[galveston]

Works are not necessarily miracles. Is that what you mean?

I refer you back to the passage I quoted just above your post. God confirmed the word preached by "signs" and those given in the Bible in various places were miracles of healing.

Christians can indeed do good works, but if it can be done by man, then it does not qualify as a "sign" or a miracle. Hope this clarifies my position.

PS: I see the unbelievers have arrived late to the fray.:D

Actually, you and I do agree on several points.

[bendingleconte]

I refer you back to the passage I quoted just above your post. God confirmed the word preached by "signs" and those given in the Bible in various places were miracles of healing.

Christians can indeed do good works, but if it can be done by man, then it does not qualify as a "sign" or a miracle. Hope this clarifies my position.

PS: I see the unbelievers have arrived late to the fray.:D

Actually, you and I do agree on several points.

I so hope you weren't referring to me as one of the unbelievers... that would be very very Baptist of you.

[dwashbur]

In other words, you know that you have been refuted and you are trying to save face.

You make me laugh.

Lol! I didn't twist it to mean exactly the opposite. You didn't post exactly what I said. You posted selected tidbits which you then dressed up with your commentary to make it sound as though that is what I said. But you misrepresented my point.

Do you even read what you type? Here's what you said:

Again, you keep using the phrase, "in so many words". Essentially admitting that I never said what you accused me of saying.

Now you're claiming something totally different. You made the claim, right there in that statement, that the phrase "in so many words" means that's not what you said.

In other words, you pretended to summarize my words. But you didn't summarize the meaning of my words. You quoted a few fragments and proceeded to imbue them with your meaning.

So what you actually say has nothing to do with what you mean? This doesn't make any sense at all.

In fact, I did not say what you claimed I said and you need to quote where you claimed I said it or recant. Since I have made this challenge before and you have yet to meet it, I take that as admission that you were making a fallacious argument.

I already did quote you, and I quoted you in context. If you're saying things that you don't mean, maybe you need to find a clearer way of saying what you mean. That's your problem, not mine. The fact remains that in all of your comments, you only acknowledge two possibilities:

1) Jesus was totally subservient to his mother throughout his whole life or

2) he dishonored/disowned her.

Once again, these are your words, not mine. If you don't mean them, don't put them out for public scrutiny. But as I said, that's your problem, not mine.

[galveston]

Galveston, we are all believers of our own beliefs. Practice tolerance and maybe you wouldn't have criticized those with different opinions. It is hypocritical to be a christian and to speak to someone as if you are right. Before that gets taken out of context, I mean you should always be humble in your arguments and treat the other/others with respect regarding their stance on the subject. Ask questions instead of making accusations. Isn't that why the original question was being asked? because a christian ignorant of Catholic belief(or is it doctrine?(de maria)) made this person feel uncomfortable.

Surely you are not suggesting that when the Scriptures are clear, I shouldn't say so.

Do all paths lead to God?

[bendingleconte]

Not all paths lead to God. In fact, very few of all paths even point in His direction anymore. But all "Paths to God" lead to God.

Think about it this way... if we were to all meet in St. Louis, would we all be on the same path? Not even remotely, but would they all be paths to the city? Yes!

We are uniquely shaped by our heritage and culture but everyone can agree that God is universal and transcendent.

[De Maria]

WOW! Super Christian of you. :rolleyes: No wonder I'm Hindu.
Hare Krshna.

A very confusing religion Hinduism. Do you really think you are prepared to argue its merits here on the Christianity board?

[De Maria]

I wasn't attacking anybody or talking specifically about any previous post. Your religious opinion is an opinion. Therefor the rightness or wrongness of that opinion is relative to you. I am certain I could find millions of people in the world that would say you are wrong. I am saying you are right or wrong depending on who you ask, which would mean relatively every religious opinion is right and wrong. You are right, you didn't say it wasn't OK to have different beliefs, but your tone is sharp and opinionated.

So is yours. Just because your opinion is that no one should have opinions doesn't mean that your tone isn't sharp and opinionated.

It is your opinion that there are no absolutes. You will find that 99% of Christians don't agree.

Again I wasn't necessarily referring to you but as for these "experts" what sort of credentials do you need to be one because to me it seems all you need is an opinion. Also the ignorance I was talking about was the ignorance of other peoples beliefs not your own. You can critique and take out of context whatever quote you want from this post. Hey kind of like bible passages, no wonder you are so good at it.

Spoken like a true unbeliever. We who believe in Christ, believe in absolute truths revealed by God.

