Obama Missed it by THAT Much
I was reading through my newsletters today when I came across a reference to this article by Cal Thomas. Cal has a pretty good take on Obama's attempt to 'relate' to Christians. If you're going to play the religious card, it really pays to know the doctrine. He may consider himself a Christian, (I have my doubts) but his comments on the topic certainly don't pass the muster when it comes to Catholic or Evangelical understanding of the scriptures. Perhaps in the 20+ years he sat under the teaching of Jeremiah Wright, he's never heard the Gospel message. Perhaps in all that time as a Christian he's never read the Bible which repeatedly states that there is but one way to heaven and Jesus is it but shouldn't he have heard from his political council on what the Christian expects to hear from a Christian candidate? It is a mightily uninformed Christian who thinks there are many paths to God and certainly no Christian who is serious about his faith is going to claim there is any other path to heaven. Surely, he's heard the true message of the Bible at some point in his life. Its an even sadder tale to tell that no member of his campaign advisory team could have told him that Christians believe there is only one path to heaven. Whether or not he thinks himself a Christian, he demonstrates no basic knowledge in the tenets of the faith. More likely is the possibility that he has heard the right message and rejects it because it is politically inexpedient or is not being honest in his attempt to be all inclusive. As he presents his view of religion, it becomes abundantly clear that he is neither a Christian nor willing to accept the Gospel message.
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If you have bothered to read the eyewitness quotes of Jesus' teachings, you would know that is simply in ignorance of what He taught.
To be honest, in most cases I don't really care about a politician's religious leanings. The problem with Obama is that his claims of religious affiliation are simply to appease or flatter a certain base in order to gain power. This is why his religious leanings should be scrutinized: not because of what he believes, but because he does NOT believe what he claims to. I think as a rule, evangelicals can see right through Obama's religious hypocrisy. It is the religious (and political) moderate that has to be informed. The religious (and political) right are not fooled, but the moderate may be.
A double standard means that you declare something to apply universally, to everyone, but here is the list of exceptions to the rule. For example:
All men are created equal. Except blacks.
Drugs are evil and we need stiffer penalties for drug users! Except the President.
Destroy! Destroy the bourgeoisie! Except the ones who run the Party.
On point: "If you have bothered to read the eyewitness quotes of Jesus' teachings, you would know that is simply in ignorance of what He taught."
Does this mean eyewitness quotes of people reading the Bible, or eyewitness quotes of Apostles that were recorded centuries later in the Bible?
[When you identify yourself as:
"ABC’s Jake Tapper began his story on July 10 with Vitter’s party ID: “REPUBLICAN Senator David Vitter is a self-proclaimed defender of family values....”
And then you have a crazy sex scandal, then yes, your party affiliation is relevant because people voted for you based on what your party stands for, and you lied to them. Of course people expect a liberal to have sex, possibly with transvestites or prostitutes or illegal immigrants, because liberals don't have a problem with someone's sex life unless it's very criminal. They aren't elected based on their traditional "family values," but on their progressive, libertine values.
And if even the supposed conservative media outlets are actually left-wing, then it suggests to me that reporting is, in general, a leftist activity, which goes back to the debate I had with that other person.]
It means the apostles which was recorded either by the apostles or by scribes as dictated by the apostles within 60 years of Christ's ascension.
double standard –noun 1.any code or set of principles containing different provisions for one group of people than for another, esp. an unwritten code of sexual behavior permitting men more freedom than women. Compare single standard (def. 1).In this case, the fact that a Republican had a raunchy sex scandal defies the whole family values thing that he campaigned on - his hypocrisy is relevant to the story, and the media is not being biased. Governor whoever, the democrat who had a sex scandal, is not demonstrating a hypocritical stance towards what he was elected for, so his party is not especially relevant.
exactly fitting the codes of conduct for politicians. Conservatives get one set while Liberals get another.
[New American Standard Bible (©1995) John 10:1
"Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbs up some other way, he is a thief and a robber.]
For the Law was given through Moses; grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ.
Acts 10:36
"The word which He sent to the sons of Israel, preaching peace through Jesus Christ
Romans 5:8 (New King James Version)
But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Matthew 26:
The Lord's Supper Instituted 26(AF)While they were eating, Jesus took some bread, and (AG)after a blessing, He broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, "Take, eat; this is My body."
27And when He had taken a cup and given thanks, He gave it to them, saying, "Drink from it, all of you;
28for (AH)this is My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for (AI)many for forgiveness of sins.
Hebrews 9:
8(W)The Holy Spirit is signifying this, (X)that the way into the holy place has not yet been disclosed while the outer tabernacle is still standing,
9which is a symbol for the present time. Accordingly (Y)both gifts and sacrifices are offered which (Z)cannot make the worshiper perfect in conscience,
10since they relate only to (AA)food and (AB)drink and various (AC)washings, (AD)regulations for the body imposed until (AE)a time of reformation.
11But when Christ appeared as a (AF)high priest of the (AG)good things [a]to come, He entered through (AH)the greater and more perfect tabernacle, (AI)not made with hands, that is to say, (AJ)not of this creation;
12and not through (AK)the blood of goats and calves, but (AL)through His own blood, He (AM)entered the holy place (AN)once for all, having obtained (AO)eternal redemption.
Yes. Those are two standards. Liberals hold up a standard for what a liberal politician should and should not stand for, and conservatives do the same. The Conservative standard includes things like "family values" and that means no hookers. The Liberal standard has no specific problem with hookers. It is hypocritical to say you are a conservative and get elected based on "no hookers, play the straight and narrow" only to be caught with a hooker. That is relevant because it proved the guy was full of lies and trickery, and fooled his voters. Liberal politicians tend not to campaign with "family values" and thus do not have this problem, but others.
The whole of John 10 doesn't say anything to me about Christ's sacrifice and belief in that sacrifice being the sole way to enter God's good graces.
1 “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbs up some other way, he is a thief and a robber.
People who do good works but have bad hearts are thieves trying to steal their way into heaven. Pretty consistent with everything else Jesus taught.
2 “But he who enters by the door is a shepherd of the sheep.
Jesus is the shepherd who leads the sheep [his followers] into Heaven through the right way.
7 So Jesus said to them again, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.
Jesus, who also calls himself the Word of God, says that he, the Word of God, is the right way into Heaven.
11 “I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. 12 “He who is a hired hand, and not a shepherd, who is not the owner of the sheep, sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. 13 “He flees because he is a hired hand and is not concerned about the sheep. 14 “I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me, 15 even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep.
This isn't about the sacrifice of the crucifixion, it's pretty clearly Jesus talking about his devotion to the sheep/his flock/his followers. Hired help isn't devoted enough to stay and defend the sheep from evil [wolves] with their lives, but Jesus is devoted enough to defend them.
