15 Oct 07
Originally posted by epiphinehasI get it: Man is just more equal than woman.
In God's plan, man was created first and woman was created for man as his companion. In a proper relationship, the husband has authority over the wife and the wife is in subjection to her husband. Does the authority which God ordains a husband should have over his wife mean that they aren't equal in the eye's of God? No, they are nevertheless equal.
Nemesio
16 Oct 07
Originally posted by NemesioInteresting question. I would say...... No, but you work with what you have.
Originally posted by epiphinehas
[b]The simple answer is, I think, that whether or not these people were given the oracles of God, they are nevertheless sinners like everybody else on planet earth. Given that they are sinners, and notoriously stubborn sinners to boot, it is no surprise that they rejected the Messiah, considering that the very fact t ...[text shortened]... /b]
So, you think it's a good idea to choose someone you know is going to
fail?
Nemesio
16 Oct 07
1 edit
Originally posted by NemesioGod is as high above an angel as He is above a worm in the mud. The distinctions between creatures holding different degrees of rank are nothing in God's eyes. Relative to God there is no such thing as "more equal."
I get it: Man is just more equal than woman.
Nemesio
I think you "get it," but you just don't like it.
EDIT: Most people don't like it. That is, don't like authority. At root, man's problem with God is a problem with authority. Nobody likes to submit...
16 Oct 07
Originally posted by epiphinehasSo why did he bother ranking the 'nothings' if they're all so far below him anyway? Seems like a waste of time.
God is as high above an angel as He is above a worm in the mud. The distinctions between creatures holding different degrees of rank are nothing in God's eyes. Relative to God there is no such thing as "more equal."
16 Oct 07
Originally posted by SwissGambitIf you are an infinite God, time is really of no consequence to you. Yes, God is as far above an angel as He is above a worm in the mud, but He also has infinite patience for attention to detail. He can give all of Himself to each one of His creatures, from the greatest to the least, all of the time. That means you and I can each claim to be the apple of His eye, and we'd both be right, even though you may happen to be the president of the United States and I may happen to be a mentally challenged step-daughter of a retired zamboni driver. For whatever reason, God is a God of order and He knows how everything fits together best. Not only that, but for some reason He loves us "nothings" with everything He has. Perhaps it's just part of being an infinite Being?
So why did he bother ranking the 'nothings' if they're all so far below him anyway? Seems like a waste of time.
16 Oct 07
2 edits
Originally posted by epiphinehasMy list of things that I suspect most people don’t relish submitting to is likely very different from yours. For example:
God is as high above an angel as He is above a worm in the mud. The distinctions between creatures holding different degrees of rank are nothing in God's eyes. Relative to God there is no such thing as "more equal."
I think you "get it," but you just don't like it.
EDIT: Most people don't like it. That is, don't like authority. At root, man's problem with God is a problem with authority. Nobody likes to submit...
* The transience of individual existence, including their impending death.
* That their “I-thought-complex” (the ego-somebody-self) is a construct of their own consciousness (generally with a large dose of cultural conditioning).
* The responsibility for making meaning in their lives, rather than having it handed to them by a guru or a political party or a book.
* The responsibility that goes with recognizing the role (and limitations) of their own consciousness in generating answers for a whole host of existential questions, preferring to believe that the answers are simply given—by someone.
* Existential uncertainty, and the attendant risk of decision.
* The inexorable laws of nature generally, for which there is no magical elixir that bestows immunity.
* The abyss of existential mystery.
____________________________________
I have spent a good deal of my life seeking the “right” authority, upon which I could rely to alleviate such things. But every time that I submitted, I found that I was being dishonest with myself. The “teaching of the roshi” finally sunk in: There is no one else to rely upon in such matters. I can choose to accept that tragically—or joyfully. And I am responsible for that choice as well. The Zen I have learned is very, very stark in that sense. Stark does not mean joyless.
16 Oct 07
Originally posted by vistesdStephen, what is your take on Matthew 15:22ff. ? Could this woman have been better served by your or the "teaching of the roshi" stance?
My list of things that I suspect most people don’t relish submitting to is likely very different from yours. For example:
* The transience of individual existence, including their impending death.
* That their “I-thought-complex” (the ego-somebody-self) is a construct of their own consciousness (generally with a large dose of cultural conditioning). ...[text shortened]... s well. The Zen I have learned is very, very stark in that sense. Stark does not mean joyless.
