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re sabbath admissions of again in the normal protestant interpretation sunday is not a law and worshipping on another day is not a sin churches are free to decide on the day they will meet just as they are free to decide on the hour it would not be a sin to worship on some other day but if you belong to a church that worships on sunday and you show up on monday you will probably worship alone clh i totally agree with that sentiment but why do you have to go further and advocate violating what god has set up that is the question which you have not answered from scripture you can worship on every day as long as you work but god says the sabbath is all mine darius
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re hell in article apr athos rutgers edu mcovingt aisun ai uga edu michael covington writes in a short poem god in his mercy made the fixed pains of hell c s lewis expresses an idea that i m sure was current among others but i haven t be able to find its source that even hell is an expression of mercy because god limits the amount of separation from him and hence the amount of agony that one can achieve i have also heard it called an expression of mercy because heaven would be far more agonizing for those who had rejected god joe kellett jkellett netcom com
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re atheists and hell atterlep vela acs oakland edu writes hello i have seen two common threads running through postings by atheists on the newsgroup and i think that they can be used to explain each other unfortunately i don t have direct quotes handy atheists believe that when they die they die forever true to a point if you were to ask a buddhist atheist a god who would condemn those who fail to believe in him to eternal death is unfair i don t see what the problem is to christians hell is by definition eternal death exactly what atheists are expecting when they die there s no reason hell has to be especially awful to most people eternal death is bad enough actually yes and no hell is eternal death actually the way i ve had it related to me it s more of an eternal damnation where sinners will feel the licking flames of hell if i supposedly can feel these flames i would assume i m still alive but suffering and away from god literal interpreters of the bible will have a problem with this view since the bible talks about the fires of hell and such personally i don t think that people in hell will be thrust into flame any more than i expect to jesus with a double edged sword issuing from his mouth i treat both these state ments as metaphorical i believe jehovah s witnesses have a similar view where the body sleeps for ever i don t have a problem with being condemned to hell either the way i see it if god wants to punish me for being honest in my skepticism that is for saying he doesn t exist he certainly wouldn t be changing his nature besides i would rather spend an eternity in hell than be beside god in heaven knowing even one man would spend his eternal life being scorched for his wrongdoings stephen atheist libertarian pro individuality pro responsibility jr and all that jazz
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catholic church poland hello i m writing a paper on the role of the catholic church in poland after can anyone tell me more about this or fill me in on recent books articles in english german or french most important for me is the role of the church concerning the abortion law religious education at schools birth control and the relation church state government thanx masja m m zwart s let rug nl
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re proof of resurection in article apr geneva rutgers edu smayo world std com scott a mayo writes i think christianity goes down in flames if the resurrection is ever disproved didn t paul write that if the resurrection is not true we are the biggest fools of all however whether you believe in christ or not his teachings e g love your brotherman as yourself even if only followed at a secular level could do a great deal to alleviate some of the problems we see today in the world even when i was a rabid atheist i couldn t deny that jeff johnson jcj tellabs com
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daily verse let us not become weary in doing good for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up galatians
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re sex education joe kellett jkellett netcom com wrote bits deleted i am told that planned parenthood siecus style values free methods that teach contraceptive technology and advise kids how to make choices actually increase pregnancy rates i posted a long article on this a while back and will be happy to email a copy to any who are interested the same research produced the results that abstinence related curricula were found to decrease pregnancy rates in teens i assume that it is reasonable to assume that the aids rate will fluctuate with the pregnancy rate i d be fascinated to see such evidence please send me your article on the negative side however i suspect that any such simplistic link abstinence education decreased pregnancy contraceptive education increased pregnancy is false the us which i d guess has one of the largest proportion of non liberal sex education in the western world also has one of the highest teenage pregnancy rates please correct me if my guess is wrong bruce stephens bruce liverpool ac uk
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re certainty and arrogance in article apr geneva rutgers edu kilroy gboro rowan edu dr nancy s sweetie writes someone called rexlex has claimed that there is a way out of the loop but he did not bother to explain what it was preferring instead to paraphrase sartre ramble about wittgenstein and say that the conclusion of my argument leads to relativism i will answer this as i find time rexlex suggested that people read he is there and he is not silent by francis schaeffer i didn t think very highly of it but i think that mr schaeffer is grossly overrated by many evangelical christians somebody else might like it though so don t let my opinion stop you from reading it if someone is interested in my opinion i d suggest on certainty by ludwig wittgenstein darren f provine kilroy gboro rowan edu if any substantial number of talk religion misc readers read some wittgenstein of the postings would disappear if they understood some wittgenstein would disappear michael l siemon notice what i said about this book i called it easy reading the reason i dropped philosphy as my major was because i ran into too many pharisaical simon s i don t know how many walking encyclopedia s i ran across in philosphy classes the problem isn t in knowing sooooo much more than your average lay person the problem comes when you become puffed up about it schaeffer is just fine for the average lay person that was who he was writting to i suppose that you would have criticised john that his gospel was to simple i ve talked with schaeffer one on one i ve been in lectures with the man when he was being drilled by philosphy students and prof s from secular as well as christian universities nd alone would fill both those catagories his answers were enough that the prof s themselves often were taken back and caused to re think what their question was i saw this time and time again at different open forums so yes schaeffers books are by in large well simplistic it certainly isn t grad level reading but we must get off our high horses when it comes to recommended reading do you seriously think most people would get through the first chapter of wittgenstein i may have more to say about this secular scientist at another time also one must finally get beyond the doubt caused by insistent inquisitiveness one cannot live his life constantly from a cartisian doubt base look the christian wholeheartedly supports genuine rationality but we must add a qualification to give this balance christianity is second to none in keeping reason in its place we never know the value of a thing until we know its limits put unlimited value on something and in the end you will exhaust it of all value this is why xianity is thoroughly rational but not the least bit rationalistic it also explains the curious fact that it is rationalism and not christian faith which leads to irrationality if we forget the limits of a thing we fly in the face of reality and condem ourselves to learn the simple ironic lesson of life more without limits is less less with limits is more or as i have so often stated it freedom without form soon becomes form w o freedom let s put it another way the rationality of faith is implacably opposed to absurdity but has no quarrel with mystery think about that it can tell the difference between the two if you will let it christianity s contention with rationalism is not that it has too much reason in it but that it has very little else when a christian comes to faith his understanding and his trust go hand in hand but as he continues in faith his trust may sometimes be called to go on by itself without his understanding this is where the principle of suspended judgment applies at such time if the christian faith is to be itself and let god be god it must suspend judgment and say father i do not understand you but i trust you now don t read all your objections of me into that statement i wasn t saying i do not understand you at all but i trust you anyway it means that i do not understand you in this situation but i do understand why i trust you anyway therefore i can trust that you understand even though i do not the former is a mystery unrelieved by rationality and indistinguishable from absurdity the latter is a statement of rationality of faith walking hand in hand with the mystery of faith so the principle of suspended judgment is not irrational it is not a leap of faith but a walk of faith as believers we cannot always know why but we canalways know why we trust god who knows why and this makes all the difference now there is one obvious snag to all this and this is where i have parted company with philosophy what is eminently reasonable in theory is a rather bit more difficult in practice in practice the pressure of mystery acts on faith like the insistent whying of a year old it isn t just that we would like to know what we do not know but that we feel we must know what we cannot know the one produces frustration because curiosity is denied the other leads to genuine anguish more specifically the poorer our understanding is in coming to faith the more necessary it will be to understand everything after coming to faith if we do not know why we trust god then we will always need to know exactly what god is doing in order to trust him failing to grasp that we may not be able to trust him for anything we do not understand may count decisevely against what we are able to trust if on the other hand we do know why we trust god we will be able to trust him in situations where we do not understand what he is doing too many xian leaders teach as if the christian had a window in the back of his head which allows for understanding at every foot fall for what god is doing may be ambiguous but it will not be inherently contradictory it may be mystery to us but mystery is only inscrutable what would be insufferable is absurdity and that my friend was the conclusion of nietzche both in theory and in practice rex
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re phone number of wycliffe translators uk i m concerned about a recent posting about wbt sil i thought they d pretty much been denounced as a right wing organization involved in ideological manipulation and cultural interference including vietnam and south america a commission from mexican academia denounced them in as a covert political and ideological institution used by the u s govt as an instrument of control regulation penetration espionage and repression my concern is that this group may be seen as acceptable and even praiseworthy by readers of soc religion christian it s important that christians don t immediately accept every christian organization as automatically above reproach mp good heavens you mean my good friend wes collins who took his wife and two small children into the jungles of guatemala despite dangers from primitive conditions and armed guerillas so that the indigenous people groups their could have the bible in their native languages the young man who led bible studies in our church who daily demonstrated and declared his deep abiding faith in the lord of love you mean he really was a sneaky imperialistic spy whose real reason for going was to exploit and oppress the ignorant and unsuspecting masses imagine my surprise i never would have thought it of him how was this terrible deceit discovered what exactly was the cultural interference they were caught committing attempting to persuade the locals that their ancestral gods were false gods and their sacrifices including human sacrifices in some cases were vain destroying traditional lifestyles by introducing steel tools medical vaccines and durable clothes oh and by the way who did the denouncing i am terribly shocked to hear that my friend wes who seemed so nice was really such a deceitful tool of the devil please provide me with specific documentation on this charge there is some risk that i may not believe it otherwise mark
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hell black sabbath in looking through my files this weekend i ran across some lyrics from various rock groups that have content here are two from black sabbath s master of reality i ll say this much for the music of the s and early s at least they asked questions of significance jethro tull is another to asked and wrote about things that caused one to wonder rex after forever have you ever thought about your soul can it be saved or perhaps you think that when you re dead you just stay in you grave is god just a thought within you read in a book when you were at school when you think about death do you lose your breath or do you keep your cool would you like to see the pope on the end of a rope do you think he s a fool well i have seen the truth yes i have seen the light and i ve changed my ways and i ll be prepared when you re lonely and scared at the end of your days could it be you re afraid of what your friends might say if they knew you believed in god above they should realize before they criticise that god is the only way to love is your mind so small that you have to fall in with the pack wherever they run will you still sneer when death is near and say they may as well worship the sun i think it was true it was people like you that crucified christ i think it is sad the opinion you had was the only one voiced will you be so sure when your day is near to say you don t believe you had the chance but you turned it down now you can t retrieve perhaps you ll think before you say that god is dead gone open your eyes just realize that he is the one the only one who can save you now from all this sin and hate or will you still jeer at all you hear yes i think it s too late lord of this world you re searching for your mind don t know where to start can t find the key to fit the lock on your heart you think you know but you are never quite sure your soul is ill but you will not find a cure your world was made for you by someone above but you choose evil ways instead of love you made me master of the world where you exist the soul i took from you was not even missed lord of the world evil possessor lord of this world he s now your confessor you think you re innocent you ve nothing to fear you don t know me you say but isn t it clear you turned to me in all your worldly greed and pride but will you turn to me when it your turn to die
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re divine providence vs murphy s law in article apr athos rutgers edu rolfe junior dsu edu tim rolfe writes romans rsv we know that in everything god works for good with those who love him who are called according to his purpose murphy s law if anything can go wrong it will we are all quite familiar with the amplifications and commentary on murphy s law but how do we harmonize that with romans for that matter how appropriate is humor contradicted by scripture both christians and non christians laugh at this quote because it exaggerates something we all feel but know is not true us christians just know that a little better in god we trust christopher email csw williams edu
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re atheists and hell in article apr athos rutgers edu atterlep vela acs oakland edu cardinal ximenez writes i don t see what the problem is to christians hell is by definition eternal death exactly what atheists are expecting when they die there s no reason hell has to be especially awful to most people eternal death is bad enough literal interpreters of the bible will have a problem with this view since the bible talks about the fires of hell and such personally i don t think that people in hell will be thrust into flame any more than i expect to jesus with a double edged sword issuing from his mouth i treat both these statements as metaphorical phew that takes a load off i don t want to live forever i wish most christians held this view you can t walk across campus in spring without being assailed by fire and brimstone preachers i really think the metaphor should be limited at least with respect to teaching our children it s criminal to put these ideas into a young and trusting mind besides why not rely on the positive aspects of your religion to win their faith tim timothy j brent a man will come to know true happiness brent bank ecn purdue edu only when he accepts that he is but a small part of an infinite universe purdue university spinoza materials science engineering paraphrased
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re intolerance eternal life etc i apologize if this article is slightly confusing and late the origonal draft didn t make it through the moderators quote screens so i did violence to it but if you remember the article i am responding to it should still make sence in article geneva rutgers edu jsledd ssdc sas upenn edu james sledd writes hi xian netters god bless you what no hello for heathan netters i feel all left out now deletia table of content intro homosexuality incredibly chopped up post deletia incorrect attributions uh you have your attributions wrong you were responding to my article so dan johnson should be the st one in article athos rutgers edu jayne mmalt guild org jayne kulikauskas writes deletia no free gifts speil nuked by moderator fiat i find that i am dissatisfied with the little purposes that we can manufacture for ourselves little in the cosmic sense ah in the cosmic sence but who lives in the cosmic sence not me cosmicly we don t even exist for all practical purposes i can hardly use the cosmic sence of stuff as a guide to life it would just say don t bother luckily for mortals there are many sences of scale you can talk about in a human sence you can have big purposes even the greatest of the great pharos are long gone the pyramids historical oddities being worn down by the wind eventually to be turned into dust but the influence of aristotle confucious alexander ceasar and countless others is still with us although their works have perished but they have changed to course of history and while humanity exists their deeds cannot be said to have come to nothing even if they are utterly forgotten mankind itself will one day perish one day surely well unless you believe in the second coming which i do not but in that time we can make a difference without some interconnectedness that transcends the physical without god it is all pointless in the end in the end but it must be the end until then there is all the point you can muster and when that end comes there will be nobody to ask gee i don t think james sledd s deeds are gonna make much of a difference ulitmately ya know but they will have already have made a difference great or small before the end why must your ends be eternal to be worthwhile most people are able to live with that and for them little purposes success money power effecting change helping others suffice little is in the eye of the beholder of course i suppose they never think about the cosmic scale or are at least able to put it out of their minds i don t doubt it but i have thought about the cosmic scale and it does not seem to mean much to us here today to me it is comforting to know that reality is an illusion i would not find this comforting but perhaps it is merely my definitions here s what i think the relevant terms are reality that which is real illusion that which is not real but seems to be real objectively existing for reality to be an illusion would mean then that which is real is not real but seems to be or that which objectively exists does not objectively exist but does seem to objectively exist from which we can conclude that unless you want to get a contradiction that no things objectively exist but i have a problem with this because i would like to say that i objectively exist if nothing else cogito ergo sum and all that perhaps you do not mean all that but rather mean objective reality is unreachable by humans which is not so bad and so far as i know is true that the true reality underneath the the physical is spirit have on if reality is an illusion isn t true reality an illusion too and if true reality is spirit doens t that make spirit an illusion as well if i am not distinctly confused this is getting positively buddhist that this world is a school of sorts where we learn and grow and our souls mature that is one hell of a statement although perhaps true do you mean to imply that it was intended to be so if so please show that this is true if not please explain how this can give a purpose to anything that gives a purpose to my little purposes how does it do that wouldn t the world school w intent idea make the world a preparation for some greater purpose rather than a purpose in itself and takes some of the pressure off what pressure it s not so necessary to make this life a success in human terms if you re really just here to learn it is not necessary to be a success in human terms unless your goals either include doing so or require doing so before they themselves can be achived indeed many people have set goals for themselves that do not include success in human terms as i understand it check out yer buddhist monk type guy out for nirvana which is not at all the same thing it s more important to progress grow persist to learn to love yourself and others and to express your love especially when it s dificult to do so honest effort is rewarded by god he knows our limitations why is learning to love a goal what happens if you fail in this goal to you to god to the mysterious purpose deletia question about immortailty and my answer deleted because it was mostly quote two serious questions invitations to discussion what is the nature of eternal life how can we as mortals locked into space time conceive of it possible answer for the best we can do is metaphor analogy question a what is the best metaphor i ll have a crack at that the nature of eternal life is neatly described by its name it is the concept of life without death life without end no we can put together word to describe it but we cannot imagine it a no metaphor is adequate next to eternity if it were we could not understand it either or so i suspect dan johnson and god said jeeze this is dull and it was dull genesis these opinions probably show what i know
