10 point
Well-Known Member
Are you saying that Jesus isn't the Son of God or who he said he was?
Religion
- Thread starter wkmac
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MrFedEx
Engorged Member
Exactly. That's why is always say I would love to be proven wrong. Why doesn't God just come on down, tell us he or she is real, and be done with it? No hocus-pocus, no death and rebirth nonsense etc.
Spare me all of the nonsensical reasons why God cannot show He/She/It exists.
MrFedEx
Engorged Member
Maybe. Show me proof.
Actually Jesus probably never called himself the "Son of God". If I'm not mistaken, that was a Roman concept applied approximately 75 A.D.
How about the same reasons I often hear that God doesn't exist? You know, murder, starvation, war, pornography (well, maybe not pornography).
Maybe God is the only thing holding it all together.
10 point
Well-Known Member
I'm asking that because of your using him to qualify what is a charlatan "christian".
Normally, fixed objects are used to measure mobile distance.
10 point
Well-Known Member
John 11:4; John 10:36.
MrFedEx
Engorged Member
What about Mohammed, Buddha, Vishnu, or all the others. No merit?
wkmac
Well-Known Member
Or was Jesus the son of the Goddess?
Valentinianism
"Valentinianism is a Gnostic Christian movement that was founded by Valentinus in the second century AD. Valentinianism was one of the major Gnostic movements. Its influence was extremely widespread, not just within Rome, but also from Northwest Africa to Egypt through to Asia Minor and Syria in the east.[1]
Later in the movement’s history it broke into two schools; an Eastern school and a Western school. Disciples of Valentinus continued to be active into the 4th century AD, after the Roman Empire was declared to be Christian.[2]
Valentinus and the Gnostic movement that bore his name were considered threats to Christianity by church leaders and Christian scholars, not only because of their influence, but also because of their doctrine, practices and beliefs. Gnostics were condemned as heretics, and prominent Church fathers such as Irenaeus of Lyons and Hippolytus of Rome wrote against Gnosticism. Most evidence for the Valentinian theory comes from its critics and detractors, most notably Irenaeus, since he was especially concerned with refuting Valentinianism.[3]"
continuing:
"According to Irenaeus, the Valentinians believed that at the beginning there was a Pleroma (literally, a 'fullness'). At the centre of the Pleroma was the primal Father or Bythos, the beginning of all things who, after ages of silence and contemplation, projected thirty Aeons, heavenly archetypes representing fifteen syzygies or sexually complementary pairs. Among them was Sophia. Sophia’s weakness, curiosity and passion led to her fall from the Pleroma and the creation of the world and man, both of which are flawed. Valentinians identified the God of the Old Testament as the Demiurge,[8] the imperfect creator of the material world. Man, the highest being in this material world, participates in both the spiritual and the material nature. The work of redemption consists in freeing the former from the latter."
continuing:
"In Valentinianism, Sophia always stands absolutely at the center of the system, and in some sense she seems to represent the supreme female principle.
Sophia is the youngest of the Aeons. Observing the multitude of Aeons and the power of begetting them, she hurries back into the depth of the Father, and seeks to emulate him by producing offspring without conjugal intercourse, but only projects an abortion, a formless substance. Upon this she is cast out of Pleroma and into the primal sub-stratum of matter.[13] In the Valentinian systems, the fall of Sophia appears in double guise. The higher Sophia still remains within the upper world after creating a disturbance, and after her expiation and repentance; but her premature offspring, Sophia Achamoth, is removed from the Pleroma, and becomes the heroine of the rest of the drama. This fallen Sophia becomes a world creative power........
The Gnostics are children of Sophia; from her the heavenly seed, the divine spark, descended into this lower world, subject to the Heimarmene (destiny) and in the power of hostile spirits and powers; and all their sacraments and mysteries, their formulae and symbols, must be in order to find the way upwards, back to the highest heaven. This idea that the Gnostics know themselves to be in a hostile and evil world reacted in the same direction upon the conception of Sophia. She became likewise a fallen Aeon, who has sunk down into the material world and seeks to free herself from it, receiving her liberation at the hands of a heavenly Redeemer, exactly like the Gnostics.......
Next to Sophia stands a male redeeming divinity. In the true Valentinian system, the Christ is the son of the fallen Sophia, who is thus conceived as an individual. Sophia conceives a passion for the First Father himself, or rather, under pretext of love she seeks to draw near to the unattainable Bythos, the Unknowable, and to comprehend his greatness. She brings forth, through her longing for that higher being, an Aeon who is higher and purer than herself, and at once rises into the celestial worlds. Christ has pity on the abortive substance born of Sophia and gives it essence and form, whereupon Sophia tries to rise again to the Father, but in vain. In the enigmatic figure of Christ we again find hidden the original conception of the Primal Man, who sinks down into matter but rises again.
In the fully developed Ptolemaean system we find a kindred conception, but with a slight difference. Here Christ and Sophia appear as brother and sister, with Christ representing the higher and Sophia the lower element. When this world has been born from Sophia in consequence of her passion, two Aeons, Nous (mind) and Aletheia (truth), by command of the Father, produce two new Aeons, Christ and the Holy Ghost; these restore order in the Pleroma, and in consequence all Aeons combine their best and most wonderful qualities to produce a new Aeon (Jesus, Logos, Soter, or Christ), the “First Fruits” whom they offer to the Father. And this celestial redeemer-Aeon now enters into a marriage with the fallen Aeon; they are the “bride and bridegroom”. It is boldly stated in the exposition in Hippolytus’ Philosophumena that they produce between them 70 celestial angels.
This myth can be connected with the historic Jesus of Nazareth by further relating that Christ, having been united to the Sophia, descends into the earthly Jesus, the son of Mary, at his baptism, and becomes the Saviour of men."
MrFedEx
Engorged Member
A "Charlatan Christian" in my book is someone who uses Jesus/God for their own personal gain. Benny Hinn comes to mind immediately. Please don't go down the road I think you're headed, because that's BS.
There is no one religion, except "yours".
DriveInDriveOut
Inordinately Right
Words written a hundred years after Jesus died by some unknown dude, passed down through hundreds of years and translations..... and people actually call it a quote lol.
I don't know enough about them to comment on them
The Jewish oral tradition of history is phenomenally accurate, much like that of Native Americans.
10 point
Well-Known Member
Did I say that? I asked you an honest question without malicious intent. I was and always am perplexed by statements like that.
By the way, according to the Bible those that are crooked in their actions (Christian leadership) will be judged more harshly than those who were not leaders or teachers.
Note that you are quoting John.
10 point
Well-Known Member
Why would multitudes of people call themselves Christians with no hope of material gain from it knowing that imprisonment and death awaited for them for just confessing their faith in Jesus and redemption through faith in that name?
It's a personal choice and shouldn't be a source of ridicule on here or anywhere else.
MrFedEx
Engorged Member
WUT? I'm not ridiculing your choice...it's fine. Why aren't the other choices fine too?
MrFedEx
Engorged Member
Good. On J Day, Benny Hinn and Donald Trump can have adjoining rooms in Hell.
10 point
Well-Known Member
That's what I have to go on. And when someone asks for proof of God's personal involvement in people's lives through the name of Jesus I can personally give testimony to the power of His Name but I won't do it on here I don't have any pearls.
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