iaminyou
Junior Member
The eternal is yet to come after the temporary has passed.
Posts: 58
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Post by iaminyou on Sept 26, 2020 8:21:35 GMT
Together, the words Jesus and Christ is Jesus Christ.
Why were these two words put together since they have totally different meanings. Christ is a name regarding the eternal MAN. Jesus is a name regarding a temporary human being of a created MAN.
If you want me to explain what Jesus Christ means, then you have to understand what the invisible image of our Creator is.
Genesis 1
26: Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth."
27: So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
Jesus Christ means the same as these phrases and names found in the Bible; Word of God, Word of the Lord, Son of God, Grace of God, Love of God, Wisdom of God, Voice of God, Voice of the Lord, Spirit of God, Spirit, Lord, God, Holy Spirit, Messiah, Mother, the Woman, Creation, Virgin, Son of God, Heaven, Heavenly Kingdom, Kingdom of God, Christ, Mind of Christ, Mind of God, Kingdom of Christ, Jesus Christ, Ancient of Days, Light of Men, Light of God, the Light, Kingdom of the Spirit, the Rock, the Breath, Breath of Life, Book of Life, and the Tree of Life. There are other's I haven't mentioned in this writing.
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Clovis Merovingian
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Ethnicity: Deep Southerner
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Region: The Deep South
Location: South Carolina
Ancestry: Gaelic (patrilineal), English, Ulster Scots/Scots Irish, Scottish, German, Swiss German, Swedish, Manx, Finnish, Norman French/Quebecois (distantly), Dutch (distantly)
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Philosophy: I try to find out what is true as best I can.
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Post by Clovis Merovingian on Oct 28, 2020 22:12:06 GMT
What is your evidence that God from OT not good? In my view, the genocides and destruction of cities and afflictions visited upon Man are evidence enough. His general attitude of 'worship me or you will be destroyed' is pretty revealing. This does not in any way agree with the gentle, almost benign God of the New Testament. The two Testaments simply don't agree with one another on the nature of God, and I do not believe they are talking about the same 'God'. I believe the OT is describing an impostor, a twisted being claiming to be God. There is an important Cathar document, one of the few directly attributed to Cathar authorship, titled 'The Book of Two Principles' that tackles the question of good and evil and supports the case for two opposing deities, one good and one evil. Also, one might do well to study the Dualist principles explored in Manichaean theology- he supported the cases for two equal and opposing forces with Radical Dualism, as well as a greater and lesser force with Mitigated Dualism. (My interpretation of Catharism falls into the Mitigated Dualist camp.) But it is neither my intent nor my desire to be drawn into a debate on this; such 'discussions' rarely produce anything of substance and largely serve only to fracture communities and break what might otherwise become friendships even if both disagree. It is my hope that while my views differ from those of others here, we can all get along- as I have noted in other posts, we're all working toward the same destination but on different roads. I agree, I find religious debates that go nowhere tedious. That being said (and I will say no more after this) I think that your assessment of both the Old Testament and New Testament depictions of God are flawed. The Old Testament God is not as vengeful as you make him out to be and the New Testament God is not as benign as you make him out to be be either.
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Post by Διαμονδ on Oct 29, 2020 8:49:06 GMT
What is your evidence that God from OT not good? In my view, the genocides and destruction of cities and afflictions visited upon Man are evidence enough. His general attitude of 'worship me or you will be destroyed' is pretty revealing. This does not in any way agree with the gentle, almost benign God of the New Testament. The two Testaments simply don't agree with one another on the nature of God, and I do not believe they are talking about the same 'God'. I believe the OT is describing an impostor, a twisted being claiming to be God. There is an important Cathar document, one of the few directly attributed to Cathar authorship, titled 'The Book of Two Principles' that tackles the question of good and evil and supports the case for two opposing deities, one good and one evil. Also, one might do well to study the Dualist principles explored in Manichaean theology- he supported the cases for two equal and opposing forces with Radical Dualism, as well as a greater and lesser force with Mitigated Dualism. (My interpretation of Catharism falls into the Mitigated Dualist camp.) But it is neither my intent nor my desire to be drawn into a debate on this; such 'discussions' rarely produce anything of substance and largely serve only to fracture communities and break what might otherwise become friendships even if both disagree. It is my hope that while my views differ from those of others here, we can all get along- as I have noted in other posts, we're all working toward the same destination but on different roads. I'm not doing a debate on that topic,I'm giving a hint. You write that you tried to find the truth in various information.. Saint Augustine tried to find the truth in the Manichaean sects and eventually came to the absolutely logical conclusion that evil is ontologically impossible, that is, there is no possibility for divine dualism in this world(what do the Zoroastrians and others think), because it is logically impossible. As for God, he represents only one power in the Old and New Testaments. This Is Love!
