Sacred Contradictions

In order to understand and better
analyze this important issue, I made a series of remarks and then
a brief analysis of how evolved the various civilizations that
have shaped humanity.

• In this tragic era in which we live, we
  find more than ever, there are many people who talk about
  values, criticize, and propose solutions.

• The reality is that most people no
  longer believe in anything and are desperate for the world
  economic crisis. President George Bush won the U.S.
  presidency with a surplus 5 billion dollars and handed the
  presidency with a deficit of a trillion dollars. The unjust
  war that Bush promoted left hundreds of thousands of innocent
  people dead or injured and Asia Minor are in
  ruins.

• For many researchers, the source of
  this tragedy is the lack of responsibility that arises by not
  giving to life the greatest value it has, and its
  transcendence. Man transcends its life in a positive or
  negative sense. Until now, Mankind has wasted our Planet and
  now is an ill Planet; where there is a lot of violence,
  social injustice, and suffering. Mankind has transcended in a
  negative way.

• Let"s try finding the origin of so much
  pain, and if possible giving some suggestions, in a humble
  way.

Introduction

Is it possible to pack for our last trip?
It will arrive soon. Do we have First Class Ticket for that trip?
Is it possible to buy or get it with good connections?
Let´s remember how this problem was considered by ancient
civilizations and how they evolved.

It will be interesting to know how these
civilizations understand the meaning of Life, and which ones are
their main contradictions in their sacred books.

We may say Mankind has destroyed a great
part of our planet, instead of taking care of it. There is a lot
of violence, social injustice and mainly a lot of people are not
responsible. Is that failure the result of inappropriate teaching
of the religions?

Please, let"s study how each one of the
main cultures understands "The Meaning of Life," and the main
proved contradictions of the Jewish Bible or Old Testament, of
the Bible of Christians or New Testament, and of the Bible of
Muslims or Holy Book of Koran (Qur"an)

This brief analysis will help us to find
the best way to increase our responsibility"s sense, take care of
our planet, so destroyed now, and in some way "have a first class
ticket for our last trip" With these reflections, is sure
violence will diminish and we will be able to help more our
families, friends and whole Mankind by conviction, more than by
laws or threatens.

Which would be the path of our life if we
had born in a different culture that the one we have?

Let"s make a synthesis of the evolution of
each one of them, next let"s study some of the main
contradictions we find in each one, and the visualization about
the meaning of life each culture has.

The meaning of life constitutes a
philosophical question concerning the purpose and significance of
human existence or biological life in general. This concept can
be expressed through a variety of related questions, such as
why are we here? What's life all about? And what is
the meaning of it all? It has been the subject of much
philosophical, scientific, and theological speculation throughout
history. There have been a large number of answers to these
questions from different cultural and ideological
backgrounds.

The meaning of life is deeply mixed with
the philosophical and religious conceptions of existence,
consciousness, and happiness, and touches on many other issues,
such as symbolic meaning, ontology, value, purpose, ethics, good
and evil, free will, conceptions of God, the existence of God,
the soul, and the afterlife. Scientific contributions are more
indirect; by describing the empirical facts about the Universe,
science provides some context and sets parameters for
conversations on related topics. An alternative, human-centric,
and not a cosmic/religious approach is the question "What is the
meaning of my life?" The value of the question
pertaining to the purpose of life may coincide with the
achievement of ultimate reality, if that is believed by one to
exist. Some scholars have a concise response about these ideas.
Meaning of Life means to be able to arrive to plenitude of being
and existing where there is no matter, no space, no time, but
Plenitude in Whom gave us life.

It is accepted all over the world that
sense of fear started to be the origin of all
religions.

When a torment was so strong so as to
destroy the houses of the primitive man, He decided to create a
god of the winds or thunderstorms, in order to have his favor.
People believed with some gifts given to that god, will help them
not suffer so much. The fear of losing crops moved Man to have a
goddess of fertility and established some rituals in order to
give to her some gifts, so to obtain better crops.

All talk about God staggers under
impossible difficulties. Yet monotheists have all been very
positive about language at the same time as they have denied its
capacity to express the transcendent reality. The God of Jews,
Christians and Muslims is a God who in some way speaks. The Word
of God has shaped the history of our culture. We have to decide
whether the word "God" has any meaning for us today.

