Can you be a Christian without believing in the resurrection?

Faith & Science Conversation
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The spirit is eternal, but eternal existence is not eternal life.

The only thing which can separate parent and child is when the parent’s presence in the child’s life does more harm than good.

The spirit is a product of our own choices. Thus it is not destroyed by external forces but only by its own self-destructive habits.

“The wage of sin is death.”

Jesus said, “Let the dead bury their own dead,” because even those who are physically alive can be spiritually dead.

It seems that we should eventually learn better. But that is only if we keep learning. It is demonstrable that people can refuse to learn. That is the essence of sin – choosing against life and learning.

Basilides was Gnostic. Gnosticism has poisoned much of Christianity. Jesus and Paul taught a gospel of salvation by the grace of God. The Gnostics taught a gospel of salvation by knowledge. Thus those teaching that we are saved by sound doctrine are Gnostics. Faith is the other side of the coin from grace. It means we never think salvation is something to which we are entitled. The Gnostics think that by knowing the scriptures and the teachings of their pastors, that salvation is one of their accomplishments in life. But Jesus said this was impossible (Matthew 19).

Science is objective observation, but life requires subjective participation. Religion is not science. It is life – subjective. And diversity is natural when it comes to the subjective. That Christians have different ideas about a lot of things only means they think for themselves. That diversity is a sign of life. Why would you imagine diversity of thought to be a bad thing? Uniformity of thought is not desirable – it is not life.

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Please provide the verse for eating. Thx.

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I the fetus become alive after 3 months or so. I understand the soul entering the body at that time. So it can leave too, perhaps.

They are not contradictory. We are finite. God is infinite. The objective for the finite to connect with the infinite. It is like the connection of a battery (infinite) with the bulb (finite). The wire can be connected first to the infinite (~Jesus and Paul); or the wire can be connected first to the finite (~gnostic).

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17 So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. 18 They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. 19 Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, and they are full of greed.

20 That, however, is not the way of life you learned 21 when you heard about Christ and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. 22 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

The pursuit of sensuality and becoming like God are both shades of grey. Different levels of connection with God.

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Luke 24:36 As they were saying this, Jesus himself stood among them.[f] 37 But they were startled and frightened, and supposed that they saw a spirit. 38 And he said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do questionings rise in your hearts? 39 See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; handle me, and see; for a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see that I have.”[g] 41 And while they still disbelieved for joy, and wondered, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” 42 They gave him a piece of broiled fish, 43 and he took it and ate before them.

Acts 10:39 And we are witnesses to all that he did both in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; 40 but God raised him on the third day and made him manifest; 41 not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.

They are because that is what salvation by grace through faith means.

Yes.

No. Our objective is whatever we choose. It is the aim of God to connect with us.

There is no end to what God has to give to us and no end to what we can receive from Him. That is eternal life.

There is only ONE mediator between God and man and that mediator is God Himself in the person of Jesus. There is only the work of God to connect to us and that is grace. We can only accept that connection which is faith, or not. This part of your analogy makes no sense at all. The Gnostic element in Christianity, with the demand to believe what they say and the entitlement believers think they earn from this, is Christianity at its worst. It is a devilish work to change Christianity into a tool of power and evil.

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That’s a weird way of describing crucifixion :thinking:

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It’s actually fairly common in the NT, e.g.,

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree…
Galatians 3:13

 
(Well, three places anyway. Two more: Acts 5:30 and Acts 10:39)

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Indeed…

Here is what one Sage journal article had to say about this.

On three occasions, Acts refers to Jesus’ crucifixion as ‘hanging on a tree’ (5.30; 10.39; 13.29), a phrase alluding to the proscriptions for displaying an Israelite convicted of a capital crime (Deut. 21.22-23). Most scholars attach little significance to this appropriation, assessing it as a dead metaphor. This article focuses primarily on the phrase’s first occurrence in Acts (5.30), arguing that the reference functions within the apostles’ rhetoric to characterize the manner of Jesus’ execution and the opponents’ maladministered judgment. After assessing the interpretive scope and availability of the allusion, the study situates the phrase in the rhetoric of the apostles’ speech, its polarization of the protagonists’ and antagonists’ respective evaluative viewpoints and the narrative development of the elements commensurate with ‘hanging on a tree’. The apostles’ speech polarizes a religio-political conflict and situates the cross as the rhetorical crux between two contradictory assessments of Jesus’ role for the people, contributing to the stark disjuncture between God’s elevation of Jesus as ruler and savior and the Jerusalem leadership’s ‘hanging’ of Jesus ‘on a tree’, a phrase that conveys more than simply the objective act of execution.

from here.

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Ah, missed that one because ‘hang’ was not explicitly associated with it.

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Are you willing to study?

What do you think of the Ecumenical Councils? Which do we accept? Which do we reject? Please provide your reasoning.

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  • I’m for diversity.

  • I believe you have a connection with God, but some people in this forum don’t believe I have a connection with God, after I express I have a connection with God, so is that taking away diversity, when they think I don’t have a connection with God?

