Taijitu
Forum Meta => Acropolis Archive => City Archive => Archive => The United World Church => Topic started by: Templarios on October 29, 2007, 10:51:48 PM
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A building used for prayer, worship, or other public religious services
The 10 Commandments:
1. Thou shalt have no other gods before me
2. Thou shalt not make for thyself an idol
3. Thou shalt not make wrongful use of the name of thy God
4. Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy
5. Honour thy Father and Mother
6. Thou shalt not murder
7. Thou shalt not commit adultery
8. Thou shalt not steal
9. Thou shalt not bear false witness
10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house and wife
These are key beliefs for Christians and so, part of The United World Church.
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What it means to be a Christian
Christian life is lived in relationship with God through Jesus Christ, and in common with other Christians in the church seeking to deepen that relationship and to follow the way that Jesus taught.
For Christians God is understood and known as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
…Father… God is love, caring for creation and for every human being as God's beloved child.
…Son… God is as he has revealed himself to be in the historical person of Jesus Christ. Jesus' life, death and resurrection holds the key to knowing and loving God, and to making sense of life, before and after death.
…and Holy Spirit… God is alive, loving and active today, inspiring faith, justice and truth, sustaining the life of the world, giving spiritual gifts to the church and bearing his spiritual fruit in the world - changed lives and a transformed society.
Finding out more
If you want to wait before contacting anyone, and you'd rather find out more about Jesus online, why not visit www.rejesus.co.uk, and www.christianity.org.uk?
But because Christianity is about relationship and community, the best way to find out about faith and prayer, to raise questions and to get help, is to chat to some Christians here.
You can also learn more about God as he is in Jesus by reading the Bible - why not start with the Gospel of Luke in the New Testament?
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Those 10 commandments were Hebrew, yes? As was Jesus and were the Apostles of Jesus and the first disciples as well, yes? So, what distinguishes the Christians in this Church, is their belief or faith or recognition of Jesus as the Son of God. What I'm wondering is, according to Christian faith is Jesus' relationship to God as his Son, exclusive? Do Christians consider Jesus to be the only begotten child of God?
Or can anyone recognize themselves and others as God's children?
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Think I've answer those questions in other posts in response to your other questions :D
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I think so...basically according to Christians only Jesus is the Son of God , no one else...(if I understood right)...personally, I don't believe this was the message Jesus intended to offer, however.
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"I am the way, the truth and the life. No-one comes to the Father except through me" - Jesus in the Bible.
i think he makes it pretty clear...
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"I am the way, the truth and the life. No-one comes to the Father except through me" - Jesus in the Bible.
i think he makes it pretty clear...
Exactly. He doesn't say," I am the only and exclusive child of God."
Accepting the premise that God is Love, which, as you have previously mentioned is contained in the Bible as well, it might be noteworthy that LOVE does not necessarily operate with the same material means as say apples, oranges or warheads. Jesus * might* have intended that learning to understand one's personal relationship with love, wouldn't exclude his own. That love, when given or shared does not decrease. Instead Jesus' statement has been interpreted to signify specialness- a specialness only attributable to him.
No. Quite frankly, I believe that Jesus wished that people would grow, discover and reveal and share their spirit.
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"No-one comes to the Father except through me"
I think that pretty clear that no-one can get to God (the Father) except through Jesus (him).
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"No-one comes to the Father except through me"
I think that pretty clear that no-one can get to God (the Father) except through Jesus (him).
" God is Love"- so no one else can love? OR IF you love, then you share in the dominion of Christ.
Again, I don't believe the statement was intended to be interpreted as Love being the exclusive relationship of Jesus to God (or vice versa). Interpret it as you will, however. I do.
"That ye may be the children of your Father, which is in heaven" Matt 5/45
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God is love but exluvisly love.
Is to hate or wrong - is that sharing the dominion of the devil/evil/*enter name of bad thing*/Satan etc?
That statement isnt talking about love, it is talking about eternal life through Jesus to God as he died on the cross for my and yours and everyone elses sins.
And what are you saying about that verse in Matthew?
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God is love but exclusively love? Nothing exclusive about Love-that's the point, love is inclusive, NOT exclusive.
The Matt quote certainly implies that Jesus did consider others to be Sons of God.
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God is love but exclusively love? Nothing exclusive about Love-that's the point, love is inclusive, NOT exclusive.
The Matt quote certainly implies that Jesus did consider others to be Sons of God.
