Voile;

I was merely drawing an analogy about your impression of Strobel as a "logician" (scientist/whatever) and a Christians impression of Pearson as a "minister" of the faith.

I'm not aware of your participiation in the various congregations that claim Church of Christ in their title - be it United, Mainline, International, or the Disciples of Christ -(a split from the original C_of_C movement) enough to qualify you as an "expert" on these matters, but I've spent over 20 years amoungst them, and to consider them ALL representative of "Christians" is questionable at best. Most within the Christian community would consider ALL of them a cult. The mainline churches tend to straddle the fence, depending on how extreme they are in their exclusivity, and fundamentalism. The international C_of_C is considered one of the top 10 most dangerous Christian Cults in the world - and the only thing about the United Church of Christ that is in line with Christ, and Christian tennents, is the "Christ" in their name. It's rather like claiming "Christian Science" is a Christian denomination because they have Christian in their name. Ask any Christian if they consider Christian Science to be a "Christian Sect". Wheras - the secular media, and studies say "Oh, they call themselves Christian, therefore we'll include them in our statistics". Disengenous at best.

So - my point is, are you familiar enough with the United Church of Christ to know if Pearson's claims have merit? Or are you taking someone's word for it?

That was where I was going with my post.

You are confusing me with someone else again. This is getting frustrating, not to say that it is profoundly off topic.

1) I never had the impression that Strobel was, is, or ever will be a 'logician' (scientist/whatever), totally invented on your part.
Strobel is a Christian Apologist, and that was the basis of my contention when someone (forget whom) quoted him as some sort of authority suggesting that evolution was a 'scam' or something of the sort.
Please Eljay, I don't want to be rude, but the degree of confusion is rather annoying.

2) I carefully wrote, as an opening sentence to my post, about Pearson, that I am not a Christian Militant. That would hardly come as a surprise to you Eljay. Don't quite understand your sarcasm then when asking me if I consider myself an expert in the incredibly confused business of Churches in the US.

3) Being an expert is neither here nor there. You probably didn't get the point I am conveying. The confusion and label carving, is within your Christian community.
Crying 'non-christian', and 'heretics', and 'cults', everytime individuals have a different opinion from yours, people, and putting out the apologetic-presuppositionists rhetoric dogs at them, is hardly edifying.
What you and your community of christian friends consider 'cults', 'heretics', or otherwise 'unworthy christians' is entirely up to you people. Your claim that so and so, and such and such isn't deserving of YOUR definition of Christian, is nothing less than despicable ethics. I hardly would consider that of Christian merit.
Most Christians in my neck of the woods, 'when I ask them', consider the whole of the US Evangelical, Pentecostal, and Fundamentalist groups, 'dangerous' sects. Does that make you Eljay, Spider, et all, less Christian?
The point is, you are no judges of whom is more, less, or or just plain Christian at all. One may have personnal religious opinions and beliefs, but if one crosses the line, and starts imposing opinions and beliefs on others, apologetics or otherwise, one is entering the despicable world of fascism. Wrongfully chasing someone out of a congregation for not toeing the line of the congregation is one thing. To force the rest of the world to agree with your opinion, that a person has now become 'heretic', 'cultish' or 'unchristian' like is simply not part of my moral code, whether you judge it worthy or not.

The universe of Christianity is incredibly larger than the small towns of US reformist declination of churches.

I fail to see the day where the whole Christian world will agree with 'spider', or adhere to a word for word interpretation of the bible according to the 'reformist-apologeitcs' movement.

Maybe you or spider will undertake a major 'cleansing' of the christian house, and re-issue 'limited memberships' based on your definition of 'merit'. Whether you chose that journey or not, be clear that your battle is within the Christian house, and not with me.

If Pearson has committed the crime of 'Gospel of Inclusion', which some fundamentalist bible inerrancy administrators cannot reconciliate with their sclerosed bible 'accounting' practices, Pearson than has a problem with fundamentalists, as Jesus had with the Pharisees. And I don't see how that makes him any less Christian than the 'Pharisees', on the contrary.

A bit frustrated, but always with all due respect to you Eljay.

WOW!!! what a difference a day makes!!!

Regrettably, my mere mention of Carlton Pearson with a caveat as to the voracity of some of his doctrinal conclusions has
proved to become quite the distraction.

Nevertheless, I find the continued dialog to be quite envigorating and thought provoking.

But for now, i just wish to opine that it does infer it's a debate of the God of the Bible. And to that end, I have been involved as so having been assumed to be the case.

Please continue, it's quite rivetting!!!!

Wouldee,

You sure can hold your breath for an incredibly long period. But at one point, even you will have to come up for air!!!

