Religion II

[hcap]

Originally Posted by thaskalos

How many thousands of posts have we submitted in the two editions of this thread...without being able to make any progress at all in our discussion? We are exactly at the same point from which we started...with the only difference being that we are all 6 years and 9 months older now than we were then.

The reason there is no "progress" is basically everyone argues from the perspective of "false idols" , assuming their idol is the true one. I think the progress you may be referring to is along the principles of ecumenicalism. But in my view more than just the unity of different Christian denominations, unity of many religions, and I have often added science as well.

But here it is a losing fight. When differences are more important than similarities an endless wheel of self justification turns forever.

[dnlgfnk]

Originally Posted by hcap

The reason there is no "progress" is basically everyone argues from the perspective of "false idols" , assuming their idol is the true one. I think the progress you may be referring to is along the principles of ecumenicalism. But in my view more than just the unity of different Christian denominations, unity of many religions, and I have often added science as well.

But here it is a losing fight. When differences are more important than similarities an endless wheel of self justification turns forever.

At least you stated "everyone".

"Here" it is a losing fight, unlike the Trump threads where populists and progressives are toasting each other over their mutual concerns for government and business.

[hcap]

Originally Posted by dnlgfnk

At least you stated "everyone".

"Here" it is a losing fight, unlike the Trump threads where populists and progressives are toasting each other over their mutual concerns for government and business.

Yes everyone. Although there are occasional exceptions. Those exceptions are the only thing which may lead to Gus's "progress"

And yes, the fight on the political threads is a waste of time. I know mostly because no matter the evidence I present I am accused of being subversive.

But both fights are really not the same.

[boxcar]

Originally Posted by thaskalos

We may all be sinners, Boxcar...but I doubt that we'll be judged with the same severity as the Hitlers of the world when we cross over to the other side. We may not be able to reside in the elite neighborhood of heaven that YOU are destined for...but I am betting that we are also not evil enough to be tortured for all eternity. Hopefully...we will be relegated to the ghetto-side of the heavenly kingdom...where all we'll have to worry about is the occasional stray bullet crashing through our window, as we are trying to have our meager supper. After living 40 years in Chicago...I think I can manage that.

No one who hasn't received Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior will ever see heaven. As some of the scriptures I quoted yesterday essentially said, if one insists on remaining outside of Christ, thinking they can do an end-run around Him, and rely on their own goodness or righteousness, the rule for entry into Heaven is perfect obedience to God's Law. Those are your two choices. There is no middle option. However, everyone will be judged according to his/her own life and the knowledge they had of the Gospel.

[hcap]

When I was younger I had a Japanese woodcut of a zen monk sewing his robe. Frozen in time the monk was intensely staring at the point, the moment the thread was being pulled taut connecting and mending 2 parts of the robe. His attention was depicted as the only thing in his being

The Sufi...
The mystics of Islam. Sufi derives from Arabic for wool

"The Gudri Shai order is known after Hazrat Sa’in-ji Gudri Shah Baba, who wore a Gudri. Now a Gudri has got an implication. It is a patched frock, a very ordinary dress. It has different patches of different colours of different dimensions. And it is a symbolic dress, which is something that people do not realize!"

"To unite different patches of different colours together means to unite humanity of different colours, different casts, different communities, different nationalities, different ideologies, different schools of thought and at the same time of different set-up. This means he was wearing a dress which symbolized the unity of mankind"

It took some study to realize, as above so below, the various fragments of one's being must be mended and unified.

Similarities are what matter.

[Light]

Originally Posted by boxcar

Here's the bottom line to your version of salvation:

1. Us finding God is not in scripture. Also, Faith and Repentance are the requirements for salvation, not love. Jesus never taught, "Love
God and thou shalt be saved."

2. And moreover, it's not because it's antithetical to what scripture teaches about the condition of man's heart. All men are natural born enemies of God, hence, we have the aspects of soteriology called Reconciliation and Propitiation.

Your view of salvation, therefore, is totally backwards. No man finds God (in his heart or anywhere else) because no man naturally wants to find him. It's God who finds sinners. Have you never read what your "best friend" Jesus said:

Luke 19:10
10 "For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost."
NASB

Jesus does the seeking and the saving, not you or any other sinner.

