immortal

I didn't said that, I said God became man so that man might become God. Just be believing in Christ you won't become a Christian you need to become Christ to be a Christian. Icon of The Ladder of Divine Ascent (the steps toward theosis as described by St. John Climacus) showing monks ascending (and falling from) the ladder to Jesus. Saint Catherine's Monastery, Mount Sinai. This is the main central tenet of not only Christianity but of all religions of the world. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divinization_(Christian) That's what being religious means to become identical with God. Being religious means not to establish the Gospel all over the earth and not converting as many people into Christianity, the latter are not religious people for they don't know what being religious means. Try to make a fundamentalist agree with you, they will continue to believe what they want to believe despite all evidence contradicting their beliefs, their own religious scriptures shatter their belief systems, that's why we label them as fundamentalists. The central tenet of a religion defines itself as to what characteristics one should have to attain membership into that religion. These fundamentalists do not have the characteristics and values in them to qualify themselves as part of that religion and hence they are not religious. I gave you a precise definition as to what you need to have in you to receive membership into Christianity, Hinduism, Islam, and Judaism for I know the central tenet of these religions. I guess you don't know what being liberal means, Christianity has its own pantheon of Gods, Buddhism has its own pantheon of Gods and so does Hinduism, Hellenistic religions and Islam. Universal doesn't mean that there is only one true word of God and it universally applies to all, no, that's not what I said, if that was the case then this definition is not any better than the definitions which fundamentalists make up for themselves. My definition is universal means every religion in this world has its own central tenet and this central tenet is what defines that religion for all of us and that common universal central tenet is to achieve Divinization. It literally means to become more divine, more like God, and/or take upon a divine nature. This is the reason why I insist that if you need to be a Christian you need to become Christ, if you need to be a Brahmin you need to become Brahman, if you need to be a Jew you need to become Ein Sof, if you need to be a Buddhist you need to become Adi Buddha, if you need to be a Muslim you need to become Allah. This is the central tenet of all these religions whether it is east or west and north or south, this central tenet is universal and is what defines religion for all of us. This has nothing to do with faith just by believing in Christ, YHWH and Allah you won't become a Christian, Jew and a Muslim, these people are not religious.

Just by having a Phd you cannot escape from the cave, you're still a prisoner of the cave, the person who is an illiterate and the one who holds a Phd is even when it comes to religion. When I mean knowledge I'm not talking of knowledge acquired via sense organs, I'm speaking of experiential knowledge, knowledge acquired via immediate insight. - Peter Russel, From Science to God. Religion is not about believing, its about doing. According to religion people who hold Phd's are as illiterate as people who doesn't know to read and write because both the former as well as latter people are still prisoners of the cave. Your definitions of religion sucks which is devoid of any wisdom and an ignorance of how religion works. I told you if you need to be a Christian you need to become Christ, if you need to be a Brahmin you need to become Brahman, if you need to be a Jew you need to become Ein Sof, if you need to be a Buddhist you need to become Adi Buddha. Can you please clarify based on what part of my posts or based on what you arrived at that conclusion? My definition includes both eastern religions as well as western religions, so can you make it clear for me? I guess you didn't understand what I meant, Logos, the word of God is not something which exists in a Holy Book like the bible, Koran or the bhagavad gita, just as numbers and mathematical truths exists in a platonic realm even the word of God exists out there in the numinous, its imperishable and incorruptible unlike the word of God which exists in our holy books which are corrupted and even forged. So Timothy is definitely out. So if a person experiences a motor impairment or a seizure just once in his entire life time you conclude that he is a symptomatic epileptic patient? Wonderful, that shows your own confirmation bias and one of the strong reasons why I criticize those people who hold on to an atheistic position that they have not researched religion completely, anyone who has performed a specific ritual to make an ascent to heaven knows that the ecstatic experiences are sometimes blissful and at other times horrible and painful and in scientific terminologies the latter can be classified into different types of seizures, there will be a severe blow to the head, loss of consciousness and severe motor impairment, tonic and atonic seizures etc. I had researched extensively about ecstatic experiences of making an ascent to heaven, these people are quite healthy and actually seizure attacks usually happen only at the time of performing the ritual and not at other times and as I said in an another thread meditators can not only self induce a high amplitude gamma synchrony which is a very blissful experience sometimes they can self induce the opposite that is desynchrony and motor impairment, the subjects in these cases are healthy and show no sign of any pathology and any record of past symptomatic seizure attacks. Comparative studies which I did a year back while researching about Mithras Liturgy show something else is going on and that the world is a mystery. http://wordtrade.com/religion/bible/corinthians.htm There are also other hypotheses that Paul was not influenced by Roman mithraism but actually by Persian Mithraism and that would make his ascent to heaven a very likely event and not something which can be easily dismissed as a TLE or a hallucination or as delusion. http://jdstone.org/cr/files/paulandthepaganreligionofmithraism.html Comparative studies push the evidence favouring the theist's side.

Long-term meditators self-induce high-amplitude gamma synchrony during mental practice. http://www.pnas.org/content/101/46/16369.full The traditions of Tibetan Buddhists, Smarta tradition of Vedic Aryans, Neoplatonism and Valentinian tradition are real and they are empirical, they can not only self induce high amplitude gamma synchrony they can also self induce de-synchrony and cause motor impairment to the body and this is a fact and we all know what these Tibetan Buddhists who belong to Nyingmapa and Kagyupa traditions, the meditators chosen for this study believe in, yes they believe in the 100 peaceful and wrathful deities and these deities are inherent in their mental practices and you cannot separate them. http://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?title=Hundred_peaceful_and_wrathful_deities Gods are real and they are everywhere. Why bother? It is the kind of double standard positions that people hold on to is what bothers me, if you believe in Platonism you need to accept his Gods which is what people like Roger Penrose don't do, that's double standards, if you believe in non-dualism you need to accept the existence of Gods which is exactly what majority of them don't do, either stay away from these things or accept things as they are, any compromise position is untenable. I state things as they are, that's why its annoying for everyone.

