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To: olde north church; Matchett-PI
"Epilepsy and seizures are a conduit to the Divine."

Amazing, absolutely amazing. If you have a Biblical basis for that, or any basis at all in a Church writing, please by all means post it. It fits in with the other new-age stuff in that post, that I declined to respond to. The reason I respond now:
Is it that man carries the breath of God within him or is it man is above all creatures in the eyes of God? Perhaps it is that the Church is the Living Body of God or the Bible His living word? Does it mean beside giving the lip service in testimony one must perform good works, live in a devout and just manner or understand Sacraments.

Every good story has a gem of truth in it. Your understanding of the Sacraments is fatally flawed by your elimination of Christ's divinity, and the nature of the Trinity. Your list didn't really include that it had:
I am not a Trinitarian.
I don't accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior but I do accept Him as a Divine prophet to teach man how to lead a "just and holy" life necessary to awaken our soul which resides in the Kingdom of Heaven.
Our soul is the divine counter-part which already exists in Heaven. It must be awakened.

All these are not in keeping with Church tradition. If you would like to believe what you like, by all means. Please don't mislabel yourself. You are welcome to awaken any way you choose, but, this kind of awakening is not in the Mystical Tradition that the Church teaches.

I get the feeling you're nothing more than a failed 12 Step Christian, waiting for the day you can truly say God has touched you.

This is incomprehensible.

(Powerful is the hand that holds the keys to Heaven.)

It sure is a powerful hand, the hand of the successor of Peter. He can bind or loose Sin, and open or shut the door to Heaven. Without the divinity of Christ, the key could not have been given to Peter because Jesus did not have the authority to tell Peter this about the Keys to the Kingdom, since he was not God, or, Peter had the key all along, and that makes Christ a liar saying that Peter has the Key now, when he actually had it all along. Like I said believe what you believe, but don't claim to be something you are not.
366 posted on 01/31/2005 10:01:57 AM PST by Dominick ("Freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought." - JP II)
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To: Dominick

"It sure is a powerful hand, the hand of the successor of Peter." ~ Dominick

When one studies the history of New Testament "church government", one can
readily see that the bottom-up, checks and balances, Republican form of
limited government that America's Calvinist Framers gave us, is based
straight out of the New Testament CHURCH GOVERNMENT example. [Acts 6:3;
1:15, 22, 23, 25; 2Cor.8:19, etc.] And Paul, Barnabus and Titus are shown
as installing the elders that were chosen by the congregations [Acts 6:3-6;
14:23 and Titus 1:5].


Paul says to the whole church congregation: "Pick out from among you seven
men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom whom we may appoint to
this duty." (of servant aka deacon)


The apostles had the *unique authority* to found and govern the early
church, and they could speak and write the words of God. Many of their
written words became the NT Scripture.


In order to qualify as an apostle someone had to had seen Christ with his
own eyes after he rose from the dead **and** had to have been specifically
installed/appointed by Christ as an apostle.


In place of living apostles present in the church to teach and govern it,
we have instead the writings of the apostles in the books of the NT.


Those New Testament Scriptures fulfill for the church today the absolute
authoritative teaching and governing functions which were fulfilled by the
apostles themselves during the early years of the church.


Because of that, there is no need for any direct "succession" or "physical
descent" from the apostles. [1 John 2:27]

*

At the Reformation, the Reformers revived the biblical doctrine of the priesthood of the believer. Once the common people understood this doctrine, the power of Rome was broken. The people realized that:

They were the church

They were priests

Christ was the only mediator between God and man

They should confess their sins to God alone

Only God can forgive sins

Purgatory was a myth

Indulgences were a congame

Only God decides who goes into Heaven or Hell

The Catholic priests could no longer rule by fear and intimidation. The people rose up and drove them out of the church!

