Forbidden.
Banned
Don't hit me with the bible.youBROKEmyLIFE said:
Don't hit me with the bible.youBROKEmyLIFE said:
What is spirit? I would define it as some sort of "other" something that doesn't conform to the boundaries that we come to associate with the tangible universe. So perhaps He does have a "form" just not in the way we would consider it? Or maybe that was just a slip of my tongue because I'm used to talking about the physical world? Anyway, what I said was that I think God has always been spirit form but that though Jesus God was made flesh. This is a massive concept that Christians and non-Christians alike have grappled with throughout the centuries. If it does cover all bases, great. It's just my interpretation.terriphyd said:Spiritual 'form'? Sounds like a self-contradiction already! If 'spirit' is like conscience what 'form' can it have? If God looks like a human, how can he also be an abstraction? It seems to me that you are trying to cover all the bases with this spiritual-form duality.
aussiechica7 said:Hey Terri,
I have a body. I also have a mind. I also have a spirit. These three things are interconnected but they are separate.
OK so let me put one way of looking at it to you:
This is how I see God. I see Him as something without form however in the Incarnation He (or at least, a part of Him) became a being with form. So it means there is a part of Him that is spirit, a part of Him that is flesh, etc. Does that make sense?
Also, I think throughout history He has revealed Himself as a being with form to people (e.g. the burning bush, etc.) because that was the easiest for His followers to understand.
When Gen says we were created in God's image does that mean that God looks like a human? I don't think that's necessarily true. I think we were created with God's nature (but the Bible says, we fell morally and submitted ourselves to the sinful nature instead).
As an aside, I personally have some questions as to what form Jesus was before He was born on Earth, and what form He is now after He was resurrected. I assume that now He is in a physical form (a "glorified" form according to the Bible) but no one really knows how He was before the incarnation. According to the Bible, He (as part of God) has always existed but how did He exist? I don't know.
BTW I disagree with this: Covering all the bases means that you haven't done your homework." Actually, I think we just have different opinions. You might not accept the idea of God who can simultaneously be with form and without form, or rather, be spirit and flesh. But I can accept that (and the analogy of me being both spirit and body is one way I would try and explain that). I respect that you might disagree with me; I don't respect that this disagreement means I have not thought of the issue.
Torah, what’s that? Are you a catholic or something, and the Torah is one of you additional books? What’s with your additional books to the Bible anyways? Why do you have a different Bible and beliefs to other Christians?aussiechica7 said:I believe the New Testament interprets the Old Testament for Christians. I.e. the principles of the OT still stand but you should read them through NT.
E.g. In the Torah (OT) it talks a lot about animal sacrifice.
...the Torah is included in the old testament???n.gallagher said:Torah, what’s that? Are you a catholic or something, and the Torah is one of you additional books? What’s with your additional books to the Bible anyways? Why do you have a different Bible and beliefs to other Christians?
Dude, wtf are you going on about? Like the above poster said, the Torah is Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.S1M0 said:...the Torah is included in the old testament???
Fail.
There's apocrypha in the Catholic Bible?aussiechica7 said:The Torah is the first 5 books of the Bible. I'm not Catholic. You're thinking of the Apocrypha (the extra books in the Catholic Bible).
Hahah, the followers of gnosticism would have disagreed with the fact that apocrypha is a negative term; to them, anything in the mainstream is too accessible.aussiechica7 said:hey
according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocrypha apocrypha hasn't always been a negative term. but yeah your definition works as well. basically books not in the protestant Bible, which was decided at First Council of Nicaea.
I admit, I think you are a troll, but I have some comments anyway.orang3_ said:yeh .. We DO need a purpose to live, or else there is only one direction - suicide.
im a Christian, and i believe in God because God gave me faith to believe. im so glad.. and i hope evryone else is able to receive that present too.
I've never understood the arguments that science and christianity are incompatible. I believe in science. I think the theory of evolution is the theory that best explains our developement in scientific terms. I don't think God created the world in 7 twenty-four hours periods-orang3_ said:For people who believe in science~ why do you only believe stuff that you can see; and say that God doesn't exist. Can you see the wind? no, but you can feel it. Can you see love and other feelings? nup, but you can feel it too.
If you only believe in what you see.. you're not seeing the whole picture.
Christians learn from history, which is written in the first part of the bible (BC). i think EVERYONE needz to learn from our contemporary(?) history.
what's wrong?lengy said:
No, Christianity does not dictate the music you listen to, the books you read, etc.shayla said:Does the bible/God have anything against listening to Evensance, Evensence and Pink?
I also listen to Christian music, read the Bible etc but i have never understood if Christiananity goes against the things of the world eg the music, boyfriends and girlfriends, reading books etc.
hannah
aussiechica7 said:Hi Terri,
"By saying that God both has form and doesn’t have form, you are shielding your belief from a rational challenge."
We disagree on whether or not a being can simultaneously have a form and not have a form. I say a being can. You disagree with me on that. Semantics aside, that's the basic jist of this conversation isn't it? So this is not just about miscommunication, it is actually a disagreement about something.
It is about miscommunicating because you are not using your terms consistently. You cannot rationalize for me how something can simultaneously have form and not have form. This is the crux of the matter.
You have a very secular definition of the spirit. In fact you would define spirit in the same way I would define a soul (mind, will, emotions) which is different to a spirit. A spirit inhabits a body and the body gives it earthly form (so it is not just the sum of chemical signals in the brain, for example). Apart from the body it inhabits, the spirit has no physical form. But a spirit-inhabited body is both formed and formless. Does that make sense?
No it doesn't. In order for a spirit to 'inhabit' a body, by the plain and incongruous usage of your words you are admitting that a spirit is a distinct entity. You are saying that there is an entity that we can point to that you call spirit and which has form all on its own. You are saying that 'spirit' is a stand-alone object. Therefore, this spirit does not need to inhabit any body to make its presence felt because you already ascribed architecture to it. You are saying that a spirit already has form. Again, we have a communication problem.
"It allows you in one context to confess that the word spirit is nothing but an abstraction, your soul, your feelings, etc. In another context, this abstraction separates from the flesh and travels to heaven and lives forever." The former is the soul, the second is the spirit (which according to the Bible, will eventually be given new flesh to inhabit). Are you OK with those definitions?
There is absolutely no difference between the words soul, spirit, conscience, mind or whatever you want to call these synonyms. Religion invented all these words when they refer to the same concept: the process of thinking of a human.
spirit:
1. the principle of conscious life; the vital principle in humans, animating the body or mediating between body and soul
2. the soul regarded as separating from the body at death
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/spirit
soul
1. the principle of life, feeling, thought, and action in humans, regarded as a distinct entity separate from the body, and commonly held to be separable in existence from the body; the spiritual part of humans as distinct from the physical part
2. the spiritual part of humans ...
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/soul
At the end of your post you said "I want your version. How do you imagine nothing turning into something and back again?" and that is what I gave you. I didn't claim that my interpretation was right, but it put it forth as a viable point of view. I have heard people argue that God's "image" can be physical, spiritual or both. I think God's image just being spiritual is the easiest to understand but I don't claim to know that for sure.
Perhaps you misunderstood me. I want you to describe in detail how something (e.g., a chair) loses length, width, and height and converts to nothing or in the alternative how a concept (e.g., spirit, soul, love, justice, etc.) acquires length, width, and height and converts into a body. You see, when God created the Universe, he didn't realize that the first bit of matter he created had to be made in zero time. We are not talking about the movie of how God created the first object. We are talking about a photograph. There is absolutely nothing, and suddenly we have length, width, and height in the photograph. Explain the process. I'm curious.