Greatest Sect of Christianity

[Kidlicious]

At this point, I have officially lost patience. You have no sense of nuance, persistently misread even simple arguments, make absurd logical leaps, resort to insults on a hair-trigger, and then get indignant when your own unclear posts don't get the responses you wished for. Loin, he's all yours.

See, now this is what I'm talking about. In your own mind you haven't been an ******* because you didn't call me a ****. It's a ****ed up kind of bull****. You're in truth doing the samething as loin.

The inference is correct. Any verse in the Bible that says people are wicked you don't believe. That's a lot of the Bible that you don't believe! I believe the verse you quoted btw.

[molly bloom]

It's like the kid calling another kid names and being surprised when the other kid reacts as a kid.

Here many people are picking on the slow kid.

Grow up.

JM

Firstly, I haven't abused him. Secondly, he positively invites abuse through his displays of ignorance and claims to knowledge (about the Bible, the beliefs of early Christians, what the Bible 'really means').

He's not slow, he's simply actively being ignorant- and that's not an insult, simply a description.

[molly bloom]

Do you and MB need another handicap? Ok, it's not enough that you have me severly outnumbered.

In intelligence quotients ? I'm inclined to agree...

[molly bloom]

While I've complained about Kid's flat rudeness and insults, I find both vastly preferable to BK's unctuous phony politeness.

Two things come to mind (well, at least two things) :

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness.

and

Lilies that fester, smell far worse than weeds.

I much prefer people who dislike atheists and homosexuals to be upfront about it- out and out intolerance I understand, but Wendy Kenobi's oleaginous daintiness makes me heave.

Christians should be held to a high standard, but why wouldn't I expect such poor behavior from an atheist

I have no idea why you would expect 'poor behaviour' from an atheist. Are you suggesting we have no standards, scruples or morals ? Rich, coming from someone who called me a conman and offered no proof or apology for the false accusation. Or are you like those Christians who believed that an oath or promise given to a non-Christian or 'heretic' does not count ?

See the death and martyrdom of Jan Hus:

On October 14, 1414 he began his journey to Constance joined by 30 riders. He had been promised safe passage by the Emperor Sigismund. He arrived on November 3, 1414. Three weeks later, however, he was arrested and taken to a dank dungeon where he remained in chains for seventy-three days. His cell was next to a sewer and he spent those weeks in hunger and poor health. It was only when the pope's physician visited, that he was moved to a better cell.

http://www.reformationtours.com/site/490868/page/257218

[Kidlicious]

I can see that you are just oh so nice and honest there MB.

[molly bloom]

You said that Thomas Jefferson, the champion of freedom, was evil because he owned slaves, despite all of the things he did for you, an ungratefull atheist with a very ugly character.

Is this an attempt at humour ? I wasn't aware loinburger was an intimate of Thomas Jefferson, nor indeed that Jefferson had demanded gratitude from later generations. I admire him for his politics, his firm stance on the separation of Church and State, and his resistance to anyone stating what his (Jefferson's) religious beliefs were:

Say nothing of my religion. It is known to my god and myself alone.

However he owned fellow human beings. And even a retrograde old Tory like Dr. Johnson could see the hypocrisy therein:

We are told, that the subjection of Americans may tend to the diminution of our own liberties; an event, which none but very perspicacious politicians are able to foresee. If slavery be thus fatally contagious, how is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?

TAXATION NO TYRANNY

AN ANSWER TO THE RESOLUTIONS AND ADDRESS OF THE AMERICAN CONGRESS.

by Samuel Johnson

[molly bloom]

I can see that you are just oh so nice and honest there MB.

Sarcasm is an improvement (of sorts) on the general ignorance and abuse of some of your other posts. How exactly am I being dishonest ?

And please, no paraphrases, quote me.

[loinburger]

At this point, I have officially lost patience. You have no sense of nuance, persistently misread even simple arguments, make absurd logical leaps, resort to insults on a hair-trigger, and then get indignant when your own unclear posts don't get the responses you wished for. Loin, he's all yours.

It's now Monday, and no word from him on talking to his minister about this. I take this as proof positive that he has no desire to grow in his faith - he's already got his God hotline, and woe befall anybody who rebukes him for his overweening pride.

[Elok]

It's an interesting topic. I know that Pentecostals have a view of this - becoming more Christlike and sanctified. Then again, Pentecostals are big Wesleyans. Calvinists, of course, reject this out of hand. It goes against Unconditional Depravity (the "U" in TULIP). God's irresistible grace may save us, but we, through our own free wills, cannot become more "Godlike".

Good to know. We Orthodox tend to live in a bubble, sort of a mental Constantinople with us on the inside separated from the rest of Christendom by huge, thick walls of indifference. That's starting to change--especially as Evangelicals convert into the church, bringing their knowledge with them--but slowly.

I do think that, unfortunately, this traditional Western rejection of theosis, only to be undertaken more today, has resulted in the "salvation culture" of a lot of Protestantism - the idea that salvation is the end journey rather than the beginning.

You mean the idea that once you've accepted Jesus, you're in forever no matter what happens next? I have encountered that.

Though I do think that some Orthodox go to far by stating that by theosis one can get closer to God than Adam and Eve (assuming a true Adam and Eve existed and Genesis creation story isn't a huge allegory).