One of the reasons why religion seems
irrelevant today is that many of us no longer have the sense that
we are surrounded by the unseen. Our culture educates us to focus
our attention on the physical and material world in front of us.
One of its consequences is that we have eliminated the sense of
the "spiritual" or the "holy" which pervades the lives of people
in more traditional societies at every level and which was once
an essential component of our human experience of the world. In
the South Sea Islands, they call this mysterious force
manna; others experience it as a presence of spirit;
sometimes it has been felt as an impersonal power, like a form of
radioactivity or electricity. It was believed to reside in the
tribal chief, in plants, rocks or animals. The Latin"s
experienced Numina (spirits) in sacred
groves.

Sumeria

The first notions about religion are found
in Sumeria.

The cult of the Mother Goddess expressed a
sense that the fertility which was transforming human life was
actually scared. She was called Inana in ancient Sumeria, Ishtar
in Babylon, Anat in Canaan, Isis in Egypt and Aphrodite in
Greece. These myths were not intended to be taken literally, but
were metaphorical attempts to describe a reality that was too
complex and elusive to express in another way. Mesopotamia, the
Tigris-Euphrates valley, in what is now Iraq had been inhabited
as early as 4000 years before CE by the people known as the
Sumerians. In their cities of Ur, Erech, and Kish, the Sumerians
devised their cuneiform script, built the extraordinary
temple-towers called ziggurats. Afterward the region was invaded
by the Semitic Akkadians, who had adopted the language and
culture of Sumer. Later in 2000 BCE the Amorites had conquered
this Sumerian-Akkadian civilization and made Babylon their
capital. Finally, some 500 years later, the Assyrians had settled
in nearby Ashur and eventually conquered Babylon itself during
the eight centuries before CE. This Babylonian tradition also
affected the mythology and religion of Canaan, which would become
the Promised Land of the ancient Israelites.

Babylon

In this culture, they celebrated the great
New Year Festival during the month of Nisan (April) in this
celebration, enthroned the King and established her reign for
another year. A scapegoat was killed to cancel the old, dying
year; a mock battle reenacted the struggle of the gods against
the forces of destruction. On the afternoon of the fourth day of
the Festival, priest and choristers filled into the Holy of
Holies to recite the Enuma Elish, the epic poem which
celebrated the victory of the gods over chaos. A brief look
at the Enuma Elish gives us some insight into the
spiritual which gave birth to our own God Creator centuries
later. Even though the Biblical and Koranic account of creation
would ultimately take a very different form, these strange myths
never entirely disappeared, but would reenter the history of God
at a much later date, clothed in a monotheistic idiom.

In the Enuma Elish the story
begins with the creation of the gods themselves. In the
beginning, said the Enuma Elish two by two from a formless,
watery waste (a substance which was itself divine) In
Babylonian myth (as later in the Bible) there was no creation out
of nothing, an idea that was alien to the ancient world. Before
either the gods or human beings existed, this sacred raw material
has existed from all eternity. When the Babylonians tried to
imagine this primordial divine stuff, they taught that it must
have been similar to the swampy wasteland of Mesopotamia, where
floods constantly threatened to wipe out the frail works of men.
In the Enuma Elish, chaos is not a fiery, seething mass,
therefore, but a sloppy mess where everything lacks boundary,
definition and identity.

Indus
Valley

In the seventeenth century BCE, Aryans from
what is now Iran had invaded the Indus Valley and subdued the
indigenous population. They had imposed their religious ideas,
which we find expressed in the collection of odes known as the
Rig-Veda. There we find a multitude of gods, expressing
many of the same values as the deities of the Middle East and
presenting the forces of nature as instinct with power, life and
personality. Yet there were signs that people were beginning to
see that the various gods might simply be manifestations of one
divine Absolute that transcended them all. Like the Babylonians,
the Aryans were quite aware that their myths were not factual
accounts of reality but expressed a mystery that not even the
gods themselves could explain adequately.

The religion of the Vedas did not attempt
to explain the origins of life or to give privileged answers to
philosophical questions. Instead, it was designed to help people
to come to terms with the wonder and terror of existence. The
ideas of the indigenous population that have been suppressed in
the centuries following the Aryan invasions surfaced and led to a
new religious hunger. The revived interest in karma, the notion
that one"s destiny is determined by one"s own actions, made
people unwilling to blame the gods for the irresponsible behavior
of human beings. Increasingly the gods were seen as symbols of a
single transcendent Reality. Vedic religion had become
preoccupied with the rituals of sacrifice, but the revived
interest in the old Indian practice of Yoga (the "yoking" of the
powers of the mind by special disciplines of concentration) meant
that people became dissatisfied with a religion that concentrated
on externals. Sacrifice and liturgy were not enough: they wanted
to discover the inner meaning of these rites. In India the gods
were no longer seen as other beings which were external to their
worshippers; instead men and women sought to achieve an inward
realization of truth.

