Irregular Times Diaries: Unfit Discussion
In a time of the spring, old paths are obscured and new growth begins.
Irregular Times Diaries: Unfit DiscussionIn a time of the spring, old paths are obscured and new growth begins.
Mitt Romney is getting all indignant about Mike Huckabee asking a simple question about the religion that Mitt Romney says makes him fit to be President of the United States. (”Freedom requires religion!”) Well, wipe the froth away from your mouth Mitt, and answer the question.
Do Mormons believe that Jesus is the brother of the Devil or not?
And now you, too, Mike Huckabee. You answer for your weird theology too.
How can you say, Mr. Huckabee, that Jesus is not the brother of Satan? God made Jesus. God made Satan. How does that not make them brothers?
Be careful, Mr. Christian Candidate. You’ve opened up the crazy Pandora’s box of religious literalism in American politics. So, now, there’s an awful lot more kooky stuff than just the relationship between Jesus and the Devil that you have to answer for in the Bible, Mike Huckabee.
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December 13th, 2007 at 3:00 pm
I think you’re mostly right Frank, that this really is splitting hairs.
There is a subtle difference between LDS theology and classical theology on this point.
In classical theology, you are right, they are both created by God, hence in a sense brothers.
In LDS theology, there is a belief in a pre-existence, where our souls all existed prior to birth as God’s children. In this pre-life, we were all “begotten” by God, so God is the father of all our souls. In this pre-earth life, Jesus was the first-born, Lucifer the second, the rest of us afterwards.
So in addition to simply bing created by the same source, LDS theology posits that they are pre-earth-life siblings as well.
BTW, does anybody really think that Huckabee’s off the cuff comment was really off the cuff. To me it seems a little calculated, perhaps to draw what he hopes is attention to some of Romney’s quirkier beliefs
December 13th, 2007 at 5:00 pm
Tradition says Lucifer was a fallen angel, but where did the angels come from? The Bible doesn’t really say. Lucifer does walk around like a person and talk to Eve, talk to Job (after getting God’s permission), but then God acts like a human too, “walking in the garden in the cool of the day.” Creation starts with the physical world, light. Heaven’s inhabitants aren’t mentioned in the two Genesis creation stories. Of course the god of the old religion usually becomes the devil of the new religion, so the devil is theoretically much older than God.
December 13th, 2007 at 5:12 pm
That’s like the gnostic tradition of Christianity, in which the Old Testament God is a baddie trapping souls in the universe, and Jesus came to teach us how to escape.
December 14th, 2007 at 2:31 pm
My understanding of Gnostics is that they were already on the scene when Jesus showed up, and aren’t really all that compatible with Christianity. The Iraqi Gnostic Mandaeans, who are currently busy migrating to Australia, follow John the Baptist and consider Jesus to be a perverter of their religion. If that isn’t enough, the Gnostics consider God to be merely a minor Archon, the child of Sophia (wisdom) who was sort of developmentally disabled and as a result hidden by Sophia, so that he is totally unaware of the other Archons and goes around saying stuff like “you will have no other gods before me”. The later forms of Gnosticism were associated with the Cathari heresy and the Manechaean heresy, which was the real reason behind Rome’s Inquisition and witch trials.
December 14th, 2007 at 4:50 pm
There are Gnostic gospels. It’s a tradition within Christianity. A tradition that Nicene Creed Christians tried to squash out, but a tradition within Christianity nonetheless.
December 15th, 2007 at 12:20 pm
“Don’t Christians ritually eat human flesh and drink human blood?” I ask innocently.
December 15th, 2007 at 6:38 pm
Christian groups that believe in any “secret” theological knowledge passed to
December 15th, 2007 at 6:48 pm
to disciples was “gnostic.” The Catholic church’s perspective is that there were many heretical groups over many years known as “gnostic.” I think the main relevant story here is an alternative Genesis story where Jehovah was a false god, and that the serpent was actually doing Adam and Eve a great favor by recommending eating the fruit of Knowledge, freeing them from the prison-like Garden of Eden.
This does believe did not extend to the God of the rest of the Old Testament.
It wouldn’t surprise me if Romney is really a closet atheist. Huckabee, while his religious beliefs are also odd, seems to me a true beleiver.
