How Peaceful Is Christianity?

[SetiAlpha6]

According to the Bible, Jesus said:

"Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s enemies will be the members of his household." (Matthew 10:34-36 NASB)

"I have come to cast fire upon the earth; and how I wish it were already kindled!" ... "Do you suppose that I came to grant peace on earth? I tell you, no, but rather division; for from now on five members in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three."... (Luke 12:49,51-53 NASB)

 

[Gordon]

Of course. But he did imply that by not helping the man, they were doing the wrong thing. They were implicitly endorsing his desperate condition.Pete

I presume that you are not sending this reply from a village of starving people in Africa so are you endorsing their condition? I am sorry the second part does not logically follow from the first. It is not Jesus' implication either. It is simply your personal implication.

That's precisely why we're having this conversation.
Bad things happen to people. God does not appear to intervene, when it is accepted that he is capable of doing so.
Why does God not "walk the walk" of helping people in desperate situations?
Why do people starve, freeze, or live in suffering?Pete

This is part of the free-will discussion (in my other post). Why do fathers let their children do things that they could do faster and easier? Because it helps them to develop.

Three logical possibilities:

No free will - automata manipulated totally by God (not my idea of existence!)
Free Will to do evil but God always intervenes personally to put it right so no opportunity like the Good Samaritan. In fact the only options open for us to do would be evil. So we would all be doing the evil things and God continually clearing up - Strange form of world (again not my idea of existence!)
Free Will - God allows people to do both good and evil and only interevenes on certain occassions or at least controls how far the evil is allowed to go.
This to me makes logical sense and as stated is repeated by we humans when dealing with our own children.

Yes, the Samaritan did God's work.
Why did God not do God's work? Why does God always outsource?Pete

See above

My point is not that God is responsible for bad things, but that by failing to correct them, He implicitly endorses them.Pete

Sorry but as above this is false logic. No such link is intrinsically logically implied.



Pete[/QUOTE]

 

[SetiAlpha6]

Hi Gordon,

According to the Bible, ALL MEN are born into sin, and are so depraved they are actually incapable of choosing “good” from birth. How is this freewill? How can a man make a freewill decision for God or “good” when he does not even posses the ability to do so?

Thanks

 

[SetiAlpha6]

I presume that you are not sending this reply from a village of starving people in Africa so are you endorsing their condition? I am sorry the second part does not logically follow from the first. It is not Jesus' implication either. It is simply your personal implication.

This is part of the free-will discussion (in my other post). Why do fathers let their children do things that they could do faster and easier? Because it helps them to develop.

Three logical possibilities:

No free will - automata manipulated totally by God (not my idea of existence!)
Free Will to do evil but God always intervenes personally to put it right so no opportunity like the Good Samaritan. In fact the only options open for us to do would be evil. So we would all be doing the evil things and God continually clearing up - Strange form of world (again not my idea of existence!)
Free Will - God allows people to do both good and evil and only interevenes on certain occassions or at least controls how far the evil is allowed to go.
This to me makes logical sense and as stated is repeated by we humans when dealing with our own children.

Gordon, don't these verses disagree with your view of freewill?

Acts 13:48
And as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.

Rom.8:29-30
For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate.... Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.

Rom.9:11-22
For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth. .... For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy. For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth. Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth. Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? ... Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus? Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour? What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction.

Eph.1:4-5
He hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will.

2 Th.2:11-12
God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned.

2 Tim.1:9
Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began.

Jude 4
For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation.


These verses do not describe freewill at all do they? They blow more than a few circuits in my brain anyway. According to Jude 4, God even ordains people to be condemned!?!? What chance do they have? Can they resist His will in this?!!! What do you think?

Sorry! I didn’t take the time to look them up in a more recent translation!
Apologies!

Thanks!

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

You don't get it. I do not turn my cheek and love my enemies because i am a nice guy. I do so out of obedience and trust in the guidance of Jesus. That's something that a lot of people just cannot do.

Rather a lot of people are quite able to choose to be nice without having to believe in a fairy tale. And rather a lot of people who believe in your particular fairy tale manage to lose their way and choose to be nasty. But as I have said, it is a basic instinct preprogrammed into a social species like Homo sapiens to live in peace and harmony with our pack mates. As our packs increase in size our ability to apply that instinct to ever-larger numbers of pack mates increases with it. Unfortunately our biology lags behind our technology so we're always catching up. But we've gone from being able to feel kinship in tribes of a couple of hundred people to being able to do it in cities of thousands, and many of us can do it in nations of millions. And as many of us have done that without Jesus as with him. There is no convincing evidence that communities who have adopted Jesus are doing any better than those who have not.

