" not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."

Great quote Sam. There is nothing that we alone do to achieve salvation, at our best it is God working through us; at our worst it is us working against God. Not one of us is perfect, but God, in his perfecton, still finds worth in us.

Very well put, my Anglican friend. :-) And Sam, thanks for the post.

@ Fortress

"i did not say i was against freedom of religion and such, I largely support it. All i was saying if that Putin seemed to be saying it was wrong for God to rule the world, and that Christianity was somewhat evil"
Yeah that's his thing. We love him anyway:-)

Anyway I think his position was more of a "Hey! You guys are trying to take over the world!" which some Christians are, but he also went on to say something to the effect of "Look here, Jesus said to go out and conquer the heathens" which he didn't. I have to say that I really like Putin because he's one of the few actually bringing Scripture to this Scripture party. Of course his verses are carefully chosen, and his interpretations are at times dizzying in their creativity if not in any other sense.

For instance,
Putin’s idea, so far, about the insidious Christian plans to bend the world to their will at Chirst’s explicit command is found largely in these verses.
"‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me."
"Go therefore[c] and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,"
“Thy kingdom come, thy will be done; on earth as in heaven”

Coupled with the verses.
“I have not come to bring peace, but to bring the sword
For I have come to turn
“‘a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—
a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’

I see those first verses this way. “Authority” can mean power to lead or rule, or it can just mean the right to lead or rule. If, for the sake of argument, we assume Christ just meant that he had the right to lead, that makes sense on several levels. He spoke many times of his right, especially to forgive sins and he explicitly gave that right to the apostles. There was no euphemism or parable, when he gave a right it was clear. On the other hand, whenever he had the ability to take power, He rejected it. So it’s in keeping with Christ’s character that he should be speaking of his right to lead, rather than his power to rule. This casts doubt on Putin’s interpretation that Christ was giving orders to establish an earthly kingdom at that time. “Baptize” just means to sanctify or bless it’s hardly a euphemism for conquer. Also since “disciple” is almost universally understood to mean student or even follower, it doesn’t make sense for “making disciples of” to mean anything near “enslave”. With that beginning we move on. So if there is even an implied direction to conquer anyone, it’s curiously veiled in a way that makes it seem almost the opposite. One might fear that your disciples would just go out and talk to the people you meant them to conquer, which of course is pretty much what they did. Go out and preach for the first two or so hundred years. Still, they understood clearly that they had the right and ability to forgive sins. It doesn’t make sense that a capable communicator would be very direct about something of little importance in the earthly realm and then beat around the bush about his real plan to conquer the world. It seems just a little bit suspect to me, anyway.

The Lord’s Prayer does include the lines, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done/ on earth as in heaven”. This as a command to conquer is a stretch at best. Sure, as you said Fortress, God ruling isn’t a bad thing. So the desire is there for God to come and set things right. What this leaves out is pretty much the entire Book or Revelation, in which it is patently obvious that establishing God’s kingdom on earth is not going to be the work of humans. There will be terrible tribulations that everyone will have to endure before that happens. We are expected to get the word out to as many as possible, not to conquer the world in the vain attempt to stop it from happening. It’s not in the prophecy for end times that we are going to conquer the whole world. Christ will establish his kingdom when he decides. So, once again, it leaves us short of the explicit command to conquer. We’re supposed to go out and talk to people. The words “Let me tell you about my Lord and savior Jesus Christ”, should be enough to convince most people that that is how many of us interpret that idea :-)

that's when I slam the door, actually.

The only way CA gets out of this is changing basic definitions of words. Authority does not mean 'right to rule'. And there is no notion of 'rights' anywhere in the Bible. The Bible is thoroughly anti-democratic, Monotheism in general is anti-democratic. The notion of laws of any kind being based on the authority of a multitude is on par with atheism and cultural subjectivism. The Bible clearly identifies only one form of government as legitimate - kingship.

The idea that Jesus would only be claiming his 'right' to lead, and wouldn't impose his rule, is absurd. What kind of god would this Jesus be if he did not impose his will against the multitudes who didn't accept his rule? Did god elsewhere ask permission before implementing his plan? Baptism means conversion, making all nations followers of Christ. I don't know how it's not conquest when you're openly claiming the goal of controlling every single government on the planet.

As I said, whether that comes from military force or not is not explicitly stated, but also as I said, Jesus claimed his second coming would come within the lifetime of his disciplines, so the idea that his minions would come to control the planet via debate clubs and persuasion is far fetched in the extreme. Especially since we know for a fact the Greek followers of Paul were overzealous and the early Christians had a habit of trying to burn down cities.

