Of what worth is your God?

@fmf said
Judging by some of his threads and some things he talks about, sonship's "ministry" away from here might often involve him preying on vulnerable or weakminded people ~ victims he tries to bully, perhaps with his self-sanctified "biblical" abuse.

For what purpose?? To take money from them?

I find it amazing that people like you (who don't even believe what these people claim) think that somehow, people are actually being hurt by this.

No, rather, you just can't let go of the opportunity to "win" internet arguing points.

Yeah, those are some "principles" you got there.

@fmf said
If you think discussion of his beliefs makes him look bad in some way, that's a matter for you.

No. Obviously you are the one pushing that narrative.

Yeah, nice "principles".

@suzianne said
No. Obviously you are the one pushing that narrative.

Yeah, nice "principles".

The narrative that debating him is "putting him down" is yours ~ you just introduced it with your last post at the bottom of the previous page. I am not accusing him of "spreading germs" or "eating faeces" when he discusses his beliefs. Perhaps you will become really indignant if a poster does that.

@suzianne said
For what purpose?? To take money from them?

What purpose would a religious person have for preying on vulnerable people? Vanity. Religious fervour. Self-righteousness. However, I can't see how it would be "to take money from them" in sonship's case.

@suzianne said
I find it amazing that people like you (who don't even believe what these people claim) think that somehow, people are actually being hurt by this.

You don't think vulnerable and weakminded people have ever been preyed upon or hurt by religious people and groups?

@suzianne said
No, rather, you just can't let go of the opportunity to "win" internet arguing points.

Yeah, those are some "principles" you got there.

Are you trying to "win" something on the internet with your last few posts, Suzianne?

@thinkofone said
The fact is that it's "grace" with a condition. Only those who meet that condition, merit grace. Those who do not meet that condition, do not merit grace.

If it were truly grace without merit, there wouldn't be any conditions.

Grace is given to people through the mercy of God through faith. It isn't given after they do a good job, it is the opening where God enters a person's life.

@thinkofone said
The fact is that it's "grace" with a condition. Only those who meet that condition, merit grace. Those who do not meet that condition, do not merit grace.

If it were truly grace without merit, there wouldn't be any conditions.

This is an interesting series of statements...

Orthodox & Catholic concepts of hell indicate that those who do not meet the condition due to ignorance are exempt from the condition, and even the prominent Protestant reformer Huldrich Zwingli talked about it in these sorts of terms.

Zwingli may have even been the most liberal of them all in the sense that he talked about how God is free to give grace and merit to anyone that he wants, even if it is outside of the church, when the traditional Catholic position is that grace only enters the world through the Catholic church, and the traditional Orthodox position (strong) is grace enters the world through the workings of the Orthodox church, or grace enters the world through the prayers and workings of Christians (weak).

Thus... in a sense... even in the classic catholic and orthodox positions, we are actually praying for the world and providing the graces ot others to be saved who do not meet the conditions, and Zwingli would have it that prayer is not necessary for graces and mercies to be given to those outside of the Christian church...

This stuff sounds very alien if you do not put yourself into the perspective of premodern Chrsitians who did not feel that grace was simply a word but that it was an actual manifestation of God's mercy that was real.

... And, of course, it is this manifestation of mercy that goes back to the concept of sin: our sins are enough to condemn us, and our good deeds are absolutely not enough to save us, as they are often infused with ego and selfishness.

-Removed-

God is sovereign over the universe, but in order for us to exist meaningfully, we have to have free will.

And it is through our choices that hell has come into being.

By choosing to reject God, we send ourselves to hell. This is the teaching of Orthodox Christianity.

@kellyjay said
Grace is given to people through the mercy of God through faith. It isn't given after they do a good job, it is the opening where God enters a person's life.

No matter how you try to frame it, unless your position is that everyone is given grace, the fact remains that ultimately it's "grace" with a condition.

If it were truly grace without merit, there wouldn't be any conditions.

Even with the rhetoric you've used here, "faith" is a requirement that must be met. Therefore there is a condition that makes an individual "worthy" of grace.

mer·it noun
1. the quality of being particularly good or worthy, especially so as to deserve praise or reward.

@philokalia said
This is an interesting series of statements...

Orthodox & Catholic concepts of hell indicate that those who do not meet the condition due to ignorance are exempt from the condition, and even the prominent Protestant reformer Huldrich Zwingli talked about it in these sorts of terms.

Zwingli may have even been the most liberal of them all in the sense t ...[text shortened]... good deeds are absolutely not enough to save us, as they are often infused with ego and selfishness.

Remarkable how many concepts there are as to how it may or may not work, innit? Why do you think that is?

@thinkofone said
Remarkable how many concepts there are as to how it may or may not work, innit? Why do you think that is?

Yeah, it is really interesting.

In this regard, I find theology to be really interesting because it is to philosophy as poetry is to prose... It's like, a wide range of ideas that must be interestingly constricted to the metaphysics & cosmology already provided by a religious text, and the amount of interpretations that can exist is pretty limitless.

You can also find people who think differently in nuances and use different words to say the same things, which make them somehow complementary, even though that was not their goal, while I feel like in philosophy there can almost be too much diversity that it is harder to find people that match up. People just aren't always dealing with the same questions, right.

Diversity is the fruit of life.