16 Oct 07
Originally posted by epiphinehasBut he was not talking "relative to God". You have apparently avoided the question.
God is as high above an angel as He is above a worm in the mud. The distinctions between creatures holding different degrees of rank are nothing in God's eyes. Relative to God there is no such thing as "more equal."
I think you "get it," but you just don't like it.
EDIT: Most people don't like it. That is, don't like authority. At root, man's problem with God is a problem with authority. Nobody likes to submit...
Actually many people love to submit to authority if it also means relinquishing responsibility. A very large part of the religion complex has to do with avoiding responsibility. eg God will look after me, the devil made me do it etc.
16 Oct 07
What the antagonists here are attempting to do is to somehow show God as partial and capricious, or--- in one fashion or another, malign His character. Although they are ignorant of the underlying principle, they're actually on to something!
With conscious awareness, the naysayers attack God's standard of action in hopes that what is revealed will make the notion of God irrelevant. Without conscious awareness, however, they imagine a standard by which God is measured. The same book that informs them of the concepts of fair, just, righteous, etc., they use to show God in contradiction to the same. Either they're right and the Bible is a complete jumble of nonsense, or they're reading the Bible wrong.
For their sake, let's hope the Bible is being read wrong. For if they are right, whence cometh the standard for the concepts mentioned?
According to the popular thought (and upon which the USA was very loosely based) equality is a good thing. Is it? Certainly it isn't in God's economy (even the mysterious, all-knowing 'guiding force' of natural selection tells us that equality ain't all that it's cracked up to be). Man goes to great lengths to enforce equality, but even nature itself tells us that life is not equal. Despite man's best efforts, however, only God has been able to create a system wherein all are equal in His sight... at least, we start out that way.
Heaven will be populated with rewarded people. Entrance to heaven is granted universally. Quite the study in contradiction, it appears. Apparently, the Bible--- simple as some here insist that it is--- requires learned study.
Take the Jews, for instance, or Mary. How can the Jews be considered 'favored,' or Mary, "highly favored?" The Jews were designated as favored owing to their agency of evangelization. They were God's agent, the conduit between God and man.
Mary, however, was personally described as favored in the eyes of God, based upon personal conduct. The Jews were favored for their position (God created the racial species as a sign to all nations of His work in time), whereas Mary was favored for her personal conduct, a conscious decision to live her life in accord with His plan. Is that fair? According to God, it is.
As stated, salvation is universal, in that it was achieved for all mankind.
I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.
So why does Paul (and the rest of Scripture) put the Jew first? Because they are responsible first. Just as a pastor is under greater responsibility than his flock, just as a husband is under greater responsibility than his wife, God's system is thinking first. Are the Gentiles not responsible? The flock, wives? Obviously not true! Everyone stands before God and gives account of their own lives. Leaders answer to a higher standard.
In keeping with that standard, the first Agent, the High Priest, the one true Lover answered first: He gave His life for His beloved, an example for all leadership to follow.
16 Oct 07
2 edits
Originally posted by vistesdWhen Adam and Eve are cast out of the Garden for eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, they are usually portrayed as being miserable and downtrodden. But how do we know they didn't leave the Garden with hope and excitement in their hearts, despite the curse which God placed on them? After all, knowledge incites wonder, pleasure, self-assurance, excitement at the possibilities borne of imagination, etc.
My list of things that I suspect most people don’t relish submitting to is likely very different from yours. For example:
* The transience of individual existence, including their impending death.
* That their “I-thought-complex” (the ego-somebody-self) is a construct of their own consciousness (generally with a large dose of cultural conditioning). ...[text shortened]... s well. The Zen I have learned is very, very stark in that sense. Stark does not mean joyless.
The general course of life and death follows a predictable arc in nature, from tender shoots full of promise, onwards to full bloom, and then slowly to a somber wilting and decaying in the earth. Yes, Adam and Eve were cursed to die, but they were just beginning the arc of their lives, heady with newfound knowledge they had previously not been privy to. I believe they left the garden running and skipping, like we do on certain carefree days when it's easy to forget you will one day have to die (usually during one's youth).
