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Post by Lee on Sept 17, 2013 22:15:32 GMT -5
So God became ego-less .... that's much better! Well your definition of God would be a supernatural being that never had an ego to start with so how could a God ever become ego-less? The whole thing makes no sense to me and that's why I quit believing in all this stuff many many years ago. Nope ... As my theory goes God is the only being who exists naturally or superlatively and its you and I who are strung supernaturally. God alone possesses ego, superlatively. The rest of us do the best we can.
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Post by fixit on Sept 17, 2013 22:28:21 GMT -5
When was that and how did the concept "fully develop"? What was it like before it was fully developed? Found my notes. The modern Christian concept of hell was probably fully formed by 1600 CE. It began to develop around 500 CE as Christianity began expanding into western Europe, and reached its peak of importance with the onset of the witch purges in the 1500s. Consequently the modern English term “hell” – from the Pagan “hel” complete with the eternal fire Dante described in his 1300's epic. The concept of Satan grew along with hell, of course, because a place of torture needs a god-like trustee. By the time of the Reformation Satan had advanced to the ruler of the whole world and the only means of escaping his eternal punishment was through the church. A Jesuit catechism of the time is noted to mention Satan more frequently than Jesus. Satan was such an important figure in Christian theology that King James I called him "God's hangman". You won’t find much documentation indicating that the fear of hell was an invented threat for control, but the political/historical circumstances surrounding the increased threat from the influence of Satan over the earth and mankind goes hand in hand with the development of the tortures of hell. During the Reformation the Protestants, if not intensifying the threat of the devil, took full advantage of it in their teachings. Early Christians (at least the ones in the Roman Empire) believed that the most righteous of people went to some kind of a heavenly place when they died -- not necessarily heaven as we consider it today. The ancients believed that "heaven" was a place where only gods resided. Most people just went to some kind of nondescript afterlife place, and only really wicked people went to some place of torture. Hell was not taken seriously by early Christians, and was not even taken literally for the most part. Thanks Bob. I'm not sure how to reconcile this with scripture e.g.: Matthew 23:33 “You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell? Mark 9:43 If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out. Mark 9:45 And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than to have two feet and be thrown into hell. Mark 9:47 And if your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, Luke 12:5 But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after your body has been killed, has authority to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him.
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Post by BobWilliston on Sept 17, 2013 22:53:31 GMT -5
Found my notes. The modern Christian concept of hell was probably fully formed by 1600 CE. It began to develop around 500 CE as Christianity began expanding into western Europe, and reached its peak of importance with the onset of the witch purges in the 1500s. Consequently the modern English term “hell” – from the Pagan “hel” complete with the eternal fire Dante described in his 1300's epic. The concept of Satan grew along with hell, of course, because a place of torture needs a god-like trustee. By the time of the Reformation Satan had advanced to the ruler of the whole world and the only means of escaping his eternal punishment was through the church. A Jesuit catechism of the time is noted to mention Satan more frequently than Jesus. Satan was such an important figure in Christian theology that King James I called him "God's hangman". You won’t find much documentation indicating that the fear of hell was an invented threat for control, but the political/historical circumstances surrounding the increased threat from the influence of Satan over the earth and mankind goes hand in hand with the development of the tortures of hell. During the Reformation the Protestants, if not intensifying the threat of the devil, took full advantage of it in their teachings. Early Christians (at least the ones in the Roman Empire) believed that the most righteous of people went to some kind of a heavenly place when they died -- not necessarily heaven as we consider it today. The ancients believed that "heaven" was a place where only gods resided. Most people just went to some kind of nondescript afterlife place, and only really wicked people went to some place of torture. Hell was not taken seriously by early Christians, and was not even taken literally for the most part. Thanks Bob. I'm not sure how to reconcile this with scripture e.g.: Matthew 23:33 “You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell? Mark 9:43 If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out. Mark 9:45 And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life crippled than to have two feet and be thrown into hell. Mark 9:47 And if your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, Luke 12:5 But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after your body has been killed, has authority to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him. You won't - if you take the word "hell" in the Bible to mean what the word "hell" means to Christians today. Anyway, Christian theology isn't all Biblical to start with.
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Post by fixit on Sept 17, 2013 23:10:30 GMT -5
So what do you think the word "Gehenna" meant to Jesus when he spoke those words?
Or to the writers when they recorded those words?
