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Originally posted by Solomons
reply to post by MrXYZ
Yes, the only state capable of giving freedom and liberty to all is a secular one. So no there is no official religion, the majority of people are Christian but that in no way infers it is a Christian nation.
Originally posted by jmdewey60
reply to post by pthena
Sound like to me, If the Jews say to me, "You, gentile, keep these commandments!" and I say, "What commandments?", and they say, "the commandments given to Noah!", and I say, "Funny, it doesn't say anything like that in my Bible.", then I am now guilty of Blaspheme because I questioned the word of the Jews.
I was just reading about this, a little while ago, in Bart Ehrman's book, Forged, Writing in the Name of God. He was talking about the arguments against the authorship by Paul of the Letters, First and Second Timothy. He was saying that the historical Paul was expecting the return of Jesus in his lifetime, so there were no church leaders to write letters to, while in the Timothy's (much later forgeries), there was, with Pastors, Deacons, and Bishops. So the original system was each person, on baptism, received a particular spiritual gift, and as a group they all functioned as a single body, with no hierarchy.
Is there a priest class of people or is there a priesthood of all?
So the original system was each person, on baptism, received a particular spiritual gift, and as a group they all functioned as a single body, with no hierarchy.
28 For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and to us, to lay no greater burden on you than these necessary things: 29 that you abstain from things sacrificed to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from sexual immorality, from which if you keep yourselves, it will be well with you. Farewell.”
Galatians 2:11 But when Peter came to Antioch, I resisted him to his face, because he stood condemned. 12 For before some people came from James, he ate with the Gentiles. But when they came, he drew back and separated himself, fearing those who were of the circumcision. 13 And the rest of the Jews joined him in his hypocrisy; so that even Barnabas was carried away with their hypocrisy. 14 But when I saw that they didn’t walk uprightly according to the truth of the Good News, I said to Peter before them all, “If you, being a Jew, live as the Gentiles do, and not as the Jews do, why do you compel the Gentiles to live as the Jews do?
In this book, Forgery, he does get into Acts and basically condemns it. It apparently is a certain type of forgery since the writer does claim to have been personally present with Paul.
Since you mention it, Ehrman also suspects that the book of Acts should be considered as probably less accurate about Paul's biography than what Paul wrote himself about his bio.
Right, that is exactly what Bart gets into, that it directly contradicts Paul about his really getting some sort of authority from other people.
Paul's anti-Judaising sentiments may have been more than just matters of circumcision, and extended all the way to the very idea that Gentiles had to get any "instruction" at all from any Jerusalem council. As if Christians could only be allowed to be Christians with Jerusalem's permission.
You just nailed it.
When it is altogether possible that Paul didn't go to the Jerusalem council at all, and Peter was the one arriving with the proto-Noahide letter to Antioch.
You just nailed it
I Corinthians 11:23 For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night in which he was betrayed took bread, 24 and after he had given thanks he broke it and said, "This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." 25 In the same way, he also took the cup after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, every time you drink it, in remembrance of me." 26 For every time you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.
The Rebbe and President Ronald Reagan
Mr. Reagan displayed a profound respect toward the Rebbe and his teachings. The President was an early and enthusiastic adherent of the Rebbe's call to make all people aware of the Seven Universal Laws, based on the belief in a Supreme Being. The Rebbe's call for a moment of silence in the public schools, and his persistent belief that America must export to the world faith-based moral values, were among the themes that found a welcoming ear in President Reagan.
Jefferson's Letter to the Danbury Baptists
Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.
Th Jefferson
Jan. 1. 1802.
You shall have faith in yourself
You shall honor and be faithful to your Father, your Mother and your Loved ones
By the way Jefferson was a Deist
so were Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Tom Paine.
the US already has a official non religion that is Deism.
The Seven Noahide Laws
1. Prohibition of Idolatry
2. Prohibition of Murder
3. Prohibition of Theft
4. Prohibition of Sexual Promiscuity, including adultery, incest, bestiality and male homosexual intercourse.
5. Prohibition of Blasphemy: You shall not blaspheme God's name which includes speaking It (a strict ban of Rabbinic Oral Law).
6. Dietary Law: Do not eat flesh taken from an animal while it is still alive.
7. Requirement to have just Laws: Set up courts of Law.
According to the Jewish Tosefta Avodah Zarah 8.4, quoted in Talmud Sanhedrin 56a.
-----------------------------------------
"It is forbidden to read the glorious and terrible name as it is written, as the sages said "He that pronounces the name as it is written has no portion in the world to come". Therefore it must be read as if it were written Adonai." (Mishnah Berurah 5:2)
- - cited from: jewsandjoes.com...
Noahide Covenant: Theology and Jewish Law
The descendants of Noah were commanded with seven precepts:
to establish laws, (and the prohibitions of) blasphemy, idolatry, adultery, bloodshed, theft, and eating the blood of a living animal.
---Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 56a
There is debate in Jewish law as to how and when humanity became aware of the Noahide commandments, and whether these obligations are exclusively moral or also entail theological commitments. Normative Talmudic opinion (Sanhedrin 56a-57a) derives the commandments from Gen. 2:16, but the generality of the verse and rival opinions citing other texts indicate that this text is probably only post-facto support for the concept. No explicit universal revelation of these commandments occurs in the Bible, and some Jewish thinkers maintained that they were derived from reason or natural law. Maimonides maintains that six of the prohibitions were given to Adam, and after the flood Noah was given the additional obligation not to eat blood or a limb from a living animal.
. . .
Medieval and modern rabbinic opinion is divided on whether Jews have an obligation to force gentiles to observe Noahide standards, with Maimonides (Mishneh Torah, Laws of Kings 8:10) maintaining that Jews are obligated to enforce these standards on gentiles and Nahmanides (commentary on Gen. 26:5) disagreeing.
The ultimate goal of the Jewish people’s divine service is “to rectify the world under the sovereignty of the Almighty,”[4] i.e., to reveal G–dliness in the entire universe, as it is written, “The kingdom shall be G–d’s”[5] and “G–d will be the King over the entire earth.”[6]
This task is accomplished by being given “the lands of nations” in order to influence the gentile nations found there. As Maimonides puts it, “to compel all the world’s inhabitants to undertake the laws commanded to Noah’s descendants.”[7] This labor brings the world to the most perfect state of rectification, which will actualized when the Messiah comes, for “He [the Messiah] will rectify the entire world to serve G–d together, as it is written,[8] ‘For then I [G–d] will transform for the nations a pure tongue, that all will call upon the Name of G–d, and serve Him with one purpose.’”[9]
This is why “the lands of nations” were given to the Jewish people—in order to that they influence gentiles, and thereby “keep His statutes,” for this labor is needed for the Jewish people to complete their task to rectify the entire world.
- - Hitva’aduyot 5746, Vol. 1, pp. 85-90.
Look at a church itself, lets say a small non-affiliated church, loosely based on Baptist theology, in a community of working class people. It has small attendance and half the people are out of a job. Then you see the pastor driving a Cadillac, and his (good looking) wife wearing designer clothes and expensive Jewelry. How does this happen? The pastor is preaching that the time of "the gentiles" is over and now is the time for the Jews to take over.
Stop listening to these infested church leaders.