Hindus and Buddhists sought new ways to
transcend the gods, to go beyond them. During the eight centuries
before CE, sages began to address these issues in the treatises
called the Aranyakas and the Upanishads, known
collectively as the Vedanta: the end of the Vedas. More
and more Upanishads appeared, until the end of the fifth century
BCE there were about 200 of them. The Upanishads evolved a
distinctive conception of godhood that transcends the gods but is
found to be intimately present in all things.

In Vedic religion, people had expressed a
holy power in the sacrificial ritual. They had called this sacred
power Brahman. The priestly caste, (known as Brahmans) was also
believed to possess this power. The whole world was seen as the
divine activity welling up from the mysterious being of Brahman,
which was the inner meaning of all existence. The Upanishads
encouraged people to cultivate a sense of Brahman in all things.
Everything that happens to become a manifestation of Brahman:
true insight lay in the perception of the unity behind the
different phenomena. Brahman cannot be addressed as "thou"; it is
a neutral term, it is neither he nor she; nor is it experienced
as the will of sovereign deity. Brahman does not speak to
Mankind. It cannot meet men and women; it transcends all such
human activities. Nor does it respond to us in a personal way:
sin does not "offend" it, and it cannot be said to "love" us or
be "angry." Thanking or praising it for creating the world would
be entirely inappropriate.

This divine power would be utterly alien
where it not for the fact that it also pervades, sustains, and
inspires us.

The eternal principle within each
individual was called Atman: it was a new version of the old
holistic vision of paganism, a rediscovery in new terms of the
One Life within us and abroad which was essentially
divine.

Thus, even though we cannot see it, Brahman
pervades the world and, as Atman, is found eternally within each
of us.

Atman prevented God from becoming an idol,
an exterior Reality "out there," a projection of our own fears
and desires. God is not seen in Hinduism as a Being, added on to
the world as we know it, therefore it is not identical with the
world. There was no way that we could fathom this out by reason.
It is only "revealed" to us with an experience which cannot be
expressed in words or concepts. Brahman is "What cannot speak
with words but that whereby the mind can think." It is impossible
to speak of a God that is as immanent as this or to
think about it, making it a mere object of thought. It
is a Reality that can only be discerned in ecstasy in the
original sense of going beyond the self:

God comes to the thought of those who know
Him beyond thought, not to those who imagine He can be attained
by thought. It is unknown to the learned and known to the simple.
It is known in the ecstasy of an awakening that opens the door of
eternal life.

Like the gods, reason is not denied but
transcended. The experience of Brahman or Atman cannot be
explained rationally any more than a piece of music of a poem.
Intelligence is necessary for the making of such a work of art
and its appreciation, but it offers an experience that goes
beyond the purely logical or cerebral faculty. This will also be
a constant theme in religions.

The ideal of personal transcendence was
embodied in the Yogi, who would leave his family and abandon all
social ties and responsibilities to seek enlightenment, putting
himself in another realm of being. In about 538 BCE, a young man
named Siddhartha Gautama also left his beautiful wife, his son
his luxurious home in Kapilavashtu, about 100 miles north of
Benares and become a mendicant ascetic. He had been appalled by
the spectacle of suffering and wanted to discover the secret to
end the pain of existence that he could see in everything around
him. For six years he sat at the feet of various Hindu gurus and
undertook fearful penances, but made no headway. The doctrines of
the sages did not appeal to him, and his mortifications had
simply made him despair. It was not until he abandoned these
methods completely and put himself into a trance in one night
that he gained enlightenment. The whole cosmos rejoiced, the
earth rocked, the flowers fell from heaven, fragrant breezes blew
and the gods in their various heavens rejoiced. Yet again, as in
the pagan vision, the gods, nature and mankind were bound
together in sympathy. There was a new hope of liberation from
suffering and the attainment of nirvana, the end of pain. Gautama
had become the Buddha, the Enlightened One. At first, the demon
Mara tempted him to stay where he was and enjoy his new found
bliss: it was not used to try to spread the word because nobody
would believe him. But two of the gods of the traditional
pantheon-Maha Brahma and Sakra, Lord of the devas-came to the
Buddha and begged him to explain his method to the world.
The Buddha agreed and for the next forty-five years he tramped
all over India, preaching his message: in this world of
suffering, only one thing was stable and firm. This was Dharma,
the truth about right living, which alone could free us from
pain.

