Posted on 09/20/2013 4:29:03 AM PDT by spirited irish
“Who is a liar but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ? He is antichrist, that denieth the Father and the Son” (1 John 2:22).
“And the fifth angel sounded the trumpet, and I saw a star fall from heaven upon the earth, and there was given to him the key of the bottomless pit." (Rev. 9:1)
In his Concise Commentary Matthew Henry identifies falling stars as tepid, indecisive, weak or apostate clergy who,
"Having ceased to be a minister of Christ, he who is represented by this star becomes the minister of the devil; and lets loose the powers of hell against the churches of Christ."
John identifies antichrists, in this case clergy who serve the devil rather than Christ, sequentially. First, like Bultmann, Teilhard de Chardin, Robert Funk, Paul Tillich, and John Shelby Spong, they specifically deny the living, personal Holy Trinity in favor of Gnostic pagan, immanent or Eastern pantheist conceptions. Though God the Father Almighty in three Persons upholds the souls of men and maintains life and creation, His substance is not within nature (space-time dimension) as pantheism maintains, but outside of it. Sinful men live within nature and are burdened by time and mortality; God is not.
Second, the specific denial of the Father logically negates Jesus the Christ, the Word who was in the beginning (John 1), was with God, and is God from the creation of all things (1 John 1). In a pre-incarnate theophany, Jesus is the Angel who spoke “mouth to mouth” to Moses (Num. 12:6-9; John 9:20) and at sundry times and in many ways “spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets, last of all…” (Hebrews 1:1) Jesus the Christ is the incarnate Son of God who is the life and light of men, who by His shed blood on the Cross died for the remission of all sins and bestowed the privilege of adoption on all who put their faith in Him.
Therefore, to deny the Holy Father is to logically deny the deity of Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son of God, hence,
“…every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist . . . and even now already is it in the world” (1 John 4:3).
According to Peter (2 Peter 2:1), falling stars will work among the faithful, teaching damnable heresies that deny the Lord, cause the fall of men into unbelief, and bring destruction upon themselves:
“The natural parents of modern unbelief turn out to have been the guardians of belief.” Many thinking people came at last “to realize that it was religion, not science or social change that gave birth to unbelief. Having made God more and more like man---intellectually, morally, emotionally---the shapers of religion made it feasible to abandon God, to believe simply in man.” (James Turner of the University of Michigan in “American Babylon,” Richard John Neuhaus, p. 95)
Falling Stars and Damnable Heresy
Almost thirty years ago, two well-respected social science scholars, William Sims Bainbridge and Rodney Stark found themselves alarmed by what they saw as a rising tide of irrationalism, superstition and occultism---channeling cults, spirit familiars, necromancers, Wiccans, Satanists, Luciferians, goddess worshippers, 'gay' shamans, Hermetic magicians and other occult madness at every level of society, particularly within the most influential--- Hollywood, academia and the highest corridors of political power.
Like many scientists, they were equally concerned by Christian opposition to naturalistic evolution. As is common in the science community, they assumed the cause of these social pathologies was somehow due to fundamentalism, their term for authentic Christian theism as opposed to liberalized Christianity. Yet to their credit, the research they undertook to discover the cause was conducted both scientifically and with great integrity. What they found was so startling it caused them to re-evaluate their attitude toward authentic Christian theism. Their findings led them to say:
"It would be a mistake to conclude that fundamentalists oppose all science (when in reality they but oppose) a single theory (that) directly contradicts the bible. But it would be an equally great mistake to conclude that religious liberals and the irreligious possess superior minds of great rationality, to see them as modern personalities who have no need of the supernatural or any propensity to believe unscientific superstitions. On the contrary...they are much more likely to accept the new superstitions. It is the fundamentalists who appear most virtuous according to scientific standards when we examine the cults and pseudo-sciences proliferating in our society today." ("Superstitions, Old and New," The Skeptical Inquirer, Vol. IV, No. 4; summer, 1980)
In more detail they observed that authentic ‘born again’ Christians are far less likely to accept cults and pseudoscientific beliefs while the irreligious and liberalized Christians (i.e., progressive Catholics, Protestant emergent, NAR, word faith, prosperity gospel) are open to unscientific notions. In fact, these two groups are most disposed toward occultism.
