Why do you think I want to refute it? You already know the bible has no religious meaning for me (or any religious text). How could I possibly have any interest in refuting it?



Here is my belief. It is not an attack on you or your beliefs. I am offering it as an alternative perspective, nothing more. You say "you are at the Great White Throne Judgment and he asks you what you did with his word what are you going to stammer? Ummmmm well, eh, God, I believed what the others said about you? I um...didn't....um.......check it out for myself." My response is that I have checked it out for myself whereas you have not. God's word is not found in anything written or said by man (bible et al). It is found by letting go of the "self". As Sodaiho said, the contemplatives know this. Religion is irrelevant. It is my belief that Jesus knew this and preached it, but over the years his words were altered by man (the same goes for Buddha et al.) My beliefs are based on my experiences when I go directly to the "source" (as far as humanly possible anyway).

I am not saying you are wrong. I am not attacking you or your beliefs. I do not consider my beliefs to be anymore "true" than yours, because I am fully aware of my inherant fallibility.

Hello Everyone,

We, Catholics, are about to enter the Sacred Triduum, that spiritually intense period when we commemorate the Passion and Death of Our Lord and Savior. The "Triduum" is Latin for three days and these are the three holiest days of the year. through the centuries, Christians have set these days apart as a time of extraordinary prayer, fasting and intense expectation.

Lent ends today, on Holy Thursday evening. Holy Thursday commemorates the day with the Mass of the Lord's Supper, when Christ instituted the Eucharist and the priesthood as well as the entry-way of the Lord into His Suffering, Dying and Rising. Good Friday is a day of fast and abstinence with reading the Passion according to St.John and public veneration of the Cross. Holy Saturday is is when we experience the "passing over" of Jesus from the darkness of death into new life. It begins after dark with the blessing of the new fire from which the Paschal candles are lit. Holy Saturday is a good day for prayer and good thoughts in quiet time with the Lord. Easter Sunday---Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia. Christ is risen. Alleluia. The Resurrection is a mystery of faith that goes beyond human reason. It can't be demonstrated empirically. Being finite creatures with finite minds, we don't know everything. We just know the tomb was empty.

After this one, I will not post again until next Monday. I will keep you all in prayer,and wish you Easter blessings and Happy Spring. The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you all.

No, not really. The 10 commandments are good and they are of God. They are a perfect law that could not be kept by imperfect people. The Sabbath was never given to the Christians, and many Christians may not even know that. Some do, some don't. In the NT we are told to esteeem every day as holy to God. In all that we do daily we are to honor God. In the OT it was the beginning of a government for the new nation Israel. They would be set apart from the other nations. God chose Israel out of all the other nations for no special reason than he just did. This covenant they were under was conditional....the Mosaic Covenant....if they do this, then God would bless them and keep them in their land.

But they continually disobeyed God turning to idols and following the gods of the pagan nations. What's really interesting (and I'm studying this right now) is that God rubbed their noses in it finally after giving them chance after chance to change their ways. He had them taken into captivitiy by the capital of Idolatry, the Babylonians. For 70 years they lived right in the most pagan of all lands. God did this to cure them of their sin against him. One thing can be said about Israel today. They never went back to the idol worship after coming out of captivity.

But the New Covenant is not conditional. It's much like the Abrahamic and Davidic which were also not conditional. God said it. That was it. One of the best chapters in the Hebrew Scriptures outside of Isa 53 is Jeremiah 31. In it he promises that Israel will have a new Covenant and it's that Covenant that Christ spoke about and ushered in at the last supper. That's the Covenant Christians are now under. It's a covenant of Grace, not law. Paul talks alot about this in the book of Romans because it was hard for the new Jewish Christians to let go of the Old for the new.