If you don't believe that there are any absolute truths, then what do we do with your belief that there are no absolute truths?

If you are correct, then your belief is not absolute and there are absolute truths which we must believe.

Sincerely,

De Maria

[De Maria]

You make me laugh.

That's the only option you have left. You obviously have no coherent response.

Do you even read what you type? Here's what you said:

Now you're claiming something totally different. You made the claim, right there in that statement, that the phrase "in so many words" means that's not what you said.

I'm being generous when I say you're a bit confused. Perhaps you didn't understand. You used the phrase, "in so many words" because you selected a few words out of my statement in order to twist their meaning into what YOU CLAIMED that they meant. If you had quoted the entire phrase, your claim would be proven wrong. Which I did when I quoted my entire statement.

So what you actually say has nothing to do with what you mean? This doesn't make any sense at all.

Sure it does. You took a few of my words and claimed that I said something "in so many words". But when my statement is read it is clear that you twisted the meaning of those words to create a straw man which you could then destroy. But the straw man of your creation has nothing to do with what I actually said.

I already did quote you, and I quoted you in context.

Nope.

[quote[ If you're saying things that you don't mean, maybe you need to find a clearer way of saying what you mean. That's your problem, not mine. The fact remains that in all of your comments, you only acknowledge two possibilities:

1) Jesus was totally subservient to his mother throughout his whole life or

2) he dishonored/disowned her. [/quote]

I already disproved those accusations.

Once again, these are your words, not mine.

Those are actually your words. You didn't even bother to take any words from my statements that time.

If you don't mean them, don't put them out for public scrutiny. But as I said, that's your problem, not mine.

I'm fine with the public scrutinizing my words and yours. I think my statements will stand the scrutiny just fine.

I'm pretty sure that yours won't.

[De Maria]

I refer you back to the passage I quoted just above your post. God confirmed the word preached by "signs" and those given in the Bible in various places were miracles of healing.

Christians can indeed do good works, but if it can be done by man, then it does not qualify as a "sign" or a miracle. Hope this clarifies my position.

Not really. Because you seem to be suggesting that men can't look upon our nonmiraculous works and glorify God. That isn't what you mean, is it?

Do you mean that for anyone to believe that we are Christian, we must accompany our preaching with miracles?

PS: I see the unbelievers have arrived late to the fray.:D

Yes, I've already engaged a couple of them.

Actually, you and I do agree on several points.

Yes, we do. Hopefully, one day, we will agree on everything.

Sincerely,

De Maria

[galveston]

Not really. Because you seem to be suggesting that men can't look upon our nonmiraculous works and glorify God. That isn't what you mean, is it?

Do you mean that for anyone to believe that we are Christian, we must accompany our preaching with miracles?


Sincerely,

De Maria

To your first paragraph, I do not mean that men will not see and glorify God because of our own good works that are motivated by our obedience to God.

As to the second paragraph:

Let me try an illustration.

You are in a land among people who worship a wooden idol decorated with bird feathers. You tell them that the God of Heaven is unseen, all powerful, omniscient, and omnipresent, and that they need to turn from their idol worship. You tell them that you have a Book that explains your God, and what He expects from humans.

But they respond that they have their religion handed down from their fathers for many generations. Why should they believe that your God, who they cannot see, is better than their God, who they CAN see.

What do you do now?

That is where the miracle working power that God invested in the Church on that day of Pentecost by the Baptism of the Holy Ghost comes into play.

When the idol worshippers see their people being healed in the Name of Jesus, they realize that the God you represent is the true God, because their idol cannot do anything at all. The same can be said of every false religion.

I'm not going to cite passages here at this time unless you ask me to. It would make this lengthy post even longer.

[TUT317]

Good question Gal. From my point of view I blame Plato. Naturally, Plato predates Christianity but he has left us with many unanswered questions in relation to universals. Today it is nearly always referred to as,'the problem of universals'



In a dialogue discussion an argument is put forward between Socrates and a priest of Athens named Euthyphro. Socrates asks Euthyphro where he is going? The reply comes that he is off to the courthouse to give evidence against his father who is being tried for murder.

Socrates asks for the fully story and both he and Euthyphro come to the conclusion that the case is weak. Euthyphro says that he already knows this but he is still going to give evidence against his father. Naturally Socrates asks, why?

Euthyphro explains that it is the holy thing to do. Socrates subjects Euthyphro to some close questioning about the nature of holiness. Whenever, Euthyphro comes up with a definition of holiness Socrates shows him that his definition is inadequate.

