I do not avoid any scriptures. So maybe the people you are encountering are not christians at all. Those are the people that avoid certain scriptures. Maybe you can give me some examples of what’s avoided by these people and what’s not. It might be that I don’t know what a ‘fundie’ is. Help me out here.
I never said ( i’m not saying that you said I said this) thats God hates anyone. People who make website like that are not christian, they are only fooling themselves.
Ok, for one, Christians are suppose to live by the New Covenant/Testament. The old testament laws are for the Jewish ( if I’m wrong and offended any Jewish, I’m sorry and please correct me). This I just needed to clear up. Yes, Christians read the Old Testament, and that makes things in the New testament more understandable.
There are Laws/ rules that are in the Old Testament that are different in the New Testament. Jesus specifically tells us what is expected and what commandments to keep. That is what Christians are suppose to follow. God does not actively hate homosexuals.
Yes, homosexuality is a sin, (not only in the OT but in the NT too) just as fornication is condemned by the Bible, and for the same reason; it is a perversion of God’s plan.
God’s plan is one man for one woman, for life, and the sexual relationship between a man and a woman is a sacred, God given right, privilege, and pleasure, intended by God to be exercised only within the confines of marriage. Any and every other allowance for sexual practices on the part of human beings is sexual perversion.
Man does not have the right to do what he pleases. God sets the standard for morality, although man seems to feel that he is free to set his own standard. God grants man the opportunity to obey him. We can choose to obey, or we can choose to be disobedient. God’s law for human beings is sexual relations within marriage, period. Man thinks this to be too restrictive, so he looks for ways to rationalize his perversion ( yes, this is perversion because it’s not part of Gods plan). Some sexual perverts enjoy pornographic material, some sexual perverts are adulators, some perverts want sex with children, some sexual perverts engage in sex with animals, some are homosexuals. All of these are previsions of God’s plan. An adulator is an immoral person because he has violated God’s standard of morality. A homosexual is an immoral person for the same reason.
A sin is a sin is a sin. Homosexuality isn’t any worse to him then pre-marital sex, it’s all the same.
Well, I know that in Mark 9, the believer responded to his own doubt “I do believe; help me to overcome my unbelief!”, thereby acknowledging his own infirmity in resolve…
And I know that Christ said, “Whosoever believeth in me shall not perish, but have everlasting life…”
So here we have the dichotomy of human fallibility versus the soveriegnty of God’s promise…
Hmm…
Wonder if God knew how weak we were before he sacrificed Himself for us…
Wonder if the man’s request, “Help me to overcome my unbelief” was honored as a confession of the fallibility of man, and thus attended to by a God Who promised “They will call to me, and I will answer them, and I will be their God.”
You quote the catechism–and not to refute the validity and efficacy of the tenets of writ therein–but I wonder if your initial offering was not hypothetical, and if you’re not posing your view merely to play ‘Devil’s Advocate.’
And please understand, I do not accuse you of aligning yourself with ‘The Devil’ by stating such. I use the term loosely, as a fitting position for one who presents the ‘other side of the coin’ merely to spark insight…
“Fundie”: One who actively promotes harsh, extremist views using a strict interpretation of religious writings for justification; regarded by the outside world as closed-minded, overly zealous, and fixated on converting others, sometimes to a dangerous degree. Derived from “Christian fundamentalist”, though it does not exclusively refer to Christians (ex: the Taliban would qualify as Muslim “fundies” IMO).
Fundamentalist: Any adherent of a faith who believes in a strict interpretation of religious scripture. Sometimes fundamentalists are also “fundies”, but sometimes they simply adopt a passive or separatist position (ex: from what I know of The Amish, they appear to take the Bible literally, thus they are fundamentalists, but I would not call them “fundies” since they reject the aggressive conversion tactics and such)
I am not a fundamentalist by any definition, so I went to look at some webpages to see how they would explain their views. Here is (one, probably not the only) fundamentalist view: http://www.wherry.com/~gbisaga/fundamentalist.htm
I’m not promoting Pelagianism. I don’t believe people can over come original sin without God’s help, a.k.a. grace. Protestants don’t believe people can over come original sin at all.
Mark 9 also says if you do not stop sinning you will be thrown into Hell. Protestants don’t believe it is possible to stop sinning.
