Posted on 09/20/2013 4:29:03 AM PDT by spirited irish
I don’t object to however you chose to read it, but I don’t believe my understanding equates to “God Damned Heresy”?
***If this were the only verse in the bible that points to the deity of Jesus, you might possibly have a point. But there are dozens of verses and you need to turn yourself into a heretic pretzel to view them as you do. So, yes, your understanding equates to “God Damned Heresy”.
No gymnastics required at all,
***There’s tons of gymnastics. I posted a pile of evidence to you and your objection was that there was so much that it was like a whole book. Like I said earlier, if this were the only verse in the bible that points to the deity of Jesus, you might possibly have a point. But there are dozens of verses and you need to turn yourself into a heretic pretzel to view them as you do. You are a God damned heretic.
That’s why I’m here defending them.
***You are here defending heretical views because you believe them; you are a heretic yourself.
I don’t believe that difference requires you to label such beliefs as “Damnable Heresy”.
***You are denying that Jesus is God Himself. It is simple heresy.
Since our Founders and millions of “restorationists”
***beautiful euphemism for “heretics”
Christians shared similar beliefs, I’m asking you to treat them with forbearance and respect, in Free Republic News/Activism.
***Jesus properly calls you a ‘viper’ and a ‘son of satan’. No doubt you’d be asking Him to treat your openly damned heresies with “respect and forbearance”. He doesn’t hold that standard and neither should we.
BJK response: “God Damned Heretic” is a pretty strong opinion,
***Jesus has a strong opinion as well, calling you a son of satan.
FRiend, I am here to request that religious views similar to those of our Founders and today’s “restorationists” Christians should be treated with forbearance and respect on Free Republic, especially in News/Activism.
***Jesus properly calls you a ‘viper’ and a ‘son of satan’. No doubt you’d be asking Him to treat your openly damned heresies with “respect and forbearance”. He doesn’t hold that standard and neither should we.
As for “Corrected”, sure. “Debated”, sure. Labeled as a “God Damned Heretic”, no, not on Free Republic’s News/Activism forum.
***Take it up with Jesus, Who labels you a ‘son of satan’.
A reckless charge of “God Damned Heresy” is at least the religious equivalent of a racist’s “N-word”.
***Bowlsheet. The title of the thread itself calls out “Damnable Heresy”. My charge is not reckless. I tried to openly debate you about historicity across several hundred posts before I realized you are simply a heretic.
It is even more offensive (since we are told that some lovers call each other the “N-word”), it’s as historically murderous (compare the number of former slaves murdered in this country to heretics worldwide),
***Jesus himself calls you a ‘son of satan’. No doubt you would place the accusation of “historically murderous” at His feet for saying such a thing.
and with the obvious intention to bring down God’s everlasting rebuke of those who take a different view of certain biblical texts.
***You deserve “ God’s everlasting rebuke” for pushing your heresies.
I am here to request that such people be treated with forbearance and respect, especially in Free Republic’s News/Activism forum.
***Jesus properly calls you a ‘viper’ and a ‘son of satan’. No doubt you’d be asking Him to treat your openly damned heresies with “respect and forbearance”. He doesn’t hold that standard and neither should we.
I’m here to request that people who hold views similar to our Founding Fathers, and “restorationists”
***Euphemism: they’re simply “heretics”
Christians today, be treated with forbearance and respect on Free Republic’s News/Activism forum.
***Jesus properly calls you a ‘viper’ and a ‘son of satan’. No doubt you’d be asking Him to treat your openly damned heresies with “respect and forbearance”. He doesn’t hold that standard and neither should we.
But in fact, you’ve presented no evidence and quoted no words to support your case. The evidence and words you do present support mine.
***Round & round the heretic troll goes. Saying it over and over doesn’t make it any more true; such tactics are not allowed on religion forum threads and that’s why we don’t see you over there. You’re just a heretic.
I, of course, am totally satisfied with your understandings — they work for you, and they are not a problem for me.
***Then take your properly labelled heresies elsewhere.
I don’t reject you, I don’t condemn you, I don’t call you “God Damned Heretics”, I know you are sincere and well intentioned in your Christian beliefs.
***Jesus had strong words for false teachers as yourself, so I follow Him in that. You’re a son of satan. I do not believe you are sincere nor well intentioned in your beliefs that you so strongly desire to have fall under the christian umbrella. But they don’t because they are heretical false teachings and they’re condemned by God.
I am only here to request the same forbearance and respect for those who — as many Founders and “restorationists” — believe(d) differently.
