Jim says “words on paper vs actual personal experience, hmmmm”
Seriously though H4E (and I know we’ve been here before); what is it that makes you so sure that Lekatt is wrong and you’re right? the Bible? Great; what makes you so sure that your approach to the Bible (i.e. that it’s a consistent, complete factual document to be swallowed whole) is the approach that God expects of his creation, rather than Lekatt’s somewhat liberal approach (wherein to get to the truth, we must burrow though the layers of prejudice that exist because it was written down by imperfect humans).
What makes you so sure that it isn’t you that is being decieved into thinking that absolute literal interpretation is important?
Near Death Experiences do line up with the teachings of Jesus.
They don’t line up with the teachings of fear.
**H4E wrote:
I don’t know what you mean by “show us your interpretation is better”. I read sentences that say that He did this for us yet you say it’s not true.**
No, I never said it was untrue, I simply asked why I should believe your interpretation of it over someone else’s.
I suspect that you never will understand when someone asks you to defend your interpretation. You maintain that your position is the right one (over Lekatt’s). Yet, when asked to defend this or show “why” all you can do is quote Scripture.
Can you analyse? Can you deduce? Can you THINK and show us the chain of logic that lead you to the conclusion that your version of Scripture is the correct one?
From reading all your postings, all I can conclude is that no, you can’t think, or deduce or analyse. All you can do is simply quote Scripture.
I think this debate has come down to “what is the correct teaching for Christians?”
I say it is what Jesus taught from the Hillsides of Gallilee.
His4Ever says it is the doctrine salvation: Jesus was sacrificed for our sins and we must believe that or go to hell.
Now, I might be persuaded if someone can answer my question intelligently.
When I went to church I was taught that God was a trinity.
God the Father’
God the Son (Jesus), and
God the Holy Spirit.
Now speaking of the salvation doctrine, we know that the Romans didn’t sacrifice Jesus for the sins of the world because it was against Roman law.
We know also that Jesus’ followers didn’t sacrifice Jesus for the sins of the world because they loved Him.
So the only one left is God the Father that was powerful enough to do the job.
Now here we have God the Father, sacrificing God the Son (jesus) to God the Holy Spirit. Or in other words,
God sacrificed Himself to Himself for the sins of the world.
Please tell me why this is Biblical and should be taught to Christians instead of the teachings of Jesus.
Oh, yes, since He was God, He would have known in advance that people would sin.
I personally believe this is not Biblical and really doesn’t make sense.
Show me where I am wrong. Please explain.
Love
Leroy
**I believe I’ve heard this before somewhere, but it seems to me there is a logical step or two missing from your presentations of it.
Now this is bordering on being a straw man argument; first we have to establish whether this really is what is taught to Christians.
Please feel free to fill the steps in for me.
It may be that the word trinity does not appear in the Bible, the trinity doctrine is another “made up” belief.
Also Jesus was never considered God by those who knew Him nor Himself, just another “made up” doctrine.
It is true that not all Christian churches teach the salvation doctrine. Some don’t. It is my intention here to get people to wake up about their Christianity and make sure they know what it is.
Christianity exists because of Jesus’ teachings of love, peace and compassion. God is not to be feared, but loved, as He loves us.
We have free will to chose whether we will follow the path of fear or the path of love. That is a personal decision. You must make it for yourself with the best evidence. I hope you will choose love.
Love
Leroy
I’m not sure I can fill in the steps; it’s your assertion, not mine and I’m certainly not going to take it on (although one step that appears missing is how the Holy Spirit gets implicated in the equation (“sacrificing…to God the Holy Spirit”).
Hello.
I can’t say what I think very well, but know of an old indian man who has said some things that seem to express many of my same thoughts.
I have included a few of the ones I think are related to the question posted here. Some are a few about a debait between him and a person of the islamic faith.
See if you can find any truth in what he has said?
Just a Quiz from
theWIZ
Freyr and Mangetout, I obviously can’t prove anything to you guys. I can’t prove to you that I’m right on this particular issue and that Lekatt is wrong. He says that Jesus didn’t die for our sins, correct? All I can do is point out where it says that He did die for our sins in God’s word. Now please interpret this sentence for me since you don’t think I have it right : Christ - died - for - our- sins - according - to - the- scriptures. 1 Cor. 15:3. If the words don’t mean what they say, then what do they mean? If it doesn’t mean what it says then the whole Bible is gibberish and how can you understand it at all? Of course, if you don’t believe it’s all God’s word, then for sure I can’t convince you. I know some of you think it’s a collection of old stories, myths, and that the writers put in things they wanted, etc. I don’t share this belief. The God I believe in was and is able to see that we have His word, not the words of men. The words are His written through the pens of men, but they’re still His words, IMO anyway.
