@Dermot Griffin

The Vatican II documents need to be read before they are judged.

And a priest with his back to his congregation speaking a language no one understands and being the only one receiving the bread and wine was not close to being what the ancient Christian churches did to celebrate the Last Supper.

Jesus said “take and eat”, “take and drink”, and he said it in Aramaic, the common language spoken.

The Catholic Mass became a pompous ceremony with a high and mighty priest.

I lived with and met hundreds of priests, and I only met a handful of holy ones, spiritual priests who walked the grounds of the monastery contemplating God.

So the old Mass was not real in its depiction of every priest facing away from people in direct communication with God.

@Dermot Griffin

In the Vatican II documents the Catholic Church stated that the true “Church” is the Mystical Body of Christ, which includes every good religion and every person of “good will”.

@Dermot Griffin

Your scholastic experience that gave to you simple and wise knowledge of Jesus is showing.

But we’re not in Kansas anymore.

The world today is filled with modern thinkers without your experience spewing nonsense about Jesus that they back up by taking a text or two and applying their ignorant inexperience to it.

On this thread, skeptics are painting Jesus as just another Jew who was not the cause of Christianity, but just an Old Testament follower who didn’t claim the authority of the Son of God or even know that he was changing human history through a spiritual awakening.

Jesus was a complete success as humanity’s spiritual Messiah.

Christianity is of course flawed because it’s a religion populated by flawed human beings.

But a doorknob is perfect if it opens a door.

So likewise Christianity has been the perfect religion that spread the Truth about Jesus.

Good luck with choosing your path to greater Truth and greater Love.

And always remember that …

“The Glory of God is a human being fully alive.”

Religion is a means not an end.

@Fooloso4

I have never talked about believing but about knowing.

You are the believer who has no knowledge of God and Jesus through personal experiences and a scholastic education but says he does because he read a skeptic Bible telling him what to believe.

And I’m not religious and never have been, so your skeptic talking points you read from another skeptic (Shermer) that religious people are fearful of death and suffering are just another belief of yours that I have never witnessed in any religious person.

God inspires love and wisdom, not fear and ignorance.

@Fooloso4

Now you’re just lying.

What kind of a critical thinker makes a declarative statement and then discovers the exact opposite is true, and then refuses to admit he obviously doesn’t know who or what he’s talking about?

All my corrections of you and the other believer in the cult of modern thinkers are from knowledge and experience I acquired 40 years ago when getting a scholastic education and living in response to Jesus’ many promises and directions.

And now I’m supposed to go on Google because intellectual skeptics are telling me to read the texts and figured out Jesus was really just an ordinary guy, if he even existed, and my favorite Gospel isn’t reliable?

No thanks. I gave up simply believing in something decades ago.

There are no experienced professional auto mechanics who only read books about fixing cars.

And likewise there are no great New Testament scholars who only read texts about Jesus.

Until we experience something we’re talking about, we cannot know for sure if it’s true.

@schopenhauer1

I'm not doing any of those things. I'm telling you what has been known for two thousand years, and I have known for 40 years.

You're the person believing in what you read from modern skeptics, when you don't have any experience actually trying to understand who Jesus was by looking at your own life.

Dry and rattling thoughts in your head don't make you wise. Experiencing what you talk about does.

@praxis

Just checked. No, The Lounge is not where stupid topics go.

Your feelings are hurt, I get it.

@schopenhauer1

It's "my" view that Jesus was not just another Jew?

And I'm just believing in Jesus?

What's the date? How many crosses are in the sky? How many people will call on Jesus for help today, or feel love for him, or quote him, or claim they know him personally?

Not bad for "just another Jew".

You're like a brilliant guy, huh, who knows that the greatest person who ever lived may have never lived, and if he did live, he was just another person.

And you are not simply "believing" this about Jesus but know this about Jesus because you have a Google Machine.

Yup. Brilliant.

@Fooloso4

You are actually trying to teach me about Jesus because you think you're a good reader?

Wow.

Then go read about the time Nicodemus, a truly great Pharisee who was a notably honest man, went to see Jesus and wanted him to explain his teaching because it troubled him since it went against something that was a major tenet of Judaism he learned as a Pharisee -- i.e., observance of the Law brings righteousness.

