Does Satan Exist?

TTWSYFAMDGGAHJMJ2: "Sent responses held for approval. This forum is kinda a screwy. People cursing, calling Jesus a illigitimate child and they get posted.

Say Abortion is murder and that doesn't get posted. Say something about Obama's ties to the terrorist and it's censored all during Obama's campaign. The WP later admited they were pro-Obama in an obsecured way while trying to justify their biases."

That may or may not be, but we were discussing the Last Supper and historical record thereof. Obama, abortion, terrorists, none of that need be dragged in since it is not germane to the discussion. How about removing those references and trying again.

WASHINGTON18

Sent responses held for approval. This forum is kinda a screwy. People cursing, calling Jesus a illigitimate child and they get posted.

Say Abortion is murder and that doesn't get posted. Say something about Obama's ties to the terrorist and it's censored all during Obama's campaign. The WP later admited they were pro-Obama in an obsecured way while trying to justify their biases.

Yeah, sure why not. He's over there in the corner playing cards with the tooth fairy and R2D2. Idiots.

TTWSYFAMDGGAHJMJ2:

No response?

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
LEPIDOPTERYX :
“WHY DID GOD TEMPT ADAM?”

IRT:
“I know my husband loves me. How do I know that he loves me? He does nice things for me. He treats me with respect and kindness. I am secure in the knowledge of his love for me without devising "tests" to see if he "really" loves me.
I don't need to put a bevy of naked supermodels in front of him and see if he rejects their favors to know that he loves me.”

ANS:
A bevy of naked supermodels in front of Adam? Isn’t that a little overboard. Do you know how many trees are in the Universe. I would imagine Adam knew. He was infused with knowledge from God, and was said to be brilliantly intelligent. Since Adam wasn’t a normal man, he wasn’t growing up from childhood to maturity; He was born mature.

Adam also had complete control of his will. Nakedness wasn’t a problem for Adam no matter how many women danced before him. However, when they sinned against God, both covered their nakedness. They had broken their bond with God.

Your husband doesn’t have the kind of control that Adam had. He can easily be tempted. But if he is in God’s good graces, which God showered down on him, he can resist the temptations. God will never let anyone be so tempted that he cannot resist when he wants.

St. Thomas Aquinas was locked in a room by his parents, who didn’t want him to become a priest. They also locked a prostitute in with him to seduce him. He chased her out with a poker. The parents gave up.

IRT:
"And if God knew before he even created them that Adam and Eve WOULD eat from the tree, then they didn't really have the choice not to."

ANS:
To the contrary, God knows all things; that doesn't make Him guilty for Adam's sin. He gave man the freedom to choose the good. He gave Adam everything he needed to choose correctly. Adam knowingly chose evil with his own free will. There were trillions of trees but Adam had to have this one for no other reason than to be greater than God is. He wasn’t forced; he wasn't stupid; he did it on his own.

You can’t blame God because Adam sinned. Adam blamed himself, and he knew it was his fault because he hid from God.

How ever, God gave man another chance that He didn’t give Satan. Adam could only blame himself. The Tempter wasn’t God it was Satan, but Adam was given enough intelligence to resist the Tempter but he chose not to just like man does today. God knows people will sin because they believe they are just as important as God is. However, God still creates them.

You say your husband loves you by the way he treats you. Adam could only show his love for God by not eating of the fruit. Adam had nothing to give but his loyalty. The devil was probably the only test Adam had to face and his wife was no help to him. In fact she also tempted him
.
IRT:
“After all, if an infallible being KNOWS before hand that an event will occur, then that event MUST occur, because if it doesn't, the being isn't really infallible.

ANS:
It must occur if God knows it will, but he doesn't cause it. He knows it will occur. You know the sun will shine the next day but you don't cause it. What you want is for God to take their choices away, and they wouldn't have a choice.

IRT:
If God KNEW before Adam and Eve were created that they would eat the forbidden fruit, then had they chosen not to do so, the "infallible" God would have been mistaken.

So if you really believe that God is infallible, and that Genesis is fact, then Adam and Eve were set up, and God is guilty of entrapment.”

ANS:
God didn’t make Adam a robot, He wanted Adam to respond to His love freely. If Adam couldn’t chose to sin on his own and every time Adam started to sin God stopped him, Adam wouldn’t have a free will. All Adam could do was act for the Good without a choice. God wanted more than a robot; he wanted man to respond to God's love freely.

The responsibility was all Adam’s. If he had called on God to help him God would have. Never has it been know in all time that God refused to help man in his necessity. God only gave His only Son to redeem man and man is still kicking God in the teeth. Adam didn’t want any help, until he had already sinned.

If your husband is a heavy smoker, or you friend a heavy drinker, or a drug addict, and they are just starting out on smoking, drinking, or drugs. You know what is in the future if they continue, and you can stop them if you want by locking them up. But, that would be illegal. It’s there choice, you try helping, but you can’t tie them down every time you see them overindulging. They are responsible for their choices or else they wouldn’t be free.

If you have a free will, than you are responsible for your acts unless your crazy or retarded. Preventing a person to act is to take that free will away. God didn’t and wouldn’t do that but he will help you if you ask, and there would be no guilt doing the best you can. That what God expects but Adam didn’t ask.

TTWSYFAMDGGAHJMJ2

You wrote, "God is Truth, but God gives man the Truths of the Gospels, and all the Scriptures, the Natural Laws, and the Natural Moral Laws."

Actually, there is only one Gospel because Gospel means "Good News", it does not mean 'good enough news'. Yes, there is the, Gospel according to Matthew ..., but there is only One Gospel.

You also wrote, "God is Love but we are not Love. Man receives the Love of God in the capacity of man’s ability to receive it. Hence, man calls on God’s benevolence and man receives God’s graces."

I never said that man was Love but we are made in Love's Image. We should call on God not "God's benevolence".

In the bible, it spoke of the "curtain" in the Holy of Holies being torn at Jesus's death that means we all have access to God if we avail ourselves of that access, we do not have to go thru others for that access.

Jesus set up a Church, not a religion.

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

TTWSYFAMDGGAHJMJ2

You wrote, "God gave man the Natural Moral Law (NML). Act against it and you live in a social disarray of inevitable travail. If you conform to God’s Laws, seek His intercession, and live within the limits of His NML, your life will be a lot easier. Hence, China, the Congo, and North Korea regimes are in contradiction to the NML."

I repeat, do you think that Jesus had an "easy" life? Also, I am talking about people, not countries. Do you really think that God became One of us to teach us morals?

You sure do seem to be hung up on sex.

You don't have a clue why God became One of us do you?

As I have said, God becoming One of us is part of His Plan, an intregal part of His Plan but just part of it and God's Plan is unfolding before our very eyes.

Have you ever heard that Jesus said, "Judge not, lest ye be judged", "The measure that you judge with will be the measure that you are judged with", "Forgive and you will be forgiven", "All judgement has been given unto me", these are just some of the things Jesus talked about judging, mercy and judgement?

I believe that if we judge anyone, it should be ourself not someone else.

I don't know but it seems as if you have a very distorted conception of God, God Is a Being of Pure Love. Divine Justice and Divine Mercy are two sides of the same coin.

Jesus did extend the invitation to "Follow Him", not His Church. Jesus also said to Peter, "Feed My lambs, tend My sheep, feed My sheep, He did not say that they were Peter's lambs or sheep, did He?

God is not the loser that you seem to think that He is, because a tie would be a loss and the Victory will be Total and Universal.

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
FREESTINKER :
SATAN:
POSTED MARCH 31, 2009

IRT:
“Satan exists as do all gods, goblins, ghosts, angels, and pretty wingy thingies ... but only in the minds of those who believe in them but make no mistake their beliefs exist and are as real to them as anything could ever be.”

ANS:
Sorry, my friend you are in the wrong world again. I am sure all those things exist in your world, but in the real world Angels exist and Satan is an evil Angel who thought he was God. He's not only in one’s mind but he’s in reality.

Satan is also in Hell and he wants your company. God created Satan the pinnacle of Creation and Satan thought he was God. Stalin, Mao, Idi Amine, Hitler, and Pol Pot thought they were gods and represented Satan on earth. Stalin was said to have an altar and worshiped the Devil. They all were the Devil’s advocates, and the Hell they lived in on earth was very real.

IRS:
“Just take TTWS for example. He makes all kinds of outlandish claims of supernatural beings without a shred of credible evidence other than his unwavering belief in them.”

ANS:
Yes, not to believe in God is not to believe in anything, because those who are atheists are contradictions of their own reason. They think they are God because they are blinded by their own prejudices; they fear the truth will expose their addictive narcissism and so they defend their sophomoric irrationality. They deny the ignominy they create and blame others for the debaucherous evil they cause.

Today, the blind are leading the blind. We’ve just elected a president who is burying America in a financial crises, who has unlocked the gates of Hell and leashed Satan’s demons on not only America but also on the world and the majority are no wiser. Fifty million unborn are dead because of heathens' contraceptive mentality. Their solution to AIDS, and STDs is not God, but Contraceptives.
To the failures of Contraception are Abortion, and the Culture of Death.

Uganda was once the most ravished nation in the world from STDs and AIDS. Uganda’s President and First Lady initiated an Education program that taught Abstinence and Fidelity in Marriage. The country went from a progressive 18 percent rate of STDs and AIDS to a declining 3 percent. The Contraceptive mentality had increased the spread of the diseases but the only solution, the moral law is saving that nation.

IRT:
"But since his beliefs are absolutely real, the beings he believes in do exist ... as beliefs in his mind but without credible evidence that's about all we can say with any degree of certainty."

ANS:
Yes, you’re the kind of mark Satan loves. The less you believe in him, even though many have seen him, encountered him, and seen Hell, he is delighted that you think he is a myth. In your last day, and you remain in the state of your folly, the myth will end and the tragedy will begin.

Your folly will cease in the face of reality. There will be no doubt about his existence; you will meet him. That will be very unfortunate if at death you deny God's existence. You will be taken to your final destiny to eternal excruciation.

It will be a marriage in Hell. It will be a grave disappointment for God who has prepared many great things for your happiness. Apparently, you will unheedingly choose the misfortunes of Hell.

Satan will have plenty of annuities in escrow that you have unwittingly invested for your eternal future. The returns will be foreboding. It won’t be pleasurable; it will be an encompassing hate for yourself, eternal horrific agony, and unimaginable suffering, uncompromising, never mitigating, but eternal.

Have you ever thought of what eternity is like? Think about the massive Universe being a solid stainless steel ball; a crow comes every 100,000 years and sharpens his beak on this massive ball, and continues to return every 100,000 years until the ball is worn down to nothing. When the ball becomes nothing that will be a nano second of the time you will spend in Hell at your own choosing.

Even if you were right, which is impossible, and there were no God and no Devil, you would lose nothing by believing in God and His Laws. You would still gain the profits of a happy and auspicious life that is gained by obeying God's Laws, But, if you are wrong, and there is a God, it will be the most traumatic and macabre day of your existence and it will never end.

You can gamble that you're right, as did the grasshopper who thought he was right, and ridicule the ant, but in the end, the ant was right, and the grasshopper doesn't exist anymore. He died a horrible death because in his folly, he forgot to think.

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
THOMAS BAUM
“TRUTH”

IRT:
Jesus said, "I Am the Truth...” He did not say "Truths". Actually, there have only been two "ex cathedra" proclamations.

ANS:
God is Truth, but God gives man the Truths of the Gospels, and all the Scriptures, the Natural Laws, and the Natural Moral Laws.

IRT:
God is Love, literally, Love is not an attribute of God but is His Very Being.

ANS:
God is Love but we are not Love. Man receives the Love of God in the capacity of man’s ability to receive it. Hence, man calls on God’s benevolence and man receives God’s graces.

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
THOMASBAUM
“EASY?”

IRT:
[You wrote, "The more these gifts are used, the easier life becomes.]

It is not about being easy, it is about being possible.
Do you think Jesus had it easy? Have you ever actually read about Him in the Bible?

ANS:
God gave man the Natural Moral Law (NML). Act against it and you live in a social disarray of inevitable travail. If you conform to God’s Laws, seek His intercession, and live within the limits of His NML, your life will be a lot easier. Hence, China, the Congo, and North Korea regimes are in contradiction to the NML.

The NML is given to man, imbued in man's conscience that he may be compatible with the natural world order and be in harmony with the society in which he lives.

The Apostles asked Jesus, how man could get to Heaven, after Jesus said it would be as hard for a rich man to enter Paradise, as it would be for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. Jesus said, “For man it is impossible; for God all things are possible.”

Man cannot avoid the sexual temptations that have ruined the lives of many without the help of God. Those who have become stricken with STDs have been touched by the ravishment of sin, either by the sin of others or their own sin.

In America, God’s laws are becoming obscured and dismissed. Our Court has said traditional morality is not a basis for law (Lawrence v. Texas). We have a Sexual Revolution Epidemic Worldwide, the Epidemic is getting out of control in Africa.

One illustration shows how many teens are affected. Imagine a high school football stadium filled with teenagers. Then start counting. One in five of the cheering kids have herpes. Herpes has no cure. Every third girl has the human papilloma virus (HPV). HPV causes 99.7% of cervical cancer cases that kills over 5000 women each year. One out of ten has chlamydia. Even if we pulled out the healthy kids, the stadium would remain nearly full.

Consider these statistics from the Center for Disease Control (CDC): Here are some of the statistics in America alone. The

Almost half of all students in grades nine through twelve have had sex.

Half of all girls are likely to be infected with an STD during their first sexual experience.

Nearly one in four sexually active teens has an STD.

Teens will contract nearly one in four of the 15 million new cases of STDs this year. Teens make up 10% of the population, but they contract up to 25% of all STDs.

Herpes (specifically herpes simplex type 2 or "genital herpes") has skyrocketed 500% among white teenagers in the last 20 years.

One in five children above age twelve tests positive for herpes type 2.

One in ten teenage girls has Chlamydia; half of all new Chlamydia cases each year are diagnosed in girls 15 to 19 years old.

It gets worse. The Journal of the American Medical Association reported in a February 2002 editorial that the number of people with asymptomatic STDs (diseases with no outward symptoms like lesions or warts) probably exceeds those whose diseases are diagnosed. This means that the epidemic may be twice as large as we think.

Is there a Satan? He’s in your midst and many know him not, and that suits him fine. As the above statistics show, life would be a lot easier for these poor victims if they had knew they were pawns of Satan and his minions who roam around the world seeking the ruin of these naïve and puerile immature victims. If only they would have known God, their lives would not have encountered these devastating tragedies.

TTWSYFAMDGGAHJMJ2,

More class notes from one of the large Catholic university's graduate theology class:

"Heaven is a Spirit state (no physical bodies reside there)

The simple preacher man and Mary's bodies are therefore not in Heaven. For one thing, Paul in 1 Cor 15 speaks of the body of the dead as transformed into a "spiritual body." No one knows exactly what he meant by this term.

Most believe that it to mean that the personal spiritual self that survives death is in continuity with the self we were while living on earth as an embodied person.

The physical Resurrection (meaning a resuscitated corpse returning to life), Ascension (of Jesus' crucified corpse), and Assumption (Mary's
corpse) into heaven did not take place.

The Ascension symbolizes the end of Jesus' earthly ministry and the beginning of the Church.

Only Luke's Gospel records it. The Assumption ties Jesus' mission to Pentecost and missionary activity of Jesus' followers The Assumption has
multiple layers of symbolism, some are related to Mary's special role as "Christ bearer" (theotokos). It does not seem fitting that Mary, the body of Jesus' Virgin-Mother (another biblically based symbol found in Luke 1) would be derived by worms upon her death. Mary's assumption also shows God's positive regard, not only for Christ's male body, but also for female
bodies."

Amazing how this agrees with Professor Crossan and many other contemporary NT exegetes' conclusions based on attestations and stratums.

Some added tidbits:

According to Reimarus as referenced in R.B. Stewart in his introduction to the recent book, The Resurrection of Jesus, Crossan and Wright in Dialogue,

"Reimarus (1774-1779) posits that Jesus became sidetracked by embracing a political position, sought to force God's hand and that he died alone deserted by his disciples. What began as a call for repentance ended up as a misguided attempt to usher in the earthly political kingdom of God. After Jesus' failure and death, his disciples stole his body and declared his resurrection in order to maintain their financial security and ensure themselves some standing."

From: K.C. Hanson and D. E. Oakman, Palestine in the Time of Jesus, Fortress Press, 1998. p.55

"Stories circulated to the effect that Alexander of Macedonia was not only the son of Philip II, but also of the god Zeus-Ammon (Plutarch, Parallel Lives, "Alexander" 2.1-3.2); Plato was the son of Ariston and the god Apollo (Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers 3.1-2), and Augustus was the son of Octavius as well as the god Apollo (Suetonius, Lives o f the Caesars 2.4.1-7). The extraordinary character of these elites reputedly stemmed from both their divine origins and their kingroups. Their kin-groups provided one form of legitimation-political right to the throne and/or social status (thus the importance of Joseph in Matthew's genealogy). Their divine procreation provided another: their honor was divinely ascribed, and their greatness as leaders derived from divine paternity."

TTWSYFAMDGGAHJMJ2 :

You wrote, "The more these gifts are used, the easier life becomes."

It is not about being easy, it is about being possible.

Do you think Jesus had it easy? Have you ever actually read about Him in the bible?

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

ARMINIUS

Hi, good to see you on here, wish you well, hang in there, He hung in there for us and that is ALL OF US.

You wrote, "Ya know, I'm getting tired of fighting. Damn few friends here anymore."

Wasn't easy for Jesus either.

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

CCNL

You wrote, "Hmmm, Thomas "The Hallucinator" Baum declares "There seem to be a lot of "know-it-alls" or wanna-be "know-it-alls" whether in a "religious" sense or otherwise in this world, I am not one of them."

But yet said Thomas Baum meets with god, satan and the trinity and therefore declares himself to be the Moses of the NT i.e. knowing it all!!!!"

Yes, I have met the Trinity and yes I have met satan and yes I have been chosen by God and yes I have said YES, but not only am I not a know-it-all, I don't need to be a know-it all.

What I need to know to do what God has chosen me for, God will let me know somehow and that is fine with me.

See you and the rest of humanity in the Kingdom.

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

TTWSYFAMDGGAHJMJ2

You wrote, "All proper sacrifices to God are required to be unblemished."

We are called to be "sacrifices to God" and I for one am blemished.

You then wrote, "The question was answered. I also put the reason why He was called the Unblemished Lamb, He had no sin."

As I said, it was a simple yes or no question and a simple yes or no would have sufficed. Who do you think that the "guilty goat sent out into the desert of sin blessed by Aaron" might refer to?

You then wrote, "“END TIMES AND END OF AGE “ are the same thing. It is the end of time, no more time. God will be with the Church till the end of the world."

Yes the "end times" and the "end of the age" do refer to the same thing but do not be so sure than time ends, because it doesn't.

You then wrote, "God is all things,"

Wrong, that would mean that God is satan and He is not, that would mean that I am God and I am not, that would mean that you are God and you are not. God created all things, God is not all things.

Then you wrote, "Never knew about the Public Confessions."

Look it up.

You wrote, "No the Church isn’t perfect but God is. And, God said He would protect the Truths, which He told the Church to teach. It therefore cannot teach error “ex cathedra” on matters of faith and morals. That means the teachings are without error and perfect."

Jesus said, "I Am the Truth...", He did not say "Truths". Actually, there have only been two "ex cathedra" proclamations.

God is Love, literally, Love is not an attribute of God but is His Very Being.

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

"Yes. Satan exists as a conscious being who is independent of humans. The documented cases of demonic possession around the world and in the US are compelling evidence that such beings exist."

Dude... "Supernatural" is NOT a documentary!

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
CCNL :
“AUTHENTICITY?”

IRS:
Wow, bible "thumping" is in full swing this afternoon. "You all" might want to check the authenticity of the passages that you site as being the words of the "simple preacher man".

ANS:
I see you have been listening to the dissenters again. The Scriptures are the inspired word of God. God doesn’t make mistakes. He doesn’t lie. Moreover, the Scriptures are revealed to man that man may come to his purpose in life, eternal bliss and happiness.

If you think Jesus was simple, than define “simple.” One who walks on water, cures the sick with His word alone, raises the dead, calms the Seas controls the heavens and all that occupies both the sea and heavens and is called simple needs a refresher course in etymology.

Moreover, I’ve never seen a Divine Being who rose from the dead was viewed as “simple.” Further, He wasn’t a simple preacher: He was God. The Jews knew Jesus wasn’t simple that’s why the Pharisees tried to kill Him.

