I would say that Paul took considerable risks as the major leader who advocated for inclusion of Gentiles in the New Covenant and resisting requirements of Old Covenant law such as requiring circumcision of converts (since all the apostles and leaders of the early church(s) were Jewish and circumcised). This was a bit of an issue even before the time of Jesus. Circumcision and uncircumcision were both fiercely debated over the centuries.

Needlessly.

What was circumcision for? It was a mark given to Abraham and his lineal male descendants that identified them as such, and heirs to Canaan. After Sinai, it expanded to include the lineal descendants of those at Sinai, which included vastly more people than JUST the lineal descendats of Abraham.

And what did it MEAN? It means that, if they did that, and followed the rest of the law, they had the birthright to a farm in Israel, in this life, and that God would protect that Israel from all enemies.

That's all it ever meant. For Gentiles, it's nothing - a meaningless (and painful) tatoo. It has no religious significance, other than as a form of idolatry if Gentiles THINK it has a significance beyond what is just described.

Jews, of course, in their fantasizing and speculating about the importance of their laws and customs, gave it all sorts of additional meanings. Jesus said nothing about it at all, and therefore it is of absolutely no importance in the world now. Especially given that there is no divine protection of Israel now, as the covenant is not being kept by mankind.

People want magic. It's not on offer. Cutting off the end of one's dick is at best a primitive tribal sign. At worst, it's idolatry. And it's always painful and potentially crippling.

Nobody should be circumcising himself anymore.

This is tedious, but I will try to explain. It is not needed to remember the whole line over many centuries. It is enough to keep it continuous in the community.

So you would believe the claim that, for instance, the Japanese royal family is an unbroken lineage for 6,000 years?

I don't. I'll believe it only if they submit to extensive DNA testing and can compare to the DNA of known dead ancestors of their line. Even then, I'd have a lot of doubts. You can be certain they'll never submit to such testing. Nor will Britain's royal family or any of the other surviving members of defunct royal families.

I doubt very much if all of these people are who they say they are. I also think there are a lot of unacknowledged and unknown members of royal blood lines which came from promiscuous sex by various princes and kings. Certainly they had heirs which they sometimes decided to legitimize as an heir. Therefore, one can assume that there were probably a much greater number of heirs that they decided not to acknowledge.

Who knows, maybe you're related to Charlemagne or something.

You go almost to the point of the secular scholars who claim that Christianity's distinct doctrines are entirely due to Paul, not to Jesus or the other disciples. I don't agree. But the Bible was created by Roman bishops and certified by the popes over the centuries. If you have an argument with the infallibility of scripture, you have a much bigger problem with Rome than with me. I'm still not confident that Catholic theologians would agree with you.

Of course they wouldn't! They're still insisting on priestly celibacy (Jesus chose a married man as the first pope), on the necessity of confession for the forgiveness of sin by God (Jesus said to be forgiven you have to forgive others, and he didn't add anything else), on the all-male clergy (JEsus chose St. Photini, the woman at the well, to carry out the first mass conversion of any village in the Scripture, through her teaching them about him).

The Church would defend the murder of millions by saying that these were mere "disciplinary matters" - when abstaining from killing was the first general commandment given after the flood, and killing is one of the sins on both of Jesus' lists of sins that will get one thrown into the lake of fire at final judgment if not forgiven.

The Church burnt a SAINT alive after a Church trial - St. Joan of Arc.

The Church accumulated the wealth to build the towering Vatican by selling indulgences and other corrupt practices.

Of course the Church would disagree with me. They want to cling to THEIR doctrines, which didn't come from Jesus. And as they do, they dwindle. But it's the diddling of boys and the interference into the marital bedroom that really is killing the Church.

Know what Jesus said about married couples using contraception? Nothing.

Therefore, the Church should shut up and stop killing Christianity by asserting things it has neither the authority to assert, nor the right to. The damage these derogations from Jesus have done is massive, and ongoing.

And Mary? Well, God DID send her as emmissary, after the Bible, so noting what she had to say is worthwhile. But essentially she exhorted the worship of her son. So the whole Marian business is a tempest in a teapot.

Prayers to Mary, to the Saints? Etc.? It's not wrong. Neither are prayers to Jesus or the Holy Spirit. But JESUS taught us to pray to the father. So how about shutting all of our shit traps and just doing it exactly like he said, hmmmm? Or do we really think we know better. (Well, we don't.)

Isaac was not Abraham's only begotten son.

The only one that was important. The only one borne by Sarah, named as Abraham's (true) wife.

And after Sarah died, Abraham took another wife, and begat six more sons by her: Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak and Shuah.

They're losers. Nobody talks about them.

The Christian tradition that puts Abraham and Jesus in parallel is simply bunk.

It's one of the few such comparisons that I entertain. It's not as though the Bible is so full of stories about a father sacrificing his own son in a ritual manner that you can't keep track of them all. I always thought part of the purpose in the Binding of Isaac was to prepare Jews to accept as holy the final true sacrifice: Jesus.

Ben Shapiro might say yes but I think a lot of modern Jews would not enjoy the question or answer it. Who wants to wind the clock back 1951 years and restart a religion of animal sacrifice? I sure don't want to sacrifice a chicken or goat or lamb in a church. Being a Baptist type, I say we slaughter the animals elsewhere, then bring the carcasses to the church to cook up for a nice potluck supper for the retirees and children. A choice of vegetable, a few fruit-and-jello salads, and a nice mint-and-nut cup on the side with big piles of sweets to finish. But no slaughtering on church property, please.

