NOGO

I do not dismiss GJohn and Paul's letters. I did quote from Romans did I not?

As for GJohn where does Jesus within GJohn talk about the fall of mankind?
Where does Jesus within GJohn talk about his mission to undo what happened in the garden of Eden?

Radorth:
"all men" and "whosoever believes" etc means what it says. I would go so far as to say it means you.

Thanks for the offer.

"whosoever" is too vague for you to make your case on. It is perfectly plausible that Jesus was refering to men of Israel. Especially considering Mt-15 and Lk-1. For example...

Matthew 23:16
Woe unto you, ye blind guides, which say, Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor!

Who would swear by the temple, except Jews.
There are many more cases of the "whosoever" but none that I see which cannot mean only men of Israel. Unless you find one which clearly includes other nations you cannot pretend that your interpretation is the only one possible given the evidence.

What about "all men" ?
here are two examples.

John 11:48
"If we let Him go on like this, all men will believe in Him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation."

Here "all men" clearly is all men of Israel.

John 12:32
"And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself."

If I am not mistaken this is the only one that you can count on as far as "all men" are concerned. However, since I have a case where the term means all men of Israel then you can hardly claim that this is a clear statement including all of humanity.

I would say that GJohn cannot be used to support your claim however I admit and never doubted that Paul did include everybody. This is not suprizing since Paul went out to the Gentiles to preach.

Conclusion:
Since Jesus in GJohn does not say specifically and clearly include men of other nations one must fall back on Mt15 and Lk1 to understand what Jesus really meant.

Your were talking about sincerity.
Is it not awkward for you that you cannot point to one single statement from Jesus which clearly states that he was there for everybody. You have to say that he implied it. Yet there is one statement which clearly says the opposite (Mt15).

Apart from Mt:15 and Lk:1 I can point to others such as Luke 24

20 and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered Him to the sentence of death, and crucified Him.
21 "But we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel. Indeed, besides all this, it is the third day since these things happened.


Note the "redeem Israel". Here is another disciple who did not get the message of salvation for the whole planet. One must conclude that Jesus did a very bad job at instructing his disciples.

I restate my case here.
Jesus did not say that he was there for all of humanity nor did he say that his mission was related to the fall of mankind in the garden of Eden. In fact he said the opposite.

The OT never mentions this as well.
It seems to me that it was Paul's invention.

[ September 29, 2002: Message edited by: NOGO ]</p>

Sojourner553

How would they know Jesus was sincere unless he performed special miracles no one else could perform. There are thousands of charlatans and tricksters out there.

You show a complete ignorance of history. So how to you explain the THOUSAND year of Dark Ages?

Glad to hear from you there is no conflict with science. Is that why some Christians want to teach CREATIONISM in the schools today? Have you seen the disclaimer to science on Bob Jones University science books?



By the way: You never answer any of my challenges. Will you here?

Everyone proclaims theirs as the “pure” form of Christianity. Do you know of any that claim they do NOT theirs is the “pure” form of the Christian religion?

Free thinkers typically want liberty for everyone. It has primarily been FUNDAMENTALIST RELIGIOUS groups that have opposed it in the past.
Now, there have been some atheist fundamentalists -- Stalin and Ayn Rand are two examples. I personally hate fundamentalists of all flavors; and would join in with humanist Christians/Jews/Muslims any day over fundamentalist atheists.

We do agree here!

Sojourner

[ September 29, 2002: Message edited by: Sojourner553 ]

[ September 30, 2002: Message edited by: Sojourner553 ]</p>

NOGO

Yah!, sure. Have you ever heard of Hypatia?

Sojourner553

Hypatia is a good example, although one could claim this was just one local community.

I would argue the Catholics caused the Dark Ages (after stamping out all other sects of early Christianity first.)

Radorth, care to explain these quotes. To me they are more "truly" representative of early Chrsitians with science:

"When God commands us to believe, he does not propose to have us search into his divine judgments, nor to inquire their reasons and
causes, but demands an immutable faith...Faith, therefore, excludes not only all doubt, but even the desire of subjecting its truth to demonstration."
--Catechism of the Council of Trent (1566)


"Reason is the greatest enemy that faith has: It never comes to the aid of spiritual things; but--more frequently than not--struggles against the
divine Word, treating with contempt all that emanates from God."

--Martin Luther (TABLE TALK)


"That we may be altogether of the same mind and in conformity with the Church herself, if she shall have defined anything to be black which to
our eyes appears white, we ought in like manner to pronounce it black."

--Jesuit founder, Ignatius Layola
SPIRITUAL EXERCISES, Rule #13


"The equal toleration of all religions...is the same thing as atheism."

--Pope Leo XIII

Sojourner

[ September 30, 2002: Message edited by: Sojourner553 ]</p>

NOGO

I agree with you entirely except that I would replace Catholics with Christians. When they came to power Protestants were just as bad as Catholics.

To me the killing of Hypatia symbilzes the entry into the Dark Ages. Europe turning away from knowledge, science, democracy, freedom of speech, rights by law and dedicating all to Jesus. 1000 years wasted!

Kantian

Not to nitpick, but i've always assumed that it was the fall of the Roman Empire that led to the Dark Ages? How am i mistaken?
(Disclaimer: i know nothing of history)
~Transcendentalist~

[ October 01, 2002: Message edited by: Immanuel Kant ]</p>

Kantian

From <a href="http://www.xrefer.com/entry/389420" target="_blank">Xrefer:</a> <a href="http://www.xrefer.com/entry/501671" target="_blank">And:</a> [ October 01, 2002: Message edited by: Immanuel Kant ]</p>

Metacrock

First of all that wasn't in the middle ages and had nothing to do with the rise of the middel ages. Secondly, the pagans had been torturing christians for weeks in blood thristy benge, and Hyp said something like "let them eat cake" of the French queen of centureis latter. The Christians who did kill her turned themselves in and apologized and accepted punishment.

Metacrock

Historians don't really use the term "dark ages" that much anymore. They now realize that there is great deal more overlapp between the "dark ages" and the so-called "re-birth of learning."

A guy named Burk proved that 80% of paintings in Renaissance were religiouslly commissioned. From this he concludes that skepticism was not that big a force in the rise of the Renaissance.

There was a lot of science done by the church in the middle ages, and hardly any persecution of people doing it. See my essay:


<a href="http://www.webspawner.com/users/scienceandnature/" target="_blank">http://www.webspawner.com/users/scienceandnature/</a>

[ October 01, 2002: Message edited by: Metacrock ]

[ October 01, 2002: Message edited by: Metacrock ]</p>

Kantian

Welcome back, Metacrock. It's been three months since you last posted here, 3 long quiet months without the rampage of the Godzilla of theologians!

Thanks 4 the link to your essay. I'll bookmark it for future reference.

~Transcendentalist~