If you have kids and you tell them to do or not do something, you expect to be obeyed, right? Well, what if they start arguing among themselves about whether you really said what you said? One of them could say I believe Dad meant just what his words said and the other could say; but that’s just your interpretation, what makes your interpretation better than mine and so on and so forth. Another sibling could chime in and say, well maybe Dad meant this or that but surely he couldn’t really mean what he said. It gets rather ridiculous imho.
So you guys have fun debating it out, I’m unable to prove to you Jesus died for our sins, but the words are there in the Bible if you care to read them and believe them. It’s called faith. **Lekatt]/b] chooses to put his faith in what he was taught in his near death experience, fine and good that’s his choice. I choose to believe the Bible which says He did die for our sins and those believing in Him have eternal life.
Moderator’s Note: WIZ, please don’t post lengthy exchanges from other message boards or discussion groups. We have no way of knowing if the people you are quoting would want to have their words used here and in this way, or if the place where they posted those words would allow it. The Straight Dope and the Straight Dope Message Board depend on “intellectual property” (people’s thoughts expressed in their words) for their existence, so we try to respect the intellectual property rights of others.
If you feel a web page expresses your beliefs better than you are able to do so yourself, you can include a link to that page. Brief quotations are fine (“In the words of St. Augustine, ‘Understanding is the wages of faith.’”)
To **Lekatt]/b], I have no idea why I’m bothering to do this but…oh well here goes. Concerning the trinity and Jesus being God: so what if the word “trinity” isn’t in the Bible? It’s simply a word we coined to teach the truth that’s there. We all know the Father is God, Matthew 11:25, Matthew 23:9, Luke 10:21, concerning the Holy Spirit, Acts 5:3-4 (this clearly shows that lying to the Holy Spirit is lying to God), and Jesus I’ve saved for last. There are several scriptures that attest to His deity, John 1:1,3,10,14, Hebrews 1:8, and the clearest that it can possibly be, Colossians 2:9 which says "For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.
Tell me, who was God talking to when He said in Genesis 1:26 "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…?? I’ve heard a few different opinions on this such as multiple gods or God is an alien or whatever. I simple believe He was talking to the Son and the Holy Spirit. Jesus has always existed, John 8:56-58 (Before Abraham was, I am: the name God gave Moses of Himself at the burning bush). Also Jesus said in John 14:9 that he who has seen Him has seen the Father. God has chosen to express Himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I don’t think this is difficult for someone who is all powerful, all knowing, and can be everywhere at once.
I have to go eat supper. God bless, His4ever
Neither do I.
I don’t find the Bible self-consistent enough to be able to accept that it was transcribed verbatim, or consistent enough with the observed universe to be able to accept that it wholly and solely represents the infallible views of God.
I believe that God is revealed in scripture, but that finding him in there is a process akin to archaeology; one must dig down through the layers; through Paul’s misogyny and fiery zeal, through John’s rose-tinted spectacles and so on.
Sorry bout dat, Mod!
Let me try this.
Even if it doesn’t work, it’s like Paul newman said in Hud:
“Dosen’t matter how you try to pussyfoot around it, the world is so full of B/S you’re going to end up stepping in it sooner or later.” 
This is a rush job on HTML and editing, as well as a favor called in. So keep that in mind.
Also, everything is quoted with permission.
http://www.geocities.com/hopi_dreamweaver/PAGES/Post/Posted3.html
theWIZ
You may substitute God the Father if you like. The trinity is a kind of 3-headed God, not real understandable to me.
The doctrine of the trinity was put in place by Constantine the Emperior of part of Rome. He notice how calm and peaceful the Christians were in the arena. Most would just kneel and pray. The lions often passed them up. He decided this Christian religion would be good for his subjects and officially adopted it for his empire.
The Bible doesn’t contain any clear picture of what the trinity might do in the salvation doctrine. The justification fundamentals use is found in Genesis, it consists of one word “us”.
In the Oneness of the spirit world the terms “we” or “us” are used frequently. They do not necessarily mean three.
