Actually, you did say it.mikeatmvnuNovember 3 2005, 05:35:51 UTC
If you really think that logical interpretation has no place in faith or religion, then I PITY you. Faith is believing in something you can’t prove, but believing something that can be proven to be false has another term: delusion.
I use the term secular because the positions taken, the arguments made, do not involve faith and love. They come from a standpoint that is not Christian. By definition, they are secular. That is all I have ever said on the matter.
The arguments about misinterpretation are not new in any way. Most of my profs speak Greek and Hebrew. In fact, they are required courses (one or the other) for Pastoral Ministries. One of these professors has written the majority of TWO text books on the Bible: Discovering the Old Testament and Discovering the New Testament. The other contributors to the works are highly acknowledged.
As for my not supporting my statements, I did so the best I could without setting my entire library on my lap. I supported myself at least as well as you did. You ignored most of my points as it stands.
As for you being able to "explain the meaning" behind supports, now who's being arrogant. If you want to pull "as usual"s into it, here's one for you. As usual you assume that you know better than me, that just because you are a few years older than I you were a scholar before I could walk. You've made that same exact statement for numerous topics and it never decreases in annoyance.
I have tried so hard to help you see the truth. I have spent hours witnessing to you, praying for you, crying for you, and supporting you. You are hell-bent on hating God and rejecting His love. As you are Hell-bent, so are you Hell-destined. As I once told you, if you spend your entire life telling God to leave you alone, one day He will. When you die. Then you will know what it is like to be out of God's presence forever, and you will finally know how much you were loved. When that day comes, I expect I'll be inconsolable.
You get so angry when someone speaks against something you hold dear. How do you think I feel when you speak against what I have devoted my life to? You recently told me that you have too much compassion. Where's the compassion in perpetually tearing down what your friend holds most dear?
But if you want this to be the end of our friendship it will be. You can push away one of the few people that has never given up on you, that never will.
Re: Actually, you did say it.silentlexNovember 4 2005, 03:19:15 UTC
“Actually, you did say it. If you really think that logical interpretation has no place in faith or religion, then I PITY you. Faith is believing in something you can’t prove, but believing something that can be proven to be false has another term: delusion.”
Ah, I see. Ok, you got me there. What confused me was your corruption of the term: I said I pitied your inability (or unwillingness) to evaluate the situation with common sense, rather than blind faith (also called zealotry). You corrupted this into “I’m going to heaven, and you pity me for that.” This is not only poor form, but also misses the point entirely.
“I use the term secular because the positions taken, the arguments made, do not involve faith and love. They come from a standpoint that is not Christian. By definition, they are secular. That is all I have ever said on the matter.”
No, no, no. The definition of “secular” is “having nothing to do with or being specifically removed from religious thought.” I don’t see how discussing the nature of a major figure in a major world religion, in a rational manner, using the ancient recording discussing said figure, is “secular.” Doing something without faith or love does not make it secular.
“The arguments about misinterpretation are not new in any way. Most of my profs speak Greek and Hebrew. In fact, they are required courses (one or the other) for Pastoral Ministries. One of these professors has written the majority of TWO text books on the Bible: Discovering the Old Testament and Discovering the New Testament. The other contributors to the works are highly acknowledged.”
Ok, great. Were they in on this conversation? No? Did they contribute to it directly in any way? Still no. Did they spend the same amount of time (decades) that the writer of the book I cite did, in his ongoing quest to understand the nature of the so-called “trinity?” Doubtful. Then, just mentioning them in passing doesn’t do much for your stance, does it? Talk to them. Get them to compare their research with what I have here, and we’ll see where that goes.
“As for my not supporting my statements, I did so the best I could without setting my entire library on my lap. I supported myself at least as well as you did. You ignored most of my points as it stands.”
No, I didn’t, and you didn’t do any supporting. Your best effort was to throw out a handful of verses and say, “See? That means I’m right.” I presented verses, translations, meanings, interpretations, and explained the reasoning behind their use. What you did is in NO WAY “at least” what I did.
As to ignoring your points, I don’t think I did. I disputed and/or shouted them down, where necessary.
“As for you being able to "explain the meaning" behind supports, now who's being arrogant.”