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re sabbath admissions of in article apr athos rutgers edu pharvey quack kfu com paul harvey writes priority than the direct word of jesus in matt paul begins romans with if someone is weak in the faith do you count yourself as one who is weak in the faith do you count yourself as one who is weak in the faith you read jesus word in matt is there any doubt in your mind about what is right and what is sin greek hamartia missing the mark is there any doubt in your mind about what is right and what is missing the mark however i d like to be clear that i do not think there s unambiguous proof that regular christian worship was on the first day as i indicated there are responses on both of the passages cited whereas the ten commandments and jesus words in matt are fairly clear are they not are they clear or do you have doubts no i don t believe that paul can overrule god an important first step the realization that paul was human however paul was writing for a largely gentile audience yes and he was writing and speaking for an audience that was at best very weak in the faith most could not read most were unfamiliar with the hebrew scriptures in even the septuagint form paul adapted the message of the bible to a largely uneducated market granted this market still exists today but do you count yourself as part of it to be weak in the faith is not missing the mark hamartia if you do the best that your education allows are you doing the best the law was regarded by jews at the time and now as binding on jews but not on gentiles there are rules that were binding on all human beings the so called noachic laws but they are quite minimal let me make clear that the law is none other than the pentateuch of genesis exodus leviticus numbers deuteronomy what did jesus say about the law in matt where did jesus say that the law only applies to jews and that gentiles are above the law the issue that the church had to face after jesus death was what to do about gentiles who wanted to follow christ the decision not to impose the law on them didn t say that the law was abolished it simply acknowledged that fact that it didn t apply to gentiles who acknowledged this fact on what basis are we extra biblical at this point why not also acknowledge that the bhagavad gita is the only relevant text for gentiles after all we see in the bible that it was magus from the east who observed the star signs of jesus why bother with any texts at all why not just follow whatever the church has to say thus there is no contradiction with mat i don t see how you can say this with a straight face are you a follower of christ or do you follow someone else are you saying that the words of jesus only apply to jews as far as i can tell both paul and other jewish christians did continue to participate in jewish worship on the sabbath thus they continued to obey the law how jewish was paul after he changed his name from saul the issue was and is with gentile christians who are not covered by the law or at least not by the ceremonial aspects of it who says gentile christians are not covered by the first five books who says that gentile christians are above the ten commandments jesus dealt mostly with jews i think we can reasonably assume that mat was directed to a jewish audience you re implying that jesus words are valid only for jews is this really what you mean to say you do realize that you are gutting rather large portions of the bible when you read jesus words did you ever consider that maybe just maybe jesus is talking to you no matter what your race or sex if the hebrew scriptures and the gospel accounts of jesus are only directed to jews why were they translated into english he did interact with gentiles a few times e g the centurion whose slave was healed and a couple of others the terms used to describe the centurion see luke suggest that he was a god fearer i e a gentile who followed god but had not adopted the whole jewish law as paul would call him one who was weak in the faith he was commended by jewish elders as a worthy person and jesus accepted him as such this seems to me to indicate that jesus accepted the prevailing view that gentiles need not accept the law which is more important the recorded word of jesus or indications that you can deduce from the bible was jesus god only of the jews or god of all humankind of all race and sex however there s more involved if you want to compare jesus and paul on the law in order to get a full picture of the role of the law we have to come to grips with paul s apparent rejection of the law and how that relates to jesus commendation of the law at least as i read paul he says that the law serves a purpose that has been in a certain sense superceded this is your understanding of paul compare this to the word of jesus are you christian or pauline again this issue isn t one of the abolition of the law in the middle of his discussion paul notes that he might be understood this way and assures us that that s not what he intends to say rather he sees the law as primarily being present to convict people of their sinfulness but ultimately it s an impossible standard and one that has been superceded by christ again this is your understanding of paul did jesus say that the law was an impossible standard did jesus say that he superceded the law are you christian or pauline paul s comments are not the world s clearest here and not everyone agrees with my reading you acknowledge that it is your reading of paul what did jesus say can you deny that matt is quite clear in its meaning are you christian or pauline but the interesting thing to notice is that even this radical position does not entail an abolition of the law it still remains as an uncompromising standard from which not an iota or dot may be removed for its purpose of convicting of sin it s important that it not be relaxed when did jesus say that the purpose of the law was conviction of sin however for christians it s not the end ultimately we live in faith not law please reread matt are you christian or pauline jesus interpretations emphasize the intent of the law and stay away from the ceremonial details are you saying that the ten commandments are ceremonial details paul s conclusion is similar while he talks about the law being superceded all of the specific examples he gives involve the ceremonial law such as circumcision and the sabbath he is quite concerned about maintaining moral standards you call observance of the sabbath the day on which the lord rested ceremonial has circumcision been superceded for christians are you christian or pauline both there is no doubt in my mind about what is sin and what is not at least not in this case jesus did not deal explicitly with the question of whether the law was binding on gentiles that s why i have to cite evidence such as the way jesus dealt with the centurion as to general jewish views on this i am dependent largely on studies of pauline theology one by h j schoeps and one whose author i can t come up with at the moment both authors are jews also various christian and non christian jews have discussed the issue here and in other newsgroups mat is clear that the law is still valid it does not say that it applies to gentiles and yes i say that the specific requirement for worship on the sabbath in the ten commandments is a ceremonial detail when you re looking at the obligations of gentiles similarly circumcision i m not sure quite what else i can say on this subject again it s unfortunate the jesus didn t answer the question directly however we do know what the st cent jewish approach was how jesus dealt with at least one gentile and how jesus disciples dealt with the issue when it became more acute i m referring to acts more than paul given that these are all in agreement i don t see that there s a big problem clh
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re atheists and hell in apr athos rutgers edu atterlep vela acs oakland edu cardinal ximenez writes hello i have seen two common threads running through postings by atheists on the newsgroup and i think that they can be used to explain each other unfortunately i don t have direct quotes handy atheists believe that when they die they die forever more correctly when people die they cease to exist a god who would condemn those who fail to believe in him to eternal death is unfair i don t see what the problem is to christians hell is by definition eternal death exactly what atheists are expecting when they die the idea i ve gotten is that to christians hell is like heaven afterlife i e you don t cease to exist but are subjected to eternal torture well that s the orthodox idea anyway eternal death if you prefer that atheists don t believe in any sort of afterlife literal interpreters of the bible will have a problem with this view since the bible talks about the fires of hell and such personally i don t think that people in hell will be thrust into flame any more than i expect to jesus with a double edged sword issuing from his mouth i treat both these state ments as metaphorical i think it s safe to say that hell was never intended metaphorical certainly not the equivalent of ceasing to exist some christian concepts are indeed metaphors but your idea of hell is a th century interpretation it is of course nice to see that even christianity might evolve to fit the worldview of modern age but i fear the church will not accept it understandably per haps because if you accept that hell is a metaphor then you re one step closer to turning god into a metaphor as well antti lahelma mtf saha hut fi gnothi seauton lehtotie o stel purkki apu fi helsinki jumalat ovat pakanoille suosiollisia tunne itsesi
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soc religion christian re the arrogance of christians in a previous message aa freenet carleton ca mark baker writes if i don t think my belief is right and everyone else s belief is wrong then i don t have a belief this is simply what belief means more stuff deleted this seems to be a pretty arogant definition of belief my beliefs are those things which i find to be true based on my experience of the world this experience includes study of things that i may not have experienced directly but even then i can only understand the studies to the extent to which i can relate what i study back to what i have experienced which means that by beliefs about god are directly related to my experience of god having experienced god i try to make sense of that experience i study religion and read the bible i find things that echo what i have already experienced out of this i build my beliefs i also find things that don t match my experience that doesn t make them false they just don t match my experience maybe i will understand that stuff later i don t know maybe all of my beliefs are wrong i can change my beliefs if someone else has beliefs that are different from mine so what neither of us are necessarily wrong someone else is making sense out of a different set of experiences even though we have different explanations and beliefs if we talk we might even discover that the underlying experiences are similar some people approach religion as a truth that can only exist in one form and usually has a single revelation the more dogmatic and inflexible the belief system the more arrogant it will appear to an outsider there is another approach possible however god is a mystery i am trying to solve the mystery so i look at the evidence available to me i try to arrive at the best understanding that i can based on the evidence new evidence may cause me to change my understanding when i encounter someone with a different belief than my own it isn t a threat it is an opportunity to perhaps discover something new about this mystery i can never fully comprehend peace will taber william taber will taber dg com any opinions expressed data general corp will futon webo dg com are mine alone and may westboro mass change without notice when all your dreams are laid to rest you can get what s second best but it s hard to get enough david wilcox
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re atheists and hell atterlep vela acs oakland edu cardinal ximenez writes atheists believe that when they die they die forever a god who would condemn those who fail to believe in him to eternal death is unfair i don t see what the problem is to christians hell is by definition eternal death exactly what atheists are expecting when they die well i think that most christians believe that your conciousness will somehow continue on after your physical death which contradicts what most atheists myself included believe namely that your conciousness being contained in your brain dies when your brain dies there s no reason hell has to be especially awful to most people eternal death is bad enough i fear the pain that often comes with the process of dying but since i won t be around to worry about it i don t fear eternal death literal interpreters of the bible will have a problem with this view since the bible talks about the fires of hell and such this is something i ve always found confusing if all your nerve endings die with your physical body why would flame hurt you how can one wail and gnash teeth with no lungs and no teeth mark schnitzius schnitzi eola cs ucf edu university of central florida
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latest on branch davidians most of you will have probably seen the news by the time you read this but the branch davidian compound is no more this morning about the feds punched holes in the compound walls by using a tank they then started using non lethal tear gas shortly after noon cult members were seen setting fire to the compound so far about people have been seen outside the compound the fate of the other or people is unknown neither is the fate of the children that were inside the compound did burn to the ground koresh who at times has claimed to be the messiah but then backed off and only claimed to be a prophet had promised several times to come out peacefully if his demands were met first he demanded that his message be broadcast on the radio which it was but he didn t come out he claimed to be waiting for a message from god finally he said that god told him that he needed to decipher the mystery of the seals in revelation and when he was finished he d come out he finished the first one but didn t do any more work that anyone knows of since then the federal agents did warn him that if they didn t come out they would be subjected to tear gas i think it s really sad that so many people put their faith in a mere man even if he did claim to be the son of god and or a prophet i think it underscores the importance of putting you faith only in things that are eternal and knowing for yourself what the scriptures say and what they mean instead of relying on others to do it for you even if those others are learned and mean well paul conditt
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re atheists and hell in article athos rutgers edu atterlep vela acs oakland edu cardinal ximenez writes i have seen two common threads running through postings by atheists on the newsgroup and i think that they can be used to explain each other unfortunately i don t have direct quotes handy atheists believe that when they die they die forever a god who would condemn those who fail to believe in him to eternal death is unfair i don t see what the problem is to christians hell is by definition eternal death exactly what atheists are expecting when they die this is the problem this is not hell this is permanent death it is indeed what atheists generally expect and it is neither fair nor unfair it just is you might as well argue about whether being made mostly of carbon and water is fair however the atheists who claim that hell is unfair are talking about the fire and brimstone place of endless suffering which necessarily includes eternal existance life i dunno but some sort of continuation not at all the same thing granted you clearly feel that hell death but this is not a univeral sentiment as near as i can tell if your idea of god condemns heathens to ordinary death i have no problem with that i do have a problem with the gods that hide from humans and torture the unbelievers eternally for not guessing right deletia hell and literalness dan johnson and god said jeeze this is dull and it was dull genesis these opinions probably show what i know
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re accepting jeesus in your heart in article athos rutgers edu seanna bnr ca seanna s m watson writes in article apr athos rutgers edu johnsd rpi edu writes in article athos rutgers edu jayne mmalt guild org jayne kulikauskas writes this is why the most effective substance abuse recovery programs involve meeting peoples spiritual needs you might want to provide some evidence next time you make a claim like this in step programs like alcoholics anonymous one of the steps involves acknowleding a higher power aa and other step abuse recovery programs are acknowledged as being among the most effective deletia and so on i seem to have been rather unclear what i was asking is this please show me that the most effective substance absure recovery programs involve meetinsg peoples spiritual needs rather than merely attempting to fill peoples spiritual needs as percieved by the people a a s r c regulars or snoopy this will probably involve defining spritual needs is it not that clear and showing that such things exist and how they can be filled annother tack you might take is to say that fulfilling spiritual needs means acknowledging a higher power of some sort then show that systems that do require this work better than otherwise identical systems that do not a correlation here would help you but as you point out this might just be demonstrating swapping one crutch for annother however i do feel that religion is usually a better crutch than alchohol as it is not usually poisonous i hope with that clarification my question will be answerable i actually did know about the step program its the question of what it does rather than what it tries to do that makes a difference to me dan johnson and god said jeeze this is dull and it was dull genesis these opinions probably show what i know
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refusing divine peace and alive prayer was re question about mary it s like refusing god s kingdom come in one of jesus revelation in this century same thing as in the old days people refuse to believe my messengers even when i was alive here on earth they refuse me what more when i am just talking through somebody else paraphrased with all the knowledge believers accumulated he would think that we would be enlightened enough to detect which ones are authentic and divine as opposed to evil or man made these signs these miracles are you afraid that they are not from god that these are the signs we should not open our hearts and mind to for thinking they are evil well is faith in god evil is true peace evil is true love that is divine and pure evil why can t someone accept that god can do what he wants in fulfillment of his generous love and jesus never ending forgiveness to those who turn back to him for salvation why are we refusing god s messenger of this truth the mother to all who are in christ what brings us these fears of being shamed by what others will think or say about us which in contrary could be pleasing to god fears of being humbled fears of being judged as wrong wrt mainstream standard of what is right why can t we tolerate non believers mockery or ridicule of us for the sake of peace love and obedience to god the humbling lessons left to us by martyrs and saints we d rather engage in never ending bickering and disproof of each other s opinion looking at each other s mistakes for the sake of arguments instead of having communion in one body with christ what makes us go blind to the truth that god is all powerful and that he can not be binded by what people wrote and have written about him in all ages why is our faith in god limited by all the words and literature we muster what prevents us from going beyond being saved and extend god s rich love to others who are not why are our eyes not wide open to see that he continuously sees our faith hope and love which glorify him and so he gives us indications of his acknowledgements with signs miracles ordinary common or divinely inspired everywhere isn t that like an atheist agnostic s view that all these are just ordinary here on earth and not caused by anything supernatural why then does the holy mother comes back to remind us we must really accept that prayer changes the course of things and that with prayers even wars can be prevented but then she continues you often have an egotistic attitude dear children in these days you have prayed very much but your hands have remained empty why hesitate in proclaiming what needs to be done prayer conversion peace penance fasting the holy mass living life as what the gospel brings why not do so how to the world to this the mother says start in your family be a good example live the word why worry if it is going to be of good use to many our holy mother says the fruits leave them to the lord do not worry about anything or anyone but entrust yourself to the lord although the holy mother does not insist because you are free i bow before the freedom which god gives you but she follows this with you are surprised because i say to you decide for god and yet see how you have lived this day why does she constantly conveys take this life toward god in the way as to experience the lord himself in your behavior and not only when you pray or one time when we decide that we are saved or talk write about god etc the holy mother warns satan the serpent is always trying to dissuade you to turn you away from my peace plan and prayer rev the dragon became angry with the woman and went off to wage war against the rest of her offsprings those who keep god s commandments and bear witness to jesus do you have fear or hate for god s current messenger of true peace love and our motherly protector from the anti christ the one who is being apprehensive of communism wars famine and other evils that the serpent brings upon us this obedient and blessed new eve the mother who warns us so we can be prepared and be strong against satan haven t there been renewed faith hope love peace and obedience wherever this messenger has shared her blessings and graces that god has given her in good purpose why do we choose to be blind why fear the truth that god has been giving us a chance and sharing christ s ever forgetting forgiveness to us through the obedient mother the mother who has been consecrated the task to reverse the disobedient harm and example done by the ancient eve she has been preparing the new eden with her immaculate heart the new eden as sanctuary the womb for the next coming and judgement of the righteous by our lord jesus christ when the lamb marries his bride shouldn t we give her a hand in her exhaustive job of preparing us for the second coming of her son as she has been conceived without sin to bear the son of god in her womb why fear true peace love and renewed faith and obedience to god that mary faithfully brings to god s children she has been protecting the flock the rest of the offsprings from the greedy dragon so as to present more righteous members for her son s coming not all apparitions and miracles that resulted from them are worthy of belief with prayer and guidance from the holy spirit and of course approval of our church authorities we should be aware of the true and divinely inspired ones specifically the ones which aligns with the scripture also our lady reminds us of recommendation of silence in our prayers if you speak unceasingly in your prayers how will you be able to hear god allow him room to answer you to speak to you she encourages us with motherly nurturing to continue in exuberant faith hope and love to jesus constantly not with mere emotions but with deep constant obedience to jesus her beloved son and acknowledgement of our need to have him as part of our lives let s not wait to the last minute to renew our faith and the life that god wants us to live when there won t be enough time or when it will be late nowadays mary says pray pray pray for peace reconciliation my children have peace within yourself first before you can promote peace to others for without peace you can not fully accept my son and you think she s just an ordinary lady not to me she s our good mother messenger from god and she is so nice enough to share god s kingdom to us through her son and experience it with mary we are assured that the lamb always succeeds note all enclosed in quotes are from latest news of medjugorje number june by fr rene laurentin o new mother of eden most pure preparing the sanctuary for true christians cleansing us with peace for god s kingdom come bring us to your loving protective and obedient church that we may belong in one body to your son jesus christ our lord and not go astray from his perfect completeness pray that we ourselves pray with the holy spirit guiding us so that we may help you in strength to conquer the enemies of your son while you prepare us for him with your immaculate heart
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re so far so good this may be a really dumb one but i ll ask it anyways christians know that they can never live up to the requirements of god right i may be wrong but that is my understanding but they still try to do it doesn t it seem like we are spending all of our lives trying to reach a goal we can never achieve i know that we are saved by faith and not by works but does that mean that once we are saved we don t have to do anything i think james tells us that faith without works is dead paraphrase how does this work short reply we can never achieve perfect health yet we always strive for it we don t seek to do god s will because we re forced to we follow his way because his way is best the reason it s hard is because we are flawed not because he s unreasonable but we seek to follow his way because we want to improve ourselves and our lives mark
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re tuff to be a christian please realize that i am frequently getting in trouble for straying from orthodoxy but here is my opinion in article apr geneva rutgers edu mdbs ms uky edu no name writes moreover the buddha says that we are intrinsically good as against christ s we are all sinners i never thought of these two ideas being against each other people might quibble about what intrinsically means but the reason we are sinners is because we do not behave as good as we are the message of christ is that each of us are not only good but great that we can approach perfection albeit perhaps through a different technique than you claim buddhism teaches because we do not realize our greatness we sin peter had no problem walking on water until a little doubt crept in doesn t david ask in the th psalm what is man that you god should care for him but you have made him just a little lower than the angels i probably exagerate in my mind what a scrawny little kid david was just as i probably exagerate what a gigantic monster goliath was but david s power easily defeated goliath s remember the rich young man who comes up to jesus and asks what he can do to enter the kingdom jesus says follow the commandments i always picture the smug look on his face as he says he s done that his whole life probably anticipating an attaboy from the messiah instead jesus gives him a harder task sell everything and follow him jesus is raising the bar the desciples say how can anyone do this if it s so hard even for rich people jesus says anyone can do it with god s help jesus says not only can we avoid killing people we can avoid getting angry at people not only can we avoid committing adultery we can control our own desires i realize this was not your main point but i wonder how other people see this parting question would you have become a christian if you had not been indoctrinated by your parents you probably never learned about any other religion to make a comparative study and therefore i claim you are brain washed please forgive any generalizations i am about to make your point about how hard other religions are is a good one just as your parting question is a tough question i think that muslims worship the same god as i do we can learn from their name submission hindus and buddhists and taoists etc claim that god is impersonal is god personal or impersonal i say yes but if i think a little more my answer is whichever is greater i think it is greater to be a personal entity with an individual consciousness but you re right that that might be a cultural bias if i think more i must admit that god s personal nature is as far beyond my conception as his impersonal nature is beyond the hindu s conception if somehow jesus could fit into hindu cosmology then maybe i wouldn t have a problem though that is hard to imagine are there any former or present eastern religion members here who could comment chris mussack
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re sabbath admissions of general question since the world was discovered to be round the definition of saturday is if not ambiguous at least arbitrary how would someone answer this also when the calendar was changed gregorian to julian was the day of the week changed or just the date once again this points to the arbitrariness of the days chris mussack when calendars change there is no change in the day weekly cycle just months and dates clh