There are 613 commandments in the Torah which forms the Jewish Law, there are as many commandments in the Islamic law and there are even greater number of laws in the Vedas. These laws should be followed in their respective countries even if the laws in different countries, places and times are opposite to one another. It is the divine Logos as called by the Greeks or Rta as called by the Vedic people which is the ordering principle behind the universe which gave these laws to our ancients, even the Gods are subjected to these laws and it governs the righteous conduct of life. Through out history these laws were in the hands of Rabbis for the Jews and Brahmin priests for the Aryans, there were not only a confusion on how to interpret these laws which still persists today, there is a great confusion on how to interpret the Islamic law but more importantly the elders or experienced priests could even change these laws and even add new laws after it was discussed and agreed upon by a elite group of noble priests and considering the amount of inequality and discrimination that exists in these laws its quite clear that these laws have been corrupted through time and we don't know what exactly was the divine law given to us by the divine Logos. These laws were not meant to control people or something which should be enforced all over the world, these laws were meant to produce a righteous society which were based on the underlying working principle of the cosmos and it was a guiding means to seek the divinity with in us, that's why it was said that the Gospel of Thomas should be read after reading all the synoptic Gospels because you have been prepared to receive these higher form of teachings as it says seek you shall find and as the Brahma Sutras says “Now one should enquire into the Brahman.” This means that now that you have attained a human body, you should use your intelligence to discover what is really spiritual and what is the Absolute Truth. Then the second verse begins to explain what is this Absolute Truth: “He from whom everything originates is the Absolute.” Thus, as it refers to “He”, the source of all that exists, the ultimate point of creation, is a person. This is the central tenet of Judaism, Christianity, Hinduism and Islam which are quite explicitly expressed in Kabbalah, Christian mysticism, Upanishads and in Sufism, the central tenet of religion is not to be obsessed with these laws and to discriminate women and show inequality and double standards in society, this was the message of Jesus, Shankara, Buddha and Muhammad i.e. to give equality to everyone whether one is a whore or a bishop. As long as you're in duality there is scope for discrimination and inequality but when you come to non-duality and realize that everyone and everything is of the same essence then where is the scope for discrimination and inequality to persist. The laws are important for social, theological and political constructs but what is more important is to realize whither we come from and whither we are going. In today's Modern world which lacks wisdom these laws are given more importance rather than to the central tenets of these religions which has mainly led to all forms of violence for each of these religions want to establish their cultural laws to the far continents and colonize the earth and want to convert as many people as they can falsely believing that their acts are backed up by God which will inevitably leads to the destruction of the world as Nelson-Pallmeyer writes that "Judaism, Christianity and Islam will continue to contribute to the destruction of the world until and unless each challenges violence in "sacred texts" and until each affirms nonviolent power of God". This is the truth about religion and not just my opinion, can a banker be religious? Even a whore can be religious not by blind belief but by realizing the existence of divinity in oneself, only then you can see others in equal terms for God is not divided and he has made everyone including men and women in his own image. You people keep insist that they are following the word of God which means you are implicitly defending them. No, your examples should not be included even in the general definition of religion, the Talibanization movement is a movement just like the Nazi movement and they have their own specific required characteristics and beliefs to register someone into their group or to give membership. Your examples should be classified into the correct category and not into religion. Talibanization (or Talibanisation) is a term coined following the rise of the Taliban movement in Afghanistan referring to the process where other religious groups or movements come to follow or imitate the strict practices of the Taliban.[1][2] In its original usage, Talibanization referred to groups who followed Taliban practices such as: usually strict regulation of women, including forbidding of most employment or schooling for women; the banning of long lists of activities generally tolerated by other Muslims—movies, television, videos, music, dancing, hanging pictures in homes, clapping during sports events; the banning of activities (especially hairstyles and clothing) generally tolerated by other Muslims on the grounds that the activities are Western; oppression of Shia, including takfir threats that they convert to Sunni Islam or be prepared to be killed; aggressive enforcement of its regulations, particularly the use of armed "religious police"; the destruction of non-Muslim artifacts, especially carvings and statues such as Buddhas of Bamyan, generally tolerated by other Muslims, on the grounds that the artifacts are idolatrous orShirk (polytheism) harboring of Al Qaeda or other Islamic terrorists; a discriminatory attitude towards non-Muslims such as sumptuary laws against Afghan Hindus the Taliban regime enacted, requiring them to wear yellow badges, a practice reminiscent of Nazi Germany's anti-Semitic policies.[3][4][5] There is no accepted etymology of religion and my definition is universal not because majority of them agree with it but because it includes all the religions of the world in it and hence it is a fact. In the beginning was the word and the word was with god, and god was the word. The word in the beginning was with god. Through god everything was born and without the word nothing was born. What was born through the word was life and the life was the light of all people and the light in the darkness shone and the darkness could not apprehend the light. (1:1-5) No one can snatch or even alter the Logos, not even Gods can do it. Do you have any evidence for Paul's pathological record? All these silly excuses to sideline the numerous documented accounts of genuine experiences by healthy religious persons as saying its hallucinations, delusions or were on LSD should stop because there experiences are as real as what happens when a Crow sits touching parallel electric wires with a high voltage of potential difference.

Religion is the pursuit of Truth. “Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.” (Hindu Prince Gautama Siddharta, the founder of Buddhism, 563-483 B.C.) However Tom O'Golo declares that religious fundamentalists that use violence to further their cause contravene the root truth of all faiths: A genuine fundamentalist is also a radical, someone who tries to get the root of the matter. A major weakness with many or perhaps most radicals is not that they don't dig, but that they don't dig deep enough. Consequently many fundamentalists end up defending or acting upon beliefs which are not really at the heart of their doctrine. For example any religious fundamentalist who harms others in the pursuit of his or her radicalism is strictly out of order as no true religion ever encounters anything but love, tolerance and understanding. 'Thou shalt not kill' is at the heart of all genuine faiths, certainly the three based upon Abraham and God. That trio comprehensively condemns intentional harm to others (and to the self as well) for what ever reason. Dying to protect one's faith is acceptable; killing to promote it isn't. Arguably, it is blasphemous to say that God needs an earthly army to fight Its battles, or perform Its revenge. God is quite capable of fighting Its own battles. "No matter what we choose to believe, let us remember that there is no religion whose central tenet is hate" - Barrack Obama I don't call fundamentalists as religious for the same reason I don't worship Satan because the truth is not with them.