If you think you can be saved by believing Jesus exists but without loving him, good luck. Even the devil believes in God.
The new covenant doesn’t apply if you do not uphold your end of the bargain.
Before his crucifixion, Jesus prayed to the father for those who keep his commandments, not for the world. But Protestants somehow think everytime it says “us” in the Bible, no matter how out of context, it somehow applies to them also. What vanity!
Again, who is “they”? All day long he holds out his hands to a disobedient and obstinate people. But if they don’t take it… And God does not accept a confession without repentance. If you do not repent you will perish. I don’t understand the disconnect many people who claim to believe have in their minds on that.
As to how I define “fundies”? I think this is a fair enough definition. From what I have seen here that is their most annoying trait.
This whole thing is beginning to resemble the three-cornered shootout in “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” – scary!!! :eek:
My stance here would be somewhere near Pariah, probably a few steps in the direction of Andros.
But Jersey Diamond has said some intelligent things on the subject.
A fundamentalist is, according to the guy who invented the term, “one who believes in the fundamentals of the Christian religion.” By this he meant the time-honored dogmata of the faith, such as the Resurrection, the Virgin Birth, and so on. To this far too many modern fundamentalists have added the requirement for Biblical literalism (which as everybody here has, I think, pointed out here or elsewhere nobody accepts, even those who claim it as dogma) and “creation science” in an effort to prove Genesis 1 as literally true despite any scientific evidence to the contrary.
Joel, where you’re wrong is when you start getting out the tarbrush:
We must associate with a far different crowd of Protestants, then. And of Catholics, too. The ones of both faiths I know believe that God’s grace is sufficient to overcome anything and that avoiding sin is possible but extremely hard, so that most of us sin nonetheless, and God grants forgiveness on repentance.
Pariah commented:
…drawing the famous dichotomy.
And, of course, somebody is going to come along and make the comment about the guy who spent his life sinning and then made a deathbed conversion and was saved, vs. the guy who did good all his life but didn’t “believe” right. (Needless to say, this is a perversion of the Christian understanding of God’s grace, no matter how it may seem to be implied in it.)
And it’s always struck me as insane that people can get upset about God’s willingness to forgive sin yet have absolutely no problem with the same thing in, of all places, a Backstreet Boys song:
Wading my way further back in this trainwreck, I find Jersey Diamond expressing adherence to God’s word and implying fault to those who disregard it. But, as I’ve tried to discuss with her in the past, the point to me is that the text is never as self-explanatory as it may appear. Or else we wouldn’t have over 450 denominations, all claiming to “follow the Bible,” and each with a different take on what it says.
I do my best to understand what it says, with Jesus’s summary of the law as my touchstone for how to apply it in my life, and trust in His mercy to forgive me if and when I go wrong. I do encourage that on everyone else, simply because it strikes me that a lot of the religious arguments come from focusing on something else and yelling, jumping, and screaming when that something else is apparently violated by someone else. And in particular the example which tracer gave and Jersey responded to, which has been food for several megabytes worth of posts here over the past year (many by me – mea culpa) where what St. Paul is condemning is clearly not the same thing as someone else is advocating – if you get beyond the “scare” term and look at what each is saying.
Jersey, you did a couple of paragraphs on what God’s plan and man’s sin is. Would you be willing to re-post that with the Bible cites for your assertions? I’m not necessarily trying to provoke an argument, but I’d like to see what you base them on. I reserve the right to agree or respectfully disagree on the basis of my own studies. And perhaps we can learn from each other. Fair?
I have a problem with that. And not just because the Backstreet Boys sang it, either. Besides, do you really think we should hold the justice and doctrines of the putative Omnibenvolent Creator of All to the exact same standards as we bring to bear on fluffy pop rock puppy love croonings?
Well, that is a circular description if I’ve every heard one.
Fundamentalists believe in what fundamentalists believe are the fundamentals of the faith.
Sure, and so on. :rolleyes:
To repent means to stop sinning. Yes, God grants forgiveness to those who stop sinning. But since Protestants believe this is impossible (or at least, impossible for themselves) they can’t have God’s forgiveness. So while what you say sounds good, it doesn’t actually make any sense.