December 15th, 2007 at 10:19 pm
Oh, Ralph, *Your just like controlling the wind.* You know we Christians don’t ritually eat human flesh–we eat God. Although the ritual is actually much older than that, and has had other meanings.
I don’t know that that Gnostic thought is a “Christian” tradition as much as it is a very old idea that throughout history keeps getting captured by various religious groups, most lately by Jehovah’s Witnesses. The most salient feature is that it rejects the trinity and the divinity of Jesus.
If you look at religion from a historical perspective, and compare with myths–which are nothing more than discontinued religions–you will see there are actually very few new ideas in any religions. So much syncretism has gone on it is impossible to sort out which ideas came from where.
December 18th, 2007 at 3:59 pm
Yes, I reply innocently, Christians eat God.
But don’t they believe that God turned himself into a human and allowed himself to be killed so that people could eat God in the form of human flesh?
Just asking. Not like I’m purposefully phrasing a question in a way that is technically true but carefully calculated to disparage someone and then pretending it’s innocent. Or anything.
I’d be horrified if anyone depicted my question as anything more than innocent. Horrified.
December 18th, 2007 at 6:21 pm
Not really. Not even technically true.
Only the Catholics do that.
December 18th, 2007 at 7:17 pm
Page 1
I am not a writer, I don’t even enjoy reading that much, but I felt it necessary at this time in my life to get a few things down on paper. I have had a desire to know God as long as I can remember, however a lot of church doctrine has only left me with questions. I have had so many people tell me that it is all a great mystery and that no man can fathom the ways of God. In some ways that is true, but I don’t believe that the basic question of “Who Is God” can exist without answers.
The Bible tells us that God is omnipresent. That means He is everywhere all the time. We all know about the billions of stars and vast galaxies out there where distance can only be measured in light years. If God is truly omnipresent does His Spirit span the entire universe at the same time? ….Psalms 139:7-8 Why do people pray for the Spirit of God to present at their particular worship service? It sounds like He’s already there filling that building and every other square inch of the universe! There’s just no getting way from God. This must be a hard concept to grasp. Man has a hard time breaking away from the confines of the five senses. We seem to have to assign three dimensions to everything and everything must exist in that space. I think this is why God is so blessed when we believe, because we have reached out to someone that we can not see.
John 1:1-3 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him: and without him was not anything made that was made.” Sounds like God and his Word are knit very closely together. What is God’s Word? … What is your word? It is your thoughts, your mind, and your will, all that makes you, you. If you write your words on paper, it is your thoughts recorded in a way that others can learn from.
God is Holy. God is Spirit, John 4:24. If you could analyze the essence of God you would find two things, Spirit and Holiness. God is Holy Spirit as you and I are flesh and bones. So when we read the phrase Holy Spirit in The Word it refers to “what” God is in contrast to who He is. Where the confusion sets in is the fact that the term holy spirit is also used to describe the gift that the believers received on the day of Pentecost. This is also a gift that you and I receive when we are “born again”. The Word says that we are “new beings, created in Christ Jesus.” The word “created” is very important to understand. Whenever the word “created” is used it means to bring into existence something that was not there before. When God “created” the heavens and earth, He brought into existence something that was not there before. So when we are “born again” we receive the gift of holy spirit, something brand new, something that was not there before, it is “created” in us. The King James translators tried show this contrast by capitalizing the words “Holy Spirit” when they referred to God and using lower case “holy spirit” when referring to the “gift”. So any time we see these words, we must determine through the context if it is referring to the “Giver” or the “gift”.
WHO IS JESUS CHRIST
Jesus Christ is:
1-Second in authority to God only, - John 14:28 I Corin. 11:3 and I Corin. 15:27-28
2-The promised seed, son of Mary, conceived by God, Gen. 3:15 Matt. 1:18-20 Gal. 3:16
3-Son of man, Luke 5:24
4-A man tempted as we are, Hebrews 2:16-18 Hebrews 4:15
5-A faithful high priest who fulfilled all the law, Hebrews 3:1-2 Matt. 5:17
6-A man, the mediator between man and God, I Tim. 2:5
7-Our brother, Hebrews 2:11
8-Limited in knowledge, Mark 13:32
9-Our passover lamb, I Corinthians 5:7
10-Foreknown before the foundation of the world, I Peter 1:20
Page 2
As fathers and sons are similar, Jesus Christ and God are similar, but not identical.
