Does Jesus hate yoga?

[ebbomega]

Originally Posted by Ragga_Wh0re

ok so the pagan following worhips many Gods, like Ishtar...easter...the sun god/saturnalia/christmas/stn claus...ummm yeah.The dates might not be exact,but theyre way too close for coincidence.Lets not forget that the early Christian had Pagan roots, so its not surprising pagan practices wormed thier way into Christian practise. Thats my point.

If you really want to be picky about it, every western religion is based in Judaism (including islam).

Not being holier then thou, just have the courage of my convictions. As for nearly 100% of Christians not "living in the light" Id have to agree with you.

So what is Christianity if none of these Christians are actually practicing it? My point is that if you're going to use a term like "Christian" you're referring to the catch-all of New Testament-based religions. By your standards, it's frelling impossible to be a "proper" christian. You can go around saying "That person's not really a Christian" but you'd be making the same level of discrimination that comes from every fundamentalist that says "That person doesn't worship the same as me and is therefore wrong."

Saying someone isn't a REAL christian because they don't follow a particular dogma or interpretation of the Bible is pretty ignorant, IMO.

For you to say Im missing the point of religious texts when youre referring to the bible as nothing more then a fictional book of history? is hypocritical.

Did I refer to it as fiction? No, I said it was a story about people. Not all stories are fiction.

Who said churchs had to be erected? Did God?I cant think of a single passage that explicity says we must errect these monstrositys and worship God within them?

To my knowledge isnt the church/temple pagan also?

Jesus had a lot to say about temples and churches, and what was supposed to happen in them. Why do you think the priests were so pissed off with him? He was debunking their entire dogmatic codifying of the Torah.

You're getting really caught up in semantics here. Yes, Pagans and Christians have a lot in common. That doesn't mean they are the same thing. But the First Commandment is the main thing that differentiates them. Paganism is polytheism, whereas Christianity (and all other Judea-based religions) are monotheistic.

To say that they are the same religion is pretty absurd.

[ebbomega]

Originally Posted by kir mokum

paganism doesn't necessarily equal polytheism. paganism does necessarily equal not-xtian though.

From wikipedia:

Paganism (from Latin paganus, meaning "country dweller, rustic")[1] is a word used to refer to various religions and religious beliefs from across the world. It is a term which, from a Western perspective, has modern connotations of spiritualist, animist or shamanic practices or beliefs of any folk religion contemporary. It has also been used as an equivalent term for polytheistic religions.[2]

[tiedye]

Originally Posted by kir mokum

tiedye: i suggest getting new friends. try some with brains.

No thanks. She's a total sweetheart and actually rather intelligent, which is why I was curious enough to ask around and research this topic.

[kir mokum]

Originally Posted by ebbomega

From wikipedia:

Paganism (from Latin paganus, meaning "country dweller, rustic")[1] is a word used to refer to various religions and religious beliefs from across the world. It is a term which, from a Western perspective, has modern connotations of spiritualist, animist or shamanic practices or beliefs of any folk religion contemporary. It has also been used as an equivalent term for polytheistic religions.[2]

yeah, i know. not exactly definitive, is it? my point still stands.

the next sentence clarifies:
"The term has been defined broadly, to encompass the faith traditions outside the Abrahamic monotheistic group of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam."

[kir mokum]

Originally Posted by tiedye

No thanks. She's a total sweetheart and actually rather intelligent, which is why I was curious enough to ask around and research this topic.

hmmm, have you tried deprogramming her?

[tiedye]

I have no right to do such a thing. Personal beliefs are just that. Personal.

[Courtney]

Originally Posted by Ragga_Wh0re

ummm have you even read the bible?like AT ALL?

God spoke to Moses and gave him HUNDREDS of commandemnts which are all outlined in the Torah. For whatever reason, Christianity took only 10 of those commandments and made them common practise.

Heres some scripture for you:

16"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son,[f] that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.[g] 19This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. 21But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God."[h]


31"The one who comes from above is above all; the one who is from the earth belongs to the earth, and speaks as one from the earth. The one who comes from heaven is above all. 32He testifies to what he has seen and heard, but no one accepts his testimony. 33The man who has accepted it has certified that God is truthful. 34For the one whom God has sent speaks the words of God, for God[k] gives the Spirit without limit. 35The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands. 36Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God's wrath remains on him."[l]



Taken from John 3.

No, and I don't care too.
Organized religion is stupid.

[Courtney]

I don't care if your religious believe what you want to ragga whore
personal thing for sure
but i'm referring to maniac christians who are homophobic,racist and whatnot
its retarded

[kir mokum]

on a serious note, i highly suggest challenging her (or anybody else's) beliefs. i think accepting someone's beliefs because they're "personal" is a cop out. all ideas are worth challenging and religious belief is no different. by the sounds of things she pretty uncomfortable about her beliefs (i'm not going on much), and i would guess there's a part of her that knows that it's ridiculous but doesn't know what to do about it.

