Air Force Chaplains continue to steal sheep

[DisDuck]

Hound, I am back. While I am aware of the 'church' concept as a 'body' not necessarily a physical location, I do get disturbed by its general usage in everyday language. To me I am someone who is 'unchurched' because I don't belong to the Christian faith. Therefore, I am subject to prostletizing by a christian chaplain at the Air Force Academy.

Again what does someone look like who might be unaffiliated? A previous poster mentioned that the information can be gotten from the forms filled out when entering the Academy. Personally, that is an invasion of religious privacy to me. Whenever, there is a request for entering religion on a form, I leave it blank because it is no one else's business but my own. So with the chaplains at the academy having access to this information, one can cull out those 'non-affiliated' and go after them. Sorry that is not right as know one individual has the right to know what religion I am. THAT IS NONE OF ANYONE'S BUSINESS.

You see this is a sore point with me. As some may know my in-laws are Holocaust survivors, my MIL will not hang a muzuzah(sic) on her door post as required by our laws because she does not wish to be identified as a Jew to outsiders. The last time this happened she spent 6 years in several ghettos and labor camps.

I, repeat, for those who do selective reading. Let the chaplains post service and meeting times. If someone wishes to explore your faith they can come to you and then you can hold your 'witnessing' discussion with them as they made the free choice to seek you out. Otherwise, stay away.

 

[DisDuck]

Hokie.. I hope you have read the complete Torah(OT) in its original language because according to G-D there will come a Messiah but one sign of it will be the rebuilding of the temple in Jeruselum. Since your G-D sent a Messiah then he was a competitor to the OT G-D; otherwise, Jesus could not be the Messiah as promised as the temple has not been rebuilt. Was there 2 G-D's available at the time of Jesus's birth?? One for the Jews and one just for Jesus? Except wasn't Jesus jewish.

Now so others here don't think I am deliberating trying to offend. If you believe that the Messiah came in the form of Jesus and it comforts you that's great. But don't dismiss as who feel that G-D has yet to send us the Messiah as non-believers and condemned to hell. Having just completed our most holiest of observances, we were reminded once again that there are many paths to G-D and it is only 'his' job to judge worthiness of 'salvation'. No one else's.

Apologizes if my comments may offend.

 

[WDWHound]

Do Jews hold that Jesus is God's Son, the promised Savior/Messiah who came to die for us, and that He and only He is the way we get to Heaven? The way I understand Judaism (of course, correct me if I'm wrong), they don't, which to me means that we don't believe in the same God, b/c we don't hold the same beliefs ABOUT the God we believe in.

I just have to disagree with you on this. Jew's most certainly beleive in the same God that Christians do. They experienced God long before the Christian Trinitarian understanding came into existance. Yes, they disagree about Jesus being the Messiah and many other things that we Christians hold sacred, but they beleive in the same God. We Christians inherited much of our understanding of God from the Jewish faith, how could we be worshipping a different God? Yes, we disagree about the nature of God, but our God is the same God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob and the same God who first made an enternal covernant with the Jews thousands of years before Jesus appeared. To my knowledge, that covenant has not and can not be broken.

I am sorry, but to say the Jews worship a different God is to disregard the Torah completely, and if you do that, you tear out the very foundations of Christianity right along with it.

 

[hokiefan33]

Yes, we disagree about the nature of God, but our God is the same God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob

Doesn't hold water for me. How can you disagree about the very nature of God, yet still say that the God is the same? Doesn't make sense.

 

[JennyMominRI]

Doesn't hold water for me. How can you disagree about the very nature of God, yet still say that the God is the same? Doesn't make sense.

Same G-d viewed differently.. As I said,I'm in the middle.. Either 2 out of the groups view G-d*wrong 8,or there are 2 different G-ds..

 

[hokiefan33]

Hokie.. I hope you have read the complete Torah(OT) in its original language because according to G-D there will come a Messiah but one sign of it will be the rebuilding of the temple in Jeruselum. Since your G-D sent a Messiah then he was a competitor to the OT G-D; otherwise, Jesus could not be the Messiah as promised as the temple has not been rebuilt. Was there 2 G-D's available at the time of Jesus's birth?? One for the Jews and one just for Jesus? Except wasn't Jesus jewish.

Now so others here don't think I am deliberating trying to offend. If you believe that the Messiah came in the form of Jesus and it comforts you that's great. But don't dismiss as who feel that G-D has yet to send us the Messiah as non-believers and condemned to hell. Having just completed our most holiest of observances, we were reminded once again that there are many paths to G-D and it is only 'his' job to judge worthiness of 'salvation'. No one else's.

Apologizes if my comments may offend.

No offense taken. I'm not easily offended. Nor are my comments meant to offend here. Just responding to a statement. I have my take on what "rebuilding the temple" means, and I don't hold that to be literal, but to be a reference to Jesus' resurrection. That's how I've always had it taught and explained.

However, I still say that if the natures of the Gods we say we believe in are different, by definition they cannot be the same. So for the God I believe in the Bible to say Jesus was the Messiah, but for a Jew to say that's not correct, Jesus wasn't the Messiah, I don't see how that meshes.

No disrespect intended.

 

[WDWHound]

Doesn't hold water for me. How can you disagree about the very nature of God, yet still say that the God is the same? Doesn't make sense.

