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Hex
| | Posted on Thursday, February 04, 2010 - 05:17 pm: | 
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There you go talking Truth again...
Only one Truth, eh? |
Hex
| | Posted on Thursday, February 04, 2010 - 05:19 pm: |
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What if there were infinite Truths? What Dogma would you follow? |
Ft_bstrd
| | Posted on Thursday, February 04, 2010 - 05:31 pm: |
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It seems that is the question I will be asking myself. If you are born into a completely repressive society, then I guess you will just have to live and learn and apply your experiences to your next life.
What if there is truth that is recognized but the source is unknown.
I don't hold the belief that Christians hold the corner on truth. I believe that there are truths about life, love, and the way the world works that are recognized by Buddhists, and Hindus, and Jews, and Christians, and atheists. Truth is available to all.
The question is not whether there are truths but the source of these truths. I believe they come from God. Others believe otherwise.
I believe that God left it this way by design. Free will MUST be maintained. Reveal the maker and remove the free will.
"When everything gets answered, it's fake. The mystery is the truth." |
Hex
| | Posted on Thursday, February 04, 2010 - 05:34 pm: |
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So then there must be more that ONE answer, in that case I'll make my own choice. |
Moxnix
| | Posted on Thursday, February 04, 2010 - 05:56 pm: |
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Freewill enables one to make their own choice. Devolution allows a person with freewill to declare the Earth is flat and the Sun revolves around him or her. Now, the truth is proven on those theories, just as there is only one "truth." Truth is not a mystery, it's truth. Mysteries are mysteries. The inside is the inside, the outside the outside. Beliefs outside of truth are barren and of no consequence, though choosing (through freewill) the lie over the truth has consequences. |
Metalrabbit
| | Posted on Thursday, February 04, 2010 - 06:05 pm: |
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BZZZZZT!
God does not live in all things, rocks, trees, animal or people. If He did, Why did Jesus give You the commandment, "Ye MUST Be Born Again" The key word is "Must",
"To Make Certain". It is also written the "HE" "Lives Apart From His Creation", "The Earth Is His Footstool"
Careful with what your agreeing with here, It's rife with relativism.
(Message edited by metalrabbit on February 04, 2010) |
Ft_bstrd
| | Posted on Thursday, February 04, 2010 - 06:08 pm: |
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Truth does not equal fact.
I love my wife. I can't prove it. There is indirect evidence.
It is truth. It is not fact.
Many confuse the two. |
Hootowl
| | Posted on Thursday, February 04, 2010 - 07:33 pm: |
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I meant people |
Moxnix
| | Posted on Thursday, February 04, 2010 - 08:22 pm: |
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Truth is a fact denied by choice through freewill.
Truth is in agreement with fact and reality, and the correctness of actuality.
Truth on this thread, for some, is a statement of something to be discussed, proved or explained. If one makes a statement I accept, that does not make it truth, it only makes it a statement in which I am in agreement. If someone makes a statement that is a lie, then I acknowledge the truth that the lie is a lie.
Truth, in Biblical studies, frequently denotes faithfulness, especially between a man and God, and of God to men. Truth in Christianity is the sense of "living reality" in distinction from the "lying vanities" which in those who trust in God is unknown. All O.T., that.
In later canonical writings, there appears a use of "truth" or "the truth" as equivalent to Divine revelation, or as a synonym for the "wisdom" in which the true philosophy of life consists. Sprinkled through the Apocrypha, and that's a can of worms. |
Ft_bstrd
| | Posted on Thursday, February 04, 2010 - 08:39 pm: |
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How the human brain utilizes electrical impulses to transmit neurological impulses is a matter of fact.
How the owner of that brain thinks and how cognitive thought is created is truth.
How biological systems function is fact.
How to create biological entities in the lab is truth.
True enlightenment understands that behind every answer is an even bigger question. |
Metalrabbit
| | Posted on Thursday, February 04, 2010 - 09:07 pm: |
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jeez, I spent all of 2 minutes on my knees and I ain't been the same man since. You guys must be trying to hard er sumthin' |
Blake
| | Posted on Thursday, February 04, 2010 - 09:44 pm: |
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"My point is that I do not believe in the Judeo/Christian/Muslim DOGMA made by MAN.""
What if it wasn't all made by man? What if some of it, not saying which, was given to man by God?
"Only one Truth, eh?"
Just truth, period.
"My point is that I do not believe in the Judeo/Christian/Muslim DOGMA made by MAN."
