A "personal relationship with Christ" is an expression we hear in the modern Protestant evangelical church, especially in the non-denominational, non-traditional type. Obviously, we cannot have the same kind of relationship with an invisible deity as with another person, but there are different kinds of relationships. I think the reference to a personal relationship with God/Jesus is meant to emphasize that Christianity is not a philosophy, not simply a set of rules—"do this but not that"—not performing acts of service, or not living solely for a carrot at the end of a long stick and avoiding an eternal horror; and that God is not distant and unconcerned, or is not an impersonal force, or is not some kind of universal consciousness. A personal relationship with God is a contrast to how people in many religions, and even some Christian denominations, learn to relate to God because they promote fear and duty rather than grace and peace.
Posts by hmike
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17How do you have a "personal" relationship with Christ???
by bluesbreaker59 inok, so i haven't been posting a lot lately.
been doing alot of thinking, soul searching, etc.
also been busy with work, making money, hanging with my new girlfriend, and just enjoying my first christmas season.. .
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60
what is supposedly resurrected at resurrection?
by iblowmynoseatyou inthis is an idea that really freaked me out when i was still "in".
i asked it several times in groups of friends, and i would get two reactions: confusion/not understanding, and silence/looking at the ground.
if you die, and your body disinegrates, and the soul doesnt live on; in fact, nothing lives on, then what is resurrected?
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hmike
After reading all of this I can say without a doubt that Star Trek makes a helluva lot more sense than the bible does at this point in time.
In fact there was a TNG episode closely touching on this point. (And it made more sense.)
I don't know how we got off on Star Trek, but as long as we are, it's interesting that people would be willing to accept the possibility of powerful, super-intelligent, non-carbon-based life forms and parallel dimensions, but not God, angels, and heaven.
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60
what is supposedly resurrected at resurrection?
by iblowmynoseatyou inthis is an idea that really freaked me out when i was still "in".
i asked it several times in groups of friends, and i would get two reactions: confusion/not understanding, and silence/looking at the ground.
if you die, and your body disinegrates, and the soul doesnt live on; in fact, nothing lives on, then what is resurrected?
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hmike
You might be referring to Isaiah 65:17—
"Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind." (NIV)
Someone may like to offer a study on the Hebrew word translated remembered. I don't see that it means complete amnesia, but rather the troubles of the present age will not be part of the new as the rest of Isa. 65 explains.
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60
what is supposedly resurrected at resurrection?
by iblowmynoseatyou inthis is an idea that really freaked me out when i was still "in".
i asked it several times in groups of friends, and i would get two reactions: confusion/not understanding, and silence/looking at the ground.
if you die, and your body disinegrates, and the soul doesnt live on; in fact, nothing lives on, then what is resurrected?
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hmike
The book of Daniel states:
"Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt." (12:2, NIV)
Revelation 20:13 states that "The sea gave up the dead..."
People of ancient times knew people perished in fires, at sea, or were eaten by animals, and they knew even whole bodies deteriorated into dust. This didn't seem to be a problem, as there are no exceptions based on what happened to the body. This would contrast to cultures that embalmed the body to preserve it for the afterlife, wouldn't it?
I think the idea is that if God created Adam out of dust, he certainly could re-create a body out of dust. And since matter is not destroyed, the original atoms of the body are out there somewhere. Perhaps whatever remains of the original body can be reconstructed into a human form, and the soul and spirit returned.
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17
The loss of a 70' musician
by worldtraveller inthe beer was empty and our tongues were tired .
and running out of things to say .
she gave a kiss to me as i got out and i watched her drive away .
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hmike
He was one of my wife's favorite performers along with another one who left us too soon—John Denver.
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33
John The Baptist. More than a Prophet?
by Steve J inin bite me's recent post about the virgin birth i raised some serious questions which make us doubt that jesus was conceived by gods holy spirit.
my research over the last few years, since leaving jw's has led me to believe jesus was just a ordinary man, and to me that makes his sacrifice even more powerful.
this post raises similar questions and challenges what we actually know about john the baptist and the part he played in jesus' life.. in islam, john the baptist and jesus are as important as one another and in arabic, the language of the qur'an, john is known as yahya the infinite.