This was nothing to do with God, and urged
his disciples to save themselves. This was possible by living a
life of compassion for all living beings, speaking and behaving
gently, kindly and accurately and refraining from anything like
drugs, or intoxicants that cloud the mind. The Buddha did not
claim to have invented this system. He insisted that he had
discovered it: "I have seen an ancient path, an ancient
road, trodden by Buddhas of a bygone age"

Karma bound men and women to an endless
cycle of rebirth into a series of painful lives. But if they
could reform their egotistic attitudes, they could change their
destiny. The Buddha compared the process of rebirth to a flame
which lights a lamp, from which a second lamp is lit, and so on
until the flame is extinguished. If somebody is still aflame at
death with a wrong attitude, he or she will simply light another
lamp. But if the fire is put on, the circle of suffering will
cease and nirvana will be attained. "Nirvana" literally means
"cooling off" or "going out." It is not a mere negative state,
however, but plays a role in Buddhist life that is analogous to
God.

Nirvana is permanent, stable, imperishable,
immovable, ageless, deathless, unborn, and unbecoming, that it is
power, bliss and happiness, the secure refuge, the shelter and
the place of unassailable security; that it is the real Truth and
the Supreme Reality; that it is the good, the supreme
goal and the one and only consummation of our life, the eternal,
hidden and incomprehensible Peace.

Some Buddhist might object to this
comparison because they find the concept of "God" too limiting to
express their conception of ultimate reality. Attaining Nirvana
is not like "going to heaven" as Christians often understand it.
We could not define nirvana because our words and concepts are
tied to the world of sense and flux.

Meaning of Life
in Hinduism

Hinduism Meaning of Life: Hinduism and the
paths of liberation

Hinduism and the paths of
liberation

According to Hinduism, liberation does not
mean dying and going to heaven. Heavenly life is as desirable or
undesirable as earthly life because in the ultimate sense,
heavenly life is also limited and transient, thought compared to
earthly life it may be longer and more intense. True liberation
means liberation of the individual soul from the cycle of births
and deaths, from the sense of duality and separation, and union
with Brahman, the Supreme Soul. 

Will our Life Transcend to Plenitude of
Being and Existing in The One Who gave us Life?

Meaning of Life
in Buddhism

This began in the 6th cents. BCE in India,
with enlighten of Gautama. The Buddha regards himself as a guide
and a physician. He taught in the content of the basic components
of Hindu Cosmology and psychology.

The teaching of the Buddha is summarized in
the Four Noble Truths.

The Four Noble Truths

In his first sermon after attaining
enlightenment, the Buddha taught the "Four Noble Truths," which
form the foundation of belief for all branches of
Buddhism:

• All of life is marked by
  suffering.

• Suffering is caused by desire and
  attachment.

• Suffering can be stopped.

• The way to end suffering is to follow
  the Noble Eightfold Path. 

The Noble Eightfold Path

According to the fourth Noble Truth, one
can permanently escape suffering by following the Noble Eightfold
Path. The word "right" in these eight items designates "true" or
"correct," to distinguish the Buddhist way from others: It is not
enough to gain knowledge; it must be right
knowledge.

• Right knowledge

• Right intention

• Right speech

• Right action

• Right livelihood

• Right effort

• Right mindfulness

• Right concentration

In view of both the importance and the
difficulty of accomplishing these eight activities and
eliminating suffering, the Buddha and the earliest Buddhist
advocated the monastic life as the surest way to enlightenment.
This remains the perspective today in what is known as Theravada
("Way of the Elders") Buddhism, which predominates in Southeast
Asia.

In Theravada Buddhism, there is certainly
room for the laity to participate in Buddhism, but it is
generally thought that they must be reborn as monk before they
can attain enlightenment. Thus the purpose of life of the
Buddhist laity is to gain merit (good karma) by supporting the
monks and doing other good deeds, in the hopes that the next life
would be one favorable to gaining enlightenment.

The Buddha stated: Obtain salvation by
means of having good behavior, help yourself, help everybody, and
do not harm any living creature.

Will our Life Transcend to Plenitude of
Being and Existing in The One Who gave us Life?

