Author Topic: Holy War  (Read 136672 times)

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Offline 'taterblast

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Re: Holy War
« Reply #775 on: June 12, 2014, 05:52:17 AM »
i sat next to this guy on a plane this week. long story short he started talking about how he travels around and preaches the gospel. no problem, right? he seemed like a nice guy so i engaged in some conversation.

but eventually he started talking about how he heals people, and that he uses the holy spirit to grow peoples legs, and has it on video. he said that he has healed scoliosis, broken bones, and straight up just made people taller.

here are some videos of him doing his magic on people. he showed me these videos on the plane. also please note i was dealing with a substantial hangover throughout this entire plane ride.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2L_C_Ce1OI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skZQmZffdoU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGDrd8SJgng

Offline 'taterblast

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Re: Holy War
« Reply #776 on: June 12, 2014, 05:58:42 AM »

Offline slobber

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Re: Holy War
« Reply #777 on: June 12, 2014, 06:46:38 AM »
Only watched the first one. Really impressive. No need to go back to back with a bro to see how much taller you are after having a miracle performed on you. Tape measures? Pssht.


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Offline Dugout DickStone

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Re: Holy War
« Reply #778 on: June 12, 2014, 11:26:21 AM »
Did you ask for him to miracle your hangover?  That would be my first request.

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Re: Holy War
« Reply #779 on: June 12, 2014, 12:01:58 PM »
Did you ask for him to miracle your hangover?  That would be my first request.

damnit. DAMNIT. he would have done it too.

Offline nicname

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Re: Holy War
« Reply #780 on: January 11, 2024, 08:26:04 PM »
Atonement

By Father Stephen De Young

https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/wholecounsel/2019/07/03/atonement/

Over the next several weeks, posts will examine the Biblical concept of atonement from several angles in an attempt to synthesize the teaching of the scriptures on this topic.  Before delving into the teaching of particular portions of the scriptures it is important to have a working definition of what “atonement” is in the first place and how the terms in the original languages of scripture which are translated by this English word are used in a general sense.  There also needs to be a certain amount of disambiguation regarding common popular uses of the term in Western theology and popular Christian discussion.  Many of these usages import concepts and theological notions which postdate the scriptures by centuries.  The “reading in” of these much later theological notions to the text of scripture serves in some cases to merely cause confusion, but in others to create a sort of feedback loop based on confirmation bias.  A particular piece of later teaching is read into a text and then the text is used as a proof for that same teaching.  This post will serve to clear the ground before the positive presentation of forthcoming posts.

The English word “atonement” is a word created for the purposes of Biblical translation and has no earlier etymological history.  Wycliffe used the phrase “at onement” in his own translations in the 14th century to indicate reconciliation to unity.  In the 16th century, this was combined into the word “atonement.”  Because the word is a coinage, it offers very little insight into the concept as it is employed in the scriptures.  Some modern English translations have moved to the translation “reconciliation” in many instances in order to parallel Wycliffe’s original translation.  In contemporary scholarly sources, the translation “purification” has become widely popular, with “purgation” as another alternative.

The origin of the term is in the Hebrew word group ‘kfr’.  Hebrew words have three letter roots which can then be used to form related verbs and nouns which carry similar meaning.  A form of this word creates the name for the holy day Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.  The ‘kfr’ root appears to be derived from a parallel Akkadian word which formed the verb “to wipe.”  In Hebrew, it is used to mean to wipe, to smear, or to cover.  There is, in the Hebrew scriptures, deliberate wordplay in, for example, the description of the Day of Atonement ritual in Leviticus 16.  Blood is wiped or smeared in the sanctuary which wipes away sin.  Blood covers the objects in the tabernacle and sins are covered from the sight of God.  Incense covers the appearance of God himself within the sanctuary so that the high priest does not see him and die.  This action is central to all of Israelite worship.  The lid of the ark of the covenant is “the atonement cover” (though often translated “mercy seat” in English).  The later temple is referred to as the “house of atonement” (eg. 1 Chron 28:20).  Despite the centrality of the usage of the term in ritual contexts, it is also used throughout the Hebrew scriptures within the context of relationships between humans.  It is used, for example, when Jacob is preparing to once again encounter his brother Esau after many years and he sends offerings ahead of himself in the hopes that they will “cover Esau’s face,” literally “atone his face” (Gen 32:20).  The ‘kfr’ word group can then be seen to involve the restoration of relationships between persons and community in a general sense but also includes ritual elements aimed at removing or covering over the cause of estrangement.

In Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures, the word “hilasmos” and other related words are used to translate the ‘kfr’ word group.  This translation choice has some of the same difficulties found in the English “atonement” in providing additional information about the term’s meaning.  Though similar concepts are discussed, there are no known pre-Christian, non-Jewish instances of the word “hilasmos” in Greek literature.  For the first few centuries of its known usage, then, this term is simply a Greek substitute for ‘kfr’ words and carries only the meaning of the latter.  The first known usages of the term in a pagan context come from the first century AD, parallel to the time of the composition of the New Testament, in Plutarch.  In every case, Plutarch uses the term to refer to sacrificial offerings used to placate an angered or offended supernatural being, either a god or a deceased human’s spirit.  This represents a narrower usage than ‘kfr’ words, though the translators of scripture and later Jewish authors such as Philo freely used “hilasmos” for cases involving both divine-human and human-human relationships.  In Jewish and Christian thought, these are inseparable concepts.

In light of these general definitions based on usage, future posts in this series will describe in more detail the ways in which the concept of atonement is described in the scriptures.  In light of these scriptural terms, the concept of the wrath of God, as described in scripture, will be further defined.  The means by which the situation described by that wrath is ameliorated will then be discussed.  Then, these understandings of atonement as it takes place within the context of sacrifice, in general, will be applied to the sacrifice of Christ in particular.  Finally, the relationship between the atonement of Christ’s sacrifice and related concepts of redemption and salvation in their cosmic scope will be described.