***Jesus properly calls you a ‘viper’ and a ‘son of satan’. No doubt you’d be asking Him to treat your openly damned heresies with “respect and forbearance”. He doesn’t hold that standard and neither should we.
GarySpFc: “You are willing to accept Him as only a man, and that goes to the heart of the problem. When your Jesus speaks he voices an opinion…nothing more. He is simply a philosopher, with empty words.”
FRiend, I’ve said no such things, you are only imagining them. What I actually believe is what I think the New Testament clearly presents: the divinity of Christ (Son of God) and the Unity of God.
***Pantheism. Heresy.
Yes, I “get” that from some theological perspective or other, this might be a problem for some people.
That’s why I don’t ask you to accept my beliefs.
***Jesus properly calls you a ‘viper’ and a ‘son of satan’. No doubt you’d be asking Him to treat your openly damned heresies with “respect and forbearance”. He doesn’t hold that standard and neither should we.
I would not be kindly disposed to someone calling my mother a slut. Likewise, I am not kindly disposed to those with anti-Christ views.
***Well said.
Looks like you’re the last chance to salvage the trap.
YIKES!!!! "Unacceptable ideology???" What is going on here?
The Framers were not "ideologues."
Among other things, the Framers — faced with the weighty challenge of how to make a free government work — banked the fires of zealotry and political millenarianism in favor of latitudinarian faith and a quasi-Augustinian understanding of the two cities. They humbly bowed before the inscrutable mystery of history and the human condition with its suffering and imperfection and accepted watchful waiting for fulfillment of a Providential destiny know only to God — whose "kingdom is not of this world" (John 18:36). But in addition to understanding government as necessary coercive restraint on the sinful creature ... they reflected a faith that political practice in perfecting the image of God in every man through just domination was itself a blessed vocation and the calling of free men: It was stewardship in imitation of God's care for His freely created and sustained world, one enabled solely by grace bestowed on individuals and a favored community. They embraced freedom of conscience as quintessential liberty for a citizenry of free men and women, as had John Milton long before who exclaimed in Areopagitica: "Give me liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties." [Which when you come to think of it is pretty silly; one cannot execute liberty of conscience when one is dead. So LIFE must come "first" among the God-granted human liberties.] And, for better or worse, they followed Milton (as well as Roger Williams and John Locke) in heeding his plea "to leave the church to itself" and "not suffer the two powers, the ecclesiastical and the civil, which are so totally distinct, to commit whoredom together." The correlate was religious toleration within limits, as necessary for the existence of a flourishing civil society whose free operations minimized tampering with religious institutions or dogmas. Yet the historically affirmed vocation of a special people under God still could be pursued through active devotion to public good, liberty, and justice solidly grounded in Judeo-Chrisatian transcendentalism. Citizens were at the same time self-consciously pilgrims, aware that this world was not their home. It is this ever-present living tension with the divine Ground above all else, perhaps, that has made the United States so nearly immune politically to the ideological maladies that have characterized much of the modern world, such as fascism and Marxism and, lately, fanatical jihadism.If we are in search of ideologues, I imagine we will find none among the Framers. Their genius was Godly and practical at the same time: They all stood on the same ground of Being; that is to say, on the Creator God and the liberties and commensurate/corresponding duties He imposes on every human person equally, regardless of "station" in life. This was their idea of the public good, the prescription for the flourishing of individuals and society itself, and the fulfillment of divine Justice as much as possible in this world.
Like all of politics, the Founders' solutions were compromises, offensive to utopians and all other flaming idealists. But this may be no detraction from their work, since despite all national vicissitudes, we still strive to keep our republic — under the world's oldest existing Constitution.... — Ellis Sandoz, Give Me Liberty: Studies in Constitutionalism and Philosophy, South Bend: St. Augustine Press, 2013, p. 32 f.
Now it seems to me the problem spirited irish and BroJoeK have been having on this thread is that the two do not stand on the same Ground of Being. What to BJK is a party game, a divertissement, an exercise in word-play is to spirited irish finally a matter of life and death. BJK senses spirited's alarm and passion regarding the cultural destruction and deformation that seems inexorably to be destroying our free society and thinks it's funny. So he has been working overtime to depict spirited as an object of ridicule.
Doesn't seem very "Christian" to me — though BJK occasionally murmurs that he is really a Christian himself.
For my part, I see very clearly the reasons for spirited's alarm. I share her concerns.
The so-called "Cartesian split" is no longer merely a hypothetical tinker-toy for the mind to play with: It has become the main presupposition of a despiritualized, unthinking populace utterly ignorant of human history and culture — theological, philosophical, religious, social — and the judicious common sense experience of living individual persons, then and now.
