What does 'The Gospel' mean to you - in 200 words or less

Poor Jesus! If he had known how great an authority was to be projected upon him, he would never have said a word. His literary image in the Gospels has, through centuries of homage, become far more of an idol than anything graven in wood or stone, so that today the most genuinely reverent act of worship is to destroy that image. In his own words, "It is expedient for you that I go away, for if I go not away, the Paraclete [the Holy Spirit] cannot come unto you." Or, as the angel said to the disciples who came looking for the body of Jesus in the tomb, "Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here. He is risen and has gone before you . . . ." But Christian piety does not let him go away, and continues to seek the living Christ in the dead letter of the historical record. As he said to the Jews, "You search the scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life."

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The Crucifixion gives eternal life because it is the giving up of God as an object to be possessed, known, and held to for one's own safety, "for he that would save his soul shall lose it." To cling to Jesus is therefore to worship a Christ uncrucified, an idol instead of the living God. -- Alan Watts

Is he wrong that the Crucifixion represents an end to idolatry? (Sin, death)Or wrong that the Resurrection represents a beginning for direct access? (Life, love)Or just "wrong" in the sense that you still have some idols that you don't want to give up, and he's calling you on it?Give up your fixed ideas, man, or in due time they will have to be burned out of you .... Edited by Iblis, : have you read the King in Yellow?

They have Bibles, don't they? And if we use those Bibles as toilet paper, they get angry on a whole different scale than they would if we used an expensive encyclopedia or a valuable mink coat. Not even on the order of, exponentially greater.They have Watchman Nee and Witness Lee, don't they? And let's talk about Daystar and the Blended Brethren, if we are going to talk.And they have Jesus. Regardless of what else he might have been, he was a marginal Jew with clear symptoms of hebephrenia, preaching easily recognizable tenets of theraveda, and working with other therapeutes like John in an environment absolutely appropriate for such work. How does that make you feeel? Anything that I can tell the truth about, and thereby make people blind angry, is an idol.Blatant idolatry. "God is this, and he isn't that". Outright denial of the essence of Transcendence. Even though the scriptures that you claim to believe and in fact do worship, are quite plain and clear about the matter. As for Zen, you are sadly mistaken if you think it is a replacement for anything you think you already have.

Zen followers may have sets of doctrines, but they have them on their own account, and for their own benefit; they do not owe the fact to Zen. Therefore, there are in Zen no sacred books or dogmatic tenets, nor are there any symbolic formulae through which an access might be gained into the signification of Zen. If I am asked, then, what Zen teaches, I would answer, Zen teaches nothing. Whatever teachings there are in Zen, they come out of one's own mind. We teach ourselves; Zen merely points the way. Unless this pointing is teaching, there is certainly nothing in Zen purposely set up as its cardinal doctrines or its fundamental philosophy.

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Zen claims to be Buddhism, but all the Buddhist teachings as propounded in the sutras and shastras are treated by Zen as mere waste paper whose utility consists in wiping off the dirt of intellect and nothing more.-- D T Suzuki