Before you go on to say that yes, this clearly shows that he knew about his Sacrifice and it's the Sacrifice that saves etc etc, remember that
6 This figure of speech Jesus spoke to them, but they did not understand what those things were which He had been saying to them.
The followers of Jesus DID NOT EVEN UNDERSTAND WHAT HE WAS TALKING ABOUT. Which lends credence to my hypothesis that Bible literalists do not understand the poetic structure of the Bible and the parables of Jesus, but saw
17 “For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again.
as literally death and rising from the grave.
None of this is talking about Jesus the man, literally, but Jesus as the Word of God: they're talking about what he represented on Earth, the clarified teachings of God - "So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets." Luke 6:27-36
If you read about the theories behind The Hero With a Thousand Faces, or Buddhism, or anthropological studies of shamanic practice and meaning [especially Amazonian], you will see that all of this is just symbolism interpreted by the unimaginative as literal truths.
Jesus clarified and preached the Word of God - do unto others... and it is through belief in this universal maxim that one begins to live by it, and so are united in body and mind with the good works and love of Christ. That's a metaphor, not a literal possession by the holy spirit.
That can be interpreted more than one way.
He is the only one Who sacrificed Himself for salvation. No other religious foundation has sacrificed himself for his followers. Again, why did Jesus have to suffer and die if my good works could do the job?
Galations 2:21 I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.
In this letter to the church, the disciple proves he came to understand after Christ's death and resurrection. Remember that the disciples all had a meal with Him after His resurrection. In all their letters after this meeting, they express the absolute necessity of being washed in the blood of Christ for the forgiveness of sins. This 'washing' is a metaphor for accepting the work of Christ on the cross as the propitiation of their sins from themselves to Christ as He suffered in their place. His overcoming death was evidence that we who accept that sacrifice as able to cleanse us from our inequity before Holy God are now acceptable to God by our faith in that work, in the man, and in the promises made so many times in the Old Testament of Him. So, because He is the one who fulfilled the prophecies, because of His teaching, and because of His sacrifice, we have faith in His promise to gather us to Himself in heaven.
Works are something we do because of our love for Him. He first loved us, when we deserved nothing of His love. Now, we are simply expressing love in return for what He has done for us.
John 14:15 “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.
You are taking the verses out of context of the whole message. Jesus taught that His blood is pored out for the forgiveness of many. He taught that we should do what He teaches to glorify God, and as an expression of our love for Him. Never did He teach that works will earn your way into heaven but that works were an evidence of the change made in our lives by the sacrifice of Christ and the will of God at work in our lives. Anybody claiming that any works will get you into heaven, is teaching another Way into heaven and as demonstrated, that is a thief and a robber. Only there is a judgment seat. Anybody found to be a rejector of the sacrifice God provided for justification or righteousness, will be rejected from heaven. None of that has anything to do with being qualified by and accepted for good deeds. Paul describes good deeds as something to be rewarded in heaven, not as access to heaven.
Aslan, being the metaphorical Christ figure in the series, explains to this man that because of the nature of good and evil, truth and lies, you cannot do evil in the name of good, and you can not do good in the name of evil. Thus, anything that is good, is done under the name of Aslan, all that which is evil, done in the name of Tash, regardless of what it may be called by us mere mortals.
Far more inclusive view of heaven, and though I don't subscribe to an afterlife, one I would be more willing to accept.
I would argue that should Christianity be true, it would be possible for someone to find salvation through Jesus without ever knowing anything about him, the cross or his sacrifice. The truth would be present in their own acknowledgement of their shortcomings, and the need for something greater than themselves to "save them" as it were.
"Jesus was comparing Himself to the gate or door and heaven to the sheepfold. Any other way into the sheepfold (heaven) is employed only by thieves."
to
"The very point that He had to be sacrificed was for grace. If you could get into heaven by works, then why did He have to die?"
The simpler [and metaphorically correct] answer is that Jesus regularly calls himself the Word of God - he refers to his corporeal self, his spirit, and his teachings as a unified thing, all three dealing with the same subject; the Word of God. And God has always told his prophets the same things, it's just that none of them got it right or fully LIVED the Word of God until Jesus. The reason he is the way into heaven is because only by being Christly, by believing the Word of God and acting accordingly, can one enter heaven.
Jesus didn't HAVE to die. What he sets out in the parable of the Good Shepherd is that, because he loves his flock of followers so much, he would stand and take any punishment so that they would not suffer it - he would defend them from the wolf of evil with his life, if necessary. IN the end, he DID die, but not for man's sins, but for the safety of his flock. He was made an example of by the Romans, he was made a martyr, and became stronger in death than he ever was in life [metaphorically speaking]. His death was not necessary, but demonstrated his philosophy, the proper way of Love and Empathy and Christliness.
Law constricts the body but not the mind, one can obey the law without carrying the grace of Christly love in their heart. Doing good deeds but not believing in universal brotherhood and love will not get you into heaven. Christ led by example; you must love your brothers enough to give your life that their own may be safe. You must genuinely believe in the Word of God and hold universal empathy in such esteem that you do not even strike your enemy. By believing in the Word, and acting according to the love you feel, you are righteous. A righteous deed by an unrighteous man is not righteous, but a righteous deed by a righteous mind is a Christly one.
What the disciple is saying is that Christ died in the name of righteousness, but if righteousness is defined by the law, by lawmakers and politicians, then Christ's death was wasted, for he followed no law but his love.
Christian love is supposed to be love for one another, for others, for one's enemies; universal forgiveness and understanding and empathy and love. It is not supposed to be love for Christ - I doubt Jesus wanted to set himself up as an idol.
The glorification of God is different from the glorification of Christ: God is the universal spirit that permeates all things, and what drives that spirit, what motivates it and binds it, is love. God is love. We should all glorify Love incarnate, not money, or Christ, or ideology.
I have never claimed that works get you into heaven, and I doubt that Barack Obama means that dishonest works will get one into heaven. There ARE many ways to God, because God is the universal force of love and has given prophets to many, many peoples. God is something that exists inside each and every one of us, whether we call him Yahweh, or Jehovah, or Allah, or Brahma, or Odin, or neurochemistry, or DNA. It is only through UNIVERSAL LOVE and acting upon that love honestly can one enter heaven.
And of course, remember that Jesus taught about God's kingdom come: what could be the purpose of universal love and peace but to bring about a state of Paradise on Earth? Christ's message is completely forgotten by almost all modern people. It is a message that explains how to return to Eden, how to end war and how to end suffering.
I don't believe in Heaven, and I do not take any of the metaphors of the Bible/New Testament literally. Jesus taught, plain and simple, that the best way to live would be if everyone loved each other like family, even if they're being tortured or slaughtered or starved. Because once everyone thinks this way, and once everyone follows the example Christ set, then there will no longer be misunderstanding and conflict and war. Of course, I don't think that's possible even if everyone was a Christ-figure, language is inept at communication.