I think the idea there is that, while Adam and Eve were in union with God, they were still ignorant of good and evil, living like children; have you read Perelandra? The perfect woman in that book obeys God, but does not understand why she does it and cannot defend herself against temptation effectively, since she cannot understand evil. After doing what Eve couldn't (with help) and resisting the temptation, she matures into a state of full awareness. That's the idea. I think.

The idea that we can become one with God on this Earth seems to me to be getting a bit too crazy, especially considering that the world still remains "fallen". The Kingdom of Heaven has been brought to Earth by Jesus Christ, but I don't think anyone can be that close to God until Jesus comes again and redeems Earth fully and creates a New Earth and New Heaven.

It's not clear to me whether theosis is achieved entirely in this life. I found this, just digging around:

A person is perfect in this life when as a pledge of what is to come he receives the grace to assimilate himself to the various stages of Christ's life. In the life to come perfection is made manifest through the power of deification.
--St. Gregory of Sinai, Philokalia, Vol. 4

OTOH, other quotes on the same page I got that from ( http://www.orthodox.net/gleanings/theosis.html ) seem to imply otherwise. And this is ambiguous:

A true sanctuary, even before the future life, is a heart free from thoughts, made active by the Spirit. For there all is said and done spiritually.
St. Gregory of Sinai (Texts on Commandments and Dogmas no. 7)

[Imran Siddiqui]

Good to know. We Orthodox tend to live in a bubble, sort of a mental Constantinople with us on the inside separated from the rest of Christendom by huge, thick walls of indifference. That's starting to change--especially as Evangelicals convert into the church, bringing their knowledge with them--but slowly.

Well the Orthodox Church has, as I understand it, the great mystery in Christendom (no pun intended, re: mystery). Evangelicals have tended to be mostly unaware of it. I worship with youth and college Pentecostals on Wednesday nights and I doubt many of them have any idea of what the Orthodox Church is or what the Great Schism was. They are more concerned with Catholicism and mainline Protestantism.

Some evangelicals, who are more learned, are intrigued by the mysteries of the Orthodox Church (and the relative conservativeness), but they run into issues when their expectations don't meet the reality (the blogger Rod Dreher has gone into this... oh, I should send you the link to his blog, you may like it)

You mean the idea that once you've accepted Jesus, you're in forever no matter what happens next? I have encountered that.

Not exactly (well that sort of mindset is Calvinist - "Preservation of the Saints" the P in TULIP - once saved, always saved). The idea is that people are focused on "winning numbers" and that's the final destination. They kind of forget about people once they are in and focus on either keeping them believing or getting new people. Some Arminian/Wesleyan churches go for a greater knowledge of God - but they can fall prey to the numbers game too.

I think the idea there is that, while Adam and Eve were in union with God, they were still ignorant of good and evil, living like children; have you read Perelandra? The perfect woman in that book obeys God, but does not understand why she does it and cannot defend herself against temptation effectively, since she cannot understand evil. After doing what Eve couldn't (with help) and resisting the temptation, she matures into a state of full awareness. That's the idea. I think.

I have not read Perelandra, but Jesus does say that our faith should be like that of little children. I take that to mean following and obeying God and not really concerned with the minute catagorization of good and evil - of course in our fallen world that's kind of impossible, but the ideal is the Adam & Eve Edenic like state of full bliss, being in union with God. The Emergent Church (basically, Post-modern Evangelical Christians) tend to push that our job is to bring the Kingdom of Heaven to Earth, to recreate Eden upon the fallen world. Hence, going beyond an Edenic mindset just wouldn't compute.

It's not clear to me whether theosis is achieved entirely in this life. I found this, just digging around:

OTOH, other quotes on the same page I got that from ( http://www.orthodox.net/gleanings/theosis.html ) seem to imply otherwise. And this is ambiguous:

It seems it is still working out... same with some Holyness denominations. John Wesley, IIRC, postulated that one could live a sin-less life if fully dedicated to God. Most Protestants find this heretical (as they find the Catholic notion that the Virgin Mary was born without original sin to be heresy).

[Kidlicious]

Sarcasm is an improvement (of sorts) on the general ignorance and abuse of some of your other posts. How exactly am I being dishonest ?

And please, no paraphrases, quote me.

You haven't said anything that I care to respond to.

[Elok]

I found Dreher's blog via Google, but all links to the post where he explained his conversion (supposedly it's a 5K-word monster) result in a 404. Lemme think about the rest of what you said, and post again later.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Ah... he has a new blog on The American Conservative. You must have found his beliefnet blog.

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/

[Felch]

Um. Again scripture is the Word.

I know that somebody's already brought this up, but I'm providing it as an exercise to the reader.

Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος.

Kid, instead of trusting somebody else's interpretation of the Gospel of John, how about you read it yourself, and tell us what it says.

[Kidlicious]

Is that a joke on those who hack up the Bible?

I've quoted passages. To say that you read the Bible isn't enough. If you add or subtract to it it's not the Bible. If you quote a verse and you don't believe that every verse in the Bible is eternal truth then you aren't speaking God's word. Words taken out of context are lies. My case has been presented unless JM has the guts to resond to my discussion with him.