Aren't all religions the same? Is Christ the only way to God?

[Bob Smith]

No dork, that is compliment number two from hogg in the past 24 hours.

LOL, Mark must be a little slow tonight.

 

[Hogg]

How are those eyelids tonight bob???

 

[Bob Smith]

Luckily Jewel didnt accost me as I slept on the couch at 7pm this evening. She was pretty tired herself after chasing after a bunch of kindergarteners.

How are you this fine evening, my friend?

 

[Hogg]

I am quite well Mr. Smith....quite well....my only complaint is that Ms. Hogg is not here tonight baking brownies....I have to wait til tomorrow


I was hoping to pile into this Gospel of Thomas, Phillip, Apocalypse of Peter, etc thing tonight . Looks like GZ is not around.

 

[Bob Smith]

Maybe youve already found this site about writings not included in the Bible. www.earlychristianwritings.com

Sorry to hear about the Ms. She workin far away this week? Mmm...brownies! Dammit, I hate dieting! I absolutely love brownies and Jewel loves making them (she used to make em for me when we were in school). Werent you rehabbing an injury recently?

 

[Hogg]

Maybe youve already found this site about writings not included in the Bible. www.earlychristianwritings.com

Sorry to hear about the Ms. She workin far away this week? Mmm...brownies! Dammit, I hate dieting! I absolutely love brownies and Jewel loves making them (she used to make em for me when we were in school). Werent you rehabbing an injury recently?

Ms Hogg was baking at home tonight with her mother and sisters.

My forearm/bicep complex is still pretty tender. Legs feel great though. I've taken to doing 10-15 sets of light high rep reverse curls in recent weeks and it seems to be helping the forearm issue.

As far as the brownies.....hehe.....as you are aware, I've been off and at this point, I'm off of everything including the 5k per day diet.....I find myself eating 3000 cals or so on any given day and as a result, I'm taking the liberty of drinking beer and eating brownies when the mood compels me.....Ahhh yes, the benefits of natural training

I'll check out that site. I personally know very little about the nag hammidi and overall, my research on gnosticism is very limited thus far - hence my interest.

 

[Bob Smith]

Ive never heard of that nag hammidi before. Whats the general idea about it?

Natural training, eh? You plan on sticking with that for good or just a period of time? Now I cant get brownies out of my head! I want to run upstairs and throw a pan in the oven right now! Oh how I could plow through a batch before bedtime! Theyve gotta be plain brownies though, none of this frosting or nuts crap. That just ruins a good piece of chocolate! Ill have to take solace in the fact that I downed a full package of fat-free chocolate pudding earlier. Cant beat refeed days!

Did I ever get back to you on the problem with my knee? VL overpowers VM on my left leg, pulling the patella to the side. I get to do a bunch of foo-foo isolation stuff to get the VM back up to par. Hopefully in a 3-4 weeks I should be back to normal. Neither my doc nor the therapist thought it was torn, but I have pain in areas that wouldnt be affected by my patella, so that is still a concern.

 

[Hogg]

Errr, essentially, it is a number of gospels which were created 2000 years ago and buried on a cliff in egypt as they were declared as heresy some years after the bible was assembled. Clergy at the time mentioned the circulation of secret gospels and the like and refuted them. They were written at the time of the other gospels but evidently, the church sought to strike them.

If I had to generalize the significance of many articles found at Nag Hammidi, the major issue is the writings of thomas. I have copied an excerpt from the site that you mentioned:



DORESSE

2 [3]. Jesus says: "If those who seek to attract you say to you: 'See, the Kingdom is in heaven!' then the birds of heaven will be there before you. If they say to you: 'It is in the sea!' then the fish will be there before you. But the kingdom is within you and it is outside of you!" 3 [3]. "When you know yourselves, then you will be known, and you will know that it is you who are the sons of the living Father. But if you do not know yourselves, then you will be in a state of poverty, and it is you <you will be> the poverty!"

Oxyrhynchus Greek Fragment


There are soo many issues with this gospel but the church seems to fixate on Christ telling thomas that the kingdom is within us. This translation from the coptic is subject to many different interpretations and if you read the academic comments on this translation on the site that you mentioned earlier, you see a rather large disparity as to its meaning. The gnostics have latched on to the secret egyptian gospels yet, they feel that they attain an equivalence of the living Christ through enlightenment ....Their belief is hard to explain overall. Anyway, as I said, this gospel, and others, suggest alternatives to established religious doctrine hence the efforts of the church to discredit them.

The gospel of thomas was compiled in roughly 140ad but contains articles which date prior to the creation of the gospels of matthew, mark, luke, and john (50-100ad). Gnostics were already preaching views contrary to the church by 120-150. By 180 ad, gnostic beliefs had spread throughout the populated regions of the middle east and beyond, causing the church to lash out publicly via a number of published texts denouncing the gnostics as blasphemers.

