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vicente

8th February 2005, 05:41 AM

Christian unity must be goal of every Catholic, says pope

Unifying the various branches of Christianity should be the goal of every Catholic, Pope John Paul II told pilgrims at his weekly general audience as he promoted a week of prayer for Christian unity.

He said the week of prayer was "dedicated to reflection and prayer on the need for all the baptized to work for the restoration of full Christian unity".

"The pain of separation is felt with ever more intensity," the pontiff said, adding that the world awaited a "clear and unanimous" worship by all believers in Christ -- a veiled reference to the strained relations between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches.

(Yes Holy Father, it's time "for all baptized to work for the restoration of Christian Unity", but first we must identify the truely baptized. Mark 16:16-18 says a true Christian, "the man [woman?] who accepts baptism,...will be able to drink deadly poison without harm". And as all good little Christians should know, they should "prove all things" 1 Thess 5:21).

Xian Unity Now! I'll be glad to supply poison to any Republican, especially those in elected office.

Vicente

Nick_A

8th February 2005, 06:24 AM

Vicente

'In Love We Trust' should be an acceptable National Motto to nearly all, especially freedom loving, Constitutional minded Paine-Jefferson-Adams Americans. Love is our inherent nature; the essence of our uncorrupted, unmedia-ted Human Beingness. What better motto to encourage us to fulfill the dream of America's Founding Fathers,...Of many, One.

Xian Unity Now! I'll be glad to supply poison to any Republican, especially those in elected office.

How hard it is form our inherent nature to shine. Well there's always tomorrow. :)

vicente

8th February 2005, 10:16 AM

In Love We Trust,...Mark 16:16-18 says a true Christian, "the man [woman?] who accepts baptism,...will be able to drink deadly poison without harm",...if one trusts in the love of Jesus, they should except Jesus' own litmus test. "prove all things" 1 Thess 5:21

Of course, it wouldn't be a loving thing for them to take the test because it would precipitate a billion corpses. An easier, more loving way would be something like:

http://mypage.direct.ca/w/writer/library.html
http://www.saigon.com/~anson/ebud/beyond/beyond03.htm

Nick_A

8th February 2005, 09:51 PM

Vicente

You are taking the Bible as a literal work but it is really a psychological work. Its psychology far surpasses anything we currently define as psychology since it is less concerned with what a person does and more with what he IS. From Mark 16:

15He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. 16Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. 17And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; 18they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.”

To believe and be baptized means far more than someone throwing water at you. You will never understand what driving out demons means until you in the company of someone with real "presence". The living waters introduce the deep psychological truths so when you drink the poisons and become captivated by habitual thoughts and emotions related to self justification, it produces self deception that leads to the real death or "spiritual death".

A person really only begins to understand the Bible when they can become truly aware of the human conditions within their own selves which we avoid substituting al sorts of imaginations about "love", "awareness" and the like far beyond their abilities.

De Silva writes of free will without aware that the Bible speaks of both man fallen and man reborn. Free will does not exist for man as we know him, it is a quality of re-birth. The best we can do is to become open so as to get the help possible. Experts like this cannot do it since such genuine humility denies the belief in their own expertise.

vicente

8th February 2005, 10:05 PM

You are taking the Bible as a literal work but it is really a psychological work

In your opinion it may be psychological,...in the opinion of a billion others it's literal.

Let's be serious, and open-minded. Christians generally adhere to four core beliefs: the Bible is without error, salvation comes through faith in Jesus and not good deeds, individuals must accept Jesus as adults and all Christians must evangelize. Those core beliefs are both anti-American and anti-Liberal.
ie: http://skepticreport.com/tools/10command.htm

Another example, from a Buddhist perspective:
Today one often hears liberal Christians make statements like these. Sadly, such statements are meaningless. One could simply reverse them and say "Deep down Christians are really searching for Nirvana", "The Christian God is just a personification of Nirvana", or "Christians are Buddhists outside the Sangha". Although such statements are often welcomed by Buddhists as indicating that liberal Christians are more tolerant than their fundamentalist brothers and sisters, this is actually not so. Such statements really show that Christians still wish to claim superiority for their own religion. They also show that the liberal Christian's supposed tolerance is dependent upon believing that Buddhism is just another form of Christianity. In short, it is based on a delusion. Liberal Christians will only be genuinely tolerant when they can admit that Buddhism is different from Christianity, very different, and be tolerant despite these differences.
http://www.saigon.com/~anson/ebud/beyond/beyond08.htm

Christians are basically anti-Americans and anti-Liberal that need either a lesson in history or a one-way ticket to some Taliban like Country.

The Supreme Law of the United States says:
"the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded upon the Christian religion" June 10, 1797

"Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law" Thomas Jefferson, February 10, 1814

http://ffrf.org/nontracts/xian.php
http://www.theocracywatch.org/
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/ed_...quotations.html

I Want My Country Back,...especially from the McCarthyite Christians who have taken control of all branches of Government.

