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DIR Return to: According to Mike
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#Post#: 1230--------------------------------------------------
Re: What do I no longer 'believe'?
DIR By: Poppy
Date: April 19, 2015, 4:35 am
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Obviously the books in the bible were written by men but Jesus
believed the OT scriptures to be the word of God so I do too.
#Post#: 1232--------------------------------------------------
Re: What do I no longer 'believe'?
DIR By: A nonny mouse
Date: April 19, 2015, 5:21 am
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--- Quote from: Poppy link ---
>
> Obviously the books in the bible were written by men but Jesus
believed the OT scriptures to be the word of God so I do too.
>
--- End Quote ---
But how do you know that?
Jesus never committed a single word to writing (is that of no
significance?).
All that you have is the writings of scribes based on the
apostles best recall of what they had heard decades earlier
(that being why their accounts differed one from the other).
And who's to say those scribes had no 'religious' agendas based
on what Jesus might have 'come' in order to straighten out?
Take "Jesus of Nazareth" as an example....I've just been reading
that Nazareth didn't exist until 3 centuries after Christ (the
writer concluding that the notion was fabricated by the scribes
of that period).
Might that be true?.....I've absolutely no idea.
#Post#: 1233--------------------------------------------------
Re: What do I no longer 'believe'?
DIR By: Poppy
Date: April 19, 2015, 5:46 am
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So when Jesus quote OT scripture prophecy and the NT writers who
were his close followers did you're saying they were mistaken in
thinking they were quoting Spirit inspired writings.
#Post#: 1234--------------------------------------------------
Re: What do I no longer 'believe'?
DIR By: Kerry
Date: April 19, 2015, 6:48 am
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--- Quote from: James link ---
>
> I wonder if you vowed never to follow man again and as such
will not aline yourself with any general truth on the basis that
you want a distinctive doctrine that sets you apart from your
fellow man. You even revel in such a position calling yourself a
heretic, by which you say I am not as other men are.
--- End Quote ---
I wondered the same thing. I would say I have followed what I
would call false teachers in the past. What should my reaction
be, I asked myself, when it became clear to me they were in
error?
I believe I profited by the experiences. Even though the spin
they put on the Scriptures was often wrong, I was still learning
the texts themselves. This was valuable to me later just as
Paul's studies before he became a Christian proved useful to him
later.
I believe God allowed me to be steered in the wrong direction to
chastise me. There was something wrong with me that wanted the
wrong kind of answers. I was like the children of Israel when
they demanded a king. God allowed me to have what I wanted.
Rather than condemn them, I had to ask what was wrong with me
for picking them as leaders. This question may be the one Mike
needs to ask himself.
#Post#: 1235--------------------------------------------------
Re: What do I no longer 'believe'?
DIR By: A nonny mouse
Date: April 19, 2015, 6:49 am
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--- Quote from: Poppy link ---
>
> So when Jesus quote OT scripture prophecy and the NT writers
who were his close followers did you're saying they were
mistaken in thinking they were quoting Spirit inspired writings.
>
--- End Quote ---
But did they really do that or is it just what others reckoned
they had done?
I consider that my questioning have as much credibility as do
your questionings regarding the credibility of the Catholic
Catechisms based on when they were written.
You are a Protestant no naturally you 'protest' against
Catholicism.
I too am A Protestant (but with a difference in that I am
'protesting' against both Catholicism and against Reformation
Protestantism).
For me the whole 'shooting match' from Genesis onwards, is of
man's fabrication and is therefore bound to be party correct and
partly wrong (not least on the basis of the limited knowledge
and superstitious nature of the earliest writers).
But I believe Sovereign God has always maintained overall
control with his major intervention being the Incarnation of
Christ resolving all needed knowledge, and hitherto excessive
imaginings, into the simple common denominator of Love.
Otherwise what is true and what is false out of what has been
written remains unclear to us at this present time.
#Post#: 1236--------------------------------------------------
Re: What do I no longer 'believe'?
DIR By: A nonny mouse
Date: April 19, 2015, 6:58 am
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--- Quote from: Kerry link ---
>
> I believe God allowed me to be steered in the wrong direction
to chastise me. There was something wrong with me that wanted
the wrong kind of answers. I was like the children of Israel
when they demanded a king. God allowed me to have what I
wanted. Rather than condemn them, I had to ask what was wrong
with me for picking them as leaders. This question may be the
one Mike needs to ask himself.