Beyond the clarification of terminology, however, there are further preconceptions related to atonement, for the most part grounded in Western theology, which need to be cleared away.  Much, if not all, of contemporary discussion regarding atonement in general, and Christ’s atoning sacrifice in particular, takes place surrounding various competing “theories of atonement.”  These theories represent attempts which are to one degree or another systematic to explain how atonement, and specifically Christ’s sacrificial death on the cross, works.  Sometimes, rather than “theory” the term “model” is used.  Within Western theology, a shift occurred in the seventh and eighth centuries in the pursuit of establishing how certain teachings and doctrines fit together and how certain mysteries of the church work.  This set a trajectory for Eucharistic theology which continued through the Reformation and to this very day.  In the context of atonement, it represented a turn from describing what Christ accomplished on the cross to attempting to explain how he accomplished it and why he accomplished it in the particular way which he did.  The most famous example of this turn and benchmark on this inquiry’s historical path is, of course, Anselm’s Cur Deus Homo.  “Why the God-Man?” still bore the tissue of earlier theology in connecting the understanding of Christ’s atoning death to the incarnation, but also followed the new trajectory of attempting to explain the how and why.  In our own day, scholar Simon Gathercole has reasserted one of these theories or models, penal substitutionary atonement, as superior to all of the other models because it is the only one which provides a “mechanism” by which atonement takes place.

This entire discussion is based on a series of presuppositions which collapse under even a small amount of scrutiny.  There is, for example, no reason to believe that the mysteries of God operate according to “mechanisms” intelligible to the human mind.  There is no reason to believe that any of the various metaphorical descriptions used by scripture and the fathers to describe Christ’s atoning sacrifice at the cross is intended to be describing precisely what happened there in an exhaustive and exclusive sense such that these descriptions represent “theories” which can be argued against one another.  There is no reason to believe that the problems manifest within creation by human sin necessitates some particular response from God as a remedy as if there are some overarching rules or concept of justice to which God himself is subject.

Rather, the scriptures and the fathers understand Christ’s atoning death as the revelation of his divine glory.  Atonement as it took place in the old covenant, as described in the Hebrew scriptures, represents a partial and preliminary revelation of the glory of Christ which comes to its fullness in his death on the cross.  The scriptures and the fathers meditate on what is revealed about Christ in these events and on what he has accomplished for the sake of his creation, including ourselves, in these mighty acts.  The purpose of this series of posts is to return to see the way in which this revelation of Christ is described in scripture.  It is not to promote one of these “theories” over against others.  The only critique which will here be offered of various models for the atonement will be the implied critique of their absence from the testimony of scripture.  Such theories, merely because they have been advanced or even become popular, do not need to be disproven.  Rather those who would seek to advance them must prove their legitimacy.  More importantly, they must demonstrate the validity of the presuppositions which produced them in the first place.  These presuppositions are shared by neither the scriptures or the fathers.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


About Fr. Stephen De Young

The V. Rev. Dr. Stephen De Young is Pastor of Archangel Gabriel Orthodox Church in Lafayette, Louisiana. He holds a PhD in Biblical Studies from Amridge University. Fr. Stephen is also the host of the Whole Counsel of God podcast from Ancient Faith and author of the Whole Counsel Blog. He co-hosts the live call-in show and podcast Lord of Spirits with Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick.
« Last Edit: January 11, 2024, 08:33:22 PM by nicname »
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Offline nicname

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Re: Holy War
« Reply #781 on: January 11, 2024, 08:58:31 PM »
The Wrath of God

July 8, 2019 · Fr. Stephen De Young   

https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/wholecounsel/2019/07/08/the-wrath-of-god/

Edit: I don't know why the text is showing up as strike-through. click the link if it is too bothersome.

The wrath of God is a topic unpopular in the present era.  Much theological ink has been spilled in the modern period in an attempt to explain away or otherwise neutralize the idea, despite its clear presence in the scriptures and in the writings of the fathers.  An entire fully developed complex of ideas in later Western theology, including not only God’s wrath but also a particular conception of his justice and of penal substitution, is seen by many modern commentators as an inextricably linked whole.  This complex idea is then caricatured in various ways and rejected wholesale.  To reject the teaching of the church at the foundation, however, along with the later erroneous edifice built upon it is to deform the Christian faith.  Rather than, as many of St. Paul’s original hearers, seeking to justify themselves, post-modern thought demands that the faithful justify God in the face of a denuded sense of morality.  This approach makes the concept of true repentance utterly unintelligible or at best a bland form of self-improvement.  Worse, it makes the cross of Christ an embarrassment once again as it was to so many in the ancient world.

Though the wrath of God as a concept is expressed using words related to emotional anger, it is not intended to express a passionate or emotional state.  This is an important distinction in breaking the popular caricature of the “wrathful God.”  What is described by the terms relevant to the wrath of God is a particular experience of God by human persons and those who witness that experience.  It is never used in the scriptures to portray God as fickle or intemperate.  Quite the opposite.  An oft-repeated theme of the Hebrew scriptures is that God is slow to anger (in Hebrew idiom, literally “long of nose”), describing the long period of patient mercy which precedes the experience of his wrath.

In order to understand the origin of the human experiences described as the wrath of God, two interlinked concepts need to be understood.  The first of these is the concept of justice or righteousness.  Both the Hebrew ‘mishpat’ and the Greek ‘dikaios’ describe the world as being in a rightly ordered state.  Existence and non-existence and therefore Yahweh’s act of creation in Gen 1 are conceived in the scriptures as bringing order to chaos.  Humanity was originally created to continue the work of creation in cooperation with Yahweh by bringing the order and beauty of Paradise with them to make the whole creation into Eden.  Humanity, however, was expelled from Paradise into this present world of chaos and violence under the power of sin and death.  The great promise of the Hebrew scriptures is that a day, most often called ‘the day Yahweh’ will come when he will establish perfect justice in the whole creation (Isa 13:6, 9; Jer 46:10; Ezek 13:5; 30:3; Joel 1:15; 2:1-31; 3:14; Amos 5:18, 20; Obad 1:15; Zeph 1:7-14; 14:1; Mal 4:1-5).

Though this is a promise, that on a final day Yahweh will bring his great work of creation to its completion in bringing it to perfect order, a casual perusal of the Old Testament passages above gives a rather horrifying description of that day.  From these descriptions, however, certain motifs relating to the nature of God’s wrath as expressed on that day emerge.  The first of these is fire.  Specifically, a fire which tries and tests all things (eg. Mal 4:1-5).  This fire has two effects on two different groups of people.  For one group, this fire is destructive and consumes them utterly.  For the other group, this fire is purgative and they emerge from the day of Yahweh purified like gold from the dross and stain of their sins and transgressions.  This latter group are those who are justified, made righteous or made just.  Rather than being consumed with their sins and wickedness they are purified from them by a burning away.  This burning fire is rightly described by scripture and the fathers as God’s wrath.