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re sspx schism in article apr geneva rutgers edu jhpb sarto budd lake nj us joseph h buehler writes descriptions of true and false obedience obedience is not solely a matter of compliance refusal the nature of the commands must also be taken into account it is not enough to consider someone s compliance or refusal and then say whether they are obedient or disobedient you also have to take into consideration whether the commands are good or bad you ask where we are i would echo that question i m not trying to be contentious but assuming that the pope has universal jurisdiction and authority what authority do you rely upon for your decisions what prevents me from choosing any doctrine i like and saying that papal disagreement is an error that will be resolved in time this is especially true since councils of bishops have basically stood by the pope it appears that much of what lies at the heart of this matter is disagreements over what is tradition and tradition and also over authority and discipline my question to the supporters of sspx is this is there any way that your positions with respect to church reforms could change and be conformed to those of the pope assuming that the pope s position does not change and that the leaders of sspx don t jointly make such choice if not this appears to be claiming infallible teaching authority if i adopt the view that i m not wrong i can t be wrong and there s no way i ll change my mind you must change yours that i ve either left the catholic church or it has left me the orthodox church does not recognize papal authority jurisdiction viewing authority as present in each bishop and in ecumenical councils we regard the subsequent development of the doctrines regarding papal authority and jurisdiction to be a separation of the bishop of rome from the orthodox church without going into the merits of the great schism at least the orthodox agree that a split occurred and don t paly what appear to be semantic games like he s the pope but we don t recognize that what he does is effective words aside it appears to be a de facto split so where are we are we in another arian heresy complete with weak popes or are the sspx priests modern martin luthers well the only way to answer that is to examine who is saying what and what the traditional teaching of the church is we sould argue from now until the second coming about what the real traditional teaching of the church is if this were a simple matter east and west would not have been separated for over years many catholics will decide to side with the pope there is some soundness in this because the papacy is infallible so eventually some pope will straighten all this out i thought that the teaching magisterieum of the church did not allow error in teachings regarding faith and morals even in the short term i may be wrong here i m not roman catholic what would be the effect of a pope making an ex cathedra statement regarding the sspx situation would it be honored if not how do you get around the formal doctrine of infallibility again i m not trying to be contentions i m trying to understand since i m orthodox i ve got no real vested interest in the outcome one way or the other schism is a superset of disobedience refusal to obey a legitimate command all schismatics are disobedient but it s a superset so it doesn t work the other way around not all disobeyers are schismatics the mere fact that the sspx priests don t comply with the holy father s desires doesn t make them schismatics it does if the command was legitimate sspx does not view the pope s commands as legitimate why this is a very slippery slope but my problem with this is this according to the traditional theology of holy orders episcopal consecration does not confer jurisdiction it only confers the power of order the ability to confect the sacraments true enough jurisdiction must be conferred by someone else with the power to confer it such as the pope the society bishops knowing the traditional theology quite well take great pains to avoid any pretence of jurisdiction over anyone they simply confer those sacraments that require a bishop one could argue that they are establishing a non geographic jurisdiction i don t know if that s even a concept or problem in catholic circles larry overacker llo shell com lawrence overacker shell oil company information center houston tx llo shell com
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re losing your temper is not a christian trait in article apr athos rutgers edu ruthless panix com ruth ditucci writes one of the tell tale signs fruits that give non christians away is when their net replies are acrid angry and sarcastic we in the net village do have a laugh or two when professed born again christians verbally attack people who might otherwise have been won to christianity and had originally joined the discussions because they were spiritually hungry instead of answering questions with sweetness and sincerity these chrisitan net warriors flame the queries although i certainly agree with the basic sentiment that snideness is unloving and ineffective i m a little disturbed by the formulation that ill temper is not a christian trait it seems like a false argument to say that anyone who displays trait x must not be a christian could well be a sinning christian but a christian nonetheless anger is human and christians are human christians get angry and defensive and react badly just like everyone else it s not perfect righteousness but the effort of seeking righteousness that marks a dedicated christian and one of the greatest gifts of faith to me is that of seeking and accepting forgiveness for my failures expecting flawless behavior from self or others isn t christianity it s perfectionism
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some questions from a new christian in a previous article bach udel edu steven r hoskins writes one of my questions i would like to ask is can anyone recommend a good reading list of theological works intended for a lay person i would recommend essential truthes of the christian faith by rc sproul it is copywrited from tyndale house publishers sproul offers concise explanations in simple language of around different christian doctrines grouped by subject i think it would be particularly good for newer christians and older christians suffering spiritual malnutrition as it gives a biblically sound basic treatment of the issues avoiding long in depth analysis that can wait until after you know the basics dave weaver he is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to weaver chdasic sps mot com gain what he cannot lose jim elliot
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re god shaped hole was re accepting jeesus in your heart several people were involved in trying to figure out who first used the phrase god shaped hole clh there is a god shaped vacuum in all of us or something to that effect is generally attributed to blaise pascal what i want to know is how can you have a god shaped vacuum inside of you if god is in fact infinite or omnipresent name andrew james fraser e mail fraseraj dcs gla ac uk ese h student university of glasgow standard disclaimers don t you think you re being a tad too literal with this metaphor clh
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interfaith weddings hello everyone last week i posted a similar question to alt wedding now i come in search of a deeper level answer my fiance is lutheran and i am catholic we plan on getting married in her church because she is living there now and i plan on moving there in a month or so i called my catholic priest to find out what i needed to do in order for the marriage to be recognized by my church needless to say that i have found that there is no hard and fast rule when it comes to how the catholic law for interfaith weddings is interpreted but i m pretty sure that we can get married without too much problem the trick lies in the letter of dispensation but that is not why i am here what i d like to know is what are the main differences between the lutheran and catholic religions my priest mumbled something about how the eucharist was understood i have heard that if two religions combine soon it would be these two any help would be appreciated thanks so much bill bill burns internet wdburns mtu edu mac network system administrator applelink shadow apple student rep mtu first we must band together as friends then mearcilessly crush our enemies into paste we ve had enough catholic protestant arguments recently that i m not going to accept any renewals i suggest responses via email unless they are clearly non controversial i would be happy to see positive summaries of both important catholic and lutheran beliefs among other things they d be useful for the faq collection but i m not up for yet another battle clh
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re the arrogance of christians in article apr athos rutgers edu aa freenet carleton ca mark baker writes i am asking you to believe in things not visible i don t know if this is believeing blindly or not if you decide in advance that your reason will act only on the evidence of the five physical senses then you cut reason off from any possibility of reaching a conclusion outside the physical sphere someone said thinking if i could see i would believe then someone said believe and you will see
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re so far so good in article apr athos rutgers edu armstrng cs dal ca stan armstrong writes in article c z u jxo spss com luomat alleg edu writes this may be a really dumb one but i ll ask it anyways christians know that they can never live up to the requirements of god right i may be wrong but that is my understanding but they still try to do it doesn t it seem like we are spending all of our lives trying to reach a goal we can never achieve i know that we are saved by faith and not by works but does that mean that once we are saved we don t have to do anything i think james tells us that faith without works is dead paraphrase how does this work so long as we think that good things are what we have to do rather than what we come to want to do we miss the point the more we love god the more we come to love what and whom he loves when i find that what i am doing is not good it is not a sign to try even harder romans it is a sign to seek god when i am aware of jesus presence i usually want what he wants it is his strenth his love that empowers my weakness stan armstrong religious studies dept saint mary s university halifax n s armstrong husky stmarys ca att clyde watmath water dalcs armstrng i apologize to the moderator but the first quote was deleted and i would like to respond to both as for the goal we can never achieve the reward comes from the trying paul makes a clear claim that we are to continue straining for the prize over in philippians only by not living out the commands do we stagnate and become lukewarm to be spit out by jesus as it says in john this is love for god to obey his comands that obedience is our straining to achieve for god of course this requires work on our part as for the quote in james satan doesn t care what we believe what matters is the results of our belief works if one truly has faith in what one believes one will either act on that faith or be lying to oneself about believing in the first place stan as for your first line you have a very good point obedience by obligation grudgery is not what god desires instead look at how many times the bible talks about being joyous in all situations and when doing god s work being begrudged by the work has no value also we should do the work necessary whenever we can not just when we feel jesus presence feelings can deceive us however as paul states to timothy in timothy preach the word be prepared in season and out of season correct rebuke and encourage with great patience and careful instruction also remember that paul tells timothy in timothy watch your life and doctrine closely persevere in them because if you do you will save both yourself and your hearers so in order to do the work necessary we need to be sure that we are correct first remember jesus warning in matthew not to be hypocritical about what we do the best way to accomplish this is to be a disciple completely in both thought and deed joe fisher
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library of congress to host dead sea scroll symposium april library of congress to host dead sea scroll symposium april to national and assignment desks daybook editor contact john sullivan or lucy suddreth both of the library of congress washington april a symposium on the dead sea scrolls will be held at the library of congress on wednesday april and thursday april the two day program cosponsored by the library and baltimore hebrew university with additional support from the project judaica foundation will be held in the library s mumford room sixth floor madison building seating is limited and admission to any session of the symposium must be requested in writing see note a the symposium will be held one week before the public opening of a major exhibition scrolls from the dead sea the ancient library of qumran and modern scholarship that opens at the library of congress on april on view will be fragmentary scrolls and archaeological artifacts excavated at qumran on loan from the israel antiquities authority approximately items from library of congress special collections will augment these materials the exhibition on view in the madison gallery through aug is made possible by a generous gift from the project judaica foundation of washington d c the dead sea scrolls have been the focus of public and scholarly interest since when they were discovered in the desert miles east of jerusalem the symposium will explore the origin and meaning of the scrolls and current scholarship scholars from diverse academic backgrounds and religious affiliations will offer their disparate views ensuring a lively discussion the symposium schedule includes opening remarks on april at p m by librarian of congress james h billington and by dr norma furst president baltimore hebrew university co chairing the symposium are joseph baumgarten professor of rabbinic literature and institutions baltimore hebrew university and michael grunberger head hebraic section library of congress geza vermes professor emeritus of jewish studies oxford university will give the keynote address on the current state of scroll research focusing on where we stand today on the second day the closing address will be given by shmaryahu talmon who will propose a research agenda picking up the theme of how the qumran studies might proceed on wednesday april other speakers will include eugene ulrich professor of hebrew scriptures university of notre dame and chief editor biblical scrolls from qumran on the bible at qumran michael stone national endowment for the humanities distinguished visiting professor of religious studies university of richmond on the dead sea scrolls and the pseudepigrapha from p m to p m a special preview of the exhibition will be given to symposium participants and guests on thursday april beginning at a m speakers will include magen broshi curator shrine of the book israel museum jerusalem on qumran the archaeological evidence p kyle mccarter albright professor of biblical and ancient near eastern studies the johns hopkins university on the copper scroll lawrence h schiffman professor of hebrew and judaic studies new york university on the dead sea scrolls and the history of judaism and james vanderkam professor of theology university of notre dame on messianism in the scrolls and in early christianity the thursday afternoon sessions at p m include devorah dimant associate professor of bible and ancient jewish thought university of haifa on qumran manuscripts library of a jewish community norman golb rosenberger professor of jewish history and civilization oriental institute university of chicago on the current status of the jerusalem origin of the scrolls shmaryahu talmon j l magnas professor emeritus of biblical studies hebrew university jerusalem on the essential commune of the renewed covenant how should qumran studies proceed will close the symposium there will be ample time for question and answer periods at the end of each session also on wednesday april at a m the library of congress and the israel antiquities authority will hold a lecture by esther boyd alkalay consulting conservator israel antiquities authority on preserving the dead sea scrolls in the mumford room lm james madison memorial building the library of congress independence ave s e washington d c note a for more information about admission to the symposium please contact in writing dr michael grunberger head hebraic section african and middle eastern division library of congress washington d c canada remote systems toronto ontario
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re sabbath admissions of in article apr athos rutgers edu dlecoint garnet acns fsu edu darius lecointe writes you cannot show from scripture that the weekly sabbath is part of the ceremonial laws before you post a text in reply investigate its context first of all ceremonial law is an extrascriptural term it is sometimes used as a framework to view scripture but if you look at collosions without going into it with the assumption that the sabbath cannot be a ceremonial law you will see that it does refer to the sabbath paul writes in collosions how that christ nailed the laws that were against us to his cross and therefore we should not be judged in what what food we eat what we drink the keeping of new moons and holy days or the keeping of the sabbath the word for sabbath in this verse is sabbaton and is used throughout the new testament to refer to the th day if there is any scripture from which we get the idea of the ceremonial law this is one of them and the sabbath is listed among the ceremonial laws if one goes into this with the fundamental assumption the sabbath cannot be a ceremonial law then he will have to find some way around it like saying that this can only refer to the other sabbath holy days besides the th day because the sabbath cannot be a ceremonial law but paul is very careful in his letters to add some kind of parenthetcal statement if there is anything that can be seen as a liscence to sin in his writings also why is the sabbath absent from the epistles except for hebrews which talks about the rest that comes through faith surely it would have been a big problem for first century christians living in a society that did not rest on the th day especially slaves many new converst were slaves it would have been difficult for slaves to rest on the sabbath if it had been mandatory why is there no mention of this in the epistles link hudson
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re atheist s views on christianity was re accepting jeesus in your heart in article apr athos rutgers edu kempmp phoenix oulu fi petri pihko writes jason smith jasons atlastele com wrote the discussion begins why does the universe exist at all one of the laws of nature specifying cause and effect seems to dictate at least to this layman s mind there must be a causal event no reasonable alternative exists i would argue that causality is actually a property of spacetime causes precede their effects and i must concede here cause before effect implies time time is part of spacetime hense the argument would be valid i could return and say that this does not infer the cause and effect relationship being unique to this spacetime but i won t because the point is moot doesn t address why which petri pikho addresses below i also concede that i was doubly remiss as i asserted no reasonable alternative exists an entirely subjective statement on my part and one that could be invalidated given time and further discovery by the scientist i also understand that a proving a theory does not necessarily specify that this is how it happened but proposes a likely description of the phenomena in question am i mistaken with this understanding but if you claim that there must be an answer to how did the universe our spacetime emerge from nothing science has some good candidates for an answer all of which require something we christians readily admit to faith the fact that there are several candidates belies that none are conclusive with out conclusive evidence we are left with faith it could even be argued that one of these hypotheses may one day be proven as best as a non repeatable event can be proven but i ask what holds someone today to the belief that any or all of them are correct except by faith a couple of paragraphs deleted summary we ask why does the universe exist i think this question should actually be split into two parts namely why is there existence why anything exists and how did the universe emerge from nothing it is clear science has nothing to say about the first question however is it a meaningful question after all i would say it isn t consider the following apparently it is for many persons hence we have religions the question why anything exists can be countered by demanding answer to a question why there is nothing in nothingness or in non existence actually both questions turn out to be devoid of meaning things that exist do and things that don t exist don t exist tautology at its best carefully examine the original question and then the counter question the first asks why while the second is a request for definition it doesn t address why something does or does not exist but asks to define the lack of existence the second question is unanswerable indeed for how do we identify something as nothing aren t they mutually exclusive terms how do we identify a state of non existence again this is nearing the limits of this simple layman s ability to comprehend and i would appreciate an explanation i might add the worldview of things that exist do and things that don t don t is as grounded in the realm of the non falsifiable as does the theist s belief in god it is based on the assumption that there is not a reason for being something as ultimately un supportable as the position of there being a reason its very foundation exists in the same soil as that of one who claims there is a reason we come to this either i am therefore i am or i am for a reason if the former is a satisfactory answer then you are done for you are satisfied and need not a doctor if the latter your search is just beginning i seriously doubt god could have an answer to this question time will tell some christians i have talked to have said that actually god is himself the existence however i see several problems with this answer first it inevitably leads to the conclusion that god is actually all existence good and evil devils and angels us and them this is pantheism not christianity agreed it would lead me to question their definition of christianity as well another answer is that god is the source of all existence this sounds much better but i am tempted to ask does god himself exist then if god is the source of his own existence it can only mean that he has in terms of human time always existed but this is not the same as the source of all existence this does not preclude his existence it only seeks to identify his qualities implying he exists to have qualities btw the best answer i have heard is that human reasoning is incapable of understanding such questions being an atheist myself i do not accept such answers since i do not have any other methods like the theist we come to a statement of faith for this position assumes that the evidence at hand is conclusive note i am not arguing against scientific endeavor for science is useful for understanding the universe in which we exist but i differ from the atheist in a matter of perspective i seek to understand what exists to understand and appreciate the art of the creator i also have discovered science is an inadequate tool to answer why it appears that m pihko agrees as we shall see but because a tool is inadequate to answer a question does not preclude the question asserting that why is an invalid question does not provide an answer as far as i can tell the very laws of nature demand a why that isn t true of something outside of nature i e super natural this is not true science is a collection of models telling us how not why something happens i cannot see any good reason why the why questions would be bound only to natural things assuming that the supernatural domain exists if supernatural beings exist it is as appropriate to ask why they do so as it is to ask why we exist my apologies i was using why as why did this come to be why did pre existence become existence why did pre spacetime become spacetime but we come to the admission that science fails to answer why because it can t be answered in the realm of modern science does that make the question invalid i don t believe any technology would be able to produce that necessary spark of life despite having all of the parts available just my opinion this opinion is also called vitalism namely that living systems are somehow fundamentally different from inanimate systems do christians in general adopt this position what would happen when scientists announce they have created primitive life say small bacteria in a lab i suppose we would do the same thing as when galileo or capernicus was vindicated before someone starts jumping up and down screaming inquisition note i said vindicated i certainly hope we ve gotten beyond the shooting the messenger stage m pihko does present a good point though we may need to ask what do i as an individual christian base my faith on will it be shaken by the production of evidence that shatters our sacred cows or will we seek to understand if a new discovery truly disagrees with what god said and continues to say in his word why do i ask why apologies to budweiser and company jason jason d smith jasons atlastele com i m not young enough to know everything x