>
--- End Quote ---
I wouldn't be where I am today were it not for my total open
mindedness towards radical rethinking.
Only a few moments ago I allowed myself a degree of
re-examination as I read through
HTML http://www.pathguy.com/jesus/
Who else is open minded enough to even bother to read it it
right through?
#Post#: 1243--------------------------------------------------
Re: What do I no longer 'believe'?
DIR By: Amadeus
Date: April 19, 2015, 9:02 am
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--- Quote from: Way of the Spirit link ---
>
> Here I am, tucked away in my own little corner where members
who are 'offended' by the current radically minded 'me' can opt
out and leave me to my personal 'heresies'.
--- End Quote ---
[size=14pt]And just what is a heresy, Mike? Is there only one
absolute standard or do different persons and/or groups have
their own definitions? Consider truth? According to what I
believe there is really only one absolute truth, but obviously
men seem to have many. Is it not so with heresies as well?
--- Quote ---
> If there is indeed but one true God then to my way of
thinking/believing he has to be ‘God of the entire universe’ and
not just the 'God of Israel', adopted by Western Christendom.
> (By 'God of the entire universe' I mean ‘universe’ as we
currently understand it, as distinct from 'God of the universe'
that was limited to the Hebrew/Egyptian confines of the
15th-11th century BC.)
--- End Quote ---
Many probably fit into the boxes you have described, but do not
some (in addition to yourself) think a bit outside of the box
even if they do not deny the tenets of some within your defined
boxes? Who is really alone? And who is really not alone?
--- Quote ---
> In my ‘book’ myths and fables such as those of the Genesis
creation and Noah’s Ark stories have no more authenticity than
do the fables surrounding the ‘Pillars of Hercules’, purporting
the world to be ‘flat’, off the edge of which sailors would fall
if daring to venture beyond the Straights of Gibraltar.
> That being the extent of the knowledge of our cosmos that
limited those who wrote what we call the old Testament.
--- End Quote ---
Why do you call any of those stories myths and fables? You were
apparently not around at the of the mentioned stories so why not
rather at worst hold them in abeyance rather than throw into a
seemingly fictional pot?
Why would a really omnipotent God be unable to control what is
written and assure that what He wants to convey is conveyed
through the writings of men? You wish to make no distinction
between groups of stories, but what if the omnipotent God does?
--- Quote ---
> ‘Man’, (including Moses and the Prophets) has, in my opinion,
always had the propensity to respond to his inner conviction of
an unknown paranormal realm by ‘creating’ God in his own
image/imagination and committing his imaginings to ‘holy
writings’.
--- End Quote ---
Even if man has 'created' a god or gods as you say, why could
God (an omnipotent God) use such creations to leave a record of
discernable truth (the only real truth)?
--- Quote ---
> Christ (in my opinion) came to correct all such imaginings,
replacing such writings with the one single law of ‘Love’
written (if I might indulge in a borrowed phrase of Christendom)
only in the ‘fleshy tables of man’s heart’.
--- End Quote ---
While I might agree in part with your statement, would this
really mean that an omnipotent God could not or would not use
the very "imaginings" of men to accomplish His purposes?
--- Quote ---
> Man however, as is his wont, reverted to his propensity to
create God in his own image and, shortly after the death of
Christ, immediately began to reverse the purpose of Christ’s
‘mission’ by reviving and adding to man’s earliest ‘holy
writings’ in the form of a new composite holy text book.
--- End Quote ---
Whatever man has done or is doing that works as you say, how
could any such doing really confuse the purpose of an omnipotent
God purposes? Of course individuals could [as they always have]
go their own way, but who can change God's Word? Changing the
translation or the superficial meanings is hardly changing the
Word of God, is it? People who understanding even in a measure
what God's Word really is, should not be affected by such
things... if... they are trusting in God rather than in their
own abilities.
--- Quote ---
> So, here we are today, ‘Christ Within’ by means of ‘Faith’
supplanted by ‘God in a text book’ by means of ‘Religion’.
>
> And that (as ironic as you can get) is ‘this man’ having
created God in my own image/imagination.
>
--- End Quote ---
As I believe it, that which is within a person that is of God
cannot be supplanted by anything that God has not allowed within
His plan. Can man twist what God has created? I believe so, but
again if a person is really leaning on God rather than on
himself, what difference can it make to that person?
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