Posted on 01/15/2016 7:52:36 PM PST by The Ignorant Fisherman
How tragic it is when a fallen human being gives themselves totally over to the base and lawless practices of this little fallen world and sell their souls seeking to find satisfaction and contentment by living a godless and lawless life. In the end of one's godless vanity there is an ETERNAL price to be paid which has now become a HORRIFIC SOBERING REALITY (Psalm 14:1-3, Mark 8:36-37, Rom. 3; 5:12-21, Gal. 6:7-8, Jude 1:11-13, Rev. 20:11-15).
For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? Mark 8:36-37
David Bowie's death this week has multitudes around the world reflecting on his existence here in time. Mr. Bowie was one of society's arch godless trendsetters who pushed the limits and boundaries of Almighty God's moral absolutes like none other for his time (Rom. 1:18-32). David was a mighty lawless tool and lewd vanguard in the hands of the god of this world in seeking to transform and destroy the Judeo/Christian culture worldwide (Matt. 7:16-18, Rom. 1:18-32, Jude 1:8-13,18). David Bowie is a trendsetter hero and worshiped by millions throughout the world for his anti - Creator trendsetting ways. What brief things I just shared about David Bowie is well known by all and his opinions and thoughts about Almighty God are his own judge on this matter.
(Excerpt) Read more at theignorantfishermen.com ...
What you say doesn’t, once again, acknowledge the whole New Testament - God’s words, not man’s.
I will say that my replies acknowledge every last word in the New Testament, every single one, to the very best of my understanding, without the will to deceive or be in error, or to add meanings that aren’t there, or to subtract from anything that is. That’s my commitment.
May God’s will be done on earth, as it is in Heaven.
Could you tell us what your interpretation of the word ‘flesh’ is, as it is translated down to us in the NT?
Do you think that it actually refers to the human physicality; or might it refer to something else, such as ‘materialism’, in the true sense of that word?
I believe that when Jesus spoke of ‘flesh’ he was referring to the human proclivity to accept ‘matter’ and its conditions/laws in a 3-D space, as a reality that humans THINK that they can’t overcome or affect...
-JT
I’m very sorry; but I’m one of those apostates who believe that we don’t KNOW who actually wrote the ‘whole New Testament’ - I certainly don’t believe that God wrote it all - I don’t think God comes down to earth and takes pen to paper! But I believe that a lot of the writings were by men inspired by Divine Mind.
And we don’t know what the ‘whole New Testament’ is, because the writings were so goofed-around-with over the centuries.
I take my messages and wisdom from the purported words of Jesus. And you know what? I don’t even care whether this guy ‘Jesus’ ever lived. To borrow from and bastardize Voltaire: “If Jesus had never existed, someone would have invented him.”
It was the way of the future, and the way TO the future. And, it has stood us in very good stead!
-JT
Heck yeah I judge that satanic crap!
The Bilbe says that he who is spiritual judgeth ALL things.
Yes, she’s a Muslim. Wonder if she has committed FGM on her daughter yet?
You are a sad & sick woman.
It’s my understanding that Muslim Somalis have the highest rate on FGM in the world.
Dear friend, you have no judgment on the matter... go back to your relativistic world.
If he states NO! Then it is no right...??? simple enough..
Again David Bowie judged David Bowie... Its not hard.. don’t be a hater...
Is this not a forum??? It is to talk about and debate is it not?? People like you who slander people like me are offended because of what the Word of God simply teaches... All I did was quote Scripture not me...
That’s fine do what you like my friend.. you personally and publicly choose to reject the Word of God in it’s simplest form.. You have just made a judgment and have placed yourself out here for people to say... yes LC is not a believer of the simple teaches of the Bible. Is that a safe judgement...?
I hate no one and talk in pleasant tones to discuss a topic... is that evil? How do you share your opinions?
Sorry that the Bible got you all riled up...
If you are leaning conservative... that must mean you a moderate establishment GOPer.. That speaks volumes. spiritual relativism and moral relativism are moderate traits.
Shalom!
I couldn’t get back to this conversation sooner, but there isn’t much else for me to say at this point except that you don’t believe in the Bible, by your own admission, or really in Jesus Christ, either. He was a man and is a useful myth is what you choose to believe, is that correct?
My point was that it doesn’t/wouldn’t matter. I would never say that anything is impossible (”with God all things are possible”) and to say so would be as foolish as saying that I intellectually KNOW the truth about Christ. But whatever else Christ may or may not be/have been, he represents Principle, and the Principle is what matters.
