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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"
You are pointing out that ''especially of those who believe'' does NOT remotely suggest "ONLY those who believe." Thought that needed to be emphasized because there is no way in any grammatical use of the phrase would it EVER be considered "ONLY."
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 rigid 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).
Bravo. I need to correct your interpretation of my selection of the Christ narrative, Gaylen. I had no " pre-baked cake ready for eating." When the experience upset my apple cart, I had to find an explanation for it that satisfied my intellect. I began with science and found sufficiently plausible mechanisms, but I was not satisfied. So I searched the entire spiritual fossil record. There were, as you suggested, "a hundred other different arrangements could have worked just as well." But there was a common Avatar template expressed in different cultures and contexts that IMO was epitomized by the Jesus narrative. When the descriptions of the "mind of Christ" so perfectly matched the consciousness I encountered, it settled the matter for me.
No, it is not. There are certain objective and universal truths which being true cannot be untrue.
How do we discern them?
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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.
Excuse me, but I thought that you consider Jesus to be God. Are you abdandoning that belief here?
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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 [color="Blue"]For by grace you are saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;[/hCOLOR] 9] not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.
What you say here is known as a non-sequitur. That means that what you condlude does NOT follow from what you posted.
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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."
You repeatedly mistranslate "pisteuō eis" as believe IN to advance your false narrative. It actually means believe ON/INTO which is the conviction and trust to which a man is impelled by a certain inner and higher prerogative and law of soul.
As Paul states it in Romans 2:14
. . . When the Gentiles who have no law do by nature what the law prescribes, these having no law are a law unto themselves. They show the work of the law written in their hearts. Their conscience bears witness to them, even when conflicting thoughts accuse or defend them.
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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.
You mistakenly equate NOT believing in the "right things" ABOUT Jesus with rejecting Christ as Savior which is ridiculous. Christ is our Savior regardless what anyone believes or doesn't believe about it. We have nothing to do with our salvation. Our salvation is ALL Jesus, period. Our task is sanctification for our imperfections under His perfect Agape love (Grace) through loving God and each other every day and repenting when we don't. I have dealt with your false notion that "especially those who believe" means "ONLY those who believe" so I will stop here. Sorry to see you leave the thread. You are an excellent foil for pointing out what is wrong with your theology.
You seem unaware that you have just contradicted yourself in the same post.
No. Because your conviction of rightness is based on faith and a belief that you are getting your views from the Holy Spirit.
Mine are based on the evidence and what stacks up in the Gospels more and more. I do not claim an inspired rightness in any way whatsoever.
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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.
Yes it does. But you seem to consider yourself not in that category - you seem to consider that you are one of those who are getting confirmation of their views by divine revelation, which you say is within us all, but you also imply that those who don't agree with you are not accessing it but relying on their own imperfect human ideas. If them why not you? And if you too, why not all of you?
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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 perfectly embody the Maitri. Jesus did even through scourging and crucifixion.
Here again, you are relying on the Gospel accounts (after criticizing me for being 'literal') correctly reporting what happened. It is the same as with the claim of divine revelation. If several of the claims are shown to be wrong or unreliable, both claims fall to the ground, and the claims of Christianity (which I would argue are inferior to Buddhism which puts your salvation in your own hands while Christianity puts it at the whim of a god) fail. And even if you think you can relegate Buddhism to a less sophisticated level than Buddhism, how can you explain Islam coming later, if that is not the next step up from Christianity? And you may have heard my argument that -logically - the next step up would be secular humanism.
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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?
I fix on it because it asks serious questions of your theory. You cheekily try to brush it away by suggesting that my 'fixation' on it is 'corrupting' my thinking. So far efforts to 'enlighten' me have shown little from your side and Pneuma's did not really address the issue at all.
So what we are actually getting is a failure to respond, and the old trick of claiming that you have explained and a bit of intimidation to try to cow me into swallowing that. Mystic, mate you have done nothing but make claims that do not stand up, ignore arguments, give no adequate responses and then claim you have walked away a winner apparently without you or Pneuma giving me a game. Well, there is a game on here. Let's see what you can do.