You give your religion credit for accomplishing something that it has not, and at the same time you deny credit to our very nature for accomplishing something that it has. What is it about you Christians that requires you to invent something larger than ourselves in order to snatch our achievements from us and denigrate us as a species? It's a really crappy thing to be telling your fellow humans and I'm getting really pissed off about it. People are basically good and I resent the hell out of you telling us that we require the care of a mythical being to overcome our inherent evil natures.

Rome did go out to eliminate totally all traces of the civilization of Carthage. You view on history is faulty and has been affected by your bias.

Oh whoopee. Out of dozens of cases of polytheistic civilizations retaining at least a minimal level of respect for each others' histories, cultures and artifacts so that we still have evidence of them to enrich our own civilization, you've dredged through your history books and found one counterexample.

On the other hand... By the time the two evangelistic patriarchal monotheistic religions of Abraham reared their ugly heads in the First Millennium CE, there were only six civilizations: Mesoptamia/Europe, Egypt, China, India, Olmec/Maya/Aztec, and Inca. One third of them were obliterated from history by Europeans in Jesus's name.

The numbers speak for themselves.

Do not mix the teaching of muhammed with Jesus they are diametrically opposed.

Angels on a pin. Both Jesus and Mohammed preached monotheism, a warped model of the human spirit that goes against human instinct and causes its followers to suppress major parts of their own spirits, with colossally disastrous results. Both Jesus and Mohammed (as well as Moses) chose not to include the male chauvinism that was institutionalized in their eras in the list of sinful behaviors to be eschewed, another failure that has led to a dismal warping of the spirits of their followers.

Monotheism and patriarchy are arguably the two greatest defects in contemporary human philosophy and they are both fundamental to all three sects of Abrahamism.

The only Problem you could justifiably have is with Jesus Himself. If you cannot bring forward a teaching that Jesus Himself gave then your problems with "christianity" is not a problem with Christianity but a problem with a false man made faith, a bastardisation of what Jesus taught.

Jesus taught monotheism. That is a huge problem. Jesus taught a rather elaborate philosophy on how to build a good and decent world that blatantly omitted any criticism of the rampant male chauvinism that was staring him in the face. That is also a huge problem.

So yes, I've got two huge problems with Jesus. Two of the basic premises of the model of human behavior he taught are things that we have to not only forgive and ignore, but overcome.

Also once again do not mix up islam with Christianity. Islam promotes the teachings of the false prophet muhammed, and his teachings are opposed to the teachings of Jesus.

They both teach the same thing: Monotheism and patriarchy. They're wrong on both counts to the point of being downright evil.

 

[nova900]

Monotheism and patriarchy are arguably the two greatest defects in contemporary human philosophy and they are both fundamental to all three sects of Abrahamism.Jesus taught monotheism. That is a huge problem. Jesus taught a rather elaborate philosophy on how to build a good and decent world that blatantly omitted any criticism of the rampant male chauvinism that was staring him in the face. That is also a huge problem.

.

Yep, one of the BIG reasons I now follow a spiritual system that includes the female aspect as well as the male.
It's all about balance. Creation has manisfested itself in a dual nature and to dis-regard one part of it is idiotic.

I take an example of our sun...a perfect example of balance ...a balance between two forces that are always working against each other.The weight of the star, and the desire to collapse in on itself vs the pressure generated by the fusion at the core.
It's worked for 4.5 Billion yrs...luckily for us.

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

Evil Evil does not exist in its own right. It is the absence of good just as dearkness is the absence of light. God is goodness and love and therefore not evil at all. Everyone that falls short of that (i.e. every human who has ever existed) has a lesser degree of goodness and therefore a degree of 'evil'. Just as we describe 'cold and hot' to refer to a very small range of temperatures well above absolute zero (no heat) but also far away from for instance the temperatures inside stars, so our comparison of people as 'good' or 'evil' is a measurement along a similarly small scale within the overall band. I doubt that there is any human who is or was totally evil (not even Adolf Hitler who managed to love dogs and some people). But conversely we are nowhere near the goodness of God. We should humbly recognise this when considering our own actions and not believe that we are so much better than any of the others that we might to choose to think of - we are not!

As I mentioned in my reply to Adstar above, humans are much better than the Abrahamists give us credit for. Our greatest challenge is of our own making. We have the instincts of Mesolithic people, to live cooperatively and peacefully among a few score pack or tribe mates with whom we are personally acquainted and almost all of whom are blood relatives. Basically an extended family. The Neolithic revolution launched by the invention of agriculture increased the size of our tribes to several hundred and required us to learn to live in peace and harmony with people whom we didn't instinctively regard as kin, and we managed to do that. Essentially by augmenting our instincts with learned behavior that was passed down by elders to succeeding generations. The Dawn of Civilization increased the size of our communities by another order of magnitude, and we were able to learn to live and work with complete strangers. As cities grew and assimilated diverse tribes, we learned to get along with people who didn't look like us, spoke funny, and had different customs.