And then there is this companion passage stated negatively:

Rom 3:11
11 There is none who understands,
There is none who seeks for God;
NASB

Buddha thought he had numerous lifetimes to get it right, but I tell you the truth YOU have only ONE per your "best friend" who inspired the writer of Hebrews to write this passage:

Heb 9:27
27And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment,
NASB

Whatever you think Buddhism and Christianity have in common, at the very best it's less than superficial. The bible: one General Resurrection after death at which time the unrighteous will be judged; Buddhism: as many chances via reincarnations as it takes. Buddhism and Christianity conflict in every major tenet of their teachings.

Buddha's goal was to treat the mere symptoms of sin. e.g. help people to alleviate their suffering. Christ's mission was to deal with the very cause of suffering and death which is Sin by saving sinners from its penalty, it's power and ultimately its presence.

Buddha is not divine. Christ is divine. You don't understand my aversion to Buddhism? It's very simple. Tell me, should I bring the Son of God the Lord and Savior of many sinners down to the level of mere sinful Buddha, or should I exalt your beloved and sinful Buddha up the the very glory of Christ that he had before the world even existed?

And what rites or rituals did I quote to be saved? Name them! I quoted or cited the fundamental doctrines of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. There are only two rituals in biblical Christianity: Water Baptism and the Lord's Supper -- neither of these topics have I broached with you.

And then you tell us that Buddha says the same things as Jesus, but in different ways!? If this were true, then why do you disagree with virtually everything I have posted about biblical Christianity? You're so self-deceived, you don't realize that you just talked out of both sides of your mouth.

But hey...be of good cheer. You'll get to meet your real best friend Buddha upon death in a place where there is lots of pain and suffering and misery that is necessary to help you grow. Your unwavering faith in Buddha and his teaching will be amply rewarded. You'll have an awful long time to discuss Buddhism with your best friend and how he got it all so very wrong. (This is assuming he ever existed, which a lot of people doubt by the way. Man...that would be a real bummer wouldn't it, if you don't get to meet him in the enlightenment center in the House of Pain, and discover you believed in a myth all this time here on earth?)

Well, at least I got my humor for the day. Your ignorance is comical.

Again, I'll just address one of your "jokes".

Originally Posted by boxcar

Buddha is not divine. Christ is divine.

First of all we are ALL Divine. You don't have to be a deity.We are all children of God. Just as parents transfer their genetic makeup, so God transfers his innate Divinity.

In Genesis it says God created man out of his own image. God's image is Divine.

"Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being." NIV Genesis 2:7

So our bodies are made from dust and will return to dust. But the breath God breathed into us is Divine and is everlasting. It's the only thing that can create life. That breath he breathed into man is our spirits, our true selves, our true nature which is Divine because it came from the Divine.

[Buckeye]

Answer this: What is the difference between good and evil?

You can't answer that dope!

Don't even try.

Unless you are God, who you are not.

[Show Me the Wire]

Originally Posted by hcap

When I was younger I had a Japanese woodcut of a zen monk sewing his robe. Frozen in time the monk was intensely staring at the point, the moment the thread was being pulled taut connecting and mending 2 parts of the robe. His attention was depicted as the only thing in his being

The Sufi...
The mystics of Islam. Sufi derives from Arabic for wool

"The Gudri Shai order is known after Hazrat Sa’in-ji Gudri Shah Baba, who wore a Gudri. Now a Gudri has got an implication. It is a patched frock, a very ordinary dress. It has different patches of different colours of different dimensions. And it is a symbolic dress, which is something that people do not realize!"

"To unite different patches of different colours together means to unite humanity of different colours, different casts, different communities, different nationalities, different ideologies, different schools of thought and at the same time of different set-up. This means he was wearing a dress which symbolized the unity of mankind"

It took some study to realize, as above so below, the various fragments of one's being must be mended and unified.

Similarities are what matter.

An Interesting and a thought provoking post. Among its implications we need to know if mankind was ever united. If mankind was united what caused this fracturing of mankind? How did it come into being? Can it be repaired, can mankind be united? If so how can it be repaired?

