The Community Centre

[B9 perspective]

So how is Jesus' relationship to God, unique according to Christianity?

[Templarios]

So how is Jesus' relationship to God, unique according to Christianity?

Because he is both God and man incarnate.

Jesus and God are the same and different.

[B9 perspective]

So how is Jesus' relationship to God, unique according to Christianity?

Because he is both God and man incarnate.

Jesus and God are the same and different.

and according to Christianity, no one else is both man and God incarnate? THAT relationship is uniquely of Jesus? Other people and God aren't the same and different?

[Templarios]

So how is Jesus' relationship to God, unique according to Christianity?

Because he is both God and man incarnate.

Jesus and God are the same and different.

and according to Christianity, no one else is both man and God incarnate? THAT relationship is uniquely of Jesus? Other people and God aren't the same and different?

No one else is God and man incarnate - only Jesus! He was fully man so could do anything a man could yet fully God. And he never sinned whilst he was on earth, he was perfect.

[B9 perspective]

OK, ( Socrates also spoke of a God of Love), so if LOVE is the father of Jesus, is love equally your or my or anyone else's father, according to Christian belief?

Im guessing that when you love you mean is God equally divided between all us?
Yes

So..to sum this up;
God IS Love
God is equally divided between us all EXCEPT where it concerns Jesus, because Jesus is man and fully Love incarnate and no one else is...

hmmm..doesn't make any sense to me..

[Templarios]

OK, ( Socrates also spoke of a God of Love), so if LOVE is the father of Jesus, is love equally your or my or anyone else's father, according to Christian belief?

Im guessing that when you love you mean is God equally divided between all us?
Yes

So..to sum this up;
God IS Love
God is equally divided between us all EXCEPT where it concerns Jesus, because Jesus is man and fully Love incarnate and no one else is...

hmmm..doesn't make any sense to me..

Nor me but i believe through faith that Jesus died on the cross for my sin so i can have eternal life. Its through faith that i am saved.

[B9 perspective]

OK, ( Socrates also spoke of a God of Love), so if LOVE is the father of Jesus, is love equally your or my or anyone else's father, according to Christian belief?

Im guessing that when you love you mean is God equally divided between all us?
Yes

So..to sum this up;
God IS Love
God is equally divided between us all EXCEPT where it concerns Jesus, because Jesus is man and fully Love incarnate and no one else is...

hmmm..doesn't make any sense to me..

Nor me but i believe through faith that Jesus died on the cross for my sin so i can have eternal life. Its through faith that i am saved.

Faith is an interesting phenomenon. Personally, I choose to take a good look at ALL my beliefs, including my beliefs about faith.

I have faith that God is Love....I also have faith that Love is non discriminatory....that a smile is no more or less relevant or valuable depending on it's source....
'Sin' is nothing other than a perceived lack of love, in which case, the remedy would be to allow healing of misperception. Perhaps Jesus didn't die...as death itself, may be a misperception, albeit one that most humans choose to share....the idea of death is like a security blanket.....as long as people believe death will do anything conclusive they needn't really take responsibility, cause death can do that for them.

Original innocence is a much more relevent premise for me to accept than original sin. I don't think Jesus, being Love's son, or anyone else being Love's offspring, would desire that sacrifice of life become the inspiration for loving.. the point in which sacrifice is for Love, becomes the point that sacrifice is no longer sacrificial.

I will offer you a somewhat Christian parable;

There was a Sunday school class of 1st and 2nd graders and their teacher distributed empty plastic Leggs eggs, ( you are familiar with them, no? a brand of American pantyhose is packaged in ostrich sized white plastic eggs that twist open.....) and told the children to return the following Sunday with their eggs filled with something they believe symbolizes life....
the following Sunday the teacher called on the children; one child had put a butterfly inside-" A butterfly symbolizes life because it is colourful and developed through metamorphisis...."(clever kid, eh?)
Another kid had put a piece of tree branch inside; "It represents the tree of life." One by one the calling on the children by the teacher continued, and the children had all filled their eggs with symbols of life and had given brief explanations of how those symbols represented life- a rock, an illustration of a family, a little book etc. Finally the teacher called upon Johnny. Johnny was a kid that struggled quite a bit as he was bald from the chemo and radiation treatments that he received from medical attempts to cure his brain tumor. His companions, classmates, peers, often had difficulty understanding Johnny, as he also spoke with a speech impediment caused by the growing tumor.
Johnny's egg was empty. The other children laughed, they that Johnny was so stupid that he'd forgotten to do his homework assignment. The teacher, patiently, asked Johnny how nothing represented life, " Or is it air Johnny? Did you fill the egg with air- as air can represent life because we all need to breath to live?"
" No," said Johnny, " It's empty because the tomb ( Jesus' tomb) was empty- that's what represents life."
Johnny past away not shortly thereafter- and his classmates attended his funeral- all carrying emptied eggs.   

