Have you leaned what Jesus and your bible teaches?

Take another look.

You reach conclusions based on your judgment of past personal experience. What kind of approach do you have to the Bible? You pose your personal approach as understanding and succeeding those in the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim tradition. Don’t insult Augustine with your assumptions. I know this is difficult for you, but the creation of the cosmos limits the power of God. You think that the belief in a being that created the cosmos entails a belief in the supernatural. Tell me what you see in Sagittarius and Virgo this March and get back to me.

As for the others contributing, Baptism and ceremonial supper replaced all old rituals to show respect and faith in Christ. Salvation in faith and not works, although works will show the strength of your faith over time.

There are claims of being psychic in physical healing and then there are psychic claims of spiritual rebirth from those who have not experienced it and so cannot comment on it but will attempt to.

I could quote scripture all day but in this contemporary atheism, there are people who say my quoting of scripture weakens my argument.

I will avoid scripture for the sake of those absent of salvation. Read into it brethren, have fun with the depth.

Greatest thinks that supernatural thinking is impossible. I find this hysterical and he has conflicting premises throughout this thread. Look for it and you will find it, along with repetition and aggression. You can look for the truth yourself or rely on other people.

I have not learned what Jesus and the Bible have taught me, but I will.

Yes. There may be some who have different metaphysics, but the vast majority, including the vast majority of the experts within the Abrahamic religions believe this.

Gloominary wrote:

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, sanctioned by Pope John Paul II, has this to say on the issue of the changing of the Ten Commandments:

The Church, the “pillar and bulwark of the truth,” “has received this solemn command of Christ from the apostles to announce the saving truth.” “To the Church belongs the right always and everywhere to announce moral principles, including those pertaining to the social order.”

According to Roman Catholicism, moral issues are dictated by the Ten Commandments—but not the Ten Commandments as found in the Bible.
Rome’s Ten Commandments are defined by Augustine, the Catholic Church father:

The division and numbering of the Commandments have varied in the course of history. The present catechism follows the division of the Commandments established by St. Augustine, which has become traditional in the Catholic Church.

What an amazing confession!

The Ten Commandments defined by Augustine, rather than defined by Scripture, form the basis for Catholic morality.

Are you saying that in the act of creating the cosmos God got weaker? Or are you saying that to say that God created the cosmos is to posit a weaker God than the real God?

Do you believe God did not create the universe?

It doesn’t entail any particular belief in the supernatural - beyond that of believing in a transcendent being (at least in Christianity) who can do pretty much anything and is not bound by material laws. Bringing up astrology is to bring in something that is not relevant.

Supernatural is a term plagued with all sorts of metaphysical problems, but in terms of the Greatests position, and his use of supernatural, of course God, as posited in the Bible is supernatural.

But then you say this…

And I wonder if I am misunderstanding you.

I do not recall any such claim.
Please get the quote to dispel my notion of that being a lie.

Regards
DL

I tend to have to repeat to the more -----

How can or do you justify saying that the bible does not show itself as a myth, when it begins with a talking serpent and donkey, and seven headed thingamabob? :-k

Regards
DL

youtube.com/watch?v=RmD9ZWDUsNY

If the supernatural were real, then you would have to see a matrix or Mandelbrot set universe and that puts God over God over God, — endlessly. That is a Gnostic Christian theme. An argument really against the supernatural. It followed the ancient intelligentsia just as it does today.

Care to tell us what revelation turned God from an abstract for you and into a reality? When did you have your vision and apotheosis?

Regards
DL

Interesting.

It may not matter given the, what, 3 other sets of big 10 that are in the bible and likely a rendition from the Book of the Dead.

That aside. Catholic morality shoes a root of inquisitions and a dislike for freedom of religion and that puts their moral position as way below the secular.

Regards
DL

Greatest wrote:

Not quite sure what you mean. Can you explain this in more detail?

Simple. There are more than 2, I think 3, sets of commandments in scriptures. Since the originating myth of the Jewish holy books is known to be from Sumer and Egypt, it follows that the ten commandments are a rendering of the commandments in The Book of the dead. None are the same and the O.T. Jewish set is a real ball breaker. No I no longer have a link to it so you will have to confirm these facts for yourself.

Regards
DL

I had only read the Tibetan Book of the Dead. There is much discussion in my house regarding comments on this subject here on the Forum and it has taught me not to become complacent.

There are two laws.

The Law of Ten Commandments, and

The Ceremonial Law.

On Mount Sinai, Moses received both the law of God and a precise set of instructions for the sacrificial system and these were to form the basis of the religious ceremonies of the Israelites.

  1. God wrote the Ten Commandments

And he gave unto Moses, when he had made an end of communing with him upon mount Sinai, two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with the finger of God (Exodus 31:18).

The two tables of stone were placed inside the Ark of the Covenant.

  1. Moses wrote the ceremonial law, or book of the law

This law of types and ceremonies was written by Moses in the book of the law

And it came to pass, when Moses had made an end of writing the words of this law in a book, until they were finished, That Moses commanded the Levites, which bare the ark of the covenant of the LORD, saying, Take this book of the law, and put it in the side of the ark of the covenant of the LORD your God, that it may be there for a witness against thee (Deuteronomy 31:24-26)

and this was placed beside the Ark.

These two sets of laws, the one moral and the other ceremonial, were entirely different and served different purposes.

“The whole trend of the Book of the Dead is thaumaturgic, as its purpose is to guard the dead against the dangers they have to face in reaching the other world. As in most mythologies, the dead Egyptian had to encounter malignant spirits and was threatened by many dangers before reaching his haven of rest”.
Enclyopedia.com

That is paganism.

