re: The battle of religion and freedom, between church and grace

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I believe a sounder approach recognizes Jesus’s physical death by crucifixion and his bodily resurrection validate his anthropology and cosmology, and his appreciation of the literal cataclysmic fall of man; not the other way around. Jesus answered them, “I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father's name bear witness about me, Said differently, “if you don’t believe my words believe the miracles. They confirm who I am and what I say is true.”

St. Paul’s take was similar.

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There are a lot of misinterpretations on this topic, Misanthrope. Part of the problem are the contradictions created by merging later mythic traditions (the gospels) onto the earlier myths (Paul’s Christianity) and then assuming they are speaking with the same unifying voice. They aren’t.

Paul’s Jesus did have a resurrection of the body, but not the body many think. Paul’s Jesus was resurrected in a spiritual (pneumatic) body… what was sown was corruptible, sinful flesh, and what was raised was incorruptible spirit. Paul would have written a nasty letter to the writers of the gospels that wrote Jesus was raised in the flesh (complete with wound holes and scars)… and that Jesus was ever even on earth in the first place.

On the subject of the Fall of Man, Paul believed that Adam was made of flesh and wasn’t immortal and lived in the garden of Eden - what the Greek speaking Jews called “paradise”. Check the Greek Septuagint of Genesis 2-3. Due to his sin, Adam was cast down to the mortal realm on earth. Adam literally fell… out of heaven (the third heaven to be exact). Irenaeus, Tertullian, Justin Martyr, Philo… all believed Eden was in the third heaven. There’s a ton of Jewish literature rejected by the Pharisees and Sadducees that were considered scripture by Christians that described the garden of Eden - paradise - in the third heaven. And Paul was no different - he wrote that he knows a guy who was lifted up to the third heaven (in or out of body experience he didn’t know) and he saw paradise. It’s no surprise then that the author “John” or Revelation writes that the tree of life will be in the new heavenly city of Jerusalem - in heaven.

Paul believed Adam came down from heaven to earth as a mortal man. Paul wrote that Jesus is the last Adam. Makes sense?

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There is nothing to be saved from. You were fine for eons before you were born and you will be just as fine after you take the celestial dirt nap. If you need to believe this man-made western "gospel" of Christendom to help you cope with life and not shite on others, then I think it's great. It's actually good for the country that its citizens can put their faith in something. It is far superior to Islam and old school Judaism.

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And that is why Ball Guy is going to Hell.

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Squirrel you ignorant slut.

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That’s not nice, nor is it true.

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Paul said he himself bore the wounds of Christ

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I don’t know how this is relevant, but Paul did believe Jesus was wounded and killed… in heaven by the heavenly archons of this aeon. (1 Cor 2:6-8, Eph 6:12)

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For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed

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See the words I bolded? That’s the same Greek word used twice in the same sentence. The second rendering of that word should also be “delivered” in English. What’s going on here for the translators is that they are reading the gospels back into Paul’s letters, but Paul doesn’t mention Jews, Romans, or Judas’ betrayal in his letters, because those stories hadn’t yet been invented at the time of his epistles. There was no “betrayal” but rather a “deliverance” by God of Jesus (before he earned that name of “Jesus”, Philippians 2:9-11) to the lowest firmament where the archons of this aeon resided as part of God’s secret plan. The Archons didn’t know about the plan, else they wouldn’t have killed Jesus (1 Cor 2:8).

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took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.’ In the same way also the cup… saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this… in remembrance of me.’

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This was what Paul received from Jesus in a vision - a dream - an hallucination. He just said so at the first part of his sentence. It reads as if Jesus is going through these motions as Paul is the only one present (through a dream state). Paul doesn’t mention any other people at the supper with Jesus… because this supper was in heaven, where there were no people.

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For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes

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Notice Paul doesn’t say “come back” or “returns” or “comes again”. In the seven undisputed Pauline epistles, over 10 times Paul mentions the coming of the Lord.

These are possible ways Paul could have described Jesus coming to earth, as these were common Koine Greek terms during his time period…
hypostrepho - to return or go back
epanerchomai - to come back, return again
anakampto - to turn back, return
apotrekho - to return again
pálin érchesthai - to come again

But he never uses those terms for Jesus. Only parousia - meaning “arrival” or “presence”. Paul never once infers the second parousia or parousia again or another parousia. For Paul, Jesus had never been to earth. His coming was a future event.

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May Christ rebuke you for the garbage you spew. You are one sick individual.

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But he never uses those terms for Jesus. Only parousia - meaning “arrival” or “presence”. Paul never once infers the second parousia or parousia again or another parousia. For Paul, Jesus had never been to earth. His coming was a future event.

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You are such an ignorant Alexandrian gnostic liar.

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For of the Law being powerless in that it was weak through the flesh, God, having sent His Son in likeness of sin of flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh,

Romans 8:3


But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.

Galatians 4:4-5

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And John writes quite succinctly

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Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God: And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.

1 John 4:1-3

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This debate re the validity of a Spirituality which (may?) exists as the basis for Perceived Reality is a lot like Clinton’s “it all depends on what the meaning of the word “is”, is. At some point, the Individual’s Objective POV is determined by the Subjective. I think we either progress into another life, which will be determined by who we create ourselves to be in this life re our beliefs and actions, or we cease to be via the same. As Spiritual Law (assuming such exists) would justly demand. This is the essence of all Religion in the recorded historical record.