Israel

The person who started the Genesis, the
first book of the Bible, is known as a wandering chieftain who
had laid their people from Mesopotamia to the Mediterranean at
the end of the third millennium BCE. These wanderers, some of
whom are called Abiru, Apiru o Habiru in Mesopotamian and
Egyptian sources, spoke West Semitic languages, of which Hebrew
was one. They were not regular desert nomads like the Bedouin,
who migrated with their flocks according to the cycle of the
seasons, but were more difficult to classify and, as such, were
frequently in conflict with the conservative authorities. Some
served as mercenaries, other become government employees, others
worked as merchants, servants or tinkers. Some became rich and
might then try to acquire land and settle down. The stories about
Abraham in the book of Genesis show him serving the King of Sodom
as a mercenary and describe his frequent conflicts with the
authorities of Canaan and its environs. Abram, who will later be
renamed Abraham ("Father of a Multitude"), is commanded by Yahweh
to leave his family in Haran, in what is now eastern Turkey, and
migrate to Canaan near the Mediterranean Sea. We have been told
that his father, Terah, a pagan, had already migrated westward
with his family from Ur. Now Yahweh tells Abraham that he has a
special destiny: he will become the father of a mighty nation
that will one day be more numerous than the stars in the sky, and
one day his descendants will poses the land of Canaan as their
own.

But who is Yahweh? It is highly likely that
was El, the High God of Canaan. The deity introduces himself to
Abraham as El Shaddai (El of the Mountain) which was one of El"s
traditional titles. Elsewhere is called El Elyon (The Most High
God) or El of Bethel. The name of the Canaanite High God is
preserved in such Hebrew names as Isra-El or Ishma-El. Abraham"s
god El is very mild deity. He appears to Abraham as a friend and
sometimes even assumes human form. This type of divine
apparition, known as an epiphany, was quite common in the pagan
world of antiquity. Please read Chapter 18 of Genesis. The myth
of the Exodus from Egypt, when God led Moses and the children of
Israel to freedom is equally offensive to modern sensibilities.
Pharaoh was reluctant to let the people of Israel to go, so to
force his hand God sent ten fearful plagues upon the people of
Egypt. Pharaoh decided to let the Israelites leave but later
changed his mind and pursued them with his army. He caught up
with them at the Sea or Reeds, but God saved the Israelites by
opening the sea and letting them cross dry-shod. When the
Egyptians following in their wake, He closed the waters and
drowned the Pharaoh and his army. This is a brutal, partial and
murderous god: a god of war who would be known as Yahweh Sabaoth,
the God of Armies. He is passionately partisan, has little
compassion for anyone but his own favorites and is simple a
tribal deity. Some mother scholars suggest that the Exodus story
is a mythical rendering of a successful peasants rendering of a
successful peasants" revolt against the suzerainty of Egypt and
its allies in Canaan. The bloody story of the Exodus would
continue to inspire dangerous conceptions of the divine and
vengeful theology. In Book Numbers Chapter 31, we find the
terrible act of vengeance dictated by Moses to his people, in
order to destroy the Midianites. This is a pagan god and not the
real God. We may read in Numbers 31, 17 Mosses commanded: "Now
kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man,
but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a
man" That was commanded by a pagan god, not by God.

While the God of Moses had been
triumphalist, the God of Isaiah was full of sorrow. The prophesy,
as it has come down to us, begins with a lament that is highly
unflattering to the people of the covenant: the ox and the ass
know their owners, but "Israel knows nothing, my people
understand nothing" (Isaiah 1:3) Yahweh was utterly revolted by
the animal sacrifices in the Temple, sickened by the fact of
calves, the blood of bulls and goats and the reeking blood that
smoked from the holocausts. He could not bear their festivals,
new Year Ceremonies and pilgrimages (Isaiah: 11-15). This would
have shocked Isaiah"s audience: in the Meddle East these Celtic
celebrations were of the essence of religion. The pagan gods
depended upon the ceremonies to renew their depleted energies;
their prestige depended in part upon the magnificence of their
temples. Now Yahweh was actually saying that these things were
utterly meaningless. Isaiah felt that exterior observance was not
enough. The Israelites must discover the inner meaning of their
religion.

Yahweh wanted compassion rather than
sacrifice:

You may multiply your prayers,

I shall not listen.

Your hand is covered with blood,

Wash, make yourself clean.

Take your wrong-doing out of my
sight.

Cease to do evil.