To assert that the dogma is "made by man" may or may not be truth. To pretend to know, if you are on a quest, amounts to a lie. The statement itself is anti-quest, it is absolutist, your own personal "one truth".
The most vital attribute for any sincere quest is honesty. I don't think you've found it in your own yet. Way too many contradictions. |
Moxnix
| | Posted on Thursday, February 04, 2010 - 11:19 pm: |
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The muslim dogma may not be of God at all, there being constant trouble between God and the Devil. The battle between good and evil occurs, even if some folk believe that good is bad and bad is good, while others consider that good is good and bad is bad. Just my casual glance toward those areas of our orb suggests that East is East and West is West and ne'er . . . . Note that the children of a lesser god seem to be coming West for something good, while polluting that good into an environment likened to the one they portend to escape. Let he who has eyes, let him see.
. . . Back to my dogma, the one given by God, that is. |
Mr_grumpy
| | Posted on Friday, February 05, 2010 - 10:44 am: |
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Anybody notice that dogma backwards is AM GOD.
The Devil's in my dictionary I tell you!  |
Eaton_corners
| | Posted on Saturday, February 06, 2010 - 04:39 pm: |
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Interesting find- "The Case For Christ" by Lee Strobel is now available on video. The book I mentioned in an earlier thread has been made into a documentary. Check your local video store. |
Moxnix
| | Posted on Saturday, February 06, 2010 - 04:58 pm: |
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The Devil's in my dictionary I tell you!
No argument from me.
(Message edited by moxnix on February 06, 2010) |
Mr_grumpy
| | Posted on Saturday, February 06, 2010 - 07:57 pm: |
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Ha Ha, he's in yours too, under D or perhaps S or even B.  |
Hex
| | Posted on Saturday, February 06, 2010 - 08:04 pm: |
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The devil's in my underwear. |
Mr_grumpy
| | Posted on Saturday, February 06, 2010 - 08:12 pm: |
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You're using the wrong detergent then. |
Hex
| | Posted on Saturday, February 06, 2010 - 08:14 pm: |
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I keep telling her not to starch my shorts, but she never listens. |
Eaton_corners
| | Posted on Saturday, February 06, 2010 - 08:58 pm: |
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Whenever you find a man who says he does not believe in a real Right and Wrong, you will find the same man going back on this a moment later. He may break his promise to you, but if you try breaking one to him he will be complaining 'It's not fair' before you can say Jack Robinson. A nation may say treaties don't matter; but then, next minute, they spoil their case by saying that the particular treaty they want to break was an unfair one. But if treaties do not matter, and if there is no such thing as Right and Wrong-in other words, if there is no Law of Nature-what is the difference between a fair treaty and an unfair one? Have they not let the cat out of the bag and shown that, whatever they say, they really know the Law of Nature just like anyone else?
It seems, then, we are forced to believe in a real Right and Wrong. People may be sometimes mistaken about them, just as people sometimes get their sums wrong; but they are not a matter of mere taste and opinion any more than the multiplication table.
C.S. Lewis- Mere Christianity
This seems pretty simple to me, please do not over-complicate the issue. There is a real right and wrong, therefore, if two religious doctrines have different principle "dogma", then one is right and the other is wrong. If a seeker truly has an open mind he will accept which ever religion offers the best explanation for why we are here, what we should be doing, and how we should go about doing it even if it turns out to be something we do not like. Remember Saul of Tarsus who was a Jew and hated Christians so much that He participated in stoning of Christians. After Saul had an encounter with Jesus, He not only changed his name to Paul, but, he became the most outspoken "preacher" of Christianity. |
Hex
| | Posted on Saturday, February 06, 2010 - 09:31 pm: |
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Yeah for Paul, what of Thomas? |
Ft_bstrd
| | Posted on Sunday, February 07, 2010 - 03:12 am: |
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I find myself most like Thomas.
Thomas was not ridiculed by Christ. In fact, Jesus provided special attention to Thomas, who needed extra "proof".
Hex, like you, he was the eternal skeptic.
The entire bible is made up of God's work through the most unlikely cast of characters. These were not "perfect" people. These were the most profoundly flawed individuals imaginable.
Peter, the Rock, was a violent, angry, foul mouthed fisherman, and yet God built his entire relationship plan upon him.
Rahab, the harlot, acted by God's direction to protect God's servants.
Abram was a liar.
