I was being polite. Conversations usually involve questions. But i should really be charging $60 an hour to ask you questions because there is a degree of work involved in psychological analysis, as well helping people honestly analyze their own psychology, their own motives. I should call this repentance therapy, helping people re-deem the notions they have decided to believe, so that Christ can be saved from a burial underneath several tons of masks and misrepresentations.
Jesus: Why do you call me good?
CNN: Jesus seems confused.
Jesus: Who do you say that i am?
Peter: Here is the answer to your question: You are the Messiah. The bible is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Jesus: Eli eli lama sabachthani?
MSNBC: Jesus realizes he was a fraud.
I'm well aware that posturing is paramount for those paragons of faith who stand behind their podiums, pointing at parables, bible in one hand, microphone in the other, voices booming over a reverbing sound system. I'm keenly aware that the faith-filled will eventually start posing as teachers who are keenly sensitive to challenges to their posture. This behavior tends to rub off on the less confident, sitting in the pews, who eventually grow up to imitate the confident posture, and begin to pose as teachers in turn.
I used to talk to these people and noticed how really upsetting it was to them when i told them i was the teacher, and they were the student. I remember how they would start to spin off on long monologues filled with many quotes of the bible, and i'd be picking up on the vibes of a power play. What i would do is i'd have to interrupt, 'Whoa whoa woah. This needs to be a conversation.' I could see they were assuming they were the teacher in the exchange and could see i was not helping anybody by letting them assume that. Generally they launched into 'im the teacher' mode if asked any sort of question. I might have let them know that it's inappropriate to lord the bible over my head and/or that a conversation is closer to 50% input from each side. Any question i may have asked was meant to help them and i was surprised how many had not sense of introspection, but instead started acting like they were reading from a teleprompter. I would only tell the really rude one's that i was the teacher and they were the student. More oft than not that would end the "conversation" because the posture was more important to them than any information they might get from me for free.
So in order to actually have a conversation, i will sometimes not tell the students that i am the teacher.
Are you saying God is male?
Which G/god do you reference:
A) a G/god that makes man and man's world?
B) a Good that does NOT make man, or man's world? (a Good beyond a material world).
Even so, the initial questions were more about WHEN, or what moment you decided to assume the bible was infallibly a whole unit of unadulterated words, containing only the words of man's maker, and all the words of man's maker, to the exclusion of any other sources claiming same.
Presumably, at that moment, you had already read the entire collection of literature, from cover to cover? No? You had read only 60% of it, and decided the remaining 40% was the truth, the entire truth, and nothing but the truth?
Whatever was the percentage of familiarity you may have had with the sources (it is a collection) upon what authority, at that moment (it was indeed a moment), did you make a decision?
Perhaps you are saying you did not make a decision?
Are you not willing to admit that you made a decision upon your own authority?
If you are not sure about whose authority made this decision, maybe your authority and man's makers (what you call God) authority are the same?
Would you be willing to admit that your authority is the same as man's maker?
Woah slow down there. Are you saying there was an element of fear in your decision? Were you a little bit worried about what might happen to you if you did not jump to the conclusion that the collection was, how shall we say, holy?
Ok you do appear to admit it was not based on well weighed logic. Certainly no scientific tests involved. What you seem to be describing is an agreement. You read a description of man's maker, as well a description of what could happen to you if you did not believe the description (of man's maker)...and then you agreed.
Ok. At the moment you agreed with the description, upon whose authority did you make the agreement? Or, more simply, who made the agreement?
Besides who made the agreement, you, God, or both (if you are both the same authority), what did you agree to?
For example, did you agree to only what is in the oldest part of the collection...to the newest part of the collection...to the Catholic collection...to the Protestant collection (shorter version)...or to what someone has said about the collection (to someone's interpretation)?
Finally, why did you make this agreement? What was/is your motive? What do you want?
Ok, now we might be getting to the bottom of this. At that moment, the moment of the agreement, and/or the moment of the decision, your:
A) doubts turned to certainty?
B) your faith transformed into knowledge?
By "creator" do you mean man's maker, as well man's surrounds (stars, planets, seas, trees, bees)?
So, by agreeing that all the words in the collection belonged, unadulterated, to man's maker, you did not have to worry anymore what might happen to you if you did not agree?
Personally, i don't necessarily disagree with this because of the close collaboration between men and man's maker. My question goes more to, why were you afraid of man's maker?
No doubt, it is now fashionable to boast about how much you are not afraid of man's maker, because, having made the agreement, you expect to be passed over come time for all the punishments to be dished out.
Btw, i aced business law in school, and did you know that agreements made under duress are non-binding, null, and void?
Are you saying that none of the agreements you've made were under any kind of duress?
If you did make an agreement under duress, how did it happen that you now no longer feel you are under duress?
Ok now we are getting down to it. You were persuaded, and fear was a looming factor in the persuasion process.
