Posted on 11/24/2009 4:10:44 PM PST by NYer
Statistics released Nov. 24 by the FBI show hate crimes against religious groups increased by 9% from 2007 to 2008.
USA Today reported that in 2008, there 1,519 incidents against people based on their religion, the statistics show.
The figures reveal that while anti-Jewish attacks made up the highest percentage of the attacks (17%), there was an increase in hate crimes against Catholics — 75, up from 61 in 2007.
Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, said the increase may be due to the Church becoming more vocal on life issues such as abortion and homosexual unions.
As the Catholic bishops take a stronger stance, he said, it filters down to the laity, and as more traditional Catholics become more vocal, they become targets for those who disagree with them.
“Unfortunately, it spills over into violence,” he said, adding that it’s just going to get worse before it gets better.
“I’ve never seen our country so culturally divided and so polarized,” he said. “These issues are not going away.”
I’m not a papist, Dr E - not for Rome, and not for Geneva. That is why, when I didn’t know what to think, I decided to list the scriptures with predestined or elect on a sheet of paper, then read them. With the surrounding paragraphs.
I gave the bulk of the predestination scriptures in my post. Folks can read them, and decide for themselves - Sola Scriptura...if it is critical to knowing or obeying Christ, it will be taught with sufficient clarity that a normal person reading diligently will be able to figure it out.
And I discover that A) it isn’t a particularly critical doctrine, since it is covered in far less detail than baptism, the Eucharist, repentance, being born again, etc, and B) what is found in the scripture is clearer than what is often taught by men.
I’ve given scriptures that explicitly teach that God desires all men to come to repentance and be saved. This isn’t something a Magisterium unfolded at a later date, but scripture. There are others, but 1 Tim 2 is pretty straightforward:
“1 Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, 2 for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. 3 For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, 4 who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. 5 For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time, 7 for which I was appointed a preacher and an apostle—I am speaking the truth in Christ and not lying—a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth.”
I find it hard to reconcile that with the idea that God created the large majority of men so that he could damn them to hell. That the large majority of men are going to be damned is undoubted, but that is not because God desires it. Therefor, something else must come into play.
I also find what seems a pretty explicit teaching about the role of predestination in Romans 8:
“28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. 29 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. 30 Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.”
The ones he foreknew, he predestined to be conformed to Jesus. And these he called, justified, and glorified.
And John 6 is no more about predestination than it is about transubstantiation. It is about Jesus having come from heaven, and those who believe will be saved. He is the bread of life - those who come will not go hungry, and those who believe will not thirst. Oh - and I didn’t take Calvin out of context. You gave me your interpretation, and I gave you what Calvin wrote in his commentary on that verse.
As Calvin noted, we are commanded to repent and believe. Faith brings an internal conversion, that changes the external behavior...but
“...as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up; that whosoever believeth may in him have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God sent not the Son into the world to judge the world; but that the world should be saved through him. He that believeth on him is not judged: he that believeth not hath been judged already, because he hath not believed on the name of the only begotten Son of God.”
There is no claim on my part that this happens apart from God, only that God desires all men to be saved, but all men are not, so God must not force men to believe, but condemns them if they refuse.
Sola Scriptura, Dr E. I already know Calvin wasn’t fond of Baptists. That bothers me about as much as it bothers me to know that the Popes of old killed Baptists, and King James wanted nonconformists out of England.
I agree God foreknew. I agree he predestined those he foreknew to be like Jesus. I agree he calls those he foreknew & predestined, and those are the ones who are justified and glorified. I agree that salvation is the work of God, not man.
All I deny is that God forces men to reject him, and then punishes them for what he forced them to do. I am unaware of any scripture that teaches that...but I’m willing to be taught otherwise. Scripture.
“Neither Judaism nor Islam has an official theology. It is pretty much left to up to the individual to believe whatever he or she thinks is right.”
Except with Islam, they will cut off your head if they think you believe wrong...it isn’t exactly a free choice! I’ve been to Afghanistan, kosta50. Men will cut their wives throats if an infidel doctor sees her while saving her life.
Not a lot of Jews, Baptists or Lutherans do that...
I don't know about the Jews or Baptists, but Lutherans would.....
As you might well be aware, under the Taliban, OB/GYN care became a counter-revolutionary act. In the sick scheme of their regime, women could not avail themselves of a male OB/GYN due to strictures concerning modesty, but women were not permitted to work as OB/GYN because they were women. Gynecological care required Underground-Railroad-methods of secrecy, if it was available at all.
