Religious

[boxcar]

Originally Posted by Actor

There are additional allegations against Mother Teresa. First, that those working in her hospice had little or no medical training. Second, that no effort was made to determine which patients were terminal and which were treatable. Third, that sanitation in the hospice was poor or non-existent. If these allegations are true then she was complicit in multiple acts of negligent homicide.

So answer this Mr. boxcar, if you dare: How much good does it take to offset the act of killing someone through neglect?

Sure, I "dare". Why would I not answer? Since I'm not intimately familiar with all areas of Mother Teresa's life, I cannot render a judgment; for to do so would be an unrighteous judgment. But be assured that God will execute perfect justice her in case, as he does with all men.

But let's say that you're right in every detail about this woman. Whose sins would be greater: Hers due to her "negligent homocides" or Hitler's cold-blooded, premeditated murders of roughly 6,000,000 Jews?

[Show Me the Wire]

Originally Posted by boxcar

Hmm...I wonder if we should believe the inspired "first pope" or the uninspired Augustine?

1 Peter 2:9
9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession, that you may PROCLAIM the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;
NASB

And Augustine must have missed this next text, as well:

Luke 19:37-40
And as He was now approaching, near the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the miracles which they had seen, 38 saying,

"Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord;
Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!"

39 And some of the Pharisees in the multitude said to Him, "Teacher, rebuke Your disciples." 40 And He answered and said, "I tell you, if these become silent, the stones will cry out!"
NASB

What in the world was Jesus thinking?

Let me refresh your memory, boxcar. I told you I was no longer going to discuss Scripture with you and that you should not ask me any questions as I would not answer you, as you have no right to expect me or anyone else to justify themselves to you. I only am responding to your posts to to remind you why.

First the quote I used in no way involved the Pope or what any Pope said. Second, your question is based on a completely incorrect interpretation of the quote. In other words, your whole post is another one of your straw man arguments.

Regarding your lack of understanding about the difference between sacrificial love and unconditional love, I suggest you look up the definitions of the two operative descriptive words. I'll give you hint, unconditional means there are no acts or events that are needed for something to happen. Jesus taught his apostles to do and instructed them if they do something then something would happen. Another hint, the to do was related to obedience and if they obeyed, The Father would love them. Having The Father love them was conditioned on the act of obedience.

[hcap]

Originally Posted by boxcar

So, let me see...you really take this Buddha stuff literally? If so, how come you take the Big Bud literally and not Jesus?

By the way, I would think love would overcome hatred, since these are antithetical sentiments.

Finally, Buddha is too wordy. Jesus knew how to succinctly cut to the chase on things. "Love thy neighbor as they self....". "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.".

Short and sweet...

Generally in both Buddhism and Christianity, the code of conduct between men is pretty straightforward. Compassion and Love. But in both there are deeper meanings

"But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you"

I take this mostly literally. As I do the Buddhist "four immeasurables". But even so, there is a deeper meaning in both. The real question in both teachings is..."How does one actually love one's enemy or elevate one's compassion"?(Btw, Buddhism spells out how compassion for your fellows elevates you spiritually.)

The Christian "God" absent in Buddhism requires the "wholeness" of ones being. That means much more than only the one level of understanding you tend to use. Man is a multiplicity, to be mended and made "holy" Esoteric concepts and analogies are woven into what "God" is in western traditions. ---Along with literal minded distortions and misunderstandings.

Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

Both Buddhism and Christianity use parables. Here is a collection of Buddhist parables and teaching stories many with analogous and symbolic meaning.

http://oaks.nvg.org/pastbud.html

The Gold Scales Site Portal
Parables and Stories of Buddha

You might find this relevant......

The Buddha would often give talks on enlightenment, but on one occasion, he simply held up a flower and maintained silence. Many left not understanding the point, but when later questioned – the Buddha replied that his real teaching could only be understood in silence. Talks could only give limited intellectual information which was not real enlightenment.

[Actor]

Originally Posted by boxcar

But now that I have you ear, permit me to ask: Do you believe that all men in all places at all times have a right to survive in this world for as long as they can and not be acted upon by murderers who would end their survival experience prematurely?

You don't need my permission to ask. But since I'm no longer participating in the morality discussion I decline to answer.

I think one of the arguments of Aquinas was that every answer begat another question which begat another answer. To avoid an infinite regress there must be a final answer and that answer is God.

Re: the morality discussion you have my permission to be God.

[Light]

Originally Posted by boxcar

Finally, Buddha is too wordy.

Look in the mirror.