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Post by Lee on Sept 18, 2013 0:43:45 GMT -5
It's not just a belief in God that gives a Christian peace about death and the afterlife. It's what a person believes about Jesus that has the power to eliminate fear of death and bring joy and peace in this life. Most of the Christians who believe in salvation by grace and not works do not fear death. This is depicted in many of the stories of the exes who have left meetings behind them and are no longer are hoping to get to heaven by their works - who now believe they are saved by grace thru faith. Many describe how accepting their new understanding of salvation put away their fear of death and hell. Salvation by grace thru faith is a gift - and not merited by one's works. (stories are on the TLC Website and the books Reflections and Reflected Truth) I am a Christian and I can honestly say that I do not fear death. I know many other Christians who can say the same. It was understanding salvation by grace through faith that made all the difference. The word "grace" as used above is infused with the Christian meaning given to the word. Knowledge of the imputed righteousess of God has been cathartic to many people. As far as the historical revelation went God's son must have been God. How could they be grateful to mere man? Also there's no point to being perfectionistic or subject to a host of other disorders if you can grasp that your righteousness in the absolute sense must be imputed.
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Post by Lee on Sept 18, 2013 0:51:50 GMT -5
It's not just a belief in God that gives a Christian peace about death and the afterlife. It's what a person believes about Jesus that has the power to eliminate fear of death and bring joy and peace in this life. Most of the Christians who believe in salvation by grace and not works do not fear death. This is depicted in many of the stories of the exes who have left meetings behind them and are no longer are hoping to get to heaven by their works - who now believe they are saved by grace thru faith. Many describe how accepting their new understanding of salvation put away their fear of death and hell. Salvation by grace thru faith is a gift - and not merited by one's works. (stories are on the TLC Website and the books Reflections and Reflected Truth) I am a Christian and I can honestly say that I do not fear death. I know many other Christians who can say the same. It was understanding salvation by grace through faith that made all the difference. The word "grace" as used above is infused with the Christian meaning given to the word. Knowledge of the imputed righteousess of God has been cathartic to many people. As far as the historical revelation went God's son must have been God. How could they be grateful to mere man? Which is also why Christianity is the best foundation for governance. The understanding that no human is absolutely righteous and that no human may lay claim to being a stand-in sovereign for God. I'm sorry but even the pope must defer before God.
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Post by Lee on Sept 18, 2013 0:53:39 GMT -5
So Jesus didn't become God he has always been God since God has always been like Jesus.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 18, 2013 7:42:42 GMT -5
So what do you think the word "Gehenna" meant to Jesus when he spoke those words? Or to the writers when they recorded those words? The idea of Gehenna was based on either an incinerating garbage dump, a place where they burned dead bodies, or a place where they used to sacrifice children and burn them. Eventually the rabbis used those images to come up with the idea of a temporary purgatory-like afterlife place where people went for up to 12 months to be cleansed of all their bad stuff before moving on to a couple of options. I would imagine that Jesus was referring to something within those images.
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Post by BobWilliston on Sept 18, 2013 23:27:50 GMT -5
So what do you think the word "Gehenna" meant to Jesus when he spoke those words? Or to the writers when they recorded those words? Who can tell? Nothing Jesus said that we have in our Bible was recorded in the language Jesus used. So what we have of his actual sayings was first of all written in Greek, undoubtedly conveying the meaning according to what the Greek writer determined it to be. But if you check in the margin of some Bibles it will give you alternative translations for a lot of these words. I cannot imagine that Jesus would have any other meaning for Gehenna than what was the common understanding of Jews at the time.
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Post by dmmichgood on Sept 19, 2013 0:05:41 GMT -5
Well your definition of God would be a supernatural being that never had an ego to start with so how could a God ever become ego-less? The whole thing makes no sense to me and that's why I quit believing in all this stuff many many years ago. Nope ... As my theory goes God is the only being who exists naturally or superlatively and its you and I who are strung supernaturally. God alone possesses ego, superlatively. The rest of us do the best we can. Gene, snow- where are you?
Help me out here.
Please untangle that one for me!
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Post by snow on Sept 19, 2013 9:36:45 GMT -5
Nope ... As my theory goes God is the only being who exists naturally or superlatively and its you and I who are strung supernaturally. God alone possesses ego, superlatively. The rest of us do the best we can. Gene, snow- where are you?
Help me out here.
Please untangle that one for me!
God is the only one that actually exists and we are all just figments of his imagination?
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Post by Lee on Sept 26, 2013 23:47:42 GMT -5
God is the only one that actually exists and we are all just figments of his imagination? Or we're just figments of our imagination lol I've said this before and I'll say it again. When we say that God is paranormal or supernatural, we're assuming we know best what normal is. I disagree with that perception. As a believer in the greater being of God, it is God that is "most normal", and we are the peripheral or satellitic ones in nature and perception. Calling us "supernatural" was my semantic sloppiness.
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Post by snow on Sept 27, 2013 11:09:41 GMT -5
God is the only one that actually exists and we are all just figments of his imagination? Or we're just figments of our imagination lol I've said this before and I'll say it again. When we say that God is paranormal or supernatural, we're assuming we know best what normal is. I disagree with that perception. As a believer in the greater being of God, it is God that is "most normal", and we are the peripheral or satellitic ones in nature and perception. Calling us "supernatural" was my semantic sloppiness. I see. Well I gave it a try!
