaven. This book that Christ is found worthy to open is none other than the Holy Word of God which contains within its very structure a sevenfold symmetrical pattern that does no less than display the Tri-Radiant Halo symbolic of the divine nature of Jesus Christ, as the image imbedded in its Seal of authenticity.
To better understand how this watermark could remain hidden in the pages of Scripture for hundreds of years after the Bible was canonized into the form we are all familiar with today is what this astonishing revelation is all about. One must first understand the magnitude of the process of canonization; one that took hundreds of years and thousands of godly men who sought to do God’s will determining which books to include, and what order to present them in. The beginnings of this journey started with the hands of the ancient Scribes thousands of years ago who wrote the many pages of Scripture that ultimately found their place within the covers of the Bibles we hold in our hands today. The amazing revelation is that out of this product of thousands of years, and thousands of hands comes a design so intricately woven into the entire structure of Scripture that if one didn’t know differently, would attribute it to an individual intentionally placing the books of the Bible in a precise order and number to attain the desired image.
This image emerges when the 66 books of our traditional Bible are rolled up into a spiral of three cycles (http://www.biblewheel.com/intro/intro.asp). When the standard categorical divisions of the books of the Bible are shown, a group of seven different genres immediately become apparent, these standard divisions are arranged in such a way as to manifest the distinct image of God’s divine seal, the Tri-Radiant Halo (http://www.biblewheel.com/Art/Sign_of_Deity.asp)as can be seen in the image below.
http://www.biblewheel.com/intro/images/cw_500.jpg
This leads me back to the Seven Seals of the Apocalypse which identifies the book in the right hand of God with seven seals, and the one opened by the Lion of the Tribe of Judah as the Bible sealed with its sevenfold (http://www.biblewheel.com/canon/SevenfoldCanon.asp)watermark of the Tri-Radiant Halo….thus proving with absolute validity the claim of divine authorship of the Bible.
Rose
As can be likened to an Archaeological find of a Dinosaur’s skeletal remains, and from that deduced that a creature once lived, so can each of the 66 books that make up the Bible be likened to the 'bones' of a skeleton that can be constructed into a pattern that displays the structure of the Bible in the form of the Bible Wheel (http://www.biblewheel.com/wheel/intro.asp). What is found when the books 'bones' of the Bible are connected by 'rolling them up' in their linear form is a wonder to behold! Like the Archaeologist who pieces together the bones of the Dinosaur revealing a whole creature, greatly increasing the knowledge of what the animal was, holds true for the 'bones' of the Bible. As each book falls into place and functions as part of a whole unit, connecting with the rest of the 'bones' a magnificent view of the structure of God’s Word becomes apparent….revealing the Bible Wheel (http://www.biblewheel.com/wheel/intro.asp), which in turn greatly increases our knowledge of the many otherwise hidden treasures contained within the pages of the Bible.
http://www.biblewheel.com/intro/images/Scrollonscroll_640.gif
66 books of the Bible in linear form
With the discovery of this spiraling structure of the Bible, many more equally amazing patterns burst forth. The first of these magnificent patterns is the Canon structure, displayed as a sevenfold division of the Biblical Canon on the cycles of the Bible Wheel (http://www.biblewheel.com/canon/SevenfoldCanon.asp). The lines of division fall into perfect alignment with the position of the books on the Wheel, giving an overwhelming presentation of design!
http://www.biblewheel.com/intro/images/cw_500.jpg
Seven divisions of the Biblical Canon
The next of these stunning displays is the Tri-Radiant Halo, which is the sign of deity that has been used in Christian Art for two millennium. This image thrusts this revelation of the divine design of the Bible into a dimension beyond anything that has ever been discovered.
http://www.biblewheel.com/Art/Angelico_Christ_in_Judgment.jpg
Tri-Radiant Halo in Christian Art
Those of us who believe that the whole of Scripture has been fulfilled in Christ, must now consider what is beyond the book of Revelation. What purpose does the Bible now serve beyond a static book relating to us God’s plan of salvation? This is where the revelation of the Bible Wheel (http://www.biblewheel.com/) comes into focus; it builds upon the foundation of the Bible and transforms it into an active, living, growing book whose depth never ends, projecting it beyond the 1st century to be a relevant book for all time.
What we see displayed in the Bible Wheel (http://www.biblewheel.com/) is the connectivity of the Old Testament to the New Testament, integrating the two into an inseparable unit, completing and fulfilling the whole picture of God’s plan of redemption. This consummation of purpose can take us beyond the New Jerusalem of Revelation; to an understanding of what our present condition in the Kingdom of God is….giving us a view from a higher dimension. Without this melding of the two into one a total picture cannot be seen, hence our perception of its etermal truth becomes blurred. We must blend the dynamic/abstract thought of the Hebrews with the static/ concrete thought of the Greeks to arrive at that which is whole and complete.
The Bible Wheel (http://www.biblewheel.com/)allows us to hear the music of the Old Testament echoed back from the New Testament, and to see the allusions of Scripture visually with connectivity and form. As the trumpet which is blown in the Old Testament is echoed back from the New it creates the full sound of all the harmonics.
Now the question must be asked: when the Old is seamlessly meshed with the New what is the message that it is revealing to us? I would like to answer that question with the idea that only when the two become one and a whole picture emerges can an understanding begin that takes us Beyond Preterism.
When a person comes to the understanding that the Bible is a fulfilled book (displayed in the revelation of the Bible Wheel) that was not written about us, and realizes that it is the eternal truths it contains that apply to people of all times, then they can begin to go beyond the 'waiting' mindset which thinks that the Bible must be completed before one can experience the kingdom of God. As long as the Bible is viewed as an incomplete, unfulfilled book one gets trapped into a mode of being in limbo, that is to say life cannot progress to another level because the age that we are in now must have a completion before the kingdom age can begin….thus progress is in a state of being suspended.
Rose
Sharon
10-22-2011, 10:54 AM
When a 'contact' is made with the Lord, the Bible becomes and intricate, exquisite work of Art that has no discrepancies at all!! When read in the Spirit, ALL is made clear and all is understood...to speak it's language on that higher level..with 'eyes' and 'ears' opened..one can see it's Truth and Wisdom.
Unregistered
09-16-2012, 09:57 AM
One of the most significant things that the Bible Wheel shows us is that Gods hand is evident not only in the Words of the Bible, but also in its structure. The placement of every last "Jot" and "Tittle" was designed by God, using countless human hands, over a span of thousands of years resulting in a pattern that displays the very "Seal of the living God" (http://www.biblewheel.com/Art/Sign_of_Deity.asp).
Rose
What does 8008 and Howard Mark Taylor mean according to the wheel?
Richard Amiel McGough
09-16-2012, 10:44 AM
What does 8008 and Howard Mark Taylor mean according to the wheel?
The Wheel doesn't give any insight to the meaning of modern names like Howard Mark Taylor. As for the meaning of the number 8008, you could get insight into that by looking at Spoke 8 of the Bible Wheel, and checking out the Gematria Reference. But numbers are like words: they don't have much meaning outside of a context. It's a rather deep study, and I wouldn't recommend looking for meaning of numbers and words that relate to yourself since that is the doorway to delusion.
Richard Amiel McGough
09-16-2012, 10:48 AM
When a 'contact' is made with the Lord, the Bible becomes and intricate, exquisite work of Art that has no discrepancies at all!! When read in the Spirit, ALL is made clear and all is understood...to speak it's language on that higher level..with 'eyes' and 'ears' opened..one can see it's Truth and Wisdom.