Why the texts were buried at nag hammidi is something that i have not learned yet however, I would assume that the texts were hidden in order to escape destruction by the established religious order. The texts were buried for roughly 1600 years having been unearthed during the late 1800s.

A museum in egypt presides over a number of the texts. I believe a museum in Zurich has a portion of them as well.

I read a post about your knee on the board. take your time, there is nothing worse than prolonging an injury.

With respect to training natural, I intend to continue for another month and then I will resume a mild cycle. I honestly believe one does not need much to grow (and I've posted at length on this recently so I would assume that you are aware of my beliefs)

Girardelli brownie mix is the best

Ive never heard of that nag hammidi before. Whats the general idea about it?

Natural training, eh? You plan on sticking with that for good or just a period of time? Now I cant get brownies out of my head! I want to run upstairs and throw a pan in the oven right now! Oh how I could plow through a batch before bedtime! Theyve gotta be plain brownies though, none of this frosting or nuts crap. That just ruins a good piece of chocolate! Ill have to take solace in the fact that I downed a full package of fat-free chocolate pudding earlier. Cant beat refeed days!

Did I ever get back to you on the problem with my knee? VL overpowers VM on my left leg, pulling the patella to the side. I get to do a bunch of foo-foo isolation stuff to get the VM back up to par. Hopefully in a 3-4 weeks I should be back to normal. Neither my doc nor the therapist thought it was torn, but I have pain in areas that wouldnt be affected by my patella, so that is still a concern.

 

[Bob Smith]

Ghiridelli (sp?) brownies rule! Sams Club has a 2 or 4-pack box for pretty cheap.

Id like to rush my knee back to health, but realize that shortcuts will only likely prolong this mess.

Ill read through that stuff on Thomas tomorrow. For now Im off to bed. I know your views on dosages but havent read anything recently about them. Your PM box is full, clean it out once in while.

Have a good night bro. Be sure to get those brownies tomorrow.

 

[Hogg]

PM is clean. I'll talk to you tomorrow.

Ghiridelli (sp?) brownies rule! Sams Club has a 2 or 4-pack box for pretty cheap.

Id like to rush my knee back to health, but realize that shortcuts will only likely prolong this mess.

Ill read through that stuff on Thomas tomorrow. For now Im off to bed. I know your views on dosages but havent read anything recently about them. Your PM box is full, clean it out once in while.

Have a good night bro. Be sure to get those brownies tomorrow.

 

[Grizzly]

Grizz, I do not see how you can say the Bible is proof of nothing, when it has been proven to be correct over and over again. History, Archaeology have proven it to be correct. Plus what was listed on the first post. The real reason why people do not want to believe in God, Christ ect.. because it means they have to give something up, and be accountable to someone other than yourself. Your post really made no sense, and still does not.

Like I said, it would fall on deaf ears.

The arguments are sound and the relevant points are accurate. I have no more to say about that.

 

[oldtimer]

Classical Islam endorses the killing of infidels but Christianity teaches to love your enemies.

And who exactly told you that?

 

[oldtimer]

I am not trying to be an ass but:

(1) logical consistency:

Jesus was both man and God simultaneously. That means he was both fallible and infallible at the same time. Logically inconsistent.


[MK]

That is why we -Muslims- believe that Jesus was a man prophet, not God.

-OT

 

[oldtimer]

(1) the proven reliability of the Bible through history and prophecy

There are other sources that are very reliable (try the Qur'an).

(2) the demonstrated perfection of Christ

I agree

(3) observation and experience that the principles of life and human nature are consistent with those taught by Christianity

I disagree. Many preinciples are consistent, but my personal opinion is that the ones that are not liked by some were actually taken out of the Bible. IMHO, it's a matter of personal preferrence, if a human doesn't like what s/he sees, s/he'll simply remove it. If i was my own boss, i'll set the rules my own way...

No religion other than Christianity stands up to all of these tests.

What proof do you have?

FYI - this is a verse taken directly from Qur'an: "And when Jesus perceived their unbelief, he said 'Who will be my helpers in the cause of God? The apostles said, 'we are Gods helpers. We believe in God; so bear witness of our submission God, we believe in that you have sent down, and we follow the Messenger. Inscribe us therefore with those who bear witness. 'And they devised, and God devised, and God devised, and God is the best of divisors. When God said, 'Jesus, I will take you to Me and will raise you to Me, and I will purify you (of the falsehoods) of those who do not believe. I will make your followers above the unbelievers till the Resurrection Day." (Al-Imran 3:52-55)

Another verse: "And for their unbelief, and their uttering against Mary a grave false charge, and for their saying, 'We killed the messiah, Jesus son of Mary, the Messiah of God"yet they did not slay him, neither crucified him, only a likeness of that was shown to them. Those who are at variance concerning him are surely in doubt the following of conjecture; and they did not kill him of certaintyno indeed; God raised him up to Him; God is Almighty, Allwise. There is not one of the people of the book but will assuredly believe him before his death, and on the Resurrection Day he will be a witness against them." (An-Nissa 4:156-159)

We do believe in Moses/Jesus/Abraham/Adam/Daniel/David etc., and in fact we are required to love them and believe them.