Undergoing this fiery trial, with either result, is “judgment” in its Biblical sense.  In the new covenant, this justification, being made righteous or just, being set in order as God’s creation, begins in this life in this world.  In his prophetic ministry, St. John the Forerunner speaks of the wrath to come using this motif of cleansing fire (eg. Matt 3:7-12).  He also, however, links this fire to the Holy Spirit, and specifically to baptism with the Holy Spirit (3:11).  The phrase generally translated ‘baptize you with the Holy Spirit’ in English is directly parallel to St. John’s statement that he ‘baptize you with water’ for repentance.  It literally describes being immersed or submerged in the Holy Spirit and, as he here makes clear, fire.  Repentance is therefore linked here to, and serves as the precondition for, the cleansing fire of the Spirit.  Repentance is here not seen as self-improvement or growth, but as testing and trial by fire.  It is bringing one’s self under judgment now in order to remove the fire of judgment on the day of the Lord (1 Cor 11:31).

The other major motif surrounding the day of Yahweh in the Hebrew prophets is that of distributive justice (eg. Obad 1:15).  The state of this present world, as it is still God’s creation, still reflects his character.  Humanity is still the image of God within it.  It is therefore not abject chaos and destruction, but a broken order which requires the cleansing and purification described above.  This distributive justice character of judgment sees the final completion of the ordering of creation as shoring up and repairing the order which still persists therein.  It is a restoration of balance and order.  This restoration will necessarily affect some positively and others negatively based upon their thoughts, words, and deeds (Rom 2:6; 2 Cor 5:10).  Many scriptural categories describe the two poles of this experience of God, such as reward and punishment, blessing and curse, and vindication and wrath.  Punishment, curse, and wrath are all ways of describing the experience of those who suffer loss in this restoration.  This loss is not merely shame or embarrassment but is quite real.  For the Egyptians, their massacre of the male children of God’s firstborn, Israel, was rebalanced by the death of their firstborn sons.  For two hundred years of apostasy, the northern kingdom of Israel was scattered back into non-existence.  For 490 years of ignoring the Sabbath year, the southern kingdom of Judah faced 70 years of exile in a foreign land.  That this sort of massive upheaval is coming is a constant theme of Christ’s own preaching (eg. Matt 19:30; 20:16; Mark 10:31; Luke 13:30; 16:25).

The various punishments or consequences for sin in the Torah are grounded in this twofold understanding of the wrath of God.  The Torah never imposes suffering or pain as a means of recompense for sin, though this is not uncommon in other ancient cultures.  Sin in the Torah is handled either by death, corresponding to the consuming fire of wrath, or by restitution, the suffering of loss to restore the right order of justice.  Restitution is, therefore, a critical and necessary element of repentance (Luke 19:8-9).  This understanding gave rise to the concept of penance in the church.  It is also a constitutive element to the church’s understanding of asceticism.

The second concept, linked with the understanding of the wrath of God as the experience of judgment and righteousness, is that the experience of God’s wrath stems from his presence.  In Hebrew idiom, what is generally translated in English as being in God’s presence is actually to be “before his face,” which is itself a reference to seeing him.  God is righteous.  God is holy. God is surrounded by the fullness of his glory.  These are not merely adjectives correctly applied to God as if he were being judged against some external standard.  Rather, just as God is love, he is also righteousness, holiness, glory, etc.  This is why for Moses, to see his glory would be to see God himself (Ex 33:18-20).  This is why St. Paul can say that Christ is the righteousness of God (1 Cor 1:30-31).  The experience of a sinful human person coming into the presence of God is dramatized in Isaiah’s prophetic call (Isa 6:1-13).  The prophet experiences his own undoing in his experience of the righteousness, holiness, and glory of God (v. 5).  In order for him to speak the words of God, his lips must be purified by fire (v. 6-7).

God’s coming to bring judgment upon the gods of Egypt and to vindicate his people is therefore referred to in the Torah as him visiting his people (Gen 50:24-25; Ex 4:31).  The day of Yahweh is therefore also referred to as the day on which he will visit his people (Ex 32:34; Lev 26:16; Isa 23:27; 29:6; Jer 15:15; 27:22; 29:10; 32:5).  In the prophetic timeline, the day of Yahweh would come first upon Judea, preceded by the coming of Elijah.  Judgment would come upon God’s people first, through which a remnant would be refined by fire.  After this would come a period, the last days, during which the nations would stream to Jerusalem to worship Yahweh, concluding in Yahweh’s judgment of the entire creation and the completion of his creative work.

Basic to the understanding of the New Testament authors is that this timeline was advanced in their day.  Jesus Christ is Yahweh and he has come to his people in Judea.  His very presence in their midst brought about judgment.  Most were cut off through their rejection of Christ.  A remnant, however, found repentance and justification in Christ.  Following this, the Gentiles were added to this remnant, reconstituting the assembly of Israel, the church.  The apostles bore witness to these events and attest to them in the scriptures.  This means, as they attest, that we are now in the latter days during which Christ rules in the midst of his enemies.  At the conclusion of this period, described by St. John figuratively as a thousand years in the Apocalypse, Christ will again visit his creation to complete the eighth creation day begun by incarnation and resurrection.  Thus he will judge the living and the dead.  The word “Parousia,” generally translated in English as “return,” more literally means “presence.”  All of creation will be brought before the throne of Christ.  All of creation will stand in his presence.  All will see his face.  This will bring all of creation to order and completion.  Human persons will either themselves be justified, purified by fire, or will be purged, losing even what little they may presently possess.  For the first, this experience will be reward and joy, but for the second punishment and wrath.

As a final note, this understanding of the presence of Christ is firmly embedded in the church’s understanding of the Eucharist.  In the Eucharist, a human person receives Christ himself into his own person.  The presence of Christ, as has already been seen, can bring either purification or destruction, forgiveness or wrath.  St. Paul speaks of this when he describes the consequences of receiving the Eucharist in an unworthy manner (1 Cor 11:27-34).  The priest’s prayers reference the purification of Isaiah described above (Isa 6:6-7).  The prayer of St. Symeon the Translator after receiving the Eucharist is a profound meditation upon these themes.  Repentance and the purification of our souls and bodies can be painful and difficult, but they prepare us to stand before the face of our Lord Jesus Christ and for the eternal righteousness, holiness, and glory of the world to come.
« Last Edit: January 11, 2024, 09:16:23 PM by nicname »
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Offline steve dave

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Re: Holy War
« Reply #782 on: January 11, 2024, 09:39:32 PM »
Summarize that for me please


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Offline steve dave

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Re: Holy War
« Reply #783 on: January 11, 2024, 09:41:13 PM »
While I’m here MAGA has shown us that religion isn’t actually at fault for all these religion based wars and atrocities. People just love being tribal fuckheads.