In essence, Adam and Eve were cursed to lives of self-reliance (biblically speaking, they were cursed to lives of rebellion, but self-reliance sounds a bit more romantic). No doubt a life of self-reliance has its uncertainties and its moments of despair and dread, but by and large a life of self-reliance is full of hope (albeit hope for things in the present), wonder, self-expression, the pleasures of pride and vanity, freedom, lust, self-glorification, power, domination, self-improvement, etc. The downside, of course, which shallow people actively ignore but which courageous people purposefully grapple with, is the transience of individual existence, the responsibility of making meaning and, in turn, the transience of the meaning one creates, existential uncertainty, and the undeniable and inexorable fact of approaching death. Even this underside, though, is worn as a crown.
But the Lord, right from the get go, before He even cast Adam and Eve out of the Garden, already promised a Savior to mankind, Jesus Christ. It is Jesus Christ's job to reconcile us to our Creator. That is, to heal our rebellious hearts and deliver us from self-reliance. You'd think that everyone would flock to Christ in light of the hopelessness of relying on oneself, but the fact is, it's pleasurable and desirable to rely on oneself. Even the dark underside of the transient existence of self-reliance can be worn as a crown. So to many self-reliance, both its good and bad, is eminently more preferable than submission to the Creator.
Those who do submit themselves to the Good News of Jesus Christ are delivered from death and despair. Yes, the pleasures of self-reliance have been relinquished forever but so have the evils thereof. In their place grows the fruit of the Spirit of the Creator, i.e., joy, love, peace, gentleness, kindness, etc., from now until all eternity.
------------------
In effect, you are submitting to hopelessness, vistesd, which is really just submission to your own authority. I commend you for your courageousness, but it won't profit you anything.
16 Oct 07
Originally posted by FreakyKBHWell said.
What the antagonists here are attempting to do is to somehow show God as partial and capricious, or--- in one fashion or another, malign His character. Although they are ignorant of the underlying principle, they're actually on to something!
With conscious awareness, the naysayers attack God's standard of action in hopes that what is revealed will ma ...[text shortened]... st: He gave His life for His beloved, an example for all leadership to follow.
16 Oct 07
Originally posted by twhiteheadBut he was not talking "relative to God". You have apparently avoided the question.
But he was not talking "relative to God". You have apparently avoided the question.
[b]I think you "get it," but you just don't like it.
EDIT: Most people don't like it. That is, don't like authority. At root, man's problem with God is a problem with authority. Nobody likes to submit...
Actually many people love to submit to authority if it ...[text shortened]... do with avoiding responsibility. eg God will look after me, the devil made me do it etc.[/b]
Did I?
Actually many people love to submit to authority if it also means relinquishing responsibility. A very large part of the religion complex has to do with avoiding responsibility. eg God will look after me, the devil made me do it etc.
That would be due to the error of equating submission to God's authority with relinquishing responsibility. Perhaps there is such a "religious complex" which takes on that form, but it hardly resembles true discipleship.
16 Oct 07
Originally posted by kirksey957I don’t know, Kirk. You have tried to point out the possibilities of alternative (to the conventional) readings of that story. If it were a parable about so-called enlightenment, I might say that Jesus acted very much like a rude roshi. But, there is the daughter in the story, and it doesn’t seem the woman is asking for salvation, but for simple healing for her daughter from someone who is known as a healer. Maybe, as you hinted before, the woman’s persistence touched something in Jesus that had yet to mature... (After all, there is generally no thought that Jesus was born knowing everything: he had to grow through the human experience, whether one accepts his divine nature or not; that is not unorthodox, I don’t think.)
Stephen, what is your take on Matthew 15:22ff. ? Could this woman have been better served by your or the "teaching of the roshi" stance?
16 Oct 07
1 edit
Originally posted by epiphinehasUnless the Holy Spirit somehow compels or forces you to believe (or forces metanoia), then you cannot escape the fact that it was under your own authority that you became a Christian. Unless God imposes on your will, so that you do not really choose, that is inescapable. It is first upon your own authority that you choose to submit to another authority, no matter how compelling the reasons are.
When Adam and Eve are cast out of the Garden for eating the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, they are usually portrayed as being miserable and downtrodden. But how do we know they didn't leave the Garden with hope and excitement in their hearts, despite the curse which God placed on them? After all, knowledge incites wonder, pleasure, self-assurance, ex own authority. I commend you for your courageousness, but it won't profit you anything.
The (self-looping) question becomes: on whose authority do you decide to relinquish your authority to another?
In other words, I don’t think you can escape from your own authority, and the responsibility that goes with it. [That’s a general “you” there.]
Can there be any self-responsibility without self-authority—to think, to decide, to act?