Already happening:

It's interesting you mentioned Ben Shapiro and how he diplomatically handles Christians. You will like this one. Whether he realized it or not, JM preaches the Gospel to Ben via Isaiah 53 and in his usual manner does so lovingly:

if Jesus hadn't been crucified and had just died of old age or disease and therefore was not the savior of mankind

Your "Therefore" is wrong. Jesus' death didn't make him the savior of mankind.

It was the fact that he was the Son of God and taught man what man had to do to be forgiven his sins and be acceptable to God - THAT is why Jesus was the savior of mankind, not because arrogant bastards killed him.

Had Jesus lived, and been acclaimed the Messiah, he would have been no more, nor less, the Savior of mankind. He saved us from our sins not by dying (that expiated the sins of Israel...which hardly matters because Israel was destroyed 36 years later BECAUSE it killed him), but by teaching us what we have to DO to be acceptable to God.

It's not about magic blood or superstition, it's about listening to Jesus and doing what he said to do.

"What good does it do you to say you follow me if you do not keep my commandments?" - Jesus.

So you would believe the claim that, for instance, the Japanese royal family is an unbroken lineage for 6,000 years?

No, Japan came into being much later. But Jews DID EXIST for more than 3000 years.

You tend to reason by ad hoc analogies a little too much.

Around here, they're a lot more likely to want to get tattooed than baptized. It's a little surprising to see how fast it has changed over the last decade or so. But then, they're dumbasses so that's just how it is.

I have noticed there are churches which people tend to go to just because or they have to go, and there are churches where people go to be with other people because they want to be there with other people who want to be there.

You can gauge it really on what ministries the church is truly involved in. If the church is empty most of the week except Wednesday and Sunday, then you have to ask how involved the lay people are in their church.

I really do think you are robbing Jesus of his role as savior to a certain extent with this line of argument.

I am actually doing what Jesus sAID TO DO: LISTEN to HIM, Follow HIM (just him), do the deeds he said to do.

I see all of the Churches dying, and I can tell you why. Because they are insisting on taking a camel laden with all of the crap they have piled on top of Jesus over the centuries - to the point that what Jesus SAID TO DO is almost COMPLETELY DISREGARDED.

Consider. In Revelations - written AFTER Paul, James, John, Peter, Jude, etc. have had their say, Jesus takes the last word. And he says, over and over again, to the Churches, that he judges men by their DEEDS.

Jesus said: I will judge you by what you DO. Which fits hand in glove with what he said before he died: "What good does it do you to say you follow me if you don't keep my commandments."

So, is doing deeds WORKS? Well, if it IS, then Jesus has said explicitly that everybody is going to be judged on their works.

And if not - if works means specific things under the Jewish law done to get blessings - then in any event Jesus said repeatedly you're judged on what you DO - your deeds - not your thoughts, not your beliefs.

Why, then, do Christians argue about this? Because they are arrogant and full of shit, that is why.

Christians should SHUT UP and accept that Jesus told them directly they are judged by what they DO. There SHOULD BE no argument about that.

The fact that there IS shows you how much crap has been piled on that camel.

And why the Church is divided - to the point of having murdered, among ourselves, on the order of tens of millions of Christians in civil wars. And believing that doctrinal purity is more important than human life.

Well it is, and the only PURE doctrine is Jesus alone. Anything that departs from what he said, to the left or to the right, is wrong. And stubbornness in that wrong, out of tradition - well, that's the Pharisees.

Catholics do it. Protestants do. The Orthodox have made a whole religion out of it. It's all foul.

Jesus is the bright morning star, the thing to orient on. Why is that so hard?

I'll answer that. Because Jesus calls for some very hard things that men don't want to do. That's why. So they find easier doctrines, and elevate those above Jesus, and justify them - and murder each other.

I don't count Ishmael as a son of Israel even though he was a son of Abraham. Abraham should have been wiser than to sleep with the hired help. Nothing holy about it.

God's promise was to be a child sired by Abraham from Sarah.

His desire to be glorified by men with all their hearts. So please don't suggest that Jesus was only supposed to save Jews in ancient Israel and it's all Paul's fault that us nasty rebellious Prots split off from the corrupt popes

I haven't said anything like that. I am uninterested in the ancient squabbles over false doctrines of dying churches.

What Jesus said is true. Jesus alone. Anything that deviates from that, is false. Stubbornness in the false is idolatry.

The Church is dying everywhere because of idolatry and OBVIOUS hypocrisy, and the young won't play along anymore, nor will a lot of married people, nor will anybody hurt by the charlatans. The jig us up.

Each Church must reform or die. It seems that the Churches are choosing to die. So be it. We still have Jesus, and we know what he said, and that is good enough. It would be easier if we had a community, but wherever there is community, there is the lust for power and command, and people are past that shit. They don't need it. And they won't tolerate it anymore - or pay for it.

It is a little too clever perhaps. Still, it is a great story. It has been my favorite indulgence joke for many years. Warms the heart of any smug Prot.

