The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Is it foolish to call God, “Father”?

Quite so Dick! :smiley:

GB,

You appear to want us to believe certain stereotyped doctrines which you find easy to attack. It reminds me of the drunk searching for his lost car keys under the streetlight because it’s dark everywhere else. You know how to attack Penal Substitution. Good for you. But PS is not here – it’s over somewhere else, in the darkness. Next time, try attacking us for something we’re actually guilty of believing in – it will help you to do this if you take a little time to read what people are saying to you – that way you’ll know our vulnerable spots. PS isn’t one of them.

Here – here’s an idea. You could ask us how we believe the atonement truly DOES work, and then attack that belief instead. If you’re going to make any hits, you will have to aim at US, not at someone else who’s not even here.

Cindy

It’s the old spoonerism that “people in glass houses shouldn’t stow thrones” in this case one for a bishop! :laughing: :laughing: :laughing:

Jesus taught many things.
He did not teach that a spiritual Father would have his son sacrificed needlessly.
He also never commented on God murdering A & E through neglect either but God murdered his second and third child as well as the first.

I don’t think he would have approved. Do you?

Regards
DL

I hear that a lot from those without the whit to correct me.

Regards
DL

Just making sure and that is why I put this in the general section.

Regards
DL

I think you have been corrected…this is called a strawman fallacy that you are committing.
Have a lovely day under your bridge!

GB, if you’d like to know what the vast majority of us think concerning the atonement and Penal Substitution in general, this topic should be of interest. Enjoy. :slight_smile: Do you Believe in Penal Substitution?

Many thanks.

I go there now.

I am, back.

There are a number of view.

Rather a literalist bunch who seem to have swallowed the Jesus that Rome created for us.

youtube.com/watch?v=sJgvws0ZYUE

Constantine clinched it though.

Most there seem to have forgotten the esoteric Jesus of the bible. All biblical characters are a fiction we are to try to internalize to activate our pineal gland and thus earn enlightenment.

youtube.com/watch?v=FdSVl_HOo8Y

Universalism is pushing theology to where it should go. Please do not mess it up by reading any scriptures literally. That is not what they were written for. All scriptures and Gods are myths with messages and you will not get the message if you do not read it as a myth.

That is the Gnostic Christian way.

Galatians 2:20 I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.

Matthew 6:22 The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.

John 14:23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.

Luke 17:21 Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.

Romans 8:29 For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.

Regards
DL

GB, I do understand the metaphors here in these verses you’ve posted (though probably not in the completeness I may someday grow into).

However, I’d like to point out that amongst us I believe you are the only actively posting person who self-identifies as gnostic. Because of this, we are unlikely to follow “the gnostic Christian way.” Repeated admonitions that we ought to do that are most likely to be met with the same resistance an atheist will give to the unwanted “witnessing” of a pushy Christian. We do (or the vast majority of us) believe that Jesus has come in the flesh, that He rose bodily from the grave, that He ascended to heaven (in whatever way He did that) and sits at the right hand of the Father where He ever lives to make intercession for us (which is to say, to guide us in coming to that Father who loves us but of whom we tend to be foolishly terrified.)

Now if you’d like to explain what you think the merits of your way are, and explain what you believe (in plain language that people can be hopeful of understanding), you’re always welcome to do that. I think you need to do this in a way that doesn’t feel like you’re trying to “shove your religion down our throats” if you want a favorable response.

I believe the following (among other things:

Now please explain why I ought to change my beliefs in favor of your beliefs. Just because you say so is not enough reason for me. Stories of some mythical conspiracy by Rome to cast one of their emperors as a Christ figure do not convince me. I’m not interested in unsustainable, historically inconsistent theories of questionable scholarship found on youtube. I’m just not.

youtube.com/watch?v=uObnEYcKj8I

A bit more serious.

youtube.com/watch?v=WvBxFXQy7-M

To your question.

You should be a Gnostic Christian because we enjoy a better theology than what Christianity enjoys. Primarily because Christian literalists develop a double set of morals where they will condemn man, — while exonerating their Roman version of God/Man/Jesus, — for the same infraction. Quite immoral that.

Most Christian sects also discriminate and denigrate women and gays. Gnostic Christians believe and fight for full equality. In fact, we believe in the Law of the Sea and discriminate for women and children not only on the sea but also on land. Gnostic Christian men see that as their duty to family and country. He shall rule over you, man over women, — the Christian way, — is not our way. He will elevate you to where you belong, — is more our way. Not due to weakness but due to strength. The strong support the weak. The weak cannot support the strong. Christians have forgotten their duty to family.

If your religion or spirituality, does not have morality, equality and duty to family as it’s root, then it is not worthy.
Note that Christianity is based on a human sacrifice and the punishment of the innocent instead of the guilty.

In short, that is why you should be a Gnostic. It also allows your spirituality to soar into esoteric thinking.