I think the reason this is hard for you to accept is that it is an alarmingly socialist teaching - treat everyone equally and love everyone equally. Actually, it's more communist (in the sense of band societies and small tribes, i.e. the Bushmen of Africa or Aborigines of Australia) than socialist, as socialism is the perfection of capitalism and capitalism has nothing to do with Jesus.
Jesus' teachings are universally inclusive and empathetic. Which ties into my recent observation, my DISTILLATE OF POLITICKS.
Big L liberals are empathetic. They care about the feelings and wants and needs of minority groups, including gays and Muslims and the homeless and the poor. That is why they support larger government programs and the end of exclusionary Christian traditions in the law, because they want everyone to live the life they want to.
Neoconservatives/tradition-oriented conservatives are not empathetic. They do something that is called, in Post-colonial studies, Othering [I live in a post-colonial country. See if you can guess which!]. Wiki gives a neat summary at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Othering
"
A person's definition of the 'Other' is part of what defines or even constitutes the self (see self (psychology), self (philosophy), and self-concept) and other phenomena and cultural units.
Lawrence Cahoone (1996) explains it thus:
It has been used in social science to understand the processes by which societies and groups exclude 'Others' who they want to subordinate or who do not fit into their society. For example, Edward Said's book Orientalism demonstrates how this was done by western societies—particularly England and France—to 'other' those people in the 'Orient' who they wanted to control. The concept of 'otherness' is also integral to the understanding of identities, as people construct roles for themselves in relation to an 'other' as part of a fluid process of action-reaction that is not necessarily related with subjugation or stigmatization."
Or, in the case of American politics, Traditionalist Conservatives regard gays as 'other' to themself, because their sexuality is alien to conservatives. Conservatives also regard the unemployed and those on welfare as 'other' because they are not hard-working wage slaves like themselves [that is what too many of them believe, that the poor simply do not work hard enough, ignoring the other (laff) causes of poverty]. Then there's Muslims, who worship that 'other' God, even though Allah IS Yahweh. How peculiar their religion is! And their clothes! And their language! And they smell like spices, oh ew!
Disclaimer: Conservative and Liberal, Left and Right are outright retarded labels because they are 100% relativistic. Liberals want greater freedom. Conservatives want to keep what existed in the past. They are in no way opposites, they don't even concern the same issue. Communists are labeled left-wing, yet totalitarians like the Fascists are right-wing. Liberals are labeled left-wing, even though they are the enemy of Stalinist totalitarianism. Conservatives are labeled right-wing even though very few of them believe anything the Nazis did. Then there's the fact that liberals and conservatives believe different things from country to country, because every country has a different level of freedom and a different history to conserve.
I personally consider myself a Tory Conservative in the traditional sense: Society is organic, and it is the duty of the well-off to help the less fortunate. Society functions as an organism that requires universal love between its components to function healthily.
"Galations 2:21 I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain."
I addressed this already. Jesus' death and sacrifice are meaningless within the law, it is only outside of the law, in the realm of love that his sacrifice matters. If only the law determines righteousness, then Christ's laying down of his life lays outside of righteousness. The law, of course, does not dictate right and wrong. You have taken this quote out of context as well.
Galatians 2:15"We who are Jews by birth and not 'Gentile sinners' 16know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified.
You have also left out what follows Romans 5:8
Romans 5:9 Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him! 10For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! 11Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.
As I have said before, Jesus was the Word of God incarnate. He lived according to the Golden Rule and thus was Godly in body and acts, and he held only love and forgiveness in his heart, and thus was Godly in mind and spirit. Christ lived his life the way he did in order to set an example of how to live a Godly, Christly life. Christ died in a way that demonstrated his love for all man, even unbelievers and jerks. This love is the Christly love is the Godly love is God is Love.
Jesus had to use metaphor and he had to use Jewish terminology, because he was teaching universal, transcendent love to people who were effectively law-fearing idol worshippers. They wouldn't have [and didn't] understand what he was talking about because they were all autistic, fearful letter-followers, not artistic, loving spirit-followers.
quoting you now
What this means to me is that Christ is the very expression of God. When God spoke, the very expression of God is Christ. ergo, Christ was present at the creation of everything. Since God is timeless, there is no beginning of God, Christ is eternal with the Father.
The way you are using the line, God is love is all encompassing as though you could spin it around and say, "Love is God." Since God has wrath, that simply cannot be so. Since God has hate, that simply cannot be so. These are emotions, love is not an emotion only. Love is sometimes an action that will lead the emotion. I don't love that nasty murdering so and so in jail, but I am called to visit him in jail and give him the gospel message. Once invested in his life, I can grow to love him. Until then, my love is toward the One who called me to visit him. It is He who loved that sinner before I could. It is His love I am expressing to that con. Emotions have very little to do with Christly behavior. Emotions tend to follow the actions. Not the other way around, at least that's the way the Bible teaches me. If I allow my emotions to guide me then the opposite happens. So your thesis on God and Christ is entirely backward.
The same goes for the law and works. We can never be justified by the law simply because we are fallible and cannot be perfect. Perfection to the law which God gave according to Christ is what is required for holiness. Jesus kept the law perfectly. Whenever He was challenged for breaking the law, He reversed that challenge on the Pharisees and Saducees by asking them, which of them would not pull a sheep out of a bog if it were pinned on the Sabath? He might have broken their traditions, but He never broke the laws given by the prophets. His holiness was what made His sacrifice acceptable to the Father for everyone else's sin. Until then, they each had to sacrifice an animal or bird to cover their sins. The entire plan was laid out before Moses collected the Ten Commandments. Everything in the Old Testament points to the work Christ did on the Cross. The law was given to demonstrate to men that we cannot be good enough to get to heaven. Redemption is in the blood of Christ alone, not in anything we can do or say. Not in anyone else because no one else was sufficient to the task of sacrificial intervention into our sin nature. It is by His blood that I have been reconciled to God.
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You're ignoring the first part of what I said. The difference between doing good acts selfishly and believing in the Word of God/the Law of God/the Spirit of the Law/the Golden Rule, do unto others as thou shalt have done unto you, is that by believing the Word of God, by holding only love in one's heart, one is compelled to do good acts. Good acts alone do not get you into heaven, only good acts that come from Christly, Godly love.
As I have said before, Jesus made of his life an example of what to do. He made himself a living example of the Word of God. Through his example, through the love and forgiveness that he expressed, man can save himself. Jesus' death on the cross is the ultimate expression of his love, and set the greatest example, because the greatest love is to set one's life down for another.