And we did that all without Moses, Jesus or Mohammed. We were always well served by the polytheistic spiritual models that were instinctive to all humans in all societies--"archetypes" as Jung calls them, models hard-wired in our collective unconscious that are so precisely drawn that every one from the pantheons of the Egyptians and Greeks to the casts of Shakespeare's plays has the same set of spirits. We instinctively tolerate the diversity inside us and that guided us to tolerate the diversity around us.

The rate of growth of our cities has increased geometrically. Unfortunately our instincts are starting to lag behind. Most of us are at the point where we live in peace and harmony in cities of 20,000 people, but we have cities a thousand times larger.

We will catch up, but Moses, Jesus and Mohammed are not helping us.

Destruction of 'civilizations' As someone with Mexican friends I do not wish to be an apologist for the appalling things done by Spanish colonists but the destruction of civilisations has gone on continually throughout history.

Yes, but as I covered in my previous post they were never of this scope. Even the Muslim-Arab destruction of Egypt was not as thorough as the Christian-Iberian destruction of the Aztec and Inca civilizations. The Aztecs were at about that same level of development when the Europeans arrived, with a wealth of written documents, yet our knowledge of their culture is sparse. Their written records were very systematically seized and destroyed.

The civilization that built the pyramids at Teotihuacan was destroyed by the Aztecs (apart from the huge structures such as the pyramids themselves).

Just as the entire Western world from Rome to Persia was a collage of individual cultures descended from the original Mesopotamian civilization, the individual cultures that sprang up in various places in Mesoamerica were all various flavors of Olmec civilization. The Aztecs wiped out one small part of it but the ruins of the Mayas and of the Olmecs themselves survived. The Spaniards tried their best to wipe it all out. There is a huge gap in our history of Mesoamerica between the demise of the Maya and the arrival of Montezuma which I don't believe has a parallel in the Old World.

Even if you believed in religious freedom (and certainly no marks here for the Spanish conquistadors and the RC church of the time) what would you have done about people who practised human sacrifice? If an atheist humanist government had taken over a land where this went on, what would they have done (or indeed do now)?

It's easy to make this remark in our enlightened age, but please put it in context. The Christians of Europe were practicing their own brand of "human sacrifice" in the Inquisition. The institution of human sacrifice owed as much to the Aztec form of government as it did to the Aztec religion.

As outraged as I would be today to encounter a society that practiced human sacrifice, I would nonetheless try to be true to my principles and remember that virtually all attempts by one nation to "improve" another by use of superior force have, in the long run, caused more harm than good. The only way to deal with the Aztecs if they were still around would be to argue with them, send them our TV shows and CDs, let our tourists visit each other's countries (with perhaps some interesting rules about certain traditions not being universally respected) and let their citizens find out that There Is A Better Way. It's what we should be doing in Iraq and it's what I would do in Aztlán.

All artifacts were of course not destroyed as many hours visiting the Museum of Anthropology in Mexico City will prove.

Yes, the Spaniards didn't go to the trouble to smash all of those stone chacmooles. Of course there is stuff left, but their history books are all gone.

Nor were all indigenous peoples (including Aztecs) killed although they tended to be pushed in the mountainous areas. Their descendants can still be found today (often discriminated against) but still nonetheless in existence in their ethnic groups.

I very carefully tried to avoid implying that I thought all the people had been destroyed. The Arabs did a far more thorough job of that in Egypt. Heck, even the Anglo-Saxons virtually killed off or ran off the entire original Celtic Briton population of Angle-Land.

Genocide of an entire ethnic group is one unforgivable cosmic crime. But obliteration of an entire civilization is another.

Atheism of course allows moral standards to be set by people in accordance with their own human thoughts (there being no belief in any external arbiter). We have seen the end results of that throughout the 20th. century where various excuses were dreamt up by totalitarian regimes to excuse the greatest persecutions and mass murders in history.

Once again, you're ignoring the role of biology in this. We have perfectly good instincts to follow here. As pack animals we're quite capable of getting along with one another without the help of a fairy tale creature. The problem we're up against at this moment in history is that our packs have merged and grown to the size of a herd, and as pack animals we don't have the instincts of herd animals to live peacefully and cooperatively among endless hordes of anonymous strangers. Nonetheless we've clearly found the path to that particular enlightenment since such a huge number of us are in fact able to live in peace in today's civilization. And roughly half of us have done it without the monotheistic model for guidance.