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The Cathar
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Modern Cathar
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Philosophy: Stoic Asceticism
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Post by The Cathar on Oct 29, 2020 18:35:19 GMT
In my belief, Christ is the first and most powerful of God's Archangels, who were created for various purposes. Christ, being the first, gets the title 'Son of God', and while there are others- male and female (or the spiritual equivalent)- they do not get such an honorific. (In Gnostic terms, these spirits are called 'Aeons'; I am a bit biased toward Christian terminology and it's easier for others to get the concepts in Christian terms.) To bypass an awful lot of cosmology and theology, Christ made it his business to enter the Material World, our Universe (NOT created by God- but that's a different tale!) and help Man get himself sorted out so he could better reject the works of Satan- the enticements of this wretched world he created more or less by accident- and have a better chance of his indwelling spirit (we all have one) breaking free of this world and returning to God's presence in the Divine Realm. He did so by inhabiting the first infant that was born while he was in the Well of Souls (part of that 'different tale') who just happened to be Jesus- although he might as easily have appeared in the infant Pontius Pilate or baby Mussolini (just think if Christ had appeared closer to our time- or was among us now). When Jesus grew up and had more understanding of things, the spirit of Christ within him made itself known and thus began Jesus/Christ's ministry to Man. When Jesus was executed, Christ's spirit exited his body and returned to the Divine Realm, taking Jesus' essence with him to be made a spirit in its own right- an Angel. When our own spirit achieves this escape our essence is 'taken up' just the same and we are made Angels and dwell in God's Presence. If, on the other hand, we don't put in the work and our spirit is too weak to break free of Satan our essence is stripped from the spirit to wither away and the spirit is returned to the Well of Souls to be placed in another new life for another go at redemption later. As for the 'important persons' in my belief I place God first and foremost, of course, but as for more earthly persons it's Jesus/Christ all the way. As a modern-day Cathar I strive to follow the example set by Christ, primarily given in the Sermon on the Mount. Where I break from mainstream Christianity on this is that I'm not big on 'miracles' and neither am I thrilled with leafing through individual Gospels to find this or that and having to cross-check in the other Gospels to figure out what's what. I do believe that the Gospels are the 'heart and soul' of the New Testament with the rest being not much more than commentary and opinion. As such, I use 'The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth' by Thomas Jefferson (yes, THAT Thomas Jefferson), it being a coherent combination of the Gospels into one narrative minus the 'magic' elements. Combined with a dash of Gnostic cosmology, this provides the 'scriptural' basis for my modern interpretation of the old Cathar faith. While I place Jesus/Christ in the #2 spot, I also recognize that there have been others throughout Man's history who have tried to steer us in better directions and help us get sorted out. I would speculate that they, like Jesus, had a strong spirit inhabiting them and that spirit drove them to go to great lengths to teach us. Zoroaster, Amenhotep, Mani, Buddha, Muhammad, and others closer to our time- Gandhi, perhaps- are all possible candidates. They brought different messages and different methods, but it was all with the same goal: to be closer to God. As such, I do not fault anyone for their faith- I don't know what's in their heart and it's not my place to judge them. As long as they don't go around roughing up other for THEIR faith, I have a 'live and let live' attitude. (As a Cathar, I have a historic grudge against the Church, but that's to be expected. Rome has apologized for their past misdeeds, though, so it's all good.) **This is a VERY quick and dirty attempt to answer your questions, and I hope I haven't muddied the waters any more than necessary or, even worse, bored you with all of this. I am working on an 'Introduction to Catharism' document to present the faith as any other faith does, but it's slow going as there are an awful lot of gaps in the historical record and much of the information we DO have comes from the interrogation transcripts of the Inquisition; there are very few extant original Cathar documents. I'm afraid the result of my work will not be Catharism 'as it was' but rather Catharism 'as I think it should have been'. No, you didn't bore me. This was interesting! I'm finally learning something about the Gnostics. So I do see you read things like the gospels and what Thomas Jefferson wrote and know a lot about what's what in