"What this means to me is that Christ is the very expression of God. When God spoke, the very expression of God is Christ. ergo, Christ was present at the creation of everything. Since God is timeless, there is no beginning of God, Christ is eternal with the Father."
That is a literalist interpretation, and ignores the metaphor and symbolism Jesus is the Word of God, because the Word of God is universal Love, and Jesus lived a life of universal Love.
Love isn't just an emotion. It's an attachment and a commitment and a devotion to wanting what is best for someone. If God doesn't act out of love for his people, then why is he worth worshiping at all?
God gave no laws according to Christ. Jesus just summarised the old laws and tried to make people understand the purpose of them [Matthew 5:17].
The holy example he set is what can save all mankind. Before Jesus, nobody had truly lived the Word of God, everybody had misinterpreted it and forgotten the spirit and become literalists and idol worshipers. Jesus' life is valuable because he showed everyone how one can live according to God's Word, according to God's love. And no, he did not set it up as a law, or a commandment, because the law does not justify the act. The loving intent justifies the act.
The failure of anyone to understand Moses or the Torah is what caused Jesus to work to realize God's love on earth, and achieve the prophecies, all of which are consistent with spreading God's love on earth.
The law was not given to demonstrate man's worthlessness. Why would God even bother sending down the law and making it so complex if the purpose of it was to tell man that he was never going to be worthy? The laws are meant to guide one into a good, virtuous, righteous life, and the underlying principle of all of the laws is "do unto others..." Even God cannot dictate someone's attitude to them, he can only give guidance to man and hope they understand. And unfortunately, almost none of them have understood the prophets. Redemption comes through what Jesus taught, transcending the rigid, fear-based law and living a life of universal love. Because after all, that is the one thing God has been trying to tell people since the start, but they still don't get it. Ironically, the hippies got it right for a time and the Christian Right would have none of that!
Question: Is a death row inmate who converts in prison going to go to heaven because he believes that Jesus died and cleansed his sin?
good acts in whatever frame of mind are still works and due to our fallibility our love acts are still imperfect ergo sinful. Acts will never earn your way to heaven.
Of all the questions you will ask yourself in life, probably the most important is, “Am I good enough to go to Heaven?” The way to find this out is to ask yourself if you have obeyed the Ten Commandments (listed below). Most would answer the question, “Well, I’ve broken one or two, but nothing too serious, like murder, etc.”
So, let’s go through them and see how you do:
1 You shall have no other gods before MeIs God first in your life? Do you love God above all else? Many years ago, I purchased a T.V. for our children, but the first evening we had it, I arrived home from work and found that they didn’t even bother to greet me. They were too busy watching television. I turned it off and explained to them that if they ignored me because they preferred to watch T.V. they were setting their love on the gift rather then the giver, a wrong order of affections. In the same way, if we love anything--husband, wife, children or even our own lives--more than we love God, we are setting our affection on the gift rather than the Giver, which is a transgression of the First Commandment. (Matt. 10:37)
In fact, the Bible says that we should so love God that our love for Mom and Dad and brother and sister should seem like hatred compared to the love we have for the God who gave those loved ones to us.
We are also commanded to love our neighbor as much as we love ourselves. Jesus spoke of a Samaritan who found an injured stranger, bathed his wounds, carried him to an inn, gave money for his care and told the inn-keeper that he would pay for his expenses. We call him the good Samaritan, but in reality he wasn’t “good” at all, he merely obeyed the basic command to love his neighbor as himself. That is a picture of how God expects us to love our fellow human beings. We should love them as much as we love ourselves...whether they be friend or foe.Have you loved God with all your heart? Have you loved humanity as much as you love yourself? You be the judge. Will you be innocent or guilty on Judgment Day of breaking that Commandment? I’m not judging you--I’m asking you to judge yourself before the Day of Judgment. The sentence for breaking this Commandment is death.
This means that we shouldn’t make a god to suit ourselves, either with our hands or our mind. I was guilty of this. I made a god to suit myself. My god didn’t mind a “white” lie or a fib here and there--in fact, he didn’t exist. He was a figment of my imagination, an “image” which I shaped to suit myself. Is your God the One revealed in Holy Scripture? If not, then you have made your own god to suit yourself--you have committed the oldest sin in the Book. Scripture warns that no idolater will enter the Kingdom of Heaven. 3 You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain
Have you ever taken God’s name in vain--instead of using a four-letter word to express disgust, you’ve used His name? Hitler’s name wasn’t despised enough to use as a curse word. If you have used His holy name in that manner, you are a blasphemer and will not enter the Kingdom of God. 4 Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy
I ignored this command for 22 years. Even though God gave me the gift of life, never once did I ask what He required of me. I was guilty of breaking this Commandment. 5 Honor your father and your mother
Jesus warned that if we get angry without cause we are in danger of judgment. If we hate our brother, God calls us a murderer. We can violate God’s Law by attitude and intent.
7 You shall not commit adultery
Who of us can say we are not guilty of breaking these Commandments? All of us have sinned, and just as with civil law, you don’t have to break ten laws to be a lawbreaker, so the Bible warns, “For whoever shall keep the whole Law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all.” (James 2:10)
A little girl was once watching a sheep eat grass and thought how white it looked against the green background. But when it began to snow she thought, “That sheep now looks dirty against the white snow!” It was the same sheep, but with a different background.
When we compare ourselves to man’s standard we look pretty clean, but when we compare ourselves to the pure snow-white righteousness of God’s standard-His Law, we can see ourselves in truth, that we are unclean in His sight. That Law is the holy standard by which humanity will be judged on Judgment Day.
This may sound strange, but the worst thing you could do at this point of time is to try and clean up your lifestyle--you realize that you have sinned, so from now on you will keep the Ten Commandments, do good deeds, say the right things and think only pure thoughts. But should a judge let a murderer go because he says he will now live a good life? No, he’s in debt to justice and therefore must be punished.
The Law of God is merely like a mirror--all a mirror does is show you the truth. If you see egg on your face, you don’t try and wash yourself with the mirror, its purpose should be to send you to water for cleansing. Neither should you try and wash yourself with the mirror of God’s Law...that’s not its purpose.
The sight in the mirror is not a pretty one, but if you don’t face it and acknowledge that you are unclean, then all that “dirt” will be presented on Judgment Day as evidence of your guilt, and then it will be too late to be cleansed.
Perhaps you think that God is good and will therefore overlook your sins. But if you were guilty of terrible crimes in a civil court and said to the judge, “Judge, I am guilty, but I believe that you are a good man and will therefore overlook my crimes,” the judge would probably respond by saying, “You are right about one thing; I am a good man, and it’s because of my goodness that I am going to see that justice is done, that you are punished for your crimes.”
The very thing that many are hoping will save them on Judgment Day, God’s “goodness,” will be the very thing that will condemn them. If God is good, He should punish murderers. liars, thieves, etc., and Hell will be their dreadful fate.
