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[Cato]

Nick,

I am at a loss as to why you brought up this topic.

[Cato]

So who is safe? Well if it is solely belief in Jesus as saviour, we can take away all non-Christians; Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, Jain, Taoist, Shinto, Athiest, and Pagans that alone takes away 2/3 to 3/4 of the world's populace right there alone.  Now if we add the born again part we can remove the Catholics, Eastern Orthodox and many mainstream Protestants.  Now we have the Trinitarian and anti-trinitarian debate, one of them is wrong, but maybe it isn't all that important to being saved.  What it all ends up is that the vast bulk of humanity is doomed.  Damned to eternal punishment or destruction depending on your take of not being saved.  Wow when you think about it, it is almost better not to be born then to risk being fried for all eternity.  Yes that really sounds like a divine plan formulated by a loving God of perfect intelligence and supreme power.

[Cato]

Quote (bodhitharta @ Sep. 29 2009,15:58)

There are various belief systems here but the question is this, Can anyone be saved believing that the Father is The Only True God and can give salvation out of His grace to anyone HE pleases and I mean anyone?

Since God is apparently omnipotent, he could do as he chooses, so the potential is obviously there.  We could also ask why God would create men only to condemn them to either eternal punishment or oblivion.  According to most on this site at least, the success rate for salvation is quite low compared to the general population.  Man would seem to be a rather flawed creation if so many of us are doomed to the scrap heap of eternity.  Or perhaps our notions of salvation and eternity are simply wrong.

[Cato]

There is not a lot of love for the Catholic Church here, or Islam or anything other then the particular brand of religion each favors.  In many cases we can all state examples of how this or that faith has fallen in the practices of their faith or in the details of that faith.  There are truths in many of these creeds yet we also see the flaws and discount them in total.  A question was once asked to the sage Ramakrishna as to why religions degenerate, he answered,  “The rain-water is pure, but becomes soiled according to the medium it passes through. If the roof and the pipe be dirty, the discharge is dirty.”  Truth is out there, but humans are imperfect and thus the message gets polluted.  Furthermore I doubt truth is ever confined to, or perfectly preserved in anyone's holy scripture, for all are written and interpreted by imperfect men of limited intellect and perception.  How many of us look to each other as fools or evil because they don't acknowledge God's truth as they see written in their particular version of holy scripture?  Even when (like at this site) most agree on what holy scripture is we castigate and accuse each other over the subtle interpretations of same.  It would be humorous if it wasn't so sad.

[Cato]

Dear Karmarie, If I may be so presumptuous to comment; perhaps your struggle is in a way a good thing, for spiritual transformation is a journey of discovery and truth is more then someone's book.  In this struggle you may learn things you may never have had just listening in a church of whatever creed.  After your struggles your faith may be much stonger then if you never had doubt or conflict.  Thomas Paine once wrote, “What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly”, faith born of struggle I think is firmer then that born of blind acceptance.  There is also a saying among mystics that when a student is ready a teacher will come, I hope that will happen for you also.  Yet someday looking back you may realize the trip was actually of more value then the destination.  Good Luck.

[Cato]

Philosophers are those seeking truth, prophets are those who think they found it.

“Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it.”
Andre Gide

“If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things.”
Rene Descartes

[Cato]

The whole idea of Sola Scriptura is nonsensical from any basis of logic or debate.  Truth is not confined to a particular set of writings.  Can people say without prejudice that God inspired only the ancient Jews of a particular time period?  There was no truth from other creeds?  God didn't inspire anyone from India or China?  There was no truth before or after scripture that has any spiritual value?  How are we any different then any follower of Islam that says the Koran is all we need?  Does no one here see God's hand in great works of science from Newton to Einstein?  Zoroaster, Confucius, Buddha, Lao Tsu, have nothing to add? What a sad world we live in to have divine inspiration limited to the confines of one leather bound book.

