Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your savior?

[Yeticus_Rex]

@Jackmannii

If you are saved, and then relapse - can you be re-saved over and over indefinitely?

Or does the process become less workable with repetition?

I have videotapes that aren’t as good as new ones because they’ve been recorded over too many times, but that may not be an exact parallel.

Haven’t you heard? They’re working on a digital non-denigrating DVD version!

[Freyr]

@Liberal

Different path, maybe, but the same forest. You’ve always impressed me as a loving man.

Thanks for the kind words, Liberal!! I try to be loving, tho I’ll admit to human fraility and say when I’ve had hatred thrown at me, it’s hard not to throw hatred back.

As for forests and paths, that leads into a debate about monotheism and polytheism and how the line between them can be rather vague. You see the numen as best exemplied by Jesus of Nazareth. I see it best thru Freyr. If you compare the two, you’ll find a lot in common.

What worries me is that many Christians would say “ah-hah, it’s our god simply wearing a different face!” I disagree, the numen has no face, at least not one what we could recognize. It’s so far beyond human comprehension that the only way we can attempt to understand it is to put face or mask on it as a symbol that can be agreed upon for the divine force behind it. But the symbol (or face or mask) is not the same as the numen. Jesus is just one small aspect of the numen as is Freyr as is all the other gods who have revealed themselves to humanity.

[Freyr]

@Polycarp

I completely agree, Lib, and may I thank you for saying it, for the both of us.

I suggested to Freyr a couple of years ago, and never got a chance to discuss it further, that perhaps the “piss-poor answers” were in fact good answers that he misinterpreted based on cultural preconceptions. For example, “Persevere,” one such answer which sticks with me, being not “keep trying to be something you’re not,” but “be the best you that you can, and keep loving as I would.”

Perhaps, Polycarp. I’ll grant you, you may well be right, but that decision was made so long ago, to go back and reconsider it would be to undo so much of my life since that that I would become an entirely different person.

I’ve made my peace with Chrisitianity long ago, it’s simply not the path for me. If you’re worried about my soul, don’t be. It’s in good hands: my own.

[IAMMYOWNGOD]

You say “the witch item” is a command to the Jewish people that has nothing to do with you. But you believe in the same god, right? Even if the command wasn’t directed towards you, you must reconcile with the fact that your god commanded the death of certain people simply for being who they are. If “God” is commanding the unilateral execution of potion-sellers, well, that sounds just as evil to me.

You can’t so easily brush off your God’s condonement of slavery by saying his laws don’t apply to you. The fact that your god made these commandments in the first place makes him EVIL. No decent person alive today could or would attempt to justify slavery. It’s understandable that these ancient people would rely on slavery, but to believe in a true and timeless god who would condone such behavior - that is nothing short of absurd!

Am I to understand that you simply pick and choose for yourself which parts of the Bible you consider to be credible?

@Polycarp

That was precisely my point in another thread – presuming that the Bible is literally the Word of God, with any humans involved being purely “word processors” for Him, leads to the conclusion that He is a sadistic megalomaniac. On the other hand, divorced of any question about God and His putative inspiration, the Tanakh is clearly a collection of writings of an ancient civilization, including their myths and legends (and the New Testament a similar collection about one radical group from late in their history).

So:

1. That some people believe God to have inspired Moses to write down those commands (presuming that it was he, and not some Jahvist, Priestly, or other tradition that did) does not enforce them on me.

2. The witch item and the O.T. slavery are commands to the Jewish people, not to me. They are quite explicitly as non-binding on me as the Jewish dietary laws – at least, Zev hasn’t condemned me for eating a cheeseburger lately.

3. The N.T. slavery item is aimed at a miniscule congregation in the midst of a world-dominating Empire, telling servi (“slaves” in the Roman usage) to be content in their lots because God would reward them later for it. It is no excuse for someone with political power to enforce slavery, but abolishing slavery was clearly beyond the powers of the little church in the catacombs or the one that met at so-and-so’s house in Corinth.

4. In any case, the KJV translation as “witch” has been known for over 100 years to be invalid – the word in question was descriptive of a potion-seller who often dealt in poisons.

5. God has given explicit instructions on how to deal with Wiccans – because they’re human beings. And it’s to love them and treat them as you would be treated, not to kill them.

In short, nice blast at what you mistake Christianity to be – and at what certain elements of it in fact are – but you missed me and my co-believers by a mile.

[Polycarp]

You know, I resent having fundamentalists tell me how I must read the Bible – I resent it even more when Solipsotheists decide that they are the authority.

It’s a book, a compilation of writings by famous Jewish people and early Christians. You’ll find that Orthodox Jews don’t even believe that those commandments are binding on me – they’re directed at the Twelve Tribes of Israel, to start with. Second, I have explicit instructions on how to behave from the person I believe to be the Incarnate Son of God, set forth later in the same book, and those two commandments and the supplementary material He taught are incommensurate with going around killing witches or potion-sellers.

Now cut the BS about how “my God commanded me to do thus and so” – unless you yourself believe it, in which case you’re arguing against your own username. If you don’t, there’s a standard message board term for the behavior you’re apparently engaged in. And I’d recommend dropping it, before a moderator decides that it’s precisely that.