[Templarios]

Yes, Ive heard that parable before - it is a nice one. But what you say about original innocence and faith is all very fancy, lets just talk plainly.

If you really want i can talk about the philosophy of religion/faith/love as I've studied that at degree level for three years - i know all the clever phrases and quotes and the many circles you get yourself into. But is applied theology - what does it mean to me today for my life that is the point?

I can argue to the cows come home about Plato and his allergy of the cave but does that help us today? My faith in Jesus has changed my life for the better and i believe i am right in serving and worship God.

But i will answer your questions about death. Personally, i believe your views on death are taking a very Epicurian stand point which i believe does not explain many things of this world. Death is certainty, just as my thinking is a certainty (Je pense, donc je suis) which is the stability for our lives and the basis of the whole human culture with birth, life and finally death.

as long as people believe death will do anything conclusive they needn't really take responsibility, cause death can do that for them.

Death does nothing, it is just an abstract term for a event so it can hold no responsibility just as saying because the knife cut the neck i am not the murder as i am not the knife so the knife has the responsibility. There is the responsibility to the future generations and here i consed i bring in my personal feelings, yet we have responsibility for our children as shown in nature with mothers giving their lives to save their children. Does that achieve anything beneficial for the mother - no, so why do it? Responsibility!

'Sin' is nothing other than a perceived lack of love, in which case, the remedy would be to allow healing of misperception.

So because i hit person X i just dont have enough love for that person? Why do children when they are young fight even though they 'love' each other? So to solve the world's problems, we all should chat about our lack of love over a table? What about sin that is not affecting anyone except myself or natural sin? How can nature have love - how can a tidal wave that kills thousands be due to the lack of love of that wave?

[B9 perspective]

But what you say about original innocence and faith is all very fancy, lets just talk plainly.

What's fancy about it? Before there was original sin, there was original innocence presumably, or no?

If you really want i can talk about the philosophy of religion/faith/love as I've studied that at degree level for three years - i know all the clever phrases and quotes and the many circles you get yourself into. But is applied theology - what does it mean to me today for my life that is the point?

I can argue to the cows come home about Plato and his allergy of the cave but does that help us today? My faith in Jesus has changed my life for the better and i believe i am right in serving and worship God.

and that is fine of course. I have no comment regarding your faith or your perception of rightness serving and worshipping God as you see helpful to yourself or others- I also have no problems understanding how the allegory of Plato's cave might be helpful to some.

But i will answer your questions about death. Personally, i believe your views on death are taking a very Epicurian stand point which i believe does not explain many things of this world. Death is certainty, just as my thinking is a certainty (Je pense, donc je suis) which is the stability for our lives and the basis of the whole human culture with birth, life and finally death.

Epicurian or otherwise, I make no claims about explaining things of the world to the world. I don't have a sense of this necessarily being helpful or right or wrong.. I can attempt to explain my viewpoint as you can. No doubt mind exists- but thought is mutable. What ideas people choose to share or not, and how they choose to interpret them, is entirely relevant to the quality of their experiences living. Death is no more a certainty than any other idea.

as long as people believe death will do anything conclusive they needn't really take responsibility, cause death can do that for them.

Death does nothing, it is just an abstract term for a event so it can hold no responsibility just as saying because the knife cut the neck i am not the murder as i am not the knife so the knife has the responsibility.

Huh? What I said was that as long as the idea of death is intact in people's minds than people can consider that death, and not their thinking runs the show. I'm FOR responsible thinking, not against, so your conviction that death is certain or else fodder for an analogy used to describe irresponsibility doesn't cut it for me.

  There is the responsibility to the future generations and here i consed i bring in my personal feelings, yet we have responsibility for our children as shown in nature with mothers giving their lives to save their children. Does that achieve anything beneficial for the mother - no, so why do it? Responsibility!

You think, eh? I'd say love, that the mother loves far beyond her sense of sacrifice as responsibility. Like the mother in the bible who when the king wanted to know who the mother was when 2 different women first claimed to be, understood ( after he threatened to kill the child) that the true mother was the one that willing to revoke her claim, her claim to responsibility! ...and not because she loved the idea of death either.......

