Why is it when asked logical questions about god Christians seem to fall back on god not needing to follow human rules of logic… If he does not follow logic then you know nothing about him, he might only want to send to heaven the most extreme heretics… That is if he is not chained to our rules of logic… Basically your argument is falling back on oxymoronic nothings that do more to prove against your point then for it…
[quote]Gkhan wrote:
[quote]byukid wrote:
You know it’s interesting, I was just listening to a series of lectures from Prof. Bart Ehrman and he was speaking to the concept of God and basically he indicated that the earliest documents we have (though now labeled heretical) were of gnostics who explained the God of the OT as a lesser, messed up God who created this earth and kind of failed at it. The God of the NT sends Christ to fix everything, though Christ does not actually physically exist- he only appears to do so.
They apparently also believed in at least some of TULIP.
Not making a doctrinal declaration, just sharing something I learned a couple days ago.[/quote]
If you are interested in what the gnostics thought about God, read this:
The other thread about Muslims and Jesus…a lot of ideas Muslims have about Jesus come from the gnostic beliefs. They also use the gnostic texts to try and prove Christianity as being false because the Bible was edited at the Council of Nicea. All they did was take out books like the one I posted above. No Muslims or Christians believe ANY of that.
question: where did the ideas put forth in the book I posted originate? They are totally different from anything Christians believe. It’s almost like it’s another whole branch of Christianity which died out. (or was wiped out.)
[/quote]
The answer is simple; the Church formulated a dogma. That which did not comport to the dogma was discarded as heretical or apocryphal. And much truth and knowledge was foolishly discarded, in my opinion.
[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:
[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:
[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
[quote]pittbulll wrote:
I don’t know if I missed it or not , but why don’t you spell God ?[/quote]
Basic answer, 2nd Commandment. More detailed answer, habit.
I would guess that it probably came specifically from two of my teachers when I was younger who were Jewish converts to the Catholic faith (one was my babysitter and a family friend, the other was a man that courted my grandmother for awhile after her late husband’s death and has taken care of our family since), both taught me to write the name of the Lord out as G-d. Never really pressed on to me, never demanded, I guess I just picked it up.
And, also I guess it has to do with the fact that I was taught to have reverence for the name of G-d, I still bow my head when the name of G-d, Mary and the Saints, and the mysteries are used or talked about.
[/quote]
Not that I understand the above whatsoever beyond its rather apparent appearance of strictness. In light of all that religious effort to not even spell the name of the Almighty, can you please explain to me the choice of your avatar? Why would an obviously deeply religious man such as yourself choose as the imagery to represent his online persona, a fictional black man that unlawfully imprisoned a promiscuous white woman in a movie that portrayed so much sexual violence and tension?
One the one hand, you won’t even spell the name God.
On the other hand, you’ll happily use the image from a sexually charged movie featuring sexual violence, imprisonment, “Ricci Porn”, and archaic racial stereotypes? WTMF (What the mother fuck)?
Are you feeding this lore that catholics are indeed sexually repressed, with your own suppression leaking out in the form of your avatar? You have to admit that your avatar is a curious choice from a man that won’t even spell God. I known the character was deeply religious, but couldn’t you choose a better representation of service and redemption? For crying out loud, the man kept a half-naked white woman chained to his radiator against her will, in the deep south, with her writhing about the floor in orgasmic frenzy, desperately wanting black cock - LOL the movie is pretty fucked. [/quote]
Yes, it is a fucked up story. I’ll keep my criticism of the movie to myself, but I put up a picture of Samuel L. Jackson at the beginning of Black History Month after some jokes in the BHM thread by Prof. X with Lew, Prof. X and some of the other black guys on T-Nation. I just haven’t taken it down because I haven’t had the patience to go through the slow Hub to change it and the picture itself is not very provocative.
However, it does ring tones of religiosity, tradition, sexual morals, divorce, societal corruption, and redemption (and other themes) where I did find commonalities with SLJ. And, he was one hell of a blues man in the movie.[/quote]
LOL fair enough.
But admit…it was one fucked up movie. [/quote]
Yes, I didn’t get the movie until the second time I watched it. I guess partially because I was preoccupied by food and the scenes went by in weird transitions so I’d look down and then back up and something totally different would be happening.