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Re: Holy War
« Reply #784 on: January 11, 2024, 09:46:12 PM »

Propitiation and Expiation

July 16, 2019 · Fr. Stephen De Young   

https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/wholecounsel/2019/07/16/propitiation-and-expiation/

Debates surrounding atonement theology over the last several decades have centered on two terms, propitiation and expiation.  Both of these terms describe the function of particular sacrificial rituals.  There is not, of necessity, a conflict between the core meanings of these two terms.  They have come, however, to be emblematic of entire theological positions regarding the atoning sacrifice of Christ.  Clearing away the accumulated theological baggage from these terms, however, allows them to highlight two important elements of the sacrificial system described in the Hebrew scriptures which will, in turn, reveal elements of the Gospels’ portrayal of Christ’s atoning death.  Rather than summarizing two incompatible views or options or theories regarding “how atonement works,” these elements, along with others, convey ways of speaking and understanding sacrifice which together produce a rich, full-orbed understanding of what our Lord Jesus Christ has done on our behalf.

Both propitiation and expiation in the scriptures view sin through an ontological lens.  It is a thing which exists in the form of a taint, an impurity, similar to a deadly disease.  Like a deadly infection, if left uncontrolled it will not only bring death, but will spread throughout the camp in the wilderness, the nation, and the world.  While this is true of sin generally, the presence of Yahweh himself in the midst of his people in the tabernacle and later temple elevates this danger.  The Day of Atonement ritual, for example, is instituted in Leviticus in response to the fate of Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron who entered into the tabernacle unworthily in their drunken sinfulness and were consumed by the fire of God’s holiness (Lev 10:1-2; 16:1-2).

In fact, the entirety of the commandments of the Torah is a means of dealing with sin and related contamination in order to allow Yahweh to remain in the midst of his people.  The failure of Israel and then Judah to follow it results in the departure of Yahweh from the temple and the removal from the people from Yahweh’s land.  The internecine debates within Second Temple Judaism primarily surround what must be done vis a vis the Torah and the way of life of the people to correct the resulting situation.  The Christian proclamation within this debate is that Yahweh has visited his people in the person of Jesus Christ.  Christ has fulfilled the commandments of the Torah (in filling them to overflowing) and accomplished what they, of themselves, could not.  While the Torah prescribed a sort of sin management system, Christ has dealt with sin once and for all, so that the commandments of the Torah now function, empowered by the Holy Spirit, to cure the disease of sin and transform human persons into sons of God.

Within this overall system, sacrificial ritual occupies a central place and it is within the sacrificial system that we see principles of propitiation and expiation.  Expiation, as a term related to atonement, refers to the removal of sin.  The danger to the community posed by sin and its resulting corruption is remedied by the removal of sin from those so contaminated and ultimately its removal from the entire community.  It has become popular, due to baggage loaded into the other term, propitiation, for some to argue for expiation as an alternative, meaning that expiation represents the entirety of the function of sacrifice.  The direct connection of expiation to sacrificial ritual, however, is tenuous at best.  It is not uncommon, for example, for people, even scholars, to shorthand sacrificial practice by saying that before the killing of an animal the priest would place the sins of the offerer, or the people as a whole, upon that animal and then kill it.  Unfortunately, this is something which occurs nowhere in the sacrificial system as outlined in the Torah, nor anywhere in the pagan sacrificial rituals of the ancient world for that matter.

The one ritual in which such a thing occurs is within the ritual of the Day of Atonement (as first described in Leviticus 16).  Within this ritual, two goats are set apart and lots are cast (v. 7-8).  One of these goats is then taken and the high priest pronounces the sins of the people over it (v. 20-22).  This goat is not the goat “for Yahweh.”  This goat is not sacrificed.  In fact, this goat cannot be sacrificed because, bearing the sins of the people upon it, it is now unclean and unfit to be presented as an offering.  The goat is so unclean, in fact, that the one who leads it out into the wilderness is himself made unclean by contact with it (v. 26).  The goat is sent into the wilderness, the region still controlled by evil spiritual powers as embodied in Azazel, such that sin is returned to the evil spiritual powers who were responsible for its production.  This represents the primary enactment of the principle of expiation in Israel’s ritual life, though the principle is found throughout the Hebrew scriptures (eg. Ps 103:12).  The New Testament authors see this element of atonement fulfilled in Christ as he bears the sins of the people and is driven outside of the city to die the death of an accursed criminal (as in Matt 27:27-44; Rom 8:3-4; Heb 13:12-13).

A much more widespread concept which falls under the category of expiation is that of purification, purgation, and washing from sin often associated with blood.  This is not so much expiation enacted within sacrificial ritual as it is a result of sprinkling or smearing of blood which wipes away sin.  This idea is at the core of the terms translated “atonement” in Hebrew itself.  As part of the sacrificial offering of the other goat, the goat “for Yahweh,” its blood is drained and is used to purify the sanctuary, the altar, and the rest of the accouterment of the tabernacle (Lev 16:15-19).  The annual Day of Atonement ritual takes place in addition to the regular cycle of sin and guilt offerings that take place throughout that year and has, as its key purpose, the cleansing of the sanctuary itself.  While sin has been managed through these other offerings, it has left a resulting taint and corruption in the camp which is especially dangerous in the place in which Yahweh himself resides and so this must be purified.  Once again, handling this blood which absorbs and removes sin renders the high priest himself contaminated and so he must purify himself before he goes on to offer the rest of the animal to Yahweh (v. 23-24).  This element of washing and purification from sin is found throughout the Hebrew scriptures (eg. Ps 51:2, 7), forms much of the basis of the understanding of baptism beginning with that of St. John the Forerunner, and is applied to the operation of the blood of Christ by the New Testament authors (eg. Eph 1:7; Col 1:20; Heb 10:3-4, 19-22; 1 Pet 1:18-19; 1 John 1:7; Rev 1:5).