See, you give yourself away. You claim I’m painting with a “big brush” and yet, somehow, both you and Pariah – two people who I presume have never met – are going on about some “dichotomy” which is produced by twisting two scriptures (one a throw-away line from some unnamed walk on character, the other taken out of context) in the exact same way.
Don’t pretend you aren’t playing out of the exact same playbook. I don’t know if it is some oral tradition, or what, but if you are going around calling this a famous dichotomy you must be getting the idea from some source outside of the Bible.
Jesus never gave a summary of the law. You know what you do wrong. Whoever knows what he must do and does not do it sins. If you don’t think God will give justice to those who do keep his commandments, you need to read the Gospels again.
I just wish that those who do not love their fellow man or God or Jesus would be honest about it. I can’t stand the lies, and if you are out there spreading the lies in an attempt to make peace you are only making the world more lukewarm. Keep crying peace and security all you want while there is none – you are only making things worse, simply to justify yourself. And you will make things worse for yourself in the long run, too.
I really should just wash my hands of it. There’s nothing I can do about this situation. As Jesus said
“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters–yes, even his own life–he cannot be my disciple” [NIV translation]
(And don’t try to weasel out of it by saying that Luke 14:26 only means to love Jesus more than you love your family and your own life. No translation of this passage supports that interpretation. Jesus is telling you to hate.)
And once you’re finished digesting the implications of that little New Testament verse, you might also want to check out the ones in http://www.bettybowers.com/biblequiz.html.
Hey, Joel? What I said to Jersey about what seems clear not necessarily being clear seems to hold here. We’re using the same words – but investing them with quite disparate meanings. And so we’ve once again failed to communicate.
I’m not going to answer you tonight – I feel some anger and a lot of frustration at what you’ve said in response to me. I’ll let it set for a while. Then perhaps I can essay a forthright and understanding response.
In the meantime, if I may ask this, take a look at Paul’s letter to the Philippians. And see if what it says doesn’t help clarify what I’m trying to say. If it does, please let me know.
I’m afraid our good friend Jersey Diamond is screwed on this one. Even if he does follow this scripture, he’s still got to deal with 1 John 3:15:
Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life in him.
BTW, the words for “hate” (miseo) and “brother” (adelphos)are the exact same in Lk. 14:26 and 1 Jn. 3:15. Some “Holy Spirit” for you!
Here are some more commands which I doubt many modern Christians obey:
abstaining from blood
not swearing oaths
giving away all of their possessions
giving to anyone who asks
not contesting lawsuits
obeying all human laws (So I guess MLK Jr. is in hell now, right?)
Podkayne brought up the word “Literalist”, which is a title that has been placed on me a few times. What I get out of that word is, we believe that the Bible means exactly what it says.
My own interpretation is this; We believe that a God who created the Heavens and Earth with his Word alone, is big enough to relay the exact message He wants to relay, through the people He wants to relay it, in the way He wants to relay it, specifically, the Bible. Also we believe that He is big enough to keep the Bible around, intact, as long as it takes to get the message out. We also believe that what He said will never change, and never conform to any new way of thinking.
I must say, I find it a difficult matter to address your post, jmullaney-your position confuses me in that you seem disposed to generalize, and then you would attempt to draw some sort of conspiracy between, and thus vilify, the only conversants who might rebut your generalization.
You stray from objectivity into the realm of suspicion through the course of your posit, which leads me to wonder if you really have a vested interest in understanding the subjects you so readily denounce.
You assume a great deal here, more than is accurate, and I believe *you understand this. *
Your generalization merits rebuttal in that you assert a paradigm you cannot support without discounting the individual ‘Protestant,’ favoring a seeming ‘Borg’ mentality (which you oddly attempt to bolster later) and would have the reader believe your position authoritative by your exclusion of a simple ‘It is my opinion…’.
Which I find ironic-but this is only my opinion.
I rebut your assertion simply:
It is my belief:
I don’t need to overcome original sin. That’s why Christ sacrificed himself.
True. And let me tell you how difficult it is to type with no hands and dry sockets where my eyes once were.
