It's quite apparent that your definition of the "holy" church and mine are two different animals.
None of what I wrote blasphemed God, and to try to mischaracterize my remarks that way is sad to say the least.
Now the RCC on the other hand . . . unfortunately their misdeeds under the guise of Christianity and papal authority have been recorded and witnessed too often through history to brush aside as lies. Good luck with that.
You are recycling lies and half-truths against the church that even
an honest atheist would blush at. The hatred and contempt you show for fellow Christians is one of the gravest of errors. Blasphemy is not too strong a word here.
John 18:36..."My kingdom is not of this world..."
Ever read about the Inquisition?
"Not for Him, against Him???" I'm sure Zwingli had that verse on speed dial as he drowned the enemies of the Christian State.
>For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. (Romans 14:17 [AKJV])
Shall we not be righteous now? Should we not have peace now? Nor Joy in the Holy Ghost? We live for the Kingdom and model our lives and our people after it. The Kingdom is not of this world, we are here to show people what the Kingdom is in this world.
Yes Mojo, the inquisition was a work to prevent the horrible events of the peasant wars of Germany from happening in Spain. It worked. Both this and Zwingli was because the Anabaptists waged horrible war against their own people and the Christians of other lands had no reason to trust they had reformed. They had reformed under Menno Simms, but there was no reasons for the leaders of other nations to believe they had.
You blew right pass
Why is that?
Because the verse was to you. You seek to place things into scripture that are not there. You seek put words in scripture to apply things more broadly than scripture itself did. I have left scripture to mean what it says.
Scripture is foundational, Jesus is foundational, the apostles are foundational.
Besides Nothing I have read from the Early church founders had them quoting anything from the Asgardian myths, Druidic beleifs, or the Tuatha Dé Danann myths. By the way not everything the Early Church Fathers exposed was G-d breathed. I point you back to monogamy only for one example.
Nor did they quote Cherokee myths nor Oriental legends. Nor did they even quote much Greco-Roman mythology other than some passing references. They quoted moral and natural philosophers, those who concerned themselves with truth and virtue.
Tretullians work on monogamy was an anti-catholic one, it was part of his heretical stage. The others (when they talk about it at all) admit it is not wrong, even if they encourage conforming to their culture (which, again, allowed concubines in any case).
Do you not even read what they are freed from? Read the whole chapter, read the whole book! They are not to be servants of the Law of Moses. They have been elevated from those who do not know the True God to True Heirs of the True God. What are they being warned against? Falling into Pharisaical legalism, feeling the need to follow Mosaic law as it was said. What days and times are the beggarly elements? Those of the Jewish traditional system.
The Galatians are being told not to go from one austere legalistic morality like that which pervades the ancient pagans to another austere legalistic morality which is that of the Talmundic Jews. This is clear in that this is what the book as a whole is talking about. Are you the same as the Galatians? Have you turned back from so great a grace to another austere legal-moral system?
That's where we're having issue your saying the who is only Semitic pagans while I say it applies to Pagans. A pagan is a pagan even if they're European. Your approach to try and exclude the group you favor is very legalistic.
The term pagan itself is an anachronism, it means no more or less than rural religion. I say just as Deuteronomy says, that the specific ways of worship of the specific people cited in Deuteronomy where to be wiped out, and not emulated in any way.
Kevin, legalism means something very specific. Good hermeneutics are not legalism. Adding to scripture to say things it doesn't is quite a serious error. And you're running some kind of hyper modernized translation if the word pagan even appears in your scripture. The word would be misleading at best.
Gladiatorial events were not only to tame the Roman mob, punishment for criminals, but began as sacrificfical ceremony to Roman G-ds. They were hypocrites when it came to sacrifice. They claimed to abhorre it but continued to practice it just under different pretenses. You are correct that as the roman empire grew it came to despise child sacrifice. Let's not fool ourselves that it was altruism when they began. Every child that was sacrificed ment less taxes in the long run and one less potential slave for the empire.
Executing criminals by any means is not abhorrent. Nor is it hypocrisy to execute criminals but forbid killing the just. This is quite as bad as the pro-death person who thinks a pro-life person is hypocritical for opposing abortion but allowing the death penalty.
You fool only yourself by ascribing only the worst motive you can think of into your opponent to make your case. It shows the hatred that rules you more than it proves some ill intent of your opponent.
I do take bible study seriously. I suggest you do the same. I asked you to support your opinion that you made a with scripture. Instead of giving a response supporting your statement with scripture, You give a passive aggressive attack on my leadership because you are unable to. I believe it is careless to ignore those scriptures and apply hermetics in the way you are in an attempt to defend your opinion.
No, you use scripture in whatever way you see fit. If you took it seriously the admonition about using proper hermeneutics would have made you abashed, it would have meant something to you.
Hermeneutics is about ensuring you read scripture for what it intends to say, that you are not simply putting your own ideas into it. It is a discipline. It is saying 'God your word rules me, I will seek to understand what you mean to tell me and modify my faith and life accordingly.'
The rejecting of hermeneutics is to say 'God let me tell you what you should think, I will live my life how I wish and you will back me up.'
There is no need for me to attempt to defend my opinion on these verses. My opinion is what scripture says, no more, no less. Your opinion is that it says those folks are condemned, plus any unnamned group you choose to associate with them for whatever reason. Your opposition is scripture + your will, not your will under scripture.