This is a curious comment. I can certainly understand how one could see the Bible as an "exquisite work of Art" (since that's how I saw it for many years) but the idea that it has "no discrepancies at all" is simply absurd. Even in my most fundamentalist days when I said that the Bible was the very Word of God, I never made the error of asserting that it was "inerrant and infallible" because I knew that was not true. The existence of discrepancies is perhaps the most obvious fact of the Bible. To deny that they are there would be like saying a square doesn't have four corners. We don't even know the exact words of many passages because all the existing manuscripts have textual variations so it is impossible to say that there are no discrepancies.
Mystykal
08-24-2013, 12:56 AM
Hi Richard:
You said talking about the lamp stand structure:, "The number of these "decorations" sums to 66, the number of books in the Bible. Furthermore, the sum subdivides into the sum of the first four (9 + 9 + 9 + 9 + 12 = 39) and the last three (9 + 9 + 9 = 27) to give the number of books in the Old and New Testaments. Putting it all together, we see that the Bible and the Menorah have a large set of structural numbers in common:
•7 Branches [Canonical Divisions] symmetrically displayed
•3 Branches [Canonical Divisions] are paired, with one set apart.
•22 Bowls [Hebrew Letters]
•66 Decorations [Books] that subdivide into groups of 39 and 27
Given the fact that God calls His Word a "Lamp", and that He designed the Menorah Himself, there can be no conclusion but that the Menorah was designed as a prophecy of the completed structure of His Word in the form of the Wheel, fully integrated with the 22 Hebrew letters.
My question is can it be possible that IHVH does exist and that IHVH in word does communicate with humans? The structure and design suggest that don't they? Can it be that all the discord and confusion piled up over the years is just a distraction - like a yin/yang model of light and dark? Depending on where you stand you can see all light and a little dark spot or at the other extreme you see all darkness and just a pinprick of light? Perhaps you might just be standing in the the shadows?
I cannot wrap my head around how you came to be an agnostic/atheist! It seems impossible...
I think you must have some view of the complexity of the Biblical structures and you must ponder the meaning of such things in relationship to intelligence and how the world functions... I just am wondering if you can explain your total departure away from the IHVH GOD model of the Bible knowing that underneath all the crap there is this amazing puzzle! Please enlighten me!
Namaste,
Mystykal
Mystykal
08-24-2013, 01:05 AM
One of the most significant things that the Bible Wheel shows us is that Gods hand is evident not only in the Words of the Bible, but also in its structure. The placement of every last "Jot" and "Tittle" was designed by God, using countless human hands, over a span of thousands of years resulting in a pattern that displays the very "Seal of the living God" (http://www.biblewheel.com/Art/Sign_of_Deity.asp).
Rose
Hi Rose:
Please explain what god you are referencing in the above statement if not IHVH of the Hebrew Bible? And do you now disregard that statement? In other words do you not believe in ANY GOD now?
Namaste,
Mystykal
David M
08-24-2013, 03:27 AM
Hello Mystykal
While you wait for an answer to come from Richard and Rose, in this and another thread, I shall mention the conclusion I have drawn from my interaction with Rose and Richard on this forum.
Richard shows great intellect, and that is supported by his academic qualifications and his knowledge of the Hebrew and Greek languages. The Bible Wheel is a great work of intellect. I appreciate the work that has gone into its construction. Richard says he was a Christian for 10 years, yet I have said to Richard that I do not think he ever had the truth and this conclusion has come from reading his posts, including the archived posts, some of which you must have read. Like some people who I have listened to and who have admitted to being baptists and now seen through the lies taught by "the Church" and have repented and found the truth, I think Richard has been greatly influenced by the wrong teaching in the years that he was a Christian. Richard has repented by going away from God completely and not finding the truth of God's word.
Richard has found lots of reasons (I call them excuses) for finding fault with the Bible (as it now is) and for accusing God of not being just and righteous and instead accusing God of doing abominable things. This we must remember was God's righteous judgement on people who were abominable by even any righteous person's standard.
When it comes to discussing the origin of matter and the first simple cell, Richard does not exclude the possibility that God could be the answer. On the other hand, no such acknowledgement has come from Rose, who now rejects the Bible as the work of men and firmly believes that God does not exist. I sense an incompatibility between what Richard thinks and Rose thinks when it comes to the possibility of God existing. So, while Richard has not totally excluded God from existing, there might be hope that he eventually does get "the truth" that is in God's word. In the meantime, I will engage on an intellectual level only with Richard, since he now does not respond and agree to taking the spiritual meaning of words he once believed. As one example Richard said that "heaven" can mean the "political heavens". I am waiting for his agreement that certain verses can be explained this way.
I read your comment about Richard's logic, which I concur. I might not have Richard's knowledge of science and languages, but I will match his intellectual argument using logic. Richard is fallible like any of us and I will not be intimidated on an intellectual level. I see you are match for Richard. We can all be guilty of using any of the "38 dishonest ways" to win an argument and use any one of those ways without realizing it. It is my aim is to avoid them and to stand corrected when I do. I will rely on the truth coming through without introducing dishonest ways although to win an argument that is what I am accused of by those who would lose the argument. I am for debunking all the lies and errors and letting the truth win through however long that takes.
There are many unexplained mysteries in and outside the Bible and so while on both sides there are mysteries to explain, this is not evidence for the non-existence of God. Knowing how powerful and intelligent God has to be in order to create the universe and life, the complexity of this earth can be simply explained by the fact that "God did it that way". Without God and this simple explanation, then those who do not believe in God and creation are left with the impossible answers to explain and which they have not explained up to now. Theories like the Big Bang are subject to change and so remain a theory. Theories about the universe are constantly changing. That which exists is fact. We are left with only two alternatives. Either everything in the universe had to come into existence from nothing or it has been created. There has to be an origin which explains where the universe came from.
I enjoy my written conversations with Richard and Rose and the opportunity to explain what I believe and why I believe, on this forum, since this has given me the opportunity to answer difficult questions and look for an answer for the errors that are said to be in the Bible. The errors are man-made and not from the originally inspired words from God. With the exception of one or two difficult passages, all the other errors can be explained away so that the error does not exist in reality. However, the only way for those who do not believe to support their argument against the word of God is to accuse those of giving explanations to take away the supposed error is to accuse them of twisting words. Finding the correct translation and meaning of the original words used, is not "twisting" in the bad sense of that word. It is seeking truth and while we all maintain that is what we are doing then by reasoned argument the truth will prevail, whether we are individually right or wrong in our thinking.
All the best
David
Hi Rose:
Please explain what god you are referencing in the above statement if not IHVH of the Hebrew Bible? And do you now disregard that statement? In other words do you not believe in ANY GOD now?
Namaste,
Mystykal
Hello Mystykal
As I have explained before the post you are quoting is from December of 2009, I was still a Christian at that point so obviously I believed in the Biblegod Yahweh. Through extensive study I no longer believe in the Biblegod, even though the facts of the Bible Wheel still remain valid.
The Biblegod is portrayed as a biased and misogynistic being that in no way could represent an intelligent creator, this leaves no other option than to declare that Yahweh was constructed in the minds of men who believed the male gender to be superior to the female gender, thus the god they portrayed reflected their male bias. As far as whether or not I believe in any god now, I would have to answer that I am still keeping an open mind, but all the known gods have been crossed off my list which only leaves the possibility of some unknown intelligent mind that is beyond human perception.