In the end, Euthyphro gives up and claims that every time he puts words down, they get up and walk away.

One thing Plato is doing is highlighting the relationship between appearances and reality.
I guess we could generalize and say we need a' physical thing' or 'an image', not so much 'to enhance' our worship but to know that appearances and reality are closely linked in some way. The big problem is how are they linked?

Plato is not denying there is such a thing as holiness but is showing that 'physical' holiness is not the same as 'actual' holiness. Plato believes that there needs to be a mediating entity to link appearances to reality.

If Plato were alive today and he wanted to answer Galverston's question.." Is not the Holy Spirit adequate all by Himself?' He might say, no- because the Holy Spirit provides us with a way of making sense of God and the physical world.

In John 14:16 I understand the Holy Spirit to have the role of our Counselor or "Mediator" in our lives.

It might be worth reiterating my earlier post. This may go some way to answering the original question and the nature of absolute truths. Anyway, putting it up for debate.

Socrates is demonstrating to Euthyphro that what he believes to be 'truth' is in fact not true. What he holds is only an approximation of the truth. I could be the case that we have a psychological disposition to want to know 'the truth' and 'an approximation' may help us to some degree. Unless we are unfortunate enough to run into Socrates.

Absolute truth can be looked at in terms of universals. Truth can be seen to be universal if it is true all of the time and in all places> past, present and future. Many things can fall under this category. For example. Mathematics and logic. Some ethical theories also claim to be universal.

Now it seems any truth which satisfies these conditions can be seen as an absolute truth. Even a tautology can satisfy these conditions.

I think there is a good argument for saying that there are many absolute truths.


Tut

[De Maria]

To your first paragraph, I do not mean that men will not see and glorify God because of our own good works that are motivated by our obedience to God.

As to the second paragraph:

Let me try an illustration.

You are in a land among people who worship a wooden idol decorated with bird feathers. You tell them that the God of Heaven is unseen, all powerful, omniscient, and omnipresent, and that they need to turn from thier idol worship. You tell them that you have a Book that explains your God, and what He expects from humans.

But they respond that they have their religion handed down from their fathers for many generations. Why should they believe that your God, who they cannot see, is better than their God, who they CAN see.

What do you do now?

That is where the miracle working power that God invested in the Church on that day of Pentecost by the Baptism of the Holy Ghost comes into play.

When the idol worshippers see their people being healed in the Name of Jesus, they realize that the God you represent is the true God, because their idol cannot do anything at all. The same can be said of every false religion.

I'm not going to cite passages here at this time unless you ask me to. It would make this lengthy post even longer.

Mightn't those pagans see your works and glorify God?

[De Maria]

... Plato is not denying there is such a thing as holiness but is showing that 'physical' holiness is not the same as 'actual' holiness. Plato believes that there needs to be a mediating entity to link appearances to reality...

His name is Jesus.

I think there is a good argument for saying that there are many absolute truths.

Absolutely!

Sincerely,

De Maria

[JoeCanada76]

This is not suppose to turn into a debate.


No wonder why so many people are scared away from God.

[dwashbur]

I thought I already replied to this a few days ago, but it would seem that post went into the Great Cosmic Bit Bucket.

Thats the only option you have left. You obviously have no coherent response.

I asked for clarification of what you meant and you refused to give it, descending instead into ad hominems. So be it. This is getting boring. You keep saying that what you said is not what you meant but decline to actually spell out what you supposedly meant. I'm tired of so I'm bowing out of this. I'm sure you'll insist on having the last word, so go for it.

[paraclete]

I thought I already replied to this a few days ago, but it would seem that post went into the Great Cosmic Bit Bucket.

You have found that there is one of those here too. Its full of opinions someone doesn't like and no doubt this post will find its way there too!

[De Maria]

OK.

[De Maria]

Actually, I think you are correct. Perhaps a moderator could clarify the rules. I thought this section was for answering questions and debates were restricted to the Member Discussion section?

[De Maria]

This is not suppose to turn into a debate.


No wonder why so many people are scared away from God.

Actually, I think you are correct. Perhaps a moderator could clarify the rules. I thought this section was for answering questions and debates were restricted to the Member Discussion section?

[Pensive]

I disagree. Yes Jesus respected his mother as we should respect our parents but he performed the miracle on his own accord. "Dear woman, why do you involve me?" Jesus replied, "My time has not yet come." Mary was a woman like any other.