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hmike
1. John was said to be filled with the Holy Spirit from birth (or from his mother's womb). He was influenced by the Spirit his entire life! No sinful baggage to deter him. He was single-minded and devoted. This would make him as close to being like Christ as would be possible at that time. I don't think this was said of any other mortal.
2. As Joseph M. pointed out, he was, nevertheless, mortal. One in the Kingdom would be immortal.
3. John was a transition from old to new. He preached a "baptism of repentence for the forgiveness of sins." He didn't send people to the Temple to make sacrifices. He bypassed the priests.
4. My personal thinking about John's role is that God impressed people to come to John for baptism. It was a calling to all who would listen. The people that responded were those who humbled themselves. The religious leaders did not come to John. Thus, the separation had begun. Those who came to John had the humility to accept Jesus as the Chosen One, the Son of David. Humility was necessary for righteousness. So why did Jesus come to John for baptism? He had no sins to confess, but he did so in response to the general call of the Father and leading of the Spirit.
5. I've always understood the word "violent" as being too strong, like the way "hate" is used. Could we substitute "assertive" for "violent"? Entering the Kingdom requires an act of will, a choice and action. It's like a prize you have to fight for.
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The evolution of religion
by nvrgnbk ino. this article is, to a certain extent, thinking out loud and wild speculation.
god, memes and genesreligion, in various forms, is to be found all over the planet.
wherever there are people who think that there is some reason or purpose behind events, life, death and so on, there will be some sort of religion.
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hmike
Can't believe this post has been up for this long without a response.
A religion that is based on truth has nothing to fear from truth. Facts are facts and truth is truth wherever they are found. With religion, as with science, the problems don't come from facts, they come from how people use them, and how they fill in the gaps when they don't have the facts.
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Believing what I read - a Skeptic's course
by jgnat ini struggle, here and elsewhere, to explain my violent reaction against unsubstantiated claims.
after all, the believer produces testimonals and "scientific" evidence to support their belief.
my acceptance of saccharin and aspartame has been challenged, for instance.
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hmike
If I am supposed to question everything can I question the questioning? Can I be skeptical about skepticism?
BurnWhile there has always been questioning, it seems to have become the way of our society in the post-Watergate era. Throughout the day, we are exposed to claims in person and through the print and electronic media. Government officials, environmentalists, advertisers—on and on with claims and counter-claims. With the motives being suspect, information distorted, and methods aimed at out emotions, we've turned into a society of skeptics. It's not only fashionable; it seems to be necessary for our survival.
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Respect-O-Meter
by purplesofa inwe all have a little guage in us that measures the amount of respect we have for ourselves, our enviroment, each other, etc, etc, .
we can set a certain criteria and in some cases our level of respect can fluctuate with new information we take in that is either negative or positive........creating plus or minuses in our respect-o-meter.
we can not like something but still respect it.. loss of respect for a person, idea, business, ourselves can be devestating.
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hmike
I'd like to use this opportunity to say that two members I have a great deal of respect for are Leolaia and Narkissos. They obviously put in a considerable amount of work on their posts with the research and composing, their formatting makes their work easy to read, their posts are of a high level of scholarship and very informative, their command of a vast amount of resources is amazing, and they always give good support for their positions. But what impresses me most is their commitment to sound scholarship to the extent that they will not tolerate the use of poor scholarship from anyone in support of a position, even when they actually agree with the position itself.
That doesn't mean I always agree with them.
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Believing what I read - a Skeptic's course
by jgnat ini struggle, here and elsewhere, to explain my violent reaction against unsubstantiated claims.
after all, the believer produces testimonals and "scientific" evidence to support their belief.
my acceptance of saccharin and aspartame has been challenged, for instance.
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hmike
I think most of our choices are based more on emotion or appeal. When we decide to let evidence be the basis for a choice, we face many challenges. It takes time to gather and process information. Then, can we even have access to all the important information? Finally, once we get the information together, what criteria do we use to evaluate? What relative value to we place on different types of evidence? What level of probability are we looking for? Most of the time, we end up making choices with far less information than we'd like, but we have to or we'd be perpetually stuck in the evaluation mode.