My position is that these fundamentalists are often misinformed and deliberately misuse their religious texts. Can you not see that you guys are blind towards the truth and implicitly defending the fundamentalists due to your ignorance and claiming that they are religious? I very well know what you guys are arguing. Its evidence my friend, its evidence which says their interpretations are wrong and are often taken out of context completely than what their religious scriptures are actually saying, even Gandhi took his principle of non-violence from Bhagvad Gita, his entire life was based on Bhagavad Gita, one who has extensively studied the Bhagavad Gita knows that Gandhi was right and Heinrich Himmler was wrong, one doesn't need any special eyes to see who is wrong and who is right, its simple common sense and reasoning is all what it requires, if you argue otherwise it only shows your lack of knowledge about these religious scriptures and not that the teachings in these texts are inherently ambiguous, the teachings in these texts are perfectly fine and explicitly slams the acts and beliefs of fundamentalists something which you fail to recognize. They don't investigate, they cherry pick those verses which could be effectively taken out of context to justify their gruesome acts and they continue to dogmatically believe in them despite all evidence contradicting such an interpretation, not even their own religious scriptures allows them to arrive at such a conclusion. Surely, your definition of religion sucks, I have not excluded any of the world religions in my definition of religion and none of them discriminate or show inequality towards women, in fact they strive for the opposite i.e. for the equality of men and women. Just because a majority of the population of the world emotionally hold on to false notions of religion and false notions of God and claim themselves to be the sole saviours of faith, morality and a religious society doesn't make them religious for one doesn't acquire the qualities of divine through faith but through knowledge and his way of life. See a genuine example: RamayanaIn the Ramayana, the term Arya can also apply to Raksasas or to Ravana. In several instances, the Vanaras and Raksasas called themselves Arya. The vanara's king Sugriva is called an Arya (Ram: 505102712) and he also speaks of his brother Vali as an Arya (Ram: 402402434). In another instance in the Ramayana, Ravana regards himself and his ministers as Aryas (Ram: A logical explanation is that, Ravana and his ministers belonged to the highest varna (Ravana being a Brahmin), and Brahmins were generally considered 'noble' of deed and hence called Arya (noble). Thus, while Ravana was considered Arya (and regarded himself as such), he was not really an Arya because he was not noble of deeds. So, he is widely considered by Hindus as Anarya (non-Arya). The Ramayana describes Rama as: arya sarva samascaiva sadaiva priyadarsanah, meaning "Arya, who worked for the equality of all and was dear to everyone." These evil people call themselves holy, sacred, religious, noble etc and do the exact opposite deeds and hence they should be qualified as according to what they deserve i.e. non-religious, hostile, envious, not liberal. You won't become pure just by believing or just by breeding only with 6 foot tall, blonde haired, strongly built women and men, you become pure through self-transformation, following a path of perfection and by illumination and by imbibing the qualities of Jesus, Muhammad and Moses in you. After seeing your definition of religion you guys aren't any better than the Nazis, just clouded in the name of atheists, that's the only difference between you and them.

There is nothing special about Thomas, there are many other Gospels, Gospel of Philip, Mary, Judas, John, Gospel of Truth, Secret Book of John and the synoptic Gospels they all are legitimate. There are two main reasons why Timothy might not be divinely inspired. 1. It was not written by Paul and it was forged. I know there are many other Gospels which were not written by the authors as indicated in the name of the Gospels but there is no evidence of a deliberate forgery to deliberately suppress the views of the apostles and portray just the opposite view of the one held by the apostles in those texts where as in Timothy that's exactly what happened. If there is evidence for such deliberate forgery then the divinity of such texts too can be questioned. 2. It was a social and political move rather than a theological one to include this in the canon of New Testament. Elaine Pagels explains it quite briefly. The anti-feminism elements was purely a social and a political move not something which was inspired by the divine. I didn't heard that you were persecuting the Christians and suddenly changed your mind and started preaching your Gospel about Jesus being the first born of all creatures. "These experiences often have very significant effects on people's lives, frequently inducing in them acts of extreme self-sacrifice well beyond what could be expected from evolutionary arguments." - Argument from religious experiences. A strong case can be made that Paul was divinely inspired seeing the impact that it had upon his life after that experience. The behaviours of these people who have had religious experiences defy evolutionary psychological mechanisms, it cannot account for such behaviours and in such a case it is reasonable to believe that he or she was divinely inspired from a supernatural causation.

I advice you to read the thread once before blindly accusing me of making a strawman. You guys defended fundamentalists by saying its all right and justifiable for them to do those acts because their religious scriptures often demands such acts, that's what you guys said. All it shows is that is your ignorance about religion, you guys have studied the wrong side of religion, further investigation reveals the truth as to what Jesus, Muhammad and Moses taught and their teachings are in sharp contrast with the belief systems of the fundamentalists, all these men taught the very opposite of what fundamentalists do and you expect me to call them as being religious? What part of in the definition of religion allows them claim themselves as religious? They just doesn't deserve it and even you guys are blindly dancing with their tone which is very much disappointing to see. Religion is not just about faith, just by believing in something you won't become religious, religion is about knowledge and its a way of life to many of them and its the way they live is what determines whether they are religious or not and not what they blindly believe in.