Hi jaywill, sometimes I get the feeling that you are dodging my posts or misunderstanding them intentionally. But it's just a feeling, and I get over it. What I believe is really happening is that we are arguing at cross-purposes. This is common in this debate, isn't it? What I mean is, you aren't really here to attack the things I'm trying to defend, nor am I here the defend the things that you are trying to atack, nor vice-versa either way. We just happen to conflict sort of peripherally in a way that is interesting some times.Anyway, don't ever take it personally, there's no malice involved. You are one of my favorite people to argue with here, because you don't have your head up your ass too far, your beliefs seem practical rather than abstractions, and you are capable of learning new things and/or reconsidering positions you may have been put in by the argument that don't help your real goals.Now for the rough part Not a hangup, a setup -- for the post that followed. Message 22No, I'm not. I'm not being offensive at all. You are correct that many Buddhists are still in a state of idolatry. So I took a Zen teaching that those sort of people tend to object to -- that the scriptures are spiritual toilet paper -- and translated it over into terms that apply to the local churches. The fact that you characterize it as "offensive" is my point. I'm not hurting you, I'm just typing. If you are suffering, then it is you that are hurting yourself.This is a common argument among alleged Christians and supposed Muslims right now. Both decry idolatry, but each side characterizes the other as desecrating scripture.Page not found - WND
BBC NEWS | South Asia | Dismay at US Koran 'desecration'
sweetness-light.com - This website is for sale! - sweetness light Resources and Information.
404...Anything that can be blasphemed is a god, yes? And any god we can hold in our hand is certainly an idol. More of a mental object, but yes, you have the idea. If I post a proper bond, say twice the standard reprint rates, and print up a nice roll of Recovery Bible in soft 2-ply, the Blended Brothers aren't going to let me get away with it, are they? They aren't going to just take the money and consider their copyright properly intact, they are going to hound me to and fro until I stop it.William Tyndale, who loved the Bible enough to die to make it known in English, didn't take this sort of a position. Virtually the entire first print run of his foreign edition was sold to the Bishop of London to be burned. This provided the money to pay off his debts and pay for several better printings, and had the side effect of making the book well-known as "forbidden fruit", vastly increasing its readership.I mention the BB and founders and another "hot button" issue because there's been unpleasant litigation, hasn't there? And when someone like the Scientologists engage in such legal shennanigans to suppress information, we tend to recognize this as characteristic of idolatry. If I undertook to commune with some Coptic brothers in such a ritual setting, I would participate appropriately. I would consider it symbolic, in a setting where such symbolism is appropriate, and think nothing of it. But once the ceremony was over, I wouldn't confuse the map for the territory.I've got no problem with bowing to saints or statues, or saluting the flag, or swearing on the Book. Actually worshipping limited objects, which is an act of will, is a different story. The sort of thing that points out real idolatry is not being able to burn crosses, print pictures of Muhammed, or wipe my ass with the flag, in a different and equally appropriate setting. I know you take a lot of crap for that from hicks; you won't get any from me. The best texts of the Hebrew and Greek have musical notation included right in them. Idolatry. Worshipping anything that you can hold in your hand, and anything that you can describe in limited terms. Elevating any finite person, place or thing to a position that is superior to your own direct experience of the eternal.

The final meaning of negative theology, of knowing God by unknowing, of the abandonment of idols both sensible and conceptual, is that ultimate faith is not in or upon anything at all. It is complete letting go. Not only is it beyond theology; it is also beyond atheism and nihilism. Such letting go cannot be attained. It cannot be acquired or developed through perseverance and exercises, except insofar as such efforts prove the impossibility of acquiring it. Letting go comes only through desperation. When you know that it is beyond you-beyond your powers of action as beyond your powers of relaxation. When you give up every last trick and device for getting it, including this "giving up" as something that one might do, say, at ten o'clock tonight. That you cannot by any means do it-that is it! That is the mighty self-abandonment which gives birth to the stars.-- Alan Watts

