Human existence: the gender of God

waybread

Well-known member
1. Why would you think so?
Because if your comment was not anti-semitic is makes no sense. Why wouldn't you discuss the Trinity with a Jew?

On the basis of the Bible. We are encouraged to speak for God at all times, as Jesus Christ did.

2. You are not encouraged to speak for God. You run the risk of false prophecy.

He seem to have known the good things of Christendom that you omitted. He was a Unitarian, so he probably knew that Servetus was murdered by Calvin and that the Polish Brethren were persecuted and exiled from Poland by the Catholics. Yet, he didn't reject Christianity because of impostors or emotional arguments, having Jesus Christ and his true followers as light to him.

3. Nobody is denying good things from Christianity. But Adams' triumphalism is too much for a historically literate person to take.

Read the wikipedia, I see that you are familiar with it.

4. I'm asking you Petosiris. How do you interpret these concepts? Or are you simply relying on Wikipedia for your own understanding?

I answered that one in my previous post.

5. Thanks.

Previously I asked you about your personal relationship with your father, whether that was a source of your finding such meaning in the image of God the Father.
 

petosiris

Banned
Because if your comment was not anti-semitic is makes no sense. Why wouldn't you discuss the Trinity with a Jew?

Because neither you nor I believe the Trinity?

2. You are not encouraged to speak for God. You run the risk of false prophecy.

There is no risk if I am quoting the infallible scriptures for support. :smile:

3. Nobody is denying good things from Christianity. But Adams' triumphalism is too much for a historically literate person to take.

Seems like you are making something subjective, which is evaluated by God. He said that Jesus Christ is a Light to the nations, not Adams.

4. I'm asking you Petosiris. How do you interpret these concepts? Or are you simply relying on Wikipedia for your own understanding?

In the context I meant that the monotheistic God can't be a creature by the law of identity.

Previously I asked you about your personal relationship with your father, whether that was a source of your finding such meaning in the image of God the Father.

The image of God the Father is Jesus Christ. God is not an image himself. You are think corporeally of a spirit.
 

waybread

Well-known member
Petosiris, if you're a Unitarian, I think that's great. Just surprised.

An old high school friend (and lapsed Lutheran) joined the Unitarian church for its social networking, and said she did not believe in God.

I was once invited to speak in a Unitarian church and found they had no Bibles, at least not in the pews.

My ex husband and I once had a Unitarian pre-school teacher of one of our young children over for a Shabbat dinner, because she wanted to see one. When the conversation turned to her religious views of Jesus, she didn't claim anything about his divinity but talked about him as a teacher.

I am curious as to how you see the Unitarian church as consistent with your fundamentalism.
 

petosiris

Banned
That is because American Unitarianism gradually became non-Christian in the 19th to 20th century (like many other ''churches'' which became liberal in the same period). It merged with Universalism. That is why people (a very small minority) of my view today call themselves ''Biblical Unitarians'' to distinguish themselves from the Universalists. You can find them among the COG, Christadelphians and a minority of the Hebrew roots movement.

A small group of churches as successors of Ferenc Dávid from the Polish Brethren still exist in Romania and Hungary, and though they are not as ''liberal'' to the extent of the Universalists, they have been and are influenced by them (for example to accept homosexual marriages). Ferenc Dávid died in prison for rejecting the religious worship and prayer to Jesus by Unitarians. Millions JWs, although not a group for commendation, also reject prayer and religious worship to Jesus, though they believe him to be an archangel. They are Unitarians who believe in pre-existence, like church fathers such as Origen who also rejected praying to Jesus.
 
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waybread

Well-known member
Because neither you nor I believe the Trinity?

Why the question mark? That's not what you said. In point of fact, you and I can (and often do) discuss topics in which we have no personal belief.

There is no risk if I am quoting the infallible scriptures for support.

But oftentimes you do not quote them. We're getting what you personally think. Or your teachers. :wink: With respect to "infallibility" did you read what I posted on the problem of translation and major differences in interpretation?