The Declaration of Independence suggests that "When in the Course of human events, the unalienable Rights guarenteed to the people are, through a long train of abuses and usurpations destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people, it is their duty, to throw off such Despotism, and to provide new Guards for their future security that respect and honor the values and ideas of the Constitution. It is the Right of the People to dispose of that evil by abolishing the illegal forms, traditions and revisionist attempts to indoctrinated the citizenry".

Liberalism is to the principles upon which America was founded, as Christian Conservativism is to hate, arrogance and anti-Americanism

I'm a Liberal American,...as such my views closely follow those of my Founding Fathers:

"The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason." Benjamin Franklin

"The doctrine of the divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity." John Adams

"The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the Supreme Being as his father, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter." Thomas Jefferson

"The Christian system of religion is an outrage on common sense." Thomas Paine

"Mr. Lincoln was not a Christian." Mary Todd Lincoln

"I have seldom met an intelligent person whose views were not narrowed and distorted by religion." James Buchanan

We Americans have no commission from God to police the world. -Benjamin Harrison

"It is always better to have no ideas than false ones; to believe nothing, than to believe what is wrong." Thomas Jefferson

:)

Nick_A

9th February 2005, 12:57 AM

Let's be serious, and open-minded. Christians generally adhere to four core beliefs: the Bible is without error, salvation comes through faith in Jesus and not good deeds, individuals must accept Jesus as adults and all Christians must evangelize. Those core beliefs are both anti-American and anti-Liberal.

You simply have no idea how enormous the scale of being is between the most literal form of Christendom and the well hidden essence of Christianity itself.

The Bible is a work of "objective art". As such it exists not as normal subjective art but as having been written by men in certain states of consciousnss so that these same states of consciousness can be experienced by others open to them. In this way it is without error for this purpose. The reader often discovers the essential truths through the experience of what is seen as contractictory similar to what occurs with a Zen koan.

What does the name "Jesus" mean. Jesus refers to the "good' while Christ refers to the "Law. Jesus Christ is the reconciliation of the "Good" with the "Law". The more one begins to understand about this, the more it becomes evident that there is to understand. So faith IN Jesus has to be seen as very relative in quality. The faith OF Christ is something else and it is what helps a person to retain the "presence" necessary for Christianity to live within a person. Even the Apostles had a difficult time with this and asked Jesus to increase their faith.

Of course the understanding of which faith is a part of is the essential ingredient. It is what is genuinely alive in a person and all that can truly be saved. What "understanding" is shown by a person who does "good deeds" from either fear or from trying to appear important, or some karmic reward? The only good is cultural until its opposite lawfully begins. This "understanding" born not of appearance but of the inner search for meaning at the expense of appearance is what allows a person to experience the meaninglessness of normal habitual life and strive for the truth behind these apparent absurdities.

People claiming to be Christians for some reason and people claiming to be Buddhists for some reason get caught up in words not realizing how superficially they are being taken. Underneath it is very similar but it takes a certain degree of openness leading to a slight awakening to begin to see the foolishness of all these battles. It truly is better to try and develop the capacity to "understand" rather than battle about things. misunderstood.

Cultural conditions are a result more of what we are rather than govt. Christianity concerns itself with what a person IS. What does this have to do with some governmental ideas of conservatism or liberalism? This is the concern of Christendom. They just manifest in cycles while the goal of Christianity is the unmovable behind the cycles.

vicente

9th February 2005, 02:33 AM

The Bible is a work of "objective art".

Well, art is in the eye of the perceiver, whereas "object-ism" is a provable illusion. Personally, as one who spent several years at a university with a Religious Studies major, I find the Bible quite pathetic.

Jesus refers to the "good' while Christ refers to the "Law. Jesus Christ is the reconciliation of the "Good" with the "Law"

Now Nick,...this is quite a New Age stretch isn't it? Let's quit interpreting our imaginations and let the Bible speak for itself,...ie:

http://www.saigon.com/~anson/ebud/beyond/beyond05.htm
or:
WAS JESUS PEACEABLE AND COMPASSIONATE?
DID JESUS PROMOTE FAMILY VALUES?
WHAT WERE HIS VIEWS ON EQUALITY AND SOCIAL JUSTICE?
WHAT MORAL ADVICE DID JESUS GIVE?
WAS JESUS RELIABLE?
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/errancy/issu....htm#jesuspeace

The faith OF Christ is something else

I agree here. The mythology of Christ predates the Pauline based invention by hundreds if not thousands of years. But that is not the discussion at hand. This discussion is about todays christians, what would be correctly called neo-christianity. The christianity founded upon the fabricated divinity of Jesus.

