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Religion tries to stamp out, as well as promote, many things outside of scripture. Recognize it for such, don't fall for its traps, and move on. Let religion (and man's straight-jacking of belief) choke and die, so spirituality can flourish unimpeded.
If I could at the moment, I'd love to pour a glass of wine and drink it in front of some narrow-minded zealot, and see them squirm. They'll never experience pure spiritual freedom and victory with the chains they put on themselves.
Katz, seems like you can find every kind of belief and practice on this and much else in the various denominations of Christianity. i would suggest that any custom or practice that helps people to become closer to God and their neighbor in love and forgiveness and stay away from those behaviors that make our selfish needs and desires our sole interest cannot be condemned.
that said, even good beliefs and practices can be perverted if they themselves become "idols"---if abstaining from all alcohol or a "strict" observance of the Sabbath for example keep us so busy observing "rules" and the "letter of the law" (which Paul says "kills") that we may have no time to be mindful in our thoughts and our actions about the basis for every thing we believe and do (the "spirit of the law which gives life") which is to try to fulfill (with God's grace) "the GREATEST commandment of the Law": "you shall love the Lord, your God with you whole mind, heart, soul AND you should love your neighbor as yourself..."
That said, even good beliefs and practices can be perverted if they themselves become "idols"---if abstaining from all alcohol or a "strict" observance of the Sabbath for example keep us so busy observing "rules" and the "letter of the law" (which Paul says "kills") that we may have no time to be mindful in our thoughts and our actions about the basis for every thing we believe and do (the "spirit of the law which gives life") which is to try to fulfill (with God's grace) "the GREATEST commandment of the Law": "you shall love the Lord, your God with you whole mind, heart, soul AND you should love your neighbor as yourself..."
Seeing as I am very much a spirit of the law kind of person, I could not agree more. While I recognize the good reasons behind Mormonism's health code ("The Word of Wisdom"), I have found that some people really do seem to miss the point of it all. When someone is morbidly obese, for instance, but wouldn't touch a drop of wine for anything in the world, I don't feel that he is living the spirit of that particular law, which was given to promote good health.
Katz, seems like you can find every kind of belief and practice on this and much else in the various denominations of Christianity. i would suggest that any custom or practice that helps people to become closer to God and their neighbor in love and forgiveness and stay away from those behaviors that make our selfish needs and desires our sole interest cannot be condemned.
that said, even good beliefs and practices can be perverted if they themselves become "idols"---if abstaining from all alcohol or a "strict" observance of the Sabbath for example keep us so busy observing "rules" and the "letter of the law" (which Paul says "kills") that we may have no time to be mindful in our thoughts and our actions about the basis for every thing we believe and do (the "spirit of the law which gives life") which is to try to fulfill (with God's grace) "the GREATEST commandment of the Law": "you shall love the Lord, your God with you whole mind, heart, soul AND you should love your neighbor as yourself..."
Neither Hebrew nor Greek texts have a word for "Wine". Instead they both use a descriptive terminology, "Fermented Drink", which we translate as "Wine" or "Strong Drink". Fermented drink cannot refer to unfermented grape juice because the technology for making grape juice involves inhibiting the natural fermentation process not invented until the late 19th century by Thomas Bramwell Welc.
Greek:
οἶνος Oinos = Wine
Hebrew:
יַיִן Ya'yeen = Wine
Strong drink would be distilled...Like Whiskey...So, yea, that's like really stupid of him to say...And add the fact that G-d tells folks to use part of their tithe to buy strong drink and make merry at the feast...
The idea that Wine is bad fails when Jesus' first miracle was turning water into ... wine ... and very good wine too.
No, no, no...Everyone know that he turned it into Welch's Grape Juice, silly...
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