An Intellectual's Christian Narrative: A Non-Magical Alternative (sanctification, Roman, followers)

[Rbbi1]

Originally Posted by nateswift

You would say that because you don't pay attention to what I ACTUALLY say either. So it goes...

No, I pay attention to what you say and what you refuse to say, in that you refuse to agree with what Jesus said regarding those that teach the feasts and teach other men to do so, yet proclaim loudly what a "Christ follower" you are and you walk in love. Love is not lying to your neighbor for self gain (mammon), and that's precisely what you're doing by teaching a fraction of the Word. Peace

[TRANSPONDER]

Originally Posted by pneuma

Actually I am not using faith in an uncommon way trans, that is the way it is used in scripture. faith without works is dead.


If one does not have the works that accompany the faith then they are no better off then those who have no faith.


If people actually had the faith they boast of the atheist would have the evidence for God they are looking for. Alas thou those who boast are only lying to themselves saying they have that which they do not.

I have to confess that looked quite uncharacteristically incoherent to me. "Works' in relation to whether cherry picking the Bible on the basis of what one believes -on Faith - to be Inspired rather than just invented is totally irrelevant. If that was an attempt at a red herring, I can only marvel at how feeble it was. And your final para. alarms me. Maybe - and this is not a cheap smear - it would be a good time to call a halt

Because, thanks to you distracting me, my choc -ice has melted.

[nateswift]

Originally Posted by Rbbi1

No, I pay attention to what you say and what you refuse to say, in that you refuse to agree with what Jesus said regarding those that teach the feasts and teach other men to do so, yet proclaim loudly what a "Christ follower" you are and you walk in love. Love is not lying to your neighbor for self gain (mammon), and that's precisely what you're doing by teaching a fraction of the Word. Peace

Precisely what did Jesus say about those who teach the feasts and teach other men to do so? Reference PLEASE

[Michael Way]

Originally Posted by pneuma

Eek gad mike that is only YOUR opinion on objective truth.

No, it is not. There are certain objective and universal truths which being true cannot be untrue.

But lets try an objective truth on you and see how you fair.


Jesus Christ is the savior of all men, specially of those that believe. this command and teach.


And before the apostle told us what we were to teach he warned us about what he called doctrines of demons and to stay away from them.


So how does your eternal torment view mesh with Jesus Christ being the savior of all men?


And if you cannot make it mesh with what we are commanded to teach then the eternal torment doctrine is one of the doctrines of demons.

The actual statement by Paul in 1 Tim. 4:10 is

For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe.

Paul's stress on God the Father as Savior reflects his earlier reference to God in 1:1 and 2:3. Paul said that God the Father is the Savior of all men because He desires that all men be saved, and because He provided Jesus Christ as the ransom (2:6) to make that salvation possible.

Paul's further statement that God is the Savior ''especially of those who believe'' reflects the fact that God's desire for the salvation of all men is realized only in those who believe in Christ Jesus. As Paul states elsewhere

Ephesians 2:8 For by grace you are saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9] not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.

And in Acts 16:30-31 when the jailer asks Paul and Silas what he must do to be saved, they tell him that if he believes in the Lord Jesus he will be saved.

Acts 16:30 and after he brought them out, he said, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" 31] They said, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household."

In contrast, Paul states that those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, (by responding to the gospel by believing in Him) will pay the penalty of eternal destruction away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power. In 2 Thessalonians 1:5-10 Paul is referring specifically to the time of Christ's return to establish His kingdom on the earth, but the principle is true of all who reject Christ as Savior.

2 Thessalonians 1:8 dealing out retribution to those who do not know God and to those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. 9] These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power,

The very essence of eternal punishment is separation from the Lord's presence.

