Shouldn’t Truth Unite?

Wouldn’t all universal truths self evident?

“Truth always divides due to the existence of lies. I fear and reverence God. I also love Him more than life itself. If you sought Jesus Christ through His Word and prayer with as much fervor as you use to argue and debate His non-existence then you would see the reality that He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life“—tjcole

If truth divides and not beliefs, why are Muslims fighting Buddhist and Christians fighting Christians, all jockeying for the perfect wording to prove their truth—and killing for it too? Real truth is easily identified because it is universal (we find these truths to be self evident) They don’t require dogmas.
Like, if all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. Nothing of a religious doctrine should suppress one group over their genetics. Christianity is a walking contradiction when it comes to human issues.

Picking real cherries does not make me a Christian…

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Author: jimoeba

Alternatives to big box religions and dogmas

60 thoughts on “Shouldn’t Truth Unite?”

  1. I don’t think believers truly understand what people like you and I have gone through and the efforts we made to believe. Believers just say “seek and you will find” or “pray harder and God will guide you.” Do they really think we haven’t? Walking away from faith wasn’t a rash decision, nor an easy one (at least for me.) Truth is truth and is irrefutable. Though there will be people who try. Truth is universal. Faith is personal. Faith is whatever you want it to be and it can be true to you. That does not equate to actual truth. Actual truth has evidence to support it.

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    1. There are certainly some ideas that I like, but without proof they just pacify the time. There are currently some very deep and interesting progresses in physics. I think the explanations for a firm reality aren’t that far off (provided the next great mind isn’t born a southern baptist and become a preacher)
      I took faith very seriously. It was particularly hard to admit I was wrong in every part of belief. Becoming an atheist post Christian takes more humility than belief any day.

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  2. Been cherry-picking at the bible again? Wow! WA State’s finest. My brother always accused me of seeing life as a bowl of cherries. He saw it as a bowl of pits. We were both telling the truth, but not the whole truth. 🙂

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        1. Which, it seems, would bring us back to the question: what is truth? Jesus said, ‘I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the father but through me.’ That’s one hell of a claim, and I don’t care if it comes from some god or godlet. To Jesus (assuming the New Testament has any credibility) it seems that ‘truth’ was centered upon absolute power to destroy and to rebuild, to grant pardon and to cast into eternal hell according to his particular whim. It’s how I read it and it explains the incredible hubris within Christianity. It also explains why I had to leave to find a better way.

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    1. Are cherries, berries? I think you’d like Washington. #1 USA county’s in wheat, potatoes, apple capital of the world, and of course, los vinos fabulosos!

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          2. I’m IN!!!! (🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷🍷 then lots of 🍸🍻🥃) Jim, just please ask Christine to put bubble-wrap everywhere and help us fools wrap ourselves in it!!! Then we get the PAAR-TEE started!!! 😁

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            2. YES! Perfect! And carefully thinking this all thru… 🤔

              Should we be somewhere extremely secluded, for the safety of others? Or should we be somewhere with emergency facilities and staff nearby?

              Hmm, we might need to rethink this. Ask Christine to get EXTRA bubble-wrap!

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    1. Thank you dear friend. As always, every point of doctrine is at odds with reality. This particular bible claims to be the truth, offers up a lie (even says is so important it will divide families) and not only is it the antithesis of truth, it is more destructive than sin. Maybe I’ll elaborate on that tomorrow. I’ve got you bookmarked. My apologies for missing your last chapter. Had the longest holiday of my life yesterday. The day was full and fun though.