Seems like you are making something subjective, which is evaluated by God. He said that Jesus Christ is a Light to the nations, not Adams.
What is "subjective" about historical facts that show Christians behaving in most un-Christianlike ways? Your Light to the nations comment is a non sequitur in this context.

In the context I meant that the monotheistic God can't be a creature by the law of identity.

I asked what you meant by the law of identity.

The image of God the Father is Jesus Christ. God is not an image himself. You are think corporeally of a spirit.

What do you mean by "image"? No, I'm not.

I asked about your relationship with your own father.
 

petosiris

Banned
Why the question mark? That's not what you said. In point of fact, you and I can (and often do) discuss topics in which we have no personal belief.

The Trinity (with capital T) comes from a curse by the Jews on the Christians. You are calling me anti-Semitic, but you haven't explained the Birkat haMinim to me.

''And the LORD will be king over all the earth; in that day the LORD will be the only one, and His name the only one. All the land will be changed into a plain from Geba to Rimmon south of Jerusalem; but Jerusalem will rise and remain on its site from Benjamin’s Gate as far as the place of the First Gate to the Corner Gate, and from the Tower of Hananel to the king’s wine presses. People will live in it, and there will no longer be a curse, for Jerusalem will dwell in security.'' - Zech. 14 NASB

But oftentimes you do not quote them. We're getting what you personally think. Or your teachers. With respect to "infallibility" did you read what I posted on the problem of translation and major differences in interpretation?

Why do I have to repeat myself?

Translations are not the word of God. If you can show me why a translation (being an interpretation by very nature) is wrong, I wlll surely accept your reading of the text.

I asked what you meant by the law of identity.

I meant that the monotheistic God can't be a creature, because he is God. If you claim something else, then we are talking different gods. :smile:

What do you mean by "image"? No, I'm not.

I asked about your relationship with your own father.

An image is a representation, not the original.

My relationship with my father on earth is not the same as with my Father in heaven in degree. Some may not have the first at all, but may have the latter, which is more important.
 
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petosiris

Banned
Some Jews, like some Christians and members of other faiths, have sometimes followed charismatic leaders-- with disastrous results. Generally they ultimately realized that these leaders were not the Messiah.

Again, you cannot take any one sect or event as somehow normative of the whole. The Lubavitchers (Chabad) are a Chassidic sect.

Orthodox Judaism hasn't officially condemned this belief, although it is certainly aware of it. So until then I will have to maintain that ''none of these things'' you mentioned in #359 have to occur for the Messiah to be recognized according to Jews themselves. You are the one who is not speaking for Judaism.
 
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waybread

Well-known member
Petosiris, You have a problem with Judaism, do you not?

There is no Jewish curse against the Christians in the book of Zechariah. It was written in the 6th century BCE, long before the development of Christianity.

I don't see what it has to do with discussing the Trinity. But why wouldn't you talk about it with a Jew? That's the part I don't get.

In the NRSV translation, Zechariah 14:9-11 reads, "And the Lord will become king over all the earth, on that day the LORD will be one and his name will be one....never again shall it be doomed to destruction; Jerusalem shall abide in security."

Then if we go to what the Bible Gateway calls the Orthodox Jewish version:

"And Hashem shall be Melech Al Kol HaAretz (King over all the earth); in Yom HaHu (in that day) shall Hashem be echad, and Shmo Echad.....And men shall inhabit her, and there shall be no more cherem (utter destruction, holy war); but Yerushalayim shall be inhabited labetach (in confidence, security)."

"Ha Shem" is a word for God meaning The Name. Echad means "one." "Echad" has also been translated as unity. I always understood this as a stand against polytheism or alternative deities. You can see that these other two translations don't mention a curse.

I realize that some Christians are fond of reading their more recent beliefs back into texts written centuries prior to the birth of Jesus. But if you wish to be literal about Zechariah, there is no mention of Christianity whatsoever.

When did you previously ask me to explain the Birkat Ha Minim?

