,,,,I believe your walk should say everything about your faith. Jesus did not spend time defending the faith....but living the faith.
He defended his views on a regular basis, both in word and deed.
As we should all do.
i've recently been thinking about our culture and how christianity in our western culture has failed to keep up with advancements in science.
) churches have let reason sink into the intellectual closet of fundamentalism.
"feel good" churches seem to be the norm today.
,,,,I believe your walk should say everything about your faith. Jesus did not spend time defending the faith....but living the faith.
He defended his views on a regular basis, both in word and deed.
As we should all do.
if jehovah can read hearts then why did he test abraham by ordering him to kill his son ?.
Interesting view point Shelby...
i've recently been thinking about our culture and how christianity in our western culture has failed to keep up with advancements in science.
) churches have let reason sink into the intellectual closet of fundamentalism.
"feel good" churches seem to be the norm today.
Our belief is based on faith BUT our defence of that belief must be other than that, IMO.
We must be able to defend our faith with as much reason and intellect as we can.
titus 2:13- "while we wait for the blessed hope-the appearing of the glory of our great god and savior, jesus christ, " .
the part in question lies at the end of the passage "...of our great god and savior, jesus christ,".
*granville sharp's rule-when you have two nouns, which are not proper names (such as cephas, or paul, or timothy), which are describing a person, and the two nouns are connected by the word "and," and the first noun has the article ("the") while the second does not, *both nouns are referring to the same person.. this, as far as i know, has been an ongoing argument among trinitarians and non trinitarians for a very long time.
The Trinity, whatever you may think of it, is a doctrien about the NATURE of Christ ( and The father and the HS of course) and it simply states that The Father, Son and HS all ahre the same NATURE.
It is not explict in any passage of the NT, but is certainly implicti in many.
IN a nutshell, whatis begotten is of the same nature as what it was begotten from, hince Christ has the same nature as His Father and , If His father is God, then CHrist is God.
i've recently been thinking about our culture and how christianity in our western culture has failed to keep up with advancements in science.
) churches have let reason sink into the intellectual closet of fundamentalism.
"feel good" churches seem to be the norm today.
Speak to a Rabbi first and use wiki as a second source. The Torah does not mention an afterlife, this was a developed idea borrowed from other cultures which a Jew is free to believe or not but as any Orthodox Rabbi will tell you its not orthodox as in the Torah.
We've gone over this before dude, I have a close friend who is not only a researcher for the Jewish Research Center, but who's uncle is a high level Rabbi in the Canandian Jewish community and we discuss these thinsg quite a bit.
You are only partially correct and the source of that was NOT wiki, didn't you pay attention to the link?
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/afterlife.html
http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/2970/jewish/Do-Jews-Believe-in-an-Afterlife.htm
http://www.orthodox-jews.com/judaism-beliefs.html#axzz2H2PHDg5X
http://www.goddiscussion.com/105352/british-redcoats/.
american pastor blames mass murder of children on 'british redcoats' richard dawkins and christopher hitchens .
in his "on the box" program dubbed "a biblical truth zone" ray comfort of living water ministries weighed in on the horror and tragedy of the shooting spree at sandy creek elementary school in newtown, ct, in order to offer his viewers an explanation.
This is why I like free speech.
Let Him rave so that men may know him to be mad...
i've recently been thinking about our culture and how christianity in our western culture has failed to keep up with advancements in science.
) churches have let reason sink into the intellectual closet of fundamentalism.
"feel good" churches seem to be the norm today.