Many of them[members] defended them[fudamentalists] by saying that their religious scriptures demands them to make such acts which is very much in tone with what they exactly want, i.e confusion, I'm not in for such a disguise and I'll always expose their concealed false beliefs and they shouldn't be tolerated in this modern world. I have argued in the past that some of the Pauline Epistles were forged in order to make it in tone with Jewish Christianity but Gentiles can easily identify that. The Council of Nicea were not after the truth, Constantine wanted a single unified religion after his distaste for pagan religions and they gave it to him in the form of orthodox Christianity. Athanasius did ordered to destroy all the secret books and burn them. In Gospel of Thomas Jesus is not portrayed as a messiah rather he speaks as a sage, scholars think that one should read the Gospel of Thomas after reading the synoptic Gospels because the teachings in the Gospel of Thomas is considered to be for the more matured Christians who are ready to receive the higher teachings. I don't think there is a single holy canon which can be considered as the true word of God, some can be classified as holding the view that the son is of the same essence of the Father and some saying he is not of the same essence of the Father, these things appear to us as minor differences but in those days anyone who claimed that the son was of a different essence of the Father was persecuted, others can be classified as Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians, there is no such thing as strict orthodoxy so that anyone who disagree with them should be persecuted thinking that they hold the divine word of God, I hope not. As said earlier there is considerable evidence to suggest that Timothy was not from the original Paul and that raises doubts about its divine origin, remember Paul was inspired by the divine on his road to Damascus so if he didn't wrote Timothy then that seriously raises doubts about its divine origin.

I call bs on you guys for defending acts of fundamentalists as being all right and justifiable, we are no longer in the age of ignorance where what constitutes as religion is blurred and the truth is hidden from the public, most of the beliefs of fundamentalists are often beliefs which have been taken out of context completely which when investigated gives a completely different meaning and they are either being misinformed or manipulated or have deliberately misused those texts due to their influence from other social and political factors, I will never let such ignorance to creep up in and around me. Will you let a fraud in the scientific community to publish bad articles and who claims that it is justified by science just to influence a hidden agenda and say its all right and justifiable? Further investigation and introspection reveals what science actually says and what was wrongly projected in the name of science. In the same way fundamentalists are frauds who project wrong belief systems and claim it is justified by religious texts but further introspection reveals the truth. Many in Afghanistan have cried and have realized that it is wrong to kill people and have thrown out their ammunitions, just because people are falsely brainwashed into believing that after their death and killing innocent infidels they will be welcomed by 72 virgins in heaven doesn't mean you can say such notions are supported by Islam, they are often misinterpretations and a misuse of religious texts just as Heinrich Himmler misused Bhagvad Gita to justify his holocaust on innocent Jews when the actual truth was that killing is only justifiable in the battle field which is the duty of a soldier to protect oneself and his country and it is not his duty to unleash poisonous gas on innocent women and children just because they were from a different race which cannot be justifiable and was completely taken out of context. Yet radical as they were, the intense conviction they carried earned them wide prestige--so much so that those who disagreed with Paul and wanted to reaffirm traditional Jewish values of family and procreation did this by writing letters they attributed to Paul that taught opposite values-and put them into the New Testament under Paul's name! Here is what I mean: like many other New Testament scholars, I share the view that Paul only wrote seven of the 13 so-called "letters of Paul" that are in the New Testament (only these share his distinctive and eloquent style). The six "deutero- Pauline" (this means "secondarily Pauline," but perhaps could be called more bluntly "pseudo-Pauline") letters take Paul's inclinations to subordinate women and slaves to a new level. The letters to Timothy are good examples. They insist that bishops should be married men, whose capacity to control their wives and slaves demonstrated their capacity to "rule over the church"; in these letters, the fiery and charismatic Paul becomes the very model of an ecclesiastical bureaucrat. Yet because some of the pseudo-Pauline letters--I Timothy, for example-pictures Paul as a champion of orthodoxy (even though that orthodoxy had not been invented in Paul's day), certain church fathers were able to reclaim the disputed territory of Paul's letters for the churches they called "orthodox." - Elaine Pagels http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Christianity/2004/04/Scholarly-Smackdowndid-Paul-Distort-Christianity.aspx?p=1 It is a well established fact based on scholarly evidence that I Timothy is a forged letter in the name of Paul, that doesn't mean all of Pauline letters are forged, some letters go well with his style and his core beliefs. Which proves beyond any doubt that women have been often victimized by strong social and political factors rather than religion, who ever done that doesn't deserve to be called as religious because for God doesn't discriminate women. 1 Timothy is forged which was introduced by people who were highly motivated to achieve a hidden social and political agenda rather than basing their reason based on some divine principles and there is enough evidence to suggest that and if you want to lead a life based on it thinking that it is the true word of God then all the best to you for religion doesn't allow such ignorance in its practice. Jesus explicitly broke various Jewish laws and went out of his way to remove the double standard laws against women, there are many examples, his actions with women speak a thousand words about his views on women compared to your claim that he is silent when it comes to specific laws for women. Again you quote from Timothy. Well, firing such tough questions at me makes me emotionally very difficult to answer it, but I was never a big fan of holding a literal interpretation of the Bible, wisdom literatures are wisdom literatures and one must see them in such a light, the wisdom in them are more important than the stories that teach the wisdom, for example, Kabbalahists don't see YHWH as a God sitting on a golden chair and having a golden crown, they say one who views God as such is a fool, they more see God as a transcended God with Ein-Sof as the ineffable unity and God as a manifested personal form of Ein-Sof which is a more matured view. Archeology of the Hebrew Bible http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/archeology-hebrew-bible.html The Rise of Judaism http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/rise-judaism.html Writers of Bible http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/writers-bible.html I hope you have got my answer. I hope you also get the idea where I'm coming from. My definition of Judaism is the correct definition of what constitutes the traditional core values and beliefs of Judaism. Just by believing in Abraham, Moses or YHWH doesn't mean you have become Jewish, you need to become YHWH to be Jewish --> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabbalah. Ask these Jews about their position on women I'm sure it will be radically different and very much liberal. Those who receive the name of the father, the son, and holy spirit...[are] no longer a Christian, but [are] Christ. - Gospel of Philip You need to become Christ through knowledge in order to qualify yourself into the religion of Christianity, your Google doesn't know what Christianity is. Even in Hinduism there is an identical ritual known as Upanayana (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upanayana) just as Baptism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baptism). Just by wearing a sacred thread you won't become a Brahmin, you need to know Brahman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brahman) to become a Brahmin. "But not baptism alone sets us free, but knowledge (gnosis): who we were, what we have become, where we were, whither we have sunk, whither we hasten, whence we are redeemed, what is birth and what rebirth." - Excerpta ex Theodoto, 78, 2 I know what being religious is, just because you guys as it often happens seem to have ended up reading the wrong side of religion doesn't mean my definition of religion is broken, its rock solid, universal and objective. People within a religion often quarrel with each other due to their ignorance but the wise know the truth and they don't see any differences in various sects and they know the disagreement are mainly due to ignorance rather than contradictions in the scriptures. That people saw different disciples of Christ as representing different teachings was addressed by Paul himself, in the 1st letter to the Corinthians: (1 Cor 1:10–18) I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought. My brothers, some from Chloe's household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. What I mean is this: One of you says, "I follow Paul"; another, "I follow Apollos"; another, "I follow Cephas(Peter)"; still another, "I follow Christ." Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Were you baptized into the name of Paul? I am thankful that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius, so no one can say that you were baptized into my name. (Yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I don't remember if I baptized anyone else.) For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel — not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. - Saint Paul, The Apostle These different sects keep hearing the secrets of the Kingdom of God but they don't see or understand it and hence they quarrel but for one who has become one with Christ knows how to reconcile all these different views in an unified harmony based an a theological move.