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      1. It seems so long ago, I don’t talk much about my 2 transitions, from Catholicism at age 14, from evangelicalism at age 35. Both cases came from the same reason: the works did not match the teachings and I hated the works as much as I liked the teachings. I liked the idea of giving myself totally to the service of “man” but in the wholistic sense, not in preaching nor in false exegesis of what passed itself off for faith, or worse, truth. I did finally discover how I could live my chosen life independently of man-made beliefs and institutions and it is a much better, calmer, gentler way. It is fearless and much more courageous (though it would not seem so) a way to live. There’s the world, and there’s me, day after day, one confronting the other, one geared to take, absorb, swallow, the other geared to help, heal, comfort. The world has indeed become my enemy, but in a good and sensible way, not fearful nor hateful. The world (note, I mean man’s world, not nature) is sick and there is nothing I can do to help if I allow it to dictate to me and make me as sick as it is. I am aware that it needs me whereas I don’t need it – and that has been a gradual and wonderful revelation for me. As long as the world is sick there can be no oneness with it so I practice detachment, not in order to avoid but in order to understand this new relationship and make it work.
        Glad you had a good day yesterday and as for reading “The Manifesto” it’s there when you have the time or the inclination. Pretty slow going at the moment as I have Antierra expressing my philosophy through her monologues and hope of reaching some of the women of T’Sing Tarleyn. Her days as a “Fighter” aren’t over yet though.

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  5. This is an outstanding question and post Jim. Well done Sir!

    I actually like how Tina J. Cole herself proves your point unequivocally via one of the most DIVISIVE verses in the 4th-century CE Greco-Roman canonical New Testament:

    Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach says to him, I am HaDerech, HaEmes, and HaChayyim. No one comes to HaAv except through me [1Sm 3:7]. — John 14:6 (Orthodox Jewish Bible)

    [or in our English…]

    Yeshua said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life! No one comes to the Father except through Me. — John 14:6 (Orthodox Jewish Bible)

    I mean, WHOA! Talk about the ultimate ultimatum! Geezzz. But you are exactly spot on Jim. That level of ultimate truth should just wipe-out all human subjectivity and perception. Whoosh! Gone! Everybody (within an assumed fully united group/institution) would agree 100% of the time, no controversies. Full consensus would be a daily, regular, unsurprising event! But what is hilariously ironic is that Tina J. Cole is lying to us, or at minimum deceiving us by preaching that Christians, “True Christians™” cannot be anything OTHER THAN UNITED. Hahahahahaha!!! 🤣

    And it really requires no strenuous mental exercise to grasp the reality that most things in this life, on this tiny Pale-blue Dot of a planet, are very unique, different in one environment and parameters, then possibly similar in others. Yes, DUH, that is indeed the usual general case outside of Christology… BY DEFAULT of course! This existence we live in is immeasurably diverse! And yet, to Ms. Cole’s dismay, that is always the case… yes Ma’am, even within your own congregation or social-organization. One day, if she’s brutally honest with herself, Ms. Cole will be forced to admit that even her own faith and religious members have always been divided as well, from day one some time in the decade of 25 – 35 CE in one tiny, TINY pocket of the world.

    OR she can just go on continuing to trick herself into an illusion, a false reality of “Christian unity.” If she knew ANYTHING about her own church and biblical history, then there’s no denying the true reasons and context behind 21 Ecumenical Councils (from 325 – 1965 CE), especially the first seven!

    So this begs the question, would someone prefer to live in an Oz with green curtains in every corner, or embrace the reality, the TRUTH that not only everything is in constant change — even “truth”? — over some measurement of time, but is also relative to the observer (Ms. Cole included!) at any given time and locale.

    Now, if I may borrow one of your delicious cherries there Jim, that will be my Cherry On Top. 😁🍰

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    1. Just thought of one other thing Jim…

      How do you think Ms. Cole would reconcile the fluidity, the elasticity of Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 — “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven…” etc, with the (contradiction?) of John 14:6? I mean, granted the two passages were conceived/written many many centuries apart, by VERY different scribes, in VERY different time-frames and contexts, but when one boasts about “unity from truth” from one book, one God…

      how is that even comprehensible!? LOL (ugh, my brain starts to hurt when I analyze this Christology manure — OUCH!)

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      1. Her blog seems pretty new. She tagged atheism but I don’t think she counted on a counter argument. Her neurons are pretty hardwired right now and in outer space. If there is a contradiction I’m sure it was gods will.
        Good to see you sir!

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        1. Yes, I browsed her blog and was unimpressed. All the typical signs (symptoms?) of a lady perhaps traumatized some time in her life by family, no family, husband(s), etc, etc. Is she engaging at all… with DIFFERENT people that is?

