mmarco
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Post by mmarco on Aug 24, 2020 9:02:22 GMT
The fundamental reason why I believe in Jesus Christ, is that I find that the christian concept of God and of divine love is the highest possible concept. I find that the idea itself that God loves us so much that He chose to assume the human nature and accepted to suffer crucifission in order to save us, expresses such a high concept of God and of divine love that it can comes only from God. I believe that Chirst suffered His Passion to help us to have faith in Him and trust Him, to make us understand that God loves us infinitely, that God is good and mercifull and that God is near to us so that we may open our heart to Him, be in communion with Him and be saved.
Many religions teach that God is love, but the problem is to define what the word "love" means, because by itself it could be only a vague and generic concept.
The christian faith is unique because it gives a very concrete and unique meaning to the concept of divne love: in fact God's love actualizes in the acceptance of a terrible physical suffering; the God of the christian faith loves us so much that He is willing to suffer a painful death in order to save us. In the christian faith, love is not only a theoretical and vague concept; Christ's Passion is a clear and concrete realization of the concept of divine love which teaches us what is the true meaning of love.
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Post by Elizabeth on Aug 24, 2020 9:06:39 GMT
The fundamental reason why I believe in Jesus Christ, is that I find that the christian concept of God and of divine love is the highest possible concept. I find that the idea itself that God loves us so much that He chose to assume the human nature and accepted to suffer crucifission in order to save us, expresses such a high concept of God and of divine love that it can comes only from God. I believe that Chirst suffered His Passion to help us to have faith in Him and trust Him, to make us understand that God loves us infinitely, that God is good and mercifull and that God is near to us so that we may open our heart to Him, be in communion with Him and be saved. Many religions teach that God is love, but the problem is to define what the word "love" means, because by itself it could be only a vague and generic concept. The christian faith is unique because it gives a very concrete and unique meaning to the concept of divne love: in fact God's love actualizes in the acceptance of a terrible physical suffering; the God of the christian faith loves us so much that He is willing to suffer a painful death in order to save us. In the christian faith, love is not only a theoretical and vague concept; Christ's Passion is a clear and concrete realization of the concept of divine love which teaches us what is the true meaning of love. Amen. God never failed to prove His love through actions even to the point of dying for us on the cross. He taught us what true love is. Also welcome to the forum! How long have you been a follower of Christ?  |
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mmarco
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Post by mmarco on Aug 24, 2020 9:07:54 GMT
Hello,
I believe in Christ since I was a child.
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Post by joustos on Aug 24, 2020 15:31:45 GMT
The fundamental reason why I believe in Jesus Christ, is that I find that the christian concept of God and of divine love is the highest possible concept. I find that the idea itself that God loves us so much that He chose to assume the human nature and accepted to suffer crucifission in order to save us, expresses such a high concept of God and of divine love that it can comes only from God. I believe that Chirst suffered His Passion to help us to have faith in Him and trust Him, to make us understand that God loves us infinitely, that God is good and mercifull and that God is near to us so that we may open our heart to Him, be in communion with Him and be saved. Many religions teach that God is love, but the problem is to define what the word "love" means, because by itself it could be only a vague and generic concept. The christian faith is unique because it gives a very concrete and unique meaning to the concept of divne love: in fact God's love actualizes in the acceptance of a terrible physical suffering; the God of the christian faith loves us so much that He is willing to suffer a painful death in order to save us. In the christian faith, love is not only a theoretical and vague concept; Christ's Passion is a clear and concrete realization of the concept of divine love which teaches us what is the true meaning of love. Hello, mmarco. I am sorry I am going to make some remarks which may cause some disappointments in you, but they should not be a threat to your faith if, according to Chistianity, faith is a gift of the holy Spirit. Well, where did you get the idea that God assumed a human nature and suffered death out of His love for humans? It was St. Paul (who, by the way, never met and heard Jesus speak) that explained the crucifixion of Jesus as an expiation of man's original sin (which, according to Neolithic thinking) is inherited by all humans. Primitive is also the idea that a sin or fault is [and must] be expiated by suffering. If God can forgive sins, Jesus' sacrifice was unnecessary. At any rate, God the father of Adam never assumed a human form: According to John of Ephesus, the evangelist, God's Logos was a person, and this person was incarnated as the historic Jesus of Nazareth, though the human Miriam/Mary. So, Jesus had a dual nature, divine and human, … and only humans can suffer. However, Christian theologians saw the similarity between this Jesus and the dualistic Dionysos, who also suffered (in a different context) and occasioned the lament of his goat-attired followers: tragedy [tragos-ode]. (The early theologians, like the Gospel writers, were all Greeks and preserved the ideas of their pagan/mythical culture. Compare the Jesus in the Last Supper and the Mysteries of Dionysos.) |
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mmarco
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Post by mmarco on Aug 24, 2020 16:45:35 GMT
Hello Justus,
first of all, I believe that the fundamental nature of original sin consists in the lack of trust in God, in the proud desire to affirm our authority above everything and everyone, in the proud desire to feel “the god of ourselves”, so that we can esablish the moral rules and do whatever we want to.
