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It does not help us in working out which bits are agape -loving and which bits are not and are to be rejected as false...
It all comes back to personal subjective judgments. If something "feels" like Agape love to Mystic, then it's Truth to him. But maybe I don't share his aesthetic response ... as you point out, maybe I'm a "tough love" type, or maybe I'm a Spock-like empiricist (I'm neither, actually, this is a hypothetical). Maybe I find beauty in mathematics or Bach or hermit-like solitude. Maybe all this touchy-feely talk of Agape freaks me out.
I deeply understand the desire to objectively understand and judge truth / doctrine / scripture. It is a noble impulse. Alas, there is no "there" there. Nothing is 100% objectively certain. There are only probabilities, as supported by evidence, as over against the Unknown.
No one can actually "work out which bits are or are not Agape" in some proven, final sense. What we CAN do is figure out what works or not, toward our agreed upon goals. And even there we can only really determine that for ourselves.
This fact is anxiety-inducing for a fundamentalist. But I am living proof that it's possible to get over it and live with ambiguity and other real world particulars.
I do not understand why people insist on claiming that I do not believe the Bible just because I do not believe it is God's 100% inerrant and infallible word. What about this idea is so difficult to comprehend? The Bible CONTAINS inspirations from God. The inerrancy and infallibility nonsense is just a "precept and doctrine of men" that is preposterous . . . and it is completely unnecessary to belief in God and Jesus. Let's face it, Robert . . . you must not believe in the New Covenant since you keep insisting that my views are just my personal philosophy. I know Christ abides with us and His Holy Spirit (Comforter) is within our consciousness to guide us to the truth God has "written in our hearts."
As for the OT DESCRIPTIONS of God . . . they are the result of our ignorant ancient ancestors' superstitions and barbaric beliefs about God. It is those DESCRIPTIONS that I refuse to accept because they contradict the TRUE NATURE of God AS REVEALED by Christ. Christians are supposed to use Christ as the embodiment of God the Father and the "mind of Christ" is the mind of God . . . NOT the barbaric beliefs of our primitive ancestors.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Robert M Prince
See Matt.22:1.[37] Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
And in John 10:[30] I and my Father are one. And in John 14:1.[9] Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?
You claim to believe in Christ AND God, but when Jesus refers to His Father, He affirms the same God of the Old Testament. How can you claim to have the Spirit of Christ and refuse the Old Testament which profysized so accurately the details of His life.
Jesus said His Father was greater than He, and He prayed that His Father's will should be done, rather than His own.:
God is God. There is only one. So of course JEsus referred to the God in the OT as God . . . but he never affirmed the DESCRIPTIONS of God's motives and actions in the OT. He used the OT to refer to the prophesies about Him because they testify about Him. They tell us how to identify Him; what His status is; what He will do; What we will do to Him; and how to validate Him even after He is dead. So the OT was important to Jesus for establishing His status . . . but as He said "he that hath seen me hath seen the Father." Jesus revealed the TRUE NATURE of the Father . . . NOT the OT.
This girls story is so moving. I can relate to it(I was raised in a weird Christian group myself and am in the process of figuring out what I really believe).
It flummoxes me that even very intelligent people can get caught up in religious stuff. Is their any evidence people who become atheists or agnostic tend to be those better off? Maybe we have the luxury of being able to contemplate mortality-or whatever...versus those hanging on by an edge really need religion.
My father is a soil engineer-but I remember conversations in highschool where he mentioned the thousands of years thing and contemplating the flood. He also has an inordinate dislike for snakes...he used to say they were evil and the devils mascot-comparing the fact that I liked them and wished to own one to bringing the wrong shirt to a football game. Nevermind that highschool clannish rivalries are totally rational.
It is really funny looking back. My Grandma went through a book on animals we owned as young children and ripped and scribbled out all the pictures with snakes on them. One of my earliest memories is my Dad using a shovel to flatten what was probably a small gopher snake into a mangled ribbon on the sidewalk-when I heard their was a snake outside I wanted to capture it...I was left wondering what the hell that animal had done to receive such treatment.
