The Truth of the Bible without all that Dogma
The truth is surprisingly straightforward and easy to understand. The
doctrines of Mainstream Christianity are difficult because they have falsely
adopted the Philosophy of Plato (circa 400 BC). His beliefs were
the most popular in Greece and Rome when Christianity made its debut into
those regions. Early Christianity battled the influence of Plato.
But the adherents to Platonic philosophy came to dominate the Church from
the 3rd century AD to the present. The vast majority of "Christian"
doctrines are adopted from Plato's Philoshophy.
The most difficult aspect of bringing the truth to light are the gymnastics
required to refute the tricky semantics of Platonic Metaphysics utilized
to link them to Biblical verses. This forms the "proof" which the
Traditional "Christian" Orthodoxy uses to bolster it's false doctrines.
I found it very difficult to strip the un-biblical doctrines away from
the Christianity that I had been taught. It was disorienting and it did not
feel right. But I guess that feelings aren't a good basis for understanding,
since my previous beliefs do not feel right now. It might feel comfortable to rely of the
"traditions of our fathers", but Jesus said that this was a poor choice. This shows the necessity of relying on the actual Bible writings and translating them with a proper understanding of the original languages, including the idiomatic meanings, and the cultural norms of the chronology and geography involved. Look
in the Bible and look for confirmation in the writings of the Early Church
Fathers (link to these writings below). Please bolster what I've
written by checking all the links on this page for additional information.
Were these Traditional doctrines
handed down by the Apostles outside the Bible?
Read the writings of the first generation of disciples of the Apostles:
Timothy, Barnabus, Polycarp, etc. They were taught and counseled by the
Apostles for several years. Their writings can be found at
Early
Church Fathers. You won't find
any mention of Jesus as being God or the Holy Spirit as a separate God
from God the Father. These concepts evolve in the later writers who came
into Christianity from pagan backgrounds (not Jewish), and were further
removed from the Apostles.
God doesn't
torture unbelievers in Hell for all eternity.
Pagan Roman beliefs, not the Bible, gave us this concept. Remember
that the Romans believed that the gods lived on Mt. Olympus, above the
clouds, and that Hades, under the ground, was the place of eternal
torment.
Scripture does describe punishment for the unbeliever, but it is nowhere
described as being forever.
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To be tortured for all eternity requires eternal life. The Bible does
not say that the wages of sin is eternal torture! Rather it says "the
wages of sin is death." People don't have eternal souls. That concept came
from Greek philosophy. The Greeks believed that the 'real' self was an
eternal soul which existed independently of the body, and therefore lived
eternally. This is nowhere taught in the Bible.
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The Bible says that the soul doesn't exist independent of a body. When
people die, they are unconscious until resurrected by God. Only those chosen
by God receive eternal life.
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When God destroys the unbelievers, they are gone--body and soul.
This is the "second death".
God doesn't cause evil in the World.
People ask: "If God is good why does he cause or allow suffering
in the World?". It is often taught that if your baby or loved one
is killed that this is done by God.
People are given free will by God--free to exercise evil. Also,
this is not the Garden of Eden. We are not living in Paradise...bad
things happen, but every bad thing is not necessarily in God's will.
Remember that Adam and Eve chose to gain the knowledge of Good and Evil.
So we went from an environment which contained only Good, to one that allowed
us to know about both.
Each event in our lives is not pre-determined
by God.
We have been given Free Will by God. When God directs us to choose
to do Good, we are really the ones making the choice. The Greek Philosophy
of Plato has a doctrine called Fatalism. This doctrine says that
our Fate is pre-determined, and that we are powerless to change the events
of our lives. This concept has been adopted by Mainstream Christianity.
It often makes Christians feel helpless to act in their lives: "Since
everything is already predetermined, and we are powerless to change it,
why try to assert control over the events in your life?".
Christians
are not manipulated like puppets through possession by the Holy Spirit.
Many Christians feel absolutely powerless to strive to accomplish anything.
They fervently pray for the Holy Spirit to "move in them" rather than exercise
their God-given will and self-determination to enact God's instructions
for our lives. The Bible simply tells us to act. Nowhere does it tell us
to wait around for the Holy Spirit to take us over and act on our behalf.
Where did the belief that Jesus is God come
from?
Is it apparent from the Biblical text? "Trinity" is a non-Biblical
term that has two primary meanings. One meaning describes three beings of
the Bible: God, Jesus, and God's Holy Spirit, otherwise known as "The Father, the Son,
and the Holy Ghost". The other meaning of the term "Trinity" is a doctrinal
belief that these three are three personalities in one being, or Godhead. This doctrine
was created by Pagan "Christians" after Christianity was absorbed into Roman Paganism.
