Godless
16 creative works found
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Or journey of the lost soul…I guess every day is a failure. I fail to live up to my own life. But I will die trying! I’m ready to make a leap of consciousness. The old struggles are no longer interesting. They do not engage my mind. My energy passes through them-they are mirages. I once sought big monuments of proof that I existed-no more. For me going deeper is better. Deeper insight is all that I seek…and a beautiful cup to drink from.
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The great sin of the Christian church
by Daniel Rarela_This quality of restraint in Jesus – one could almost call it a divine shyness – took me by surprise. I realized, as I absorbed the sto…
This quality of restraint in Jesus – one could almost call it a divine shyness – took me by surprise. I realized, as I absorbed the story of Jesus in the Gospels, that I had expected from him the same qualities I had met in the southern fundamentalist church of my childhood. There, I often felt the victim of emotional pressures. Doctrine was dished out in a “Believe, and don’t ask questions!” style. Wielding the power of miracle, mystery, and authority, the church left no place for doubt. I also learned the manipulative techniques for “soul-winning,” some of which involved misrepresenting myself to the person I was talking to. Yet now I am unable to find any of these qualities in the life of Jesus. If I read church history correctly, many other followers of Jesus have yielded to the very temptations he resisted. Dostoevsky shrewdly replayed the Temptation scene in a torture cell of the Grand Inquisition. How could a church founded by the One who withstood the Temptation carry out an Inquisition of forced belief that lasted half a millennium? Meanwhile, in a milder Protestant version in the city of Geneva, officials were making attendance at church compulsory and refusal to take the Eucharist a crime. Heretics there, too, were burned at the stake. To its shame, Christian history reveals unrelieved attempts to improve on the way of Christ. Sometimes the church joins hands with a government that offers a shortcut to power. “The worship of success is generally THE form of idol worship which the devil cultivates most assiduously,” wrote Helmut Thielicke about the German church’s early infatuation with Adolf Hitler. “We could observe in the first years after 1933 the almost suggestive compulsion that emanates from great successes and how, under the influence of these successes, men, even Christians, stopped asking in whose name and at what price…” Sometimes the church grows its own mini-Hitlers, men with names like Jim Jones and David Koresh, who understand all too well the power represented in miracle, mystery, and authority. And sometimes the church simply borrows the tools of manipulation perfected by politicians, salesmen, and advertising copyrighters. – excerpt from The Jesus I Never Knew, by Philip Yancey it is for this reason that, even though I am a Christ follower, I can only be so offended when people like Bill Maher (whose show is extremely insightful, entertaining, and funny) are quick to bash Christianity. If you listen very closely, insults like Maher’s are nearly always directed at Christians, but hardly ever Jesus himself. If anything, it sheds a light on how much we need God’s grace: believer or not, nobody does a good job of walking in the same footsteps of Christ, and every time we try to pave that road into something that’s a little easier on our feet, we do such a lousy job of it that it should come as no surprise that so many people roll their eyes at Christians. Ghandi said it best: “I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” And Margaret Cho put it a little more bluntly: “Many of my contemporaries are atheists, and for good reason. God isn’t really the problem; some of His followers are big assholes.” That being said, I kind of feel the need to let people know that JESUS is the true face of Christianity, not other Christians, not Jerry Falwell, not the misguided believers (that’s pretty much all of us) who get the most media attention when you turn on the news. So, to my atheist friends, I won’t fault you for sniping or rolling your eyes at Christians in general – in truth, we deserve it, more often than not. But, if whatever doubt you have in your heart is really that strong, I hope it motivates you to find some answers – I hope it motivates you guys to study the Man whom I find it difficult to stop listening to/ thinking/ praising/ writing/ singing/ talking about. And if you really take a good look at Him, read about him, who He was, and what He did, from all viewpoints and perspectives, then I hope you’ll understand why I call myself a follower of Jesus Christ, why the most anyone can be is a poor reflection of Him, and why I keep trying to be a little more like Him in spite of the fact that I seem to fail at every single attempt.
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GODLESSNESS
by Beliar FloedeThere was a time, a time, a time I thought my heart could grow. / There was a time, a time, a time I thought; “I’m nicer now”. / But no, I …
Don’t take it serious. Just a little. / I’m not THAT naughty. Just nearly. / I guess.
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wrinkled shrunken skin bags
by montdragonGod is godless godless is God
Sentient beings have unanswered questions…you can say that humankind has all the questions with no real definitive answers. Theories, oral and written traditions, forms of government or types of governance and religious doctrines, divides the human species, propagated by intolerance or plain old self imposed ignorance. / / No one can really explain why humankind ages, scientist speculate as to why we age then die and religionists state their reasons why humankind dies. In theory there is no reason for aging and dying and as we age we regenerate and then at some tipping point we start to die…everything on this planet does die or decays in nature or made by man and humankind does decay…”dust to dust ashes to ashes.” What is constant is the division of humankind, the constant back and forth between men and women, the battle of the sexes, political parties each side claims that they and only they are fit to govern, religions of various faiths who claim that they and they alone have the one and only true religion…”one God many religions and God made in the image of humankind.” When we reach a certain point in the aging process something happens, we let go of all our fears and superstitions or become totally possessed of our fears and superstitions…and death is a certainty and aging is a curse (?). “What goes on four legs in the morning, on two legs at noon, and on three legs in the evening?” Humankind politics and religion, solve that and then the Sphinx…riddle be gone (?).
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Be proud of your lack of credulity – in Ye Olde English style!
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Infidel was first used in Middle English circa 1460, from the Middle French infidèle, and from Latin infidelis “unfaithful,” later “unbelieving”, in the 15c. meaning “a non-Christian” (especially a Saracen); later “one who does not believe in religion” (1527).
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In Arabic, the word kāfir is the active participle of the root K-F-R “to cover” and in Islam it is used against those who would cover “the Truth” and remain an unbeliever or infidel. / Arabic script has a number of different styles of calligraphy, including Naskh خط النسخ, Nastaʿlīq, Shahmukhi, Ruq’ah خط الرقعة, Thuluth خط الثُلث, Kufic الخط الكوفي, Sini and Hijazi. I’m not sure which this one is written in, but it’s very nice.
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In Arabic, the word kāfir is the active participle of the root K-F-R “to cover” and in Islam it is used against those who would cover “the Truth” and remain an unbeliever or infidel.
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OM
by montdragon -
PEACE
by montdragon -
a single thread
by montdragonNSFW
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Please don’t take or use my images without my permission. That would make you a jerk, and envy your karma I would not. © Carolina Yocom
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