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To: slhill
1) "There is only one G-d". Correct. That's why Jesus isn't divine. To say otherwise is to deny "HaShem Elokeynu, HaShem ekhad", which means "The Lord our G-d, the Lord is One".

That's sort of the stumbling block isn't it? Jesus claimed to be God -- not a prophet -- so he's either telling the truth or a fraud.

If he's not God, how did he rise from the dead? Or command the wind and the waves? You will answer those are fictional accounts. I could ask so where is his body? You will say it was stolen by his disciples -- a statement of faith on your part.

There are tens of millions of people today -- including me -- who can testify to a personal, real experience with Jesus. You can say we are delusional. Or you can say maybe he is divine.

If you believe in an omnipotent God, there is nothing to keep you from believing He was incapable of taking human form out of His love for us to save us from the path to destruction upon which we willfully embarked.

498 posted on 11/30/2001 5:48:05 AM PST by Tribune7
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To: Tribune7
"That's sort of the stumbling block isn't it? Jesus claimed to be God -- not a prophet -- so he's either telling the truth or a fraud" In my church we are taught the Jesus was the son of God. He was crucified under Pontius Pilate, died and ascended on the third day and is seated at the right hand of the Father. My bible says the god gave us his only begotten son, so that our sins may be forgiven. Did Jesus ever really claim to be god??
503 posted on 11/30/2001 6:25:49 AM PST by All-American Medic
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To: Tribune7
Thanks for your assurance that my statements haven't been offensive. I feel more than a little bit nervous about expressing religious views in public. Regarding your questions: all I can say is that Christians tell me that Jesus did all these things, but Jews tell me something different. It must, in the end, be a matter of faith whom I believe, as we are impossibly far away from the events to know what happened from a historical or physical record. You can't even prove to me that Jesus existed; you can only demonstrate that it is difficult to see how he could not have done, given the historical record. I certainly can't base my experience on the fact that you and many like you feel you have had a personal experience of Jesus; many others feel they have had a personal experience of Allah; others still that they have personal experience of the absence of G-d. My faith is a matter of my own making.

Now for something really radical: Hasidic thought teaches that G-d is not really omnipotent, at least not in the Western meaning of the word. It even teaches that there was a problem that occurred during the process of creation. That is, in some ways, the starting point for the concept of tikkun olam, repairing the world (you may have heard the term "klipot", shells, bandied about by dabbling Kabbalists). I say this by way of demonstrating that we are a very long way apart in terms of our basic assumptions about theology and how the world works.

505 posted on 11/30/2001 6:36:56 AM PST by slhill
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