Yes it's legend indeed. Luther waxed poetic after a few pints and this just may be part of his "table talk."

Paul, James and John each contradict Jesus in some important way. They are not equal to Jesus, and writings are inferior in authority to Gospel. Jesus was the one to whom God said to listen, and God made sure that we have his words, in quadruplicate in many cases. So, I don't dwell on commas, etc. in Romans, because Paul is not authority. He is persuasion and inspiration and history. Jesus alone is authoritative law. Paul conflicts with Jesus on matters in Romans, in particular. Therefore, I completely disregard Paul on matters where what he says disagrees with Jesus, and don't trouble myself further with that. I do not commit the sin of idolatry, pretending that when men have designated as "The Bible" make the Bible a God-maker that elevates mere followers to the status of God's Son, and changing what God said from "Listen to HIM" to "Listen to THEM, and let their words nullify what HE said." No. That's obviously wrong. To me anyway. Gotta take everything off the camel. What Jesus says is always exactly right. What challenges it or queers it is wrong and to be ignored, just like some of the things that appear in the writings that contradict what is in the Torah.

You disagree with the Roman Catholic teachings of apostolic authority? That the apostles wrote by inspiration from the Holy Spirit?

I also think there are a lot of unacknowledged and unknown members of royal blood lines which came from promiscuous sex by various princes and kings.

My Dutch family line in America is an example of that!

You disagree with the Roman Catholic teachings of apostolic authority? That the apostles wrote by inspiration from the Holy Spirit?

No.

Where I disagree is with the notion that "inspired by God" (or the Holy Spirit) means "perfect and without error".

Inspiration and perfection are two very different things.

The paintings on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel were obviously inspired by God. That doesn't mean that God looks like that.

The only one that was important.

Ishmael was so important that God made a covenant with Hagar, his mother, respecting him, promising he would be the father of many great kingdoms, and also promising that his descendants and Isaacs would forever be in each other's faces, annoying each other.

God's promise was to be a child sired by Abraham from Sarah.

God also made a covenant with Hagar regarding Ishmael, and kept it.

Muslims count themselves as sons of Abraham, descended from their father Ismail (Ishmael), and the Lord knows they are camped among the tents of Isaac, and they're up against each other all of the time, everywhere, exactly as God promised.

Your "Therefore" is wrong. Jesus' death didn't make him the savior of mankind.

Try telling that to your parish priest when he administers the Eucharist. Your entire Mass is focused on the Eucharist and 'bloodless' re-enactment of the Sacrifice of Christ.

Jesus did say:

Luke 22: NASB

14When the hour had come, He reclined at the table, and the apostles with Him. 15And He said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer; 16for I say to you, I shall never again eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” 17And when He had taken a cup and given thanks, He said, “Take this and share it among yourselves; 18for I say to you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine from now on until the kingdom of God comes.” 19And when He had taken some bread and given thanks, He broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” 20And in the same way He took the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood.

I am actually doing what Jesus sAID TO DO: LISTEN to HIM, Follow HIM (just him), do the deeds he said to do.

From that time Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised up on the third day. (Matthew 16:21)

Luke 24: NASB

44Now He said to them, “These are My words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about Me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” 45Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, 46and He said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day, 47and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. 48“You are witnesses of these things. 49“And behold, I am sending forth the promise of My Father upon you; but you are to stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”

Jesus did say:

Luke 22: NASB

14When the hour had come, He reclined at the table, and the apostles with Him. 15And He said to them, “I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer; 16for I say to you, I shall never again eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” 17And when He had taken a cup and given thanks, He said, “Take this and share it among yourselves; 18for I say to you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine from now on until the kingdom of God comes.” 19And when He had taken some bread and given thanks, He broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” 20And in the same way He took the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood.

Yes, Jesus did say that. And there it is, the cup - drink it, it's the new covenant. He did indeed shed his blood for everyone. He didn't retreat, run away. He died bloody, and very publicly - and then rose from the grave two days later. THAT was the event that made him stupendous: the conquest of death.

His covenant was about the afterlife - by dying bloody it was clear to all: he was REALLY DEAD. By rising from the dead he did the apparently impossible, and demonstrated he was master even of death. Only then did his cult explode upon the world. The Resurrection is the key, the visible symbol: death is not the end. For him to resurrect, he had to die.

Yes, the Law had to be fulfilled, and it was. But the Law itself was not, and is not, for Gentiles. It is for Israel.

He saved us from our sins not by dying ...

In Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, he asserts, “Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures”. (1 Cor. 15:3).

(2) was 'It' the end of the old covenant. No, Jesus said that the Law (the Old Covenant) could not be changed until the end of the world, and that he was not there to destroy it but to fulfill it. He kept the Law. The Covenant remained, and remains, for the Tribe of Hebrews residing in Israel and keeping all of the law. But 36 years after Jesus' death, God made it impossible for the Jews to keep the law, by removing the priesthood from the world.

Well, an independent reader might say that both you and I are offering arguments that are too clever by half. What good will the Law do for Jews in or outside of Israel if the primary requirement of animal sacrifice at the Temple is no longer possible? You're not saying anything much different than what I posted: the Law exists but is obsolete.

And animal sacrifice did not forgive the man's individual sins before God for the afterlife - only forgiveness of other people can do that, per Jesus (and since Jesus was not CHANGING the law, it is clear that the animal sacrifice was for atoning for the community, so IT would not be smitten by God for the individual sins of people.