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Post by faune on Sept 27, 2013 13:53:14 GMT -5
God is the only one that actually exists and we are all just figments of his imagination? Or we're just figments of our imagination lol I've said this before and I'll say it again. When we say that God is paranormal or supernatural, we're assuming we know best what normal is. I disagree with that perception. As a believer in the greater being of God, it is God that is "most normal", and we are the peripheral or satellitic ones in nature and perception. Calling us "supernatural" was my semantic sloppiness. Dmmichgood ~ I presume that Lee is simply saying that he believes in a Creator God and that we are all just figments of His imagination. Basically, God is the eternal Source of everything we see and experience and is the creator of the universe. When we die, our energy source or spirit goes back to its source, while the cycle of creation continues. Please correct me if I'm wrong, Lee, but that's how I interpreted your post? God is the only one that actually exists and we are all just figments of his imagination? Or we're just figments of our imagination lol I've said this before and I'll say it again. When we say that God is paranormal or supernatural, we're assuming we know best what normal is. I disagree with that perception. As a believer in the greater being of God, it is God that is "most normal", and we are the peripheral or satellitic ones in nature and perception. Calling us "supernatural" was my semantic sloppiness.
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Post by Lee on Sept 28, 2013 5:37:51 GMT -5
I presume that Lee is simply saying that he believes in a Creator God and that we are all just figments of His imagination. Basically, God is the eternal Source of everything we see and experience and is the creator of the universe. When we die, our energy source or spirit goes back to its source, while the cycle of creation continues. Please correct me if I'm wrong, Lee, but that's how I interpreted your post? Just fine except for the part about us being figments of His imagination.
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Post by Lee on Sept 28, 2013 5:39:15 GMT -5
Or we're just figments of our imagination lol I've said this before and I'll say it again. When we say that God is paranormal or supernatural, we're assuming we know best what normal is. I disagree with that perception. As a believer in the greater being of God, it is God that is "most normal", and we are the peripheral or satellitic ones in nature and perception. Calling us "supernatural" was my semantic sloppiness. I see. Well I gave it a try! 'E' for effort!
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Post by CherieKropp on Sept 28, 2013 10:00:07 GMT -5
So what do you think the word "Gehenna" meant to Jesus when he spoke those words? Or to the writers when they recorded those words? Who can tell? Nothing Jesus said that we have in our Bible was recorded in the language Jesus used. So what we have of his actual sayings was first of all written in Greek, undoubtedly conveying the meaning according to what the Greek writer determined it to be. But if you check in the margin of some Bibles it will give you alternative translations for a lot of these words. I cannot imagine that Jesus would have any other meaning for Gehenna than what was the common understanding of Jews at the time. Bob: There is an Aramaic Bible: The P-E-S-H-I-T-T-A Bible - an Aramaic English New Testament by Andrew Gabriel Roth, Netzari Press 2008. My husband has been studying it.
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Post by snow on Sept 28, 2013 10:39:37 GMT -5
Who can tell? Nothing Jesus said that we have in our Bible was recorded in the language Jesus used. So what we have of his actual sayings was first of all written in Greek, undoubtedly conveying the meaning according to what the Greek writer determined it to be. But if you check in the margin of some Bibles it will give you alternative translations for a lot of these words. I cannot imagine that Jesus would have any other meaning for Gehenna than what was the common understanding of Jews at the time. Bob: There is an Aramaic Bible: The P-E-S-H-I-T-T-A Bible - an Aramaic English New Testament by Andrew Gabriel Roth, Netzari Press 2008. My husband has been studying it. That's interesting. Is he finding it to be any different? If so, how?
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Post by StAnne on Sept 28, 2013 10:48:43 GMT -5
Bob: There is an Aramaic Bible: The P-E-S-H-I-T-T-A Bible - an Aramaic English New Testament by Andrew Gabriel Roth, Netzari Press 2008. My husband has been studying it. That's interesting. Is he finding it to be any different? If so, how? There is this at biblos.com in the Parallel Bibles - Aramaic Bible in Plain English Aramaic Bible in Plain English “ Also I say to you, that you are Kaypha, and upon this stone I shall build my church, and the gates of Sheol will not withstand it.” biblehub.com/matthew/16-18.htm
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Post by snow on Sept 28, 2013 12:59:28 GMT -5
That's interesting. Is he finding it to be any different? If so, how? There is this at biblos.com in the Parallel Bibles - Aramaic Bible in Plain English Aramaic Bible in Plain English “ Also I say to you, that you are Kaypha, and upon this stone I shall build my church, and the gates of Sheol will not withstand it.” biblehub.com/matthew/16-18.htmThanks St. Anne, I'll check the link.