[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:
[quote]Gkhan wrote:
[quote]byukid wrote:
You know it’s interesting, I was just listening to a series of lectures from Prof. Bart Ehrman and he was speaking to the concept of God and basically he indicated that the earliest documents we have (though now labeled heretical) were of gnostics who explained the God of the OT as a lesser, messed up God who created this earth and kind of failed at it. The God of the NT sends Christ to fix everything, though Christ does not actually physically exist- he only appears to do so.
They apparently also believed in at least some of TULIP.
Not making a doctrinal declaration, just sharing something I learned a couple days ago.[/quote]
If you are interested in what the gnostics thought about God, read this:
The other thread about Muslims and Jesus…a lot of ideas Muslims have about Jesus come from the gnostic beliefs. They also use the gnostic texts to try and prove Christianity as being false because the Bible was edited at the Council of Nicea. All they did was take out books like the one I posted above. No Muslims or Christians believe ANY of that.
question: where did the ideas put forth in the book I posted originate? They are totally different from anything Christians believe. It’s almost like it’s another whole branch of Christianity which died out. (or was wiped out.)
[/quote]
The answer is simple; the Church formulated a dogma. That which did not comport to the dogma was discarded as heretical or apocryphal. And much truth and knowledge was foolishly discarded, in my opinion.[/quote]
Kinda. There is a book called, I believe the Gospel of James, which has some stuff that the Church uses (not as theological fact, but possibilities and hypothesis like Mary was consecrated to the temple when she was a child, and after she started having her menstrual cycle she couldn’t stay in the temple anymore so Joseph married her so she wouldn’t be left out in the streets to fend for herself. As well, the Gospel of James gives us the names of Mary’s parents and their story, and we used that book to canonize Mary’s parents as Saints in the Catholic Church. The reason why it is not in the Bible is because of the analogy of the faith as well as the living tradition of the Church, and because it has false stories like Jesus killed a child when he was a child for taking something from him), but isn’t held up as divinely inspired. There is several other books that are held up as useful, but the whole does not agree with the analogy of faith so isn’t held.
More on the analogy of the faith, and living tradition. So, when the councils and synods (which don’t make doctrine but put forth ideas for believers) got together they took their lists of books they were using and held as divinely inspired, and there were some groups of Christians that had less books and some more books (it was actually pretty chaotic on what was Holy Scrit), but what the Catholic Bible has is what those groups of Christians all saw as divinely inspired and was finely canonized around 400 A.D. until then, there was no “Bible” there were several different versions of “lists” of what people thought were Holy, but there was no definite consensus of which books were actually Holy. So, if anyone is saying that there was a “bible” before (around) 400 A.D. they are lying or they just haven’t read the early Church Fathers, because they were all over the place when it came to that stuff.
[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:
[quote]Gkhan wrote:
[quote]byukid wrote:
You know it’s interesting, I was just listening to a series of lectures from Prof. Bart Ehrman and he was speaking to the concept of God and basically he indicated that the earliest documents we have (though now labeled heretical) were of gnostics who explained the God of the OT as a lesser, messed up God who created this earth and kind of failed at it. The God of the NT sends Christ to fix everything, though Christ does not actually physically exist- he only appears to do so.
They apparently also believed in at least some of TULIP.
Not making a doctrinal declaration, just sharing something I learned a couple days ago.[/quote]
If you are interested in what the gnostics thought about God, read this:
The other thread about Muslims and Jesus…a lot of ideas Muslims have about Jesus come from the gnostic beliefs. They also use the gnostic texts to try and prove Christianity as being false because the Bible was edited at the Council of Nicea. All they did was take out books like the one I posted above. No Muslims or Christians believe ANY of that.
question: where did the ideas put forth in the book I posted originate? They are totally different from anything Christians believe. It’s almost like it’s another whole branch of Christianity which died out. (or was wiped out.)
[/quote]
The answer is simple; the Church formulated a dogma. That which did not comport to the dogma was discarded as heretical or apocryphal. And much truth and knowledge was foolishly discarded, in my opinion.[/quote]
Kinda. There is a book called, I believe the Gospel of James, which has some stuff that the Church uses (not as theological fact, but possibilities and hypothesis like Mary was consecrated to the temple when she was a child, and after she started having her menstrual cycle she couldn’t stay in the temple anymore so Joseph married her so she wouldn’t be left out in the streets to fend for herself. As well, the Gospel of James gives us the names of Mary’s parents and their story, and we used that book to canonize Mary’s parents as Saints in the Catholic Church. The reason why it is not in the Bible is because of the analogy of the faith as well as the living tradition of the Church, and because it has false stories like Jesus killed a child when he was a child for taking something from him), but isn’t held up as divinely inspired. There is several other books that are held up as useful, but the whole does not agree with the analogy of faith so isn’t held.