Well you are aren't you? When you go against it, you are in a sense refuting it. Maybe it has no meaning for you because you haven't read it? Why haven't you read it? Is it because you have no interest? Because I'm thinking you do have interest.



you're kidding right? You think I have not checked this out? I have and let me assure you I am absolutely convinced after throughly reading history and the bible itself in it's entirety for many, many, many years that this book I hold in my hand is coming directly from God to man himself. Absolutley. There is no way that man would have written this with all the flaws and such therein. This is not a book about man searching after God. It's a book about God searching after man.



I know you're not and I am not attacking you either. I want the best for you. That's why I say what I say. But consider what you just said above. You said you base it upon your experience. But Abe, first of all can your experiences be trusted? What you believe and experience at 20, is not going to be the same at 40 or 60. They will change. God's word NEVER changes.

But then you say you are aware of your fallibility. This is correct. So then you can't really go by your experiences can you? I know I can't mine. I have to back my experiences up with the word of God to test myself. To see if I'm in line with God or not.

I thought you were using refute in the active sense, i.e. to prove wrong. Using it in such a passive way makes the word relatively meaningless.



I have read parts of it throughout my life, but I never found it to be compelling. I have an intellectual interest in the bible because of some ideas I have about the teachings of Jesus, and how the Church may have altered his teaching to serve their own purposes. I have somewhat similar ideas about Buddha.



I think you may have misunderstood me. I was replying to your example of being before God and relying on what others have said about him. It's my position that using the bible as the primary way of knowing about God is "going on what other people have said." I understand that you do not see it that way. In my opinion, the way to know God is to do the best you can to listen(experience) to him, which is done by "letting go of the "self". Meditation is a good way to do this, but it is extremely difficult for most people--myself included.

Just an FYI to avoid potential confusion, I use the word "God" as a convenience. My idea of him probably doesn't have a lot of resemblance to your idea of him.



Of course we can, experiences are the only way we can know anything. The fact that they are fallible does not completely undermine them, but only serves to remind us that we can't ever "Know" anything. Personally I think that is a wonderful thing. I don't think many people would really like the alternative.

To be clear, I am saying that even if the bible is the absolute true word of God, we still can't "Know" the word of God. We can only do our best to understand. The only way to do that is to question everything, especially the word of God.

Hello Abe,

Thank you for your contributions along the way here. I share the interest you have quoted above. As to its application in Buddhism, I think its one of the reasons I sought refuge in Zen. The Theravadan and most of the Tibetan traditions rely too heavily on the scritures and spin great webs around them. Zen, it is said, stand as a teaching, outside of words and letters, relying primarily on the original practice of the Buddha: seated meditation. The other major difference is that we do not have "churches" in any real sense. Our Sanghas are organizations only insofar as geting the practical matters of buildings, communication, and other mundane things in order. There is no central authority. Well, maybe a little as with the Soto sect's line with Japan ad the "head" temples there. Still, we are each free to teach and practice pretty much as we wish.

The hardest part of meditation is resides in what we often think about meditation. The actual practice of "just sitting" is not all that difficult (of course, thst is "my humble" opinion )

Be well.

oh, I thought you said you haven't read it since you were a kid? Anyhow...trying praying first.



that's a rumor....don't believe it. Besides, how big can our God be if we believed this to be true? As Christians, we believe he's been all this time protecting his word watching it every step of the way.



I agree with the letting go of the self...but.....Question....How do you know who it is who is speaking to you? For Christians, we're told to "test" the spirits to see if it's from God or not. One way is to measure it, is against the word of God. So if what we're "hearing" runs contrary to God's word we know it can't be true. It's our plumb line so to speak. Meditation is a wonderful tool as well. But you have to have something to meditate on. For instance listen to this from Psalm 1.....

"Blessed is the man
who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked
or stand in the way of sinners
or sits in the seat of mockers.
But his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.
He is like a tree planted by streams of water
which yeilds its fruit in season
and whose leaf does not wither
Whatever he does prospers."

I hope it's ok to quote that....I know you're not hip on scripture but isn't that a beautiful Psalm worthy of meditation? IMO the Psalms as a whole is probably the best bit of literature of all time for meditation.



But you have to read it first Abe...to even question it right? Are you doing that?

