OR a cat jumps on the keyboard.
My comment was sincere. I'm not in a position to know whether your facts are accurate, but your essay is neatly composed and well-organized.
::Sigh:: I wish our little cat were still here to jump on the keyboard. We're still grieving after losing him two weeks ago.
My comment was sincere.
My thanks are equally sincere.
I'm not in a position to know whether your facts are accurate,
Well, I used to be a Fundamentalist Protestant, then I was Catholic for six years, and I've also studied Eastern/Oriental chr*stianity, and I know for a fact that everything Fundamentalist Protestants assume about the chr*stian religion is denied by the ancient churches: total depravity, being born "damned," the vicarious damnation of J*sus in the sinner's place . . . all these are declared "Protestant errors" with no roots in chr*stian history. Roman Catholics say that man "fell from grace" (not the same thing as being turned from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde!) and that J*sus never suffered the G-d's wrath vicariously (there's a thread on the subject right now), and Eastern Orthodoxy rejects even original sin itself and the very notion of J*sus' death offering "satisfaction" for G-d's wrath against Adam (they prefer the "ransom" or "mousetrap" theory). And when chr*stianity starts claiming that "most people don't deserve to go to hell," why . . . the jig is up.
I can tell you exactly the moment I became a convinced Noachide and all my spiritual searching was over. I had left the Catholic Church and an Eastern Orthodox friend had loaned me a booklet on his faith. In it the writer railed on and on against the "arch-heretic" Augustine the "pagan" notion of original sin, which he attributed to Greek paganism. Do you know where this Eastern Orthodox writer claimed to find the "true doctrine" of human nature? I'll tell you exactly where he found it: in the Talmud! I took that as an admission that Judaism had been right all along and that no chr*stian religion was necessary. How someone could write such a thing and still defend any form of chr*stianity is beyond me.
I tell you this to let you know where I'm coming from, not to belittle anyone.
but your essay is neatly composed and well-organized.
Thank you again. Having "been there," I understand that Fundamentalist chr*stians do not "hate" anybody nor do they think that Jews are "evil"--merely "unsaved," like all the rest of "unsaved" humanity! I'm sorry that the two groups have so misunderstood each other and in my own poor way, I am actually trying to help and ultimately, to convert my own beloved people (and everyone else) to what I sincerely believe to be G-d's truth. Therefore I understand the proselytary impulse in others, whether chr*stians or moslems.