Theological Opinions

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

Perhaps you should put a few more in there, for otherwise you are left making absolute claims without evidence.

if people don't understand that what other people post to forums is always there own opinion/interpretation, there is nothing i can do to change that

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

Lacking in evidence that I have as yet presented, I suppose you mean. It's an assumption on your part to say I have no evidence, just because I have not yet presented any. I can argue this matter based upon available evidence.

i've been reading here for a long time... i've seen the "evidence"

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

Do you believe the physical universe has laws that completely reverse themselves and turn inside out every day? That the Earth will tomorrow to turn inside out, spontaneously? That water will suddenly worldwide turn to dirt? Humans worldwide to whales? It is apparent that there are laws of nature, absolutes. Human perception of these laws changes, as we learn more.

"apparent" being the key word... we assume that certain physical laws of the universe will remain absolute, but that is quite a different thing from knowing them to be

and once again, this is apples and oranges when compared to a purely human concept like good and evil

[Spock]

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

if people don't understand that what other people post to forums is always there own opinion/interpretation, there is nothing i can do to change that

It may seem redundant to you and I, however, many people take statements made (posts) as gospel and not an opinion only. Therefore it is helpful in avoiding a posting duel, to state IMO or IR so that no umbrage is taken.

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by Spock

It may seem redundant to you and I, however, many people take statements made (posts) as gospel and not an opinion only. Therefore it is helpful in avoiding a posting duel, to state IMO or IR so that no umbrage is taken.

i kind of view it like the expression "to be honest"... which implies that everything else you have said has been a lie

saying "IMO" implies that everything else you've not tagged that on to is in fact gospel, which it is not

plus, i have tremedous respect for everyone's opinion here, IMO

[Rían]

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

most likely that would be after i was dead, and i would most certainly be in hell... so probably performing some eternal task the devils had designed for my punishment

maybe being stuck before a computer screen for all eternity with an internet connection that could only connect to christian sites

LOL!


No, I mean if you found enough conclusive evidence during your life here (say in the next year) to persuade you that Christianity was true, what would you do?

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by RÃ*an

No, I mean if you found enough conclusive evidence during your life here (say in the next year) to persuade you that Christianity was true, what would you do?

that's a tough one cause there are so many details involved... for instance, conclusive evidence that a "creator" exists would do nothing to prove whether the christian interpretation of that creator is the correct one or not

conclusive evidence that a person named jesus existed in more or less the way the bible portrays him is not evidence that all his claims originated from god... and "miracles" are always subject to interpretation... hundreds of thousands of people have "witnessed" UFOs, is this conclusive evidence?

i can't think of anything that could happen that was seemingly divine, that would not lead me to want to examine the incident further to see how many possible other explanations there were for it... even if i was the disciple thomas, i'd be looking for a projector behind some curtain

i have very little "faith" when it comes to that sort of thing... jesus may have said "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."... for better or for worse, that's definitely not me

[Insidious Rex]

Originally Posted by inked

Christianity states that man is an amphibian of matter and spirit, regarding the former from the animal side and material; the latter from the image of God, the Creator.

Is there a plan? Yes per Christianity. The disruption of the material and spiritual by the human disobedience is beyond human capability of repair. God has a plan to repair it which is in effect. It involved the revelation of the nature of God and man, the provision for restoration, the Incarnation (from birth to Resurrection) in Jesus, and the sending of the Holy Spirit to bring those seeking it into the Divine Life of the Trinity. You don't have to wait for death to enter LIFE, you can do that now, by faith!

We are relevant because God has chosen to make us, endow us with free will, and make a way for us to recover that which was lost by our election of self over God.

We have more than a clue about spirituality. We have the redemption of the world by a loving God who has made His way known to us by becoming one of us and, by obedience, mending the rift between us.

Evolution is a part of nature. But I am not sure what you meant by that inclusion.

Can we understand or comprehend as humans? Yes. We participate in Reason. Above that we have the direct involvement of God to meet our abilities in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, God Incarnate. You can't get any more on our level than that.

