Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I agree that the church is Christ's instrument on earth as you put it, but you might want to look up the meaning of catholic to grasp what it teaches, for what it teaches is in the meaning of its name.
Sorry Mystic, but I was born too late to get into that hippie stuff.
You aren't alone, Mike. I was also, but God apparently had other plans for me. I find it more than a little ironic that my theology seems to earn the label of "hippie" or "wimpy" or "panty-waist." It has no actual relationship to the free love movement which was based on Eros love, NOT Agape love.
I completely rejected as absurd the religious dogma out there as magical thinking, superstition, and supernatural nonsense until my encounter. That changed everything. Sadly, it seems without such experience, few are able to relate to the God I KNOW exists. I have resolved the spiritual record of divine revelation with the scientific knowledge we currently have and it all fits!
correct and why do you think it was given that name?
It's meant to distinguish between the Church "universal" (i.e. the worldwide Church as a unified body) and a particular church (i.e. an individual community of believers in communion with the greater whole).
You aren't alone, Mike. I was also, but God apparently had other plans for me. I find it more than a little ironic that my theology seems to earn the label of "hippie" or "wimpy" or "panty-waist."
For the record, I only used the word "hippie". you said the other ones! I wouldn't have used those terms...
Quote:
Originally Posted by MysticPhD
It has no actual relationship to the free love movement which was based on Eros love, NOT Agape love.
Yeah, but "hippie" is a catch-all term that encompasses much more than specifically the "free love movement". It encompasses the entire counterculture of the 1960s; New Age Spirituality being an outgrowth of that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MysticPhD
I completely rejected as absurd the religious dogma out there as magical thinking, superstition, and supernatural nonsense until my encounter. That changed everything. Sadly, it seems without such experience, few are able to relate to the God I KNOW exists. I have resolved the spiritual record of divine revelation with the scientific knowledge we currently have and it all fits!
Experientialism has been a big part of Christianity since the revivalism of John Wesley's day. Unfortunately, I find it too subjective to be helpful in any real way. It's fine for you, but what's that to anyone else?
I also don't find the "whatever works for you" worldview to be consistent with who and what I understand Christ and Christianity to be.
It's meant to distinguish between the Church "universal" (i.e. the worldwide Church as a unified body) and a particular church (i.e. an individual community of believers in communion with the greater whole).
Universal, worldwide is the same and you are correct in part because the other denomination all hold to erroneous views, which errors have crept into the what you consider the universal church for the church for the first 500 years of it's birth taught universal salvation, thus it's name.
How were women treated? It's true that in many cases, women were treated as chattel in pagan societies. However, women have, by and large, been treated with dignity in Christian societies.
If you're saying that Christianity ushered in a new era of women's empowerment, that would be an unfair generalization:
The evidence which has survived from Anglo-Saxon England indicates that women were then more nearly the equal companions of their husbands and brothers than at any other period before the modern age. In the higher ranges of society this rough and ready partnership was ended by the Norman conquest, which introduced into England a military society relegating women to a position honorable but essentially unimportant. With all allowance for the efforts of individual churchmen to help individual women, it must be confessed that the teaching of the medieval Church reinforced the subjection which feudal law imposed on all wives.*
Quote:
Originally Posted by EscAlaMike
There is nothing wrong with discrimination. Every time we make a choice, we discriminate against all of the other alternative choices we could have made.
Discrimination is the genius of the human species. Discrimination is how our minds organize sensory experience into a mental map of the world. We differentiate up from down, hot from cold, this from that - and even if this gives us a workable model to interact with the world, it doesn't mean that all our discriminations reflect real divisions in the actual world. Discrimination is good. Certain patterns of discrimination can be wrong.
Quote:
Originally Posted by EscAlaMike
There is nothing wrong with inequality, per se. Humans are not equal. Men and women are not equal.
No, they are not - obviously. But we have an axiom in this country that says "all men are created equal". It is probably false. So why have the axiom at all?
Because we recognize that rights, respect and opportunity should not depend on whether out fellow citizens are above us or below us on our perceived equality scale. That is why the founders used an unprovable axiom to reason from. Forget what you think of your fellows, treat them equally.
If you take the concept of man's equality and try to exclude women from it because they aren't men, the do you exclude women from the set "mankind"?
_____________________
* Doris Mary Stenton, The English Woman in History (London: Allen and Unwin, 1957), 28
Universal, worldwide is the same and you are correct in part because the other denomination all hold to erroneous views, which errors have crept into the what you consider the universal church for the church for the first 500 years of it's birth taught universal salvation, thus it's name.
The offer of salvation is universal. It's not contingent on who you are, as it was in the Old Covenant when it only applied to Israel. That's why the Church is Universal, because the New Covenant is Universal. Israel was not universal, but was limited to Israel.
Do you have evidence that universalism (where everyone goes to heaven) was the doctrine of the Church for the first 500 years?
The offer of salvation is universal. It's not contingent on who you are, as it was in the Old Covenant when it only applied to Israel. That's why the Church is Universal, because the New Covenant is Universal. Israel was not universal, but was limited to Israel.
Do you have evidence that universalism (where everyone goes to heaven) was the doctrine of the Church for the first 500 years?
If you're saying that Christianity ushered in a new era of women's empowerment, that would be an unfair generalization
I'm definitely not saying that. Depending on what you mean by "women's empowerment", I'm doubtful that it's even desirable.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Arizona Humphrey
The evidence which has survived from Anglo-Saxon England indicates that women were then more nearly the equal companions of their husbands and brothers than at any other period before the modern age. In the higher ranges of society this rough and ready partnership was ended by the Norman conquest, which introduced into England a military society relegating women to a position honorable but essentially unimportant. With all allowance for the efforts of individual churchmen to help individual women, it must be confessed that the teaching of the medieval Church reinforced the subjection which feudal law imposed on all wives.*
"Unimportant"? How so, I wonder?
Wives ought to be subject to their husbands. Paul says as much.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Arizona Humphrey
Discrimination is good. Certain patterns of discrimination can be wrong.
Certainly, I can agree with that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Arizona Humphrey
No, they are not - obviously. But we have an axiom in this country that says "all men are created equal". It is probably false. So why have the axiom at all?
Because we recognize that rights, respect and opportunity should not depend on whether out fellow citizens are above us or below us on our perceived equality scale. That is why the founders used an unprovable axiom to reason from. Forget what you think of your fellows, treat them equally.
If you take the concept of man's equality and try to exclude women from it because they aren't men, the do you exclude women from the set "mankind"?
Whatever axiom a country may or may not have is really not relevant to this topic, as national axioms do not determine the proper order of Creation which was established by God long before any political union was established.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