First off, If you can tell me that you completely understand Trinitarian Doctrine and how it works, my hat is off to you. You will be the first in 2000 years to have done so. The doctrine of the Trinity is a composite model of both how Christians experince God and How Jesus and Paul talked about God. Dont get me wrong, I beleive if the Trinity, but I acknowledge that Trinitarian doctrine is an imperfect model with many unanswered questions (the chief of which is that we dont understand how something can be 3 seperete things and yet only one thing all at the same time). Given that, I would be very uncomfortable telling someone they beleived in a different God than me based on something as tricky as Trinitarian doctrine.

When Abraham experienced God, even spoke to God, the was no Doctrine of the Trinity. Christ wouldn't appear on Earth for 2000 years. Abraham almost certainly understood God differenlty than you or I do because the existance of Christ and the nature of Christ was completely unknown to him. Are you arguing that Abraham spoke with a different God than the God Christians know simply because he understood God differently? I certainly hope not. His understanding was different, but it was the same God. Thats the way it is today between Jews and Christians, different understandings, Same God.

 

[hokiefan33]

First off, If you can tell me that you completely understand Trinitarian Doctrine and how it works, my hat is off to you. You will be the first in 2000 years to have done so. The doctrine of the Trinity is a composite model of both how Christians experince God and How Jesus and Paul talked about God. Dont get me wrong, I beleive if the Trinity, but I acknowledge that Trinitarian doctrine is an imperfect model with many unanswered questions (the chief of which is that we dont understand how something can be 3 seperete things and yet only one thing all at the same time). Given that, I would be very uncomfortable telling someone they beleived in a different God than me based on something as tricky as Trinitarian doctrine.

That's fine. I didn't say I can explain how it happens, I don't think anyone can, b/c it is not a trait that humans can either experience or understand. But that doesn't mean that I don't believe in the Trinity, as you do, nor does it mean that I don't have faith that it is a characteristic of the God I believe in, as you do as well. It really doesn't matter to me "how it works", just that I believe it b/c it is a characteristic of the Biblical God.

When Abraham experienced God, even spoke to God, the was no Doctrine of the Trinity. Christ wouldn't appear on Earth for 2000 years. Abraham almost certainly understood God differenlty than you or I do because the existance of Christ and the nature of Christ was completely unknown to him. Are you arguing that Abraham spoke with a different God than the God Christians know simply because he understood God differently? I certainly hope not. His understanding was different, but it was the same God. Thats the way it is today between Jews and Christians, different understandings, Same God.

This is where you and I will now, and probably always, disagree. When Abraham spoke to God, there was also no Law of Gravity. Does that mean that gravity didn't exist, or that someone hadn't discovered it yet and wrote down the law about how it works? Exactly. Gravity existed, but hadn't yet been written about - but that didn't negate the fact that the attribute of gravity was present, just not yet understood. Could Abraham fully comprehend a triune God at that time? I don't know for sure, but probably not, since Jesus had not yet come to Earth as a man. I didn't say he "spoke" with a different God; he spoke with the same God I believe in. But fast forward with me. Would it be OK to say today that gravity didn't exist back then, b/c nobody back then understood the concept of it? No, b/c we know now that it DID exist, and also existed back then. Same with God. You can't say that the God Abraham spoke to and knew wasn't a triune God, b/c He was, it just wasn't fully realized yet. But now that we know God is a triune God, you can also say that the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob was also a triune God, b/c He is the same as my God. So if someone now is not willing to attribute something to God that would naturally be attributable to Him BECAUSE He is a triune God, then I don't believe they believe in the same God as me, b/c we have just shown that He has been that way forever.

 

[Charade]

No they put them in tanks or give them guns.

True, but only to kill those that wish us harm.

 

[Charade]

It's the same as sexual harassment laws. What harm can a few words do?

Unequivocally it's NOT the same as sexual harassment!!

 

[cardaway]

True, but only to kill those that wish us harm.

Both sides always claim that to be true.

 

[ford family]

Unequivocally it's NOT the same as sexual harassment!!

Actually, I think there is a strong correlation:

Unwanted sexual advances = sexual harassment
Unwanted witnessing = religious harassment

Same remedy, be much more certain of your target audience before you begin. Better still, let them make the first move.

Goodnight

ford family

 

[cardaway]

Unequivocally it's NOT the same as sexual harassment!!

Really? So the words from a higher ranking chaplain do no harm, but the words of civilian bosses do?

They both do harm, unequivocally, because they come in a situation where the receiver is at a disadvantage.

 

[cardaway]

Actually, I think there is a strong correlation:

Unwanted sexual advances = sexual harassment
Unwanted witnessing = religious harassment

Same remedy, be much more certain of your target audience before you begin. Better still, let them make the first move.

Goodnight

ford family

Exactly. If anything, the rules in both cases protect the boss/chaplain If they follow the rules put in place everybody shouldn't have a problem.

 

[Charade]

Really? So the words from a higher ranking chaplain do no harm, but the words of civilian bosses do?

They both do harm, unequivocally, because they come in a situation where the receiver is at a disadvantage.

what harm?

what disadvantage?

What rank is a Chaplin? Usually they are Captains if I'm not mistaken. So what if the Chaplin was "witnessing" a Colonel or a Major?

 

[cardaway]

what harm?

what disadvantage?

What rank is a Chaplin? Usually they are Captains if I'm not mistaken. So what if the Chaplin was "witnessing" a Colonel or a Major?

Yeah, what if? Too bad what we're talking about is a situation where that clearly isn't the case.

It would ever happen because even the chaplains prone to breaking the rules know better than do that kind of thing with a superior officer.

And how about that, it's the same in civilian offices.