your belief. However, what reading guided you to labeling Jesus as an angel for example?My apologies- I just noticed that last part of your reply, regarding Jesus. In my view, if our spirit (that indwelling Angel/Spark of the Divine) breaks free of Satan's gatekeepers (I roughly equate them with being in charge of the Seven Mortal Sins: Pride, Greed, Wrath, Envy, Lust, Gluttony, and Sloth) it takes our human essence with it to the Divine Realm, to be made a spirit- an Angel- in its own right, to take its place in God's Presence among the other Angels. There is no specific reading that led me to this conclusion, but as this is the 'normal course of events' (in my belief, of course- everyone else' mileage may vary) for those of us who manage to get off this rock it only stands to reason Jesus would be made an Angel just as you or I would should we/our spirit be successful in escaping this world. (Again, I stress that there are gaps in the historical record, and a lot of the 'theory' behind the practice is missing. As such, I just have to make my 'best guess' based on what is available and go from there. Besides that, the Gnostic angle is incredibly diverse and there's not one single 'canon' one can pin down as to details such as this.) The alternative isn't so puppies and rainbows, though- if we fail to be strong in faith and spirit and reject the world's enticements (see the Mortal Sins previously) we will not pass the gatekeepers. If that happens, our spirit and essence are stripped of each other with our essence essentially withering away and our indwelling spirit returned to the Well of Souls to be placed in another new body at a later time for another go. That's why it's so important to make it out in THIS life- transmigration of the soul isn't the same as reincarnation, in which a person is simply reborn. Our soul- our spirit- has multiple chances to get back to God, but as Man we only have our one shot at it. We get the Grand Prize if we succeed or we get literally nothing if we fail. (In the Cathar view, there is no separate 'Hell' one goes to should they fail to make it to Heaven- this Material World is Hell in and of itself for our spirit.)
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Post by Elizabeth on Oct 29, 2020 19:04:56 GMT
No, you didn't bore me. This was interesting! I'm finally learning something about the Gnostics. So I do see you read things like the gospels and what Thomas Jefferson wrote and know a lot about what's what in your belief. However, what reading guided you to labeling Jesus as an angel for example?My apologies- I just noticed that last part of your reply, regarding Jesus. In my view, if our spirit (that indwelling Angel/Spark of the Divine) breaks free of Satan's gatekeepers (I roughly equate them with being in charge of the Seven Mortal Sins: Pride, Greed, Wrath, Envy, Lust, Gluttony, and Sloth) it takes our human essence with it to the Divine Realm, to be made a spirit- an Angel- in its own right, to take its place in God's Presence among the other Angels. There is no specific reading that led me to this conclusion, but as this is the 'normal course of events' (in my belief, of course- everyone else' mileage may vary) for those of us who manage to get off this rock it only stands to reason Jesus would be made an Angel just as you or I would should we/our spirit be successful in escaping this world. (Again, I stress that there are gaps in the historical record, and a lot of the 'theory' behind the practice is missing. As such, I just have to make my 'best guess' based on what is available and go from there. Besides that, the Gnostic angle is incredibly diverse and there's not one single 'canon' one can pin down as to details such as this.) The alternative isn't so puppies and rainbows, though- if we fail to be strong in faith and spirit and reject the world's enticements (see the Mortal Sins previously) we will not pass the gatekeepers. If that happens, our spirit and essence are stripped of each other with our essence essentially withering away and our indwelling spirit returned to the Well of Souls to be placed in another new body at a later time for another go. That's why it's so important to make it out in THIS life- transmigration of the soul isn't the same as reincarnation, in which a person is simply reborn. Our soul- our spirit- has multiple chances to get back to God, but as Man we only have our one shot at it. We get the Grand Prize if we succeed or we get literally nothing if we fail. (In the Cathar view, there is no separate 'Hell' one goes to should they fail to make it to Heaven- this Material World is Hell in and of itself for our spirit.) I know you also mentioned that other than the gospels the rest is commentary and opinion but what do you specifically think of this verse below? I ask because it doesn't say Jesus who is the Son is an angel but much more than that. Does it change your view of the Son in any way? "Hebrews 1:8 But to the Son He says: “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Your kingdom."