All the best,
Rose
Richard Amiel McGough
08-24-2013, 01:52 PM
Hi Richard:
You said talking about the lamp stand structure:, "The number of these "decorations" sums to 66, the number of books in the Bible. Furthermore, the sum subdivides into the sum of the first four (9 + 9 + 9 + 9 + 12 = 39) and the last three (9 + 9 + 9 = 27) to give the number of books in the Old and New Testaments. Putting it all together, we see that the Bible and the Menorah have a large set of structural numbers in common:
•7 Branches [Canonical Divisions] symmetrically displayed
•3 Branches [Canonical Divisions] are paired, with one set apart.
•22 Bowls [Hebrew Letters]
•66 Decorations [Books] that subdivide into groups of 39 and 27
Given the fact that God calls His Word a "Lamp", and that He designed the Menorah Himself, there can be no conclusion but that the Menorah was designed as a prophecy of the completed structure of His Word in the form of the Wheel, fully integrated with the 22 Hebrew letters.
My question is can it be possible that IHVH does exist and that IHVH in word does communicate with humans? The structure and design suggest that don't they? Can it be that all the discord and confusion piled up over the years is just a distraction - like a yin/yang model of light and dark? Depending on where you stand you can see all light and a little dark spot or at the other extreme you see all darkness and just a pinprick of light? Perhaps you might just be standing in the the shadows?
I cannot wrap my head around how you came to be an agnostic/atheist! It seems impossible...
I think you must have some view of the complexity of the Biblical structures and you must ponder the meaning of such things in relationship to intelligence and how the world functions... I just am wondering if you can explain your total departure away from the IHVH GOD model of the Bible knowing that underneath all the crap there is this amazing puzzle! Please enlighten me!
Namaste,
Mystykal
Hey there Mystykal,
The weekend has finally arrived and I have a little time to answer (my job is keeping me really busy). That's what I love about this form of communication. Conversations span weeks and months. Case in point, here is what you said about the canon of the Bible on June 23, 2013 on my blog (http://www.biblewheel.com/blog/index.php/2013/06/22/religion-aggravates-common-intellectual-and-mokral-failings/#comment-69134):
The sacredness of any text, from my perspective, lies in the “hidden” features of the text itself. It is true that the Koran does hold some gematria features within its writings – and to that extent it may be “inspired” in the same sense as the Bible. However, the Old Testament as understood in the Hebrew tradition holds far more “secret” passages than any other “sacred” book known to man. It is this fact that causes me to lean on the information found in the Bible with some “bias” as it were as compared to other texts which are held by different religious groups. I do not think that you will find the holograms which you discuss, in the other so called sacred texts in any significant amount as you do in the make up of the Protestant 66 book arrangement. The 66 books are a human construct but the holograms themselves are something else.
You have made it very clear that you do not believe the "66 books" are anything but a "human construct" so how now can you suddenly reverse your opinion and say that the "structure and design" of the Bible Wheel suggest that Yahweh is the designer? I have found your comments to be consistently inconsistent. I don't know what you think you believe. At times you sound like a typical fundamentalist Christian who thinks that the Bible is the Word of God while at other times you sound like a mystic who thinks the Tao and the Bible are just different expressions of the same thing.
You asked, "Can it be that all the discord and confusion piled up over the years is just a distraction?" Sure. But a distraction from what? That's the question. I would be interested in your answer, since you have never made it clear what you believe about God and the Bible.
It is perhaps like yin/yang. It depends on where you stand and what you emphasize. I know this from experience. When I was a Christian, I hardly noticed the things that now stand out so clearly as abominations, for example.
You said "I cannot wrap my head around how you came to be an agnostic/atheist! It seems impossible..." Believe me, I understand! It certainly seemed impossible to me when I was a Christian. I felt I had real demonstrable proof of a design in the Bible that could not have been deliberately produced by the humans that constructed it. The only other reasonable option seemed to be that "God did it" and that fit rather nicely with my bias that the Bible was indeed "God's Word". I also had plenty of personal experiences that breathed life into my faith, and so it was utterly inconceivable that I could ever reject Christianity. How then did it happen? In hindsight, it looks inevitable. The same integrity that enabled me to discover the Bible Wheel prevented me from lying about what the Bible actually states. This is how I differ from typical "believers" who have been so blinded by dogmas about the Bible and it's God that they cannot even admit that it means what it says. That's the great irony of fundamentalist Christianity - the most fervent Bible believers are the least likely to admit what it actually says!
One of the more important insights came from Rose on our daily walk a year or two ago when she happened to mention that the Bible Wheel is "not as perfect" as I thought. I had long held that the Bible Wheel is "optimal" in the sense that no rearrangement of books could improve upon the patterns it displays. This is the basis of the Bible Wheel Challenge (http://www.biblewheel.com/Apologetics/BWChallenge.php) which I stated as follows:
THE BIBLE WHEEL CHALLENGE asserts that the Christian canon is truly perfect in the twofold sense that 1) no rearrangement of its books would improve upon the patterns discovered on the Bible Wheel, and 2) any rearrangement would cause an obvious degradation of existing patterns. The challenge is for the opponent to suggest a rearrangement and present arguments for why such a change would produce patterns equal to or superior to those presently seen in the Bible Wheel. This challenge simultaneously proves the invincibility of the Bible Wheel even as it demonstrates the vacuity of the skeptics canard (http://www.biblewheel.com/Apologetics/Patterns.php) that "patterns mean nothing because they can be found in anything." It is an extremely powerful challenge because it can not be refuted without interacting with the data, and the data is the touchstone that proves the Bible Wheel.
I considered this proof that it must have been intelligently designed by a supernatural agency because the chances that a random collection of 66 books in a wheel would be optimal are vanishingly small. The number of ways to arrange 66 books is 66 factorial 66! = 66 x 65 x 64 .... x 2 x 1 = 5.4 x 1092 which is about a trillion times the estimated number of atoms in the observable universe. So if the pattern of the Bible Wheel is truly optimal (or even close to optimal), we need an explanation since it is almost certain it did not happen by chance. But then Rose mentioned one day that the Bible Wheel was not as good as I thought it was, and she was right. The Bible Wheel is only "optimal" relative to the arrangement of the books, but the books themselves are far from optimal. If God really did design the Bible Wheel why didn't he do a better job? I could easily produce a much book if I were free to make up the content of the 66 books, and I could add a thousand times more connections on the Spokes and with the Hebrew letters. Though it does appear that the Bible Wheel is as good as it could be given the 66 books, the 66 books themselves are far from "optimal" because they are filled with so many myths, errors, superstitions, contradictions, absurdities, and moral abominations attributed to God. So what's the best explanation for a phenomenon like this? The Bible is far below what I would expect from a rational intelligent wise God. Yet it is far above what I would expect from chance. It's in the "middle" between deliberate conscious design and random chance. This reminded me of another phenomenon with similar properties - biological evolution. Animals are so finely adapted to their environments that it could be described as "optimal" though when you look close you see that they have all sorts of "design flaws" and so are far from optimal. This is because they had to "work with what was given" just like the design of the Bible Wheel. So this suggests to me that perhaps an evolutionary explanation is the best. It even seems likely with certain aspects like the Canon Wheel, but I can't see how it would work in the more finely detailed aspects like alignment of specific books on specific Spokes correlated with specific Hebrew letters. That remains a mystery. I think the most likely explanation is that the Bible Wheel is a product of the collective unconscious (http://www.biblewheel.com/index.php/2011/06/22/the-bible-wheel-as-a-cosmic-mandala-of-archetypal-wholeness/) - a collective "dream mandala" not unlike the images Carl Jung encountered in his psychological studies. This fits well with the archetypes it manifests. Unfortunately, I can not be committed to this explanation since it is mere speculation. I don't expect I'll ever have an answer that would be anything else so I just don't worry about it much. The one thing I feel very confident about is that it doesn't matter what anyone believes about religion, except when they hold to harmful beliefs like fundamentalism, of course.
