02-14-2007, 07:08 PM | #781 | ||||||
Elf Lord
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It's not a matter of God being insufficient alone and so needing Jesus too, from our perspective. Rather, it is our view that Jesus is simply part of God and a natural extension of him. As Jesus said when praying to the Father, "we are one." So saying that God doesn't need a Jesus is like saying, "I don't need my arms." It's not that God is weak and needs a buddy to back him up, but rather it's like us having received an increased knowledge of God's anatomy, and it's rather different from human anatomy. The sun has radiation, light and energy. All three are one, in the sun. And it's not like saying that the sun has radiation means that the sun is insufficient without it- it's just describing in a bit more detail what the sun you have always known is. Quote:
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I agree with the Jewish view that God is your Father. Christians believe that God is our Father, as well, and we worship him that way. The prayer Jesus taught us starts with, "Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name . . ." Remember that Isaiah is part of the Old Testament, and in it, it says, "Unto us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." That Messianic prophecy says outright that the Messiah will be God, and that's from the Old Testament, not the new. I cited many other Old Testament scriptures also that confirm Jesus as the Messiah. I'd love to go more into it, if you like . It's a wonderfully exciting subject, because the scriptural confirmation for Jesus and his ministry is astoundingly strong. Quote:
Stoner's calculations concluded that the probability of Jesus fulfilling by accident just eight of the prophecies he fulfilled in the scripture is one in one hundred million billion. If each of those numbers was a silver dollar, they'd cover the whole state of Texas with a depth of two feet. Mark one silver dollar and have a blindfolded person pick one of the silver dollars up randomly, and that's the likelihood that Jesus would have had of fulfilling those 8 by accident, on his own. Jesus fulfilled at least 48 prophecies that the Jews knew about and accepted as Messianic, at his time. There are actually about 300 prophecies from the Old Testament that he fulfilled, but many of the 300 aren't explicit and are arguable. The odds of an accidental fulfillment of the 48 accepted prophecies, however, are one chance in a trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion,trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion. The odds of him having accidentally fulfilled the 48 are the same as you randomly happening to pick the single right atom from all the atoms of a trillion, trillion, trillion, trillion, billion universes the same size as our own. More than one mathematician has gone over these statistics, and they carefully take into account only those prophecies were considered Messianic by the Jewish community at the time of Christ's fulfillment of them. There were a number of prophecies Jesus didn't fulfill, because we think they relate to the Second Coming. Yet even if he missed fulfilling a bunch of prophecies at the time of his First Coming, that doesn't reduce the improbability that he could have fulfilled as many as he did. Also, there have also been repeated debates in Rabbi circles that I've read about, in which they have struggled to get the picture of the suffering and dying Messiah described in Isaiah to fit with the picture of a triumphant militarily victorious Messiah presented in Zechariah. One Rabbi said in frustration, "It is as though the Old Testament describes two different comings!" That's not an exact quote, but that was the essentials of what he said. If you want me to provide a citation, I can try to do so. It'll take me a few days to get it to you because I don't have the book with me anymore and would have to get it back from my grandmother, but if you doubt me, I could try. The Old Testament is an almost unbelievably remarkable canon of books, not only in terms of historical accuracy and spiritual richness, but also in terms of the precise accuracy of its prophetic fulfillment. Quote:
Though I'm not trying to push this point. It's not anywhere near as important as the fact that God's name in the Old Testament is plural, that he refers to himself as plural, and that the prophecies not only point to Jesus but say in Isaiah 9 that the Messiah would be God. Quote:
But would you provide a link to this site and to the document you're citing from it? You're getting me interested in really checking this out.
