I just realized....

Good to talk to you again. Our last conversation kind of got abandoned.

Nobody ceases to exist. God sustains us in existence after death. Man is a body-soul-spirit unity. When we die, our immaterial self is separated from our physical body and committed to God, from which we came, who gave us life. Any sin disqualifies you from Heaven. The only two destinations for man to go is Heaven or Hell.

The Bible uses different types of language. That is why it is so important to read it in context and as a whole instead of taking a verse out by itself and trying to give meaning to it. The Bible uses figurative language, for example, the Book of Revelation. Reading a literal meaning into a passage that is figurative would be a mistake. Also, Jesus Christ used parables to communicate truths to his disciples.

It may sound very confusing but it's really isn't. The key is context, context, context. We use these same forms of language in our everyday life. Anyone can take a verse out of context and play with it but you can read it as it is written, as it is intended to be read.

 

I like to think of it as a paradox, not a contradiction..the universe itself is a paradox, and everything in it

 

How can Jesus be fully human and fully divine then?

 

see... i think you contradict yourself a lot to make some of your points. many of your points are great and are ways many people should live by. your justification for the way you see things is sketchy at times, just from my pov... of course i'd never personally attack you for whatever it is you believe. i'm just trying to get into the thought process which guides your justification.



i believe that gods may exist and they may not exist. this existance would be able to coexist with the nonexistance. jesus christ is the god to some and is not to others. you seem to have a problem of having people believe in what you don't see as your way... the way through christ. you have said that multiple gods are not able to be true at the same time because the bible tells you that only christ is true. if you are not interperating the bible literally, i don't see why you need to come to this conclusion...

can't christ be 'the only god' for you and another god may be 'the one' for someone else? this doesn't take anything away from what you believe and allows all people to live with the thoughts of a higher power without having to be looked down on someone else because they think poorly/differently than you or a fellow christian. i don't see why that wouldn't work. you don't need to even acknowledge another god personally but this would allow you to be accepting and still be taking the bible in the figurative sense because christ is the only god, for you. you have your faith in christ, other people have their faith in different things.

i am not here to judge the conclusion of the reality of the human situation you have decided to pin on yourself. when you start to preach to others, you are going to have to take to a much more worldly/universal tone because nobody will have the same world view as you. when you say that some things are set in stone and then back off and say you can take it in a figurative sense, people will have a tough time accepting the terms which you have brought upon others.

 

Yes, the absolute truth does not contradict itself. The fundamental question remains...what is the absolute truth?

In my last post, I said that for argument's sake truth can be relative, in the sense that one person accepts one version of absolute truth, one accepts another and they debate from those positions.

There are different extant versions of absolute truth...that's why there are different religions. Every religion has its own internal logic that is absolute to the believer....and as long as you confine your pro-arguments to that logic, then you're not thinking illogically relative to the beliefs you accept as absolute.

You could take up the position of God exists and Jesus is God and I could take the side of God exists and Jesus isn't God, we could have a debate, and one of us would emerge the better debater to outside observers, but that still wouldn't change the real absolute truth...and the real absolute truth is not conclusively provable by the means at our disposal...that's the paradox.

 

well said!

 

I appreciate the good word...thanks.

 

spook13 & slinklikegroove,

Yes, people can hold different worldviews to be true, and certainly do. We know that. We all reason from certain starting points, certain truths that we accept by faith. But just because someone holds a certain belief does not make it true. I can want something to be true and even believe that it is but that doesn't necessarily make it true. It is either true or it isn't.

Something can't be and not be simultaneously. You can't say that the universe was created by a personal God and that the universe sprang from nothing without a Creator. These can't both be true. Truth doesn't contradict itself. If it did it wouldn't be truth.

Different worldviews make truth-claims about reality. They say "This is how it is". These claims, by their very nature, imply that contrary assertions are false. Theoretically, you could say "none of them have it right", but not "they are all correct".

Logic is inescapable. Something is either logical or illogical.

 

how have you "shown" that?

 

JLP...yes, understood all along.

My point all along has been that each distinct system of religious beliefs has its own internal logic based on that faith's established truisms, whether it is logical in an absolute sense or not.

It's like:

The number 3 = The real absolute truth

2 + 6 = 3: spook is convinced that the established truisms of his faith, 2 and 6, add up to 3, so within his local frame of reference, his belief is logical.

5 + 9 = 3: JLP is convinced that the established truisms of his faith, 5 and 9, add up to 3, so within his local frame of reference, his belief is logical.

Both spook and JLP are firmly convinced of their positions, athough by the absolute standards of the mathematics of the number 3, each of their logical processes is flawed, making them both wrong at best, delusional at worst.

Then, someone comes along and convinces spook that, instead of 2, 5 is correct, and JLP already believes 5 to be correct, so they share 50% common ground, but still cannot agree on 6 or 9. But even if they did come to an agreement on one of those two numbers, neither of their sums would add up to 3 and they would both still be in complete ignorance of the absolute truth.

But 3, as a whole number, is a non-reducable component of both 6 and 9, so there is a hidden commonality that is absolutely true in two of the numbers that add up to the two false sums.

I'm probably out on a limb here but it was fun.

 

spook13,

People reason from established truisms that they hold, but logic (something cannot be and not be simultaneously - truth does not contradict itself) does not change. It's inescapable, meaning it doesn't change. It's universal, you can't get away from it.

Can something be and not be simultaneously? If one person says that a personal God created the universe and everything in it and another says that there is no such God, God does not exist and never has, can both of them be right? Logically, would not at least one of them have to be wrong?

 

Yes, one would have to be wrong.

My examples were meant to illustrate that the absolute nature of logic can become relative to the observer...I agree, as a governing principle, truth doesn't contradict itself, but if a person holds a falsehood to be true, then that falsehood-truth doesn't contradict itself for him, and therefore, in his own head, is logically sound.

 

Jews do not believe it because the Jewish Bible ends at II Chronicles. The Christian Scriptures (New Testament) were not written to the Jews.
And as to Muslims, the Christian Scriptures are not the final word as well as Jesus is not the last prophet; Muhaamad is.

- JKHolman