[Cato]

Yes, but whose particular rock?  As evident on this web site there are lots of different views of scripture and that's is not even bringing up scripture of other faiths.  Perhaps if people used a little reason and thought along with prayer we wouldn't have so many people blindly following con men, egotists and fanatics.  When men think for themselves they become less vulnerable to those who want to twist faith into gullibility.  A clear warning is when leaders tell you not to question or that all truth resides in a book which they naturally can help interpret for you.

[Cato]

Quote (CatholicApologist @ Aug. 23 2009,11:40)

But the Sacred Scriptures are NOT the only authoritative rule for belief and practice It is not sufficient.  And I would submit that the wide variance of opinions held by sincere seekers is proof that it is insufficient. Why?  Because the Scriptures need to be interpreted.  And herein lies the problem.  Each of us is FALLABLE.  And therefore so is our interpretation.

I believe CA's opening statement to be accurate and if we escape from our inbred prejudices, very reasonable.  Attacks against Catholic writings, liturgy and history are separate issues.  Looking beyond scripture does not mean accepting everything else or an endorsement of Catholic theology, it means that there are ways to truth and wisdom outside of our particular version of the Bible.  To say that all we should study is one particular compilation of religious writings is absurd.  Out of all of history and all nations of the Earth, divine truth evidently only visited the Jews and a couple of early gentile converts.  Yet I have to believe such because they're God's choosen people. It says so right here in the book they themselves wrote.

[Cato]

The thread was originally about whether Jesus pre-existed his birth on earth.  Let us take that one step further about mankind in general.  I will assume that for most here they feel no one (with the exception of perhaps Jesus), existed before they were born.  I would also imagine that most also believe that man has a spiritual component beyond the physical body lets call it a spirit to match the terminology most use here. So I take it that this spirit is evidently created sometime during the period of the body's manufacture?  At conception when sperm hits egg, at somepoint during development in the womb or at the moment of birth?  Or just perhaps all of us existed before our births with our spirits having been created when the universe was or perhaps time itself and these spirits are then later sent to inhabit bodies in order to interact in the material world for whatever purpose we are meant to serve.  Perhaps it was not only Jesus but all of us that pre-existed out births.

[Cato]

I really have no idea, I am certainly no Bible scholar and I find scripture a hard read for it is to me a disjointed collection.  I view the Bible, like panning for gold in a stream, there are really some golden nuggets of truth, but you do have to sift through a lot of sand too.  Some parts are inspired, but they after all, written, edited, compiled and translated by men.  I also find truths and inspiration from other works from other religious and spiritual backgrounds.  Truth is meant to be journey of discovery and there are many stops not just one.

[Cato]

Phil 2:6-8 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross!

I see this verse saying Jesus had the nature of God but it doesn't say was God and it clearly says equality with God can not be grasped.

John 14, I can see the lines of the Father is in me and me in the Father this indicates relationship but not necessarily equality.  In verse 28 however it clearly showes the superiority of the Father “You heard me say, 'I am going away and I am coming back to you.' If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I.

1 John 1 I see a role for the blood of Jesus in this chapter but I see no declarations of Jesus Godhood or equality with the Father.

For what it is worth you have never answered Heb 2:17 where it is clear that Jesus was to become a more merciful and faithful high priest in service to God. Nothing I see shows that Jesus is God, but it does show he was in service to God.

[Cato]

Quote (karmarie @ Sep. 17 2009,10:47)

Quote (Everlasting father Jesus @ Sep. 17 2009,08:25) If you don't believe Jesus was Saved by God then that is up to you but I believe that Jesus was saved by God. why do you want to be saved but insist that Jesus couldn't have been saved? Yes EFJ, Jesus WAS SAVED as you say! Because God rose him from the grave! And I believe that the reason Jesus felt God had left him when he cried out  Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?   My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Was because God couldnt look on the cruelty, suffering and death of his Son.