God cannot be tempted, Jesus Christ was.
God sits on his throne.
Jesus Christ sits on God’s right hand.
Jesus Christ had his own will separate from God and could choose his own path as we see when he prayed to his Father before his crucifixion. Matthew 26:39. At that point, he knew what was going to happen, he had his own free will, the soldiers had not yet come, He could just of easily walked off into the sunset. But we know he chose to follow the will of his Father and not his own. We also see this very clearly in John 5:30 (Jesus speaking) “I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.
According to the Church history the Trinitarian doctrine was formulated in 325 AD by the Nicaean Council of Consstantinople. Let’s take a quick peek at the originator of the Nicaean Council. Its promoter was an interesting young man named Constantine, a second generation Emperor of the decaying Roman Empire. Constantine was not only the promoter, but also the 100% financier of this little convention. He had a lot riding on the outcome of this council and the six documents that it produced. (Most only concern themselves with one document; The Nicaean Creed). Anyways, as I was saying, Constantine was an interesting fellow. He was certainly an able leader, a so-so diplomat and a loving son, but, it kind of goes down hill for him from there. He was loved by his ruthless army and by his mother (who proclaimed herself a Christian) but beyond that, most either feared or steered clear of him because of his nature. Today, over 1600 years after his death, Constantine is still listed by historians as one of the most disloyal, self-serving, treacherous and tyrannical leaders that the world has ever seen. The Bible is quite specific in warning about building a belief system based upon documents outside of the true Word of God.
In the year 492 Emperor Theodosius made disbelief of the Trinity a capital crime. Today, things have not changed that much. “You can not be saved if you do not believe in the Trinity”.
Years later, when Martin Luther broke away from the Roman Catholic Church changes were made in the Trinitarian doctrine. If this doctrine were true there would not be any need for changes. He didn’t seem to like the idea that Mary was the mother of God, but if Jesus Christ is
God and Mary was his mother … well, why would you want to mess with it, if indeed this is “Biblical” doctrine.
I can not find the following in scripture: Trinity, God the Son, Three In One, God-man, fully God and fully man, co-equal or co-eternal.
I can only conclude that these terms were “made up” by someone.
The Messiah of God Luke 18:19
The Father who sent me John 5:37
Christ Jesus, himself human I Tim. 2:5
I am assending to my Father, to my God John 20:17
No one is good but God alone Mark 10:17-18
The Lord our God, the Lord is one Mark 12:28-34
No one hath seen God at any time I John 4:12
In John 14:28 Jesus states very clearly that he is not coequal with God his Father. “Ye have heard how I said unto you, I go away and come again unto you. If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I said, I go unto the Father, for the Father is greater than I.” The same is said in Mark 10:17-18 “And when He was gone forth into the way, there came one running, and kneeled to him and asked him, Good master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? And Jesus said
unto him, why callest thow me good? There is none good but one, that is God.”
Page 3
In Luke 2:52 it says that “Jesus increased in wisdom.” How could God increase in wisdom? How could God increase in anything??
Q. If Jesus is indeed the true Son of God could he have a God?
A. Sure, his Father.
Q. If Jesus is God, could this God Have a God?
A. Ahhhhhh… Could you repeat the question?
The Church claims to worship the God of Israel but all through history, Israel has never proclaimed a “three in one” God. What is wrong with this picture? God does not change.
Should the coming of the Messiah have changed who we believed God to be?
Who is the God of Israel?…. Hey, I’ve got an idea !!! Why don’t we ask Israel.
The following is an excerpt of a letter sent to me by Rabbi Don Rossoff:
————————————————————————————————–
God is one. The watchword of our faith - that which believing Jews have on their lips to their dying moment - is the declaration know as “Sh’ma” from the book of Deuteronomy: Sh’mah Yis-ra-ayl Ado-nai Elo-hay-nu, Ado-nai eh-chad! Hear, O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is one!
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In conclusion, either God’s Word is Truth or it isn’t. There are doctrines of man and there is The Word of God.
I choose to trust God.
December 19th, 2007 at 5:17 am
Why do you choose to trust God? Have you ever spoken to God? Has God ever spoken to you? All you have is a dusty old book? Why don’t you trust yourself instead?
November 12th, 2008 at 7:39 pm
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