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re does just justifiable war exist some thoughts a on the non pacifist side killing to defend the innocent may be if anything more justifiable than killing in self defense i can turn my own other cheek but i have no right to turn someone else s it seems to me that if jesus had meant to teach pacifism he would have made his position more explicit he didn t tell the centurion to leave the army for instance and the nt is full of military metaphors b on the pacifist side apparently many early christians refused to fight in the roman army or stated that one should refuse if given a choice but it s not clear whether they were objecting to war per se or objecting to roman policies in modern warfare it seems to be impossible to direct attacks only at combatants bombing both conventional and nuclear kills lots of civilians it s hard to tell whether any particular war is justified at the time often it takes decades for the requisite information to become available to the general public please no email replies this is meant as a contribution to a public discussion and anyone wanting to reply should also reply publicly michael a covington associate research scientist artificial intelligence programs mcovingt ai uga edu the university of georgia phone athens georgia u s a amateur radio n tmi
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re divine providence vs murphy s law in article apr athos rutgers edu rolfe junior dsu edu tim rolfe writes romans rsv we know that in everything god works for good with those who love him who are called according to his purpose murphy s law if anything can go wrong it will we are all quite familiar with the amplifications and commentary on murphy s law but how do we harmonize that with romans for that matter how appropriate is humor contradicted by scripture i ve always taken murphy s law to be an exhortation to prudence and an observation about the behavior of complex systems rather than a denial of divine benevolence michael a covington associate research scientist artificial intelligence programs mcovingt ai uga edu the university of georgia phone athens georgia u s a amateur radio n tmi
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re being right about messiahs the following is my comment on an article by desiree bradley clh by the way from koresh s public statement it s not so clear to me that he is claiming to be christ koresh did originally claim to be the christ but then backed off and said he was a prophet the latest news at cdt from waco is that the feds broke through a wall of the compound with a tank no news besides that at this time paul
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questioning authority chris mussack writes for all those people who insist i question authority why how about the holocaust the spanish inquisition jonestown just to name a few authorities sometimes tell people to do evil things people who just follow orders have tortured and killed others in very large numbers and protest their innocence afterwards when your authority starts telling you to do things you should ask questions except for situations of pressing need i said shut the hatch because the submarine is filling with water any reasonable authority should be able to give at least some justification that you can understand just be sure to listen when authority answers if anybody is interested in questions of psychological pressure and following orders you might want to read about a study done by solomon ashe in on conformity and another done by stanley milgram in on obedience both should be in any good book on psychology sociology the results are both fascinating and terrifying darren f provine kilroy gboro rowan edu we do what we re told we do what we re told we do what we re told told to do peter gabriel
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re christian parenting sorry for posting this but my e mail keeps bouncing maybe it will help others here anyway and therefore i pray others will read this it is actually a response from my aunt who has kids since i have none yet hi i am a sociology student and i am currently researching into young offenders i am looking at the way various groups of children are raised at home at the moment i am formlulating information on discipline within the christian home please if you are a parent in this catagory can you email me your response to the following questionaire all responses will be treated confidentially and will only be used to prepare stats i m posting this for a good christian relative who does not have e mail access since this aunt and uncle have kids i felt they would be more relevant than i who have none yet ages sexes of children year old yo twins yo boy yo boy yo girl do you spank your kids i don t call it spanking but they do so yes very rarely if so how often i don t call it spanking because it s more of a reaction to something very dangerous such as trying to stick their finger in a fan or running into the road maybe times for each except for the yo girl who has not been spanked yet they call it that because it does hurt their feelings and of course i give all the hugs and stuff to ensure they know they re still loved do you use an implement to spank with no that would be too painful if it s too traumatic they never recall why they were punished besides it must be immediate and taking the time to go get a toolmeans you re not doing it right away and that lessens the impact it s very emotional for a child as it is which is evidenced by the fact that a little slap on the rear which hurts for perhaps seconds is called a spanking if you do not spank what method of discipline do you use lots of logical consequences for instance when yo matthew dared a good friend to jump out of his treehouse or he would push him out i made sure they didn t play together for days so he d know that would make him lose friends very quickly he s never done anything like that since we also use time out in their rooms i use a timer so they don t keep arguing with me over leaving since it s hard to argue with a macine i will go to the closed door and tell them timeout won t be over until they calm down if they re too tantrumy i use the top of the stairs when they re really young your age your location bath ohio it s right outside of akron in the northeast part of ohio while under the age of did you ever commit a criminal offence no and none of my kids would dream of it i hope you can use this to teach all parents that physical punishment isn t always required parents use that as an excuse to hit too hard how ere you disciplined as a kid lots of timeouts same as i use our family and my husband s have never used spankings in fact my grandmother in law was one of kids and they were almost never spanked this was around the turn of the century and none of us has ever been afoul of the law man made or god s law jesus says referring to a small child whom he is holding that what ye do to the least of these ye do also to me the bible also says in all things to be kind and merciful and especially loving colossians there is no room for selfish anger which i ll admit i ve been tempted with at times when i ve felt like spanking hard in anger maybe the kid deserved a little slap on the rear but what i would have given would have been the devil s work i could feel the temptation and just angrily ordered the kid to his her room and went to my room myself after praying and asking god s forgiveness i was much calmer and did not feel like spanking but felt that what i had done was enough punishment doug fowler dxf po cwru edu me age now mommys and daddys other ever wonder if after casey relatives have to give lots of hugs love missed the rd strike in the poem support cause heaven is just a great he ran to first and made it big hug that lasts forever and ever
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re phone number of wycliffe translators uk in article apr geneva rutgers edu mprc troi cc rochester edu m price writes i m concerned about a recent posting about wbt sil i thought they d pretty much been denounced as a right wing organization involved in ideological manipulation and cultural interference including vietnam and south america a commission from mexican academia denounced them in as a covert political and ideological institution used by the u s govt as an instrument of control regulation penetration espionage and repression i have personally know quite of few of the wycliffe bible translators as an organization their fundamental purpose is to translate the scriptures into the native languages which in terms usual means learning it and developing a written language along with teaching the natives to read it is not associated with the u s govt at all many governments want the help of the translators to the best of my knowledge the mexican government now encourages them to come their idea is not cultural interference but the presentation of the good news to understand more about what they do i suggest you read some of the books autobiographical and biographical about some of the translators one that stands out in my mind as an excellent is called peace child this would give a true picture of what their mission is my concern is that this group may be seen as acceptable and even praiseworthy by readers of soc religion christian it s important that christians don t immediately accept every christian organization as automatically above reproach mp i agree with this statement but we cannot also accept what others say without looking into the issues that would be the same as taking suddan s discussion about the cia etc as being true we must look at both sides cathy bareiss
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re question about virgin mary a faris trl oz au aziz faris writes helllo netters i was told the bible says that god took the body of the virgin mary as she was being carried for burial is this true if so were in the bible does it say that regards a faris i think you re talking about the assumption of the blessed virgin mary it says that the immaculate mother of god the ever virgin mary having completed the course of her earthly life was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory this was defined by a papal statement in though it had certainly been believed by some before that like the immaculate conception this is primarily a roman catholic doctrine and like it it has no direct biblical support note that catholics do not believe in sola scriptura that is they do not believe that the bible is the only source of christian knowledge thus the fact that a doctrine has little biblical support is not necessarily significant to them they believe that truth can be passed on through traditions of the church and also that it can be revealed to the church i m not interested in yet another catholic protestant argument but if any catholics can tell us the basis for these beliefs i think it would be appropriate clh again i find myself wanting to respond to a posting and having neither the time nor the proper materials with me you would think i would learn my lesson by now but i m trying to finish writing my thesis and don t have tons of time anyway the basis for our the catholic church s belief in the assumption of mary body and soul into heaven is that to put it simply the apostles and all the early generation christians believed it in fact throughout their ministry the apostles kept in close contact with mary and of the were present when she died only thomas was missing when he arrived several days later he asked to be shown her body and moved with pity peter and several of the other apostles brought him to her tomb when they arrived the seal was still unbroken they broke the seal entered and the body was missing there was no sign that anyone had entered forcibly or otherwise and everything else was laid out exactly as it had been left the apostles present all believed that mary was assumed into heaven and the apostles taught this in their preaching of course this does not appear in any of the texts currently considered part of the bible but it does appear in other writings left behind by several of them basicaly as an apostolic church ie founded by the apostles we believe that the teachings of the apostles whether written down in the bible or written down in other sources is true providing that the authenticity of those other sources can be confirmed at least in the case of the assumption of mary the authenticity is quite clear hope this helps i would welcome anyone who has more information to add to what i ve said mike walker mdw uxa cso uiuc edu univ of illinois
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re question about virgin mary in article may athos rutgers edu a faris trl oz au aziz faris writes i think you re talking about the assumption of the blessed virgin mary it says that the immaculate mother of god the ever virgin mary having completed the course of her earthly life was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory this was defined by a papal statement in though it had certainly been believed by some before that clh so true i m not sure of the basis of the belief but it was a widely held belief among the laity of the rc church and their support of it lead to it being declared to be true basically the teaching on infallibility holds that the pope is infallible in matters of faith and doctrine the college of bishops is likewise infallible and the laity is as well the pope gets most of the attention criticism but the consensus of the other bodies is equally infallible according to rc teaching joe moore
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re what was the immaculate conception biblical basis for the immaculate conception i will put enmity between you the serpent and the woman and between your seed and her seed she can also be read he shall crush your head and you shall bruise her or his heel genesis he who commits sin is of the devil john hail full of grace greek kecharitomene the lord is with thee luke from the above we prove the doctrine of the immaculate conception first god has given the proto evangel in genesis which is the first promise of a savior who will redeem mankind from the wiles of satan satan was a murderer from the beginning and has not stood in the truth because there is no truth in him john now the proto evangel promises several things enmity between satan and the woman and enmity between satan and her seed now the woman is both eve who is the immediate point of reference and mary the second eve her seed is jesus christ and he is also at enmity with satan in the same way as mary is said to be at enmity with satan thus knowing as we do that jesus christ is sinless hebrews we can conclude that mary is also sinless because if she wasn t she would not be at enmity with the devil as john tells us and the relation of her sinlessness to christ s sinlessness would be called into question as would god s veracity for god promised an enmity between mary and the serpent and it is not possible for god to lie or be decieved second we have the angelic greeting where mary is called by the archangle gabriel full of grace as i pointed out above this is from the greek word kecharitomene which means not just full of grace but a plenitude or perfection of grace the sense of it is best grasped by the footnote to the jerusalem bible hail you who have been and reamin filled with grace but that is a little to long to say so it is reduced to full of grace and as it says you who have been mary had always been filled with grace from the moment of her conception which was also the moment of her salvation until her death some years later it must be admitted that it is possible that god could have done what the doctrine of the immaclute conception says he did do and if god could keep himself free from any contact with sin through his mother he would have and the bible records this fact to which the fathers of the church such as st john damascus st augustine of hippo st ambrose and others are in complete agreement with as is all of christian tradition and as is the infallible declaration of the pope on the matter in ineffibilus deus andy byler
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re satanic tounges in article may geneva rutgers edu mmh dcs qmw ac uk matthew huntbach writes i have seen the claims but i don t know if there are any authenticated cases of people making prolonged speeches in real languages they don t know from my observations speaking in tongues in practice has nothing at all do with this i have a simple test i take several people who can speak only one language e g chinese russian german english then i let the gifted one start speaking in toungues the audience should understand the gifted one clearly in their native language however the gifted one can only hear himself speaking in his own language works everytime perhaps i would believe the gifted ones more if they were glorifying god rather than themselves then perhaps we d witness a real miracle mark ashley disclaimer my opinions not harris marka gcx ssd csd harris com the lost los angelino
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babylon book offer from time to time i have made reference to a book called the two babylons which is a book written by alexander hislop mid s about the babylonian mystery religion and its flight through history i was unable to put it down the first time i read it but others have found it dry it has numberable references and illustrations if you are interested in purchasing your own copy you can call moody book store and order it for and they will ship it to you it is a good book just to get the reference titles for your own digs into the mystery religions i have found it invaluable for that purpose alone but for those who only want to skim the subject it comes highly recommended just a note to my rc brothers and sisters you may find this to be a diatribe or you may find it to be a test to the origin and true nature of the origin of rcism if you are offended by anything that asks hard questions about your denomination as to whether or not it is christian then perhaps you should just passover this offer to those who are a little more adventurous go for it and later please contact me with you reasons pro or con on the scholorship of this book i really would be interested adelphoi ev christos rex
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re march for jesus the only info i have is my area is not having a large march they are leaving it up to each congragation imo this means organizers found it too difficult to manage or no one feels the need to be involved i m not casting stones my involvement with the lord does not include the march this year maybe he is giving a message by the lack of one jls jerry l storrs systems manager u got b tru dept of chemical engineering u got b livin what u say u believe north carolina state university u got b tru raleigh nc even when nobody but jesus is watchin u fax storrs che ncsu edu preferred steven curtis chapman
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re record burning rgolder hoh mbl edu robert golder writes the movie version of the last temptation of christ was so awful that practically no one would have seen it or been influenced by its message had not conservatives loudly protested its distribution they unwittingly created a larger market for the movie in many places christians were sucessful in their attempts to get the films banned or at least given a very restrictive showing i have no problem with christians burning their own pieces of art though i find it a tragic waste i do however have a problem with their attempts to censor what i may or may not view p moorcockpratchettdenislearydelasoulu iainmbanksneworderheathersbatmanpjorourke clive p a u l m o l o n e y come let us retract the foreskin of misconception james trinity college dublin and apply the wire brush of enlightenment geoffm brownbladerunnersugarcubeselectronicblaylockpowersspikeleekatebushhamcornpizza
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monophysites and mike walker mike walker if you are using the standard formula of fully god and fully human that i m not sure why you object to saying that jesus was human i think the usual analysis would be that sin is not part of the basic definition of humanity it s a consequence of the fall jesus is human but not a fallen human clh the proper term for what mike expresses is monophysitism this was a heresy that was condemned in the council of chalcedon in ad it grew up in reaction to nestorianism which held that the son and jesus are two different people who happened to be united in the same body temporarily monophysitism is held by the copts of egypt and ethipoia and by the jacobites of syria and the armenian orthodox it believes that jesus christ was god which is correct that he was man which is correct that he was one person which is correct but that he had only one nature and one will and oen energy which is heretical the orthodox position is that he had two natures and two wills and two energies both divine and human though the wills were in perfect harmony that is what mike is trying to get across that while jesus came in human form mike says he did not have a human nature or a human will in reality he had both though neither made him subject to original sin it is interesting to note that the monothelites were a reaction to this conflict and attempted to solve the problem by admitting two natures but not two wills or two energies it also was condemned at a late council in constantinople i believe andy byler these issues get mighty subtle when you see people saying different things it s often hard to tell whether they really mean seriously different things or whether they are using different terminology i don t think there s any question that there is a problem with nestorius and i would agree that the saying christ had a human form without a real human nature or will is heretical but i d like to be a bit wary about the copts armenians etc recent discussions suggest that their monophysite position may not be as far from orthodoxy as many had thought nestorius was an extreme representative of one of the two major schools of thought more moderate representatives were regarded as orthodox e g theodore of mopsuestia my impression is that the modern monophysite groups inherit the entire tradition not just nestorius version and that some of them may have a sufficient balanced position to be regarded as orthodox clh
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daily verse the god of peace will soon crush satan under your feet the grace of our lord jesus be with you romans
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christ my advocate a poem my advocate i sinned and straightway posthaste satan flew before the presence of the most high god and made a railing accusation there he said this soul this thing of clay and sod has sinned tis true that he has named thy name but i demand his death for thou hast said the soul that sinneth it shall die shall not thy sentence be fulfilled is justice dead send now this wretched sinner to his doom what other thing can righteous ruler do thus satan did accuse me day and night and every word he spoke o god was true then quickly one rose up from god s right hand before whose glory angels veiled their eyes he spoke each jot and tittle of the law must be fulfilled the guilty sinner dies but wait suppose his guilt were all transferred to me and that i paid his penalty behold my hands my side my feet one day i was made sin for him and died that he might be presented faultless at thy throne and satan flew away full well he knew that he could not prevail against such love for every word my dear lord spoke was true by martha snell nicholson i heard this poem read last night and wanted to share it with other subscribers of this newsgroup it s such a wonderful blessing to see how secure our salvation is because the lord jesus paid for what he did not owe because we had a debt which we were not capable to pay thanks and praise be to the savior the lord jesus christ who is seated at the right hand of the majesty on high making intercession for us liane brown internet brownli ohsu edu
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re homosexuality issues in christianity in article apr geneva rutgers edu fsspr acad alaska edu wrote this subject was beaten to death on bit listserv christia recently until madge stepped in and closed the topic it has been discussed since privately in e mail amongst their participants and i ve received some of it a fairly large file approx kb of comments made on the march on washington was among these if it hasn t been posted here already i don t know i just scan through this newsgroup as at bps i couldn t possibly read it all i would be glad to send it along i believe that it would be of interest to people here i hope that anyone who remembers seeing rev troy perry s performance at the march on washington will see for themselves just how inconceivable it is to mix christianity with homosexuality sean patrick ryan fsspr aurora alaska edu or sean freds cojones com you might visit some congregations of christians who happen to be homosexuals that are spirit filled believers not mcc rs before you go lumping us all together with troy perry the lord is working in our community the homosexual community that is he s not asking us to change our sexual nature but he is calling us to practice the morality that he established from the beginning isn t satan having a hayday pitting christian against christian over any issue he can especially homosexuality let s reach the homosexuals for christ let s not try to change them just need to bring them to christ if he doesn t want them to be gay he can change that if they are living a moral life committed to someone of the same sex and god is moving in their lives who are we to tell them they have to change that s my two cent god bless you all loisc
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re my original post was jesus black my my my i knew that i would receive a response to my post but not this extensive thank you to all who responded it at least showed that people were willing to think about it even though the general response was a return to the same old why should it matter question to those of you who were a part of this response i suggest that you read the articles covering this same question in soc culture african american for you are in dire need of some cultural enlightenment hasta luego sherlette
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going permanent no mail well it s that time of year again here at iu graduation unfortunately this means that i am out of here more than likely for good i cannot say if i ll be in here under another username or not or even if i ll ever get back in here at all i am leaving this part of my ministry to another brother john right so have fun and remember that flaming can be considered slander joe fisher