Cultural conditions are a result more of what we are rather than govt

Until 1942, US citizen affiliation with Christianity was ALWAYS below 50%. Since then, and the subsequent McCarthy era, christians have been in the majority. This majority are hateful anti-Americans. ie:

"We don't have to protect the environment, the Second Coming is at hand....after the last tree is felled, Christ will come back." Secretary of the Interior James Watt on Global Warming

"I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good . . . our goal is a Christian nation. We have the biblical duty, we are called on by God to conquer this country. We don't want equal time. We don't want pluralism..." Randall Terry, Director of Operation Rescue

"the solution to Islam is for the United States to invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity." Ann Coulter 2001

"The inability or unwillingness to hate makes a person worthless. If we do not hate detestable things, the quality of our character is suspect. The Bible commands that we hate". H. A. (Buster) Dobbs, Church of Christ.

"I don't know that those who don't believe in God should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God." George HW Bush, August 27, 1987

"If the Americans go in and overthrow Saddam and it's clean, he has nothing, I will apologize to the nation, and I will not trust the Bush Administration again." Bill O'Reilly (O'Reilly Factor), on Good Morning America, March 18, 2003

"If you have the opportunity to get a few liberals out of office, do it," he told the evangelicals. "You will be doing the Lord’s work, and He will richly bless you for it." Republican Sen. James Inhofe, of Oklahoma

"I am fighting for the work of the lord", George W Bush April 11, 2002

"I am fighting for the work of the lord", Adolph Hitler, the Mein Kampf

However,...Christian citizens haven't a clue about their Country. America is one nation under a Constitution. Although the Constitution sets up a representative democracy, it specifically was amended with the Bill of Rights in 1791 to uphold individual and minority rights. On constitutional matters we do not have majority rule. The majority has no right to tyrannize the minority on matters such as race, gender, or religion.

As the 9th Circuit Court suggested, the "Under God" in the Pledge, it is an outright act of a deluded majority tyrannizing a minority on religion.

In May 2002, the 9th District Court said that the "The Pledge, as currently codified, is an impermissible government endorsement of religion because it sends a message to unbelievers that they are outsiders, not full members of the political community, and an accompanying message to adherents that they are insiders, favored members of the political community."

In essense, they said "Under God" promoted a situation where atheists, polytheists, Buddhists, Deists, Wiccans, Humanists, female based monotheists, etc, are not members of the Community.

I want my Country back.

NeverMind

9th February 2005, 09:05 AM

In order to unify a religion there has to be a strictly defined and widely accepted code of beliefs

For instance, I did not know until recently that the Presbyterian church does not allow gays to be leaders in the church, no matter how small a role.

The church has been having the problem of unity since it was started. This is not a new problem.

vicente

9th February 2005, 11:05 AM

In order to unify a religion there has to be a strictly defined and widely accepted code of beliefs

Yes,...but, even before that,...first we must identify the truely baptized. Mark 16:16-18 says a true Christian, "the man [woman?] who accepts baptism,...will be able to drink deadly poison without harm". And as all good little Christians should know, they should "prove all things" 1 Thess 5:21.

:)

Nick_A

9th February 2005, 07:46 PM

Vicente

Well, art is in the eye of the perceiver, whereas "object-ism" is a provable illusion. Personally, as one who spent several years at a university with a Religious Studies major, I find the Bible quite pathetic.

A Religious Studies Major? Well that explains it. Now I see what happened.

Now Nick,...this is quite a New Age stretch isn't it? Let's quit interpreting our imaginations and let the Bible speak for itself,...ie:

New Age?? It's real old age. Christianity speaks of the goal or re-birth above all. As the goal, it is the "good" for man. To just die and remain in the cycles of "dust to dust" is not the good. The "law" describes the mechanical means towards the "good". We are not capable of it so we have access to a certain help through Christianity. This is logic. No la la land here.

WAS JESUS PEACEABLE AND COMPASSIONATE?
DID JESUS PROMOTE FAMILY VALUES?
WHAT WERE HIS VIEWS ON EQUALITY AND SOCIAL JUSTICE?
WHAT MORAL ADVICE DID JESUS GIVE?
WAS JESUS RELIABLE?

These are cultural values. What does it have to do with re-birth?

In order to have Christian unity, it would be necessary to get rid of all the "improvements" of Christendom and go back to the essence of Christianity. Christian unity exists amongst Christians. Christendom existing as many factions also exists in disunity.

As Jalal al-Din Rumi once said, "There is counterfeit gold because real gold exists."

Christendom, this artificial creation of fool's gold, is the normal result of man's gradual interpretations of Christianity.

Our difference is that you want to argue over the merits of Christendom and I search for the further truth of Christianity. May we both find satisfaction through our chosen paths.

I don't see how Christendom could ever become united. If it could, it wouldn't have come into existence. The same human tendencies that caused it will keep it divided. This tendency and its harmful effects on mankind is one reason why Christianity is essential to avoid everything becoming lost to this tendency.

lazarus

14th March 2005, 10:27 AM