Even today atheist North Korea is the worst persecutor of christians on the globe (worse than all muslim countries). According to the 'Open Doors' ( a christian charity), 'It is believed that tens of thousands of Christians are currently suffering in North Korean prison camps, and are having to endure extreme abuse and violence. Though no exact figures can be given, Open Doors estimates that hundreds of Christians were killed by North Korea’s ‘Hermit Regime’ in 2005'.

A person who is not gritting his teeth in order to be scrupulously charitable to Christians might suggest that the North Koreans simply see evangelical patriarchal monotheism as a dire threat to civilization which must be removed by whichever regrettable means prove effective.

I should suspect that many non-christians are also being persecuted there too.

I wonder. I really wonder. Members of evangelical religions can be such a huge pain in the ass. One must at times have the patience of the saints one does not believe in to tolerate them with grace.

 

[Pete]

I presume that you are not sending this reply from a village of starving people in Africa so are you endorsing their condition? I am sorry the second part does not logically follow from the first. It is not Jesus' implication either. It is simply your personal implication.

Jesus implied that the levite and the pharisee who passed by on the other side had not done what is necessary to inherit eternal life: to love their neighbour as themselves.
Yes, each time I walk past a homeless person, I am implicitly endorsing their condition.
Yes, by not walking the walk of helping those in need, I am implicitly endorsing their condition.
Yes, if you do not "Go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor," then perhaps you might not "have treasure in heaven." "If thou wilt be perfect", then you must do all in your power to alleviate suffering.

This is part of the free-will discussion (in my other post). Why do fathers let their children do things that they could do faster and easier? Because it helps them to develop.

No. This is not about people choosing evil. It is about people in desperate situations through no fault of their own. What kind of father would allow his child to freeze to death, to starve to death, to be kidnapped and tortured, to be born into a lifetime of misery, to remain blind, deaf, or disabled, if he had it in his power to prevent it?

If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent?

Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?

If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?

And this is essentially why I find it so difficult to believe in God. Those who ask often do not receive. Those who seek often do not find.

 

[Adstar]

Matthew 10
34 “Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. 35 For I have come to ‘set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law’; 36 and ‘a man’s enemies will be those of his own household.

Luke 12
49 “I came to send fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! 50 But I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how distressed I am till it is accomplished! 51 Do you suppose that I came to give peace on earth? I tell you, not at all, but rather division. 52 For from now on five in one house will be divided: three against two, and two against three. 53 Father will be divided against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.”

Jesus knew His message would cause division and those who where against His Word would use the "sword" violence in an attempt to rid the world of it. Just because the message of Jesus lead to a violent reaction against it does not mean that Jesus was calling for His followers to engage in violence. The division that Jesus talked of did happen. First it happened within the Jewish community when many Jews where divided from their families by accepting Jesus as Messiah and following Him. The Jewish authorities carried out persecution to kill the new converts and many people where betrayed by their own family members. Paul even took part in and lead such a wave of persecutions. The Fire Jesus talked of was the baptism of the Holy Spirit. That took place on the day of Pentecost.

So these verses do not show Jesus calling for His followers to engage in conflict. It is warning them that that following Jesus would cause them to be divided from their families. I have experienced this myself. Most people who decide to follow Jesus become estranged from their unbelieving families; it is an unavoidable consequence of following Jesus.


All Praise The Ancient Of Days

 

[Adstar]

Hi Gordon,

According to the Bible, ALL MEN are born into sin, and are so depraved they are actually incapable of choosing “good” from birth. How is this freewill? How can a man make a freewill decision for God or “good” when he does not even posses the ability to do so?

Thanks

Just because all men sin does not mean that men cannot acknowledge their sin as sin and seek the will of God. It’s never been about being sinless it’s about seeking the will of God and acknowledging it as right and true.


All Praise The Ancient Of Days

 

[Adstar]

Rather a lot of people are quite able to choose to be nice without having to believe in a fairy tale. And rather a lot of people who believe in your particular fairy tale manage to lose their way and choose to be nasty. But as I have said, it is a basic instinct preprogrammed into a social species like Homo sapiens to live in peace and harmony with our pack mates. As our packs increase in size our ability to apply that instinct to ever-larger numbers of pack mates increases with it. Unfortunately our biology lags behind our technology so we're always catching up. But we've gone from being able to feel kinship in tribes of a couple of hundred people to being able to do it in cities of thousands, and many of us can do it in nations of millions. And as many of us have done that without Jesus as with him. There is no convincing evidence that communities who have adopted Jesus are doing any better than those who have not.

You give your religion credit for accomplishing something that it has not, and at the same time you deny credit to our very nature for accomplishing something that it has. What is it about you Christians that requires you to invent something larger than ourselves in order to snatch our achievements from us and denigrate us as a species? It's a really crappy thing to be telling your fellow humans and I'm getting really pissed off about it. People are basically good and I resent the hell out of you telling us that we require the care of a mythical being to overcome our inherent evil natures.