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re question about virgin mary in article may athos rutgers edu a faris trl oz au aziz faris says a faris posting deleted the moderator replies i think you re talking about the assumption of the blessed virgin mary it says that the immaculate mother of god the ever virgin mary having completed the course of her earthly life was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory this was defined by a papal statement in though it had certainly been believed by some before that like the immaculate conception this is primarily a roman catholic doctrine and like it it has no direct biblical support note that catholics do not believe in sola scriptura that is they do not believe that the bible is the only source of christian knowledge thus the fact that a doctrine has little biblical support is not necessarily significant to them they believe that truth can be passed on through traditions of the church and also that it can be revealed to the church i m not interested in yet another catholic protestant argument but if any catholics can tell us the basis for these beliefs i think it would be appropriate clh that is generally accuate but contains one serious error we catholics do believe that god s revealed truth that is not explicitly recorded in the bible can be and is passed on through the tradition of the church it should be noted that the tradition of the church otherwise known as sacred tradition is not the same as ordinary human traditions however we do not believe that additional truth will be revealed to the church public revelation which is the basis of catholic doctrine ended with the death of st john the last apostle nothing new can be added theologians study this revelation and can draw out implications that were not recognized previously so that the council of nicea could define statements about the theology of the trinity and the incarnation that were not explicitly stated in the bible and had been disputed before the council but there was no new revelation at nicea or at any subsequent council cardinal newman s an essay on the development of christian doctrine written while he was still an anglican is an excellent discussion of of this point it was recently reprinted as a doubleday image books paperback with some related shorter works under the title conscience consensus and the development of doctrine marty helgesen bitnet mnhcc cunyvm internet mnhcc cunyvm cuny edu what if there were no such thing as a hypothetical situation
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major views of the trinity may d andrew byler writes to all dab i think i need to again post the athanasian creed whicc pretty well dab delinieates orthodox christian belief on the trinity and on the dab incarnation dab it s a pretty good statement of the beliefs eventually accpeted and the dab creed is in use by the catholic church as well as the lutheran dab anglican and orthodox churches the last minus the filioque which they dab delete from the original form of the creed do you have any evidence that it is used by the orthodox churches as far as i know it is purely western like the apostles creed the orthodox churches use the symbol of faith commonly called the nicene creed steve hayes department of missiology university of south africa golded
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re athiests and hell in article apr geneva rutgers edu rexlex fnal fnal gov writes in article apr geneva rutgers edu sun gerry palo uunet uu net gerry palo writes note that in this perhaps the oldest of the creeds there is no mention of the danger of hell for non believers likewise there is no mention of the salvation of the believers soul and its destiny in heaven after death there is only the resurrection of the body and it does not say when or how you don t go far enough back if we believe in god and that he did create the heavens and the earth and he did create adam and eve and that they walked in the garden and history flowed from there if we can agree with that then would you agree that the further back you go the closer you get to people who had a stronger memory of who god was and what he said and commanded between adam and eve and golgotha the whole process of the fall of man occurred this involved a gradual dimming of consciousness of the spiritual world this is discernable in the world outlooks of different peoples through history the greek for example could say better a beggar in the land of the living than a king in the land of the dead iliad i think the question of what happens to human beings who died before christ is an ever present one with christians i am not ready to conscign adam or abraham or even cain to eternal damnation yet they all died in their sins in the christian sense the same can be said of the whole of gentile humanity and also of the unrepentant malefactor on the cross next to him i do not limit the power of christ to save even him through whom satan would mock his deed of salvation at the very moment of its fulfillment in my studies of the ancient mystery reliegions i have run across many poems or rituals or what nots with the interpretation that those who are of god will be with him via the promised seed but those who rebel will suffer eternal life in dieing it was a standard belief back then it is possible to experience eternity in a passing moment the relationship of eternity to duration is not simply one of indefinitely extended conditions of greenwich mean time it is possible to imagine an eternity of agony or bliss or even many of them in the spiritual world during the time between earthly death and a new birth it was also a standard belief among many peoples that even the righteous were lost this again is the result of the loss of the paradisal consciousness that fled from us after the fall with our ever increasing involvement with the sense world it would be interesting to share in the results of your studies of ancient people s ideas of life after death today we think we know so much and that if we could go back in time we could sure teach those people a thing or two but i think that as this age has grown older that it is we who opperate from a mist not those of the older ages mankind fell into mist and darkness and at the turning point of time a new light entered into the world the light still grows and we are developing the eyes with which to see by it much new revelation and growth in under standing lies before us our new vision and understanding is still very feeble but it contains something new that will grow in time to embrace that which is old and much more as well at this point i should acknowledge openly my debt to the work of rudolf steiner founder of anthroposophy for many insights that have led me to my views on this subject i have said it before i d love to post on this but the vulcan hammer would fall the history to purgatory can be shown from the druids in england to the greeks who pilaged it from the egyptians who ultimately got it from the babylonian mysteries and yes the eastern religions also show many similarities i mean its black and white the writings and the archeological finds plainly show its origin and the whys and wherefores of this doctine the way you refer to it as doctrine puts a modern intellectual coloring on it i think it was much less abstract and much more real and spiritually concrete a teaching that struck much closer to home than our doctrines or teachings today can be received i am not so ready to attribute widespread notions in antiquity to simple dispersion from an original source even if they were passed on the question is to what extent did they reflect real perception and experience the similarity in the midst of great variety of expression of the different people s ideas of the time immediately after death testifies to the presence of an underlying reality in any case we study geometry not by reading old manuscripts of euclid but by contemplating the principles themselves on the other hand there is one notion firmly embedded in christianity that originated most definitely in a pagan source the idea that the human being consists essentially of soul only and that the soul is created at birth was consciously adopted from aristotle whose ideas dominated christian thought for fifteen hundred years and still does today he was at once the father of modern thought and at the same time lived during that darkened time when the perception of our eternal spiritual being had grown dim maybe at sometime in the future indeed i should also clarify that i do not deny that eternal irrevocable damnation is a real possibility but the narrow range in which we conceive of the decisive moment i e after the end of a single earthly life is not in my mind sufficient to embrace the reality and i think that is why the early creeds were couched in terms that did not try to spell it out rex gerry compuserve com
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re the arrogance of christians in article may geneva rutgers edu you wrote the genius of science is that it discovered that enormous progress in knowledge could be made by isolating the study of physical interactions for the more general areas of study and proceeding not by logical argument but by experiment the scientific method is hypothesize attempt to disprove the hypothesis if you fail publish if others fail to disprove your hypothesis accept it as a working theory and move on this method is suitable only for the study of objects without will objects which do not take an interest in the experiment science does not progress via experimentation but by philosophising one aim of experiments is to investigate the validity of the hyptheses resulting from the models produced by this thinking process the arrogance of science is the assumption many advocates of science make that the scientific method is the only method of serious study the only one leading to knowledge rather than belief science has one advantage of all other approaches to explaining the world it is objective its further arrogance is the assumption which arises that since science is the only valid method of thought everything which exists must be the sort of thing which the scientific method can study and that if the scientific method cannot study it it either does not exist or cannot in any way be known anything which affects the physical world can be studied for example since we are part of the physical world anything including spirits which affects our behaviour can be observed science does not make any claims about the existence or non existence of objects which do not affect the physical world since these asumptions about the nature of the world cannot themselves be made the subject of experiment it is bad science to believe them as well as arrogance illogic and just plain sloppy thinking the purpose of science is to produce a model of the physical world the model must be able to explain all past observations and predict the outcome of future observations one of the aims of experiments is to carry out well defined observations which are objective ideally scientist will except the model which best describes the world and the model which realises on the minimal number of assumptions at the moment models which do not rely on the assumption of some spiritual world existing are equally powerful to ones which assume the assumption of a spiritual world as the non spiritual models has fewer assumptions it should be the currently accepted models the scientific process never assumes that its present models are the correct ones whereas many religions claim to represent the truth the arrogance of many theists is that they claim to represent the truth this cannot be said of scientists steve lang slang sling slink slick slack shack shank thank think thick
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re question about virgin mary i think you re talking about the assumption of the blessed virgin mary it says that the immaculate mother of god the ever virgin mary having completed the course of her earthly life was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory this was defined by a papal statement in though it had certainly been believed by some before that like the immaculate conception this is primarily a roman catholic doctrine and like it it has no direct biblical support note that catholics do not believe in sola scriptura that is they do not believe that the bible is the only source of christian knowledge thus the fact that a doctrine has little biblical support is not necessarily significant to them they believe that truth can be passed on through traditions of the church and also that it can be revealed to the church i m not interested in yet another catholic protestant argument but if any catholics can tell us the basis for these beliefs i think it would be appropriate clh in the bible there are a lot of instances where god speaks to people where a person just came to know some piece of information where a person walks off into the desert for days etc with all of god s power he certainly can do whatever he wants when he wants it the bible ends with the book of revelations but does god s reign end there no so who can say for sure that god s messages are either no longer happening or still happening i can now hear the clamor for proof with the cold response i ve gotten from the past from this group it s very hard to get the point across i ll only go over the physical stuff so that skeptics can look at documents stored somewhere i ve cited the uncorrupted bodies of saints before they re still there the apparitions at fatima portugal culminated in a miracle specifically granted to show god s existence that was the spinning descending of the sun it was seen in several countries that event is approved by the pope currently images of mary in japan korea yugoslavia philippines africa are showing tears natural or blood these are still under investigation by the church but realize that investigations take decades to finish and if the message is christ will come in ten days that s a bit too late isn t it other events under investigation are inner locutions coming to know stigmata the person exhibits christ s wounds and they don t heal and doctor s don t know why non believers are welcome to pore through documents i m sure this stuff is not like koresh or oral roberts give me m or god will call me home it s free find out why they re happening as we ourselves are studying why if anybody can figure this out tell us you can be of any religion if you have the resources go to one of the countries i mentioned these are not members only events god and mary invites everybody so in conclusion finally we rc s believe in the modern day manifestations of god and mary we are scared to death sometimes although we re told not to there are more proofs and events and that is why not everything is in the bible although in a lot of the apparitions we are told to read the bible as far as the protestant vs catholics issue is concerned in the end god s churches will unite i m not sure how i have some idea but the point is we shouldn t worry about the versus part just do god s work that s all that matters unity will come btw i m just a plain person i m not the pope s spokesperson but i am rc mark ashley disclaimer my opinions not harris marka gcx ssd csd harris com the lost los angelino
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re what was the immaculate conception in article may athos rutgers edu todd nickel laurentian ca writes your roommate is correct the immaculate conception refers to the conception of mary in her mother s womb okay now that we ve defined the immaculate conception doctrine would it be possible for those more knowledgeable in the area to give the biblically or other support for it i ve attempted to come to terms with it previously in an attempt to understand it for learning purposes and haven t been able to grasp the reasoning it was a gift from god i think basically the reasoning was that the tradition in the church held that mary was also without sin as was jesus as the tenets of faith developed particularly with augustine sin was more and more equated with sex and thus mary was assumed to be a virgin for life since she never sinned and since she was the spouse of god etc since we also had this notion of original sin ie that man is born with a predisposition to sin and since mary did not have this predisposition because she did not ever sin she didn t have original sin when science discovered the process of conception the next step was to assume that mary was conceived without original sin the immaculate conception mary at that time appeared to a girl named bernadette at lourdes she refered to herself as the immaculate conception since a nine year old would have no way of knowing about the doctrine the apparition was deemed to be true and it sealed the case for the doctrine rcs hold that all revelation comes from two equally important sources that being sacred scripture and holy tradition in this case mostly tradition joe moore
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legal definition of religion it s my understanding that the u s supreme court has never given a legal definition of religion this despite the many cases involving religion that have come before the court can anyone verify or falsify this has any state or other government tried to give a legal definition of religion
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re what was the immaculate conception note i am cross posting actually emailing this to bit listserv catholic while main posting goes to soc religion christian quotations omitted this is in response to a question about the immaculate conception i explained it but left justification up to our catholic readers clh there is no direct reference in the holy scripture except for the mention of mary s blessedness full of grace in the annunciation by angel gabriel in luke and in the th month the angel gabriel was sent from god unto a city of galilee named nazareth to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was joseph of the house of david and the virgin s name was mary and the angel came unto her and said hail thou that art highly favoured the lord is with thee blessed art thou among women now now hold that line of thought the lord is with mary blessed art thou among women while you read on in the book first lady of the world a popular history of devotion to mary by peter lappin the immaculate conception matter is really far more complicated than the assumption this arose in ad it is quite possible that the feast of mary s conception under the title the conception of saint anne originally commemorated the physical miracle of a woman beyond the age of child bearing conceiving a daughter just as elizabeth had conceived john the baptist a transfer in emphasis from the physical miracle wrought in anne to the miracle of grace wrought by god in the soul of mary was logical mary is the incorruptible timber out of which was hewn the tabernacle of christ s sinless body she is god s eden in whom there is no tree of knowledge and no serpent that harms her perfect beauty and spotlessness find their exemplar in christ her purity in that of the father at the time of the council of ephesus she was hailed as innocent without blemish immaculate inviolate spotless holy in soul and body who was blessed as a lily from among thorns unlearned in the evil ways of eve at the end of the thirteenth century an irish franciscan john duns scotus god maintained that it was a greater thing for him to preserve his the son mother from all sin than to use his power to clease her from it later now let s go to the discussion of baptism and original sin from pocket catholic cathechism by john a hardon baptism concupiscence remains after baptism concupiscence or the tendency to sin remains in the baptized but since it is left to provide trial it has no power to injure those who do not consent and who by the grace of christ jesus manfully resist canon original gifts of adam and eve before their fall in the light of the foregoing we see that our first parents were originally gifted three times over they had the natural gifts of human beings especially the power to think and to choose freely the had the preternatural gifts of bodily immortality and of integrity or the internal power to control desires they had the supernatural gifts of sanctifying grace the virtues of faith hope and charity and the corresponding title to enter heaven by their disobedience they lost the supernatural and preternatural gifts entirely and were weakened without losing their natural capacity to reason and to choose freely baptism restores the supernatural life lost by adam s sin it does not restore the preternatural gifts but gifts as a title to a glorified restoration of our bodies on the last day going back to immaculate conception i am not sure if this interpretation is in any other books but it may be another contribution to the puzzle given the miracle of st anne bearing a child at a non childbearing age and christ was not yet born and there was no baptism yet on mary s birth but still the angel gabriel s greetings was hail mary full of grace the lord is with you blessed art thou amongst women even mary was confused about this greeting mary could very well have possessed all of the treefold original gifts above given to our first parents adam and eve before their sin hail mary example of praise given by the angel gabriel full of grace natural preternatural supernatural the lord is with you at those times god would definitely want to be with those he has made blessed blessed art thou amongst women that says it all at the conception god made mary full of grace and blessed as the tabernacle for the coming body of christ and so immaculate conception of mary is true and mary still has maintained her immaculate heart marida p s i do hope that others will continue more light and facts on this matter thanks
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re question about virgin mary in article athos rutgers edu revdak netcom com d andrew kille writes just an observation although the bodily assumption has no basis in the bible carl jung declared it to be one of the most important pronouncements of the church in recent years in that it implied the inclusion of the feminine into the godhead what did jung mean by a godhead
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re if there were no hell in article may athos rutgers edu shellgate llo uu psi com larry l overacker writes here s a question that some friends and i were debating last night q if you knew beyond all doubt that hell did not exist and that unbelievers simply remained dead would you remain a christian my contention is that if you answer this question with no i would not then remain a christian then you really are not one now following jesus christ has everything to do with sharing in his work and spreading the news that the kingdom of heaven is already among us fear based religion is not a faith relationship with the one who made us all so does that mean that anyone who is a christian to avoid hell isn t really a christian at all it sounds like it to me mit liebe in christus martyn r mellodew u mrm compsci liverpool ac uk martyn r mellodew e mail u mrm compsci liverpool ac uk department of applied mathematics arpa internet u mrm csc liv ac uk and theoretical physics janet u mrm uk ac liv csc the university of liverpool p o box liverpool england l bx dubito ergo deus est
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re if there were no hell in may athos rutgers edu shellgate llo uu psi com writes here s a question that some friends and i were debating last night q if you knew beyond all doubt that hell did not exist and that unbelievers simply remained dead would you remain a christian reasoning pertinent to believing xians deleted for space it strikes me for no apparent reason that this is reversible i e if i had proof that there existed a hell in which i would be eternally punished for not believing in life would that make me a xian pardon my language bloody hell no of course being merely a reversal of your thinking this doesn t add anything new to the debate but several friends disagreed arguing the fear of hell was necessary to motivate people to christianity to me that fatally undercuts the message that god is love a point very well taken imnsho successful terrorism is called revolution and is admired by history unsuccessful terrorism is just lowly cowardly terrorism phil trodwell on alt atheism
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re the bible available in every language was re satanic tounges in article may athos rutgers edu koberg spot colorado edu allen koberg writes about tongues the concept of tongues as used at pentecost seems an outdated concept now with the bible available in nearly every language and missionaries who are out there in all languages why does the church need tongues i guess there are at least some people who are not able to support this claim there are still a lot of languages without the bible or a part of the bible there are still many languages which we are not able to write simply because the written version of the language has not yet been defined i guess this is one of the main goals for wycliffe bible translators to define rules and a grammar for writing the rest of the languages of this world i do not see that any of them will have any reason to become unemployed during the foreseeable future provided they get their neccessary support and still they are one of the largest missionary organizations of the world bjorn s mail e mail bjorn b larsen bjorn b larsen delab sintef no sintef delab n trondheim tel norway fax