'Sin' is nothing other than a perceived lack of love, in which case, the remedy would be to allow healing of misperception.

So because i hit person X i just dont have enough love for that person?

Probably..would you intentionally hit someone you love? Could be a clear case of projection, not loving something about yourself and attempting to rectify the situation by projecting it outwardly, as if often the case people who murder kill themselves as well.

Why do children when they are young fight even though they 'love' each other?

Because they are learning through experimentation what works and doesn't for effective communication about love.

So to solve the world's problems, we all should chat about our lack of love over a table?

Talking's cool; about lack of love or love itself-must say I prefer that to hitting.

What about sin that is not affecting anyone except myself or natural sin?

Who knows what effects others and how or not?

  How can nature have love - how can a tidal wave that kills thousands be due to the lack of love of that wave?

How can nature have a lack of love? It can't, but perception of it, might not always be loving-

[Templarios]

But what you say about original innocence and faith is all very fancy, lets just talk plainly.

What's fancy about it? Before there was original sin, there was original innocence presumably, or no?

Was there original sin? So you believe is there is original sin that babies are born with sin compared to being born with the capacity to sin in a fallen world? If you do believe in original sin, do you believe in the sins of the fore-fathers as in when David writes in one of the psalsm as a lamatation to God not to punish him and his family for this fathers (being pervious generations) sins?

If you really want i can talk about the philosophy of religion/faith/love as I've studied that at degree level for three years - i know all the clever phrases and quotes and the many circles you get yourself into. But is applied theology - what does it mean to me today for my life that is the point?

I can argue to the cows come home about Plato and his allergy of the cave but does that help us today? My faith in Jesus has changed my life for the better and i believe i am right in serving and worship God.

and that is fine of course. I have no comment regarding your faith or your perception of rightness serving and worshipping God as you see helpful to yourself or others- I also have no problems understanding how the allegory of Plato's cave might be helpful to some.

Sorry, my mistake - i do get fed up of people who come up with loads of junk about religion that makes no sense who i spend ages understanding and then debating with them when they have no clue what their talking about. at first i thought u were another person like this, but realised your not now.

But i will answer your questions about death. Personally, i believe your views on death are taking a very Epicurian stand point which i believe does not explain many things of this world. Death is certainty, just as my thinking is a certainty (Je pense, donc je suis) which is the stability for our lives and the basis of the whole human culture with birth, life and finally death.

Epicurian or otherwise, I make no claims about explaining things of the world to the world. I don't have a sense of this necessarily being helpful or right or wrong.. I can attempt to explain my viewpoint as you can. No doubt mind exists- but thought is mutable. What ideas people choose to share or not, and how they choose to interpret them, is entirely relevant to the quality of their experiences living. Death is no more a certainty than any other idea.

But you are trying to explain the world - that is all what theology and philosophy is about. Understand our world through the medium of words unlike science which is trying to explain the world through the medium of data such as units of time. I believe the two/three are complementary to have a full understand.
Yes, how we see the world is only through our experiences and senses as they are all we have but that is a posteriori knowledge which  can never lead to true knowledge of knowing something totally such as i exist as i said about (from Rene Descartes). Empirical is all we have except for a very few things which i believe are: i exist and there is a God. The first one has been proved for me and the second is technically a belief but i feel it is a priori. I will quantify this if you would like.
Death is very much a certainty, take the allegory of the cave. Plato thought only thought death would we see the true light once we had escaped. Yes, every so often someone would escape and see the light but they were not listen too due to the 'wildness' of what they had seen. The distortion of reality. Now, im not saying this world is a distortion of reality, what i am saying is that death is the only certain point where we do truly understand and see everything. This has been expressed in many religions where all cultimate at the set point of death e.g Christianity of being judged for your life to heaven and hell (getting into a debate here on when we are judged (such as when we die or at 'judgement day' and where we 'rest' before heaven/hell would serve no point) or what we are judge on (what is sin etc) again would serve no point except to go off point) or Buddhism where you aim to become one after serving a good enough life. Other religions (which i wont insult you intelligence and continue to list) all come to a head at the point of death. There is no 'salvation' in the truest sense of the world.
Take animal instincts, the most basic 'emotion' (please, lets also no debate what an emotion as it will again serve no purpose) where they can be broken down to one: survive whatever the cost. Why? Death.
Posted on: December 17, 2007, 07:57:34 PM

'Sin' is nothing other than a perceived lack of love, in which case, the remedy would be to allow healing of misperception.

