Yeah, thankfully ours out grew that phase too, he's 52 now but I wasn't sure he was gonna live past 18 and I wasn't sure it wasn't going to be me who killed him.
Christianity and Religion
- Thread starter Motar
- Start date
Broadly, it's a set of beliefs regarding the origin, nature, purpose, and meaning, of the cosmos, viewed as the creation of at least one supernatural agent, and the human place within all that, generally involving a set of prescribed devotional practices and rituals, and a code of conduct.
Yes, reports indicate he was an observant Jew.
By the definition I gave, yes
I read as much of the material at that link as I could stand, until I got so annoyed at the fuzzy thinking and faulty logic I gave it up as a waste of time. The writer implicitly argues that a word should always retain the meaning of its roots, and since religion originally comes from roots meaning a binding up, that's what it should mean now, and thus nothing we call religion now should be called that. That's just dumb, it's idle to pretend or insist that word meanings don't or shouldn't evolve. The document also treats words as synonyms--religion and religionism for instance--that aren't, and criticizes one when the intended target is the other. That's at least two kinds of fallacy. It's not worth the time and effort it takes to read such sloppily crafted nonsense.
The whole reaction of man, the psychic being, to life is his religion. Intellectually, what a man thinks of life is his philosophy; but when the philosophic content of his thought works over into his emotional realm and becomes suffused with the emotions of loyalty, sacrifice, devotion and high allegiance, it is then his religion. Etymologically it is that influence which "bi nds" him "back" (Latin, re, back, and ligo, to bind.) to that which is most deeply fundamental in him, his deific self; a power or disposition which, amidst the events of a world that is ever changing, links him to an order of permanent and essential being that is the abiding heart of the universe. It is well that this etymological sense of the word be clarified, for there have been definitions that have widely missed the mark of true meaning. One current rendering has it, a "binding back" to the purely conservative, a tying to traditionalism. After all, religion is what its age-long theological interpretation has represented it to be--man's spiritual relation to God, that is, to the power that links him to the orders of life. But theology has rendered this true definition practically impotent, has falsified and distorted the reference, and eventually the meaning, by localizing the God in the case in the cosmic heavens instead of in man himself. This diversion of thought and aspiration from oper able deity within to ineffable, incomprehensible and inaccessible deity without, has effected the sad miscarriage of all religion, which has been the direst catastrophe of all history.THE ROOT OF ALL
I do not know Mr Andem nor his likes or dislikes but many beavers would require a large pond and thousands of gallons of water.
And danger of beaver fever.
Has the Retired Recruit thought of Little Beaver? Red Ryder?
Remember part of Christianity is being born again and being sanctified by the Holy Spirit. I'm a Christian & I can tell you I am in no way perfect and undoubtedly have turned people away from Christ through things I have said or done. This process of sanctification is part of the faith battle.
Apostle Paul :So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!
Perfection will come when this maggot infested carcass of mine (& all Christians) are dead. We will not reach perfection (sinlessness) in this life. So if you run into some ill mannered wild boar of a Christian, don't let that run you off from Christianity.
Motar, I agree. Christianity is not religion. We must be born again - a religion cannot produce a new creation.
By the way, I reread the Spurgeon sermon you posted awhile back & I have to thank you for it. The Holy Spirit spoke volumes to me. Indeed the hour has come to make the distinction between religion & Christianity.
Names get put into the book of life on the day of conception, that would put His birth near the middle of September, after the main harvest and Rome was there to collect their taxes.
Really, that sound a bit scary for the rest of the world when the 'instruction' is actually quite short and very easy to understand.
Jas:2:14-17:
What doth it profit,
my brethren,
though a man say he hath faith,
and have not works?
can faith save him?
If a brother or sister be naked,
and destitute of daily food,
And one of you say unto them,
Depart in peace,
be ye warmed and filled;
notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body;
what doth it profit?
Even so faith,
if it hath not works,
is dead,
being alone.
The Bible has a way of explaining it that is much simpler to understand. It is a topic to be discussed until these two verses manifest themselves into reality.
1Co:4:20:
For the kingdom of God is not in word,
but in power.
Heb:10:31:
It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
MHz, I did not mean to communicate "volumes" in the sense that I was taught all things in that moment. Also spiritual matters are not all that easy to understand. Only through the Holy Spirit are things rightly understood. Sanctification is a life long process while we are on this earth. The particular sermon by Spurgeon admonished Christians to not think they are saved by "being religious". Your scripture quote I do not deny, but such works are done by the work of the Holy Spirit - not my own doing. So I can take no credit for any good work. No doubt I neglect many good works as well.
I think you would like Spurgeon's sermon that Motar posted.
I think you would like Spurgeon's sermon that Motar posted.
According to his vocation he thinks of nothing much but demonic evil and more demonic evil. I used to read the horror novels when I was younger but it's a very limiting subject that I think tends to confuse disturbed imaginations with contemplation of the real evil in the world. For instance the real demonic state of Israel where we find every satanic practice imaginable sanctioned by elected monsters selected from among what can only be understood as an actual population of living dead who walk about stinking of rot and decay. I don't think he would be acceptable to the wider community of beavers and rodents in general. I also think he's a bad influence on children as he sends them to bed every night with dreams of imaginary goblins when they should be focused on and fearful of the real living breathing pricks from hell amongst us gentle villagers. Fer instance Private International Bankers are responsible for sucking the actual blood from still living bodies of the innocent and they pay for the various demonic mercenary cults roaming the countries of the others killing decapitating and raping whomever they choose and raping children murdering their parents and grandparents while they pillage and destroy the villages and cities of the opponents of the decadent wealthy classes.