Paul who states that God is the Savior of all men also states that those who do not believe in Christ Jesus will be eternally separated from Him. This is why he says that God is the Savior of all men, especially of those who believe. God has provided the means by which anyone can be saved, but only those who place their faith in Christ Jesus will be saved. You simply cannot take isolated passages out of the greater context of Scripture and ignore the entirety of what the Scriptures have to say on the issue and expect to get a correct teaching. While God has made salvation available to all men, only those who take advantage of the offer of salvation will actually be saved. Refer to my statement in post #6 on the thread http://www.city-data.com/forum/chris...aven-hell.html

Some of you people however are simply unable to pull your head out of your . . . universalism, and objectively look at what the Biblical writers say about the issue of salvation. Some of you people can't handle the fact that not everyone will be saved, and you retreat into the false teaching of universalism because it makes you feel better. And I'm fairly certain that this post is wasted on you.

And with that, I'm done here and with this thread. Either accept what I said or reject it. That's on you.

[Gaylenwoof]

Originally Posted by Mike555

There is no rational basis for taking what I said about the apostles and the body of teaching handed down by them once for all to the saints and turning it into a claim that I said or implied that ''My opinion is the only one that counts.'' The word of God was communicated to the apostles who taught it orally and recorded it in writing. It is what they taught that counts. Any teaching which opposes what they taught is false. You perhaps will not understand that.

And yet, despite your protests, you are, for all practical purposes, proclaiming that your opinion is the only one that counts. Yes, of course you point to the opinions of the apostles so, in your mind, it is their opinions that really count, but the human mind is exceeding good at self-deception and, from what I can see, it appears you've fallen victim to a great deal of self-deception. (BTW, I'm sure that I, too, fall victim. One of my primary hopes when posting in these threads - where anonymity gives everyone free license to lambast my thoughts without mercy - is that someone might occasionally say something that triggers some glimmer of insight for me into those dark corners of my mind.) The problem is this: You think you are letting the apostles carry most of the weight, but you don't seem to realize is that you are, in turn are carrying them on your own shoulders. When all is said and done, the weight all ends up on you.

Imagine, for a moment, that Alfred believes that the Tooth Fairy is upset about domestic crude oil prices, and Alfred also believe that she is the ultimate authority on crude oil pricing scams. So Alfred goes on a crusade to expose the scammers. "Look," he says, "this is not just my opinion. The Tooth Fairy is the real authority here. I'm just passing along the knowledge that she had gathered." Assuming that you, Mike, do not believe in the Tooth Fairy, would you agree with Alfred that all these claims about oil pricing are not, ultimately, his opinion? Hopefully you can see, clearly, that at the end of the day it is Alfred who makes the claims - not the Tooth Fairy (since an imaginary entity, as such, can't make claims). Alfred, of course, can't see it that way because he is absolutely convinced about the Tooth Fairy's existence, and he is convinced that she is the real authority on these matters. The rest of us can easily see something about Alfred that Alfred cannot see about himself, and thus we are not very convinced by his arguments.

You are not alone in this. Technically, we are all in the same epistemological boat. None of us can be the world's ultimate expert on everything. We have to place some faith in the competence and sincerity of other people. I can't build and fly a jet all by myself, for example. I have to have some faith that the flight crew, and engineers, and mechanics, the factory workers, and FAA inspectors, etc., all do their jobs properly. But when all is said and done, we ultimately need to take responsibility for our decisions about who to trust, what processes to trust, etc. The epistemological buck stops with each of us.

You have placed a great deal of faith in the words of the Bible. The legitimacy of the Bible, in turn, depends to a great extent on the wisdom, honesty, and mental clarity of the Biblical writers and transcribers. Even if an apostle says: "These are not just my opinions; these are God's words and I'm just the messenger" - the weight is still on them for the same reason that the weight is really on Alfred, despite his claims about the Tooth Fairy's role.