As Bainbridge and Stark admitted, evolution directly contradicts the Bible, beginning with the Genesis account of creation ex nihilo. This means that evolution is the antithesis of the Genesis account. For this reason, discerning Christians refuse to submit to the evolutionary thinking that has swept Western and American society. Nor do they accept the evolutionary theism brought into the whole body of the Church by weak, tepid, indecisive, or apostate clergy.
Over eighty years ago, Rev. C. Leopold Clarke wrote that priests who embrace evolution (evolutionary theists) are apostates from the ‘Truth as it is in Jesus.’ (1 John2:2) Rev. Clarke, a lecturer at a London Bible college, discerned that evolution is the antithesis to the Revelation of God in the Deity of Jesus Christ, thus it is the greatest and most active agent of moral and spiritual disintegration:
“It is a battering-ram of unbelief---a sapping and mining operation that intends to blow Religion sky-high. The one thing which the human mind demands in its conception of God, is that, being Almighty, He works sovereignly and miraculously---and this is the thing with which Evolution dispenses….Already a tremendous effect, on a wide scale has been produced by the impact of this teaching---an effect which can only be likened to the…collapse of foundations…” (Evolution and the Break-Up of Christendom, Philip Bell, creation.com, Nov. 27, 2012)
The faith of the Christian Church and of the average Christian has had, and still has, its foundation as much in the literal and historic meaning of Genesis, the book of beginnings revealed ‘mouth to mouth’ by the Angel to Moses, as in that of the person and deity of Jesus Christ. But how horrible a travesty of the sacred office of the Christian Ministry to see church leaders more eager to be abreast of the times, than earnestly contending for the Faith once delivered unto the saints (Jude 1:3). It is high time, said Rev. Clarke, that the Church,
“…. separated herself from the humiliating entanglement attending her desire to be thought up to date…What, after all, have custodians of Divine Revelation to do making terms with speculative Biology, which has….no message of comfort or help to the soul?” (ibid)
The primary tactic employed by priests eager to accommodate themselves and the Church to modern science and evolutionary thinking is predictable. It is the argument that evolution is entirely compatible with the Bible when we see Genesis, especially the first three chapters, in a non-literal, non-historical context. This is the argument embraced and advanced by mega-church pastor Timothy J. Keller.
With a position paper Keller published with the theistic evolutionary organization Bio Logos he joined the ranks of falling stars (Catholic and Protestant priests) stretching back to the Renaissance. Their slippery-slide into apostasy began when they gave into the temptation to embrace a non-literal, non-historical view of Genesis. (A response to Timothy Keller’s ‘Creation, Evolution and Christian Laypeople,” Lita Cosner, Sept. 9, 2010, creation.com)
This is not a heresy unique to modern times. The early Church Fathers dealt with this damnable heresy as well, counting it among the heretical tendencies of the Origenists. Fourth-century Fathers such as John Chrysostom, Basil the Great and Ephraim the Syrian, all of whom wrote commentaries on Genesis, specifically warned against treating Genesis as an unhistorical myth or allegory. John Chrysostom strongly warned against paying heed to these heretics,
“…let us stop up our hearing against them, and let us believe the Divine Scripture, and following what is written in it, let us strive to preserve in our souls sound dogmas.” (Genesis, Creation, and Early Man, Fr. Seraphim Rose, p. 31)
As St. Cyril of Alexandria wrote, higher theological, spiritual meaning is founded upon humble, simple faith in the literal and historic meaning of Genesis and one cannot apprehend rightly the Scriptures without believing in the historical reality of the events and people they describe. (ibid, Seraphim Rose, p. 40)
In the integral worldview teachings of the Fathers, neither the literal nor historical meaning of the Revelations of the pre-incarnate Jesus, the Angel who spoke to Moses, can be regarded as expendable. There are at least four critically important reasons why. First, to reduce the Revelation of God to allegory and myth is to contradict and usurp the authority of God, ultimately deny the deity of Jesus Christ; twist, distort, add to and subtract from the entire Bible and finally, to imperil the salvation of believers.