So of course spirited is worried. BJK, to you I say: Keep on dreaming. One can be a "star" in one's own dream world.
Though I don't see what good that sort of thing does for the maintenance of a free society governed by the Rule of Law, not by the Rule of Men.
Just some thoughts. I wish you both — and all the pingees — a HAPPY, HEALTHY, AND PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR!!!
kerping
Broj: Now, it seems to me that should be a matter of grave concern to “the community at large”, that both Kevmo and spirited should be sternly scolded for not only intemperate language, but unacceptable ideology. — BJK
BBoop: YIKES!!!! “Unacceptable ideology???” What is going on here? The Framers were not “ideologues.”
***But brojo wasn’t saying framers had unacceptable ideology, he was saying Spirited & Kevmo have unacceptable ideology.
Clearly, the true reason for your outrage - even the psuedo-suppressed version you are attempting to convey - is that, if Kevmo had used any other term to describe those such as you, who declare Christological doctrines contrary to the orthodox established and universally held version, you would probably not be this outspoken over it and wouldn't feel the need to keep demanding everyone agree with you to force Kevmo to take back his accusation of GDH.
You claim to be simply asking for respect and forbearance for yourself and the other 50 million or so you say agree with your view as well as the few Founders whom you presume would as well. Do you think it is possible to be respectful of contrary views and still be able to call heretical views what they are - heresy? Or do you think truth is really relative and there IS no absolute truth? What about the hundreds of millions of Christians who do follow the orthodox view of Christ? Is it that word, heretic, that really gets your goat or is it that you don't think anyone else is entitled to use it against anyone else? Here's a little bit about the word from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heresy:
According to Titus 3:10 a divisive person should be warned two times before separating from him. The Greek for the phrase "divisive person" became a technical term in the early church for a type of "heretic" who promoted dissension.[6] In contrast correct teaching is called sound not only because it builds up in the faith, but because it protects against the corrupting influence of false teachers.[7]
The use of the word "heresy" was given wide currency by Irenaeus in his tract Contra Haereses (Against Heresies) to describe and discredit his opponents during the early centuries of the Christian community. He described the community's beliefs and doctrines as orthodox (from ὀρθός, orthos "straight" + δόξα, doxa "belief") and the Gnostics' teachings as heretical. He also pointed out the concept of apostolic succession to support his arguments.
It appears to me that your objection is to anyone having a right to call you a heretic and, by extension, any of the Founders who might have held views similar to yours, yet, there is a basis for being able to determine orthodoxy and, by contrast, heresy. Would you be so vocal against this right if a Muslim came onto the forum and decried the same treatment because he states Jesus was NOT the Son of God but only a prophet of God excelled by Mohamed? Could you bring yourself to call that heresy and the one who spoke it a heretic? Or would you insist that his ideas also be given respect and forbearance? Can anything qualify as heresy in your book?
I will not ask Kevmo to retract his statement - as it isn't my business to moderate others here. If the actual Moderator hasn't done so after all this time - and your constant repetition of it - I would guess you probably have to deal with it. As others have also noted, you will also have to deal with Almighty God for the choices you make about what you believe about Jesus Christ. I may have missed it, but I don't recall you actually defining who or what you believe Jesus to be. If, according to you, he is not Almighty God incarnate, then who is he? Is he a created being, like an angel? Please be specific - we like that here.
Good grief! Those “Jesus is not God” guys still going at it? They deny all the scripture proving otherwise at their own peril.
Not only are they still at it on this thread, they’ve started another.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/religion/3107566/posts?page=214#214
Reading comprehension is important on Free Republic, don't you know?
The word "FRiend" is a term of respect from a fellow FReeper.
We are, after all, on the same political team, this is a News/Activism thread, and that's what "FRiend" is intended to remind you of.
If you reject such FRiendship, you also reject a large number of fellow FReepers, at which point the difficulty of winning in politics only grows.
GarySpFc: "Secondly, I disagree with almost everything you have written.
That the Founding Fathers were in the main deeply committed Christians, and not Deists or theistic rationalists I have no doubt, after having spent many years studying their lives and collecting their quotes.
That said, it is your views which we find to be anti-Christian, and the Funding Fathers are not on trial here.
***Posts several quotes to prove point*** "
And yet, since my views are quite similar to many Founders, all the condemnations you heap on yours truly, BroJoeK, also apply to them, and all the Christianity you've discovered in Founders' beliefs also applies to me.
That's why your Founding Father quotes confirm what I've been saying here all-along, and also reflect my personal beliefs.
And yet, our Founders -- in your mind -- are faithful Christians, while I -- in your mind -- am a "God Damned Heretic".
