The Upper Room

Q: Origin of Mystical Theology

2:38 AM

@anonymouswho I don't think that anything outside of Calvinism is a cult. For example, Baptists, the RCC, Eastern Orthodox etc. aren't cults. And Hinduism isn't a cult. It's a separate religion. It's worth noting that there are several definitions of cult and under a very general sense, any religion is a cult. There are also cults of personality, and Christian cults (which I have defined above).

@anonymouswho Paul didn't teach contrary to the core beliefs of the faith, didn't point people to follow him over Christ, didn't remove existing Scripture as invalid in any way, and confirmed his position as a prophet through clearly visible and public miracles. Cult leaders are essentially no different from false prophets, so the Biblical definitions of true and false prophets are probably a better definition to use regarding Christian cults. But similarity of claim (divine revelation) doesn't

prevent true prophets from being true and false prophets from being false.

The specific points I was arguing with Lee are not the entirety of the list of things which define a Christian cult or cult leader, but those are the ones he called me out as ignorant on and thus I continued with.

On an aside, @anonymouswho what do you believe generally? It's not immediately obvious to me based on what you say as to whether you're atheist or not, and if not, which if any denomination you belong to. You don't have to answer if you don't want to :)

Elisha and his Brethren

5:06 AM

-1

Are there some Kabbalistic concepts that are studied today in Jewish circles that originate from Christianity /Christian theology? Has there been any study of the relationship between the two, and the direction of influence?

12:07 PM

@LeeWoofenden Yes, fear can cause men to do strange things. The fear of YHVH is the beginning of wisdom, not the fear of hell. But most believe hell is stronger than God, and despite God's desire that all men come to know Him, He will ultimately fail. These are the cults I distance myself from. I don't know what Swedenborg saw, but the man knew his bible well and he loved God, so he's a brother as far as I'm concerned.

12:35 PM

@Birdie You don't believe the RCC is a cult? They might believe in the trinity (which they obtained by "new revelation"), but basically everything else fits your definition of a cult perfectly. Anyways, I'm done talking about cults. I think you're all in the "Paul cult", so I have nothing more to offer ;-)

Concerning everything you said about Paul, there's not a lot I can say to persuade you otherwise. All I know is, Yeshua said "I am come in my Father's name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive." John 5:43.

We can go back and forth throwing contradicting quotes from Paul at each other, but it won't do any good. As far as I'm concerned, Paul may be right about everything, but I wasn't told to listen to him. Yeshua says "But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren. And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven. Neither be ye called masters: for one is your Master, even Christ." Matthew 23:8-10

No I'm not an atheist, but what would you like to know about my beliefs? I believe YHVH is God, Yeshua is the Jewish Messiah and a man (like a real man, the son of Joseph, and not a spiritual being 'incarnated' into a man), Adam did not sin, aionios means "age-enduring", and the Hebrew Scriptures are the only Scriptures. I think that sums it up pretty well. I don't belong to a denomination, but I go to a reformed baptist church sometimes.

curiousdannii

@anonymouswho What is your explanation of the existence of sin?

You did what to the cows Elisha?!

1:20 PM

@curiousdannii What do you mean by "the existence of sin"? Sin means "to miss" the goal of perfection. I don't believe sin is a "substance" that possesses us. It's simply doing the opposite of "good". So I would say the first sin occurred when Cain killed Abel because God chose Abel's offering over Cain's. Is this what you're asking?

curiousdannii

2:04 PM

@anonymouswho So why did Adam and Eve hide in shame? Why did they pass the blame? Why was the earth cursed? Why were they cast out of the garden? To say the fall wasn't due to the sin of Adam must require an extremely selective reading of Genesis 3, and a very wonky view of sin itself.

@anonymouswho If you're basing this on a definition of sin being "to miss", then that's very ironic, because that's much more a Greek/NT definition of sin than Hebrew/OT.

0

Q: Flute and the cross

I have seen a book titled "The Flute and the Cross" in a library. Later the book was discarded. I am looking for the details about the book. It is written by an Indian author.

krishna belief vaishnavism bhakti christianity

3:23 PM

@curiousdannii That's a lot of questions, but I'll try to address them all. First, sin is חָטָא chata, and it means "to miss".

Adam and Eve were shameful because they realized they were naked. It is neither a sin to be naked, nor to be excited about your wife. But as I'm sure you know, when we start having feelings that we've never felt before, our heads get a bit cloudy.

I don't know what you mean by "pass the blame". They told God exactly what had happened. The serpent deceived Eve by lying, Eve gave some to Adam, and they both ate.

Why was the earth cursed? God says "cursed is the ground FOR THY SAKE". God had just accomplished making man in His "likeness", because He says "Behold, man has become like one of us". This was a very exalting position, but man did not have the prudence to choose only good. So God cursed the ground to humble man, so that man will experience evil and learn to choose good.

I might ask you the same. What did the ground do that God decided to curse it instead of Adam?

5:01 PM

@anonymouswho I think you're misinterpreting this passage. First God cursed the snake, then God cursed Eve with pain in childbearing, and then God cursed Adam to have to toil for his food by working the ground. "To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’" It is by their disobedience of God's original command that sin entered the world.

We can see this same method of punishment/curse used later in Genesis 4:12 to curse Cain: "'When you try to cultivate the ground it will no longer yield its best for you. You will be a homeless wanderer on the earth.'
13 Then Cain said to the Lord, 'My punishment is too great to endure!'"

It is clear that God is punishing Adam and Cain, not the ground.

@anonymouswho That's like if God cursed your car to breakdown often, and you're asking what your car did that was sinful, instead of what you did that is sinful.