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          1. Not that I saw. I think she means well but simply repeating what’s she’s been taught to say. That is the problem with teaching religion like it’s an academic.

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            1. HAH!!! That’s part of the whole Christology Sales & Marketing scheme/scam. A wonderful, liberated, feminist activist once said…

              “Patterning your life around other’s opinions is nothing more than slavery.”
              — Lawana Blackwell

              Yep, and so what’s the difference between slavery and Peer-assimilation/pressure caused by surrounding theatrical Placebos?

              Btw, that’s not a joke, like knock knock sort of thing. It’s rhetorical. LOL

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          2. I don’t see a place to have a dialogue with her.

            Having said that, she could be me . . . traumatized at an early age and along the way. At the time Jesus is your/my/her only hope.

            Yet here I am all these years later. 🙂

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    2. Two things—Humanity fails to live in the present. Always looking back or ahead, the other, as in this case, needing comfort in a challenging world. A good solid lie is a comforting pacifier.

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      2. Pacifier, anesthetizer, then a whole warehouse of smoke & mirrors, sideshows, etc, to justify an empty mythical Messiah/Savior. :/ I felt pity as I browsed her blog. But then when one swallows hook, line, and sinker that there is an eternal pit of scorching fire (after death) AND a Satan almost as bad and bloodthirsty as Yahweh, it sort of makes sense.

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        1. Did you happen to see this comment from yesterday from K on my other post? He’s a bit new to my blog but wondered what you thought of this —https://jimoeba.wordpress.com/2019/07/03/how-to-know-there-is-no-god/comment-page-1/#comment-19467

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          2. Grrrrrrr, I’m always a bit put-off when someone who like K writes authoritatively — and there is nothing wrong in doing so when you are able to freely, honestly show your CV or share it rather than forcing strangers to have to pull teeth for it! — and then there is no way to gather/read ANY such factual information & background on this stranger (troll?) because there is no LINK to any personal blog. Nothing! Seriously!? Just… “K”? That’s the first immediate problem. Not that it necessarily detracts from the content of what “K” writes, but still… it DOES HELP for God’s sake, or Satan’s… depending on what side of reality you play within. 😈 😉

            Therefore, I won’t have much patience or time to mess with this superhero K-person. LOL Nevertheless, I’ll take a long shot at them. 🙂

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            1. I can’t/don’t/won’t deny there are trolls flitting here and there on our various blogs. BUT … by the same token, not everyone wants the world to know who they are. And in the case of “K”, the remarks were obviously well thought-out and provided considerable food for thought.

              Personally, I found your comment about “this superhero K-person” a bit off-putting.

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            2. Agreed, Nan. It’s not clear at all from K’s post that he’s a Christian, nor should it matter anyway in terms of the post’s truth value. I understood K’s overall point to be modern Christian understanding of morality as a system of good and bad behavior is extremely different than what is actually in the Bible, which features a system based on correct or incorrrect actions (purposeful or by accident) that offend the god and that need to be appeased, but not necessarily because they are good or bad ethically. This is a feature of Western Semitic tribes (canaanites) more generally. I didn’t understand him to be saying all morality stems from the Bible or began with the Jewish-Christian God.

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            3. Thanks CS. I reread 4-5 times K’s essay and I came away with a different impression. But that’s the beauty of an endlessly diverse species and its cognition, interpretation/interpolation, and extrapolation, especially when the topic is so broad and convoluted as the Bible’s origins and the 3-4 primary cultures in the Levant covering no less than 15-centuries, and its role in social order! In that light, and that time-span there’s bound to be plenty of lenses for viewing. 🙂

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            5. Hahahahaha… (que the C+C Music Factory hit song) “things that make you go Hmmmm.” 😛

              Seriously though, as far as authoritatively commenting on such a massive subject, for my spin on it I at least gave full credit to Dr. E.O. Wilson’s viewpoints of morality’s origins. I tend to agree with Dr. Wilson quite a bit. I thought presenting a very rational biological viewpoint would be helpful than the overly abused source of it: transcendentalism… in whatever religious forms it manifests. Personally, I think religion makes all this much worse, much more murky than it needs to be! But again, that’s just little ole me over here in my secluded corner of the library. Can I take off the Dunce hat now Jim? 🤭

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            6. Consoledreader understood it.