I think that each of us must recognize himself in Adam, because we all rebelled against God, since we were kids, even if we were not aware of that. In fact, every time a child disoebeys his parents, he is unconsciously rebelling against God. Since the most tender age, children manfest forms of egoism and the desire to affirm their will against their parents' will; I think these behaviors represent embrionic forms of the original sin.
The story of the fall is not only a figurative account of Adam's sin, but it is also the figurative story of each of us; it tells us who we really are, it tells us that we are all proud rebels.
Therefore, Adam's sin is also our sin.
I believe that God loves us infinitely, and He desires to lead each of us to the true life and true happiness, a condition existing only in communion with God. But God cannot tolerate evil and sin, because they are incompatible with His good and holy nature. A deep interior change is then necessary for all of us to reach the eternal happiness; we must be sanctified and purified from all our evil and sinful desires. God has the power to change us but He wants to do that with our consent. In fact God has chosen to create man with a free will, He wants to respect our free will. Man cannot really accept to be changed by God and he cannot be in comunion with God as long as even a shadow of doubt and distrust remains in his heart ( it must be stressed that such a distrust may exist even without the man is aware of it, at the unconscious level).
In order to destroy every shadow of doubt and distrust in our heart, God has chosen to give us the greatest proof of love that may exist: Christ's Passion. Christ's Passion has reconciled us to God because it has uprooted from our heart our distrust and doubts about God's love.
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Post by Elizabeth on Aug 24, 2020 21:00:49 GMT
The fundamental reason why I believe in Jesus Christ, is that I find that the christian concept of God and of divine love is the highest possible concept. I find that the idea itself that God loves us so much that He chose to assume the human nature and accepted to suffer crucifission in order to save us, expresses such a high concept of God and of divine love that it can comes only from God. I believe that Chirst suffered His Passion to help us to have faith in Him and trust Him, to make us understand that God loves us infinitely, that God is good and mercifull and that God is near to us so that we may open our heart to Him, be in communion with Him and be saved. Many religions teach that God is love, but the problem is to define what the word "love" means, because by itself it could be only a vague and generic concept. The christian faith is unique because it gives a very concrete and unique meaning to the concept of divne love: in fact God's love actualizes in the acceptance of a terrible physical suffering; the God of the christian faith loves us so much that He is willing to suffer a painful death in order to save us. In the christian faith, love is not only a theoretical and vague concept; Christ's Passion is a clear and concrete realization of the concept of divine love which teaches us what is the true meaning of love. Hello, mmarco. I am sorry I am going to make some remarks which may cause some disappointments in you, but they should not be a threat to your faith if, according to Chistianity, faith is a gift of the holy Spirit. Well, where did you get the idea that God assumed a human nature and suffered death out of His love for humans? It was St. Paul (who, by the way, never met and heard Jesus speak) that explained the crucifixion of Jesus as an expiation of man's original sin (which, according to Neolithic thinking) is inherited by all humans. Primitive is also the idea that a sin or fault is [and must] be expiated by suffering. If God can forgive sins, Jesus' sacrifice was unnecessary. At any rate, God the father of Adam never assumed a human form: According to John of Ephesus, the evangelist, God's Logos was a person, and this person was incarnated as the historic Jesus of Nazareth, though the human Miriam/Mary. So, Jesus had a dual nature, divine and human, … and only humans can suffer. However, Christian theologians saw the similarity