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The Cathar
New Member
Modern Cathar
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Post by The Cathar on Oct 29, 2020 20:36:25 GMT
My apologies- I just noticed that last part of your reply, regarding Jesus. In my view, if our spirit (that indwelling Angel/Spark of the Divine) breaks free of Satan's gatekeepers (I roughly equate them with being in charge of the Seven Mortal Sins: Pride, Greed, Wrath, Envy, Lust, Gluttony, and Sloth) it takes our human essence with it to the Divine Realm, to be made a spirit- an Angel- in its own right, to take its place in God's Presence among the other Angels. There is no specific reading that led me to this conclusion, but as this is the 'normal course of events' (in my belief, of course- everyone else' mileage may vary) for those of us who manage to get off this rock it only stands to reason Jesus would be made an Angel just as you or I would should we/our spirit be successful in escaping this world. (Again, I stress that there are gaps in the historical record, and a lot of the 'theory' behind the practice is missing. As such, I just have to make my 'best guess' based on what is available and go from there. Besides that, the Gnostic angle is incredibly diverse and there's not one single 'canon' one can pin down as to details such as this.) The alternative isn't so puppies and rainbows, though- if we fail to be strong in faith and spirit and reject the world's enticements (see the Mortal Sins previously) we will not pass the gatekeepers. If that happens, our spirit and essence are stripped of each other with our essence essentially withering away and our indwelling spirit returned to the Well of Souls to be placed in another new body at a later time for another go. That's why it's so important to make it out in THIS life- transmigration of the soul isn't the same as reincarnation, in which a person is simply reborn. Our soul- our spirit- has multiple chances to get back to God, but as Man we only have our one shot at it. We get the Grand Prize if we succeed or we get literally nothing if we fail. (In the Cathar view, there is no separate 'Hell' one goes to should they fail to make it to Heaven- this Material World is Hell in and of itself for our spirit.) I know you also mentioned that other than the gospels the rest is commentary and opinion but what do you specifically think of this verse below? I ask because it doesn't say Jesus who is the Son is an angel but much more than that. Does it change your view of the Son in any way? "Hebrews 1:8 But to the Son He says: “Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Your kingdom." The author of Hebrews does lay out that Christ was both the divine Son of God and human concurrently. This does not conflict with my view of Jesus as both Man and Spirit (by virtue of Christ inhabiting him) and Hebrews goes on to point out that Christ is elevated above the rank-and-file Angels. As I do not adhere to the concept of the Trinity this works out quite well, with God in command, Christ as second officer, and the Angels being the crew of the Great Ship. It also points out that it is through Jesus/Christ that one gains salvation. I do not take this to mean that simple belief in Jesus/Christ is all that is necessary (it takes more than a John 3:16 bumper sticker), but that following and applying his teachings is the path to redemption. For as we see in James 2:17, "Faith without works is dead". As for Jesus 'not being an Angel', he certainly was not that while he was alive, but when he was taken up with Christ he became one of the Angels, having been made Spirit. This, in my view, is how we are 'resurrected'- not in body, but as Spirit.
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