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Just a little food for thought...if you're interested. The only thing that separates a Christian believer from a Muslim believer is GEOGRAPHY. If you had been raised in a Muslim country, with Muslim parents, who raised you in the Muslim faith, you be spewing the same rhetoric about the Quran. Indoctrination is a scary business.
It appears you haven't been kept up with the news in the Middle East, and the great Christian revival that is going on there, bringing thousands to the faith daily. Africa as well, and even China.
It appears you haven't been kept up with the news in the Middle East, and the great Christian revival that is going on there, bringing thousands to the faith daily. Africa as well, and even China.
True. From what I hear, China's Christian population is growing rapidly.
Mystics attempt a unification, so I would think that is the direction of their thinking and that thinking would have to put it all into "one" eventually (for mystics, probably primarily through a technique-candles, weird clothes and hats, meditations and mantras etc). That is classical thought just wrapped up in some "spiritual" garb. The same was done in philosophy (culminating in Hegel's absolute), economics and politics (Marx?), military (the bomb?), science (cause and effect? See Nitzsche's rejection); others? Well, these are all past now, and we have moved beyond them, somewhat. Anyway, since deconstruction (the so called post modern), thinking has been developing along more diverse thought without the need to synthesize a dialectic into a "one" (Bohr and quantum mechanics as well as Deridda) and reach some absolute through sublimation; in other words, the two sides (I suppose in some of this stuff the complexity requires more than two) create the "thing" without the synthesis (such as the nature of light; wave and particle, I believe it is thought to be; or attempting to combine together position {exact} and velocity of a plane)-both sides are needed to explain the phenomena but perhaps spoken at different times (obviously difference can not be spoken simultaneously, such as predestination and man's freedom, god's love and the lost; each has to be spoken within its own category, but both are needed as a compliment to the other-in other words, to understand what is going on, one has to know both and maintain both at the same time (systematic theology attempts this with its doctrinal heads that can not be synthesized into each other, but all parts are needed to explain the whole-god {theology}; theological popular thinking, theological dumber thinking, finds itself befuddled with this attempt at juggling and maintaining complexity {complexity precedes the simple}, suspects it, and wants to reduce god to abject simplicity: which the bible provides by the god is love verse, but from the stories from the bible {no wonder it has no respect today}, that love is very complicated and "contradictory"). Only understanding one side-in this case theologically-one distorts even the one side; as is happening with the universalists {and with the free will people} as they do not accept the freedom of god or the negative side of salvation {as all are saved; some to this and some to that}). The bible is ahead of all this and what usually passes as contradictions (especially for us classically public educated school citizens who demand resolution of opposites {usually toward our culturally, local or the larger, bias}, even though poorly educated in such) are probably in fact this mode of thought or expression-a nonclassical method in an attempt to keep people from making the god like themselves; although, obviously, this has been a failure in our culture, or rather, western christianity (if one reads Plato's dialogs one finds one bringing all kinds of objections to the movement, because one is resisting the determined outcome of the stream of thought; as there are other outcomes available, and the dialogs hint at this). When the loss and saved are needed for god's glory, by the god (romans 9), the two are needed, and to sublimate the two takes away the glory.
Departing from the scriptrues being the final word is neccessary if one hopes to make any kind of progress in life.
I believe you are correct here. The Spirit is what inspired the Scriptures, but the Scriptures cannot give you life. The Spirit is Life. When the Spirit of Christ arises in you, then it will confirm what has been written, and you will see eye-to-eye with the apostles and prophets in what they have witnessed themselves through the same Spirit.
Scriptures in and of themselves can only blind. I used to believe it, and I believe it even more today. The Spirit gives life, the letter kills.
Listen to Christ IN YOU. It is the only way to understand the Scriptures in a way that is not all flesh.
How does one know the "christ in you" is just that? Where do you arrive at a confirmation? Is it just that this "christ in you" tells you what you want to hear? In which case why would one need a "christ in you"?How would one explain a contradiction of thought of a "christ in you" between two people (or more) with this same "in me" claim where christ would be divided, other than this non-substance back slapping agreement and suck up? So one departs from bible and then what; makes it up, your guru or drinking pal is the source? Your little peer group or political party ideology? A 3 minute beatle song?: I can guess, "it just feels right". Yeah, that's great.
How does one know the "christ in you" is just that? Where do you arrive at a confirmation? Is it just that this "christ in you" tells you what you want to hear? In which case why would one need a "christ in you"?How would one explain a contradiction of thought of a "christ in you" between two people (or more) with this same "in me" claim where christ would be divided, other than this non-substance back slapping agreement and suck up? So one departs from bible and then what; makes it up, your guru or drinking pal is the source? Your little peer group or political party ideology? A 3 minute beatle song?: I can guess, "it just feels right". Yeah, that's great.
Hi allen,
I know that most Christians don't like their feelings, but I believe that the Lord gave them to us for a good reason.
Love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, etc. These all have a very real feeling component. Indeed, I don't think that we can spend a minute of time without feeling something.
So we wait for Christ to rise, and as He rises, He kills the passions of the flesh: lust, covetousness, greed, anger, envy, etc.
The scriptures will help confirm or refute where you are at, and how much you are being led by Him. Jesus was led continuously by the Spirit. That would be paradise! For us, we are still babes, learning.
His Seed is in you, brother; it will bruise the head of the serpent in you, the devil/flesh. You will know.
I like my feelings, that is not the issue unless these determine knowing and truth rather than being along for the ride; and you agreed with departing from the scriptures is needed (with christygirl) as the final word if one is to make progress in life (someone should have told karl Barth that), if I am reading this right. I am really not concerned with feelings as I am aware that they are part of us. You now seem to disagree with christygirl and the scriptures are the confirmation and I would agree with this, although you only give it a "help" function. What I wish to know is what is the extra, the stuff beyond the "help"? Where does it come from? And then how does one know that it is legitimate?
What I wish to know is what is the extra, the stuff beyond the "help"? Where does it come from?And then how does one know that it is legitimate?
~In response to allen antrim's querie(s) but especially regarding legitimacy: this way:
"If the canvas an artist is painting on could think and speak, surely it would not complain if the artist constantly touched and retouched it with his brush, and it would not envy the lot of that tool because it would realize that it owes its beauty not to the brush but to the artist using it. The brush, for its part, could not take the credit for the masterpiece produced through it; it would know that artists are never deterred because they make light of difficulties, and sometimes they are happy to use the poorest and most imperfect tools."
~In response to allen antrim's querie(s) but especially regarding legitimacy: this way:
"If the canvas an artist is painting on could think and speak, surely it would not complain if the artist constantly touched and retouched it with his brush, and it would not envy the lot of that tool because it would realize that it owes its beauty not to the brush but to the artist using it. The brush, for its part, could not take the credit for the masterpiece produced through it; it would know that artists are never deterred because they make light of difficulties, and sometimes they are happy to use the poorest and most imperfect tools."
Maybe....But what it says about "mystical experience" and one's "experience of God" in it's analogy is the answer that was being sought.
Take gentle embedded care.
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