I take it as the word given to us by Christ in the Gospel. There is no need to make it up. There is however a need to think about it to understand it. Most people take it in a narcistic interpretation as to “love thy neighbour like one loves oneself” and it could not get much worse. I t tells you to “love they neighbour like thy own”, the self you see in your family, for which you lay down your own life, something you cannot do when loving your own life is your reference.
and yet you insist the birth of Jesus to be an unnatural event and not a supernatural one, e.g. the consequence of will over matter, that what life is all about.
you sound like shouting liar liar. Your response sounds more like I lay out scripture to you like you do not wish it to be.
That we could be eternal, yes, but in giving up the self bit you so desperately cling on to. You sound like you have eaten the ultimate apple, the one that promises you to be like God in the way it is described in the fall. Tell me what deceived Adam and Eve in the garden.
No, I don’t: Καὶ ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο – the Logos became flesh. The words mean exactly that. There’s nothing unnatural about it, it’s supernatural. What you’re doing is throwing away the supernatural as well.
But you didn’t lay out scripture, you changed it.
All of your positions here boil down to changing the scriptures, changing the meanings of words, and ignoring the context including literary type.
Giving up the self is in order to become our true selves.
so to you the supernatural is that which goes against natural processes. To me the supernatural is that what happens due to the will of God, e.g. influenced by non-material interference e.g. the will of God. its not about being a biological abnormality to claim it to show God to be involved. If you want to see the miracle in biology it is a birth of a child in the first place, not the process of artificial insemination or parthenogenesis. Supernatural is not magic, but the metaphysical element of reality, e.g. the impact of will on reality, the elementary basis of life.
ever stated something that is a self contradiction?
I resonate with what you wrote here. God is real but entirely different than persons. That doesn’t mean He is an impersonal force like gravity. I think the lure of living forever in all our eccentricity and separateness sadly does motivate what some believe. That marks us as unworthy and unready to appreciate and welcome God into our lives right now, with now being all the eternity we’ll ever know in our separateness.
I actually think (and perhaps this is controversial) it isn’t science itself that is the reason “Nones” are skeptical of Christianity, but rather peoples’ lack of understanding of philosophy of science (and the way science is taught). Science is only in conflict with Christianity if one extrapolates from the methodological naturalism (itself not well defined) scientists use to model and describe the natural world to a metaphysical naturalism, which itself is non-scientific unless one wants to beg the question.
(Logical) Positivism failed hardcore in philosophy, but many science educators have not gotten the message as to why and unfortunately continue to make very obvious mistakes in epistemology that pretty much anyone with a cursory understanding of philosophy would be able to point out.
I am not a philosopher by any means but I know enough about it to see some pretty egregious mistakes commonly made by those in the scientific skepticism movement and the educators who align themselves with it.
I agree entirely but I also think there is a tendency to mistake theory for the world itself. This seems to lead toward a kind of instrumentalism in which one’s focus is on what one can do without sufficient regard for conscience. Materialism and determinism make for an impoverished perspective on the world and others while rendering the sacred invisible.
Agreed. Given the huge numbers of Christian scientists it is quite obvious that one can use the scientific method without also needing to believe that nature is all that exists, or that there is necessarily a bright line between the natural and supernatural. Atheist and theist scientists get along just fine within the scientific community, even if they don’t fully understand why some people may have non-scientific beliefs that are different than there own.
The scientific method is a great tool for using objective data to understand how the physical universe works. It was never meant to be a tool for understanding the full gamut of human beliefs. Even as an atheist, it makes me cringe if I hear a fellow atheist say something to the effect, “I believe in science because I believe in the Truth”. I also have a lower than average opinion of philosophy, but that’s just me being a curmudgeon.
If God makes a rule and then needs to create an exception for himself he made an imperfect rule. there are enough people who cant follow the rules they make themselves. we don’t want a God called Boris
where do you derive that from?
man was created with the capability of free will. Now for Jesus to be fully human he would have to have possessed free will. Now was he fully God and fully human?
why would it be incompetent and why would it overturn his good creation. Evil even existed before humans and God is what overcomes it every time
if you do not believe in God you believe in everything you can even believe in science and have faith in science and science becomes your God as we see in phrases like “Science says” as if it could speak. It even materialises in the “body of Science” and in the “spirit of Science”
Atheists might even appeal to rationality “in the name of Science”
Do not touch high voltage wires is a good rule, unless of course you are a wire repair man.
Rules have purpose but it is also an unwritten rule that rules can and need to be broken sometimes. That is not because rules are imperfect, but because it is almost impossible to make an infallible rule. That is why lawyers exist.
Oh, sorry, did you want a Biblical citation? Scripture was shoehorned into verses and chapters in th 13th century and it was a gift to the Devil. You need to understand both God and humanity instead of relying on verse and worse.
The whole point of the Gospel is that Jesus did everything willingly. That is His humanity.
Yawn.