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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?
Well, the nearest we have with a validated track record is science. It is certainly not divine inspiration as you have spent the last 60 -odd pages telling everyone else that they have it wrong.
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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.
But I HAVE said that you are good at changing your position a little bit to try to stop your argument being swept away. Very well, rather than you having the holy spirit which inspires you with correct information in pretty much every respect, we all have it.
But- (you say) some do not listen to it. Quite apart from that being the same as the Holy spirit being there but not being received by anyone who doesn't agree with you, it is being received by them, but they have taken off the earphones and are relying on their own fallible human opinions.
Tell me Mystic, just what makes you able to receive divine radio messages and other Christians, just as born again, believing and had the same mystical experience as you, unable to get the holy info? What is this refusal to listen to the truth that blots the divine messages out that you can access loud and clear?
What makes you so sure you are the one getting the info and not that what you have devised is an ingenious hypothesis but a flawed and very human one that needs a bit of revision now and again (when someone can get through to you that a part of it needs revision) and for my money makes you take as reliable a gospel text that I already made a prediction about that evidenced that it was Luke's own work?
But I was forgetting Luke was also inspired - as were they all - until there something you don't agree with as we saw in your debate with Mike and so you are divinely inspired (there is not other way to put it) to pick the bits of the gospels that were written under the influence of the Holy Spirit and those bit that they only THOUGHT was and was really just their flawed human ideas.
And the arbiter is apparently - whether you like it or not. Really Mystic.
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These differences of opinion will not easily be resolved, Arq, because each of us is invested in our particular worldview as driven by our experiences and education.
But mine is invested in getting at the truth whether I like it or not. Yours it seems is getting at what you like whether it is the truth or not.
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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.
(1) I can do without your theories right now.
(2) Your claim that I did not pull the rug from under Pneuma pretty effectively and he has not come back on your behalf, is either craftiness or selective blindness on your part.
(3) at least I don't claim to be the only one just about who is letting radio messages from God get through.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 07-03-2017 at 02:33 PM..
Reason: I spend more time on corrections than on the post..
Yes but ...and I'm sure I argued this with Pneuma - science is verified and reliable (Hah! The footnore became five times as long as the post so...) and the Mind of Christ (your own person opinions, and anyone who disagrees does Not have the Mind of Christ. I've seen you in action on the Christian Forum, telling everyone else that they were wrong and you were right - even when contradicting yourself over whether Paul was to be scripturally trusted or not - the answer was -cherry pick what you agree with so paul was writing the bits you liked under inspiration and the rest that you didn't like was just hios own ideas.
But it's all ok. God will send a divine geiger counter to bleep when you come across the radium of truth in the pitchblende of mere human thinking, The only problem is - whose machine is working correctly?
I recall that during the Matrix -Plantinga thread years ago, you (Mystic) argued the unreliability of science on the grounds of Imperfect human Perceptions, and then went on to make a case for guesswork and 'what if' as reliable because it was divinely inspired. You (Mystic) and MissionImpossibru had a thread arguing the reliability of Revelation, but the fact is, old chum, divine inspiration has a track record that wouldn't pass the grade to make 'Just plain wrong' while science has the best and only track record for validated info.
I might suppose you had taken the defeats on board and modified (as you do) your arguments to adapt the theory to make it hold up. Buit the basic -that Faith is divine inspiration and thus reliably true -is still all it is about and all it ever Is, was and shall be, untill this foolish and incredibly arrogant delusion is seen for what it is.
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
Ah!! sorry. Not Yours Mystic, but Pneuma. Apologies and a relief to know you are not Losing it. And of course you (Mystic) know all this, but it's all new stuff to Pneuma.