You don't like hearing the truth. Thats normal for one who is proud who denys their own limitations and believes in self delusion that humans are good. You can resent the truth all you want but it the end all your vain attempts will come to naught. The God of Abraham exists and you are not God, You are subject to His will wether you believe it or not.

Oh whoopee. Out of dozens of cases of polytheistic civilizations retaining at least a minimal level of respect for each others' histories, cultures and artifacts so that we still have evidence of them to enrich our own civilization, you've dredged through your history books and found one counterexample.

One was enough to show the delusion of your theory.

The numbers speak for themselves.Angels on a pin. Both Jesus and Mohammed preached monotheism, a warped model of the human spirit that goes against human instinct and causes its followers to suppress major parts of their own spirits, with colossally disastrous results. Both Jesus and Mohammed (as well as Moses) chose not to include the male chauvinism that was institutionalized in their eras in the list of sinful behaviors to be eschewed, another failure that has led to a dismal warping of the spirits of their followers.

Monotheism and patriarchy are arguably the two greatest defects in contemporary human philosophy and they are both fundamental to all three sects of Abrahamism.Jesus taught monotheism. That is a huge problem. Jesus taught a rather elaborate philosophy on how to build a good and decent world that blatantly omitted any criticism of the rampant male chauvinism that was staring him in the face. That is also a huge problem.

So deep down you do not like God because He is a man? Is that it? Are you just a man-hating feminist? What happened in your life? Did your daddy treat you bad?

So yes, I've got two huge problems with Jesus. Two of the basic premises of the model of human behavior he taught are things that we have to not only forgive and ignore, but overcome.They both teach the same thing: Monotheism and patriarchy. They're wrong on both counts to the point of being downright evil.

Patriarchy hey. lol It's all the big bad men’s fault isn't it lol Your pathetic example of a brain washed, hate filled, looser. Your wilfully blinded by your own hate.

Isaiah 5
20 Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil;
Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness;
Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
21 Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes,
And prudent in their own sight!



All Praise The Ancient Of Days

 

[Adstar]

And this is essentially why I find it so difficult to believe in God. Those who ask often do not receive. Those who seek often do not find.

Those who seek must seek with a humble spirit thoise who ask must ask for the the will of God to be done.

Many people are only seeking a God that they want to find, One that conforms to their sence of rightiousness. One that will give them what they want, rather than give them what they need.



James 4
1 Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? 2 You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. 3 You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures. 4 Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. 5 Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously”?
6 But He gives more grace. Therefore He says:


“ God resists the proud,
But gives grace to the humble.”


All Praise The Ancient Of Days

 

[SetiAlpha6]

Matthew 10
34 “Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. 35 For I have come to ‘set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law’; 36 and ‘a man’s enemies will be those of his own household.

Luke 12
49 “I came to send fire on the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! 50 But I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how distressed I am till it is accomplished! 51 Do you suppose that I came to give peace on earth? I tell you, not at all, but rather division. 52 For from now on five in one house will be divided: three against two, and two against three. 53 Father will be divided against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.”

Jesus knew His message would cause division and those who where against His Word would use the "sword" violence in an attempt to rid the world of it. Just because the message of Jesus lead to a violent reaction against it does not mean that Jesus was calling for His followers to engage in violence. The division that Jesus talked of did happen. First it happened within the Jewish community when many Jews where divided from their families by accepting Jesus as Messiah and following Him. The Jewish authorities carried out persecution to kill the new converts and many people where betrayed by their own family members. Paul even took part in and lead such a wave of persecutions. The Fire Jesus talked of was the baptism of the Holy Spirit. That took place on the day of Pentecost.

So these verses do not show Jesus calling for His followers to engage in conflict. It is warning them that that following Jesus would cause them to be divided from their families. I have experienced this myself. Most people who decide to follow Jesus become estranged from their unbelieving families; it is an unavoidable consequence of following Jesus.


All Praise The Ancient Of Days

Adstar,

The text says,
“I did not come to bring peace but a sword.”
This is a declaration of His own purpose not His expectation of others.

It then says,
"I (Jesus) have come to set a man against his father..."
Again, this is a declaration of His own purpose not His expectation of others.

And lastly the text says,
"Do you suppose that I came to give peace on earth? I tell you, not at all, but rather division."

So, if I myself were to "suppose" that Jesus "came to give peace on earth," then I would be mistaken, wouldn't I?

 

[Pete]

Those who seek must seek with a humble spirit

That's not what Christ said. And it still doesn't work. Seeking with a humble spirit doesn't guarantee finding.