I don’t see how explaining something is arrogant. When I explain that “hen” is the Greek neuter for “one in purpose,” there’s nothing at all arrogant about that.
“As usual you assume that you know better than me,”
No assumption. The facts back it up. The fact that I am able merely to present so many facts and items supporting my side show that I know what I’m talking about better than you do. Meanwhile, you have the fucking never to make remarks like “If you had taken a bible class, you’d know better.” Yeah, YEARS of church, bible class, prayer, study and contemplation here. You want to turn remarks around? Fine. “Now who’s being arrogant?”
Re: Actually, you did say it.mikeatmvnuNovember 4 2005, 03:20:35 UTC
“that just because you are a few years older than I you were a scholar before I could walk.”
Again, no assumption. Simple fact. I was reading National Geographic in kindergarten. I’ve been an amateur scholar all my life. When other boys my age were playing with G. I. Joe, I was reading about the body’s immune system. With boys my age were dropping G. I. Joe for Transformers, I was researching the meaning behind the Ten Commandments.
“You've made that same exact statement for numerous topics and it never decreases in annoyance.”
I’m sorry you feel that way, but it doesn’t lend any more credence to your claims. The fact is, these are topics I have been looking into for a very long time. Yet, time and again, you are quite content to say, “You are wrong and I am right, because I take a few college courses.”
“I have tried so hard to help you see the truth.”
No, you’ve spent hours cramming what you SEE as the truth down my throat. You could not be more invasive if you wrote your beloved scripture on a brick and tried to cram it down my throat. I’ve been trying to reconcile with God for some weeks now, and other friends (like Adam) have been very supportive of me. You, on the other hand, are so invasive and heavy-handed that you actually put me off the topic. I hope you take that to heart in the future, because tactics like that are what drive people AWAY from Jesus, not to him.
“You are hell-bent on hating God and rejecting His love.”
As usual, you don’t know what you’re talking about. As I just said, I’ve been trying for some time to reconcile my stance with God, for what that’s worth. But rather than FIND THAT OUT, you proceed to throw your dogma in my face, ignoring everything I say, to the extent of saying:
“As you are Hell-bent, so are you Hell-destined.”
Once again. How many times, in the YEARS I have known you, have I told you I’m a Christian? It doesn’t seem to matter, because you never appear to hear me no matter how often I say it. If I’m hell-bound for my beliefs, then so are you.
“Then you will know what it is like to be out of God's presence forever, and you will finally know how much you were loved. When that day comes, I expect I'll be inconsolable.”
I doubt it. With luck you’ll have come to hate me as much as you’ve driven me to hate you, so I won’t have to put up with your narrow-minded crap anymore. I’ve been defending you from others who have gotten tired of your zealotry and heavy-handedness for quite some time. In one quick stroke, you pushed me to the point where I NEVER want anything to do with you again.
Re: Actually, you did say it.mikeatmvnuNovember 4 2005, 03:22:06 UTC
“You get so angry when someone speaks against something you hold dear.”
I’m sorry you see it that way. The fact is, I can be pretty passionate, but I make a HABIT of testing my beliefs. Everything I say and hold to, I do because I’ve put it to the test. This is why I research these things: if something doesn’t seem reasonable to me, then I doubt it’s veracity. Was there a Jesus? Hard to say, but my research into NDE’s leads me to think that there certainly was. Did the Ark exist as in Noah’s story? Sheer physics says it couldn’t, but that doesn’t mean that something similar didn’t happen. After all, legends of a world-consuming flood are literally worldwide: every culture remembers SOMETHING of that nature, so it’s not unreasonable to think that there was a flood at some point, just not that every animal living is descended from one on a wooden boat (which is outright ridiculous).
“How do you think I feel when you speak against what I have devoted my life to?”
Probably about the same as I do when you do the same to me, telling me that all my beliefs are wrong, because I evidently imagined all those years of study.
“You recently told me that you have too much compassion. Where's the compassion in perpetually tearing down what your friend holds most dear?”
Not everyone has a problem with it. Some people, such as my mother, hear what I said, and say, “Oh, that all makes MUCH more sense now!” Others, like you, cling tenaciously and blindly to dogma we KNOW was artificially inserted into church teaching THREE HUNDRED YEARS AFTER CHRIST LEFT EARTH.
