Topic: Why do Atheists Hate Religion? - page 307. (Read 901342 times)

It is to be understood literally within the context of a comparison between loving God and loving anything else. This can be seen in the words: "... he cannot be my disciple." In other words, if it means choosing anything, even the things dear to you, over Jesus and salvation, hate everything else so that you choose Jesus and salvation.

Secondarily, everything in this life is tainted by sin. Sin is weakness. Most of us do not want to make mistakes - sin. If we want to sin in certain ways, this, also, is a sin. Hate the weakness/sin of this life.

Since following Jesus and salvation is most important, love your neighbors by attempting to bring them out of the sinful world - causing them to hate everything in the world, if it means clinging to Jesus and salvation - so that you can hate their sinfulness and weakness as your hate your own, but love them for eternal life just as you have found eternal life... in Jesus.

It should probably be understood as something rhetorical, as explained in Chopra's The Third Jesus.

When we take Jesus literally, we are faced with the impossible. How can we truly "love thy neighbor as thyself"? But when we see the exhortations of Jesus as invitations to join him on a higher spiritual plane, his words suddenly make sense.

See, even that is wide open to interpretation.

And He said to love everyone as ourselves. We're to hate sin at all times. I only gave you an example.

He didn't say " at times". he said you have to hate them to follow him

Well the bible clearly says to love everyone as yourself, so we're obviously not supposed to hate them too in that sense. Which some might say is a contradiction, but it's not if you interpret it the way I did. I understand people interpreting it differently. I'm just trying to say what it is (and why it's not a contradiction), IMHO. 

Gimpeline interpreted the verse his way, you interpreted your way.
Who's to say which of you is right or wrong.

You're missing the point, which I get, but I don't know how to explain it any better. We are to love everyone as ourselves and to follow Jesus and take up our cross to follow Him. This means leaving all earthly things which includes family at times.

So why do you have to hate your family to follow him?
What kind of ego do this asshole have. I have to hate my family to get on his good side?

"First thing a stupid does is citing the Bible without the context"

Stupidity is the enemy of Wisdom.


Best regards.

He's talking about choosing to follow His teachings. We need to leave the earthly cares behind, and follow Him with all of our heart and care about what He wants us to do. It's for a situation like where you have to take the mark of the beast or die, your family is telling you to take it and taking it themselves. He wouldn't want you to do it just for the love of your family, versus following what the Holy Spirit is saying and staying away from it.

Luke 14:26 If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.

Sounds like a loving Jesus

Jesus's teachings speak to the individual who wants to find God as a personal experience, to attain what some might call grace, or God-consciousness, or enlightenment. When we take Jesus literally, we are faced with the impossible. How can we truly "love thy neighbor as thyself"? But when we see the exhortations of Jesus as invitations to join him on a higher spiritual plane, his words suddenly make sense.

In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus says:
"Many times have you desired to hear the words that I say, and there's no one else you could hear them from. There will be days when you will try and seek me but will not find me."

The four gospels reiterate that Jesus has come to save the world and will always be present. It takes the Gnostics to be realistic and point out that he can also be very elusive, much like the soul.

"I will give you what no eye has seen and what no ear has heard, what no hand has touched, and what has never been conceived by the mind of man."

The Gnostic tendency was always toward extreme, often cryptic mysticism. Are they simply carried away by the spirit of contradiction? Perhaps they were actually being realistic. Jesus existed for them in a state of consciousness beyond the five senses and the thinking mind. This passage is a statement about God-consciousness, not an attempt to mystify for its own sake.

Higher consciousness saves a person from the illusion of death, and this gift comes to us from a loving God.

When we sift out the elements of Church doctrine, Jesus is saying, "If you have been seeking, seek no further. This is how spirit looks when it has been realized." In other words, he brings God-consciousness down-to-earth by being its living exemplar.