So, there seems to me a problem going on inside your mind, dear FRiend.
But I've "spewed" no heresies, merely taken the New Testament to mean what it says about Jesus.
That brings me to religious opinions which are quite similar to many (not all) of our Founders.
So I am here to defend them against the hatred you spew at me.
MHGinTN: "If I believed you were hung up on comprehending Whom Jesus Is, then I would offer the following little essay which I have offered here at FreeRepublic on occasion of such conundrum:
***posts lengthy Trinitarian exegesis*** "
FRiend I have not denied that you offer up a valid understanding, and I don't criticize you for it.
I merely point out that there are other possible understandings, and that both our Founders and today's "restorationists" Christians had/have different views.
What you will not find, in most Founders, is any explicitly Trinitarian language beyond what the New Testament itself says about Jesus.
That's because our Founders' Christianity was influenced to more-or-less degrees by ideas from Enlightenment Age theism/deism, Unitarian and/or Freemasonry.
These are ideas which you find so objectionable in yours truly, BroJoeK, but seem perfectly happy with in our Founders.
I didn't ask Jim Robinson to change his policy, I do ask you to change your heart about people who disagree with your particular religious doctrines.
Those include not just yours truly, BroJoeK, but also our Founders and many "restorationists" Christians today.
GarySpFc: "Secondly, you ask that we treat your false views of Christ with forbearance ad resect.
I treated you with respect, while carefully examining your views.
I came to the conclusion you are indeed a gnostic, and rejecting the deity of Christ."
Should I take it that history is not your strong point?
Historically, Gnostics did not deny the deity of Christ, rather they insisted on it, to the exclusion of his humanity.
Historically, Gnostics were opposed by people who came to be called "Arians" -- those who took a more literal interpretation of the New Testament, and while accepting Christ's divinity, insisted that Jesus was not God Himself.
Both the Gnostics and Arians were condemned to death by Roman Empire authorities -- beginning at the Council of Nicaea in 325 AD.
Those councils chose a middle ground, which claimed that Jesus was both God and Man, united in a trinity with the Holy Ghost.
Today, after millennia of persecutions, there are virtually no traditional-Gnostics left -- those who said that Jesus was only God, not human.
So whatever "spiritualism" we see today would be better labeled as "neo-Gnostics".
Arianism, however is a different story...
"Arianism" -- the idea that Jesus was something less than God Himself -- has always appealed to many people, including Jews and Muslims.
Among Christians, that was arguably the dominant idea, based on the New Testament, until eradicated by the Roman Empire, beginning in 325 AD.
Then, along with the Protestant Reformation came more anti-Trinitarians, especially amongst the Anabaptists (my ancestors).
Amongst our Founders, very few showed any signs of belief in Trinitarian orthodoxy, so most can be said to be, in effect, Unitarian-Christians.
Today such Arian-Unitarianism goes by the name "restorationists", and includes circa 50 million Christians world-wide.
None of this has anything to do with "Gnosticism".
On this particular thread there has been some speculation as to which of those denominations yours truly, BroJoeK, belongs to -- Mormon? Jehovah's Witnesses?
The answer is: none of the above.
I attend a small rural church, officially Trinitarian, but which seldom if ever dwells on the subject.
We say the non-Trinitarian Apostles Creed, and sermons focus on vital matters like our own sinfulness, and how we can be saved from it, not on the theology of a triune God-head.
GarySpFc: "I would not be kindly disposed to someone calling my mother a slut.
Likewise, I am not kindly disposed to those with anti-Christ views."
I have neither called your mother a "slut" nor expressed a single "anti-Christ view".
I am merely here to request that those who accept the New Testament words on Jesus -- i.e., our Founders, today's "restorationists" -- be treated with forbearance and respect, especially in a Free Republic News/Activism forum.
Why is that too much to ask from GarySpFc?
I respect your translation as a valid understanding for people who wish to see it that way.
But some do not, and historically, that was not the predominant view amongst the earliest Christians.
Many of those Christians saw Jesus as "divine" or "deity" without being God Himself.
It was also arguably not the view of many of our Founders whose Christianity was influenced by Enlightenment Age theism/deism, Unitarian and/or Freemason ideas.
They are the reason I'm here defending such "God Damned Heretics" against spurious accusations.
As previously discussed, that same "fullness" is found in Ephesians 3:19, where it applies to all Christians, without suggesting that all Christians are somehow part of a God-head.
The fact remains that there is no explicitly Trinitarian language in the New Testament, and that trinitarianism is an interpretation, valid certainly, but for some not necessarily the only valid interpretation.
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