God is love yes, and there is very exclusive about love. I love my gf - that is very exclusive. You HAVE to be her or i don't love u. If that is not exclusive - i don't know what is.
Implies? Your post implies that u didn't have enough love as a child but is that true? Implies is a very dangerous word.
God and father are the same - just a translation choice depending on the Greek and Hebrew that was orginally used. I've done some translating of orginal Hebrew and Greek and it is not easy. There are like 20,000 words compared to 5,000. U try choosing the words with does totally depend on ur views and context:
"That ye may be the children of your God, which is in heaven" Matt 5/45
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You don't love your sister because she's not your GF? OR you don't love her AS your GF but you love her.....
Loving your GF might not exclude loving your sister.Does Loving Jesus mean that you can't love your GF? I'm not a would be Vicar but I try to be carefull, to not castrate Him/her/it God by assigning any sort of material exclusivity-limitations to love. Not that I could anyway, I wouldn't desire to.
Gosh, I love my boyfriend, but I also love my parents, my brothers, daughter, my cat, plants, life, friends...I love whatever and whoever, whenever and however I damn well please and it's inclusive...I include them in my love and through my love. What about that original Aramaic- Hebrew translation; 'Love thy neighbor as thyself?'
Jesus, according to the bible, says; That ye maybe the children of your god.....what do YOU think it means?
I understand that 'implies' is a dangerous word...infact, how people choose to interpret the Bible HAS been a dangerous phenomenon for LOTS of folks. One USA woman I spoke to who was trying to justify the invasion of Iraq asked what would I do if they flew airplanes into towers..When I told her the pilots had all been Saudis she responded, " well they're all Muslims." As if, not being Christian, or choosing to share a different was a faith should substantiate killing, for anyone! Let alone Christians...Personally I was pleased as punch when Tibetan Lamas panned Pope John Paul's visit to Tibet some years ago after he'd said only members of the RCC believed in God. The collective silence of the lamas was much more inspiring to me, spiritually, than the Pope's message.
God and Love is the same, as are God and the Father. God, Truth, Love, Father doesn't make a hoot of difference to me which synononym you choose to use. BUT IF God is Truth- than it is the same truth for everyone and everything independent of the interpretations ascribed to it, otherwise it ain't the truth.
Perhaps in that way; Truth-God-Love-the Father-the Creator is exclusive. It is independent of the interpretations assigned to it! Yours, mine or anyone elses.
That God has only one child- is also a Biblical interpretation- one that makes little sense to me and that I don't agree with. " Except ye ...little children" Mt 18:3
"Elder brother (Jesus) RM 8:29
" Be merciful even as YOUR Father Lk 6:36
" God created man" Gn 1:26-27"
" You are his beloved son" Mt 3:17, 17:5
" Your brother....in my name"
" I have loved you as I loved myself" LV 19:18; MT 22:39
" Sons of the living God" JN 6:69
" His beloved Sons" Mt 3:17, 17:5
" Know your brother as yourself" Lv 19:18
" ascend unto your Father" Jn 20:17
" release your brothers" Mt 16.19b, Jn 20:23
So, LOTS of refs to sons plural and likewise, brothers. This makes sense if God is considered Creator. Doesn't make sense when Jesus is considered God's only child. That's ok...as long as I can LOVE and others can tooo, of which I have faith.
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Are you a Jehovah witness cause you sound exactly like them right now with the whole son of God thing?
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Lol..If you read my other posts I already said that I'm agnostic....
Last time the Jehovah witnesses came to my door, I asked them to wait a minute...I went into the livingroom, stripped naked, put on Jimi Hendrix top volume and returned to greet them. They didn't bother trying to 'save' me after that.
You gave me bible quotes, I gave you others...happens that some of the quotes refer to gospels that clearly ennumerate Sons+brothers, as well as inclusive rather than exclusive love...course, you don't have to agree with my point of view, or agree with the bible quotes that support it-I'm not asking you too...jumping to absurd irrelevent conclusions regarding it is also your prerogative.
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No, its just one of the main pillars for a JW is what u are arguing for so i just wanted to check to save time later...
What do you believe will happen when you die?
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No, its just one of the main pillars for a JW is what u are arguing for so i just wanted to check to save time later...
No. JWs divide their interpretations of quotes regarding many biblical references about God's children. I don't agree with their conditions of being born again.