Then why do the churches say outright that the only path to forgiveness is to forgive? It is a noble ideal but I do think people can go to heaven without forgiving everyone who has harmed them. Has anyone ever done anything to you and you don't know who did it? How do you forgive them unless you know who they are, why they did what they did, and confess or compensate? How about if you discover evidence on an X-ray that something pretty bad happened to you in your early childhood but you don't know exactly what it was? What if someone harmed you very badly but you can't remember it at all (PTSD incidents). Can you forgive something you can't directly remember? How do you "forgive" unknown transgressors? Or sins committed against you that you can't recall directly even if there is physical evidence of the sin that was committed?

I reject this idea completely. God's purpose with Israel and then with Christians was not to turn us all into passive doormats for aggressors. Simple forgiveness works well for simple sins but the world isn't always that simple. And sometimes there is no target for forgiveness. You can't forgive "someone" who did "something" in vague or general terms. Such forgiveness would be a mockery of real forgiveness. You may as well learn to recite "I forgive everyone for everything for my entire life" over and over. The Catholics could replace their Hail Mary's and Our Father's with this new saying. The Lord's Prayer? Too long and complicated, just replace it with "Iforgiveyou". You could use it like the word aloha, to mean "Hello, I forgive you" and "Goodbye, I forgive you". Then you could dump all this other unnecessary religious crap and replace with an endless refrain of Iforgiveyou's. They could rework that tired old rosary thing too, issue a new design and realize a surefire profit bonanza.

No. Just no. In fact, hell no.

Certainly, we should forgive others as much as possible but forgiving each other is not the centrality of Christianity teaching nor is it clear that that alone is the single most important criteria God will use in judging us and deciding whether we belong in heaven or hell.

You seem to be changing this famous proverb that is part of the Lord's Prayer and it would then be reworded as:

"Forgive us our sins but only after we forgive those who trespass against us. Also, we have to forgive others even if they aren't apologizing and make no effort at restitution or contrition."

So if you don't forgive the Charlie Starkweather who murdered your parents so he could rape your 14yo sister on an interstate killing spree, then your lack of forgiveness will result in you sharing a flame pit in hell with Charlie Starkweather? How about forgiving a kid who broke your finger scuffling over a soccer ball on the playground back in elementary school, a kid whose name you can't recall (unless you looked it up)? If you fail to forgive that kid, will God refuse to forgive your sins and throw you into hell while perhaps allowing that kid who broke your finger into heaven?

Is it really the case that your forgiveness of others is the most important element in salvation? Why is that foremost, even over confessing your sins toward others to them and making restitution?

1 John 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Paul and the other Jews who tried to make the Torah have a meaning in the New Covenant thought the old wine was mellower, and tried. And they burst the wineskins in the process.

I still think your central argument goes too far. You're overreaching to try to win your point IMO.

BECAUSE he was truly the spotless lamb - innocent - but CONVICTED under the Law of blasphemy against God BY the very prophetic source of judgment - the High Priest - it was the final, magnificent failure of the logic of the Temple and its predecessors.

You realize this is getting over the line a bit. I would not say that to Jews because I know what they would say in return. The Catholic church has apologized to the Jews for its replacement theology and for all the blame it placed on all Jews for the actions of some conniving priests and a rowdy crowd of Jews when Pilate asked their choice for execution. I don't condemn such discussion but I think there are certain historical aspects we should try to respect. Jews suffered a lot from the Catholic church and over many centuries.

As for whether the Aaronic priesthood really was entirely wiped out, well, in the midst of the ruins of Jerusalem, travelers to the site noted that there were a few inhabitants there. Either they played dead and survived or were elsewhere when Jerusalem fell. Or maybe they stabbed a Roman soldier and dragged his body in a dark alley and put on his uniform. It was not utterly impossible that there were survivors and they could be proper priests.

God's promise was to be a child sired by Abraham from Sarah.

Are you sure? Maybe the Old Testament is actually the story of Islam.

Already happening:

Doesn't surprise me a bit. That's nowhere close to a proper sacrifice.

If these were ancient times and non-priests were offering sacrifices in public as proper ritual, they would be slain by the priests and their soldiers.

Blasphemers.

Had Jesus lived, and been acclaimed the Messiah, he would have been no more, nor less, the Savior of mankind. He saved us from our sins not by dying (that expiated the sins of Israel...which hardly matters because Israel was destroyed 36 years later BECAUSE it killed him), but by teaching us what we have to DO to be acceptable to God.

I didn't realize you strayed so far afield from Catholic doctrine.

Are you sure you're Catholic?

No, Japan came into being much later. But Jews DID EXIST for more than 3000 years.

The 6,000 years is the official figure. About 3000-4000 years ago is when the Japs first started creating records and this alleged dynasty was already in the royal mix at that point.

What, you only believe Semites, not those wily Asians?

You realize this is getting over the line a bit.

What "line"?

Are you sure you're Catholic?

Until the Church says otherwise.

No. Just no. In fact, hell no.

Yep.

Well, this subject is exhausted. Time to move on.

I have noticed there are churches which people tend to go to just because or they have to go, and there are churches where people go to be with other people because they want to be there with other people who want to be there.