Now if God allowed His message be based solely on the wits of man, God would lack in Wisdom. To the contrary, God is Wisdom. Further, God established a Church that would teach the Word of God without error.

Therefore, those who claim the Scriptures are in error, are falsifications of the Truth,, and have intentionally been written to deceive man and cause man’s confusion is ludicrous priggery. The purpose of Scripture is to save man not condemn him.

IRT:
“Upon checking you will find that most are single attestations i.e. are not verified from other sources.”

ANS:
You might try checking this web sight that describes the accuracy of the Bible from anthropology and history. Evidently, you think the Holy Land is a hoax that never existed. Under those circumstances nothing can help you.

IRT:
“A summary of the errors and flaws in Christianity: (for those eyes that have not seen)

Jesus was an illiterate Jewish peasant/carpenter/simple preacher man who suffered from hallucinations and who has been characterized anywhere from the Messiah from Nazareth to a mythical character from mythical Nazareth”

ANS:
Really? So Nazareth never existed? Jesus was an illiterate. Strange how he is constantly reading the Scriptures to the Jew who were astounded by his wisdom.

http://christiananswers.net/archaeology/home.html

IRT:
“to a mamzer”

Pardoner, not only, do you need to see a psychiatrist. but the lunatics you’ve been consulting need to go with you. All your sources have been historically shown to be wrong, and you are as foolish as they for believing them.

You can insult God all you wish because He has given you a free will, but you cannot chose the consequences. Yes there is a Satan, and I don’t think you would like to meet him, but you’re trying very hard to do that. So beware, you might just get what you wish.

Satan exists as do all gods, gobblins, ghosts, angels, and pretty wingy thingies ... but only in the minds of those who believe in them but make no mistake their beliefs exist and are as real to them as anything could ever be.

Just take TTWS for example. He makes all kinds of outlandish claims of supernatural beings without a shred of credible evidence other than his unwavering belief in them. But since his beliefs are absolutely real, the beings he believes in do exist ... as beliefs in his mind but without credible evidence that's about all we can say with any degree of certainty.

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
CCNL :
“AUTHENTICITY?”

IRT:
“Upon checking you will find that most are single attestations i.e. are not verified from other sources.”

ANS:
"The motives of credibility may be briefly stated as follows:

In the Old Testament, considered not as an inspired book, but merely as a book having historical value, we find detailed the marvelous dealings of God with a particular nation to whom He repeatedly reveals Himself; we read of miracles wrought in their favor and as proofs of the truth of the revelation He makes.

We find the most sublime teaching and the repeated announcement of God's desire to save the world from sin and its consequences.

And, more than all we find throughout the pages of this book a series of hints, now obscure, now clear, of some wondrous person who is to come as the world's savior.

We find it asserted at one time that He is man, at others that He is God Himself.

When we turn to the New Testament we find that it records the birth, life, and death of One Who, while clearly man, also claimed to be God, and Who proved the truth of His claim by His whole life—miracles, teachings, and death, and finally by His triumphant resurrection.

We find, moreover, that He founded a Church which should, so He said, continue to the end of time, which should serve as the repository of His teaching, and should be the means of applying to all men the fruits of the redemption He had wrought.

When we come to the subsequent history of this Church, we find it speedily spreading everywhere, and this in spite of its humble origin, its unworldly teaching, and the cruel persecution, which it meets at the hands of the rulers of this world.

And as the centuries pass we find this Church battling against heresies schisms, and the sins of her own people-nay, of her own rulers.

Yet continuing, we see ever the same, promulgating ever the same doctrine, and putting before men the same mysteries of the life, death, and resurrection of the world's Savior.

Moreover, it was He Who had, so She taught, gone before to prepare a home for those who while on earth should have believed in Him and fought the good fight.

But, if the history of the Church, since New-Testament times thus wonderfully confirms, the New Testament itself, and if the New Testament so marvelously completes the Old Testament, these books must really contain what they claim to contain. Viz. they contain Divine revelation.

And more than all, that Person’s life and death were so minutely foretold in the Old Testament, and Whose story, as told in the New Testament, so perfectly corresponds with its prophetic delineation in the Old Testament. Therefore, it must be what He claimed to be, viz. the Son of God.

His work, therefore, must be Divine. The Church that He founded must also be Divine. Therefore since the Church is the repository and guardian of His teachings, it must be Devine.

Indeed, we can truly say that for every truth of Christianity, in which we believe Christ Himself is our testimony. We believe in Him because the Divinity He claimed rests upon the concurrent testimony. [That testimony is] of His miracles,

His prophecies His personal character, the nature of His doctrine. [More so, we believe because of] the marvelous propagation of His teachings.

[Thus, it has came about, even] in spite of its running counter to flesh and blood, the united testimony of thousands of martyrs. [And there is] the stories of countless saints who for His sake have led heroic lives.

The history of the Church herself, since the Crucifixion, and, perhaps more remarkable than any, the history of the papacy from St. Peter to Pius XVI. show Her validity.

These[Her] testimonies are unanimous; they all point in one direction, they are of every age, they are clear and simple, and are within the grasp of the humblest intelligence.

And, as the Vatican Council has said, "the Church herself, is, by her marvelous propagation, her wondrous sanctity, her inexhaustible fruitfulness in good works, her Catholic unity, and her enduring stability, a great and perpetual motive of credibility and an irrefragable witness to her Divine commission" (Const. Dei Filius).

"The Apostles,” says St. Augustine, "saw the Head and believed in the Body; we see the Body let us believe in the Head" [Sermo ccxliii, 8 (al. cxliii), de temp., P.L., V 1143].

"Every believer will echo the words of Richard of St. Victor, "Lord, if we are in error, by Thine own self we have been deceived- for these things have been confirmed by such signs and wonders in our midst as could only have been done by Thee!" (de Trinitate, 1, cap. ii).

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
ARMINIUS :
“FAITH AND THE SCRIPTURES”
MARCH 30, 2009

IRT:
“The Way of the Gospels, the Path of Jesus, is NOT easy. It is, perhaps intentionally, twisting and convoluted sometimes. “

ANS:
It is truly not easy, but it is even more difficult without God’s help, who pours out His benevolence and charity to man through His Church. The Church is a reservoir of the gifts of God that it showers on man to succor man in his necessities and in his weaknesses. The more these gifts are used, the easier life becomes.

IRT:
"Faith is not a destination, it is a lifelong journey."

ANS:
A journey without a destination is a journey to nowhere. “Faith, objectively, stands for a belief in the sum of truths revealed by God in Scripture and tradition and which the Church presents to us in a brief form in her creeds, subjectively, faith stands for the habit or virtue by which we assent to those truths.”

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05752c.htm

“There is a twofold order of knowledge, and that these two orders are distinguished from one another not only in their principle but in their object; in one we know by Natural Reason, in the other by Divine Faith.

The object of the one is truth attainable by natural reason, the object of the other is mysteries hidden in God, but which we have to believe and which can only be known to us by Divine Revelation.

For example, we accept the statement that the sun is 90,000,000 miles distant from the earth because competent, veracious authorities vouch for the fact. This last kind of knowledge is termed faith, and is clearly necessary in daily life. If the authority upon which we base our assent is human and therefore fallible, we have human and fallible faith.

If the authority is Divine, we have Divine and infallible faith. If to this be added the medium by which the Divine authority for certain statements is put before us, viz. the Catholic Church, we have Divine-Catholic Faith

“Divine faith, then, is that form of knowledge which is derived from Divine authority, and which consequently begets absolute certitude in the mind of the recipient.“

That such Divine faith is necessary, follows from the fact of Divine revelation. For revelation means that the Supreme Truth has spoken to man and revealed to him truths that are not in themselves evident to the human mind.

We must, then, either reject revelation altogether, or accept it by faith; that is, we must submit our intellect to truths which we cannot understand, but which come to us on Divine authority.

IRT:
“The Gospels are the heart and soul of Christianity, but they are not the end-all, they are a doorway. The rest of the bible is commentary, supporting documentation, history, metaphor, mythology, or outright nonsense.”

ANS:
There is no nonsense in the Scriptures. They are the inspired word of God who is Omniscient. If there is any folly assigned to the Scriptures, it is man falsely interpreting them.

The heart and soul of Christianity is the Church God gave man to interpret the Gospels and to make them effective. Moreover, the message in the Gospels are born from the Old Testament and the OT is an integral part of the Gospels. Hence, Jesus constantly refers to the OT. The Commandments are the posterity of our Moral Laws.

Therefore, Jesus came not to destroy the Old Law but to fulfill it. Mt 5:17 –
“…that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill.

The Gospels are hampered in their effectiveness when man alone attempts to interpret them. Consequently, we have some 26 to 35,000 different denominations of Christianity.

Again, they are contradictory in part or whole to each other. Man is incapable of interpreting the Scriptures without the help of God. Hence, God sent Jesus down to not only redeem man but to leave man the means to accomplish his destiny.

Therefore, if man only had the Gospels alone, the Scriptures would be less of a value than their intended value. The Jews had the Scriptures and they got off track so many times that God decided it was time to send a Redeemer.

God had revealed to the Jews His laws, but man’s flawed nature incapacitated the Jews causing them to fall into error so often. Jesus therefore gave His Church the Holy Spirit to protect it from error in its beliefs and teachings, because man alone would inevitably loose his way. But God also gave the Graces to act in accord with His dictates through the Church and its Sacraments.

Thus, today we are awash in many views of what the Scriptures say. There is only one Truth and Truth does not contradict Truth. However, there many interpretations out there, not to mention the various heathen religions of the Middle and Far East that are multiple. All are attempting to define God and His ways.

Satan, devils, evil spirits...these are simply ways of passing the buck and refusing to take responsibility for our part in the headlines. Knock off the long-winded religious treatises. Look at the headlines. Look at our own hearts. Make the connections.

Yes. Satan exists as a conscious being who is independent of humans. The documented cases of demonic possession around the world and in the US are compelling evidence that such beings exist.

Hmmm, Thomas "The Hallucinator" Baum declares "There seem to be a lot of "know-it-alls" or wanna-be "know-it-alls" whether in a "religious" sense or otherwise in this world, I am not one of them."

But yet said Thomas Baum meets with god, satan and the trinity and therefore declares himself to be the Moses of the NT i.e. knowing it all!!!!

Paganplace,

"What you want, an accolade?"

Maybe a pie in the face, me included.

Ya know, I'm getting tired of fighting. Damn few friends here anymore.

Is there something you gentlemen would like to be doing, here?

You seem greatly confounded.

If it's 'pride' you fear, do someething simple and anonymous.

And pay attention while you do it.

I think it's probably a good thing, in a way, not that ignorance ever is, but I read all this back-and-forth here and I just don't get it.

What's in the way of all this goodness of yours? What you want, an accolade?

TTWSYFAMDGGAHJMJ2: "First, this is in context to the previous post I just sent you first on "credibility" and "evidence." Under those dictates there is plenty of proof."

I must then disagree with the basis of your context. It is both rationalization after the fact and an attempt to neatly sidestep the predicates of rational thinking by declaring certain truths 'off limits' via the manufacture of, "a twofold order of knowledge", said orders being loosely grouped into the human and the Divine.

Were this indeed the case then those things considered Divine in basis would remain so because the Divine cannot be subjugated to the human unless humans have authority over God which I'm certain you would agree cannot be.

TTWSYFAMDGGAHJMJ2: "Yes there is no proof if you dismiss the all the witness who were present in the room. Then if you dismiss all the disciples who received the benefits of the Eucharist.
Absolutely, there is proof from the Scriptures, and from the Acts of the Apostles, by the Church, its formation, and its proliferation show its profundity and efficaciousness."

There is no proof from any alleged witnesses who were present in the room. None can even say where this room was beyond placing it in a rough geographical area that is, to be generous, probably the size of the isle of Manhattan. There is no rational physical basis for a belief that the event referenced as "The Last Supper" occurred.

TTWSYFAMDGGAHJMJ2: "We have the records of history. How else would you know anything except for the historical records, if you don’t have the actual witnesses.We didn’t have tape recorders and pictures of the event, .but we have 11 Apostles who were there and its not sure Judas was there at the time of the Consecration.Are you saying all the above references do not count? Our courts count witness as proof, unless they prove unreliable. The Apostles were in the room, and I imagine some of the women were also, including Jesus’ mother. Are they unreliable?

If we have the records of history where then are the extra-scriptural historical accounts? Were all the Apostles indeed in the room or was Judas Iscariot absent? Did no one think to make an accurate account of the actions of the one who betrayed the son of God? Where is Mary's story? Did Judas give the money to the priests and hang himself as told in Matthew or did he fall from a cliff after purchasing a field with the blood money he received as told in Acts?

To return to your courtroom analogy the witnesses do indeed appear unreliable.

TTWSYFAMDGGAHJMJ2: "the incomprehensible spread of the Church...The history of the Church herself show Her validity...the Church herself, is, by her marvelous propagation"

This is a repeated theme but proves little more than the Church has been very successful at looking out for it's own success. Might does not make right nor does success mean correct.

TTWSYFAMDGGAHJMJ2: "Explain circular reasoning; if you know what it is in reference to proof of the Last. Supper."

Let's return for a moment to my original statement:

washpost18: "Your full quote, because I want to revisit it: "Your reference is pitted against the Apostles, Centuries of Church Scripture Scholars, 2,000 years of Church Scholarship by Church Councils, Church Theologians and Historians, the Vatican Archives that document its Traditions and Beliefs"

Do you have any historical references to offer as proof of the "Last Supper" having actually taken place? Without such the above boils down to circular reasoning and appeal to authority, not proof."

Now, the original claim you made was that the Apostles, years of study by Church scholars, 2000 more years of study by Church scholars, and the Church archives of it's own activities are proof of the Last Supper (and by inference the events surrounding it). By your own words, "the Supper...spawned the Catholic Church,... The Last Supper is the central worship of the Church" yet you have not offered up yet any historical evidence EXCEPT that which is promulgated by the Catholic Church. Where are the accounts of the "others" alleged to have been there?

I ask you for proof and you offer me the hear-say of Church theologians. I could ask where they obtained their proof but your earlier postings have already answered that question; they obtained their knowledge from the Bible. How do they know the writings of the Bible are true? Because the theologians tell them the Bible is true. Around and around in a circle of self-justification.

TTWSYFAMDGGAHJMJ2,

The Way of the Gospels, the Path of Jesus, is NOT easy. It is, perhaps intentionally, twisting and convoluted sometimes.

Faith is not a destination, it is a lifelong journey.

The Gospels are the heart and soul of Christianity, but they are not the end-all, they are a doorway. The rest of the bible is either commentary, supporting documentation, history, metaphor, mythology, or outright nonsense.

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
THOMASBAUM :
THE UNBLEMISHED LAMB
MARCH 30, 2009 2:16 PM

IRT:
I asked, "“Have you ever heard of Jesus referred to as "the unblemished Lamb?”"
It was a simple "yes or no" question and you did not answer, would you care to?

ANS:
All proper sacrifices to God are required to be unblemished. The question was answered. I also put the reason why He was called the Unblemished Lamb, He had no sin.

IRT:
You wrote, "He gave the Church a mission, “Go forth, and teach all nations” the Truth Jesus had given to the Apostles."

Jesus said, "Simon, thou art Peter and upon this rock, I will build My Church and the gates of the netherworld shall NOT prevail against It."

As Jesus said, it is His Church and the WHOLE MISSION of the Church is that "the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.”

You then wrote, "At the end of time,".

Jesus talks about the "end of the age" and about the "end times" not the end of time.

ANS:
“END TIMES AND END OF AGE “ are the same thing. It is the end of time, no more time. God will be with the Church till the end of the world.

IRT:
God created time and the dawning of the seventh day will come but as Jesus said, "Night is coming ...,” this is the night of the sixth day, of course these days are not 24 hr days.

How much longer the sixth day will last, I do not know, but as Our Brother, Jesus, said, "Night is coming.”

You also wrote, " Because the Word is the voice of the Church.”

Actually, the Word is Love because God is Love, literally, and the Word became flesh and that Word is God Himself, Love, it is that simple.

ANS:
God is all things, He is the Spirit and the Son and the Son was Man and spoke to mankind as Jesus and left his Church with Peter as its visible head and God is the invisible Head speaking through the Holy Spirit through the Church to man.

If it’s simple as you’ve said, you’ve put God in a BOX.

IRT:
You also wrote, "God's Church is Universal in that the path to Paradise is that all men must pass through it."

Jesus never said that His Church was the Way, He said that He Is The Way, big difference!

ANS:
Jesus is the Head of the Church so He is the Vine and we are the Branches and the way is through the Vine that gives it life. God is all things. You again are putting God in a one dimensional Box.

IRT>
You also wrote, "No one can give himself the mandate and the mission to proclaim the Gospel.,” this is true but many do.

God chose me and I have said YES, do you know that the word "Gospel" means "Good News"?

One of the things that I have said, is that sometimes a sacrament might take a few decades to kick in, so to speak, and my Confirmation name is Moses.

ANS:
If you are in favor with God, viz. in the state of grace, the graces are bestowed at the time of their reception. There is no reason for God to bestow them.

IRT:
Do you also know that at Jesus' Birth, the Angels gave two proclamations, one was: "This is Good News for ALL people" and the other was: "Peace to whom God's Favor rests.”

It doesn't say 'good news for some people', God has a Plan and God's Plan will come to Fruition.

ANS:
True!:

“Do you remember when Pope John Paul II went around the entire planet and made public confessions for the sins of the Catholic Church?”

ANS:
Never knew about the Public Confessions.

IRT:
“Jesus never said that the "Church" would be "perfect,” what He said was that "The gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against It.”

ANS:
No the Church isn’t perfect but God is. And, God said He would protect the Truths, which He told the Church to teach. It therefore cannot teach error “ex cathedra” on matters of faith and morals. That means the teachings are without error and perfect.

IRT:
I don't know what you might think worshipping is, but we are called to worship God, not the Church.

ANS:
We worship God who is the Head of the Church.
IRT:
| You wrote, "No, God gives a multiple of graces through the Church in all the Sacraments of the Church,"

Do you really believe that God can only bestow graces "through the Church in all the Sacraments of the Church"?

ANS:
God gives graces through many channels.

IRS:
As I have said before, lots of people try to put God in a "box.”
ANS:
God is infinite, no Boxes.

IRT:
Catholic means universal, not arrogant. As I have said before, I have sometimes seen more "Christianity in action" in bars than in churches at times. You also wrote, "Never has it been heard of in all ages that anyone who sought His aid or intercession was left unaided." Doesn't say anything about calling upon "His Church" here but about calling upon God.

ANS:
God is the Head of His Church and the Church was instituted by God so that we seek God through it. That’s why He created it. It is the sole authority on earth of the teachings of Jesus, not man, not individuals. Thus, what ever it binds on earth is bound in Heaven and what ever is loose on earth is loose in Heaven.

IRT:
The only limits that God has, are the limits that He has imposed upon Himself not the ones that we try to impose upon Him.

ANS:
God can’t be evil, can’t cease to exist , can’t sin. He didn’t impose that on himself it is His nature, viz. His essence is His existence, or He is infinite.

TTWSYFAMDGGAHJMJ2

You wrote, "With God all things are possible, with man, nothing is possible.—Mt 19:26 “And Jesus beholding, said to them: With men this is impossible: but with God all things are possible.”".

Do you think that it is "possible" that God's Plan is for not only All of humanity but also All of creation?

Ever heard of "new heavens and a new earth"?

Jesus extended an invitation to us to "Come follow Me" which is God asking us to be active participants in His Saving Plan.

He did not ask us to follow Him just on our own but with Him with us and the Holy Spirit to Guide and Comfort us.

He did not say that He was going to send the Holy Spirit only to the "higher ups", did He?

It is not about religion, it is about a relationship, Jesus did not start a religion as a matter of fact neither Judaism nor Christianity are religions but relationships.

Judaism is a relationship between God and a people and Christianity is a relationship between God and a person and those persons are what make up the Church.

Vatican II has some things to say about the "Church" that some "Catholics" seem to have a problem with. One of which is that the "Church" is not necessarily confined to the "physicality", so to speak, of the Catholic Church.

We may not know all that God is doing and how He is doing it in His Plan but that doesn't mean that He has to do it according to the way and/or ways that we "approve" of.

There seem to be a lot of "know-it-alls" or wanna-be "know-it-alls" whether in a "religious" sense or otherwise in this world, I am not one of them.

I am a messenger chosen by God and I don't know it all nor do I need to know it all but what I do need to know to do what God chose for me to do, God will somehow let me know.