What a terrible place Hell must be. If you read in the newspaper that a man received a $5 fine for a crime, you could conclude that his crime was insignificant. But if a man received multiple life sentences, you could conclude that his crime was heinous. In the same way, we can catch a glimpse of how terrible sin must be in the sight of God by looking to the punishment given for it--eternal punishment.
Ungrateful humanity never bothers to thank God for His wonderful blessings of color, light, food, joy, beauty, love, and laughter, so He will take those blessings away from them. Instead of proving their gratitude by obedience to His will, they use His name to curse. Their punishment will be just, but severe to the uttermost.Take the time to read what Jesus said Hell was like in Mark 9:43-48. [And read the Christian Answers articles on this subject.]
I am afraid for you... please, look honestly into the mirror of the Law, then seek the “water” that cleanses every sin. If you don’t believe what I am saying about the reality of Hell, it means you think God is corrupt (that He hasn’t the moral backbone to seek justice), that Jesus was a liar, that the Apostles were false witnesses, that God’s promises are nothing but prefabricated lies, and there is no greater insult to God than to call Him a liar.
By doing so, you are adding to your transgressions.
Imagine if you reject the Savior, die in your sins and find that what I have told is the Gospel truth? Then it will be too late, you will be judged for your sins. If that happens, and your eyes meet my eyes on the Day of Judgment, I’m free from your blood. I have told you the truth, but if you choose to ignore it, your blood will be upon your own head... you will have no one to blame, but yourself.
Can you see your predicament? You are guilty of sinning against God Himself, and, because you have a conscience, you have sinned “with knowledge.” Isn’t it true that every time you lied, stole, lusted, etc., you did it with knowledge that it was wrong?
Does the fact that you have sinned against God scare you? It should. You have actually angered Him by your sin. The Bible says His wrath abides on you, that you are an “enemy of God in your mind through wicked works.” But let fear work for your good, in the same way that a fear of jumping out of a plane at a great height would make you put on a parachute. Let your will to live open your heart to the Gospel of salvation.
I am not the only one who doesn’t want you to end up in Hell. The people behind this Web site cared enough to post this information and risk your rejection and ridicule, and God Himself is not willing that you perish.
To make clear what an incredible thing He has done for you in the Gospel, let’s look again to civil law:
Imagine that you are standing in front of a judge, guilty of very serious crimes. All the evidence has been presented and there is no doubt about your guilt. The fine for your crime is $250,000 or imprisonment, but you haven’t two pennies to rub together. The judge is about to pass sentence...he lifts his gavel, when someone you don’t even know steps in and pays the fine for you. The moment you accept that payment, you are free to go. Justice has been served, the law has been satisfied, and what’s more, the stranger who paid your fine showed how much he cares for you. His payment was evidence of his love.That’s what God did for you, in the person of Jesus Christ. You are guilty. He paid the fine 2,000 years ago. It is that simple. The Bible puts it this way: “he was bruised for our iniquities...Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the Law being made a curse for us...God commended His love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” (Isaiah 53:5, Galatians 3:13, Romans 5:8)
It was no small thing for Jesus to die for us. The only thing that would satisfy the demands of Eternal Law was the suffering death of the sinless Son of God. What love God must have for you! He suffered unspeakable agony, so that you wouldn’t have to be punished for your sins. His sacrificial death and resurrection mean that you need no longer be in debt to the Law, and God can now grant you everlasting life if you obey Him -- death no longer has a legal hold upon those who belong to Jesus Christ.
Two men were offered a parachute while seated in a plane. The first man was told it would improve his flight, but the second man was informed he had to make a 25,000 foot jump. When the flight struck severe turbulence, the first man took his parachute off, because as far as he was concerned it didn’t improve the flight. But, during the same violent turbulence, the second man clung tighter to his parachute. Each man’s motive for putting the parachute on determined whether or not they would keep it on.
In the same way, the reason you should “put on the Lord Jesus Christ” shouldn’t be to find peace, joy, true happiness, to have your marriage healed or your problems fixed, etc. (to have your flight improved). It should be to escape the jump to come—because of the fact that you have to pass through the door of death. Then, when the flight gets bumpy (when problems come) you won’t fall away from the faith.
What should you then do? Simply repent and put your trust in Jesus Christ as your Savior and Lord. Don’t put it off until tomorrow.
Would you sell one of your eyes for a million dollars? How about both for $20 million? No one in his right mind would. Your eyes are priceless to you, yet they are merely the windows of your soul. Your life (your soul) is of such value, Jesus said that you should despise the value of your eye compared to it. He said that if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you, for it is better to enter Heaven blind than to go to Hell seeing (Matt. 18:9). In other words, of all the things you should prioritize in your life, it’s not your health, your vocation, etc., it’s your eternal salvation.
Think of a man who has committed adultery. His faithful wife is more than willing to take him back, so what is the attitude in which he should approach her? It should be one of tremendous humility, asking for forgiveness, and determining in his heart never to even think of committing adultery again.
That’s how you should approach God (see King David’s prayer in Psalm 51). Put your faith in Jesus Christ in the same way you would put your faith in a parachute. You don’t just “believe” it will benefit you, you actually trust yourself to it by putting it on.
Confess to God that you have broken His Law and sinned against Him. Ask Him to forgive your sins. Thank Him for Jesus Christ’s death on the cross in your place, paying for your sins. Believe that He rose again and conquered death for all mankind. Accept His gracious gift of eternal life, a gift that you could never earn. Place your trust in Him as your Savior and Lord.
Then, once you have made peace with God, read the Bible daily and obey what you read.
If God accepts Hitlers and Huns and Stalins into heaven because they repent on their deathbeds or in their bunkers, then I want no part of this Heaven. Lucifer is more fun anyway.
Imperfection does not equate to sin. What good is your love for one another if your expression of it is a sin?
Man is not saved through Christ because he worships Christ as an idol. Man is saved through LIVING UP TO THE EXAMPLE CHRIST SET. He was the ultimate Good Samaritan.
I never ask myself whether or not I will get into Heaven. I don't really care. I want to make the world a better place, and that is the main question in my mind: am I leaving the world better than when I found it?
God does not want you to worship him because he's a selfish idol. God wants you to worship him because he is Love. He wants you to worship Love incarnate, and value it above all else. Worshiping the figure of God is idolatry.
My God is Man.
Here you are, agreeing with me that God's Law is about intent, not action. If you do good works out of the love in your heart, that act is good because it is done with the intent to help. It doesn't matter if the act is "imperfect" [how can an act be perfect or imperfect anyway] or not because it is the intent that matters.
I gleefully fornicate, steal and lie. It adds colour and flavour to life.