And bring with you your great learning, in particular where you taught me that "[Jesus] says nothing about being born again".

I'll refute your further statement that "[Jesus] says nothing about ... the necessity of belief in [him]" with the simple quote, "No one can come to the Father except through me".

But wait ... both the Nicodemus story and the quote above came from John, and your great learning has made you not trust the Gospel of John for anything Jesus said and did.

And, of course, you didn't "read" from someone else that the Gospel of John was not a good source.

No. That's all you, man.

@Paine

The basis of my plagiarizing charge is that most posters on this forum Google their asses off before and during most of their posts, and then make statements of knowledge they read about from others.

@emancipate

You have literally provided the Jesus quotes that show him taking the Laws of religious observances that the Pharisees thought were important and saying that we must go beyond these religious observances and obey God’s “commands”.

A commandment is not to do a religious observance but to do a good behavior.

I’m telling you guys basic stuff, not some deep hermeneutics.

Skeptic “scholars” today challenge every basic teaching because they have an agenda to prove that modern thinkers are the greatest thinkers.

They’re the opposite, as you guys keep proving in your regurgitations of them.

@Fooloso4

You put a lot of work in to be right about something that you couldn’t be more wrong about.

Jesus explicitly said that a person must be born again in the spirit to see the kingdom of God.

Paul used the word “grace” to say the same thing.

Jesus never said that a person must follow the Law to see the kingdom of God. In fact, when a rich person asked him how to get into heaven, he said, “obey the Commandments” (like I told you was his focus and not religious observances), and then after the rich person said he already did, Jesus told him to go and sell everything and give it to the poor, and then come follow him. This is Jesus fulfilling the Law and the Prophets by giving human beings an internal spiritual life worth living.

Jesus even said that “The Kingdom of God is within you”.

You can keep Googling all day if you like, but you will only find Jesus building a foundation under Paul’s understanding of Christianity.

To suggest that Jesus and Paul saw the spirit of God differently because Paul understood “grace” is idiotic.

Jesus didn’t enlist a single teacher of the Law and said that the only teacher his followers had is “the Lord”.

And at the end of Jesus’ teaching he sent “the Paraclete”, the Holy Spirit who would instruct and lead his followers until the end of time.

(No Google was used to write this post.)

@Fooloso4

Jesus never preached a single word about observing a religious observance. Not one. In fact, Jesus had numerous encounters with the "Teachers of the Law" where they accused him of not following the Law. It was even brought up at his trial that he didn't observe the law. And he called Pharisees hypocrites for following the Law but not doing the will of God.

And you ignore all this about Jesus to get to some opinionated nonsense about Jesus telling people they must obey all the Old Testament Laws, which are myriad and detailed.

You take one line from Jesus, which you don't even understand to begin with, and you claim it's proof that Jesus was preaching the adherence to every Mosaic Law.

Jesus was expanding on the Ten Commandments and the moral preaching of the Old Testament Prophets. Scholastic Theologians and Biblical Scholars all knew this basic truth. And it is basic, easy to understand, and the only interpretation given everything Jesus said and did.

It's today's skeptics who look for a sentence or two to put in a book they want to claim is scholarly and new thinking who don't know or understand the basics about Jesus.

You have nothing else but a single sentence or two that you misinterpret.

Gee, this thread has mysteriously disappeared from “All Discussions”.

Seems another moderator has decided what’s best for a forum is groups of confused people acting like experts by Googling their asses off.

I’m gonna guess Srap is involved.

@schopenhauer1

There is absolutely no evidence that the writers of the Gospels did anything more than interview witnesses and simply write down what Jesus said and did.

The very fact that each Gospel is written without any attempt to create a cohesive narrative shows us that each Gospel is written honestly and simply, not with the grand schemes that modern writers are writing with.

Skeptics simply do not have the experience and open mind to write about Jesus or Paul correctly.

Jesus was a carpenter who walked with fishermen … for a reason.

So no one could say that his power came from anywhere but God.

Paul literally said this about himself.

But that’s not stopping you and your fellow skeptics from making shit up to make yourselves into experts, when you’re just clueless and superficial thinkers.

@Fooloso4

You can’t even understand that dietary laws and circumcision are both mere religious observances and not the internal “sins” Jesus preached against.