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re deuterocanonicals esp sirach ddavis cass ma bull com dave davis writes ii the deuterocanonicals are not in the canon because they are not quoted by the nt authors that is not quite accurate otherwise we would have the book of enoch in the canon as dave noted one can say that the apocrypha are not quoted by christ dave also writes iii the deuterocanonicals are not in the canon because they teach doctrines contrary to the uncontroverted parts of the canon then i answer these is a logically invalid a priori besides we are talking about ot texts which in many parts are superceded by the nt in the xtian view would not this same principle exclude ecclesiastes this principle cannot be consistently applied i have to reject your argument here the spirit speaks with one voice and he does not contradict himself the ultimate test of canonicity is whether the words are inspired by the spirit i e god breathed it is a test which is more guided by faith than by reason or logic the early church decided that the apocrypha did not meet this test even though some books such as the wisdom of ben sirach have their uses for example the lutheran hymn now thank we all our god quotes a passage from this book the deutero canonical books were added much later in the church s history they do not have the same spiritual quality as the rest of scripture i do not believe the church that added these books was guided by the spirit in so doing and that is where this sort of discussion ultimately ends david h wagner a confessional lutheran now thank we all our god with heart and hands and voices who wondrous things hath done in whom his world rejoices who from our mother s arms hath blessed us on our way with countless gifts of love and still is our today nun danket alle gott v martin rinckart compare ben sirach
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re question about virgin mary d andrew kille writes just an observation although the bodily assumption has no basis in the bible carl jung declared it to be one of the most important pronouncements of the church in recent years in that it implied the inclusion of the feminine into the godhead which means he has absolutely no idea about what the assumption is however greatly we extoll mary it is quite obvious that she is in no way god or even part of god or equal to god the assumption of our blessed mother meant that because of her close identification with the redemptive work of christ she was assumed note that she did not ascend body and soul into heaven and is thus one of the few along with elijah enoch moses maybe who are already perfected in heaven obviously the virgin mary is far superior in glorification to any of the previously mentioned personages jung should stick to psychology rather than getting into theology andy byler
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re christianity and repeated lives in article may athos rutgers edu jek cu nih gov writes gerry palo writes there is nothing in christianity that precludes the idea of repeated lives on earth the apostle paul romans points out that god chose jacob rather than esau to be the ancestor of the covenant people and ultimately of the messiah and that he made this choice while the two boys were still in their mother s womb and therefore could not possibly have done anything good or evil to deserve their appointed destinies if we admit the possibility that they had lived previous lives and that in accordance with the asiatic idea of karma their present lives are a reward or punishment for past behaviour this makes nonsense of paul s whole point the existence of repeated earth lives and destiny karma does not mean that everything that happens is predetermined by past deeds there is an oriental view of it that tends in that direction but i did not subscribe to that view god may choose one individual over another as the fit instrument for his plans but that does not preclude that the development of that individual into what he is in this earthly life is not the result of a longer course of development i do not and rudolf steiner did not subscribe to the oriental view of an inexorable mechanistic karma determining everything that befalls one this is a kind of shriveled caricature of a much greater law in the context of which the deed of christ on golgotha and the ultimate salvation and freedom of the human being as a working of christ can be seen as the master theme and indeed a new impulse that was completely free of karma christ incarnated only once in the flesh and in that he had no debt of karma or sin the oriental concepts of reincarnation and karma which are even more trivialized and mechanized in some new age teachings incorrectly assume jesus christ to have been the reincarnation of a master avatar etc their teaching of reincarnation and karma also has no concept the continuing individuality from one life to the next e g buddhism more important they have no concept of the resurrection of the body the ultimate continuity of the whole human being to ultimate resurrection and judgement on the last day there is another biblical passage that also has a bearing it is the tenth chapter of john devoted almost entirely to the man born blind clearly here jesus tells the disciples that it was not his past karma or that of his parents that led to his blindness but rather that a new impulse is to be revealed through him but note that he does not refute the disciples question in fact they ask it as a matter of course the question being stated as if it were self evident that only one of two possibilities existed it was either the sins of the man himself obviously not in this incarnation or the sins of his parents the fact that they even asked about the first possibility at all indicates an awareness of the idea on their part and the form of christ s answer indicates that he did not disagree with it there is also matthew where jesus says straight out about john the baptist if you care to accept it he himself is elias who was to come this also emphasizes that the gospels do not have a positive teaching either way about reincarnation or in fact about what happens to the human being at all between death and the last day even jesus did not push this teaching on people who were not ready to embrace it if you care to accept it so i took care to point out not that the bible teaches reincarnation but that it does not deny it either and that much in both scripture and fundamental christian doctrine becomes understandable if reincarnation is understood in the right way i pointedly used repeated earth lives to distinguish a little from the oriental doctrines usually associated with the word reincarnation the phrase is rudolf steiner s wiederholte erdenleben he noted too that the idea needed to arise as a new insight in the west completely free from eastern tradition it did in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the most important expression of it being lessing s the education of the human race to return to your original point paul s statement about jacob and esau does not contradict the idea of repeated earth lives and karma and both of these principles receive their fulfillment in the incarnation death and resurrection ascension and return of jesus christ in my view regards gerry palo compuserve com
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re the truth of the bible sodium asc slb com asc slb com michael a montgomery writes i believe that the god has preserved the bible perfectly in that it perfectly conveys all of the truth that he intended this he has done oh yea which version of the bible is the perfectly preserved one and why are there so many translations that are not perfectly preserved is god trying to confuse us minor changes in wording or even accidental omission of passages in some manuscripts does not change the truth being conveyed nor would it lead a serious student into doctrinal error note also that god provided many but that is exactly what happend there are so many branches of denominations of christianity and deviations of doctrine portruding from varying translations of biblical texts by serious students that are much too numerous to begin to count if there is a perfect bible then there would be no possible misinterpretation and there would be no need for anyone here to be debating it on the other hand maybe the bible is perfect but no one on this planet is perfect enough to read it correctly but then there would be no point in god giving us something we cannot use correctly in short if you attack the credibility and reliability of the bible you are on weak ground furthermore the only reason that i can see for wanting to do so is to remove the bible as the final authority and instead put that responsibility on men to sift the bible to strain out the nuggets of truth that it contains in other words what they want to believe and ignore the rest the bible is truth it does not just contain truth imho if you trust your salvation on the reliability of a single book you are on weak ground remember in the beginning was the word and the word was with god and the word was god this word existed before the bible was written note word god this word that john is trying to describe cannot be fully described in any written language all languages being imperfect realization comes only from contemplation of the word and is outside the boundaries of language i use the bible as a guide a stepping stone but in no way is it my final authority god alone is the final authority daniel cossack danc procom com compuserve com senior software engineer dupont drive irvine ca procom technology inc
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re homosexuality issues in christianity on may gmt shellgate llo uu psi com larry l overacker said in article apr geneva rutgers edu fsspr acad alaska edu hardcore alaskan writes i hope that anyone who remembers seeing rev troy perry s performance at the march on washington will see for themselves just how inconceivable it is to mix christianity with homosexuality whether or not christianity and homosexuality are compatible is clearly debatable since it is being debated in my opnion it is genuinely destuctive to the cause of christianity to use this sort of ad hominem argument to oppose one s adversaries it only serves to further drive people away from christianity because it projects and confirms the frequently held opinion that christians are unable to think critically and intelligently i agree entirely speaking as an atheist heterosexual for what it s worth this is one of the least attractive parts of some varieties of christianity although i m sure it s possible to argue theologically that we shouldn t make analogies between discrimination on the basis of sex and race and discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation morally the case looks unanswerable for those outside religion the three forms are analogous we shouldn t discriminate on the basis of sex race or sexual orientation i found the moderator s faqs on the subject instructive and recommend everyone to read them there seem to be three different levels of acceptance regard homosexual orientation as a sin or evil whatever regard homosexual behaviour as a sin but accept orientation though presumably orientation is unfortunate and dislike people who indulge as but love the sinner accept homosexuality altogether my experience is that is the most common attitude i imagine and are limited to a few fundamentalist sects i suppose i can go along with except that i have this feeling that a year old living in a community with this attitude on discovering that they were more attracted to members of the same sex would not feel the love of the community but would rather feel the pressure not to exhibit their feelings i m not saying that the community in particular the parents would not love the child but i suspect the child would not feel loved bruce cmsr university of liverpool
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re satanic tounges in article may geneva rutgers edu marka hcx ssd csd harris com mark ashley writes i have a simple test i take several people who can speak only one language e g chinese russian german english then i let the gifted one start speaking in toungues the audience should understand the gifted one clearly in their native language however the gifted one can only hear himself speaking in his own language that would be neat but nowhere in the bible does it say that one who has the gift of tounges can do this if the gift of tounges were the ability to be understood by everyone no matter what languages they know there would be no need for the gift of interpretation and i corinthians would not have had to have been written perhaps i would believe the gifted ones more if they were glorifying god rather than themselves then perhaps we d witness a real miracle that s a pretty harsh assumption to make about a several million christians world wide sure there are some who want glory for themselves who speak in tounges just as there are among those who do not have this gift there were people like this in the corinthian church also that does not mean that there is no true gift or that all who speak in tounges do it for their own glory in the sight of men i would venture to say that a large percentage of those who do speak in tounges do so more often in private prayer than in public link hudson there were apparently those in the early church who claimed that at pentecost the miracle was that the crowd were all given the ability to understand the apostles speaking in greek clh
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re why do people become atheists undoubtedly people adopt atheism for many reasons but i suspect that a biggie is that the god they ve believed in is in j b phillips s words too small if a person s understanding of god is not allowed to grow and develop it will eventually become inadequate the grey haired gentleman on a throne who was a comforting image in childhood becomes a joke a therapist friend of mine sometimes suggests to her clients that they fire god what she means by that is letting go of an inadequate understanding of god to make room for a fuller one but she follows up by encouraging them to hire a new one my guess is that a lot of folks go through the firing process but are not adequately supported in the subsequent re hire billh
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daily verse when he came near the place where the road goes down the mount of olives the whole crowd of disciples began joyfully to praise god in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen luke
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re athiests and hell in article may geneva rutgers edu sun gerry palo uunet uu net gerry palo writes between adam and eve and golgotha the whole process of the fall of man occurred this involved a gradual dimming of consciousness of the spiritual world this was precisely my point from a theological bent those who lived immediately after the flood such as noah ham his son cush and his son nimrod had a much stronger appreciation of divine wrath they also had a stronger understanding of the true god in fact this immediacy was a cause of hardship for some so much so that atlas who is seen with heavens resting on his shoulders but this is not merely the physical heavens that he is lifting it is to put god and the strict spirituality of his law at a distance and thus he became the elevator of the heavens this god made men able to feel as if heaven were afar off and as if either the god of heaven could not see through the dark cloud or did not regard with displeasure the breakers of his laws it is interesting to see that it was that was titled emancipator or deliverer or phoroneus it was nimrod who invaded the patriarchal system and abridged the liberties of mankind yet was worship for having given many benefits he was a deliverer all right but not as we think of christ as a deliverer one delivered from a conscious feeling of god s wrath the other actually performed a delivery from gods wrath and it is up to us to accept it as true the question of what happens to human beings who died before christ is an ever present one with christians i am not ready to consign adam or abraham or even cain to eternal damnation i don t see the problem from the time of adam those who looked forward to the coming anointed one and put their faith in the fact that it was god who was to do the provision were accounted as righteous but up to the crucifixion their sins were only covered not taken away therefore the dispensation of the church views the accountability of sin the same but see it as a completed action rom s makes it clear that it has always been salvation via faith and nothing else it is possible to experience eternity in a passing moment the relationship of eternity to duration is not simply one of indefinitely extended conditions of greenwich mean time i understand what you re trying to convey but i don t think i d lay hold of it because the scriptures do equate the eternality of the second death with the eternality of say the church ruling with christ jn tells us what eternal life is exactly as you are correct that it is much more than non cessation of consciousness it was also a standard belief among many peoples that even the righteous were lost it depends upon your def of lost the elect were lost only in time as outside of time they had been chosen from the foundation of the world existentially we were all born lost but the righteous were in christ and therefore never assuredly lost it would be interesting to share in the results of your studies of ancient people s ideas of life after death maybe this summer i could find time to put together a paper on it i simply have to buy more books for myself and these older books are very expensive either that or countless trips to the oriental museum mankind fell into mist and darkness and at the turning point of time a new light entered into the world the light still grows and we are developing the eyes with which to see by it much new revelation and growth in under standing lies before us our new vision and understanding is still very feeble but it contains something new that will grow in time to embrace that which is old and much more as well couldn t agree with you more our understanding of say eschatology is clearly clearer than that of say isaiah but that is not what i was referring to at this point i should acknowledge openly my debt to the work of rudolf steiner founder of anthroposophy for many insights that have led me to my views on this subject the way you refer to it as doctrine puts a modern intellectual coloring on it i think it was much less abstract and much more real and spiritually concrete a teaching that struck much closer to home than our doctrines or teachings today can be received no i understand it as you have said this was my point i am not so ready to attribute widespread notions in antiquity to simple dispersion from an original source even if they were passed on the question is to what extent did they reflect real perception and experience ah this is it this is the big question however i would say again i think that the best lie is one that has an appreciable amount of truth to it look at satan s twist of god s word when he coerced eve that is a very interesting study the similarity in the midst of great variety of expression of the different people s ideas of the time immediately after death testifies to the presence of an underlying reality yes that is my point but it is a two edged sword for some do not want the underlying reality to be revealed they were not known as mystery religions for no reason there was the public side of them and there was the private side that was so protected that the initiates to an oath of death if they revealed that private side that is why it is so hard to bring their teachings to light the mystery of iniquity that we find in the bible correlates to this i think the primary object of the mysteries was to introduce privately little by little under the seal of secrecy and sanction of oath what it would not have been safe to openly profess was the true religion case in point today might be the masons just a note that they too worshipped osiris in egypt who can be traced to nimrod the husband son on the other hand there is one notion firmly embedded in christianity that originated most definitely in a pagan source the idea that the human being consists essentially of soul only and that the soul is created at birth was consciously adopted from aristotle whose ideas dominated christian thought for fifteen hundred years and still does today no i disagree with you here gerry i know what you re alluding to in that the church primarily the rcc did endorse aristotelian philosophy into their worldview but i would disagree with you that it originated in greece if you are a student of history you will come to see that much of what greece came to expound to the world as their original was just an adulteration of that which they had taken from conquered countries the soul is clearly mentioned and discussed at length in the egyptian religions as was the unity of god and also the trinity of god see if you can find wilkinson s egyptians he really does a number on what the greeks did to what they pilfered from the egyptians he was at once the father of modern thought and at the same time lived during that darkened time when the perception of our eternal spiritual being had grown dim i m not knocking aristotle or plato or any other greek thinker its just that there is nothing new under the sun indeed i should also clarify that i do not deny that eternal irrevocable damnation is a real possibility but the narrow range in which we conceive of the decisive moment i e after the end of a single earthly life is not in my mind sufficient to embrace the reality and i think that is why the early creeds were couched in terms that did not try to spell it out each age has its own focus of theology the early church struggled with the trinitarian formulation the reformation dealt with authority today eschatology has had much study the early creeds do not spell these things out in detail because they weren t the topic of concern there was insufficient wisdom accumulated they didn t have the exegetical tools that we have today also each age seems to have an air of revelation to it one age has a well tended and cultivated garden in which a particular doctrine is given growth it would be natural for the end of times to have the garden appropriate for the growth of eschatology wouldn t it tangents never ending tangents rex
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re monophysites and mike walker hello src readers again the misconception that copts among other oriental orthodox churches believe in monophysitism pops up again we had a discussion about it a while ago in article may geneva rutgers edu db n andrew cmu edu d andrew byler writes the proper term for what mike expresses is monophysitism this was a heresy that was condemned in the council of chalcedon in ad it grew up in reaction to nestorianism which held that the son and jesus are two different people who happened to be united in the same body temporarily monophysitism is held by the copts of egypt and ethipoia and by the jacobites of syria and the armenian orthodox then ofm comments these issues get mighty subtle when you see people saying different things it s often hard to tell whether they really mean seriously different things or whether they are using different terminology i don t think there s any question that there is a problem with nestorius and i would agree that the saying christ had a human form without a real human nature or will is heretical but i d like to be a bit wary about the copts armenians etc recent discussions suggest that their monophysite position may not be as far from orthodoxy as many had thought with my appreciation to the moderator i believe that further elaboration is needed this is an excerpt from an article featured in the first issue of the copt net newsletter under the authority of the eastern roman empire of constantinople as opposed to the western empire of rome the patriarchs and popes of alexandria played leading roles in christian theology they were invited everywhere to speak about the christian faith st cyril pope of alexandria was the head of the ecumenical council which was held in ephesus in the year a d it was said that the bishops of the church of alexandria did nothing but spend all their time in meetings this leading role however did not fare well when politics started to intermingle with church affairs it all started when the emperor marcianus interfered with matters of faith in the church the response of st dioscorus the pope of alexandria who was later exiled to this interference was clear you have nothing to do with the church these political motives became even more apparent in chalcedon in when the coptic church was unfairly accused of following the teachings of eutyches who believed in monophysitism this doctrine maintains that the lord jesus christ has only one nature the divine not two natures the human as well as the divine the coptic church has never believed in monophysitism the way it was portrayed in the council of chalcedon in that council monophysitism meant believing in one nature copts believe that the lord is perfect in his divinity and he is perfect in his humanity but his divinity and his humanity were united in one nature called the nature of the incarnate word which was reiterated by st cyril of alexandria copts thus believe in two natures human and divine that are united in one without mingling without confusion and without alteration from the declaration of faith at the end of the coptic divine liturgy these two natures did not separate for a moment or the twinkling of an eye also from the declaration of faith at the end of the coptic divine liturgy the coptic church was misunderstood in the th century at the council of chalcedon perhaps the council understood the church correctly but they wanted to exile the church to isolate it and to abolish the egyptian independent pope despite all of this the coptic church has remained very strict and steadfast in its faith whether it was a conspiracy from the western churches to exile the coptic church as a punishment for its refusal to be politically influenced or whether pope dioscurus didn t quite go the extra mile to make the point that copts are not monophysite the coptic church has always felt a mandate to reconcile semantic differences between all christian churches this is aptly expressed by the current th successor of st mark pope shenouda iii to the coptic church faith is more important than anything and others must know that semantics and terminology are of little importance to us throughout this century the coptic church has played an important role in the ecumenical movement the coptic church is one of the founders of the world council of churches it has remained a member of that council since a d the coptic church is a member of the all african council of churches aacc and the middle east council of churches mecc the church plays an important role in the christian movement by conducting dialogues aiming at resolving the theological differences with the catholic greek orthodox presbyterian and evangelical churches as a final note the oriental orthodox and eastren orthodox did sign a common statement of christology in which the heresey of monophysitism was condemned so the coptic orthodox church does not believe in monophysitism peace nabil nabil ayoub engine research center dept of mechanical engineering university of wisconsin madison email ayoub erctitan me wisc edu as i mentioned in a brief apology the comment quoted above from me is confused i appear to say that nestorius was monophysite as andrew byler correctly stated it the nestorians and monophysites were actually opposite parties the point i was making which nabil explains in some detail is that some groups that have been considered heretical probably aren t chalcedon was a compromise between two groups the alexandrians and antiochenes it adopted language that was intended to be acceptable to moderates in both camps while ruling out the extremes i agree that there were extremes that were heretical however in the course of the complex politics of the time it appears that some people got rejected who didn t intend heresy but simply used language that was not understood or even was mispresented and some seem not to have jointed in the compromise for reasons other than doctrine there are groups descended from both of the supposedly heretical camps this posting discussed the descendants of the alexandrians there are also a remaining nestorians like some of the current so called monophysites there is reason to believe that the current so called nestorians are not heretical either they sheltered nestorius from what they saw as unfair treatment but claim they did not adopt his heresies and in fact seem to follow more moderate representatives of the antiochene tradition clh