For many of us Christians, if not all of us, we start out that way. We start out questioning and testing. Then after a while it proves itself to us and gets to the point where you just start to trust it...a little bit at a time until you realize one day that it's solid. It's sure and it tells us the truth. You start to realize everything in there is unbelieveably true. When you read the wise sayings of the Proverbs it can even hit you in the gut sometimes as you recognize yourself or those around you and it's exactly as it says it is. Then you are zealous like me to show others that it can be trusted by them as well.

After all, it's God's word, and I expect no less.

Good luck in your searching Abe, I enjoyed chatting with you.

You asked me specifically about the gospels. I have not read those since catholic grade school.



I'm talking about my perceptions, not rumors.



Whether it is true of false, I don't see how it has any bearing on God. God is what he is regardless of what we think.



I don't know, nor can anyone, but I do believe it.



That kind of meditation is useful for developing deeper understandings of a particular issue or to improve your sense of well-being. However, that type of meditation doesn't open you to the "voice" of God(it's not a literal voice). If you are meditating on something(such as in your example) then you are not letting go of yourself. The type of meditation I am referring to requires a state of mind without thought.



I have read enough of it to know for myself that the bible is a work of man. It isn't necessary to know something in its entirety to come to a valid conclusion about it.

Good luck to you as well.

Hi Sodaiho,

Damn I have a hard time with your name. How do you pronounce it and what is it about?



I would love to hear the details if it interests you to tell me. This is a subject that has been on my back-burner for a while, so I don't know anything about it except for my speculations/observations. Among the different types of Buddhist religions, Zen and the nebulous American Buddhism seem closest to the Buddha's teaching, at least as far as religious Buddhism goes.



When you say "just sitting" do you mean relaxation/contemplation, or "letting go of the self"? I have never managed to achieve "letting go" with traditional meditation. Although I haven't ever really tried that hard either.

Hello Abe, It is a tad odd, isn't it? My name is "So Daiho". So means priest, Dai means great or large, and Ho means Dharma. So, in English, Priest Great Dharma. The So part can be dropped. Its like a title. I also answer to Harvey, Reverend, Roshi, Sensei, or Hey You!



I mean sitting a typt of zazen called "shikantaza. This word set means to whole heartedly hit the mark of seated meditation. Dogen suggests "think about not thinking. I say, right. OK. The practice is to sit quietly in a chair or on a cushion. Back upright and unsupported. Hands cradled left in right with thumbs lightly touching. Head should be erect and slightly tucked. Eyes open, mouth closed. We breath in through our nose and out through our nose. If we are in a chair, please be sure to sit on the edge of thye seat with your feet firmly planted on the floor.

Your attention should be alert, but not caught on anything. That is to say, you hear a nose and just notice "noise." You have a thought or feeling and just notice that thought or feeling. You do absolutely nothing with them. Rather like you are sitting in your car with the motor running. Don't put it in gear andthe motor can run all day and you won't go anywhere. This is good practice as it teaches us that we are not slave to our thoughts and feelings.



In another post.

Be well.

Excuse me for butting in here. There is a profound difference between meditation and contemplation on something. To meditate "on" something is not meditation, its thinking contemplatively about something. Meditation in its highest form is simply being present completely and immedisately. Present in the sense that the ego is completely uninvolved. There is no self, just presence.

In such a presence, the universe itself, including God are there with you and you know you, God, the universe are One. As far as the devil is concerned, this is a later concept taken from the Torah, Satan means nothing more than adversary. He is not a literal person. Milton had fun with this and later Christians took this poet's word as near gospel creating a netherworld of delusion to scare people with.

One should not read before practice, but rather practice then read. This is so because of what I recently posted in my blog about homeleaving. If we approach something with a mental idea, that mental idea distorts our perception. This is why we must be so incredibly careful interpreting the Hebrew scripture, the prophets, the psalms, etc. We do not want to create an ex post facto fallacy in our thinking.

Be well.