Jacob deceived his father and stole his brother's birthright.
Moses was a murderer.
David, the patriarch of the lineage of Christ, committed adultry and then had the husband of his mistress murdered.
Thomas doubted.
The rest of the disciples weren't much better. They were tax cheats and political terrorists.
Saul, later Paul, was the chief persecutor of the Christians.
These are not stories of hypocrisy of bad people pretending to be good. These are stories of real people with real flaws being chosen and changed by their experience and proximity to God.
God chooses to use flawed instruments to fulfill His works so that the credit can not be given to the individual.
There is tremendous hope in that my flaws are not only not a surprise to God but that my flaws make me more useful to God. God loves to take the broken and discarded and do miraculous things. The most compelling story comes from those who have had to come the furthest to tell it. |
Ft_bstrd
| | Posted on Sunday, February 07, 2010 - 03:19 am: |
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We recently sent off a friend couple and their three children. The moved to Atlanta.
They are training to be missionaries to Thailand. They will be working to rescue women from the sex trade.
They have spent the last 12 months selling everything they have. Home. Cars. Motorcycle. Furniture. Dishes. Clothes. Sound studio.
They went on a mission trip to India last summer and were led by God to begin this journey.
The wife of the couple has been the children's minister for the last three years. Her husband has been the drummer in the band on Sundays.
Early in their marriage, she had multiple affairs and nearly destroyed their marriage.
She was the product of an abusive home. Her mother destroyed multiple marriages with infidelity. My friend's mother abandoned her.
God uses flawed people. |
Ft_bstrd
| | Posted on Sunday, February 07, 2010 - 03:23 am: |
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Janine is the head of hospitality at our church.
Janine's husband Brian provides a ministry where he provides auto mechanic services for free to people who can't afford to pay for it.
Janine and Brian were both married to other people previously.
Janine and Brian had an affair together and Janine became pregnant.
Janine was a serial adulterer within her marriage and felt that if it was something she wanted, she should have it.
Janine was a sex addict growing up.
God uses flawed people. |
Hex
| | Posted on Thursday, February 11, 2010 - 02:57 pm: |
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Was Jesus a flawed person as well?
Or was he the only perfect person ever to live and die on Earth?
God made Adam and Eve perfectly, but alas they were flawed people as well.
Maybe god is the one who is flawed--the god that humanity has created in it's image. |
Blake
| | Posted on Thursday, February 11, 2010 - 04:00 pm: |
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"Was Jesus a flawed person as well?"
His mother would probably say "yes." His enemies would certainly affirm so.
"Or was he the only perfect person ever to live and die on Earth?"
You forgot the "and be resurrected." He was the only human to be God in the flesh. What is perfection? Outside of a "perfect" circle or a "perfect" right angle, what is it? Who is best to judge, the creator, or the creation?
"God made Adam and Eve perfectly, but alas they were flawed people as well."
God created man, not "perfection." He gave man free will. If you think free will is an imperfection, then man was imperfect from the start.
"Maybe god is the one who is flawed--the god that humanity has created in it's image."
Such a god would be flawed and false as well. |
Ft_bstrd
| | Posted on Thursday, February 11, 2010 - 06:16 pm: |
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Was Jesus a flawed person as well?
Or was he the only perfect person ever to live and die on Earth?
No. Jesus was God in flesh. He was with God and He WAS God (John 1:1). He was also a man. He was the only man to be born who was not condemned under the curse of death (wages of sin is death Romans 6:23). As such, Jesus would have been the only immortal human. He chose to allow himself to be killed as payment for the sins of man.
God made Adam and Eve perfectly, but alas they were flawed people as well.
God created perfect creations in Adam and Eve. They walked in daily communion with God. God walked the earth WITH Adam and Eve. God granted Adam and Eve the capacity of free will. For free will to be complete (in God's image), man had to have the ability to chose to reject God (as do you). Adam and Eve chose to reject God and were condemned, along with all of their offspring, to a finite life, to death.
Maybe god is the one who is flawed--the god that humanity has created in it's image.
Thus far the "Not God" created by man hasn't been to stellar. We are still looking for the historical atheist utopia.
We haven't found it yet.
The god created by man is himself, so in a way, you are correct. Man's god is flawed. |
Aptbldr
| | Posted on Thursday, February 11, 2010 - 07:07 pm: |
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FB writes, "Adam and Eve chose to reject God and were condemned, along with all of their offspring, to a finite life, to death."