More on the analogy of the faith, and living tradition. So, when the councils and synods (which don’t make doctrine but put forth ideas for believers) got together they took their lists of books they were using and held as divinely inspired, and there were some groups of Christians that had less books and some more books (it was actually pretty chaotic on what was Holy Scrit), but what the Catholic Bible has is what those groups of Christians all saw as divinely inspired and was finely canonized around 400 A.D. until then, there was no “Bible” there were several different versions of “lists” of what people thought were Holy, but there was no definite consensus of which books were actually Holy. So, if anyone is saying that there was a “bible” before (around) 400 A.D. they are lying or they just haven’t read the early Church Fathers, because they were all over the place when it came to that stuff. [/quote]
We understand this. Cliff notes: A bunch of men (councils) decided which books were “inspired” and thus “authentic” and therefore the dogma.
[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:
[quote]Gkhan wrote:
[quote]byukid wrote:
You know it’s interesting, I was just listening to a series of lectures from Prof. Bart Ehrman and he was speaking to the concept of God and basically he indicated that the earliest documents we have (though now labeled heretical) were of gnostics who explained the God of the OT as a lesser, messed up God who created this earth and kind of failed at it. The God of the NT sends Christ to fix everything, though Christ does not actually physically exist- he only appears to do so.
They apparently also believed in at least some of TULIP.
Not making a doctrinal declaration, just sharing something I learned a couple days ago.[/quote]
If you are interested in what the gnostics thought about God, read this:
The other thread about Muslims and Jesus…a lot of ideas Muslims have about Jesus come from the gnostic beliefs. They also use the gnostic texts to try and prove Christianity as being false because the Bible was edited at the Council of Nicea. All they did was take out books like the one I posted above. No Muslims or Christians believe ANY of that.
question: where did the ideas put forth in the book I posted originate? They are totally different from anything Christians believe. It’s almost like it’s another whole branch of Christianity which died out. (or was wiped out.)
[/quote]
The answer is simple; the Church formulated a dogma. That which did not comport to the dogma was discarded as heretical or apocryphal. And much truth and knowledge was foolishly discarded, in my opinion.[/quote]
Did you read what I posted?
edit- The link I mean.
Brother Chris. Where did they come up with the mythology in the link I posted? I know it is heretical, but the books in the NT pick up the story of Jesus in Roman times and tells of his ministry, death and resurection, then the beginnings of the Church.
The link I posted CHANGES what was written in the OT. It is a total re-write of creation and a total different take on Christianity. This is probably why it was deemed heretical.
Where did they come up with many of the concepts, like all the realms, the different emananations of God and the demon names? Was this based on Kabalistic teachings? I mean Ein Soph and The Monad could be one and the same.
Was there also some Greek Philosophy thrown in there? Plato talked about the Monad.
Have you read any writings of St. Augustine? What’s his take on how this brand of Christianity all started?
And is this what the Coptics believe, or am I off base here?
[quote]Gkhan wrote:
[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:
[quote]Gkhan wrote:
[quote]byukid wrote:
You know it’s interesting, I was just listening to a series of lectures from Prof. Bart Ehrman and he was speaking to the concept of God and basically he indicated that the earliest documents we have (though now labeled heretical) were of gnostics who explained the God of the OT as a lesser, messed up God who created this earth and kind of failed at it. The God of the NT sends Christ to fix everything, though Christ does not actually physically exist- he only appears to do so.
They apparently also believed in at least some of TULIP.
Not making a doctrinal declaration, just sharing something I learned a couple days ago.[/quote]
If you are interested in what the gnostics thought about God, read this:
The other thread about Muslims and Jesus…a lot of ideas Muslims have about Jesus come from the gnostic beliefs. They also use the gnostic texts to try and prove Christianity as being false because the Bible was edited at the Council of Nicea. All they did was take out books like the one I posted above. No Muslims or Christians believe ANY of that.
question: where did the ideas put forth in the book I posted originate? They are totally different from anything Christians believe. It’s almost like it’s another whole branch of Christianity which died out. (or was wiped out.)