The last bit is interesting because Putin only quoted a little bit, paraphrased a little bit more and then stopped. There is a little more to this quote that first we saw. I think this quote should include all of this, because it’s hard to see the menaing from just that little bit:
“Whoever acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before others, I will disown before my Father in heaven.
“Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn
“‘a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law —
a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’ “Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.
“Anyone who welcomes you welcomes me, and anyone who welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. Whoever welcomes a prophet as a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever welcomes a righteous person as a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward. And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly not lose their reward.”


Now take a look at it. I looked this one up in the Skeptic’s Annotated Bible, and man it was FUUUULLLLLL of juicy stuff, lol. So, let’s dive in. Yeah Jesus said he’s come to bring a sword, so where was it? Did he leave it in Heaven? The only time any of his disciples use a sword he says essentially “No! That’s not what I want! Put that thing away!” and that was when they were about to cart him off. If there was ever a time for violence, that would have been it. Still he rejects violence. This is still consistently the “Turn the other cheek” guy. So what does he mean by bringing a sword. Let’s think, when we say “It’s raining cats and dogs” would you say “Great! I’m gonna go catch a puppy!”. Of course not, Jesus wasn’t violent and rejected violence even if it was meant to save his life, but he didn’t waste an opportunity to shake things up. Runs those moneychangers right out of the Temple, still doesn’t hurt anybody. It makes lots more sense and it’s better in keeping with his character to think read this as “I’m not about the status quo, I’m gonna shake things up a bit”.

With that said the whole “father against son, mother against daughter” takes on the form of disagreement. Take this forum for example. Two thousand years later. He’s still shaking things up and He is one of our favorite topics to disagree on. Turning people against one another for the sake of finding the truth doesn’t necessarily mean violence nor does it mean conquest. Job haters take note here! He does say not to love you family any more than you love God. If you think that’s a call to sacrifice your kids then you’re reading so far between the lines that I’m not sure you can see the page. It’s merely an admonition to “Love God above all others”, which usually comes immediately with “Love others as yourself”.
Then you get this whole thing at the end which doesn’t sound violent at all. “Whoever receives a prophet in my name will receive a prophet’s reward”. Take note non-believers! All you have to do is be nice to a prophet, or righteous man, even give a cold drink in the name of a disciple and you get the same reward as he does! Doesn’t exactly sound like a group bent on world domination.

To make this claim seem reasonable, which it isn’t, he insists that baptizing is equivalent to subjugating and conquering. Apparently he’s interpreting “making disciples of” to mean essentially “make slaves or servants of”. A quick look at a dictionary will tell you these ideas are hogwash. There is nothing in those verses that explicitly tell us to take over other nations, but to convert their people to Christianity if we can. That’s all. This is from a person who had the opportunity to have dominion over the world and rejected it. He wasn’t there to gain power for himself. If Christ was telling us to take over the world, I’d say that he was using a pretty baffling set of euphemisms. I think declarations of war tend to be more overt than that. Whether you like them of not, you have to agree that Christians have been successful in getting the message out.

"What kind of god would this Jesus be if he did not impose his will against the multitudes who didn't accept his rule?"

A loving and patient one, as he's portrayed time after time.

"Baptism means conversion, making all nations followers of Christ. I don't know how it's not conquest when you're openly claiming the goal of controlling every single government on the planet."

It's very simple. Baptism is not equal to control. That's hwy you had trouble with the idea of a God not controlling his followers. The very name Israel means "Struggles with God" This is ths kind of God you expect; that's what makes him engaging to so many. TO paraphrase insted of saying "Do this" it's more like "You should do this, but you're only human. I'll forgive your transgressions even to the point of sacrificing my Son to save you."

**This is not the kind of God you expect** rather

Sorry for the monster posts guys but it's very important to bring in the context and character traits within the scriptures. Anyone could look at "The Skeptic's Annotated Bible" as I said earlier, and get random quotes that seem to say one thing. Just like in a novel one quotes or even a series can't really give you the same understanding of a character of theme that reading the entire thing can.

Is he back yet, nobody has said anything?

Still waiting, but Hey good news! There's still time :-)

Is there anything we have to do in preparation, I've maxed my credit cards and stopped paying the mortgage. Where I'm going that won't be an issue, at least I know they've got the heating on down there, 'chestnuts roasting over an open fire.....'

LOL, yes Jesus tells Simon the Zealot the put his sword away, but you neglect the fact that Jesus told his followers to sell their own clothes to buy swords to begin with, and he didn't exactly punish his extremist supporter for lopping off a guy's ear, did he?

Luke 22:36,

"He said to them, "But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one." To battle to authorities, for they had planned an insurrection around Passover when Galileans flocked to Jerusalem, from which the temple incident was one part (and this incident you say he doesn't hurt anybody, yet he ran in with a whip, and is widely depicted in paintings with a clenched fist.


It's evident that Jesus recruited from the most extreme and violent factions to gather his apostles, who never seemed to get the message of 'non-violence'.