The term propitiation has been freighted with a great amount of theological baggage.  Specifically, it has been used as a sort of synecdoche for the systematic view of penal substitutionary atonement.  Many now take it to refer to the appeasement of God’s wrath through the punishment of a substitute for the sins of a person or people.  Attempting to import this conceptual whole into the sacrificial system as established in the Torah is simply impossible.  Much of the sacrificial does not even involve the killing of an animal.  Offerings of the sacrificial system are always food.  There is a sacrificial meal involved in which the offerer and those bringing the offering eat and/or drink a portion of the meal while a significant portion, the best, is offered to Yahweh.  Animals which are going to be a portion of these offerings and meals are, of course, killed as they would be before being a part of any meal.  But there is no attention paid to the mode of their killing by the text of the Torah.  Precise details are laid out regarding how they are to be butchered and what is to be done with the various parts of the animal and the cuts of meat.  But their killing is not even ritualized.  This likewise means that some sort of punishment or suffering on the part of the sacrificial animal is no part of the ritual.  Even in the case of whole burnt offerings in which the entirety of the animal is burned and thereby given to Yahweh, it is not immolated alive but is killed first, unceremonially.

Propitiation itself, however, has a much simpler meaning.  Literally, of course, it means to render someone propitious, meaning favorably disposed.  At its most simple level, it refers to an offering which is pleasing to God.  Unlike pagan deities, Yahweh does not require care and sustenance in the form of food from human worshippers.  There are, however, significant instances of his sharing of a meal in a literal sense (eg. Gen 18:4-8; Ex 24:9-11; and of course numerous meals shared by Christ in the Gospels).  The more common language used in the scriptures for God’s appreciation for his portion of sacrificial meals is that these sacrifices are a pleasing aroma (as in Gen 8:21; Lev 1:9, 13; 2:2; 23:18).  This same language is applied to the sacrifice of Christ in the New Testament (as in Eph 5:2 and the Father’s statement that in Christ he is “well pleased”).  In the Greek translation of Numbers 10:10, the language of a memorial is used to describe the sin offering as its smoke rises to Yahweh.  This language is applied to prayers and almsgiving elsewhere in the scriptures (Ps 141:2; Acts 10:4; Rev 5:8).  The party who is being propitiated through atonement may be wrathful toward the one who makes the offering (as, for example, Jacob assumes in Gen 32:21 regarding Esau), but this is not necessitated by the language of propitiation as such.

Understanding the wrath of God as a function of his presence, of his justice and holiness, there is another element of propitiation which is directly relevant to wrath.  This is the protective function which sacrificial blood and incense offerings serve in relation to Yahweh’s presence.  Part of the Day of Atonement ritual is specifically oriented toward allowing Aaron to enter the most holy place without dying as had his sons (Lev 16:11-14).  An obscuring cloud of smoke, as well as the blood of a bull to wipe away the sins of himself and his priestly family, are required because, on that day, Yahweh himself would appear, would make himself present, in that place (v. 2).  The blood of the sacrificial lamb, which was utilized as a meal, at the Passover served a similar protective role (Ex 12:21-23).  This is not protection from a loving God.  Rather, it is a means provided by that loving God to allow sinful human persons to abide in the presence of his holiness.  This same sort of protection language is utilized regarding the blood of Christ (eg. Rom 3:24-25; 5:9; Eph 2:13; Heb 10:19-22; Rev 12:11).

Propitiation and expiation, themselves being seen from a variety of perspectives, are inseparable elements of what atonement means in the scriptures.  They, along with other elements already and still to be discussed, form the cohesive understanding of Christ’s own sacrifice on the cross.  These are not abstract principles, theological rationales or arguments.  They are not constructed ideas used to explain mechanisms by which salvation takes place.  Rather, they are highlighted moments of experiential reality.  The core of Israelite, Judahite, and Judean religion was sacrificial ritual which brought about states of being and consciousness in its participants and the world itself.  Ancient people, the first Christians understood the self-offering death of Christ in terms of this lived experience.  This post and the others in the present series seek to reestablish access to this experience of God through delineating the shape of that experience for our fathers in the faith.
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Re: Holy War
« Reply #785 on: January 11, 2024, 10:22:31 PM »

The Handwriting of Our Sins

July 22, 2019 · Fr. Stephen De Young   

https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/wholecounsel/2019/07/22/the-handwriting-of-our-sins/

One verse cited often with regard to the crucifixion of Christ in the Orthodox liturgical tradition is Colossians 2:14.  “When he canceled the handwriting in the decrees against us, which were opposed to us.  And he has taken it from our midst, by nailing it to the cross.”  This verse describes how, as the previous verse says, we who were dead in our transgressions were made alive by having those transgressions taken away.  The language used here offers us yet another window through the scriptures to understand the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ for our sakes upon the cross.  Though it may not be apparent in English translation, this language of the handwriting of a decree is part and parcel of one set of the thematic language used throughout the scriptures to describe human sin and its relationship to death.

The Greek word translated typically in this verse as “handwriting” is translated so based on a woodenly literal rendering of a Greek compound word made up of the word for “hand” and the word for something written.  Its most common usage, however, in the first century AD was to refer to an IOU or a promissory note.  Its attachment here to the word translated “decree” which refers to an official public document moves the meaning toward the latter usage, a promissory note or a public document describing a debt owed.  St. Paul is therefore here describing the effects of our transgressions, our sins, as an accumulated debt which represents a claim against us.  Christ, through his atoning sacrifice on the cross, cancels this debt.  The certificate of that debt is nailed to the cross and torn asunder.

The imagery of transgression as debt here utilized by St. Paul is commonplace in the Gospels.  Depending upon the Gospel which one is reading, the Lord’s Prayer asks either for the forgiveness of debts or of trespasses.  St. Matthew’s Gospel gives the Lord’s Prayer as referring to the forgiveness of our debts as we forgive our debtors (Matt 6:9-13).  Immediately thereafter, however, as an interpretation of the prayer, Christ says that if we forgive the trespasses of others, then our trespasses will be forgiven us (v. 14-15).  St. Luke, however, phrases the Lord’s Prayer as referring to the forgiveness of our sins as we forgive our debtors (Lk 11:4).  These concepts are so closely aligned in Second Temple Jewish thought that they can literally be used interchangeably.  In describing the forgiveness of sins, Christ uses debt in several of his parables (eg. Matt 18:23-35; Luke 7:36-47).