In the meantime, you're speaking under water does little. We just get bubbles...









... of air!


Come on wouldee, no offense intended, but come up for air and speak clearly.

I humbly bow to your infinite wisdom sir.

And to your all-wheel-drive unicycle. Very nice indeed!

Namaste

VOILA!!!!




Been working, and slaying dragons for the dinner table, my good man!!!

Clarity is for diamonds and seas of glass!!!

Please continue on.....I'll chime in if I see a stumblingblock to chop!!

Dang - I missed so much. Now that I'm all caught up, I'm too tired to write.

at redy

Sorry Voile, I thought you were the one who introduced Strobel to a discussion onanother post. It's been so long ago, I just don't recall it any more. The analogy seems to be lost in translation - so I'll abandon it.



It actually wasn't meant as sarcasm. Just a sincere question, as I'm not sure of your familiarity with C_of_C. I know that you have educated yourself on the matter of religion, etc - just wasn't sure how much. That was all.



Ah... see. The forums are jading me. As you know - one of my major objections is when a particular group or individual is labelled as "Christian", and then somehow their behavior or philosophy becomes representative of Christianity. To me, I often see this as a problem with the claim of being "Christian", rather than Christianity itself. A number of people have rejected "Chrsitainity" based on what - so called - Christians do, or say. For instance - you often refer to "Fundie-Christies", which - to me is another way of saying "Cultist". Yet your objection somehow draws itself
back to God or the bible as now being represented by the Cultists' actions. If I didn't sense this happening, I wouldn't comment. I think it goes without saying that two groups with extreme contradicting interpretations of the bible cannot both be labelled "Christian". Either one is, and one isn't - else neither is. It pretty much exists in all religions anytime a difference between groups majors_on_the_minors. As to be judges of who is Christian and who is not - it is not the individuals we (the Spiders, myself, and others) judge, but their interpretation, and message. It's all part of discernment. There are numerous "Christian ministries" out there that are "Sheeps in wolves clothing". Their facade is Christian, but their practices are Cultish. As you know all to well - the bible can be uplifting, a source of wisdom, and even at times a perspective of history - but it can also be used to manipulate, control, and inhibit. In the case where one dis-reguards Christianity, like yourself - it seems rather moot. But to someone who is searching for God, and thinks they've found them in a ministry, it becomes quite relevant as to whether or not that church will aid in their understanding the true concepts and tennets of Christianity, or manipulate them into a prosthetizing, monetary supporting cog in a pseudo-christian machine.



Actually - with closer examination, the universe of Christianity is incredibly smaller than the world at large percieves it to be.



It is biblical fact that it is not going to. Jesus himself claimed that there would be numbers claiming to have lived their lives for Him, yet He never knew them.



No - the major undertaking of Spider and myself is to run a red flag up the pole when Christianity is represented as something it isn't - or when the behavior of "pseudo-Christians" is attributed as representative of Christianity. Big difference between "limiting membership" when you expect a member to be one based on how they live rather than what they claim.



But it is my understanding that he is representing himslef as a minister and teacher of Christianity, yet dismisses historical Christian tennets. How can this be without being considerd a heritic?



Perhaps our posts were approaching two different destinations from the same direction. Lets just let it pass. As I'm pretty much clear on your point.

[qutoe]Eljay wrote:
It is biblical fact that it is not going to. Jesus himself claimed that there would be numbers claiming to have lived their lives for Him, yet He never knew them.

I find this rather interesting.

There are those in the “Christian community” who believe that accepting the gospels and accepting Christ is paramount to being ‘saved’, and that any person who doesn’t do this is rejecting God, and according to John 3:16, will perish and not have everlasting life.

Yet, here we have Jesus himself claiming that there will be numbers claiming to have lived their lives for him. And there will be false prophets.

So here’s the catch,…

Someone sees a frog on the Internet claiming to be teaching the gospel of Christ. The frog makes the religion appear to be extremely unpalatable and putrid. So someone rejects the religion as obviously being a cult that creates absurdly irrational amphibians.

Then they die, and go to judgment. They get there and Jesus says to them, “Sorry, you didn’t buy my book you can’t come in”.

Then you reply, “You’ve got to be kidding me! Surely you didn’t expect me to believe that putrid frog did you?”

Jesus replies and says, “No of course not, he had nothing to do with me and I never knew him”

So then you ask Jesus, “Well how was I supposed to know which fruitcake to believe?”

How does Jesus respond to that?

Let’s face it, there were some pretty popular cults created in the name of Christianity. Many of which ended in death and disaster. Many more are less profoundly corrupt which simply means that they continue to exist and thrive even today!