between this Jesus and the dualistic Dionysos, who also suffered (in a different context) and occasioned the lament of his goat-attired followers: tragedy [tragos-ode]. (The early theologians, like the Gospel writers, were all Greeks and preserved the ideas of their pagan/mythical culture. Compare the Jesus in the Last Supper and the Mysteries of Dionysos.) There's many examples or reasons why. I'll just use one. The Kingdom of God is Jesus'. He owns it. It's His Kingdom. So if the Kingdom is God's and it belongs to Jesus then Jesus is God. 1. Jesus said He won't do something until He's in the Kingdom of God. For I say unto you, I will not any more eat thereof, until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God. Luke:22:16 2. Jesus said this Kingdom of God is His own Kingdom. That ye may eat and drink at my table in MY kingdom, and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel. Luke:22:30 3. They acknowledged what Jesus said and called it Jesus' Kingdom. And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. Luke:23:42 This Kingdom of God is 100% Christ's Kingdom where He said He will sit on His throne there and even said in number 2 above that He'll allow us to sit on thrones to help Him judge. Paul also mentions we will help judge even the fallen angels... |
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Post by joustos on Aug 24, 2020 21:34:39 GMT
Mmarco and Elizabeth, I respect your seriousness, but for a moment, let me be a jester: Both Jesus and Mohamed ascended bodily to heaven (above the sky)from Jerusalem. So, in Jerusalem there must be a "portal" for traffic. The advocates of ancient aliens, who are believed to have come to earth from some constellation, may have discovered this portal for their descent. Will they return? They can. Can we reach them? After the earthly resurrection of the dead, the elect will (without any spaceship). Chreers.
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Post by Elizabeth on Aug 24, 2020 21:51:18 GMT
Mmarco and Elizabeth, I respect your seriousness, but for a moment, let me be a jester: Both Jesus and Mohamed ascended bodily to heaven (above the sky)from Jerusalem. So, in Jerusalem there must be a "portal" for traffic. The advocates of ancient aliens, who are believed to have come to earth from some constellation, may have discovered this portal for their descent. Will they return? They can. Can we reach them? After the earthly resurrection of the dead, the elect will (without any spaceship). Chreers. Elijah got taken to heaven by God in a chariot as it says in the bible. There wasn't a portal involved. Jesus went up to heaven or back home from where He came from without help from anyone or anything but His own power. He also didn't go like Elijah since you said bodily. Jesus died on the cross remember? He no longer had a real human body afterwards. He was also seen appearing and reappearing to people. A human body cannot do that otherwise I would have surely discovered that invisibility switch by now since I'd love to turn invisible. So no portals involved here just God. And Mohamed...well he's not part of Scripture so I will leave it at that since I don't want to insult him this time since some do follow Islam. But personally he didn't go same route as Jesus or Elijah. He probably fell through a hole or a ditch or a sinkhole kind of portal. So that's all I got on that guy.  |
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Post by joustos on Aug 25, 2020 15:48:08 GMT
The believers in Ancient Aliens usually believe also in portals and wormholes in space, but, Elizabeth, I liked your semi-serious hypothesis of sinkholes as space-holes. The whole modern mythology about ancient aliens I alien to me....
We already have had many discussions about the Christ, but I am going to open a new thread in order for us to focus on the identity of this Nazarene or Galilean, since there are believers and non-believers in him. |
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Post by Elizabeth on Aug 25, 2020 17:51:50 GMT
The believers in Ancient Aliens usually believe also in portals and wormholes in space, but, Elizabeth, I liked your semi-serious hypothesis of sinkholes as space-holes. The whole modern mythology about ancient aliens I alien to me....