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

Wow, bible "thumping" is in full swing this afternoon. "You all" might want to check the authenticity of the passages that you site as being the words of the "simple preacher man".

Upon checking you will find that most are single attestations i.e. are not verified from other sources.

A summary of the errors and flaws in Christianity: (for those eyes that have not seen)

Jesus was an illiterate Jewish peasant/carpenter/simple preacher man who suffered from hallucinations and who has been characterized anywhere from the Messiah from Nazareth to a mythical character from mythical Nazareth to a mamzer from Nazareth (Professor Bruce Chilton, in his book Rabbi Jesus). Analyses of Jesus’ life by many contemporary NT scholars (e.g. Professors Crossan, Borg and Fredriksen, On Faith panelists) via the NT and related documents have concluded that only about 30% of Jesus' sayings and ways noted in the NT were authentic. The rest being embellishments (e.g. miracles)/hallucinations made/had by the NT authors to impress various Christian, Jewish and Pagan sects.

The 30% of the NT that is "authentic Jesus" like everything in life was borrowed/plagiarized and/or improved from those who came before. In Jesus' case, it was the ways and sayings of the Babylonians, Greeks, Persians, Egyptians, Hittites, Canaanites, OT, John the Baptizer and possibly the ways and sayings of traveling Greek Cynics.

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/theories.html

For added "pizzazz", Catholic/Christian theologians divided god the singularity into three persons and invented atonement as an added guilt trip for the "pew people" to go along with this trinity of overseers. By doing so, they made god the padre into god the "filicider".

Current crises:

Pedophiliac priests, atonement theology and original sin!!!!

Luther, Calvin, Smith, Henry VIII, Wesley, Roger Williams et al, founders of Christian-based religions, also suffered from the belief in/hallucinations of "pretty wingie thingie" visits and "prophecies" for profits analogous to the myths of Catholicism (resurrections, apparitions, ascensions and immaculate conceptions).

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
“THE TRUE CHURCH”
ARMINIUS

IRT:
“Thomas Baum is right. It is not your church, it is not my church, it is not Thomas Baum's church. It is GOD's church,”

ANS:
To say it’s my Church which I don’t think I said, and If I did, it a metaphor, as one says, my Country, or like if someone asks what is your Church affiliation etc.

IRT:
“But we do NOT follow any church, we follow our Risen Lord, as He taught us. Each and every church is a bunch of people trying to make some good noise and figure out what's going on. And usually screwing it up. None of them have got it right, they can't, because Paul was right when he said we see through a glass darkly. The church, any church, is only an imperfect doorway. And we, imperfect also, must be aware of this.”

ANS:
God is the Head of the Church the Vine and we are its Branches.

Here’s some simple questions you can, explain if there is no particular Church we follow. What is Mathew talking about?

Matthew 18:15-2: And if he will not hear them: tell the church. And if he will not hear the church, let him be to thee as the heathen and publican

What Church is Jesus talking about? During His time there were only Jewish and Pagan Temples.

Here’s another to explain, Mt 16:18 -
And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build MY CHURCH and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

Jesus just established his Church, and more over, He tells Peter he is its visible Head. “Amen I say to you, whatsoever you shall bind upon earth, shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever you shall loose upon earth, shall be loosed also in heaven. What church is Jesus talking about?

IRS:
“The church, any church, is only an imperfect doorway. And we, imperfect also, must be aware of this.””

ANS:
Mt. 28:20 Mt.10; John 15: 26-27
". Mt. 28:20..and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And, surely, I am with you always, to the very end of the age; Mt.10:. "For it will not be YOU speaking but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you." John 15: 26-27 "When the counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, He will testify about me. And, you must also testify about me, who has been with me from the beginning.”

With God all things are possible, with man, nothing is possible.—Mt 19:26 “And Jesus beholding, said to them: With men this is impossible: but with God all things are possible.”

The Church God instituted is Perfect because He keeps it Perfect in its teachings and doctrines. He protects His Church from the follies of man. Moreover, not "even the gates of Hell can or will prevail against it."

Now how are you going to know what are the teachings of Jesus? The path is narrow.

Matthew 19:23-30
“Then Jesus said to his disciples: Amen, I say to you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven. And again I say to you: It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven.

And when they had heard this, the disciples wondered much, saying: Who then can be saved? And Jesus beholding, said to them: With men this is impossible: but with God all things are possible.” Namely, man cannot interpet the Scriptures alone. Therefore, God instituted His Church because Man got everything out of kilter on his own. The voice of His Church is the Voice of God.

There are some 26 to 27,000 different denominations of Christianity in existence, and none agree with each other and contradict each other in part or altogether simply because man tried to interpret the Scriptures on his own. Moreover, this isn’t counting the numbers of sects and different shades of the religions in the Middle and Far East and Africa.

God knew man was incapable of interpreting the Scriptures on their own,, and so He gave man His Church, as has been stated, the Holy Spirit to protect the Church from error in matters of its religious teachings and doctrines-- Mt. 28:20 Mt.10; John 15: 26-27. God is not imperfect, but man is, and that’s why we have the Church to assist us in knowing God’s will.

Do I exist? Yes, of course. For thousands of earth years I've wrecked you, destroyed you and you still don't get it. This is what I do, and you blame God for your misfortunes. That is my plan. Your worst enemy is your ego. I play upon that. You think that God's holy spirit is in you, but it's another spirit...the Evil One, me, Satan. I make you feel special. I tell you lies, and you think it is the Holy God, His Spirit, but it is I. I test you for Him.

I corrupt you, I lie to you, and when you finally wise up and recognize me for what I do....and you reject me, it is then that Almighty God finds you. And I am cast off, but never fear, I am never far from you. When you fall, I will always be there waiting for you.

The easiest ones to corrupt are your leaders..I dwell on the egos of your leaders. They believe that God has a special relationship with them. I whisper in their ears, I tell them lies. They do what I ask. Wars are easy to start. They think that they are on a mission for God. I laugh at them. They are like putty in my hands. It is so easy. People never change. They want to be deceived, so I deceive them.

Do I exist? Yes, of course. For thousands of earth years I've wrecked you, destroyed you and you still don't get it. This is what I do, and you blame God for your misfortunes. That is my plan. Your worst enemy is your ego. I play upon that. You think that God's holy spirit is in you, but it's another spirit...the Evil One, me, Satan. I make you feel special. I tell you lies, and you think it is the Holy God, His Spirit, but it is I. I test you for Him.

I corrupt you, I lie to you, and when you finally wise up and recognize me for what I do....and you reject me, it is then that Almighty God finds you. And I am cast off, but never fear, I am never far from you. When you fall, I will always be there waiting for you.

The easiest ones to corrupt are your leaders..I dwell on the egos of your leaders. They believe that God has a special relationship with them. I whisper in their ears, I tell them lies. They do what I ask. Wars are easy to start. They think that they are on a mission for God. I laugh at them. They are like putty in my hands. It is so easy. People never change. They want to be deceived, so I deceive them.

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
WASHINGTON18
“SOURCE”

IRT:
“So this is not you attacking the source? "Your reference is...Luedemann (LDM) who has been expelled from teaching in his own university by a German Federal Constitutional Court"

ANS:
Explain circular reasoning; if you know what it is in reference to proof of the Last. Supper.

Let’s have a little insight to what the purpose of LDM is about.

LDM’s latest book should give you some idea who LDM is. He attacks the Pope’s credibility on the Pope’s book on Jesus: LDM not only disputes the Pope, He also impugns St. Paul, Mark and all the Apostles, and claims the Passover character of the Supper is a Markan creation, then theorizes on what goes on in Heaven.

He claims there’s nothing spectacular about the Supper though it spawned the Catholic Church, the largest religion in the world. The Last Supper is the central worship of the Church.

That’s probably why LDM got tossed. You can find these loonies every where we go. We just elected one for President, and there’s plenty of loonies to track after him. Ward Churchill is another, who got kicked out of Univ. Colorado. It’s useless to argue with these headcases.

The LDM book is “Book Note: "Eyes That See Not (Gerd. Luedemann) ‘The historian is obliged to present objective evidence for his or her assertions. The rules of the game do not permit one to rely on uncorroborated testimony or claims of authority’

Any statement that is challenged has to include the credibility of the source. That’s not the kind of criticism I am speaking of. The criticism I am speaking of had nothing to do with the point being made but with the poster. I am disputing what Luedemann has said and yes his credibility, because what he said impugns his credibility His statements are absurd.

The criticism of hallucinating is not against the discussion of what was said, but that the poster was hallucinating irrespective of the source of the context of the argument.

More so, the references of the post were not discredited; they weren’t even considered except for the presentment of this ecentric LDM who flatly claimed Mark was hallucinating, as were all the Apostles. LDM then starting speculating about the happenings in Heaven. The evidence was a speculative opinion without substance.

The implication about my post was the post was void because it was pasted by a hallucinater.

For instance, if I take your post and claim you are hallucinating and never discuss your point, that would be incredibly impudent, and that's what the response was to.

Now, LDM attacks the veracity of Mark and then uses the same Scripture to speculate that the event didn’t occur, and that Jesus didn’t say what Mark wrote, but the only reason that he knows this is because he claims Mark and all the Apostles are unreliable, and not because there is a contradiction but that the witnesses character is flawed.

That intimates the Apostles are delusional. The Apostles believed in God so profoundly that they died for their belief. Now why would they die twelve of them not including John, for a lie they knew wasn't true? Judas hung himself because he knew what he had done against Jesus who is God.

Now its easy to dismiss all the witness because they are delusional, the historical efficacy of the Church is unimportant, and rewrite the Scriptures to your own interpretations.

TTWSYFAMDGGAHJMJ2,

Thomas Baum is right. It is not your church, it is not my church, it is not Thomas Baum's church. It is GOD's church, but we do NOT follow any church, we follow our Risen Lord, as He taught us. Each and every church is a bunch of people trying to make some good noise and figure out what's going on. And usually screwing it up. None of them have got it right, they can't, because Paul was right when he said we see through a glass darkly. The church, any church, is only an imperfect doorway. And we, imperfect also, must be aware of this.

TTWSYFAMDGGAHJMJ2

I asked, "“Have you ever heard of Jesus referred to as "the unblemished Lamb?”"

You answered, "God Son was the Sacrificial Lamb who offered Himself up for the remission of Adams sin. The serpent in the Garden, who tempted Adam, was told that God would send a woman whose offspring would crush his head.

The woman was the Virgin Mary, the offspring was Jesus. Gen. 3:15 “I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel.”"

It was a simple "yes or no" question and you did not answer, would you care to?

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

TTWSYFAMDGGAHJMJ2

You wrote, "He gave the Church a mission, “Go forth, and teach all nations” the Truth Jesus had given to the Apostles."

Jesus said, "Simon, thou art Peter and upon this rock, I will build My Church and the gates of the netherworld shall NOT prevail against It."

As Jesus said, it is His Church and the WHOLE MISSION of the Church is that "the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it".

You then wrote, "At the end of time,".

Jesus talks about the "end of the age" and about the "end times" not the end of time.

God created time and the dawning of the seventh day will come but as Jesus said, "Night is coming ...", this is the night of the sixth day, of course these days are not 24 hr days.

How much longer the sixth day will last, I do not know, but as Our Brother, Jesus, said, "Night is coming".

You also wrote, " Because the Word is the voice of the Church".

Actually, the Word is Love because God is Love, literally, and the Word became flesh and that Word is God Himself, Love, it is that simple.

You also wrote, "God's Church is Universal in that the path to Paradise is that all men must pass through it."

Jesus never said that His Church was the Way, He said that He Is The Way, big difference!

You also wrote, "No one can give himself the mandate and the mission to proclaim the Gospel.", this is true but many do.

God chose me and I have said YES, do you know that the word "Gospel" means "Good News"?

One of the things that I have said, is that sometimes a sacrament might take a few decades to kick in, so to speak, and my Confirmation name is Moses.

Do you also know that at Jesus's Birth, the Angels gave two proclamations, one was: "This is Good News for ALL people" and the other was: "Peace to whom God's Favor rests".

It doesn't say 'good news for some people', God has a Plan and God's Plan will come to Fruition.

Do you remember when Pope John Paul II went around the entire planet and made public confessions for the sins of the Catholic Church?

Jesus never said that the "Church" would be "perfect", what He said was that "The gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against It".

I don't know what you might think worshipping is, but we are called to worship God, not the Church.

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

TTWSYFAMDGGAHJMJ2

You wrote, "No, God gives a multiple of graces through the Church in all the Sacraments of the Church,"

Do you really believe that God can only bestow graces "through the Church in all the Sacraments of the Church"?

As I have said before, lots of people try to put God in a "box".

Catholic means universal, not arrogant.

As I have said before, I have sometimes seen more "Christianity in action" in bars than in churches at times.

You also wrote, "Never has it been heard of in all ages that anyone who sought His aid or intercession was left unaided."

Doesn't say anything about calling upon "His Church" here but about calling upon God.

The only limits that God has, are the limits that He has imposed upon Himself not the ones that we try to impose upon Him.

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

CCNL

You wrote, ""The Hallucinator" is on a roll today. He, however, missed his Catholic graduate school theology class the day they reviewed "Eucharist" reality."

I would rather go by what the Holy Spirit revealed to me than by what you say the "Catholic graduate school theology class" might say.

Question, do all of the "Catholic graduate school theology classes" concur with you or just the ones that you think are right?

You also wrote, "[Note: both Episcopalians and Lutherans believe in the real presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharistized bread and wine.]"

I happened to be at a Catholic Mass when the Holy Spirit revealed this to me so that the only Eucharist that I "know" is Jesus is the Catholic Eucharist.

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
WASHINGTON18
"PROOF”

IRT:
[TTWSYFAMDGGAHJMJ2: "Hallucinations are in the mind of the beholder. I always like to see the people who can’t refute the message and attack the source. Even if I were hallucinating and I am ignorant, the authority of the source is impeccable."

“Do you have any historical references to offer as proof of the "Last Supper" having actually taken place? Without such the above boils down to circular reasoning and appeal to authority, not proof.”

ANS:
First, this is in context to the previous post I just sent you first on “credibility” and “evidence.” Under those dictates there is plenty of proof. Proof does rest on authority, one being witnesses and their testimony.

Yes there is no proof if you dismiss the all the witness who were present in the room. Then if you dismiss all the disciples who received the benefits of the Eucharist.

Absolutely, there is proof from the Scriptures, and from the Acts of the Apostles, by the Church, its formation, and its proliferation show its profundity and efficaciousness. The details are on the link below.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14341a.htm

We have the records of history. How else would you know anything except for the historical records, if you don’t have the actual witnesses.

We didn’t have tape recorders and pictures of the event, .but we have 11 Apostles who were there and its not sure Judas was there at the time of the Consecration.

Are you saying all the above references do not count? Our courts count witness as proof, unless they prove unreliable. The Apostles were in the room, and I imagine some of the women were also, including Jesus’ mother. Are they unreliable?

If you deny the Apostles and Jesus' credibility, as apparently the critics intimate, all the witness who received the Eucharist, and the way the Church reacted by imitating Jesus command to repeat the Consecration, plus the historical recording of these historical events after the Crucifixion, what more proof could you want?

We also have Judas who hung himself because the shame and sorrow was so heavy he lost his mind. Judas is a testimony to the integrity of Jesus. Moreover, when Jesus rose from the dead on the third day, Jesus did not rebuke the Apostles for consecrating the Bread and Wine. That verified its authenticity.

We also have the people at the time give witness to the Church and the incomprehensible spread of the Church, Its fruits should be self-evident of the spiritual mystery that was inherent in the Church’s proliferation.

Further, the Church had not changed its beliefs even to accommodate the Protestant’s break with the Church. What more evidence is there? There are miracles.

http://www.therealpresence.org/eucharst/mir/a3.html

Throughout Christian history, our Lord has shown us that he is really present as the Blessed Sacrament. Interestingly, many Eucharistic miracles have occurred during times of weakened Faith.

For instance, many Eucharist miracles have taken place as a result of someone doubting the Real Presence. Included on this page are descriptions of just a few of these miracles. All of them have received full approval by the Church."

TTWSYFAMDGGAHJMJ2,

There you go again copying and pasting from an outdated version of the Catholic Encyclopedia.

With respect to "circle thinking":

Think about the logic (or lack thereof).

“I believe the Bible is inspired.” “Why?” “Because it says so.” Would your
anyone let that logic pass if it came from the followers of any other book or person? “I believe x is inspired because x says so.”

Fill in the blanks:
x=Pat Robertson
x=the ayatolloah Sistani
x=David Koresh
x=the Koran
x=TTWSYFAMDGGAHJMJ2:

more “logic”?

“I believe there is One God Jehovah because He is revealed in the infallible Bible. I believe the Bible is infallible because it is the Word of the One God Jehovah.”

TTWSYFAMDGGAHJMJ2 said:
"ANS:
Before I answer your post, I want you to read these two posts since you asked about credibility and about evidence. These two posts will be the context in which I answer your post."

I've only had time to skim your two context-defining postings thus far and will have to revisit them later when I have some uninterrupted time to evaluate, but did I overlook your response buried in amongst there or have you not yet condensed your answer?

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
WASHINGTON18
“TRUTH, EVIDENCE, CREDIBILITY”

Though Revealed truths cannot be demonstrated, they are taken on the authority of the Giver or He that reveals them. Namely, that what God revealed to man is not contrary to reason, but it is beyond reason to deduce such truths with reason alone.

“Truths like the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Resurrection, forgiveness of sins, etc., cannot be proved by reason, but they can be proved to not be contrary to reason. Reason can show they have been revealed in so much as they came from God, of whom we reason is Omniscient.

“The motivation for natural theology is to be found in the faith itself. Any suggestion that the acceptance of the mysteries of faith is akin to belief in the Great Pumpkin must be thoroughly rejected. [Namely, Faith is based on reason and not myths, as was Greek Mythology.]”

“Faith has as its object the first truth who is God and its truths, again, cannot be in conflict with truths gained by natural reason.

“There is a twofold order of knowledge. Christianity has always held that there is a twofold order of knowledge. These two orders are distinguished from one another not only in their principle, but also in their object.

"In one, we know by natural reason, in the other by Divine faith; the object of the one is truth attainable by natural reason, the object of the other is mysteries hidden in God, but which we have to believe and which can only be known to us by Divine revelation."

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05752c.htm

“Now, intellectual knowledge may be defined in a general way as the union between the intellect and an intelligible object. A truth is intelligible to us only in so far as it is evident to us. However, evidence is of different kinds.

“Hence, according to the varying character of the evidence, we shall have varying kinds of knowledge. Thus a truth may be self-evident -- e.g. the whole is greater than its part -- in which case we are said to have intuitive knowledge of it. Or, the truth may not be self-evident, but deducible from premises in which it is contained. -- Such knowledge is termed reasoned knowledge.

“A truth may be neither self-evident nor deducible from premises in which it is contained, yet the intellect may be obliged to assent to it because It would else have to reject some other universally accepted truth.

“Lastly, the intellect may be induced to assent to a truth for none of the foregoing reasons, but solely because, though not evident in itself, this truth rests on grave authority. For example, we accept the statement that the sun is 90,000,000 miles distant from the earth because competent, veracious authorities vouch for the fact.

“This last kind of knowledge is termed faith, and is clearly necessary in daily life. If the authority upon which we base our assent is human, it is fallible. We have human and fallible faith.

"If the authority is Divine, we have Divine and infallible faith. Divine faith, then, is that form of knowledge, which is derived from Divine authority and which consequently, begets absolute certitude in the mind of the recipient

“That such Divine faith is necessary follows from the fact of Divine Revelation."

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
WASHINGTON18
“SOURCE”

ANS:
Before I answer your post, I want you to read these two posts since you asked about credibility and about evidence. These two posts will be the context in which I answer your post.

"The motives of credibility may be briefly stated as follows:

In the Old Testament, considered not as an inspired book, but merely as a book having historical value, we find detailed the marvelous dealings of God with a particular nation to whom He repeatedly reveals Himself; we read of miracles wrought in their favor and as proofs of the truth of the revelation He makes.

We find the most sublime teaching and the repeated announcement of God's desire to save the world from sin and its consequences.

And, more than all, we find throughout the pages of this book a series of hints, now obscure, now clear, of some wondrous person who is to come as the world's savior.

We find it asserted at one time that He is man, at others that He is God Himself.

When we turn to the New Testament we find that it records the birth, life, and death of One Who, while clearly man, also claimed to be God, and Who proved the truth of His claim by His whole life—miracles, teachings, and death, and finally by His triumphant resurrection.