Learn to do good,

Search for justice,

Help the oppressed,

Be just to the orphan,

Plead for the widow. (Amos
7:15-17)

The prophets had discovered for themselves
the overriding duty of compassion, which would become the
hallmark of all the mayor religions. Amos was the first of the
prophets to emphasize the importance of social justice and
compassion. The prophet Hosea makes Yahweh to say: "What I want
is love, not sacrifice; knowledge of Elohim (God) not holocausts.
(Hosea: 6, 6)

In the Babylonian and Canaanite myth
developed before the existence of Israel, we find the god Yahweh
was an important god in the Council of gods in Canaan. The
religion of the One God was not coming as easily to the
Israelites as Buddhism or Hinduism to the people of the
subcontinent. Yahweh did not seem able to transcend the older
deities in a peaceful, natural manner. He had to fight it out.
Thus in Psalm 82 we see him making a play for the leadership of
the divine assembly, which had played such an important role in
both cultures:

Yahweh takes his stand in the Council of
El

To deliver judgments among the
gods.

"No more mockery of justice

No more favoring the wicked!

Let the weak and the orphan have
justice,

Be fair to the wretched and the
destitute,

Rescue the weak and needy,

Save them from the clutches of the
wicked!"

Ignorant and senseless, they carry on
blindly,

Undermining the very basis of human
society.

I once said, "You too are gods,

Sons of El Elyon, all of you";

But all the same, you shall die like
men;

As one man, gods, you shall
fall.

When he stood up to confront the Council
over which El has presided from time immemorial, Yahweh accused
the other gods of failing to meet the social challenge of the
day.

We shall see that later in the history of
religions, some Jews, Christians and Muslims worked on this early
image of the absolute reality and arrived at a conception that
was closer to the Hindu or Buddhist visions.

The prophets were in an important sense
creating a god in their own image. Isaiah a member of the royal
family had seen Yahweh as a king. Amos had ascribed his own
empathy with the suffering poor to Yahweh; Hosea saw Yahweh as a
Jilted husband, who still continued to feel a yearning tenderness
for his wife. All religion must begin with some anthropomorphism.
A deity which is utterly remote from humanity such as Aristotle"s
Unmoved Mover cannot inspire a spiritual quest.

Also we have in 2 Sam 11:15 The story about
the cruelty and big sin of King David who committed adultery with
the wife of his most loved friends, general Uriah who was also
killed by him. And in Gen 19, 31 it is explained how Lot
committed incest with his 2 daughters. These horrible stories are
mentioned in the sacred Koran book, as terrible mistakes written
in the Bible.

Unlike the pagan deities, Yahweh was not in
any of the forces of Nature, but in a realm apart. He is
experienced in the scarcely perceptible timbre of a tiny breeze
in the paradox of a voiced silence. Strange as it may seem, the
idea of "God" like the other great religious insights of the
period, developed in a market economy in a spirit of aggressive
capitalism. Some scholars believe Israel"s religion, started to
be a pagan religion, which was evolving so much that their
concept of God at the beginning, was quite different from the one
they have now.

Meaning of Life
in Israel

Is the religion of a Chosen People and the
Hebrew Prophets spoken for God? After the destruction of the
temple in Jerusalem (586 B.C.) and the Babylonian exile, Jewish
communities were organized around synagogues, where rabbis
expounded and interpreted the law that had been given to this
person.

An idiot is more than capable of leading a
comfortable life. He doesn"t suffer much, he enjoys ice cream,
insults fly right over his head, and he always puts on a
smile… The world is b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l.

But he doesn"t experience anything beyond
his ice cream. He lacks the capacity to appreciate higher
pleasures beyond the physical—relationships, meaning, and
spirituality.

Living only for material pleasure and
comfort is not really living. We also need to understand the
deeper existential meaning of life. Sooner or later, every human
being is faced with the cold, hard reality: "What"s my life all
about?"

That"s why we teach our children to say the
Shema: "Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is
One."

If you want to live, be real. Know what you
are willing to die for. Then you are genuinely alive, and able to
truly achieve the highest form of pleasure from
living.

Shakespeare said, "A coward dies many a
death, a brave man dies but once." All of us are going to die.
The question is do you want to live?

Will our Life Transcend to Plenitude of
Being and Existing in The One Who gave us Life?

