I think “fear” and “grace” go together nicely in God’s plan. Without fear, grace is unattractive. Without grace, fear is torment without end. We need both in our Christian walk.
1 Like
you do need to open the door. God will not force it open. As the saying goes, it can only be opened from inside. (not biblical perhaps, but make a lot of sense)
Gratitude however is not how to receive grace, but the natural response of receiving grace.
healing is not forgiveness. I do think God’s forgiveness is conditional on our response. (think of the Lord’s prayer and the parable of the ungrateful servant)
1 Like
I never claimed any of that.
You have projected it.
I guess we all end up trapped in our own view.
Richard
Nice observation.
2 Likes
Not necessarily. As mentioned accomondationism just means same god in different masks for different groups. Just like how Judaism is very different from Christianity.
I don’t think the God of the Bible need to wear any mask. The God of Judaism is the same of the God of Christianity and He was revealed as the same God.
1 Like
Except the faiths are very different. It’s also obviously still accomondationism. The old Testament is full of things that originated in other faiths that was reimagined for an ancient Jewish group of people. They most likely did not even begin as 12-14 tribes from real brothers. We see from things circling issues like text sources that Levites , the “priests” redacted the Bible in a way to showcase their faith. That they seemed to have actually been a smaller Egyptian community which is why they all have Egyptian names. We see where it seems that at one point El was the one supreme god of the Jewish nation and that he had an angel/lesser god named Yahweh that was later conflated El. Third century gentile Christians would have been horrific dinners to 3rd BCE Jews and punished over what they ate.
Accomondationism and god wearing a mask just means we know there was no global flood or ark and yet it’s in scripture and ancient Jews did believe in a flat earth, in angels dragging lights across the skies and so on. That’s accomondationism. That’s a mask. The Jewish faith accommodated the Jewish people and their culture. Later on Christianity took on a very Hellenistic swing because that’s what the Greeks did . If the Bible came out of China and the New Testament was born out of Chinese people going to Japan we would have had a very different Bible. God would have been different. Jesus would have been different. The myths reaimagined would have been different.
1 Like
Not an expert on this area, but from what I understand, all these sources info are at best uncertain. Not sure if this has any relation to God having been known by many other identities in other cultures. In saying this, of course there are stories of many missionaries that God had revealed Himself to other people and other cultures. The similarities of these stories are being the name of this God as “unknown God” (as was mentioned by Paul in the book of Acts). These people in different cultures did not have that special revelation received by Israel thru Moses.
We are talking about 2 sets of people who live in different era that were following the same God. The 3rd BCE Jews who had their lives around the temple worship and sacrifice with their many regulations and the 3rd century gentile Christians who lives after Christ fulfilled the law and becoming the sacrifices, and the temple and even the High Priest Himself thus making all those regulations no longer necessary. That was exactly what happened during the conflict of Paul and Peter (Gal 2:11-14) Still, the same God with 2 different covenants to 2 different group of people.
Yes, the Bible would be written in Mandarin instead of Hebrew and greek. The God’s name would be Yahweh. 
1 Like
I think that is an ouch.
Jesus would not be different, but maybe our perception and understanding might
God is God.
religion is human
Richard
1 Like
Jesus was distinctly a Jewish person growing up in a Greek/Roman dominated city. He would definitely have been different. He would not be a Jewish man brought up on eastern religious myths.
Also. I just don’t care anymore what anyone really thinks. Agree ot disagree. I just don’t really care. I’ll go back and forth 1-2 times. Like I did. Then bounce. There are just too many books by experts on to much of this stuff to worry about it anymore.
World is a globe.
There will never be a Jesus on a horse combing back before some satanic power wipes out all of humanity.
You can pray all you want. You can fast for 40 days, you can go celibate for a decade, you can pray for 50 hours. You can get a thousand others just like you. Then go to a hospital full of kids with cancer with data left to live and lay hands and anoint with oil and pray pray pray and they want be supernaturally and suddenly healed. Can’t make arms grow back on some kid who suffered a shark attack. Your gas tank won’t magically bump up 1/4 tank from E because of your bumps yet stickers.