If your point, using the verses 43-47 and the ‘If thine eye offend thee’ discourse, is to state that since Protestants don’t believe it’s possible to stop sinning, and since Christ said sinning leads to hell, that Protestants damn themselves-it is my beliefyou are ignoring context. I believe continuation of volitional sin when one is aware of it is the imperative in the admonition from Christ; his exhortation to rid oneself of the desire to sin by sacrificing the worldly desires of the self in favor of leading a Godly life-this is the crux of the passage.
True. I am attempting to cull from my previous offering where you drew the inference that I believe one can simply believe, i.e. maintain a ‘knowledge’ without placing one’s faith in Christ and expect a great reward. I can’t find it. But if I somehow parleyed that stance, allow me to clear it up.
It is my belief that ‘Believing on’ connotes places one’s faith in. And if one is to place one’s faith in his God, or his General, or his Mommy, he places his life into the hands of. He surrenders himself to trusting in the care of his benefactor/guide/sage/mentor and in this case, Redeemer.
But don’t take my word for it. Let’s look at Strong’s Greek concordance.
Strong argument for my belief of what belief means.
Pun intended.
So yes, I agree that you are correct that acknowledgement does not equal adherence to.
My end, it is my belief, is simply to believe. And for all that entails, refer to my previous entry and add this:
“To love my Lord with all my heart, all my strength, all my mind and all my will.”
And through this, I may be granted the grace enough to ‘Love my neighbor as myself.’
John 17, right?
Please cite the passage in which Christ uses ‘keeps my commandments.’
Not there.
‘Kept my word’ connotes did not reject Christ as many did - but if you want to fight for that one, present your case exegetically and I’ll listen.
Now:
Cite the passage in which Christ uses ‘Believes.’
There. A few times.
I feel I’ve already proven why this is significant.
And as far as your posit that the Protestants are vain because they think Christ meant them as well-from the same prayer in John 17:
There’s that believe word again…
Do I really need to dig up the references to the ‘grafted in’ as well? Or to ‘this is for you, and for your children, and your children’s children, and all who are far off?’ Or all the references to the Gentiles? Or the Great Commission, that the Gospel be preached ‘unto all the world’-which, I believe, Christ had the presence of mind not to simply mean 'The Middle East, ’ which many will state was the ‘known world.’ He strikes me as someone who’d probably ken that the globe was a tad larger than the adjacent countries.
After all, China’s pretty old. Wonder if God knew it was there…
You’re asking two questions here.
But ‘They’ means ‘My people.’ I’ll post a list of references if you like. Please let me know.
Me neither. ‘To change one’s idea toward’ and ‘to turn from and make amends for the better’ is the Greek ‘metanoeo,’ what we know as ‘repent.’ Repentance of sin comes from an acknowledgement that one’s course of action is sinful, and the desire to remedy and alter that course of action to better align oneself with the will of God.
It is my belief those who believe they are not responsible to God for their actions are misled.
And you are vague-you don’t specify what the most annoying trait is. You displayed dismay at their ‘vanity’ for believing themselves included in God’s people. And you’ve alluded to ‘many people’ not believing they are accountable to repent of sin. But you still haven’t made a deliniation between ‘Protestants’ and ‘Fundamental Christians.’
Perhaps you do not know the difference yourself?
Or do you admit that you see all Protestants as ‘fundies’?
But it would seem you used to be Catholic, or have experience with the Catholic doctrine-because the near entirety of your offerings display traces of Catholic doctrine.
And understand, this is by no means a derogatory observation. Presumptuous, maybe-but I trust you will correct me if I’m wrong, and if I am, I will apologize if I have offended.
I’ll get to your next offering in a bit. Poly might have already rendered his view.
Because I wouldn’t want to step on his toes-we are conspiring together against you, after all.
Religion doesn’t make for polite conversation. The whole world is going to be destroyed anyway. “I forget to forget, nothing is important” as the song goes.
Sure. I’ll paraphrase the parts I get.
Sorry, I forgot what you are trying to say already!
andros – well, webster was a Protestant, of course but “to turn from sin and dedicate oneself to the amendment of one’s life” isn’t exactly out of line with what I said. Unless you are going to maintain that Webster means some sort of turn of the compass direction. :rolleyes:
Hsven’t I explained this to you before? It is the holy spirit which is supposed to help you understand what is in fact different about these two verses, the first of which you’ve taken out of context, anyway.