The Roman Catholic Church Is Structured According To O. T. Judaism Instead Of N. T. Christianity

A. Judaism --- B. Roman Catholic Church

A. The High Priest --- B. The Pope

A. Jewish Priests --- B. Catholic Priests

A. Continuous Sacrifices (Animal) --- B. Continuous Sacrifices (The Mass)

A. The Temple --- B. The Cathedral

A. The Holy City (Jerusalem) --- B. The Holy City (Rome)

A. Physical Discipline Even Unto Death --- B. Physical Discipline Even Unto Death

A. Passive Laity --- B. Passive Laity

A. Under Law/Good Works --- B. Under Law/Good Works

A. O.T. Worship with Incense, altar, etc. --- B. Worship with incense, Altars, etc.

A. Church/State As One --- B. Church/State As One

It's a free country but why should anyone want to follow an old covenant of law/works when Christ has established a New Covenant of grace/faith?


370 posted on 01/31/2005 10:29:26 AM PST by Matchett-PI (Today's DemocRATS are either religious moral relativists, libertines or anarchists.)
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To: Dominick; Matchett-PI; All
In the past, epilepsy has been associated with religious experiences and even demonic possession. Historically, epilepsy was called the "Sacred Disease" because people thought that epileptic seizures were a form of attack by demons, and that the visions epileptics experienced were sent by the Gods. Hippocrates remarked that epilepsy would be considered divine only until it was understood
In April 2003, the BBC TV science programme Horizon featured discussion of research by American neurologist Gregory Holmes indicating that Ellen G. White, spiritual founder of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, may have suffered from temporal lobe epilepsy as a result of brain damage due to an accident suffered at age nine – the epilepsy supposedly being responsible for her powerful religious experiences.
There has also been serious speculation that science fiction author Philip K. Dick suffered from similar seizures; he claimed to have experienced visions on several occasions, that, among other things, reportedly helped him save his infant son from an undiagnosed life-threatening medical condition.
According to Dr. Jerome Engel, a number of men and women who have attained religious prominence may have done so in spite of, or perhaps due to, their epileptic signs and symptoms. In fact epilepsy, as "the sacred disease," has been profoundly intertwined with religious practices throughout the ages and the world.
Saint Paul's seizure-like experiences are the best documented of the major religious figures. On the road to Damascus he saw a bright light flashing around him, fell to the ground and was left temporarily blinded by his vision and unable to eat or drink. Paul is thought by some physicians to have had facial motor and sensitive disturbances coming after ecstatic seizures; they have diagnosed him with temporal lobe epilepsy which occasionally developed into secondary tonic-clonic attacks.
Mohammed, the founder of the Islam, is reported to have had seizures since the age of three and to have said, "This is a common affliction of prophets, of whom I wish to be counted as one."
Joan of Arc was an uneducated farmer's daughter in a remote village of medieval France who altered the course of history through her amazing military victories. From age thirteen Joan reported ecstatic moments in which she saw flashes of light coming from the side, heard voices of saints and saw visions of angels.
"There is no evidence that having seizures or epilepsy can cause exceptional talents." In the opinion of the neurologist Dr. Lydia Bayne, Joan's blissful experiences "in which she felt that the secrets of the universe were about to be revealed to her"- were seizures, and they were triggered by the ringing of church bells. Joan displayed symptoms of a temporal lobe focus epilepsy: specifically, a musicogenic form of reflex epilepsy with an ecstatic aura. Musicogenic epilepsy is generally triggered by particular music which has an emotional significance to the individual. Joan's voices and visions propelled her to become an heroic soldier in the effort to save France from English domination and led to her martyrdom in 1431, burned at the stake as a heretic when she was 19 years old.
Soren Kierkegaard, the brilliant Danish philosopher and religious thinker considered to be the father of existentialism, worked hard at keeping his epilepsy secret.
So, correlation may not be causation but an open mind should be interested enough to check out an article or two. Anything less would be worthy of a Pharisee.
371 posted on 01/31/2005 10:33:46 AM PST by olde north church (Powerful is the hand that holds the keys to Heaven.)
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