Judas Iscariot (dagger-man) and Simon Zelotes both came from the Zealots, a militant faction of assassins during the time of Herod. The Zealots tried to take over Galilee in 67-68.

Contemporary historians of the early Christians considered them to be terrorists - both Tacitus & Sutonius described them as such.

Apologies for posting a 'heating' allegation on the forum, next time I'll mail a mod.

Crazy, he said make disciples on entire nations. Converting entire populations means control. It's amazing that on one hand you guys want to claim that being a follower of Jesus entailed not only devoted support, but martyrdom, but in the next breath you want to say that being a follower of Jesus didn't entail 'control'. Horsepuckey. You can't have it both ways.

"Just like in a novel one quotes or even a series can't really give you the same understanding of a character of theme that reading the entire thing can."

I'm not reading from the skeptics bible, but you're not reading from the bible at all. It seems that virtually every Christian when confronted with the violence of their own scripture will simply say you have to take this grand holistic approach in which people like you can simply dismiss passages you don't like or don't fit your narrative. You're just making up these interpretations as you go along.

'He's making it up as he goes along', that's a quote from a famous religious film, Life of Brian.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGaDrE8xXG4

Just in case you didn't think Christians were a violent, evil cult.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/north-carolina-pastor-calls-death-gays-lesbians-trapping-electric-fence-article-1.1082160

A North Carolina pastor is calling for the extermination of all gays and lesbians by locking them off behind an electrified fence and waiting for them to die.

Charles Worley of Providence Road Baptist Church in Maiden, N.C., made the suggestion during a May 13 sermon, according to a video posted Monday on YouTube.

“I figured a way to get rid of all the lesbians and queers,” he says.

“Build a great, big, large fence — 150- or 100-mile long — put all the lesbians in there . . . do the same thing for the queers and the homosexuals, and have that fence electrified so they can’t get out.

“Feed ’em, and you know what?” Worley continues. “In a few years they’ll die. Do you know why? They can’t reproduce.”

Worley made the comments after admonishing President Obama for recently saying he agrees with same-sex marriage.

And we're supposed to be tolerant of this vile belief system? Get real.

It was Simon Peter, Putin, not Simon the Zealot. FWIW.

"Whether you like them of not, you have to agree that Christians have been successful in getting the message out."

They have indeed. Via the Christian Roman Emperors, the Crusades, the continued persecution of the Jews, The Inquisition, the conquest of South America, the religious colonies of North America, and conversion missions throughout the globe, Christians have approached other peoples with their gospel, converted some through peaceful means, and, as soon as resistance to the message appears, finished the job by the sword.

Now please don't take me the wrong way and read me as intimating that all christians would do these things. But, in the 2000 years we've lived with this religion, these things have been done in it's name and under the assumed directives of these very scriptures. And those christians most certainly read them in the same militaristically domineering way that Putin is suggesting.

As for the close-minded Christians coming out on the side of the pagan worship center... I never suggested anyone on this thread was close-minded. I probably wouldn't spend my time in discussions here if I thought you were. As it is, I'm finding them pretty enlightening. Not convincing... but enlightening. :)

As semek83 notes, the only logical conclusion from your religious freedom premises is that the pagan center must fall under the same protection as you seek for christian symbols in public spaces. As most of the christian voices on this thread seem to be mostly logical, it would sadden me if you didn't come to that conclusion. But you are, unfortunately, in the very small and very quiet minority on this one. The vocal majority fights against the government over-reach in supporting "some crazy wacked-out witches" while at the same time decrying the removal of crosses from national parks. If I thought it were possible to ensure full equality of religious and non-religious expression on public land, I might join you in your position. As it is, the Christian majority seems to always be fighting the battle for preference as the "dominant" or "foundational" religion of this country to the denigration of all others and that is what is so frustrating to me as someone who does not subscribe to your beliefs. You are a member of the largest faith in the world. By far. In this country alone, I can't walk a block in most cities without running into at least one Christian church. When I visit my parents in Florida, that number triples. How much more public expression does Christianity really need?

Silvanus, granted, many evil things have been done by people claiming to be Christian, but anyone can claim to be Christian, from Constantine to Hitler, and there will even be false messiahs. But the Bible tells how to know real Christians--and that's by their love. And the apex of love is to give your own life for another, as Jesus did. So test their words, test their actions, and ask God for wisdom to know who are Christians and who just say they are Christians for power or personal gain. And listen to what they have to say, remembering that they can only reflect God's glory dimly, and eventually, turn to the source himself. That's my prayer for each of you.

Anybody know what the logical fallacy is that's illustrated in this quote? "Just in case you didn't think Christians were a violent, evil cult."

Mujus: I didn't read the context, but I'll give it a shot.

Its logical fallicy is that "evil" doesn't exist, just as hell and Satan don't exist.