We find, moreover, that He founded a Church which should, so He said, continue to the end of time, which should serve as the repository of His teaching, and should be the means of applying to all men the fruits of the redemption He had wrought.

When we come to the subsequent history of this Church, we find it speedily spreading everywhere, and this in spite of its humble origin, its unworldly teaching, and the cruel persecution, which it meets at the hands of the rulers of this world.

And as the centuries pass, we find this Church battling against heresies schisms, and the sins of her own people-nay, of her own rulers.

Yet continuing, we see ever the same, promulgating ever the same doctrine, and putting before men the same mysteries of the life, death, and resurrection of the world's Savior.

Moreover, it was He Who had, so She taught, gone before to prepare a home for those who while on earth should have believed in Him and fought the good fight.

But, if the history of the Church, since New-Testament times thus wonderfully confirms, the New Testament itself, and if the New Testament so marvelously completes the Old Testament, these books must really contain what they claim to contain. Viz. they contain Divine revelation.

And more than all, that Person’s life and death were so minutely foretold in the Old Testament, and Whose story, as told in the New Testament, so perfectly corresponds with its prophetic delineation in the Old Testament. Therefore, it must be what He claimed to be, viz. the Son of God.

His work, therefore, must be Divine. The Church that He founded must also be Divine. Therefore, since the Church is the repository and guardian of His teachings, it must be Devine.

Indeed, we can truly say that for every truth of Christianity, in which we believe Christ Himself is our testimony. We believe in Him because the Divinity He claimed rests upon the concurrent testimony. [That testimony is] of His miracles,

His prophecies His personal character, the nature of His doctrine. [More so, we believe because of] the marvelous propagation of His teachings.

[Thus, it has came about, even] in spite of its running counter to flesh and blood, the united testimony of thousands of martyrs. [And there is] the stories of countless saints who for His sake have led heroic lives.

The history of the Church herself, since the Crucifixion, and, perhaps more remarkable than any, the history of the papacy from St. Peter to Pius XVI. show Her validity.

These [Her] testimonies are unanimous; they all point in one direction, they are of every age, they are clear and simple, and are within the grasp of the humblest intelligence.

And, as the Vatican Council has said, 'the Church herself, is, by her marvelous propagation, her wondrous sanctity, her inexhaustible fruitfulness in good works, her Catholic unity, and her enduring stability, a great and perpetual motive of credibility and an irrefragable witness to her Divine commission" (Const. Dei Filius).

"'The Apostles,'” says St. Augustine, 'saw the Head and believed in the Body; we see the Body let us believe in the Head' [Sermo ccxliii, 8 (al. cxliii), de temp., P.L., V 1143]."

Alphabet Man:
Moreover, God wanted Adam to choose to love Him freely, to show his love for God. If there were no challenge to test ones love how would it be known. Even though God knew the future the past and the present, Adam was an independent creature that had to prove His love for God and God gave him that choice out of His Justice.

The problem is Adam had a free will; God didn’t want a robot's love, nor would you want a robot to love you. You would look for some kind of sign that the one you marry cared about you, or you wouldn’t be normal. If Adam had no reason to choose or show his love for God, since he had everything one could humanly desire, then what would be the purpose of Creation.
**************************************************************************************
I know my husband loves me. How do I know that he loves me? He does nice things for me. He treats me with respect and kindness. I am secure in the knowledge of his love for me without devising "tests" to see if he "really" loves me.
I don't need to put a bevy of naked supermodels in front of him and see if he rejects their favors to know that he loves me.

And if God knew before he even created them that Adam and Eve WOULD eat from the tree, then they didn't really have the choice not to. After all, if an infallible being KNOWS before hand that an event will occur, then that event MUST occur, because if it doesn't, the being isn't really infallible. If God KNEW before Adam and Eve were created that they would eat the forbidden fruit, then had they chosen not to do so, the "infallible" God would have been mistaken.
So if you really beleve that God is infallible, and that Genesis is fact, then Adam and Eve were set up, and God is guilty of entrapment.

TTWSYFAMDGGAHJMJ2: "Hallucinations are in the mind of the beholder. I always like to see the people who can’t refute the message and attack the source. Even if I were hallucinating and I am ignorant, the authority of the source is impeccable."

So this is not you attacking the source? "Your reference is...Luedemann who has been expelled from teaching in his own university by a German Federal Constitutional Court"

Your full quote, because I want to revisit it: "Your reference is pitted against the Apostles, Centuries of Church Scripture Scholars, 2,000 years of Church Scholarship by Church Councils, Church Theologians and Historians, the Vatican Archives that document its Traditions and Beliefs"

Do you have any historical references to offer as proof of the "Last Supper" having actually taken place? Without such the above boils down to circular reasoning and appeal to authority, not proof.

TTWSYFAMDGGAHJMJ2,

Added class notes from most Catholic university graduate theology classes that you apparently skipped:

"The story of Adam and Eve is only symbolic. This story was composed in the 900s BCE and functions as an etiology (explanatory myth) . In the 900s Israel was self ruling, under King David and Solomon. The people were no longer at war and the question" Why are we not happy?" may have been asked.

The short answer is sin. (Look at 1 Kings 11 for some clues into why the story depicts Eve sinning first and then tempting Adam [Solomon]).

Original Sin is symbolic of the sins of our origins -- in our
families and in the broader society, both of which affect each person profoundly. The "sins of our origins" approach helps to account for certain patterns of sin in particular families and societies.

Baptism therefore does not erase original sin since the sin does not exist. The old "laundry of the soul," approach to Baptism is no longer accepted.

Infant Baptism is only a rite of initiation and commits parents and godparents to bringing up the child in a Christian home.
Baptism is now typically celebrated at Sunday Eucharist, where all the members of the parish family are encouraged to pledge their support and care for the faith life of the newly baptized.

(A manifestation of this is
persons volunteering to teach other people's kids the basics of
Catholicism.)"

And if there was no Adam and Eve, it follows that there was no biblical Noah. See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noah's_Ark#Other_flood_stories

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
LEPIDOPTERYX :
ADAM AND EVE, AND GOD.

IRT:
"When my daughter was a baby, I put things I didn't want her to put in her mouth out of her reach. I didn't put the Drano in her playpen and say "You can play with the rattle, and the teddy bear, and the rag doll, and the ball, and you can eat the crackers and the cheese and drink the milk and the juice, but don't eat or even touch the Drano. If you eat or even touch the Drano, I'm going to kick you out of the house."

ANS:
Adam and Eve weren’t children. They were brilliant adults whose reason had perfect control of their will and their concupiscence. When they had sinned, they covered themselves with leaves, they felt shame. Their control was broken by their sins. I assume your child had not yet reached the use of reason; Adam and Eve were well versed in reason.

IRS:
“If God didn't want Adam and Eve to eat from that particular tree, why didn't he just put it somewhere out of their reach? I mean, he had a whole freaking universe full of alternative sites for it, didn't he?”

ANS:
They, more so had the whole Universe except for that one tree and yet they threw away all for that one tree. It wasn't the fault of God but their fault.

If you’re in love with someone, you want signs from them that they love you, that they care for you and that you’re on the same page with them.

In marriage, man and woman become one flesh. Their bond grows stronger the longer they love. Thus, when the one you love, or the bonds created by your love for the fruits of your conjugal love, your children, is separated from you in death, that union, or the bond of love is rent asunder, and it causes great pain. God wanted that love from Adam.

Adam was made to seek the Perfect Love who is God. Man seeks the Perfect Love by his very nature. St. Augustine wrote “Lord, our hearts are restless until they rest in you.”

Hence, no matter how many riches you accumulate, they can’t love you. The closest thing on earth to God is man and women. Why? Because they are made to the image and likeness to God, and we are by nature drawn to each other vicariously in seeking God. Man and woman in love for each other are the closest thing on earth man can come to God.

Moreover, God wanted Adam to choose to love Him freely, to show his love for God. If there were no challenge to test ones love how would it be known. Even though God knew the future the past and the present, Adam was an independent creature that had to prove His love for God and God gave him that choice out of His Justice.

The problem is Adam had a free will; God didn’t want a robot's love, nor would you want a robot to love you. You would look for some kind of sign that the one you marry cared about you, or you wouldn’t be normal. If Adam had no reason to choose or show his love for God, since he had everything one could humanly desire, then what would be the purpose of Creation.

Satan was called Lucifer; he was the most brilliant of all God’s creatures. He too was tested for his love but he loved himself more than he loved God. Adam wasn’t quite as brilliant. Satan was more responsible because he had been given more. Satan didn’t get a second chance. Adam and Eve did.

Satan knew God loved Adam very much. He was jealous of God’s love for man. Since Satan hated God, he hated what God loved, therefore Satan wanted to destroy what God loved.

Love is an important factor for God and His creatures. Satan fell from the sky like lightening into the pits of eternal fire because of His self-love which made him only have room for his love of self, and hatred for all God created and said was good (Gen.)

Though God had given man untold countless blessings, Adam lacked one thing. To receive it, Adam would have to earn this one thing by showing his loyalty to God. That one thing was the Beatific Vision.

As Augustine noted above, the Beatific Vision is the becoming of man’s final destiny, the resting in God’s Divinity. As man shares in the unity of marriage as one flesh, man in Paradise will share in the Divinity of God’s, eternal happiness.

Hence it is written about Paradise, “I Corinthians Cor 2: 9, 12:17. “But, as it is written: That eye hath not seen, nor ear heard: neither hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love him”

TTWSYFAMDGGAHJMJ2,

You failed to apparently see that said Eucharist discussion was from Catholic GRADUATE school teachings in the 21st century. Are you saying that you have more knowledge than these astute Catholic professors?

And you continue to copy and paste from an outdated copy of the Catholic Encyclopedia.

And what you are really should have noted is that current Catholic teachings are the outdate ideas of old, white, "celibate", Catholic-bred, born, brainwashed Europeans who were/are out of touch with rigid historical methods for dealing with poor scriptural references.

Of course, an honest appraisal of these writings would put an end to your blood and body Catholicism making the eucharist simply a symbolic low-calorie wafer.

Yes Satan exists he is the evil that makes us try and make bad decisions all of the time. Satan tries and makes us do bad things.

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
CCNL
“LUEDEMANN”:

IRT:
“And the Last Supper?
It was not an historic event. See http://wiki.faithfutures.org/index.php/016_Supper_and_Eucharist

An excerpt:
"At the same time, Luedemann concludes that the portrayal of Jesus celebrating such a ritual on the night before his death is not historical. He is clear that there is "no generic relationship" between any actual final meal and the Lord's Supper understood in cultic terms.

He also denies the Passover character of the supper as a Markan creation. Like Meier (below),

Luedemann does accept the saying (Mark 14:25) about drinking wine in the kingdom of God as authentic. He concludes: (this saying) "hardly came into being in the early community, for in it Jesus does not exercise any special function for believers at the festal meal in heaven which is imminent. Only Jesus' expectation of the future kingdom of God stands at the centre, not Jesus as savior, judge, or intercessor."

ANS:
Your reference is pitted against the Apostles, Centuries of Church Scripture Scholars, 2,000 years of Church Scholarship by Church Councils, Church Theologians and Historians, the Vatican Archives that document its Traditions and Beliefs against Luedemann who has been expelled from teaching in his own university by a German Federal Constitutional Court isn’t quiet convincing.

http://www.shuckandjive.org/2009/02/gerd-luedemann-and-loss-of-academic.html

“Gerd Luedemann, Professor of History and Literature of Early Christianity in the University of Goettingen, has received word from the Federal Constitutional Court in Germany that his appeal against an earlier ruling excluding him from the teaching of New Testament in the University’s Faculty of Theology has been rejected.

Cases such as Luedemann’s, and earlier Hans Kueng’s at Tuebingen on the Catholic side, suggest that it is feckless to complain about the regressive nature of scholarship in the Arab world when seminal Christian doctrines can prevail over common sense and free inquiry in some of the most distinguished institutions of higher learning in the world."

Don’t consult Wikipedia when you can consult the real experts, the Catholic Church. Amateurs cannot explain the teachings of the Catholic Church better than the Church can.

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
CCNL
SUBSTANCE:

IRT::
"Substance" in medieval philosophy referred to the essence of a thing and was not reducible to material appearance.

ANS:
Wrong again, substance is not an essence. It is an essence with its own existence. That is a critical point since if it has no existence, a thing doesn’t exist. An Essence is the definition of a being. When it is given existence, it becomes a subject.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-metaphysics/#SubMatAriMet

IRT:
"Transubstantiation is a way of
expressing belief that Jesus Christ is SOME HOW present in the consecrated bread and wine in a special way."

ANS:
Wrong transubstantiation is not a way of belief. It is an act, an act that changes the form or character or substance of something The Roman Catholic doctrine that the whole substance of the bread and the wine changes into the substance of the body and blood of Christ when consecrated in the Eucharist.

The belief is that when a priest consecrates the Host it maintains its accidental qualities but the Substance is transformed into the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ Maybe you should have made the class you have accused me of missing.

If you don’t understand what a Substance is, as you plainly have shown, you can’t understand what Transubstantiation is. If anyone has missed classes it’s you. Sorry pardoner, Five Strikes, and your out, hallucinations aren’t pardonable.

IRT:
Some theologians believe that
"transignificantion" would be a better term today than transubstantiation.

ANS:
Yes it is a better term for those who don’t understand Transubstantiation. And so, they transgress in more buffoonery, and waddle in their own ignorance and lack of knowledge.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05573a.htm

"According to the teaching of theology a revealed fact can be proved solely by recurrence to the sources of faith, viz. Scripture and Tradition, with which is also bound up the infallible Magisterium of the Church."

IRS:
[Note: both Episcopalians and Lutherans believe in the real presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharistized bread and wine.]

ANS:
The Episcopalians and Lutherans may believe in the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist but they don’t have the authority from the authority of the Catholic Church to consecrate the Eucharist.

http://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/p2s2c1a3.htm#VI

"The Eastern churches that are not in full communion with the Catholic Church celebrate the Eucharist with great love. 'These Churches, although separated from us, yet possess true sacraments, above all - by apostolic succession - the priesthood and the Eucharist, whereby they are still joined to us in closest intimacy.'

A certain communion in sacris, and so in the Eucharist, "given suitable circumstances and the approval of Church authority, is not merely possible but is encouraged

Ecclesial communities derived from the Reformation and separated from the Catholic Church, 'have not preserved the proper reality of the Eucharistic mystery in its fullness, especially because of the absence of the sacrament of Holy Orders. It is for this reason that, for the Catholic Church, Eucharistic intercommunion with these communities is not possible

However these ecclesial communities, "when they commemorate the Lord's death and resurrection in the Holy Supper . . . profess that it signifies life in communion with Christ and await his coming in glory."

Alphabet Man,

About that whole tree bit.
When my daughter was a baby, I put things I didn't want her to put in her mouth out of her reach. I didn't put the Drano in her playpen and say "You can play with the rattle, and the teddy bear, and the rag doll, and the ball, and you can eat the crackers and the the cheese and drink the milk and the juice, but don't eat or even touch the Drano. If you eat or even touch the Drano, I'm going to kick you out of the house."
If God didn't want Adam and Eve to eat from that particular tree, why didn't he just put it somewhere out of their reach? I mean, he had a whole freaking universe full of alternative sites for it, didn't he?

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
CCNL
TRANSUBSTANTATION:
IRT:
"The Hallucinator" is on a roll today. He, however, missed his Catholic graduate school theology class the day they reviewed "Eucharist" reality.

ANS:
Hallucinations are in the mind of the beholder. I always like to see the people who can’t refute the message and attack the source. Even if I were hallucinating and I am ignorant, the authority of the source is impeccable. More so you have made Jesus a hallucinatory as well.

Talk is cheap and the more you talk the more you show you have no sense of what you’re saying. Those who are dumfounded by something they cannot understand resort to calling things stupid.

Stupid is as stupid does; namely, one who says stupid things expose their own stupidity. Rhetoric is cheap but facts are hard to come by when you try to impugn the Truth. The Pharisees and Scribes tried to impugn the Truth (a.k.a. Jesus) and they were made into fools.

IRT:
"But never fear, the class notes are pasted below."

ANS:
How can someone miss class and past their class notes below? That sounds like another of your misconception.

IRT:
"Communion is not Christ's physical Body and Blood since Christ exists as a spirit therefore has no physical form."

ANS:
When Jesus ascended into heaven He was with a Human nature and a Divine nature; Jesus raised from the Dead, Body, Soul, and Divinity and He ascended into Heaven.

Now who is hallucinating? So Jesus had no body or blood? The Jews and Jesus' disciples must have been stupefied when they discovered the man the Jews crucified was a spirit. What kind of buffoonery is this?

IRT:
Transubstantiation is still a Catholic doctrine, but it never meant a literal transforming of bread and wine into the physical body and blood of Jesus.

ANS:
I really don’t expect you to believe this even thought it comes from the Catholic Church on the link below because you have a serious problem of understanding that when things are pasted, it doesn’t impugn their truth; it substantiates it. But don’t be embarrassed, most iconoclasts have the same problem.

However, a word to the wise should be sufficient. You might try reading the paste sometime instead of attempting to impugn the source, and you wouldn’t be making so many of these facetious and ludicrous errors.

WHAT THE CHURCH BELIEVES
: http://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/ccc_toc.htm

TRANSUBSTANTIATION:

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05573a.htm

“The words of Institution

“The Catholic Church's Magna Charta, however, are the words of Institution, "This is my body — this is my blood", whose literal meaning She has uninterruptedly adhered to from the earliest times. The Real Presence is evinced, positively, by showing the necessity of the literal sense of these words, and negatively, by refuting the figurative interpretations.”

This is your fourth witless statement. No wonder you think the Truth is a hallucination.

“John 6:51cf. “I am the living bread, which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world.

The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying, 'How can this man give us his flesh to eat?' Many of Jesus’ disciples began to leave. Jesus did not call them back and say there was a misunderstanding; instead, He continued.

“Then Jesus said to them, "Amen, amen, I say unto you, except you eat the Flesh of the Son of man and drink His Blood, you shall not have life in you. He that eateth My Flesh and drinketh My Blood hath everlasting life and I will raise him up in the last day.

For My Flesh is Meat indeed: and My Blood is Drink indeed. He that eateth My Flesh and drinketh MY Blood abideth in Me: and I in him.” Only a hardhead would deny what He said.

So according to you, Jesus saying this is My Flesh and this is My Blood is a hallucination, because Jesus has no body or blood. So Jesus is hallucinating as well.

Now you think about this. You’ve just accused Jesus of hallucinating. Jesus must have been a lunatic thinking he was both man and God. in addition, according to you, the Apostles were dying on Crosses thinking Jesus was God and Man with real blood and a real body. That’s what the dissident hallucinating Pharisees also thought.

Since, according to you, He doesn’t have any body or blood, then Jesus was a spirit. masquerading as a human with out body or blood, viz. he was a zombie. That's laughable.

Consequently, the Pharisees must have been hallucinating as well. Let’s see, I am hallucinating, Jesus is hallucinating, the Jews, Pilate and the Romans were hallucinating because they scourged Jesus and his fake blood was all over them, notwithstanding over 2,000 years of historians are illusionary. This is mind boggling.

Paranoia: baseless or excessive suspicion of the motives of others.

Where do you get all your information from, Bagdad Bob? While America’s tanks were coming in right behind him, Bob was announcing they had run America out of Iraq.

You might try reading the Scripture instead of speaking off the top of your head and parroting the agnostics’ delusionary punditry. Try the Last Supper for beginners or try being critical of things you understand.

TWSYFAMDGGAHJMJ2,

As with Thomas, "The Hallucinator" Baum you missed the Catholic graduate theology class on the Eucharist.

But never fear, the class notes are pasted below:

"Communion is not Christ's physical Body and Blood since Christ exists as a spirit therefore has no physical form.

Transubstantiation is still a Catholic doctrine, but it never meant a literal transforming of bread and wine into the physical body and blood of Jesus.

"Substance" in medieval philosophy referred to the essence of a thing and was not reducible to material appearance.

Transubstantiation is a way of
expressing belief that Jesus Christ is SOME HOW present in the consecrated bread and wine in a special way.

Some theologians believe that
"transignificantion" would be a better term today than transubstantiation.

[Note: both Episcopalians and Lutherans believe in the real presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharistized bread and wine.]

And the Last Supper?