And Obama is going to end up yielding the field to those bastards.
In thast sense, Islam is not much different than Judaism. They are both book religions. Neither Judaism nor Islam has an official theology. It is pretty much left to up to the individual to believe whatever he or she thinks is right.
In that sense, being a book rleigion, Protestantism is structurally a close relative, if not an imitation of Judaism and Islam with a Christian label.
Very true!
One verse says God desires that all men believe and dozens of verses proclaim that Christ saves only those whom God has given Him without regard to their work, even their work of faith. Regeneration precedes faith.
"And when the Gentiles heard this, they were glad, and glorified the word of the Lord: and as many as were ordained to eternal life believed." -- Acts 13:48
Again, there was nothing in the paragraphs you gave from Calvin to support your thesis against election, while the excerpt from Calvin's sermon I cited explicitly affirmed God's predestining election based on nothing in men but on their good pleasure alone.
You bring up your antipathy for Calvin because of his affirmation of infant baptism. I maintain that is exactly why the Anabaptists were created - to splinter and weaken the Reformation through the denial of a Scriptural sacrament and to inject a passivity into the battle Protestants were waging throughout Europe while at the same time Rome hoped to erase the truth of God's election by grace instead of the magisterium's election by works.
As the-conscience wrote, faith did not become the new law. Grace did. Free, unmerited grace.
“Aaron’s Rod Blossoming” by George Gillespie online here...
Lol
The Pharaoh.
Acts 13? You mean, “38”Therefore let it be known to you, brethren, that through Him forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you, 39 and through Him everyone who believes is freed from all things, from which you could not be freed through the Law of Moses.”
Oops, you want verse 48: “ 46Paul and Barnabas spoke out boldly and said, “It was necessary that the word of God be spoken to you first; since you repudiate it and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we are turning to the Gentiles. 47 “For so the Lord has commanded us, ‘I HAVE PLACED YOU AS A LIGHT FOR THE GENTILES, THAT YOU MAY BRING SALVATION TO THE END OF THE EARTH.’” 48 When the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord; and as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed.”
I said that God does not force men to disbelieve, and we read, “since you repudiate it and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, behold, we are turning to the Gentiles.” Not, “Since God hasn’t picked you”, but “”since you repudiate it and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life”. In that context, we then read, “and as many as had been appointed to eternal life believed.”
But what does it mean to be appointed? Does it mean “those whom He foreknew, He also predestined...and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified”, or does it mean God required them to believe, or does it mean those who believed were saved as God had always planned?
“As many as were ordained to eternal life (osoi hsan tetagmenoi eiv zwhn aiwnion).
Periphrastic past perfect passive indicative of tassw, a military term to place in orderly arrangement. The word “ordain” is not the best translation here. “Appointed,” as Hackett shows, is better. The Jews here had voluntarily rejected the word of God. On the other side were those Gentiles who gladly accepted what the Jews had rejected, not all the Gentiles. Why these Gentiles here ranged themselves on God’s side as opposed to the Jews Luke does not tell us. This verse does not solve the vexed problem of divine sovereignty and human free agency. There is no evidence that Luke had in mind an absolutum decretum of personal salvation. Paul had shown that God’s plan extended to and included Gentiles. Certainly the Spirit of God does move upon the human heart to which some respond, as here, while others push him away.”
http://www.studylight.org/com/rwp/view.cgi?book=ac&chapter=013&verse=048
“One verse says God desires that all men believe and dozens of verses proclaim that Christ saves only those whom God has given Him without regard to their work, even their work of faith.”
Actually, I’ve given more than one, but perhaps you will share those dozens of verses that teaches God damns men, not for rejecting Him, but because he wants to damn them. Or the dozens that say God calls, not those he foreknew, but at random. Or the dozens that say we do not need to repent and believe, because God will choose us without it.
Look at John 6: “ 64”But there are some of you who do not believe “ For Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe, and who it was that would betray Him. 65 And He was saying, “For this reason I have said to you, that no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father.”
WHY does Jesus say, “no one can come to Me unless it has been granted him from the Father”? BECAUSE “Jesus knew from the beginning who they were who did not believe”.
“You bring up your antipathy for Calvin because of his affirmation of infant baptism.”
Where did I do that?