As I said earlier just because you don't know what constitutes or what defines Christianity and Islam and desperately want to put everyone on the same boat doesn't mean I have committed a fallacy. From your own link - Broadly speaking, the fallacy does not apply if there is a clear and well-understood definition of what membership in a group requires and it is that definition which is broken (e.g., "no honest man would lie like that!", "no Christian would worship Satan!" and so on). I gave a precise definition of what is required to be a Christian and a Muslim and there is no ambiguity in it. You are saying as though I have rejected it based on my personal whim, I am not saying that, its scholarly evidence which says they were forged letters, if you don't know the truth about Christianity then its not my problem.

Ah, that shows you don't know what being religious means. Sorry I am not in for such ego trip. 1. Asserting people who believe in God are broken 2. Making false analogies and equating God with tooth fairies. 3. Believing our ancients invented gods rather than discovering them. 4. Religion equals poverty. Just to name a few, go and preach that to someone else not to me.

I very well established my credibility by showing that there is nothing in the core religious beliefs of the major religions of the world where it says women should be exempted from higher education and actually religion strives for the opposite by providing equal opportunity and even higher authority to women and stops the discrimination of women which are mainly caused by social and other political factors. Your personal bias against religion and gullible conclusions is well known to everyone.

No, if they want to have their own belief systems and rebel against the word of God tell them to find an another name rather than calling themselves holy or religious without knowing the true meanings of such sacred words. Its not an arbitrary judgement, to decide whether I belong to a particular religion or not first you should know what my religion is and then you need to know what constitutes as the core beliefs of that religion and that can be known from the scripture and the tradition which upholds the core values of that particular religion, one doesn't decide what constitutes as religion based on a majority, this is not a numbers game, this definition forms the very soul of that religion and hence it is very much important to have that values in you in order to qualify yourself as belonging to that religion. It does matter what beliefs they are following, if their belief is that beheading innocent people is the core value of Islam then tell them to go to hell because no definition of Islam allows such beliefs. Every religion has its own definition of religion, the people who worshipped the sun and the planets do qualify as a religion because according to them the sun and the planets are not just physical elliptic spheres revolving around their orbits but instead they are also anthropomorphic Gods who control our fate based on the position of the planets and hence it is of a divine origin. The word god and religion has been used so loosely in some of the threads that it has become a habit to associate god with anything they like. Every religion has its own pantheon or deity and each of it is precisely defined. On the whole only those things which are from a divine origin or which having a likelihood of a divine origin can be considered religious. Its quite easy to find out which beliefs are from a divine origin and which aren't by doing comparative religious studies and scholarship, its same like how do you run a case in a court, if the witnesses claim matches with the evidence of their exact location, the timing of the event and in the absence of contrary evidence it can at least be qualified as a religion with a likelihood of having a divine origin, if you just make up something on your own then it doesn't qualify as religion. If that's the case then they are slayers of Christianity and slayers of Islam.

