The Christian Thread

JJLehto wrote: A Person wrote: JJLehto wrote: I'm a huge fan of Christians Christian Bale over acted a bit...but good job in the Dark Knight Christian Vander, however, is awesome. Not too familiar with Magma to be honest

JJLehto wrote: I'm a huge fan of Christians Christian Bale over acted a bit...but good job in the Dark Knight

Christian Vander, however, is awesome.

Negoba wrote: Very well then, off to strum my guitar like the New Age Hippy boy I am.

What do I strum my guitar like?  A Christian conservative man? 

Negoba wrote: Sensationalist headline. The author extrapolated a probably correct change in translation to mean things that aren't necessarily there. Just because this particular story begins with God subdividing rather than creating the world as we know it says nothing whatsoever about who made things the way they were at the point preceding that action....oh well.   So Robert, I'm still wondering about the qualifiers you seem to have in your back pocket about the Sermon on the Mount.

Be patient- I'll get to it as I said I would.  And it's not "qualifiers in my back pocket."  It's understanding Christ's words through proper hermeneutics.

Tuzvihar wrote: I think you may find this interesting: God is not the Creator.

While I disagree with that interpretation on the whole (largely because it's taking what would be a problem in English and making it a problem in the Hebrew), that idea is not new, and there actually is a bit of truth to it.

Negoba wrote: I want to continue a discussion about evolution and such, but this isn't probably the place to do it. Out of respect for those who wish to discuss Christian ideas, I would like to move that discussion. I personally still base much of who I am on my Christian upbringing, and have not rejected it. However, I am an eclectic who has integrated a lot of things into my personal spirituality that really don't fit into a Christian community. I still try to honor those who follow that path, though I do not.

I'm coming here to continue the discussion in the Nobel thread.

Slartibartfast wrote: Epignosis wrote:   The book of Revelation talks about God giving his children "glorified bodies" (also called "incorruptible bodies" elsewhere).  I believe these bodies are physical. I even believe God is a physical being, albeit existing in a much higher dimension (and therefore, for example, literally able to see my house and my body and my internal organs all at once).  I extend that idea to the concept of the "glorified body," which I take to mean a body that exists in more than three dimensions. I think the Bible explains this pretty well, also.  Before his death and resurrection, Jesus was physically "normal" (like you and me), but when he rose from the grave, the Bible says he was popping in and out of locked rooms, vanishing, appearing, etc.  A being in the next highest dimension would be able to do that, even while remaining perfectly physical. That's why I do not believe physical and spiritual are strict antonyms; I believe "spiritual" is a word the Bible uses to refer to higher dimensional existences. I don't believe in a soul because I don't believe non-physical entities can interact in a physical world- it's impossible.  Plus, tradition says if you die, your soul either goes to Heaven or Hell, and in the case of the former, the soul will see God and people who had gone on before. So how come if I gouged out my eyes, my soul wouldn't take over and allow me to see?  Just a thought. That's interesting because you are kind of getting back to what I was taught before I moved on from Christianity.  The soul that sinneth, it shall die.  We don't have immortal souls we are living souls as are the animals.  Also that we humans are all going to resurrected to judgment.  Some will be condemned to eternal death and some given eternal life.  Except for Jesus, everyone who has really died are still in the grave or wherever their remains went to.

You have practically quoted Scripture.

Funerals are always funny to me (I have not been to many, praise God, but I fear I will be attending several this next decade).  Preachers will in one breath say the deceased is "in a better place," and in the next talk about the joy of the resurrection when Christ returns.

If you don't mind my asking, when denomination were you before you moved on?

Negoba wrote: But if I asked 10 people on the street to explain evolution, it would resemble even current theory only superficially. They are running on faith just as much as fundamentalists. Faith in an authority that is just as fallible as the priesthood.

I agree and disagree.

Most people have faith in science, and if they do, I say it's generally justified, as most science is peer-reviewed, corroborated, and evidenced as can be possible. But concerning scientific revolutions, we must acknowledge that we cannot be positive that what we have good evidence to believe now is absolutely the way the universe is. So, we never have 100% solid ground, but I think science is something better to place faith in than religion or fundamentalism, for the reasons I said at the beginning. I suppose science is as fallible as anything, as we could get new data that throws our current theories away, but that's beside the point. The difference between science and religious faith is one is more justified in following science than religious faith.

IMO.

Edited by Dean - September 18 2009 at 17:17