In fact, I regularly post writings from both Calvin and Luther, both of whom practiced infant baptism.
“I maintain that is exactly why the Anabaptists were created - to splinter and weaken the Reformation through the denial of a Scriptural sacrament...”
Really? Just what is the scriptural basis compelling infant baptism?
“instead of the magisterium’s election by works.”
Really? Baptists believe that we are saved by obeying the law? That is news to me! What is the ‘work’ required of us? That we believe. What condemns us? If we do not believe. Even Calvin said we must believe.
“9.3 The human race through the fall into a state of sin, has completely lost all ability of will to perform any spiritual good accompanying salvation. In our natural state we are altogether opposed to spiritual good and dead in sin; we are not able, by our own strength, to convert ourselves, or even to prepare ourselves for conversion. [1]”
Truly, God must intervene or we are lost. But if we refuse to believe, we will still be lost!
Exd 4:21 And the Lord said to Moses, “When you go back to Egypt, see that you do before Pharaoh all the miracles that I have put in your power. But I will harden his heart, so that he will not let the people go.
Exd 7:3 “But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and though I multiply my signs and wonders in the land of Egypt,
Exd 14:4 “And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and he will pursue them, and I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his host, and the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord.”
Exd 14:17 “And I will harden the hearts of the Egyptians so that they shall go in after them, and I will get glory over Pharaoh and all his host, his chariots, and his horsemen.
Romans 1:
“21For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
24Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
26For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. 28And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done.”
kosta50, it looks like the same sort of thing to me. It isn’t that God made Pharaoh refuse, but that he made his refusal more obvious.
A stronger case would come from using parables...””To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of God, but for others they are in parables, so that ‘seeing they may not see, and hearing they may not understand.’ (Luke 8:10)
Still, I think that is more compatible with ‘foreknow’ than ‘make them bad’.
I am glad you found people who take their religion a lot more seriously than we do just plain barbaric. Islam get its ideas from, among other things, the Old Testament. they are the people of the Book, too. But Islam was never humanized by secularism.
The Muslims are only more Levitican in their approach, simply doing what God himself supposedly says we ought to do. Reading the Bible, it is inescapable that God wants parents to kill their disrespecting children. And if a man lay with an animal, not only are we to stone him to death, but the "consenting" animal too!
I am sure, had they been better at preserving their lot, the Jews would have continued to practice their barbaric justice and their barbaric rituals. Not that Christians were much less barbaric (save for the religious rituals), having had their own share of barbaric approach to righteousness all the way up to the 20th century.
Last public execution by guillotine was as in 1937, and the very last prison court-yard guillotining in 1977, just 32 years ago — in civlized France! Our great Middle Eastern friend and ally, Saudi Arabia, still publicly beheads and stones people people to death — biblical style!
But that was not the topic of my comment. I was simply making a statement that Judaism, Islam and Protestantism share lack of theological structure and are pretty much each-man-to-himself religious communities.
Hmmm...close to 300 pages. Although I’m retired, I’m not THAT retired!
Did you have a specific passage in mind?
“I am glad you found people who take their religion a lot more seriously than we do just plain barbaric.”
Yes, I do. One of my coworkers there spent a couple of months working to arrange the return of a teen daughter to her family. She had been injured in a crossfire between our special ops guys and Taliban, and taken to a hospital to save her life. Her family planned to kill her immediately on her return.
It took two months to find a high ranking Afghan politician with enough power who would personally guarantee her safety.
Yep! I consider that to be just plain barbaric!
Mr Rogers, there is no need for you to reprint volumes of scriptures for me. I have read them over and over. A free-lance summary of your opinion and, if you wish, a customary reference will suffice.
It it clear that God hardened the Pharaoh's heart lest he give in to Moses' demands. Pharaoh had to fail in his faith and God made sure of it, just as God exacted his punishment not only on the Pharaoh himsewlf for this failure, but on every Egyptian firstborn (man and animal!).
The Bible also tells us that God sent deceiving spirits to confuse people, to their demise. And even the story of the Garden seems to play the same theme. God places the tree in the middle for one purpose only, to temp. He places the serpent in the garden for one purpose only, to tempt. And when the temptation works, God punishes not only the transgressing humans, but their children—for all generations; and he also punishes the serpent which he put there in order to tempt humans (the serpent was just doing what God wanted him to do!)