So because i hit person X i just dont have enough love for that person?

Probably..would you intentionally hit someone you love? Could be a clear case of projection, not loving something about yourself and attempting to rectify the situation by projecting it outwardly, as if often the case people who murder kill themselves as well.

I have intentionally hit my sister, and yes i do love her. Your view on this just doesn't wash with me, it says (in basic terms) that because i don't like myself in some way that i will hurt someone for it and in an extreme case i would murder someone. I know this girl, she totally hates herself so much she recently had to be sectioned under the mental health act. Now, i know that not good for her but she is also the most gentile person i know. I would trust her with a small helpless baby. Yet, under your idea she (because she does not love something about herself so much) she is the highest candidate for mass murder.

Why do children when they are young fight even though they 'love' each other?

Because they are learning through experimentation what works and doesn't for effective communication about love.

Or because they don't like some so they express that through violence. So highly violence people never understand how to love and really are just expressing love through violence? Again, doesn't wash with me. You can not excuse violence as a miss-communication of love.

What about sin that is not affecting anyone except myself or natural sin?

Who knows what effects others and how or not?

  How can nature have love - how can a tidal wave that kills thousands be due to the lack of love of that wave?

How can nature have a lack of love? It can't, but perception of it, might not always be loving-

Nature such as wave or snow or a falling rock have no emotion. Therefore a lack of love is not justification for natural disaster aka natural sin. How can nature have love? It can't, not even a perception of love. It is a action, period.

[B9 perspective]

But what you say about original innocence and faith is all very fancy, lets just talk plainly.

What's fancy about it? Before there was original sin, there was original innocence presumably, or no?

Was there original sin? So you believe is there is original sin that babies are born with sin compared to being born with the capacity to sin in a fallen world? If you do believe in original sin, do you believe in the sins of the fore-fathers as in when David writes in one of the psalsm as a lamatation to God not to punish him and his family for this fathers (being pervious generations) sins?

No. I do not believe in original sin, although I have read that a great many proponents of Christianity do believe it in it...Neither do I consider myself a proponent of Christianity, I've never been baptised, or christened, in this lifetime atleast, and I hope I won't be.

If you really want i can talk about the philosophy of religion/faith/love as I've studied that at degree level for three years - i know all the clever phrases and quotes and the many circles you get yourself into. But is applied theology - what does it mean to me today for my life that is the point?

I can argue to the cows come home about Plato and his allergy of the cave but does that help us today? My faith in Jesus has changed my life for the better and i believe i am right in serving and worship God.

and that is fine of course. I have no comment regarding your faith or your perception of rightness serving and worshipping God as you see helpful to yourself or others- I also have no problems understanding how the allegory of Plato's cave might be helpful to some.

Sorry, my mistake - i do get fed up of people who come up with loads of junk about religion that makes no sense who i spend ages understanding and then debating with them when they have no clue what their talking about. at first i thought u were another person like this, but realised your not now.

But i will answer your questions about death. Personally, i believe your views on death are taking a very Epicurian stand point which i believe does not explain many things of this world. Death is certainty, just as my thinking is a certainty (Je pense, donc je suis) which is the stability for our lives and the basis of the whole human culture with birth, life and finally death.

Epicurian or otherwise, I make no claims about explaining things of the world to the world. I don't have a sense of this necessarily being helpful or right or wrong.. I can attempt to explain my viewpoint as you can. No doubt mind exists- but thought is mutable. What ideas people choose to share or not, and how they choose to interpret them, is entirely relevant to the quality of their experiences living. Death is no more a certainty than any other idea.

But you are trying to explain the world - that is all what theology and philosophy is about.

No. I am explaining how and that I perceive the world. I'm neither a theologist  or a philosopher unless by chance someone else chooses to perceive me that way, which the case may be. And even then so, their perception of me hardly will be more relevant to me, than my own, unless my perception changes...kinda like Otis Redding preferring Aretha Franklin's version of the song he originally wrote and performed; Respect.

Yes, how we see the world is only through our experiences and senses as they are all we have but that is a posteriori knowledge which  can never lead to true knowledge of knowing something totally such as i exist as i said about (from Rene Descartes). Empirical is all we have except for a very few things which i believe are: i exist and there is a God. The first one has been proved for me and the second is technically a belief but i feel it is a priori. I will quantify this if you would like.