It could be that your faith in the Bible is well-placed. Maybe there really is a God who really did inspire the apostles to write God's absolute truth. If that is truly the case, then you are light years ahead of me in terms of comprehending the Truth of Reality. But what I'm trying to explain is this: You seem to see yourself as placing your faith in the Bible-God directly, but from my perspective you are placing your faith in your own intuitions about a bunch of tall tales written in an old book. Why do I see it this way? Because I am convinced that you would have almost none of your conceptions of God if it were not for that Book. Aside from this one Book, Jesus is not a major historical figure. In other words, if for some reason the earliest manuscripts of the NT had been destroyed, modern historians would have only a few vague hints about a bit of a ruckus that happen in some minor province of ancient Rome. The OT would have still been floating around, but without the Christ narrative, I doubt that anyone would pay much attention to it, other than Jews. But, of course, the NT manuscripts did survive and we've all grown up with the Jesus story, just as we all grew up, more or less, with Little Red Riding Hood, Santa Claus, and the Tooth Fairy. The difference is that, unlike the classic fairy tales, many of us grew up being solemnly and thoroughly indoctrinated with the idea that the Christ story is true and our immortal souls depend on us believing it. That's some powerful stuff for the impressionable minds of young children.

Without the Jesus story, I doubt that you would have a combo-pack OT/NT conception of God. You might have some other conception of God, or some other types of spirituality, but I feel highly confident in saying that you would not be thinking of God in terms of the Garden of Eden, or the 10 commandments (as such), or virgin-born savior. I doubt that you have any intuitions, directly, about THAT conception of God. THAT conception of God depends almost entirely on the NT, and your faith in the BIBLE (your opinion about the correctness and significance of that particular book) is what the rest of us see.

Along similar lines, I suspect that Mystic latched onto the Jesus narrative because it was already in his mind - a pre-baked cake ready for eating. In a different social/historical context he probably could have had essentially the same mystical experience, but come up with a very different interpretation of that experience. As I see it, the Jesus narratives happens to serves as a convenient skeleton upon which to arrange the meat of his meditation-inspired spirituality, but a hundred other different arrangements could have works just as well. The life and spiritual nutrition are in the meat, not so much the particular arrangement of the meat, and he seems to acknowledge this to some degree, which is why he is not committed to the Biblical details so much as just a few of the broad brushstrokes.

Personally, I have no more faith in the Bible than I have in fairy tales, and I don't have any Mystic-type revelation experience that I feel needs to have any particular bone-structure beyond whatever reasonably coherent narrative that science and philosophy can provide. This doesn't mean there is no "meat" on my spiritual bones, it just means that the bones are not so much like a ridged structure, but more like an exploratory journey or a process (centered largely, but not entirely, on the scientific empirical method combined with analytic thinking and meditative practice).

[TRANSPONDER]

I hate to keep banging on about My particular Hypothesis, but here we are again. Is the gospel account (or rather, Acts) true?

I have debated with Mike before and I recall the 'apostles all believed it' argument. I might make a prediction, Gaylen; you will find yourself on the end of Appeal to Authority; If you don't have more certificates in Bible studies than some Bible professor that Mike claims supports his position (when I got him to quote the Support, it didn't seem to support it at all) you must accept what he says and therefore what Mike says, without argument.

I didn't buy it and I shall be interested to se whether you do.

[nateswift]

"Especially" means "only?"

[TRANSPONDER]

Originally Posted by nateswift

"Especially" means "only?"

Sorry...that was from which post?

[nateswift]

Originally Posted by TRANSPONDER

Sorry...that was from which post?

My bad. Post 684 "Paul's further statement that God is the Savior ''especially of those who believe'' reflects the fact that God's desire for the salvation of all men is realized only in those who believe in Christ Jesus. As Paul states elsewhere"

[MysticPhD]

Originally Posted by MysticPhD

Be honest, Arq. When you consider what you know to be true, "you know this by mental conviction of your own rightness," don't you????

Originally Posted by TRANSPONDER

No. I believe something to be true because the authorities in this or that field of science have verified it. Even then, it's always open to revision.
And I am sure that my understanding of the Gospels is right, because it explains so much that was puzzle and it fits and - as you saw (or maybe you ignored it) it makes predictions that pan out. Even then. I don't "know" it to be right on Faith.

