gotigrz's Christianity topic, part 2 Options

[gotigrz]

Someone i think badman or merica actually asked ed in person and he admitted being a christian. im pretty sure his is a little more of an open faith (i remember a recent interview where he stated that praying doesnt do much good in the world) I know he thinks the bible is the best source of morality and guide for mankind but im not clear if he believes in the divinity of jesus or that he was born of a virgin etc...

well, if ed said that he was a Christian, then he does believe in the virgin birth, the dying on the cross, and the resurrection 3 days later. that is the criteria of being a Christian. nobody says, .. "yeah, i'm a Christian, but that whole virgin birth thing is just crazy."

when ed said that about prayer not doing much good (i heard the interview)... he was referring to prayer that he thinks isn't really "prayer". he was saying that when you are truly in prayer with God that you are like one with Him, and that most people just close their eyes and ask for something. and, that THAT isn't doing much good cause that's what most people do and look at the world around us. PRAYER... aka... truly talking to God is VERY powerful.

[FishOutaWater]

well, i believe that in order to be with God you have to be like God and you have to be sinless or at least forgiven for your sins. if there was no need for forgiveness of sins to be with God then God's law is no longer "law"... cause without punishment... what good is "law"? and, the only way for us to be forgiven is for one of us to give up their life in perfect form... w/o sin... and the only One who could do such a thing is God, himself. and, since He does love and care for His creation... He did just that by sending Himself through Jesus to be one of us and to live the perfect life and be whipped, speared, and nailed to a cross to die so that all of human sin would be atoned for.

Here is the part that I can't make rational sense out of.

I don't think that the only way you can be with God is to be sinless or forgiven of sins. But let's just accept that as a true statement. How can a rational person accept what you describe as the set of rules for overcoming that?

You say that "the only way for us to be forgiven is for one of us to give up their life in perfect form". Is God bound by some strange, arcane rules involving human blood sacrifice in order to be able to forgive sins? Didn't he have the power to forgive sins without the sacrifice of a perfect, sinless human being who happens to be himself? Really? What about God's ability to forgive sins before Jesus - like on Yom Kipur? Who set up these rules of engagement for God? God himself? Why would he subject himself or us to these strange rules so that sins can be forgiven? It really doesn't make any sense at all. In fact, it seems silly. It probably made theological sense 2,000 years ago when people made animal sacrifices in the temple as offerings to God, but today it's hard to believe that God required the substituionary blood sacrifice of a perfect human so that he could forgive sins and so that people could be with him after they die.

I believe that Jesus lived, taught and was crucified and most likely appeared to his followers in some way after he died. And his followers tried to make some theological meaning out of the violent death of their spiritual leader. And later, the Church wrapped these stories in theology and doctrines and liturgy.

cause they're denying a part of Him. they're accepting God in one form but not another... meaning.. they're not accepting all of Him.

Do you accept the Jewish aspect of God? Did you celebrate Passover last night, like Jesus did every year of his life, including the night before he died? Do you honor the sabath on Saturday and follow the Jewish dietary laws like Jesus and all of his desciples did throughout their lives? Jesus was an observant Jew his entire life. So was his family and his followers. The reason that he was hastily buried and the women went back to the grave on Sunday was because of observance of the sabath and the Jewish ritual of annointing the body with oils. Why did Jesus feel the need to be a good Jew? It was central to his spirituality. Don't good Christians feel the need to practice the central and defining practices of Jesus' own spirituality? Indeed, the aposltes who followed Jesus throughout his entire public ministry (notably James and Peter) believed after Jesus dies that a person had to convert to Judaism if they weren't already Jewish in order to follow the ways of Jesus. Peter wouldn't sit with unclean people eating unkosher food and James yelled at Peter for doing so after he was convinced to by Paul. That's right in the bible. Don't you think that the apostles who knew Jesus best understood what it meant to follow Jesus's ways? They thought you needed to be Jewish.

I would bet that you aren't Jewish, and the only reason that you aren't a Jew as a follower of Jesus is that Paul, who never met Jesus except for a vision on the Road to Damscus that none of his fellow travelors who were with him saw (and later the imperial influence of the Roman empire that adopted Christianity as the official religion of the empire under Constantine) Gentilized, Paganized and Romanized the Jesus movement and extended it to non-Jews as we see it today. At the same time, they alienated and villinized Jews, which is a pretty sad irony.

But again, do you think you are not going to be saved because you accept the Jesus form of God but you deny the Jewish form of God?

I'm not trying to belittle any elses beliefs. I just think that if you stop and stand back and look at this stuff, it is really hard to reconcile and understand.