All being God's children is only part of the equation; Love not being exclusive is the other..What of 'Love thy neighbor as thyself' I just don't see the exclusivity...and there's always the good samaritan and the prodigal son.
Specialness and exclusivity regarding love bores me.
Whether if it's from them, your church, or anyone else's.
What do you believe will happen when you die?
I don't believe I'll die. When I depart the illusion of being contained by a body, I imagine that it will feel similar to waking from a dream at first. Perhaps I will pass through a phase of remembering parts of the dream. I've had repetetive dreams as a child where I lived in another family in another country speaking and comprehending another language- complete with a different education and left my body in that, in other dreams etc. So far there's nothing that says that what I perceive now is any more REAL or permanent.
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How does the Church explain the falsity of evolution, despite years and years of evidence to the contrary?
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How does the Church explain the falsity of evolution, despite years and years of evidence to the contrary?
I dont know believe there is a falsity of evolution and what evidence do you have that shows that we all came out the sea etc as evolution so says?
I do believe in small sets of evolution but a fish becomes a lizard becomes a bird becomes a monkey becomes me is just strange.
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A common mistake by creationists is that evolution consists of "I need wings, I'd better grow them" or that we believe that fish just poof turned into monkeys, or that it being called a "theory" of evolution inherently discredits it (Gravity, by the way, is called the "theory of gravity").
As any 7th grader in biology class will tell you, the first life was single-celled organisms. These turned into fish, which evolved legs and became amphibians to adapt to life on land. Amphibians eventually turned to reptiles, such as dinosaurs. Birds evolved from reptiles, and mammals came on the scene at about the same time. Lagomorphs and mammals like them evolved into primates such as the ancestors to the chimpanzee, and humans evolved from there. The idea that a God gave us a "spark" is similarly false; our brains were just smart enough at the right time. A dog who found out how to open a door has not been given an intelligent spark by God; humans are the same. We were lucky, and frankly, humans aren't all that special.
Found in increasing numbers in Africa are small variations that are a lead on the path to humanity; apes skulls evolved for bigger brains, we learned to stand upright, etc. In fact, the list of homo- species alone is huge, not even counting more distant relatives such as australopithecus:
†Homo helmei discovered 1935
†Homo helmei florisbad (Florisbad Man)
†Homo njarasensis discovered 1938
†Homo habilis (Handy Man) discovered 1964
†KNM-ER 1813*
†OH 7 (Jonny's child)
†Homo rudolfensis (Rudolf Man) discovered 1986
†KNM-ER 1470
†Homo ergaster (Working Man) discovered 1975
†Homo ergaster groves
†KNM-ER 992 discovered 1992
†Homo erectus or Archanthropus (Upright Man) discovered by Dubois, 1892
†Homo erectus capensis discovered by Broom & Robinson, 1949
†Homo erectus erectus discovered by Dubois, 1892-1894
†Homo erectus javensis or Pithecanthropus erectus (Java Man) discovered by von Koenigswald, 1936
†Homo erectus hexianensis
†Homo erectus lantianensis discovered 1964
†Homo erectus leakey discovered by Heberer, 1963
†Homo erectus mauritanicus discovered by Arambourg, 1954
†Homo erectus modjokertensis discovered von Koenigswald, 1936
†Homo erectus paleojavanicus sangiranensis or Meganthropus paleojavanicus discovered by Sartono, 1976
†Homo erectus pekinensis or Sinanthropus pekinensis (Peking Man) discovered by Black & Zdansky, 1927
†Homo erectus petraloniensis 1986
†Homo erectus soloensis or Javanthropus soloensis
†Homo erectus trigliensis 1966
†Homo erectus trinilis
†OH 9 (Chellean man)
†Homo atlanthropus (Atlantos Man)
†Homo atlanthropus algericus (Algeria Atlantos Man)
†Homo atlanthropus mauritanicus (Mauritania Atlantos Man)
†Homo floresiensis (Flores Man — discovered 2003-2004. Species status remains under debate)
†LB1 (Hobbit Man)
†Homo rhodesiensis (Rhodesia Man) discovered 1921
†Homo rhodesiensis kabwe
†Homo georgicus (Georgia Man, discovered 2002-2003)
†D211
†D2280
†D2282
†D2600
†D2700
†D2735
†Homo antecessor (Predecessor Man)
†Homo antecessor castros
†Homo cepranensis (Ceprano Man) discovered 2003
†Homo cepranensis ceprano
†Homo heidelbergensis (Heidelberg Man) discovered 1908
†Homo heidelbergensis mauer
†Homo neanderthalensis (Neanderthal Man) discovered 1864
†Neanderthal (Neandertal Man)
Homo sapiens
†Homo sapiens archaic (most ancient wise man) discovered 2003
†Homo sapiens idaltu (elderly wise man — or Herto man; discovered 1997)
†Homo sapiens fossilis (fossil wise man) discovered 1869
†Homo sapiens steinheimensis discovered by Berckhemer, 1934
Homo sapiens sapiens (Wise Man) discovered 1758
†Homo sapiens sapiens palestinus or Cro-Magnon (Wise Man or Palestinian man; early humans) discovered by McCown and Keith, 1932
Quite frankly, this has convinced me more than:
"God created man (lit. adam) in his own image; in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them".