[boxcar]

Originally Posted by hcap

When I was younger I had a Japanese woodcut of a zen monk sewing his robe. Frozen in time the monk was intensely staring at the point, the moment the thread was being pulled taut connecting and mending 2 parts of the robe. His attention was depicted as the only thing in his being

The Sufi...
The mystics of Islam. Sufi derives from Arabic for wool

"The Gudri Shai order is known after Hazrat Sa’in-ji Gudri Shah Baba, who wore a Gudri. Now a Gudri has got an implication. It is a patched frock, a very ordinary dress. It has different patches of different colours of different dimensions. And it is a symbolic dress, which is something that people do not realize!"

"To unite different patches of different colours together means to unite humanity of different colours, different casts, different communities, different nationalities, different ideologies, different schools of thought and at the same time of different set-up. This means he was wearing a dress which symbolized the unity of mankind"

It took some study to realize, as above so below, the various fragments of one's being must be mended and unified.

Similarities are what matter.

Nothing to see here. Nothing new. This is all typical, standard-fare, regurgitated worldly thinking by the religious and irreligious alike. No great, valuable pearls of wisdom are to be discovered in either the self-help philosophy of mending oneself or uniting with the world. Truly, God's thoughts are not the world's, nor are His ways of this world.

Because Christ's disciples are not of this world anymore than Christ was, we are not to join with the world in the darkness of their deeds (Jn 15:19[ 17{14). Christians are not be bound together with unbelievers, or have partnership with their lawlessness and unrighteousness. God's people are to separate themselves from the world and not defile themselves with its uncleaness. As sanctified people of God, Christians have nothing in the common with the world (2Cor 6:1418).

Even Jesus taught that he did not come into this dark world to bring peace to it, rather he came to bring division! He came to divide even down to the family unit! To set daughters against their mothers, sons against their fathers, etc. (Lk 12:51-53). Since this is the case with families, how much more with non-family members of the human race? The gospel of Jesus Christ does not and will not ever unite this world. It can only divide God's people from his enemies.

And as far as mending the fabric of our own being, this is impossible because God requires a complete transformation of our being -- our heart, mind, soul...indeed our very nature which is at enmity with God. This is why one must be born anew -- born again. And only our Creator can do this work. This is why God's people are called his new creation or new creatures (Gal 6:15; 2Cor 5:17). This is precisely why Jesus told a very different story about "mending" garments.

Mark 2:21
21 "No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; otherwise the patch pulls away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear results.
NASB

This is why fallen human beings cannot mend ourselves. We're beyond self-repair! We will simply make our situation worse by mere attempts at self-reformation! Fallen sinners need to wrap themselves completely in new cloth -- in fact to be clothed with Christ and his righteousness -- to put on Christ (Gal 3:27; Eph 4:24; Col 3:10).

Dissimilarities are what matter even more!

[boxcar]

Originally Posted by Show Me the Wire

An Interesting and a thought provoking post. Among its implications we need to know if mankind was ever united. If mankind was united what caused this fracturing of mankind? How did it come into being? Can it be repaired, can mankind be united? If so how can it be repaired?

Has mankind every been united? Men tried at the Tower of Babel, remember?
How did that work out for mankind? But man will try again when the antichrist makes his grand entrance onto the world stage in these end times. And again, how will that turn out for the world?

[Show Me the Wire]

Originally Posted by boxcar

Has mankind every been united? Men tried at the Tower of Babel, remember?
How did that work out for mankind? But man will try again when the antichrist makes his grand entrance onto the world stage in these end times. And again, how will that turn out for the world?

So you believe mankind was never united, okay let's file that away until later, when hcap responds.

[Show Me the Wire]

Originally Posted by boxcar

Nothing to see here. Nothing new. This is all typical, standard-fare, regurgitated worldly thinking by the religious and irreligious alike. No great, valuable pearls of wisdom are to be discovered in either the self-help philosophy of mending oneself or uniting with the world. Truly, God's thoughts are not the world's, nor are His ways of this world.

Because Christ's disciples are not of this world anymore than Christ was, we are not to join with the world in the darkness of their deeds (Jn 15:19[ 17{14). Christians are not be bound together with unbelievers, or have partnership with their lawlessness and unrighteousness. God's people are to separate themselves from the world and not defile themselves with its uncleaness. As sanctified people of God, Christians have nothing in the common with the world (2Cor 6:1418).

Even Jesus taught that he did not come into this dark world to bring peace to it, rather he came to bring division! He came to divide even down to the family unit! To set daughters against their mothers, sons against their fathers, etc. (Lk 12:51-53). Since this is the case with families, how much more with non-family members of the human race? The gospel of Jesus Christ does not and will not ever unite this world. It can only divide God's people from his enemies.