Even the differnet sects of Christianity itself point fingers at each other as not being representative of Christ. The Catholics denounce the Protestants, and the Protestants denounce the Catholics.

For all we know Jesus might denounce them BOTH!!!

This idea that the creator of our universe would expect us to believe in a single, highly questionable and highly confused story, that come out of the Middle East two millennia before we were even born, and had since fallen into a large number of various sects, just makes no sense to me at all.

When Jesus asks me why I didn’t buy his book I’ll just say that I didn’t know which copy might be correct, or whether any of them were correct! So I thought I’d just wait until I can meet the author myself and ask him!

Then I’d ask him for his autograph..

Seriously, Eljay, as you well know, I have extreme problems taking the idea seriously that the creator of this vast universe would be so lame as to create a situation that is so highly contorted and questionable, and then expect people to live their lives based on this vague outdated confusion.

This idea is to totally unreasonable to me that I just can’t believe that God would be so unreasonable. Especially when he even claims himself that his word will be tampered with by men!!!

How could a God who built such a unconvincing belief system demand that anyone have faith in it?

To me, this is just absurd beyond ridiculous.

Abracadabra,



Romans 2:12


Romans 2:14-15


God's law is written onto every heart and is called our conscience. If you live without the written law, then you will be judged without the written law. The non-Christian will be judged by their obedience to their own conscience.

What a masterfull stroke!!!

"Je m'incline à vos pieds, Maître!!!"

:)
:)
:)

Seems to me that all you are saying here then is that it's not necessary to be a Christian.

You clearly state here: "The non-Christian will be judged by their obedience to their own conscience."

Now if you would only ACT on that belief the world would be a much BETTER place.

Abracadabra said...


Abracadabra said...


Are you in some sort of pantheist boyscouts? Seems like you are working on your hypocrite badge. Or maybe you think that only you have feelings to be hurt? Accused anyone of child abuse lately?

Ladies and/or Gentlemen:

Althought the conscience plays a direct role in my life, and I would suspect also the lives of many, I often question it's accuracy as a measuring tool.

One example would be from within people who have made choices that they, themselves, cannot live with accepting their own responsibility for. A complete and total disassociation of the choice and the product(s) thereof ensues... without conscience...

Your thoughts?

Spider,

If you going to claim personal insult again, allow me to remind you of the many you have insulted by telling them that their beliefs are false.

How do you think Dianna feels when you continually harp about homosexuality being a sin?

You want to speak of hypocrisy I can only suggest that you act on your own words,…



Dianna has told you that she has a clear conscience concerning her romantic relationships.

By your own statement here you should accept and respect this.

Try to show a little respect toward others and maybe they'll return it.

I'm in complete agreement.

However, because of the clash of those who go by a book, even among themselves, I beleive that this has also been proven to be an inaccurate measuring tool.

I haven't done that, so either offer proof or just admit you are a pathological liar.



I wouldn't know, because I don't do that. And if it hurts her feelings when I do say that homosexuality is a sin, that's just too bad. I am not going to lie about my beliefs, because someone's feelings might get hurt. I only talk about homosexuality when there is a thread on the subject, but you rail on Christianity and the Bible constantly. Hypocrite.



How did this become about Redy? How? Why bring someone else into this? Do you need to use a woman as a body sheild? Homosexuality is a sin. PERIOD. Only sinners go to heaven. PERIOD. Get that through your skull Bible-boy. You lecture us about how much you know about the Bible and you don't know the most simple concepts. I am a sinner, but I will be in heaven. Have I ever said that Redy won't go to heaven? No, I haven't. Have I told anyone in these forums that they won't go to heaven? NO.

my god is not jealous because there is no god

My belief system, as previously expressed, does include the Bible content which I believe to be of value... However, I further believe that it is by no means the "only" truth to be had in this world of ours... As a matter of fact, as it has been proven by all, the contextual reasoning possibilities are seemingly endless, thereby creating conditions of conflict which very well may be in order... for good reason...

As I hunt and gather information, sometimes it finds a "home"... in either that which lives in me by teaching acceptances or that which lives in me by rejection method... I am still "cleaning house"... as it were... and throwing out the "garbage"... It is a "dirty" job at times, because of my inherent resourcefulness... An alchemist, if you will...

I have found that further contemplation of a given notion often changes the original understanding within... with the use of more evidence...

I have found very valid teachings in the Toltec... Miguel Ruiz explains non judgemental teachings of tremendous value and peace within... many parallels to the good things that I have picked up from my "Christianity" and have since given a home to... The Four Agreements is a must read in my opinion... I did a complete reading... cover to cover... in a few hours... and it has since been put into use...