Scenarios commonly proposed by modern Origenists posit a cleverly disguised pantheist/immanent nature deity subject to the space-time dimension and forces of evolution. But as noted previously, it is sinful man who carries the burden of time, not God. This is a crucial point, for when evolutionary theists add millions and billions of zeros (time) to God they have transferred their own limitations onto Him. They have ‘limited’ God and made Him over in their own image. This is not only idolatrous but satanic.
Additionally, evolution inverts creation. In place of God’s good creation from which men fell there is an evolutionary escalator starting at the bottom with matter, then progressing upward toward life, then up and through the life and death of millions of evolved creatures that preceded humans by millions of years until at long last an apish humanoid emerges into which a deity that is always in a state of becoming (evolving) places a soul.
Evolution amputates the entire historical precedent from the Gospel and makes Jesus Christ unnecessary as the atheist Frank Zindler enthusiastically points out:
“The most devastating thing that biology did to Christianity was the discovery of biological evolution. Now that we know that Adam and Eve never were real people the central myth of Christianity is destroyed. If there never was an Adam and Eve, there never was an original sin. If there never was an original sin there is no need of salvation. If there is no need of salvation there is no need of a saviour. And I submit that puts Jesus…into the ranks of the unemployed. I think evolution absolutely is the death knell of Christianity.” (“Atheism vs. Christianity,” 1996, Lita Cosner, creation.com, June 13, 2013)
None of this was lost on Darwin’s bulldog, Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1985). Huxley was thoroughly familiar with the Bible, thus he understood that if Genesis is not the authoritative Word of God, is not historical and literal despite its’ symbolic and poetic elements, then the entirety of Scripture becomes a collection of fairytales resulting in tragic downward spiraling consequences as the Catholic Kolbe Center for the Study of Creation makes clear in part:
“By denying the historical truth of the first chapters of Genesis, theistic evolutionism has fostered a preoccupation with natural causes almost to the exclusion of supernatural ones. By denying the several supernatural creative acts of God in Genesis, and by downplaying the importance of the supernatural activity of Satan, theistic evolutionists slip into a naturalistic mentality which seeks to explain everything in terms of natural causes. Once this mentality takes hold, it is easy for men to regard the concept of spiritual warfare as a holdover from the days of primitive superstition. Diabolical activity is reduced to material or psychological causes. The devil and his demons come to be seen as irrelevant. Soon ‘hell’ joins the devil and his demons in the category of antiquated concepts. And the theistic evolutionist easily makes the fatal mistake of thinking that he has nothing more to fear from the devil and his angels. According to Fr. Gabriele Amorth, the chief exorcist of Rome, there is a tremendous increase in diabolical activity and influence in the formerly Christian world. And yet most of the bishops of Europe no longer believe in the existence of evil spirits….To the Fathers of the Church who believed in the truth of Genesis, this would be incredible. But in view of the almost universal acceptance of theistic evolution, it is hardly surprising.” (The Difference it makes: The Importance of the Traditional Doctrine of Creation, Hugh Owen, kolbecenter.org)
Huxley had ‘zero’ respect for modern Origenists and received enormous pleasure from heaping piles of hot coals and burning contempt upon them, thereby exposing their shallow-reasoning, hypocrisy, timidity, fear of non-acceptance, and unfaithfulness. With sarcasm dripping from his words he quipped,
“I am fairly at a loss to comprehend how any one, for a moment, can doubt that Christian theology must stand or fall with the historical trustworthiness of the Jewish Scriptures. The very conception of the Messiah, or Christ, is inextricably interwoven with Jewish history; the identification of Jesus of Nazareth with that Messiah rests upon the interpretation of passages of the Hebrew Scriptures which have no evidential value unless they possess the historical character assigned to them. If the covenant with Abraham was not made; if circumcision and sacrifices were not ordained by Jahveh; if the “ten words” were not written by God’s hand on the stone tables; if Abraham is more or less a mythical hero, such as Theseus; the story of the Deluge a fiction; that of the Fall a legend; and that of the creation the dream of a seer; if all these definite and detailed narratives of apparently real events have no more value as history than have the stories of the regal period of Rome—what is to be said about the Messianic doctrine, which is so much less clearly enunciated? And what about the authority of the writers of the books of the New Testament, who, on this theory, have not merely accepted flimsy fictions for solid truths, but have built the very foundations of Christian dogma upon legendary quicksands?” (Darwin’s Bulldog---Thomas Huxley, Russell Grigg, creation.com, Oct. 14, 2008)