This basic lack of understanding nullified anything else you had to say.

And every Internet troll plagiarizing what he has read, and who is not really educated or experienced in the subject matter, cannot appreciate someone who is.

You had a chance to learn something, but you choose to listen to yourself and some other writers your skepticism and inexperience has an affinity to.

@EugeneW

You don’t write cogently.

@schopenhauer1

You’re regurgitating what you heard from modern writers.

The Gospels were “finished” after some of Paul’s letters, for it took the Gospel writers decades to compile all the witness accounts they used. A journey in the ancient holy land took a long time, and people stayed at each other’s house for weeks or months.

And there is no proof whatsoever that the words and deeds of Jesus were influenced by Paul.

And the greatest thing that influenced Paul’s writing was that he had a special direct revelation of Jesus. From that moment on he wrote with the same authority Jesus spoke with.

For, as Jesus said: “We speak about what we have seen and heard.”

Paul certainly did, and that’s the most important point. But you won’t hear that from the modern “scholars” you’re plagiarising.

@Fooloso4

I wasn’t giving you my opinion or making assumptions.

Read further on in the “texts” and you will see Jesus talking about not even looking at your neighbor’s wife with lust, and Paul talking about circumcision.

I haven’t looked up the texts, because I’ve known for 40 years what Jesus and Paul taught.

And I’m certainly not plagiarizing some modern “scholars” who do have simply opinions and assumptions.

I’m a former seminarian and Franciscan Friar. I read the New Testament a dozen times and was taught by scholastics, not skeptics.

Every book written about Jesus in today’s world is horrible hermeneutics, for only someone who actually attempted to do the things Jesus told us to do knows if Jesus is who he said he is.

Google searching is what opinionated assuming people do.

I never use Google for any of my posts, because if I don’t know something I don’t pretend that I do.

@emancipate

I wasn’t saying that God can’t be known from reason, but to ask someone to provide some sentences to show God is lazy and not how God is known.

From reason alone we can come to a knowledge of God.

Catholicism teaches this, and has many apologists who have written extensively on it.

The discovery of Dark Energy acting unlike a mere physical force is our newest rational possibility for the existence of God.

@EugeneW

You make a lot of declarations about God when you admit that you don’t know anything about him and are confused.

The face you see in the mirror is your face not my face, or everyone’s face.

Go to school.

@Monitor

Your judgment of Clowns being powerful and meaningful is funny too.

Since I’m such a failure, why don’t you go start a successful thread so I can see what one looks like.

@emancipate

Go find out.

His existence is not a sentence that you can read, but an adventure that you go on.

The dry and rattling thoughts in your head aren’t as real as your experiences are.

The greatest person who ever lived said:

“God seeks out those who seek him in Spirit and Truth.”

You’re thinking thoughts and looking for him on the Internet.

He deserves much more of the time and commitment you squander on yourself.

@EugeneW

I’ve written that it is God’s omnipotent power a dozen times, not his electricity.

You’re not really reading and pondering, just getting to the thoughts off the top of your head.

And God’s answers are given to us, not put away in secret.

No one has seen God, but plenty of human beings have known and loved him, and in doing so learn the truth and become more and more like him through the gift of his Spirit.

Skeptics deny God’s Spirit and become trapped in their senses, only learning and loving what they can experience through them.

And they claim to be geniuses for it.

@Fooloso4

Jesus was telling the people before him that the Old Testament laws governing their behavior were not only still valid, but he was making them even stricter because he was internalizing them.

Jesus knew he was humanity’s spiritual Messiah, the fulfillment of the outward law through spiritual rebirth.

Jesus was not talking about them becoming circumcised, or some other religious observance law, but about the laws governing them to do good and be good.

When Paul said that the Spirit replaced the Law, he was talking about religious observances not doing good.

Paul did not contradict Jesus’ teaching, and it’s poor hermeneutics to suggest he did.

I guess the Clowns in the Clown Car on this forum drove to my neighborhood and got out.

They threw a lot of pies at me but only hit themselves in the face.

What a mess …

“…no matter how much the thoughts off the top of our heads won’t shut up.”

@javi2541997

I do have a Graduate degree in English and taught high school, but you should have written:

“How can I find [it]?

