@tariki Said 
calonso, from my own perspective you equate Christianity and its creeds with Christ. This is an obvious thing to do, but personally I would say they need to be separated. Christ is the "eternal Word who lights everyone who comes into the world", therefore we ALL live in the light - or presence - of Christ. For me, the "presence of Christ" is beyond definition, beyond creed, beyond words, and to seek to capture it and make it our "own" is lack of faith, not its expression. Perhaps this is one of the things at the heart of any genuine spirituality, the recognition that to seek to impose our own definitions on any other human being is error. Each of us is unique.
One of the key phrases of the Vedas, the Holy book of the Hindu Faith, is "Thou art formless, your only form is our knowledge of you". Such insight was known and lived by when the Israelites were still prone to describe the Diety in more concrete ways. To me, it would be wrong to assume that any Hindu was necessarily guilty of idolatry purely becasue he - or she - was seeking the divine through stories of Krishna rather than Jesus.........or even "worshipping" Krishna rather than Jesus.
Again, I once read of a famous Christian evangelist saying that when we get to heaven the only difference we shall see between the Father and the Son would be the nail prints in the Son's hands. Sorry, but this is idolatry pure and simple, turning what is invisible and beyond words into concrete images. I do not accept that such images are sanctioned by a God only because they are Christian, yet who then condemns other images purely because they are of another Faith. As you said, the Divine would
see the heart.
Just my own way of seeing things.
All the best
tariki
Well said tariki, I do agree with most of what you said. Only thing about the hindu faith is that it is polygamist, i believe in the idea of there only being the One Most High. Christianity doesn't have any 'creeds' I know there are many Christian churches that practice their own creeds, and I've seen a few myself. but Christianity is only about the life and teachings of Christ. The thing about denominations is that, like you said, the presence of the divine is beyond words and cannot be captured. to me, a faith can serve to bring us knowledge of Most High but an actual belief and relationship is between you and the creator. Though I am a Christian I would never say someone of another faith, no matter how devout they were, is hell bound. For one, the Word says not to judge, though a sad number of people do.
I know that the divine is beyond ALL human understanding and the ones that want to believe they can understand it are usually the ones not heeding the actual scripture yet they deem their interpretations correct. This happens to all faiths, including atheism. (I put atheism in there because I think it takes a lot of faith [jk])
But I prefer it this way, man hasn't figured out his own politics, much less the divine. And so I find it interesting that God says in Daniel 12 to 'go your own way because the words are shut up till the time of the end'
Nov 23, 2010 @ 21:12:12