How human you make God, he can, according to scripture, wipe from the face of the earth every human and animal except for a few on a boat, he can order the death of men, women and children when blocking the expansion of ancient Jews, he allows what we view as evil in this material world for whatever purpose he has for our evolution (or testing because to most of you here thats what life amounts to), yet he looks away from his son because he can't stand to see him suffer.  The creator of the entire universe who has no peers, is supreme in all things, who will is law and who set up everything according to that will, looks away because he can't stand the sight of his son suffering for a few hours out of eternity?

[Cato]

Quote (Jesus name follower of Christ @ Sep. 19 2009,00:23)

we  can see in the scriptures that satan came in the form of a serpent

Actually if you are talking about the Genesis story with Eve, Satan is never mentioned.  

Gen 3:1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, 'You must not eat from any tree in the garden'?”

Gen 3:14-15 So the LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, “Cursed are you above all the livestock
and all the wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”

No I don't think Satan was a wild animal nor is he sentenced to crawling in the dust or having his head bashed by Eve's progeny.  Now many read Satan into this but the passages themselves refer to your run of the mill talking snake.  It also explains why snakes today crawl and why women have a tough time in childbirth (gee can anyone say fable here?).

[Cato]

So many live in a black and white world full of discrete choices and outcomes.  You believe or not, you are saved or not.  I have a book and people have told me all truth is contained therein and it came from God himself.  Well I believe in God, I feel him in my life and I am fairly content,  happy and hopeful about my future and that includes post death, yet I can deny the loose collection of works passed off as Holy Truth as men's take on what they thought was such.

[Cato]

While I might say the OT has truth in it, it in itself is not truth. To start it is not a unitary work, but a collection. Some parts are songs, poetry, parable and allegory wherein may lie wisdom and truths of a kind, but certainly not those of a literal nature. As for the historical parts we have no independent verifications; dates are missing as well as authors and collaborating evidence so it is hard to separate fact from fiction or simple mistakes in scholarship.

[Cato]

Quote (WorshippingJesus @ Sep. 18 2009,07:02)

Have you ever given thought to the language… “he had to be made like his brothers in every way”. Why the explanation if he was born like we were? Compare it with John 1:1, 14, Phil 2:6-8. Jesus was not just flesh and blood. WJ

Yes I do give thought to language; from the same verse, “…in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God…”. What need has God to become merciful (I thought he already was) and faithful (to whom or what himself)?  Why would God serve and be high priest to himself?

Oh and yes, Jesus is not just flesh and bones, but then neither are we.

To quote the esteemed thinker, “Bang boom bro!”

[Cato]

I would say that the nearest we will ever come to the word of God is the laws of physics and mathematics. Leibnitz, Newton, Guass, Euler, Archimedes are in many ways the great prophets of God and show us in pristine logic the majesty and will of the Creator.

[Cato]

Quote (t8 @ Sep. 18 2009,23:43)

Jesus is either the only way or not. He said that all who came before him, (who claimed to be the way/light/door) were robbers. Jesus was either wrong or right. If there are other Christ's then he is not the only way, and by reason of that, he is a liar which by the way rules out any possibility that he is even one of the ways. For no lie or liar is of God.

Here you make the assumption that all that was written about Jesus and scripture itself is absolute truth, inspired by the Almighty, as many put it. Jesus did not write for himself nor did he have a secretary to follow him and record things as they happened. No it was left to men who in all probability were illiterate, to make their recollections years after the event and pass it on to others. I would not call Jesus a liar but I have doubts about the accuracy of many Biblical accounts.

[Cato]

Quote (t8 @ Sep. 18 2009,23:25)

Resurrection of the dead and reincarnation are not part of the same elephant.

At the surface, no they don't appear so. Neither do trinitarians and non-trinitarians in Christianity but does one detail invalidate the entire concept of one or the other brand of Christianity? I imagine most religions have within them some truths and some falsehoods.

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