On the Christian doctrine of original sin

[andrewlittle]

Originally Posted by alakazoom87

Don't have much time to write a long post, so I'll give you the gist of all that I need to say.

Buddha is dead, Christ is a live.

If that's the best you can do, given the short amount of time available to you, why would you bother at all?

The elephant gun works! You don't see any elephants in IOwa, do you?

[u-dog]

Originally Posted by alakazoom87

Don't have much time to write a long post, so I'll give you the gist of all that I need to say.

Buddha is dead, Christ is a live.

a live what?

Oh! sorry. I get it.


Yes, well, I can attest to the second statement from my own personal experience so I won't disagree with you there. However, having never been a Buddhist or studied Buddhism I can't really witness to the truth of that first statement.

Cuz that's what "witnesses" do Zoom. They tell what they know directly... things they have actually seen themselves and experienced first hand. So I can witness to the amazing ongoing life of Christ in the world because I have experienced it. I can't witness to the "deadness" or inefficacy of Buddhism or any other religious experience because I have not seen it or known it or experienced it myself.

[Dash]

You know, I have wondered if Jesus knew Buddhism. I know that he traveled as a small boy, and also the Decapolis was surely a crossroads of philosophical trade as much as any other.

It's like Paul's talk of "seeing through a glass darkly" which seems lifted straight out of Plato... I've too sensed the oneness of the message Jesus brought with that of Buddhism.

It shares much with Hinduism as well. Gandhi was as much a devotee of Christ as of Krishna, you know.

[Daniel]

Originally Posted by alakazoom87

Don't have much time to write a long post, so I'll give you the gist of all that I need to say.

Buddha is dead, Christ is a live.

But this soooooo smacks of my " My Daddy could beat up your Daddy any day, so there!" However, this kind of statement always says less about one's father than it does the child on the playground saying it.

I'm sorry you were so brief zoom, your two line rejoinder leaves much to be desired.

[BrentRichards]

Originally Posted by Daniel

But this soooooo smacks of my " My Daddy could beat up your Daddy any day, so there!" However, this kind of statement always says less about one's father than it does the child on the playground saying it.

I'm sorry you were so brief zoom, your two line rejoinder leaves much to be desired.

Please, don't encourage him to write more. I don't want to hear it.

[BrentRichards]

I must say more, though I know I will regret it.

Truth be told, I remain a firm believer in the exclusive nature of salvation in Christ. My Scriptures do certainly suggest that there is no other way than the completed work of Christ. However, they don't tell me that that means that someone must "pray the sinners prayer" or attend a certain church, or even identify with the Christian faith to be saved. God says "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy." Not, fortunately, "I will have mercy on whom alakazoom says I may have mercy."

So, short story, I, as a Christian, believe that everyone in heaven will be there BECAUSE OF THE COMPLETED WORK OF CHRIST ... even if they've never heard of Him! Those whom God saves, He saves through His gracious provision. Not through their "faith" (I place it in quotes because it means some pretty strange things the way some folks use it), not through their goodness, and certainly not through their excoriation of others who don't agree with them! Grace alone.

By the by, I am in good company in this opinion ... it was the belief of C.S. Lewis, that heretic!

Zoom, I keep promising not to address you, but I must. I was you when I was in college, and I still sting over the memory of how I talked to people. Truth hurts, so here it is:

Nothing said here is going to change your mind one iota (you ignored that question last time I posed it, which was a pretty clear answer). And, frankly, your method is not going to change anyone else's mind, either. Your profile openly declares that you're here to "witness" to us, but know that your brand of "evangelism" is good for one thing -slaking your own conscience. I hope you feel good about your arrogant pronouncements here, because no one else does. You're not changing hearts and minds, unless it's to make them even surer that Christians are jerks --nothing makes my life as a Christian more difficult than Christians like you. The "offense of the gospel" is NOT the same thing as the offensiveness of the messenger. I hope one day you'll learn that.

I don't speak for the forums, or for Soulforce, I just speak for me, and I am personally inviting you to go away until you're prepared to behave a little more like a loving Christian. Nobody invited your particular brand of "always-righteousness," and you're killing conversations left and right. Take the time you're using here and use it to go talk to Jesus. It will be time better spent. Don't forget to shake the dust off your feet as you go.

[alakazoom87]

Originally Posted by BrentRichards

I must say more, though I know I will regret it.

Truth be told, I remain a firm believer in the exclusive nature of salvation in Christ. My Scriptures do certainly suggest that there is no other way than the completed work of Christ. However, they don't tell me that that means that someone must "pray the sinners prayer" or attend a certain church, or even identify with the Christian faith to be saved. God says "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy." Not, fortunately, "I will have mercy on whom alakazoom says I may have mercy."

