Sticki a dit:
I dont think I referred to the gospel of Thomas as scripture and neither do I.
The funny thing is tho, the bible was compiled by certain people for certain monarchs at various times to suit the needs of thier lives. For example, "King Henry the VIII established the Church of England in 1534 when parliament declared that the king was the supreme head of the church. He wanted to establish it because he wanted a divorce but the pope wouldn't grant it but if he was the head of the church he could grant it himself, he was also bankrupt and wanted to take the monasteries, gold and various other riches for himself."(Extract from Wiki answers)
All that changes in the bible is the translation and wording. Controlled religion is a tool of mass control, Thats why the catholics chased the gnostics into hiding and killed them in the most gruesome ways when they caught them. Who is to say what translation is right? Personally Im more of a gnostic and feel if Jesus was here spreading a message I sure doubt it has been passed on in full by controlled religion.
Ahh my bad. Dang it thats twice ive halucinated what someone said about something biblical that wasnt there. I'm starting to worry about myself a little and think I will use this as a moment to put a safety checkpoint in place.
Yeah. When I talk about scripture and a biblical understanding of "God" i talk about three spheres. The core central sphere is all "Truth" contained within the bible. Now the definition of bible in this case is what I believe is the complete and total as originally intended works of the the original writers. I believe that the cannonized bible and the books chosen for it was God inspired to create the bible though I think that Christians VERY frequently misintepret it or give it too much weight in influencing their lives. This leads to the second sphere.
The second sphere which is encompased around the first sphere is what I call the grey area. That is everything that is outside the first sphere but inside the second sphere is all knowledge of God that is not contained within the bible but yet does not contradict it. A little funny example that I like to use is: "Did Jesus go to the bathroom?" Nowhere in scripture does it even remotely hint that Jesus had any bodily functions of any kind yet scripture is very clear in saying that he was 'fully human'. To be fully human you have to fart and crap and pee and so forth, body odor, etc. Yet none of this is written in the bible yet there are Christians that fight tooth and nail that if its not in the bible its not true.
Even in defining what is in the first sphere all scripture mentioned in this text I am writing as "Truth" must be taken into account when intepreting all other "Truth". This of course is impossibly by a human mind. We cannot contain in our heads some however many thousands of pages of text perfectly and correlate them all to each other completely and simultaneously. Yet that is what is required to truly interpret the bible correctly.
What really happens is all Christians everywhere (myself included) take pieces of the bible out of context and then use it to suit their views. The question responses to this however are things such: "Is this piece out of context better then that piece?" "If I put this piece back into context how does it change?" "If I compare these two different pieces what do I get out of looking at what I am thinking about from both perspectives simultaneously.
The scriptures that I think Christians often forget about or dont want to admit are in their bible are ones like:
"All things are permitted but not all things are good for you."
This was written to a church that was specifically fighting about what was or wasnt biblical or allowed within the faith and the apostle to the church said directly. Everything is allowed under the freedom of Christ the question is whether or not its good for you to do it.
Good for you to do it becomes essentially defined as does God want you to do it.
This leads into the understanding of the scripture of meat sacrificed before idols.
That scripture in its paraphrased form pretty much says that its perfectly fine to do things that others THINK are unbiblical provided they do not violate scripture AND you are not causing someone who believes they are unbiblical to stumble. In this case the stumbling would be to judge you. Yet still that scripture also references another scripture which basically says that if someone doesnt understand why what you are doing is biblical and they think it isnt its your responsability to come alongside them and lovingly help them see how what you believe is perfectly allowable.
This all having been said there are LOTS of misinterpretations of scripture by lots of churches to greater or lesser degrees and the ones that get the most air time are the ones that I think drill the holes in peoples heads that make them practically vomit sometimes at the mention of words such as Jesus or Christ or even God sometimes.
For example I believe from my meta understanding of scripture (extrapolation of a deep nature after extensive study and revelation) that any act done in TRUE LOVE is perimted. Its easily seen how all things are permitted but not all things are good for you apply to that but add to that the fact that God=Love and any act that is truly done in Love is ordained by God.
As such I feel that True Love can be between any two human beings and that can be between many human beings to greater or lesser degrees. Though scripture talks about being married and so forth and bonding to an individual mate it is not part of the boiled down commandment nature of "Love God and Love everybody else". Communal love is what God has intended for all of us and in fact is what is defined as the nature of heaven in eternity. (bible even says there will be no earthly concept of marriage in heaven because effectively we will all be married to each other in heaven via being married to Christ.)
So babble babble babble. Mixing tons of psychedelics with biblical discussions and you can get a really deep and personal understanding of both scripture and God. Or you can be staring at your bible pages and watching the words turn into worms and crawl across the page. (Done that too lol.)
EDIT. After reading this over I realized I forgot to mention the third sphere which is outside the other two and that is the black sphere where by these are the things that violate scripture and are not in the definition of "God" and "Truth". Its our destiny in life, each of us to explore all three spheres and find within them which parts of each are going to be a part of our lives and where we wish to reside in them or in pieces of each and so forth. I believe that true enlightenment, that is the lifting of the last veil is an awareness of all three spheres and ultimately a true full awakening awareness of God and Reality.