I've begun to think some churches are attended by those who only enjoy judging others or being unkind for no good reason.

That last church I was in made me very cynical. You could not get those people to pay any attention to scripture, they spread false gossip constantly to tear down the most valuable members (not me certainly), they ran out the primary donor to the church when he was dying of leukemia on the say-so of vicious gossip about him (which I personally knew he was innocent of because the gossip was about him meddling in another church which I was attending at the time he was allegedly making trouble there). When they kicked this dying man out (and his very sweet wife who was in grief over it as she faced losing her husband), they did just keep all the money he had donated, probably almost half the on-hand funds, like $10K-$12K. Oh, and BTW, the woman who was the false accuser? She had managed to get them to admit her husband as a full member of the church when he was unbaptized. In a Baptist church. Does this illustrate what a bunch of complete dumbasses they were? They didn't exactly enjoy it when I kept asking like, "What part of Baptist do you not get?" or "What part of 'Believe and be baptized' is so complicated?" These people had been raised in that church, heard decades of Baptist preaching, and still didn't grasp the most fundamental facts. They stared at you like dumb cows if you said these things. I think most of them couldn't recite or even recognize a single bible verse. My sarcasm was unrelenting until they terminated his membership. The same woman also had made the church dining hall her own distribution center for tapes by that crackpot at Shepherd's Chapel on satellite. They didn't tell me this but I think they had to consult the Baptist General Conference to make sure that people were supposed to be baptized to belong to a Baptist church.

I think the only reason I lasted there as long as I did was because I just couldn't grasp how they could possibly be that stupid. And I have considered in the years since that they really just weren't interested in Christianity at all. And I wasn't going to quit once I realized they were plotting against a sick man, the finest member that church had had in many years. When I knew they were trying to expel a dying man, I was not going to abandon him. Oh, not to mention they had a family of charismatics that sat behind me, mumbling in tongues. Well, there are churches for charismatics but Baptist churches are not one of those churches. The charismatic family used to attend a charismatic church an equal distance from their home but decided they wanted to be charismatic at a Baptist church instead. I don't think they were troublemakers at the other church and they were actually very nice people. They were not members (yet) but did attend regularly. But they left Kenneth Copeland literature around and kept talking about how excited they were to attend his next conference, like they were eager to get Baptists to go to these charismatic conferences. I kept taking those brochures home and kept forgetting to put them back in the church so somehow those Copeland brochures didn't last long. I think they were evangelizing, maybe even trying for a takeover attempt, to convert a Baptist church to charismatic. That happened around that time to about a half-dozen small Baptist churches down in Texas and I had read of other attempts in other states. All the charismatics have to do is conceal their affiliation and get half the voting membership of a Baptist church to agree and they can do anything they want, including changing denominations entirely. The result is charismatics who get a free Baptist church and its treasury and can do anything they like.

I really should have spraypainted Ichabod over the front door as a safety warning to the general public.

As for why I never told the story before, despite people inquiring here, was because I was embarrassed to have ever been in such a church of dumbasses and heretics who seemed to attend mostly to backstab and gossip.

I'm not saying they should go to hell. But I think that's their destination. They are cows, plodding along the wide path to destruction, chewing their cud placidly.

I quit going the week they kicked him out. I didn't badmouth them around town or spread the accurate story around town because I thought they'd come to their senses. I stopped going to church after that and haven't gone again other than a few clan funerals held at other local churches. I'm more than a little tired of the local Christians. I am avoiding that kind of religion. I never told this before here or at LP and always dodged the question when someone inquired (like watchman who asked me the other day) but I'm tired of hiding their cruelty to him just because someday someone might read this and figure out what church and what people I'm talking about. And, no, I have not forgiven them either. They would first have to confess their cruel sins toward Mel as he was fighting his losing battle with leukemia and make public contrition with his wife, a widow whose heart they broke. And they should return the sizable funds he donated to keep that church open. But Mel did forgive them. Sweet sweet man, a better man than me.

What "line"?

The line against replacement theology. "The Jews killed our savior! HEP! HEP! HEP!"

Rome has officially apologized for the doctrine and the results of preaching it over the centuries, I think it was B16 who did it. He was the best bishop of Rome theologically in a long long time. I know JP2 is the fave but he got pretty senile in office and got worse and worse. JP2's great moment was his role in challenging the Soviets and, in his supporting role to Thatcher and Reagan, bringing down the Soviet Union. No one ever talks about it for some reason. It was a great victory. And so many people seem to never have even noticed it.

Are you sure you're Catholic?

I think you're saying things here that you wouldn't say in front of other Catholics. I think you're telling us doctrinal ideas that the Catholic church does not teach.

What, you only believe Semites, not those wily Asians?

I addressed these fake 6000 years. Please do not distort what I said. Jews are Asians BTW. Arabia is in Asia too.

About 3000-4000 years ago is when the Japs first started creating records

Japanese culture has a little more than 2000 years. Ancestors of Japanese started to arrive about 3000 years ago.

Well, this subject is exhausted. Time to move on.

I think the key difference between us on forgiveness is that I only forgive those who ask for forgiveness. It's only happened a few times in my life. It's quite rare actually, at least in the modern era.

You insist that we must forgive everyone, contrite or not, whether they ask for forgiveness or not.