Pouring more contempt on them he asked,
“When Jesus spoke, as of a matter of fact, that "the Flood came and destroyed them all," did he believe that the Deluge really took place, or not? It seems to me that, as the narrative mentions Noah’s wife, and his sons’ wives, there is good scriptural warranty for the statement that the antediluvians married and were given in marriage; and I should have thought that their eating and drinking might be assumed by the firmest believer in the literal truth of the story. Moreover, I venture to ask what sort of value, as an illustration of God’s methods of dealing with sin, has an account of an event that never happened? If no Flood swept the careless people away, how is the warning of more worth than the cry of “Wolf” when there is no wolf? If Jonah’s three days’ residence in the whale is not an “admitted reality,” how could it “warrant belief” in the “coming resurrection?” … Suppose that a Conservative orator warns his hearers to beware of great political and social changes, lest they end, as in France, in the domination of a Robespierre; what becomes, not only of his argument, but of his veracity, if he, personally, does not believe that Robespierre existed and did the deeds attributed to him?” (ibid)
Concerning Matthew 19:5:
“If divine authority is not here claimed for the twenty-fourth verse of the second chapter of Genesis, what is the value of language? And again, I ask, if one may play fast and loose with the story of the Fall as a “type” or “allegory,” what becomes of the foundation of Pauline theology?” (ibid)
And concerning Cor. 15:21-22:
“If Adam may be held to be no more real a personage than Prometheus, and if the story of the Fall is merely an instructive “type,” comparable to the profound Promethean mythus, what value has Paul’s dialectic?” (ibid)
After much thought, C.S. Lewis concluded that evolution is the central, most radical lie at the center of a vast network of lies within which modern Westerners are entangled while Rev. Clarke identifies the central lie as the Gospel of another Spirit. The fiendish aim of this Spirit is to help men lose God, not find Him, and by contradicting the Divine Redeemer, compromising Priests are serving this Spirit and its’ diabolical purposes. To contradict the Divine Redeemer is the very essence of unfaithfulness, and that it should be done while reverence is professed,
“…. is an illustration of the intellectual and moral topsy-turvydom of Modernism…’He whom God hath sent speaketh the Words of God,’ claimed Christ of Himself (John 3:34), and no assumption of error can hold water in the face of that declaration, without blasphemy.” Evolutionary theists are serving the devil, therefore “no considerations of Christian charity, of tolerance, of policy, can exonerate Christian leaders or Churches who fail to condemn and to sever themselves from compromising, cowardly, shilly-shallying priests”---the falling stars who “challenge the Divine Authority of Jesus Christ.” (ibid)
The rebuttals, warnings and counsels of the Fathers against listening to Origenists (and their modern evolutionary counterparts) indicates that the spirit of antichrist operating through modern rationalistic criticism of the Revelation of God is not a heresy unique to our times but was inveighed against by early Church Fathers.
From the scholarly writings of the Eastern Orthodox priest, Fr. Seraphim Rose, to the incisive analysis, rebuttals and warnings of the Catholic Kolbe Center, creation.com, Creation Research Institute, Rev. Clarke, and many other stalwart defenders of the faith once delivered, all are a clear, compelling call to the whole body of the Church to hold fast to the traditional doctrine of creation as it was handed down from the Apostles, for as God spoke and Jesus is the Living Word incarnate, it is incumbent upon the faithful to submit their wills to the Divine Will and Authority of God rather than to the damnable heresy proffered by falling stars eager to embrace naturalistic science and the devil's antithesis--- evolution. But if it seem evil to you to serve the Lord,
“…you have your choice: choose this day that which pleases you, whom you would rather serve….but as for me and my house we will serve the Lord.” Joshua 24:15
Well jeepers, dear BroJoeK, I guess we need to start off with a definition of "substance," a philosophical term not much heard of in "science."
