What's with the Jesus skywriting?

[4theloveofdisney]

Not to mention the fact that it seems pretty counter-intuitive to believe that a God, an all-knowing, all-seeing being who can do anything to anyone would be silly enough to give only one path to finding Him (or Her or It, lol). If God had all the time in the world and every possible resource (plus the all knowing and being everywhere at all times), why is it so hard to fathom that maybe He gave us many paths to salvation?

Seems like a cosmic joke if He only gave one way to the afterlife and then only gave it to Man after how long of man existing? And not only that, but gave it to a minority of people?

What you have written is exactly what I would have if I could only find the words. Bravo!

 

[magicmato]

Yes and that is a beautiful sentence. Thank you!

You are welcome.

I come from a long line of Catholics. I was baptised and spent my childhood attending the church, but then as an older child my dad had a split with the church and we never went back.

I have a wiccan, a jewish person, a buddhist, a hindu and a few other religions in my not too distant family.

I was lucky to be exposed to all of these religions and I studied religion somewhat in college.

I guess you can say I am rather eclectic in my religious views. There are many wonderful and beautiful things in every religion.

I just cannot believe that God (again, a general God) could not give us many paths to find salvation/truth/whatever you need to call it. God is infinate, so why would He be so narrow in His dealings with us?

 

[Lorelai]

Well...the books of the New Testatment are
Matthew
Mark
Luke
John
The Acts
Romans
Corinthians
Golatians
Ephesians
Phillipians
Collisions
I and II Thesalonians
I Timothy
II TImoth
Titus
Phileumun
Hebrews
James
I Peter
II Peter
I Jude
II Jude
III Jude and
Revelations

(and that is from memory -sorry for the spelling!)

I don't see Deut. or Joshua anywhere in that list but I have to ask...why would you honor only one side of the bible and choose to overlook the other? Just curious - seriously. This is one of the things I struggle with.

Yeah, that's what I thought. All of the quotes were from the OT.

I can't speak for all Christians, or Catholics, but there are quite a few differences between the Old & New Test. The New Testament is the story of a life. The life of Jesus and his followers. The Old Testament documents a long standing history of how God was experienced before Christ. It is the history of the Jewish faith.

While both books come together to make the whole bible for Christians, the New Testament is filled with the word of Jesus, who did put a very different spin on things from the Old Testament. The eye for an eye vs. turn the other cheek is just a small window.

I could ask my Catholic relatives who are biblical historians, and my Jewish realatives who are very knowledgeable about the Old Testament, to explain to me more in depth the differences. But being from a family of different faiths, I was always told that the Jewish hold the OT to be their book that identifies their true faith in God. They do not believe that Jesus was the son of God, so the New Testament is just about a prophet, as far as they are concerned.

While, for Catholics, the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke & John, and their first hand accounts of Christ, are the defining principles of the Catholic faith.

I hope that helps. I realize it's a mouthful....but most things about the differences between people of faith are.

 

[4theloveofdisney]

You are welcome.

I come from a long line of Catholics. I was baptised and spent my childhood attending the church, but then as an older child my dad had a split with the church and we never went back.

I have a wiccan, a jewish person, a buddhist, a hindu and a few other religions in my not too distant family.

I was lucky to be exposed to all of these religions and I studied religion somewhat in college.

I guess you can say I am rather eclectic in my religious views. There are many wonderful and beautiful things in every religion.

I just cannot believe that God (again, a general God) could not give us many paths to find salvation/truth/whatever you need to call it. God is infinate, so why would He be so narrow in His dealings with us?

Well, I come from a similar path and that is why it's so hard for me as well.

 

[magicmato]

Well, I come from a similar path and that is why it's so hard for me as well.

Well, it is nice to meetcha!

 

[4theloveofdisney]

Yeah, that's what I thought. All of the quotes were from the OT.

I can't speak for all Christians, or Catholics, but there are quite a few differences between the Old & New Test. The New Testament is the story of a life. The life of Jesus and his followers. The Old Testament documents a long standing history of how God was experienced before Christ. It is the history of the Jewish faith.

While both books come together to make the whole bible for Christians, the New Testament is filled with the word of Jesus, who did put a very different spin on things from the Old Testament. The eye for an eye vs. turn the other cheek is just a small window.

I could ask my Catholic relatives who are biblical historians, and my Jewish realatives who are very knowledgeable about the Old Testament, to explain to me more in depth the differences. But being from a family of different faiths, I was always told that the Jewish hold the OT to be their book that identifies their true faith in God. They do not believe that Jesus was the son of God, so the New Testament is just about a prophet, as far as they are concerned.

