HelenM

I can't answer that question but I do know that anyone who overemphasizes the 'maleness' of God has not taken notice of:

love
Helen

[ January 29, 2002: Message edited by: HelenSL ]</p>

hinduwoman

Also, theo, the bible does not explain why christ came to a small town in a remote province, so that when he died the majority of people even in the Roman empire had never heard of him.

theophilus

You assume that that is a significant point. It would only be so if that were God's purpose. It evidently wasn't.

Also, woman, it does explain why - because that's what was prophesied.

[ January 29, 2002: Message edited by: theophilus ]</p>

theophilus

I don't mean to give you a hard time, but I have to use a certain amount of humor here. Hope you arent' offended.

[ January 29, 2002: Message edited by: theophilus ]</p>

lpetrich

Very good point? Why not take one's message directly to the Emperor?

Essentially, that's what President Bush and Prime Minister Blair have been doing with the confrontation between India and Pakistan; they've been sending envoys to the highest levels of government, rather than to a few peasants in out-of-the-way places.

pulpyboy

theophilus,

No offense taken. I read the article as well as the trinity thread and I must admit that I don't feel any closer to understanding why it is a trinity vs. an infinity. I guess I shouldn't also have the t.v. on when I am reading secweb threads.

Regards

theophilus

Like all our knowledge about God, we only know what he reveals about himself. As far as "understanding," there is a difference between understanding and comprehending.
Most of our confusion arises from thinking that God is like us, just infinitely so. He is not like us; we are like him.
All a is b does not mean all b is a.
God, in his essense, is incomprehensible by human intellect.
That's as you would expect, isn't it?

[ January 30, 2002: Message edited by: theophilus ]</p>

Deputy42

a lot of bickering in this room.
Check the book of revelations:
out of the multitudes of human, only 144000 are saved to live in heaven. It means that the majority of us are doomed isn't it? How many men and women has been born or come into being in this world if we count back from the first men: Adam & Eve until today?

your reference to the book of revelation is incomplete, were you to continue reading the very next verse after the one you quoted you will find that in rev 7:9 "after this i looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count from every nation, from all tribes and people and languages, standing before the throne and before the lamb, robed in white, with palm branches in their hands." in verse 10 they say "salvation belongs to our god who is seated on the throne, and to the lamb!"
in response to the jesus showing himself to other lands and how others will be judged.....
he admonishes us to spread the word to all the corners of the earth so that others might hear and be saved. there is a lot of conjecture about those who don't hear the word, and it seems that those people would have the same fates as those jews who came before christ, in that they will be judged according to the life that they led. gotta love killing false information, what did Socrates say about that?............

Grumpy

hinduwoman said:
Also, theo, the bible does not explain why christ came to a small town in a remote province...

theophilus replied:
Also, woman, it does explain why - because that's what was prophesied.

That merely shifts the quandry one step back: The Bible does not explain why if fails to prophesy multiple Christs. That is, the (alleged) prophecies which apply only to Jesus are part & parcel of the Incarnation phenomenon. There could just as easily have been (since we have not yet see an explanation why not) multiple Christs, which might entail multiple prophecies.

In other words, the question is still the same. Claiming that there could only have been one Christ born in Judea because it was prophesied that way ignores the range of possibilities open to an omnipotent god.

[ February 13, 2002: Message edited by: Grumpy ]</p>

sbaii

God did not "have" any offspring. He "is" Father, Son & Holy Spirit. The Son is 'begotten" of the Father and is his exact representation Colosians 1:15.
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The guy at atheismawareness.home.att.net has something interesting to say about the word "begotten" as it appears in aramaic and how its meaning has changed through the Greek translation. Go to his study hall section.