So, short story, I, as a Christian, believe that everyone in heaven will be there BECAUSE OF THE COMPLETED WORK OF CHRIST ... even if they've never heard of Him! Those whom God saves, He saves through His gracious provision. Not through their "faith" (I place it in quotes because it means some pretty strange things the way some folks use it), not through their goodness, and certainly not through their excoriation of others who don't agree with them! Grace alone.

By the by, I am in good company in this opinion ... it was the belief of C.S. Lewis, that heretic!

Zoom, I keep promising not to address you, but I must. I was you when I was in college, and I still sting over the memory of how I talked to people. Truth hurts, so here it is:

Nothing said here is going to change your mind one iota (you ignored that question last time I posed it, which was a pretty clear answer). And, frankly, your method is not going to change anyone else's mind, either. Your profile openly declares that you're here to "witness" to us, but know that your brand of "evangelism" is good for one thing -slaking your own conscience. I hope you feel good about your arrogant pronouncements here, because no one else does. You're not changing hearts and minds, unless it's to make them even surer that Christians are jerks --nothing makes my life as a Christian more difficult than Christians like you. The "offense of the gospel" is NOT the same thing as the offensiveness of the messenger. I hope one day you'll learn that.

I don't speak for the forums, or for Soulforce, I just speak for me, and I am personally inviting you to go away until you're prepared to behave a little more like a loving Christian. Nobody invited your particular brand of "always-righteousness," and you're killing conversations left and right. Take the time you're using here and use it to go talk to Jesus. It will be time better spent. Don't forget to shake the dust off your feet as you go.

Sorry for being rude earlier. I was making the distinction between Christianity and any other belief. I believe as a Christian, that Christ died and then rose again from the grave, He is alive! However, Buddhism follows the teachings of a man that lived and then died.


P.S.
Since when was C.S. Lewis is a heretic?

[keltic63]

Originally Posted by alakazoom87

Sorry for being rude earlier. I was making the distinction between Christianity and any other belief. I believe as a Christian, that Christ died and then rose again from the grave, He is alive! However, Buddhism follows the teachings of a man that lived and then died.


P.S.
Since when was C.S. Lewis is a heretic?

You really don't get it, do you zoom?

from your above statement, we can assume the following:

the teachings, sayings, writings, concepts, discoveries, inventions, improvements, technological advances, even ideas, that can be attributed to the work of someone, male or female, WHO IS NOW DEAD, should be considered of no value whatsoever.

Michelangelo, Newton, Plato, Socrates, DesCartes, Marie Curie, Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, George Washington, Guttenberg, Martin Luther, John Calvin, George Washington Carver, Harriet Tubman, Frank Lloyd Wright, Picasso, Vincent Van Gogh, etc, all of their intellectual work is declared null and void by virtue of their passing from this life.

I can see why you work so well with Jr. High students, your ability to reason, create hypotheses, test them, and make rational evaluations is stuck at an early adolescent level.

[tdogg]

Originally Posted by BrentRichards

Your profile openly declares that you're here to "witness" to us, but know that your brand of "evangelism" is good for one thing -slaking your own conscience.

A thought I just had... perhaps Zoom isn't necessarily here to witness to us (although he thinks he is), but for us to witness to him. A more profound way to look at why he is actually here. We have a lot of work to do, one Zoom at a time....

[u-dog]

Originally Posted by tdogg

A thought I just had... perhaps Zoom isn't necessarily here to witness to us (although he thinks he is), but for us to witness to him. A more profound way to look at why he is actually here. We have a lot of work to do, one Zoom at a time....

PREACH IT SISTER T-DAWG !!

[BrentRichards]

Originally Posted by alakazoom87

Since when was C.S. Lewis is a heretic?

That's all you got from my post? My sarcastic reference to Lewis's "heresy"? ... of course I don't think he's a heretic. Don't you? How much of his work have you read?

Do you know, for example, that he smoked three packs of cigarettes a day (between pipes), swore, and drank with his students? He lived for 30 years with a women to whom he was not married, and was not related (most biographers doubt their relationship was sexual, but it certainly would have raised evangelical eyebrows). One of his longest-standing friendships was with an openly gay man (gasp!) named Arthur Greeves. He clearly believed in evolution, and held that the Genesis account was a symbolic story with its roots in earlier pagan myth. He believed that people of other faiths could be saved without converting to Christianity, and toyed with the idea that animals (pets) might have souls.

So this fits with your version of Christianity how? Do you ignore it? Deny it? Throw him out "with the bathwater?" Or can you see him as an example of how genuine, powerful, culture-changing Christian faith may not always flow in the channels YOU expect it to?