It was not an historic event. See http://wiki.faithfutures.org/index.php/016_Supper_and_Eucharist

An excerpt:

"At the same time, Luedemann concludes that the portrayal of Jesus celebrating such a ritual on the night before his death is not historical. He is clear that there is "no generic relationship" between any actual final meal and the Lord's Supper understood in cultic terms. He also denies the Passover character of the supper as a Markan creation. Like Meier (below), Luedemann does accept the saying (Mark 14:25) about drinking wine in the kingdom of God as authentic. He concludes: (this saying) "hardly came into being in the early community, for in it Jesus does not exercise any special function for believers at the festal meal in heaven which is imminent. Only Jesus' expectation of a the future kingdom of God stands at the centre, not Jesus as saviour, judge or intercessor."

IN REPLY TO (IRT)_
THOMASBAUM :
“THE NARROW PATH"
MARCH 28, 2009 1:24 PM |

IRT:
“Have you ever heard of Jesus referred to as "the unblemished Lamb?”

ANS:
God Son was the Sacrificial Lamb who offered Himself up for the remission of Adams sin. The serpent in the Garden, who tempted Adam, was told that God would send a woman whose offspring would crush his head.

The woman was the Virgin Mary, the offspring was Jesus. Gen. 3:15 “I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel.”

IRT:
“Jesus extended the invitation to "Come follow Me,” He did not say 'come follow My Church', He did not say, "Follow the bible,” He did not say, "Follow my teachings" but His invitation was to "Come follow Me."

ANS:
God is the Vine (the Church); His Church is the Word of God. Jesus established a Church to go and teach all nations. He made His Church infallible in its teachings so it would not teach errors.—Mt. 28:20 Mt.10; John 15: 26-27. The Church is the voice of God.

IRT:
"God has a Plan and has had His Plan since before creation and God becoming One of Us is part of His Plan, which is unfolding before our very eyes and will come to Fruition."

ANS:
The Plan is expressed to all mankind through the Church through which Jesus speaks.

IN REPLY TO (IRT)_
THOMASBAUM :
“THE NARROW PATH"
MARCH 28, 2009 1:24 PM |

IRT:
“As I have said, many people seem to want to put God in a box, who are we, humans, to tell God how to be God.”

ANS:
That’s what happened at the Tower of Babble. Man tried to define God in his terms and wants.

IRT:
“You or no one else can tell God what He can or can not do, God has His Plan, and His Plan will come to Fruition.”

ANS:
That is true, but no one in God's Church is telling God what to do; God is telling the Church what to do. He gave the Church a mission, “Go forth, and teach all nations” the Truth Jesus had given to the Apostles.

IRT:
"As I have said many times before but maybe you have missed it, Jesus said, "I Am the Way, the Truth and the Life, no one comes to the FATHER, except thru Me.”

ANS:
Of course, that's the narrow path man must travel to his destiny. Therefore, we come to the Father through His Church that He established for our guide. He is the “Vine,” the Head of His Church, who leads man, the Branches, through His Church. At the end of time, the Church, the instrument on earth to obtain salvation, will pass away, but the Word will never pass away because Jesus is the Word.

IRS
“Jesus did not say "to God" and since God is a Trinity, there could be many ways to Jesus.

ANS:
There is One God. Anything else is a contradiction of reason. This God is Three Divine Persons, a mystery revealed to man by God. Its mystery is above the capacity of man'a understanding , but it is true because it is revealed by God who is Truth itself.

You stated the way to the Father is only through the Son who is God. That way is the Church Jesus gave man. Because the Word is the voice of the Church and “the Word was made flesh and dwelt amongst us,” Jesus is the Word.

Many ways yes, but not many Churches only one, and not ways that contradict the teachings of Christ, the Apostles, and His Church. Jesus said the path is wide for iniquity, but the path and the gate are narrow to pass into the kingdom of God--Mt 7:13-14. .

There are some 26 to 35,000 Christian denominations founded by Man and not God. All contradict each other in part and in whole. They all can’t be true. Jesus didn’t institute 35,000 churches, He only founded one Church.

That Church is One in that its doctrines and teachings have not changed since it’s founding and are taught universally throughout the Church. Only Jesus can change its teachings. His Church is Holy in that it is founded by the Holies of Holies who is God.

God's Church is Universal in that the path to Paradise is that all men must pass through it.

The true Church is Apostolic, viz. the chain of authority God gave to the Apostles has not been broken. Hence, the authority given to Peter, the first visible Head of the Church, the Vicar of Christ, has been unbrokenly passed to Pope Benedict XVI, who acts act in "persona Christi Capitis."

http://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/p123a9p4.htm#I

“Christ is himself the source of ministry in the Church. He instituted the Church. He gave her authority and mission, orientation, and goal:

In order to shepherd the People of God and to increase its numbers without cease, Christ the Lord set up in His Church a variety of offices that aim at the good of the whole body.

The holders of office, who are invested with a sacred power, are, in fact, dedicated to promoting the interests of their brethren, so that all who belong to the People of God . . . may attain to salvation.

How are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without a preacher? And how can men preach unless they are sent?" No one - no individual and no community - can proclaim the Gospel to himself: Faith comes from what is heard.

No one can give himself the mandate and the mission to proclaim the Gospel. The one sent by the Lord does not speak and act on his own authority, but by virtue of Christ's authority; not as a member of the community, but speaking to it in the name of Christ.

No one can bestow grace on himself; it must be given and offered. This fact presupposes ministers of grace, authorized and empowered by Christ. From him, bishops and priests receive the mission and faculty ("the sacred power") to act in persona Christi Capitis.

The ministry in which Christ's emissaries do and give by God's grace what they cannot do and give by their own powers, is called a "sacrament" by the Church's tradition. Indeed, the ministry of the Church is conferred by a special sacrament."

IN REPLY TO (IRT)_
THOMASBAUM :
“GRACE"
MARCH 28, 2009 1:24 PM |

IRT:
“I happen to know that the Catholic Eucharist is Jesus because the Holy Spirit revealed this to me but do you think that this is the only way that God's Grace can be given or received by people?"

ANS:
No, God gives a multiple of graces through the Church in all the Sacraments of the Church, by offering up one’s sufferings for sinners, by imploring God to intercede for others or one’s self. God sends each person a Guardian Angel to protect man from Satan. However, many do not call upon their Guardian Angel who is always ready to help and is very powerful and effective. St. Padre Pio at times sent his Guardian Angel to help someone in distress.

Never has it been heard of in all ages that anyone who sought His aid or intercession was left unaided. However, God will not give you something if it would be harmful to you.

Hence, it is written in Luke 11:1-13 9: “And I say to you: Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and you shall find: knock, and it shall be opened to you. For every one that asketh receiveth: and he that seeketh findeth: and to him that knocketh it shall be opened unto him.

And which of you, if he ask his father for bread, will he give him a stone? Or a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? Or if he shall ask an egg, will he reach him a scorpion? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father from heaven give the good Spirit to them that ask him?.”

The link below is an in depth description of Grace:

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06689a.htm

Grace
Actual Grace
Explains the concept of actual grace, which is defined in the article as "a supernatural help of God for salutary acts granted in consideration of the merits of Christ."

Sanctifying Grace
Describes the nature and characteristics of sanctifying grace; also treats of "justification,” which is the preparation for sanctifying grace.

Controversies on Grace

Hmmm, singing/drinking "John Barleycorn" while hoodooing the voodoo would yes make you a lovely witch of Wicca. :))

Hmmm, singing/drinking "John Barleycorn" while hoodooing the voodoo would yes make you a lovely witch of Wicca. :))

Of course, the *real* thing about the Christian Devil, or your avowedly-disbelieving equivalent position, CCNL, is this:

The 'Devil' is the guy you all claimed you were fighting, while screaming about me wanting equal protection under the law, while, I might add, mentioning that letting people deregulate finance and the judiciary in the name of consumerism as long as they promised it was 'Godly...'

Wasn't gonna turn out well.

Figure that makes me a 'Witch' or is that just what you'd call me, anyway? :)

Not like I'd expect you to understand, CCNL. If you had a poetic bone in your body you''d scarce admit it. Of course, Catholics'll turn around and call it 'idolatry' if I sing John Barleycorn, but that's literalism for you.

Suppose it keeps you busy. Which can't be all bad. :)

Paganplace,

Most Catholics in the pews don't buy the body and blood mumbo jumbo and simply consider the Eucharist to be a symbolic, diet wafer. As noted before, the Last Supper itself, as per most contemporary NT exegetes, was not even an historical event.

Gaby:

"Have you noticed that lately we are not taking about global warming anyomore?

"Now it's simply climate change."

If we were really talking about either, we'd be talking about something besides existence/nonexistence or blame, and be making contingency plans.

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
“THE GREATEST SIN”
GLADERUNNER
MARCH 27, 2009 12:19 PM |

IRT:
[When’s the last time you’ve read Genesis?]

“I have read Genesis many times… when was the last time I believed it to be the literal word of god? Well….. not so recently. Could you help me with it… which parts of Genesis are literal and which are not? That might help.”

ANS:

Read the Scripture within "the living Tradition of the whole Church". According to a saying of the Fathers, Sacred Scripture is written principally in the Church's heart rather than in documents and records, for the Church carries in her

Tradition the living memorial of God's Word, and it is the Holy Spirit who gives her the spiritual interpretation of the Scripture (". . . according to the spiritual meaning which the Spirit grants to the Church"81).
http://www.vatican.va/archive/catechism/p1s1c2a3.htm#III

114 3. Be attentive to the analogy of faith.82 By "analogy of faith" we mean the coherence of the truths of faith among themselves and within the whole plan of Revelation.

The senses of Scripture

115 According to an ancient tradition, one can distinguish between two senses of Scripture: the literal and the spiritual, the latter being subdivided into the allegorical, moral and anagogical senses. The profound concordance of the four senses guarantees all its richness to the living reading of Scripture in the Church.

116 The literal sense is the meaning conveyed by the words of Scripture and discovered by exegesis, following the rules of sound interpretation: "All other senses of Sacred Scripture are based on the literal."83

117 The spiritual sense. Thanks to the unity of God's plan, not only the text of Scripture but also the realities and events about which it speaks can be signs.

1. The allegorical sense. We can acquire a more profound understanding of events by recognizing their significance in Christ; thus the crossing of the Red Sea is a sign or type of Christ's victory and also of Christian Baptism.84

2. The moral sense. The events reported in Scripture ought to lead us to act justly. As St. Paul says, they were written "for our instruction".85

3. The anagogical sense (Greek: anagoge, "leading"). We can view realities and events in terms of their eternal significance, leading us toward our true homeland: thus the Church on earth is a sign of the heavenly Jerusalem.86“Since evil was in the world, there has to be a discipline”

God invented evil, he put it in our world by allowing us to know it. He didn’t have to invent it, he needs it though to show us he loves us.. he has to let us fail to show us what a great and benevolent being he is.. he doesn’t hate evil, he employs it.

He gave us, his children a book of matches and some lighter fluid, then gets angry when fires break out… duh… oh yeah then he punishes us… God needs to take a little of the responsibility here…

To sin against the Holy Ghost is to take pleasure in the malice of sin for its own sake." Now this is to sin through certain malice. Therefore it seems that the sin committed through certain malice is the same as the sin against the Holy Ghost.

Three meanings have been given to the sin against the Holy Ghost. For the earlier doctors, viz. Athanasius (Super Matth. xii, 32), Hilary (Can. xii in Matth.), Ambrose (Super Luc. xii, 10),

Jerome (Super Matth. xii), and Chrysostom (Hom. xli in Matth.), say that the sin against the Holy Ghost is literally to utter a blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.

Whether by Holy Spirit we understand the essential name applicable to the whole Trinity, each Person of which is a Spirit and is holy, or the personal name of one of the Persons of the Trinity, in which sense blasphemy against the Holy Ghost is distinct from the blasphemy against the Son of Man (Matthew 12:32).

For Christ did certain things in respect of His human nature, by eating, drinking, and such like actions. While He did others in respect of His Godhead, by casting out devils, raising the dead, and the like: which things He did both by the power of His own Godhead and by the operation of the Holy Ghost, of Whom He was full, according to his human nature.

Now the Jews began by speaking blasphemy against the Son of Man, when they said (Matthew 11:19) that He was "a glutton . . . a wine drinker," and a "friend of publicans": but afterwards they blasphemed against the Holy Ghost, when they ascribed to the prince of devils those works which Christ did by the power of His own Divine Nature and by the operation of the Holy Ghost."

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
“THE GREATEST SIN”
GLADERUNNER
MARCH 27, 2009 12:19 PM |

IRT:
“Break this one law and your soul is tortured for eternity, no pardon, no parole. To set demands on someone’s love for you, to punish those that do not love you simply because they do not love you enough, or properly is in my mind, insane.”

ANS:
Sins against the Holy Spirit:

http://www.newadvent.org/summa/3014.htm#article1

ARTICLE-1 Is blasphemy or the sin against the Holy Ghost the same as the sin committed through certain malice?
ARTICLE 2. Whether it is fitting to distinguish six kinds of sin against the Holy Ghost?
ARTICLE 3. Whether the sin against the Holy Ghost can be forgiven?
ARTICLE 4. Whether a man can sin first of all against the Holy Ghost?

Don’t be ridiculous. Any law man breaks is amendable if the penitent ask for forgiveness. But the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is that the penitent dies with the conviction of the sin in his heart or on his lips. He asked for no forgiveness and received none. He chose Hell over Paradise, and dies. After death choices end. Since the blasphemer ask no forgiveness, he can't be saved.

IRT:
[God made man for the purpose to love Him and God rewarded man with a paradise on earth for doing it]

“”God made pet creatures specifically to glorify HIM to worship HIM, to exalt HIM.”

ANS:
So He made them to share in His Glory. He didn’t make robots; He made intelligent beings to love Him freely, He who is All-Good, Justice, Mercy, and loves man more than anything He has created. That is what all men are made for and their purpose in life is to be loved by the greatest lover that exists, God.

IRT:
Why? What kind of monstrous ego is that? Could he not just look into a mirror and admire himself? Was that not enough? He needed to create an entire species of beings just to tell him something he should already know? That too is insane.

ANS:
What is insane is to be offered eternal happiness and to choose Hell instead. Love is giving, not taking. Unless one gives himself to others, he does not love.—1 Corinthians 13:1-3

IRT:
[God could have made robots to love him, but would you want a robot to love you or the love of a sincere real person?]

“If I commanded all women to love me as a husband, and all men to love me as sons, and then told them I would pay them handsomely if they did, but would kill them all if they did not… you’re right, that’s not robot love, that’s more like Stockholm syndrome love. “

ANS:
But God didn’t command everyone to love him. God promised them to fulfill all their yearnings and desires. He gave them a choice to receive His Love. God promised man to make him perfect. He made man perfect in Adam, and Adam blew it. Adam's demise was his own making. God gave Adam the world and a beautiful woman who loved him. She wasn’t a robot and neither was Adam.

Moreover, since God is All Good, to choose anything else is to choose evil. And that is what man does who rejects God. In the end, man chooses Hell.

The love God demanded was a love that all man desires by his very nature, everything that is good, vis. to be perfect. God makes His love attainable to every man. If one has trouble attaining it, God intercedes to give man that opportunity.

Every good thing comes from God who is the source of all Good because He created all things and they were good (Genesis). He loves man so much that He sent His only Son down to redeem man after man sinned. And so it is written, “There is no greater love than one who lays down his life for the good of others."

“God has promised that He will not abandon you. Hence, the greater your distress, the more He will comfort you! The more you are scorned, the more He will love you! The more you are insulted, the more He will exalt you! The more you are forgotten, the more He will remember you! If abandoned, He will draw you closer to Himself”—Cardinal John Henry Newman.

“God intercedes when man calls on God for assistance as a retribution for man’s love. GK Chesterton wrote, "The Church has been found wanting by those who have never tried it."

IRT:
“Examples please….”

ANS:
The Scriptures are replete with God’s miracles--cures of the lame, the crippled and the blind, the hungry and the sick. The miracles of God’s intercession are innumerable at Lourdes and through out the world.

As in evaluating any prophecy that Jesus gave 2000 years ago we must look at
his predictions for what he said would be
the impact Satan would have on the world
2000 years later and see now as we approach the climax of human history do these prophecies Jesus gave match up?

This is the only reliable method to determine if what Jesus said was true.

Now that we are fast approaching a one world economic system born of financial crisis, in the midist of worldwide violent religious fanaticisism, etc,etc,etc,,,,?

Hey, Norrie, my goodfellow New Englander.

Have you noticed that lately we are not taking about global warming anyomore?

Now it's simply climate change.

Loved your poem!

Thomas Baum:

Although many things you say make sense, I beg to differ about the trinity of God.

The Father, the Son and the Spririt are not one and the same. They are distinct individual beings spawned by the Father, but no more linked to him than our sons and dauthers are, the same with the spirit.

And that, my friend, is why the whole hocuspocus needs to be taken with a word of caution and planty of scepticism.

TTWSYFAMDGGAHJMJ2:

Lordy. Lordy, I knew it!

Now please go read another fairy tale (or is that tail?)

I have one of you in my family and she believes that garbage as well. My poor little niece!!! Indoctrinated since the say she was born.

I feel for you and my deepest sympathy.

"Consequently, anyone who thinks obeying God’s laws is a punishment isn’t the brightest light bulb in the building."

You may stop trying to enforce them with my government ....at your nearest convenience, then.

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
“THE GREATEST SIN”
GLADERUNNER
MARCH 27, 2009 12:19 PM |

IRT:
What is God’s biggest no-no? what is the ‘unpardonable sin? Is it killing another human? Is it stealing another’s stuff? Rape? Child molestation? Torture? Genocide? No, the one unpardonable sin is denying God /Jesus/ holy spirit.

ANS:
No sin is unpardonable. Blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is said to be unpardonable because the one who blasphemes dies with the blasphemy in his heart or on his lips. He dies without repenting. When you die, your choices die with you. .

All sin is a violation against God’s Laws. “Augustine, (De Verb. Dom., Serm. lxxi), says that blasphemy or the sin against the Holy Ghost, is final impenitence when, namely, a man perseveres in mortal sin until death, and that it is not confined to utterance by word of mouth, but extends to words in thought and deed, not to one word only, but to many.

Further, blasphemy, in this sense, is said to be uttered against the Holy Ghost, because it is contrary to the remission of sins, which is the work of the Holy Ghost, Who is the charity both of the Father and of the Son. It is pardonable, but unpardonable when the sinner does not repent.

IRT:
That is a law born of raw, primitive, and cold jealousy. That is a law that puts an individual’s opinion about god more important than all other sins combined.

ANS:
What absurdity. What is primitive jealousy? God is Perfect. Jealousy is the envy of another or a want of something that doesn’t belong to the jealous person, but God lacks nothing. God has created all things, and respect for God’s creation and his love is His just due.

He created man because he loved man not because he needed man. He gave man a free will. Thus, man isn’t forced to do anything against it. Man can be a dummy like Satan, and Adam were, or he can do what is right and live happily ever after.

God created man and gave man dominion over all He created, and placed him in a perfect paradise. He made Adam perfect but with a free will. That is not a punishment. What would be a punishment is to force Adam to do anything against his will.

However, Adam was forbidden from eating from one tree in the whole Universe. He chose to, knowing perfectly that to do was a violation of God's laws. He hid from God.

God gave man the natural and moral laws that man may live in harmony with society and nature. Without order, chaos ensues. Adam sinned and brought disorder in to his Paradise.

And so, God’s laws are a gift to man. God’s laws are substantiated by the good fruits they bear. Those who violate God’s laws commit social suicide by their own choice.

Now man can choose to defy God, but the consequence are not of his choosing. In doing so, he chooses to violate the Natural and Moral Laws. Hitler did it; Stalin did it; Mao did it. God didn’t come down and punish them; they punished themselves.

You might take notice that when man violates God’s laws, he violates the laws against all humanity. Hitler, Mao, Stalin are all primary examples.

If you violate the law of gravity by jumping off a cliff, you cannot blame God. You can blame yourself for being stupid. Obeying God’s laws is not a punishment. The law of gravity is a good for man; a good is not a punishment. Man punishes himself by choosing evil.

Consequently, anyone who thinks obeying God’s laws is a punishment isn’t the brightest light bulb in the building.

Frankly, CCNL, I don't understand what's so F'n hard between Catholics and Protestants about 'transubstantiation.'

It takes a pretty insistently-literalistic mind to not *get* it.

Too bad the people scuffling about this are all too attached to being insistently-literalistic about other things to get over the 'debate.'

It's not that hard.

"The Hallucinator" is on a roll today. He, however, missed his Catholic graduate school theology class the day they reviewed "Eucharist" reality.

