The sermon on the mount is about all you need.

That is another great book.

SWIMfriend: I don't mind the snarky outlook and thanks for the welcome!

PhOG: I think we'll have to agree to disagree. It would take me far too long to reply to your post seriously, but I don't want you to think I am blowing you off. I think you brought up good points, but I don't think either of us can, nor wants to convince the other of our view. Thanks for the sermon!

Toadfreak1: I could not agree more with what you said about feeling a stigma from both following a christian faith and using entheogens. I feel somewhat distant from both groups, and you seem to be the first person I am aware of to actually understand that; so thank you!

Ritalin: I totally agree!

I must say that I have enjoyed all of your comments and had a great time discussing these matters with you all. I have nothing but love for you, truly. But I must ask that we change the subject to a more immediate concern of mine. I need your advice. I still have not tried the DMT I have, as I am waiting for the right time and circumstances, but I need to know what you all think about using a freebase pipe vs. a vapor genie, or something else. I purchased a freebase pipe, but I read somewhere that it is not that good, and you need to use a torch lighter. I want to do it right the first time, so that I don't get a misguided view of the potential of DMT, so I'm wondering if anyone has advice for me in this situation. Would a bic and a freebase pipe send me off, or are other utensils better suited for the task?

Ice House offers a dependable first-try-max-results method here

Hey, I enjoyed reading through this informative thread. You may find some helpful podcasts regarding Gnosticism and its relationship with establishment Christianity at Gnostic Byte. There's a good podcast on the Gospel of John, one with Erik Davis, and many others...

I would describe myself as "Christian" if it weren't for my disdain for the behavior and attitudes of most people and churches I encounter who call themselves "Christian". Then again, the same holds for "Buddhism" (Buddha didn't teach any 'isms', "Islam", and other organized religions. The a**holes mess everything up.

hey jaskop,
very nice introduction thank you for coming and welcome. I'm sure your going to get lots of good info on here but i just wanted to say one thing that ive learned in my time in south america working with ayahuasca and seeing the traditions and rituals of he amazonians stri[p[ped away from by the missionaries.

Here's my thought's. Ive read the bible and it is filled with mystical and un explainable experiences by many of its characters. In fact Christianity and so Judaism were built on the backs of these men and women having transcendent experiences and mystical revelations. They are revered and beloved my the followers of these faiths. However, if a member of the church was to now a days have the same experiences of those in the bible, burning bushes, direct communion with God, ext and tell people of the church or worse yet have them during a service or mass the faithful would most likely call an ambulance and see this person as troubled if not insane. Do you see the irony here. ill get to my point.

where i feel the missionaries went really wrong to achieve their own goals here in {Peru was taking entheogenic plant medicines and rituals away fro the converts. There is no reason why a Christian can not use say ayahausca to far more deeply develop and understand his/her relationship with God or Christ. in fact i could assure you it would.

many of the Shipibo left ayahuasca for the church and are now coming back because they see the potential it has for expanding their faith and devotion. So i am happy for you as a Christian that you follow this same path when its quite frowned upon by your fellow Christians.

sincerely,

OM

..welcome jaskop..you are popular..

..echoing lysergify, i was going to mention Christian Gnostics (relating to feeling isolated from most christians)

i find the Gospel of Mary Magdalene (considered a genuine early-christian text c.30-80BC, see Gnosticsm thread) quite moving, and also enjoy the Gospel of Thomas..
..i admire what is said of the historical Jesus, i simply think he was 'very in tune'..an 'emissary' ..not the 'only' son of God..but that's a very old argument within early european Christianity..as a bit of a gnostic it is the church power structures and authority of 'bishops' which i reject..not the spiritual messages

hope you enjoy the nexus, and find all the information you need to aid in the sacrament..

I wanted to resurrect (no pun intended ) this thread, because I have really been struggling with some things related to this thread in the past 6 months - year.