Once again instead of addressing the issue of scriptural proof you respond with a passive aggressive attack. I do understand pagan virtues and values, I am by no means and expert because to be an expert and completely understand them you must embrace them. I also know that it is G-ds virtues and values that a some pagans had recognized were similar to there's but better and that's why they converted not to add to Christianity but because it is the better choice. Others converted by sword point and brought their traditions and customs.
How was the Roman Chathloic Church any different? How many Popes, who btw almost universally broke all their vows and usurped Jesus' authority as head of the Church, were assassinated by selfishly ambitious cardnials. The reformation was in response to Catholic Churches rebellious nature towards scripture for example the beleif you could purchase forgiveness ahead of time. One way is that they are diffrent is that the Chatholic Church fully embraced pagan traditions and customs, and even made pagan gods Saints.
I have told you the nature of the parable of the vine, and you should well know the nature of Christian liberty. You, because you are a legalist, (not just one who accuses others of such) looks for a clear and positive law allowing something. If you operated in the spirit you would understand the parables of Christ and the writings of the Christian saints and the liberty of the beleiver and not ask for such a thing, the parables would be enough.
You look to the law for condemnation of your foes, and when no condemnation can be found you invent it! Hypocrite yourself! Decrying legalism while running to invent laws.
Don't you even see the irony? Is it lost on you?
You worry about conversion by sword point, you soft humanist. For as rarely as it happened still it was a good thing. You rush to condemn what greed and selfishness you saw in the church over thousands of years (and yes, there was some) but forget that those that came after were worse.
As Luther said of the reformation, later in life:
>"This one will not hear of Baptism, and that one denies the sacrament, another puts a world between this and the last day: some teach that Christ is not God, some say this, some say that: there are as many sects and creeds as there are heads. No yokel is so rude but when he has dreams and fancies, he thinks himself inspired by the Holy Ghost and must be a prophet."
>"Noblemen, townsmen, peasants, all classes understand the Evangelium better than I or St. Paul; they are now wise and think themselves more learned than all the ministers."
And your example, indulgences? No one allowed that. If anything the error of indulgences was one of too little papal power, rather than too much. Charlatans sold them outside the control of the papacy. Martin Luther did effect other reforms, important ones, where the Catholics did err. But what do you know of those? You are the other extreme he decries as worse than the Catholics. The catholics today at least admit almost all of of Luther's Thesis, you today reject most of them.
And lets be quite clear, telling you point blank that you need to change something because it is unfitting for a leader is not passive aggressive. If you mistake some grace in addressing you with passiveness you have merely ignored the clarity with which I implore you to change.
You are interpreting scripture wrongly to support your own beleifs, reading the immediate context of the verses you quote makes this abundantly clear. This is not passive, nor is it even aggressive, it is the truth of your situation.
How many Christians has the US government burnt at the stake?
Depends how you classify Seventh Day Adventists. Though they were not literally burned at the steak. But when you count the campaigned America waged they have quite a lot of Christian blood on their hands.
The English monarchy, like most of the European monarchies and the Pope, has the blood of the saints on their hands. Preachers who dared spread the Gospel were jailed, tortured and burnt at the stake. When that failed to dissuade His servants they started forcing the martyr's own children to light the fires.
This bit of history is found alongside 'let them eat cake' and 'people thought the world was flat before Columbus' right? Even the number of witches burned at steaks is greatly exadurated, and more a puritans of the USA thing than old European. The English Monarch King Charles I was martyred by the puritans for refusing to make the church bend knee to their humanist, anti-Christ evils.
You are projecting the evils done in the name of liberals and puritans onto Christian Kings. Robespierre has the blood saints on his hands. The American founding fathers for betraying the King that gave them their independence has that same blood of the saints on their hands. The Americans when they supported the Mexican revolution and opposed Maximilian has the blood of the faithful of Mexico on their hands. When they threw all in and supported Stalin and ensured communism had a place to thrive and grow over the whole world they have the blood of the Gulag Archipelago and the faithful Orthodox on their hands.
All these secular, anti-Christ states that seize land from the church and execute priest and pastor alike funded and backed from the seat of secular power in the American Federal Government. What could you possibly put on the scale against Europeans Kings for the last 2000 years that even tips the anti-Christian evils of the last 300 in any meaningful way?
Study history, learn what actually happened, and these things you're saying become the most transparent lies ever told.
Kings died for their faith in God, Presidents kill for their faith in humanity.
They are foundational to Christiandom. But not to the way of Christ. There are many good things in the virtues and values of the pagans. But they are not foundational to the faith. It was the importation of pagan ways and values into Christian teaching and practice that is the source of almost all the problems in the church and theology today.
No, Christianity and the way of Christ very much reaches to the philosophies of Helen, even the idea of the Word echoes Heraclitus.
The problems in Church theology today are from humanism, liberalism, and individualism being worshiped first. The churches believe in the Enlightenment more than they believe in the Gospel. And why not? So many churches that rejected this Satan-worship were outright killed by liberal revolutionaries. But the faithful survives.
The reason for error is much more plain, and Luther saw it coming, as I quoted to Kevin:
"Noblemen, townsmen, peasants, all classes understand the Evangelium better than I or St. Paul; they are now wise and think themselves more learned than all the ministers."
How could you not run into every error in those conditions?