No problem! I cherry-pick your posts for content that I feel I can contribute something worthwile in response to. You are actually much more conscientious than me in this regard.But I also read your whole post very carefully, in an attempt to make sure that I understand your actual point. Sometimes I make mistakes, but I would prefer not to ... Thank you! This is a perfect example of what I am talking about. In this case I would side with Lee and regard his opponents as being in need of at least one less idol. No need, they are just there for the sort of people who spot a tangential controversy and demand proof, potentially wasting many posts in irrelevant argumentation. They consist of charges against US interrogators, counter-charges against Palestinian guerillas, a vagely-related conviction in a German court, and some interesting statistics about how many rolls it would take. Fairer than I might be. I think he was often confused, tended toward sloppy writing, and somewhat short on Zen. On the other hand, some of his passages, like that one, are very precious to me, because they make me think and learn new things when I read them and provoke a lot of interesting controversy and exchange of information when I repeat them. As in this case ... Exactly. I would say, that God is dead. For him, Jesus is just an example.I suspect that you do not properly understand the Zen teaching that God is dead. Certainly a great many people do not. So I am going to expound on it a bit using examples that are familiar to both of us.The death of God is not something that happened at a particular time. For Christians, it touches history in a unique way in the first century, yes. But it also touches history every time communion is taken, and every time someone is baptized, and every time someone gives up an idol. It is not, however, a purely historical, merely temporal event. It is eternal. I know you prefer to think of God as life. You have a lot of good teaching that revolves around the idea that death signifies separation from God. But this is a limited, dualistic teaching.There's nothing wrong with that. John is full of gnostic dualism, he uses it every chance he gets. But it has its limits. And these limits are the limits to dualism, not limitations as to what God is. They function rather like the parables in the synoptics, that is, they are teaching tools, not suitable to embrace as fixed ideas.In the parable of the sower and the seeds, the sower may represent God, the seeds can stand for the word, the ground may be the masses that hear it, the plants could be us as spiritual beings, new creatures. But then when we get to a different one, about a tree, the plant may be God. So it is no good saying God is not a plant, is it?In the same way, when we talk about the second death, death is hell and God is life. But when we talk about the thief in the night, God may certainly be represented as death, while life is us sitting around not knowing the day and the hour. So it's no good saying God isn't death. Any God worth having transcends antitheses like these.And that's the gospel right there, isn't it? That God has been there. God is still there. Alive and dead, good and evil, human and divine, heaven and hell. All God, all the time.The neat thing about Zen is that, no matter where you stand, it will do you some good. The fact that moving meditation arose when Buddhism met Taoism doesn't make Zen an Eastern religion, anymore than the fact that freedom of the press emerged when Catholicism met Protestantism would make us sitting here typing a Western one. I seem to have gone badly wrong in this part of my post. If I were arguing these points with a Catholic, I might say the Vatican. If it were Southern Baptists, I might mention the Convention. Someone out there is litigating to suppress criticism, and I think their behavior smells of idolatry.Here's an entry-point for the body of data I am talking about, you may want to peruse it and see if it can be corrected. I'm not concerned, though.Local Church controversies - Wikipedia Au contraire, not enough time. If I had done more research, I could have been less stupid, yes? I now believe I might have provoked a little less trouble from you if I had taken my potshot at Living Stream Ministry (but not much less.) Nope, he's just an example of someone on the correct side of the Bibleolatry question. You and me, some of our audience, people who might be expected to recognize signs of idolatry in some other religion that was very strange to them.I see part of where I have gone wrong here though; when I say "someone like the Scientologists" I don't mean you. Quite the contrary, I mean that we have no trouble recognizing court actions to silence unhappy ex-members as a symptom of idolatry when it is some weird alien "space opera" group filing the briefs, but we may not notice it when it is our own church. Capiche? I don't think so? This relates to my points about a mental object of worship, and idolatry as an act of will. Note though that it is a hypothetical situation. If I undertook to commune with some Coptic brothers, I would be sure they knew how to distinguish symbol from substance.I believe Paul covers this line of thinking pretty thoroughly. If I pass around some crackers and grape juice and read from First Corinthians (or one of the synoptics) than you probably wouldn't jump up and call me an idol-worshipper. But if I yammered on about Transubstantiation, you might get a little nervous, wouldn't you? And if I went to court to accuse someone of denying the Real Presence and got the poor old fellow burned at the stake, you would no doubt be sure. I'm getting the feeling that it's the product of digestion that bothers you, more than anything in particular I might get it on. This is a very good sign Yes.Cantillation - Wikipedia
Neume - Wikipedia I can't find it as of yet, with the info you have given. If you think of any more details, speak up. In the meantime you may try this.— - ——‘——’

How does this insight into the Gospel help you in your daily life? Does it make you more wary of confidence tricks, for example, and less likely to be hypnotized by recursive pseudo-logic? Does it improve your social and ethical relationship with others, and if so, in what way?Expand on this question in any way you see fit to improve our understanding of the value of the Gospel and your understanding of it in your actual experiences in life.

So basically your argument is that one ignorant modern person who can't construct a sentence is more trustworthy than 26+ ignorant ancient people who can? We are sorry to have to inform you that your unsolicited application to serve as "ball carrier" has been rejected by the United Antifundamentalist Strategy Society (UASS).

Bald assertion, demonstrably false. Bald assertion, failure to comprehend literary purpose and themes. Appeal to authority, talk-show journalistic construction. False implication of value by association. Failure to understand purpose and themes, terrible construction. False revaluation of the word "myth". Bald assertion, demonstrably false. General Overview
Horrible web design
Apparently deliberate use of colors that clash
Continuous awful sentence construction First Page
Horrible, horrible
Dozens of high-resolution astronomical pictures
Takes minutes to load, stalls busy browsers Evil Bible
Awful layout
List headlines centered, looks like a constrictor digesting
Links a mix of formats Porn in the Bible
Hideous sentence construction
Actual porn, not just verses, pictures
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Actual porn, low value, some hetero action
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Actual porn Failure to understand simple argument. False implication of value based on ignorance of legitimate web costing. Recommend emergency IQ test. Greg Hill explains disgarbing during baptism rites as a means of checking for signs of humanity, on the grounds that there are vegetables who walk amongst us in disquise. Case in point.

Good one! Seriously, awesome!I suppose what with stabbing you in the fat hairy back and all, I can't just have that one. No worries, I'm stealing it anyway. You don't defend the ridiculous out of desperation, do you iano? (I've always gotten the impression it was out of contentment and a sense of whatall, that god-flavored stuff you know?)