You asked why I reject the "Yahweh model" of God. Isn't the answer obvious? There is nothing about the Yahweh model that I find either true or attractive. That "model" is stained with primitive consciousness of brutal, misogynist, superstitious, genocidal Iron age war tribes from the harsh desert of the Middle East. The fact that super-high spirituality leaks through at times is more indicative of the nature of the Spirit (if such exists) or the shared consciousness of humanity, than the "Yahwey model" of God that even the early Christians found very difficult to accept (hence the Marcion "heresy" that rejected the OT altogether).
Well, there's much more to say, but I'll wait for your response.
Great chatting!
Richard
Richard Amiel McGough
08-24-2013, 03:48 PM
Hello Mystykal
While you wait for an answer to come from Richard and Rose, in this and another thread, I shall mention the conclusion I have drawn from my interaction with Rose and Richard on this forum.
Richard shows great intellect, and that is supported by his academic qualifications and his knowledge of the Hebrew and Greek languages. The Bible Wheel is a great work of intellect. I appreciate the work that has gone into its construction. Richard says he was a Christian for 10 years, yet I have said to Richard that I do not think he ever had the truth and this conclusion has come from reading his posts, including the archived posts, some of which you must have read. Like some people who I have listened to and who have admitted to being baptists and now seen through the lies taught by "the Church" and have repented and found the truth, I think Richard has been greatly influenced by the wrong teaching in the years that he was a Christian. Richard has repented by going away from God completely and not finding the truth of God's word.
Hey there David, :yo:
Thanks for the kind words about my work, but I don't understand why you persist in asserting such blatant falsehoods about the reasons that I believed what I believed when I was a Christian. You have never shown any evidence that I held any doctrines merely because they were "taught by the Church". And I have never appealed to "Church authority" as a reason for any of my beliefs. On the contrary, I have explained my reasons in great detail, and you have for the most part simply ignored what I have said and repeated falsehood. Why do you persist in such error? You should be addressing the reasons that I give rather than asserting baseless accusations that I am or was merely following what I was "taught from the Church."
There is a great irony in your constant assertion that anyone who disagrees with the teachings of your sect of Christadelphians does so because they were "taught by the Church". And why is that ironic? Because that's what you were taught by the sect of the Christadelphians! In other words, you are doing the very thing that you accuse others of doing. That's irony dude. Look it up.
Richard has found lots of reasons (I call them excuses) for finding fault with the Bible (as it now is) and for accusing God of not being just and righteous and instead accusing God of doing abominable things. This we must remember was God's righteous judgement on people who were abominable by even any righteous person's standard.
It is simply insane to say that my reasons are "excuses". I did not make up the problems in the Bible as an excuse to reject it! On the contrary, I recognized the problems during the decade when I was a fervently devout Christian who prayed constantly and committed his life to the production of a thousand page website and 412 page book designed to proclaim the divine inspiration of the Holy Bible. What is wrong with your brain? How can you be so blind to the obvious truth that the reasons I give are REASONS, not "excuses"? I always give you explanations based on logic and facts. Again we see a great irony. It is you, David, who believes things without reason and often contrary to reason. You reject (or seriously doubt) well-established science concerning things like the age of the earth, geology, astronomy, biology, and evolution because you are committed to the truth of pre-scientific superstitions and mythologies.
It is not I who accuse God of doing abominable things. It is the BIBLE that makes that accusation. Commanding your people to slaughter babies and their mothers is an abomination. You can make up all the excuses you want. The only thing you will prove is that your religion has corrupted both your mind and your morals. How ironic is that? You are under the delusion that your God and Bible are the source of truth and goodness when in fact they have darkened your mind and provoked you to defend gross immorality. Wow ... what could be more ironic than that?
When it comes to discussing the origin of matter and the first simple cell, Richard does not exclude the possibility that God could be the answer. On the other hand, no such acknowledgement has come from Rose, who now rejects the Bible as the work of men and firmly believes that God does not exist. I sense an incompatibility between what Richard thinks and Rose thinks when it comes to the possibility of God existing. So, while Richard has not totally excluded God from existing, there might be hope that he eventually does get "the truth" that is in God's word. In the meantime, I will engage on an intellectual level only with Richard, since he now does not respond and agree to taking the spiritual meaning of words he once believed. As one example Richard said that "heaven" can mean the "political heavens". I am waiting for his agreement that certain verses can be explained this way.
Your comments are false. Rose and I are in perfect agreement that there could be a god of some kind (since it is impossible to prove otherwise), but that it could not be the God of the Bible. Both Rose and I have repeated this in many posts. I don't understand how could err on this point.
And your assertion that I am not willing to "agree to taking the spiritual meaning of words" is an outrageous lie and you know it. I have told you over and over and over again that the "spiritual meanings" are often correct. We simply disagree in the case of the "angels that sinned". I think all the EVIDENCE gives good REASONS to conclude that Peter and Jude were teaching about angles as "spiritual beings" rather than "human messengers". I have given you a mountain of evidence and you simply ignored it. As for the "spiritual heavens" - I have accepted that as a possibility and you know it, just as I have always accepted that the word "angels" could refer to either spiritual beings or human messengers. The only issue is that I do not accept your reasons for claiming that they have those meanings in those contexts because your reasons do not convince me and I have explained why and you were not able to answer. Simple as that.
I read your comment about Richard's logic, which I concur. I might not have Richard's knowledge of science and languages, but I will match his intellectual argument using logic. Richard is fallible like any of us and I will not be intimidated on an intellectual level. I see you are match for Richard. We can all be guilty of using any of the "38 dishonest ways" to win an argument and use any one of those ways without realizing it. It is my aim is to avoid them and to stand corrected when I do. I will rely on the truth coming through without introducing dishonest ways although to win an argument that is what I am accused of by those who would lose the argument. I am for debunking all the lies and errors and letting the truth win through however long that takes.
I can't believe you have chosen to bring up the "38 dishonest ways to win an argument" since it backfired on you when you tried to use it to falsely accuse me. I showed that you were the one using those tricks and proved your accusations against me were false. Now the thing that really mystifies me is that you constantly repeat this same false accusation even though I have shown that you were playing the hypocrite and actually accusing your own self! Here is how I explained it when you used this attack on me last March (http://www.biblewheel.com/forum/showthread.php?3665-Top-20-Topics-taught-in-the-Bible&p=53392#post53392):
It is fascinating how you consistently side with folks who have been exposed as blatantly irrational and who have REFUSED TO ANSWER the evidence despite many requests. Case in point, you accused me of using the "38 dishonest tricks" to win an argument, and as proof you cited my interaction with CWH who, like you, had been refusing for MONTHS to answer posts in which I had refuted a number of his creationist anti-evolution arguments. He totally IGNORED my refutations and then posted MORE moronic creationist crap. So I insisted that he answer my posts, and he refused, just like you. And so I explained your error in gruesome detail in this post (http://www.biblewheel.com/forum/showthread.php?3357-Take-away-the-daily-sacrifice-Daniel-11-31&p=49566#post49566) where I refute all four examples and showed that you had MINDLESSLY grabbed them and threw them in my face without understand that they proved exactly the opposite of what you were trying to prove!
Click on this post (http://www.biblewheel.com/forum/showthread.php?3357-Take-away-the-daily-sacrifice-Daniel-11-31&p=49566#post49566) where I explained your gross errors in gruesome detail back in September 2012 (http://www.biblewheel.com/forum/showthread.php?3357-Take-away-the-daily-sacrifice-Daniel-11-31&p=49566#post49566). You have never shown that I have ever used any of the 38 dishonest tricks" whereas I have proven that you have used many of them many times, and you continue to do say in most of your posts. You totally ignore the main points of my arguments no matter how many times I repeat them. I provide EVIDENCE by quoting your own words and you totally IGNORE YOUR OWN WORDS and don't offer any response to the evidence at all. And then you make broad generalized claims without any foundation of any kind.
