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Who Is Jesus Christ?

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chaski On about 9 hours ago
Stalker





Tree at Floydgirrl's Window,
#76New Post! Sep 25, 2021 @ 01:47:10
If you are referring to. Mary Magdalena, nothing in the bible says she was a prostitute/whore/adulterer/etc…

That was a bs story created by one of the early popes… Pious the something if memory serves.

There were numerous Marys… none was a prostitute.
Na On February 27, 2024




, Florida
#77New Post! Sep 25, 2021 @ 06:01:42
@astral_aura Said

Of course, we all have a choice. Hence we are tribal. Otherwise we would just be robots following the same instructions.

And if we were robots following the same instructions, whose instructions should we follow and why them out of everyone elses. Why should I give up my beliefs to follow yours, or vice versa?



Who is Jesus Christ?

Jesus is not a uniter.

"Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.

And a person's enemies will be those of his own household.

Whoever loves his father and mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me . . . ."
dookie On December 16, 2023
Foolish Bombu





, United Kingdom
#78New Post! Sep 25, 2021 @ 06:34:06
@astral_aura Said

Of course, we all have a choice. Hence we are tribal. Otherwise we would just be robots following the same instructions.

And if we were robots following the same instructions, whose instructions should we follow and why them out of everyone elses. Why should I give up my beliefs to follow yours, or vice versa?



The subject of free will is fraught with age old arguments.

I see true freedom as being "one" with the only true freedom i.e. Reality-as-is. God. Until then our "freedom" is always corrupt in various ways, our choices determined by conditioning, by the cards dealt us at birth.

There is, as I see it, an original unity beyond all divisions. The divisions we see now, and to which you appeal, are not final, nor a result of "free will". Beyond such divisions and tribal allegiances can be, and will be, the beauty of difference when truth is found in each unique human being, the one truth expressed expressed in infinite ways.

And Na can consider this the answer to his own totally predictable post drawn from his own time conditioned biblical hermeneutical methodology which can be easily overthrown now by anyone seeking deeper meanings in any scripture.
dookie On December 16, 2023
Foolish Bombu





, United Kingdom
#79New Post! Sep 25, 2021 @ 07:30:57
Relevant to the discussion so far, Thomas Merton on free will:-

The Gift of Freedom

The mere ability to choose between good and evil is the lowest limit of freedom, and the only thing that is free about it is the fact that we can still choose good.

To the extent that you are free to choose evil, you are not free. An evil choice destroys freedom.

We can never choose evil as evil: only as an apparent good. But when we decide to do something that seems to us to be good when it is not really so, we are doing something that we do not really want to do, and therefore we are not really free.

Perfect spiritual freedom is a total inability to make any evil choice. When everything you desire is truly good and every choice not only aspires to that good but attains it, then you are free because you do everything that you want, every act of your will ends in perfect fulfillment.

Freedom therefore does not consist in an equal balance between good and evil choices but in the perfect love and acceptance of what is really good and the perfect hatred and rejection of what is evil, so that everything you do is good and makes you happy, and you refuse and deny and ignore every possibility that might lead to unhappiness and self-deception and grief. Only the man who has rejected all evil so completely that he is unable to desire it at all, is truly free. God, in whom there is absolutely no shadow or possibility of evil or of sin, is infinitely free. In fact, he is Freedom.

(from New Seeds of Contemplation)


Relating such to Christianity (Christianity in its full depth) it is worth contemplating a few further words of Merton, speaking of Christ and the Incarnation:- "We must remember that God is his own gift "

Anyway, while recognising that most now have the attention span of goldfish, for anyone still with me, Thomas Merton on "unity" and thus speaking of the Universal Christ, these words spoken not long before his death:-

"True communication on the deepest level is more than a simple sharing of ideas, conceptual knowledge, or formulated truth.....And the deepest level of communication is not communication, but communion. It is wordless, it is beyond words, and it is beyond speech, and it is beyond concept. Not that we discover a new unity. We discover an older unity. My dear brothers and sisters, we are already one. But we imagine that we are not. And what we have to recover is our original unity. What we have to be is what we are."
Leon On December 21, 2023




San Diego, California
#80New Post! Sep 25, 2021 @ 15:13:48
@dookie Said

We can never choose evil as evil: only as an apparent good. But when we decide to do something that seems to us to be good when it is not really so, we are doing something that we do not really want to do, and therefore we are not really free. to the discussion so far, Thomas Merton on free will:-


While I did read and agree with the rest of your post, I am having a bit of difficulty fully accepting this particular statement. Maybe I’m not understanding or realizing it fully, but it seems to me this premise is a bit flawed. I think that many decisions to do evil are actually not seemingly good to people making those decisions, but they make the decisions anyways. There could be many reasons for that, too many to list here, so I won’t - but what’s important to understand is that they know they are doing evil.
dookie On December 16, 2023
Foolish Bombu





, United Kingdom
#81New Post! Sep 25, 2021 @ 16:08:44
@Leon Said

While I did read and agree with the rest of your post, I am having a bit of difficulty fully accepting this particular statement. Maybe I’m not understanding or realizing it fully, but it seems to me this premise is a bit flawed. I think that many decisions to do evil are actually not seemingly good to people making those decisions, but they make the decisions anyways. There could be many reasons for that, too many to list here, so I won’t - but what’s important to understand is that they know they are doing evil.