Jesus acts not alone, but as a vehicle of God's will. He isn't a  person in the way that we think of ourselves as persons. He had no individuality. His will and his purpose belong to God. In the Lord's Prayer, he says, "Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven," to underline his own experience. In God-consciousness, the small ego merges into the cosmic ego.

Jesus spoke of humility many times and in different ways. He offers himself as an example. The implication is that spirit exists to serve, and since we are all spirit, life should be dedicated to service. The ego sees this teaching as a threat, since it wants to become self-important. The truth is that nothing exists except spirit interacting with itself. Therefore, when you serve others, you are servant and master to yourself.

Jesus said to his disciples, "Find a comparison with someone and tell me what I am like".
Simon Peter replied, "You are like an angel in righteousness."
Matthew replied, "You are like a philosopher in wisdom."
Thomas replied, "Master, I can't find the words to say whom you are like."
Then Jesus said, "I am not our master. You've been made drunk by drinking from the bubbling spring that flows from me."

Just as the writer of John goes to great lengths to underline Jesus's authority, the Gnostics went in the opposite direction. This passage reflects their doctrine of skepticism toward any authority. It's a bit ironic that Jesus is using his own authority to deny it. But that was the Gnostic riddle, how to follow a teacher who didn't want his disciples to follow anyone.

Quotes from Chopra's The Third Jesus

No need to be sorry.

I don't know how to make you see that you didn't disprove what I said. If people don't love their neighbors and want to torture them, they aren't Christian. The love of the Lord is not in them. What I wrote out clearly explains this, and I'm sorry you can't see it and I'm sorry I don't know how to help you see.

You miss the point. The point isn't the idea of "keeping" the commandments once or twice or three times. The point is to keep them without fail all the time.

Lots of people never murder, even once in their life. Lots of people never commit adultery, even once in their life. Then it starts getting difficult.

Most people steal something now and again, even if it is only something little. Most people say something false about somebody else once in a while. Most people dishonor their parents once in a while, even if it is very slight. And nobody loves all his neighbors all the time.

Since everybody fails in some of these things, there is nobody who will be saved for eternal life, right?

Ah, but there is Somebody who kept all these commandments perfectly. It is Jesus. Then Jesus took all the punishment that God would have dealt out to all the people for all the wrong things that they had done. Jesus took it when He died on the cross. Then He arose from death, because He didn't even do anything wrong in His dying to deserve death.

Now, Jesus offers eternal life to all who believe in Him. Why do they have to believe in Him? Because God is entirely truthful. And the only way for you, a sinner, to obey the commandments perfectly is to obey them through Jesus, by believing in Him and His offer of eternal life.

Does this make sense to us? Somewhat, but not entirely. We simply don't think along these lines deeply enough to understand it easily. The thing that we CAN understand and do, is to believe in Jesus for salvation.

When the people asked Jesus what they needed to do to do the works of God, Jesus answered that the work of God was this... to believe on the One that God sent... namely Himself.

We all have blind spots in our minds. One of yours is that you don't understand atheists. One of the atheists' blind spots is that they don't understand God.

I dont understand Atheists.....

Problem is you are using a few quotes from the bible that say what you want. And ignoring the ones that contradict it. Or trying to minimize it by saying it only applies to killing and torturing people. When in reality that exception doesn't exist:

Matthew 19
Just then a man came up to Jesus and asked, "Teacher, what good thing must I do to get eternal life?"
"Why do you ask me about what is good?" Jesus replied. "There is only One who is good. If you want to enter life, keep the commandments."
"Which ones?" he inquired. Jesus replied, "'You shall not murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not steal, you shall not give false testimony, honor your father and mother,' and 'love your neighbor as yourself.'"

Loving your neighbor isn't more or less than the others. All those count. If you aren't a christian for breaking one according to you it's the same for the others. And the love of life you talk about comes from love of money too for example as jesus says later:

23 Then Jesus said to his disciples, "Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven.
24 Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God."

So rich people aren't christian either right? And everyone that doesn't sell their possessions to follow jesus.

Do you believe in the final solution?