One of my favorite philosophers is Thomas Troward, and this is from his Dore Lectures, 1909:
“Now it is as such an external manifestation of the Divine ideal that the Christ of the Gospels is set before us. I do not wish to dogmatize, but I will only say that the more clearly we realize the nature of the creative process on the spiritual side the more the current objections to the Gospel narrative lose their force; and it appears to me that to deny that narrative as a point-blank impossibility is to make a similar affirmation with regard to the power of the Spirit in ourselves.
“You cannot affirm a principle and deny it in the same breath; and if we affirm the externalizing power of the Spirit in our own case, I do not see how we can logically lay down a limit for its action and say that under highly specialized conditions it could not produce highly specialized effects. It is for this reason that St. John puts the question of Christ manifest in the flesh as the criterion of the whole matter (I. John iv., 2).
“If the Spirit can create at all then you cannot logically limit the extent or method of its working; and since the basis of our expectation of individual expansion is the limitless creative power of the Spirit, to reject the Christ of the Gospels as an impossibility is to cut away the ground from under our own feet.
“It is one thing to say “I do not understand why the Spirit should have worked in that way”—that is merely an honest statement of our present stage of knowledge, or we may even go the length of saying that we do not feel convinced that it did work in that way—that is a true confession of our intellectual difficulty—but certainly those who are professedly relying on the power of the Spirit to produce external results cannot say that it does not possess that power, or possesses it only in a limited degree: the position is logically self-destructive.
“What we should do therefore, is to suspend judgment and follow the light as far as we can see it, and bye-and-bye it will become clearer to us. There are, it appears to me, occult heights in the doctrine of Christ designed by the Supreme Wisdom to counteract corresponding occult depths in the Mystery of Darkness. I do not think it is at all necessary, or even possible, for us to scale these heights or fathom those depths, with our present infantile intelligence, but if we realize how completely the law of our being receives its fulfilment in Christ as far as we know that law, may we not well conceive that there are yet deeper phases of that law the existence of which we can only faintly surmise by intuition? Occasionally just the fringe of the veil is lifted for some of us, but that momentary glance is enough to show us that there are powers and mysteries beyond our present conception. But even there Law reigns supreme, and therefore taking Christ as our basis and starting-point, we start with the Law already fulfilled, whether in those things which are familiar to us or in those realms which are beyond our thought, and so we need have no fear of evil. Our starting-point is that of a divinely ordained security from which we may quietly grow into that higher evolution which is the fulfilment of the law of our own being.”
-JT
Do you acknowledge Jesus Christ to be God’s Son and the Savior of the world, needed because our sin, and YOUR Savior for the sake of your own sins?
I read your excerpt from Thomas Troward.
Thomas Troward - “Thomas Troward (1847–1916) was an English author whose works influenced the New Thought Movement and mystic Christianity.”
“The New Thought movement is a philosophical movement which developed in the United States in the 19th century, following the teachings of Phineas Quimby. There are numerous smaller groups, most of which are incorporated in the International New Thought Alliance.[1][2]
“The concept of New Thought (sometimes known as “Higher Thought”[3]) promotes the ideas that Infinite Intelligence, or God, is everywhere, spirit is the totality of real things, true human selfhood is divine, divine thought is a force for good, sickness originates in the mind, and “right thinking” has a healing effect.[4][5]”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Troward
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Thought
“The concept of New Thought (sometimes known as “Higher Thought”[3]) promotes the ideas that Infinite Intelligence, or God, is everywhere, spirit is the totality of real things, true human selfhood is divine, divine thought is a force for good, sickness originates in the mind, and “right thinking” has a healing effect.[4][5]”
_________________________________________________
Yep, that’s about it.
Another thing I often contemplate: the life of Jesus seems to very closely repeat key events/facts in the lives of previous, much older Saviors. Some people take this as a reason to discount the Gospel story, considering it just a re-hashing of pagan folklore.
On the contrary, I find it to be an even greater reason to try and understand what the story *means* and is saying to us: where there’s smoke, there’s fire. I don’t believe the truth of it was first introduced to the world with the story of Jesus, but that every time it is introduced it comes in a more accessible way, and Jesus may have been the ultimate culmination of God’s revealed truth to us.
I can only answer your question by saying that I acknowledge the *meaning* of Jesus Christ as God’s Son and Our Savior. His word is the way to the ‘law of perfect liberty’. (And while I probably don’t interpret his words quite the same way that you do in every respect, I’m glad that you have something that works for you.)
-JT
You skipped over mention of sin in your reply.
As I wrote previously, I probably don’t interpret terms in the Bible in the same way that you apparently do. I don’t believe, for instance, in ‘Hell’ or in an entity called ‘Satan’, or in ‘eternal damnation’ imposed upon us for our errors by an “accountant” God. I believe that these are symbols and metaphors for states of minds. Jesus can be our Savior, because He taught the way out of those states and into ever more refined ones.