If you want any credibility, you will need to either show where I have used one of the "38 dishonest tricks" or retract your statement.
There are many unexplained mysteries in and outside the Bible and so while on both sides there are mysteries to explain, this is not evidence for the non-existence of God. Knowing how powerful and intelligent God has to be in order to create the universe and life, the complexity of this earth can be simply explained by the fact that "God did it that way". Without God and this simple explanation, then those who do not believe in God and creation are left with the impossible answers to explain and which they have not explained up to now. Theories like the Big Bang are subject to change and so remain a theory. Theories about the universe are constantly changing. That which exists is fact. We are left with only two alternatives. Either everything in the universe had to come into existence from nothing or it has been created. There has to be an origin which explains where the universe came from.
Can you prove that any god, say Allah, Apollo, Yahweh or Zeus, does NOT exist? If not, then what's the point? By that standard, your belief is no more justified than believing in the Tooth Fairy.
I can't believe that you would base your faith on the foundation of ignorance. Two thousand years ago, people had no explanation for thunder and lightning but to say that "God did it". Now we understand the physics of the weather and there is no need for "God" in any of the equations. It is a delusion to think that "God did it" is an answer to anything. It gives you no information at all because the word "God" is an empty concept with no content. It's just an place-holder for ignorance.
I am stunned by the impenetrability of your ignorance. You are repeating a whole complex of errors that I have corrected dozens of times in the past, as if you never understood a word I wrote. First, "change" in our understanding, whether about physical reality (Science) or the Bible, is a good thing if it means we are approaching the truth, agreed? Are not all your interpretations of the Bible a kind of "Bible science"? You take the Bible as the "raw material" of your study just as scientists take reality as our "raw material". And then we seek to understand what we see. Is your interpretation of the Bible perfect? Of course not. Your INTERPRETATIONS of the Bible have changed many times. Is that a bad thing? Of course not! On the contrary, it is a very good thing if you CHANGED your interpretation to better match the real meaning of the Bible. The same thing goes for science. It is a very good thing that science changes its understanding of reality to be more accurate.
Second, you don't understand the meaning of the word "theory" in a scientific context. I've explained this many times so I won't bother again. If you wanted to understand you would. I can lead a horse to water, but I can't make him drink.
Third, your assertion that "the universe had to come into existence from nothing or it has been created" is logically incoherent. The idea of "creation" is "created ex nihilo" which means "created out of nothing." So your statement reduces to an absurdity: "the universe either came into existence from nothing or it was created from nothing." What you actually meant is that the universe "come into existence from nothing" and there are only two possibilities: either "God did it" or it "happened on its own." Then you would say that "it happened on its own" is not a "good explanation" since everything has to have a cause outside of itself. But that means that there cannot be a God since God is supposed to be his own cause, and so the argument fails.
I enjoy my written conversations with Richard and Rose and the opportunity to explain what I believe and why I believe, on this forum, since this has given me the opportunity to answer difficult questions and look for an answer for the errors that are said to be in the Bible. The errors are man-made and not from the originally inspired words from God. With the exception of one or two difficult passages, all the other errors can be explained away so that the error does not exist in reality. However, the only way for those who do not believe to support their argument against the word of God is to accuse those of giving explanations to take away the supposed error is to accuse them of twisting words. Finding the correct translation and meaning of the original words used, is not "twisting" in the bad sense of that word. It is seeking truth and while we all maintain that is what we are doing then by reasoned argument the truth will prevail, whether we are individually right or wrong in our thinking.
Where is the evidence supporting your assertion that all the errors, absurdities, contradictions, sexism, and moral abominations attributed to God are "man-made and not from the originally inspired words from God"? Such an assertion is absurd in the extreme. To say that there are only "one or two difficult passages' reveals nothing but the depth of your ignorance. Massive volumes have been written by sincere and devout Christians in their efforts to explain away all the difficult passages. It is utterly delusional to say there are only "one or two difficult passages". I simply cannot imagine a more ludicrous comment.
I am glad you are here to comment David, but I find it disturbing that you could repeat the same errors and ignorant comments year after year. I just don't get it. If you beliefs have anything to do with reality, then why don't you being with a POINT OF REALITY upon which all rational people can agree and then build from the FOUNDATION OF AGREEMENT. As long as you assert things based on presuppositions we don't share, there is no way for us to come to any agreement. So the first thing we need to do is to found the FOUNDATION OF AGREEMENT so we have something to build upon. Please think about this. If we can't find agreement on the most basic elements, how could we discuss anything of any real importance. You seem to think that the Bible is important, but the reasons you give sound like mere indoctrination. You simply assert all the errors in the Bible are "man-made" but you cannot prove that presupposition and you have never given any good reason to think it is true. So you foundation is a foundation of sand. It is mere assertion, no different than a Muslim or Mormon claiming their holy books are the "Word of God." I've explained this a million times but you just don't seem to get it. OK. I understand. You don't want to "get it". That's your choice. I'll quit trying to help you attain what you obviously do not want, namely, the TRUTH.
All the best,
Richard
Mystykal
08-25-2013, 01:08 AM
Hey there Mystykal,
The weekend has finally arrived and I have a little time to answer (my job is keeping me really busy). That's what I love about this form of communication. Conversations span weeks and months. Case in point, here is what you said about the canon of the Bible on June 23, 2013 on my blog (http://www.biblewheel.com/blog/index.php/2013/06/22/religion-aggravates-common-intellectual-and-mokral-failings/#comment-69134):
You have made it very clear that you do not believe the "66 books" are anything but a "human construct" so how now can you suddenly reverse your opinion and say that the "structure and design" of the Bible Wheel suggest that Yahweh is the designer? I have found your comments to be consistently inconsistent. I don't know what you think you believe. At times you sound like a typical fundamentalist Christian who thinks that the Bible is the Word of God while at other times you sound like a mystic who thinks the Tao and the Bible are just different expressions of the same thing.
You asked, "Can it be that all the discord and confusion piled up over the years is just a distraction?" Sure. But a distraction from what? That's the question. I would be interested in your answer, since you have never made it clear what you believe about God and the Bible.
It is perhaps like yin/yang. It depends on where you stand and what you emphasize. I know this from experience. When I was a Christian, I hardly noticed the things that now stand out so clearly as abominations, for example.
You said "I cannot wrap my head around how you came to be an agnostic/atheist! It seems impossible..." Believe me, I understand! It certainly seemed impossible to me when I was a Christian. I felt I had real demonstrable proof of a design in the Bible that could not have been deliberately produced by the humans that constructed it. The only other reasonable option seemed to be that "God did it" and that fit rather nicely with my bias that the Bible was indeed "God's Word". I also had plenty of personal experiences that breathed life into my faith, and so it was utterly inconceivable that I could ever reject Christianity. How then did it happen? In hindsight, it looks inevitable. The same integrity that enabled me to discover the Bible Wheel prevented me from lying about what the Bible actually states. This is how I differ from typical "believers" who have been so blinded by dogmas about the Bible and it's God that they cannot even admit that it means what it says. That's the great irony of fundamentalist Christianity - the most fervent Bible believers are the least likely to admit what it actually says!