While, for Catholics, the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke & John, and their first hand accounts of Christ, are the defining principles of the Catholic faith.

I hope that helps. I realize it's a mouthful....but most things about the differences between people of faith are.

Mouthful or not, I had never heard this before. You learn something new everyday. While I still don't get the part where it came from the same God...it's still good to hear.

: )

 

[JoyG]

Does anyone know if all of the slaughter for God quotes are Old?...I think they are, and are in conflict with Christianity.

I don't know of any "slaughter for God" quotes in the NT.

 

[4theloveofdisney]

Well, it is nice to meetcha!

 

[JoyG]

I don't see Deut. or Joshua anywhere in that list but I have to ask...why would you honor only one side of the bible and choose to overlook the other? Just curious - seriously. This is one of the things I struggle with.

Deut. and Joshua are in the OT.

In the time period covered in the Bible, God has expanded how He deals with people. He had ways of atoning for sin in the OT and in the NT he sent Jesus which changed the way people attone for sin. We honor both portions of the Bible, but with the NT, the way followers of God were supposed to behave and conduct themselves was more clearly defined, and in some cases the "rules" of conduct changed.


ETA: I don't know if I'm explaining it clearly. Let me give you an example, followers of God in the OT had things like dietary rules that they lived by...in the NT we learned that to be a follower of God we didn't need to follow those dietary rules. That is just one of many examples.

 

[Lorelai]

Mouthful or not, I had never heard this before. You learn something new everyday. While I still don't get the part where it came from the same God...it's still good to hear.

: )

I think it's more that the word of God in the OT was related to man through God's miracles, directly from God who is not a human being. But in the NT, Jesus, who is believed by Christians to be the Son of God, was able to speak the word of God, and live and show the ways in which God wanted his people to live. Treat others as you would want to be treated, etc.

So Christians believe that Jesus is God's Son and therefore a first hand way to experience God and to understand more fully his word. So God is still God in the Old and New Testaments, but for Christians the New Test. allows them to more fully understand. It is an updating of Faith. God sent his Son, and his Son sacrificed so that we may have eternal life.

So it's the same God, but this time he sent his Son so that his Son could give us all a better and deeper understanding.

Again...a mouthful..sorry!

 

[cardaway]

I was curious so I looked it up. 33% of the world are Christian.that is the biggest percentage of any religion.Here is a link.
http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html

Exactly. The point being 67% are something else.

 

[Buckalew11]

For me, it is about where you get your beliefs from. If I was deciding what I thought should be right, I would probably include anyone who worshipped a higher power to come down any path they could to find God...it sounds very inclusive--sort of that *whatever works for you* business. However, when I read the Bible, I find that God says straight out that Jesus is *the way the truth and the life* and *no one comes to the Father but by Him*. I find many references to the way being narrow etc. Therefore, I cannot agree with or believe that God doesn't care what you believe in. I think God is very clear when it comes to the Bible what and how you come to Him. Anything else seems unacceptable.
This is JMHO and I realize an unpopular belief. Sorry for that...I can't change what I believe the Bible tells us. Now, it is wonderful though, that we are able to chose what we want to believe. It might be right, it might be wrong, it might sound "good" to us. But, that doesn't mean it will be right to God. I can only get my thoughts on this from the Bible. And if you don't trust the Bible, then you won't trust what it says and I understand that. But I think you should always know why you believe what you believe and where the background for that belief comes from.

 

[Lorelai]

Deut. and Joshua are in the OT.

In the time period covered in the Bible, God has expanded how He deals with people. He had ways of atoning for sin in the OT and in the NT he sent Jesus which changed the way people attone for sin. We honor both portions of the Bible, but with the NT, the way followers of God were supposed to behave and conduct themselves was more clearly defined, and in some cases the "rules" of conduct changed.


ETA: I don't know if I'm explaining it clearly. Let me give you an example, followers of God in the OT had things like dietary rules that they lived by...in the NT we learned that to be a follower of God we didn't need to follow those dietary rules. That is just one of many examples.

I wish I had explained it that clearly!

 

[JoyG]

I wish I had explained it that clearly!

I was just about to post the same thing about your recent explanation!

 

[BurkeTribe]

While both books come together to make the whole bible for Christians, the New Testament is filled with the word of Jesus, who did put a very different spin on things from the Old Testament. The eye for an eye vs. turn the other cheek is just a small window.
(edit)
While, for Catholics, the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke & John, and their first hand accounts of Christ, are the defining principles of the Catholic faith.