This understanding of sin as a debt, however, goes well beyond merely an analogy to help us understand forgiveness.  Though not so in most of the cultures of our day, in the ancient world, the concept of debt was closely tied to the institution of slavery.  Slavery in the ancient world was not primarily an instrument of racial or ethnic oppression.  Rather, it was primarily an economic institution.  With no concept of “bankruptcy” in the modern sense, the means by which a debt which could not be paid would be settled was indentured servitude.  A person would work off the debt by becoming a slave.  As the head of a household, not only a man who had incurred a debt would be sold as a slave, but his entire family.  Children born into the family would be considered to be subject to the debt incurred by the father and might live their whole life in slavery attempting to pay it back or otherwise earn freedman status.  Until that point, their lives and actions were not their own but were under the control of the person who held their certificate of debt and so had a claim to ownership of them.

In his Epistle to the Romans, St. Paul uses this language of debt and slavery to describe the relationship between sin and death (6:16-23).  St. Paul posits that the wage of sin is death.  Death is the means by which the debt incurred through sin is paid and so death, through the slavery of sin, projects itself back through the life of the debtor, expressing itself in the form of continued sin, which in turn increases debt and further enslaves in a vicious cycle (Rom 7:7-24).  Because this debt has been owed by every human person who has ever lived, each person dies for their own sin (Deut 24:16; Jer 31:30; Ezek 18:20).  Further, the devil is connected to this imagery as the holder of the debt.  After his rebellion in Paradise, the devil was cast down to the underworld and given, for a time, dominion over the dead.  Through death and sin, he has been able to enslave the great mass of humankind, with this certificate of debt as his claim over everyone who sins.

A critical theme of St. John’s Gospel is that Christ, as sinless, does not owe any debt to death.  In fact, it was impossible for Jesus to be killed.  Rather, he chooses to lay down his life and having done so voluntarily, is able to take it up again (John 10:17-18).  Because Christ is without sin, the devil has no claim over him whatsoever (John 14:30-31).  He cannot even lay claim to his body through decay (Jude 9; Acts 2:27).  Because he had no sins of his own he was able to die for ours (1 Cor 15:3).  Because his life is the ineffable, infinite life of God himself, it is able to pay the debt owed to death for every human person setting them free from bondage to sin, death, and the devil.  The devil is thus rendered powerless and deprived of even his kingdom of dust and ashes.  “Since, then, the children have shared in blood and flesh, he himself, in the same way, shared in the same things, in order that through this death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is the devil, and might set free those who, through fear of death, were subject to a lifetime of slavery” (Heb 2:14-15).

This language of manumission and redemption, of being freed from slavery through Christ’s sacrifice, is also entailed by the paschal language surrounding Christ and his death.  Christ died not on the Day of Atonement, but the Passover.  The celebration of Pascha was and remains for Jewish communities a celebration of freedom from slavery.  Slavery to a spiritual tyrant who wielded the power of death.  St. Peter can, therefore, speak of us having been purchased by the blood of Christ, the paschal lamb (Matt 20:28; Mark 10;45; 1 Pet 1:18-19).  St. Paul can say that Christ has been sacrificed for us as our Passover (1 Cor 5:7).  St. John the Forerunner’s primary witness to Jesus Christ is that he is the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29).  It is the lamb who was slain whom St. John sees seated upon the heavenly throne (Rev 5:6).

Redemption in this sense, from the power of death and the devil, is universal.  On the last day, all will be raised from the dead, not only the righteous (John 5:25-27; Acts 24:15; 1 Cor 15:52; 1 Thess 4:16).  Death has been destroyed in Christ’s victory over it.  St. Paul can say that Christ is the savior of all men, especially those who believe (1 Tim 4:10).  The power (kratos) of death which the devil wielded has been taken away from him so that now all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Christ Pantokrator (all-powerful;  Matt 28:18; Eph 1:21; Jude 25).  Every human person now belongs to Christ as their Lord and Master (1 Cor 6:19-20).  Christ now rules over all of creation, over those who accept and embrace him as Lord and Master of their life and over those who continue in rebellion against him (1 Cor 15:24-26).  In the end, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord (Rom 14:11; Phil 2:10-11).

The heresy of universalism which has arisen from time to time in the history of the church comes from a misunderstanding of this universal element of redemption.  What is said about the resurrection of the dead and Christ’s dominion is then taken to also be speaking of entrance into the kingdom and eternal life.  The scriptures, however, are utterly clear that the resurrection of every human person who has ever lived is a precursor to Christ’s judgment of the living and the dead.  “Do not wonder at this, for the hour comes when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out; those who have done good to the resurrection of life and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment” (John 5:28-29).  Rather than removing judgment from all of humanity as they suppose, Christ’s victory over death makes him the sole judge of all of humanity (John 5:22; Rom 14:4).  No one but Christ exercises judgment over human persons, including the devil and his demons.  They no longer have any claim.  Christ is the Lord and so the judge of all.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is the story of his great victory over the powers of sin and death and the devil culminating with his enthronement at the right hand of the Father with dominion over all the earth.  This is a proclamation which brings joy and freedom in our being set free and receiving forgiveness of our debts.  But it concludes with the warning that this same Jesus will appear to judge the living and the dead.  It is this final proclamation which has always produced the question, “What must I do to be saved?”  It is this final proclamation which has brought us all to live lives of repentance and faithfulness within the community of the church.
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Re: Holy War
« Reply #786 on: January 11, 2024, 10:28:34 PM »
Overall he makes some decent points, although I think he downplays the influence of early, pre-Roman Angloids on the way the roman church expresses itself in the English speaking world.

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Re: Holy War
« Reply #787 on: January 11, 2024, 10:39:09 PM »

Atonement for the Whole World

August 2, 2019 · Fr. Stephen De Young   

https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/wholecounsel/2019/08/02/atonement-for-the-whole-world/

First John 2:2 states that Christ has offered himself as an atoning sacrifice “not only for our sins but also for the whole world.”  For most of Christian history, this verse has been used as a football in various theological disputes.  First, it was used as a proof text against the Donatists who saw their churches in North Africa as the totality of the church of Christ.  Second, it was debated in regard to the condemnation of apokatastasis or universalism.  Beginning in the period of the Protestant Reformation, it became a key text in the debate surrounding the Calvinist doctrine of limited or particular atonement.  While what St. John has to say to the Johannine community in 1 John may apply in various ways to these later debates, it is quite clear that none of these applications reflect the original context.  St. John was not writing against hypothetical first century Donatists or Calvinists.  Nor was he writing in support of some universalist notion.  Rather, St. John is applying a consistent understanding of atonement centered around the Day of Atonement ritual itself to the sacrificial self-offering of Jesus Christ.

