I mean … numerology/animal symbols/food symbols

These are stories of ancient story tellers to help us thru – not literal things to war and murder over.

What causes the disconnect?
What makes someone white knuckle a belief system …

And what keeps people from questioning and research …

below – lol – I wasn’t quick enough to beat the edit

Hnnng – Good analysis and summary

OT – Old Testament

concordance – 2. an alphabetical index of the principal words of a book, as of the Bible, with a reference to the passage in which each occurs.

4. the Rapture, Theology. the experience, anticipated by some fundamentalist Christians, of meeting Christ midway in the air upon his return to earth.

I learned a couple of things about Christianity (Hnnng was replying to Acquamarine blow)

Richard, I enjoyed your response. Twice banished from Sunday School for “not having enough faith” (read: for asking questions that no one can answer).

Too bad we two Heathens In The Making couldn’t have compared notes back in the day. For me it was upsetting because I was truly curious. I wanted to understand. Thankfully my father didn’t make me wrong or give much of a damn as long as I kept my elbows off the table at dinner 🙂

.For as frustrating as Sunday School was for me sometimes, at least it was interactive, unlike church, which by the time I was old enough, was pure torture in its boringness. Church was Hell, for me, it was so boring.

Finally when I was fourteen I refused to go any more. I just flat out refused and my father didn’t force me. I would have hated him if he had forced me and I guess he sensed that and figured I was already inculcated enough with the 10 Commandments so that I could leave off church. That’s when Sundays became my favorite day of the week.

Now, I totally agree with you about heaven – BOR-RING! I’m falling asleep just conceptualizing an eternity on a cloud with a harp – not my favorite instrument 🙂

But look, like you, totally as you said, I’m not out to diss somebody’s magic or knock anybody’s woo so long as they don’t push it on me.

And for the record, I am totally behind Christian principles – totally admire and aspire to them whenever possible.

I just don’t believe in Biblical Magic – talking snakes, living in the belly of a whale for 3 days and then coming out, completely intact, somebody being turned into a pillar of salt, Red Sea parting, Virgin Birth, water walking, feeding 5 thousand people with 5 fishes and five loaves of bread – just off the top of my head. Never could believe in any of this. Doesn’t mean that Moses and Jesus weren’t great teachers with great wisdom to impart. I just eliminate what is to me the mythology factor. They were men. Extraordinary men, possibly – very possibly. But men.

I think we’re all trying to make sense of one inexplicable thing in our many various ways.
To me its all good. Like you I tried a lot of stuff. I was curious. Still am.

Ciao for now FH. (Fellow Heathen.)

I know I was literally labled “heretic” and told I harbor a spirit of rebellion.
::shrugs::

People give way too much power to goofy things

It takes knowing symbolism, a bible concordance and keeping what is written in context.

ie: hell

It’s a word mentioned a few times. And I’ll give you a quick full of holes version…

In the OT it talks about a place called shoel.
Sometimes it is translated “hell”

Gahanna is sometimes understood as hell. It’s a city w a garbage pit.

Hell is literally “the ground” – it’s the grave.

Fire and brimstone is thanks to the RCC and the likes if Dante.

There is the pit in revelations but that’s a whole diff thing that serves a diff purpose symbolically.

I’ll dust off my notes if you like..

You can also drop the: where does it talk about the rapture in the bible?

Thanks for your response, Hnng. You stated that the the questions I ask have Biblical answers. If you wouldn’t mind telling me where in the Bible I can find them I promise to read them immediately. Thanks again!

Aqua – “A heathen in the making!” LOL I guess I was in the same boat since I also got kicked out of Sunday School at about the same age. I didn’t have any intellectual inquiries, just that I’d spent all week in regular school and didn’t feel like sitting around in a musty church basement on Sunday morning studying whatever the program was.

I attempt to not be hostile toward people in organized religion, only those who are pushy about it. My mother was born of Russian immigrants and was raised in whatever the Russian version is of Catholicism. When i was a kid she went to the local Methodist church and her attitude was “God is where you find Him.” Dad tagged along with her to church on Christmas and Easter to prove he wasn’t a heathen.

The flip side to where is Hell is where is Heaven? After a thousand years of floating on clouds with all needs met I might get bored and go pick a fight with someone to liven things up. There’s always gonna be some conflict in my opinion.

Maybe thetans floating around in the ether just talk things out. After I blew Scientology in 1982 in Los Angeles I joined a blown Scientologist support group and we listened to some channeling tapes. On one of the tapes the entity said he and a group of entities would sometimes get together to decide how best to impart their knowledge to we humans. Don’t ask me where channeling comes from – haha

TC, your welcome. Your book rings true as a novel based on fact and it is a page turner as well.