Organized Religion is out.
Spirituality is actually in.
It’s not just the church losing members either, it’s also the atheists.
A specific example, please. I have no idea what you speak of.
“Spirituality?” In other words, “I do things my way.”
A lot of people are waking up to the One Divine. That’s the important part. Teams don’t matter.
Religion is not about teams–or shouldn’t be. It is about discipline.
I agree, but there are too many teams with the “correct” interpretation and it’s taken a heavy toll across the congregations.
What has taken the heaviest toll is that big Evangelical push back in the 1970s that everyone take every word of the Bible literally. Catholics had never taken every word literally and ignored it. It is my own observation that many atheists today are those who simply could not go with a literal interpretation. Today (I think a good thing) only 24% of Americans take every story literally.
The entire nation, instead of going “spiritual” would do much better if we had good rabbinical study of the Old Testament. That might better help Christians understand the New Testament.
The thing is, this coming change is cyclic.
Christianity started with the Age of Pisces (the Fish), Judaism in the Age of Aeries (the Ram), bull worship in the Age of Taurus (the Bull), etc… Astrology at the heart of them all.
We are entering the Age of Aquarius (the Water Bearer/Light of God) now and will be fully transitioned by the year 2,160 (the number of years per Age and also the number of degrees in a cube).
There is nothing new under the Sun.
I gave you two specific examples, both very clearly expressed in the New Testament. I take it for granted we both agree that above all, God loves us and wants us to be with him in his kingdom forever. So when I read the words of John “ These things I write so YOU MAY KNOW you have eternal life” I take them at face value. Likewise Romans 6:23 “ The wages of sin is DEATH, but the GIFT of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
You insist that people can’t understand Biblical truth without knowing Hebrew and Greek and putting them in historical context etc., So you believe that a God who loves us above all and wants us to be with him for eternity would express that sentiment and then say something like “ BUT FIRST YOU MUST EXPLAIN TO ME EVERY JOT AND TITTLE OF EINSTEINS THEORY OF RELATIVITY!” Could you pass that test? Seriously Meri, what could a Greek Scholar add or subtract that would clear up my apparent misunderstanding of Gods word here?
Do you speak Hebrew or Greek? I suspect not, but if I’m wrong, have you then gotten your hands on the original manuscripts of the Apostles and translated them yourself so you could be 100% certain of every conceivable thing they might have been thinking when they were allegedly being inspired by the Holy Spirit to write? If you haven’t, and you’re confined to an understanding of imprecise English like me and most other Americans and English speaking people, how have you derived the limited understanding of Biblical truth you must obviously have? You’re not just taking the words written and left behind by some dead scholar are you? If so, how did you verify the sources of information that they used were true? How did you verify the truth of the sources sources? If one scholar says one thing and another scholar says the first scholar is wrong, who do you believe and why?
You can go back in time as far as you want and get the opinions of a thousand scholars, ever seeking and never finding the truth, but since you believe some things and not others, you’ve obviously taken somebody’s word for something.
I believe it was a group of 47 men who were responsible for the King James Bible. Though I don’t speak Hebrew or Greek, they did. Though I don’t have any letters after my name, they did. Though I’ve never laid eyes on an any actual text that any version of the Bible is based on, they did. IOW, I trust their scholarship produced exactly what God wanted to be produced for the English Speaking world at just the right time in history, right when what would become America was just getting started. That was not a coincidence BTW but that is another topic…
Again, God is not the author of confusion. I’m not confused at all about Gods word, Gods Will, Heaven or how to get there. Why are you?
Wow. You tell me, Judge, as you are the one who is seeing the confusion.
Here’s a simple question: How do I gain eternal life? This is the heart of the Bible…
You are a Christian, meaning you follow Christ and his teachings. He said he is The Way, The Truth, The Life. Jesus calls us to repent (turn away from) sin, discern the will of God, and do it.
And where May I find the Will and way of God and he teachings of Christ that I may follow them?
The Buddha speaking to present disciples, in the time of division and unification, about disciples trained by Him in the time without beginning under different names, in different locales.:
"41. All strenuous, of good memory, unshaken in the immense strength of their intelligence, those serene sages preach the law, all radiant, as being my sons.
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Since the time when I reached this superior (or foremost) enlightenment, at the town of Gayâ, at the foot of the tree, and put in motion the allsurpassing wheel of the law, I have brought to maturity all of them for superior enlightenment.
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These words I here speak are faultless, really true; believe me, all of you who hear me: verily, I have reached superior enlightenment, and it is by me alone that all have been brought to maturity."
I am Catholic. You have already made it perfectly clear you won’t go that route. Therefore I’ll recommend Orthodox or Coptic.
As far as I know, I am the only fundamentalist in this forum. I have not been here in months except for checking in once in awhile and upon reading a few posts in the RF, I read your opinion that fundamentalists have really messed things up. I have been here since 2008 and I know you have been here even longer. In all the years we have gone back and forth, I haves never believed you are mean spirited, quite the opposite in fact. I think you are one of the kindest souls in this forum, but honestly I thought that comment was thoughtless. Not as in rude, but literally made without thought. I wasn’t offended as much as surprised because usually you think about what you post. I don’t always agree with you, perhaps seldom, but I have always respected your willingness to defend what you believe, but I find it very confusing and contradictory to Gods word.