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If I may interject, why is it always necessary to bring a debate about religion into the realm of science. Does religion necessarily replace science and vice versa, or can they coexist in independent spheres?
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Personally i dont have a problem with science. I did quite happly in my A-level years at school biology and chemistry along side RE and philosophy.
But let me ask, fish lungs/gills are totally different biology to lungs such as ours that work above land. How did suddenly they swap from one set to another in one generation? Genetic mutation?
I know the list but a list does not prove anything. The first life according to evolution was single-celled organisms. How did they come to exist? There always must be a start, always.
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The thought that science and religion are mutually exclusive is a fallacy, in my opinion. People simply try to hard to make their religions also encompass science, and vice versa. There is a school of thought commonly referred to as the "Two Book Theory" among Christian scholars that simply states that the Bible is not and was never intended to be a science text book. It is a spiritual/life guide.
If God had said to the Israelites "The land you walk on is actually curved; it's a giant ball that revolves causing the sun to appear to move in the sky while at the same time it rotates around the sun in the vacuum of space..." and went on to explain all sorts of physics, biology, etc. that they had absolutely no context for, NOBODY would have listened to them. Heck, even the great prophets would have thought "This God is insane." and found another one to follow.
Why would God take the time to explain the workings of every single thing in the universe when everyone He was trying to communicate with would be long dead by the time he finished, if they actually bothered to stick around listening to what would absolutely have seemed to be utter madness at the time?
Would Abraham have believed he was made up of billions of tiny pieces between which there was space when he could reach down and feel himself solid, having no way to test this? If he did, would anyone have ever converted to Judaism when they heard? Would he even have had a frame of reference to understand a number as high as "billions"?
If you take the Torah/Old Testament/Bible/etc. literally as a source of scientific fact, you can't pick and choose. If the Earth was created in 6 literal days by the "poof" method, then you also MUST believe it is literal when it says the earth is flat and rests on pillars and when it says the sun goes around the earth.
Galileo once challenged the church's view of science by stating that the universe was not geocentric and that the complicated "sphere theory" the church backed at the time was preposterous. They said he was a blasphemer attempting to undermine the church with his "unprovable" theories and had him excommunicated and arrested, but now just about all educated people in the entire world believe in his model of the universe. Did this discredit or undermine religion? No, at least not to anyone who realizes that spirituality has absolutely nothing to do with scientific truth.
If we can understand a universe that is not geocentric and incorporate that into our faith by realizing that it was not even remotely practical for God to reveal that truth in Biblical times, why not evolution? It makes perfect sense and even happened in basically the same order as the Creation stories in Genesis.
Let me put it to you in a different way. Where did those one-cell organisms come from? How did matter explode from nothingness in the first place? Well, there is where I see God. The touch of the divine, reaching down and causing first matter and later life to erupt into being in a beautiful, cosmic display of benevolence.
I have written this not only in an attempt to convince those who believe in the Old Testament's truth that science does not oppose them, but also to convince scientists that they need not see religion as their enemy. Certain factions on both "sides" have a serious hubris issue that is the root of the conflict.
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If you take the Torah/Old Testament/Bible/etc. literally as a source of scientific fact, you can't pick and choose. If the Earth was created in 6 literal days by the "poof" method, then you also MUST believe it is literal when it says the earth is flat and rests on pillars and when it says the sun goes around the earth.
I believe you are wrong here. I do take the bible quite literally yet i don't believe its flat. No-where in the bible does it say the world is flat, it also doesn't say the world is round. In the middle-ages Christian's thought Jerusalem was the centre of the world and their maps reflected this. Yet this is totally un-biblical.