Simply because their acts are not influenced by a divine origin or of a supernatural origin from God but more influenced by social and political forces for their own religion and God doesn't allow such acts, so if we assume Quran is of a divine origin then any acts which goes against the laws of the divine cannot be called as Holy and hence fundamentalists cannot be qualified as being religious, remember we are trying to find the root causes of these things and its very important to figure out the truth as to which causes have a divine origin and which aren't, only causes which is of a divine origin can be qualified as religious. They are not legitimate because they were forged letters in the name of Paul and the true opinion of the true Paul on women is something very different and very liberal. Paul and the Eschatological women by Robin Scroggs http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/1461319?uid=3738256&uid=2&uid=4&sid=21101541228911 Paul and Women: Elaine Pagels http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/1461971?uid=3738256&uid=2&uid=4&sid=21101541228911 No, Jesus was the first one to change the double standard laws which where biased against women, he often broke various Jewish laws and went out of his way to help women and even talked to them and preached to them, Mary was the first female student who received his teachings. Jesus's interaction with women http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus'_interactions_with_women That link shows how misinformed you are and by the way only those which is from a divine origin can be termed as holy or religious and a human man made agenda can never be qualified as religious because it was never the word of God. There is nothing special about me, that's what the Jewish prophet and Moses himself say and many of the Muslims say and that's the first impression one gets when you read the Torah. "'How can you say, "We are wise because we have the word of the LORD," when your teachers have twisted it by writing lies? - Jeremiah 8:8 http://bible.cc/jeremiah/8-8.htm 25: he[Moses] gave this command to the Levites who carried the ark of the covenant of the Lord: 26 “Take this Book of the Law and place it beside the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God. There it will remain as a witness against you.27: For I know how rebellious and stiff-necked you are. If you have been rebellious against the Lord while I am still alive and with you, how much more will you rebel after I die! 28: Assemble before me all the elders of your tribes and all your officials, so that I can speak these words in their hearing and call the heavens and the earth to testify against them. 29: For I know that after my death you are sure to become utterly corrupt and to turn from the way I have commanded you. In days to come, disaster will fall on you because you will do evil in the sight of the Lord and arouse his anger by what your hands have made.” - Deuteronomy 31: 25-29 It is God who treats men and women as equal and it is humans devoid of divinity who corrupt the word of God. Therefore religion is not the root cause of discrimination of women instead the root causes are mainly social and political influences. One doesn't become a Christian by believing in Christ, one doesn't become a Muslim by accepting Muhammad as his prophet. One becomes a Christian by practically leading a life based on the principles of Christ and becomes a Muslim by following and implementing the principles of Muhammad in his life. If your entire characteristics and the your way of life is entirely against the teachings of Christ and Muhammad then you don't deserve to be called as a Christian or a Muslim, you are calling yourself Islamic only for namesake and doing everything against the laws of Islam and the teachings of Muhammad. Just because you don't know what characteristics are required to qualify someone as being religious doesn't mean I have committed a fallacy. For now I'm a member of sfn and I'm participating in this thread as a member, I'm not in charge of anything.I speak for myself. Valentinians believed that God is androgynous and frequently depicted him as a male-female dyad. This is related to the notion that God provides the universe with both form and substance. The feminine aspect of the deity is called Silence, Grace and Thought. Silence is God's primordial state of tranquillity and self-awareness She is also the active creative Thought that makes all subsequent states of being (or "Aeons") substantial. The masculine aspect of God is Depth, also called Ineffable and First Father. Depth is the profoundly incomprehensible, all-encompassing aspect of the deity. He is essentially passive, yet when moved to action by his feminine Thought, he gives the universe form. -The Gnostic society Library God is androgynous, he has both male and female aspect in him. Read above.

I have already given them a fair chance to respond to my posts in numerous threads and have politely explained to them that they have been misinformed. Our ancients didn't give the names of Gods to the outside natural forces or to the external things or they didn't made up Gods to convey their message. Tell your fellow men not to make strawman arguments like such and waste our time. For our ancients Gods are individuals, they are beings existing in the intelligible realm and they appear to humans in anthropomorphic form to the Nous(Mind) which we call as Visions and it is through ritual one attains the oneness with the cosmos in all its manifested forms.

You do realize that I am not stating things as my opinion, I am stating things as facts, neoplatonism will remain because it is in accordance with the reality out there and anyone can test it, these are the basic facts of the world. Roger Penrose contends that the foundations of mathematics can't be understood absent the Platonic view that "mathematical truth is absolute, external and eternal, and not based on man-made criteria ... mathematical objects have a timeless existence of their own..." Intellect exists in a Platonic realm and even science confirms it and one cannot separate the Gods from neoplatonism so all evidence is showing that Gods are real and they are everywhere. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFbrnFzUc0U Add to that the rituals of pagan religions indeed works and show efficacy and empirical results when they are tested in nature showing that the universe is far strange than it seems. I am not here to be nice with anyone, I am here to expose the kind of double standards that people show and the stupid mistakes that people do when evidence is shown against their preconceived notions and beliefs, the scholarly evidence doesn't allow them to disagree with my claims and its time to shut them up, if they persist continuing to ignore the evidence then that's what they should be called.

Nope, a few will remain and neoplatonism will be one of them.