Obviously, some people wake up in this life with an innate predisposition to believe in a Spiritual Universe, or not. “No man cometh to the Son lest he be called of the Father”. Predestination, Divine Providence or whatever word one chooses to describe the ‘Laws’ of a Spiritual Paradigm, we are in a form of a ‘Simulation’ wherein “the hairs on your head are numbered “.

The process of Worldly death is the same for a Believer and Non Believer. When the body ceases to function our Consciousness dissipates and the Energy of the which formed the body and our awareness does so as well. Both are absorbed back into the Universal Energy/Awareness Reservoir. For a Believer said dissipation would be an expansion and reunion with their Loving Source (per their subjective beliefs) and for a Non Believer it would simply be a dissipation of their Self. Death as it were. And what one believes determines what one feels and perceives via that Process. No pain after the process as there is no self to perceive such. Unless the Spiritual Paradigm rules, and the Soul’s Judgement therein applies forward. “Every knee will bow” at that point.

Regardless, both Believers and Non acquiesce to “he that seeks to save his Self shall lose it”, and “flesh and blood will not enter the kingdom of heaven “. The person who we were is one and done. As singularly unique as a snowflake or leaf. And “it is given for a man to live once, and then the Judgment “.

It seems that this contentious debate is undertaken for the sake of the credibility of the Spiritual Paradigm vs that of the No God/Jesus version as such relates to the choices of other non committed individuals. But even so, given the “no man cometh to the Son” principle, such arguments will not affect their ‘pre-destined’ choice. Everyone will receive exactly their just due. A Divine paradox as it were; free will vs predestination. So like some of the non religious posters said, if one wants to experience a loving bond with God and a possible afterlife, then become a loving person. Religion aside. Pretty much what Jesus preached as the qualifier for heaven. Albeit Jesus promised the Holy Spirit as a guide and comforter for them who so ask and commit. That is a big advantage, given what we are up against. Satan is predatory and wants payback for getting booted.

Thank you Jesus. Back to the plow.

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People aren’t Christians because they fear punishment so they need to be “good”.

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Yes, they are. If Jesus didn’t supposedly offer an afterlife of eternal bliss and a reunion with deceased loved ones, the everyday person wouldn’t pay anymore attention to him than they do Plato and Aristotle. The miracles, the rewards and punishments, are everything.

The world isn’t complicated. Our ancestors were resourceful and cooperative enough to spread from Africa to every continent but Antarctica thousands of years before any modern religions were conjured. The Greeks and Egyptians built great civilizations that had nothing to do with Jesus. Even some insect species have very impressive social order.

No one really needs Jesus. There isn’t even a sensible purpose for Jesus. As I have said in this thread, death predates the human existence. Children don’t die from cancer today because Man is sinful or this is a fallen world. They die from cancer because that’s the world we inherited.

I have also told you that I have been to the Holy Land, and people there aren’t even sure where Jesus was crucified. The Old Town is also divided up amongst Abrahamic believers and the Temple Mount is controlled by Muslims and contains a mosque. Hard to believe the Christian version of God would allow an Islamic shrine - the Dome of the Rock - to sit directly over the Foundation Stone. That’s where some people believe the world was created, the binding of Isaac occurred, and where the Ark of the Covenant was kept at one time. It seems God either doesn’t exist or doesn’t get nearly as pissed off about things as He used to. I suspect the former.

To say there’s some contending ideas about Jesus in the land where he supposedly lived is an understatement. But all of you living thousands of miles away on a different continent couldn’t be more certain.

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You are such an ignorant Alexandrian gnostic liar.

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Except the evidence shows I am telling the truth.

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God, having sent His Son in likeness of sin of flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh, Romans 8:3

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But he doesn’t say he sent his son to Earth. But he did have a body of flesh, which in the apocryphal “Ascension of Isaiah” gospel, Jesus is killed by the archons of this aeon precisely because he is in a body of flesh where it shouldn’t exist in heaven. That was Paul’s gospel.

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God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. Galatians 4:4-5

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This is a very good translation. Made. Manufactured. It’s the same word in Greek used in the LXX for when God made Adam out of dust.

There was a common Hellenistic Jewish idiom “born of a woman”. Paul doesn’t use that term. He says “made of woman”. He uses the common Greek term for “born” many times throughout his epistles but doesn’t ever say Jesus was “born”.

“Made” during the time the law was effective. Paul no longer believed the law to be effective after Jesus’ resurrection.

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And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world. 1 John 4:1-3

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Very good to bring that up. “John” was writing to other Christians who did not believe Jesus had ever come to earth. Great evidence that there were Christians who like Paul didn’t believe the later gospel stories of Jesus walking on earth.

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Hard to believe the Christian version of God would allow an Islamic shrine - the Dome of the Rock - to sit directly over the Foundation Stone. That’s where some people believe the world was created, the binding of Isaac occurred, and where the Ark of the Covenant was kept at one time. It seems God either doesn’t exist or doesn’t get nearly as pissed off about things as He used to. I suspect the former.

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The apologist excuse would be that God has allowed it due to the people turning away from God or rejecting God. The same excuse was used for the Assyrians conquering Israel and for Babylon conquering Judah and for the Philistines and residents of Ai and the Amorites and such winning battles against Israel and Judah before that.

Anything good that happens is due to God making it good.

Anything bad that happens is God allowing it due to our sin or for turning away from god (perhaps to worship other gods).

Anything that you find hard to believe- I promise you they have an excuse for it.