[/quote]
The answer is simple; the Church formulated a dogma. That which did not comport to the dogma was discarded as heretical or apocryphal. And much truth and knowledge was foolishly discarded, in my opinion.[/quote]
Did you read what I posted?
edit- The link I mean. [/quote]
I breezed thru why? I’ve had that site bookmarked for quite some time. Why you ask?
[quote]Gkhan wrote:
Brother Chris. Where did they come up with the mythology in the link I posted? I know it is heretical, but the books in the NT pick up the story of Jesus in Roman times and tells of his ministry, death and resurection, then the beginnings of the Church.
The link I posted CHANGES what was written in the OT. It is a total re-write of creation and a total different take on Christianity. This is probably why it was deemed heretical.
Where did they come up with many of the concepts, like all the realms, the different emananations of God and the demon names? Was this based on Kabalistic teachings? I mean Ein Soph and The Monad could be one and the same.
Was there also some Greek Philosophy thrown in there? Plato talked about the Monad.
Have you read any writings of St. Augustine? What’s his take on how this brand of Christianity all started?
And is this what the Coptics believe, or am I off base here?
[/quote]
If you research the theosophical teachings of Blavatsky she gives treatment and insight to such concepts. If you’re interested in this, you will find it interesting. Start with her Secret Doctrine.
[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:
[/quote]
If you research the theosophical teachings of Blavatsky she gives treatment and insight to such concepts. If you’re interested in this, you will find it interesting. Start with her Secret Doctrine.[/quote]
I read it a while back. Good comparitive religion. It linked a lot of the old myths and showed how many of the characters are the same archetypes.
why did I ask if you read the link? Because the stuff in it is out there, man. It’ll make you think.
[quote]Gkhan wrote:
Brother Chris. Where did they come up with the mythology in the link I posted?[/quote]
I’m not sure, haven’t really studied too much into gnostic writings. Someone gave me a gnostic Bible, but I have yet to open it too much except to check the table of contents.
[quote]I know it is heretical, but the books in the NT pick up the story of Jesus in Roman times and tells of his ministry, death and resurection, then the beginnings of the Church.
The link I posted CHANGES what was written in the OT. It is a total re-write of creation and a total different take on Christianity. This is probably why it was deemed heretical.
Where did they come up with many of the concepts, like all the realms, the different emananations of God and the demon names? Was this based on Kabalistic teachings? I mean Ein Soph and The Monad could be one and the same.
Was there also some Greek Philosophy thrown in there? Plato talked about the Monad.
Have you read any writings of St. Augustine?[/quote]
Yes, I have.
Which brand of Christianity? Gnosticism?
It matters what Coptics they are, there are Catholic Coptics and there are Orthodox Coptics, both are pretty close to the same in beliefs. Their discipline is very different from other churches because of their culture (basically how they participate in their Divine Liturgy – or Mass as it is called in the West – how they do confession, how they make the sign of the cross, enter sacred ground, how they greet their priest, &c.), but their beliefs hold the same as Catholics (the Catholic Coptics are in union to the Bishop of Rome and hold to all the doctrines and living Traditions of the Church) except for a few pieces of doctrine in the case of the Orthodox Coptics and as well how they explain it.
A difference between East and Latin Rites in the Catholic Church is the Latin has been the one who has contained the Bishop of Rome (viewed has having supremacy over other Bishops), so a lot of work has been done on defending against heresies and the result is a lot of written doctrine instead of just passing doctrine down as Oral Tradition as in the East, both in the Eastern Orthodox and the Eastern Rite Catholics. That isn’t to say that Eastern Church Fathers haven’t fought heresies, because they have and we have a few Eastern Church Fathers as Doctors of the Church. The Eastern Catholics and Orthodox take a strong stance on Tradition preached by their priests rather than study on written doctrine and writings of Church Fathers, they’ll still do that (they do a lot of it, but not as much as the Latin Rite) but their main mode of operation is word of mouth.
As it were, the Coptics hold to the Holy Bible, they don’t take out or add any books. And, unless it is some kind of secret belief that some of my friends and family aren’t sharing with me, I’m not sure they hold too much weight to these gnostic books. Although, a copy of the Book of Enoch was found in a Coptic Church which is awesome historically speaking. I actually read the Book of Enoch, pretty crazy stuff.
(Side note: This is a part of my hypothesis why the majority of early heresies come out of the Byzantine Empire and because of their distance from the Bishop of Rome to resolve issues.)