Paradise is the place where God dwells.  After the creation of humanity, they were brought into Paradise to dwell with God and with the already created spiritual beings.  Humanity was meant to grow to maturity and then depart from Paradise bringing Paradise, the presence of God himself, with him in order to transform the whole creation into Eden.  Instead, by partaking of the knowledge of good and evil, humanity became subject to corruption and ultimately death.  The first humans were expelled from Paradise, not because of their sin and uncleanness alone, but because for them to live eternally in that state would have made them like the demons, unable to repent (Gen 3:22-24).  Rather than bringing Paradise with them, they brought their corruption with them and lived in difficulty within this present world.

The first transgression, in the garden, took place at the instigation of the devil.  This pattern, of wicked spiritual powers influencing humanity to perform evil deeds, continued and intensified.  This begins with Cain, the archetypal wicked man (Gen 4:6-7).  In Second Temple Jewish thought, Cain is the archetypal sinner and wicked man.  While his father was told that the ground was cursed because of him, Cain himself was cursed ‘from the ground’ (v. 11).  While Adam would bring forth food from the earth by the sweat of his brow (3:17-19), the ground would not at all yield its fruit to Cain (4:12).  Unable to live by the work of his hands, Cain founds a city so that he and his lineage create commerce, culture, and warfare.

What was true of Cain plays out in his genealogy (Gen 4:17-24).  The corruption of the world continues and culminates in the figure of Lamech whose song to his two wives is emblematic of his sexual immorality and violent murder exceeding his forefather Cain exponentially by his own boast.  This moral corruption was paralleled by spiritual corruption (Gen 6:1-7).  In the interpretations found within Second Temple Jewish texts, this relationship, as with Adam and Cain, is causal.  Rebellious spiritual powers are at work in and through human rebellion to corrupt and destroy the created order.  It is the purification from the world of this evil and corruption which necessitates the flood as prophesied at Noah’s birth (Gen 5:28-29).  St. John directly references these traditions surrounding Cain and his lineage in regards to the corruption of the world in 1 John 3:12-13.  For St. John, the whole world lies under the power of the evil one (5:19) through this corruption.  But Christ came to destroy the works of the devil brought about in the world by human persons (3:8).

The name attached to the leader of the supernatural powers involved in this corruption in league with Cain and his descendants in Second Temple literature is typically Azazel.  So, for example, 1 Enoch 10:8 says, “The whole earth has been corrupted through the works taught by Azazel, ascribe to him all sin.”  The use of this name serves to connect these traditions about the corruption of the world to the Day of Atonement ritual itself.  The first of the two goats utilized in the Day of Atonement ritual is the goat ‘for Azazel.’  It is entirely possible that this was, at the earliest stage of the text of Leviticus 16, not a proper name but simply referred to ‘the goat who takes away.’  This is the goat into which the sins of the people were ritually placed by the high priest and which was then sent into the wilderness to die.  In later, Second Temple traditions, this was understood to mean that the goat was taking the sins of the people back to whence they came, to the evil spiritual powers who had inspired them.

The Day of Atonement ritual took place annually and took place in addition to the regular cycle of sin and guilt offerings.  This means that it served an additional ritual function above and beyond what those sacrifices accomplished.  The Day of Atonement ritual, indeed all of the commandments of the Torah, are aimed toward preserving the holiness, purity, and cleanness of the Israelite camp and the later nation.  Sin was seen to leave a metaphysical taint, a stain of impurity, on those who committed it and on the world around them.  It brings spiritual corruption in the world.  For God to continue to dwell within the tabernacle at the center of the camp and later the temple in the midst of the nation, not only must sin be atoned for through sacrifice, but this stain and corruption must be purified.

This is enacted within the Day of Atonement ritual.  The sins of the people are placed upon the goat and sent away and the blood of the second goat is used to cleanse the sanctuary, the place where Yahweh himself dwells because this is the place in which that corruption and taint are the most dangerous.  When the Torah was kept, it preserved first the camp in the wilderness and then the nation of Judah as holy and pure islands in the midst of a world which had been subjected to evil spiritual powers through sin and death.  Those of the nations, ruled over by demons whom they worshiped, were unclean.  Animals from outside the camp were unclean.  Even physical objects were unclean and had to be cleansed and dedicated before they could be used in the sanctuary and then annually cleansed at the Day of Atonement.

The same literature which connects the corruption of the world in the earlier chapters of Genesis to Azazel and the cleansing ritual of the Day of Atonement also envisions an ultimate fulfillment to that ritual.  Texts such as the Apocalypse of Abraham, which has been preserved for us in Slavonic by the Orthodox Church, describe an ultimate eschatological Day of Atonement at the end, connected with the coming of the Messiah, in which not only the sins of the people will be cleansed, but the entire world will be set free from the corruption of sin and death.  This is fulfillment in the original sense, that the pattern of the old covenant is filled to overflowing by what is accomplished in the new.  This event will represent a fulfillment of the entire Torah in that what the Torah merely managed and controlled on a small scale, this latter Messianic fulfillment will deal with once and for all.

That Christ’s atoning, sacrificial death represents this fulfillment is ubiquitous among the New Testament authors.  The Synoptic Gospels, and St. Matthew’s Gospel, in particular, present Christ as fulfilling the role of both goats through his suffering and death.  St. Luke in his two-volume work, his Gospel and Acts of the Apostles follows the same trajectory at the pivot point from one volume to the next.  The end of St. Luke’s Gospel culminates in Christ’s self-revelation on the road to Emmaus followed by the continued praise and worship offered by the original Christian community in the temple.  This parallels the events of the Maccabean revolt in which the climactic battle at Emmaus was followed by the rededication of the temple after it had been desecrated and abandoned under Antiochus Epiphanes.  This Lukan rededication of the people as a temple is followed at the beginning of the Acts of the Apostles by the coming of the Holy Spirit, the presence of Yahweh himself, to fill not a new building, but his people.  The sacrifice of Christ had not only purified and cleansed them to allow the Spirit to dwell within them but had also expanded the boundaries of the camp to encompass the entire world, such that Gentiles and even wild animals were no longer unclean (Acts 10:9-23).