But never fear, the class notes are pasted below:

"Communion is not Christ's physical Body and Blood since Christ exists as a spirit therefore has no physical form.

Transubstantiation is still a Catholic doctrine, but it never meant a literal transforming of bread and wine into the physical body and blood of Jesus.

"Substance" in medieval philosophy referred to the essence of a thing and was not reducible to material appearance.

Transubstantiation is a way of
expressing belief that Jesus Christ is SOME HOW present in the consecrated bread and wine in a special way.

Some theologians believe that
"transignificantion" would be a better term today than transubstantiation.

[Note: both Episcopalians and Lutherans believe in the real presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharistized bread and wine.]

And the Last Supper?

It was not an historic event. See http://wiki.faithfutures.org/index.php/016_Supper_and_Eucharist

An excerpt:

"At the same time, Luedemann concludes that the portrayal of Jesus celebrating such a ritual on the night before his death is not historical. He is clear that there is "no generic relationship" between any actual final meal and the Lord's Supper understood in cultic terms. He also denies the Passover character of the supper as a Markan creation. Like Meier (below), Luedemann does accept the saying (Mark 14:25) about drinking wine in the kingdom of God as authentic. He concludes: (this saying) "hardly came into being in the early community, for in it Jesus does not exercise any special function for believers at the festal meal in heaven which is imminent. Only Jesus' expectation of a the future kingdom of God stands at the centre, not Jesus as saviour, judge or intercessor."

TTWSYFAMDGGAHJMJ2

I happen to know that the Catholic Eucharist is Jesus because the Holy Spirit revealed this to me but do you think that this is the only way that God's Grace can be given or received by people?

As I have said, many people seem to want to put God in a box, who are we, humans, to tell God how to be God.

You or no one else can tell God what He can or can not do, God has His Plan and His Plan will come to Fruition.

As I have said many times before but maybe you have missed it, Jesus said, "I Am the Way, the Truth and the Life, no one comes to the FATHER, except thru Me".

Jesus did not say "to God" and since God is a Trinity, there could be many ways to Jesus.

Have you ever heard of Jesus referred to as "the unblemished Lamb"?

Jesus extended the invitation to "Come follow Me", He did not say 'come follow My Church', He did not say, "Follow the bible", He did not say, "Follow my teachings" but His invitation was to "Come follow Me".

God has a Plan and has had His Plan since before creation and God becoming One of Us is part of His Plan which is unfolding before our very eyes and will come to Fruition.

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

" norriehoyt

"PAGANPLACE wrote:

""Frankly, the question of 'Does Satan exist' is very parallel to the question: 'Does the Abrahamic God exist.'""

"Interestingly, the Cathars, that noble people exterminated by the Roman Church, believed that Satan and YHWH, the Abrahamic god, were one and the same being."

"The Cathars called YHWH/Satan the "Ignorant Demiurge" because, while he was only a lesser, minor deity, he thought he was the Ultimate Godhead."

I'm familiar with that, tale, probably the most feared 'heresy' in Church history, and look how it was acted out.

Not an unreasonable take on the Christian stories, I'd say, if you believe that sort of thing. :)

Certainly, as you mentioned, it's tragic where the very labeling of 'evil' brought about genocide by the 'good.'

Goodness does not need such things. Frankly, I think this idea of 'evil' has been made so frightening to some that it *creates* itself, in a way. People externalize it, internalize it, see it for anything but what they're looking at. Makes human problems and destructive memes seem too big to face. When Christian 'Prayer Warriors' pray for harm to come to others for believing differently, is it really any different than attempted 'black magic?'

What do you call it when political parties get everyone convinced they're 'fighting evil' when they're in fact, just hurting folks?

Well, it's not goodness.

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
Thomas Baum
CONFUSED”

IRS:
“Jesus said, "I Am the Vine, you are the branches,” He did not say, 'I Am the Vine, you are the branch', did He?”

ANS:
Yes, He said that. What does this mean, viz. He did and He didn’t?

IRT:
"Lots of people have tried to put God in a "box,” God does not fit into anybody's "box."

ANS:
What kind of Box are you speaking of, certainly not His Church which He instituted.

IRT:
"Jesus also said, "I Am the Way, the Truth and the Life and no one comes to the Father except thru Me,” did He not?"

ANS:
Yes, Jesus is the Way the Life and the Truth; He is the Head of His Church and we are members of His Church. The Church is the Vine and the Members are the Branches. The Branches need the Vine or they will die and not pass through the gate. So God feeds His Members through His Church.

Now Jesus feeds His members (branches) through the Vine (the Church) of which He is the Head. How? “John 6:51cf. “I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world.

The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying: How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” Many of Jesus’ disciples began to leave. Jesus did not call them back and say there was a misunderstanding; instead, He continued.

“Then Jesus said to them: Amen, amen, I say unto you: except you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood hath everlasting life and I will raise him up in the last day.

For my flesh is meat indeed: and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood abideth in me: and I in him.”

Now you think about this. The Branches, (the members of the Church) feed off the Vine who is Christ. How do they get this food, viz. Supernatural Grace, which is the Flesh, Body and Blood of Jesus? They receive it through His Church, in the Sacrifice of the Mass and in Holy Communion or the Eucharist, by the Transubstantiation of the offering of the Bread and Wine by the priest.

Hence, at the Last Supper: “Matthew 26: 26cf.
“And whilst they were at supper, Jesus took bread and blessed and broke and gave it to his disciples [His priest] and said: Take ye and eat. This Is My Body; do this in memory of me.

And taking the chalice, he gave thanks and gave it to them, saying: Drink ye all of this. For This Is My Blood of the New Testament, which shall be shed for many unto the remission of sins. And I say to you, I will not drink from henceforth of this FRUIT OF THE VINE until that day when I shall drink it with you new in the kingdom of My Father.”

And again in1Co 11:26 27:
“For as often as you shall eat this bread and drink the chalice, you shall shew the death of the Lord, until He come. Therefore, whosoever shall eat this bread, or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and of the blood of the Lord.”

IRT:
Think about this; it doesn't say anything about the number of ways to Jesus, does it We, humans, keep trying to tell God how to do things and if we remember, God let us know something about this when He said, "My Ways are not your ways and My Thoughts are not your thoughts."

ANS:
Mt 7:13-14: To the contrary, it is written, "Enter ye in at the narrow gate; for wide is the gate, and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there are who go in thereat. How narrow is the gate, and strait is the way that leadeth to life: and few there are that find it!”

Consequently, Jesus says the path to Him is through a narrow gate. Hence, a rich man entering heaven is like a camel attempting to pass through the eye of a needle, a narrow gate.

Luke 13:24:
“Strive to enter by the narrow gate: for many [a.k.a. the camels], I say to you, shall seek to enter and shall not be able].” Jesus' Way is the only way.

His ways are not the ways of man but God. Man’s thoughts are finite but God’s are infinite.

As you have said, God is Truth. Truth cannot contradict Truth. Hence, there is only one Truth and those who contradict the Truth are in error. Thus, there is only one Church that is True; it is not the churches formed by men but the one instituted by Jesus who is God.

When the truth is heard, often it brings discomfort and anger to those who do not seek the Truth but seek to satisfy their undisciplined passions and live immoral lives. They can’t see Truth but only what they want Truth to be.

Hence, Pilate said to Jesus, "Who are You? Why are You here?" Jesus said, "I come to be a witness to the truth." Pilate said, "Truth! What is Truth?" Pilate was looking at Truth and saw it not. So also,, the Pharisees (John 7: 40/53), sent their guards to arrest Jesus, but they saw Truth instead. They saw Truth, the Pharisees saw their wants.

CCNL

You wrote, "Thomas, "The Hallucinator" Baum,

Hmmm, you apparently follow in the footsteps of the author of John's gospel as he also was a great hallucinator."

Interesting comment.

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

Thomas, "The Hallucinator" Baum,

Hmmm, you apparently follow in the footsteps of the author of John's gospel as he also was a great hallucinator.

"I am the Truth" i.e. John 14:6. This passage was, according to many NT exegetes, not said by the historical Jesus but was wishful thinking/hallucinating by John to make the simple preacher man aka Jesus more like the ancient and local gods of first century Palestine.

Place of Life: John 14:2-12; i.e. single attestation only appearing in John's gospel.

http://www.faithfutures.org/Jesus/Crossan2.rtf

WILEYSNAKESKINS

Actually, satan is the god of islam and some of the reasons that I say this and have said this in the past on these postings are: God is a Trinity and the god of islam gets very upset when someone says this and that Jesus is God-Incarnate.

The god of islam gets upset when someone calls Jesus, the Son of God, but considering that Jesus, when the Apostles asked Him to teach them to pray, taught us to call God, Our Father, Abba, which translated is closer to the Dad or Daddy of the English Language.

This must mean that the god of islam gets mad if anyone calls themself a son or daughter of God.

As I have said before tho: God is a searcher of hearts and minds, not of religious affiliations or lack thereof.

The True, Living, Triune, Triumphant God has a Plan which is unfolding before our very eyes and will come to Fruition.

As I have said, God wins, satan loses, a tie is unacceptable.

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

TTWSYFAMDGGAHJMJ2

Jesus said, "I Am the Vine, you are the branches", He did not say, 'I Am the Vine, you are the branch', did He?

Lots of people have tried to put God in a "box", God does not fit into anybody's "box".

Jesus also said, "I Am the Way, the Truth and the Life and no one comes to the Father except thru Me", did He not?

Think about it, it doesn't say anything about the number of ways to Jesus, does it?

We, humans, keep trying to tell God how to do things and if we remember, God let us know something about this when He said, "My Ways are not your ways and My Thoughts are not your thoughts".

Thank God that God's Plan will come to Fruition in God's Time.

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

GLADERUNNER

You wrote, "You imply then that Satan, at the pleasure and convenience of God, is here to force us to make a choice, thus insuring free will."

I implied nothing of the kind.

You then wrote, "God could have put us on this earth and rewarded those who obeyed his commandments, praised his name, called upon him and him alone in times of trouble. Those that did not do those things by choice, those that simply did not want to, for whatever reason could be tossed into the blazing pit for eternity."

This "god" you speak of here sounds like the meanest, egotistical, hateful being and also one who does not want children but automatons, creatures who are afraid of him.

By the way, "Fear of the Lord" does not mean being afraid of God but means: Reverence and Awe.

By what you write, it is obvious that you know nothing about God, you do not believe in God and yet you judge God.

God is not even remotely like what some of those that know His Name think and apparently that is what you seem to think about the God that you do not believe is Real.

One day you wil be glad that God has His Plan, which He has had since before creation, and that His Plan will come to Fruition.

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

Yes and no. That's the divine (spirit), as separate from men and women.

If Satan is alive and well on this planet his current name is islam as freedom loving people of peace can't possibly relate to the teachings of islam as anything other than a guide for a devil roaming here and there upon the Earth looking for those he can devower.
Just what kind of mutual interest and mutual respect can there be with people who profess this?
Quotes from the Koran:
--The unbelievers are your inveterate enemy. (4:101)
-- Surely the vilest of animals in Allah’s sight are those who disbelieve. (8.55)
-- Mohammed is God's apostle. Those who follow him are ruthless to the unbelievers but merciful to one another. (48:29).
-- It is unlawful for a believer to kill another believer, accidents excepted. (4:92)
-- Believers, take neither the Jews nor the Christians for your friends. (5:51)
-- Make war on them until idolatry shall cease and God's religion shall reign supreme. (8:40)
-- Fight against them until idolatry is no more and God's religion reigns supreme. (2:193)
-- The true believers fight for the cause of God, but the infidels fight for the devil. (4:76)
-- We will put terror into the hearts of the unbelievers. (3:151)
-- I shall cast terror into the hearts of the infidels. Strike off their heads, strike off the very tips of their fingers. (8:12)
Quotes from the sayings of mohammed:
Muhammad said to the Jews: "If you embrace Islam, you will be safe. You should know that the earth belongs to Allah and His Apostle, and I want to expel you from this land. “
Sahih Bukhari [4:52:176] Narrated 'Abdullah bin 'Umar:
Allah's Apostle said, "You (i.e. Muslims) will fight with the Jews till some of them will hide behind stones. The stones will (betray them) saying, 'O 'Abdullah (i.e. slave of Allah)! There is a Jew hiding behind me; so kill him.' "

Mohammed said, "I have been ordered to fight with the people till they say, "None has the right to be worshipped but Allah.." (otherwise it will not). Vol. 4:196
Mohammed said, "Whoever changes his Islamic religion, kill him." Vol. 9:57
Mohammed said, " No Muslim should be killed for killing a Kafir" (infidel). Vol. 9:50
Muhammad said:
Fight in the name of Allah and in the way of Allah. Fight against those who disbelieve in Allah. Make a holy war, …(Sahih Muslim 4294)
YUSUF QARADAWI, the spiritual leader of the Muslim brotherhood and the most popular and influential Islamic religious authority in the world today, is on the recommended reading list of local mosques. Among other Islamist-supremacist things, he wrote:
“Islam came to be followed, not to follow; to be dominant, not subordinate."
“Islam came with its complete, comprehensive and eternal sharia (law) for the whole of mankind.”
ABUL MAUDUDI, the most important and popular Islamic writer of the 20th Century, wrote: “The goal of Islam is to rule the entire world and submit all of mankind to the faith of Islam. Any nation or power that gets in the way of that goal, Islam will fight and destroy.”
________________________________________
The statements about Islam above are from the most highly revered and respected Islamic sources, not from "Islamophobes"!

TTWSYFAMDGGAHJMJ2:
“How insane is it when the government says if you live here, you must obey the law”
It isn’t.. because the laws of the government deal with rights to life, liberty, etc. Laws against murder, theft, false witness, etc. are reasonable because they address societal needs. They are in place to punish those that would victimize others.

What is God’s biggest no-no? what is the ‘unpardonable sin? Is it killing another human? Is it stealing another’s stuff? Rape? Child molestation? Torture? Genocide?

No, the one unpardonable sin is denying God /Jesus/ holy spirit.

That is a law born of raw, primitive and cold jealousy. That is a law that puts an individual’s opinion about god more important than all other sins combined.
Break this one law and your soul is tortured for eternity, no pardon, no parole.
To set demands on someone’s love for you, to punish those that do not love you simply because they do not love you enough, or properly is in my mind, insane.

“God made man for the purpose to love Him and God rewarded man with a paradise on earth for doing it”
God made pet creatures specifically to glorify HIM to worship HIM, to exalt HIM.
Why? What kind of monstrous ego is that? Could he not just look into a mirror and admire himself? Was that not enough? He needed to create an entire species of beings just to tell him something he should already know? That too is insane.

“God could have made robots to love him, but would you want a robot to love you or the love of a sincere real person?”
If I commanded all women to love me as a husband, and all men to love me as sons, and then told them I would pay them handsomely if they did, but would kill them all if they did not… you’re right, that’s not robot love, that’s more like Stockholm syndrome love.

“God intercedes when man calls on God for assistance”
Examples please….

“When’s the last time you’ve read Genesis?”
I have read Genesis many times… when was the last time I believed it to be the literal word of god? Well….. not so recently. Could you help me with it… which parts of Genesis are literal and which are not? That might help.

“Since evil was in the world, there has to be a discipline”
God invented evil, he put it in our world by allowing us to know it. He didn’t have to invent it, he needs it though to show us he loves us.. he has to let us fail to show us what a great and benevolent being he is.. he doesn’t hate evil, he employs it. He gave us, his children a book of matches and some lighter fluid, then gets angry when fires break out… duh… oh yeah then he punishes us… God needs to take a little of the responsibility here…

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
GABY1 :
“WHAT CHURH?

[TTWSYFAMDGGAHJMJ2 wrote:
"God did not abandon man. God’s Son established a Church and he protected it from error in its teachings and beliefs by the Spirit."]

IRT:
"And now, oh guru, please elucidate this blog with your knowledge. Which "church" exactly would that be? Which church are you talking about that is protected from error in its teaching???Huh?!?!?!"

ANS:
Jesus was God. He said he was God and was crucified because He was God who testified to Truth. No one has had his whole life written 300 years before he was born and fulfilled the prophesies.

Jesus controlled the sea, and the heavens, and all that inhabited them so we might believe He is God. He calmed the storms, quieted the winds, fill the fishing nets until they nearly broke.

More so, He expelled demons. The onlookers asked, “Who is this man that He can command even the demons? How does He know and do these things?"

He made the blind see, the lame walk. He cured the sick, the leper at his bidding. He confused the hypocrites, and astounded and amazed the Jewish sages and scholars in the Temple by His knowledge and Wisdom . Thus, they asked, “Where did this man get such knowledge? Isn’t He the Son of the Carpenter?”

At Jesus’ baptism by the Baptist, God the Father spoke to all, “This is My Beloved Son, of Whom I am well pleased.”

At the wedding feast, Jesus changed water into wine; with some three loaves of bread and a couple fish, He feed thousands.

More incredibly, He raised the dead, and when they came to kill him, He walked through them like mist because His time had not come—John 7: 6cf.; 10: 20cf.

In the Garden, He freely surrendered Himself up to His persecutors because His time had come. When they crucified Him, he rose from the dead and remained on earth for 40 days.

At his crucifixion and death, the sky turned black, the earth shook, the Sacred Curtain in the Jewish Temple split, the buildings shook. Those who had died in the grace of God rose and visited their relatives.

A centurion who witnessed His death said, “Truly this Man was the Son of God.” The centurions, sent to guard His tomb by the Jews, saw the Stone roll back and a brilliant light flashed from the tomb.

The centurions fled in fear, but the Captain entered the tomb and found only a Shroud of which we still have and has been proven to be authentic for one reason it cannot be explained any other way.

Jesus formed His Church, when He asked His disciples, “But whom do you say that I am? Simon Peter answered: 'Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God.' And Jesus answering said to Him, 'Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona: because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in heaven.

And I say to thee, ‘That thou art Peter; and upon this rock, I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven.

And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven—Matthew 16:13-20.”

Thus, the first head of Jesus’ Church was Peter, the First Pope of the Catholic Church. From Peter came an unbroken string of Popes and the Authority or Apostolic chain of authority that has never been broken. That is one sign of the true Church.

The one true Church had to have Four Marks. It must be “One” in its teachings. Namely, its teachings must be the same wherever it is taught. Second, the founder of the Church must be Holy because God is Holy. Third, it must be Universal, viz. God didn’t give His Church to just certain people, it had to be a church for all mankind teaching only one truth.

The second sign of the true Church is its founder be instituted by Jesus, who is the Son of God who is Holy. All other churches, but the Catholic Church, were instituted by man.

The Third sign of the one true Church is it is Universal or Catholic in that the Church is for all men who must pass through its gate, viz. its laws and teachings to the best of one’s ability, to enter Paradise.

The Fourth sign is the Church is it must be One in doctrine and its universal teachings. Its teachings must be from Christ and therefore unchangeable.

Moreover, God made the Pope (Peter) the Visible Head of His Church, who when speaking on faith and morals as head of the Church is infallible, —Mt.10; John 15: 26-27; Mt. 28:20

There are some 26 to 35,000 Christian denominations all contradictory in part or in whole. They all can’t be right. Since Man is subject to fallibility, God made His Church infallible.

The only Church that is Universal or Catholic, One, Holy and Apostolic and infallible is the Catholic Church. If a church cannot claim these required marks, and infallibility, it isn't the True Church.

Those who have worked in the field of mental health know cases of unfortunate patients who are involved in "driven" behavior. They seem helpless to stop their actions, no matter how self-destructive or anti-social. They feel as if "something" in them or outside themselves is driving their behavior.

With treatment, many recover and go on to become productive members of society. Their eventual understanding of what motivated their behaviors is liberating. Most express some sort of feeling of newness bordering on an exorcism. Actually, they have been helped to see that the drives were their own. The ability to control and channel those drives is also their own.

We should be thankful for all those who facilitate this work whether it be religion, family, law, medicine or whatever. Why argue over success? If it works, use it!

Ok here is the logic being thrown around here:

Satan does not exist.
Satan is not real.
Therefore, all things that do not not exist are not real.

Life on Mars does not exist.
Then, Life on Mars is not real.