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." |
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02-14-2007, 08:22 PM | #782 |
Word Santa Claus
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Lief, again:
Messiah does not equal God except when you read the New Testament. Even the idea of the aspect of the son-as-God appears only in that quotation from Isaiah, and even there "his name shall be called," not he shall be. That's deliberately ambiguous. I'm not saying your conception of God is that he's insufficient and needs Jesus. I know that you believe Jesus to be an inherent part of God. I'm just saying we don't, and that it yields a perfectly coherent reading of the Old Testament. OBVIOUSLY not of the New, nor of the Old-when-assuming-the-truth-of-the-New, but of the Old alone. And calculations like your example are inherently bogus - first, where do you get your numbers from? people guessing how unlikely something is? second, you're assuming independent variables, without proving them. third, any 300 things are unlikely - hell, the 300 most likely things, say with probability 99%, are, if independent, less than 5% likely to ALL happen (.99^300 = .049). But I really don't care enough to argue whether Jesus is the Messiah, because your worldview is so clearly predicated on the idea that he is, and I will confess mine on the idea that he is not. If I can't get you to agree that homosexual marriage isn't harmful, what are my odds on "Christianity is false"? As for those pesky Lutherans http://www.lcms.org/pages/internal.asp?NavID=2217
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Sufficient to have stood, yet free to fall. Last edited by Count Comfect : 02-14-2007 at 08:24 PM. |
02-14-2007, 08:34 PM | #783 |
Elf Lord
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no offence -
but is there anyone else out there bored by all this?????? |
02-15-2007, 04:04 AM | #784 | ||||||||||||
Elf Lord
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I don't generally do things that bore me, unless I have to. Quote:
Besides, if one is calling someone's name Mighty God, one is calling the person Mighty God. Would you be comfortable with calling my name "Mighty God" instead of "Lief Erikson," in a serious rather than a humorous way? Quote:
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I agree that we both go into it with a lot of bias. I've seen huge amounts of evidence that I believe fully validate my position, and you may have seen the same for your position (I don't know your experiences or evidence). Yet we both worship the same God, do you agree? Perhaps if each of us prayed to him for one another and for ourselves that he would reveal himself more fully to us and would expose any wrongness in either of us on this matter, along with revealing new knowledge to both of us wherever we need it, he may intervene and bring us to greater understanding. I want him to reveal himself in new ways to both of us through this discussion. I long to know more of God, and if I'm making serious errors, I'll gladly pray that he'll reveal them to me. And I'd pray for you too, and you can pray for both you and me, that he will give us new knowledge. And then each of us may carefully consider the other's arguments. We may try to attack one another's arguments as fully as we can, but this is fine, for if all the arguments and evidence have not been brought forward, there will always be barriers to any growth in understanding for whoever of us is wrong. And of course each of us would enter it fully convinced that we're right. But maybe God will guide us to new knowledge, if we appeal to him in this way and then carefully consider one another's arguments. Quote:
http://www.thelutheran.org/article/a...rticle_id=5732 I see endeavors from both denominations in the articles of ECLA.org, that show that greater harmony and unity is continually sought between Lutherans and Catholics. Quote:
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And here's another indicating the deity of the Messiah: Quote:
And an explicit passage on the plurality of God, not only in his name Elohim but in the pronouns he uses to describe himself. He is described here both as a "he" and as an "us," and "our." Quote:
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." |
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02-15-2007, 07:35 AM | #785 |
Word Santa Claus
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Lief; on Psalm 110, those are two different words for Lord; one of them is the one that cannot be spoken (ie God's name), and thus is translated Lord, the other the actual word for a lord; also, being at or aided by God's right hand is a trope for divine support throughout the Bible, not a literal description.
As for Jesus as the Messiah, show me a genealogy in which he is actually of the branch of David. The only one the New Testament provides is through Joseph, who happens not to be Jesus' father if you accept the rest of the New Testament. As for being called, it's a typical Biblical poetic phrase - Jerusalem shall no longer be called desolate - and phrase for changes of name only - Abram shall be called Abraham. It does not mean he is God. And I wouldn't call you Mighty God (although that's just M'od-el) because I don't believe you're particularly close to either, no offense. Same as calling someone "Glory to God" when I don't think they glorify God... EDIT: Also, el gibor (the hebrew in that Isaiah passage) can also be God IS mighty, being unhyphenated (unlike Shar-Shalom, prince of peace, which is hyphenated) And what do you do with the child named "The spoil speedeth, the prey hasteth" in Isaiah chapter 8, right before chapter 9? Seems likely to me that both are metaphors, rather than actual children.