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re question about virgin mary ddavis cass ma bull com dave davis writes much deletion he is trying to explain the immaculate conception and the assumption of mary original sin is the only reason fallen humanity dies adam and eve would not have died had they not fallen if this is true than why in the genesis story is god concerned that adam and eve might also eat from the tree of life and live forever and be like gods eating of the tree of life would not take away the effects of eating of the tree of knowledge is there any reason to assume that they had already eaten of the tree of life and so had already attained to eternal life if so what basis is there for saying that this was taken away from them to me the wages of sin are a spiritual death not necessarily a physical death i can attest to the truth of this interpretation from my own experience i suspect that many others could attest to this as well peace will william taber will taber dg com any opinions expressed data general corp will futon webo dg com are mine alone and may westboro mass change without notice when all your dreams are laid to rest you can get what s second best but it s hard to get enough david wilcox
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public private revelation formerly re question about virgin mary mark ashley s account of private revelation does not as some might think contradict my posting in which i said that the catholic church believes that public revelation on which catholic doctrine is based ended with the death of st john the last apostle in that posting i made sure i used the word public public revelation contains god s truth intended for everyone to believe the revelation contained in the bible is a significant subset of public revelation private revelation is revelation that god gives to an individual he may speak directly to the individual he may send an angel or he may send the virgin mary or some lesser saint the only person who is required to believe a private revelation is the person to whom it is revealed devotional practices may be based on reported private revelations but doctrines can not when an alleged private revelation attracts sufficient attention the church may investigate it if the investigation indicates a likelihood that the alleged private revelation is in fact from god it will be approved that means that it can be preached in the church however it is still true that no one is required to believe that it came from god a catholic is free to deny the authenticity of even the most well attested and strongly approved private revelations such as those at fatima and lourdes i suspect that few if any catholics do reject fatima and lourdes but if any do their rejection of them does not mean they are not orthodox catholics in good standing i do not have at hand a list of the criteria the church uses in evaluating an alleged private revelation it s not something i need every day but i know that one of the primary requirements is that nothing in the alleged private revelation can contradict anything known through public revelation marty helgesen bitnet mnhcc cunyvm internet mnhcc cunyvm cuny edu what if there were no such thing as a hypothetical situation
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re question from an agnostic on may gmt damon math okstate edu hastings damon tod said a christian friend of mine once reasoned that if we were never created then we could not exist therefore we were created and therefore there exists a creator is this statement considered to be a valid proof by many christians and followers of other religions i suppose rest deleted some variant is quite popular this and other arguments are discussed in john leslie mackie s the miracle of theism arguments for and against the existence of god although mackie ultimately sides with against his arguments are i think quite fair to both sides brief discussions can be found in the alt atheism faqs bruce cmsr university of liverpool
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re satanic tounges pwhite empros com peter white relates a story about a person who gives a message in tongues which consists entirely of the words pu ka he was asked to refrain from doing that well brother puka controlled himself for a while but a few weeks later the church had invited a missionary in to speak at the time of the meeting where tongues and interpretation were appropriate who should arise to speak but brother puka and off he went as before all the words were puka the pastor was about to apologize for this embarrassment when the missionary arose to speak saying that he was sorry that he did not have the interpretation but that he could give the translation in a tribe where he had worked they only had one word in the language puka meaning was derived from the inflection and other voice qualities brother puka had given a perfectly inflected and reasonable message nice story but it sets off my urban legend or is it charismatic legend alarms can the linguists on the net identify the language from the description or can they even attest that such a language exists it seems to be odd enough at least by the standards of european languages that if it exists it should be reasonably well known to linguists as an extreme case of something or other or have i just overreacted to your basic shaggy dog story will william taber will taber dg com any opinions expressed data general corp will futon webo dg com are mine alone and may westboro mass change without notice when all your dreams are laid to rest you can get what s second best but it s hard to get enough david wilcox
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re question about virgin mary as the moderator noted i think you mean the assumption catholics believe that the blessed virgin mary went to heaven body and soul at the end of her life this is unusual because the normal course of events is for your body to decay in the grave and stay that way until the resurrection of the dead well it wasn t that way for enoch and elijah both of whom were translated directly into heaven it s beyond my grasp why some object that mary who was far greater than either enoch or elijah should not benefit from the same privelege they recieved she was after all mother of god full of grace and immaculate historically belief in the assumption can be found in the writings of st gregory of tours late th century and in st germain of constantinople and st john of damascus and in st andrew of crete among others and it should be noted that the monophysite chruches of egypt and syria also hold to this belief as part of divine revelation even though they broke away from the unity of the chruch in ad by rejecting the council of chalcedon it might be argued by some protestants that the catholics and orthodox made this belief up but the monophysites put a big hole in that notion as they also hold the belief and they split from the chruch before the belief was first annunciated in writing as far as is known much has been lost from the time of the fathers andy byler
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re seeking christian opinion all sorts subject re seeking christian opinion all sorts from rob steele rsteele adam ll mit edu date may gmt do you mean that your fellow christians tend to find you wacky maybe they re right you might be interested in franky schaeffer s books about what philistines american christians are addicted to mediocrity and more recently sham pearls for real swine one day a few years ago franky schaeffer walked into a greek orthodox church he is now an orthodox christian so is his mother and if his father fransis schaeffer had not passed away he too would have come into the church franky like many americans who have recently found the orthodox church described the experience as finally coming home after a long jouney through a desert you should also read the book becoming orthodox by peter gillquist it describes the long journey of some weary evangelical protestants to the orthodox church come taste and see how good the lord is timothy richardson rich student tc umn edu
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the nicene creed was re major views of the trinity michael bushnell writes the so called creed of athanasius however has always been a western creed and has always had the filioque the orthodox have said that they accept all that it says with the exception of the filioque but it is not in use which is exactly what i pointed out though i was wrong about your use of the creed the catholic encylcopedia in which i read about it said the orthodox do use the creed minus the filioque apparently that has changed the athanasian creed has always had the filioque the nicene constantinopolitan did not of course the orthodox did not delete the filioque from the nicene creed it wasn t there to begin with but they certainly did from the athanasian creed which did have it from the beginning i might point out that the whole problem started over the difference in ways of explaining the generation of the blessed trinity the east emphasizing the idea of the holy spirit proceeding from the father through the son and the west using proceeding from the father and the son in fact some such as tertullian used both formulations see below following therefore the form of these examples i profess that i do call god and his word the father and and his son two for the root and the stem are two things but conjoined the fountain and the river are two kinds but indivisible the sun and the ray are two forms but coherent ones anything which proceeds from another must necessarily be a second to that from which it proceeds but it is not on that account separated from it where there is second however there are two and where ther is third there are three the spirit then is third from god and the son just as the third from the root is the fruit of the stem and third from the fountain is the stream from the river and thrid from the sun is the apex of the ray tertullian against praxeas about ad and i believe that the spirit proceeds not otherwise than from the father through the son tertullian against praxeas about ad and as st thomas showed in his summa theologica part question articles and there is no contradiction between the two methods of generation and in fact the two methods of reckoning the procession emphasize what st augustine among others taught that the holy spirit proceeds from the father and the son but he proceeds from the father in a more preeminent way for whatever the son has he has from the father certainly he has it from the father that the holy spirit proceeds from him for the father alone is not from another for which reason he alone is called unbegotten not indeed in the scriptures but in the practice of theologians and of those who employ such terms as they are able in a matter so great the son however is born of the father and the holy spirit proceeds principally from the father and since the father gives to the son all that he has without any interval of time the holy spirit proceeds jointly from both father and son he would be called son of the father and of the son if which is abhorent to everyone of sound mind they had both begotten him the spirit was not begotten by each however but proceeds from each and both st augustine of hippo the trinity to ad so in a sense all of the formulations are correct to the west at least because the holy spirit proceeds from both father and son but in proceeding from the son the orgin of that procession is the procession from the father so the holy spirit is proceeding from the father through the son but as all that the son has is from the father the holy spirit can be said to proceed from the father without any mention of the son being necessary in any case i am happy to know that i follow in the beliefs of pope st leo i st fulgence of ruspe st cyril of alexandria pope st damsus i st augustine of hippo st epiphanius of salamis st ambrose of milan st hilary of poitiers tertullian and others among the fathers who all have very quotable quotes supporting the catholic position which i enunciated above as for the issue of the adoption of another creed being forbidden i will point out that the holy fathers of ephesus and chalcedon both spoke of the creed of nicea in their statement forbidding anyone to produce write or compose a confession of faith other than the one defined by the fathers of nicea that creed is a different creed than that of constantinople which is commonly called the nicene creed not of course in that they were condemning the adoption of the constantinopolitan creed which is but an enlargement upon the creed of nicea but that they were condemning the impious opinions of nestorious who had adopted a radically different creed from the one used by the church which among other things denied the procession of the holy spirit form the son thus the additions of the constantinopolitan creed were not thought to be in violation of this and as the council chalcedon also affirmed the doctrine of the procession of the holy spirit from the son which nestorius denied they could hardly have been against explaining in a fuller way the creed for they themselves approved of previous additions to it and if the further explanations of the creed made in constantinople were not denigrating of the work done by the holy fathers of nicea or in any way heretical it follows that the council of toledo was fully able to add what was not disputed by the faithful to the creed so as to combat the impieties of the arians in spain because the filioque was not in dispute in the church until many years later under photius and others and that the filioque was not disputed i provide more quotes below since the holy spirit when he is in us effects our being conformed to god and he actually proceeds from the father and son it is abundantly clear that he is of the divine essence in it in essence and proceeding from it st cyril of alexandria the treasury of the holy and consubstantial trinity thesis ad the holy spirit is not of the father only or of the son only but he is the spirit of the father and the son for it is written if anyone loves the world the spirit of the father is not in him and again it is written if anyone however does not have the spirit of christ he is none of his when the father and the son are named in this way the holy spirit is understood of whom the son himself says in the gospel that the holy spirit proceeds from the father and that he shall receive of mine and shall announce it to you pope st damasus i the decree of damasus ad the only begotten holy spirit has neither the name of the son nor the appelation of father but is called holy spirit and is not foreign to the father for the only begotten himself calls him the spirit of the father and says of him the he proceeds from the father and will receive of mine so that he is reckoned as not being foreign to the son but is of their same substance of the same godhead he is spirit divine of god and he is god for he is spirit of god spirit of the father and spirit of the son not by some kind of synthesis like soul and body in us but in the midst of father and son of the father and of the son a third by appelation the father always existed and the son always existed and the spirit breathes from the father and the son and neither is the son created nor is the spirit created st epiphanius of salamis which is on cyprus the man well anchored and ad concerning the holy spirit i ought not to remain silent nor yet is it necessary to speak still on account of those who do not know him it is not possible for me to be silent however it is necessary to speak of him who must be acknowledged who is from the father and the son his sources st hilary of poitiers the trintiy to ad thus as i have pointed out before gaul spain italy africa egypt palastine and the lands of the greeks all of christnedom at that time all have fathers who can be cited to show that they confess the doctrine expressed by the filioque i suggest to those of the orthodox church that they come up with some of the fathers besides st john of damascus who all will admit denied the filioque to support their views it is not enough to bring up the proceeds from the father line of the creed or the gospel of john for that says what we believe also but it does not say the holy spirit does not proceed from the son only that he does proceed from the father andy byler
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re the doctrine of original sin in article may geneva rutgers edu db n andrew cmu edu d andrew byler writes beyt bcg thor cf ac uk writes nothing unclean shall enter heaven rev therefore babies are born in such a state that should they die they are cuf off from god and put in hell oh that must explain matthew in that hour came the disciples unto jesus saying who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven and he called to him a little child and set him in the midst of them and said verily i say unto you except ye turn and become as little children ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven even so it is not the will of your father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish nice thing about the bible you don t have to invent a bunch of convoluted rationalizations to understand it unlike your arguments for original sin face it original sin was thought up long after the bible had been written and has no basis from the scriptures anthony
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re serbian genocide work of god in article apr geneva rutgers edu revdak netcom com d andrew kille writes james sledd jsledd ssdc sas upenn edu wrote are the serbs doing the work of god hmm are you suggesting that god supports genocide perhaps the germans were punishing jews on god s behalf any god who works that way is indescribably evil and unworthy of my worship or faith you might want to re think your attitude about the holocaust after reading deuteronomy chapter tom price tp x cs cmu edu free will what free will plutoniumsurveillanceterroristciaassassinationirancontrawirefraudcryptology
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re why do people become atheists let me tell you my story i grew up catholic up until i was it wasn t an issue for me then i met a born again christian a very sweet person not proseletyzing sp not imposing i tried to get into being as christian as i could as i felt i should but the more i tried the more depressed i got i felt guilty for some of my own personal honest feelings i tried so hard to reconcile this conflict until i was then i taught myself to think rationally i read a lot of books pro and con religion in general and specifically catholicism i came to a crisis point then it finally clicked and now i am a staunch atheist this is a very loose explanation but it s the gist of it now at i feel better about myself better self esteem a generally stronger person i have well defined goals i have a strong and stable sense of morals and values i am not a neo nazi or a corrupt politicain etc i believe in human rights and live and let live among other things i am very anti violent and anti hatred this is to debunk the myth that atheists are depraved religion has no place in my system tough bertrand russell said that we cannot know god doesn t exist we can t prove it so in that sense we can only truly be agnostic but for all practical purposes there is no god thanqs ken engel kene acs bu edu
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christians in the martial arts greetings and salutations i would like to get in touch with people who a consider themselves christians you define it and b are in the martial arts some topics for discussion your particular martial art your view of the relationship between christianity and your art your view of the relationship between your christianity and your art why should a christian participate in ma why shouldn t a christian participate in ma biblical views of ma pro or con for example i heard from one fellow i tried the karate for christ thing and it wasn t for me why or why not as an aside i am involved in no official way with an organization called the christian black belt association and i would also like to distribute info regarding upcoming events to those who are interested no you won t be put on any mailing list nor will your name be sold however if you are intested in an email list let me know i am interested in email replies only as this is cross posted to groups i don t normally read if anyone wants a summary or of course on going discussion then let me know shalom robert switzer ka czu cbnewsh att com bell labs laurel ave b middletown nj usa amateur radio operator ka czu robert switzer
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re good jewish arguments kwfinken pooh harpo uccs edu kevin w finkenbinder wrote scott born phys virginia edu wrote intro deleted jesus wasn t really descended from david as the messiah was supposed to have been joseph was but christians say that joseph wasn t related to jesus truthfully if you look at the geneology of christ in luke and the one in matthew you will notice that they trace different lines back to david i have been told that one traces mary s line back to david and the other traces joseph s line back to david both of them go beyond david in history acording to some of my jewish friends jewishness is passed to a child by the mother and the legal rights of jewishness are passed through the father if it is true that one of these geneologies is mary s then christ s bloodline is from david through his mother this also means that christ had all of the legal rights of a decendant of david as according to at least roman law and possibly mosaic law as well but i am not sure joseph was christ s legal father the argument for luke s genealogy being that of mary is very weak according to luke and when he began his ministry jesus himself was about thirty years of age being supposedly the son of joseph the son of eli aside from the fact that mary is not mentioned there are two possible interpretations either joseph was her father or he was her brother clearly this is not acceptable a third would be that joseph the son of eli was her father and just happened to have the name as the man to whom she was betrothed but that would seem to be grasping at straws the most straightforward interpretation is that luke had no intention of tracing mary s genealogy in which case he would have named her but that he traces her husband s from david s son nathan the matthew descendant list most definitely traces down from david s son solomon to joseph matthew reads and to jacob was born joseph the husband of mary by whom was born jesus who is called christ there are two apparent problems the first is how to reconcile the two paternal genealogies which diverge with the sons of david solomon and nathan the second is why is any genealogy of joseph relavent at all if joseph had nothing to do with it if joseph was not jesus s physical father then the original poster is quite correct that claims for jesus s messianic heritage are not based on truth but only on appearances whatever jesus s divine nature was the second problem is easy in my mind we assume that joseph was not involved in the conception of jesus in any way however a holy spirit capable of working a physical conception in mary is also capable of employing the physical agency of joseph s seed in this work in our materialistic times we interpret viginity and its loss solely in terms of a physical act whereas it is really a matter of purity on a much higher level as well the important thing is that neither mary nor joseph was conscious of any union between them they had not known each other thus the first gospel s dedication of half its opening chapter to the genealogy of joseph is quite relevant to jesus the virgin birth not withstanding to the first question there is an answer that creates to begin with more problems than it resolves it is that the two evangelists are relating the births of two entirely different children of two entirely different sets of parents except for the names of the parents and the child and the birthplace in bethlehem there is no point in common between the two stories matthew and luke converge in their accounts only thirty years later with the baptism of jesus in jordan rudolf steiner offered his explanation of how these accounts begin with two children and then converge with their accounts of the one jesus of nazareth he did not derive his resolution from biblical study or speculation or from other external documents and the discussion of how this could be might bring us beyond the limits of appropriateness for this newsgroup in any case the details are described in steiner s the spiritual guidance of the human being and of humanity the gospel of st luke and the gospel of st matthew whether or not rudolf steiner s methods and explanation are accepted as valid at least this interpretation resolves the apparent contradictions of the two genealogies while leaving the text intact as for the passing of one s jewishness through the mother this was never an issue with jesus no one ever questioned his or mary s jewishness the issue of the genealogies has to do with his paternal line of descent from david the king gerry palo compuserve com