You might have thought that those priests
abused boys because they were fixated at
age 12 themselves as a result of their
childhood indoctrination, and when Libido
broke through it, they sought partners of
their own psycho-sexual age, but here is a rival hypothesis:

LACK OF FISH ON FRIDAY OPENS DOOR FOR
LUST DEMON:

I am called Asmodeus among mortals . . . I transport men into fits of madness and desire when they have wives of their own, so that they leave them and go off by night and day to others that belong to other men; with the result that they commit sin and fall into murderous deeds."
Solomon obtained the further information that it was the archangel Raphael who could render Asmodeus innocuous, and that the latter could be put to flight by smoke from a certain fish's gall (compare Tobit viii. 2). The king availed himself of this knowledge, and by means of the smoke from the liver and gall he frustrated the "unbearable malice" of this demon. Asmodeus then was compelled to help in the building of the Temple; and, fettered in chains, he worked clay with his reet, and drewwater. Solomon would not give him his liberty "because that fierce demon Asmodeus knew even the future" (ib. p. 21).

http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=2019&letter=A&search=asmodeus

Sorry for stupid writing errors in my post.

The second sentence of the fifth paragraph should read: "But does this mean I should not contemplate my actions, the consequences of such, let alone take myself for being something of Satan?"

Also in the third sentence of the sixth paragraph the word "instead" should be erased.

That is all I hope....

I should have mentioned this bit of VT-NH wisdom:

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Robert Frost

GABY1,

Temperaturewise VT's been quite moderate this winter - virtually no below-zero days or nights. Quite a change from fairly recent times when we'd go two or three weeks with -20 every night.

Don't worry about heat. Put things in perspective. Even a long human life is a blink of an eye. About ten years ago I read a spate of articles that said the world's psychics were agreed that our earthworld would end in some natural disaster (perhaps global heating) between the years 2200 and 2300.

Not to worry - about heat or anything else.
Have a drink, go to bed, pull the covers over your head and have pleasant dreams.

See you in the next existence.

Important to keep in mind that there is a huge difference between the mythological Satan and real, human evil. See Elaine Pagel's great Origins of Satan to trace the evolution of the myth. Look in the psychic, societal mirror to find the roots of evil.

Daniel A. Weiner
goodgodforus.com

Does Satan exist?

I doubt if even I were a very religious person, which I am not, that I would
believe in Satan. My reasoning is quite simple. If I were a very religious
person I would of course believe in God. But I doubt I could become so religious
that I would be tied to a particular religion (believing, for example, that
Jesus is the son of God or that God's prophet is Mohammed, etc.). I would
have my own interpretation of the Bible--and if that means my own particular
religion which is as viable or fallible as any other particular religion so be
it.

So taking myself as having religion--my own personal take on the Bible--I would
believe in God but not Satan. Or rather I should say I would not believe that
Satan is some fixed point of evil external to me which is directly opposed to
the fixed point God. I would recognize evil outside of me, but it could not be
absolute and fixed. Evil would be here and there, perhaps more concentrated in
some places than others--but not a fixed point let alone one easily located.

Furthermore I would subscribe in a sense to the familiar Christian belief in
original sin--that there was a transgression long ago against God and that we
are now suffering from it. That Christ came to redeem us is another
question--and in fact I downplay such a thing. In fact I do not believe in
original sin as people typically do. I have my own interpretation. I believe
(supposing myself religious) that it was I myself who transgressed and incurred
God's wrath and that I have been thrown down by God into our world to no
doubt contemplate my sin--and so far as I can tell my sin was an attempt to gain
power against God because it seems it is my lot in life to have failed in love,
in having a career worth speaking about, etc. In other words my experience of
life is one of perpetual powerlessness and I can only conclude that according to
a religious framework that far from Satan being external to me that I myself am
Satan--or at least something of Satan is
in me.

In general, supposing myself religious, I do not like the idea of trying to
escape from the consequences of one's less than admirable actions--let alone
escape to the point that one believes in Satan and that he is some external
point of absolute evil and it just happens that the people one does not get
along with are revolving around the fixed point called Satan or even be Satan
himself. I believe in taking some sort of responsibility for one's actions.
One is not suffering because long ago someone sinned--which is to say that
rather unfairly one is suffering from someone else's actions and that one
should not be blamed. Or that there is a Satan tempting one and he just happens
to be a she and it would be proper to damn her to hell. No! One should buck up
and take responsibility. Look for Satan in thyself first.

Now supposing I am not very religious--which is in fact the case--of course I
would not really subscribe to a God and therefore a Satan being behind existence
causing much more than mischief. But does this mean I should not contemplate my
actions, the consequences of such, let alone not take myself for being something
of Satan? My answer is simple. Supposing we do not believe in God, still we must
hold to much of what we associate with God--namely admirable qualities. In fact
we have to become clearer and clearer about what traditionally people mean by
God. And just as we must do that, we must become clearer and clearer about what
traditionally people mean by Satan--which is to say we must have a more refined,
coherent and clear sense of what people mean by evil.

Although I am not very religious it can be said I sympathize with a certain
something closely related to the religious view. Certainly this becomes the case
when I am compared to other non-religious people. Too many other non-religious
people I find view the whole God/Satan thing as oppressive, and rather than
non-religion meaning a greater sense of responsibility for one's actions,
instead too many non-religious people view man moving away from religion as a
release from repression, as a move toward freedom,--even a cathartic process.
The goal apparently is to not have to take responsibility for anything and
instead live it up as liberally as possible before one dies in the world without
God.

That seems to me no overcoming of religion. Whether one believes in God or not
that line on life strikes me as failure. If one believes in God it means a
simple giving up of striving for virtue and a determination to just throw
oneself on the mercy of God, with no doubt the smell of alcohol on one's
breath. And if one does not believe in God then it is a simple failure to master
existence, a failure to work toward even more sophisticated human cooperation
and in general the process of man only being responsible for his lot on earth.

So in the final analysis do I believe in Satan? I do. Whether or not there is a
God Satan exists--and that is perhaps his greatest feat of deception.
Where to find Satan whether or not there is a God? A good place is to start
with oneself.

TTWSYFAMDGGAHJMJ2 wrote:

"God did not abandon man. God’s Son established a Church and he protected it from error in its teachings and beliefs by the Spirit."

And now, oh guru, please elucidate this blog with your knowledge. Which "church" exactly would that be? Which church are you talking about that is protected from error in its teaching???

Huh?!?!?!

IN REPLY TO (IRS):
GLADERUNNER
"DOES THE DEVIL REALLY EXIST?"

IRT:
“God says, “I love you. Love me, love only me, love me constantly and forever or I will punish you for all eternity; it’s your choice.”

That’s just madness Thomas, that’s insane.”

ANS:
How insane is it when the government says if you live here, you must obey the law. We give you all these things, privacy, freedom of speech and religion, Justice, and the right to own property, If you’re starving, we’ll give you food stamps. We give you roads, police and fire protection. If you're poor, we’ll give you welfare, Medicare, Medicaid, if you’re poor and sick, we’ll help you anyway. We’ll give you the protection of our Military forces.

However, you must also must do a few things. One is obey my laws. Break them and you go to jail. Murder anyone and you may be executed.

After you’ve been given all these things, if you try to destroy the government, what will happen?

Doesn’t responsibility also come with freedom? Is it called taking you’re free will away because you want a person to obey the laws?

All God required of man was to do good and avoid evil. Man chose evil, pride, and arrogance and he was punished.

However, God did not abandon man. He sent His only Son to redeem man. Man had created a breech of God’s love for man that was so grievous that man could not offer any recompense that would compensate for the evil he had done.

God’s Son offer himself to redeem man. And so it is written: John 15:13, "Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” Jesus died for man that man may be saved from eternal damnation.

Civil Justice is the same with Diving Justice but with God, there is Mercy.

God gives man the whole Universe, a perfect world, no pain, no work, no strife. All the food you want, no suffering, not even in birth.

Adam is given all the pleasures of the world. Adam wants for nothing except he is lonesome. So, God says, “It is not right for man to be alone.” So, God gives Adam a perfect beautiful woman.

God gave man the trees, animals, flowers, the Sun set, every thing man could want, including the oceans, the rivers, brooks streams, beauty and pleasures. God gave man dominion over them all. There was no fear. God made man perfect and just over one tree in the whole world God made it a test of man’s love.

God could have made robots to love him, but would you want a robot to love you or the love of a sincere real person? Would you want a person be forced to love you, or love you freely? God made man for the purpose to love Him and God rewarded man with a paradise on earth for doing it.

When’s the last time you’ve read Genesis?

"And the Lord God had planted a paradise of pleasure from the beginning: wherein He placed man whom he had formed. And the Lord God brought forth of the ground all manner of trees, fair to behold, and pleasant to eat of, the tree of life also in the midst of paradise: and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

And a river went out of the place of pleasure to water paradise, which from thence is divided into four heads. The name of the one is Phison: that is it which compasseth all the land of Hevilath, where gold groweth. And the gold of that land is very good: there is found bdellium, and the onyx stone….

And he commanded him, saying, "Of every tree of paradise, thou shalt eat." But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat. For in what day so ever thou shalt eat of it, thou shalt die the death.

And the Lord God said, "It is not good for man to be alone: let us make him a help like unto himself. And the Lord God built the rib which he took from Adam into a woman, and brought her to Adam.

Hence, in Paradise there was no evil. Evil is the lack of Good. Man chose to turn away from God who gave him all good things. Hence, man brought evil into the world.

Since evil was in the world, there has to be a discipline. So God promised man if he would do Good he would be rewarded, and if man were bad, he also would be justly rewarded, viz. punishment. If this were not so, viz. no reward or punishment, chaos would exist. There would be no law and order. We can imagine if stealing, murder, lying wrought no punishment society would be incomprehensible.

Moreover, God did not abandon man. God’s Son established a Church and he protected it from error in its teachings and beliefs by the Spirit. Further, God intercedes when man calls on God for assistance. More so, God will never burden man with an impossible task that is necessary for his salvation.

Thomas, "The Hallucinator And Moses of the NT" Baum,

We appreciate your verification of your meetings with both god and satan. Details?? Pictures?? Videos??

Or maybe they were simply significant dreams after a night of drinking too much beer/ale!!! Sam Adams' Winter Lager is a great "dream" drink!!!

Yes. But enough about Dick Cheney...

Hahahahaha!!!!

Arminius, I knew you'd always be could for a hearty laugh!!!!

Hi, Gaby,

Satan has been found! He's working at a gas station in Ohio. He took the place of Elvis, who has moved on.

If you want to know the true cause of global warming, go to the web site of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

"We're all just dancers on the devil's dance floor."
- Flogging Molly

Hey, Norrie!

A much more relevant question in this global warming environment is: "Does global warming exist?"

If so, someone, anyone, please let me know where that place is so I can move there. MT, ND, CO, WY are being pounded by blizzards and cold like we haven't had in ages it seems.

How about your neck of the woods? Has it globally warmed up?

Maybe I would like that hell where Satan supposedly lives, at least it would be warm!

PAGANPLACE wrote:

"Frankly, the question of 'Does Satan exist' is very parallel to the question: 'Does the Abrahamic God exist.'"

Interestingly, the Cathars, that noble people exterminated by the Roman Church, believed that Satan and YHWH, the Abrahamic god, were one and the same being.

The Cathars called YHWH/Satan the "Ignorant Demiurge" because, while he was only a lesser, minor deity, he thought he was the Ultimate Godhead.

YHWH/Satan did have the power to create, and did create, the material universe, which the Cathars believed was intrinsically evil because of its source, YHWH/Satan.

The Cathars may well have been right about YHWH/Satan.

That would explain why the Abrahamic religions have been been responsible for propagating so much evil in the world.

PAGANPLACE wrote:

"Frankly, the question of 'Does Satan exist' is very parallel to the question: 'Does the Abrahamic God exist.'"

Interestingly, the Cathars, that noble people exterminated by the Roman Church, believed that Satan and YHWH, the Abrahamic god, were one and the same being.

The Cathars called YHWH/Satan the "Ignorant Demiurge" because, while he was only a lesser, minor deity, he thought he was the Ultimate Godhead.

YHWH/Satan did have the power to create, and did create, the material universe, which the Cathars believed was intrinsically evil because of its source, YHWH/Satan.

The Cathars may well have been right about YHWH/Satan.

That would explain why the Abrahamic religions have been been responsible for propagating so much evil in the world.

Thomas Baum:
“If we had no choice then we could not have free will.”

You imply then that Satan, at the pleasure and convenience of God, is here to force us to make a choice, thus insuring free will.

God could have put us on this earth and rewarded those who obeyed his commandments, praised his name, called upon him and him alone in times of trouble. Those that did not do those things by choice, those that simply did not want to, for whatever reason could be tossed into the blazing pit for eternity. They exercised free choice with their mere complacency; they would not have required a temptation from a mercenary thug of the lord to lure them away.
But that’s not enough. God needs to push harder, push those that do praise him into a corner till they break, to be sure they really, really mean it. This does not describe ‘free will’ it describes extortion.
Let’s say you run a small store. One day a man comes in and asks you to give him 10% of your receipts. You refuse; you exercised free will and made a choice. The next week he comes back carrying a Louisville Slugger. He asks you for 10% of your receipts, you refuse. You once again exercised free will. The next week he comes back and makes the same request, this time holding the bat in one hand and your young daughter in the other. You relent and give up 10% of your receipts, and continue to do so. Did you just exercise free will?
God as you describe his plan for Satan is running a cosmic protection racket. Heed to God’s jealous demands or he will not ‘protect’ you from his own thuggery.

God says “I love you. Love me, love only me, love me constantly and forever or I will punish you for all eternity; it’s your choice.”

That’s just madness Thomas, that’s insane.

I agree with Gaby, this is the dumbest question yet,

It basically has a one syllable answer: yes or no.

All the rest is wrangling about other things.

To quote the Soup-Nazi:

NEXT!!

GLADERUNNER

You wrote, "Satan knows the bible as well as our most learned theologians does he not?"

As far as the "most learned theologians", some may know what is in the bible but that doesn't mean that they "know" the bible. As far as satan "knowing the bible as well as", I would disagree, I would say better. If you remember, satan used the bible vertbatim when he tempted Jesus.

You also wrote, "You actually think he hasn't read the last chapter yet? He's smarter than all of us isn't he? Yet somehow he does not know what YOU know, that he WILL lose it all?"

satan is an egomaniac, to put it in human terms.

You then wrote, "You argument makes no sense. You are claiming superior knowledge to a creature that is "more intelligent than the entire human race""

It is not about intelligence, it is about Love.

You wrote, "So either A. Satan was a part of that plan, or B. Satan was not a part of that plan."

Of course satan is part of that Plan, we have a choice between what God wants and what satan wants. If we had no choice then we could not have free will.

You wrote, "If 'A' is correct then Satan, as part of God's plan is only doing exactly that which god planned for him, or allows him to do, which is to tempt and corrupt the flock."

Allows him to do, also for some things satan has to get special permission, satan is not all powerful. We are all subject to temptation, it is our choice what we do. Forgiveness is also available, all we have to do is ask.

You then wrote, "God created a creature that hands matchbooks and lighter fluid to children then lets them burn in that very blaze for all eternity, because it's the childrens' fault for giving in to that temptation."

We have free will, what we do with it is our choice. As I have said, God's Plan is for All of humanity to be with Him in His Kingdom, but we will all be judged.

Something to think about Divine Justice and Divine Mercy are two sides of the same coin.

Jesus did more on that cross than most people even think about and Jesus also said that there was work to be done. Jesus, God-Incarnate, invited us to be active participants in God's Plan for the Salvation of All.

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

CCNL

You wrote, "We see Thomas "The Moses of the NT" Baum has not only met god but based on Baum's "testimony" today he has also met satan !! Now that is somekind of travel package!!!"

This is not the first time that I have mentioned this on this forum.

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

There is no good or evil just potential energy; choice filtered by conscious perception. There are good choices, and there are bad choices. People only expand or contract their field of possibilities based on the quality of their decisions. People who live by the sword are more likely to die by the sword. We cannot judge the choices of another without truly knowing their driving force or agenda. This is not to say that when bad things happen to good people they in some way courted disaster, more they unwittingly made choices that put them at the wrong place at the wrong time. If examined in detail more often than not they have ignored their gut and acted out of some external desire such as a "should" or a "must". All disaster and tragedy is a conspiracy of improbability and equally a part of the perfection of the universe, yet so is our desire to end it.

RUBDEL: "Someday, you may have visit that place if you have not prepared your self for it. "

Thanks Rubdel, you have changed my life, you have frightened me into believing in Jesus.

Sincerely,
Marco, the Superstitious Illiterate.

Does Satan exist? In a word, no.

If I could show you the Devil, you still wouldn't believe. In my opinion, the Universe's Black Holes, as discovered by Science, are the entry way to Hell. God has formed it so that nothing can escape, not demons, the evil ones, or at the end of times, the Devil. Not even light can escape that place. Someday, you may have visit that place if you have not prepared your self for it.

Paganplace, Paganplace, Paganplace,

As always your concerns about any aspect of life are easily handled by simple spells and/or voodoo dolls!!! Ouch, stop that!!!

And actually I do a lot of good. Simply peer into your crystal ball to see my shining star in the galaxy of good but anonymous deeds!!

Stupid question, anyway. If there was or was notr an ultimate deveiver and divider in the universe, it'd harldy make sense to get absolutist about words about it.

It's kind of a traumatic thing to be lied to, in whatever name of 'Greater Good.'

If you need to believe a Satan exists, then where are we? We can hardly do worse than the recent ideological mess.

Maybe a lot of you Christians don't believe it, but there's good in us. And in times of great deceit and division and nonsense, when it comes down to it, this is all we have.

The biggest lie your Devil ever told was claiming he existed.

If you believe a good God ordered the universe, as I believe a good Goddes birthed it, then, if there is 'evil,' we can face it together, ...but more importantly, if there is *good* to be done, then let's do it.

Let's greet the Gods, or the Void, if you like, in that manner.

Together. Let no one tell us different from that.

The Devil is real...I saw a picture of him.
He has a pointy hat, really expensive shoes,
lives in a castle with a lot of priceless
art and marble floors. He was making
all these Africans worship him by some kind
of voodo using a dead body on a stick,
and he was trying to sucker them into
getting rid of their condoms, so he could
watch them suffer and die in front of their
children.

Maybe, CCNL, someone taught you that Gods and Devils need to not exist, or else you could not face either.

You could kind of... not be afraid. Come down to brass tacks, *let* their judges and devils exist, if they will.

Who cares. Gods. How vain can we get. Show a little backbone. Show a little heart. Do a little good. Don't sit around worrying about who's 'masturbating.'

How *trivial* can you *make* humanity, human?

You're pathetic, that way, as are so many, talking about your little rules and who's the 'cool kids' in the eyes of your 'Lord.'

While... My Goddess, would you look at this?

Look where you are, look who you are, what you can feel.

No devil nor damning-tormentor authority has any dominion here. Whichever you think you are or are ruled by. These are the same illusion.

Gods/God/No-God are really the same thing, here. We, meeting the world, no devils, only what we can know and feel, and Gods know it's about time we felt who we are. Whoever we are.

I seem to recall things were about to get challenging in ways that it would be best not to send your time calling me or other people 'devils.'

I did my best, what can be said?

Just us chickens, now. No devils, no 'one God' in your head, just people who need to stop being chicken. There's a goodness to people that has been sold short.

Which we'll need. And any Gods don't like it, we may deal with later.

It's touchy to think you know the good. Downright dangerous to think you can name the 'evil.'

How bout.... Being aware?

TTWSYFAMDGGAHJMJ,

Copying and pasting from an outdated Catholic Encyclopedia is not helping your cause.

There "ain't" no satan!! Deal with it!!

GABY1,

Do we sense pagan rants?? There are spells that can be used to curse all those you hate.

Simple, irreducible fact is, it's a lot easier for you to scream 'Satan!' at your neighbor over some little thing, than it is to face what you dear, and be a little light among much 'darkness,'

By the Gods, this nonsense is *not* all there is to think about or look at.

And I think that's what scares you kids the most.

I still fail to see how important it is to argue about whether or not a character 'exists' when you treat either possibility the exact same way.

Satan, like God or all the other so-called creations he supposedly made, does not exist.

What exists is our own human downfalls that a lot of us cannot cope with. Therefore we create in our minds these supernatural beings which we blame/praise for everything that befalls us.

CCNL is a prime example! He abhors, detests, and maligns everything he does not agree with. He quotes his learned scholars (hahahhah) to underwrite his distorted sense of reality. So, CCNL is Satan talking to you or one of the flying wingy thingies you always exhort. (Come down to earth!!!!)

For everyone else, blessed be those who believe and say at least 5 hail mary's , 6 father ours, 7 hallelujahs, 8 hosannahs, 9 psalms, and obey the 10 commandments.

That will surely absolve you from your sins and land you in the heavens you crave.

"The fool hath said in his heart, There is no 'Devil'. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good." Psalm 14:1

That has to be the dumbest question ever! It's the same as "Does God Exist?"