Don't take the condescending Christian route with me, because it just proves to me that you have no philosophical basis for this and are incapable of engaging me as a reasoning adult.
The Gospel message is universal love. I do not understand how any Christian can miss this. What with Jesus saying it constantly. All the time. Have you even read the Gospels, or do you just memorise what passages support your ideology? You also evidently know nothing about Buddhism.
You are so big on parables since they give you an opportunity to read what you want into them, try this one.
The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard
Selah » Parables
For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire men to work in his vineyard. He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard. About the third hour he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. He told them, "You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right." So they went. He went out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour and did the same thing. About the eleventh hour he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, "Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?" "Because no one has hired us," they answered. "He said to them, "You also go and work in my vineyard."
When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, "Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first." The workers who were hired about the eleventh hour came and each received a denarius. So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. "These men who were hired last worked only one hour," they said, "and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day." But he answered one of them, "Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn't you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don't I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?" So the last will be first, and the first will be last. (Matt. 20:1-16)
Here is God, doing a good thing, forgiving accepting and healing a sick individual and you choose to sit in judgment of God and condemn His actions.
Remember the sheep story where the little girl saw the sheep in the green pasture and thought it was so white, then saw it against the snowy background and thought it so dirty? So, our judgment of good is compared to our own behavior as a background and God's judgment of good is compared to His own behavior. We strive to be holy even as He is holy, but our efforts are like filthy rags compared to His. Millions of people have died through someone's good intentions. We even have a saying that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Even so, men can look at the changes that occur in a Christian's life before and after accepting God's sacrifice and submitting our wills to His, and recognize something supernatural has occurred.
I've already demonstrated through scripture that Christ said otherwise. I can show you scriptures where He received worship from both men and angels and did not correct them. I can show you other scriptures where angels would not accept worship. He is the fullness of the expression of God, everything which was made, was made through Him. Jesus is God.While that is a worthwhile endeavor, it will not earn your way into relationship with God. If you don't care to go to heaven, then you either reject the promise and provision of God or you reject God (essentially the same thing) but you should know how heaven and hell are described and most importantly you should know that God has made a promise to all people, that we will have immortal bodies when we go to face the judgment seat. An immortal body cannot die, but it can feel the deprivation of air, water, food, light, etc., Being outside God's provision means never again having any of the good things He has provided us thus far, much less having anything He has promised to bring forth.
An idol in the Biblical sense is an image carved from a dead thing like wood or stone. When you have a relationship with your Maker, it is not worship of an idol. The vernacular has changed over the past 60 years or so. Today, an idol is someone famous, or someone you admire. I've heard men call their dad their idol. Its not the same use or meaning. Refer back to the 1st and 2nd commandments.
I've already dealt with this. I'm not recovering my tracks. Circular arguments are not appreciated.
Please respond to my deathbed repentance comment.
That parable demonstrates that, in the Kingdom of Heaven, everyone is promised an equal reward for an unequal amount of labour. It's communism. How ironic!
What is sin? If it isn't breaking God's law, then what is it? You imply that the mere act of existing makes everyone a sinner, because nobody's existence is as perfect as God's, and nobody's good deed is as good as a supreme power, and nobody's love is as big as God's. Apparently, being smaller than something else makes you sinful. And if Man is sinful by nature, if nothing, not even the good will and good acts of Man are virtuous, then that means that the essence of Man is sin. Man is nothing except sin, and God created a race of sin. That's not right. It's completely unfair to compare the good of one person to a being whose main attribute is "I am better than you at everything" and then say that the lesser being is evil because they aren't the supreme good.
You can't preach to me about this. My main concern is not selfish obsession over my own fate, but with making life better for everyone around me, and improving the state of the world that all creatures live in. Ironically, without being raised with religion, my goal is the same as what Christ taught - God's Kingdom Come, Heaven and Peace on Earth, universal brotherhood; and you are telling me that I should abandon all that in favour of self-interest and idleness and idol worship.
I am using a modern, non-Biblical definition of idol. An idol is a representation of something that is worshiped as though it were that thing. Idols don't have to be material, they don't have to be carved or drawn or etched. The mental images of God and Christ and the Trinity are just as much idols as the Golden Calf, because they worship a representation of the truth instead of the truth itself. A cat is represented by the word cat, but the word cat is not a real cat. Love is represented by the concept of Yahweh, but Yahweh is not love. Love/God are represented by the life of Christ, but Christ is not Love/God. If you worship the image and not the thing it represents, you are worshiping an idol.
I never said that Man can 'heal' the Earth. Man can heal himself and his society through universal empathy.
Isn't it much more than a little hypocritical for an evangelical zealot to cite George Carlin in a theological argument? Especially after he said things like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeSSwKffj9o
or this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrXvDXVhqfU&feature=related
or this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyWEBbFwU1o&feature=related
How did I use circular logic? Usually it's the Bible literalists who are accused of circular logic. How do you know Jesus saves? This book says so. How do you know this book is true? It's the word of God. How do you know that? It says so right here, in this book.
I don't want to submit to God because there's no reason to. Why be an ascetic when I can enjoy life and still live the way Jesus instructed? There's no reason for me to abridge my personal pleasures if they harm nobody and take away nothing from anybody. No, "God said so" is not a good reason, because I am an atheist. And please, don't condescend to me about this, because it will make it even less likely that you can engage me in debate.
"Specifically what is this responding to?"
"Well I know it's hard, but being Christian is so much more rewarding than anything else~!" [look at how great I am compared to you]
I never said anything about salvation. I in fact, repeatedly deny your concept of salvation. What you just said at the end is exactly what I've been saying - good works are not done for themselves, truly good works come from good will [love]. Good works are the way that loving, empathetic people demonstrate that love.
As I've demonstrated before, salvation is the payment. Reward is for how we did under His guidance. Think of it like this. If Jesus is making our clothes up there, we are sending Him the materials to use. The more our works please God the more He has to reward us with. But the ticket to get in was bought with Jesus' blood. Its a matter of honor and glory, not access. Access was what Jesus gave us.
Great question. The concept of sin is very difficult to interpret into the English language. The word sin in old English is a term used in archery. It means to miss the target. Yes, the Bible says "in sin my mother conceived me" literally we were born into sin. We are corrupt. Even if we had perfect parents who could give us all the information to avoid sin, we would still sin. The target that is missed is perfect faith. The Bible says that sin is "Whatever is not from faith in the Holy God." Not the god we want to believe in, but the only God there is. The same God who provided the law and the prophets.
God created Adam and Eve perfect and without sin. Adam and Eve chose sin. Christ is called the second Adam in that He was born sinless.
Its completely fair for the creation to worship the One who created them. He is holy, but He is also much more than we will ever be, even if we are sinless.
Are you denying that you are an environmentalist? Save aluminum can? Save the whale?