And as far as mending the fabric of our own being, this is impossible because God requires a complete transformation of our being -- our heart, mind, soul...indeed our very nature which is at enmity with God. This is why one must be born anew -- born again. And only our Creator can do this work. This is why God's people are called his new creation or new creatures (Gal 6:15; 2Cor 5:17). This is precisely why Jesus told a very different story about "mending" garments.

Mark 2:21
21 "No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment; otherwise the patch pulls away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear results.
NASB

This is why fallen human beings cannot mend ourselves. We're beyond self-repair! We will simply make our situation worse by mere attempts at self-reformation! Fallen sinners need to wrap themselves completely in new cloth -- in fact to be clothed with Christ and his righteousness -- to put on Christ (Gal 3:27; Eph 4:24; Col 3:10).

Dissimilarities are what matter even more!

No great pearls of wisdom? Let's see what hcap has to say about the questions I proposed.

I, also see you are demonstrating your knowledge of the Gospel.

[boxcar]

Originally Posted by Light

Well, at least I got my humor for the day. Your ignorance is comical.

Again, I'll just address one of your "jokes".

First of all we are ALL Divine. You don't have to be a deity.We are all children of God. Just as parents transfer their genetic makeup, so God transfers his innate Divinity.

In Genesis it says God created man out of his own image. God's image is Divine.

"Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being." NIV Genesis 2:7

So our bodies are made from dust and will return to dust. But the breath God breathed into us is Divine and is everlasting. It's the only thing that can create life. That breath he breathed into man is our spirits, our true selves, our true nature which is Divine because it came from the Divine.

Now that would be comical if it weren't such a pathetic attempt by you to elevate yourself to the level of God -- precisely what Satan thought he could do before he was cast out of heaven.

Here's a clue for you. Because God is God -- in other words, because he's eternal he cannot die. God alone possesses immortality (1Tim 6:16). If we mere mortals are divine, how is it possible that we don't possess immortality, as our Creator does, and never die?

To be made in God's image and likeness simply means that like God, we are personal, intelligent, moral beings who alone, above all other created life, have the capacity to know, love and commune with our Creator.

Also, doesn't your pantheism contradict your premise about humans? You have insisted in the past that God is everything and everyone and that everyone and everything is God. So...what makes humans so special?

And besides, this I have proved in the past (last year in fact) that your beloved pantheism cannot be true because it violates the Law of Noncontradiction.

But over and above all this, God created all the angels who are pure spirits, just as God is pure Spirit. So, it appears that angels are created just as much if not more in God's image than man! In fact, even the fallen angels who one day will all be consigned to hell -- the place of eternal torment which God created specifically for them (Mat 25:41) -- are called "sons of God" (Job 1:6; 2:1). But even so...at the end of the age, all of those "sons" of His will burn in hell for all eternity!

But as far as man is concerned, get yourself up to speed on what your "best friend" taught about who God's sons and daughters are. Then get back to me.

[Buckeye]

Here's the situation, there is no proof of God's existence, other than the argument that Creation itself requires a Creator.

You either believe that or you don't.

There is definitely a God thou, because there were some big fireworks.

Case closed.

[boxcar]

Originally Posted by Show Me the Wire

So you believe mankind was never united, okay let's file that away until later, when hcap responds.

Men might have tried to unite prior to the Flood. But again, how did that work out for mankind? It does appear that the entire world at that time was united in terms of their thoughts and intentions of their hearts being evil continually.
Seems like there was a lot of agreement among men to do evil.

Also, we should keep in mind that God's intentions for man was to go out and populate the earth -- fill the earth (Gen 1:28). Yet, we really have no biblical record of that occurring until after God forced man, literally, at the Tower of Babel to do that very thing.

Now...we can fast forward to this 21st century, and we find that man is up to his old tricks again by slowly, surely, incrementally and relentlessly pursuing globalism. But this time around, man has filled the earth. (In fact, he has populated this planet so well, many fear-mongers are playing Chicken Little with their cries of overpopulation.) So, this time around, the unification of mankind will be attempted though world governments through their world bodies in turn (e.g. the U.N.) and implemented largely by man's technology.
But again, most Christians know how this is going to turn out...not very well for the godless globalists.