The key to the mind of God is Jesus, the logos, made to share in our human nature to redeem it and restore us to God. And I agree, it is a mind-blowing reality!

Nice of you to speak for god...

[Spock]

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

Nice of you to speak for god...

Well someone better, he's got a lousy press agent for the 21st Century.

[EarthBound]

Originally Posted by Spock

Well someone better, he's got a lousy press agent for the 21st Century.

Well here's one of my favorite authors Norman Maclean.

"In our family, there was no clear line between religion and fly fishing. We lived at the junction of great trout rivers in western Montana, and our father was a Presbyterian minister and a fly fisherman who tied his own flies and taught others. He told us about Christ's disciples being fishermen, and we were left to assume, as my brother and I did, that all first-class fishermen on the Sea of Galilee were fly fishermen and that John, the favorite, was a dry-fly fisherman.

It is true that one day a week was given over wholly to religion. On Sunday mornings my brother, Paul, and I went to Sunday school and then to "morning services" to hear our father preach and in the evenings to Christian Endeavor and afterwards to "evening services" to hear our father preach again. In between on Sunday afternoons we had to study The Westminster Shorter Catechism for an hour and then recite before we could walk the hills with him while he unwound between services. But he never asked us more than the first question in the catechism, "What is the chief end of man?" And we answered together so one of us could carry on if the other forgot, "Man's chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever." This always seemed to satisfy him, as indeed such a beautiful answer should have"


Beautiful

Here's a great sit for the refered to Catechism...worth a look Westminster Shorter Catechism

[brownjenkins]

i love fishing

[Spock]

Italian Lawyers Asked to Prove Jesus Existed
Friday, January 20, 2006

ROME — Lawyers for a small-town parish priest have been ordered to appear in court next week after the Roman Catholic cleric was accused of unlawfully asserting what many people take for granted: that Jesus Christ existed.

The Rev. Enrico Righi was named in a 2002 complaint filed by Luigi Cascioli after Righi wrote in a parish bulletin that Jesus did indeed exist, and that he was born of a couple named Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem and lived in Nazareth.

Cascioli, a lifelong atheist, claims that Righi violated two Italian laws by making the assertion: so-called "abuse of popular belief" in which someone fraudulently deceives people; and "impersonation" in which someone gains by attributing a false name to someone.

Cascioli says that for 2,000 years the Roman Catholic Church has been deceiving people by furthering the fable that Christ existed, and says the church has been gaining financially by impersonating as Christ someone by the name of John of Gamala, the son of Judas from Gamala.

He also asserts that the Gospels — the most frequently cited testimony of Jesus' existence — are inconsistent, full of errors and biased, and that other written evidence from the time is scant and doesn't hold up to scholarly analysis.

[rohirrim TR]

Along the same lines of not-neccesarily-related-but-worth-discussion is this click here

[Nurvingiel]

Woah, it's illegal to say someone existed in Italy? If I said dragons existed would I get arrested?

That being said, I thought we already accept the various sources of evidence that Jesus did exist. Whether or not you think He's the Son of God is another matter, but I really thought it was accepted that Jesus was a real person.

edit: I really want to see "Son of Man" now! It looks awesome. Thanks for the link RohirrimTR.

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by Nurvingiel

That being said, I thought we already accept the various sources of evidence that Jesus did exist. Whether or not you think He's the Son of God is another matter, but I really thought it was accepted that Jesus was a real person.

I've never seen any historian or scholars reject the claim that Jesus was a real person. Not that there aren't any, but all the history books I've read that cover the subject acknowledge Jesus' existence. This Luigi Cascioli seems to be an exception to this general trend (though I don't know if he's a historian, he does seem to know something about the evidence). I suspect him of bias, myself. But I wonder what evidence he has to back his claims about the Catholic Church's actions.

Originally Posted by Nurvingiel

edit: I really want to see "Son of Man" now! It looks awesome. Thanks for the link RohirrimTR.