Well if that's why you got bent out of shape, I can't help that. I have had the experience of pleasing myself in whatever came to my imagination. I could create a pretty good time, but as soon as the 'whatever is was' ended, I'd have to invent something else or try to repeat the experience. Now I have a new understanding of what is good. I have an emotional reward that lasts beyond the experience. I was trying to relate to you that there are greater rewards than a good time.
I certainly do not think I should be worshiping any God who would accept Hitler or Stalin or Mao as readily as anyone else.
"the Bible says that sin is "Whatever is not from faith in the Holy God.""
And faith in the holy God is supposed to be universal love. Anything that is not from that love is a sin, which is very consistent with everything in the Old and New Testaments.
"God created Adam and Eve perfect and without sin."
They must not have been that perfect, or they would never have sinned in the first place.
"Its completely fair for the creation to worship the One who created them. He is holy, but He is also much more than we will ever be, even if we are sinless."
That doesn't even address my issue. I have a problem with how you define sin in such a way as no human can ever, possibly be without sin because even if they are perfect, God is bigger than them, and therefore perfect humans are still sinful.
"Whatever your goal may be, if you are not aligned with the One who designed and built the heavens and the earth and all that are in them, then you are working against Him. By denying that Christ is the provision God made for the earth to be redeemed, renewed, you are literally working against God. You want to take the good works parts and kick to the curb the submission parts. You can't have it both ways. Either you believe Him or you don't. He spoke of good works and bringing peace on earth after all the prophecies were fulfilled."
This kind of binary, exclusive thought is the antithesis of what Jesus taught. Inclusive is replaced with isolation, support with opposition, advice with threats. If my goal is the same as Christ's, and if my intentions and actions are the same as his, then I am following in his example, and I am living a Christly life. Why was Jesus so holy if not for his love and his loving conduct? If you answer that it's because he was the son of God, then you have to explain to me why it was even necessary for Jesus to do good and teach good in the irst place, if his purpose on Earth was to tell people to believe he existed to purge their sins in sacrifice. In fact, why did God need to bother with that at all? It doesn't even make any sense, why go through alllll that trouble just to say "If you believe in me, you are saved"?
If you're looking or submission to God, you might want to talk to a Muslim.
"you are mixing applications. If you're going to take a term out of an ancient text, you need to apply as it was applied in the text."
I am using a fuller definition and understanding of the term to describe the modern, widespread worship of false images of God and Jesus. Just because they have the same name as the real Jesus and the real God doesn't mean they aren't a false idol.
"Are you denying that you are an environmentalist?"
I never said I was. Why are you accusing me of being an environmentalist as though I've just committed some major hypocrisy? Man is ineffective and stupid when it comes to almost everything, Nature is best left to repair itself while Man stops aggravating the problem.
"Man can't cure the common cold or fix an addled mind, how in the world is he going to heal himself with warm fuzzy emotions? We will never have 100% empathy for one another until the perfect God comes in and changes us into incorruptible beings."
I don't think you understand human suffering at all. The universal love of one person for another is what motivates the good works of medical research and treatment. And western psychology is so inept and useless at healing precisely BECAUSE it is cold and sterile and lacks empathy and human connection. Treating sadness as a disease to be cured, treating eccentricity as a disease that needs to be medicated, and treating the patient like a specimen can never cute anyone of anything. Jesus already came and went, and he showed everyone how to live a better, more caring, more connected life. It's too bad nobody listened.
None of my allegations are that Jesus is a "nut" or a "fraud". I am saying that he spoke in metaphor, which stupid people around him misinterpreted. That's the option I take. Jesus was a brilliant theologian and philosopher and poet who finally divined the purpose of the Jewish texts and taught his discoveries to the uneducated peasants and scoundrels and bourgeoisie, but since none of them were are learned or as wise or as clever as him, they didn't know that he was speaking in metaphor. Their uneducated position, relative to him, meant that he had to use examples they could understand, from their bumpkin lives and unsophisticated religious life. Unfortunately, they took them as literal truths, because they were not poets or philosophers or artists or critical thinkers.
The Bible can't contain "scientific facts," the scientific method was formulated millennia later. It can contain statement later verified by science, but it is not a science textbook because it has no proofs or reproducible experiments.
The condescending attitude is still not appreciated. I don't live my life going from one fix to another, only looking for "a good time." I live a life that is mentally, physically, emotionally, philosophically, spiritually, culturally and sexually gratifying. Don't trivialize my life just because your experience was different.
This is another key to the message. If you don't understand the original concept of faith, then you don't understand the message. Love is a result of faith, not the other way around. When we speak of faithlessness in marriage, what do you take that to mean? That somebody messed around on their spouse. Exactly, the same thing here, but that is only half of it. The other half is trusting in what God promised, believing His will is for our welfare. So your assertion of the Biblical message is based on your own will and not that of God. That's why He gave us the instruction in the Bible and that's why the Bible's stories are so self deprecating. The authors spoke the unvarnished truth so we, the readers can rightly compare our own behavior to what is condemned and what is lauded. You don't get that in other religious books. Either the authors are self aggrandizing or the witnesses never met the founder of that faith.
It is not about size, it is about authority, it is about the capability to be free from corruption. Man cannot be free of corruption in mind or behavior. He can be very good, but even St. Theresa, formerly Mother Theresa confessed sin. Who on earth compares to a life devoted to sinlessness as was Mother Theresa? If the saints confess sin, what can the rest of us do?
We are not exclusive with the faith. We are told to bring the message to the entire world. This means we should not exclude any from the hope that we have in this faith as Jonah meant to do with the Ninevites. This in no way supports your thought that Jesus wanted Christians to accept any other message of access to God.
1 Timothy 1:3 As I urged you upon my departure for Macedonia, remain on at Ephesus so that you may instruct certain men not to teach strange doctrines,
By your own admission, you are not living a Christly life. You try to redefine a Christly life to fit your will rather than submit to the standard He set in submission to the will of the Father. That submission was an expression of His love for the Father. Redefining Christly life is the very definition of Biblical idolatry.
That's awfully bold of you considering how unfamiliar you are with scriptures. Don't you think, given my rebuttals that you should take another gander and start comparing my references to your position? I suppose you won't, your quite comfortable with the idol you've shaped from the concept of a christ. I only say this because you've clarified that you believe in a different Christ. By the way, if all religions lead to God, can you find the same concept in those religions and make them fit your mold so eloquently? If you do, I'd like to see you trying to debate this with a Wahabi.
Actually, the scientific method was suggested by the scriptures. Science simply wasn't equipped with the tools necessary to verify the "facts" the Bible describes until millenia later. You can't see the forest for the trees. The point is the proof is the Bible, not just in the Bible.