Main
contradictions in Jewish Bible

The Bible is riddled with repetitions and
contradictions, things that the Bible bangers would be quick to
point out in anything that they want to criticize. For instance,
Genesis 1 and 2 disagree about the order in which things are
created, and how satisfied God is about the results of his
labors. The flood story is really two interwoven stories that
contradict each other on how many of each kind of animal are to
be brought into the Ark–is it one pair each or seven pairs each
of the "clean" ones? Repetitions and contradictions are
understandable for a hodgepodge collection of documents, but not
for some carefully constructed treatise, reflecting a
well-thought-out plan.

The sins of the father

ISA 14:21 Prepare slaughter for his
children for the iniquity of their fathers; that they do not
rise, nor possess the land, nor fill the face of the world with
cities.

DEU 24:16 The fathers shall not be put to
death for the children, neither shall the children be put to
death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his
own sin.

Should we kill?

• Exodus 20:13 "Thou shalt not
  kill."

• Leviticus 24:17 "And he that killeth
  any man shall surely be put to death."

Vs.

• Exodus 32:27 "Thus sayeth the Lord God
  of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side . . . And slay
  every man his brother . . . Companion . . .
  Neighbor."

Should we tell lies?

• Exodus 20:16 "Thou shalt not bear false
  witness."

• Proverbs 12:22 "Lying lips are an
  abomination to the Lord."

Vs.

• I Kings 22:23 "The Lord hath put a
  lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets, and the
  Lord hath spoken evil concerning thee."

Does God change his mind?

• Malachi 3:6 "For I am the Lord; I
  change not."

• Numbers 23:19 "God is not a man that he
  should lie; neither the son of man, which he should
  repent."

• Ezekiel 24:14 "I the Lord have spoken
  it: it shall come to pass, and I will do it; I will not go
  back, neither will I spare, neither will I
  repent."

Vs.

• Exodus 32:14 "And the Lord repented of
  the evil which he thought to do unto his people."

• Genesis 6:6,7 "And it repented the Lord
  that he had made man on the earth . . . And the Lord said, I
  will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the
  earth . . . For it repenteth me that I have made
  him."

• Jonah 3:10 ". . . And God repented of
  the evil, which he had said that he would do unto them; and
  he did it not."

See also II Kings 20:1-7, Numbers 16:20-35,
Numbers 16:44-50.

See Genesis 18:23-33, where Abraham gets
God to change his mind about the minimum number of righteous
people in Sodom required to avoid destruction, bargaining down
from fifty to ten. (An omniscient God must have known that he was
playing with Abraham's hopes for mercy–he destroyed the city
anyway.)

Are we punished for our parents'
sins?

• Exodus 20:5 "For I the Lord thy God I
  am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon
  the children unto the third and fourth generation." (Repeated
  in Deuteronomy 5:9)

• Exodus 34:6-7 " . . . The Lord God,
  merciful and gracious, . . . That will by no means clear the
  guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the
  children, and upon the children's children, unto the third
  and to the fourth generation."

Vs.

• Ezekiel 18:20 "The son shall not bear
  the iniquity of the father."

• Deuteronomy 24:16 "The fathers shall
  not be put to death for the children, neither shall the
  children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be
  put to death for his own sin."

How many Gods are there?

• Deuteronomy 6:4 "The Lord our God is
  one Lord."

Vs.

• Genesis 1:26 "And God said, Let us make
  man in our image."

• Genesis 3:22 "And the Lord God said,
  Behold, the man has become as one of us, to know good and
  evil."

It does no good to claim that "Let us" is
the magisterial "we." Such usage implies inclusivity of all
authorities under a king's leadership. Invoking the Trinity
solves nothing because such an idea is more. Does God live in the
light?

• Daniel 2:22 "He [God] knows what is in
  the darkness, and the light dwelleth with him." See also
  Psalm 143:3, II Corinthians 6:14, and Hebrews
  12:18-22.

Vs.

• I Kings 8:12 "Then spake Solomon, The
  Lord said that he would dwell in the thick darkness."
  (Repeated in II Chronicles 6:1)

• II Samuel 22:12 "And he made darkness
  pavilions round about him, dark waters, and thick clouds of
  the skies."

• Psalm 18:11 "He made darkness his
  secret place; his pavilion round about him were dark waters
  and thick clouds of the skies."

• Psalm 97:1-2 "The Lord reigneth; let
  the earth rejoice . . . Clouds and darkness are round about
  him."

Does God accept human sacrifice?

