i am no longer a fan of this band Options

[gotigrz]

in 1994 i heard a song and the radio that, in my mind, was one of the catchiest songs with a great back beat that i'd ever heard. my friend told me one night... "the name of that song is "selling the drama" but i don't know by who".... well, that's where it started and this is where it ends.

i've been a huge Live fan for about 12 years now, and i can't hide my feelings about this band any longer. and here's why: I am a Christian. if you are not a Christian then this band and their lyrics may not bother you, but if you are a Christian, then i don't see how they couldn't bother you. i've made excuse after excuse for Live, so that i could bring myself not to think about excatly what Ed is singing about and just enjoy the music. well, 12 years later... i can't do it any longer. i read some peoples thoughts on songs of Live's and i think a lot of people think they are singing about love between a man and a woman,..... and that is NOT what he's doin'.

i can not sit back and let some guy that cusses, drinks and i'm sure he's been drunk, and puff on doobie backstage, and anything else that is not "good"... talk about Jesus the way he does in his songs. esp. Selling the Drama, Operation Spirit, I alone, and i'm sure a bunch more cause that's all he sings about.

if anyone can tell my why i'm looking into his songs the wrong way.... please enlighten me, but if you can't, and i doubt you will...... i'm done w/ Live. and if there are any true Christians reading this... i hope you do the same.

so, before Live can be done with me.... i'm done with them.

[HiItsNino]

This is why "religion" (not to be confused with Christianity or spirituality) scares the crap out of me. You have people who claim to know that their god is the only god, yet they cannot prove it. They'll just tell you "I know by my faith". If you do know by your faith then "I Alone love you (or should I say you, alone love him)", so you know how pointless it is to profess to know the trueth. So why would such a person who knows the one true answer be so offened by what Ed thinks unless that person really does question their own faith?

In the Bible, Christ uttered not one single word about drinking, drugs, abortion, homosexuals, the death penalty yet modern day "christianity" would lead us all to believe that he did in fact preach against all of these things. If you were truely interested in unlocking Christs wisdom you'd be more willing to accept what he actually said, not what others have told you he has said, and definately not what a religion has told you he said.

For me, studying Krishnamurti actually helped me understand Christianity in a new way, after years of southern baptist brain washing. Christianity is about showing kindness and compassion to people. Not questioning their motives, or judging their lyrics, or condemning their practices. Its about "suffering the wound, never turning from love, never turning to hate". Its quite simple, thats all there is to it.

[FishOutaWater]

OK, here goes my rant. It's long, but hopefully worth the read.

I'm afraid that I find it very difficult to debate a person about God and spirituality, and the interpretation of artistic lyrics about those subjects, when that person believes a set of beliefs to be the absolute, word of God truth.

If you believe that God had to become a flesh and blood perfect human being on earth in order to die a horrible crucifiction at the hands of human beings in order to offer a perfect sacrifice so that God (as Jesus) can thereafter save us from our sins and that we can go to salvation in the eternal kingdon of heaven (as opposed to burning in the flaming damnation of hell) so long as we believe that God did all of this for us and we accept it -- well then I'm afraid that I can't say anything that will get that person to see any alternative views of a universal God to whom all paths of love, compassion, forgiveness and oneness lead.

The "Word of God" as you described the gospels were written by humans 40 to 90 years after Jesus died in an effort to convert pagans. They are filled with inconsistencies and "facts" that turn out not to be true. How many days after the Passover supper did Jesus die? John says something different than the others. Was there a worldwide census that required every person in the world to go back to a town where the ancestors 40 generations before of their unwed adopted father Joseph was born? No record of this in history and how exactly would that happen logistically. Did Herod kill every boy in Rome when Jesus was born? Again, no record. Did Jesus have a brother? There are many references in the gospels, Paul, the Acts, Josephus the historian and sources recently discovered that say so. But that would take away from Jesus' divinity so we are told it meant "cousin". Did you know that Christmas day is actually the pagan holiday of lights? Did Jesus ride into Jerusalem on a donkey, a mule or both as some fo the gospels describe? Both would be a site to see. Did you know that for centuries the Church condoned abortions? Why was Mary Magdelane called a "prostitute" for thousands of years when there is no historical record of that anywhere, including the gospels?

There were dozens more gospels that were thrown out of the bible 300 years after Jesus' death at a time when the "church" tried to come up with a unified theme. They debated things like whether Jesus was actually God at that council. In the end, they threw out the dozens of other gospels that were rejected and ordered all copies of them to be destroyed and labelled them as heresy. It was only after Constantine successfully slaughtered his enemies under the sign of the cross that he thought the cross was a better good luck symbol than the pagan symbols that he made Christianity the official state religion of Rome. The Christianity of Paul and the Roman empire and the Council of Nicea and what Christianity has become today are NOTHING like what Jesus was about 2,000 years ago. Jesus was a faithful, observant Jew in 1st century Palestine under a ruthless oppressive Roman Empire and corrupt Jewish regime. Every parable and speech and response to questions in the synoptic gospels which were the first three written chronilogically, speak of love, humility compassion and loving others as yourself.

Jesus' brother James and closest apostle Peter thought that those who followed the teachings of Jesus must convert to Judaism, get circumcized and follow the dietary laws and all of the other laws and customs of Judaism -- just as Jesus did throughout his entire life until the day he died. When was the last time most Christians honored the Sabath on Saturday or celebrated Passover like Jesus did the day before he died?!?! Paul, a guy who literally never even met Jesus, thought that pagan Gentiles could become "Christians" and didn't need to get circumcized and follow the dietary laws, etc. The feud between James and Paul is written right in the Acts of the Apostles. So who knew what Jesus would have wanted better? His brother and closest desciple or Paul, a guy who never even met him?

The entire morality code that most Christian churches preach about comes from Paul's writings. Let's look at the context of those letters. They were written by Paul to the pagan communities that he left behind as he went along his travels. These communities regressed into fornication and immorality the minute Paul left town and he was giving them a pep talk. And Paul said at least 3 or 4 times in those letters that the world would end and Jesus would return during that very generation. This is the context from which we should all lift our moral code in the 21st century?!?! Please, I am not a simple sheep!

Love thy neighbor as thyself. The meek and the humble and the poor and the ones who are as unpresuming as a child and those who forgive and do not judge -- those are the ones that shall find God. Those attached to money and those that place the law above people are not close to God. It is the anti-authoritarian Jew in the 1st century who preached a message consistent with the message of every other great spiritual teacher in history that I choose to believe in.