Gnostic Christians recognized early that no one could prove the reality of their Gods until one actually showed up. They recognized all the Gods and scriptures as myths with messages. Not to insult, — as they and I take scriptures seriously, — but they are myths. Obviously. No argument.

But extremely useful to the Gnostic Christian theology of all Gods and men being equal.

Yet there was something that the shaman had found but could not easily explain. People had various insights and visions that occasionally paid off big and the race was on for the God with the biggest miracle. The opium of the people that governments learned to manipulate, then nearly lost control of, then brought back to heel and now control. Nothing but pacifist Gods allowed thank. Do not mess with the oligarch who rule the world.

This thing that the shaman found Gnostic Christians dub the spark of God within us all. All of us because the shaman do not claim that they are the only ones who can push their apotheosis. Everyone has access to God. In other word, everyone has access to true freedom. Way too dangerous for Rome to allow.

Morals then is what we focus on and define God loosely as the best set of rules to live by. Being perpetual seekers, — thanks to a few like me who claim apotheosis, — finding Jacobs’s ladder is a good analogy here, — we continue seeking and trying to show the faults of the religion that wiped out the ancient Gnostic Christians, Christianity’ roots and more moral parent.

I would like to discuss your creed starting with — I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth.

Above I showed how and why in Gnostic Christianity the strong supported the weak and fathers their wives and children. This is moral. No question. Sons are to bury fathers. Fathers are not to bury sons if at all possible.

As above so below.

Constantine’s force fed into Christianity Trinity concept or not, Christian dogma has God the Father Almighty, the strong choosing to sacrifice/kill the weak. The father bury the son. That is immoral.

If you cannot agree with that morality then you are not Gnostic Christian material.

No offence intended. You just need to know.

Regards
DL

DL,

I had not entered this dialogue because like many others it seemed like you assumed a mistaken caricature of the outlook of your readers here. Unfortunately, your response to Cindy appears to confirm that you don’t grasp how not seeking to understand your audience weakens your credibility. When you’re invited to set forth reasons for accepting your view as ‘better,’ and you lead with "because it’s better (theology), or just declare that your beliefs alone are not “myths. Obviously. No argument.” you surely realize you’ll be seen as offering no basis at all.

But the greatest way you undermine your persuasiveness, is that you imply that we on the forum are simply “immoral,” don’t believe in full equality, don’t believe in supporting the weak, in duty to family (on land or sea?), or in children burying their fathers. This only tells your readers that you lack knowledge of the options and of who we are. You can repeat such charges over and over, but if your audience sees you as totally mistaken on what he knows best (i.e. what he personally believes), he or she will tend to think that you are ill-informed by many illusions. Thus one does know how to seriously engage your gnosticism, without addressing so many mistaken assumptions on which it appears to rest. I’m sorry I don’t have a more helpful solution than others, only their suggestion that you bring a gnostic critique to what you actually find professed here.

All the best to you,

Bob Wilson

Thanks, Bob. You’ve said it every bit as well as or better than I could. GB does not appear to want to believe that we believe what we say that we believe.

I don’t know what to say, GB. I don’t believe the inferior doctrines you seem to want me to believe so that you can come to the rescue and set me straight by telling me to believe certain “other and different” things that I in fact already, as a Christian, believe, and have told you I believe. What’s more, pretty much everyone else here also believes these things that you apparently want to convert us to believing. You seem to think you know my beliefs better than I know them. Don’t you find that a bit patronizing? Is it because you see me as a poor weak woman of feeble brain who needs to be rescued from the delusion that she already believes certain things that you want to teach her?

Surely there must be more to your gnosticism than what you’ve said here. Surely there are more controversial beliefs you’re not putting forth yet – beliefs that would require a lot more persuasion to get people to accept. We already accept the things you’ve said. What else do you want to “teach” us to believe?

One of your more controversial beliefs is that NONE of our Christian scriptures are literally true. That I do not believe, and I see no reason to believe it just because you say it’s so. It offers me no benefits that I can see.

Perhaps you want to add the feminine to the Godhead? I have a fairly strong suspicion that the Holy Spirit is more feminine than masculine, and in this group I doubt that’s terribly controversial. (That is IF one can ascribe either sex to the Godhead with any coherence.)

Maybe you feel that our whole belief system is based on an imaginary God with an imaginary Son and an imaginary Holy Spirit who’s no different in kind from humans (aside from being imaginary) because humans invented all gods. You perhaps (for some reason) feel it is beneficial to humans to believe in a God they know to be fully human because created by humans. In fact, less than a human because imaginary. Or perhaps more than any single human because a sort of Jungian collective creation? (But nevertheless, still a product of our collective imaginations?)

I believe it is tradition for gnostics to believe that the material world is in some way evil or inferior or a thing to be risen above. Do you believe this? I actually don’t. I think the material world is a highly useful construct, a thing of beauty, and that it will always be maintained as an environment in which to interact, though I suspect we will no longer be as constrained by it as we currently are.

