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Yes, Satan as the prince of the earth has his way with most so that is why many today do have an attitude to "get it on" and don't want to follow the morals of God's law.
he is here in Spirit with all the beleivers, even the beleivers that do drive sports car
seriously ? i hope the Spiritual part is true because then i can see why so many wannabe christians go through all the pain to try and understand the man Jesus. Is it not possible then that the story of crucifixion is only a parable like so many others and that we should not crack our brains but just go with the real meaning thereof ?
Why do you suppose God has such a fixation with blood, torture and sacrifice? Doesn't that seem a little morbid to you? I mean, why not just forgive our sins? He's God after all. Do you think that's beyond His capabilities? Why send Himself down to earth to be tortured?
You're spot on here. The whole idea of sacrificial death as being necessary for reconciliation with God is perverse. It was Jesus' LIFE that showed us the Father and reconciled us to him. His death was the natural result of human cruelty and hate, nothing more.
You're spot on here. The whole idea of sacrificial death as being necessary for reconciliation with God is perverse. It was Jesus' LIFE that showed us the Father and reconciled us to him. His death was the natural result of human cruelty and hate, nothing more.
any sources you consulted that you could refer me to ? it seems we are dealing with dimensions here. If Jesus really asked God to rescue Him from these acts of human brutality then it is safe to conclude that He was not a descendant of God and could only have been a prophet like many who came before Him. My goodness i'm not saying that He prophecised about the messiah or anything , i heard HE mentioned some stuff about the end of the current epoch ! mind boggling stuff i mean, or yes maybe the messiah will descend from the heavens in our lifetime!. 2012 , yes the well informed say THINGS unseen in this world before will happen , coincidence ?
The story of the crucifixion is not a parable, it is the main theme of the entire bible, the OT builds up to it, and the NT proclaims it.
i've always suspected that the crucifixion was indeed the main theme and set out to try and gather the whole truth around that crucial event in Jesus life. If the Roman soldiers acted otherwise and saved Him , would we even be having this thread ? what would have happened to all those prophecies we find in the OT ?
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Originally Posted by Fr_Chuck
But now since Christ lives in and with all of us beleivers, you can buy me that convertable and I will drive it, so Christ can be in it also,
MARK . MATTHEW, LUKE AND JOHN 'S Jesus would have refused such luxury since He was a man with a humble disposition and always stood by the poor and oppressed.
I have no doubt that if there were cigars in the first century Jesus would have been a smoker of the best cuban cigars hand rolled off the thighs of the finest Cuban women... Only, it wouldnt have been Cuba back then
Jesus would have ridden a horse like John Wayne, ride a motorcycle like Steve McQueen, and driven a car like Morgan Freeman.
any sources you consulted that you could refer me to ?
Yes, there are sources that support this view e.g., The Urantia Book, but that's not why I believe it. There are sources to support all kinds of views. What it comes down to for me is what kind of God am I willing to believe in. A God who demands the suffering and death of an innocent being in order to be reconciled to His children is not one I am willing to accept. If it turns out that I'm wrong, I can live with that.
That God would demand sacrifice is absurd, not to mention biblically inaccurate. The Abramic tradition in which the sacrificial paradigm emerges is challenged early on in the Hebrew Scriptures and is echoed in the person of Jesus.
First in Hosea where God “says”, “ I desire mercy and acknowledgement not sacrifice.” (and you should hear the justifications Christians to ignore this obviousness), then when Jesus tells the Pharisees to go learn what that saying means in the Matthew text, I think (it may have been Mark. I get the M’s confused from time to time).
The religious have always struggled to give up sacrifice to the divine throughout history and Christians both Protestant and Catholic are severely behind the times in their theology and understanding of their own Scripture. Jesus as a sacrifice is another example of how his apostles tried to make sense of his death, and give it more meaning. We do this at every funeral, we make a person into something bigger than life in the retelling of their life story. Why is it so surprising that the apostles would do the same? The answer is, because it conflicts with what people WANT to believe.
Ordinary, it seems you are heading down a similar path, it is just a different road, one of your own choosing. Determining what kind of God one is willing to believe in, is no different than what the Christians are doing.
One does not get to pick and choose the aspects of God in which they accept and do not accept. It is the same mistake that most religious people make when they make belief synonymous with faith. Believing that something is true, doesn’t make it true, just like you can’t accept a thing into truth. God is what it is, the best we can do is learn as much as we can about it, live according to that understanding and deny the absurdities. There is the truth and the rest is all speculation.
For what it is worth (admittedly little) I have found that intuition is a good tool to use when attempting the consideration of the otherness (divine/God) of our physical universe.
That God would demand sacrifice is absurd, not to mention biblically inaccurate. The Abramic tradition in which the sacrificial paradigm emerges is challenged early on in the Hebrew Scriptures and is echoed in the person of Jesus.
Yes, for example:
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What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the LORD; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats. When you come to appear before me, who asked this from your hand? Trample my courts no more; bringing offerings is futile; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and sabbath and calling of convocation-- I cannot endure solemn assemblies with iniquity. Your new moons and your appointed festivals my soul hates; they have become a burden to me, I am weary of bearing them. When you stretch out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow. -- Isaiah 1:11-17
and,
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I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals I will not look upon. Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. -- Amos 5:21-24
and,
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"With what shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?" He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? -- Micah 6:1-4, 6-8
and,
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[Jesus said,] "But if you had known what this means, 'I desire mercy and not sacrifice,' you would not have condemned the guiltless." -- Matthew 12:7
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Originally Posted by scottyv
Jesus as a sacrifice is another example of how his apostles tried to make sense of his death, and give it more meaning.
And to make Jesus' life and mission fit within the limits of the Old Testament idea of "The Messiah" in order to make his teachings and mission more acceptable to and compatible with the culture of his birth. Unfortunately, this ploy failed to convince the Jews and misrepresented his mission to the rest of the world.
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Originally Posted by scottyv
Ordinary, it seems you are heading down a similar path, it is just a different road, one of your own choosing. Determining what kind of God one is willing to believe in, is no different than what the Christians are doing.
You're absolutely right. The difference is that they usually deny that the choice is theirs. They'd rather feel compelled by the Bible.
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Originally Posted by scottyv
One does not get to pick and choose the aspects of God in which they accept and do not accept.
Oh, but one does. One not only GETS to choose, one MUST choose. Choose your inspiration, choose your vision, choose your holy book, choose your interpretation. It's unavoidable.
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Originally Posted by scottyv
For what it is worth (admittedly little) I have found that intuition is a good tool to use when attempting the consideration of the otherness (divine/God) of our physical universe.
Why would you say that what you have found is worth little? I agree that intuition is a useful tool, but I don't understand what you mean by "the otherness (divine/God) of our physical universe".
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