6:04 PM

God did not say "you MUST not" or "you SHALL not eat from it". He said "eat not from it". This was not a commandment. The word translated "command" is [צָוָה](http://biblehub.com/hebrew/6680.htm) and it means "to give charge to". God put Adam in charge, because He gave Adam dominion over all the earth. It looks like my question has been deleted, so I'll copy and paste what I wrote here...And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you are free to eat;

ויצו יהוה אלהים על־האדם לאמר מכל עץ־הגן אכל תאכל

God did not say Eve was "cursed", but he specifically said the serpent was. Using your car anology, the car runs perfectly fine for man. However, it's not a perfect car. It still needs to be maintained, and sometimes that involves a lot of labor. If the car keeps breaking down, then you can ask what you did wrong.

God specifically said "Cursed art you Cain" and his curse was that the earth would not give him "her strength". Even though he labors, he will receive nothing. God didn't curse the ground twice; it still provided for Adam and Eve. The reason Cain said his punishment is too great is because he was cursed to wander, and he was afraid somebody would find him and kill him.

6:28 PM

Romans 5
"12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men[e] because all sinned— 13 for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. 14 Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.

15 But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man's trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ a…

According to Romans, Paul appears to disagree with you.

You're being too finicky about translation of individual words. The Bible clearly intends to convey Adam fell through disobedience, bringing sin and death into the world.

@El'endiaStarman Your thoughts?

9:02 PM

@mbomb007 Yes I'm aware that Paul disagrees. I was discussing Paul with others earlier. Quoting Paul is like quoting Joseph Smith to me. I could waste my life trying to correlate everything he says with the Scriptures, but I don't really see a use in it. I believe the Hebrew Scriptures are the Scriptures, and I believe Yeshua is the promised Messiah.

If you'd like to know a few reasons why I don't believe Paul's word is "the word of God", please see my answer to

Why are the three accounts of Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus different

and What role did James have in Paul's conflict with Peter?.

Then why are you debating this if you're not a Christian?

Christianity.SE is a place for discussing Christianity, not Judaism.

9:20 PM

@anonymouswho And if you don't believe that Jesus is God, then according to Christianity you are already wasting your life.

@mbomb007 I know where you are coming from, but just in case you aren't aware, Christianity.SE has a pretty broad scope. Pretty much any group that self-identifies as Christian is on-topic, and that includes many groups that don't believe Jesus is God.

@Nathaniel mmk.

Another frequent chatter here isn't a trinitarian either, though he's on the other side (what some would call a modalist, though he'd disagree with that label). And atheists like to drop in periodically to rile us up :)

Doesn't really make sense to me, because the definition of Christianity (or of being saved) according to the Bible is that nobody comes to the Father except through Jesus, who is the way, the truth, and the life. And we are saved by grace through faith.

But I guess "self-identifying" as whatever you want is a problem of modern culture.

@mbomb007 This meta post may help clarify the rationale: Christianity.SE vs. Survivor

Basically it becomes a huge mess if we come up with some other standard. There are plenty of Catholics who don't think Protestants are Christians, and Protestants who don't think Catholics are Christians. But since both self-identify as Christians, they can co-exist here.

9:29 PM

@Nathaniel It's a good post, but there is a Judaism.SE.

@mbomb007 What do you mean?

The post mentions that different denominations are all categorized as Christianity for the purposes of this SE site since they don't have their own. But Judaism does have its own site, which means that for discussion purposes, discussing from a Jewish point of view would make more sense in a chatroom on Judaism.SE.

Judaism and Christianity don't really overlap very much, especially when it comes to the Bible and salvation, whereas the denominations listed in the post, and even Catholicism, do overlap.

@mbomb007 Ah, gotcha. But I don't know that @anonymouswho would self-identify as a Jew more than he would as a Christian. At least a few "Christian" groups take issue with Paul's writings, so he's not alone.

@mbomb007 anonymouswho isn't a Jew, as he believes Jesus was the Messiah. Perhaps Messianic Jew wouldn't be far off what he is but I don't know that he even fits in that category very well based on what he said.

@Birdie I don't see how someone can believe that God would preserve the line of David to give us a Savior without also believing that God preserved his Word. Jesus is the Word. If we truly believe that God's character is perfect, then it's necessary to believe that God preserves the message of the gospel to be accurately described in the Bible and to be the divinely inspired word of God.

Any beliefs otherwise are contradictory.

I don't think it's possible to believe God's preserving a Savior and to also believe that the Bible is not 100% the divinely inspired and preserved Word of God.

Maybe there's already a relevant question on C.SE. Idk.

9:42 PM

@mbomb007 One thing I've learned since I joined this site is to never doubt the existence of any beliefs :). There are even christian atheists out there.

@mbomb007 Sure, but there is a lot of disagreenebt on what the Bible actually is :)

Disagreement*

@Nathaniel When I say that, I mean "it's not possible to believe X without contradictions"

Sure, they can believe that, but they're guaranteed to be wrong on one account.

They may be wrong, but it isn't a particularly simple matter to prove that the 66 books of the Christian Bible are in fact the only authoratitive, divinely inspired Scriptures.

@Birdie That's one reason why I think people who believe only the OT is the Bible should be relegated to Judaism.SE.

@mbomb007 Right, but they'll come up with some explanation to get around any contradictions (at least to their satisfaction, if not yours).

9:47 PM

Anonymouswho only excluded the Pauline epistles from what he said (I could be wrong). So about half the New Testament he presumably also accepts as Scripture.

Preposterous.

But also not fair to relegate him to Judaism.SE, as Jews do not accept Jesus as the Messiah, nor any part of the NT as Scripture.

How could who still follows the Jewish laws must believe that Jesus is the Messiah? Jesus fulfilled the law, and we're therefore saved by faith, not by works, so that no man can boast (whereas Jews were previously saved by the law, that is no longer sufficient).