So you do not believe that Adam is the reason all humans sin. Good
Is that ‘cringey’ for you because of the tempted implication that others then, must not be interested in truth? If so, I can see that. But I’ve actually uttered that slogan as a Christian - because I think truth is important (and Christianity at its best ought to help reinforce that conviction). And that furthermore, it seems to me along with so many others (religious believers or not) that science is the best tool we’ve had available to help us understand the mechanics of the physical universe. Of course, as a believer I also think there are things begging for yet further understanding that aren’t illuminated by mere mechanical understandings, no matter how accurate or complete those may be.
With that added caveat, does the rehearsal of that phrase still make you cringe?
It is cringey because science can’t find Truth (with a capital T). By Truth, I mean the philosophical type of Truth, not the probably true descriptions of how stuff operates at a basic physical level. Truth (with a capital T) includes the subjective nature of humans, and science really can’t deal with that.
We agree 100% on that point.
Words like truth, proof, and faith have many different meanings in different contexts. When I hear an atheist say “I believe in science because I believe in the Truth” I take it to mean they are talking about some ultimate philosophical Truth. So yes, it still makes me cringe even with those caveats.
That’s as may be but verses are artificial dividers that people accept as statements in their own right. At lease if you take a passage out from a whole you have a complete section (I would expect)
as a wire repair man you are particularly aware mot to touch the high voltage wire and make sure it is not high voltage or use arrangements that avoid you touching them
I expected you to explain God and humanity to me as your understanding must have let you there. Do you think Jesus was an afterthought to lead us to eternal life? To my understanding humans had eternal life, lost it in rejecting Gods authority and try to regain it ever since under their own authority.
[quote=“RichardG, post:219, topic:53006”]
Man was created with free will and with that comes sin. It is as simple as that. No need for apples and "magical trees and all the other paraphenalia of Original Sin. It is utter codswallop.
[/quote] just to remind you of your statement.
my comment was to emphasise that Jesus had free will and was sinless demonstrating that free will does not necessarily lead to sin.
What you call codswallop is a beautiful poetic description of the problem of puberty that you can either understand or dismiss. Looks like you definitely did not understand that story, as the reason for sin is not Adam, but according to him Eve, the helper God gave him
If you die from touching the high voltage cable, what is the reason for your death? Is it the existence of high voltage cable, the fact that you were not warned about their dangers, the fact that you were in a place were you could touch them, the flaw in your design not to be high voltage compatible (clearly according to atheists an all knowing God would have made you high voltage compatible if he would have known you were going to get in touch with the high voltage cable and the fact that he did not proves that he either is not all knowing or not all powerful or not all loving for not preventing it Their logic is priceless, for everything else we have Mastercard
Could it be that we became mortal - e.g. died by becoming material self instead of being part of the eternal God?
As I understand it wire repair me use a liv wire suit that protects them and allows them to touch the high voltage…
I never said that sin is automatic. i said that sin only exists because if our free will. We can choose not to sin. And Jesus said as much on several occasions.
That view is not scripture.
Sin does not kill you like an electric shock, The analogy fails. God has always been fully aware of sin, of course, because sin is disobedience to Him. The only way to prevent it is to make us slaves with no free will. Jesus is not a antidote or even a cure for sin. He is a demonstration that God forgives sin instead of holding it against us. IOW we are free to live and free to sin without consequence,.
Salvation is not about eternal life. Salvation is about removing the guilt that we impose on ourselves for doing wrong. The problem is not that God rejects us, it is that we reject ourselves. We judge ourselves unworthy. We set standards that God does not require. All God wants is for us to walk with Him. His burden is light, but we convince ourselves that He wants more.
Ignore eternity. Eternity is meaningless without time. Live in the freedom Christ gives you for this life. Walk with God now. You will find that He wants you to be happy not subservient and afraid.
I contend that God is less interested in specific law, and more interested in attitude and principle. Paul writes that the law can only condemn which would apply both to Mosaic law and this unwritten Law of our hearts.
Forgiveness counters the letter of the Law. It overrides perfection or the unreachable. It focuses on continuance. Do your best but don’t sweat the small stuff (or the big stuff for that matter). The whole point is that we are no longer expected to attain the highest standards and our accomplishment amount to nothing anyway. God’s grace ignores all levels of righteousness from the greatest to the least.
We do what we do, not because of reward or punishment but because it is right. And when we fail God forgives us.
you can touch the live wire if you sit on it, are at the same potential as well. in the faraday suit you also have something between you and the wire to conduct the electricity outside you.
interesting way to say it. I always wondered why “pro-choice” is okay now and we now celebrate “pride”.
20 When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness.
21 What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death!
22 But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.
23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in [2] Christ Jesus our Lord.
sounds like the pride parade gospel I think we both think the same but your wording makes it sound completely wrong and some people use it that way.
the secret of happiness is to be thankful for what you have - or had. It usually is a hard way to get there, having to let go of the “self”
it is about repentance for that guilt, not about feeling good about it
If you want to be sombre and holier than thou fair enough but don’t inflict that onto me or anyone else for that matter.
I have no idea what you are going on about pride for. There is no self in God’s forgiveness and grace.
The puritan view went out with Columbus Christianity is not about being sombre and pure.