If relating an experience I know to be completely off the grid is your definition of condescension, then how can I explain to you something of which you cannot know? I do not assume you are lower than I, in fact I highly doubt you have acted worse than I have in life by either God's or men's standards of judgment. But for His grace, there go I. In that grace and in relationship with the living God, I have something to relate to you if you will hear it.
Yes, they provide sources, so it is not an editorialization!
If I experience the divine directly, through a true communion a la the peyote communion of the Native American Church, then faith is obsolete. I do not need to believe in something, because I know it is there. Can I not love because I have no need for faith? And what of the faithless people who still manage to love others?
"It is not about size, it is about authority, it is about the capability to be free from corruption. Man cannot be free of corruption in mind or behavior. He can be very good, but even St. Theresa, formerly Mother Theresa confessed sin. Who on earth compares to a life devoted to sinlessness as was Mother Theresa? If the saints confess sin, what can the rest of us do?"
You just said that
"He is holy, but He is also much more than we will ever be, even if we are sinless."
EVEN IF WE ARE SINLESS, God is superior to us because he is bigger than us. You also said that "the little girl saw the sheep in the green pasture and thought it was so white, then saw it against the snowy background and thought it so dirty? We strive to be holy even as He is holy, but our efforts are like filthy rags compared to His," stating that God's immense and infinite goodness dwarfs our own, and because ours cannot compare to God's, our love is dirty i.e. imperfect and according to you, imperfection is sin ["due to our fallibility our love acts are still imperfect ergo sinful."]
There are no messages of God. There are just many messengers saying the same things around the world.
I said IF I were living according to Christ's example, which I know I am not, then I would be living a Christly life.
Muslim literally means "one who submits to God," so I thought you'd feel some kinship with fellow God-slaves.
I'm not as far to the "left" as you assume. I am a conservationist, but I'm not a card-carrying member of the Green Party or anything.
Once again.
I never said that Jesus taught that the way into Heaven was good works.
I said that he taught universal love, and from that love, good works naturally follow.
Good works are the RESULT of Jesus' teachings, but they are not the CONTENT.
I don't know or care what a Wahabi is. I know that every major religion shares the Golden Rule, though, many listed here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethic_of_reciprocity
I don't need to bend any religion, much less the most famous Golden Rule religion, in order to match the Golden Rule.
So the Bible follows this then, hm? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method#Introduction_to_scientific_method
"
1. Use your experience: Consider the problem and try to make sense of it. Look for previous explanations. If this is a new problem to you, then move to step 2.2. Form a conjecture: When nothing else is yet known, try to state an explanation, to someone else, or to your notebook.3. Deduce a prediction from that explanation: If you assume 2 is true, what consequences follow?4. Test : Look for the opposite of each consequence in order to disprove 2. It is a logical error to seek 3 directly as proof of 2. This error is called affirming the consequent."
Ok, that last bit isn't so condescending anymore.
"Hitler often praised Christian heritage, German Christian culture, and professed a belief in Jesus Christ.[89] In his speeches and publications Hitler even spoke of Christianity as a central motivation for his antisemitism, stating that "As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice"."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_Christianity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler%27s_religious_beliefs#Religious_neutrality
Hitler wasn't an atheist; as a dictator he was jealous of the Church's power.
Hitler did not believe in a "remote, rationalist divinity" but in an "active deity,"[50] which he frequently referred to as "Creator" or "Providence". In Hitler's belief God created a world in which different races fought each other for survival as depicted by Arthur de Gobineau. The "Aryan race," supposedly the bearer of civilization, is allocated a special place:
Isn't it much more than a little hypocritical for an evangelical zealot to cite George Carlin in a theological argument? Especially after he said things like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeSSwKffj9o
or this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrXvDXVhqfU&feature=related
or this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyWEBbFwU1o&feature=related
If George Carlin's philosophies can be used to support arguments in this debate, then I win by default.
I also keep in mind that the Gospels are, at the very best, second-hand re-tellings of Jesus' life, and at worst were passed down orally for a generation or two or even invented outright [there are so many invented apocrypha, and you can never be sure about anything really].
As for Old Testament stories about God being a cranky hothead, I believe that, like every other religion, many of the stories of Judaism use the divine to explain natural disasters and catastrophes and rationalise the cause of them [we were bad, we didn't worship enough, Deucalion crashed Apollo's chariot into the sea etc etc].
Second, I don't know how you simply saying "circular argument" dismisses its validity. My problem is that your answer to my charge is not sufficient. My problem is still valid, because your answer was not good enough to solve it. So, I respond to your insufficient answer and it inevitably brings me back to my original charge, which has not seen an adequate response.
Third, I'm not even debating with you now. Highly Appallified may or may not have different answers and attitudes than you, and can possibly provide me with a better solution to my problem.
Fourth, I could easily accuse you of using "circular arguments" and leave it at that. You just keep coming back to Man's imperfection and Jesus' sacrifice, that is a circular argument! Every time I answer that, you just come back and state it again!
It's obvious that we are not connecting on this issue, I shall ruminate on why and come up with a solution to approach you with.
I have been giving references which support my position. The problem I have with circular arguments are even if I give a sufficient answer, you present the same argument later and away from former references. I lost four hours of work the other day while trying to answer you again on same points. At that time, I realized I've been neglecting the blog to play ring around the topic with you. So, I may comment on your comments, or I may ignore you to go onto more pressing interests. Suddenly, I've gone from posting 1 or 2 times a week to 1 or 2 times a day. If you want to know something rather than occupy me, let me know.
We can't really be sure about anything because religion relies on faith, and is a subjective truth that varies from person to person, and science can only give us falsification; it's based on being able to prove other ideas wrong, and cannot prove any ideas right. On an epistemological level, humans cannot know anything for sure. The four main Gospels are most likely real, though.
I've said elsewhere and I want to restate it now, that I feel that an oral history is superior to a written one, as it allows the story to change and adapt and be clarified by others, whereas a written history is always the same and cannot clarify itself or provide new answers to old questions. The life of Christ, independent of the language of the Gospels, is more important than the semantics of the New Testament, in other words. It doesn't really matter how accurate the Gospels are, as long as they get across the biographical beats and philosophical arguments and syllogisms.
Short version [i'm fond of these]: It's not the words in the book that matter, it's the spirit behind those words.
Likewise, the words in the Bible and other metaphor/poetry-heavy texts are not the same as the complex ideas they represent. The Aramaic, Greek, Latin and English languages are all incapable of expressing ideas and concepts which do not have words in the language. There is a Japanese word, amae, which means something along the lines of trying to evoke caretaking or parental love from others. There is no equivalent English word for this emotion, and explaining it in English terms would lose the meaning. We cannot rely on words to contain meaning, but only to point towards it. The words themselves are only signs that stand in for the meaning, but as symbols, they are not the thing they represent.