Jesus said He was everyone

You know the bit where he says, like... "when you tend to a sick man or feed a begger you are tending to/feeding me" or something.

So, bearing in mind the amount of power the following belief gives to a very few...

Why, if God is in everyone, can we (according to most church going Christians) only find God through the church?

 

Thats was his point. You don't only find Christ/God in church. Turn over a rock I'm there....mainstream christians use it to fill pews I guess. Church is for fellowship not to meet God. You can meet God in your car if you want.

 

Yeah, I thouroughly agree, but I see these two hours per church-going Christian per week as such a HUGE waste (that's like, what, a billion man-hours per week?). Why does the church teach nothing but singing, bell-ringing, and the bible? Why do they only sing "Christian" songs? Why is open discussion and debate not encouraged? Are modern Christians really so soulless that they will listen to a preacher the way Homer Simpson listens to ads for clown-school?

Even though it's only one term, "Christian" is a kind of Oxymoron. I don't think that if a person really took the teachings of Christ on board they would associate themselves with the (well-earned) stigma of Christianity.

 

So our good works, our religion, our baptism, our confirmation, our philosophy, nor our church membership can't get us into heaven. There is only ONE remedy for the problem of Sin and Separation...Jesus.

 

Yeah but what do you mean by that? Just saying the word Jesus isn't much of an answer to whatever problem.
Surely you don't think Jesus is the only person in history who has set an example worth following, and even if he was, like, the best person ever, he didn't directly write down exactly what he meant. His actions and even words as recorded by his followers (and compiled by the RC church) leave a wide margin of error in extracting a philosophy, imo.


I mean, by defining yourself as a Christian, you're implicitly excluding anyone who doesn't label themselves as such. You're putting up a wall - maybe it makes you feel closer to other people inside your group but it seperates you from people outside that group - who surely may still have something to offer, despite not being Christian. Isn't that what you're doing?


And those two paragraphs are tied together like this:
Although Jesus seems to me to have been a great guy, and I like his story, Christians through history and the sort of opinions they are associated with (even though I have seen nothing in the bible that ties to these opinions, quite the contrary) are not something I want to be associated with.
Either they or I see the bible from quite a skewed perspective.

 

The specific point that riles me is this... it seems to be pretty clear in the acts of the apostles that people filled with the holy spirit or whatever do not ascribe much value to possessions. They do not even keep the money they get from selling things but completely release every thing they possess.

It's a pretty clear message that people filled with the holy spirit behave like that, yet...

By accepting (because I don't believe you really believe it) that just going through the ritual of christening or baptism or confirmation or whatever, just like that you are filled with the holy spirit... it's err... just not true is it? Most modern Christians do not behave in any way like the apostles.

 

Right: God is within and outside of the Church.

And gathering on Sunday or Wednesday is so that we can worship together; it's a communiy gathering. Sure; maybe some people are there just to show off their clothes, but doesn't every community have a few people who act know-it-all?

 

haha, man, the early Apostles didn't listen to Jesus half the time. In the story of the loaves and fishes where Jesus wants to feed the crowd, the apostles, once again, seem to have forgotten the miracles that they just saw Jesus perform, and they ask, "How are we going to feed this people?" And Jesus says something like "Have you ears to hear?" Like YO dumbasses, are you listening to ANYTHING I've been saying? And then he multiplies the bread and fishes.

And Peter denies Jesus three times; Peter, to whom Jesus said "You are the rock upon which I will build my Church."

The early disciples were just as confused as we are now. We're still human. It's a pretty cosmic feeling to know that even people who knew Jesus then we're still dealin with the same problems as Christians are now.

 

But they weren't filled with the holy spirit then were they, they only got that after he died (?). I'll look it up while you reply.

 

That's right. Jesus promised the Holy Spirit, which was instilled in the Church (the people of the community) after his death...50 days after his death. This is the holiday we celebrate in Pentecost: meaning fifty.

Some inter-religious links: Jews celebrate the Passover, and fifty days later they celebrate Shavuot.. (maybe Simchat Torah) which celebrates the giving of the Torah: the first five books of the Bible.

And Muslims say that the Holy Spirit is an angel...whereas Christians think the Holy Spirit is not just an angel, but is one of the threefold natures of God.