I do believe in some minor "evolution" or changes such as in the beginning there were just two people yet how come we have three or even more distinct skin colours e.g. black and white being the obvious differences? Slight genetic change but only of 1 chromosome that controls the pigment of the skin. To change from a fish with gills to a land beast or to suddenly grow feathers is going to take alot more than 1 chromosome... it is going to take a fundamental change of their DNA structure in 1 generation aka mummy fish and daddy fish have sex and bomb, their baby fish can now breath air and flop around the land...
Even with a small change in the genetic make-up such as the change of 1 chromosome for some the conditions i work with, they are 1 in a million births and the amazing human body can notice this change and cause the body to have a miss-carriage. The chances of such a drastic change are so, so low.
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I'm absolutely horrible at remembering verses and whatnot, but I am positive it says the Earth rests on pillars, which, of course, requires it to be flat. It also speaks of the sun moving around the Earth.
As to the odds of such a fundamental change occurring, please keep in mind that it would be happening extremely gradually over thousands and millions of years. I don't know the specifics, but animals didn't just pop out of fish eggs one morning and swim up to land. There was an interim stage. This is where my knowledge needs a lot of refreshing and is a bit hazy, but I believe some some aquatic creatures became amphibious, then eventually lost their gills after the species remained on land for long enough that they became superfluous. As the changes happened slowly over many, many generations, miscarriages did not stop the change. It wasn't like a frog laying eggs with no gills all of a sudden; it would have laid a bunch of eggs and some of them had very slightly smaller gills, likely within the normal variation for their species. Some of those would eventually mate with frogs who also had small gills, increasing the chance that their young's gills would be small, and so on.
These kinds of changes are not theoretical; they have been observed and recorded. We have seen plants and animals adapting to fit a changing environment, not just in what they do, but biologically. The ones less likely to survive because of a genetic variation that has become problematic due to a change in surroundings are less likely to reproduce, and thus a species adapts, splits, or dies out entirely.
I can give an example of a species in which we have seen changes occur if you would like.
P.S. This is one of the more interesting discussions I've been in in a while. I'm so happy! :)
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But let me ask, fish lungs/gills are totally different biology to lungs such as ours that work above land. How did suddenly they swap from one set to another in one generation? Genetic mutation?
Behold the lungfish (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lungfish), capable of breathing air.
I also find it hard to characterize millions and billions of years as "sudden".
Even with a small change in the genetic make-up such as the change of 1 chromosome for some the conditions i work with, they are 1 in a million births and the amazing human body can notice this change and cause the body to have a miss-carriage. The chances of such a drastic change are so, so low.
Let's say that life has been around for 1 billion years. Let's say there's a single birth every 100 years. Do the math: 1 billion divided by 100 if I'm correct comes out to 10 million. Even with these incredibly distorted numbers that's still 10, 1 in a million chance major mutations. And life has been around for much more than just 1 billion years; current scientific consensus places the the birth of life on Earth at least 2.7 billions year ago and potentially as far back as 4.4 billion years ago. And of course a single birth does not happen just once every 100 years. Untold hundreds and thousands of new lives of various species are coming into being every second. Over several billion years that's a lot of millions.
If I recall correctly on average 3 new humans are born every second now a days. 3 births times 60 seconds in a minute times 60 minutes in an hour times 24 hours in a day times 365 days in a year. 94,608,000. That's almost 100 1 in a million births in just a single year in the human species alone. The chances of significant mutations are indeed low, but when you simply have so many births occurring the occasional rare mutations which do occur will stack up over the course of a few billion years.
What's more, every single mutation need not be drastic; various minor mutations can also stack up. And with so many genes being transcribed and copied there's plenty of chances for such a mess up. From what I've read about 80% of evolution is gradual while 20% is drastic.
Let me put it to you in a different way. Where did those one-cell organisms come from? How did matter explode from nothingness in the first place? Well, there is where I see God. The touch of the divine, reaching down and causing first matter and later life to erupt into being in a beautiful, cosmic display of benevolence.
Indeed. The way I see it if you believe there is a purpose to the universe then you believe in God. Science is knowing based on observation, and what we can observe we should approach with science. But there is one thing which is beyond observation; the cause behind the universe and why it works the way it does if there is such a thing. The existence of such a thing has to be taken entirely on faith, the basis of God.
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I don't believe that there is a purpose to the universe. I don't find humans special in any way; we're just lucky hairless apes.