...thoise who ask must ask for the the will of God to be done.

Again, that's not what Christ said, and clearly not what he meant.
"Ask and you shall receive... as long as you're asking for what's going to be done anyway."

Many people are only seeking a God that they want to find, One that conforms to their sence of rightiousness. One that will give them what they want, rather than give them what they need.

This is exactly the problem. So many good, humble people do not receive what they need, and not for lack of asking.

 

[nova900]

The God of Abraham exists and you are not God, You are subject to His will wether you believe it or not.



All Praise The Ancient Of Days

The God of Abraham is a ignorant image of God CREATED by hebrew tribesmen who plagiarized much of their religion from beliefs from cultures that came before them.
You just don't get it do you?
Many of us just don't want anything to do with a vengefull,angry,cursing,jealous patriarcial jerk like Yahweh. Yahweh is NOT God...just the reflection of an intolerant group of people. God does not represent these dark qualities that the invented Yahweh does.

BTW..I am a guy and I hate the imbalance of this lopsided patriarchial belief..it's not about submitting to women..it's about balance and recognizing that creation has manifested itself in a dual nature.

Again here is some food for thought...

http://www.evilbible.com/

 

[Adstar]

Adstar,

The text says,
“I did not come to bring peace but a sword.”
This is a declaration of His own purpose not His expectation of others.

It then says,
"I (Jesus) have come to set a man against his father..."
Again, this is a declaration of His own purpose not His expectation of others.

And lastly the text says,
"Do you suppose that I came to give peace on earth? I tell you, not at all, but rather division."

So, if I myself were to "suppose" that Jesus "came to give peace on earth," then I would be mistaken, wouldn't I?

Are you really interested in hearing the answer or do you just want to repost your opinion?

What Jesus gave was peace to those who accept Him as Messiah. No He did not come to bring peace upon the earth because those who hate the truth will react violently to it because it offends them. I can have peace of mind in a world without peace. When i came to believe in Jesus my dad was divided from me because he was in another religion. So yes the word of Jesus ended my relationship with my dad, the message of Jesus brings division between those who accept it and those who reject it. So yes the word of Jesus brings division and violence upon those who embrace it. But even if we are about to be killed because we believe Jesus we can still have peace of mind because we know our eternal destination is assured. Fear of death dissipates when one has an eternal perspective.


All Praise The Ancient Of Days

 

[Adstar]

The God of Abraham is a ignorant image of God CREATED by hebrew tribesmen who plagiarized much of their religion from beliefs from cultures that came before them.
You just don't get it do you?
Many of us just don't want anything to do with a vengefull,angry,cursing,jealous patriarcial jerk like Yahweh. Yahweh is NOT God...just the reflection of an intolerant group of people. God does not represent these dark qualities that the invented Yahweh does.

You do not have too have anything to do with the God of Abraham and you do not. You can have your politicaly corrected new age compliant figment of your imagination for the rest of your life.

BTW..I am a guy and I hate the imbalance of this lopsided patriarchial belief..it's not about submitting to women..it's about balance and recognizing that creation has manifested itself in a dual nature.

yin and yang new age garbage.

Again here is some food for thought...

http://www.evilbible.com/

Do you realise how many times people have given that link to me other the years that i have been here? Don't waste your time.


All Praise The Ancient Of Days

 

[nova900]

You do not have too have anything to do with the God of Abraham and you do not. You can have your politicaly corrected new age compliant figment of your imagination for the rest of your life.





yin and yang new age garbage.





Do you realise how many times people have given that link to me other the years that i have been here? Don't waste your time.


All Praise The Ancient Of Days

Politically correct version..nope I'm not crazy about a lot of political correctness..I'm all for fairness,compassion and balance..something Yahweh does not represent (much of the time).
My beliefs are rooted in the ancient Egyptian spiritual system..not new age...
a belief system laid down thousands of yrs before the Old testament was dreamed up.
I came to embrace this belief after reflection ,study ,reasoning and logic( in my opinion of course) ...I found I could not embrace a god like Yahweh who represents a being with a lower sense of spirituality than many people here on earth. So, I have done away with the cruelties and harshness of the Abrahamic faiths and now I concentrate on being a better spiritual being..
engaging selfless service( am going to sponsor a child in the third world soon,volunteer at a local hospital), live life in moderation..yes I do believe sin is a negative factor.

Anyways Adstar, I wish you well...I'm not out to change your beliefs.

Cheers!

 

[Gordon]

Gordon, don't these verses disagree with your view of freewill?

Acts 13:48
And as many as were ordained to eternal life believed.