I wasn't familiar with it and had to look it up. This ironic "blessing on the heretics" basically asked God to punish them. The "nozerim" would be Christians, who during the early years of Christianity in Israel, would have been seen as Jewish apostates. Apparently the Birkat Ha Minim stayed in the liturgy until the Middle Ages, when it was modified, and removed or understood in more metaphorical terms.

I personally find this part of the prayer to be reprehensible. So would most Jews, which is why cursing Christians lost its role in the worship service.

Here is a current version from the Conservative prayer book:

"Frustrate the hopes of all those who malign us. Let all evil soon disappear: let all Your enemies be soon destroyed. May You quickly uproot and crush the arrogant: may You subdue and humble them in our time. Praised are You Adonai, who humbles the arrogant."

Repetition that doesn't answer a question still doesn't answer it. Mere mortals don't get to speak for God. If you wish to cite scripture, OK; but note the problems in insisting upon a literal translation. And note that some biblical passages are contradicted by others. (Cf. the Levirite marriage problem.)

I'd love to see you tackle the verses in the NT that talk about love and caring for the sick.

I was asking about why you find the masculine and personal image of God as a loving father to his son so powerful. Did you mean a father as a "creature" by that? As David pointed out, the father metaphor is not appealing to many people who had a bad relationship with their human father.
 

waybread

Well-known member
Orthodox Judaism hasn't officially condemned this belief, although it is certainly aware of it. So until then I will have to maintain that ''none of these things'' you mentioned in #359 have to occur for the Messiah to be recognized according to Jews themselves. You are the one who is not speaking for Judaism.

Petosiris, aren't we past your homogenizing "Orthodox Judaism" yet? Which tradition/s do you mean? Ashkenazi? Sephardic? Mitnagdim? Chassidism? Ultra-Orthodox? Modern Orthodox? Lubovitch? Satmar?

These groups do not all agree with one another. They have no centralized authority.

Christians have also falsely believed in the End of Days and the Second Coming. The early Christians believed that the End Was Nigh. In recent times,millennial Christians have often been members of fringe groups. I doubt that you would be OK with my claiming that they represented the Unitarians or Christianity more generally.

I am not aware of any mainstream Jewish group who thinks the Messiah has come. Judaism does have a history of wannabe Messiahs who convinced a considerable following for a short period of time-- but these movements flopped. (Cf. Sabbatai Zevi, Jacob Frank.) Obviously ushering in the millennium would take some time, so followers of the false messiahs were willing to cut them some slack-- for a while.

The Chassidic movement has probably been more prone than most to believe that a saintly, revered rabbi was the Messiah, but I would hardly call this mainstream. After life returns to business as usual, messianic claims somehow disappear.

But it looks like you are trying to argue that if some Jews don't seem to need the major criteria of the Messiah in order to designate someone with this label, then this means that Jesus fulfilled the Jewish Messianic requirements and ipso facto is the Jewish Messiah. This argument just doesn't hold up.

That Jesus is your Messiah, I have no doubt, however.

I never claimed to speak for all of Judaism. Basically I am doing my best to explain Judaism to people with little apparent familiarity with it. My personal beliefs may vary.

But nu, so you're such a maven yourself? That's chutzpah.
 

Opal

Premium Member
Or, just Om.

One day, we were working on a roof, my husband cut himself and needed a bandaid. So he headed to the truck. It was a bi-level house, we had two ladders set up. At the bottom of the first he saw a small sparrow, that appeared to be dead, probably from hitting the window. Saddened, he leant down and admired the beauty of the small bird, and he does not know why, but he resonated, Ooooooohhhhhhhhmmmmmmm, at that second, while he was resonating the little sparrow jumped up and looked at him, my husband was startled, and called Opal, Opal come here. I looked down from above to his amazed face, and a tiny sparrow about a foot from each other, he was very quizzical of what had just occurred.

It was a good day.


ohm

/ōm/

noun
noun: ohm; plural noun: ohms; symbol: Ω



  1. the SI unit of electrical resistance, expressing the resistance in a circuit transmitting a current of one ampere when subjected to a potential difference of one volt.