Evil people will only face justice if others bring it to them.
I’m not angry or anything either. Just it’s all myths. It’s helpful in its own ways. But it’s mostly unimportant unless you’re writing books about it to make money. Or profiting in some way. Sure learn good stuff from it. But it does not matter if you believe in this or that god, goddess, fairies, elves, cosmic aliens, fox demons, other dimensions beings, if you’re Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, atheists, satanic, pagan and so on. I have friends who say they are witches and preform spells, are in covens and friends who are part of the Silver Stars and friends who are Christians and those who are atheists.
If they consistently make bad choices their life will get worse. I don’t mean evil choices. Just bad ones. Get an apartment they can’t afford. Take a bad risky investment. Show up late to work all the time and call out. Eat just fast food.
If they constantly apply to better paying jobs with better benefits, live within their means, eat healthy and lift and so on their life will get better.
Are there outliers? Yeah. There are some snake handlers who have successful handles venomous snakes several times and are ok. Most of them use gimmicks or die.
If you believe that El and Yahweh are the same being and always have been then by all means just show me the book or scholar and I’ll definitely read it because out of all the myths my favorite are those in the Old Testament.
So do I believe in god. Sure. I just don’t expect anything significant from them in a personal way. Nor do I believe that any one will have anything that is mind blowing evidence of his tinkering.
Do I believe in Jesus. Sure. As a guy who was probably the byproduct of a rape against a very kind teenage girl who was probably trying to be helpful and harmed because of her good natured spirit and that she had a son born that was simply in connection with this higher being just like Buddha and Muhammad was, and that this boy grew up to be a man and was murdered by the Roman Empire because he was saying poor weak people deserve love and respect just as much as the emperor and those in power. He was crucified. Maybe his body did magically come back. Most likely it was disposed of and perhaps something otherworldly, a spiritual mistiness survived by this cosmic being.
Ultimately it’s all faith and it’s no credible evidence. The same exact arguments there are those used for Bigfoot.
So I’m going to go to the gym. Then I’m going to go pick up 2 chicks and a dude and we are headed to the forest where we are going to eat a range of edibles and drink mushroom tea and make snowless angels in leaf debris while we birdwatch miles away from significant civilization and then probably head to a beach house to spend the night. Tomorrow we are all going to a gun range a few hours away , we all met in the army as vegans and are all still vegans a decade later. Going to spend about a grand in ammunition between us all and enjoy seeing who can iron sight the most targets at 300-400m.
Sensible ones would just have some caveats on mechanics–Calvin interpreted it as being covenantal and aspirational, rather than causitive or contractual.
1 Like
Happy Christmas @SkovandOfMitaze ! Sounds like fun!
1 Like
As is the God of Islam the same.
Really? Bradley Jersak, a Christian, wrote a book entitled “A More Christlike God”. And Archbishop Michael Ramsey asserted, in 1967, that “the call of Christian belief is not just that Jesus is Divine and we worship Him; it is also that God is Christ-like.”
So how would a book entitled “A More Mohammedlike Allah” or the claim that Allah is Mohammed-like seem to you?
3 Likes
Stripped down, Islam is analogous to the Mormons… without the AMWAY
chain of angelization.
Joseph Smith, like Muhammad, was a latter-day prophet.
While Islam is Unitarian in regards to Jesus, the Mormons are Universalists
in regards to salvation.
G.Brooks
I am familiar with about as much of LDS theology as I am with Islamic theology, so pardon my ignorance if I suspect that a lot of Muslims or Mormons would agree to stripping their religions down to the point that Mohammed and Joseph Smith could be deemed analogous or that the LDS Father God and Islam’s Allah bear any similarity to each other.
2 Likes
That would make Allah a robber, for starters.
1 Like
Yes – they both depend on Christological heresies.