One of the more important insights came from Rose on our daily walk a year or two ago when she happened to mention that the Bible Wheel is "not as perfect" as I thought. I had long held that the Bible Wheel is "optimal" in the sense that no rearrangement of books could improve upon the patterns it displays. This is the basis of the Bible Wheel Challenge (http://www.biblewheel.com/Apologetics/BWChallenge.php) which I stated as follows:
THE BIBLE WHEEL CHALLENGE asserts that the Christian canon is truly perfect in the twofold sense that 1) no rearrangement of its books would improve upon the patterns discovered on the Bible Wheel, and 2) any rearrangement would cause an obvious degradation of existing patterns. The challenge is for the opponent to suggest a rearrangement and present arguments for why such a change would produce patterns equal to or superior to those presently seen in the Bible Wheel. This challenge simultaneously proves the invincibility of the Bible Wheel even as it demonstrates the vacuity of the skeptics canard (http://www.biblewheel.com/Apologetics/Patterns.php) that "patterns mean nothing because they can be found in anything." It is an extremely powerful challenge because it can not be refuted without interacting with the data, and the data is the touchstone that proves the Bible Wheel.
I considered this proof that it must have been intelligently designed by a supernatural agency because the chances that a random collection of 66 books in a wheel would be optimal are vanishingly small. The number of ways to arrange 66 books is 66 factorial 66! = 66 x 65 x 64 .... x 2 x 1 = 5.4 x 1092 which is about a trillion times the estimated number of atoms in the observable universe. So if the pattern of the Bible Wheel is truly optimal (or even close to optimal), we need an explanation since it is almost certain it did not happen by chance. But then Rose mentioned one day that the Bible Wheel was not as good as I thought it was, and she was right. The Bible Wheel is only "optimal" relative to the arrangement of the books, but the books themselves are far from optimal. If God really did design the Bible Wheel why didn't he do a better job? I could easily produce a much book if I were free to make up the content of the 66 books, and I could add a thousand times more connections on the Spokes and with the Hebrew letters. Though it does appear that the Bible Wheel is as good as it could be given the 66 books, the 66 books themselves are far from "optimal" because they are filled with so many myths, errors, superstitions, contradictions, absurdities, and moral abominations attributed to God. So what's the best explanation for a phenomenon like this? The Bible is far below what I would expect from a rational intelligent wise God. Yet it is far above what I would expect from chance. It's in the "middle" between deliberate conscious design and random chance. This reminded me of another phenomenon with similar properties - biological evolution. Animals are so finely adapted to their environments that it could be described as "optimal" though when you look close you see that they have all sorts of "design flaws" and so are far from optimal. This is because they had to "work with what was given" just like the design of the Bible Wheel. So this suggests to me that perhaps an evolutionary explanation is the best. It even seems likely with certain aspects like the Canon Wheel, but I can't see how it would work in the more finely detailed aspects like alignment of specific books on specific Spokes correlated with specific Hebrew letters. That remains a mystery. I think the most likely explanation is that the Bible Wheel is a product of the collective unconscious (http://www.biblewheel.com/index.php/2011/06/22/the-bible-wheel-as-a-cosmic-mandala-of-archetypal-wholeness/) - a collective "dream mandala" not unlike the images Carl Jung encountered in his psychological studies. This fits well with the archetypes it manifests. Unfortunately, I can not be committed to this explanation since it is mere speculation. I don't expect I'll ever have an answer that would be anything else so I just don't worry about it much. The one thing I feel very confident about is that it doesn't matter what anyone believes about religion, except when they hold to harmful beliefs like fundamentalism, of course.
You asked why I reject the "Yahweh model" of God. Isn't the answer obvious? There is nothing about the Yahweh model that I find either true or attractive. That "model" is stained with primitive consciousness of brutal, misogynist, superstitious, genocidal Iron age war tribes from the harsh desert of the Middle East. The fact that super-high spirituality leaks through at times is more indicative of the nature of the Spirit (if such exists) or the shared consciousness of humanity, than the "Yahwey model" of God that even the early Christians found very difficult to accept (hence the Marcion "heresy" that rejected the OT altogether).
Well, there's much more to say, but I'll wait for your response.
Great chatting!
Richard
Hi Richard:
Thanks for the detailed reply! I was looking for that! I really appreciate it! I can appreciate your other comments better when I see the underlying concepts you are working with and how you string your thoughts together. I do think you are trying too hard to place my observations in a "box".
I am spiritually non-religious! There! You are unable to understand my quest for the truth? I am not throwing away anything which I can conclude has the earmark of the mystery of Divinity on it. So yes in many respects I do think that the Tao and the Bible ARE the same. I wrote a book years ago to prove just that idea. I got a lot of flack from the Evangelical community for doing that but I thought it was quite a compliment actually...
YOUR Comment: "You have made it very clear that you do not believe the "66 books" are anything but a "human construct" so how now can you suddenly reverse your opinion and say that the "structure and design" of the Bible Wheel suggest that Yahweh is the designer? "
You are right I do not think that the 66 book layout of the Bible is anything but a "man-made" construct and yet as you point out there is this "mystery" laced throughout which looks a whole lot like a "GOD" designed sequence. What should we make of this? Well, I believe that like "evolution" GOD only had man to work with... So GOD was limited as to how much tweeking of the Bible facts could be done. So GOD inserted a hidden paradox throughout it all. The Tao Te Ching statements of Lao Tzu imply the same idea. Why I think this idea works in general is that as intelligent minds we are looking for explanations to all things. But we are constantly coming up against the mysterious and we are baffled again and again. I still hold to the idea that immortality is possible. And so the only "models" I would look at seriously are the ones which suggest an after-life. The Biblical model is one which is hard to grasp but from all I can gather there is only immortality for the "saved" which is always called a "remenant" or few. ("Few there be that find it")
So your idea that "But then Rose mentioned one day that the Bible Wheel was not as good as I thought it was, and she was right. The Bible Wheel is only "optimal" relative to the arrangement of the books, but the books themselves are far from optimal." ...is in fact not a problem of GOD but of the information being inserted by "men" who are not GODs eventhough "inspired" to write on spiritual topics. So that your difficulty is in the idea that GOD is a just deity and as such must command control of life and death and ultimately KILL all life which is opposed to some point of view. This to your mind seems "unfair". But in the yin/yang scheme it is perfectly normal to find "balance" in a universe... so if that universe is all good then the speck of darkness/or risidual evil will be small. That is the nail scars in the hands of Jesus which He retains for all eternity according to the wisdom keepers.
So optimal is a sliding scale based on the elements in play at the moment. Something we as humans may not be able to grasp for lack if information.
YOU Said, "The one thing I feel very confident about is that it doesn't matter what anyone believes about religion, ... Well I would agree with that idea except the Bible says "As a man thinketh - so is he." That means that our ideas and thoughts matter! Which means that if you think the "wrong" thoughts your chances of immortality are zero! And conversely - thinking the right thoughts gains you a spot at the table of life everlasting!....
I guess it all boils down to what a person wants to believe. And then there is the truth! Jesus is credited with saying, "You will know the truth...And the truth will set you free!" Jesus if He is a myth then it does not stand to reason that all things are myths - since the truth is NOT a myth... the truth must exist just as a myth does. So the issue is not IF but where is the truth. So once we associate the truth with the Great Mystery Spirit then we are accepting a model of how the truth may be known.
YOU Said, "If God really did design the Bible Wheel why didn't he do a better job? I could easily produce a much book if I were free to make up the content of the 66 books, and I could add a thousand times more connections on the Spokes and with the Hebrew letters. Though it does appear that the Bible Wheel is as good as it could be given the 66 books, the 66 books themselves are far from "optimal" because they are filled with so many myths, errors, superstitions, contradictions, absurdities, and moral abominations attributed to God. So what's the best explanation for a phenomenon like this? The Bible is far below what I would expect from a rational intelligent wise God."
