There is no "god"

[kallipolis]

It is a moribund and corrupt vessel of inanity that informs us only how to be obedient to a fictitious creator, or by the sheerest coincidence I'm sure, his earthly proxy, the priests. And of course, how to be complacent in the face of human misery.

Of course it is, for you say, so.....and, who am I to argue with this site's expert on Biblical matters..work it out for your self.

 

[ludolfo]

hilarious, and VERY VERY true. Frighteningly so. I have seen two powerful documentaries about cults. One was this dude in America who started a cult, and the other was more recent about this guy in Australian who believes his is Jesus Christ reborn and has a growing following. It is the people---the look in their eyes etc. It's tragic, but these 'leaders' seem to know how to keep them addicted to them and their BS

 

[Kulindahr]

Regarding Jesus' use of the word "Father" as a metaphor:

it is a metaphor that is also accurate; however much more than a father God may be, He is never less than that.

And that is what metaphors in scripture almost always do: tell us something that God is more than, but never less than. Thus, He is more than light, but never less than light.

 

[zoltanspawn]

For Zoltanspawn's sake, who is probably wincing at the idea of an editorial committee: if there were even a custom of adding a new book each century, based on the greatest work of the greatest poets as selected by the congregants once in each hundred years of community life, I'd sign up.

I'm sort of surprised that you think I don't have a very liberal sense of the living nature of religion, as I don't think I've ever especially argued that some old, particular text should be the sole canon of any given religion's teachings.

But it makes me wonder this, if there were some religious figure or tradition which caught your interest, why are you not yourself that editorial committee? Is there any religious (sacred, mythic) figure which is emblematic of your concerns? Why wouldn't you find some new book to add to that tradition, as people like Emily Dickinson and Rabindranath Tagore most certainly did to their own Christian and Hindu traditions? Too 'eccentric'?

I worry this, that the scholarship you might introduce to whatever tradition would simply render its insights null. If there is any power in the figures of whatever tradition's contemplation of your greatest questions (I don't know what your's are; mine are again, things like Being, consciousness, suffering, genius, compassion, civility, so on and so forth) would they simply be rendered as pleasant sentiments and useless fictions?

Or is there yet a chance you could find a metaphor you'd take seriously?

 

[Kulindahr]

.... if there were even a custom of adding a new book each century, based on the greatest work of the greatest poets as selected by the congregants once in each hundred years of community life, I'd sign up.

Actually, until the pope in Rome first split the church and began the custom of inventing new denominations, Christianity had a process very much like that, via ecumenical councils. Sadly, there hasn't been one since Rome arrogantly arrogated to itself supreme authority (the last actual call for one was issued by Martin Luther, in an attempt to get all Christians to sit down and consider the issues of the Reformation and settle it together).

 

[TX-Beau]

No Christians anywhere at any time called Christianity "wisdom" or "metaphor." PERIOD.

If god is not a literal truth and if the virgin birth and the Resurrection are not literally true there is no point in the whole business and no Christian anywhere at any time has ever said these things and a whole bunch else are not LITERALLY true.

And THAT is the germane point.

Christians believe in things that are magic, and can't demonstrate why anyone else should buy that beyond "Faith."

The rest of that Kuli - is frankly semantic games you are playing to avoid having to answer what reason there is to believe some Jew 2000 years ago was the son of a woman knocked up by a god who then rose form the dead; which is something you LITERALLY believe.

 

[kallipolis]

For Christians of the early centuries of the Christian era Jesus of Nazareth is, per the words of the Book of Wisdom, and the Book of Sirach, Divine Wisdom/The Word of God in human flesh. The Christological hymns of the New Testament [John 1:1-18; Phil 2:6-11; Col 1:15-20; Eph 2:14-16] offer profound theologies of Christ in Wisdom language. The Son, is the presence of God, revealed in human life.

The frequent references by Paul of Tarsus "in Christ" includes all those multiple dimensions of the great reality that is Christ for Paul — not just Paul's personal understandings, but also encompassing the promises of the Isaiah prophecies. The Son is the embodiment of God's Wisdom, God's great plan of creation in human life — the great idea with God planned from the beginning [Prov 8:22-31]. This universal consciousness is one to which believers can have access when one believes: "but we have the mind of Christ" [1 Cor 2:16].

Universal consciousness must have a personal subject – the person who is conscious of being aware – the revealed reality that is The Word/Wisdom of God is divine revelation in human life. The Word of God is recognised as the Second Person of the Trinity. He is the one who incarnated as Jesus of Nazareth.

 

[kallipolis]

Actually, until the pope in Rome first split the church and began the custom of inventing new denominations, Christianity had a process very much like that, via ecumenical councils. Sadly, there hasn't been one since Rome arrogantly arrogated to itself supreme authority (the last actual call for one was issued by Martin Luther, in an attempt to get all Christians to sit down and consider the issues of the Reformation and settle it together).

Christians had to wait until the Emperor Constantine called The Church to settle differences of understanding, through the Council of Niceae enabling the various "sees" to reach a common belief reflected in the Nicean Creed AD 325.

The Great Schism between the Western, and Eastern sees merely evidenced the decline of the civil, and military power of Rome, and the rise of the civil, and military power of Constantinople with the Latins losing out to the Greeks....the Filioque issue merely an excuse.

Martin Luther, a renegade German, Catholic monk hardly encouraged unity within the Christian family, when representing the self determination of many German princes, to rid themselves of control by the King of Spain, in his role as Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.