In context,

But Paul and Barnabas didn't back down. Standing their ground they said, "It was required that God's Word be spoken first of all to you, the Jews. But seeing that you want no part of it—you've made it quite clear that you have no taste or inclination for eternal life—the door is open to all the outsiders. And we're on our way through it, following orders, doing what God commanded when he said,

I've set you up
as light to all nations.
You'll proclaim salvation
to the four winds and seven seas!"

48-49When the non-Jewish outsiders heard this, they could hardly believe their good fortune. All who were marked out for real life put their trust in God—they honored God's Word by receiving that life. And this Message of salvation spread like wildfire all through the region.

Note the Jews were marked out to teach others but chose to go against their calling now Paul and Barnbas make it clear that Gentiles can choose themselves without the help of Jews. All the 'marked out' means here is those who were of that frame of mind to listen. It is clear that both groups of people were given a choice and made it.

Rom.8:29-30
For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate.... Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.

In plain English:

30God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him. After God made that decision of what his children should be like, he followed it up by calling people by name. After he called them by name, he set them on a solid basis with himself. And then, after getting them established, he stayed with them to the end, gloriously completing what he had begun.

This refers to God having planned a life for those who have chosen to belong to him. Note the word 'intended'. Note he called them. They did nothave to reply. This is quite clear from the earlier verses in the chapter:

Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God's action in them find that God's Spirit is in them—living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life. Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing. And God isn't pleased at being ignored.

9-11But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won't know what we're talking about. But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells—even though you still experience all the limitations of sin—you yourself experience life on God's terms. It stands to reason, doesn't it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he'll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ's!

Note here 'people who think they can do it on their own', 'If God ... has taken up residence', 'But for you who welcome him'. This is all about choice!

Rom.9:11-22

In modern plain english (Message version)

10-13And that's not the only time. To Rebecca, also, a promise was made that took priority over genetics. When she became pregnant by our one-of-a-kind ancestor, Isaac, and her babies were still innocent in the womb—incapable of good or bad—she received a special assurance from God. What God did in this case made it perfectly plain that his purpose is not a hit-or-miss thing dependent on what we do or don't do, but a sure thing determined by his decision, flowing steadily from his initiative. God told Rebecca, "The firstborn of your twins will take second place." Later that was turned into a stark epigram: "I loved Jacob; I hated Esau."

14-18Is that grounds for complaining that God is unfair? Not so fast, please. God told Moses, "I'm in charge of mercy. I'm in charge of compassion." Compassion doesn't originate in our bleeding hearts or moral sweat, but in God's mercy. The same point was made when God said to Pharaoh, "I picked you as a bit player in this drama of my salvation power." All we're saying is that God has the first word, initiating the action in which we play our part for good or ill.

19Are you going to object, "So how can God blame us for anything since he's in charge of everything? If the big decisions are already made, what say do we have in it?"

20-33Who in the world do you think you are to second-guess God? Do you for one moment suppose any of us knows enough to call God into question? Clay doesn't talk back to the fingers that mold it, saying, "Why did you shape me like this?" Isn't it obvious that a potter has a perfect right to shape one lump of clay into a vase for holding flowers and another into a pot for cooking beans? If God needs one style of pottery especially designed to show his angry displeasure and another style carefully crafted to show his glorious goodness, isn't that all right? Either or both happens to Jews, but it also happens to the other people.

This is about God choosing certain people in advance for special purposes. It does not state that only some are chosen for salvation. Note also that the start of the chapter explains that Paul is sad about the Jews failing in their God given mission. The whole chapter is an expansion on this not on pre-destination to eternal life! Here is the end of the chapter,

'How can we sum this up? All those people who didn't seem interested in what God was doing actually embraced what God was doing as he straightened out their lives. And Israel, who seemed so interested in reading and talking about what God was doing, missed it. How could they miss it? Because instead of trusting God, they took over. They were absorbed in what they themselves were doing. They were so absorbed in their "God projects" that they didn't notice God right in front of them, like a huge rock in the middle of the road. And so they stumbled into him and went sprawling. Isaiah (again!) gives us the metaphor for pulling this together:

Careful! I've put a huge stone on the road to Mount Zion,
a stone you can't get around.
But the stone is me! If you're looking for me,
you'll find me on the way, not in the way.'

It's pretty clear there that there were both those who looked and found whilst others got absorbed in themselves and got lost. This reiterates free choice.

Eph.1:4-5
He hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will.

The 'us' here is everyone. God had a plan from the very beginning to give everyone the chance to be redeemed. There is no suggestion that this is a particular set of specifically chosen people.

2 Th.2:11-12
God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned.

Or in full:

The Anarchist's coming is all Satan's work. All his power and signs and miracles are fake, evil sleight of hand that plays to the gallery of those who hate the truth that could save them. And since they're so obsessed with evil, God rubs their noses in it—gives them what they want. Since they refuse to trust truth, they're banished to their chosen world of lies and illusions.