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re atheists and hell imagine the worst depth of despair you ve ever encountered or the worst physical pain you ve ever experienced some people suffer such emotional physical and mental anguish in their lives that their deaths seem to be merciful but at least the pain does end in death what if you lived a hundred such lives at the conclusion of one you were instantly reborn into another what if you lived a million a billion years in this state what if this kept going forever did this happen to jesus i don t think so not from what i heard he lived one day of suffering and died if the wages of sin is the above paragraph then jesus didn t pay for our sins did he i d be surprised to see the moderator let this one through but i seriously want a reasonable explanation for this ken
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re homosexuality issues in christianity in article may geneva rutgers edu loisc microsoft com lois christiansen writes in article apr geneva rutgers edu fsspr acad alaska edu wrote you might visit some congregations of christians who happen to be homosexuals that are spirit filled believers gifts of the spirit should not be seen as an endorsement of ones behavior a lot of people have suffered because of similar beliefs jesus said that people would come to him saying lord lord and proclaiming the miraculous works they had done in his name jesus would tell them that they were workers of iniquity that do not know him and to depart from him that is not to say that this will happen to everyone who commits a homosexual sin if the holy spirit were only given to the morally perfect he would not be given to me or any of us god can forgive any sin if we repent but people should be careful not to think god has given me a gift of the spirit it must be okay to be gay that is dangerous see also hebrews about those who have partaken of the holy spirit and of the powers of the world to come the lord is working in our community the homosexual community that is he s not asking us to change our sexual nature jesus doesn t ask us to change our own nature we cannot lift ourselves out of our own sin but we must submit to his hand as he changes our nature practicing homosexual acts and homosexual lusts violates the morality that god has set forth if you don t believe that and think those of us who do are just ignorant then at least consider us weak in the faith and be celebate for our sake s is practicing homosexuality worth the cost of a soul whether it be the homosexual s or the one considered ignorant link hudson
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re mormon temples mserv mozart cc iup edu mail server writes one thing i don t understand is why being sacred should make the temple rituals secret on of the attributes of being sacred in this case is that they should not be spoken of in a common manner or trampled under feet such as the lords name is today the ceremonies are performed in the temple because the temple has been set aside as being as sacred holy uncommon place we believe that the ceremonies can only be interpreted correctly when they are viewed with the right spirit which in this case is in the temple so from our point of view when they are brought out into the public they are being trampled under feet because of misinterpretations and mocking and it is therefore offensive to us please do not assume that because of my use of the words we and our that i m an official spokesman for the lds church i am merely stating what i believe is the general feeling among us others feel free to disagree steve ward saw bcstec ca boeing com
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re what was the immaculate conception maxwell c muir writes just a quick question if mary was immaculately concieved so she could be a pure vessel does this mean that she was without sin and therefore the perfect meaning sinless female human being is this why she is held so highly in the catholic church despite it s basically patriarchical structure she was immaculately conceived and so never subject to original sin but also never committed a personal sin in her whole life this was possible because of the special degree of grace granted to her by god she is regarded so highly because of her special relationship to god and everything that flows from that relationship the catholic church sees her as the new eve the fathers in the early church use this particular figure a lot eve is the mother of all the living in a genetic sense mary is the mother of all the living in the order of grace as sin came through eve so grace jesus christ came through mary
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re when are two people married in god s e the only reason for the death penalty is revenge if you are going to try to refute a position try to refute the whole position or acknosledge that you are only speaking to small piece of the problem broad sweeping the only reason etc on as tough nut to crack as the death penalty reallly doesn t help much every year the fbi releases crime stats showing an overwhelming amount of crime is committed by repeat offenders people are killed by folks who have killed who knows how many times before how aobut folks who are for the death penalty not for revenge but to cut down on recidivism jim
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re serbian genocide work of god note i am not the original poster i am just answering because i think this is important in article may athos rutgers edu db n andrew cmu edu d andrew byler writes revdak netcom com writes evil result of human sinfulness rather than the will of god in a certain sense yes but in the sense that god allows evil to happen when obviously he being god he could have not had it happen does in a certain sense mean that he wills it to happen god does not condone evil but instead uses it for good as you say however what god desires must be seperated from what actually happens for example god desires that all should be saved timothy however it is quite obvious that nowhere near all are saved was god s will thwarted no because his will cannot be escaped for even when it appears that it is your will doing something it is actually the will of god which by his grace has disposed us to do as he wishes so we come to the age old question why does evil occur to which we must answer that god allows evil to occur though he does not condone it so that his ultimate plan may be brought to sucess personally i suggest reading the parts of the summa theologica of st thomas that deal with the knowledge of god to get a good grasp on this whole idea whoo i m going to have to be very careful with my language here i think god is voluntarily giving up his omniscience in this world so that we can decide on our own where we go free will in this sense god allows evil to occur and in this sense can be held responsible as my chaplain says however his will is of course that all be saved he s not going to save us by himself we have to take a step in his direction before he will save us read that last sentence carefully i m not saying we save ourselves i m saying we have to accept our salvation i do not believe in predestination it would appear from what you say further down that you do stuff deleted i am not saying that anyone deserves punishment more than someone else i am simply pointing out that god could be using the serbians and croatians as instruments of his punishment as he did with the israelites against the cannanites ok i have trouble with that but i guess that s one of those things that can t be resolved by argument i accept your interpretation more deleted the issue is not questioning why god has made the world in the way god so chooses it is whether i am discerning the world in the way god intends it the debate is about whether we should not oppose the serbians in their ethnic cleansing because they might be doing the will of god and i said christians should not be participants in such wars and slaughters that does not mitigate the fact that god allows this evil to continue for he is patient and willing that none should perish so he waits for those whom he has foreknown to turn to him from their evil this is what indicates to me that you may believe in predestination am i correct i do not believe in predestination i believe we all choose whether or not we will accept god s gift of salvation to us again fundamental difference which can t really be resolved yet more deleted i am not saying that the evil befalling the bosnians is justified by their guilt i am saying that it is possible that god is punishing them in this way in no way is this evil justified bu that does not mean that god cannot use evil to further his purposes i am not accusing the bosnians though they may very well be guilty of great sins but that is up to god to judge we are all defendants when the time comes for our judgement by god let us all sincerely hope and pray that we will have jesus christ as our advocate at that judgement yes it is up to god to judge but he will only mete out that punishment at the last judgement as for now evil can be done by human beings that is not god s will and the best we can do is see taht some good comes out of it somehow the thing that most worries me about the it is the will of god argument is that this will convince people that we should not stop the rape and killing when i think that it is most christ like to do just that if jesus stopped the stoning of an adulterous woman perhaps this is not a good parallel but i m going to go with it anyway why should we not stop the murder and violation of people who may or may not be more innocent andy byler vera i am your clock i bind unto myself today vera noyes i am your religion the strong name of the noye midway uchicago edu i own you trinity no disclaimer what lard st patrick s breastplate is there to disclaim
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re when are two people married in god s e in article athos rutgers edu johnson cua edu yusef al tariq writes who s law is it that a wedding has to happen in a church the only reqirement is that you and the bride agreee to marry each other how also can you say christian wedding when the proces of marriage is nt really discussed in the bible why mus t a person get a civil marriage also the only standards i look to are those imposed upon me by god not of society if you want to live with someone you can if you don t want to have a civil marriage don t if you don t want to have a wedding in a church don t if you want to call that a marriage go right ahead i hope that the young people that are around you don t follow your example gary chin staff engineer sun microsystems mt view ca gchin eng sun com if the original message claims that marriage is not discussed in the bible i have to disagree various aspects of marriage are discussed in some of paul s letters ephesians sees marriage as a symbol of god s relationship with the church if it means specifically that the marriage ceremony isn t described then that seems to be true but i think what most people mean by christian marriage is not so much that it takes place in a church as that the parties undertake the various commitments to each other that are associated with marriage in the bible clh
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mormon temples mserv mozart cc iup edu mail server writes one thing i don t understand is why being sacred should make the temple rituals secret the so sacred it s secret explanation is a bit misleading while there is a profound reverence for the temple endowment there is no injunction against discussing the ceremony itself in public but since public discussion is often irreverent most mormons would rather keep silent than have a cherished practice maligned but there are certain elements of the ceremony which participants explicitly covenant not to reveal except in conjunction with the ceremony itself granted the gnostic christians had their secret rituals but these seem to have been taken entirely from pagan pre christian mystery religions there are other interpretations to christian history in this matter one must recall that most of what we know about the gnostics was written by their enemies eusebius claims that jesus imparted secret information to peter james and john after his resurrection and that those apostles transmitted that information to the rest of the twelve eusebius historia ecclesiastica ii irenaeus claims this information was passed on to the priests and bishops against heresies iv but eusebius disagrees he claims the secret ceremonies of the christian church perished with the apostles interestingly enough eusebius refers to the groups which we today call gnostics as promulgators of a false gnosis eusebius op cit iii his gripe was not that thay professed a gnosis but that they had the wrong one writings dealing with jesus post resurrection teachings emphasize secrecy not so much a concealment as a policy of not teaching certain things indiscriminately in one story simon magus opens a dialog with peter on the nature of god peter s response is you seem to me not to know what a father and a god is but i could tell you both whence souls are and when and how they were made but it is not permitted to me now to disclose these things to you clementine recognitions ii if any one theme underlies the recognitions it is the idea that certain doctrines are not to be idly taught but can be had after a certain level of spiritual maturity is reached now one can approach this and other such evidence in many ways i don t intend that everyone interpret christian history as i do but i believe that evidence exists favorably interpreted of course of early christian rites analogous to those practiced by mormons today neither new testament christianity nor biblical judaism made a secret of their practices but if judaism and christianity had such ceremonies would you expect to read about them in public documents one can search the book of mormon and other mormon scripture and find almost no information on temple worship yes you could establish that mormons worship in temples but you would probably be hard pressed to characterize that worship on that basis can we conclude that the bible explains all practices which might have taken place and that absence of such descriptions proves they did not exist mormon scholar dr hugh nibley offers us a list of scriptures from which i have taken a few it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven but to them it is not given matt all men cannot receive this saying save they to whom it is given matt i have yet many things to say unto you but ye cannot bear them now john the time cometh when i shall no more speak unto you in proverbs but i shall shew you plainly of the father john unspeakable words which it is not lawful for a man to utter cor many things i would not write with paper and ink but i come unto you and speak face to face jn nibley since cumorah pp again these can also be interpreted many different ways i believe they serve to show that not all doctrines which could have been taught were actually taught openly i have heard that joseph smith took the entire practice i e both the ritual and the secrecy surrounding the ritual from the freemasons anybody in the know have any authoritative information on whether or not this claim is true historically joseph smith had been adiministering the temple endowment ceremony for nearly a year before joining the freemasons there is diary evidence which supports a claim that the rite did not change after smith became a mason it can be argued that smith had ample exposure to masonic proceedings through the burlesque of his time and through his brother hyrum a mason though no specific connection has yet been established my conversations with masons with respect to temple rite transcriptions which have appeared on the net have led me to believe that the connection from masonry to mormonism is fairly tenuous as our moderator notes most of what was similar was removed in the recent revisions to the temple ceremony i believe that critics who charge that mormon rites were lifted from freemasonry do not have adequate knowledge of the rites in question jay windley university of utah salt lake city jwindley asylum cs utah edu
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re mormon temples mserv mozart cc iup edu mail server writes saw bcstec ca boeing com steve a ward writes dan kuhub cc ukans edu writes dan s question about mormon temple rituals deleted for brevity just thought i would interject this and i believe you dan when you say that you don t mean to offend for us lds temple goers the temple ceremonies are very sacred so much so that anyone who goes there promises never to divulge them so how much can you trust someone who is telling you about the cerermony one thing i don t understand is why being sacred should make the temple rituals secret there are lots of sacred things in christianity including the sacred scriptures themselves but there is nothing secret about these things is it appropriate for the lord not to reveal certain things before the world i e publish them widely these things sacred to himself he may place any pre or post conditions he feels are necessary moreover there are precedents in scripture where knowledge of sacred things is withheld after the transfiguration jesus instructed peter james and john to tell the vision to no man until the son of man be risen again from the dead matt if we were living at the time of savior there would be no public record of this event a faithful friend of paul experiences a vision of paradise when he heard unspeakable words which it is not lawful for a man to utter cor this person heard something which paul can not write to the corinthians and us there is an incident recorded in the book of mormon where words uttered by babes were forbidden that there should not any man write them nephi the entire text follows for those of you without access to the bom nephi behold it came to pass on the morrow that the multitude gathered themselves together and they both saw and heard these children yea even babes did open their mouths and utter marvelous things and the things which they did utter were forbidden that there should not any man write them some lds scholars speculate that these words which could not be written are the sacred portions from temple we are to withhold from the world but it could be something else i can understand why mormons would limit temple access to only faithful mormons but i have never understood the emphasis on shrouding temple ritual in mystery there is much we can discuss about the temple ordinances we can discuss regarding baptisms and other vicarious ordinances for the dead we can discuss certain concepts regarding the endowment the ritual however there are certain elements i can not discuss with anyone including other saints outside of the temple as a portion of the endowment we receive the tokens and signs that will permit us access to heaven i must keep this knowledge sacred and respect the conditions under which it is revealed to me a idler
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re the doctrine of original sin nothing unclean shall enter heaven rev therefore babies are born in such a state that should they die they are cuf off from god and put in hell which is exactly the doctrine of st augustine and st thomas of coures having only original sins on thier souls they suffer the lightest punishment the loss of the vision oand presence of god but that does not change the undeniable fact that they cannot possibly come to a forgivenss of original sin nor can they inherit eternal life that as st augustine said is what the pelagian heretics taught which is why he said later if you want to be a christian do not teach that unbaptized infants can come to a forgivenss of original sin doesn t the bible say that god is a fair god if this is true how can this possibly be fair to the infants
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re question about virgin mary two follow up s to mark s last posting as far as current investigations the church recently declared the crying statue and corresponding messages from mary at akita japan as approved i found this out about a month ago again in the proof department start with the appearances of mary at fatima among other things there were pictures taken of the miracle of the sun that appeared in some major american newspaper the new york times i believe as well as most of the major european newspapers i could talk or post for hours on this topic but i have a thesis to write god bless mike walker p s anyone want info i have more mdw uxa cso uiuc edu
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re portland earthquake archau saturn wwc edu austin c archer writes i am interested in views about the non event of may seriously how can a christian discriminate between messages from god which are to be taken seriously and those which are spurious is there a useful heuristic which would help us avoid embracing messages which by their non fulfillment are proven to be false thus causing the name of christ to be placed in disrepute is this a problem at all i believe that a careful understanding of scripture can help us here it seems to me that anytime we are proven by events to be mistaken it points to a serious failure in understanding god s will it should result in a reevaluation of what we accept as truth i must hasten to add that i was always skeptical even cynical about these prophesies as i tend to be concerning all such but clearly many christians put much stock in them if the church represents christ in the world then christians must avoid being made the laughing stock of the world lest we dishonor him further the more often we cry wolf the less seriously we tend to be taken any comments good point it is very true that these false predictions are dangerous we are warned more than once in scripture about false prophtets however as is often the case with other issues one cannot let those who falsly report such visions as a reason against believing in any of them i did not get the impression you were asserting this by the way i consider my response not so much a response to your posting but a response to the topic as a whole example the appearances of mary at fatima portugal in among other things she predicted the conversion of russia to atheism something that happened less than a year later w the bolshevik revolution she also predicted the second world war that is predicte predicted that it would occur during the papacy of a certain pope who was not the current one it happened just like she said she warned there would be fire in the sky as a warning that the second world war was about to start about a week before germany invaded weathermen and women i suppose all over europe from england to spain to eastern europe reported the most spectacular reddish color in the sky ever recorded to this day some try to explain it off as the northern lights and the relation to mary s prediction simply coincidence you all can decide for yourselves mary predicted that the atheistic russia would spread her evils all over the world and persecute religion she said many other things as well too numerous to list here every single one has been realized one can only use the term coincidence so many times in the same explanation before its use becomes ridiculous so yes there are many false prophets and many false reports there are true ones too we must always remain open to that fatima was one example there is another one currently occuring the apparitions that have been taking place at medjurgorje yugoslavia or whatever its called now mary has been appearing every day for eleven years now it s time the world started listening more info available to any who want it peace in christ our lord mike walker mdw uxa cso uiuc edu
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re the arrogance of christians news cbnewsk att com writes arrogance is arrogance it is not the result of religion it is the result of people knowing or firmly believing in an idea and one s desire to show others of one s rightness i assume that god decided to be judge for our sake as much as his own if we allow him who is kind and merciful be the judge we ll probably be better off than if others judged us or we judged ourselves cor but if we judged ourselves we would not come under judgment when we are judged by the lord we are being discipled so that we will not be condemned with the world cor even though i am not physically present i am with you in spirit and i have already passed judgment on the one who did this just as if i were present cor the spiritual man makes judgments about all things but he himself is not subject to any man s judgement for who has known the mind of the lord that he may instruct him but we have the mind of christ jude enoch the seventh from adam prophesied about these men see the lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy ones to judge everyone and to convict all the ungodly of all the ungodly acts they have done in the ungodly way and of all the harsh words ungodly sinners have spoken against him arrogance is a sin although a desire to show others of one s rightness may be a sign of arrogance in some cases it may be only a sign that they are following the bible in others jude be merciful to those who doubt snatch others from the fire and save them to others show mercy mixed with fear hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh if i find someone arrogant i typically don t have anything to do with them i hope you don t find me arrogant then this sounds like a bad practice ignoring what certain people say because you perceive them as arrogant james my dear brothers take note of this everyone should be quick to listen slow to speak and slow to become angry aaron
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