It seems very counterproductive to recommend that a Christian could learn more about Jesus Christ, the only begotten son of God, by studying with Jewish Rabbis who deny Jesus is the son of God to begin with and if he’s not the son of God, he couldn’t have performed all those miracles and he certainly couldn’t have died on the cross to pay for mans sin and then rise 3 days after burial. What then are we going to learn from Godless people about God? Nothing! They will deny everything about Christ, I believe that is very confusing. This is what messes things up, not fundamentalism.
[quote=“Optrader, post:36, topic:240105”]
I read your opinion that fundamentalists have really messed things up. I have been here since 2008 and I know you have been here even longer. In all the years we have gone back and forth, I haves never believed you are mean spirited, quite the opposite in fact. I think you are one of the kindest souls in this forum, but honestly I thought that comment was thoughtless. Not as in rude, but literally made without thought. [/quote]
It was made not only with thought, but with experience. One quarter of the American population believe the entire Bible should be taken literally. This is not a problem for people of deep faith because they take all the lessons to heart as well.
On the other hand, there are those who cannot take every story literally and it is a great stumbling stone to them taking in the lessons. For example, since they cannot believe in a literal seven-day creation, a young earth, or a planet wide flood, they toss the entire book, thinking if the book is so wrong about the age of the earth and a planet wide flood, it must be wrong about everything.
I am passionate about explaining the lessons and showing how in the original Hebrew (or Greek or Latin) the original authors were making points that get lost in the English translation, especially as definitions of many English words have evolved over time. In the English translations, many believe the God of the Old Testament comes across as cruel and temperamental. This is precisely why I recommend scholarly rabbis whose first language is Hebrew should be teaching the Old Testament to everyone. They can bridge the chasms between how a story comes across in Hebrew versus how it comes across in modern English.
Jews are not a Godless people. They have a passionate belief in one God and hold Him close to their hearts. As we all know, Jesus was also human, and Jews are adamant that God is not human. Jews and Christians will never agree on this point, but this should not block Christian understanding of the Old Testament and Jewish beliefs. Actually, it gives Christians a better understanding of the New Testament and why Jesus taught as he did and performed the works that he did. He is a beautiful overlay of the Old Testament.
I am not saying Fundamentalists need this understanding of the Old Testament, but I am saying that atheists would benefit (and benefit mightily) from it. I am not worried about Fundamentalists. My concern is for atheists.
I notice you claim that only the incredulous beliefs of fundamentalists may be stumbling stones that keep people from accepting the truths of the Bible. Does this line of thinking apply to the belief that a wafer and jug of wine are transformed into the actual human flesh and blood of the creator by the prayer of a fallen human being? What would the science you tout reveal of the wafer and wine after a priests prayer as opposed to before his prayer? Might such a belief be a stumbling block to the ignorant masses? How about if such a belief was accompanied by threat of being burned at the stake and/or permanently being cut off from God for all eternity by yet another fallen human being if it was denied?
How about those beliefs that we share? What is the science that allows for the sun to stand still and even go backward? Part the Red Sea and dry the ground underneath? Cause the walls of Jericho to come tumbling down? If you see these as just more of those Old Testament fables that fundamentalists need to study with Rabbis to understand, how about those New Testament stories? Did Jesus really walk on water? Turn water into wine? Heal a man blind from birth with spit and mud? Feed thousands from one tiny lunch sack? Raise a man who had been dead and decaying four days from the dead?
For that matter, did Jesus himself actually rise from the grave after being dead three days? (You certainly aren’t going to have this truth explained by any Rabbi) What is the science that explains ANY of these things? Believing something without being able to PROVE it to others is a good basic definition of faith, and your church certainly has many things you accept on faith that other churches don’t share.
Any, or perhaps all of these things are stumbling blocks to unbelievers. Do you not think it may be confusing to them as to why Christians who claim to worship the same God can’t even agree on what his truth is? God never changes and neither does his truth. Neither does his Word. But neither does mans nature. Gods word says our hearts are DECEITFUL ABOVE ALL THINGS AND DESPERATELY WICKED, who can know it? What is the measuring stick man may use to keep him from being deceived? How May we know that we are obeying Gods will?
You believe your priests and especially your high priest are the receptacles of truth and tell people they CANT HANDLE THE TRUTH! They need “educated” people to explain it to them. Your priests, like the priests of Old Testament times are the mediators between God and man. Jesus death, burial and resurrection as our high priest made the priesthood obsolete. We no longer need mediators to go to God for us. The New Testament says we are Kings and Priests of ourselves. We are invited to Boldly enter into the throne room of God and bring our confessions and prayers directly to our high priest…This is the truth the Catholic Church doesn’t want people to know and why they have worked so hard to discredit the Bible and convince the peasants they can’t understand it.
You think I bash Catholic priests but I’ll call out ANYONE who perverts and subverts the word of God for their own purpose and the non Catholic world is just as full of them. People like Joel Osteen and Rick Warren, Jimmy Swaggart, Creflo Dollar and countless other TV evangelists who have gotten rich and live like kings by convincing sheep to listen to them instead of obeying the plain, unchanging word of God…
The world has been turned upside down in recent decades.
The US fought World War II to save Christian civilization from the Nazis. The Cold War was to save the world from god-less Communism.
The Soviet Union locked up and killed millions of Christians for going to church or openly opposing militant atheism. Churches were destroyed or converted to factories, stables, etc.
Now it has flipped. Russia has rebuilt its churches and abandoned state atheism. Western countries are now the ones closing and vandalizing churches. Russia and eastern European countries are now considered uniquely evil by western elites since they have not abandoned traditional Christian morality.
Differences between Christians become less important if we all end up sharing the same gulags.