There are two ways of looking at God. One is the way you do with a personal God that you pray to externally and look forward to an external reward after death. It requires little work on yourself. Only belief. This is the Biblical way.

Then there is a non personal way where God is within and you experience God in the here and now and see him in everything that you do. This is something that requires effort within yourself to be "reborn" from your materialistic self into your spiritual self in the here and now. This is the Buddhist way and the way of most Eastern practices.

There are correlations between the Eastern and Western practices that are too long for one post. As I said before, a lot of what is written in the Bible is symbolic and if you interpret them literally, then you miss the point. When you interpret them symbolically, then you see the connections with all religions and practices.

[Show Me the Wire]

Originally Posted by Show Me the Wire

Let me refresh your memory, boxcar. I told you I was no longer going to discuss Scripture with you and that you should not ask me any questions as I would not answer you, as you have no right to expect me or anyone else to justify themselves to you. I only am responding to your posts to to remind you why.

First the quote I used in no way involved the Pope or what any Pope said. Second, your question is based on a completely incorrect interpretation of the quote. In other words, your whole post is another one of your straw man arguments.

Regarding your lack of understanding about the difference between sacrificial love and unconditional love, I suggest you look up the definitions of the two operative descriptive words. I'll give you hint, unconditional means there are no acts or events that are needed for something to happen. Jesus taught his apostles to do and instructed them if they do something then something would happen. Another hint, the to do was related to obedience and if they obeyed, The Father would love them. Having The Father love them was conditioned on the act of obedience.

Since I responded to you let me clarify the above. You understand that their are different types of loves and the Greek language has different words to describe these various types of love.

One is commanded to love his enemies. The apostle Paul describes the love for one another as brotherly love. 9 Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil; cling to what is good. 10 Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; [j]give preference to one another in honor; Romans 12: 9-10.(NASB0

The Apostle continues, in Romans 12, by instructing us how to act towards people who persecute you and do evil to you. These people would be considered your enemies, so we must bless them, not curse them, nor repay the evil these people do to you with evil.

We are even instructed to feed our enemy, if he is hungry and give him drink if he is thirsty. By doing this we will heap burning coals on his head. Romans (12:20). Heaping burning coals on your enemies head is not an unconditional loving action. So in effect we are giving conditional brotherly love to our enemies, for the purpose of heaving burning coals on his head and to have God take vengeance upon your enemies for you.

Now what is unconditional about this type of brotherly love? You are not doing brotherly love to your enemy out of concern for your enemies well being, without out any conditions attached to your act. You are doing an act of brotherly love based on conditions. The conditions consist of you heaping burning coals upon your enemies head, figuratively not literally, and calling on God to extract vengeance on your enemy for you, which is the conditional price your enemy has to pay for your act of brotherly love.

[Show Me the Wire]

Originally Posted by Light

Look in the mirror.

There are two ways of looking at God. One is the way you do with a personal God that you pray to externally and look forward to an external reward after death. It requires little work on yourself. Only belief. This is the Biblical way.

Light I disagree that looking to the external is the objective truth about the biblical way. I would agree some people believe only looking to the external is biblical, but their personal interpretation does not equate to the objective truth that it is the biblical way

[Show Me the Wire]

You understand that their are different types of loves and the Greek language has different words to describe these various types of love.

The word their should be there.

[boxcar]

Originally Posted by Show Me the Wire

Let me leave you with this thought. If boxcar's personal interpretation is correct then he is assigning more power to Adam than to the infinite God. If one man's transgression allowed sin to enter and reign in the world, but Christ, who is Divinity, is the new Adam and through his obedience, obedience even unto death upon the Cross, his act, was less powerful than Adam's because Christ's act only allowed Grace to enter on a very limited basis. Divinity's act is only powerful enough so only a few particular people and for their specific sins, would benefit, while a mere man, through transgression, affected everyone else for all generations?

Rom 5:12-21
12 Therefore, just as through ONE man sin entered into the world..

15] But the free gift is not like THE transgression. For if by THE transgression of the ONE the many died

16 And the gift is not like that which came through the ONE who sinned; for on the one hand the judgment arose from ONE transgression resulting in condemnation[/b]

17 For if by THE transgression of the ONE, death reigned through the ONE...

18 So then as through ONE transgression there resulted condemnation to all men

19 For as through the ONE man's disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous.

Thask, beware of Show Me's unsanctified reasoning. While it is true that through the ONE sin of ONE man, all died, and that through the obedience of the one (Jesus) the many will be made righteous, this is not speaking to to the lack or God's power (as though God could not have saved all men if he had so desired) but rather it speaks to his eternal plan. It was never God's purpose to save all men, anymore than it was His purpose to save any of the fallen angels. What Show Me conveniently overlooks here is that Rom 5:12-21 is an analogy by contrasts. One man's one sin resulted in death to all (universally), whereas one man's obedience resulted in the justification of the limited many. Given all the contrasts being made in this passage, this makes perfectly good sense.