For a while I found solace is a Stephen Gould type partitioning of domains between religion and science(arguing the existence of God using science is like bringing a hockey stick to a football field)....but I realize now that religion is often trying to explain stuff it really has no frickin business dabbling in.
This girls story is so moving. I can relate to it(I was raised in a weird Christian group myself and am in the process of figuring out what I really believe).
It flummoxes me that even very intelligent people can get caught up in religious stuff. Is their any evidence people who become atheists or agnostic tend to be those better off? Maybe we have the luxury of being able to contemplate mortality-or whatever...versus those hanging on by an edge really need religion.
My father is a soil engineer-but I remember conversations in highschool where he mentioned the thousands of years thing and contemplating the flood. He also has an inordinate dislike for snakes...he used to say they were evil and the devils mascot-comparing the fact that I liked them and wished to own one to bringing the wrong shirt to a football game. Nevermind that highschool clannish rivalries are totally rational.
It is really funny looking back. My Grandma went through a book on animals we owned as young children and ripped and scribbled out all the pictures with snakes on them. One of my earliest memories is my Dad using a shovel to flatten what was probably a small gopher snake into a mangled ribbon on the sidewalk-when I heard their was a snake outside I wanted to capture it...I was left wondering what the hell that animal had done to receive such treatment.
For a while I found solace is a Stephen Gould type partitioning of domains between religion and science(arguing the existence of God using science is like bringing a hockey stick to a football field)....but I realize now that religion is often trying to explain stuff it really has no frickin business dabbling in.
How came you by this information - what is the basis for the claim? You have not established there is _even_ one - but that aside - you certainly have not established there is _only_ one either.
This girls story is so moving. I can relate to it(I was raised in a weird Christian group myself and am in the process of figuring out what I really believe).
It flummoxes me that even very intelligent people can get caught up in religious stuff. Is their any evidence people who become atheists or agnostic tend to be those better off? Maybe we have the luxury of being able to contemplate mortality-or whatever...versus those hanging on by an edge really need religion.
My father is a soil engineer-but I remember conversations in highschool where he mentioned the thousands of years thing and contemplating the flood. He also has an inordinate dislike for snakes...he used to say they were evil and the devils mascot-comparing the fact that I liked them and wished to own one to bringing the wrong shirt to a football game. Nevermind that highschool clannish rivalries are totally rational.
It is really funny looking back. My Grandma went through a book on animals we owned as young children and ripped and scribbled out all the pictures with snakes on them. One of my earliest memories is my Dad using a shovel to flatten what was probably a small gopher snake into a mangled ribbon on the sidewalk-when I heard their was a snake outside I wanted to capture it...I was left wondering what the hell that animal had done to receive such treatment.
For a while I found solace is a Stephen Gould type partitioning of domains between religion and science(arguing the existence of God using science is like bringing a hockey stick to a football field)....but I realize now that religion is often trying to explain stuff it really has no frickin business dabbling in.
Off I go to ride my dinosaur!
Snakes are evil. They only have one expression. Pissed off!
The ones I met were either chummy or rushed off as soon as they saw me coming. Whatever they look like, they are no more evil than any other animal. If it wasn't for the Venom thing, they wouldn't have this bad Rap.
God is God. There is only one. So of course JEsus referred to the God in the OT as God . . . but he never affirmed the DESCRIPTIONS of God's motives and actions in the OT. He used the OT to refer to the prophesies about Him because they testify about Him. They tell us how to identify Him; what His status is; what He will do; What we will do to Him; and how to validate Him even after He is dead. So the OT was important to Jesus for establishing His status . . . but as He said "he that hath seen me hath seen the Father." Jesus revealed the TRUE NATURE of the Father . . . NOT the OT.
Nowhere does Jesus disaffirm the God of the Old Testamen, in my opinion.
In the words of Jesus, "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.
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