One can believe in the first definition, as these beings are taught in the Bible, without
believing in the second, non-Biblical, concept.
History of the 'Christian' Trinity.
Start with Romans. Paul presents Christianity in an organized and comprehensive
manner. Read it as if you didn't already know of the doctrine that Jesus is God.
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Would Romans cause you to determine that there is a "Trinity" composed
of three co-equal persons joined together in one God?
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See how thoroughly important concepts such as "death through the Law" and
"salvation through Christ" are developed and explained, and how
the equally important doctrine of the Trinity is so completely absent from
any of Paul's writings.
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The concept that God is composed of three persons would have been confounding
and explosively controversial to a Jew such as Paul. If God had caused
him to understand this to be truth, surely he would explain it here in
Romans--since he expends much effort on many matters which are so less
important.
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Orthodox Christianity teaches that a belief in the Trinity is required
for Salvation. Yet this is specified nowhere in Scripture.
Neither does it say that there is a hidden requirement which must be searched
out in Scripture. Over and over, it specifies the simple choices
which result in Eternal Life. None of these is belief in the Trinity,
or anything resembling a three-in-one concept, or belief in Jesus as God
Almighty. Read the many sermons in the book of Acts. These
sermons exhort and instruct their audiences in the requirements for Salvation.
Many were said to have been saved by these instructions. Yet they
do not contain an instruction to believe in a multi-person God, or in Jesus
as God.
The Bible testifies
to a single God as a single person:
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God is referred to as the one and only God over 11,000 times in the Old
Testament.
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God the Father is referred to as ho theos, the one
God, more than 1300 times in the New Testament.
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Jesus is twice referred to as God: "And Thomas answered and said
to Him, 'My Lord and my God!'" Jn 20:28 NKJV. "Therefore the Jews
sought all the more to kill Him, because He not only broke the Sabbath,
but also said that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God."
Jn 5:18 NKJV.
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Satan is once referred to as God: "whose minds the god of
this age have blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel
of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them."
2 Cor 4:4 NKJV.
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Moses is once referred to as God: "So the Lord said to Moses:
'See, I have made you as God to Pharaoh, and Aaron your brother
shall be your prophet.'" Ex 7:1 NKJV (note that as is added by the
translaters).
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The Apostle Paul wrote: "yet for us there is only one God, the Father,
of whom are all things, and we for Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through
whom are all things and through whom we live." 1 Cor 8:6
NKJV
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It is well established that the Old Testament teaches--and the Jews thoroughly
believed--that God the Father alone was God. If the New Testament is supposed
to be telling us that God is now sharing the "godhead" with other personalities,
we would expect to see this astonishing new doctrine spelled out by the
Apostles. Less unsettling changes are spelled out exhaustively in the New
Testament: the change in the status of the Law for the saved; the need
for a Savior; the requirement for the Savior to die and be resurrected.
Yet the explanation of the Messiah being God incarnate is strangely absent.
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"Hear, O Israel the Lord our God, the Lord is one." Deut 6:4, Mk 12:29
NKJV
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"This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved
and to come to a knowledge of the truth. For there is one God and one mediator
between God and men, the man Christ Jesus," 1 Tim 2:3-5 NIV
Jesus is a man--the Messiah of the Old
Testament--not God.
Adam was the first man; Jesus is the "second Adam": a man also. He
is a very special man, created by God for the express purpose of giving
people spiritual fulfillment and eternal life in paradise. These truths
are clearly stated and repeated throughout the New Testament.
Did the Apostles mean to be ambiguous
and vague?
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Were these Traditional doctrines meant to be interpreted from the obscure
and ambiguous verses that they are based on? Were the New Testament writers
trying to hide the truth from us?
There is nothing in the New Testament which indicates an intention
to obscure major doctrinal issues from the reader. Yet several major doctrines
of Traditional Christian belief are held by the most obscure threads of
interpretation. The question arises as to why Traditional Christianity
chooses to base many doctrines on the ambiguous verses rather than on the
abundant number of clear and explicit verses which point to a different
understanding.
Where
did these doctrines come from if not from the text of the Bible?
These widely-held doctrines have been imbued with the mythological
belief systems which come straight out of the pagan Greek and Roman cultures
which Christianity was thrust into in its early history. It is not surprising
that these derived concepts are often mystical, bizarre, obscure, and
confusing--defying logic and repeated explicit statements in Scripture.