Though this final purification of the world is accomplished in principle in Christ’s death and resurrection, it finds its application in the world of time and space over the course of the period preceding Christ’s return.  That all food is clean finds its expression in the lives of the faithful when that food is received with prayer and thanksgiving (1 Tim 4:4).  For St. John, Christ came to destroy the works of the evil one (1 John 3:8).  This finds its fruition within the community of the church.  “We know that we are from God and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one” (5:19).  Just as those who are, like Cain, from the Devil bring sin and corruption and death into the world, so also those who are from God bear fruit of purification and life.  Just as they actualize the works of the evil one in time and space, so also the one in whom the Spirit dwells brings the works of God into the world of time and space.  God calls these works good because they are his works.

St. Paul tends to speak of this in Adamic terms.  The body of the Christian, as the result of Christ’s atoning death, is a temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 6:19-20).  This means that, as was the intent with the first created man, the Christian as the presence of God within him as he goes out into the world.  The Orthodox Divine Liturgy culminates not in the reception of the Eucharist, but in the dismissal when the faithful, having received Christ into their bodies, are sent out into the world bearing him with them.  The entire creation is now the possession of our Lord Jesus Christ who wields all authority within it.  We, as his assembly the Church, bring that rule and its effects to realization within the world as we receive God’s creation, bless it and hallow it.  This includes the baptismal reception of the people of the world but extends also to every level of the created order, animate and inanimate.  This is the work of the church in the world until the last day when there will be no temple because the whole creation will be the dwelling place of the Lord God Almighty and of the Lamb (Rev 21:22).
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Re: Holy War
« Reply #788 on: January 11, 2024, 10:46:17 PM »
Why does nicname keep posting things that are too long to read?

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Re: Holy War
« Reply #789 on: January 11, 2024, 10:47:36 PM »
Nic, I’m not reading any of that. We need a TLDNR that’s at max 4 sentences.
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Re: Holy War
« Reply #790 on: January 11, 2024, 11:06:18 PM »
And just going to put this here too, anyone citing (Rev X:X) can gtfoomf


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Holy War
« Reply #791 on: January 11, 2024, 11:08:47 PM »
What’s this book of the Bible about? Well, have you seen the 70s/80s animated movie “Heavy Metal”?

Who wrote this book of the Bible? Literally nobody knows bro.


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Re: Holy War
« Reply #792 on: January 11, 2024, 11:14:40 PM »
Overall he makes some decent points, although I think he downplays the influence of early, pre-Roman Angloids on the way the roman church expresses itself in the English speaking world.

Sounds interesting. Like the ancient Britons?

De Young is an Orthodox priest, and while there is some mention of a few prominent reformers in the blog series, he doesn't really touch much on Roman Catholicism, or the pre-schismatic western Church. My guess is that his primarily Orthodox audience is well versed in it, at least from their perspective.
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Re: Holy War
« Reply #793 on: January 12, 2024, 05:50:17 AM »
What’s this book of the Bible about? Well, have you seen the 70s/80s animated movie “Heavy Metal”?

Who wrote this book of the Bible? Literally nobody knows bro.


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Think of the Bible as like a scrap book of the most important writings in the world!

IF, you want to live a life that makes God happy.


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Re: Holy War
« Reply #794 on: January 12, 2024, 05:53:11 AM »
On the list of known beings who have positively impacted my life, God ain't that high. He weren't much good for me, anyhow, and that's without getting into my having to hallucinate the premise that he/it exists in the first place. Tall order!!

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Re: Holy War
« Reply #795 on: January 12, 2024, 06:11:04 AM »
On the list of known beings who have positively impacted my life, God ain't that high. He weren't much good for me, anyhow, and that's without getting into my having to hallucinate the premise that he/it exists in the first place. Tall order!!
Of course. That’s the faith part


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Re: Holy War
« Reply #796 on: January 12, 2024, 06:22:02 AM »
On the list of known beings who have positively impacted my life, God ain't that high. He weren't much good for me, anyhow, and that's without getting into my having to hallucinate the premise that he/it exists in the first place. Tall order!!
Of course. That’s the faith part


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Is that the good part? The bad part? Seems like a con to me, but I'm just a humble servant.

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Re: Holy War
« Reply #797 on: January 12, 2024, 07:43:23 AM »
On the list of known beings who have positively impacted my life, God ain't that high. He weren't much good for me, anyhow, and that's without getting into my having to hallucinate the premise that he/it exists in the first place. Tall order!!
Of course. That’s the faith part


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Is that the good part? The bad part? Seems like a con to me, but I'm just a humble servant.
I guess the faith is that all the good and the bad are just part of life and there’s a purpose that you may not understand but trust in God

Idk though


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Offline Pete

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Re: Holy War
« Reply #798 on: January 12, 2024, 08:28:27 AM »

IF, you want to live a life that makes God happy.



THIS is the part that I object to most.  Certainly I have defects of character that include anti-authority stuff.  Beyond that, I still find the idea of "pleasing" the all powerful god to be absurd.  Why does something that is omniscient, omnipotent, etc, need my validation?

INSTEAD, I choose to believe that the "rules" are not there to please God, and are instead there to help reveal the path to true contentment in this life...the stuff I am supposed to experience and learn in this life.  If we live a good life (kindness, love, tolerance, etc) then we get the truly good things in life and not simply the superficial good things from hedonism.  Like Plato's allegory of the cave...hedonism (and selfishness in general) are like staring at the shadows in the back of the cave thinking you are seeing the real truth. 

Alan Watts once described faith as not knowing, but that the not knowing is OK.  I CHOOSE to have faith in a God, and simultaneously acknowledge that I have zero way of knowing for sure.  I do this, because when I pray to a god (of my own understanding) to help direct my thinking and free me of selfishness, my life is better.  WAY better than it ever was when I struggled with thinking I needed absolute BELIEF in the Lutheran Christian god (which I would have never ever been able "believe" in 100%). 

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Re: Holy War
« Reply #799 on: January 12, 2024, 08:31:36 AM »