I refuse to be preached to from the Old Testament

well, it was the part 1 of the story, though the story did come from stores before it

the new is often built on top of the old

 

I'm not aware of any duty to search for needy people as if that is the whole purpose of Jesus's life and death. He taught the gospel of repentance and salvation, not of a full belly. His Disciples first duty is to teach his gospel and save souls from spiritual hunger, imprisonment, nakedness, blindness, etc. Naturally, helping the poor with practical matters is important as well, but not as much as salvation.

As for making government our God, that is the opposite of its purpose and law. It's supposed to protect our liberty while we live our lives in service to whatever God we follow. Government isn't supposed to be the official religion as you suggest it should.

 

My first observation is that the old testament is shared, by lots of religions these days, including jews and christians. It represents the works of someone ostensibly 56K years ago. but why quibble...

 

Even those who know God, can't prove him to one another in any tangible way. It is only by the spirit that they are joined. There have been times when people have seen him and heard him. And it has been made into a record. But it is known only to those who bore that testimony. Jesus said, "For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." Similarly, when two or more are gathered for the sake of conscience, then conscience is in their midst. Standards of conduct are lifted up this way into law. We can't see or show conscience. But we can know it, or it know us collectively, without any tangible proof beyond a common agreement upon a point.

 

Yes, this is one of the standard directions in twisting the point.

I did NOT say that Matthew 25:31-end is the only thing Jesus preached. So, please back off on that.

And, Matthew DOES quote Jesus as making it clear that failure to find and resolve needs of others is so important as to make failure in that task a REVOCATION of salvation.

Did you think that salvation can not be revoked? Most Christians don't believe that.

I have said nothing about making government our god. So why did you go there?

But since you did, Jesus was NOT interested in our liberty. Liberty is what HUMANS like - it is of this Earth, as you might say. Jesus was here to convey DUTY.

 

SEE?!!!! You are focused on WORDS, -not SPIRIT! You’re looking for salvation in scripture!

 

But you have it backward. I have not conjured up anything. YOU are the one with a concept of “god” so YOU are the one who has conjured up something.

I have conjured up nothing because there is nothing to conjure. God is a myth. God doesn’t exits. Lots of people need a daddy figure all their lives, so they cling to the god myth.

 

There is no rebuttal here to what you quote. Instead I got this.
When I read, I focus on words because that is what I am supposed to focus on. That is how literate communication works. You are not in any position to tell me what I am 'looking for'. I can tell you what I am looking for because I am the one who knows. First you have to define 'salvation' in this context , then I will let YOU know whether I am looking for any.

 

Maybe you just don't know the right 'kind' of Christians? I was in a Bible study in high school that involved drinking, smoking and at least one friendly but 'devout' atheist for counterpoint. We had fun.

 

You said(I'm paraphrasing) that Godly matters in your experience have been nothing other than a mental exercise or a self delusion, and is therefore a myth.

So I said that you have created a myth out of God by what you have heard or read. But that doesn't mean that God doesn't exist. If you hear about a person, and imagine that person to be a certain way. And then you meet that person, but they are not like you imagined them to be. Then you discard what you imagined and take that person for who that person is. From there on out, however you imagine someone to be, you know that what you imagine is a myth, or unreliable, until you meet that person for real. But it doesn't mean that that person is a myth. It means that you simply don't know and haven't met them yet.

 

Matthew 25 -
34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

 

Yes, I get that. But we are dual in nature, spiritual and physical. So we are as beholden to share the truth as we are anything tangible and temporally needful. The scriptures also say that man doesn't live by bread alone, but by every word from the mouth of God.

 

From what I gather, both are to be followed based on the bible.

But that did lead to a schism in Christianity between good works and faith alone.
And no jury will ever know the correct version.

 

Then show me any evidence that God exists and a logical, rational, common explanation doesn’t apply as well or better.

 

You should ask God, as he isn't a marble in my pocket that I can show you.

 

Then, how do you interpret the words of Jesus as recorded by Matthew 25:31-end?

He clearly communicated duty - duty that, if not fulfilled, is punishable by damnation, even by his followers. The NT makes it clear that God demands that Christians walk the walk.

Jesus lived a life of duty to fellow man. He didn't preach that we have rights (such as liberty).

Of course, this is shockingly different than the OT message of military conquest by a "chosen" people, justifying the slaughter of every man, woman, child and animal in Jericho.

But, Jesus was clear as recorded by Matthew and others as well as by the life he led on Earth.

And, your comment on government is opposite of what I said. I said that government is not like religion. Government is present to serve worldly needs.

 

Tell you what. I believe I got a hell of a lot closer to “god” than you ever have by praying. Do you have any idea what “experiencing the Presence” is?
I know; I know. You don’t need anything but some knowledge of Greek and Aramaic to “know god”. Like I said, you have zero evidence or you would state it.

 

Yeah. I know about your “evidence”. And it’s a feat of mind.

 

So now you are a mind reader?

 

Why in the world would you say you have experienced the presence of God, when you also say that God is a myth. Did you experience the presence of a myth?

 

Yes.

 

Think.

I experienced a phenomenon that religionists and mystics refer to as “The Presence” and they feel sure they are correct. And after experiencing it I understand why they feel that way. It’s like if you look at a painting of a landscape you are sure you saw a painting with green grass and a blue sky and a red flower, and that those colors are actually there in the painting. No one can convince you otherwise. But the truth is that those colors only existed in your brain. They were not on the canvas. But I’m sure you will not be able to accept this as fact.

I had the experience of The Presence many times, at will. But I eventually discovered that it is actually a condition of the brain in response to the unusual stress resulting from meditation. So yes, I did experience it but I know it’s not really god. The difference between you and me is that I experienced a greater depth of the spiritual experience, and you have not come to the realization that there is no god. You still entertain the myth though you have no evidence.

 

Amen.

There are large numbers of religious systems of belief. It's quite the hypothesis to suggest that none have had "true" experiences unless they then converted to a specific branch of the Abrahamic faiths.

 

Hmmm. I don’t seem to have been able to extract much meaning from that. I’m unsure what you’re saying.

 

I would say you are largely correct. But not completely correct.
The Old Testament was written for Jews, with Jewish readers in mind.
There are large segments in there that are probably not useful to the average ordinary Christian. Although some of that could be explained by commentary in other books and then have some use for average ordinary Christians.

There are still certain stories in there that have value and have lessens. Sometimes those stories require additional explanation to point things out, to make it easier to see what the lessons of the story are.