Also, if we were to take Show Me's twisted reasoning to its logical end, God is completely impotent since he could not save so much as one fallen angel. So, either the created angels are far more powerful than God is or it was never God's intention to save any of them.

Moreover, Show Me's convoluted logic fails him again because what he doesn't tell you is that Christ's divinity and power can be overcome by sinful Christians. Christ's power is limited qualitatively in Show Me's heresy, since Christians can lose their salvation. The devil, too, is more powerful than Christ because Satan can snatch believers right out Christ's hands, in spite of Christ's teaching to the contrary! On the other hand, biblical theology teaches that God always intended to limit salvation quantitatively but never qualitatively.

In the past, I asked Show Me to explain to us how God would be just in allowing all children below the age of accountability to die, since death has always been the promised penalty for actual sin. (Of course, he never answered this question! What else is new?) Since infants, babies, toddlers, etc, have no real knowledge of sin but, nevertheless, still die before attaining to such knowledge, then the only way God could be just in allowing such to die is through the imputation of Adam's FIRST sin to the entire human race. The entire human race was in Adam's loins when he sinned, just like all the Levitcal priests were in Abraham's loins when he paid tithes to Melchizedek. Abraham's act, too, was imputed to the Levites.

I laid out the above passage in the fashion I did to emphasize that all throughout the passage, Paul had only one man's one transgression in mind and how that one transgression affected the entire human race. Even though the entire human race was in Adam's loins, not all of Adam's sins were imputed to his progeny! Only one sin. The Original Sin. This fact speaks to the covenant God made with Adam in which God had to have made Adam the federal head of the entire race. When Adam was tested for righteousness in the Garden, the entire human race was tested with him, otherwise every single one of us would have had to been tested in the Garden, also! When Adam broke God's covenant (Hos 6:7), we all did.

Finally, with respect to this Adamic covenant, the name God gave to Adam is highly significant. In Hebrew, it means "man". God gave the first human being he created, not so much a personal name, but a generic name -- a name to represent something. To this day, the term "man" is used in this sense to denote the human race -- all mankind! Names in scripture are very important. The can have great and profound meaning. Adam = Man. God named him this way because he was the federal head of the human race.

[boxcar]

Originally Posted by Light

Look in the mirror.

I wasn't comparing the big Bud to me. I was comparing him to Jesus? Should Jesus look in the mirror, too?

There are two ways of looking at God. One is the way you do with a personal God that you pray to externally and look forward to an external reward after death. It requires little work on yourself. Only belief. This is the Biblical way.

Then there is a non personal way where God is within and you experience God in the here and now and see him in everything that you do. This is something that requires effort within yourself to be "reborn" from your materialistic self into your spiritual self in the here and now. This is the Buddhist way and the way of most Eastern practices.

There are correlations between the Eastern and Western practices that are too long for one post. As I said before, a lot of what is written in the Bible is symbolic and if you interpret them literally, then you miss the point. When you interpret them symbolically, then you see the connections with all religions and practices.[/QUOTE]

God the Father is a person and the Holy Spirit is a person just as Jesus is a person -- and we are persons made in the image of the Triune God.

[boxcar]

Originally Posted by Show Me the Wire

Let me refresh your memory, boxcar. I told you I was no longer going to discuss Scripture with you and that you should not ask me any questions as I would not answer you, as you have no right to expect me or anyone else to justify themselves to you. I only am responding to your posts to to remind you why.

First the quote I used in no way involved the Pope or what any Pope said. Second, your question is based on a completely incorrect interpretation of the quote. In other words, your whole post is another one of your straw man arguments.

Regarding your lack of understanding about the difference between sacrificial love and unconditional love, I suggest you look up the definitions of the two operative descriptive words. I'll give you hint, unconditional means there are no acts or events that are needed for something to happen. Jesus taught his apostles to do and instructed them if they do something then something would happen. Another hint, the to do was related to obedience and if they obeyed, The Father would love them. Having The Father love them was conditioned on the act of obedience.

Yeah, I fully understand why you can't respond. You can't reconcile Augustine's nonsense of keeping silent about God with scripture's teaching to the contrary. In fact, Christians are supposed to be anything but silent about God. Instead, we are to PROCLAIM the gospel at every opportunity.