You seem unaware that you have just contradicted yourself in the same post.[quote]
Well, here's a nice space...

Originally Posted by MysticPhD

Oh, I do, Arq. You see I am convinced that the Comforter is within each human consciousness, including yours. That is why you can access the same morality.

You may not see it but humanist creep is visible here. Of course i cannot prove there is no god behind the evolution of human morality no more that I can prove that there is no god behin evolution. But where is the evidence? [quote] What you call humanist creep can as easily be explained by the fact that we all have the same Comforter within that some consider their conscience that leads to the agape that humanists clam as their own.

The best arguments that could be used in favour of theistic evolution - I/D, order in nature, signs of design - fell flat one after the other. And we see that the learning curve idea, while a brilliant theory, runs into problems you have to ignore like reasons to doubt that Jesus' saying were said by him at all (1) and the sheer incoherence of the learning curve curriculum with differing messages all over the place and -as I have said a couple of times - and you ignored that, too (2)

The ONLY reasons for the issues you point to are our human fallibility and the diverse sources of our flawed knowledge and understanding of reality. That explains it all.

- Buddhism with a (seemingly) superior morality to Christianity

Buddhism is an earlier form and its morality (Maitri) is not superior. Buddha did not perfectly embody it. That is why he predicted some 500 years before the birth of Jesus that another - the Maitreya - would arise and perfeclty embody the Maitri. Jesus did even through scourging and crucifixion.

and the later appalling religion that is causing us all such grief comes later. And never mind mormonism, Moonies and crackpot scientology but see the underlined section below.

Your fixation on the false chronological expectation is corrupting any and all efforts to enlighten you about the process of spiritual evolution. You have no problem understanding that physical evolution is NOT chronologically driven, so why the fixation about spiritual evolution?

You may feel you have secured your position by saying it is "inspiration' rather than dictation, but in fact you have weakened it, because what sounds like stuff that real recipients of Divine inspiration wrote and stuff that others just wrote out of their own heads, is decided by you on the basis of the true spirit telling you which bits are true and which are not.

Nothing is decided by ME, Arq. Do you not understand that there is an absolute, unchanging standard by which we can identify truth from among the dross of human ignorance and perversity?

But this cunning plan puts you on a tightwire, old son, not because you find yourself in the position of telling others who disagree with you that they have not got the Holy Spirit or they would agree with you, though that is bad enough, but because of the basic glass -house danger of relying on Faith; the first time you get something demonstrably wrong, the whole claim collapses.

I have never said anyone does NOT have the Holy Spirit, Arq, because you know I believe we all have it, even you. We do not all listen to its promptings and sincerely search our hearts for the truth God has written there.

Sire, you can shift position a bit but saying that Luke or John wrote this or that 'on inspiration' and it doesn't have to be what Jesus actually said. But that is giving up more ground all the time. "Explaining" the incoherence by calling it 'evolution' may get you out of the 'Giod's curriculum' hole but drops you into the bigger one of: "'it looks like nothing to do with God".
So how can you tell what's God'as teaching plan and what just 'evolving?' The very dangerous faith, faith and yet again, Faith. No. Safer to simply ignore it and claim you are winning.

These differences of opinion will not easilt be resolved, Arq, because each of us is invested in our particular worldview as driven by our experiences and education.

(1) But then you may (I suspect eventually you will ) say that it wasn't Jesus who was inspired but the Gospel writers who made stuff up to put in his mouth.
(2) though Pneuma went in to bat for you and seems to have limped off with the broken leg you should be rubbing.

Jesus embodies the consciousness of God perfectly in Agape (Maitri in Buddhism), Arq. Perfect resonance equals identity. That is where all the confusion about the silly Trinity comes from, but His apostles and disciples did not remotely have the same consciousness. Their understanding was constrained by what they previously believed about God as handed down through their traditions and myths. Any mistakes or misstatements are the results of that.

Pneuma correctly defended my views and you, as usual, never laid a glove on him, but claim to have done so. Your self-perception of your prowess seems inflated yet again.