 

I agree with this. I am a christian. I do believe the modern church is far removed from the first church. This is why I find a lot of church services rather stuffy. One of the christian sects that I looked to which helped me on the course to my conversion take a different stance on material posessions. They share everything and everything is owned by the community. They put a lot of emphasis on simplicity and the community.

I believe church is for fellowship. God is all around us. But I have found that church strengthens my spirit and it also helps with my spiritual guidence. When ever I miss church for some reason I open myself up to attack from the devil and he does attack me.

Matt

 

And psychology has a different name for the holy spirit - they call it the collective unconscious.


Do you get my point, about how someone acts when filled with the holy spirit?

 

Hmm, I'm interested in this church, can you tell me about them?

How does the devil attack you? What is the devil?

 

If you are interested in this church then I will tell you all about them. They are a rather conservative christian. They live in communes. They are known as the Bruderhof Communities. I have put the link on this post so you can have a look at what they are about. That site is quite good also because there are a lot of books and stuff on it.

How does the devil attack you? Well he is cunning. What I am about to post may get a little weird but you need to think on spiritual terms.
Most people think that the devil is everywhere like what God is. The devil is actually like an angel he is a single entity. He actually is incharge of all the demons so you get attacked by the demons. Demons were once angels and were brought down in the great war when the devil was thrown to earth. I am not making this stuff up as it is actually in the bible. There are a lot of interesting things to be learnt about demons. They are cunning and manipulative and if you don't know how to deal with them you can become posessed. I know the meaning of the mark of the beast. It is easy to work out what it means. Basically it is a joke and is very blasphamous. Designed to mock God in every way.
Matt

 

In Hebrew they have characters that represent both letters and numbers, so for example the character that represents 'W' also represents 6. So a lot of people think that 666 could equally have been translated as WWW.

The idea that a person can not go about their business unless that they bear the mark of the beast... how many companies don't have a website these days?


I tend to take the buddhist way when talking about God and the devil etc which is to say I can't know so I won't guess. All I can know is how these things manifest on this plane, if you see what I mean. I think it's important not to think of evil/the devil as a defined thing - hate can turn to love with just a slight twist in perception, what's good to some is evil to others and vice versa.

There was an important quote in another thread about opposite poles becoming one before we reach the kingdom of god.

'When you make the two into one, and when you make the inner as the outer and the outer as the inner and the above as the below, and when you make the male and the female into a single one, then you shall enter the Kingdom.'

That could mean a lot of things. "Above as the below". Maybe about heirarchies, maybe about heaven and hell as good and bad places. I mean, on Earth, in this life, you need an equal measure of hardship and comfort, ay? The ideas of an eternity in one or the other both seem equally bad to me.

Life will involve pain, a life without pain is a life not lived. Mortal or eternal.

 

This is God attacking you to drive you back into the church. People call this discipline "the devil".

 

I prefer to meet God in a joint. =)

 

wasn't revelations written in greek?

from wikipedia "The beast is identified by the number 666 in the text (Rev 13:18). This is very likely an instance of gematria, an early form of Jewish mysticism. Its object is to conceal a name by substituting for it a cipher of equal numerical value to the letters composing it. When the name "Nero Caesar" is spelled with Hebrew letters as ?¯ÂÔ ˜Ò¯ (NRON QSR—Hebrew vowels are usually not letters), each letter has a corresponding numerical value, N=50, R=200, O=6 N=50, Q=100, S=60, R=200, resulting in the sum of 666.

Some Greek manuscripts of Revelation have a different number. Here the number is not 666, but 616. If Nero is alternatively spelled as NRO instead of NRON, one gets 616; NRO minus N(=50).

Other people discount the gematrian theory and argue that "666" symbolically represents the trinity of evil (the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet), as "6" is one short from the perfect "7". It is also believed the number six represents mankind as he was created on the sixth day and is a step below God, represented by seven. The three sixes represent mankind trying to be like God by becoming omniscient, omnipresent, and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Revelation#Number_of_the_beast

 

Just to add my own understanding, there are 6 directions in the worldly plane (left, right, up, down, front, back). Thus, 6 is the symbol of worldly things. The 7th direction is inwards, the spiritual direction.

 

Hmm, yeah it was probably an urban myth that one about 666 = www, I shouldn't have said it as if it were fact. 6 is w (or vav) in hebrew but www I think would represent 18, not 666. (I wonder what "World Wide Web" adds up to?)