The Law of Non-Contradiction is a bear, isn't it?

[Show Me the Wire]

boxcar,

Please stop misrepresenting concepts and logic through straw man arguments.

Also, if we were to take Show Me's twisted reasoning to its logical end, God is completely impotent since he could not save so much as one fallen angel. So, either the created angels are far more powerful than God is or it was never God's intention to save any of them.

Complete straw man, angels were never the topic of discussion. Yes, God had no plan to save the rebellious fallen angels. I never said otherwise. The concept discussed is humanity's salvation.

Moreover, Show Me's convoluted logic fails him again because what he doesn't tell you is that Christ's divinity and power can be overcome by sinful Christians.

Again a complete false witness about my postings. I clearly stated man has free will and can refuse God's Grace and separate himself from God for eternity. I even paraphrased C.S. Lewis. in my postings.

Remember man, according to Scripture can struggle against God and prevail. God wills all men to be saved but man can prevail and not be saved.

About answering questions, you have not answered a ton of questions from me and everyone else. Nobody owes you answers and I explained why to you several times.

All your posts are nothing but ad hominem attacks, straw man arguments, outright false representations and other logical fallacies. You use these practices, because your points cannot be made by their own merit. Every one who posts in this thread knows this.

I don't count you as my enemy, even though you continually use ad hominem attacks and purposely falsify my position, because I don't want to pour burning coals on your head and have God take revenge on you for the injury you attempt to inflict on me through your false witnessing of my thoughts and words and ad hominem attacks.

[Show Me the Wire]

Originally Posted by boxcar

Yeah, I fully understand why you can't respond. You can't reconcile Augustine's nonsense of keeping silent about God with scripture's teaching to the contrary. In fact, Christians are supposed to be anything but silent about God. Instead, we are to PROCLAIM the gospel at every opportunity.

The Law of Non-Contradiction is a bear, isn't it?

No your straw man arguments are a bear coupled with your penchant to intentionally misrepresent what people actually say.

[boxcar]

Originally Posted by Show Me the Wire

Since I responded to you let me clarify the above. You understand that their are different types of loves and the Greek language has different words to describe these various types of love.

One is commanded to love his enemies. The apostle Paul describes the love for one another as brotherly love. 9 Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil; cling to what is good. 10 Be devoted to one another in brotherly love; [j]give preference to one another in honor; Romans 12: 9-10.(NASB0

The Apostle continues, in Romans 12, by instructing us how to act towards people who persecute you and do evil to you. These people would be considered your enemies, so we must bless them, not curse them, nor repay the evil these people do to you with evil.

We are even instructed to feed our enemy, if he is hungry and give him drink if he is thirsty. By doing this we will heap burning coals on his head. Romans (12:20). Heaping burning coals on your enemies head is not an unconditional loving action. So in effect we are giving conditional brotherly love to our enemies, for the purpose of heaving burning coals on his head and to have God take vengeance upon your enemies for you.

Now what is unconditional about this type of brotherly love? You are not doing brotherly love to your enemy out of concern for your enemies well being, without out any conditions attached to your act. You are doing an act of brotherly love based on conditions. The conditions consist of you heaping burning coals upon your enemies head, figuratively not literally, and calling on God to extract vengeance on your enemy for you, which is the conditional price your enemy has to pay for your act of brotherly love.

Err...Paul was speaking figuratively about the burning coals. He was talking about a figurative effect that such love could have on a heart of an enemy.

The indisputable fact is that love towards an enemy means we love that enemy in spite of himself not because of himself. We love him for no reason or cause found in himself. That, sir, is unconditional love. We don't love him based on any virtue or goodness or anything worthwhile found in him.. Unconditional love is ABSOLUTE love. As absolute, it is PERFECT. Anything less than unconditional love is imperfect.

It doesn't surprise me that you would so eagerly and easily embrace the imperfect. Thank you for revealing your true heart to us about what you think about God -- God who is Love. Since unconditional love doesn't exist in your world, then God must be imperfect since he doesn't love unconditionally. In in all eternity when the three persons of the Godhead were each loving the other, they were doing so on what condition exactly?

Boxcar
P.S. Hint: Look up the definition of "unconditional".

[boxcar]

Originally Posted by Show Me the Wire

No your straw man arguments are a bear coupled with your penchant to intentionally misrepresent what people actually say.

And again, I thank you for revealing your "loving" heart toward the lost. Obviously, you can't have any concern for their souls since it would be really tough to preach the gospel by not breaking silence.