 

Opal

Premium Member
Petosiris, if you're a Unitarian, I think that's great. Just surprised.

An old high school friend (and lapsed Lutheran) joined the Unitarian church for its social networking, and said she did not believe in God.

I was once invited to speak in a Unitarian church and found they had no Bibles, at least not in the pews.

My ex husband and I once had a Unitarian pre-school teacher of one of our young children over for a Shabbat dinner, because she wanted to see one. When the conversation turned to her religious views of Jesus, she didn't claim anything about his divinity but talked about him as a teacher.

I am curious as to how you see the Unitarian church as consistent with your fundamentalism.

I am surprised. You do not talk like the Unitarian's I have met. You sound like an Evangelist. Interesting.
 

waybread

Well-known member
Petosiris, thanks for explaining the Unitarian churches to us.

Would you like to say more about the group of which you are a part and how you came to affiliate with them?

Did you have a "born again" experience?

Do you pray to Jesus?

I mean, I can deal with your revisited disputations with the Jews, no problem. But this back-and-forth doesn't address the centrality of your faith to the position from which you speak.

Especially in these days of the covid-19 pandemic, faith as a positive source of personal strength seems like a more promising line of discussion.

So far as Mary and Jesus go, I think many people find the God worshipped by Jews to be too abstract and remote. They want the ages-old belief in a personal deity who understands their personal pain because s/he experienced something similar-- according to the narratives, be they called myth or scripture.

So far as the feminine in Christianity goes, some of the most beautiful religious music is dedicated to the Stabat Mater, Mary as the grieving mother. My classical station is just now playing an incredible choral Stabat Mater (2008) by composer Karl Jenkins.

Opal--wonderful story about your husband. Reminds me of the hymn, "His eye is on the sparrow."
 
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petosiris

Banned
Petosiris, You have a problem with Judaism, do you not?

There is no Jewish curse against the Christians in the book of Zechariah. It was written in the 6th century BCE, long before the development of Christianity.

I don't see what it has to do with discussing the Trinity. But why wouldn't you talk about it with a Jew? That's the part I don't get.

In the NRSV translation, Zechariah 14:9-11 reads, "And the Lord will become king over all the earth, on that day the LORD will be one and his name will be one....never again shall it be doomed to destruction; Jerusalem shall abide in security."

Then if we go to what the Bible Gateway calls the Orthodox Jewish version:

"And Hashem shall be Melech Al Kol HaAretz (King over all the earth); in Yom HaHu (in that day) shall Hashem be echad, and Shmo Echad.....And men shall inhabit her, and there shall be no more cherem (utter destruction, holy war); but Yerushalayim shall be inhabited labetach (in confidence, security)."

Waybread, cherem can definitely be translated as a curse, as was by the LXX translation and the apostle John in Revelation 22:3 (curse for destruction is implied). The ''Birkat'' HaMinim itself is a dooming unto destruction, so either way we are talking about the same thing.

''Panarion 29:9 by Epiphanius of Salamis (c. 315-403) [He is considered a Church Father, and the Panarion is a compilation of heresies.]

No only do Jewish people have a hatred of [the Nazoreans]; they even stand up at dawn, at midday, and toward evening, three times a day when they recite their prayers in the synagogues, and curse and anathematize them. Three times a day they say, "God curse the Nazoraeans." For they harbor an extra grudge against them, if you please, because despite their Jewishness, they preach that Jesus is the Christ--the opposite of those who are still Jews, for they have not accepted Jesus.'' - https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/1268?lang=bi

Echad just means one as the number one in every language.

Repetition that doesn't answer a question still doesn't answer it. Mere mortals don't get to speak for God. If you wish to cite scripture, OK; but note the problems in insisting upon a literal translation. And note that some biblical passages are contradicted by others. (Cf. the Levirite marriage problem.)

I haven't noticed a contradiction between the commandments for levirate marriages.
 