@Monitor

Gee, it’s like an omnipotent spiritual power, a Dark Energy, is behind my posts pushing them outward with ever-increasing speed.

I spent a decade on Sam Harris’ atheist forum and had only one personal thread that I was allowed to go on. The Administrator kept closing it down and starting a new one with derogatory titles, like The Dump and The Jar. All these threads became the most popular by hundreds and hundreds of pages. Then he shut down the forum and moved it to the old forum where it all began, and didn’t invite me, despite me having the most popular thread on that forum too. And now only about a half dozen posters go there once in a great while.

I’m not here for myself or for intellectual reasons.

Each one of us, no matter how much the thoughts off the top of our heads won’t shut up, has the spirit of God trying to give to us truth and love.

I’m here in service to that spirit.

@javi2541997

No, your second sentence is wrong.

And knowledge of the truth leads us to love of the truth and becoming fully alive.

Truth and love share a relationship that we as human beings become failures for our whole life when we do not share in it.

Your life will only be as great as your knowledge and love is.

God is our greatest adventure, and only great adventurers go in search for God.

Enjoy your coffee.

@Metaphysician Undercover

It’s not part of your experience that your dog is greater than your kitchen counter?

Go away now and be a thinker only you wants to understand.

@universeness

When I was 24, I was a painter with a high paying job, 5 girlfriends, a sports car, and a bodybuilder running 10 miles 3 times a week.

Then one morning, without any effort or pleading on my part, God gave to me such a revelation of himself that I gave up the life I had and went into a monastery at 25 and left at 30.

It was the most difficult thing that I have ever done. But the constant revelations of himself God gave to me kept me sacrificing my pleasures for his revelations.

It’s amazing how lazy selfish humans in love with themselves don’t see how the love of God alludes them.

@emancipate

You’re on a philosophy forum and don’t know that all metaphysical discussions are in the realm of our imaginations?

Stupid people don’t know they’re stupid, you know.

@L'éléphant

So, you’re confused because I have written words you do not understand, and not because you do not understand the words I have written?

Sorry, dude, that’s idiotic.

@theRiddler

Yes, says me.

Maybe you should be talking about television shows.

@theRiddler

God is not everything because God’s omnipotent power does not engulf the uniqueness in every created thing.

What is the greatest thing in the physical universe?

Is it not a human being?

And what is the greatest thing about a human being?

Is it not his or her personality?

Therefore, it logically follows that the greatest thing about God is his personality, not his power.

And God’s personality doesn’t identify with everything or everyone, but with himself.

In a word, God is first and foremost a personality.

And he created everything and everyone out of perfect love, not out of self-love.

@EugeneW

God is the greatest being we can imagine.

When you pluralize “God” you violate everything from his definition to the human history you have been a witness to.

And there can’t logically be two gods.

And to even entertain the question of who created God is to not be intelligent enough to know your own mind.

@Metaphysician Undercover

No, it’s not me you don’t understand.

It’s common sense and your own experiences.

You have screwed your mind up royally somehow.

I really don’t want to keep witnessing it.

@Paine

Okay

@Metaphysician Undercover

You can’t possibly be willing to understand the principle.

I’ve told you plenty about what is and isn’t a qualitatively greater thing.

How can you not understand that a myriad of dead material things collected together in any combination cannot create a qualitatively greater thing but only a quantitatively greater thing?

Putting ice cubes in a drink to make the drink cold does not make ice qualitatively greater than water, but just water with less energy and molecules stuck together.

All physical matter changed into different physical matter follows this same lack of qualitative change.

A qualitatively greater thing than physical matter would be living tissue, life, a living being.

A qualitatively greater thing than life would be a thought, an emotion, a human personality.

The principle is logically stating that only something (qualitatively) greater than life and thought and emotion and us, and everything else that has evolved in our physical universe, had to be present for evolution to have taken place.

And the “something (qualitatively) greater than” is God’s omnipotent power.

The elegance of the principle leaves out mentioning quality because any philosophically trained mind would readily understand what a greater thing is.

It really isn’t a principle for people who use the Google machine.

So, do the work to understand it, or just leave me alone with the thought that I don’t understand it, as you accused me of before.