I'll point out that God does not forgive the sins of anyone unless they have asked for forgiveness. Scripture is uniformly insistent that we ask for forgiveness in order to receive it. But then He guarantees in every passage from every voice in the canon that He will always forgive if asked to forgive. [Except that blaspheming the Holy Spirit. For that sin, there is no forgiveness. Some do argue that only the demon-possessed will blaspheme the Holy Spirit.]

Surprising you could study scripture so long and in such detail and never notice this key feature of Christian teaching on forgiveness.

Christians aren't supposed to be doormats to all aggressors. But they have to forgive their trespassers' sins against them if asked just as God has to forgive their trespasses against Him. And God does not forgive your sins if you do not ask forgiveness. And God does not forgive your sins if you have not forgiven others who have sought forgiveness from you. This is the by-which-ye-measure-ye-shall-be-measured stuff on which we do agree.

You realize that your doctrine requires a Christian to be more forgiving toward others than God Himself is to children of God? Are we really required to be more forgiving toward others than God is toward us, the flock of Christ?

Well, maybe when we get to Heaven, we can give some pointers to God on how He needs to be more like us and just forgive every sin even if the sinners don't ask for forgiveness or have any remorse. Then God can be learn to be as forgiving as we are.

You are not reflecting the Catholic teaching on forgiveness. You've exceeded it considerably IMO. I've simply never heard a Catholic say such things. I've been trying to be more agreeable nowadays but I just don't agree that unsolicited forgiveness is the very heart and soul of Christian praxis and the measure by which God will judge His children to determine their eternal fate.

Japanese culture has a little more than 2000 years. Ancestors of Japanese started to arrive about 3000 years ago.

I don't think it's worth arguing. There are various claims over arrivals and when the present dynastic line was first established, at some point prior to the first written records. I readily admit that there are at least a few thousand years that are legendary, at or below the standard of Oral History before the Old Testament books were committed to writing.

Much of the Old Testament comes to us from Oral History. Setting aside for a moment our natural religious bias in favor of Jewish scripture, is the factual basis for the the Japanese claim to ancient dynastic continuity any less reliable than the Jewish claims to the accuracy of OT books that derived from Oral History? Why do we favor Jewish oral history over Japanese oral history if we are discussing the evidence for or against the claims and merits of either.

Of course, we are getting into matters of when a language becomes established and develops, as Proto-Hebrew spread and developed toward more modern forms of Hebrew. And when the language was established and when it came into common use and which versions of the OT books were authorized translations and the timing of these things over the centuries before the birth of Jesus. But I don't want to debate whether the LXX is better than Masoretic text tradition, whether the LXX was authorized for production, the unknown writers of it, etc.

And you are, like GI, posting at FR.

I haven’t posted on FR since 2005.... and then I only posted for a few months. Went several years before I developed an interest in posting again. 2008, was when I started to post on LP. 2012, election night, paranoid schizophrenic Goldi, banned me for no particular post or reason. Because Goldi was strange as fuck, and none in her family would have anything to do with her, she kicked the bucket and not a soul knew, until the heat of Florida caused her to melt into her hardwood floor. I bet that smelled awesome.

Anyhow, since she banned me, I would occasionally check in... when I noticed the bitch had died, and her kook forum was gonna shit the bed, I decided to post here, knowing Stone was a little more sane than Goldi-schitzoid.

Well, you know the rest of the story... now I mostly lurk here. Try and wait out the impeding doom of all the cop hating, drug loving kooks.

Hope I could straighten up some of that fake news you were posting.

Well, the fellow who is staying with me right now is a Catholic, nephew of an archbishop, in fact. We discuss these things nearly nightly. He and I both note the deep decline of the Church, all of its struggles, and discuss why that is. He has his ideas, I have mine. He thinks that some of what I think is "on the fringes of the Church". No doubt.

Saturday morning in the men's group at Church we discuss all sorts of things. I focus on what I consider to be most important things, and they focus on other things. They all appreciate my scholarship and singular focus. They don't necessarily agree with me. The priest likes the vigorous discussion.

Catholics think a lot of different things. None of my critiques has gotten me asked to stop taking communion.

I've been trying to be more agreeable nowadays but I just don't agree that unsolicited forgiveness is the very heart and soul of Christian praxis and the measure by which God will judge His children to determine their eternal fate.

You've exaggerated what I said.

Do you believe that belief that Jesus was God and that his death forgave all of the sins of anybody who believes that is very heart of Christian praxis and the measure by which God will judge his children to determine their eternal fate?

ETERNAL fate? Nah, just their fate to a very distant time - "for eons".

And God does not forgive your sins if you do not ask forgiveness.

And we are not God.

But as I said above, we have exhausted this line of discussion, I believe.

What you said about the reason you no longer attend church is interesting, and emblematic of why the churches are dying out everywhere. People have not abandoned faith in God, but many are abandoning church attendance. Your story is an example of why.

We don't know what God would have said to Abraham had he not made the decision to become a Molechite because God tested him by asking him too. We don't know if Abraham PASSED the test, only his choice and what God gave him.

I only recall that Abraham's father had an idol shop but Abraham left and built a shrine to Jehovah and entered the Old Covenant with God.