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petosiris

Banned
I personally find this part of the prayer to be reprehensible. So would most Jews, which is why cursing Christians lost its role in the worship service.

It doesn't really matter since you are part of the group. Maybe there were some friends of Jews in the NSDAP, just as there are friends of Christians among Rabbinic Jews, but the party policy is clearly extermination in a moment - ''Let the noẓerim and the minim be destroyed in a moment. And let them be blotted out of the Book of Life and not be inscribed together with the righteous.'' - https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/birkat-ha-minim

Is this not anti-Christian?
 

petosiris

Banned
Christians have also falsely believed in the End of Days and the Second Coming. The early Christians believed that the End Was Nigh.

It is. There is only one week remaining of the 70 weeks. Some of the apostles didn't taste death, because they were taken into heaven.
 

petosiris

Banned
7x70=490 years, then. Why 490?

Because there were 173880 days from Nehemiah 2:1-8 to the cutting off of an anointed after which for 40 days the Jews did not repent (Daniel 9:24-26, Jonah 3) and the ribbon did not turn white, according to their own tradition. Soon the antichrist will make a covenant with the Jews for 2550 days, and for the last 1290 days of these he will proclaim himself God in the temple and demand worship, until the stone cut without human hands returns and kills him with the breath of his mouth and the divine glory of his coming (Daniel 9:27). The Jews themselves will be disappointed during the 3 1/2 years and accept Jesus as Christ. 45 days is probably the time for judgement in Daniel 12.
 
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waybread

Well-known member
Waybread, cherem can definitely be translated as a curse, as was by the LXX translation and the apostle John in Revelation 22:3 (curse for destruction is implied). The ''Birkat'' HaMinim itself is a dooming unto destruction, so either way we are talking about the same thing.

John in Revelation wasn't writing in Hebrew. I'm not aware of any groups who still say the Birkat HaMinim as it was written during the early history of Christianity. Possibly some do, but they would have to be a slim minority.

Are you OK with David wishing horrible things on his Philistine enemies?

We could compare this with all of the invective heaped upon Jews by Christians, starting with "Christ killers" (although crucifixion was a Roman, not Jewish method of execution.) Then we could move onto acts of violence and death, with all of the anti-Jewish riots like the pogroms of eastern Europe. (These notably took place around Easter, with the malicious Blood Libel. We could move onto Jewish exile from Britain. When Shakespeare wrote the evil characature of Shylock in the Merchant of Venice there were no Jews living in England. How about exile or torture in Spain under Ferdinand and Isabella, moving on to the utterly false Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and winding up with those Christians who knowingly participated in the Holocaust?

The balance of who did what or said what to which people throughout the course of history is enormously lopsided.

''Panarion 29:9 by Epiphanius of Salamis (c. 315-403) [He is considered a Church Father, and the Panarion is a compilation of heresies.]

No only do Jewish people have a hatred of [the Nazoreans]; they even stand up at dawn, at midday, and toward evening, three times a day when they recite their prayers in the synagogues, and curse and anathematize them. Three times a day they say, "God curse the Nazoraeans." For they harbor an extra grudge against them, if you please, because despite their Jewishness, they preach that Jesus is the Christ--the opposite of those who are still Jews, for they have not accepted Jesus.'' - https://www.sefaria.org/sheets/1268?lang=bi

You don't suppose the good Father was biased, do you? You don't suppose he thought the Jews killed Jesus, absolving the Romans of any responsibility?

Echad just means one as the number one in every language.

It means the numeral one, but it has important additional meanings. If you hear football fans chanting, "We're number one!" what does that mean? Please read this: https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/deuteronomy-64-the-shema/

(Interestingly in doing what I thought would be a quick Google search I had to go through two pages of Christian and Jews for Jesus materials before finding it.)

I haven't noticed a contradiction between the commandments for levirate marriages.

Check out Henry VIII and his efforts to divorce his first wife Catherine of Aragon on the grounds of levirate marriage. This ultimately led to the Reformation in England-- and years of Protestant-Christian bloodshed..
 
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