The entry for "substance" at the Stanford Encyclopedia On-Line:
The philosophical term ‘substance’ corresponds to the Greek ousia, which means ‘being’, transmitted via the Latin substantia, which means ‘something that stands under or grounds things’.From the the Catholic Encyclopedia On-Line: "Substance, the first of Aristotle's categories, signifies being as existing in and by itself, and serving as a subject or basis for accidents and accidental changes."
Thus, "substance" refers to that which does not change. It is sui-generis and perfectly self-subsisting. It is eternal Being in and of itself.
I believe this perfect One Being expresses to man as Three Divine Persons — Father, Son, Spirit. Each Person has been revealed to man in history. But each Person — though they seem "divisible" to us, from the human perspective — is indivisible in the Godhead, the One Substance and — as reflected through the Son — the One Logos of God's Creation, Alpha to Omega.
Well, that's just me. Let's go to the source you cited ("Nicaean Creed," Marquis of Bute's translation), and you can draw your own conclusions:
Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic Faith. Which Faith except everyone do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly. And the Catholic Faith is this, that we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in Unity. Neither confounding the Persons, nor dividing the Substance. For there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost. But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Ghost is all One, the Glory Equal, the Majesty Co-Eternal. Such as the Father is, such is the Son, and such is the Holy Ghost. The Father Uncreate, the Son Uncreate, and the Holy Ghost Uncreate. The Father Incomprehensible, the Son Incomprehensible, and the Holy Ghost Incomprehensible. The Father Eternal, the Son Eternal, and the Holy Ghost Eternal and yet they are not Three Eternals but One Eternal. As also there are not Three Uncreated, nor Three Incomprehensibles, but One Uncreated, and One Uncomprehensible. So likewise the Father is Almighty, the Son Almighty, and the Holy Ghost Almighty. And yet they are not Three Almighties but One Almighty.Please note: When I read this, every time I hit the word "Catholic," I instantly translate it in my own mind as "Christian." Lower-case-"c" catholic means "universal." Beyond its creedal differences, Christianity is truly "universal" in its appeal to human souls. So I think I'll stick with the Word "Christian," for public discourse purposes....
So the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God. And yet they are not Three Gods, but One God. So likewise the Father is Lord, the Son Lord, and the Holy Ghost Lord. And yet not Three Lords but One Lord. For, like as we are compelled by the Christian verity to acknowledge every Person by Himself to be God and Lord, so are we forbidden by the Catholic Religion to say, there be Three Gods or Three Lords. The Father is made of none, neither created, nor begotten. The Son is of the Father alone; not made, nor created, but begotten. The Holy Ghost is of the Father, and of the Son neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding.
So there is One Father, not Three Fathers; one Son, not Three Sons; One Holy Ghost, not Three Holy Ghosts. And in this Trinity none is afore or after Other, None is greater or less than Another, but the whole Three Persons are Co-eternal together, and Co-equal. So that in all things, as is aforesaid, the Unity in Trinity, and the Trinity in Unity, is to be worshipped. He therefore that will be saved, must thus think of the Trinity.
Furthermore, it is necessary to everlasting Salvation, that he also believe rightly the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. For the right Faith is, that we believe and confess, that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and Man.
God, of the substance of the Father, begotten before the worlds; and Man, of the substance of His mother, born into the world. Perfect God and Perfect Man, of a reasonable Soul and human Flesh subsisting. Equal to the Father as touching His Godhead, and inferior to the Father as touching His Manhood. Who, although He be God and Man, yet He is not two, but One Christ. One, not by conversion of the Godhead into Flesh, but by taking of the Manhood into God. One altogether, not by confusion of substance, but by Unity of Person. For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one Man, so God and Man is one Christ. Who suffered for our salvation, descended into Hell, rose again the third day from the dead. He ascended into Heaven, He sitteth on the right hand of the Father, God Almighty, from whence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. At whose coming all men shall rise again with their bodies, and shall give account for their own works. And they that have done good shall go into life everlasting, and they that have done evil into everlasting fire. This is the Catholic Faith, which except a man believe faithfully and firmly, he cannot be saved.