As I see it, the entire argument of Thomas Merton "hangs together" and supports and supplements each separate part. That argument is seeking to define "freedom of will" and of what it would consist of.

At a certain level an individual can identify a certain act as being evil and "choose" to do it. But Merton is seeking to give a definition of true freedom, which in his view can only be found in being "one" with God, who is freedom, the only freedom. Thus, in that context, the choice of the individual (irrespective of that individual identifying his act as evil) is not a free choice.

I understand it is all a bit complex. For me it also involves God as being his own gift , a totally free gift. Those who seek to identify their "salvation" with their own "free" choice are at heart and in reality advocating a salvation by "works" and not of Grace.

A lot all "hangs together". The only fully coherent theology would be one of Universal Salvation. Alas, many love justifying themselves by basking in their "choice" for God.
dookie On December 16, 2023
Foolish Bombu





, United Kingdom
#82New Post! Sep 25, 2021 @ 16:45:42
I took a look back to an old Thomas Merton thread on another Forum. Merton's words on the Gift of Freedom were in fact posted by another, called Thomas. I see my own first reaction to reading them (this in 2007):-

Thomas, the quote you gave brings to mind some words of Merton that I am unable to trace. Yet I remember that they revolved around the need to submit to the will of God................and Merton spoke of this as not being submission to some enigmatic yet demanding command that would be the polar opposite of the easy yoke, because in fact the "will of God" is that we be free.

Also, it bought to mind some other words by the Zen Master Caoshan which have always seemed - at least to me - difficult to interpret and truly understand, yet seem - in the light of your own quote - to perhaps point towards the same truths.......

When studying in this way, evils are manifest as a continuum of being ever not done. Inspired by this manifestation, seeing through to the fact that evils are not done, one settles it finally. At precisely such a time, as the beginning, middle, and end manifest as evils not done, evils are not born from conditions, they are only not done; evils do not perish through conditions, they are only not done.


(Interesting, looking back. Shades of "Krapp's Last Tape" )
Na On February 27, 2024




, Florida
#83New Post! Sep 26, 2021 @ 10:33:51
Who Is Jesus Christ?

Jesus is the Redeemer to the Korowai.

Thank you HeartCry Missionary Society


dookie On December 16, 2023
Foolish Bombu





, United Kingdom
#84New Post! Sep 26, 2021 @ 10:50:55
I'll leave it to Na.

He will fill you all in on Jesus.

He obviously has no interest in discussion, dialogue, or inter-faith exchanges.

He wishes simply to proclaim.

I have no further interest here.

I will not be back.

Best wishes to you all.
astral_aura On October 21, 2021




Somewhere, United Kingdom
#85New Post! Sep 26, 2021 @ 12:42:38
@dookie Said

I'll leave it to Na.

He will fill you all in on Jesus.

He obviously has no interest in discussion, dialogue, or inter-faith exchanges.

He wishes simply to proclaim.

I have no further interest here.

I will not be back.

Best wishes to you all.



Seriously?

If you buy into Jesus. Be he son of God (and part of God) or merely as a prophet of Allah. The one thing he wasn't, was a quitter.
chaski On about 9 hours ago
Stalker





Tree at Floydgirrl's Window,
#86New Post! Oct 06, 2021 @ 00:52:55
@astral_aura Said

Seriously?

If you buy into Jesus. Be he son of God (and part of God) or merely as a prophet of Allah. The one thing he wasn't, was a quitter.



Well, you have a point there.... regardless of who he was/wasn't he didn't quit.

Of course if he wasn't son of God (and part of God) or merely as a prophet of Allah then he should probably have gone with the ideal he who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day.

In the scheme of soteriological beliefs, it is doubtful that he made it to either heaven or nirvana.
astral_aura On October 21, 2021




Somewhere, United Kingdom
#87New Post! Oct 06, 2021 @ 09:04:22
@chaski Said

Of course if he wasn't son of God (and part of God) or merely as a prophet of Allah then he should probably have gone with the ideal he who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day.


Maybe he honestly believed he was and put on a good show, sort of a biblical times Frank Abagnale. But being nailed to a cross and having a spear put in you, well, at that point it dosn't matter what you believe.
Na On February 27, 2024




, Florida
#88New Post! Oct 08, 2021 @ 05:38:34
Who is Jesus Christ?

Jesus gives us a clear example for a life of forgiveness. Yes he was a troublemaker exposing the hypocrisy of a system gone toxic. He was always one with the Father. And even when he got angry did not sin.
GreatestIam2 On January 06, 2023




Ottawa, Canada
#89New Post! Dec 12, 2021 @ 19:29:48
Jesus Christ is a fictional character.

Jesus was never anointed to Christ.

If there is a supernatural Jesus, then Armageddon make him as vile of a god as Yahweh.

Genocide is always wrong. Right?

Regards
DL
woodss On February 26, 2024




,
#90New Post! Jan 30, 2022 @ 10:24:55
Not what the JWs make him to be.
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