You mentioned it in your live journal, and you claim to like a good debate, so I assumed the topic was open. Instead, I was ridiculed, talked down to, and had “you’re wrong!” screamed at me several times. Fine, there’s no need for you and I to discuss this, or anything else, ever again.
Re: Actually, you did say it.silentlexNovember 4 2005, 03:22:57 UTC
“But if you want this to be the end of our friendship it will be. You can push away one of the few people that has never given up on you, that never will.”
Oh, please. Don’t try to take yourself for a martyr. You’re nothing of the kind. You drive friends away, and you aren’t exactly easy to get along with, either. At least I wear my issues on my shoulder; you chip away at people with them over time.
Your version of “not giving up on me” the other night, when I mentioned that I would simply avoid people at the Naz I did not get along well with, was to lecture me forcefully for two hours about how I needed more love in my life.
You know who friends are that DON’T give up on me? People like Adam, who has gauged his ministry to me carefully over the years. He presents his point of view, and if he sees I’m not up for talking about it, he leaves me alone. We’ve certainly had some heated moments, but we’ve also had some very deep and progressive sessions, and I really think I’m much better about it. Now that I think about it, I literally thank God for Adam; he’s been for me at times when no one else was, and/or no one else COULD.
You, on the other hand, just jump in and start spewing rhetoric. You’ve put off Walker Boh, you’re coarse and mean to Mandy, and now you’ve pissed off me, a person who, for all my admitted faults, am legendary for my faith and loyalty to friends.
You have the nerve to jump in the middle of a conversation on the net, and begin lecturing me on why I can’t say that a figure in my book in an angel. “All angels were made before people,” you say. Ok, can you support that with a bible verse? Any verse at all? Time’s up, there AREN’T any. There’s NOTHING in the bible about angel creation that I can remember off-hand, not in 14 years of study. What you are spouting is TRADITION, not dogma.
Then you even ignore others who present their sides. In comes Zeev, who talks about how, being Jewish, he’s read the Old Testament in the original Hebrew many times. His anecdotes support what I’m saying at the time: that the serpent in the garden, “Satan,” and Lucifer are not in any way directly related. Your response? More of what you always do: “You’re wrong! Satan is Lucifer! Lucifer is Satan! You’re wrong!”
I’m raving at this point. I hope that, what history suggests aside, you were actually able to assimilate this information. Do not contact me again. Any missives from you in any form will be destroyed without consideration. According to you, I’ll see you in hell.
I use the term secular because the positions taken, the arguments made, do not involve faith and love. They come from a standpoint that is not Christian. By definition, they are secular. That is all I have ever said on the matter.
The arguments about misinterpretation are not new in any way. Most of my profs speak Greek and Hebrew. In fact, they are required courses (one or the other) for Pastoral Ministries. One of these professors has written the majority of TWO text books on the Bible: Discovering the Old Testament and Discovering the New Testament. The other contributors to the works are highly acknowledged.
As for my not supporting my statements, I did so the best I could without setting my entire library on my lap. I supported myself at least as well as you did. You ignored most of my points as it stands.
As for you being able to "explain the meaning" behind supports, now who's being arrogant. If you want to pull "as usual"s into it, here's one for you. As usual you assume that you know better than me, that just because you are a few years older than I you were a scholar before I could walk. You've made that same exact statement for numerous topics and it never decreases in annoyance.
I have tried so hard to help you see the truth. I have spent hours witnessing to you, praying for you, crying for you, and supporting you. You are hell-bent on hating God and rejecting His love. As you are Hell-bent, so are you Hell-destined. As I once told you, if you spend your entire life telling God to leave you alone, one day He will. When you die. Then you will know what it is like to be out of God's presence forever, and you will finally know how much you were loved. When that day comes, I expect I'll be inconsolable.
You get so angry when someone speaks against something you hold dear. How do you think I feel when you speak against what I have devoted my life to? You recently told me that you have too much compassion. Where's the compassion in perpetually tearing down what your friend holds most dear?
But if you want this to be the end of our friendship it will be. You can push away one of the few people that has never given up on you, that never will.