The Gnostic Gospels were written much later (according to historians) than the four gospels included in (as far as I know) all traditional, orthodox, catholic, and protestant canons, which are much earlier and closer to the source, and have fared much better in survivorship partially due to the many copies which were made. However wonderful the GGs might have been, the truth is that many words and even whole passages have had to be supplied by translators. This, and the late date of their making, not to mention the highly mythical quality of their stories, somewhat undermines their credibility as eye-witness accounts. But then that doesn’t matter anyway, does it, as you apparently don’t believe any of it really, historically, literally happened.

In addition, I’ve been led to believe (perhaps falsely?) that gnostics believe the things done in the body don’t matter because the physical body is irredeemably corrupt, and sexual indiscretions, immoderate consumption of drink, drugs, etc, and other such things as many would call sin, could hardly make things worse. I’m not sure how far one can go with this. Does it extend to deception? Stealing? Maybe even to violent acts? I don’t know how far it goes, and I doubt it does extend to violence, but perhaps you could clarify.

It’s been my understanding that historically, gnostics have relied on superior mystical knowledge in order to rise above the physical realm. You’ve already told me that gnostics are by nature universalistic. I’m sure that YOU are universalistic since you say so, and that the gnostics you know are as well, but I’m not sure that’s a historical gnostic position. Perhaps modern-day gnostics are building their own belief system, or seeing the old beliefs in different ways? Nothing wrong with that. I’m just not sure I believe that it’s always been that way.

So . . . I think maybe there’s more to your gnosticism than you’re letting on. There must be something about it that’s different from what the majority of us here on EU believe, or you wouldn’t keep trying to “convert” us – since we already believe in most of the things you keep accusing us of NOT believing, and we already disbelieve most of the things you accuse us of wrongly believing. So what is it? Aside from the “everything is myth” bit, what’s the hard stuff?

I said a better theology and meant it.

The options whose knowledge you say I lack are immoral so if you like those -----

If you think that it is a good policy for fathers to needlessly bury their sons then -----------

Regards
DL

This B.S. is not worth an answer.

Of course there were many Gnostic sects with varying beliefs.

You asked me why you should look into Gnostic Christianity and I gave my reasons.

I will speak to those and not to weird ancient beliefs of our old myths which we admit are myths and weird.

You seem to think I want to convert you. Not so. I sell a method for you be all you can be spiritually. Nothing more. Keep your belief. I don’t care. Just try to internalize them to push your apotheosis.

God is there for all and it does not really matter what you believe as long as you can take it into yourself.

Regards
DL

DL,

My communication skills appear poor. I’m saying, repeating that your theology is “better” because You really “meant” it is better, just sounds to me like begging the question. Repeating that my beliefs are “immoral,” without offering any basis I can recognize, sounds like offering nothing. Repeating that I think it’s good for “fathers to needlessly bury their sons” is so far from my beliefs, it sounds like you prefer to tilt against straw men. And calling requests for clarification ignorable “B.S.” only leaves me still baffled as to what substance you want others to consider.

This might help us clarify, in order to understand, what you are saying, GB. 7 questions that all worldviews can answer, and your answers will go a LONG way in getting your message across. If they cannot be answered, there probably is not a worldview as such. From James Sire: (I’ve edited some of them)

  1. What is the nature of external reality, that is, the world around us?
    a) created or autonomous
    b) chaotic or orderly
    c)matter or spirit

  2. What is a human being?
    a) a highly complex machine
    b)a sleeping god
    c)a person made in the image of God
    d)a naked ape.

  3. What happens to a person at death?
    a)personal extinction
    b)transformation to a higher state
    c) reincarnation
    d)departure to a shadowy existence on “the other side.”

  4. Why is it possible to know anything at all?
    a)we are made in the image of an all-knowing God
    b)consciousness and rationality developed under the contingencies of survival in a long process of evolution.

  5. How do we know what is right and wrong?
    a)we are made in the image of a God whose character is good
    b)right and wrong are determined by human choice alone or what feels good
    c)the notions simply developed under an impetus toward cultural or physical survival.

  6. What is the meaning of human history?
    a)to realize the purposes of God or the god
    b)to make a paradise on earth
    c)to prepare a people for a life in community with a loving and holy God

7.What personal, life-orienting core commitments are consistent with this worldview?

These are actually questions that would help in the ‘introduce yourself’ section of the forum as well, to help us get oriented to one another.

GB - would you please choose the answers that best fit your knowledge - not so we can criticize, but so we can answer you on the same grounds.
Thanks
Dave

Very insightful persons, of which this forum if rife, will point out, quite correctly, that there should be a choice, namely:

  1. e) ReinTarnation, if you’re a cowboy… :laughing:

I will not try to double guess what my audience thinks. I do not do psychobabble.

We have a simple O.P. that says that the story given in scriptures is immoral. If you disagree show why. If you agree fine.

Regards
DL

Thanks for this.

Regards
DL