And so, that could only be a perfect choice.
If not, please explain how it's otherwise, given presumed necessity of free-will.
Big (biggest?) flaw of traditional Christianity: given that people are born defective. |
Ft_bstrd
| | Posted on Thursday, February 11, 2010 - 08:01 pm: |
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Disclaimer: My Opinion Only
God, who is all knowing, created man KNOWING man would fall.
Nothing can surprise God. The actions of Adam and Eve were not a surprise to God.
If God created man knowing he would fall, there was a reason, a plan.
Man had to have the ability, through free will, to reject God so that some might embrace Him. |
86129squids
| | Posted on Friday, February 12, 2010 - 03:15 am: |
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"The True Man of ancient times knew nothing of loving life, knew nothing of hating death. He emerged without delight; he went back in without a fuss. He came briskly, he went briskly, and that was all. He didn't forget where he began; he didn't try out to find where he would end. He received something and took pleasure in it; he forgot about it and handed it back again. This is what I call not using the mind to repel the Way, not using man to help out Heaven. This is what I call the True Man."
Chuang-Tzu
~~
I really appreciate everyone participating in this thread. And lurking.
Dialogue.
Labeling theory.
Sociology.
But first, dialogue.
Whatever happened to the pact among the 3 tribes of Abraham: Judaism, Islam, and Christianity? Wasn't that the Council of Messenes?
Crap, I can't remember any Aramaic. Would've liked to study Latin.
Jeez. |
Ft_bstrd
| | Posted on Sunday, February 14, 2010 - 05:11 pm: |
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There were not three tribes of Abraham.
There were two children of Abraham.
His first son, Ishmael, was born of Sarah's handmaiden (servant) Hagar. Sarah, unable to have a child of her own, had Abraham sleep with her servant in order to conceive. Sarah's servant, having provided Abraham with a male heir, mocked and ridiculed Sarah. Sarah drove Hagar and her son away.
Sarah Turns against Hagar
9 Now Sarah saw athe son of Hagar the Egyptian, whom she had borne to Abraham, 1bmocking.
10 Therefore she said to Abraham, “aDrive out this maid and her son, for the son of this maid shall not be an heir with my son 1Isaac.”
11 aThe matter 1distressed Abraham greatly because of his son.
12 But God said to Abraham, “1Do not be distressed because of the lad and your maid; whatever Sarah tells you, listen to her, for athrough Isaac 2your descendants shall be named.
13 “And of athe son of the maid I will make a nation also, because he is your 1descendant.”
14 So Abraham rose early in the morning and took bread and a 1skin of water and gave them to Hagar, putting them on her shoulder, and gave her the boy, and sent her away. And she departed and wandered about in the wilderness of Beersheba.
15 When the water in the skin was used up, she 1left the boy under one of the bushes.
16 Then she went and sat down opposite him, about a bowshot away, for she said, “Do not let me 1see the boy die.” And she sat opposite him, and alifted up her voice and wept.
17 God aheard the lad crying; and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What is the matter with you, Hagar? bDo not fear, for God has heard the voice of the lad where he is.
18 “Arise, lift up the lad, and hold him by 1the hand, afor I will make a great nation of him.”
19 Then God aopened her eyes and she saw ba well of water; and she went and filled the 1skin with water and gave the lad a drink.
20 aGod was with the lad, and he grew; and he 1lived in the wilderness and became an archer.
21 aHe 1lived in the wilderness of Paran, and his mother took a wife for him from the land of Egypt.
The sons of Ishmael, having been promised prosperity and blessing of God, are now the Arabian people of the fertile cresent.
The other son of Abraham is Isaac. From Isaac came Jacob and the rest of the Jewish nation.
This is the main reason you will never have peace in the middle east. Both the Jewish and Arabic (Islamic) people claim the birthright of God through Abraham. Both came from a common ancestry.
Christians share a different relation (birthright) to God. Christians were added to the birthright of the Jews through Christ ("grafted into the vine"). |
Moxnix
| | Posted on Sunday, February 14, 2010 - 05:31 pm: |
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http://tv.repubblica.it/copertina/la-storia-dell-u omo-disegnata-con-la-biro/42592?video
From an Italian connection. |
Moxnix
| | Posted on Sunday, February 14, 2010 - 05:41 pm: |
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I sometimes end letters to muslims with whom I do business: May the God of Abraham bless our children with prosperity.
They seem to like it. Takes the charge off religious differences in the game. |
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