The Upper Room

12:16 AM

@anonymouswho So not only do you reject the rest of the NT, you don't even accept all of the gospels? Ah, and at the very end, I can see your beliefs do line up with an existing one: adoptionism.

@JNat All the other community managers just post directly in Meta when there's an issue, just seemed a little strange that you'd take this path instead. But it doesn't really matter

anonymouswho

1:36 AM

@curiousdannii I never said I reject the rest of the NT. I reject one person. I can't help that men decided to include 13 of his letters in the NT. Do you accept everything written in the gospels? Like John 5:4? If I find something that contradicts the Scriptures, especially if it's muddled with paganistic concepts, I investigate it. Sometimes, I find that there is no contradiction, but sometimes I find a lot of evidence that the original author never wrote those words...

Yes, adoptionism would probably describe my beliefs. There are some adoptionist that believe in the virgin birth though, so if you decide to ask questions on the main page, you may need to clarify that.

Lee Woofenden

7:14 AM

I'm not sure why people are downvoting this question, but I have now provided a more solid answer for it:

0

A: Is there a biblical basis for the "goats are evil" trope?

The Overall Significance of Goats in the Bible Goats in the Bible generally have a good significance. They are among the clean animals that could be eaten (see Leviticus 11; Deuteronomy 14:3-21), and they were commonly used in sacrifices (see, for example, Leviticus 1:1-2, 10). Goat's hair was s...

@anonymouswho You may be interested to know that Swedenborg did not include the Acts and the Epistles in his biblical canon, though he did say that they are "good books of the church":

9

Q: What writings are held as "biblical canon" by Swedenborgians?

Reading an article on Emanuel Swedenborg, I came across the following fact: It should be noted, however, that Corinthians is not included in the list of books that, according to Swedenborg, constitute the divinely inspired Biblical canon. (Source: Heaven and Hell (Swedenborg), on Wikipedia) ...

Was there ever an Elisha?

10:11 AM

0

Q: Does the following excerpt appear in the dead sea scroll?

This video claims that the following excerpt is a verse of the Isiah scroll of the dead sea scrolls. Is it true?

religion islam bible video christianity

anonymouswho

12:25 PM

@LeeWoofenden I edited the question. I'm sorry, I have to disagree with your suggestion about my language. I choose my language very carefully, and if somebody points out something that is explicitly wrong, I am more than willing to change it. Like my "god, god, and god" question. Curiousdannii explained why it's inappropriate to call the triune god "god, god, and god", but nobody explained why it's fundamentally wrong.

The reason I call "hell" by the name of "eternal hell where their flesh will burn in agonizing pain forever and ever" is because that is my "Christian" translation of Gehannah. I figure if Gehannah can be mistranslated as the Anglo-Saxon "helle", then my translation is just as valid.

That is interesting about Swedenborg. I accept every epistle except for Paul's and 2 Peter. I'm skeptical of the rest, but I haven't found anything that contradicts the Scriptures yet. However, I really like Acts. I think the author was a friend of Paul, but I don't think he was willing to lie for him.

Nathaniel

3:27 PM

@LeeWoofenden We regularly close "Is there a biblical basis" questions as primarily opinion based. With your answer, we could edit it to "What is the biblical basis," but it would seem to fail your test: What is the Biblical basis for Oompa Loompas?

Lee Woofenden

5:24 PM

@Nathaniel This is a tricky one. A few simple Internet searches yield various websites linking goats to Satan and quoting the Bible in support. But they seem to be largely sites run by individual Christians. So it seems to be a generalized Christian belief. But whether there are particular groups or denominations of Christians that hold to this belief.

anonymouswho

@Nathaniel About homoousios, I cannot accept that as an answer because homoousios does not necessarily follow from the idea that "three entities are called God, and there is one God." That would be like if I said "people make choices, so it necessarily follows that I have freewill".

It sounds good at first, but when we really dig into the logic behind it, we find that accepting this made-up, unscriptural word eventually leads to several contradictions. Men can argue that "God is eternal, so because of the warp in space and time from His eternality, He both knows and doesn't know every action we will make".

That is a contradiction to both the Scriptures, and it's own logic. So we reject it and search the Scriptures for what doesn't end in a contradiction, and then we can begin to interpret accordingly. When asked the question "How can three entities be one god?", the answer is that each person consists of the "same/one substance".

Lee Woofenden

@Nathaniel Oops, I didn't quite finish that last sentence lol.

anonymouswho

Since this substance is "one", it is the triune god. This substance is called "the divine essence"; and it is said "three persons-one god" or "three persons- one divine essence". So the reason I chose to ask about homoousios is because I would like to know the biblical evidence that God is not to be understood as a "person", but that the word "God" is to be understood as a "divine substance" by which "the three persons" consist of.