@Venture

You base yours on the Kool-Aid you’ve been drinking.

I interpret it literally, unless it explicitly tells me not to interpret a specific part literally.

From antiquity to modernity, from theologians to laymen, the Abrahamic tradition has had an overwhelmingly supernatural interpretation of the bible.

While Augustine didn’t interpret everything in the bible literally, he believed his God El created the cosmos and intervenes in man’s affairs.

No, saying he didn’t limits him.

I see groups of stars some people feel compelled to superimpose terrestrial figures and anthropocentric meaning on.

Right, exactly.

I’m an agnostic.

I’m participating in this thread to talk about what I think the bible teaches, not what I think about what I think the bible teaches.

Just because belief in the supernatural might be irrational, doesn’t mean the bible isn’t a book about the supernatural, it is.

Scripture doesn’t mean anything all by itself, each church, and individual attempts to ascertain what the authors intended by it, and it’s matter of some debate/discussion.
every church has its interpretation and believes it’s the right one.
From my understanding, what separates Catholics from protestants is not that they have an official interpretation, but that they believe their interpretation is absolutely authoritative, indisputable, revealed, and any other interpretation is not and errant.
They believe only the Catholic Church’s interpretation, saves.

Gloominary wrote:

There was a time when Protestants believed that God created the earth in six literal days, but now many have adopted the theory of evolution like Rome. Many Protestant churches have rejected the Flood and Creation accounts of Genesis, calling them myths and today, Protestantism as a whole is dead and no longer what it used to be.

While the Church during apostolic times held the Scriptures in high regard, under the rule of the Papacy, the Scriptures were lost sight of and Scriptural doctrines were replaced with traditions. Some of the unbiblical doctrines established and “Christianized” by the Roman Catholic Church were celibacy of priests, purgatory, confessions to priests, Indulgences and the infallibility of the Pope. The Pope is the world’s highest religious authority, however, this status has not been achieved on the basis of truth but on the basis of compromise.

Protestantism (in October 2017)and other world religions, by their own admission, have joined forces with the Roman Catholic Church and by submitting to Rome’s authority they are acknowledging the Pope’s leadership and also acknowledge his doctrines. The Catechism of the Catholic Church calls the Church, “Mother and Teacher”and claims to be the mother of all the churches.

True unity is based on the Word of God and the dominion of God.

Ecumenical unity is based on shared “spiritual” experiences and the power of human leaders.

When studying the Bible, we must compare Scripture with Scripture, “For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line: here a little and there a little” (Isaiah 28:10). We must remember that the Bible is not one book but 66 books written over a period of 1500 years. That very fact allows us to use the Bible to interpret itself. We must not ignore parts of the Bible that don’t suit us, or discard portions of the Bible as not applicable, or add our own words to it.

But equally important is to look at the verse in context with all other verses on the same subject.

Why?

“Well, I’d be better that way.”

Yeah but why do you want to be better?

You see, the reason you want to be better is the reason why you aren’t.

Paul said “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.”

Doing anything at all is arrogance.

Jesus said “He who seeks to save his life shall lose it.”

You must step into the unknown not clinging to anything.

The Sly Man and the Devil

[i]I think I had better tell you a story. It is an old story, told in the Moscow groups in 1916 about the origin of the system and the work and about self-remembering.

It happened in an unknown country at an unknown date that a sly man was walking past a cafe and met a devil. The devil was in very poor shape, both hungry and thirsty, so the sly man took him into the cafe, ordered some coffee and asked him what the trouble was. The devil said that there was no business. In the old days he used to buy souls and burn them to charcoal, because when people died they had very fat souls that he could take to hell, and all the devils were pleased. But now all the fires in hell were out, because when people died there were no souls.

Then the sly man suggested that perhaps they could do some business together. ‘Teach me how to make souls’, he said, ‘and I will give you a sign to show which people have souls made by me’, and he ordered more coffee. The devil explained that he should teach people to remember themselves, not to identify and so on, and then, after some time, they would grow souls.

The sly man set to work, organized groups and taught people to remember themselves. Some of them started to work seriously and tried to put into practice what he taught them. Then they died, and when they came to the gates of heaven, there was St Peter with his keys on one side and the devil on the other. When St Peter was ready to open the gates, the devil would say, ‘May I just ask one question—did you remember yourself?’ ‘Yes, certainly’, the man would answer and thereupon the devil would say, ‘Excuse me, this soul is mine’. This went on for a long time, until they managed somehow to communicate to the earth what was happening at the gates of heaven. Hearing this, the people he was teaching came to the sly man and said, ‘Why do you teach us to remember ourselves if, when we say we have remembered ourselves, the devil takes us?’

The sly man asked, ‘Did I teach you to say you remember yourselves? I taught you not to talk.’ They said, ‘But this was St Peter and the devil!’ and the sly man said, ‘But have you seen St Peter and the devil at groups? So do not talk. Some people did not talk and managed to get to heaven. I did not only make an arrangement with the devil, I also made a plan by which to deceive the devil.’[/i]

So what’s the lesson? Don’t boast of your righteousness and expect to get to heaven.

If Peter said “Why should I let you in?” The only innocent response I can imagine is “Because it looks fun in there.”

By the reckoning of the above story, god and Jesus are just claiming to be any other being that exists, no better or worse, no more powerful or less powerful and no more right than wrong.

Jesus is the right hand of god and the devil is the left. Satan is the district attorney and Jesus is the defense.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FAfHFvSl3sU[/youtube]

Yes, very well put.

What do you think their end game is, this protestant union with Catholics and non-Christians?