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Originally posted by Crow
Sure, all of the above discovered truths, insights, and wisdom. I don't deny that they didn't, and more than I deny that Ben Franklin came up with some good ones. But Christianity is about something else, about a return to relationship with God. I know that you don't believe that this occurs, is possible, etc. I'm just stating from the Christian perspective that this is what it is about--obviously other things creep into the mix..Krishna, Buddha, Lao Tzu, Jesus and tens of billions of other humans preceded by countless billions of other life forms here on earth. They all tried to discover truth and said what they said, and I'm thankful that at least some of it still survives the revisionism of their followers.
Christ is not the single component of the Christian Godhead. There are God the Father and the Holy Spirit. Christ's human mission lasted for a little over 30 years. Through the Jews and through Christians, God had many interactions with His followers. If you consider Christ's statements, He was not sent to the Gentiles at all, we were added in after the Jews as a whole rejected Him. Although we are called Christians, in reality we worship all of God. And God had much more to say than just what He did as Christ while He was in human form.But oh no, that wasn't good enough for the christians. They couldn't leave well enough alone and take his teachings at face value in addition to the message of countless others who found the answers they were given insufficient.
Christ was not a heretic, but He was decried as such. The Pharasees and Saducees knew that He was the Messiah--hence the "unforgivable sin. Did you ever wonder just how one goes about blaspheming the Holy Spirit, and why it would even be mentioned? It was because the Pharasees rejected Christ knowing that He was the son of God. The people just followed their church leaders like sheep. This is one reason I think that the Christian faith was originally established as independent churches--because there is great danger in the huge machinery of organized religion. The Catholic sex scandals are a good example of how religion can overrun faith and turn into a self-perpetuating entity with no relationship to the faith, protecting it's self-interests at all costs. Sort of similar to the situation of the Sanhedrin protecting their own interests.forget that Jesus was a heretic. People just like you crucified him for it. Then they had to resurrect him so they could cloak him in an alien message. Still not enough, so they turned him into a god to escape the necessity of developing themselves in his likeness. "There's no possible way I could ever manage that! I mean, he was a god already!"
It was the religious leaders whose positions were dependent having a "special" relationship to God who were threatened by Christ being directly availiable to all. There's a lot of power to be had in being a religious leader, even if you are a stone cold fake like Benny Hill. And there is not a necessity within Christianity to be as Christ was--we know from jump that we cannot be--we can try, but we will fail.
And you are right that a lot of conditions have been added by human beings onto the Christian faith. Religionisms is the way I think of them. Here's my personal way of breaking it down, and this is my way--it doesn't speak for anyone else.
Faith: Whosoever believeth in Me....
Religion: And attends church regularly, and tithes, and believes that the world is 6000 years old, and believes in the Trinity, and is/is not baptised and does/does not believe in contemporary miracles and is/is not conservative etc...they are really too numerous to mention.
Faith: shall not perish, but have eternal life.
Christians are all human. We all mess up, and one way is to add stuff on to what makes a Christian. That a person is saved by grace through faith is pretty obvious if one reads the Bible. Most people will say they believe this if you ask them. However, in practice, there is often a great deal of variance. Humans aren't infallable. We have a tendency to take instructions that God gave us for how to conduct ourselves and tack them onto the requirements for salvation. And the resultant chimera ain't pretty. Maybe that's why the requirement's were kept so simple in the first place--grace through faith. Because God knew that faith alone would be tough enough in the first place.
As far as the infighting goes about a lot of issues, I don't consider it very important--it's just a way to get to the truth. We correct each other all of the time, and as long as it's done for that purpose, and not grandstanding, good and well.
I do take offense when people's salvation questioned. It just irks me--how the heck does anyone know whether grace has been given to another? There's the old "by their fruits" thing, but it also says that's how "you" shall know them, not "He." We know that many who call upon His name are not saved, so I personally believe that we humans cannot know the state of another's heart. Just my opinion.
And don't even get into OSAS, which I personally believe. If someone does leave the church, you will find out that most OSAS don't really believe in their own doctrine--they will find a way to prove that the offender was never really saved in the first place. But that's a discussion for another time and place.
Well, this ought to get me a place on the heretic list, tao. Y'all want to discuss this vein of thought, IM me.
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