Was Jesus God?

December 3rd, 2015 at 8:20:07 AM permalink
FrGamble
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 67
Posts: 7596
Bob if your posts are any indication I'm sorry to say but it looks like reason is losing to prejudice, emotion, and falsity. Please honestly reconsider what our world would be like without Christianity. If you need help look at the news lately and ask if we are becoming a more safe, fair, just, and loving society as we become more and more secular?
“It is with the smallest brushes that the artist paints the most exquisitely beautiful pictures.” (
December 3rd, 2015 at 12:05:18 PM permalink
Evenbob
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 146
Posts: 25010
Quote: FrGamble
are becoming a more safe, fair, just, and loving society as we become more and more secular?


Absolutely.
If you take a risk, you may lose. If you never take a risk, you will always lose.
December 3rd, 2015 at 12:57:52 PM permalink
Nareed
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 346
Posts: 12545
Quote: FrGamble
I have long suspected we are not in agreement


"Suspected"?


Quote:
I believe love in its highest form is altruistic, generous, and self-giving I have a sinking feeling that you might feel it is the opposite.


This doesn't tell me what you think love means. At best you're assigning some attributes to it, but hardly defining it.


Quote:
It might be because you have believed and been told for so long that this or that is what Christians believe.


Well, you're my main source of information about Christianity. I'll let you judge the validity of what I've been told.

FWIW, it's not the accuracy of the information, but its content.

Quote:
it is hard to make sense of something when you have made up your mind it is one way and not the other.


No, that's easy. otherwise your mind wouldn't be made up.


Quote:
Love is not oppression and no authentic Catholic, nor I, am trying to persecute or hate or attack you.


It's very easy to claim sainthood for an entire faith, if you conveniently exclude those who face objections. But if you really meant it, or the church hierarchy did, hen these "inauthentic" Catholics wouldn't be part of the church, would they?

I'm not and will never be impressed by the "bad apples" argument. When apologists of police claim it's only "a few bad apples" that are the problem, they ignore the "lots of good apples" within the police, and the DA's offices, who succor, protect, shelter and otherwise grant impunity to the "few bad apples."

Lastly, there's this man named Francis living in the Vatican. Maybe you've heard of him? He alternates between attacks and lukewarm empty gestures towards all LGBT people and transgender people in particular. But maybe he's not authentically Catholic, so it's "ok".



Quote:
If you could kindly point out where I have overlooked my own many faults to dwell, exaggerate, or focus on the faults of others I would be appreciative.


It's a feature, not a bug. Aren't you more concerned with belief than actions? Aren't you more concerned with salvation (whatever the hell that is) than with life on this world?

In short, a Christian is more likely to defend a fellow Christian's bad acts, than to even give the benefit of the doubt to the good acts of a non-Christian or even another Christian.
Donald Trump is a one-term LOSER
December 3rd, 2015 at 1:06:56 PM permalink
Evenbob
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 146
Posts: 25010
Quote: Nareed
Aren't you more concerned with salvation (whatever the hell that is)


Salvation is confusing, isn't it.
Saved from what, exactly. Sin
obviously is just a concept and
doesn't exist in the real world.
So Jesus saves people from a
concept? Not much of an
accomplishment, it's like putting
up an electric fence to keep the
tooth fairy out of your yard.

Why bother.
If you take a risk, you may lose. If you never take a risk, you will always lose.
December 3rd, 2015 at 3:01:16 PM permalink
boymimbo
Member since: Mar 25, 2013
Threads: 5
Posts: 732
Quote: Evenbob
Salvation is confusing, isn't it.
Saved from what, exactly. Sin
obviously is just a concept and
doesn't exist in the real world.
So Jesus saves people from a
concept? Not much of an
accomplishment, it's like putting
up an electric fence to keep the
tooth fairy out of your yard.

Why bother.


Sin is a verb. Jesus saves people from the penalty of not being perfect by granting an everlasting life in heaven.
December 3rd, 2015 at 3:13:41 PM permalink
Evenbob
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 146
Posts: 25010
Quote: boymimbo
Sin is a verb. Jesus saves people from the penalty of not being perfect.


There is no such thing as perfection, it's a
non sequitur (the conclusion could be either
true or false, but the argument is fallacious
because there is a disconnection between
the premise and the conclusion).

So Jesus is saving you from nothing.
If you take a risk, you may lose. If you never take a risk, you will always lose.
December 3rd, 2015 at 3:58:10 PM permalink
FrGamble
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 67
Posts: 7596
Quote: Evenbob
Absolutely.