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Post by StAnne on Sept 28, 2013 13:02:11 GMT -5
yw!! Scroll down - it's about #9 in the list of translations. Then, if you click on 'Aramaic Bible' above the verse, it opens up the chapter.
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Post by BobWilliston on Sept 28, 2013 16:41:35 GMT -5
Who can tell? Nothing Jesus said that we have in our Bible was recorded in the language Jesus used. So what we have of his actual sayings was first of all written in Greek, undoubtedly conveying the meaning according to what the Greek writer determined it to be. But if you check in the margin of some Bibles it will give you alternative translations for a lot of these words. I cannot imagine that Jesus would have any other meaning for Gehenna than what was the common understanding of Jews at the time. Bob: There is an Aramaic Bible: The P-E-S-H-I-T-T-A Bible - an Aramaic English New Testament by Andrew Gabriel Roth, Netzari Press 2008. My husband has been studying it. This is VERY interesting. There are Aramaic speaking Christians today in Syria -- who coincidentally are not siding with the rebels against Assad. I noticed that it said it was translated from the original Aramaic texts -- which to my knowledge are not THE original versions of any part of the Christian Bible. The OT was all Hebrew, and the NT was all Greek -- but Matthew most aligned with OT theology. It's true that whatever happened in Palestine at the time of Jesus was conducted in Aramaic -- except possibly anything that happened in court. The Roman administration of Palestine at the time ordered that the language of the courts in Palestine would be Greek. I think I want a copy of this Bible. Thanks for sharing.
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Post by BobWilliston on Sept 28, 2013 16:43:52 GMT -5
God is the only one that actually exists and we are all just figments of his imagination? This is not an unusual proposition among religious philosophers, I have learned.
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Post by BobWilliston on Sept 28, 2013 16:48:07 GMT -5
God is the only one that actually exists and we are all just figments of his imagination? Or we're just figments of our imagination lol I've said this before and I'll say it again. When we say that God is paranormal or supernatural, we're assuming we know best what normal is. I disagree with that perception. As a believer in the greater being of God, it is God that is "most normal", and we are the peripheral or satellitic ones in nature and perception. Calling us "supernatural" was my semantic sloppiness. Lee -- "paranormal" has nothing much to do with the word "normal" -- except that it is NOT our normal. Paranormal means outside the range of normal human experience and scientific explanation.
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Post by BobWilliston on Sept 28, 2013 16:51:45 GMT -5
I presume that Lee is simply saying that he believes in a Creator God and that we are all just figments of His imagination. Basically, God is the eternal Source of everything we see and experience and is the creator of the universe. When we die, our energy source or spirit goes back to its source, while the cycle of creation continues. Please correct me if I'm wrong, Lee, but that's how I interpreted your post? Just fine except for the part about us being figments of His imagination. What's wrong with being a figment of God's imagination. The Bible says god had an idea/thought/imagination/figment, and it was so. Kind of sounds like God intended it, don't you think?
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Post by BobWilliston on Sept 28, 2013 16:54:11 GMT -5
That's interesting. Is he finding it to be any different? If so, how? There is this at biblos.com in the Parallel Bibles - Aramaic Bible in Plain English Aramaic Bible in Plain English “ Also I say to you, that you are Kaypha, and upon this stone I shall build my church, and the gates of Sheol will not withstand it.” biblehub.com/matthew/16-18.htmInteresting that the Aramaic did not yield to "Hades" and "Hell".
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Post by Deleted on Sept 28, 2013 17:37:44 GMT -5
If I understand it correctly, the Pesh-itta NT was a translation from the Greek back to Syriac/Aramaic. The value of it seems like it would be a bit dubious since it is a translation of a translation and translated again into English. The only interesting aspect I see in it is that Syriac was probably very close to what was spoken by the Galileans. However, it is not the original scriptures, but the NT went from Aramaic to Greek then back to Aramaic from the Greek. Some things are bound to get "lost in translation".
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Post by BobWilliston on Oct 1, 2013 1:00:45 GMT -5
If I understand it correctly, the Pesh-itta NT was a translation from the Greek back to Syriac/Aramaic. The value of it seems like it would be a bit dubious since it is a translation of a translation and translated again into English. The only interesting aspect I see in it is that Syriac was probably very close to what was spoken by the Galileans. However, it is not the original scriptures, but the NT went from Aramaic to Greek then back to Aramaic from the Greek. Some things are bound to get "lost in translation". The NT was not written in Aramaic first -- it was written in Greek. Granted, anything Jesus spoke was spoken in Aramaic, but the gospels in the NT were written first in Greek.
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