We also do believe in the Bible, old and new testaments, but the reason we don't follow them is because they are man-written. It is our belief that they have changed through time to reflect man desires as opposed to what God told us to do. OTOH, we believe that the Qur'an is from God, i won't go in details here, but if you want, i could tell you how it's tamper-proof.

-OT

 

[Bob Smith]

OT, do you have any websites (prefer in English) that talk about normal Muslims and the qu'ran? I did a quick search and pretty much everything was about Jihad.

 

[Ghostlifter]

religion is meant to be unifying and encourage peace and harmony yet is responsible for more war than anything else.

All religions are based on there being a higher power, after life in someway or another, yet religious nations band together like soccer hooligans, except armed with rifles, tanks and planes, it's so immaturely sad it's laughable "my god's better than your's"

Sadly the wars havent even between different religions - almost all the worldly conflict over the last 2000 years has been between followers of various branches (read sects) that worship the same God. How many more people will die over an argument as to who was the "one true prophet."

The pope never ordered crusades against Buddists...

 

[VDC]

"Much study is a weariness of the flesh."...All of us have to seek God for ourselves,,,I myself sought him from my 21'st birthday on,,,I studied and practiced Hinduism,,,Yoga,,,Sorcery,,,Buddhism,,,Taoism,,,Zen,,,All I seek is to be One with God,,,Who has showed himself to me as love, light, and life,,,The Father drew me to Jesus,,,He prepared my eyes and ears,,,He gave me a new heart to believe with,,,Now Jesus is inside and he is leading me into all that God is,,,All intellectual debate is pointless,,,Logic, I don't think so,,,Its not logical to forgive those that have sinned against you,,,Yet love covers a multitude of sin,,,Now Love and Conscience guide us,,,VDC

 

[armsports]

Hey VDC, good to see you posting again. This thread has been begging for your input from the start. I'm sure you're going through a lot of grief right now with the recent passing of your mom, but your involvement with meso is helps keep our board strong and we appreciate that.

 

[CyniQ]

Ahhh. How debate does sharpen the mind.

To start. I hope that quoting Plato does not make me a Platonist any more than quoting Nietzsche would make me an existentialist. There are ideas presented by each I find interesting, and I may from time to time quote either of them(or any one else). It is intriguing though that you would call me a Platonist. My "handle" (Cynic misspelled) was inspired by a Greek (some might say sophist but not quite) teacher of rhetoric named Dionysius. Sort of the antithesis of Plato's dialectic philosophy. Although I would subscribe to more of an Aristotelian view that rhetoric is the counterpart of dialectic. Dialectical methods are necessary to FIND "truth", rhetorical methods needed in order to effectively communicate it.

Anyway.

It is interesting you bring up Augustine. I wonder what value you feel he brought to Christianity? I confess to not being particularly familiar with his contribution. I have been under the opinion that he was not a Christian (not by my view anyway) but a Sun worshipper and a Platonist. I credit him only with polluting the church with non-christian, neoplatonic influences.

"If "logic" is in the character of God, then we comprehend it because of His will."

Yes, I know that argument very well. Other than Platonic Idealism (and the watered-down version seen in Augustine), where is there ANY EVIDENCE, Biblical or otherwise, that logic is in the character of God?

Sure, we humans, especially Socrates (the paradigm for logic over emotions and the overdevelopment of reason) seemingly have to be ruled by a logical God. In the 21st Century and every time period since modern philosophy, "illogical" has been a dirty word. In conclusion, there is no evidence that God is pure logic, there is only our desire to be ruled by a logical God.

Kierkegaard, regarded by some to be the greatest of Christian Philosophers (except for Augustine probably), wanted Christianity to throw logic and reasoning out of the window.

The "Leap of Faith" is just that, a leap into the unknown. It is highly unreasonable, and is seen as ridiculous to those who value reason. (Just look at Grizzly. He thinks Christianity is whooey, because he is a highly rational individual.)

[MK]

 

[Mark Kerr]

Augustine would probably not be seen as a Christian by today's standards. After all, Augustine didnt believe in Satan and actually seems to give Plato more credit for Christianity than Christ himself. Not to mention Augustine was incredibly wealthy in his old age and was so gluttonous that he had to have a half-circle cut in his desk so he could work. You have to love the early Catholic Church

I dont think Augustine has had a big influence on Christianity, but he has had a big influence on philosophy from a Christian Perspective.

I am really liking the way these religious/philosophic posts are going. I enjoy them much more than that rambo guy talking about lifting weights while wearing his wife's panties in the front yard...

[MK]

P.S. Sorry, I didnt mean to accuse you a being a Platonist (I dont go around insulting people like that!)