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Diversity in itself is not worthy as a goal. That’s like saying all change is good and so we should pursue change for its own sake. That is nonsense because we all know that all change is not good.

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God defines what is a connection with him. We cannot just subjectively say “I’m connected with God” because I feel like it with no objective content.

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I can possibly believe that Jesus’ soul entered another body and thus, as the Bible seems to say, he resurrected in another form. But this second body being lifted into heaven is contra science. There is a Hindu narrative that says a king wanted to go to heaven bodily. He was told such is not possible.
I understand heaven to be a psychic place where pious dead souls reside. So, if Jesus’ resurrected body ascended into heaven, where is it now? I feel it is best to hold judgment on statements in the scriptures that are contra science.

Would a person who was born before Jesus be salved by faith? What about Moses and Abraham. Were they saved? I still feel that salvation through faith is in sync with salvation by Knowledge (cap K). Perhaps there are shades of grey–1 percent Knowledge or 1 percent Faith. But both needed in some measure.

Yes. But Bliss comes IF we connect with God.

How can Jesus put limits on God?

A different views is possible: Inquisitions, harvesting of souls, killing of native Indians, Hitler… [These are aberrations from the core of Christianity]. I don’t know if Gnostics were power mongers.

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The idea of an ecumenical council is that it is a gathering of leaders of the whole church (oikoumene - inhabited world or household in Greek) to determine doctrine and/or practical matters. There were many councils in the ancient world and dispute about some of them being “ecumenical”. The Eastern Orthodox churches hold to seven ecumenical councils. The Oriental Orthodox churches hold to just the first three councils. And the Roman Catholic church holds to twenty-one councils, and counting. Most Protestant churches would agree with either four or seven as being truly ecumenical.
(Ecumenical Councils - CHURCH HISTORY - LibGuides at Life Pacific University).
I do not accept ANY Council as Word of God. Only OT NT are Word of God.

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Then we also cannot know if and how “God defines what is a connection with him.” Grace then is as subjective.

Your connection with God in your view; and your non-connection with God in their view–both are equally subjective. So, don’t worry about “them.” Be in Bliss with God.

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  • @riversea, You have asked me some questions. If you want some answers from me, do you want them in a private message or in a public message? and do you want them in English or German or some other language?
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I never said they are the Word of God. The councils work out issues and problems, and define doctrine, using the Word of God (or Sacred Tradition) to do so. The leaders of the churches meet to weigh in on issues.

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  • True in part, and not so true in part.
    • I also do not accept Councils as “Word of God.”
    • But your claim that “only OT NT are Word of God” is not actually your belief, is it. After all, like many, but certainly not all, Jews, Christians, and Muslims, you are selective in which parts of the OT and NT are the Word of God and which should not be deemed equally sourced and true.
    • It so happens that I, too, am selective. And it also so happens, that you and I disagree on words and sentences in both the OT and NT should be deemed historical and authoritative. Unlike those who hold to an "OT and NT is the ipissima verbum Dei doctrine, folks like you and I don’t actually consistently say everything in the Bible IS “the Word of God.” One of the really big irreconcilable differences between you and me is that I admit it; but you seem to have difficulty agreeing.
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And I don’t believe in this transmigrating rational soul of the Greeks, Gnostics, and other religions. All the evidence tells us that no such thing exists as this nonphysical entity added to a body making it alive or a person. The body is alive and a person because of what it is. And all parts of the person can be found right there in the physical body. I do believe in a nonphysical spiritual aspect to existence but I do not believe in that. The evidence just doesn’t agree with it. This religious idea is nothing but fantasy.

Like God, Jesus resurrected spiritual body has no part of the space-time mathematical structure of the physical universe. There is no where and there is no now. There is no spatial-temporal ordering of all existence. Science has abandoned that idea for quite some time.

Compatibility with the objective evidence of science is part of my definition of rationality. But an education in science will show you that this is nothing like the dictates of common sense which the uninformed confuse with science.

Reading the Bible tells us that the answer to this is yes.

Whereas I have learned that knowledge and understanding is completely incapable of saving us. People do self-destructive things even when they know they are self-destructive.

And I am convinced that adding knowledge requirements to salvation is the invention of the people to use religion for manipulation and power. Knowledge is not unimportant or irrelevant, but is neither necessary nor sufficient.

Romans 2:12 All who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. 13 For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. 14 When Gentiles who have not the law do by nature what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. 15 They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or perhaps excuse them 16 on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus.

People find “bliss” in the use of drugs. I am not interested in that.

Jesus is God. Can God put limits on Himself? Yes. I am a firm believer that God CAN. Otherwise you make God a slave to your theology and definitions, incapable of the things any human can do. I believe in a God that can take risks, can make sacrifices, can give privacy, and can set aside all power and knowledge to become a helpless human infant to grow up and live among us.

And I think the cause of these evils are the entitlement which came from Gnostic notions that knowledge of Christianity made them better than other people.

In beginning of any ideology or religion there are idealists with no idea where the ideas they are teaching will lead.