"du·ress
noun
- threats, violence, constraints, or other action brought to bear on someone to do something against their will or better judgment."
Or, if you admit you were under duress, would you not agree that duress is illegal when it comes to the making of agreements?
Would you agree with popular legal codes in the US that agreements made under duress are null and void?
Ok, there was an offer. Yes, offers usually precede an agreement. In this case, there was an offer and a threat from what you believed was man's maker. At least that's what you believed.
My question was upon whose authority, and exactly when, did you decide to believe (agree with) the offer.
Presumably the offer included small print that required you to believe all the small print in the entire collection, whether you've read it or not, or whether you had any way to verify any of it or not.
Is this right? Was believing the collection was, how shall we say, entirely holy, was this part of the agreement?
Is that how you "know" the whole book is what you say it is?
Or, is it possible the offer did not include a clause that required you to believe things you could not verify at that time?
Or, was it the entire text that persuaded you to take what was offered in the latter part of the collection?
Ok, so you are indeed saying that the prior duress is no longer duress. Is this because you feel you are keeping the agreement to the satisfaction of man's maker?
Is that why you have nothing to fear?
What happens if you break the agreement? Or, is it even possible to break the agreement? Is that why you no longer feel under duress?
Ok. Just prior to this, you were in a state of fear. And you assumed that "Father" meant man's maker?
Ok. Just prior to this, your mind was in a state of fear. And then you assumed that the Truth was a book?
Ok. Did the fear you were experiencing have anything to do with what man's maker did to Jesus, with the implication that if you did not take the agreement offered, something similar, or worse, might happen to you?
Just prior to this, your mind was in a state of fear. Then you started making agreements about who was man's maker, and who was man's maker's son? And you agreed that the son was also man's maker, along with man's maker?
Well personally, it's my belief that Jesus walked out of a tomb after appearing to die. You could call that "rose from the dead" if you want.
I don't know that for sure, but i hold high confidence in it. As you know from the CIA, high confidence means it must have happened, practically for sure.
Was this part of your agreement? I mean, was this one of the clauses in the agreement, which, if rejected, you would be subject to similar torture as Jesus, if not worse, or for a longer time (forever)?
So, in a moment, the moment of decision, you went from not knowing, to...knowing?
Btw, it's also my belief that Jesus, as a teacher, did not feel pain during the intended torture, and only "died" to demonstrate how death is reversible, and/or not to be taken seriously. Arguably, he never died, and merely took a three day vacation from teaching.
Also, why do you feel it necessary to believe that the Truth died? Or, why did you decide to agree that Life died?
Personally, i don't agree that Truth or Life died. Do you have to agree to death in order to avoid the punishment that was going to be given to you?
Ok. In the state of mind that you were in, that state of fear (i call it duress), you could not see any other way to have a positive relationship with man's maker?
Ok. An offer was made to save you from a terrible punishment like what happened to Jesus, or worse, and you agree to take the offer. At that moment you were saved by the same entity that made the offer?
Wait, who made the offer?
Who saved you?
Who are you?
What was saved?
Ok. Is this one of the clauses in the agreement?
You have no fear anymore because this is an easy agreement to keep?
Is quoting really old excerpts from the oldest part of the collection part of the agreement you've made? Is this an expression of the clause that requires you to accept the entire collection, old and new, as entirely, how shall we say, holy?
If the old part of the collection is still valid, are you also keeping any or all agreements that pertain to that section of the agreement?
No? Who (or what clause) redefines the current agreement and it's terms?
Was this an aspect of the persuasion that induced you to make the agreement under duress?
We can agree that the ancient Jewish literature generally envisioned a sort of "Messiah", although not always referenced by that term.
Is this what you are referencing, these predictions of a Messiah?
Are you aware those most familiar with Hebrew literature (scribes, lawyers, priests) mostly disagreed that Jesus was the Messiah?
Are you aware Jesus himself disagreed he was the Messiah?
Ok. Another reference to the oldest section of the collection.
If a prophet speaks about something two thousand years into the future, you are supposed to believe him, wait two thousand years, and then decide if he told the truth or not?
What if the prophet doesn't put any time limit on a prophecy? How would you be able to measure if it has come true or not?
So they give some credence to the entire collection, but not to every word of the entire collection like you do?
You are also saying that the words have authority now?
What was the moment they gained that authority? Was it the same moment you decided to take the offer?
Before you took the offer, they had no authority? And then, when the fear came upon you, they were given authority over you?
Ok, so you are treating the collection as if it were a homogenous unified whole. So for example, at the very end of the book, there's a book that says don't add or take away from this book. This was a couple hundred years before the collection of books became a standardized set of books. Are you saying that anything said in the last book applies to the first books too?
Is this why you feel that any and all words man's maker ever said, or intends to say, are captured within the collection?