It looks great to me too. So long as it's theologically on track, sticking to the scripture, I'll be very happy.

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

"apparent" being the key word... we assume that certain physical laws of the universe will remain absolute, but that is quite a different thing from knowing them to be

and once again, this is apples and oranges when compared to a purely human concept like good and evil

Again, this is still just guesswork. When you say good and evil are a purely human concept, that is simply your best guess. I can't argue against someone whose arguments are based on faith alone. Also, it's only a guess that this is apples and oranges to the physical universe, your guess lying in the fact that you think good and evil is a purely human concept, while the world around us is not. The universe we see around us is a mathematically consistent universe. As we learn more, we see more and more fully how marvelously and intricitely organized the universe is. That it has absolute laws is plain. That it is not relative is also plain. What those absolutes are is an interesting question, and that is what we endeavor to find out. Science assumes those absolutes' existence, and the evidence they see as they grow in knowledge all confirms this constancy.

The spiritual side of things is similar. There is evidence concerning it that exists, and as people explore this evidence more and more deeply, the absolutes concerning it become more and more apparent. There are some key differences between this and science, though. Science is just information. It doesn't fight over you, like the spirits does. You can learn about it without it attempting to seduce you, destroy you or save you. So there are some definite differences, but in spite of this, there is strong, stable evidence that can be looked into concerning many of the modern day miracles, and Jesus' miraculous resurrection and fulfillment of Biblical prophecy that provide a strong case. There is also the more astounding evidence that you also can experience the spiritual reality firsthand in such form that you will know that it is objective truth rather than subjective guess. You can't treat the examination of spiritual evidence quite the same as you can physical evidence. Different tools are needed to approach spiritual truth than are needed to approach physical truth. However, the results are amazing.

Our ignorance and errors do blind us to some extent in this world, and I think you have correctly understood this fact. We are very blessed that when Jesus ascended into heaven, he sent the Holy Spirit to us to prevent ignorance and misinterpretation about those things that matter most.

[Spock]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

Again, this is still just guesswork. .... . I can't argue against someone whose arguments are based on faith alone.
....... You can't treat the examination of spiritual evidence quite the same as

You gotta save these excerpts as they slam dunk many peoples thoughts and criticisms on this and tends to nullify all of the ranting and proselytizing that goes on in topics such as this.

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by Spock

You gotta save these excerpts as they slam dunk many peoples thoughts and criticisms on this and tends to nullify all of the ranting and proselytizing that goes on in topics such as this.

I knew when I spoke about faith in that previous post that I certainly would sound rather weird .

Just to make sure we're on the same wavelength really quickly, I'll just clarify one thing that may not be clear. When I said "faith" above, I was referring to blind faith. Just wanted to make that clear. Many people think Christianity is nothing but blind faith, a view I have fought vigorously against ever since I first came to Entmoot's General Messages. True Christianity, instead, is reasonable faith. For example, you can be reasonably sure, as a child, that your mother is going to give you breakfast in the morning. It's faith, but it's not blind faith. It's faith based upon loving relationship and upon experience. My problem is with blind faith and unthinking faith, not with reasonable faith.

[Spock]

Thus we have heard a most excellent example of double speak.

[Lief Erikson]

Don't you think there's a difference between blind faith and reasonable faith, even if you think Christianity belongs to the former?

For example, isn't there a difference between the faith of a child expecting breakfast from a parent and the faith of a child who is trying to fly with paper wings that one day he/she will succeed?

[rohirrim TR]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

It looks great to me too. So long as it's theologically on track, sticking to the scripture, I'll be very happy.

That was exactly my reaction, I've been waiting for someone to break the "Jesus" stereotype for a long time and "passion" was a step in the right direction-but still annoyed me in a couple spots-, so who knows this might really be something.

[inked]

Originally Posted by Insidious Rex

Nice of you to speak for god...

Spock, too!

Ah, what a compliment, but I must decline. I merely state what the Church has taught, is teaching, and will teach until Jesus' return and PROOF renders choice reality.