[Courtney]

^ ya maybe
but I do understand religion..it gives people hope,faith, something to live for even
It's scary to think outside of that box..I mean if religion is all just ficticious...then what is this all about? and when your loves ones die are they really just gone?
religion brings people peace and in some ways purpose so for that reason I don't think its fair to challenge it. It is only when discrimination and war comes into play that I think arguments should happen. If someone is a practicing christian but keeps to themselves i'm totally cool with it and they have that right

[tiedye]

It's not a cop out. Trying to 'deprogram' someone because I differ from them in religious belief goes against my morals. What gives ME the right to try to change someone's spirituality when I would be against them doing the same to me? I think it is wrong.

Discussing it would be great, but she isn't comfortable discussing the other possibilities. What reason do I have to subject her to that when our friendship is a comfortable one on every other level?

Personally, I would rather refrain from religious debate in any case. It just gets annoying and always ends up at a standstill because we can't prove anything. The only reason I brought up this thread was because I was genuinely curious about the relationship between yoga and Christianity and whether that relationship was a negative one or not.

[Krusha]

and im the only one who answered with the answer ,

to sum it up

christian gnosticism chadwick

[kir mokum]

Originally Posted by Courtney

^ ya maybe
but I do understand religion..it gives people hope,faith, something to live for even
It's scary to think outside of that box..I mean if religion is all just ficticious...then what is this all about?

why does "all this" need to be "about" anything? the likelihood that existence has a plot or a meaning is pretty minimal. besides, if it does, how would anyone ever know what even part of the story is if a lifetime isn't even worth noting in the grand story of existence.

if existence has a meaning it is probably existence. maybe life. but arguing some anthro-centric story/plot/meaning is intensely silly and deluded.

Originally Posted by Courtney

and when your loves ones die are they really just gone?

uh, yeah.

Originally Posted by Courtney

religion brings people peace and in some ways purpose so for that reason I don't think its fair to challenge it.

bullshit. it's an idea therefore it's fair game. if one of your friends had the personal belief that illuminati were in control of the world and had their phone bugged and that you were working for them, would you not challenge that belief? you can't prove definitively that it's not true, but logic will certainly make the belief fall apart at the seams.

Originally Posted by Courtney

It is only when discrimination and war comes into play that I think arguments should happen. If someone is a practicing christian but keeps to themselves i'm totally cool with it and they have that right

you can be cool with someones beliefs and still challenge them. it's this kind of thinking that leads to intellectual stagnation. i find the unfounded respect that religious belief has pretty disgusting. religion is an idea just like any other.

Originally Posted by tiedye

Trying to 'deprogram' someone because I differ from them in religious belief goes against my morals.

that was a joke.

[Dreadnex.Inc]

Isa ben Miriam (really, considering who it was who drove the nails, is it likely that he'd have a Roman name like Jesus Christos?) was a carpenter. All evidence is that he never wrote a word in his life.

I met a man a few years ago, a practicing Christian, who had 9 of the 23 books referenced in the Old Testament, as existing prior to it's writing.

He could read them in the original language.

Things that he came up with:

Only one temple/church was ever supposed to be built, in Jerusalem.

The church was not supposed to handle money, in any form.

Worship/practice was to be conducted within small groups ("in twos, and threes"), of friends, family, or aquaintance, for the purpose of personal development. NOT in the form of large congregations under the leadership of a single person, not even a prohpet, but ordained by what was functionally a secular organisation.

Original Christian practice was co-opted by the Roman Empire, and that Constantine m*therf*cker.

The bulk of the original text, as likely set down well after the death of the historical figure that the New Testament centers on, was brutally editted in the fourth century AD, even before the series of poor translations that eventually become the King James edition.

I've encountered several purportedly Christian criticisms of Yogic practice.

They often focus on the practice of encouraging Kundalini rising, characterizing Kundalini as a demon, and the process of 'raising' it as inviting demonic possession.

Hum. Optomizing physiological function, and integrating endocrine and neurological responses, is 'Demonic'?

Never mind balancing hemispheric activity, or gaining awareness of our body/mind interface.

Yep, exploring and utilizing the human form and conciousness, supposedly shaped in "God's own image", that's gotta be a tool of Shaitan.

Stuff like 'Child's Pose', that I've seen kids spontaneously perform, or the shoulder stands that I used to do naturally, without having ever heard of Yoga, that must just be a sign of a pre-damned soul.

