What Jesus believed: GIVING UP MATERIAL WEALTH LIVING COMMUNALLY GIVING TO POOR, SHARING VISITING INMATES YOU CAN'T SERVE "GOD" AND MONEY FORGIVENESS IS NECESSARY GIVE AID AND COMFORT TO THE SICK DO NOT SEEK VENGEANCE\ OFFER PEACE TO YOUR ENEMIES BE WISE AS SERPENTS AND HARMLESS AS DOVES IT'S NOT WHAT GOES IN, IT'S WHAT COMES OUT BE MERCIFUL PEACE & LOVE ARE THE GREATEST PHILOSOPHY DON'T BE AFRAID TO STAND YOUR GROUND AND UPSET THE APPLE CART I believe all these things. And praise be to Jesus and anyone who believes these things!! But, I'm still an atheist. Sorry.
Yeah, nice list. I believe Jesus had great messages, but I'm not Christian. I admire the man, not the god. Peace and love
They are not beliefs to someone like Jesus. For a realized individual like him, it becomes who you are because of the direct contact with the divine. For everybody else, belief is all you have to hold on to when the cold winds of adversity blow. x
yes, this is how i feel aswell. live by what jesus stood for. most christians choose to only see things to litterally in the bible, and its ironic. most christians don't really even fully grasp what the messege of jesus was. it goes right over their heads. but here is one of my favorite alan watts qoutes:[size=-1] "[/size][size=-1]It is obvious to any informed student of the history and psychology of religion that Jesus was one, of many, who had an intense experience of cosmic consciousness- of the vivid realization that oneself is a manifestation of the eternal energy of the universe, the basic "I am." But it is very hard to express this experience when the only religious imagery at your disposal conceives that "I am" as an all-knowing and all-powerful monarch, autocrat, and beneficent tyrant enthroned in a court of adoring subjects. In such a cultural context, you cannot say "I am God" without being accused of subversion, insubordination, megalomania, arrogance, and blasphemy. Yet that was why Jesus was crucified... [/size][size=-1] Christianity has universality, or catholicity, only in recognizing that Jesus is one particular instance and expression of a wisdom which was also, if differently, realized in the Buddha, in Lao-tzu, and in such modern avatars as Ramana Maharshi, Ramakrishna, and, perhaps, Aurobindo and Inayat Khan. (I could make a very long list.) This wisdom is that none of us are brief island existences, but forms and expressions of one and the same eternal "I am" waving in different ways, such that, whenever this is realized to be the case, we wave more harmoniously with other waves."[/size][size=-1]"[/size]
I call myself a Christian because I believe and try to follow these teachings. But I think it's interesting that the folks who are the loudest Christians often don't seem to practice or even claim to believe any of them.