• Deuteronomy 12:31 "Thou shalt not do so
  unto the Lord thy God: for every abomination to the Lord,
  which he hateth, have they done unto their gods; for even
  their sons and their daughters they have burnt in the fire to
  their gods."

Vs.

• Genesis 22:2 "And he said, Take now thy
  son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee
  into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt
  offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee
  of."

• Exodus 22:29 "For thou shalt not delay
  to offer the first of thy ripe fruits, and of thy liquors;
  the firstborn of thy sons shalt thou give unto
  me."

Christianity

SS Johan Paul II was the most important
leader of Christianity. When he left Mexico said: "We arrive to
the end of this Second Millennium, with Man despising Man" Also
he asked pardon to Mankind for the crimes committed by the
Catholic Church (Inquisition, Crusades, etc.). Now in year 2010,
the new Pope SS Benedict XVI or Joseph Ratzinger, expressed: The
Catholic Church is being punished by God for its big sins, mainly
by some religious priests abusing children. Let"s help restore
the wonderful teachings of Jesus, in order to help Mankind to
live in peace and with true responsibility. Please dare to
think how would be your life if you would have borne as a sincere
Jew. Would you think Christians worship a Jew? How would be your
life if you would have borne a sincere Muslim? Would you think
Christians worship a Jew? For them, Jesus is a Prophet, a Great
Master, and for them the sentence "Son of God" is a blasphemy.
Most people agree it is not possible for a creature to
explain its Creator. But some religious leaders say it is
explained by the Revealed Teaching. But which one of the Revelers
is the right? The One offered by Jews, or by Muslims, or by
Christians, or by Hindus, or Which One?

Christianity has its origins in The Book of
Genesis.

• a) It is grounded in the
  Original Fault, explained in Genesis.

Eva was cheated by the serpent, and then
she cheats her husband Adam. Then they have two children. One
kills the other. Cain kills Abel.

The biggest sin is done when they disobey
the commandment of God: "You will not eat from the forbidden
fruit"

That is an infinite sin. In order to erase
that sin, it is necessary to have an infinite repair. This
infinite repair is done when The Only One God"s Son, in an
infinite act of generosity, gives His Life to get the pardon of
that infinite sin. The very ground of this teaching is in the
statement that Our Creator made Man at His image and resemblance.
So we may say Our Creator is a Perfect and Infinite Person, and
Mankind is not. In other religions, they believe Our Creator
is much more than a Person.

• b) Each behavior which a
  person makes against the God"s Will, is an infinite sin. This
  sin, only may be pardoned when the sinner asks forgiveness,
  and believe Jesus is The Only One God"s Son, Whom has an
  infinite grace to obtain that pardon.

These ways of thinking is very dangerous,
because with that fact is possible to say or understand that a
very big sin, like abortion, or many others, can be easily
pardoned if the sinner ask for pardon, believes in Jesus, and
assures he will not repeat that sin again. But as in the Good
News is stipulated, the sinner may be pardoned 70 times 7,
(Matthew 18:21-22) so it is very easy to repeat the same
procedure. This situation in some way is the origin of
actual corruption, some Scholars say.

Some people think Jesus was and is the
wisest of men. He said: "Resist no evil: but whosoever shall
smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other also."
(Matthew 5:39) Really it is not a principle which is a matter of
fact Christians accept. This text was intended in a figurative
sense, or not?

Jesus said also: "Judge not lest ye be
judged" That principle was not popular in the law courts of
Christian courts. Also The Lord said: "Give to Him that asked
(Matthew 5:42) of thee and from him that would borrow of thee
turn not thou away." Another wonderful sentence said by Jesus
was: "If thou will be perfect, go and sell that which thou hast,
and give it to the poor." (Matthew 19:21) If we analyze the way
we behave, maybe most of the ones whom put in themselves the
label of Christians, will recognize they really they are not
Christians.

In the wonderful teaching of Jesus, also we
find:

"The Son of Man shall send forth His
angels; and they shall gather out of His kingdom all things that
offend; and them which do inquiry; and shall cast them into a
furnace of fire; there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth."
(Matthew 13:41) Then we may remember how at the second coming He
is going to divide the sheep from the goats, and He is going to
say to the goats: "Depart from me, ye cursed into everlasting
fire." (Matthew 25:41) Then He says again, "If thy hand offend
thee, cut it off; (Mark 9:43) it is better for thee to enter into
life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire
that never shall be quenched; where the worm dieth not and the
fire is nor quenched."