[quote]Gkhan wrote:
I read it a while back. Good comparitive religion. It linked a lot of the old myths and showed how many of the characters are the same archetypes.
why did I ask if you read the link? Because the stuff in it is out there, man. It’ll make you think.
[/quote]
You want to get into some stuff that will make you trip out of your mind? Study Biblical typography. The stuff goes deep! Basically it is how something old in Biblical history foreshadows something in the future. And, some of the stuff is like Moses is a type of Jesus, but it gets crazy when it goes deeper and deeper and deeper, like the type of the St. Mary and the Arch of the Covenant.
http://en.allexperts.com/q/Eastern-Orthodox-1456/2010/2/Ark-Covenant-symbol-St.htm
Also, the controversy of Creation is kind of blown out of the water with B16’s book on creation, he kind of peels back the layers of the creation story and goes pretty deep, heavy stuff. Totally takes it in a direction that I was not expecting.
http://www.philvaz.com/apologetics/p81.htm
the actual book: http://www.amazon.com/Beginning-Catholic-Understanding-Creation-Resourcement/dp/0802841066/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1300512379&sr=1-1
Thanks for the links, I will read them when I get a chance and comment.
The reason I was wondering about the mythology of Gnosticism is because there are some books which sound like ones you would read in the Bible, but then use terminology, or concepts from the link I posted, which are totally alien to anything which is in the Bible.
This leads me to believe this mythology was part of a large belief system which no longer exists today and I just wondered where they came up with it.
Oh yeah, The Book of Enoch is pretty wild. It elaborates on one or 2 paragraphs in Genesis and a character which is only mentioned in a list. The only difference, it takes something which was in Genesis and is consistant with the story, it just expands on it.
The Apocrypha of John CHANGES the story of creation and makes the creator god a different god than the NT God.
[quote]Gkhan wrote:
Thanks for the links, I will read them when I get a chance and comment.
The reason I was wondering about the mythology of Gnosticism is because there are some books which sound like ones you would read in the Bible, but then use terminology, or concepts from the link I posted, which are totally alien to anything which is in the Bible.
This leads me to believe this mythology was part of a large belief system which no longer exists today and I just wondered where they came up with it.
Oh yeah, The Book of Enoch is pretty wild. It elaborates on one or 2 paragraphs in Genesis and a character which is only mentioned in a list. The only difference, it takes something which was in Genesis and is consistant with the story, it just expands on it.
The Apocrypha of John CHANGES the story of creation and makes the creator god a different god than the NT God.[/quote]
Gnosticism is still around, although very small as it was back then probably bigger now although accidentally.
The First Church of Christ, Scientist (Christian Science) of Mary Baker Eddy fame is pretty much Gnostic.
[quote]smh23 wrote:
If they were two separate Gods and I had to pick one, I would certainly pick the NT dude with his hippy peace and love vibe over the OT guy that kills you for masturbating.[/quote]
Catholics know that God doesn’t kill you for masturbating, he just charges a small fee.
[quote]SteelyD wrote:
[quote]smh23 wrote:
If they were two separate Gods and I had to pick one, I would certainly pick the NT dude with his hippy peace and love vibe over the OT guy that kills you for masturbating.[/quote]
Catholics know that God doesn’t kill you for masturbating, he just charges a small fee.
[/quote]
35…35…35…35…35…35 haha, gets me every time.
I didn’t read the thread before posting, but there is no God in the NT. “God” is replaced by Jesus.
[quote]belligerent wrote:
I didn’t read the thread before posting, but there is no God in the NT. “God” is replaced by Jesus.[/quote]
“And go and tell them that I ascend to my Father and your Father and my God and your God.”
“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
“Father, I pray for these…”
“This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased”
“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy soul, and the second is like unto it”
etc etc
God is pretty clearly in the NT along with Jesus.
[quote]belligerent wrote:
I didn’t read the thread before posting, but there is no God in the NT. “God” is replaced by Jesus.[/quote]
I’m guessing you’re not referring to this literally as in God is not actually mentioned in the NT, but he is replaced by Jesus. That’s still not really accurate. Obviously, more attention is paid to the redemptive work of Jesus, but God the Father is still mentioned as is the Holy Spirit.
I guess basically in the NT, we just have the total revelation of God in his three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirt, whereas the OT just deals with God the Father.