Either you believe this crap or you don't.

No, neither Satan nor God exist, at least not in the contect of the scriptures.

This was a questions from supposedly intelligent people????

DO DEVILS EXIST?

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12315a.htm

ANS:
“A favorite assertion of the Rationalists is that lunacy and paralysis were often mistaken for possession. St. Matthew did not think so, for he tells us that "they presented to him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases [poikilais nosois] and torments [Basanois]. Such were those possessed by devils [daimonizomenous], and lunatics [seleniazomenous], and those who had the palsy [paralytikous], and he cured them" (iv, 24).

The circumstances that attended the cures point in the same direction. In the case of ordinary diseases, they were effected quietly and without violence.

Not so always with the possessed. The evil spirits passed into lower animals with dire results (Matthew 8:32), or cast their victim on the ground (Luke 4:35) or, "crying out, and greatly tearing him, went out of him, and he became as dead, so that many said: He is dead" (Mark, ix, 25; cf. Vigouroux, "Les livres saints et la crit. rationaliste", Paris, 1891).

Abstracting altogether from the fact that these passages are themselves inspired, they prove that the Jews of the time regarded these particular manifestations as due to a diabolical source.

This was surely a matter too closely connected with Christ's own Divine mission to be lightly passed over as one on which men might, without much inconvenience from the religious point of view, be allowed to hold erroneous opinions.

If, therefore, possession were merely a natural disease and the general opinion of the time based on a delusion, we might expect that Christ would have proclaimed the correct doctrine as He did when His followers spoke of the sin of the man born blind (John 9:2, 3), or when Nicodemus misunderstood His teaching on the necessity of being born again in Baptism (ibid., iii, 3, 4).

So far from correcting the prevalent conviction, He approved and encouraged it by word and action. He addressed the evil spirits, not their victims; told His disciples how the evil spirit acted when cast out (Matthew 12:44, 45; Luke 11:24-26), taught them why they had failed to exorcize (Matthew 17:19). He warned the seventy-two disciples against glorying in the fact that the demons were subject to them (Luke 10:17-20).

Jesus even conferred express powers on the Apostles "over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all manner of diseases, and all manner of infirmities" (Matthew 10:1; Mark 6:7; Luke 9:1. Jesus immediately before His Ascension, enumerated the signs that would proclaim the truth of the revelation His followers were to preach to the world.

"In my name they shall cast out devils: they shall speak with new tongues. They shall take up serpents; and if they shall drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them: they shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover" (Mark 16:17-18). Thus does the expulsion of demons become so closely bound up with other miracles of the Christian dispensation as to hardly permit of separation.

TTWSYFAMDGGAHJMJ,

You definitely are suffering from the Three B Syndrome i.e. Bred, Born and Brainwashed in "red-neck" Christianity of "Satanic Verses"!!!!

IN REPLY TO (IRT)
DOES SATAN EXIST?

IRT:
“Does Satan Exist? Where do you see the devil (literally or metaphorically) at work in today's headlines?”

ANS:
The Holy Bible is quite explicit in teaching the eternity of the pains of hell. The torments of the damned shall last forever and ever (Revelation 14:11; 19:3; 20:10).

They are everlasting just as are the joys of heaven (Matthew 25:46). Of Judas, Christ says, "it were better for him, if that man had not been born" (Matthew 26:24). But this would not have been true if Judas was ever to be released from hell and admitted to eternal happiness.

Again, God says of the damned: "Their worm shall not die, and their fire shall not be quenched" (Isaiah 66:24; Mark 9:43, 45, 47). The fire of hell is repeatedly called eternal and unquenchable. The wrath of God abideth on the damned (John 3:36); they are vessels of Divine wrath (Romans 9:22); they shall not possess the Kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6:10; Galatians 5:21), etc.”

There will be those who don’t believe in God who will dismiss any proofs that a demon exist, until they get there. However, there is adequate proof that they do exist and the greatest gift you can give demons is to believe they don’t exist.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10106a.htm

“Mechtild of Magdeburg A celebrated medieval mystic, b. of a noble family in Saxony about 1210; d. at the Cistercian nunnery of Helfta near Eisleben writing on hell, she says, "I saw a horrible and wretched place; its name is 'Eternal Hatred'."

She then represents Lucifer as chained by his sins in the lowest abyss of hell, all sin, agony, pestilence and ruin, that fill hell, purgatory, and earth, flowing from his burning heart and mouth.

She divides hell into three parts; the lowest and most horrible is filled with condemned Christians, the middle with Jews, and the highest with Pagans. Hell, purgatory and heaven are situated one immediately above the other.

The lowest portion of purgatory is filled with devils, which torment the souls in the most horrible manner, while the highest portion of purgatory is identical with the lowest portion of heaven. Mechtild's conception of the hereafter is believed by some to be the basis of Dante's "Divine Comedy,” and the poet's Matelda ("Purgatory", Canto 27-33) to be identical with our Mechtild.”

From the New Testament there is unequivocal proof. One town’s whole herd of pigs jumped over a cliff into the sea and drowned after a legion of devils was driven out of a possessed man. The town knew the man was possessed, they seen their herd of pigs drown after the demons went into the herd.”

Further, there are many saints who were witness to the devil and many who have died and came back to life in an out of body experience. The experience was so horrifying for them that it changed their lives forever.

Moreover, the children of Fatima witnessed the souls in Hell. They nearly fainted from the experience. The smell, screeching, cursing, and screaming was described by the three children as unbearable.

They saw the damned as black souls, spinning around in balls of fire. Sr. Lucia, one of the children went into a convent for the rest of her life to pray silently for the salvation of souls. She recently died in her 90s at that convent. The miracles at Fatima are well documented, St. Catherine of Sienna also saw Hell.

DanielintheLionsDen Author Profile Page :

All this stuff about the absolute evil versus the relative evil is pure nonsense. It is mere ly tossing around words tagged to conceptual markers, tagged to abstract concepts, that do not relate to anything real in the world.
these things, than take the lazy man's easy answers.

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In principle, I agree with you. The entire notions of "relative" and "absolute" are really unimportant. There is our perception of reality, contingent on our senses and cognitive abilities, and that's about all we can talk about - using abstractions and metaphors (that's language). And we can make stuff up.

But that doesn't mean that abstractions as such are unimportant, even if they aren't real in the same sense that an atom is real or that a shoe constructed of atoms is real. Conceptual markers like the concept "atom" or "shoe" have meaning for us and we deploy them in "real" communication. The crux of the biscuit is this: how well do our abstractions and reality correspond? Do the abstractions lead us into sterile fictions or do they lead us back to real things, adjusting as our perceptions of reality change.

With an abstraction like "evil" I'd say the former. Not only is one man's pleasure another's poison, but nobody can even formulate a coherent definition other than "bad stuff." "Shoe" is a good deal more useful. It's an artificial construction used to protect feet, comes in lots of styles. We have a pretty good idea what a shoe is and how it's different from a shirt. The mistake that those fixated on "absolutes" make - Platonist and others of that ilk- is turning a useful abstraction into not just a reality, but a HIGHER and TRUER level of reality. But of this higher "reality" there is no evidence.

Christianity comes to this Greek sort of thing through John and Paul. Some love that aspect of the religion, most ignore it. The theologians seize on it pretty hard and it's the main reason most Christian theology is so empty and sterile. Satan is just another of these exalted abstractions, like the Platonic "chair," but is even more pointless because it doesn't even begin to correspond to "evil" as it is experienced and tagged with the word "evil."

What I really mean is, don't throw out the baby with the bathwater when talking about "abstraction" and human use of language. We're doing something interesting when we talk and that talk determines a lot of how we mentally structure and interact with "reality." Is that clear?

BIGBROTHER1:

My! You're in an "absolute" tizzy today!

Actually, Satan is a rather nasty admixture of entropy and the Republican Party.

O help us, O Paganplace!! Save us from the fires of Hell with a Wiccan spell for a indeed

"A Satanic Spell has been cast:

“In the name of Satan, the rule of the ground, king of the world, I order the forces of the darkness to grant their infernal power on me! To open with far the doors from the hell and to come in front of the abyss to greet me as your brother and a friend!

Grant I them indulgences about which I speak! I took the name thy as an element of me! I live like animals of the field, amusing in the carnal life! I support the Juste and curse putrefied! By all gods of the well, I order that these things from which the speah of I will come to pass! Come ahead and answer your names by expressing my desires!

Oh hear the infernal names of: Abaddon, Kali, Sekhmet, and Dagon “

Drink of your chalice.

To turn in the direction of the needles of a watch, while directing your athame, cane, or sword with each quarter and to call the princes of the hell ahead: Satan of north, Lucifer of the west, Belial of the south, and Leviathan of the east.

Invocation for the destruction
The word “see! The powerful voices of my crash of revenge calm it air and rise like monoliths of anger on a plain of the snakes writhing. I became because a monstrous machine of annihilation to the fragments ferstering of the body He which deatain I. It repenteth I not that my turn of doth of summation on the blowing winds which multiply the puncture of my bitterness; and the great black sticky forms will assemble brackish wells and vomit ahead their plague in his weak brain. I invite the messengers of the unhappy fate to reduce with the sinister pleasure this hath of victim I selected. Silencer is this voiceless bird which feeds on the brain-pulp of him that the hath tormented me, and the anguish of the east to be will be supported in the piercing cries of the pain, to only be used as signals to inform with those which would return my being. Oh come ahead in the name of Abaddon and destroy it with which giveth hath name I like sign. Large brohers of Oh of the night, thou which makest my place of comfort, which rideth outside on the hotwinds of the hell, that the dwelleth in the fan of the devil, move one to appear! To present to him which sustaineth the rotteness of the spirit which moves the mouth gibbering which scoffs the Juste and strong! That language cacardante returns, and to close its throat. Ah, Kali! To bore its lungs with the punctures of the scorpians. Oh Sekhmet! To plunge its substance in the dull vacuum; the OH powerful Dagon! I push in top the bur bifide of the hell and on top am impaled teeth resplendently my sacrifice by rest of revenge! Shemhamforash! Hail Satan! ”

ThomasBaum: "I suppose satan does not believe that he is going to lose but he is"

Seriously... Satan knows the bible as well as our most learned theologians does he not? You actually think he hasn't read the last chapter yet? He's smarter than all of us isn't he? Yet somehow he does not know what YOU know, that he WILL lose it all?
You argument makes no sense. You are claiming superior knowledge to a creature that is "more intelligent than the entire human race"

"God has a Plan and God has had His Plan since before creation and it will come to Fruition. "

So either A. Satan was a part of that plan, or B. Satan was not a part of that plan.

If 'A' is correct then Satan, as part of God's plan is only doing exactly that which god planned for him, or allows him to do, which is to tempt and corrupt the flock. God created a creature that hands matchbooks and lighter fluid to children then lets them burn in that very blaze for all eternity, because it's the childrens' fault for giving in to that temptation.

or if 'B'; God's plan is imperfect, and therefore flawed, and therefore unpredictable.

"Good" and "Evil," like many "things" that "seem" very important to us, are not real. They are no more real than "Wednesday," or the "value" in money that everyone is so worried about, or the "boundaries" between countries, that people fight wars over.

These are all nouns that do not stand for anyting real, but instead stand for conceptual markers that imprint on our minds, but can no where be found in the real world.

All this stuff about the absolute evil versus the relative evil is pure nonsense. It is mere ly tossing around words tagged to conceptual markers, tagged to abstract concepts, that do not relate to anything real in the world.

I know it may be hard to follow, but I would rather do the hard thinking about these things, than take the lazy man's easy answers.

We see Thomas "The Moses of the NT" Baum has not only met god but based on Baum's "testimony" today he has also met satan !! Now that is somekind of travel package!!!

Frankly, the question of 'Does Satan exist' is very parallel to the question: 'Does the Abrahamic God exist.' Best answered with another question: "What does that mean, how much do you want him to, and why?"

Both absolutes, hung on this word 'Exist' ....seem to ignore the real question. People can be convinced 'Absolute Good' sends them up on a belltower with a rifle, or 'Absolute Evil' is why people freak out and do hideous things.

Only time I ever saw your Satan referred to appropriately, really, was in the circumstance of walking into a big fight over 'Righteousness.'

Someone said, "Who threw the first punch?"

'The Devil.'

GLADERUNNER

You wrote, "Even the souls he already posesses can have their destiny changed by an all - loving all-forgiving god."

God has a Plan and God has had His Plan since before creation and it will come to Fruition.

Since God did not create hell but gave us the free will to build our own hell and God took all of humanity's wrongdoing upon Himself and went to the uttermost depth of everyone's self-built hell, what do you think that God is going to do when He declares victory in favor of the "Holy Ones"?

Do you or anyone else think that God asked us to be more loving, more merciful than God?

You also wrote, "What an idiot... What has satan to gain for any of this effort?"

I don't know what you mean by "idiot" but not only is satan more intelligent than any human being but he is probably more intelligent than the entire human race.

I suppose satan does not believe that he is going to lose but he is.

Remember, Jesus did say that there was work to be done but He also let us know that the Victory will be Total even tho there does not seem to be very many that believe this, even sadder is that it seems quite a few don't even want it to be.

It is "Good News", not 'good enough news' which is actually horrible news.

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

fishcrow

BIGBROTHER1:

Hmmmm....
Awful lot of absolutes in your last post. You're sort of the "Rocky" of the world of philosophy.

Absolutely!
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I'm quite comfortable accepting the absolutes of reality such as the planet, universe and what we all observe as our existence - subject to change with new information of course. To do other than that is to head down the usual Manichean/solipsistic/stoner epistemological dead-end. But that's where you live, isn't it?

I'm sorry that you cannot tell the difference between a reality (such as the planet) and an abstraction (such as evil). And I'm sorry that you are incapable of arguing your points, though I can guess why.

Do your worst. I'm done with you, as there's no more either of us has to say on this subject.

fishcrow

BIGBROTHER1:

By your line of "reasoning," raping and killing a little girl is not "absolutely" evil. Shoving Jews into ovens during WWII is only "relatively" evil.

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And our first Godwin, though considering the subject, not that inappropriate.

So, is there some reason that you think a monstrous evil to humankind such as the Holocaust is somehow diminished by being "relative" to humankind? How does having an "absolute" evil make the Holocaust more meaningful? Might it, relatively speaking, make the Holocaust a little less evil than "Satan himself" for instance?

And look at the other side of the coin. We all tend to have people who are very important to us. The fact that they may not be so important to others is neither here nor there. Relative to us, they are everything. I don't see anything wrong with that. They and the other things we value constitute our good. If we choose, we can extend our field of values to our and other communities, countries, species and beyond.

Apparently you cannot conceive of human values outside a notion of absolute good and evil, both of which you have conveniently neglected to define. (Not that I'm interested in your definitions; I've heard them somewhere I'm sure.) What I'm saying is that absolute values are not necessary for our own definitions of good and evil to be meaningful. And I understand that this is unacceptable to you, just as I understand that you are - like anyone else - incapable of explaining why your absolutes are real or necessary.

BIGBROTHER1:

Hmmmm....
Awful lot of absolutes in your last post. You're sort of the "Rocky" of the world of philosophy.

Absolutely!

"satan is quite busy, since his time is short and by the way besides being a liar and a thief, satan is also a loser."

He's also a colossal idiot. He's doing all this work, all this sneaking around, all the time knowing that God not only can, but certainly WILL defeat him, take away his power, take away all that he has scraped together, yet he still toils tirelessly to win souls to his inevitable losing side, to have all of his effort inevitably and certainly taken away.

Working that hard for nothing? The one creature in all the universe besides god himself whose destiny is foretold and certain, is getting busier because his time is running out? There's no possible motivation for that. Even the souls he already posesses can have their destiny changed by an all - loving all-forgiving god.
What an idiot... What has satan to gain for any of this effort?

fishcrow:

Is the idea that nothing absolute is going absolute? Or relative? And are you absolutely sure? Or just relatively sure? And if you're absolutely sure, is that just relative to you? Or is it absolute? relatively speaking?

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Dear me, is that the best you can do? I was wondering if someone was going to forget to read this part of the sentence "In the context of the existence of the universe (or even just the planet)." So, in case you don't understand, those are your reference points. The universe and/or the planet we call Earth. Consider the concept of evil in relation to those two realities. Or deny those two realities, I don't particularly care.

I assume that your faith convinces you of the existence of Satan and "Evil." Fine for you, but faith by its nature can't speak of reality, but only of things that cannot be shown to be real. Which pretty much handicaps it in anything like a reasoned debate. There are no chains of causation or logic to follow. There are only Yes or No, Faith or Not.

That's why faith-based thinking is impossible to engage with. One can agree or disagree but one cannot argue. Not very interesting, really.

BIGBROTHER1:

By your line of "reasoning," raping and killing a little girl is not "absolutely" evil. Shoving Jews into ovens during WWII is only "relatively" evil.

I'm guessing you must be in college...

Yes.

satan is quite busy, since his time is short and by the way besides being a liar and a thief, satan is also a loser.

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

Of course he does.

Bigbrother1:
"Nothing very Absolute going on there."

Is the idea that nothing absolute is going absolute? Or relative? And are you absolutely sure? Or just relatively sure? And if you're absolutely sure, is that just relative to you? Or is it absolute? relatively speaking?

Nope.

"Does Satan Exist?"
No reason whatsoever to believe it/he/she does.

Well, well, well, today we turn to the Satans of the world aka those “ugly, wingie, flying, talking, fictional thingies” aka those modern day “demons of the demented”.

For some history of these creatures of superstition, see

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satan

excerpt:

"Satan (Standard Hebrew Satan'el, English accuser) is a term that originates from the Abrahamic religions, being traditionally applied to an angel in Judeo-Christian belief, and to a jinn in Islamic belief.

Originally, this figure was the one who challenged the religious faith of humans in the Hebrew Bible. Since then, the Abrahamic religions have variously regarded Satan as a rebellious fallen angel or demon that tempts humans to sin or commit evil deeds. Others regard the Biblical Satan as an allegory that represents a crisis of faith, individualism, free will, wisdom and enlightenment."

continued below:

http://www.philipharland.com/Courses/RELI398Satanoverheads.htm

excerpt:

"Satan’s Predecessors in the Ancient Near East (from 3000 BCE)
1.Chaos monsters and the combat myth in the Ancient Near East (see Beal chapters 24)
· Background: The Ancient Near East and common mythology; Order vs. chaos in the society of the gods
· Ninurta vs. Anzu (Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian): Rebellious chaosmonster
· Marduk vs. Tiamat (Sea) (Babylonian; see Beal, pp. 1619)
· Baal vs. Yamm (Sea) and Mot (Death) (Ugaritic/Canaanite; see Beal, pp. 1921)
· Yahweh vs. Leviathan, Rahab, and Behemoth (Israelite; see Psalms 74:1217; 89:518; compare Isaiah 51:911; Job 4041)
· Avenue into Jewish apocalypticism "

From:
http://www.sacred-texts.com/evil/hod/hod07.htm

“THE TRANSITION from Devil-worship to God-worship marks the origin of civilisation; and among the nations of antiquity the Persians seem to have been the first who took this step with conscious deliberation, for they most earnestly insisted upon the contrast that obtains between good and evil, so much so that their religion is even to-day regarded as the most consistent form of dualism.”

When they're done dancing, I'll ask the angels on my lapel pin.

I think that the Christian concept of Satan or the Devil was highly influenced by the Babylonian-Assyrian relgious belief system in effect during the Jewish "Babylonian Captivity" which preceded the life of Jesus by several hundred years, but certainly was not apart of traditional Jewish history before that, nor ever taken as seriously by subsequent Jewish culture as it has been by Christians.

Not only does Satan not exist, he doesn't even work very well as a metaphor any more. In stories and movies where he appears it generally weakens the plot. Assigning something as abstract and impossible to define as "evil" to a single being is just nonsensical, and it shows.

And it takes a pretty weak grasp of philosophy and critical thought to go along with the idea the "evil exists." That's pretty ordinary late Platonism and not very insightful or useful. In the context of the existence of the universe (or even just the planet), the experience of evil, while often very real to humans, is also completely relative to us and all the contingencies of our existence. Nothing very Absolute going on there.

Maybe that's what they mean by "The devil is in the details."

We humans like to personify everything until we are educated enough to comprehend abstract ideas. Satan is a symbol only.
"The antichrist" is an energy. Evil is the human tendency to hate, to separate and to steal. People perpetrate evil....usually for "a good reason"...."just this once". But Karma trumps everything and so we learn.

No. Of course not. Next question?