Note 'since they refuse to trust truth'. - That's very clearly a decision based on a choice!

2 Tim.1:9
Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began.

Same as Ephesians! Being saved is not something we can buy or get because of our own efforts. It's a 'gift' but you can graciously accept a gift or of course you can always refuse it!

Jude 4
For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation.

'Dear friends, I've dropped everything to write you about this life of salvation that we have in common. I have to write insisting—begging!—that you fight with everything you have in you for this faith entrusted to us as a gift to guard and cherish. What has happened is that some people have infiltrated our ranks (our Scriptures warned us this would happen), who beneath their pious skin are shameless scoundrels. Their design is to replace the sheer grace of our God with sheer license—which means doing away with Jesus Christ, our one and only Master'

Note this is about foreknowledge that these people would be like they were and do what they did. It is only describing prophetic knowledge not pre-destination!

These verses do not describe freewill at all do they? They blow more than a few circuits in my brain anyway. According to Jude 4, God even ordains people to be condemned!?!? What chance do they have? Can they resist His will in this?!!! What do you think?

Sorry! I didn’t take the time to look them up in a more recent translation!
Apologies!

Thanks!

I hope this helps.

Two rules for exegesis:

1. The chapters must be read in full and in the context of what is happening at that time.

2. Someone writing the section (even if writing it by their own human efforts) would not be likely to be so stupid as to contradict something only a few verses away so the core of the message must be the same throughout

Modern English helps too. Personally I find New Testament Greek often easier than King James English, not to mention the fact that the translation in the latter is often wrong!

With all those things in mind, passages can often be seen to mean something very different to what it appears merely by quoting just a few words. If you believe that this is a bit of a 'cop out', try an experiment and get someone to cut out a small part of a newspaper/magazine article about a subject you do not know much about and then tell them what you think is being said. Then read the whole article and see how accurately you got the meaning from the small part. Then reflect that this is in your native tongue against a cultural background you understand well. Now think about odd verses translated into a different language hundreds of years later relating to events, the cultural background to which you may have very much less knowledge.

Thanks for the references. I am enjoying the discussion greatly.

Regards,



Gordon.

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

You don't like hearing the truth. Thats normal for one who is proud who denys their own limitations and believes in self delusion that humans are good.

This is what it comes down to, isn't it. We think that humans are basically good and you do not. What have you ever done that you're so ashamed of that it makes you believe that your entire species is evil at heart? That is just sick, mi hijo.

One [exception] was enough to show the delusion of your theory.

This was not a theory but an observation. My observation is that on the balance the polytheistic religions maintain better tolerance and harmony than the monotheistic ones. My evidence, including the example you supplied, was that the nations with polytheistic religions have only in rare instances striven to destroy all traces of the civilizations they come in conflict and in fact generally assimilate generous bits of their culture and technology--and have only done this against small offshoots (such as Carthage) of the dominant civilization (Mesopotamian) of their region. Whereas the monotheistic Christian nations with great resolve and thoroughness attempted to wipe out all traces of the entire scope of native civilization throughout the Western Hemisphere.

So deep down you do not like God because He is a man? Is that it? Are you just a man-hating feminist? What happened in your life? Did your daddy treat you bad?

I would be just as perplexed if you insisted that god is a woman. We all have two parents in reality, one of each gender. Why is it that in your fantasy world we only get to have one? Why is it that the things your god does and wants us to do are so damn masculine? Abraham was a father. If his wife were a strong figure in the bible, she would not for two seconds haved allowed that psychotic asshole to seriously consider killing their child because he heard voices in his head! That is the lesson humans need: listen to both sides, don't let a crazy man or a crazy woman get carried away.

All of Christianity has the air of a big fraternity house or army camp that got carried away with itself because it suppresses its feminine nature. The bizarre rites of passage, the secret cults, the solution of disagreements through violence. This is male bullshit. No, my father didn't teach me that stuff or treat me badly because there was a mother in our household!

There is no balance in your religion. That is the superiority of the polytheistic paradigms. They have both masculine and feminine spirits, in recognition of the fact that a healthy life and a healthy civilization require both.

Patriarchy hey. lol It's all the big bad men’s fault isn't it lol Your pathetic example of a brain washed, hate filled, looser. Your wilfully blinded by your own hate.

I notice that you call me names but you don't actually defend yourself against the accusation.

Your writings have been quite articulate and reasoned up until now. Suddenly I ask the question, "Why does Abrahamism suppress the feminine side of humanity?" and you start spouting off like a little boy whose mommy wants him to stop tormenting squirrels because it's uncivilized, even if daddy manages to get away with it.