Usually the text's that are most outspoken about the dangers of Yoga, emphasize that even Hatha yoga (focussed on the muscular and skeletal systems) derives from a spiritual system, and that even assuming one of it's 'mystic' postures, emperils the immortal soul.

Wow.

I guess that every Christian who presses their hands together in front of their chest, thinking that they are praying, is in for a heck of a suprise when they encounter eternal hellfire.

Never mind taking a deep breath from the abdomen, then the chest, and then raising the shoulders, to get that last boost of oxygen. An adequate flow of enriched blood to the brain, coupled with internal calm, whoa, "That's a Damning" (in best Simpson's grumpy old man voice).

I've had 'Christians', with a straight face, tell me that the Dalai Lama is a tool of Lucifer (because of the focus on White Light, obviously a reference to the Shining One, even though as I understand Revelations, he hasn't even fell yet).

I come from a rural Albertan background, where a drama teacher who was teaching her students breathing exercises, lost her job for teaching "Satanic New Age practice".

If someone really believes that the travelling carpenter from Nazareth had a mad-on for Eastern practices, there are a couple of questions you might want to play with:

Who were the three Kings/Wise Men from the East? They weren't Judeao-Christian, and their methods for finding the newborn Messiah most likely involved astrology.

Where did our favourite carpenter spend the undocumented years of his middle life? There are texts of that time that indicate that a student came from the West, and studied for a few years in China and India, before returning to his home territory.

There might be reasons why entire passages of Luke, could be lifted directly out of a Buddhist text.

If God is truly Omniscient, and All-Loving, why would he make such a big deal about the form that his name takes (who can't deal with nicknames, I'm not sure that I'd want to be in close prolonged contact with them)? Why would he limit salvation to an obscure tribe in the Middle East, while leaving the rest of the world's population open prey to belief systems that by process of elimination, could only be product's of the great deciever, Shaitan?

One of the most interesting by-products of the Bible's translation and re-translation, apparently has to do with the phrase attributed to Isa: "Only through me do you come to God.". In the Aramaic, the word that translates to 'come' has a very specific tense, one that indicates 'right here, right now, at this specific instance.

Ouch, that one's done some damage, almost as much as the witch/poisoner slip.

In theological debate with a couple of evangelical types, I brought up my employer, a Sikh man of very great heart (I hate to sound like a hippy, but you could feel it getting into a car with him, massive energy). He'd sing along each morning with Punjabi radio, "Wahay Guru" (Awesome God).

When I brought his example up, the response was that a good human, denied the word of God, might still be forgiven, but that after having been offered Christianity, if they held faith with their upbringing and cultural mechanisms for approaching creation and the divine, they would be damned.

So, by that logic, the spread of Christianity inevitably led to the damnation of any people of sincere faith, who encountered it.

Maybe I'm deluded by infernal influences, but something doesn't jibe here.

I think I'll go stretch, and hyper-oxygenate, and accept my fate.

[kir mokum]

the reality if that religious belief is pure conjecture and needs to be viewed as such.

[laska]

Jesus should be scared of Pilates if anything

[ebbomega]

Originally Posted by laska

Jesus should be scared of Pilates if anything

BA-DOOM TSCH!

[ebbomega]

Originally Posted by kir mokum

the reality if that religious belief is pure conjecture and needs to be viewed as such.

That's not to say all faith is misplaced.

[kir mokum]

i think you're being vague. possibly on purpose.

[inside]

Originally Posted by Dreadnex.Inc

I come from a rural Albertan background, where a drama teacher who was teaching her students breathing exercises, lost her job for teaching "Satanic New Age practice".

I think I'll go stretch, and hyper-oxygenate, and accept my fate.

That's freakin' insane. Anystage actor/singer needs to breath correctly to have massive projection when speaking/singing. That's really basic stuff you learn, so you don't ruin your voice.

[ebbomega]

Originally Posted by kir mokum

i think you're being vague. possibly on purpose.

Likely.

Basically, if you equate "Faith in Religion" to "Faith in community" you see its strength.

[kir mokum]

i don't equate them at all. pretty different entities. you can have all the good that people equate with religion and get rid of all the bad by simply not having religion since all those good things exist very much independently of religion.

[Grapes]

^ Weird, I'm just at that point in The God Delusion

[kir mokum]

that is weird 'cause i haven't read it and i've been using that argument for years.

[ebbomega]

Originally Posted by kir mokum

i don't equate them at all. pretty different entities. you can have all the good that people equate with religion and get rid of all the bad by simply not having religion since all those good things exist very much independently of religion.

True, but if a person happens to have faith in their community and that community happens to be a religion, is it really such a Bad Thing in and of itself? The only problems come when someone tries to assert control over such a community - something Jesus himself spoke out against.