Religion / Theology

[Bob Butler]

From my perspective, there are many worldviews. It is unlikely that the true one was reveled in the Agricultural Age. I can respect Jesus as having a bunch of good ideas, but we have had a bunch of good ideas since. Looking at times like the Reformation, Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution man learned much and tried to integrate that learning into the Bible. As the Bible reflected a history of how the Jewish culture evolved, it has been possible to cherry pick whatever ideas you might follow into the Bible. (Lets see…. Invade the land of milk and honey. Murder the men. Enslave the women and children. Punish homosexuals. Any other ideas to borrow from this supposedly ideal source?)

For me, the core of Jesus’s teaching was in his two most important commandments, to love God and to love one’s fellow man. These don’t mesh well with tribal thinking. Tribal thinking has one believing in the superiority of one’s own culture, prejudice, oppression and violence. I prefer loving one’s neighbor, but admit tribal thinking has been a more accurate description of how humans tend to actually behave. You see wars and attempts to coerce one’s own culture on others far more than one sees love and charity.

Seeing people trying to combine the two, believe in both loving one’s neighbor and tribal thinking, would require some creativity. What does it mean to love one’s fellow man? How is that consistent with prejudice, oppression and violence?

[Cool Breeze]

As John points out in his posts on the history of early Christianity, interpretation of scripture leads to further divergence of thought as to what is actually meant. And again, I believe the only way to deal with the many different opinions is to go directly to God and ask him for guidance. I believe the Holy Spirit can speak to each of us individually and provide us with a knowledge of what is true, versus what is a “fable” or “heresies”.

The trouble with this is that your "Holy Spirit" speaks a different knowledge of what is true to each person he speaks to individually. This is why there have been many thousands of different Christian denominations in the last twenty centuries.

Correct, he doesn't understand that his approach is actually why we have "thousands of Christian denominations" = schismatics or heretics.

Also, John weirdly didn't mention that the dead sea scrolls prove that the Septuagint text is accurate and that the Masoretic texts of the 6-10th centuries AD compiled by jews were edited, as always claimed and expected by the christians as deceptions (in certain key places obviously, not all), which again is proven record and history.

[Navigator]

I do not believe that “listening to the spirit” is the reason for so many Christian (or other) religious denominations.

To the contrary, I believe that this is the case because people DON’T listen to the spirit. Instead, many want the truth to be something different than what it is.

It could be that they do not want to give up cherished traditions. It could be that they want their religion to be of a philosophical nature. It could be that they want to do what they want and see religion as getting in their way. Or it could be that they have a financial or political reasons. Or any host of other reasons.

So, I will continue to explain my beliefs, and the reasoning behind them. This is not to argue with anyone. As I said before, we should all be free to believe whatever we want.

I am just thankful that I have an opportunity here to explain my beliefs and would encourage anyone to put them to the test that I have proposed: ask God yourself what is true and what isn’t. Ask him for your own revelation and witness.

[Navigator]

I believe that the fundamental core truth lost shortly after the departure of the early Apostles concerns the very nature of God the Father and his son Jesus Christ.

Christ taught people to worship his Father, not him.

Christ prayed to his Father.

On the cross, Christ cried out to his Father “why hast thou forsaken me?”

Christ continually told people that he was about his Father’s business.

All of this leads to a simple point. Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are two separate and unique individuals.

I believe that Christ was praying not to another “form” of himself, but praying to a distinctly separate individual, his Father. When he talks about being “one” with the Father, I believe he is talking about their unity of purpose.

Next, I believe that Christ was resurrected as a perfect, immortal, and yet PHYSICAL being. This is how he ascended to heaven, and how I believe he will return.

I believe that as a resurrected PHYSICAL being, he became like his Father, who, I believe is also a resurrected, perfect and immortal being.

I believe that these basic, core truths, were obfuscated by the incomprehensible and contradictory Nicene creed.

I believe the simple truth about the natures of Christ and God the Father were lost due to people actually wanting their religion to be more “mystical”, “philosophical” and “complex”.

The “lost” information on the nature of God also means a loss of the understanding of the most basic knowledge we crave:
Where did I come from?
Why am I here on this earth? (What is the purpose of life?)
What happens when I die?

[spottybrowncow]

Navigator,

Why do you think God the Father is "resurrected?"

[Navigator]

I believe that man was created in God the Father's express image. So Adam would have had the same form and general appearance of God the Father. This would mean, to me, that God is a physical being. Yet please recognize that this means he has, as we all do, both a body AND a spirit.

However, God the Father is not mortal. He is immortal (as well as all powerful and all knowing - omnipotent and omniscient). The person most like him is his son Jesus Christ, who is now immortal, and who became so by being resurrected. Christ stated that he is following his Father's example.

I believe that Christ broke the bands of death and enabled the resurrection. I believe that ultimately each of us, in a resurrected state, will be judged of Christ for what we do in this world.

One of the main gifts of this life is a physical body. It is not, in my belief, a curse. Rather one of God the Father's greatest blessings to his children.

[Tom Mazanec]

Navigator, is this your personal belief system, or are there others (call it a denomination or church or whatever) who share it?

[Navigator]

I prefer to discuss personal beliefs. Once religions/denominations are involved, it is my experience that things quickly get very antagonistic. And none of us need more of that.

[Navigator]

With regard to the New Testament, different versions of the Gospels
and other books were used by various Christian communities for the
first four centuries AD. During the fourth century there were
extremely vitriolic political battles over which books would be in the
New Testament. Finally, in 367, a Bishop named Athanasius declared:
"In these [27 writings] alone the teaching of godliness is proclaimed.
No one may add to them, and nothing may be taken away from them." His
recommendations were adopted, and those 27 books were adopted as the
official New Testament.

This is getting at the fact that the New Testament didn't exist in its current form until HUNDREDS of years after the deaths/departures of the Apostles.

It is my belief that this is not only where simple truths were lost, like Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ were separate individuals, but also the time period where the philosophies of the time were introduced into Christian worship. These things moved Christianity away from what Christ had taught and what he had established.

Chief among these contemporary non-Christian philosophies were Gnosticism and Platonism.

[Navigator]

We know Simon from Acts chapter 8, as someone who wanted to buy the Priesthood. Early Christian writers, such as Eusebius, knew more about him. He is also known as Simon Magus, and he and his followers persisted in attempts to introduce Gnosticism into Christian beliefs and worship.

My brief description of Gnosticism comes primarily from Mosheim’s “Ecclesiastical History”:
Gnostics believed that a being of light that permeated through all of space, called the Pleroma, had existed eternally. The Pleroma produced from itself two minds of differing sexes, which resembled thePleroma. From the union of these two others arose, forming a large family, the members of which were called Aeons.

An Aeon, the Demiurge, created this world, exercising dominion over it, while rejecting the authority of the Pleroma. Man’s body is seen as a creation of the Demiurge, and is therefore basically evil, while the spirit, coming from the Pleroma, is seen as basically good. The Gnostics believed that the spirits would eventually be liberated from their “evil” bodies, and that the Demiurge would be subjugated as the world is destroyed.

I believe the Gnostics attempted to teach that our Heavenly Father was like the Pleroma, and that Christ and the Holy Ghost were “loyal” Aeons. Further, Gnosticism led to a very different view of the nature of body and spirit than was originally taught. This led to the belief that the body was a “curse” and many turned to self mutilation and harm as a way to attempt to “subjugate” or weaken the accursed body. I believe it also led to the belief that the body was “temporary” and that we would only exist as spirit beings after mortality.