He did do some idol-smashing a bit later, not that interesting or exceptional really. God was making clear His requirement that the Chosen People would not tolerate graven images. But then, of course He did. Idols were everywhere but they were forbidden by the first of the Ten Commandments. Being the first of the Ten Commandments is comparable to the importance of the First Amendment to all the others which followed in the original Bill of Rights.

If he ever asked me to sacrifice my daughter to him, I would tell him no, that would be wrong. If he wants her, he can take her himself. I'm certainly not going to do it."

Well, if He didn't ask Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, I don't think you should worry about this hypothetical, however dramatic. You aren't Abraham. You aren't as beloved to God as the first Jew but you are luckier than Abraham in many ways.

This is kind of eisegesis, a way of injecting ourselves into historical events in scripture. "I'd never do that, I'm smarter than Saint So-And-So!"

BTW, I thought I'd tell you that I have decided to forgive you for disagreeing with me. I know you didn't ask but I guess I need to forgive you anyway or I'll end up in hell.

What you said about the reason you no longer attend church is interesting, and emblematic of why the churches are dying out everywhere.

I think it was exceptionally bad really. Like a horror movie. You should understand that this was a far more sound church when I was young. And when people were dying of cancer, they didn't get persecuted based on malicious gossip from a newcomer who was distributing Shepherd's Chapel materials in a Baptist church. It would never have been tolerated there when I was young.

I really doubt the other local churches are close to as bad but I am very wary now. I keep feeling asking who I feel could be considered brethren in the biblical sense. We are commanded not to forsake the assembly of the brethren since we are expected to support one another and thoughtfully help each other aspire to higher things. But if I don't agree with any local churches on theology and the churches I should find acceptable in theology and conduct simply can't seem to assemble for an hour a week for quiet and edifying worship without finding something to squabble about, then I don't have any local brethren. I did enjoy attending church other than some of the weak substitute preachers they had sometimes, like the one that actually riled me over Isaiah 14 and the lone useage of the term Lucifer in that passage.

“How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!”

As you would expect, the guest preacher proceeded to inform the congregation that Lucifer was another name for Satan and, well, yada-yada-yada. I think it has been about 300 years since Rome repudiated this specific reading. Apparently news travels slow.

Of course, the passage if read by any literate person understands that Lucifer is a term used to mock the hated king of Babylon, the sole superpower of the ancient world, the destroyer of Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem and the conqueror who carried Israel's people away to captivity in Babylon. And the prophesy against the fate of the mighty kings of Babylon is dire. And it has nothing to do with Satan.

I honestly don't think anyone else in that church (other than 1 guy) even knew that Lucifer=Satan is a minority view, to say the least. Literate people seem to realize Lucifer=Nebuchadnezzar pretty easily.

grave two days later.

3 spinner.

ETERNAL fate? Nah,

Taking away from scripture in true fake christian catholic fashion.

knowing Stone was a little more sane

Just a tiny little bit. :)

He saved us from our sins not by dying ... In Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, he asserts, “Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures”. (1 Cor. 15:3).

You are right. Vic is making stuff up. He thinks it is because he got a bump on the head.

You don’t need to forgive me for disagreeing with you. My disagreement with you is not an affront to you. If anything, it is an affront to God, if God agrees with the doctrines if the church that you espouse. Of course, if he doesn’t, then there’s no affront to anyone. We disagree, profoundly, on a great many things. We always have, and we always will, I expect. I forgive you, for disagreeing to the point of being disagreeable and taking the argument “to the man”, at times, which is something I don’t do. I severely criticize, even attack and insult, belief systems, be they political or religious, on very specific grounds, and I discuss the motivations of groups of people. What I don’t do, unless provoked to extreme anger BY ad hominem, is take the argument “to the man”. And the two times that I have done that on this site over the years, in both cases, I admitted that I had left the fold of Christian behavior and apologized to the man. (The second time I was not forgiven, by him, but my conscience is clear on the matter, because in neither case did “the man” admit that he had started down that path of personal attack. That seems to be a Christian debate strategy, I have noticed. Catholics and Protestants both, when I press hard on the sins of the church and the places where the church(es) frankly depart from Jesus - quoting Jesus for good measure - get mad at ME, and adopt the strategy that WAS successful for 1500 years: attack the man and obliterate him as an individual, by calling him a heretic and using the armed power of the state to silence him. This left a butcher’s bill for the Christian Churches that, today, is poison at the very root - they can not deny it, and they will not denounce themselves, as churches, for having been violent mass murderers, over the years. They seek to minimize or trivialize the first of the deadly sins, performed over the course of history by them as organized churches, but they focus like a laser beam on my presumed sins and imperfections. Legitimate, factual criticism of historical behavior is met by vicious ad hominem - and that only because the organizations can rip out tongues and burn to silence. What am I trying to do? To point out that the churches are dying -all of them. Pew Research will tell you that. To point out the specific reasons why. And to point to a way of reform that will work. Simply giving up on God and joining the secular society is not the answer, but doubling down on bad old tradition isn’t either. How about actually being Christians - you know, paying attention to CHRIST for a change, just him. That’s not ad hominem. The replies I get when I press it as insistently as Baptists or JWs IS ad hominem, focusing on MY flaws, on MY perceived “heresy”.