I hope that helps. I realize it's a mouthful....but most things about the differences between people of faith are.

I have always thought it was VERY important to know completely exactly what one is worshipping and praying toward. No matter how much nicer the New Testament's ideas are (and, btw, some of the ideas therein are not very nice ideas at all-- but most priests and preachers I've seen like to ... skip... those parts), if one believes in The Bible one MUST accept the Old Testament, and in doing so accept all the slaughter of babies and children by the omnipotent "God of Abraham, " often as revenge, as what really happened, and accept that these slaughters were committed/caused by "God" for the reasons given in the Bible (e.g., slaughtered for the actions of their greatgreatgreat [insert about 15-20 more greats] grandparents, in the case of the Amalekites).

As I drove through Alabama late one night years ago, I heard one AM radio preacher (deepwoods Baptist or maybe hard-edged Pentecostal, I think) proclaim the following (paraphrasing): "the God of Abraham ain't some hippy nambypamby 'God of Peace and Love'... he's a Jealous God of Vengeance and he demands your obedience and respect or you'll BURN IN HELL FOR ALL ETERNITY!" And when I heard that, I realized he was the only "Christian" I had ever met or heard up to that time who truly believed in the Bible-- ALL OF IT -- as to what it said about "God." He wasn't skipping any part of it, he was accepting every single word, as the unerring word of his "God" (it's easy for most Christians to believe in the peaceful teachings of "Jesus"-- he didn't slaughter anyone in the Bible-- well, except in the future sense of Revelations) . And I realized that ANYONE who claimed to be a Christian had to either pretty much accept this Alabama brimstone preacher's arguments, or else ignore large parts of the Bible, thus defeating any ability to proclaim it as the complete word of "God."

Everyone of course has the right to believe in whatever they want. All I ask of people is that if they are going to claim to be Christian, don't cherrypick -- read the whole book and accept it all, and know exactly what you are accepting about the "God" you worship, if you want to claim to be Christian.

Personally, much like Paine, I find much of it to be more descriptive of the actions of what I would call a demon rather than a god.

If one is just looking for a feelgood message about life to help with day-to-day living, I would suggest going with the Jefferson Bible, which is the story of "Jesus" and his system of morality that Jefferson made by cutting out the religious dogma and the supernatural elements (well, most of them anyway, he still left in a few Heaven and Heck bits) from the Gospels.

 

[salmoneous]

BTW - Does anyone have a list of which OT rules we are still supposed to be obeying today, and which no longer apply?

 

[va32h]

As I drove through Alabama late one night years ago, I heard one AM radio preacher (deepwoods Baptist or maybe hard-edged Pentecostal, I think)proclaim the following (paraphrasing): "the God of Abraham ain't some hippy nambypamby 'God of Peace and Love'... he's a Jealous God of Vengeance and he demands your obedience and respect or you'll BURN IN HELL FOR ALL ETERNITY!" And when I heard that, I realized he was the only "Christian" I had ever met or heard up to that time who truly believed in the Bible-- ALL OF IT -- as to what it said about "God." He wasn't skipping any part of it, he was accepting every single word, as the unerring word of his "God" (it's easy for most Christians to believe in the peaceful teachings of "Jesus"-- he didn't slaughter anyone in the Bible-- well, except in the future sense of Revelations) . And I realized that ANYONE who claimed to be a Christian had to either pretty much accept this Alabama brimstone preacher's arguments, or else ignore large parts of the Bible, thus defeating any ability to proclaim it as the complete word of "God."

I don't have any trouble reconciling the OT "Jealous God of Vengeance" with the NT "God of Peace and Love".

I just figured that, like many humans, God mellowed out after He had a kid.

 

[Buckalew11]

I've never had a problem knowing it is the same God also. I believe God is still a just and jealous God.
Personally, I love the OT and would rather delve into it than the NT. Of course, once you start studying one, your led to the other and back again. It all seems to work as one for me.

 

[JennyMominRI]

BTW - Does anyone have a list of which OT rules we are still supposed to be obeying today, and which no longer apply?

None of them ever applied to you...They were and are only for Jews.

 

[BurkeTribe]

I've never had a problem knowing it is the same God also. I believe God is still a just and jealous God.

We have different opinions of what is "just." I personally don't consider an omnipotent being killing babies and children out of "jealousy" or for the sins of their parents or their great^15 grandparents as "just"... again, especially when done by an allegedly Good and omnipotent being who supposedly created and "loves" them.

Slaughtering/drowning/sending-followers-to-hack up babies is never "just," IMO, no matter who or what does it. Smacks more of pure Evil to me. But to each their own.