Does this help clear up what I'm looking for as far as a biblical answer goes? I think Mr. Bultitude provided an exceptional answer. He basically says "There is none...but this is why we believe it anyways". That is acceptable to me.

@LeeWoofenden Sorry Lee, I didn't mean to interrupt.

Lee Woofenden

@anonymouswho It's not fundamentally wrong. But if you're going to ask questions about people's beliefs, it works better to use their language. Of course, it's your choice. But don't be surprised if a lot of your questions keep getting closed.

@anonymouswho No problem. It's an open chat.

anonymouswho

6:00 PM

@LeeWoofenden It's okay. They've closed some of my questions, but most of them are still up and I accept any answer that addresses my question. I don't debate or argue, I just want the correct answer to be posted. I don't agree that babies should be cast into hell to have their flesh burned forever and ever, but I still accepted the answer.

However, I will admit that this answer bothered me and I couldn't just shake it off as nonsense. I'm okay with my questions getting closed though. Sometimes my questions don't make sense, but it's not easy coming up with questions about something that's answer can only be "incomprehensible". I did mean to tell you that I will try to watch what I choose as titles.

Does Elisha speak?

6:19 PM

0

Q: Down vote caveat

Just wanted to mark down my thorough delight with the down voting caveat encouraging the voter to leave a comment. I wish that more sites would employ this. From what I recall it entreated me to add some constructive criticism in a comment. I know this is a long shot, but I wouldn't mind having...

discussion feature-request down-votes user-interface

Lee Woofenden

@anonymouswho That's all part of the horror of traditional (and false) "Christian" theology.

No one deserves hell for something they didn't even do. That would be the height of injustice. It's a smear and blasphemy on the name of God.

@anonymouswho In other news, Swedenborg said that the fires of hell are figurative, not literal. It's talking about the burning hatred and anger among the residents of hell toward one another and especially toward God. See: "Is There Really a Hell? What is it Like?"

Lee Woofenden

6:47 PM

@anonymouswho Oh, and in case I didn't already make it clear, no infant or child who dies ever goes to hell.

Nathaniel

@anonymouswho That's helpful; thanks. Mr. Bultitude's answer is indeed excellent. I'm trying to come up with an answer that focuses more on the biblical arguments, but often the arguments most closely associated with the homoouious doctrine are for divine simplicity or the deity of Jesus, and I see now that that's insufficient for the purposes of this question. I'll keep digging though.

@anonymouswho Ironically there are quite a few reformed theologians, including conservative "old school" types, who believe that all those who die in infancy go to heaven. I'm working on a question about that; should post it tomorrow.

@LeeWoofenden Editing to make the question "What is the biblical basis" would definitely be an improvement, despite the lack of group/denomination backing. I'd certainly be interested in hearing @Flimzy's thoughts on it (question under discussion).

Lee Woofenden

7:02 PM

@Nathaniel Personally, I would be comfortable with allowing biblical basis questions on ideas that are fairly common among Christians, whether or not they are part of the specific doctrine of any identifiable Christian group or denomination. The idea that Goat = Satan is not confined to one or two Christian crackpots, even though those are the ones who seem especially prone to putting up webpages about it.

Nathaniel

@LeeWoofenden Yes, I agree. Lots of things aren't sufficiently significant to be called a "doctrine" by anyone but become somewhat well-known. I like the idea of having questions like this be something of a gray area with respect to the topic, as long as we still recognize that the "is there a biblical basis" line of questioning is practically meaningless.

anonymouswho

7:20 PM

@LeeWoofenden Yes we had discussed this. I think I'm going to leave the Reformed guys alone for a while and let them answer some of my questions. I'll try to think of questions to ask about Swedenborg so you can have a little fun. How does that sound?

Lee Woofenden

@anonymouswho Sure! Spread the "joy" around! :-P

Lee Woofenden

7:33 PM

@Nathaniel I have now edited the question with this discussion in mind. Made a few other improvements while I was at it.

Nathaniel

7:43 PM

@LeeWoofenden Excellent! Downvote reversed.

Elisha and his Brethren

8:05 PM

0

Q: Recognition of Jesus by Jews

Do not know if would be off topic. Why did not Jews encourage Jesus Christ, one among them, when he found the new path even after many teachings? Is it in some way similar to non-acceptance/adoption of Buddhism as an off-shoot of Hinduism?

christianity

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