Where is this one written?
I have good cause to be suspicious.
I’ve had far too many “one true Scotsman” discussions around here. One must generalize to some extend, or else one can not discuss anything.
This isn’t a rebuttal – you are merely agreeing with my position (and that of the Catholic Church) using slightly different language. Christ died so his followers could overcome original sin, occording to the Catholics. Protestants believe that man doesn’t have the freedom to do so – and, yes, I understand the theology which claims overcoming isn’t needed, anyway. But it is the belief that it can’t be done which is the root of this belief.
yes, and by doing so, avoid damnation. Where the worm does not die, the fire is not quenched. It would appear on the surface we are in agreement, then. But you use this qualifying word “volitional” which could just as well be another word for “freedom” and the freedom to stop sinning, again, is something Protestants don’t believe they have.
If you say that you have faith in Christ, as we again agree as to what this means, it is not that I don’t believe you – but help me overcome my disbelief!
You make me happy.
To which the Catholic Church throughout history has added a third statement, which Protestants have an odd habit of leaving off. Of course, it is not really required, since if you love God you will keep his commandments as taught by his son anyway. But it is important, since merely saying “love” without explaining how may result in quite a bit of moral relativism.
In John 14, Jesus says keeping his commandments is a requirement of loving him. If your contention is that the apostles (Judas Iscariot leaves prior to John 17) didn’t love Jesus, though every implication in the Sermon of the Last Supper is otherwise, you’ve lost me.
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”
“The Father himself loves you because you have loved me.”
“I am praying for them; I am not praying for the world but for those whom You have given me”
“For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them.”
Oh, he uses this word also. But he links the concept very closely with loving him also. Do you choose to take one without the other?
Yes, believe in him through their word. Which we have in the form of the New Testament and the apostolic tradition – although we need to be cautious of the potential for false teachings and false understandings in each.
No, but I still find it hard to believe you think you can be saved by believing in Jesus but not loving him, if that is what you are saying.
Right, and Jesus’s people are those who hear his teachings and obey them.
No. It is not a mere desire to turn away from sin. It IS a turning away from sin. (I believe andros has a dictionary you can borrow – I’m am still doubtful he knows how to use it. Kidding, kidding.)
This sounds right to me.
Their belief that they are saved without true repentance. Thus, their conversation with a typical atheist: “We are exactly alike, but I utter magic spells once a week and will therefore go to a magic fairy land while you will burn in hell.” Even if they were to repent, a belief that they are saved while others are not would be a violation of what Jesus said to his disciples on this matter. (although, danged if I can find the passage right now.)
The larger body of Protestants do not necessarily believe they are saved, but only hope it is so. There is probably more hope for them as they may continue to figure out what is right and wrong while maintaining a fear of the Lord.
Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. So if you believe you are saved, there is no need for you to fear the Lord – and, well, you do the math.
I used to be a Catholic, but I found some of their teachings flawed. Then I became a Free Spirit, but I didn’t have much in the way of a root. So now I am apostate. I am dead meat.
Still, false teachings do annoy me. Though I don’t know why I bother – although, mind you, hell has many tiers, and I’d rather not be too far down. As Peter said, helping one soul to know the truth can make up for a myriad of sins. Not all of them, but if there is a hell I’ll gladly hedge my bets as I see fit.
Working on my response to the ‘second part of the contention’, but I couldn’t help but notice
I laughed out loud–not out of scorn, but surprise that you included this. I hope it was a joke–I don’t know you well enough to discern…
So now you’re saying Webster is responsible for the definition of ‘repent?’
I guess the 1800’s were a lot…older than previously believed.
Seriously, that dog doesn’t even know what it’s hunting. If you want me to trace the lineage of ‘repent’ all the way back to the Greek I’ve already provided, I will–but I have a feeling most of our readers will find it a waste of time. Semantic dissection of a word to prove that the origin was not somehow ‘tainted by Protestant belief’ seems a bit… eccentric.
I’ll reply to your thoughts above sometime today, sometimes between my flagellation and my ritual scrubbing.
Besides, do you really think we should hold the justice and doctrines of the putative Omnibenvolent Creator of All to the exact same standards as we bring to bear on fluffy pop rock puppy love croonings?
