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No, Finn. I pick the God Christ revealed, which is what you should be doing if you are a Christian. Instead, you pick the ancient Jewish War God complete with barbaric beliefs in blood sacrifices to appease Him.
It has nothing to do with denigrating fundies. Their beliefs and treatment of others do that to themselves without any help at all. They have managed to retain the ancient ignorance and superstitions of thousands of years ago despite over 2000+ years of knowledge and understanding in modern society . . . a feat I cannot understand at all! It is absurd to think that God wanted our understanding to stagnate for thousands of years with no effort to better understand God and our role in His purpose. Running and hiding from knowledge and truth serves nothing but human vanity and hubris. Ignore the truth at your peril.
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Originally Posted by Finn_Jarber
I believe in Jesus Christ, and I do not know why that offends you.
What kind of twisted reading comprehension causes you to suggest that your belief in Jesus offends me??? What offends me is turning Christ's loving sacrifice into a barbaric blood sacrifice to appease the Jewish War God. That is offensive and completely corrupts the Gospel message of love and reconciliation.
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It is ironic that just yesterday you said you would stop your habit of making declarations about who is, and who isn't a Christian, but here you are again declaring that instead of being a Christian, I am something else.
I said nothing about who is or is not a Christian. I simply present what I think is Christian based on the "mind of Christ" and His life and death.
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I'll take StanJPs advice. Say hi to Pcamps when you hit the bottom of my ignore list.
Ducking from the truth is not a wise move, Finn. But it does clearly identify you as a close-minded fundy.
As a former Christian, I did believe in both heaven and hell up until about 10 years ago. As a believer in the doctrine of eternal torment, I studied the bible to refute the doctrine of Christian Universalism, which ironically led me to a belief in it.
I no longer believed in "eternal hell" but did believe in "age-enduring correction". In other words, I believed that after people physically died we would all be confronted with whatever separation we felt from others and God because of any sin in our lives that had not been repented of and overcome, and through that process would come to repentance, a belief in Jesus, and an acceptance of God's love and forgiveness for those areas of our lives. Once received, that love and forgiveness would continue (or begin) the process of our transformation that would bring us all into unity with God and each other. The "Kingdom of Heaven" was not a place, in my understanding, but was rather about that state of unity.
What kind of twisted reading comprehension causes you to suggest that your belief in Jesus offends me??? What offends me is turning Christ's loving sacrifice into a barbaric blood sacrifice to appease the Jewish War God. That is offensive and completely corrupts the Gospel message of love and reconciliation. I said nothing about who is or is not a Christian. I simply present what I think is Christian based on the "mind of Christ" and His life and death.Ducking from the truth is not a wise move, Finn. But it does clearly identify you as a close-minded fundy.
Mystic, I'm just curious - I take it by what you have said here, that you are of the "different viewpoint from the options above" persuasion? ie you don't believe in hell. Since you haven't mentioned heaven either, I'm assuming you are in the third category - would that be an accurate assumption?
Would you mind sharing your view on the idea of heaven and what you think that means? Thanks.
Last edited by Cruithne; 10-14-2015 at 09:25 AM..
Reason: grammar
What kind of twisted reading comprehension causes you to suggest that your belief in Jesus offends me??? What offends me is turning Christ's loving sacrifice into a barbaric blood sacrifice to appease the Jewish War God. That is offensive and completely corrupts the Gospel message of love and reconciliation. I said nothing about who is or is not a Christian. I simply present what I think is Christian based on the "mind of Christ" and His life and death.Ducking from the truth is not a wise move, Finn. But it does clearly identify you as a close-minded fundy.
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Originally Posted by Finn_Jarber
Of course you did. You said if I was a Christian, I'd do what you do, but instead I pick a 'Jewish War God'
I said it is what I THINK a Christian SHOULD do. The descriptions of the Jewish War God are so completely counter to those of the God that Christ revealed that I cannot understand how anyone could ever reconcile them and merge them as you have done. That does NOT mean you are not a Christian. It means you are a Christian who believes differently than I do. I never mad any direct accusation that you are not a Christian.
I no longer believed in "eternal hell" but did believe in "age-enduring correction". In other words, I believed that after people physically died we would all be confronted with whatever separation we felt from others and God because of any sin in our lives that had not been repented of and overcome, and through that process would come to repentance, a belief in Jesus, and an acceptance of God's love and forgiveness for those areas of our lives. Once received, that love and forgiveness would continue (or begin) the process of our transformation that would bring us all into unity with God and each other. The "Kingdom of Heaven" was not a place, in my understanding, but was rather about that state of unity.
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Originally Posted by MysticPhD
No, Finn. I pick the God Christ revealed, which is what you should be doing if you are a Christian. Instead, you pick the ancient Jewish War God complete with barbaric beliefs in blood sacrifices to appease Him.
It has nothing to do with denigrating fundies. Their beliefs and treatment of others do that to themselves without any help at all. They have managed to retain the ancient ignorance and superstitions of thousands of years ago despite over 2000+ years of knowledge and understanding in modern society . . . a feat I cannot understand at all! It is absurd to think that God wanted our understanding to stagnate for thousands of years with no effort to better understand God and our role in His purpose. Running and hiding from knowledge and truth serves nothing but human vanity and hubris. Ignore the truth at your peril.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cruithne
Mystic, I'm just curious - I take it by what you have said here, that you are of the "different viewpoint from the options above" persuasion? ie you don't believe in hell. Since you haven't mentioned heaven either, I'm assuming you are in the third category - would that be an accurate assumption?
Yes.
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Would you mind sharing your view on the idea of heaven and what you think that means? Thanks.
Pleroo's explanation above comes very close minus any implication of punishment of any kind. Our consciousness is the locus of all our feelings and thoughts, both heavenly and hellish. We literally create both sets of conditions within our consciousness and they are not illusory. Our consciousness is a real production of a real energic phenomenon within our reality. The cumulative composite is what defines our character and what we will experience after death and rebirth as Spirit.
The Zoroastrian conception is another useful paradigm that informs my view. I do not embrace it completely, but it is instructive about the import of our thoughts and feelings since we can control them. The Zoroastrian conception of heaven and hell should engender some thoughtful reflection for this discussion. Heaven is described as an immortality of purity in thought, word, and deed. Hell is described as an age-during of evil thoughts, words, and deeds, and mental torment. You can see why this resonates with my view that we are to join the consciousness of God after death (which cannot be other than pure thoughts, words, and deeds) or join the consciousness of the failures (which cannot be other than evil thoughts, words, and deeds with immense regret . . . "weeping and gnashing of teeth").
I envision the latter as composed entirely of experiencing whatever hurt and harm we have done to others, either deliberately or obliviously, out of our selfish motivation. This would be a true "reap what we sow." IOW, WE control what we will experience based on how we treat others in this life. God will simply supply us with the clarity of consciousness of His pure agape love as the backdrop for our self-assessment of our entire life. This will produce an enduring change of our consciousness (repentance) that will make us compatible enough to join with God's consciousness.
There's no OP video, so I'm not sure what your meaning is here ^^. Perhaps you would agree that reason needs to be (and automatically is) tempered by some overriding principle when applied to morality. If not love (keeping the best interests of everyone in mind), what? And if your reason is tempered by love, and if God exists and is love, then you are giving God authority in your life, whether you believe God exists or not.
"The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know. We feel it in a thousand things. It is the heart which experiences God, and not the reason. This, then, is faith: God felt by the heart, not by the reason." ~ Blaise Pascal
So well said, Pleroo. I agree.
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