Publicly posting the content of private messages is a contravention of the BLUA, for obvious reasons (they are private messages). I'll be editing such posts.
Oh c'mon, Knock! For the love of... cream cakes! It only showed 2 paragraphs of the PM, didn't reveal any personal details or anything... the BL'r hasn't posted in 6 yrs, and would probably be pretty chuffed to see his experienced used.
Rickolasnice said:
Seeing as you didn't delete it from the quote in my post.. I'll do it for you
Goody 2 shoes
Knock left it there because subconsciously, in his heart, he knew it was wrong to remove it.
just out of interest, raas, which christian church do you belong to (if any) there's about 30 000 of them all saying something slightly different about jesus or heaven or whatever.
I'm of denomination # 2,156 - The Church of the Lutheran Confession.
Kidding aside, remember the number of denominations is so high because some denominations have a church in each country. The Anglican church, for instance...
Anglican Church in Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia
Anglican Church in Central America
Anglican Church of Australia
Anglican Church of Burundi
Anglican Church of Canada
Anglican Church of Kenya
Anglican Church of Korea
Anglican Church of Mexico
Anglican Church of Papua New Guinea
Anglican Church of Southern Africa
Anglican Church of Tanzania
Out of the "Biggies", I used to attend a Methodist church. Never liked the catholic idea of "Purgatory" personally. And there's no way i'm sitting through a 3 hour orthodox service. I don't attend any church at the moment.
PinkPaver said:
I was taught at school that god gave us free will (as per the apple in the garden of eden) and other things. doing evil cannot be the will of a loving god, but then a loving god would not have told abraham to kill his own son.
Mrs P. God often comes across as a bit of a callous tyrant in the OT. This contradicts what we're told of God, later in the bible.
John 4:8 -
Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love
So what's the dealio with him telling Abraham to kill his son?
You have to think about what the verse is saying to you. Make a differentiation between the imagery and the meaning. The practical, spiritual meaning drawn from the imagery is what God is. The imagery in the OT, which is often very tyrannical and barbarical, is a method of revealing the spiritual truth and is not to be taken literally.
Let me give you an example:
Do you know the story of Job?
Satan and God are having a dispute about whether or not he'd lose his faith if they pissed him off enough. So God says to Satan, "OK, do ya' worst!"... Satan curses the crap out of him - starts off with physical pain -
"smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown"... then when that didn't work he starts off killing his wife and family...
Now, of course, the story is a load of crap. God would not have had a discussion like that with Satan, being omniscient he would have known the outcome to begin with.
But the spiritual meaning? It's talking about faith. It differentiates between a self-fulfilling faith and true faith
Satan added a further allegation to his complaint, if you will. In Job he added the charge that Job only worshiped God for what he could get out of it. "Is it for nothing that he worships you?" Satan charges. 'You protect him every inch of the way and you bless everything he does. Of course he worships you! But when the going gets tough, he'll curse you!"
Job remained faithful through the cursing... it's also showing the devils role in trying to break faith. It took the implementation of a made-up story, to demonstrate and build our understanding of faith.
Likewise, as is a lot of the OT, the imagery is not necessarily real, but it is
used to make a
real point.
Abraham killing his own son is particularly interesting, because later God must sacrifice his own son Jesus.
Again, it is unlikely God actually told Abraham to do this... but the story is teaching the reader an understanding of
Obediance to God and making sacrifice to God. In this story Abraham is making the true sacrifice that God later makes through Jesus.
The OT is a book to build, develop and give an understanding of faith in God... but it's really important to understand the stories are most often allegorical.
It's quite a fascinating book to read, when you start to break through the exterior... and see what the stories are really saying
______________________________________________________
Rickolasnice said:
That is how reliable your subjective truth is. I bet for you anyone talking about being touched by or spoken to by Jesus is evidence for his existence.. but when people talk of mohammed or, in this case, god telling them that the book of mormon is true, you dismiss it as what it (including jesus) is.. bullshit.
Or are you seriously gonna still sit there "I'm right, everyone else is wrong, ner ner ner ner ner"
Well, look at it this way. Let's say the posters experience of being touched by the "holy ghost" is real. Why should it be discredited because other people, who may have been delusional, also make a claim?
I'm a very spiritually receptive person, frequently feel spiritual presences. Not sure if I should attribute these to Jesus, God, Angels or even demons... but I feel it alright.
Now, if I can be spiritually receptive... it's possible a Hindu, a Mormon or a Muslim also feels presences. The only problem is, if they really experience these presences... they will attribute these experiences to the wrong religion.
it's not a case of "I'm right they're wrong", I have experiences which have lead me into this religion.. those experiences have given me the confidence to treat the bible and it's, ahem, epistemology with respect and credibility. The more I look into it the more genuine it seems. I'm yet to see anyone disprove the religion.
rickolasnice said:
Your pretty much making your beliefs up on the spot as you have changed your mind on a few things throughout this thread. But anyway..
That's bullshit. There was one time, I gave a detailed answer to a proposed contradiction in Genesis. Later on I looked into this further, and had to retract my answer as, in spite of further research, I felt my answer was not credible. that's just one honest mistake in regards to scrutinizing scripture. I'm hardly "making my beliefs up on the spot". Do you see why I call you biased?
Ricko said:
Throughout this whole thread you have been very careful what bits to reply to not because you think they are more relevant and you don't have enough time or whatever, but because there are some things that you can't answer as the whole thing doesn't fit in your belief system.
Well, certainly there are areas of Christian theology that I am more confident than others. For instance, I've a genuine interest in Christian sex and relationships perspective; the dissociation of physical desire for spiritual desire and all that. The egoistic role in desire, homosexuality, soul mates, orientations of relationships... all that.
I'm interested in Bible interpretation of old testament stories...
Looking at the.... ahem.... "Epistemology" of Christiannity and it's apostolistic authenticity I'm pretty rubbish at... because I've never felt the need to question my faith.
So when you ask me a question about the credibility of Mathew's gospel, in light of recent research... I can't answer you confidently, because I've never really thought about it/ looked into it.
I'm naturally going to be more confident and keener to answer questions I've looked into.
That doesn't mean your questions can't be answered, it just means i'm not the best person too do it right now, or haven't the time to look into it in such depth.
It is true that there are a lot of topics raised on this thread, and it's hard to find the time to reply to all of it. So it makes sense for me to answer topics which are more relevant to me.
Rickolasnice said:
So which is right? Matthew, Luke or John?
What do you mean by this then? All 3 accounts support each other in giving us an understanding of what went on back then.
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")