Thanks so much for writing, dear BroJoeK!
Few of these specific details qualify as “history”, they are all religious beliefs.
***There it is again, for all to see. When the gospels record a piece of history, in this case an exchange between Jesus and a crowd, there’s nothing to disqualify it as historical when it’s just describing mundane facts and no miracles. But you, for the 2nd time in this thread, have labelled historical observations contained in the gospels as a religious belief.
You are a joke, a brojoke as a historian. No wonder why you drifted into heresy.
FRiend, I am familiar with many, if not all, of your “proof texts”, and I also know the historical arguments which conclude they have been misunderstood.
***Such “historical arguments” in the past have been properly called out as the thread title says, Damnable Heresy. Pushing that idealogical garbage is what heretics do.
So, in opposition to what the Gospel writer John actually, explicitly did say in this passage, which you deem “heretical”, you would have us accept as “orthodox” and even “historical” your own interpretations of “proof texts” which never actually say what you claim.
***Nope. Once again you lie. I said it was wonderful that you consider it historically reliable. No doubt the other parts of scripture that you like to label “proof texts” you will consider historically unrreliable, because they directly contradict the heretical beliefs you are pushing.
Last I checked, that wasn’t Kevmo’s job.
***We are called to be defenders of the faith, and Jesus Himself had harsh words for false teachers such as yourself. No doubt you would say that Jesus was exceeding His authority when He confronted false teachers of His day. That’s what heretics do.
Sorry, FRiend, but I’m not going to debate your article.
***Of course not, HEretic, because the article already proves the vast majority of what you’ve been saying is simple heresy.
It’s all I can do to keep up with what you’re posting here — including all your Four-D’s.
***The other article is on the religion forum, and the kind of posts you started out with would be wiped clean. We would have ended up discussing historicity, which is what I wanted to do. But you’re here to troll, push heresy, and disrupt & want nothing to do with an orderly exchange. Oh well, at least out here in the open forum I get to properly label you as a genuine heretic.
“Gnosticism is a real word which first described real people (Greeks) who lived thousands of years ago.”
Spirited: Gnosticism did not begin with the Greeks, but with certain Jewish exiles in Babylonian. They sowed the seeds of Gnosticism with their occult Kabbalah. It is btw, the Kabbalahs’ Doctrine of Emanation that is the seedbed of modern evolutionary theories.
“...rejected the material world, in favor of the spiritual realm.”
Spirited: They did. However, they did at least retain a sense of “something” higher that allowed them to believe in a spiritual realm, even though there was really nothing there.
But in “killing” God, and closing off the supernatural realm, modern Western Gnostics (naturalists; empiricists, secular humanists, dialectical materialists, immanentists)have cast themselves into the abyss. For them there is nothing-—no source for life, consciousness, mind, meaning, or purpose.
Since just before the turn of the century Western Gnostics began fleeing to Buddhism and Hinduism in the belief that these Eastern systems would provide for them what naturalism took away. But what they do not know is that centuries before Jesus Christ walked this earth, Buddha took God away and deconstructed the Hindu idea of soul. But for a certain small segment of Hinduism that retains belief in God, all of the rest are types of naturalism.
Kevmo’s posts seem to be exactly what spirited irish wants.
***Is that true, Spirited? Or do you think that it would have been better to open up this thread under the religious forum guidelines (even “open” in the RF has good rules) and brojoke’s early projections of his own intentions would have been deleted. We would not have ended up where we are now, but on the other hand it is doubtful that a genuine heretic such as brojoke would be exposed.
So the Father is God, the Son is God,
***And to deny that is heresy. As the title of this thread says, Damnable Heresy. From the article:
John identifies antichrists... they specifically deny the living, personal Holy Trinity in favor of Gnostic pagan, immanent or Eastern pantheist conceptions.