Jesus picks Judas knowing he will betray him. He has to betray him. Judas doesn't have a choice in that; he can't possibly change his mind; it is his destiny decided way before he was even born, it is the will of God, God's very immutable plan and desire; Judas is preordained to betray Christ and then he is punished for it. Judas was born with a stamp "bound for hell" on his forehead.
Jesus takes it out on money changers. But it would be a lot more Christ-like if God "opened their eyes" so they could see their transgression, repent and take their tables with them out of the Temple. Instead, Jesus chooses to show off "righteous anger" even though he didn't come, as he says, to judge but to save.
The Bible recounts a story of a grown man who was blind from his birth. Jesus comes and cures him, but only to show the glory of God. The innocent man was deprived of vision all his life just so Jesus could impress the Jews with his divine healing power!
The Bible recounts a story of soldiers transporting the Ark of the Covenant on a cart. The ride is bumpy and the Ark begins to slip. A soldier tries to prevent it from slipping and as soon as he touches the Ark he is killed.
The Protestant hermeneutic take I read on this was: the solder was punished for his lack of faith! Had he had faith in God he would know God would not let the Ark slip off! But God allowed Babylonians to because he was angry with the Jews! I mean the whole thing is just plain asinine.
The Jews are stuck in the Sinai for 40 years because they sent spies to Canaan to investigate the new land. God is incensed about their lack of faith in his protection, and decides to punish all the former slaves by making them stay in the Sinai one year for every day the spies were in Canaan, until "this wicked generation" has passed. the he lets the Jews into Canaan to commit genocide.
The Old Testament is full of examples where God not only hardened people's hearts, but where he actually sets them up for a failure and then punishes them, often indiscriminantly. Typically, their offspring and a whole bunch of innocent peopleare are mjade to suffer and die for being innocent bystanders, people who had nothing to do with the whole thing.
They are barbaric because that's what their scriptures teache them. In their eyes they are just doing what God commanded them to do. I am not sure why Christians didn't continue following Levitican laws given that supposedly God wrote them. You mean to tell me you agree God was wrong when he commands in the Bible that children must be killed by their parents for disrespecting them?
“The Pharaoh.”
kosta, you son of a gun, you are an enigma. Keep it up and you will get an invitation to join the GRPL. Man, you just keep moving; just when I have you partially figured out you come up with observations worthy of Calvin.
“Mr Rogers, there is no need for you to reprint volumes of scriptures for me. I have read them over and over. A free-lance summary of your opinion and, if you wish, a customary reference will suffice.”
Nope. I’ll go on quoting scripture. Keeps both of us focused on the same thing, and helps others who read to know what is going on.
“It it clear that God hardened the Pharaoh’s heart lest he give in to Moses’ demands.”
Not clear to me. I think God decided to punish Pharaoh, and he hardened his heart to make the evil there more obvious, as well as ensuring the Israelites didn’t leave empty handed - and that those they would face later would see God’s hand at work.
“God places the tree in the middle for one purpose only, to temp.”
If man is going to have free moral agency and be able to willingly submit to God, then there must be a possibility of not obeying. Frankly, I’ve been known to do something similar when training horses.
“Jesus picks Judas knowing he will betray him. He has to betray him. Judas doesn’t have a choice in that;”
I’m reminded of my sister complaining because when she voted for Obama, she didn’t expect a wild spending spree. But kosta50, I foreknew Obama! No, I have not forced Obama to waste money, but neither am I surprised. Obama makes his choice, but I knew what it would be.
OK, maybe I believed Obama would make GWB look like a tightwad - but God KNOWS.
“The innocent man was deprived of vision all his life just so Jesus could impress the Jews with his divine healing power!”
He went without vision until he met Jesus, and what he learned - or should have learned - was more valuable than his sight.
“But it would be a lot more Christ-like if God “opened their eyes” so they could see their transgression...”
Ah, so you would have him PREDESTINE their repentance, eh? Sorry, but I’m the one who thinks God doesn’t do that. You’ll have to take this complaint up with someone of like belief.
“the he lets the Jews into Canaan to commit genocide.”
No, he punishes those who had been doing evil for hundreds of years. Judgment is an appropriate act for God. Later, he uses other countries to punish Israel.
This is just another one of the many times we disagree, kosta50.
LOL! :)
It's because he's not married. Married men are open books (check books, dictionaries, Scripture and auto manuals.) 8~)
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