So was this post actually directed at me or Mystic, because if it was directed at me you made some accusations about what I said that you are going to have to prove I said because I never said anything like what you portrayed here.
oh and as to following the mind of Christ, I have spoken on following that for 40 years, long before the information highway came into being so enough already with your posturing.
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.
Here is your biggest problem Trans. We are not followers of the bible ( let that sink in, because you obviously don't get it) as can be seen by this post.
No. Because your conviction of rightness is based on faith and a belief that you are getting your views from the Holy Spirit.
Mine are based on the evidence and what stacks up in the Gospels more and more. I do not claim an inspired rightness in any way whatsoever.
I had little hope you would see it. ::Sigh::
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Yes it does. But you seem to consider yourself not in that category - you seem to consider that you are one of those who are getting confirmation of their views by divine revelation, which you say is within us all, but you also imply that those who don't agree with you are not accessing it but relying on their own imperfect human ideas. If them why not you? And if you too, why not all of you?
Where the heck do you get your presumptions about what I think? You are almost routinely wrong. Give it up. We ALL have access to the Holy Spirit and the characteristics are described in detail so it is easy to know when someone is listening and when they are NOT. It has nothing to do with me.
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Here again, you are relying on the Gospel accounts (after criticizing me for being 'literal') correctly reporting what happened. It is the same as with the claim of divine revelation. If several of the claims are shown to be wrong or unreliable, both claims fall to the ground,
Your all-or-nothing views mirror the idiocy of the fundamentalists. No wonder Arach accuses your views of being among the atheist fundies.
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and the claims of Christianity (which I would argue are inferior to Buddhism which puts your salvation in your own hands while Christianity puts it at the whim of a god) fail.
What you do not know about Buddhism is a lot. It has nothing to do with salvation in our own hands, it has to do with developing a disregard for the positive and negative consequences of life as a physical being out of love for all life (Maitri).
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And even if you think you can relegate Buddhism to a less sophisticated level than Buddhism, how can you explain Islam coming later, if that is not the next step up from Christianity? And you may have heard my argument that -logically - the next step up would be secular humanism.
Your linear chronology fixation is more rigid than your concrete thinking. It is very frustrating. There is NO REASON whatsoever why anything has to be in linear chronological order, period. Its advancement is determined by its characteristics alone!
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I fix on it because it asks serious questions of your theory. You cheekily try to brush it away by suggesting that my 'fixation' on it is 'corrupting' my thinking. So far efforts to 'enlighten' me have shown little from your side and Pneuma's did not really address the issue at all.
So what we are actually getting is a failure to respond, and the old trick of claiming that you have explained and a bit of intimidation to try to cow me into swallowing that. Mystic, mate you have done nothing but make claims that do not stand up, ignore arguments, give no adequate responses and then claim you have walked away a winner apparently without you or Pneuma giving me a game. Well, there is a game on here. Let's see what you can do.
Well, the nearest we have with a validated track record is science. It is certainly not divine inspiration as you have spent the last 60 -odd pages telling everyone else that they have it wrong.
But I HAVE said that you are good as changing your position a little bit to try to stop your argument being swept away. Very well, rather than you having the holy spirit which inspires you with correct information in pretty much every respect, we all have it.
But- (you say) some do not listen to it. Quite apart from that being the same as the Holy spirit being there but not being received by anyone who doesn't agree with you, it is being received by them, but they have taken off the earphones and are relying on their own fallible human opinions.
Tell me Mystic, just what makes you able to receive divine radio messages and other Christians, just as born again, believing and had the same mystical experience as you, unable to get the holy info? What is this refusal to listen to the truth that blots the divine messages out that you can access loud and clear?
What makes you so sure you are the one getting the info and not that what you have devised is an ingenious hypothesis but a flawed and very human one that needs a bit of revision now and again (when someone can get through to you that a part of it needs revision and for my money makes you take as reliable a gospel text that I already made a prediction about that evidenced that it was Luke's own work?
It has nothing to do with earphones, Arq. I had a life-changing experience that unequivocally established to my satisfaction that God exists and what His characteristics ARE. That is why I am more amenable to accepting the descriptions in the Christ narrative than others.