No need to really, I mean, you can believe whatever you want to believe, and I believe you will. Love is not Empirical, I believe, but voluntary.

Death is very much a certainty, take the allegory of the cave. Plato thought only thought death would we see the true light once we had escaped. Yes, every so often someone would escape and see the light but they were not listen too due to the 'wildness' of what they had seen. The distortion of reality. Now, im not saying this world is a distortion of reality, what i am saying is that death is the only certain point where we do truly understand and see everything. This has been expressed in many religions where all cultimate at the set point of death e.g Christianity of being judged for your life to heaven and hell (getting into a debate here on when we are judged (such as when we die or at 'judgement day' and where we 'rest' before heaven/hell would serve no point) or what we are judge on (what is sin etc) again would serve no point except to go off point) or Buddhism where you aim to become one after serving a good enough life. Other religions (which i wont insult you intelligence and continue to list) all come to a head at the point of death. There is no 'salvation' in the truest sense of the world.

Love-save them from themselves for they know not what they are.
Just because Plato thought what he thought or many of world religions believe in death doesn't mean that their consideration of death or anything else will be shared, obviously.

Take animal instincts, the most basic 'emotion' (please, lets also no debate what an emotion as it will again serve no purpose) where they can be broken down to one: survive whatever the cost. Why? Death.

Disagree. Love or fear including love or fear of death. Do most animals with their instincts even perceive death, or do they love what they kill? Do they fear for their lives?

[B9 perspective]

( cont. from last post--apparently too long to quote all and to.)
Quote from B9:
'Sin' is nothing other than a perceived lack of love, in which case, the remedy would be to allow healing of misperception.
Quote from: Templarios on Today at 06:18:49 AM
So because i hit person X i just dont have enough love for that person?
Quote from B9
Probably..would you intentionally hit someone you love? Could be a clear case of projection, not loving something about yourself and attempting to rectify the situation by projecting it outwardly, as if often the case people who murder kill themselves as well.

Quote templarios:I have intentionally hit my sister, and yes i do love her. Your view on this just doesn't wash with me, it says (in basic terms) that because i don't like myself in some way that i will hurt someone for it and in an extreme case i would murder someone.

Quote B9: No it doesn't, it says if you hurt someone intentionally, it's probably not out of love.

 Templarios:I know this girl, she totally hates herself so much she recently had to be sectioned under the mental health act. Now, i know that not good for her but she is also the most gentile person i know. I would trust her with a small helpless baby. Yet, under your idea she (because she does not love something about herself so much) she is the highest candidate for mass murder.

Quote B9: Do you think mass murderers love themselves? I think that most people have aspects of themselves which they do not love, conciously or otherwise. I also think that many humans strike at other humans as a way to try to attempt to eradicate themselves of the fear of what they can't love. Hospitalized mentally ill folks are generally incarcerated because they are diagnosed as being a danger to themselves or others.


Quote from: Templarios on Today at 06:18:49 AM
Why do children when they are young fight even though they 'love' each other?
Quote from: B9 perspective on Today at 08:58:59 AM
Because they are learning through experimentation what works and doesn't for effective communication about love.

Templarios:
Or because they don't like some so they express that through violence. So highly violence people never understand how to love and really are just expressing love through violence? Again, doesn't wash with me. You can not excuse violence as a miss-communication of love.

B9: I never said never. Anything can be interpreted as either Love or a call for love. I'm not excusing violence, if anything you were, by saying it can be loving. Ever tried childbirth? It can be pretty violent-but who's gonna say it is without love?

Quote from: B9 perspective on Today at 08:58:59 AM
Quote from: Templarios on Today at 06:18:49 AM
What about sin that is not affecting anyone except myself or natural sin?
Who knows what effects others and how or not?
Quote from: B9 perspective on Today at 08:58:59 AM
Quote from: Templarios on Today at 06:18:49 AM
  How can nature have love - how can a tidal wave that kills thousands be due to the lack of love of that wave?
How can nature have a lack of love? It can't, but perception of it, might not always be loving-

Templarios:Nature such as wave or snow or a falling rock have no emotion. Therefore a lack of love is not justification for natural disaster aka natural sin. How can nature have love? It can't, not even a perception of love. It is a action, period.

Who's trying justify natural disasters as natural sins?.....I wouldn't even ascribe the word 'sin' which is the word I would define as a lack of love, to nature. Where are you drawing the line between what's natural and what isn't? Love ain't natural? Since when?