It looks like you're using an Ad Blocker.
Please white-list or disable AboveTopSecret.com in your ad-blocking tool.
Thank you.
Some features of ATS will be disabled while you continue to use an ad-blocker.
Originally posted by pthena
The church really should have moved past this. Stuck in orthodoxy is not moving forward. I can't imagine all Christians getting mad at you. Some one could get mad if they had all their hope and ambition on this life, and wanted to live selfishly, and think I'll have it all now, and I'm still saved because of someone else paying the price for my sins. Surely there are Christians who know that's foolish man with house on sand talk!
1 John 2
1My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:
2And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.
3And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments.
4He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.
Christianity is the anti-Christ religion that was warned of. That is actually what the list was about that the OP quoted. This is not to say all Christians are by default anti-christ. They are really just poor in spirit mostly and so forth. Many people still find the way in spite of it as well etc. But what the general mainstream Christian religion is and always has been - that is anti-christ.
All ones needs to do is take a list of things said about the anti-christ religion, and test Christianity against it with honesty. They will find that it meets the points listed. Most people simply do not notice because they expect it all to start after they are born and such, and do not realize that it was there before Jesus, and continued on after and started in his name after Jesus, not after their birth.
Wish it wasn't so, but it is.
MT 18:5 "And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me. 6 But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.
MT 18:7 "Woe to the world because of the things that cause people to sin! Such things must come, but woe to the man through whom they come!
MT 18:10 "See that you do not look down on one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven.
www.vatican.va...
The meeting, then of the aspiration for liberation and the theologies of liberation is not one of mere chance. The significance of the encounter between the two can be understood only in light of the specific message of Revelation, authentically interpreted by the Magisterium of the Church.
1JN 3:7 Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. He who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. 8 He who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work. 9 No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God's seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God. 10 This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother.
Originally posted by oliveoil
Some would have you believe that Saul was an anti Christ and that he founded Christianity which is the false religion that goes against all that was taught by Jesus in the Gospels.Their claims are the usual contradictions that are easily refutable.
Originally posted by badmedia
In fact, the truth on the entire subject is this. The pharisees had control of Judaism when Jesus was born. They conspired and killed him in order to maintain that power, falsely accusing him of Blasphemy, when all he ever did was quote Psalm 82 to them. They first tried to get him to join them and become the political king they wanted(to be a nation, where they turn away god in 2sam2). And since he wouldn't go along and instead chose the will of the father - they killed him.
John 10
24Then came the Jews round about him, and said unto him, How long dost thou make us to doubt? If thou be the Christ, tell us plainly.
25Jesus answered them, I told you, and ye believed not: the works that I do in my Father's name, they bear witness of me.
26But ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep, as I said unto you.
27My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me:
28And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.
29My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand.
30I and my Father are one.
31 Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him.
32Jesus answered them, Many good works have I shewed you from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me?
33The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God.
34 Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?
35If he called them gods, unto whom the word of God came, and the scripture cannot be broken;
36Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou blasphemest; because I said, I am the Son of God?
37If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not.
38But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works: that ye may know, and believe, that the Father is in me, and I in him.
39Therefore they sought again to take him: but he escaped out of their hand,
Psalm 82
1God standeth in the congregation of the mighty; he judgeth among the gods.
2How long will ye judge unjustly, and accept the persons of the wicked? Selah.
3Defend the poor and fatherless: do justice to the afflicted and needy.
4Deliver the poor and needy: rid them out of the hand of the wicked.
5They know not, neither will they understand; they walk on in darkness: all the foundations of the earth are out of course.
6 I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High.
7But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes.
8Arise, O God, judge the earth: for thou shalt inherit all nations.
Jesus and Psalms 82 can be found in John 10.
This is right after they call him the devil.
6 I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High.
7But ye shall die like men, and fall like one of the princes.
8Arise, O God, judge the earth: for thou shalt inherit all nations.
MT 5:17 "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18 I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.
Originally posted by pthena
Psalm 82 is very interesting. 'God' here is not called YHWH. The question is: Is the Father of all 'the Most High'? Is YHWH one of the mighty? Is your Father the same Father of Jesus? Is Jesus greater than YHWH, on equal footing with YHWH?
The Jews accused Jesus of blasphemy because he seemed to claim equal footing with YHWH.
I have myself accused YHWH of blasphemy. To me he is one of the mighty, and yet he demands exclusive worship of himself as if he were The Most High.
I don't know about the Yahweh stuff, it's out of my realm and is more suited for a historian or biblical expert. I generally just know the "way of the tree of life", and also things about the father and such as Jesus talked about. I don't know about history other than what men tell you, and if you ask 100 experts they all tell you different things.
But, Jesus is pretty clear that the father is much greater than he is, and never says anything about people worshiping him, but instead points people to the father when praise and such comes to him.
I found this book referenced by another book I am reading; The Treasures of Darkness: A History of Mesopotamian Religion, by Thorkild Jacobsen. The author of the first book was getting into a big discussion on what Jacobsen was saying about how the concept of God had changed.
I have myself accused YHWH of blasphemy. To me he is one of the mighty, and yet he demands exclusive worship of himself as if he were The Most High.
In the second half of the second millennium and into the first millenium a dark age closed down on Mesopotamia. The old framework within which to understand the workings of the cosmos survived, but it moved from the interplay of many divine wills to the wilful whim of a single despot. The major gods became national gods, identified with narrow national aspirations. There was a corresponding coarsening and barbarization of the idea of divinity, no new overreaching concepts arose, rather doubts and despair abounded. . .