Quick back story on me: I grew up in a Christian family, and was forced to attend Christian schools through 10th grade. At that point, I just couldn't take the guilt, hypocrisy, and judgement anymore. I rebelled in whatever way I could, and essentially "threw the baby out with the bath water". I wanted nothing to do with any form of religion for about 7 years.

I don't want to give the wrong impression of my parents, as they had the best intentions. They are loving, caring people and always wanted the best for me. To this day, they are some of my best friends.

I eventually became heavily involved with entheogens, and rediscovered spirituality. One of the most life-changing experiences of my life was purchasing the Bhagavad-Gita from a monk at a music festival last year. Unlike the Bible, it just made sense to me. It made me want to be a better person, and do all I could to help heal those around me. I'm now reading the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, and again, it just seems to "click".

Long story short (as possible), I find peace in reading Vedic and Buddhist texts, and using entheogens to learn about myself, work on my inadequacies, and become a better person. However, because of my upbringing, I still have these incessant lingering doubts in the back of my mind that I will be condemned to hell because I prefer other belief systems, even though I find many of Jesus' teaching very honorable.

I know many Nexians may just say, "It's an old book, that has been mis-translated many times, and was written in a way to control people and provide power to the church". That is not they type of response I'm trying to facilitate. Basically, I would like to hear from other people who have overcome the beliefs they may have been brought up with to find peace.

The questing I'm posing sounds overly simplistic, maybe even childish as I type it, but I hope you can understand the depth of my concerns. I love all you guys, and truly respect your opinions. I apologize for the long post.

Peace and Happy Journeys

I should mention the concept of Hell, since you seem to worry about it, is essentially absent from the bible. Study the book in terms of original content before translations became creative and you will see that the concepts of heaven and hell as found in most Christianity are in fact, MIA in the teachings of Christ.

To get to your request, I "overcame" my "beliefs" by realizing they were indoctrination, not actual beliefs, just things I was told and told to believe. They certainly don't compare to my true beliefs that I formed from my own experience and exploration.

It took genuine religious experiences for me (sober) to see that what I was taught as a religious experience via Christian teachings was nothing of the sort.

I would say that examining what belief and knowledge are (which is a key part of Vedic teachings) will show people what they believe and what they are repeating. An example is that faith is built, not prescribed, so any teaching where your religion tells you what "they" believe and or have faith in is indoctrination. Having faith in the experience of others is also a terrible mistake, trusting others is fine, but that does not mean that one should gain faith through the testimony of others.

I also studied in detail the history of the various religious accounts, such as the Bible and various other works. This dispelled a lot of misconceptions I had about those works. Like the q source document and the original books of the New Testament (very few in number) being 80% verbatim despite allegedly coming from illiterate men who were said to have different personalities and perspectives, then add to it that the original works were written in a language that those illiterate men would not have spoken...

I simply identified that A: Reason is given by God, not to defy it, but to be able to discern fraud from truth, and B: Many arguments in favor of many religions hinge upon abandoning or suppressing reason in place of hearsay.

I did one more thing that helped me escape the false teachings, I prayed.
I still do.

That is my experience.

I have lots of friends who have implanted ideas they tout as beliefs, I just smile and nod when it comes up. You either learn for yourself, or not at all. There is no sense in anything else.

The gospel of thomas which got discared from new testament show jesus in a different light.

Jeses preached according to thomas that the gatewat to heaven is YOU!

Finding your real self, only you can save yourself.

Jesus in other words is aying that he cant save only you can. Like self enlighenment.

I cant remember the exact phrases but i'll edit this post tomorrow quoting the gospel of thomas and you can see the thomas version of jesus is different from the new testament one. Peace

Thank you very much for your reply, AlbertKLoyd. I completely agree with your statement regarding reason. I've always thought that if there is a God (however you define), then that God gave us our intellect as a tool to be used, not neglected.

It's a little unclear to me what your point is regarding the q document. I will have to study it, but are you stating that you believe in the divinity of the texts when based on their original source because of the low statistical possibility of the correlation of meanings occurring given the nature of the source?