We already have had many discussions about the Christ, but I am going to open a new thread in order for us to focus on the identity of this Nazarene or Galilean, since there are believers and non-believers in him. Sounds like a good topic to open. I look forward to it! But yeah I find zero mentions of those aliens or portals in the bible so that's why I reject the idea. Bible refered to an alien as a human who is foreign to a land as is still a definition of alien today. When people don't know what something is today they just label it an alien but from space when it could be people or demons or whatever. They sometimes say ufo too. They should just stick to ufo because it's more honest to say that it's an unidentified thing so ufo if it's flying or uo if not flying. I also read somewhere that people were scared of nature and made up stuff to feel better. So ancients made up things for different things and it doesn't make it true. That's usually how legends are things came to be. |
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Post by zackbeni on Aug 29, 2020 20:03:43 GMT
Hello Mmarco, But from whence do you get the idea that Jesus was God? Jesus never claimed that he was God but that he was merely a messenger of God, one who came to manifest God to Man hence his incessant reminders that it is not he who works and speaks but the One in him. In other words, he was a medium chosen and used by God to reach his creatures. The word "Christ", "Kristos" in Greek, simply means the Anointed Medium of the divine. Jesus of Nazareth, Buddha, Osiris, Krishna, Mithras were all men like us whom by virtue of their pure and spiritually advanced souls, were given the highest privilege man can have, to be mediums of the Most High God or The "Word", " Logos" in Greek, who is the only begotten Son of God. It is this "only begotten Son of God" that Jesus incessantly says is within and working through him and the one John chapter 1(In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God) is referring to NOT at all the man of flesh Jesus. It is this Spirit that descended upon Jesus of Nazareth after his baptism and dwelt and worked through him but left him during his crucifixion thus his exclamation "My God, my God why has thou forsaken me"! To think otherwise, that is, to think that Jesus was actually God would be absurd and preposterous since one would be asserting that God forsook himself and thus cried and supplicated himself to save his own self! One might attempt to dismiss this by saying one was the Son and the other the Father but even this wouldn't stand as the Father and the Son are One and those who see the Son have already seen the Father. Moreover, you seem to believe in the blasphemous doctrine of "vicarious atonement" and in the efficacy of blood sacrifices in cleansing sins and that God actually allows it. But Mmarco, to imagine that justice can be satisfied by the punishment of the innocent, think Jesus, for the guilty! Rather it is doubly outraged. No man shall take the sin of another, nor shall any make atonement for his brother's trespass; but every one shall bear his own sin, and be purified by his own chastisement. Yea, for Man reaps as he has sown. Furthermore, God never demanded humans to offer blood sacrifices to him! What Folly, what Ignorance, to offer material Flesh and Drink to pure Power and essential Being! "Jeremiah 7 22 For I spoke not to your fathers, and I commanded them not, in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning the matter of burnt offerings and sacrifices. 23 But this thing I commanded them, saying: Hearken to my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people: and walk ye in all the way that I have commanded you, that it may be well with you. 24 But they hearkened not, nor inclined their ear: but walked in their own will, and in the perversity of their wicked  and went backward and not forward" "Isaiah 1 11 To what purpose do you offer me the multitude of your victims, saith the Lord? I am full, I desire not holocausts of rams, and fat of fatlings, and blood of calves, and lambs, and buck goats. 12 When you came to appear before me, who required these things at your hands, that you should walk in my courts? 13 Offer sacrifice no more in vain: incense is an abomination tome. The new moons, and the sabbaths, and other festivals I will not abide, your assemblies are wicked. 14 My soul hateth your new moons, and your solemnities: they are become troublesome to me, I am weary of bearing them. 15 And when you stretch forth your hands, I will turn away my eyes from you: and when you multiply prayer, I will not hear: for your hands are full of blood." Blood is indeed the most preponderant veil between God and Man. Be it the blood sacrificed without the body to a deity supposedly to propitiate it or those within the body in the form of supposedly food. it blocks the spiritual light from the spiritual skies from reaching Man who is desperately in need of it. And again, if you muse more about this, nothing would be more preposterous than the idea that God came down and died to propitiate himself and quench his own anger towards men for their sins. You are absolutely right, of course as far as I am concerned, that in Christianity, the great and stupendous love of God towards His creatures can be more readily seen but Christians are yet to understand how and in what way it was manifested. This love is embodied in the Crucifix, the emblem of the Son of God which has four significations owing to its fourfold structure. |
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mmarco
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Post by mmarco on Aug 30, 2020 10:29:25 GMT
Hello Zackbeni,
as I explained in my first post, my belief that Christ is God is proved directly by the christian concept of divine love; this is the idea that God loves us so much that He is willing to suffer for us a terrible and painful death; this idea is sufficiently strong to fully convince me about the divine nature of Christ, and I need no other kinds of prooves. In my third post I have explained the reason why I believe Chirst's Passion has been necessary for our salvation.
However the fact that Chirst is God is stated very clearly also in the Bible.
You do not understand the concept of the Trinity; this is a complex concept, beyond the capacities of our intelligence; we can understand such concept only through an intuition, which is a gift from God.
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and went backward and not forward"