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Sufficient to have stood, yet free to fall. Last edited by Count Comfect : 02-15-2007 at 08:08 AM. |
02-15-2007, 09:38 AM | #786 | |
Elf Lord
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No, Leif, they're not.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Stoner Dr. Peter Stoner, from a dear friend and brother in Faith(bottom of page) http://www.asa3.org/ASA/topics/NewsL.../JUNJUL80.html Dr. Stoner's emeritus "Science" credit Westmont, today. http://www.westmont.edu/ Westmont's Statement of Faith http://www.westmont.edu/_academics/p..._of_faith.html I'm sure "Dr." Stoner was a good old man and a dedicated teacher. But I don't have any reason to suppose he was a skilled mathematician. |
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02-15-2007, 09:55 AM | #787 |
Elf Lord
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And really, Lief,
in all seriousness.
I very much doubt that you came to your identity as a Christian as a result of American Protestantism's beautiful command of the Scientific Method. If you're talking about a direct relationship with ineffable immanence, other issues are, and should be, imo, secondary. After all, a miracle is something which CANNOT be explained by more mundane methods. |
02-15-2007, 01:50 PM | #788 | |||
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"I can add some more, if you'd like it. Calling your Chief Names, Wishing to Punch his Pimply Face, and Thinking you Shirriffs look a lot of Tom-fools." - Sam Gamgee, p. 340, Return of the King Quote:
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02-15-2007, 03:51 PM | #789 | |
Word Santa Claus
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02-15-2007, 04:48 PM | #790 | |||||||
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Ari, JW's reject the divinity of Christ. They say he is essentially a Christian synonymous with St. Michael. Quote:
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02-15-2007, 04:52 PM | #791 |
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Ahem, superfluous quoting there...
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02-15-2007, 04:53 PM | #792 | |
Elf Lord
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lol
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I've heard all kinds of folks claim to be Christian, or claim to be the oldest, or most correct, or whatever brand of Christian. Fortunately for me, I know that God will be the judge of that. |
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02-15-2007, 04:54 PM | #793 | |
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And anyways, seeing as how he didn't believe in Christ's full divinity, how could he fully believe in the Trinity?
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02-15-2007, 04:57 PM | #794 | |
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Quote:
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02-15-2007, 05:01 PM | #795 |
Elf Lord
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Just asking, and not to be an ass.
What category would someone volunteer for people who believe they are being personally saved by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, but don't meet these other standards someone includes?
I'm not asking if you believe they ARE in fact saved, because then we get into Universalism, and I don't have the energy. But if their religion is Christo-centric, what would they be called? |
02-15-2007, 05:06 PM | #796 |
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Is Mormonism Christo-centric? Not from what I know...
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02-15-2007, 05:15 PM | #797 | |
Elf Lord
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Challenge history?
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But if Truth is Eternal, and I, personally believe it is, then Man's judgement, even over a period of hundreds of years, or in large groups, or accompanied by incense and holy music, doesn't really count for much on this issue. Only God's Judgement does. And the question of how we, failable as we are, get any kind of a handle at all on the nature of God's Judgement, does not seem to me as easily resolved as some of these posts seem to assume. I'm a "Pray for mercy, not for justice" type from the get-go, but the tone of this, honestly, upsets me. I think a lot of people are going to be surprised, at judgement. |
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02-15-2007, 05:17 PM | #798 | |
Elf Lord
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I don't know what you know, hector.
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02-15-2007, 05:20 PM | #799 |
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...centric? I'll look it up on Google...
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02-15-2007, 05:20 PM | #800 |
Word Santa Claus
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So Gwai, if calling the chief priest of another sect the ANTICHRIST isn't calling them unchristian, what is? Because I always thought following the orders of the antichrist would've been somewhat, I dunno, anti-christian? By definition?
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