Not many people know a lot about what we call “New Thought” or “Religious Science”; and most of what they ‘know’ isn’t true. (A lot of people lump it in with all the vague ‘New Age’ ideas, and assume all sorts of stuff about it that is incorrect; and unfortunately there are now quite a lot of shallow writers on the subject.)
I always suggest Thomas Troward, to anyone who is interested, as one of the greatest writers on the philosophy - also Fenwicke Holmes and Emmet Fox. They explain it much better and at far greater length than I would ever presume to try to do.
You know, there’s a person on FR who has a tagline that tickles me whenever I see it; it goes, “I can explain it to you, but I can’t understand it for you”.
If one truly wants to understand a new idea, they have to actually engage it in an open-minded way, at least temporarily. To understand the interpretation of the Gospels that underpins New Thought, you in particular would have to suspend your emphasis on Sin for a bit, and dwell more on the promises of love, forgiveness, charity - the *positive* side of the teachings of Jesus. Then these interpretations of words like Sin, Hell, etc., as Religious Science views them, would become clear.
I’m not sure you would really want to do that; it’s certainly not for everybody. But if you ever do, the libraries are full of literature.
-JT
Plain and simple, it is all a matter of sin. Someone either admits that they are a sinner, or they don’t.
I didn’t grow up in a Bible-believing Christian family, either. I’ve read enough in my life about other beliefs, including so-called “higher” ones.
If you don’t believe in sin, then why do you have anger towards anyone, including on this thread?
Everyone has ‘sinned’, in both my and your interpretation.
If anything I’ve said has seemed ‘angry’, it’s because I don’t like seeing peoples’ feelings hurt, especially in a public forum. The sensibilities of some people here were offended by the OP which jumped all over David Bowie for his ‘sin’, before the man was even cold in his grave; and when they expressed that offense, they were basically called names.
I don’t mind ‘Bible Thumping’, if that’s someone’s thing - but I do mind, when the Bible is thumped over someone else’s head.
I think we’re finished here, now.
-JT
You may be finished here, but remember that you don’t have the standing to speak for me and declare unilaterally that “we” are.
Someone can also choose not to reply further and say so, but if you also argue something, as you did in your last post, you should not try to shut down replies to it.
Now I’ll say this, what is your interpretation of “sin,” as you call it. And do you believe in sin, period, without the scare quotes.
And did some of what your wrote just SEEM “angry,” or was it actually what it seemed, anger?
On the OP and how some reacted, I will say in response that I don’t believe people actually reacted in anger due to Bowie recently dying.
ANY - ANY criticism whatsoever of popular entertainment, at any time - is met similarly, with similar ZEAL to attack anyone who would dare criticize the entertainment, or any other worldly custom that’s seemed to be enjoyable. It is also treated as sacred, no matter the circumstances, although often but not always some version of “it’s not an appropriate time” is put forward.
And as a Christian, meaning that I take the Lord Jesus Christ to be my Savior, and who is God’s Son who became man, died on the Cross for my sins and the sin of others, and was resurrected, which is the only meaning of Christian, it is troubling to see Christians who don’t at all mind strangers, whom they have no personal connection to whatsoever, spend their lives not knowing Jesus Christ, as long as that person delivers worldly entertainment. As if somehow being some sort of artist of popular acclaim is an acceptable substitute for being a Christian.
I don’t see reactions like this, for either living or dead celebrities, to have anything to do with the people who have died themselves.
It’s all about their product, and the perceived loss to the self of the “mourner”.
While something like a million people dying was a statistic to Stalin, but one person’s death a tragedy, a celebrity’s death is often a cause for personal mourning, and their life and death is accounted more than many or most of the “ordinary” people in someone’s actual life.
But what is actually known of the celebrity is just fantasy, a deceptive and false effect in the cold, callous, and exploitative world of human FAME.
One noteworthy example is how there was so much criticism of William Shatner for not attending Leonard Nimoy’s funeral. Who even knows the actual personal and REAL, not fictional, relationships involved?
What Jesus instructed is “to seek first the Kingdom of God,” and He also said, though He put it in the form of a question, that it was no profit to a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul.
You’re going to have to carry on. I’m sure someone will want to respond to you, but I’ve spent as much time on this as I can now.
-JT
I was responding to things you wrote.
If you don’t want to discuss something anymore, either don’t respond at all, or say just that, that you’re through with the discussion, and only that.
But don’t respond to the points being discussed, and then in the same post declare the discussion is over.
Now, unless you respond with something invites another response from me, I’m also finished with our conversation here.
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