              I don’t have a blog or website to put up. I have considered making one, but keep putting it off. I don’t like dealing with people very much, so I mostly keep to myself. I have been making a point of engaging with other people more. I’m not a Christian either, I thought that was clear by the way I put things.

              I was in part addressing what I saw from the actual Christian posting there, in a roundabout way. I think that atheists usually make the same mistake that Christians do when looking at the Bible, because most atheists come out of Christianity and few go beyond a Christian worldview. When Christians like the one in the comments tries to defend the Bible, they have to fight an uphill battle against even their own modernized version of Christian morality. They have to say things like “slavery is bad, but when it’s in the Bible it is not REAL slavery.” As if the people that the Bible originated with cared about the assumption that slavery is bad.

              The argument that “morality comes from the Bible” is absurd. That kind of argument shows how distorted a word can get over time. Morality originally meant(from Latin) the customs and rules of a group, inherited by long usage from their ancestors. Ethics in Greek had a similar sense. People certainly had that before the Jews were cobbled together from various West Semitic tribes, and certainly before the Old Testament was written(it was still being added to in the late Hellenistic period).

              https://www.academia.edu/1315303/The_Concept_of_God_in_Proverbs_and_Amenemope

              Here is something on Egyptian influence on the proverbs of the Hebrews. Later on, there was quite a bit of Greek influence too. Jesus ben Sirach actually referenced Aesop, for example. That bit about ancient Egypt was to show just how many of those religious ideas had a precedent there. They are not an exact copy, since Judaism and Christianity are different from ancient Egyptian religion, but it is obvious the ideas did not just pop up with some unique revelation to one particular tribe of West Semites.

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            7. Hello K,

              I appreciate your response here. It is a courteous and understanding response. Thank you. I may have come across a little brash(?) or too reactive. That wasn’t my ultimate intention which is why my comment-reply was 98% Dr. E.O. Wilson’s take on the origins of morality — and at this point in our discussions, not mine. I am guilty of presuming you were probably anti-atheist and perhaps an obscure/cloaked(?) Christian apologist. I did not read anywhere in your comment:

              I’m not a Christian either…

              Now if you had stated THAT, then I would not have commented at all. Besides, not that this is an excuse… at that late, late hour I was utterly exhausted from a long day. But as my friend, Jim asked me to take a look at your comment and so I ignored my better judgement and anted up. 😵 Now I see that perhaps Jim was not 100% sure where your world-view rests either. A second (or 3rd, 4th, 20th) pair of eyes always help when one is unsure. He and I sometimes request this of each other in those times.

              And yes, to a fault I do not have much patience as I sometimes should with anonymous commentors speaking with high levels of authority or scholarship — not to necessarily disregard the content of what you write either, to be clear. So I apologize for my impatience in that regard. 🙂

              Anyway, carry on and I hope you visit and comment on Jim’s blog and posts often. Take care and again, thank you for your kind understanding here.

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  6. Well said as ever Jim, I find myself at this very moment listening to these lyrics, apt to some extent – ‘And we sleep the devil’s sleep, Just to keep him satisfied’ – or perhaps ourselves (themselves?).

    Sorry to have been so absent dearie.

    – Esme Cloud x

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  7. There’s an old saying about disbelieving anyone who says “Trust me.” Or “Honestly.” Anyone who declares they know the absolute truth is lying.

    How delightful to have such yummy cherries fresh-picked!

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      1. Been on a research/family-history reunion trip. Digging up more info on the biography – looks good for getting that published once written, so the gold rush project is back burner (though first draft is done). How’s your book project?

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        1. Mine is fermenting. After it has set a while I can make changes with fresh eyes. I just need to get it done before I die. I’m reading your post as we chat here. Very cool

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