Revelation 3:16
Posted on: April 22, 2007 - 9:04pm
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Revelation 3:16
Revelation 3:16
“So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.”
At face value, it can been seen as suggesting you should either believe or don't believe, but don’t part believe i.e. don’t be a moderate.
But what do scholars consider the meaning of this passage is?
"It is far better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring" -- Carl Sagan
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First of all, I am not Catholic. Second, the Catholic church isn't in Jerusalem because of the events in 70 ad, and the fact that Rome was the major center of the Roman empire. (If I'm correct the Roman church was actually not always in Rome.)
I can't speak for spaxx, but I think he believes what the Catholic church teaches because It was founded by Jesus. How do I know that? Simple for over 1500 years there wasn't another church in existence (Orthodox are catholics who simply don't follow the pope). No one ever cited "because Jesus didn't found the catholic churc"h as a reason for seperating from the Catholic church. Luther believed the church had become corrupt. Everyone who has ever left the Catholic church has done so because they believed it became corrupt.
The second reason I think spaxx believes the church is because the Pope can be traced back to Peter. (because I am protestant, I would argue that Peter was simply Bishop of Rome, so hence the Bishop of Rome can be traced back to Peter.)
As for Rev. 3:16, you guys have once again taken something out of context. Rev. 3 is either a message to an actual church in Asia Minor, or a prediction of the current church (being defined as all those who believe in Jesus), or both. This has nothing to do with those outside of the church.I have similar views. The totality of ones life is what matters, not the words they speak.
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So, in other words you both believe in the Christian God, but ignore the parts of the Bible where God behaves like a tyranical, petty twat and spells out exactly what happens when you don't kiss his ass.
How convienient for you.
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The Caananites beat the Hebrews to it and the Hebrews simply stole the concept from them and striped the top down modle to a monotheistic god.
"Let us make them in our immage" comes from the "divine family" model of the polytheists. It is the typical association of wealth and arostocracy to being a blessing from the god(s). I'm rich because a magical being blessed me.
Why the believers of the Abrahamic gods think their work of fiction is original is ignorant from a literary standpoint. All one has to do is look at all cultures of the ancients and see that it was typical for the polytheists and early monotheist rulers who associated their power as being given to them by a super natual being or beings. All cultures back then did that.
El, Yahwey and Asurah are all names yanked from the Caananite polytheism. In the OT Jews would claim that they are NOT the same. DUH, of course they arent in that book. But that doesnt mean the names couldnt have been borrowed and the details switched.
Yahwey was the son of El in the Caananite polythism later to become popularized by the Hebrews as being the one god.
The first commandment is a dead give away that that culture did not exist in a vacuum. "Thou shalt not have any other gods before me".
This was not written by a god, it was written by one culture trying to establish a new splinter religion of an older culture. Hebrews merely out competed and out marketed the older polytheists by incorperating old polytheistic names and motifs.
Religion grows and or fails the same way a business does. It competes through marketing. Part of that marketing is taking existing popular concepts and adapting them to a particular flavor.
Ideas like charity, forgiveness, sacrafice, love, justice, peace are not new to modern religion and were around even before the written tradition.
Holy books discribe a central character or characters as being the hero for a chosen people. Polytheism from the older zoroasterian and hindu cultures have that same concept. The Pharos too saw themselves as being apointed by super natural being|(s) as being the hero of their cultures.
Humans today are still ignorant to literarly history and SHOULD compair prior polytheism to modern monottheism. They would see the same motifs throughout. The only thing that has changed in human history is that older fiction gives way to newer fiction.
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I am a panentheist, not a Christian. My views are not based on the bible.
Ah, the pitter patter of tiny feet in huge combat boots.
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It has been there for quite some time, I just didn't have a word to describe my beliefs. Thanks to a couple of guys on here I figured out a name for myself. I still adhere to some Christian values, just not the bible. It has some good lessons to know and a lot of cool stories, but I can't live my life by it. That is how I came to be a panentheist. A lot of what I was hearing in church didn't make any kind of sense to me. Organized religion has been changed and used by many parties to further their own agendas. Well, I don't want any part of that. Sorry, I didn't really update anyone on that. Kind of a new development. It is nice to have a name for myself though.
Ah, the pitter patter of tiny feet in huge combat boots.