2KI 17:24 The king of Assyria brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Avva, Hamath and Sepharvaim and settled them in the towns of Samaria to replace the Israelites. They took over Samaria and lived in its towns. 25 When they first lived there, they did not worship the LORD; so he sent lions among them and they killed some of the people. 26 It was reported to the king of Assyria: "The people you deported and resettled in the towns of Samaria do not know what the god of that country requires. He has sent lions among them, which are killing them off, because the people do not know what he requires."
2KI 17:27 Then the king of Assyria gave this order: "Have one of the priests you took captive from Samaria go back to live there and teach the people what the god of the land requires." 28 So one of the priests who had been exiled from Samaria came to live in Bethel and taught them how to worship the LORD.
2KI 17:29 Nevertheless, each national group made its own gods in the several towns where they settled, and set them up in the shrines the people of Samaria had made at the high places. 30 The men from Babylon made Succoth Benoth, the men from Cuthah made Nergal, and the men from Hamath made Ashima; 31 the Avvites made Nibhaz and Tartak, and the Sepharvites burned their children in the fire as sacrifices to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim. 32 They worshiped the LORD, but they also appointed all sorts of their own people to officiate for them as priests in the shrines at the high places. 33 They worshiped the LORD, but they also served their own gods in accordance with the customs of the nations from which they had been brought.
2KI 22:8 Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphan the secretary, "I have found the Book of the Law in the temple of the LORD." He gave it to Shaphan, who read it. 9 Then Shaphan the secretary went to the king and reported to him: "Your officials have paid out the money that was in the temple of the LORD and have entrusted it to the workers and supervisors at the temple." 10 Then Shaphan the secretary informed the king, "Hilkiah the priest has given me a book." And Shaphan read from it in the presence of the king.
Originally posted by oliveoil
Christianity is the anti-Christ religion. Basically everything about it at it's base is against the things Jesus taught.
Lets go down the list.
1. Religion in the name of Christ? Check.
2. Brought about by someone who comes after Jesus, while Jesus warns that which comes after him has nothing for him(Paul)? Check.
3. That man appeals to the political powers of this world? Check.
4. Marriage of church and state as a result? Check.
5. Imbeded with "Pagan/Mystery Religion"? Check.
6. Proceeds to then go around killing everyone who doesn't convert to their religion? Check.
7. Is not persecuted, but instead does the persecution. Check.
8. Has built it's following throw death and destruction and sin? Check.
9. Won't be happy until it's the 1 world religion? Check.
10. Promotes ignorance and deception? Check.
Bart D. Ehrman, Lost Christianities, c 2003, pp 38,39
What then was Paul's attitude toward women in the church? In his undisputed letters, Paul indicates that "in Christ there is no male and female" (Gal 3:28), that is, that men and women were completely equal in Christ. Moreover, as scholars of the late twentieth century began to emphasize, churches connected in some way with Paul appear to have had women leaders. Just in the greetings to the church of Rome , for example, Paul mentions several women who worked with him as Christian missionaries (Rom. 16:3, 6, 12), another who was the patron of the church meeting in her home (16:3), one other, a woman named Phoebe, who was a deacon of the church of Cenchrea (16:1), and most striking of all, yet another woman, Junia, whom Paul describes as "foremost among the apostles" (16:7).
Paul, and his churches, may have been more open to women and their leadership roles than people have traditionally thought and far more than Tertullian thought. No wonder that members of Paul's churches (primarily women members?) told stories about the adventures of his female companions like Thecla. And no wonder that men in the churches eventually decided to clamp down, forging documents in Paul's name condemning the practice of having women speak in church (1 Timothy), inserting passages into Paul's authentic letters urging women to be silent (1 Cor. 14:34-35), calling church councils to condemn an elder of a Pauline church who had dared collect narratives of Paul's woman disciple Thecla and pass them off as authentically Pauline.
1 If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind, and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, 5 does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, 6 does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. 9 For we know in part, and we prophesy in part; 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away.
11 When I was a child, I used to speak as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I shall know fully just as I also have been fully known. 13 But now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
You mentioning that reminded me that I was reading something about the passover in one of my books, that it originally was about crossing the Jordan. I looked at the indexes a of a few likely candidates for where I read that. Cross shows up in his index of Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic. He relates it to Shechem and Gilgal. In the footnotes, he references Gerhard von Rad, in his essay on problems with the Hexateuch. Von Rad apparently was considered the expert on theories of the deutoronomic redactions concerning the cultic practices of ancient Israel. Seems like a science, with terms like, like Urdt and DetH. The Fortress Classics in Biblical Studies made a compilation of some of his essays, and there are some used ones available. I figured I had better order one because this is pretty much the starting point on these discussions, and that was reinforced by doing some google searches on the topic.
It's worth noting also that the Passover wasn't until then celebrated in Judah. This is a bit off topic though.
In John, Jesus seems to be referring to this passage a couple of times, as in, going up, and having a commandment.
This commandment I am giving you today is not too difficult for you, nor is it too remote. It is not in heaven, as though one must say, “Who will go up to heaven to get it for us and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?” And it is not across the sea, as though one must say, “Who will cross over to the other side of the sea and get it for us and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?” For the thing is very near you – it is in your mouth and in your mind so that you can do it.
EX 17:14 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Write this on a scroll as something to be remembered and make sure that Joshua hears it, because I will completely blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven."
EX 33:11 The LORD would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend. Then Moses would return to the camp, but his young aide Joshua son of Nun did not leave the tent.
the Book of the Law, as it seems the two things are related, the Passover, and the Book.