Offering to the Gods: A Neoplatonic Perspective by Edward P. Butler, Independent Scholar. http://henadology.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/offering.pdf Ritual is important for religion as experimental physics is important for physics which means ritual deals with the practical knowledge and methodologies through which religious ideas and beliefs are tested to see whether the beliefs and ideas is in accordance with the nature of reality out there, even though rituals exists in all religions it is explicitly practised and is given much importance in pagan religions and ritual was the only means to achieve oneness with God. The author gives us a perspective of a ritual through the eyes of a Neoplatonist and explains the importance of Gods in achieving the higher good. The names of Gods: The author compares the different views on the significance of the names of the Gods. Porphyry is of the opinion that the language and the names of gods of a particular culture is insignificant means the names of gods can be translated to different languages where the syllable of the name of the Gods changes and Porphyry thinks that the ritual will work and will transcend us independent of the language in which the names of Gods are spoken. Iamblichus replies to Porphyry that the names of gods carry a supra-rational efficacy in the cosmos and that they have high significance in ritual worship, this was the view adopted by Neoplatonists which in my opinion is the correct view because the names of Gods seems to have a direct effect on nature, means it as an efficacy, rituals performed uttering the names of Gods show empirical results where as rituals performed without uttering the names of Gods have no effects on nature. Is it simply a means of ascent to a universal and transcendent divine that is either undifferentiated or not differentiated in a manner coinciding with the manifest differences between cultures? Each culture has its own myth and its own pantheon as to how the cosmos got originated and manifested in its various forms. Even though the the theory is the same, the names and the description of the Gods surrounding a culture is different from one another. For example, the Buddhists call the masculine aspect of God as Samanthabhadra and the feminine aspect of it as Samantabhadri, The Vedic Aryans call them as Savithru and Gayatri respectively, the Valentinians called it the Pistis Sophia and the Holy Father, now the question arises are each culture talking of and describing the same Gods or are they talking of different Gods coming from their own respective pantheon and if so which pantheon represents the manifested reality out there? I think the fact that different cultures have discovered these myths on their own it is not wise to dogmatically assert that only one pantheon represent the manifested reality out there and the other pantheon is false or even to say the different cultures are talking about the same pantheon, instead it should be realized that not only the rituals of our nation work and the Gods of our pantheon are true but also it must be realized that the rituals of different cultures and their pantheon works indeed which philosophically we can term it as the divine Logos the working principle of the cosmos while simultaneously preserving and giving importance to the specific rituals and specific Gods discovered by each culture because only through this path of the Gods we can transcend the manifested reality and achieve the non-dualistic unity. So even though the manifested reality appears differently for different cultures in truth it is undifferentiated which means the rituals and the pantheon of different cultures indeed works and this was the kind of liberal view adopted by Neoplatonists. Is engagement with this culturally determinate material perhaps even a hindrance to attaining this transcendent viewpoint? No, actually it is a ladder for attaining this transcendent viewpoint which means the pantheon of Gods in each of these traditions or cultures are as essential and important for achieving unity, actually it is the only true path for perfection, the Gods are real and they do exist. The difference between private worship and public or mass worship like in Churches and temples: One must ‘‘stand aside from all other pursuits’’ in order that ‘‘alone, one may associate with the solitary deity, and not attempt to join oneself to the One by means of multiplicity. For a person like this accomplishes the very opposite, and separates himself from the Gods.’’ - Proclus Its important to worship privately and silently and the aim should be towards the subordination of ourselves to the Gods for it is the right way to approach the Gods and receive illumination from them and the aim of worship should never be to fulfil the need of Gods for they have no needs and should never be to fulfil one's own external needs for we curse gods when they give the very opposite of what we want and move ourselves away from the Gods without understanding it is impossible to blow wind towards the north and the south at the same time for sailors who pray for wind in the opposite directions respectively. The importance of performing rituals with high respect and care: ‘‘just as it is impious to ill-treat the statues of the Gods, in the same way it is not righteous to err regarding names.’’ - Proclus "He[simplicius] spells out what should be determinative for our attitude toward the Gods explicitly in three theses: the Gods exist, they exercise forethought, and they do so in a way that is just and in accordance with correct reason." One should not err while uttering the names of Gods in the ritual and shouldn't do carelessly. The importance of Philosophy and Theology: "A balance was thus struck such that the primacy of the theological discourse protected it from rationalizing ‘‘demythologization’’ while the universalizing philosophical discourse, equally divine in origin, held its ground against the absorption of philosophy by any particular, dogmatic theology." It is wrong to study the pagan religions purely from a philosophical perspective for the pagans gave as much importance to rituals and the Gods and they made sure that the intense rationalization or intellectualization didn't suppressed the importance of the Gods and their rituals without which there is no philosophy. There are a lot of stupid people out there who don't understand that Advaita Vedanta, Buddhism, Gnostic Christianity, Neoplatonism etc takes the existence of Gods very seriously and it is impossible to separate their philosophy from their Gods, they are inseparable because for them the Gods are real and they are everywhere and it is through these Gods they achieved oneness with the Cosmos.

I said that in general because few members gave examples of fundamentalists who doesn't qualify as being religious, that's why I referred as you guys and didn't specifically targeted at you, thanks for clarifying your position. The one example you gave was from a pseudo-Pauline letters which were forged letters in the name of Paul, the truth of Christianity is that God is androgynous and Christ is neither male nor female and in early Christian times women maintained equal authority with men, they taught, they preached and they used to run ministries and these anti-feminism elements were added later into the canon by the orthodox community in the name of forged Pauline letters which shows that these are not the true words of god but was mainly influenced by social and political factors rather than based on the true divine principles of God, perhaps Truth goes hand in hand with arrogance, yes my words look extremely arrogant because I speak the truth. Your example does nothing other than to prove my point that inequality between gender is mainly due to social and political factors rather than due to religion. I didn't said the views of orthodox community are misinterpretations or are misusing it, I said that to fundamentalists, one cannot call the explicit verses in the Torah showing discrimination to women where the men is exempted and forgiven for breaking a law while the women is stoned to death as mere misinterpretations, I said they were ignorant and not that they have misinterpreted it, they have been misled into believing that which directly contradicts the true divine principle showing that the authors were influenced by social and political factors rather than basing their reasons for such discrimination of gender on a divine principle. The teachings of certain traditions may be contradictory to teachings of certain sects with in a religion who oppose the true divine principle due to their ignorance but there are teachings across religions which are amazingly identical and all based on a single common divine principle and therefore the conclusion shouldn't be that the all of religion was made up by humans, there is divinity out there.