Reply
If you really think that logical interpretation has no place in faith or religion, then I PITY you. Faith is believing in something you can’t prove, but believing something that can be proven to be false has another term: delusion.”
Ah, I see. Ok, you got me there. What confused me was your corruption of the term: I said I pitied your inability (or unwillingness) to evaluate the situation with common sense, rather than blind faith (also called zealotry). You corrupted this into “I’m going to heaven, and you pity me for that.” This is not only poor form, but also misses the point entirely.
“I use the term secular because the positions taken, the arguments made, do not involve faith and love. They come from a standpoint that is not Christian. By definition, they are secular. That is all I have ever said on the matter.”
No, no, no. The definition of “secular” is “having nothing to do with or being specifically removed from religious thought.” I don’t see how discussing the nature of a major figure in a major world religion, in a rational manner, using the ancient recording discussing said figure, is “secular.” Doing something without faith or love does not make it secular.
“The arguments about misinterpretation are not new in any way. Most of my profs speak Greek and Hebrew. In fact, they are required courses (one or the other) for Pastoral Ministries. One of these professors has written the majority of TWO text books on the Bible: Discovering the Old Testament and Discovering the New Testament. The other contributors to the works are highly acknowledged.”
Ok, great. Were they in on this conversation? No? Did they contribute to it directly in any way? Still no. Did they spend the same amount of time (decades) that the writer of the book I cite did, in his ongoing quest to understand the nature of the so-called “trinity?” Doubtful. Then, just mentioning them in passing doesn’t do much for your stance, does it? Talk to them. Get them to compare their research with what I have here, and we’ll see where that goes.
“As for my not supporting my statements, I did so the best I could without setting my entire library on my lap. I supported myself at least as well as you did. You ignored most of my points as it stands.”
No, I didn’t, and you didn’t do any supporting. Your best effort was to throw out a handful of verses and say, “See? That means I’m right.” I presented verses, translations, meanings, interpretations, and explained the reasoning behind their use. What you did is in NO WAY “at least” what I did.
As to ignoring your points, I don’t think I did. I disputed and/or shouted them down, where necessary.
“As for you being able to "explain the meaning" behind supports, now who's being arrogant.”
I don’t see how explaining something is arrogant. When I explain that “hen” is the Greek neuter for “one in purpose,” there’s nothing at all arrogant about that.
“As usual you assume that you know better than me,”
No assumption. The facts back it up. The fact that I am able merely to present so many facts and items supporting my side show that I know what I’m talking about better than you do. Meanwhile, you have the fucking never to make remarks like “If you had taken a bible class, you’d know better.” Yeah, YEARS of church, bible class, prayer, study and contemplation here. You want to turn remarks around? Fine. “Now who’s being arrogant?”
Reply
Again, no assumption. Simple fact. I was reading National Geographic in kindergarten. I’ve been an amateur scholar all my life. When other boys my age were playing with G. I. Joe, I was reading about the body’s immune system. With boys my age were dropping G. I. Joe for Transformers, I was researching the meaning behind the Ten Commandments.
“You've made that same exact statement for numerous topics and it never decreases in annoyance.”
I’m sorry you feel that way, but it doesn’t lend any more credence to your claims. The fact is, these are topics I have been looking into for a very long time. Yet, time and again, you are quite content to say, “You are wrong and I am right, because I take a few college courses.”
“I have tried so hard to help you see the truth.”
No, you’ve spent hours cramming what you SEE as the truth down my throat. You could not be more invasive if you wrote your beloved scripture on a brick and tried to cram it down my throat. I’ve been trying to reconcile with God for some weeks now, and other friends (like Adam) have been very supportive of me. You, on the other hand, are so invasive and heavy-handed that you actually put me off the topic. I hope you take that to heart in the future, because tactics like that are what drive people AWAY from Jesus, not to him.
“You are hell-bent on hating God and rejecting His love.”
As usual, you don’t know what you’re talking about. As I just said, I’ve been trying for some time to reconcile my stance with God, for what that’s worth. But rather than FIND THAT OUT, you proceed to throw your dogma in my face, ignoring everything I say, to the extent of saying:
“As you are Hell-bent, so are you Hell-destined.”