“IMO”, being the key, His4ever.
I don’t know how I could convince you that Catholicism is not what you believe it is. But I know that you ARE wrong on that.
As for whether you’re right or wrong, or whether we KNOW God exists-that’s just it. We don’t KNOW. We BELIEVE.
There’s a huge difference. That’s why it’s called faith.
For anyone who desires to learn about the trinity from the Christian perspective, here are some links. They explain it better than I can.
http://www.joyfulheart.com/scholar/trinity.htm
A really nice job on the Trinity cites, His4Ever. I particularly liked the readability and non-polemicism of the first one.
Some historical documentation of the Trinity (which by the way was an evolving doctrine, not superimposed by Constantine – his sole action was to insist that the church’s leaders settle on one set of beliefs instead of arguing about it interminably – which simply led them into subsidiary arguments about what the agreement they’d reached really meant. :rolleyes: )
One key point worth taking into account, however, is that this whole thing is described as a mysterion – something that it is impossible for a human being to wrap his or her mind around, but must accept as an imperfect description of a real thing. Trying to describe the inner anatomy of God is an exercise in futility – which doesn’t stop theologians from trying to do it anyways.
Easier to understand than this “essential Trinity” is the “economic Trinity” – which has nothing to do with what Adam Smith and Karl Marx argued about, but rather with how this Triune God interacts with the oikumene, the world of men.
It’s fairly easy to grasp the idea of a Creator Who is Head Honcho of the Universe – this is the concept advanced both by children when you ask them who God is, and by those who are interested in demonstrating whether or not He really exists. But the Christian teaching is that God reveals Himself not only as Creator and Ultimate High Overlord of All, but also in the human form of Jesus of Nazareth, itinerant rabbi put to death by the Romans at the instigation of a group of Jewish authorities, Whom we believe rose again. And further He reveals Himself also in the divine presence in the lives of Christians prodding them to do the right, strengthening them in adversity, comforting them in sorrow, convicting them inwardly of their sins, and showing them the paths of righteousness and peace.
Perhaps the best definition of the Trinity, however, is that attributed to Jesus on the eve of His death by St. John, which I won’t quote in full, as it occupies parts of five chapters (John 12-16, the last chapter being His prayer of self-offering to His Father). Nowhere does He get into how He, His Father, and the Holy Spirit whom He promises to send are three personae in a single godhead; instead He says what each of them is supposed to do for the believer.
Thanks Polycarp for your information on the trinity. I am always amazed at the lengths man will go to describe his beliefs. That which must be held in the mind. However, I think it is more important to describe what one should hold in their heart.
In near death experiences, very few actually see God. He is felt, sensed, and sometimes appears as a vague figure or part of a figure. But Jesus can be seen. He appears in many NDEs. They are always thought of as separate individuals by NDEers.
In my experience, God was felt, Jesus was seen clearly. I had no knowledge that Jesus was any different than other light beings, other than being more advanced. You can tell by the light surrounding them how advanced they are. The brighter the light, the more advanced. The light is Love energy and if the being is a great deal more advanced, it can not be easily approached. I think this is why God is only felt. I know many do not think NDEers know what they are talking about. But they are always the ones who never had the experience.
From reading the Bible and my own experience I have no reason to believe than God is anything other than One. In God we all exist making complete the Oneness of all things. Hard to describe in physical words.
Love
Leroy
Thanks Polycarp for your information on the trinity. I am always amazed at the lengths man will go to describe his beliefs. That which must be held in the mind. However, I think it is more important to describe what one should hold in their heart.
In near death experiences, very few actually see God. He is felt, sensed, and sometimes appears as a vague figure or part of a figure. But Jesus can be seen. He appears in many NDEs. They are always thought of as separate individuals by NDEers.
In my experience, God was felt, Jesus was seen clearly. I had no knowledge that Jesus was any different than other light beings, other than being more advanced. You can tell by the light surrounding them how advanced they are. The brighter the light, the more advanced. The light is Love energy and if the being is a great deal more advanced, it can not be easily approached. I think this is why God is only felt. I know many do not think NDEers know what they are talking about. But they are always the ones who never had the experience.
From reading the Bible and my own experience I have no reason to believe than God is anything other than One. In God we all exist making complete the Oneness of all things. Hard to describe in physical words. Somewhat like God is the ocean, and we the drops of water.
Love
Leroy