Jedi Mind Trick

Double post... My bad.

Toto

Unsupported assertions of faith:We do have Christians who come to this forum and engage in meaningful discussions, without the need to assert their faith in such terms.

BADoC34

IT is true that God requires many to die sometimes in order to bring about the fulfillment of His plans. But this shouldn't be too confusing to one who isn't even sure of God's existence to begin with,much less His complex mtoives and means to and end He often employs. I think it is obviously black and white to most atheists,but maybe a bit for bothersome for agnostics?

So for the sake of argument,let's just assume that God is good and knows what He is doing...and all those he causes to "perish" are either hopelessly lost sinners,or already "saved" and of no further value in serving God on earth.
But if God is "bad",(by a loose human definition of the word), then He has committed a grave evil in taking innocent lives.
But if we are allowed to commit pre-meditated manslaughter in the act of war,then why would an Almighty Creator of mankind itself be limited in how He accomplishes His own will? That's supposing that their is some kind of great,unseen cosmic/spiritual "war" occuring on earth and in heaven.

But I admit these are some BIG assumptions to make in order to conlude as much about the nature of God. It would no doubt be much easier to simply judge by first impressions,in that such a God is a bold-faced murderer with no regards towards those unjustly punished by His ultimate decisions.
But then why would/is the easy,knee-jerk reaction always the first conclusion made by such intelligent and thorough non-believers?

Anyhow,as far as "Paul and Jesus" is concerned,neither one seems to directly reflect the OT God of judgment. It's true that that they both teach on the judgement to come,but neither openly justifies or defends the actions of YAHWEH in the taking of "innocent" life. In this way the two are alike,as well as in others. Actually,it is PAUL who seems to make more mention of the "joy" and "peace" we have in the Holy Spirit of God,and in His strength and power working in our lives. At least he does in a more tangible,simplistic way,without the metaphorical speech that Christ often used,as potent as that was.
In essence,Paul was just as upbeat and optimistic as Christ was,at least as far as his outlook on the body of Christ and churches he was involved in. He never totally counted a believer out,but always gave hope for even the most rebellious,even if he had to "hand them over to satan" for a time,in order to get them right again.

In short,I think these two men were pretty much on the same page,even though it is near impossible for any mere mortal to fully emulate the perfection which Jesus operated in.


*ISAIAH-9:2*

Jedi Mind Trick

Just what is it you were wanting to work for you here?

Buh Bye :wave:

Jedi Mind Trick

Well, I'm not sure what you are driving at, but this is the God I believed in for 16 years. I am bringing these things up because the Christian CONcept doesn’t make sense. It is transparently a cobbled up idea.
Hence the reason for my agnosis...

Follower of Christ

Sorry......saw this one and wanted to respond quickly.

It was not unsupported?
it is supported by the texts.
Do you have anything to support your ''unsupported'' faith in evolution?
What you have is someone elses interpretation of data.

What I have when I speak about scripture is no more or no less.

I have a mans interpretation of what he saw.

Either you folks here accept that the bible is a source that we use or you do not.
Please dont play the game of pretending to be open minded and fair if you will not allow me or anyone else to use the bible for our assertions.

I have not preached or tried to convert anyone here.
But for you to say that anything I say is unsupported simply becuase YOU do not agree with the text is absurd.
My support is the bible.
Your support for evolution is your science book.

Toto

FOC: you are basing your posts on a particular uncritical interpretation of the Bible, which you merely assert to be the truth. This forum is for a critical examination of the Bible.

We support the theory of evolution because we know about the scientific method that backs it up and the many data points that support it. But we still allow for reevaluation of the theory in the face of new evidence, which, despite claims to the contrary, is not there.

Jedi Mind Trick

Edited, Mod's response already addressed issue. And better at that.
Sorry...

sodium

Well, one view is that Paul took used the story of Jesus, but was only interested in the salvation and sacrifice elements. So he dropped the incidentals of Jesus's life, which didn't interest him, and dropped Jesus's teachings, since they frequently disagreed with his own. Of course, it's possible Paul mentioned this stuff all the time in documents that didn't survive.

I think the most likely explanation, though, is that the early Epistles come from a different sect than the Gospels. So there's really no reason to expect that they would agree. They probably had some common roots, but limited. One common root would have been a theology in which a divine figure is sacrificed, and this sacrifice takes the place of the Law of the Jews, and thereby allows the Christians to become the true followers of the Jewish God.

So both sects would have been non-Jewish followers of the Jewish God and would have absorbed this convenient bit of doctrine. They would have had some things in common, but there would have been differences as well.

GakuseiDon

Has anyone read EP Sanders' "Paul and Palestinian Judaism"? I think it is a bit dated, around 1977, but I've read a lot of good things about it.

Is it worthwhile?