 

[Love me 2]

For Christians of the early centuries of the Christian era Jesus of Nazareth is, per the words of the Book of Wisdom, and the Book of Sirach, Divine Wisdom/The Word of God in human flesh. The Christological hymns of the New Testament [John 1:1-18; Phil 2:6-11; Col 1:15-20; Eph 2:14-16] offer profound theologies of Christ in Wisdom language. The Son, is the presence of God, revealed in human life.

The frequent references by Paul of Tarsus "in Christ" includes all those multiple dimensions of the great reality that is Christ for Paul — not just Paul's personal understandings, but also encompassing the promises of the Isaiah prophecies. The Son is the embodiment of God's Wisdom, God's great plan of creation in human life — the great idea with God planned from the beginning [Prov 8:22-31]. This universal consciousness is one to which believers can have access when one believes: "but we have the mind of Christ" [1 Cor 2:16].

Universal consciousness must have a personal subject – the person who is conscious of being aware – the revealed reality that is The Word/Wisdom of God is divine revelation in human life. The Word of God is recognised as the Second Person of the Trinity. He is the one who incarnated as Jesus of Nazareth.

Well done, and I could not have said it any better than this. Thank you.

 

[kallipolis]

The philosophers of ancient Greece in parallel with contemporary efforts to explain the world in religious myths, tried to grapple with the intelligibility of the world within the limitations imposed by human reasoning governed by the senses. They came to the idea of the "Word" (Greek: ö λόγος), a divine reason that gave order to the creating universe, in which human beings could participate creating ones own life, an ongoing process of self discovery that ends at death.

In the Wisdom Books of the Hebrew Scriptures a similar theme was expressed, the Wisdom of God, out of God, playing its role in Creation encouraging right behaviour in human life. There are signs of interaction between wisdom circles in neighbouring cultures, with considerable borrowing from one another. Intermingling of Greek philosophy, and Oriental schools of wisdom was inevitable, and at the time of Jesus of Nazareth in Alexandria, Egypt the Jewish philosopher, Philo explicitly married the two strands of thought. For him The Logos was the intermediary between God the Creator, and the created world, the Idea of ideas, the mind and spirit of the Godhead revealed in human life.

John 1

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

 

[Kulindahr]

Martin Luther, a renegade German, Catholic monk hardly encouraged unity within the Christian family, when representing the self determination of many German princes, to rid themselves of control by the King of Spain, in his role as Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.

You have a truly bizarre view of Martin Luther. He cared nothing for kings or emperors, except insofar as they were impediments to the proclamation of the Gospel.

 

[kallipolis]

You have a truly bizarre view of Martin Luther. He cared nothing for kings or emperors, except insofar as they were impediments to the proclamation of the Gospel.

Different from your's...but hardly bizarre, for I have also read history books....from time, to time....

 

[Telstra]

Different from your's...but hardly bizarre, for I have also read history books....from time, to time....

I don't read any books. I was comparing with book readers.

 

[kallipolis]

I don't read any books. I was comparing with book readers.

You didn't need to tell us this....most of us here have understood.....

 

[Telstra]

You didn't need to tell us this....most of us here have understood.....

But do you think non book reader is dumb ?

 

[kallipolis]

But do you think non book reader is dumb ?

Such a thought would not enter my head...for my thoughts are not composed to demean another human being.

 

[Kulindahr]

Re: There is no "god"

Different from your's...but hardly bizarre, for I have also read history books....from time, to time....

And how much of Luther's works have you read? He certainly wouldn't recognize himself in your description; it has nothing at all to do with what he was about. He was a champion of Christian unity until he finally admitted that the pope was interested only in power and not Christianity.

- - - Updated - - -

But do you think non book reader is dumb ?

Just lazy.

 

[kallipolis]

Re: There is no "god"

And how much of Luther's works have you read? He certainly wouldn't recognize himself in your description; it has nothing at all to do with what he was about. He was a champion of Christian unity until he finally admitted that the pope was interested only in power and not Christianity.

You may say, so....whereas, others have described Luther as an opportunist....taking advantage of the determination of the German princes to extricate themselves from the grip of Philip of Spain.

 

[bankside]

Re: There is no "god"

You may say, so....whereas, others have described Luther as an opportunist....taking advantage of the determination of the German princes to extricate themselves from the grip of Philip of Spain.

Yes, the Pope must have fretted so, to encounter such an opportunist, inimical to Christian unity…and muscling in on his territory!

 

[kallipolis]

Re: There is no "god"

Yes, the Pope must have fretted so, to encounter such an opportunist, inimical to Christian unity…and muscling in on his territory!

Luther became highly puritanical after taking a holiday in Rome where he was disgusted by the life style of the ordinary Roman folk which he disapproved of, and condemned as un-Christian - possibly feeling embarrassed viewing so many works of art at The Vatican depicting naked human figures. After returning to Germany Luther elected to begin his "reform" or "clean up" of The Church.....It was a political move made at an opportune moment for the nation state idea was beginning to take root in Europe with the German princes determined to throw off the yoke of The Holy Roman Empire, whose emperor was none other than King Philip of Spain....as determined to maintain his grip on his empire.....England's navy would eventually put an end to King Philip's ambitions in Europe leaving Spain free to create a new empire in The Americas....enriching Spain sufficiently not to worry about losing its European provinces.