Are you sure? Think about times when people rejected religion like the French Revolution. Bloody, violent, and awful. Think about the bloodiest century in all of human history the 20th century and the holocaust, Stalin, Pol Pot, etc., etc. Bloody, violent, and awful things. How is the 21st century going for you? Christ has the answer to save us from these injustices and from destroying ourselves but it seems like less and less people are open to reason and truth.
“It is with the smallest brushes that the artist paints the most exquisitely beautiful pictures.” (
December 3rd, 2015 at 4:10:16 PM permalink
FrGamble
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 67
Posts: 7596
Quote: Nareed

This doesn't tell me what you think love means. At best you're assigning some attributes to it, but hardly defining it.


I would like to hear your definition. Here is a famous one from Scripture:

1 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. 2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.

4 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

8 Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part. 10 But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.

11 When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. 12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.

13 And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love (1Cor 13:1-13)


Quote:
Lastly, there's this man named Francis living in the Vatican. Maybe you've heard of him? He alternates between attacks and lukewarm empty gestures towards all LGBT people and transgender people in particular. But maybe he's not authentically Catholic, so it's "ok".


If you think Francis has ever attacked LGBT people you are not thinking clearly. What you view as an attack may be the Church's consistent teaching that homosexual activity is a sin and that the Sacrament of Marriage is between a man and a woman. However, this is just stating the teaching of the Church and it should always be accompanied in the same breath with the equal dignity of our brothers and sisters who have a same-sex attraction and how we reject every and any form of discrimination or prejudice against them. It is authentically Catholic to deliver the truth, even uncomfortable truths, but to do so in great love and that is what Pope Francis does.



Quote:
It's a feature, not a bug. Aren't you more concerned with belief than actions? Aren't you more concerned with salvation (whatever the hell that is) than with life on this world?


Salvation is the gift of eternal life in the perfect joys of Heaven. For our salvation faith and actions go hand in hand. You really can't have one without the other.

Quote:
In short, a Christian is more likely to defend a fellow Christian's bad acts, than to even give the benefit of the doubt to the good acts of a non-Christian or even another Christian.


I don't think this is true. The good acts of non-Christians or non-believers are very commendable and show a person who is pursing the discovery of truth as best as he or she can.
“It is with the smallest brushes that the artist paints the most exquisitely beautiful pictures.” (
December 3rd, 2015 at 4:15:14 PM permalink
FrGamble
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 67
Posts: 7596
Quote: Evenbob
Sin
obviously is just a concept and
doesn't exist in the real world.


The concept of sin is that all human beings fall short of how they want to live and how they want to treat others. They often find doing what they know they should difficult and they feel healthy guilt when they do wrong. This concept is undeniably true in your life, mine, and every single human being. If you believe in a God who loves you and wants your happiness then it obviously follows that this God would want to free you from guilt and shame and help you to be the person you want to be and live the way you want to live. I trust you at least see why for us Christians this is why we bother so much and are so thankful to Jesus Christ, our loving Savior.
“It is with the smallest brushes that the artist paints the most exquisitely beautiful pictures.” (
December 3rd, 2015 at 5:05:57 PM permalink
Nareed
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 346
Posts: 12545
Quote: FrGamble
Here is a famous one from Scripture:


A paean is not a definition.


Quote:
If you think Francis has ever attacked LGBT people you are not thinking clearly. What you view as an attack may be the Church's consistent teaching that homosexual activity is a sin and that the Sacrament of Marriage is between a man and a woman. However, this is just stating the teaching of the Church and it should always be accompanied in the same breath with the equal dignity of our brothers and sisters who have a same-sex attraction and how we reject every and any form of discrimination or prejudice against them. It is authentically Catholic to deliver the truth, even uncomfortable truths, but to do so in great love and that is what Pope Francis does.


I do get it: Oppression is Love.

How can you claim some people are second-class, permanent sinners in your view, then claim to treat them without discrimination?

Oppression is Love.


Quote:
Salvation is the gift of eternal life in the perfect joys of Heaven. For our salvation faith and actions go hand in hand. You really can't have one without the other.


Saved from what?


Quote:
I don't think this is true. The good acts of non-Christians or non-believers are very commendable and show a person who is pursing the discovery of truth as best as he or she can.


That is so offensive I will warn you never to even think of attempting to say it to my face. I cannot guarantee I would restrain myself in such a case.
Donald Trump is a one-term LOSER