Like I said before GOD is NOT the writer of the Bible... The myths,errors etc. that you see in the Bible are there for a reason... And that reason is that in spite of all the crap - the Bible is hiding a profound truth! And it is that truth Jesus spoke of in "parables" so that the "wise" could not know the truth - and only the "Spirit-filled" could discover the meaning of His words... So the key to all Bible truth is a connection to the Spirit which many claim to have but very few ever attain. Why is that?
How many Grand Masters of martial arts are there?... And I dont mean those claiming the title! I mean those who have proven thier techniques to the elite and then the world in a unique system which has been verified? ONLY TEN! Now we can debate that number forever... But let's say it is true. Then what that means is that only ten people have achieved the level which makes a person a Grand Master or a Spiritual Guide in the martial art world. Now that is a small number when you think of the thousands of practictioners today out there training... So in the world of religion the number of those who have the Spirit is very small... Of course the only way to know wjo has this Spirit is to test the person's claims....
So in martial arts the system demands a test - a black belt test of the 9th degree. This test is determined by the elite of the martial art world but it also has a spiritual aspect which no one can deny! There is a certain power which is displayed by a master which make their techniques work smoother and better than all the other pratictioners. It is rarely seen today. Lots of fakes... But when you see a real master you can tell there is something different in their style and techniques.
The same holds true for Christianity/or any other so called - religion if it is based on truth. And therein lies the rub. It is the truth which is so hard to find. And so I think you have kind of given up on the process of finding truth. It does not come by intellectual study. It does not come by careful analysis of the "facts". It comes soley by the unction of the Spirit." A worthy goal to strive for wouldn't you say? Stop letting the fakers convince you that the truth is not knowable. That the true Mystery Spirit must not exist. Have the courage to take that leap of faith which allows you to sit in stillness and be surrounded by the myst which holds the presence of truth! It does not happen on a first attempt! But it will happen!... just have to give it a try!......:pop2:
Namaste,
Mystykal
Richard Amiel McGough
08-25-2013, 04:33 PM
Hi Richard:
Thanks for the detailed reply! I was looking for that! I really appreciate it! I can appreciate your other comments better when I see the underlying concepts you are working with and how you string your thoughts together. I do think you are trying too hard to place my observations in a "box".
I am spiritually non-religious! There! You are unable to understand my quest for the truth? I am not throwing away anything which I can conclude has the earmark of the mystery of Divinity on it. So yes in many respects I do think that the Tao and the Bible ARE the same. I wrote a book years ago to prove just that idea. I got a lot of flack from the Evangelical community for doing that but I thought it was quite a compliment actually...
Hey there Mystykal,
I'm glad you appreciate my detailed reply. I will reply quite frankly (as usual). Please don't take any offense as none is intended. It's just a lot easier to plainly tell you exactly what I think.
It is not your "quest for truth" that I find difficult to understand, but rather your ambiguous language about what you believe and how the truth relates to confused religious texts like the Bible. You constantly assert things like "I am spiritually non-religious" even as you assert things that seem to be quite "religious" about God, the Bible, and Jesus. On the one hand it sounds like you believe the Bible and while on the other you seem to think it is filled with lots of crap and only has some "hidden" truths that are essentially equivalent to the teachings of the Tao which have little to do with the Gospel. So you are keeping me in a state of confusion about your beliefs.
Your identification of the Bible God with the Tao is totally erroneous because the Bible God is an AGENT with a personality who goes about doing things. The Tao is nothing like that.
You wrote: "I am not throwing away anything which I can conclude has the earmark of the mystery of Divinity on it." OK - so what constitutes an "earmark of the mystery of Divinity"? I get the impression it is not a well-defined concept. So many of your comments are like that - you say words that are too vague and undefined and contradictory for me to understand.
You are right I do not think that the 66 book layout of the Bible is anything but a "man-made" construct and yet as you point out there is this "mystery" laced throughout which looks a whole lot like a "GOD" designed sequence. What should we make of this? Well, I believe that like "evolution" GOD only had man to work with... So GOD was limited as to how much tweeking of the Bible facts could be done. So GOD inserted a hidden paradox throughout it all. The Tao Te Ching statements of Lao Tzu imply the same idea. Why I think this idea works in general is that as intelligent minds we are looking for explanations to all things. But we are constantly coming up against the mysterious and we are baffled again and again. I still hold to the idea that immortality is possible. And so the only "models" I would look at seriously are the ones which suggest an after-life. The Biblical model is one which is hard to grasp but from all I can gather there is only immortality for the "saved" which is always called a "remenant" or few. ("Few there be that find it")
I'm sorry, but again your concepts seem confused. The God of the Bible is presented as the CREATOR. It is absurd to say that "GOD only had man to work with... So GOD was limited as to how much tweeking of the Bible facts could be done." Don't you know that the Bible says that God CREATED man? Don't you know that the Bible says that God is unlimited in power? Your comments don't appear to have anything to do with the God of the Bible.
And then you compound your confusion when you say that God did have sufficient power to "insert a hidden paradox throughout it all". If he had the power to do that, why didn't he have the power to prevent the crap getting in there? It seems utterly absurd to say that God is Almighty and the Bible is inspired if God could not prevent it from including BLASPHEMOUS LIES about him commanding moral abominations. I'm sorry, but your comments are not making any sense to me at all. The "God" of whom you speak has nothing to do with the God of the Bible as far as I can tell.
The fact that you "hold to the idea that immortality is possible" is not a good reason to think that the immortality of the Bible is true. Hindus believe everyone is naturally immortal whereas the Bible says God alone is immortal and that he grants immortality to humans only if they meet agree with some absurd arbitrary propositions that cannot be proven. How could you believe anything like that? It's obviously false. No rational God would arbitrarily grant or deny eternal life to someone merely because of the opinions they hold about ambiguous and confused religious dogmas like "Jesus is God". Nothing could be more absurd, especially sense the Bible is so ambiguous on this point that the most devout and studious believers cannot agree about the truth! And you think God is going to use such confusion as the standard by which to judge if someone is worthy to receive eternal life?
So your idea that "But then Rose mentioned one day that the Bible Wheel was not as good as I thought it was, and she was right. The Bible Wheel is only "optimal" relative to the arrangement of the books, but the books themselves are far from optimal." ...is in fact not a problem of GOD but of the information being inserted by "men" who are not GODs eventhough "inspired" to write on spiritual topics. So that your difficulty is in the idea that GOD is a just deity and as such must command control of life and death and ultimately KILL all life which is opposed to some point of view. This to your mind seems "unfair". But in the yin/yang scheme it is perfectly normal to find "balance" in a universe... so if that universe is all good then the speck of darkness/or risidual evil will be small. That is the nail scars in the hands of Jesus which He retains for all eternity according to the wisdom keepers.
So optimal is a sliding scale based on the elements in play at the moment. Something we as humans may not be able to grasp for lack if information.
Again, you comment baffles me. Why should you think that God had anything to do with the Bible if you admit that it is filled with crap from humans? How do you sort out the divinely inspired parts from the crap inserted by humans? Your opinion is totally contrary to that of most Christians who would assert that God's Word is perfect. You say it is full of lies.
And you have totally misunderstood me. I have never said it was "unfair" for God to "ultimately KILL all life which is opposed to some point of view." My complaints have been how God killed innocent BABIES and gave 32,000 sexy virgins to be raped by his people! You and I have been talking to each other for months. How is it possible that you could fail to understand me?