Once again. How many times, in the YEARS I have known you, have I told you I’m a Christian? It doesn’t seem to matter, because you never appear to hear me no matter how often I say it. If I’m hell-bound for my beliefs, then so are you.
“Then you will know what it is like to be out of God's presence forever, and you will finally know how much you were loved. When that day comes, I expect I'll be inconsolable.”
I doubt it. With luck you’ll have come to hate me as much as you’ve driven me to hate you, so I won’t have to put up with your narrow-minded crap anymore. I’ve been defending you from others who have gotten tired of your zealotry and heavy-handedness for quite some time. In one quick stroke, you pushed me to the point where I NEVER want anything to do with you again.
Reply
I’m sorry you see it that way. The fact is, I can be pretty passionate, but I make a HABIT of testing my beliefs. Everything I say and hold to, I do because I’ve put it to the test. This is why I research these things: if something doesn’t seem reasonable to me, then I doubt it’s veracity. Was there a Jesus? Hard to say, but my research into NDE’s leads me to think that there certainly was. Did the Ark exist as in Noah’s story? Sheer physics says it couldn’t, but that doesn’t mean that something similar didn’t happen. After all, legends of a world-consuming flood are literally worldwide: every culture remembers SOMETHING of that nature, so it’s not unreasonable to think that there was a flood at some point, just not that every animal living is descended from one on a wooden boat (which is outright ridiculous).
“How do you think I feel when you speak against what I have devoted my life to?”
Probably about the same as I do when you do the same to me, telling me that all my beliefs are wrong, because I evidently imagined all those years of study.
“You recently told me that you have too much compassion. Where's the compassion in perpetually tearing down what your friend holds most dear?”
Not everyone has a problem with it. Some people, such as my mother, hear what I said, and say, “Oh, that all makes MUCH more sense now!” Others, like you, cling tenaciously and blindly to dogma we KNOW was artificially inserted into church teaching THREE HUNDRED YEARS AFTER CHRIST LEFT EARTH.
You mentioned it in your live journal, and you claim to like a good debate, so I assumed the topic was open. Instead, I was ridiculed, talked down to, and had “you’re wrong!” screamed at me several times. Fine, there’s no need for you and I to discuss this, or anything else, ever again.
Reply
Oh, please. Don’t try to take yourself for a martyr. You’re nothing of the kind. You drive friends away, and you aren’t exactly easy to get along with, either. At least I wear my issues on my shoulder; you chip away at people with them over time.
Your version of “not giving up on me” the other night, when I mentioned that I would simply avoid people at the Naz I did not get along well with, was to lecture me forcefully for two hours about how I needed more love in my life.
You know who friends are that DON’T give up on me? People like Adam, who has gauged his ministry to me carefully over the years. He presents his point of view, and if he sees I’m not up for talking about it, he leaves me alone. We’ve certainly had some heated moments, but we’ve also had some very deep and progressive sessions, and I really think I’m much better about it. Now that I think about it, I literally thank God for Adam; he’s been for me at times when no one else was, and/or no one else COULD.
You, on the other hand, just jump in and start spewing rhetoric. You’ve put off Walker Boh, you’re coarse and mean to Mandy, and now you’ve pissed off me, a person who, for all my admitted faults, am legendary for my faith and loyalty to friends.
You have the nerve to jump in the middle of a conversation on the net, and begin lecturing me on why I can’t say that a figure in my book in an angel. “All angels were made before people,” you say. Ok, can you support that with a bible verse? Any verse at all? Time’s up, there AREN’T any. There’s NOTHING in the bible about angel creation that I can remember off-hand, not in 14 years of study. What you are spouting is TRADITION, not dogma.
Then you even ignore others who present their sides. In comes Zeev, who talks about how, being Jewish, he’s read the Old Testament in the original Hebrew many times. His anecdotes support what I’m saying at the time: that the serpent in the garden, “Satan,” and Lucifer are not in any way directly related. Your response? More of what you always do: “You’re wrong! Satan is Lucifer! Lucifer is Satan! You’re wrong!”
I’m raving at this point. I hope that, what history suggests aside, you were actually able to assimilate this information. Do not contact me again. Any missives from you in any form will be destroyed without consideration. According to you, I’ll see you in hell.
Lex
Reply
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