Elen1107

It's my understanding that both Mark and the writings of Paul were considerably later than that. Marks "source" is generally understood to mean the Q or the Quell gospel {Quell being the German word for source}. This is a non-extant document that has been discovered through the research and deconstruction of the four existing gospels. Mark possibly had never heard of Paul. If he did he may not have found him to be of that much importance. At the time Paul was just one of probably many evangelists that were active at the time. It wasn't until his letters were compiled and made cannon at the end of the 4th century that Paul became famous and well known. Also Marks gospel perty much ends with the resurrection of Jesus, Paul in the New Testament doesn't come along and isn't converted until sometime after the resurrection, so Paul isn't really part of the story and time frame that Mark is describing. Concerning the idea that Paul supported the conversion to Christianity of non-Jewish people while the other evangelists and Christ did not, I've always found this kind of confusing. It seems to me that Jesus corresponded and related to many non-Jewish people, as shown in the New Testament. In fact one of his first converts was the woman by the well, who clearly was not Jewish. In fact I believe she is the first convert out side of the apostles during Christ's ministry and after his baptism. The "good neighbor" is a Samaritan, again not a Jewish person. Here this reference is used in proclaiming what has come to be understood as the 2nd or 11th commandment, replacing or supplementing the Mosaic commandments with a new idea and a new way of fulfilling the law. There are several other references of this type in the gospels. I've never quite gotten how people can say that Jesus and the 12 apostles were not in favor of the conversion of non-Jewish people. Thanks for reading

Hi, I'm posting here in part because I'm new to this website and someone else has posted here today - all the other threads seem to have been sitting still for the past month or so. It's also a subject that I'm interested in and have thought about from time to time. To me, in the Christian sense, free will means the choice to go with God and to go with Christ. It's a choice and one has to come to it as a free choice, as a decision made within ones self, perhaps deep within ones self. I am actually coming to believe that this can give a person more independence, independence over addiction for instance. That is that the choice to go with Christ and to go with God can give one or enable one to have independence from addiction. It can also give a person independence from mixed up thinking and feelings, {which sometimes can lead a person into somethings like addiction}. I tend to think that at first we are more like children, learning from Christ and God similar to the way that children learn from their parents. As time, understanding and education progress one is more able to make independent, self guided choices and decisions. That is decisions that are in harmony with God and Christ and the Holy Spirit and the cosmic order of things. Do we ever get to be totally independent individuals, yet still are thinking and acting in harmony with God and Heaven? I don't know, but I like to and tend to think so, and more so than not. I'd rather think that JC reached this point and is living there still.

Hi Joseph, Thanks for your input and support. It is really good to know that I'm not too alone in this/these perspectives. In a way that is just as hard, and sometimes harder than dealing with and resolving or coming to terms with the conflicts in the first place. Since I wrote the above statement I've been thinking that the Roman network in those days stretched as far as Druid and other pagan/druidish territories. It is known that the Druids did practice human sacrifice. Also parts of Africa possibly did as they seem to have up until fairly recent times. The Old Testaments clearly show the practice of animal sacrifice and the "letting out of blood" for the forgiveness of sin/wrong doing, and some traces of this still exist in the Islamic world. As far as animal sacrifice is concerned, this could have come about from a combination of reasons. One is the thinning out of the herds - making sure the herd population did not exceed what the land could support. Another is the supporting and feeding of the priests. Another could be that people were expected to give up something real and of value when they did something wrong. This would serve as a true repentance and as a notable deterrent from further wrong doing. Concerning human sacrifice; as abhorrent as it may sound this may in some cases originally stem from a need to limit the size of the human population in various regions. A people has/had a given territory and resources that they must live in relation to. The alternative would be war and infighting. In a certain perspective this may have seemed like a less violent and less hideous alternative. Then in the course of time and acceptance it got shrouded in ideas like the will of "god", and that those people who were sacrificed or who sacrificed themselves, were shrouded with some kind of sainthood and eternal presence. I don't know if this all is true, or how true it is, but it could have something to do with the roots of how things got so mixed up in the first place. You write about the "programming and teaching falsehoods of the Christian church system". This has and does cause a great deal of pain and conflict for me. I find that since I found Christ - that is became a Christian, there has been as much conflict and struggle as hope and positive faith, perhaps more. It's not because I find being a "good Christian" that hard to do, though that does have it's challenges and positive steps to take. It's because of things like this, what one might call gross misunderstandings of the Christian message and twisted or false doctrine. That these are present in the "Holy Bible" and the New Testament, is a really painful, mind boggling and confusing thing. Thanks for reading and being supportive. Walking these roads alone is incredibly difficult. Thanks Again E

Hi, I'm new to this site - just joined today. I'm looking for a sense of Christianity that isn't bogged down with a lot of negativity and doom. I've done quite a bit of research, study and inquiry. My biggest question and conflict is about being instructed to believe in a God that requires and/or approves of a human sacrifice and/or torture - for the forgiveness of sins or for any other reason - or that of his son or anyone else. (Even if someone is one's son, that still is not their life to give.) Is there any way to make sense of or have positive feelings about this kind of understanding/vision of who and what God is? I have a few takes on how this kind of interpretation came about and how it got into the bible, like that it's really early Roman paganism, or that it was set up to stop people from making human sacrifices - Christ being the last sacrifice and all that. But to understand it as who God really is... it really bothers and confuses me. I keep coming back to the fact that the earliest Christians did not have a book, they did not have a set doctrine and they did not have a New Testament. But they did have something even more powerful - an enlightening, mind opening, transcending experience. One that changed their ideas, their priorities and their lives. These people actually witnessed eternity and entered into God and the kingdom/providence of heaven. They may have had no sense that this was to be understood as a human sacrifice ordained and approved of by God, or that sheading blood could ever remove sin. Thanks for reading