I’ll be sure to give your opinion all the consideration it’s due.
It’s simple. Just read the thread again. I came here to discuss historicity and you started “attributing thoughts and intentions” towards me that did not exist (I know my own thoughts & intentions). So by the time I went a few rounds with you, you refused to click on simple FR links that proved your bowlsheet was untrue, it became obvious after seeing “you had an idealogical agenda” that the agenda was simple heresy. It was a progression. And it was caused you you. I didn’t come here to argue against a heretic, I came to discuss historicity. But since you degenerated the discussion I am allowed to point out that you’re simply a heretic, a false teacher that Jesus has very harsh words for. You are properly labelled a damnable heretic.
You always do, heretic troll.
“...but on the other hand it is doubtful that a genuine heretic such as brojoke would be exposed.”
Spirited: True. On the other hand, the BroJoes of this world provide ample opportunity for penetrating analysis and exposure of vain, self-refuting, nihilistic thoughts, philosophies, theories, systems, etc. for the edification of truth-seekers.
Is there some kind of points system? All I got was "heretic".
boop quoting Vogelin:
If I've ever seen that term, "immanentize the eschaton" before, it surely fell into a memory black-hole... ;-).
The idea is familiar, of course, since it is the claimed goal of liberal ideology.
So now I "get" that "Gnosticism" is simply a term of derision thrown at our "immanitizers" liberals.
Fine.
But in the annals of smack-down terms, "Gnosticism" has got to be one of the least effective.
Nobody even knows what the word means, much less how it might apply to our materialistic socialistic-liberals.
And for us to accuse liberals of wishing to bring about "heaven on earth" seems to me less a put-down than underhanded compliment.
And most people don't "get" the underhanded part.
Furthermore, if the term "Gnosticism" can refer to anything modern, it must surely be some form of modern "spiritualism", and yet our liberl-socialism is self-avowedly based on Marx's dialectic materialism.
And indeed, isn't unrelenting materialism the great sin decried by everyone including the new Pope?
Yes, I "get" the part about "Gnosticism considers its knowledge not subject to criticism.... " and that is one claim made by anti-evolutionists against science.
But the problem described is one common to all of human nature: once we have settled a question in our own minds, we may not always wish to revisit the process of exactly how we got there.
Nevertheless, all such scientific processes are available for study, somewhere.
So if, somewhere along the line, your Eric Voegelin ran into some particularly obtuse Marxist professors, that doesn't prove their entire materialistic ideology is somehow ironically based on Gnosticism.
Do you see my point? How can you with straight-face accuse a materialist of being Gnostic? Doesn't compute.
Indeed, if you accuse your dialectical-materialist professor of being too "Gnostic", meaning "spiritual", might not the good professor take that as a compliment?
Sure, I "get" that you need a term of derision to label opponents with, but to me at least, "Gnostic" doesn't fill the bill.
Why not use something simpler, more direct, like, oh, say: "dufus"?
Works for me.
Calm down, FRiend.
Yes, I "get" that you are going nuts here, and need some serious counseling, which in no way can I provide you.
Further, this is a site for adults, not children, and so, FRiend, you are responsible for your own insanity, not us.
But let me ask this: will it help your mental disturbances if I reassure you that nobody on this thread has "denied the deity of Christ" -- assuming, of course, that none of our other posters are Jewish.
So far as I know, everybody here who claims to be Christian acknowledges what the Bible says about Jesus -- that He is Son of God, Son of Man, Messiah/Christ and other such terms of respect.
Now FRiend, if that doesn't satisfy you personally, if it creates emotional problems for you, if you detect "heresy" and can't deal with it in a reasonable, civilized & FRiendly way, then again I suggest to you counseling, and maybe finding a different forum or site to express your outrage at the world.
Please provide quote where I said any such thing.
Please post quote which says any such thing.
I understand that you need help, and you need to get over this, FRiend.
penetrating analysis
***If what brojoke has been doing here qualifies as penetrating analysis, then the whole field of historical research is doomed.
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