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I must say, cj. Your post is like an oasis in a wasteland : ) He/she who has ears let him/her hear! No amount of religious knowledge or practice can produce the new life that is in Christ. Christianity is not (a) religion.
I trimmed your post to get at the matter of Jesus' religiosity, Dex. Excellent discussion thread topic maintenance, by the way.
"At that time Jesus went through the grain fields on the Sabbath. His disciples were hungry and began to pick some heads of grain and eat them. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to him, “Look! Your disciples are doing what is unlawful on the Sabbath.” He answered, “Haven’t you read what David did when he and his companions were hungry? He entered the house of God, and he and his companions ate the consecrated bread—which was not lawful for them to do, but only for the priests. Or haven’t you read in the Law that the priests on Sabbath duty in the temple desecrate the Sabbath and yet are innocent? I tell you that something greater than the temple is here. If you had known what these words mean, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice,’you would not have condemned the innocent. For the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.” Going on from that place, he went into their synagogue, and a man with a shriveled hand was there. Looking for a reason to bring charges against Jesus, they asked him, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?” He said to them, “If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out? How much more valuable is a person than a sheep! Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.” (Matthew 12:1-2 NIV)
Was Jesus not constantly at odds with the religious establishment of his earthly day for disregarding their rules and rituals? This Sabbath tussle above is one of many anti-religious stands Christ took as recorded in the gospels.
Religion is dogmatized spirituality. Spirituality is in a constant state of evolution. Religion is petrified dogma, frozen in time, in a constant state of denial. Spirituality is a personal journey. It does not require others to agree with you. But dogma requires numbers to hold it frozen, written in stone. Religion requires new recruits to justify its lack of faith in life and the Universe/god/goddess. Religion requires conformity to ideals that have no basis in reality (blind faith, which is not faith at all). Spirituality requires an open mind and an open heart, real compassion and caring about life and all its forms. It does not require conformity. Christianity, in all its forms, is a religion. Deal with it.
Agree, Spade. Jesus isn't a Christian. A Christian is a follower of Christ. Jesus is Christ.
Do you have any idea what Christ means? It certainly does not mean "the only son of god".
Even spirituality is erasable, certainly packagable, easily transported and flogged through the media, and it took them a lot less time because of advances, hahaja. It's been impossible to conserve the good and natural philosophies we scorn as mere religions now. In it's origins the christ thing was very sound and useful thinking and then someone invented banking, weapons forges, and silver mines and now we're so culturally scrambled that we don't do a lot of our own thinking now, it's just stuffed in there at the movies or with a bag of crisps while the telly pumps the ****e in. You can't count the number of times this Jesus guy was offed nor the celestial cities where the passages were committed over a period that looks like six thousand years, to me anyway, you can't read to the end of this story, either end. I soo happy I found my cannabis pouch between the cushions of the couch, the blizzard outside is fierce, I might have had to walk to town. Happy Christmas Cliffy
At that point it becomes a religion. The media is the propaganda machine for the ruling class. The brainwash the masses into thinking they can think for themselves while handing them all their thoughts and opinions - kinda like religions do.Even spirituality is erasable, certainly packagable, easily transported and flogged through the media, and it took them a lot less time because of advances, hahaja. It's been impossible to conserve the good and natural philosophies we scorn as mere religions now. In it's origins the christ thing was very sound and useful thinking and then someone invented banking, weapons forges, and silver mines and now we're so culturally scrambled that we don't do a lot of our own thinking now, it's just stuffed in there at the movies or with a bag of crisps while the telly pumps the ****e in. You can't count the number of times this Jesus guy was offed nor the celestial cities where the passages were committed over a period that looks like six thousand years, to me anyway, you can't read to the end of this story, either end. I soo happy I found my cannabis pouch between the cushions of the couch, the blizzard outside is fierce, I might have had to walk to town. Happy Christmas Cliffy
Christ (n.)
title given to Jesus of Nazareth, Old English crist (by 830, perhaps 675), from Latin Christus, from Greek khristos "the anointed" (translation of Hebrew mashiah; see messiah), noun use of verbal adjective of khriein "to rub, anoint" (see chrism). The Latin term drove out Old English Hæland "healer, savior," as the preferred descriptive term for Jesus.
Online Etymology Dictionary
"The first thing Andrew did was to find his brother Simon and tell him, 'We have found the Messiah' (that is, the Christ)." (John 1:41 NIV)
"The woman said, 'I know that Messiah' (called Christ) 'is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” (John 4:25 NIV)
The definition of Christ above is from the Online Etymology Dictionary, Cliffy. The two biblical quotes that follow are by a Jewish disciple named Andrew and an unnamed Samaritan woman.
Cliffster - You condemn Christianity. Yet, the Christianity you condemn is in no way TRUE Christianity. I would agree about dogma. No work will save anyone. The Bible expounds on this fact beginning to end. Many warnings are admonished to keep guard against false teachings. None of us have the ability to do so. Only The Comforter - the One Jesus promised to believers will be able to guard us from Satan's schemes.
As it is written no one will come to the Truth without Christ. The jester "REASON" leads many down the wrong road.