I used to really fight, just as I did over politics. But I figured out something: the status quo itself is moving inexorably in my favor. We have the general military posture I favor, we’re moving towards the social welfare system I think is necessary, we’ve established a regime of broad socio-legal tolerance. God is still there, as always, but the stubborn, unrepentant historical churches that will not reform towards what Christ actually said are dying fast. So, really, I don’t have to fight at all. I just need to wait. The service I could perform is to give those who are wedded to sinking ships a different way to look at things, that will make the transition to a more Nazarene world less painful for them, to allow them to make it their own. But this is error on my part, according to them. So I’m inclined to just fly away and let their world dwindle and die around them. Two boats and a helicopter...I’m the helicopter.

Died Friday.3 PM. Still in the grave 24 hours later, 3 PM Saturday. Rose somewhere before dawn Sunday, say 4 AM, 13 hours later. Total time dead: 37 hours - a day and a half by the Greco-Roman accounting.

Died Friday before Sunset, part of one Jewish day (counted sunset to sunset). Was in the grave sunset to sunset Saturday, one Jewish day. Rose before sunrise Sunday morning. In the grave part of three Jewish days, but not “three days and nights by any accounting. One full day, one full night and most of a second, 3 hours and 10 hours, respectively, of two other days. . It is Saturday noon. By Jesus’ death count, three days and nights from now is Monday morning at 1 AM.

Monday morning 1 AM is not “three days and nights” from now in any language except the weird semantic math of Jesus’ resurrection, to try to avoid a discrepancy.

So, I don't dwell on commas, etc. in Romans, because Paul is not authority. He is persuasion and inspiration and history. Jesus alone is authoritative law. Paul conflicts with Jesus on matters in Romans, in particular. Therefore, I completely disregard Paul on matters where what he says disagrees with Jesus, and don't trouble myself further with that.

You had to be there. Sometimes someone would investigate whether the KJV or other translators had a particular purpose or subtle phrasing in a key passage. I recall a thing like that and I had posted what I intended to be a witty Wizard of Oz quote, "Surrender, Dorothy". And the cleverest poster, an academic overachiever who was an MD, started pointing out the difference a comma makes. Because "Surrender, Dorothy" is a command to Dorothy to surrender herself but "Surrender Dorothy" is a demand for others to surrender Dorothy.

Well, he certainly was right, a very bright man. He pored over text for hidden meanings rigorously. And, as you would guess, he found some doozies. But I raised some objections on going full gnostic about hidden messages in the Bible. Because that was what the gnostics did do. They prided themselves on finding a new and novel doctrine every day, at least according to the bitter complaints of the ancient church fathers about any attempt to reason with them and restrain their wild influence on others. And there are reflections in the text of the NT that indicate an early rise in non-Christians or gnostic Christians trying to enter into the churches as teachers. Certainly, those warnings against false teachers and false doctrines had a source. And, by the time the NT canon was established, they had already had to battle the influence of Marcionism, an attempt by Marcion to establish his own canon in 144AD when the Roman churches lacked any canon of their own. Marcion included the 10 sections of Luke and the Pauline epistles, making 11 books in all. Marcion dismissed the OT entirely and most of the later NT writings and Marcion was more than a little gnostic in philosophy. "Marcionites held that the God of the Hebrew Bible was inconsistent, jealous, wrathful and genocidal, and that the material world he created was defective, a place of suffering; the God who made such a world is a bungling or malicious demiurge." Well, I'm sure you recognize the familiar theme that runs through so many gnostic heresies of the early churches. It was clear that if Rome didn't authorize a canon of scripture, someone else was going to do it for them. Rome shifted into high gear and produced the canon in only 250 years.     : )

I'm trying to convey from my experience with the commas and Dorothy that people with a little time and education and a bent for what are, in essence, literary pursuits can find and invent extremely clever interpretations of even slightly ambiguous phrases. We see this in modern books about prophecy or prosperity gospel or charismatic practices. And you can see how bright people can make a mountain out of a molehill, entire doctrines unknown to the ancient churches. Why, these people are clever enough to give Jesus Himself some pointers if He'd only listen to them.

When I see people making these novel doctrinal claims or "discovering" new doctrines or that some verse that only needs to hammer home a single doctrine suddenly contains six doctrines, I think it is very clever and I admire their ingenuity. But it is too clever by half.

I do not commit the sin of idolatry, pretending that when men have designated as "The Bible" make the Bible a God-maker that elevates mere followers to the status of God's Son, and changing what God said from "Listen to HIM" to "Listen to THEM, and let their words nullify what HE said."

I do agree with this. However, the writers of the Bible have provided doctrinal guidance to isolated communities and a common knowledge and doctrinal base. That is a net plus, as long as people don't fetishize it or endow it with an authority it does not possess. Just as you said.

entire doctrines unknown to the ancient churches

In 381 AD the Church began to advocate for the torture and death of heretics.

The famous St. Augustine, in regard to that very thing, infamously opined "Error has no rights".

So, the very ancient church, before its division, even, into Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic, let alone Catholic and Protestant, decided that it had the divine right to call for the bloody death of Arian heretics.

The ancient church went off the rails very, very early. If you're killing people in the name of Christ, you've lost the bubble, and there's going to be a lot of poisonous fruit coming from that diseased tree.

Claims of the authority of "the Church" fall to mud if "the church" involved has killed people - and that's all of the old ones except the Quakers.