It was very much necessary and was an well intended criticism for you guys don't know the true message of religion and blindly think that religion as defined by fundamentalists and ignorant people from orthodox belief systems is the true word of God. Most of the atheists are liars when they say, the very fact that they have studied all of religion is what made them to hold that atheistic position, which is a lie because if they had studied the whole of religion of the world and the history of humanity it doesn't allow them to hold such a dishonest atheistic position. You guys showed your ignorance of religion when you people believed the misinterpreted and misused versions of a religious scripture as actually the true word of God without knowing the truth about religion. Every religion has teachings which is mainly for outside masses which are basically social constructs and hidden teachings known only to an initiated few. In the Gospel of Matthew (13:10-17) Jesus provides an answer when asked about his use of parables: The disciples came to him and asked, "Why do you speak to the people in parables?" He replied "The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven has been given to you, but not to them. Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. This is why I speak to them in parables:Though seeing, they do not see; though hearing, they do not hear or understand." The outside masses though hearing it daily do not understand it and are often misled into believing that this interpretation is the true message of the scripture without knowing the mystical interpretation of the scripture which contains the core essence of a religion. Neither religion nor God is responsible for the maniac acts of fundamentalists and the ignorant false belief systems of majority of people who claim themselves to be Christians, Hindus and Muslims without knowing what's there in their own religion, they don't deserve to be called as being religious because when each of their religion is taken as a whole in a full context much of the modern belief systems of these people turns out to be false and is with variance with the true message of their ancient ancestors who started their religion. See these examples as to how modern people from past centuries have continuously lost the core essential beliefs of their religion which show strong contrasts when compared to the belief systems of the ancients who started these religions. The age of the Upanishads: "The method of yoga described in the Yoga Yajnavalkya is both comprehensive and universally applicable—open to both women and men. Yajnnavalkya explains the principles and practice of yoga, the path to freedom, to Gargi, his wife. The Yoga Yajnavalkya demonstrates that Vedic culture provided women with equal opportunities and encouragement for their spiritual pursuits to attain freedom. The most pleasing feature of this period is the presence of women teachers, many of whom possessed highest spiritual knowledge. The famous dialogue between Yajnavalkya and his wife Maitreyi and Gargi Vachaknavi show how enlightened the women of that age were. According to the Sarvanukramanika, there were as many as 20 women among the authors of the Rig Veda. These stories stand in contrast to the later age when the study of Vedic literature was forbidden to women under the most severe penalty." Which show strong contrasts when compared to belief system of Hindus from the past centuries for example - Sati system i.e burning alive of widow women which were added later as a law which was purely a social construct rather than a divine word of God. Muhammad's ethics of war: "During his life, Muhammad gave various injunctions to his forces and adopted practices toward the conduct of war. The most important of these were summarized by Muhammad's companion and first Caliph, Abu Bakr, in the form of ten rules for the Muslim army: O people! I charge you with ten rules; learn them well! Stop, O people, that I may give you ten rules for your guidance in the battlefield. Do not commit treachery or deviate from the right path. You must not mutilate dead bodies. Neither kill a child, nor a woman, nor an aged man. Bring no harm to the trees, nor burn them with fire, especially those which are fruitful. Slay not any of the enemy's flock, save for your food. You are likely to pass by people who have devoted their lives to monastic services; leave them alone. Muslims view that the Muslims fought only when attacked, or in the context of a wider war of self-defense. They argue that Muhammad was the first among the major military figures of history to lay down rules for humane warfare, and that he was scrupulous in limiting the loss of life as much as possible." In the Qur'an: There are some Ayats in Qur'an which relates to Defensive Jihad. The Qur'an states: "Fight in the cause of Allah those who fight you, but do not transgress, for Allah loves not the transgressor. Fight in the way of Allah against those who fight against you, but begin not hostilities. Lo! Allah loveth not aggressors. And slay them wherever ye find them, and drive them out of the places whence they drove you out, for persecution is worse than slaughter. And fight not with them at the Inviolable Place of Worship until they first attack you there, but if they attack you (there) then slay them. Such is the reward of disbelievers. But if they desist, then lo! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful. And fight them until persecution is no more, and religion is for Allah. But if they desist, then let there be no hostility except against wrongdoers." (Al-Baqarah 190-193) I find it funny how atheists join hands with fundamentalists and say that the discrimination of women and killing of innocent people carried out by fundamentalists is quite justified because their religious scriptures demands such acts when the fact of the matter is these fundamentalists are neither religious and nor are their acts in any sense of the word be justifiable with in their own religious scriptures. The root causes that lead to worse societies is not due to religion but instead it is due to ignorance of religion, mainly social and political factors and a lack of high education standards to women which religion never prohibits in any way. In fact, a godless materialistic society such as the League of Militant atheists holding such anti-religious motivations cannot give a happy liberal society for it is as much a fundamentalist view to say no gods as it is to say only my god is the true God without knowing the power of myth and its ability to psychologically cure us. Christine Downing recounts the Greek view of the gods as energies that affect everyone. In so being they are referred to "as theos, that is, as immortal, permanent, ineluctable aspects of the world". Disputes among the Greek pantheon were frequent, yet, Downing emphasizes, no god of the Classical era ever denied the existence of another god. And she cautions us as humans that to deny even one of the pantheon diminishes the richness of individuals and of the world.

That shows how ignorant you guys are when it comes to religion, how about this one. "114. Simon Peter said to them, "Make Mary leave us, for females don't deserve life." Jesus said, "Look, I will guide her to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every female who makes herself male will enter the kingdom of Heaven." - Gospel of Thomas Again where does religion stop women from taking up higher education or having a higher authority over men? Just because a majority of people blindly agree on and follow false beliefs thinking that as the true word of God doesn't mean they deserve to be called as being religious when it was never the true word of God. As I said I will never let these ignorant new atheists and those who hold false belief systems like orthodox Christianity, Hinduism etc to define what religion is for us for they know nothing about their own religion and not about what the empirical and scriptural evidence is saying. Christianity is indeed a religion for Christ has each one with in him whether an angel, a mystery or a human.

The misuse of religion and misinterpretation of religious texts to justify one's unjustifiable acts is not something new to us or something which is only specific to Islamic fundamentalists even the Nazis did it. We shouldn't let these fundamentalists define what religion is for us because their interpretations are neither based on scriptural evidence nor by empirical evidence. In fact these fundamentalist groups doesn't even classify as institutional religion whether its the Taliban or any other group for that matter, even if it is the Catholic Church any religious body which supports such notions against the word of God is not a religion, its the corruption of religion. If such groups are classified as part of religion then genuine religious people might have to exclude such groups or make themselves exclude from religion and find a all new word to preserve the word of God. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/world-war-two/9098525/Nazi-leader-Heinrich-Himmler-a-fan-of-yoga.html

Like this, I guess. http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/pages/in-the-name-of-allah.htm Let us redefine the word WAR as Wisdom and Revelation.

Honestly, beheading infidels shouting the name "Allah O Akbar" and releasing videos of that over the internet to threaten all the pagans and infidels falls under the definition of religion according to you? I asked where does religion stop women from taking up higher university education and not what some people do in the name of religion, the latter doesn't fall with in the definition of religion.