You said ""if that universe is all good then the speck of darkness/or risidual evil will be small." That seems like a total confusion about the meaning of Yin/Yang. It is a totally IMBALANCED sentence, biased heavily towards good over evil. You seem to have a preference for White over Black, as if one were better than the other. That is the precise error that Yin/Yang is supposed to correct.
And again, you appeal to the authority of the "wisdom keepers." Can you name them, or are they a figment of your imagination that you use to justify your own opinions?
YOU Said, "The one thing I feel very confident about is that it doesn't matter what anyone believes about religion, ... Well I would agree with that idea except the Bible says "As a man thinketh - so is he." That means that our ideas and thoughts matter! Which means that if you think the "wrong" thoughts your chances of immortality are zero! And conversely - thinking the right thoughts gains you a spot at the table of life everlasting!....
You missed my point. I was saying that it doesn't matter what anyone believes about RELIGION meaning you don't have to believe any dogmas of any religious sect in order to be "saved." It should have been obvious I was not talking about things like "as a man thinketh - so he is."
I guess it all boils down to what a person wants to believe. And then there is the truth! Jesus is credited with saying, "You will know the truth...And the truth will set you free!" Jesus if He is a myth then it does not stand to reason that all things are myths - since the truth is NOT a myth... the truth must exist just as a myth does. So the issue is not IF but where is the truth. So once we associate the truth with the Great Mystery Spirit then we are accepting a model of how the truth may be known.
I don't understand your comment. I have never said a word challenging the idea that truth exists.
YOU Said, "If God really did design the Bible Wheel why didn't he do a better job? I could easily produce a much book if I were free to make up the content of the 66 books, and I could add a thousand times more connections on the Spokes and with the Hebrew letters. Though it does appear that the Bible Wheel is as good as it could be given the 66 books, the 66 books themselves are far from "optimal" because they are filled with so many myths, errors, superstitions, contradictions, absurdities, and moral abominations attributed to God. So what's the best explanation for a phenomenon like this? The Bible is far below what I would expect from a rational intelligent wise God."
Like I said before GOD is NOT the writer of the Bible... The myths,errors etc. that you see in the Bible are there for a reason... And that reason is that in spite of all the crap - the Bible is hiding a profound truth! And it is that truth Jesus spoke of in "parables" so that the "wise" could not know the truth - and only the "Spirit-filled" could discover the meaning of His words... So the key to all Bible truth is a connection to the Spirit which many claim to have but very few ever attain. Why is that?
If the Bible is hiding a profound truth, why can't you state it? It is meaningless to say that there is a "profound truth" in the Bible if you can't say what it is.
The thing about speaking in "parables" is that every person can make up their own interpretation. Just read the old crap that Harold Camping made up. He interpreted everything in the Bible as a "parable" to prove his prediction that Christ would return on May 21, 2011. That didn't work out so well for him. How is anyone supposed to know if their interpretations are just as crazy as Camping's or not? There is no way, and the general effect is to mislead believers into gross delusion where they cannot discern between their own imagination and the "voice of God's Spirit."
So in martial arts the system demands a test - a black belt test of the 9th degree. This test is determined by the elite of the martial art world but it also has a spiritual aspect which no one can deny! There is a certain power which is displayed by a master which make their techniques work smoother and better than all the other pratictioners. It is rarely seen today. Lots of fakes... But when you see a real master you can tell there is something different in their style and techniques.
I have no problem admitting that people can develop great skills that give me chills. But that proves nothing any any "Spirit", let alone the "Holy Spirit" of Christianity.
The same holds true for Christianity/or any other so called - religion if it is based on truth. And therein lies the rub. It is the truth which is so hard to find. And so I think you have kind of given up on the process of finding truth. It does not come by intellectual study. It does not come by careful analysis of the "facts". It comes soley by the unction of the Spirit." A worthy goal to strive for wouldn't you say? Stop letting the fakers convince you that the truth is not knowable. That the true Mystery Spirit must not exist. Have the courage to take that leap of faith which allows you to sit in stillness and be surrounded by the myst which holds the presence of truth! It does not happen on a first attempt! But it will happen!... just have to give it a try!......:pop2:
Namaste,
Mystykal
And now you come to your crowning confusion - I have never written anything that would justify your assertion that I "have kind of given up on the process of finding truth." That's insane. In every post, I have been holding you to the HIGHEST STANDARDS OF TRUTH by challenging you to clarify your words and support your assertions with logic and facts. But that's not your way apparently. It seems you think "truth" is whatever you happen to be able to imagine. I find that exceedingly ironic, since your concept of truth appears to overlap with my concept of delusion.
Likewise, you assertion that I have let "fakers" convince me that the truth is not knowable is absurd. I have never said that truth is not knowable. And I've never said that the "Mystery Spirit must not exist." I have merely questioned why you believe what you believe, and it appears you cannot give any answer that would distinguish you from the average cult member. Sorry - but you have said nothing that I have not heard from cult members. All believers believe they "have an unction from the Spirit".
You say truth cannot be discovered by "intellectual study." Then why have you read the Bible and books about the Tao? And why have you written a book about the Tao? What makes you think you have the right to JUDGE ME as nothing but an empty intellect with no experiential basis for the things I think are true? How is it possible that you have set yourself up as JUDGE over others (the first sign of a person who has not even begun the journey of truth) even as you present yourself as one who has access to the "wisdom keepers"? Don't you see the contradictions that saturate your claims.
Finally, your assertion that knowledge of truth comes not by "by careful analysis of the facts" but by "an unction of the Spirit" is the root cause of all the religious delusion that has saturated this planet in blood and ruined lives and sexism for all recorded history. Your position is pure anti-intellectualism, which is the path to self-delusion, darkness, and error.
You said "Have the courage to take that leap of faith which allows you to sit in stillness and be surrounded by the myst which holds the presence of truth!" Your comment indicates a profound ignorance of my personal history. I took that leap of faith over two decades ago. I have sat in the stillness and believed myself "surrounded by the presence of truth." I have grown past that point - perhaps there will be a day when you grow up too and see that all the mystical mumbo-jumbo is nothing but empty words being processed by your amazing brain that will produce feelings to match. That's what the brain is supposed to do. It creates feelings that match whatever you think is really happening. The only problem is when folks (like you) get confused between your self and the world and mistake the feelings generated by your own brain for an external "Spirit" of some external religion you have received from others through your intellect. This is the ultimate teaching of the Tao and the Zen! How is it you do not understand. YOU are the one creating the illusions that have trapped you! You are mistaking your own imagination for "God". This is the truth that will set you free.
Great chatting my friend!
Richard
davidjayjordan
09-06-2017, 08:07 AM
One of the most significant things that the Bible Wheel shows us is that Gods hand is evident not only in the Words of the Bible, but also in its structure. The placement of every last "Jot" and "Tittle" was designed by God, using countless human hands, over a span of thousands of years resulting in a pattern that displays the very "Seal of the living God" (http://www.biblewheel.com/Art/Sign_of_Deity.asp).
Rose
No, Rose, every jot and title of direct prophecy is signficant and will be fulfilled exactly, but not every word of the Protestant Bible, because not every word of Paul and church letters was direct THUS SAITH THE LORD.
Red letter edition, Yes, opinions of Paul NO.
This doctrine has to go, the proof of the Bible, the proof of prophecy is receiving Jesus...not some code or whell or manipulated gematria that shows so called manipulated perfection in crazy numbers of divided sentences and commas and periods.
But thanks for stating this doctrine of Protestants, as they all tend to say they believe' every word of GOD' but dont obey them and dont become missionaries and dont go to the ends of the world.
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