Personally it suprises me that people still being up the "dark ages", I thought that everyone had dropped that by now:
http://cliopolitical.blogspot.ca/2007/10/fallacy-of-unchanging-dark-ages.html
From wiki:
The concept of a Dark Age originated with the Italian scholar Petrarch (Francesco Petrarca) in the 1330s, and was originally intended as a sweeping criticism of the character of Late Latinliterature. [ 3 ] [ 12 ] Petrarch regarded the post-Roman centuries as "dark" compared to the light of classical antiquity. Later historians expanded the term to refer to the transitional period between Roman times and the High Middle Ages (c. 11th–13th century), including the lack of Latin literature, and a lack of contemporary written history, general demographic decline, limited building activity and material cultural achievements in general. Later historians and writers picked up the concept, and popular culture has further expanded on it as a vehicle to depict the Middle Ages as a time of backwardness, extending its pejorative use and expanding its scope. [ 13 ]
The term "Dark Ages" was originally intended to denote the entire period between the fall of Rome and the Renaissance; the term "Middle Ages" has a similar motivation, implying an intermediate period between Classical Antiquity and the Modern era. In the 19th century scholars began to recognize the accomplishments made during the period, thereby challenging the image of the Middle Ages as a time of darkness and decay. [ 6 ] The term is now never used by scholars to refer to the entire medieval period; [ 10 ] when used, it is generally restricted to the Early Middle Ages. [ 1 ]
The rise of archaeology and other specialties in the 20th century has shed much light on the period and offered a more nuanced understanding of its positive developments. [ 13 ] Other terms of periodization have come to the fore: Late Antiquity, the Early Middle Ages, and the Great Migrations, depending on which aspects of culture are being emphasized. When modern scholarly study of the Middle Ages arose in the 19th century, the term "Dark Ages" was at first kept, with all its critical overtones. On the rare occasions when the term "Dark Ages" is used by historians today, it is intended to be neutral, namely, to express the idea that the events of the period often seem "dark" because of the scarcity of artistic and cultural output, [ 14 ] including historical records, when compared with both earlier and later times. [ 10 ]
The medieval period is frequently caricatured as supposedly a "time of ignorance and superstition" which placed "the word of religious authorities over personal experience and rational activity." [ 43 ] However, rationality was increasingly held in high regard as the Middle Ages progressed. The historian of science Edward Grant, writes that "If revolutionary rational thoughts were expressed [in the 18th century], they were made possible because of the long medieval tradition that established the use of reason as one of the most important of human activities". [ 44 ] Furthermore, David Lindberg says that, contrary to common belief, "the late medieval scholar rarely experienced the coercive power of the church and would have regarded himself as free (particularly in the natural sciences) to follow reason and observation wherever they led". [ 45 ]
The caricature of the period is also reflected in a number of more specific notions. For instance, a claim that was first propagated in the 19th century [ 46 ] [ 47 ] and is still very common in popular culture is the supposition that all people in the Middle Ages believed that the Earth was flat. This claim is mistaken. [ 47 ] [ 48 ] In fact, lecturers in the medieval universities commonly advanced evidence in favor of the idea that the Earth was a sphere. [ 49 ] Lindberg and Ronald Numbers write: "There was scarcely a Christian scholar of the Middle Ages who did not acknowledge [Earth's] sphericity and even know its approximate circumference". [ 50 ]
Other misconceptions such as: "the Church prohibited autopsies and dissections during the Middle Ages", "the rise of Christianity killed off ancient science", and "the medieval Christian church suppressed the growth of natural philosophy", are all cited by Ronald Numbers as examples of widely popular myths that still pass as historical truth, although they are not supported by current historical research. [ 51 ] They help maintain the idea of a "Dark Age" spanning through the medieval period.
Unlike pagan Rome, Christian Europe did not exercise a universal prohibition of the dissection and autopsy of the human body and such examinations were carried out regularly from at least the 13th century. [ 52 ] [ 53 ] [ 54 ] It has even been suggested that the Christian theology contributed significantly to the revival of human dissection and autopsy by providing a new socio-religious and cultural context in which the human cadaver was no longer seen as sacrosanct. [ 52 ]
i've recently been thinking about our culture and how christianity in our western culture has failed to keep up with advancements in science.
) churches have let reason sink into the intellectual closet of fundamentalism.
"feel good" churches seem to be the norm today.
Christians nowadays probably don't seem to impressive to Us, they certaibly aren't to me.
Of course when it started they did things that no one else was doing like taking care of the widows and orphans and the sick like lepers and such, to a degree that their charitabel works were acknowledge by even their critics.
Of course nowadays that is common for all people to do...
Good works catch on...
i've recently been thinking about our culture and how christianity in our western culture has failed to keep up with advancements in science.
) churches have let reason sink into the intellectual closet of fundamentalism.
"feel good" churches seem to be the norm today.
PS and CA- would you argue that if the JWs just emphasized Jehovah more they would be a better religion, better people and should continue as going concern.
I am not sure what you mean here...
i've recently been thinking about our culture and how christianity in our western culture has failed to keep up with advancements in science.
) churches have let reason sink into the intellectual closet of fundamentalism.
"feel good" churches seem to be the norm today.
PS- You have to see the correlation between these christian religions getting away from the earth being destroyed in a Judgement Day scenario and adopting the view that the earth will go on which necessitates becomeing a better steward. For a Orthodox Jew who does not believe in a afterlife, ala the Torah, and that this is it and what you do now benefits your future generations stewardship of the earth is a natural fit.
The Earth is NOT destroyed in Judgment day, it is made Better, New Heaven ( On Earth) and a New Earth.
Which "orthodox jews" don't believe in the after life?
http://www.jewfaq.org/olamhaba.htm
Traditional Judaism firmly believes that death is not the end of human existence. However, because Judaism is primarily focused on life here and now rather than on the afterlife, Judaism does not have much dogma about the afterlife, and leaves a great deal of room for personal opinion. It is possible for an Orthodox Jew to believe that the souls of the righteous dead go to a place similar to the Christian heaven, or that they are reincarnated through many lifetimes, or that they simply wait until the coming of the messiah, when they will be resurrected. Likewise, Orthodox Jews can believe that the souls of the wicked are tormented by demons of their own creation, or that wicked souls are simply destroyed at death, ceasing to exist.