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But I was forgetting Luke was also inspired - as were they all - until there something you don't agree with as we saw in your debate with Mike and so you are divinely inspired (there is not other way to put it) to pick the bits of the gospels that were written under the influence of the Holy Spirit and those bit that they only THOUGHT was and was really just their flawed human ideas.
And the arbiter is apparently - whether you like it or not. Really Mystic.
But mine is invested in getting at the truth whether I like it or not. Yours it seem is getting at what you like whether it is the truth or not.
(1) I can do without your theories right now.
(2) Your claim that I did not pull the rug from under Pneuma pretty effectively and he has not come back on your behalf, is either craftiness or selective blindness on your part.
(3) at least I don't claim to be the only one just about who is letting radio messages from God get through.
I am NOT the only one letting the Holy Spirit guide me. There are many who use the same characteristics as their guide. You reject the sources that I use for gleaning the characteristics of the Holy Spirit so you reject everything that follows from them. There is no way to meet your objections when you will NOT engage the material within the logic and information that I am using. It is a fruitless enterprise because you flat out reject any and all material and information I use to explain my BELIEFS. You also reject my scientific rationale because you lack the knowledge to even understand the issues with materialism and the extrapolations I am making from the science. There is no game to have here. You are like a pigeon on a chessboard. It is not possible to play the game with you.
Last edited by MysticPhD; 07-03-2017 at 02:56 PM..
No, it is not. There are certain objective and universal truths which being true cannot be untrue.
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 //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.
You said all that to say the scripture should actually read Jesus Christ is the potential savior of all men.
Talk about adding to the plain sense of the scripture.
Anyway the belief in eternal torment or annihilation only teach people that God can sin (miss the mark) as God sent Jesus into the world for the salvation of the world and according to you God will miss his mark, which is sin.
No wonder the apostle called it a doctrine of demons.
So was this post actually directed at me or Mystic, because if it was directed at me you made some accusations about what I said that you are going to have to prove I said because I never said anything like what you portrayed here.
oh and as to following the mind of Christ, I have spoken on following that for 40 years, long before the information highway came into being so enough already with your posturing.
I do apologize. I must have been half asleep. I THOUGHT I was responding to Mystic which is why i was surprised it didn't read like him. The ame with the next and then i realized they were yours, but by then I'd done a third with the quote button.
However, whether you or Mystic, the arguments I make are just the same.
Here is your biggest problem Trans. We are not followers of the bible ( let that sink in, because you obviously don't get it) as can be seen by this post.
Didn't you get from my remark about Cherrry -picking that I KNOW you are not literal followers of the Bible, but you follow it enough to be Christians and follow the bits that you are happy with.
If you really did not follow the Bible and were irreligious theists, I'd know. For one thing we'd never have spent pages arguing about the Nativity.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 07-03-2017 at 02:59 PM..
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I need to correct your interpretation of my selection of the Christ narrative, Gaylen. I had no " pre-baked cake ready for eating." When the experience upset my apple cart, I had to find an explanation for it that satisfied my intellect. I began with science and found sufficiently plausible mechanisms, but I was not satisfied. So I searched the entire spiritual fossil record. There were, as you suggested, "a hundred other different arrangements could have worked just as well." But there was a common Avatar template expressed in different cultures and contexts that IMO was epitomized by the Jesus narrative. When the descriptions of the "mind of Christ" so perfectly matched the consciousness I encountered, it settled the matter for me.
The footnore became five times as long as the post so...) and the Mind of Christ (your own person opinions, and anyone who disagrees does Not have the Mind of Christ. I've seen you in action on the Christian Forum, telling everyone else that they were wrong and you were right - even when contradicting yourself over whether Paul was to be scripturally trusted or not - the answer was -cherry pick what you agree with so paul was writing the bits you liked under inspiration and the rest that you didn't like was just hios own ideas. 